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Still Crazy After All These Years

From Harmony Korine's introduction to the recently published screenplay of his new film, Mister Lonely:

I was not sure I would make a film ever again. I spent many years dreaming of pigs that could walk up walls. I was living completely debased, like a tramp and a criminal. I had turned into a bastard with no home or friends. One day I started to dream of nuns. I began to imagine nuns dancing in the sky and riding bicycles in the clouds. I knew the nuns were testing their faith. On one occasion three of my teeth fell into a sandwich that I was eating. It felt like the right time to care again. I asked my brother to help me. He introduced me to a famous boxer who was good with medicine, he put my teeth back in my mouth. The nuns were testing me as well, this much I was sure of. I made this film out of the ashes of the broken nation, and it was there that I discovered that a little faith can go a long, long way.

Family Guy

The following come from reviews and articles by A.O. Scott in The New York Times.

"One recent afternoon I was sitting at my computer studying old clips of Gene [Siskel] and Roger [Ebert]. After a while my daughter sat down next to me. We watched in silence for a while, and then she said: 'These guys are always fighting. Even when they both like a movie, they have to fight about why it's good.' That may not be an exhaustive definition of criticism as a discipline or a mode of thought, but it strikes me as a pretty good summary." —April 13, 2008

"On Christmas, my annual busman’s holiday, I took my daughter to see Enchanted, a just-right movie for her if ever there was one. Its blend of satire and sweetness, princessy romance and feminist pluck was expertly calibrated to satisfy a third-grade girl. Which was just the problem. At the end, as is my custom (I have to get my insights from somewhere), I asked her what she thought. 'It was good,' she said. 'But I felt like I knew what was going to happen the whole time.'" —Jan. 11, 2008

"Shrek the Third, directed by Chris Miller and Raman Hui from a script with a half-dozen credited begetters, already feels less like a children's movie than either of its predecessors. (This may be why I liked it better than the others. But then again, so did my kids.)" —May 18, 2007

"For the last six months or so, in the guise of a civilian moviegoer, I have been conducting (with the sometimes unwitting assistance of my wife) a cautious, intermittent experiment. Ignoring the advice of the Motion Picture Association of America and the studio marketing departments about what my children, who are 10 and 7, should see, I have taken them to revival houses and museums as well as to multiplexes; to musicals and subtitled films as well as to risqué action blockbusters and not-too-explicit love stories." —Jan. 5, 2007

"The title of Steve Anderson's rowdy and contentious new documentary … consists of a single, highly versatile English word. I have been known to use the word in mixed company and even, I blush to admit, around my children — but only pedagogically, to call attention to the laxity of other drivers on family car trips." —Nov. 10, 2006

"The only time my 6-year-old daughter has been driven from a movie in terror was by The Brothers Grimm last summer, when she could not stand the sight of a child being eaten by a horse. But just a few weeks earlier she had been completely unfazed by the beastly punishments visited on the nasty children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Nor was she unduly shaken by the death of a boy in The River, Jean Renoir's leisurely 1951 masterpiece, which she saw on DVD and promptly proclaimed her second-favorite movie of all time, after Charlie." —Dec. 16, 2005

"It is a world I have been longing to revisit ever since my children wore out the tapes of A Close Shave (formerly known in our house as 'the one with the mean dog'), The Wrong Trousers ('the one with the mean bird') and A Grand Day Out ('the one when they go to the moon'). I was a bit worried that more superficially sophisticated pleasures — Lizzie Maguire or whatever tweener sitcoms the kids are into these days — had eroded the appeal of Wallace and Gromit, but I need not have. We all had a marvelous time." —Oct. 5, 2005

"One thing I will say about the 2005 edition of New Directors: I haven't seen so many pregnant women since the last time I accompanied my wife to a natural childbirth class." —March 29, 2005

"On our way to a screening of Shark Tale, my daughter and I fell into a discussion of Finding Nemo, a movie she has seen several dozen times. The subject came up naturally enough, since the movie we were about to see, which opens nationwide today, is DreamWorks's attempt to follow Disney and Pixar into the lucrative and technologically demanding world of underwater computer-generated 3-D animation. In anticipation of the novel delights of Shark Tale, my daughter was happy to revise her earlier high opinion of Nemo. 'It's about a fish who gets lost,' she said with a shrug. 'That's not really very interesting.'" —Oct. 1, 2004

"On the way out of the advance screening of Spider-Man 2, which opens tomorrow nationwide, I asked my son, who is nearly 8 and whom I had brought along for some unscientific audience research, what he thought of the movie. As he usually does, he mentioned the scary parts and the cool parts, of which there are many. 'But there was one part,' he said, 'that I really didn't like.' That was when Peter Parker threw his costume in the trash and declared that he was 'Spider-Man no more.' 'He can't do that,' my son complained. 'It's not right. We need Spider-Man.'" —June 29, 2004

"As I piled my children into the station wagon for a trip to the movies last Saturday — it was going to be either Stuart Little 2 or Like Mike — I thought about delivering, for the first time ever, a standard parental lecture." —Aug. 11, 2002

"In the meantime, according to a press release issued the day after the Oscar nominations were announced last month, [Jimmy Neutron] will be busy doing what cartoon heroes do best, namely shilling for Burger King, the Embassy Suites hotel chain and Ore-Ida. The release announces that he will serve as the latter's 'spokescharacter for its new Funky Fries line of flavored and colored French fries.' The flavors and colors, in case you're wondering, include cinnamon, chocolate and 'kool blue.' Perhaps Jimmy and his friends — or perhaps my daughter's preschool class — are moonlighting in product R & D over at Ore-Ida." —March 10, 2002

The West Is the Best

I have little objectivity about my old friend Morgan Neville's documentary about the L.A. art scene of the '50s and '60s, The Cool School, which opens today in Manhattan—I think it's terrific. But don't take my word for it: Lisa Schwarzbaum gives it an A-. Manohla Dargis calls it "an often fascinating, visually charming and intelligently edited mix of found footage, home movies, still images and contemporary interviews," and Nathan Lee says, "All told, and well told, this is essential history" (even while he and Dargis each think it glosses over the larger cultural context of mid-century L.A.). Morgan co-directed another fine L.A. documentary, Shotgun Freeway, and has made some great music documentaries, too. If you're anywhere near New York City, don't miss his latest—which features some really funny patter by those zonked-out art collectors Dennis Hopper and Dean Stockwell, and is narrated by the Big Lebowski himself.

So Long, Richard

I'll miss you, man.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Heard about Not Quite What I Was Planning? It's a bestseller, and it's gotten all kinds of press. The gimmick: six-word memoirs, concocted by all sorts of people—including yours truly. I won't tell you my six words, though; you'll just have to see for yourself. (Hint: they're movie-related. Of course.)

Phase IV: A New Hope

What if Saul Bass had designed the opening titles for Star Wars? (Is there anything you can't find on YouTube?)

Send in the Clowns

A few months ago, poking around on the IMDB page for The Day the Clown Cried (that never-released object of ridicule that just won't go away), I noticed an unexpected name on the cast list: Serge Gainsbourg. What?! The glorious sleazebag of French pop found his way into a Jerry Lewis Holocaust movie? I tried to rationalize it—part of the movie was shot in Paris, where Gainsbourg lived, and in that same period (the early '70s) he did have small parts in awful movies like Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye. But his girlfriend Jane Birkin was the star of Seven Deaths, so his being in it made sense, and there's no record anywhere else of him appearing in Clown. So it was obviously an IMDB prank, right? I needed to know for sure. I decided to plunk my own unlikely actor into the Clown cast list and see what would happen.

And that's how Orson Welles joined the cast of The Day the Clown Cried, playing an elusive American named Harry Lime. It's on his IMDB page, so it must be true.

POSTSCRIPT: It's a week later, and Welles is no longer on the Clown cast list. But Gainsbourg still is. Thoughts, anyone?

In Absentia

A reader writes: "Hey Levi, I know you have a kid and all, but that can't be eating up all your time. Some new content, please..." Fair enough. I'll try to account for my absence here these past two months. I could say that I was bummed into silence by the sudden death of my former neighbor, and that would be partly true. Or that the few movies I've managed to see in theaters weren't inspiring (oh, Romero! Did you have to take your zombies the way of Redacted?), but that would be brushing off 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I could admit that, as I do most winters, I've taken on some kind of obsessive hibernatory pursuit; this year it's trying to watch every last film noir I haven't seen. Yeah, I'm serious: the DVR is backed up with TCM recordings (including the Very! First! Noir! Stranger on the Third Floor, which I, uh, haven't gotten around to), and the Netflix queue is clogged with titles like I Wake Up Screaming and Cause for Alarm. I could whine that my newish job is hogging my attention (at least I'm shepherding pieces like this one and this one into the world).

I could say all those things. Or I could just confess that my wife and I are working our way through the first four seasons of The Wire, and hope that you understand.

Random Harvest

As 2007 comes to an end, some quick thoughts on movies I haven't addressed here. No Country for Old Men: The Coen brothers go earnest (except for Beth Grant's Vicki Lawrence–like shtick as Josh Brolin's mother-in-law) and wind up making a Clint Eastwood movie, specifically this one. The Band's Visit: cloying. The Israeli version of played-out American quirk. The Savages: the year's wittiest dialogue. Steal a Pencil for Me : Who knew you could still make a surprising Holocaust documentary? No End in Sight: Who knew you could still make a surprising Iraq documentary? Redacted: justifiably furious, inexcusably stupid. I'm Not There: inventive, at times dazzling, but not all there. Attica: This harrowing account of the 1971 upstate New York prison riot that left forty people dead returned for one night in Manhattan, thirty-three years after its premiere. Rerelease and DVD coming soon? Wristcutters: A Love Story: O.K., maybe quirk isn't entirely played out. Eastern Promises: Cronenberg has finally found his muse. The Lives of Others: aptly summed up by a friend: "Bad Communists!" Zodiac: Silence of the Lambs meets All the President's Men. Absolutely brilliant.

The Real Thing

Last week Salon asked a lot of writers, musicians, and filmmakers to name their favorite books, music, and movies of 2007. It's a fun and often surprising list. Near the end comes David Cronenberg. He mentions no movie or music, but one book rushes to his mind:

I read a Henry James novel published in 1897 called What Maisie Knew, about a child of divorce who bounces back and forth between her soon-remarried parents like a tennis ball. The relationship of James' language to the psychology of his characters and then to their actions is dense and fascinating and pleasurable. It is also a very emotionally charged story, something you almost don't notice until it flattens you.

So when Cronenberg's not busy filming vicious hand-to-hand skirmishes in steam rooms, he's in an easy chair reading Henry James. I love the guy! Can we look forward to his adaptation of Maisie? Maybe with Dakota Fanning in the title role (though Abigail Breslin would be more affordable), and, say, Samantha Morton as her unsightly protector, Mrs. Wix? Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts will be perfect as her irreconcilably divided parents. When does shooting start? A movie-lover can dream, can't he?