Six Degrees of Film

The Artist: Capsule Review for 6 Degrees of Film

The Artist is playing this weekend at Tampa Theatre. This review was originally published on 6 Degrees of Film in 2012. Here’s the updated version:

One of the best sequences in “The Artist”, the Academy-Award winning black & white silent film, is the one where sound is used. That’s not to say that films without sound are not worth seeing. Some of the most moving sequences ever filmed have been moments that have no sound. Liam Neeson had the role in “Suspect” where he plays a mute, and it was apparent early on that he was the only one in a cast that included Cher with real acting chops. In “There Will be Blood” one of the most creative sequences in this dark look into the psyche of a self-made 19th Century robber baron was the opening of the film where Daniel Day-Lewis doesn’t speak for…

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Three things you should know about…My Fair Lady

1. Leslie Howard starred in Pygmalion, the George Bernard Shaw adaptation from which the musical is based, in 1938 with Wendy Hiller, and it is worth seeing to compare and contrast with the more flowery musical.
2. Rex Harrison is probably the best reason to see the musical version of this. The music is memorable, and many of the songs became hits and are still sung today, but Harrison shines in the film and the cadence and half-talking, half singing quality of his numbers suited him perfectly as the composers, Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner, wrote the songs with him in mind to play the lead on Broadway.
3. At the time, the big controversy was the decision to snub Julie Andrews and give the lead to the well-known star, Audrey Hepburn. And Julie Andrews responded with one of the best known ripostes in Hollywood as she thanked Jack Warner for being “the man who made all this possible” after he passed her over for the part in the film version, which gave her the chance to win an Oscar for Best Actress in Mary Poppins.
Audrey Hepburn is one of my favorite actresses, and she does justice to the part although Marni Nixon actually sang the songs in My Fair Lady. Hepburn looks beautiful, as always, and holds her own with Harrison’s commanding presence as the iconic professor Harold Higgins.

Hepburn is seen on TCM later this week in one of her Oscar winning performances, starring in The Nun’s Story with Peter Finch. Her quiet dignity and ability to combine the strength of an iron will with grace and beauty have always made her best performances stand out.

She shines in “Funny Face, Roman Holiday, Sabrina, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, How to Steal a Million” and so many more. Set your TV to record any of her leading roles if you appreciate the glamour of Old Hollywood combined with brains and sophistication, and that is the whole package that was Audrey Hepburn.

Tampa Theatre is screening My Fair Lady Sunday, January 24th at 3:00 pm.

The Revenant: A Capsule Review

Forget about the bear…This film is Jack London on steroids. There are several heart-stopping moments in this tale of survival in its most basic form. Two of our greatest actors are working to make this a believable plot, and that is a stretch at times. The bear attack comes early in the film, and unlike “Saving Private Ryan” where the landing at Normandy is balanced with periods of relative calm, there’s little peace to be found in this unrelenting tale of survival.

The harsh elements and the question of what makes a man have the will to survive when Mother Nature’s harshest elements are working against you is one of the many points that pin this plot together. It is at heart a very simplistic tale of Man vs the Elements and Man vs Man.

But Tom Hardy and Leonardo DiCaprio deserve shared praise for their physical performances and nuanced shadings to at times one-dimensional characters. DiCaprio by far has the most physically difficult role playing Glass, the man who is left for dead in the wilderness after being mauled by a Mother bear protecting her cubs.

Hardy has, in a way, a more difficult acting task in his portrayal of a man who, although innately evil, has some elements of humanity that mark him as more than just a cardboard caricature of the “bad guy.” In these roles, there are shadings of Stephen Crane’s questions of survival voiced in “The Open Boat”. What gives our life and our very will to survive meaning? And in some subtler way, there are underpinnings of Conrad’s anti-hero found in “Lord Jim”. What makes a man a hero? And what makes him a coward? And do we have elements of both within each of us, where time and place may combine to make either heroes or cowards of us all?

But in this film, as with Jack London’s portrayals of Man vs. Nature in “The Call of the Wild”, we see some kinship with the elemental nature of what it takes for a human to survive when others would give up hope. There has to be something within a man that furthers the struggle, an inward spark that is seen faintly.

One of the unquestionable stars of the show is the cinematography, where Nature’s unyielding essence is on display throughout most of the movie. This is a long, and slightly drawn-out story of survival and revenge. But although we’ve seen it done before, in Jeremiah Johnson and in some respects, in Apocalypse Now, this is DiCaprio’s signature role and perhaps, the one that brings him a well-deserved Oscar for an impressive career full of stellar performances.

6 Degrees: Movie Trends for the New Year

Happy New Year to my fellow movie goers and 6 Degree friends! The Silly season is upon us, and in Hollywood, that’s saying a lot…(It’s always silly season, really). The Awards season has arrived with the Golden Globes, and BAFTA (British Films), and Film Critics Association and so on. The big Kahoona-the Oscars-just announced their nominees late this week.

But the most dreaded of all things for most film critics is the annual lists. The Year’s best films are all on parade as a sign of how very good or bad or banal or pseudo-intellectual the noted reviewer can be. There are some surprises when a list of films that no one in America has ever seen start to populate the lists. And then there are some absolute stinkers that crop up on one or two selected lists.

I think that the worst thing about the yearly list of lists is the predictable nature of the institutions that publish the lists. One of the reasons I’ve become overly cynical about the production of yearly film lists is that I not only write about film, but I also edit a film magazine. And the worst part of the job (besides not getting paid!), is that the same stories are recycled about 100 times and the only changes are the snazzy titles that are offered: “Films to watch when you want to lose weight”; “The best of….fill in the blank”; “Summer surf films”; “China is boffo at box office”; or “Who will be the next hero in the Cinematic Universe?”

The list goes on…I have my own list of movie trends. These are some of the things that seem to be rotated on an amazingly and at times, boringly regular basis:

Movie Trends List from 6 Degrees

Sequels & Spin offs-These are the bread and butter movies for most of Hollywood. They are not all terrible, as I’ve often pointed out that Shakespeare did pretty well with re-hashing old plots.
• The Comic Book Universe-This is a genre that could use a good shake-up. It could use a small electrical shock for all the writers who continue to re-work the same basic plot through a never-ending list of superheroes bent on saving the world.

• The Cinematic Universe-This is an interesting conceit as it encompasses so many different cinematic universes. We may think of Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings, but it could be interpreted as far back as The Cinematic Universe of Oz or the Cinematic Universe of Charlie Chaplin and Laurel & Hardy. The Cinematic Universe connotes fantasy and storytelling, some of the strong suits of Hollywood classics. In the world of fantastic beasts and unrequited yearning, we find some of the greatest stories and cinematic universes imagined.

• Fem Flicks/Girl Power-Although there have always been strong women in films, from Greta Garbo and Katherine Hepburn to Meryl Streep and Maggie Smith, we are now seeing a new generation of moviegoers who celebrate Girl Power and young women who can identify with the heroines in hits like Frozen and The Hunger Games bringing young girls into the 21st Century and seeking parity with young boys.
• Kid Power/Pixar movies/animated & Kids movies: Some of the most creative films of the past few decades have come out of the Pixar studios. This shouldn’t be a surprise as Walt Disney was one of the pioneers in the field of animation and live action films for children through most of the 20th Century. The trend continues in the 21st Century, with more imaginative and creative films being produced from Finding Nemo and Wall-E to Shrek and Tangled.
• Global village at the movies-Diversity and Foreign Films continue to converge with the English language market and we are fast becoming a Global Village of moviegoers. You can interpret that to mean that not as many great films are coming out of Hollywood these days.
• Rise of China at the Box office-This is one of those stories that happens to have some elements of truth mixed in with a spice of hyperbole to lend it credence. Yes, there is a huge burgeoning market in the world now for Chinese audiences, but there market share is still far below most of the North American audience.
• Rise of the Small Screen- Here is a trend about fifty years in the making. In my book, 6 Degrees of Film, the movie moguls of the fifties were scared stiff by the thought of televisions showing movies on the small screen and keeping moviegoers at home. New fads such as 3-D glasses and Smell-o-Vision came to the theatres. Nothing new here, except we can now watch films on our televisions and I-Pads. Perhaps the most worrying trend is the one where the most talented writers are now working for Cable Network series, and the most interesting and creative story lines are being discovered on HBO and Showtime, and not at major film studios.
• Rise of the Movie Blogger– With the rise of the movie blogger, we find an interesting panoply of titles and genres to blog about, ranging from horror to box office totals, from Film Noir to Bollywood, from Classics to Comic book genres, and even to blogs for gaming sites. The problem is, as with the movie studios, that there exist only a certain amount of talented writers and bloggers producing material, and the rest, as they say, is “crap”!
• Twilight of the Film Critic– Not necessarily. Some of the best reviews come from NPR, The Guardian, and other old faithful’s like The New York Times and LA Times, plus some unexpected places like Ebert.com, where Chaz Ebert, Roger’s widow, has put together a really creative and varied site with different pieces covering all aspects of filmmaking. Film Comment also produces thoughtful and erudite pieces on film on a regular basis.

• Where to find the best information about film? Of course, in my humble opinion, all the news that’s fit to print about film can be found at 6 Degrees of Film, our online magazine where reviews and the best pieces on current films are selected each week, with an emphasis on weekly round-ups of top film sites each Friday, and on Mondays the box office numbers and top films are all featured.

This week: we found the following:

• News of the death of the great and distinguished English actor, Alan Rickman
• An Interview with Director Paul Verhoeven
• A piece on the newly released Orson Welles Classic “Chimes at Midnight” which was Welles’ take on Shakespeare’s Falstaff.
• An interesting looking film : “The Treasure”, about three men on a treasure hunt in a suburban backyard-reminiscent of the classic with Robert Ryan, “God’s Little Acre”
• Reviews of The Revenant (6 Degrees has a piece)
• Molly Haskell on “The Masculine and the Feminine”, a piece originally published in 1974. She looks at classics such as “The Big Sleep” and the on-screen relationship developed in characters portrayed by Bogart and Bacall.
• The complete list of Academy Award nominated films. The Oscars are held Sunday, February 28th, with Chris Rock as this year’s host. Should be a welcome change, with Rock calling attention to the lack of diversity and the ongoing “Old White Guy” problem plaguing the Oscars.
• An interesting piece on “Star Wars Mythology 3.0”. There is always a danger of overkill with so much publicity and attention surrounding the Star Wars film, but this is a different take on the Cinematic Universe, if you will, of Star Wars.
• Much more to be seen and read in 6 Degrees of Film @ the Movies

One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest at Tampa Theatre

This was a ground-breaking film in many respects. Nicholson’s signature role as the rebellious McMurphy is one that is as bound with his acting legacy as much as Brando’s is bound with Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar or Bogart’s Rick from Casablanca. The supporting cast is also memorable, including acclaimed actors such as Scatman Crothers, Danny DeVito, Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched, and Christopher Lloyd.

And the story still resonates today, forty years after the film was made. It’s a story involving not only personal freedom, but the fine line we all walk in terms of moral relativity of good and evil and right vs wrong. Was Nurse Ratched acting with evil intent or did she simply make moral judgments based on the rules set by the confining nature of a structured institution which was a home for the mentally ill?

The film swept the major categories in 1975, a feat that has occurred only three times in the history of the Oscars. The only other two films that swept the Academy Awards were It Happened One Night in 1934, and the very different winner, The Silence of the Lambs, from 1991. One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest was based on the book by Ken Kesey, and was written in 1962. In Kesey’s book, the story was told from the point of view of McMurphy’s silent Indian friend, Chief Bromden.

Tampa Theatre is screening One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest on Sunday, January 17 at 3:00 pm.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid airs Sunday, January 17th

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is one of the greatest westerns of all time, and it was made at a time when westerns were definitely on the decline. This is actually a funny movie. Most of the film is a comedy, with Paul Newman delivering one of the best comic performances of his career as the amiable outlaw Butch Cassidy. Robert Redford’s breakout performance as the Sundance Kid, plus the very real onscreen chemistry of the two leads, resulted in a generation of “buddy” films where two guys were paired together in various action roles.

But the unexpected bonus of this classic is the masterful direction by George Roy Hill. He had a flawless script by William Goldman, and two A-list actors to work with, but the film could easily have been forgettable in a less talented directors’ hands. Hill used a classic old-time musical score, arranged by composer Burt Bacharach, which permeated the entire film with an essence of nostalgia for a time long past. And his ability to weave the storyline through various scenes of the gorgeous Old West landscape interwoven with tight close ups of the gorgeous actors and their often hilarious dialogue was pure genius.

In my book, 6 Degrees of Film: The Future of Film in the Global Village, I wrote of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”:
“Considered by many Hollywood insiders to be the best screenplay ever written, this film originally included some scenes that were reportedly scrubbed because Paul Newman couldn’t say the lines without laughing. Yet this is a poignant film at times that focuses on two real-life outlaws on the run for their crimes. The parts we remember most vividly are those that give the movie the aura of a “buddy” picture, than an action-adventure comedy, and finally a western very much of the sixties.

Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid airs Sunday, January 17th & Wednesday, January 20th. The film is playing at select theatres in collaboration with Turner Classic Movies.

6 Degrees: Notes from the Global Village

Friday Five: Notes from the Global Village: Recommended at the movies this week are:

*Star Wars
*Spotlight
*The Big Short
*Trumbo
*45 Years

Star Wars is here! Star Wars:The Force Awakens has landed to mostly positive reviews and mass media in hyper-drive with the onslaught of the movie campaign. The best place to see reviews for Star Wars: The Force Awakens is in the 6 Degrees online magazine. Read the reviews from:

• Ebert.com
• Film comment.com
• Time Magazine
• The LA Times
• Associated Press (Pop culture appeal of Star Wars)

*Fem Flicks: 2015 was a good year for Strong Women’s film roles. Mad Max: Fury Road and Suffragette were both excellent fem flicks for women of all ages to find strong role models. See link: “Is Hollywood finally a woman’s world too?- LA Times

**
Coming Soon: Here are some of the most anticipated films coming soon:

Batman v Superman-with Ben Affleck
The Hateful Eight-Tarantino’s Latest
The Revenant-Oscar buzz for DiCaprio
Ghostbusters all female cast Remake
Misconduct– starring Anthony Hopkins & Al Pacino

*The American Film Institute names top 10 movies for 2015:

The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Carol
Inside Out
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
Room
Spotlight
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Straight Outta Compton

The National Film Registry has also come out with their picks for films to be preserved and entered into the registry. Here’s a partial list of films selected for the registry this year :

*Being There (1979)

• A Fool There was (1915)
• Ghostbusters (1984)
• Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)
• Humoresque (1920)
• Imitation of Life (1959)
• John Henry and the Inky-Poo (1946)
• LA Confidential (1997)
• The Mark of Zorro (1920)
• The Old Mill (1937)
• Our Daily Bread (1934)
• Seconds (1966)
• The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
• Sink or Swim (1990)
• The Story of Menstruation (1946)
• Top Gun (1986)
• Winchester ’73 (1950)

Box Office Winners: Star Wars has big numbers, but the # 1 highest grossing film is… Gone with the Wind released in 1939. The other movies on the list are:

The original Star Wars-1977
The Sound of Music-1965
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial-1982
Titanic-1997
The Ten Commandments– 1956
Jaws– 1975
Doctor Zhivago- 1965
The Exorcist-1973
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs-1937

*They’re back! Not only Awards season but “Best of” lists for 2015. If you missed these films at the movies, and would like to rent or stream a good film, here are those films found on most critics and audiences top 10 lists. They include Ex Machina, The Assassin, 45 Years, Clouds of Sils Maria, I’ll See You in My Dreams, Creed, Son of Saul, Carol, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, Sicario, & Brooklyn.

The idea of awards season and best of lists always tends to be suspect. Some years are better than others. The last two summers have seen long, dry spells where hardly any decent films were released. The best films seem to cluster in releases around the end of the year for some reason!

This year there were a few notable exceptions. The Martian and Bridge of Spies, Ex Machina and Mad Max: Fury Road all came out long before the mad holiday rush. It seems that almost all the oxygen has been sucked out of the room for film and film criticism with the anticipated release of Star Wars. (The Donald Trump of films!)

It’s a relief to have it out at last, so we can move on to more important things like…the top 10 lists and the Awards Season that extends for months on end. Then again, maybe Star Wars fever is not such a bad thing after all! See you at the movies-ML

6 Degrees: Friday Five: Recommended

Star Wars media blitz is in full throttle. For those who are not with the Force, there’s always Holiday classics. For Turner Classic Movies, the small screen Holiday Films recommended are Meet Me in St Louis and the Shop around the Corner. The main reason is that these are two films that haven’t been so over-hyped or shown to the point of overkill, and they still seem fresh to the uninitiated. These films both have holiday themes, and one of Judy Garland’s biggest hits, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is from “Meet me in St. Louis.”

One complaint I continue to cite for movie releases is that the best films are again, all released within a two week period at the end of the year. There was a dry spell for movie-goers that seemed to last months this year, and then the movies all drop at the same time. Go figure. The best headlines are those that are amazed when box office attendance has dropped. For some strange reason, people really like to go see good movies. In fact, they prefer the good ones to the really crappy ones!

This month, watch for a slew of Frank Sinatra films and recordings, as the Mass Marketing Village celebrates Sinatra’s 100th birthday this December. Some of his best films are being shown on Turner Classic, including From Here to Eternity and Never So Few, which features a young Steve McQueen.

Some of Maureen O’Hara’s greatest films are also being featured on TCM; The Quiet Man with John Wayne and Miracle on 34th Street with Natalie Wood. She was also a stand-out in the original “Parent Trap” with Hayley Mills.

Here’s the short list of recommended films. See you at the movies

Spotlight: Best reviews for this film about the Boston Globe’s reporting that broke the story of ongoing abuse of children by Catholic Priests.

Spectre: A note-worthy addition to the Bond series; with Daniel Craig returning as James Bond.

The Peanuts Movie: Although not laden with as much humor for adults, this is a good one for the kids.

Bridge of Spies: Spielberg and Hanks team up, although Mark Rylance steals the show!

The Martian: A fictional account with realistic overtones in the what-if scenario of an astronaut stranded on Mars.

6 Degrees: Holiday Films Recommended

As our local art house, Tampa Theatre, is gearing up for the Holidays by showing the original 1947 “Miracle on 34th Street”, we’ve decided to begin with this one too. It’s a great film to kick off the holidays as the action unfolds at the start of the annual Macy’s Day Thanksgiving Parade in New York City.

Things to know about “Miracle on 34th Street”

*Cary Grant turned the part down. Perhaps with his innate sense of comedy and marketing of his own character, he knew that the strongest leads in this film weren’t for the males!

*Natalie Wood debuts with one of the best performances by a child in film for that era or any other era to date. Her young and slightly cynical persona as Susie, the young level-headed and sensible little girl who dreams of living in a real house someday, is the glue that makes the film work. Had the part gone to a sickly sweet child without any patina of sophistication or age beyond her years, then the film would have made no sense. The point was to create a strong motivation for Kris (Edmund Gwenn) to convert the non-believers.

*It’s still the Best of the Series-no remake has come close to the original 1947 film.

*Fem Flicks: It’s one of the earliest films that portrays a working, divorced mother even with a semblance of realism. Maureen O’Hara does a brilliant job with this part.

*Santa on Film: Edmund Gwenn gives a pivotal performance as the Macy’s Santa on trial

• Fred Mertz Foreshadowed: The small role for William Frawley was also pivotal. His cynical and worldly views underscore the Capra-esque overtones seen in the courtroom scenes.

*Capitalism is featured front and center in the plot. But the real heart of the story is the human elements of faith and forgiveness that bind the main characters together. The weakest link is the male lead given to John Payne. Although Payne does quite a good job in the role, his part is not the essential one for the success of the story.

Miracle on 34th Street is definitely recommended viewing for all who have not seen the original. The black and white film needs no colorized version to give it life. To kick off the Holiday Season, it should be the first on everyone’s list.

As mentioned above, Tampa Theatre is showing Miracle on 34th Street this week. They are going to show other films in their Holiday Film Series, including It’s a Wonderful Life from 1946, Holiday Inn from 1942, White Christmas 1954, and Home Alone from 1990.

The List of Holiday films featured in 6 Degrees is essentially an American Christmas Story. Americans seem to embody all of the elements that comprise the best and the worst parts of the Christmas season.

The 6 Degrees List varies slightly from the Tampa Theatre list. I would definitely recommend seeing White Christmas on the big screen. It was a VistaVision Creation of the fifties, and the colors and the pageantry are all part of the lost era which was the Golden Age of Hollywood.

But instead of showing Holiday Inn, 6 Degrees includes for week 3, A Christmas Story. It’s a nostalgic look at a bygone era. The saga of Ralphie and his quest to own a Red Ryder Rifle at Christmas still rings true for many of us.

For week 4, Christmas Vacation. It’s the modern day classic comedy that embodies so much of the silliness of a Saturday Night Live ensemble with the heartwarming feel of a true Hallmark Christmas classic. Chevy Chase is never better than in this role of Clark Griswold.

For Christmas, Eve some version of the Nutcracker is always worthwhile. My personal favorite is still the Baryshnikov version. And for Christmas day, the Dickens story of A Christmas Carol is still the best of stories to savor and to dissect. We are all Scrooge’s in some part, as we enter into the Christmas season. So it is fitting and appropriate to spend at least part of your Holiday with the Dickensian model of Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge is the perfect vessel to reflect and to identify with all of our inner ambivalence and anger over the commercially created Christmas season.

Happy Holidays to all our 6 Degrees Readers and we’ll see you @ the movies!

Notes from the Global Village: Friday Five: Top 5 Picks

Top 5 Picks on 6 Degrees of Film @ the Movies

1) Over ½ of Americans Now watch Netflix
2) Top 15 Christmas Films
3) Profile: Carey Mulligan
4) Interview: Niki Trumbo: Trumbo
5) Cate Blanchett: 5 best moments

Friday Five Recommended:

• The Martian
• Bridge of Spies
• Trumbo
• Spectre
• On Demand: Far from the Madding Crowd

Star Wars anticipation has reached critical mass as we see articles with names like: “What to watch after watching Star Wars” or “Before watching Star Wars, watch this!” and “What we learned from the Star Wars trailer.” We see the focus on the character of Kylo Ren, speculation as to the whereabouts of Luke Skywalker…tracking the advance ticket sales for Star Wars, plus the speculation of the Box Office totals for the new movie.

All these things are not unexpected, but still scream for the phrase to be added: “Really? What’s the big deal?” The film is so highly anticipated that one can only hope that it may live up to a fraction of the hopes and dreams that have been invested into this single film.

“Why I stopped Blogging about the Movies” was the title of a recent blog post by a critic at Film Waffle. It underscored the continuing problem with film blogs and blogging in general in that the sheer volume of material you find on the internet completely shrouds any content that might hint at a new or original thought or idea.

The trends of the moment propel the viewing public forward with the massive amounts of messaging we receive on a daily basis. All this mass media tends to drown out all original thought or any new way of looking at any particular subject, including film.

One way of combatting this ongoing dilemma is to take a step back and simply try to reframe the question. What if…instead of simply writing about and regurgitating the same old material, the 6 Degrees blog looked at Films and Movie Trends from a “Big Picture” perspective? And, what if we tried to present the information in a weekly format using links to the Flipboard online magazine, 6 Degrees of Film @ the Movies?

That is part of the solution we have come up with at 6 Degrees. The weekly link to the magazine will give you enough Film news to sink a battleship. We have taken the guesswork out of the equation. All the reader needs to do is to scroll through the best articles and film news on the internet as it is presented in one location.

Meanwhile, back at the blog, we will continue to analyze and try to make sense of the fast-paced and ever-changing world of film and film-makers. That is our pledge to you.

Happy Holidays and see you @ the movies!-ML Johnson