My obsession/involvement with real-life politics — and the fact I didn’t even know about it until Election Day — have made it difficult for me to craft a proper entry for The Politics & Movies Blogathon being held over at Jason Bellamy’s The Cooler. However, since this particular blog is often pretty much it’s own politics and movies blogathon, I could hardly ignore it. So in honor of Jason’s fine ‘thon, I’m dusting off this post from September of ‘07, originally written for Goatdog’s William Wyler blogathon. Enjoy and marvel and at just how irrelevant the term “neocon” is starting to become. 

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It’s silly to look for one-to-one allegories to historical events in most movies. It’s even sillier to see direct parallels to recent events in a western made 47 years ago. But, to wax Rumsfeldian, my goodness gracious but it’s hard to ignore the anti-neoconservative stance of The Big Country. Even if director William Wyler, producer/star Gregory Peck, and a passel of writers had no idea we’d ever be going to war with Iraq, neoconservatism was a going cause even then. The virus may have mutated some since the Cold War, but the disease looks pretty much the same.

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“Psycho” and “The Birds” launched the modern horror film; “The 39 Steps” helped set the pattern for espionage thrillers; and “North by Northwest” created a template for action movies that lasts to this day. Nevertheless, shot for shot, no Alfred Hitchcock production has been copied as much as the stylistically visionary and deeply emotional “Vertigo.” This romantic-psychological thriller with gothic overtones is easily the most haunting and disturbing picture in the entire Alfred Hitchcock catalog. Traces of it can be seen in everything from “Basic Instinct” to David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive,” and countless other thrillers.

The last of four films pairing Hitchcock with James Stewart, “Vertigo” opens with a stylized rooftop chase in which Stewart’s Det. John “Scottie” Ferguson learns the hard way that he has a deep-seated fear of heights. With a police officer dead, the remorseful but well-heeled Ferguson quits the force and becomes a mildly disturbed gentleman of leisure, spending most of his time trying to figure out how to lose his fear of heights, and hanging out with his pretty, bespectacled artist friend and one-time fiancée, Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes). Though she clearly still carries the torch for her “Johnny-boy,” Ferguson won’t give her the time of day romantically. Not troubled enough.

Read the rest at Bullz-Eye.com

Of the millions of people who saw last year’s featherweight Shia LaBeouf suspense hit “Disturbia,” only a small number will ever realize that what they were viewing was essentially a remake — a fact which producer Steven Spielberg may eventually end up hearing about in court. Still, film fans should go straight to the source. Director D.J. Caruso’s teen trifle was a Big Mac – and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” is an adult-style full course steak dinner from the best restaurant you’ve ever been to.

Simultaneously a devilish entertainment and a big-hearted work of art, my personal all-time favorite film from one of the three or four best directors of all time is as funny as it is suspenseful to the point of being terrifying — while also managing to be sexy, romantic, and poignant. Both cinematically innovative and perfectly stylish, and with a witty and well-rounded script by John Michael Hayes, this masterpiece of mass entertainment is an abject lesson to makers of modern mainstream thrillers who act as if audiences are capable of precisely two emotions per film.

“Rear Window” stars James Stewart as L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies, an adrenaline junkie of a globetrotting photojournalist laid up in his Manhattan apartment with a broken leg. It’s 1955 and television is still a questionable new gadget that a busy guy like Jefferies wouldn’t bother with (and film studios would rather not advertise). Shia LaBouef’s beloved video games and Internet haven’t even been thought of, household air conditioning is about as common as 65-inch plasmas are today — and there is one of New York’s nasty, muggy heat waves to contend with. The heat turns out to be an extremely dangerous saving grace, because almost everyone in Jefferies’ apartment complex is keeping their windows wide open and providing what amounts to primitive reality television for the frustrated Jefferies. His entertainment choices include: sexy light comedy provided by the lithesome and often under-clad “Miss Torso” (Georgine Darcy); melodramatic pathos from the troubled “Miss Lonelyheart” (Judith Evelyn); and, the closest mid-‘50s equivalent to “Real Sex” — a mostly unseen honeymoon couple. Still, all of these diversions pale beside the apparent true crime tale concerning the unpleasant salesman (Raymond Burr) with an angry invalid wife, who, heralded only by the sound of a breaking glass and a stifled scream, suddenly disappears.

Read the rest at Bullz-Eye.com.

More at Greencine.

It might be a cinephile touchstone from Orson Welles, the most hallowed of all Hollywood mavericks. And, sure, it comes complete with a complex, novel-length making-of story that stretches over four decades. Still, it’s likely that the real reason this odd little thriller refuses to go away is that it was the first important film to combine grimly sensational (borderline-grindhouse) subject matter with A-list movie stars and Class A aesthetics. Even 50 years after studio heads lost patience and dumped it onto the bottom half of double bills, the final Hollywood film from Orson Welles is the opposite of ordinary.

“Touch of Evil” stars Charlton Heston as Ramon Miguel “Mike” Vargas, an Ivy League-educated lawyer and Mexico City official who is wrapping up both the prosecution of a powerful drug lord and his honeymoon with Susan (Janet Leigh), his beautiful and spirited wife from the U.S. For reasons that never become clear, the Vargases happen to be visiting a sleazy Mexican-American border town when a car bomb incinerates a wealthy businessman and his very young date. In short order, Vargas is drawn into the investigation that is being led by Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles), a bigoted and seriously obese local sheriff famous for a large number of convictions, and an uncanny ability to collect both evidence (easier to find if you plant it) and confessions (less difficult to obtain with a beating). Meanwhile, the new Mrs. Vargas finds herself in the clutches of some seriously shady characters working for “Uncle” Joe Grandi (Akim Tamiroff) – the brother of the gangster Mike is about to send to prison. In no time at all, it’s a four-way battle for survival as Vargas begins to pursue Sheriff Quinlan for corruption, all the while not sensing that his wife, alone at an isolated motel, is about to be turned into a human bargaining chip in about the most frightening way imaginable.

Read the rest at Bullz-Eye.com.

Some sad news for Los Angeles area sports fans, classic film buffs, and people who grew up in the Los Angeles media market circa prior to 1990 or so. Since I’m two of those things, I present this remembrance from another former L.A. area sportscaster….

I’m a bit distracted right now by, and not only by presidential polls, etc., but also by some new DVDs I’ve got in of three of Alfred Hitchcock’s best and/or most popular films. Psycho (which I’ll only be covering the extras on for my Bullz-Eye.com gig) has never been anywhere even close to being my favorite Hitchcock film. Still, that’s not a slam at all. I’ve always been a huge fan of Hitch, so the competition is heavy, and there’s no denying the sheer genius of the first half that ends with the shower scene, or the greatness of Janet Leigh’s and Anthony Perkins’ performances.

Still, in a way, my very favorite thing about Psycho is this…..

The Brittanica Blog’s 10 Best Films of 1968 fest hosted by Raymond Benson (and with a regular chorus of film bloggers, including my affably prolix self) has wrapped up with the #1 film of 1968 as selected by Benson, author of the widely acclaimed The James Bond Bedside Companion and numerous other books.

Anyhow, here’s a subtle hint for those who haven’t linked over already. Also, I want my iMac to remember who’s boss.

A great film actor and probably an even better person has died at age 83 from lung cancer. Paul Newman could play your best buddy or your complete and total sonuvabitch worst enemy, without a speck of discernible conscience  (I’m looking at you, Hud) or the guy who couldn’t decide which one he should be.

If all it took to be a genuine-article movie star was piercing blue eyes and a certain amount of acting talent, Wes Bentley would be eclipsing Leonardo and Matt at the box-office and winning mutliple Oscars, but he attributed his success to luck and the fact that he maybe worked harder than some. The fact of the matter was that Paul Newman was both a superb actor, far more talented than he gave himself credit for, and a great movie star. Of course, he was also a great philanthropist, in the full original sense of the word, which means “love of people.”

A lot of that philanthropy was accomplished as a businessman, where Mr. Newman had this wacky idea that quality products might sell pretty well. I’ve never had a Newman’s Own product that wasn’t pretty delicious and better than about 95% of the similar spaghetti sauces, salad dressings, etc., on the market. (The Newman Organics line, run by daughter Nell Newman, includes by far the best mass market pretzels and fake Oreos I’ve ever had.) Particularly on the sauces, the back of the bottles was always fun to read — charming and mildly self-deprecating. They sure sounded like they were actually written by Mr. Newman — who was an occasional pundit for The Nation, which he partially owned — though it’s always possible his writer friend and Newman’s Own partner, A.E. Hotchner, might have helped out. It didn’t matter, it had the Newman stamp all over it, right down to it’s slogan: “Shameless exploitation in pursuit of the common good.”

In light of the man’s achievements, it might seem a bit silly to talk about his contribution to the world of consumer products — no doubt he was far prouder of the good he did via the money raised through those products did than the foods themselves — but they were endemic of the man himself and why he was so good at the game of being an on- and offscreen human. Though I first became enamored of him playing a good-guy con man (the movie that just might have made a film-lifer out of me), he never tried to pull one over on us in real life or as a performer. I can’t think of a less tricky, more unaffected actor than Newman — if he had a flaw an as actor at all, it was that he didn’t really dare to be the great ham that all actors should ocasionally be until very late in his career. He was the real deal. He didn’t like awards, but he did enjoy being on Richard Nixon’s enemies list. You are judged, sometimes, by the enemies you make.

And there’s the political thing. If ever there was a walking embodiment of liberalism, at it’s best and in all its manifestations, it was Paul Newman. He wasn’t perfect and did gossip worthy things once or twice in his younger days, but never made a big deal of his good works beyond what was needed to help promote them. He made his statements to the point and didn’t engage in the kind of grandstanding or rhetorical excess that would force him to engage in a metaphor-off with Stephen Colbert. There’s a reason he was held in such respect by so many (he even got the usually around-the-bend far-right film blogger Dirty Harry to behave) — he was as respectable a human being as the world of show business has seen. I’m an agnostic, but I’d still like like to think that, wherever Mr. Newman is, he’ll get to watch the election returns. It seems a small reward.

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Obviously, there’s been lots written and David Hudson is doing his usual great job of pulling it together, but I do want to direct your attention (as David did for me) to a beautifully complete appreciation/bio/obit by Newman biographer Shawn Levy, as well as a piece by Dahlia Lithwick about the Hole in the Wall camps for ill and disabled children, which really got to me. Also, Edward Copeland is back, and he’s got something to say.

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“I picture my epitaph: ‘Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.’”