The Sheila Variations

R.I.P. Gunnar Hansen, aka “Leatherface”

Posted on November 8, 2015 by sheila

Gannar Hansen, the original villain in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has died at the age of 68.

In his 2013 book Chain Saw Confidential: How We Made the World’s Most Notorious Horror Movie, Hansen wrote:

The reason I want to talk about this movie is that I played Leatherface, Chain Saw’s brutish, relentless – and apparently lovable – killer. Through an improbable series of events, one sweaty summer afternoon I found myself dancing on a Texas hilltop, spinning a chainsaw over my head, hell-bent on scaring the bejesus out of the director. It had been a long trip getting to that hilltop, and it has been a long trip ever since.

Here’s an interesting interview with Hansen from 2013, after the publication of his book. Hansen is asked about the filming of the dinner scene (they apparently shot for 24 hours straight.)

I remember it as 26 hours. Some remember it more like 36 hours. I have always been skeptical of Method acting, but by the time we were finishing those 26 hours I really became lost in the character. It wasn’t because I was Method acting, it was because we were so immersed in what was going on we really lost track of the outside world. We became those characters.

The outpouring of loss and respect on Twitter and elsewhere for this horror icon has been truly heartwarming.

R.I.P.

Posted in Actors, RIP | Leave a comment

Review: The Assassin (2015); d. Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Posted on November 7, 2015 by sheila

The visuals are, quite literally, overwhelming. There were shots that were so beautiful I practically could not take it in, in one glance: it’s like trying to “take in” the Grand Canyon. Thankfully, Hou’s camera is not of the quick-cut variety. He lets scenes breathe, and the shots are very long. I had time to settle in, to look up at the misty ranks of mountains in the background, the vast space in the foreground, the line of trees reflected perfectly in the dawn-blue water, the row of fog breaking up a vertical cliff of green trees. Nature photography? Well, yes, kind of. But it’s part of the story and the atmosphere. This is one of the most beautiful looking films this year, or any year.

Hou Hsiao-Hsien is such a world-class visionary filmmaker (the hyperbole fits) and yet it’s been relatively rare that his stuff makes it to our shores. The Assassin won him the Best Director award at Cannes, thrilling news for those of us who love his work and were already eagerly anticipating The Assassin. (The trailers were so evocative: they told little about the film, and yet the images!!)

The Assassin takes place in Weibo, a province in 9th century China during a time of major unrest. Garrison guards gallop through the landscape, holding up fluttering flags in a martial display of power. There’s intrigue, political wrangling, fear. The story centers around Yinniang (Shu Qui, who has worked with Hou three times now. She played a completely different kind of character in Millennium Mambo – my review here). Yinniang was sent away from her family when she was a child to study with Jiaxin, a nun (Sheu Fang-yi). The nun may be a nun but she is also a ferocious martial arts trainer, and has devoted 10 years or so in training Yinniang to be an assassin. Of the deadly ninja variety. You never see her coming. By the time her face is revealed, it’s too late.

The Assassin opens in black-and-white, with Jiaxin and Yinniang standing by a grove of trees staring off into the distance. They don’t move and you don’t see what they are looking at. Jiaxin murmurs an instruction to Yinniang. When the assassination comes, it is so graceful, balletic, and terrifying that it’s hard to even perceive what has happened. She’s so smooth about it. Her next job requires her to take out a local warlord, but when she approaches him in his tent, she sees him sleeping with his young son. She is unable to complete the task. Jiaxin is concerned about Yinniang’s lack of resolve, as well as her lingering feelings for humanity, so she ups the ante. To prove herself, Yinniang must return to her family home and kill her cousin, a man she was betrothed to as a child. Yinniang is devastated, although she has been trained so well her face remains seemingly blank as a mask. But her horror at the assignment is there, quivering throughout her.

That’s the set-up. The return to Weibo introduces us to the Court from which Yinniang was exiled. There’s Lord Tian Ji’an (Chang Chen), the governor of Weibo, and the man she has been sent to kill. They have not seen one another since they were children. There’s also Xia Jing (Juan Ching-tian), a guy who speaks up angrily in a political meeting, and is exiled as a result. It’s a spark that explodes the plot forward.

Yinniang is welcomed home in a solemn ceremony involving a scented bath and a gorgeous court-dress made for her by her mother. As an assassin she wears a long black coat, black leather pants, sturdy boots with upturned toes, her hair halfway down her back, and a little knife stuck through the bun on the top of her head. She is a fearsome figure. Seeing her in luscious gorgeous gowns, or naked weeping in the tub, reminds us of her humanity, the childhood she missed out on, the normal womanhood she will never have, and etc. and etc. She is a trained murderer. When she walks, she makes no sound. Her stride is long and confident, unlike the delicate steps made by the ladies of the court. She is a woman without a home, without a family, without even really a homeland. She is an independent contractor. It puts her in a place of isolation, a solitary figure, the symbol of exile.

Isolation and exile, having a foot in both worlds (which means really having a foot in no world) are common themes to Hou Hsiao-Hsien. Yinniang belongs everywhere. She belongs nowhere.

These are the bare bones. But one does not go see a Hou film looking for clarity, or linear narrative structures that one recognizes. His films are dream-spaces. Subjective. Subjective to the characters in the story (the backgrounds so blurred out in Millennium Mambo, making the outside world seem indistinct), but also subjective to Hou’s vision. He does things the way he wants to do them. He seems to feel no outside pressure. The Assassin is set up like a classic martial arts movie and there are some tremendous fight sequences. But they don’t come when you think they should come, they don’t last as long (or as short) as you might expect, and there is almost no gore. The fights are dazzling and acrobatic, the sounds of the swords slashing through the air. They take place in the dead of night on slanted rooftops, or in the midst of a birch grove tilting on the side of a hill. There is a ritualistic aspect to it. Sometimes the purpose is not to kill. But to warn. To reveal. To frighten and intimidate.

The plot is byzantine and twisted. It is confusing and there were moments when I wished for a flow-chart of characters to keep them straight. That confusion is not a mistake, or an error on the film-maker’s part. He is after something different than clarity. He always is. His films require patience. His style is his own. It’s slow. The camera stays on one thing for long periods of time. You must settle in. There’s an entire scene (stunning to witness) showing two characters talking in their tent, with sheer curtains billowing all around them. The scene is the wordiest in the entire film. The couple, man and woman, talk about things, holding onto one another. Often they are filmed from behind one layer of those sheer curtains, so the image becomes fuzzy, smudged. Then, suddenly, that smudgy filmy layer will blow back, showing us the interior with vivid clarity. Then, again, though, the curtain falls back over the camera. The scene is a long one, and there are times when you can see the assassin, standing amongst those wavering filmy curtains … listening. Sometimes she’s there, you can see her, sometimes it takes a second to even perceive her presence, she’s so camouflaged.

The film is so visually ravishing that every single shot – every single one – is a “keeper.” It’s overwhelming. In that environment of nearly rapt beauty, dizzying, as though one is on a hallucinogenic, the “confusion” of the plot becomes irrelevant. That confusion is part of the inter-connected treacherous family world of The Assassin. Everyone is connected. Even the assassin, although she has been thrust outside that close circle. Dangerous times. Plots happen in a whisper in the space just beyond the camera. Men race through compounds holding up torches. A princess sits outside in the garden, still as a statue, her face composed, playing a zither, slowly, eerily. Each image chosen for its impact, and yet never in a flashy way. The images sit there onscreen, for a long time. And what that pacing does is it forces you to DEAL with beauty. You have to sit there and take it, in other words. There are times in museums when I start to feel “Overload.” That’s when I have to sit down on a bench, take a break, and re-group. I can’t just keep going, because I have reached a saturation level. But it is when you pick yourself up off the bench, refreshed, and go back to looking at the Masterworks on the wall, that deeper truths are revealed, the paintings can speak to you in all kinds of ways, your subconscious is activated.

That kind of LOOKING requires a certain brain-space, both alert and dreamy. It’s like the flashes of insight that crack through your brain right before you fall asleep. Your brain is unleashed, unfettered from “reality” and any limitations that that might suggest. You do what Emily Dickinson says, you “dwell in possibility.” But that can only occur once you submit, and submitting is sometimes a rigorous process. You have to WANT to do it. You have to train yourself to do it. The head-space is a mixture of concentration and relaxation, a heady blend, that does not come natural to humans, who tend to do one or the other, separately. Beauty, at its most powerful, demands that you respond with both, simultaneously.

A film like The Assassin leads you into that brainspace, from one image to the next. Each one perfect, eloquent, evocative. You are given TIME with each one. Settle into it. Let your brain off its leash.

Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s films are about many things. The Assassin has a big gigantic complicated plot with a lot of characters. But mainly, his films are about the visuals, and the dream-space opened up by submitting to them. It’s challenging work but tremendously gratifying on a really primal level. The level of dreams.

Beauty is beauty, right? Beauty is supposedly benign and good. True, true. But beauty can also be ominous, fearsome, portentous. It is not just a backdrop. Beauty is not “pretty,” an insipid term. Angels of the Lord are beautiful but nobody wants to see one in the flesh … because that would mean, probably, that you are either dead or near-dead. Hou Hsiao-Hsien works with beauty, respects it, prioritizes it, swims in it. He is an extremely careful film-maker, every element onscreen reflecting his vision. You don’t get the sense anywhere that he has ever compromised anything in his life. He probably has, but that sense is not in his movies. His films ooze with beauty, in ways destabilizing, satisfying, mysterious.

The Assassin is in theaters now. It should be seen on the big screen. I realize it’s probably only playing in art-houses. Seek it out while it’s still here.

The Chinese poster for “The Assassin”

Posted in Movies | Tagged China, historical drama, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, reviews | 12 Comments

The Books: Baseball: A Literary Anthology; Excerpt from “The Glory of Their Times”, by Lawrence S. Ritter

Posted on November 6, 2015 by sheila

On the essays shelf (yes, there are still more books to excerpt in my vast library. I can’t seem to stop this excerpts-from-my-library project. I started it in 2006!)

NEXT BOOK: Baseball: A Literary Anthology

Have any of you baseball fans read Lawrence Ritter’s The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It? Published in 1966, it’s an oral history of baseball, as told by the old-time ball players dating back to the early years of the 20th century. I had a copy once, but have lost it along the way somewhere. Famous names from the dustiest earliest days of the national pastime, names that have passed into legend. Ty Cobb died in 1961, and it was felt as the end of an era. He connected us to those earliest days, right? Lawrence Ritter, an economist at New York University, thought so too. And many of those old guys were still out there, now in their 80s, 90s, living in obscurity many of them, their baseball days long long behind them. The stories they could tell, the memories they had – that could connect us to our past, the past that still LIVES. Ritter decided he needed to track down as many of them as he possibly could, and get them on tape. It took years. There was no telephone directory of ancient one-time ballplayers. One player would say to him, “Hey, you should probably talk to so-and-so. Last I heard he was living in a hunting cabin up near the Canadian border. Maybe I have his cousin’s address somewhere and you can track him down.” It took that level of detective work. All told, Ritter traveled 75,000 miles around America, finding these guys, sitting down with them, and turning the tape recorder on.

In 1966, he published the result of all this work: Glory of Their Times. The following excerpt alone makes me want to have a copy of the book again, at my disposal.

Ritter found Sam Crawford (aka “Wahoo Sam”), whose heyday in baseball was in the first 2 decades of the 20th century. He led the National League in home runs in 1901, and led the American League in 1908 and 1914. (However, he is quick to point out in his interview with Ritter that when he led the league in 1901, how many home runs did he hit? Sixteen. Very different game!) His career in professional baseball lasted 19 years. Some of the records may not be quite accurate, because it was all so long ago and tallying up stats was not a computerized science as it is now – but that fact alone suggests that some of Crawford’s extraordinary stats may be actually HIGHER than what is in the official record books. Over the course of his career, he is credited with 2,964 major-league hits, an extraordinary number as any baseball fan will recognize. It’s a short list of guys who have topped it, and most of those guys played in the modern era, with a ball MADE for power-hitters. Crawford hit a “dead-ball” the way the modern guys hit the speed-ball. To this day, Sam Crawford holds the record for most major-league triples, with Ty Cobb a close-ish second. Crawford also holds the record for inside-the-park home runs in a single season: 12. Twelve in one season!!

Crawford played in what’s known in the “dead ball era.” 1900 to 1919, roughly. The ball was different, heavier, and “dead”. Because of that the game itself was different. It wasn’t about home runs or power-hitting. It was about speed and strategy. Stealing bases, etc. Batting averages, in general, were lower during the “dead ball era,” which can be misleading in terms of modern perceptions of the skills of the players. When different skills are rewarded, then of course the stars of the game in that era will be masters at that particular skill. Then in 1909 came the new baseball with the cork center. Bye-bye “dead” ball. Batting averages went up, runs went up, the game changed. And with it came the stars like Ty Cobb whose name everybody knows. Or Babe Ruth, later. It became the game we recognize now. The game that values giant hits, runs scored, high batting averages.

Wahoo Sam’s career was during the same timeline as Ty Cobb – meaning it straddled the dead-ball era and the modern-ish era. All of this makes his batting averages even more extraordinary. Dead-ball or no dead-ball, Wahoo Sam was a power-hitter.

Wahoo Sam’s interview with Crawford (and since it’s an oral history, there are no editorial interjections from Ritter, part of why the book is so wonderful) is so amazing, you wish the guy would talk forever. Sam Crawford was born in 1880 and he died in 1968. So Ritter got to him just in time. Since it’s a transcription of a tape recording, you get the cadences of Crawford’s speech. He goes from one thing to another, he puts in asides, he shares memories of something that happened to him 60 years before and the DETAILS he remembers!! It’s as though they happened yesterday.

There are great portraits of well-known players, like Ty Cobb again, and Honus Wagner, Rube Waddell, Walter Johnson. Crawford is extremely intelligent, like most ball-players are, and it shows in his observations. In re: Ty Cobb: “Talk about strategy and playing with your head, that was Cobb all the way. It wasn’t that he was so fast on his feet, although he was fast enough. There were others who were faster, though, like Clyde Milan, for instance. It was that Cobb was so fast in his thinking.” That’s the kind of observation that keeps me warm on cold winter evenings. Crawford is also funny, too, on people’s personalities. Again, in re: Cobb: “He came up from the South, you know, and he was still fighting the Civil War.”

At the time Ritter tracked down Crawford, Crawford was living with his wife, and spent most of his time reading. “My favorite writer is Balzac. A wonderful writer.” He had been ushered into the Hall of Fame in 1957, and he was living in some tiny town in the middle of the Mojave Desert and nobody in town even knew that he had been a famous baseball player. Everyone was shocked that that little old guy living in that cabin was elected to the Hall of Fame. Crawford doesn’t believe in living in the past, but sitting with Ritter opened up the past to him. Throughout, he constantly expresses surprise at how much he remembers, how quickly it comes. He says he rarely thinks about baseball, and almost never talks about it. Sometimes he watches a World Series game, but that’s about it.

In the following excerpt, Crawford follows the meandering path of his memory to a player named Dummy Hoy. Well, his name was William, but he was nicknamed “Dummy” because he was deaf. Oh, I can hear the Tumblr outrage now! “Dummy” obviously does not refer to his intelligence but “dumb” as in “can’t speak,” although the connotations were as negative then as they are now. Some kind of impairment = impaired intelligence. But Dummy loved the nickname, and corrected people who called him “William.” Dummy Hoy was the most successful deaf baseball player of all time.

Crawford insists that Dummy Hoy is the guy who invented the signal system for umpires, the signals for “ball” and “strike” that can be seen way out in the outfield. Crawford’s not the only one. Many people credit Dummy Hoy with that innovation. There are other stories, though, suggesting it didn’t quite go down that way. But whatever, I prefer the perhaps-apocryphal anecdote, that a major-league center-fielder/southpaw, who also happened to be deaf, figured out a way that he could know what was happening at home plate or any of the bases – or, come to think of it, when he was at bat. If the umpire just shouted “strike”, well, that wouldn’t help Dummy Hoy, now would it? But a signal, and Hoy could just look back and see it? It’s a far better story, and so I’m going with Crawford. That was Dummy Hoy’s innovation all the way.

Dummy Hoy was well-loved by his teammates (as the following excerpt shows), and set a bunch of records that lasted a couple of years (no small feat in such a competitive game). He was a base-stealer. He was King of the Walks. He would just stand there and let those balls go by. Tremendous patience and a tremendously good-eye for that ephemeral strike zone. Here’s a great site devoted to Dummy Hoy.

Dummy Hoy lived to the age of 99. Just a couple of months before his death in 1961 he threw out the first ball in Game 3 of the World Series, held at Crosley Field in Cincinnati – the same site of his old ball club back in the late 1800s. Incredible.

But now let’s walk down Memory Lane with Wahoo Sam and listen to some stories about Dummy Hoy. I mean, the ring with the hinge on it!! Wahoo Sam is talking about something from, I don’t know, 1899 and it’s now 1964. The stream-of-consciousness is damn near Proustian.

Wahoo Sam talking about Dummy Hoy. I mean, can you tell that this is baseball with names like that?

Excerpt from Baseball: A Literary Anthology, edited by Nicholas Davidoff. Excerpt from “The Glory of Their Times”, by Lawrence S. Ritter

You know, there were a lot of little guys in baseball then. McGraw was a fine ballplayer and he couldn’t have been over five feet six or seven. And Tommy Leach, with Pittsburgh – he was only five feet six and he couldn’t have weighed over 140. He was a beautiful ballplayer to watch. And Bobby Lowe, who was the first player to ever hit four home runs in one game. He did that in 1894. That was something, with that old dead ball. Bobby and I played together for three or four years in Detroit, around 1905 or so.

Dummy Hoy was even smaller, about five-five. You remember him, don’t you? He died in Cincinnati only a few years ago, at the age of ninety-nine. Quite a ballplayer. In my opinion Dummy Hoy and Tommy Leach should both be in the Hall of Fame.

Do you know how many bases Dummy Hoy stole in his major-league career? Over 600! That alone should be enough to put him in the Hall of Fame. We played alongside each other in the outfield with the Cincinnati club in 1902. He had started in the Big Leagues way back in the 1880’s, you know, so he was on his way out then, and I had been up just a few years, but even that late in his career he was a fine out fielder. A great one.

I’d be in right field and he’d be in center, and I’d have to listen real careful to know whether or not he’d take a fly ball. He couldn’t hear, you know, so there wasn’t any sense in me yelling for it. He couldn’t talk either, of course, but he’d make a kind of throaty noise, a little squawk, and when a fly ball came out and I heard this little noise I knew he was going to take it. We never had any trouble about who was to take the ball.

Did you know that he was the one responsible for the umpire giving hand signals for a ball or a strike? Raising his right hand for a strike, you know, and stuff like that. He’d be up at bat and he couldn’t hear and he couldn’t talk, so he’d look around at the umpire to see what the pitch was, a ball or a strike. That’s where the hand signs for the umpires calling balls and strikes began. That’s a fact. Very few people know that.

Another interesting thing about Dummy Hoy was the unique doorbell arrangement he had in his house. He had a wife who was a deaf mute too, and they lived in Cincinnati. Instead of a bell on the door, they had a little knob. When you pulled this knob it released a lead ball which rolled down a wooden chute and then fell off onto the floor with a thud. When it hit the floor they felt the vibrations, through their feet, and they knew somebody was at the door. I thought that was quite odd and interesting, don’t you?

It’s funny how little things like that come back to you, after all these years. That was over 60 years ago when we played together. He was a little fellow, like I said, only five feet five. But he had real large, strong hands. He used to wear a diamond ring – we all did in those days – but his knuckles were so big that he had a ring with a hinge on it. A real hinge. He couldn’t get a ring that would go over his big knuckles and still fit right, so he had one made with a hinge so that he could put it on and then close it and it would lock in place. Did you know that he once threw three men out at home plate in one game? From the outfield, I mean. That was in 1889. And still they don’t give him a tumble for the Hall of Fame. It’s not right.

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Posted in Books | Tagged baseball, Baseball A Literary Anthology, essays | 11 Comments

Happy Birthday, Vivien Leigh

Posted on November 5, 2015 by sheila

Vivien Leigh in “The Mask of Virtue,” the West End production that made her a sensation in 1935

Review of “The Mask of Virtue,” calling out Leigh’s performance

Vivien Leigh, again, in “The Mask of Virtue”

4 years before Gone With the Wind, which introduced Vivien Leigh to the world, she was plucked out of obscurity in London for a production of The Mask of Virtue, in which she played a small but important role.

Vivien was totally green as an actress, naive, but she captivated people in her audition. There was something about her, that was obvious, something appealing, and her beauty was the kind that stopped you in your tracks.

The general consensus was that they should cast her, even though they thought her voice was awful. It needed work. They worked with her on it rigorously. She was an apt pupil (something important to remember about her, as the excerpt below will show).

Vivien Leigh had an unhappy life, in many respects, and she was tortured by insecurity and fragility, and the details are well-known so no need to go over that here. But what she had, as an actress, was not just beauty and talent (although she had those too), but a willingness to learn, to try to rise to the challenge, even if that process was somewhat embarrassing at first (as it often is, even with great actors). You don’t get it “right” immediately, even if you are cast well.

Along those lines as an example: Sidney Lumet tells some great stories about directing Katharine Hepburn in Long Day’s Journey. She was a legend at that point, and he was young. From the first day, she set out to test him, seeing how much she could get away with. A common thing with huge stars and newbie directors. She insisted that the first reading be at her house. She had set a table, and placed herself at the head. Lumet knew that it was a defining moment, and so he said, “I prefer to sit at the head of the table.” Hepburn, a tough old warhorse, respected his mettle, and conceded that ground. Respect must be earned, you see. But one of the stories I really love, that will connect to Leigh, is that during the first read-through, everything was going along nicely (or so Lumet thought). He was overwhelmed by the cast at that table, and the three men were open to his input on this or that moment. He wasn’t sure about Hepburn, though. Would she even allow him to give her direction. Maybe 3/4s of the way through the script reading, there was a pause, and Hepburn said, in a small voice, from her corner of the table, “Help??” It is a huge thing for an actress of her stature and caliber to admit she needs help (and that was actually one of her qualities that helped her be what she was. She accepted help from Hawks to get the screwball vibe for Bringing Up Baby. She forced herself to go on tour with a Shakespeare production because she was afraid of doing it. And etc.)

SO. Recognizing that you are not “all that,” even when you are a big star, is a huge deal. But it’s difficult, too, for younger actors. Younger actors, surrounded by professionals, can get intimidated and shut down. Or, worse, defensive. Or, even worse, they try to rise to the occasion, but are unable to do so. Or, even worse worse, they don’t even realize they need help. It’s a common thing with young inexperienced actors.

Vivien Leigh was different. She accepted all the help she could get. She allowed them to say to her her voice was bad, and she worked hard to overcome it, doing everything they told her. She knew she couldn’t compete with her experienced co-stars, and so she asked questions, accepted their help and guidance, rejected none of it. She was on the verge of being fired at all times because her performance was not up to snuff. And she knew it. People were helpful, but at some point the show might have had to go on without her. A terrifying situation, one that would sink many an experienced actress. And there was rapid improvement during the rehearsal process. Once she started learning, she couldn’t stop. And she altered her “instrument” to such a degree that it was able to fill up the theatre, play the role, and actually BE on that stage with those veterans.

And who dominated the good press when it opened? Vivien Leigh.

The excerpt below from a biography of Vivien Leigh talks in detail about that process for Leigh, and I find it so admirable. Imagine being told “Your voice is terrible” and NOT shutting down emotionally/physically about it. Imagine nodding your head and knowing you needed to improve. Imagine being surrounded by people who are frustrated with your performance. And then imagine sticking to it and figuring it out. It’s such an important quality to have for any successful person. Leigh would face that again and again in her career, but it was there from the start. I might even say you either have it or you don’t. It’s a character thing.

Excerpt from Vivien: The Life of Vivien Leigh, by Alexander Walker:

She also had a realistic view of her own limitations and this, as well as Sydney Carroll’s obvious fondness for her company, probably reprieved her in those first few weeks of rehearsals for The Mask of Virtue. It was a small cast: Lady Tree, Jeanne de Casalis and Frank Cellier (as the Marquis) were all accomplished players. Vivien was a tremulous beginner. They took pity on her. The play’s construction as a chamber drama fostered a working intimacy between them all. They generously guided Vivien through the passages where her inexperience was shown up painfully. For two-thirds of the way, her role was relatively straightforward, personifying the putative chastity and purity that are used as bait for the nobleman; but the last third, when her duplicity is exposed, was much more taxing. Prostrating herself before the angry man, who is threatening to shoot her, she has both to beg forgiveness and declare that her love for him is genuine.

The intelligence with which she read her lines might well have seen her through, but the muted appeal of her naturally small voice caused the audience to come to her, to lean towards her, so to speak, so as not to miss a word. Almost without trying, she invited them into her confidence, thus concentrating their attention, while those virginal looks which had perturbed the play’s producers excited their sympathy.

In later years, however, Vivien was the first to admit that she had been very lucky in the direction she received from Maxwell Wray and her fellow players.

‘Every day during the three-week rehearsal they nearly fired me because I was so awful. I remember someone saying at the Ivy restaurant: “She’ll have to go – she is terrible.” I was lucky enough to wear a lovely pink dress, a lovely black dress and a wonderful nightdress … but I didn’t know what to do … One of the women in the play had to say to me, “I shall not make many demands on you,” and I said, “Not more than the gentleman, I’m sure,” and it brought the house down and I never knew why. I was that much of an ass. I suppose, though, I must have had some sort of timing to get the laugh.’

That was the naive side of Vivien, which some of her school friends had noticed: oddly, although she had a notable sense of often randy humour, she kept her professional innocence for quite a time – as one of her later films was to show.

Those who knew Vivien best have given accounts which suggest that her part in the play was a triumph of personality over performance – allied to the expectancy that Sydney Carroll had created over the preceding weeks. John Gliddon was present. ‘The play itself wasn’t of much interest. But Vivien charmed everyone. The second act curtain went up and there she sat as the prostitute charming the old man. She charmed the whole audience. You could feel her charm come over the footlights.’ Oswald Frewen agreed, though he waited for a week or so before going to see ‘the Vivling’, as he affectionately nicknamed the ‘dear little creature’. He found her deficient in exposing her own frailties – ‘She had to cry two times and she could not do so convincingly, looking merely bored – or even asleep! – when she laid her head on the table to weep.’ But he found her ‘natural sweetness and loveliness’ coming across strongly – and so, apparently, did everyone else.

By the end of the evening, the promise that Sydney Carroll had hyped, to use a modern idiom, had been converted into what Harol Conway, the Daily Mail‘s theatre critic, called the next morning, ‘one of the biggest personal ovations a newcomer has had on the London stage for quite a long time.’

The following forty-eight hours gave shape to Vivien’s fortunes and ambitions for years to come. Her parents and her husband had been in the first-night audience on 15 May 1935, and all of them, accompanied by friends, made up a table at the Florida, a fashionable night-club, until the first editions came off the Fleet Street presses. Vivien didn’t need to strain her eyes in the dim lights of the night-club in order to discern her triumph – it was writ in headlines. The critics praised her without exception and the reporters succeeded in extracting a news angle from her ‘discovery,’ so that it ran both in the review columns and on the news pages. A very powerful combination.

‘New 19-year-old Star,’ cried the Daily Mail. Harold Conway hadn’t waited for his enthusiasm to cool. He had gone straight to Vivien’s dressing-room to report (and create) the phenomenon. ‘A new young British star … arose on the British stage last night with a spectacular suddenness which set playgoers cheering with surprised delight … In a difficult leading costume role, her exceptional beauty and assured acting set the experienced first-night audience excitedly asking each other who this unknown actress was.’ The praise in the other papers was pervasive and unanimous. A sense of exhilaration was created by headlines and sub-heads like ‘New Star to Win All London’ … ‘Young Actress’s Triumph’ … ‘Actress Is a Discovery’.

Vivien Leigh in “A Streetcar Named Desire”

Posted in Actors, On This Day | Tagged Tennessee Williams, Vivien Leigh | 6 Comments

Review: Spotlight (2015)

Posted on November 5, 2015 by sheila

Really really good. Newspaper movie about the Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigative team breaking of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal.

My review of Spotlight is now up at Rogerebert.com.

Posted in Movies | Tagged drama, reviews | 4 Comments

Tonight at MoMA, 7 p.m.: Call Me Marianna (2015)

Posted on November 5, 2015 by sheila

Tonight, the award-winning Polish film Call Me Marianna, directed by Karolina Bielawska, is screening at the Museum of Modern Art, hosted by Polish Filmmakers NYC (which was founded by Agata Drogowska). Call Me Marianna is a moving story about a transgender woman torn between competing loyalties, to herself, to her family. Framed with a beautiful theatrical device, involving elements of documentary as well as narrative film, Call Me Marianna is powerful, funny, and painfully human.

I’ll be doing a QA following the screening with director Karolina Bielawska.

The deets:
WHERE: Museum of Modern Art, The Celeste Bartos Theater, 4 West 54rd St.
WHEN: Thursday, 5 November, 7pm
RSVP: agata.polishfilmmakers@gmail.com

It’s free! You just need to RSVP.

Posted in Movies | Leave a comment

Supernatural, Season 11, Oops, Sorry

Posted on November 5, 2015 by sheila

Forgot to put this up last night. I’m hosting a QA at MoMA this evening and have been busy preparing for that! Oh, and yesterday, just FYI: Angelina Jolie went into the recording booth with my Gena Rowlands script to record her narration for Rowlands’ Lifetime Achievement Award Oscar. So I was so distracted all day, thinking of my words in Jolie’s hands, and her beautiful voice saying my words. I’m not bragging. I have struggled in obscurity for years. This Oscars experience has been truly over-the-top, with yesterday being (almost) the capper. I wasn’t even there.

The above gif is in honor of “Folsom Prison Blues,” my next re-cap, already in the clogged pipeline.

Cheers.

Posted in Television | Tagged Supernatural | 66 Comments

The Books: Baseball: A Literary Anthology; “Baseball as the Bleachers Like It”, by Charles E. Van Loan

Posted on November 3, 2015 by sheila

On the essays shelf (yes, there are still more books to excerpt in my vast library. I can’t seem to stop this excerpts-from-my-library project. I started it in 2006!)

NEXT BOOK: Baseball: A Literary Anthology

To my Mets fans readers, I am so sorry.

Baseball: A Literary Anthology is a goldmine. Many of the pieces are the famous ones that every baseball fan knows. John Updike’s piece on Fenway/Ted Williams, one of the most famous pieces of baseball writing ever. Damon Runyon. Ring Lardner. Moe Berg’s incredible essay on pitchers and catchers. Roger Angell, the most well-known and well-loved baseball writer ever? Don DeLillo’s 52-page opener to Underworld. (In fact, I would suggest that one ONLY reads the opening 52 pages in that tiresome book.) Then there are things dug out of archives from the late 19th century. Or the early 20th century, when sports writing was a relatively new phenomenon. And baseball even newer. One of my favorite essayists is William Hazlitt, born in 1778, born into an age of revolution. He wrote about politics and monarchy and Shakespeare. But he also was fascinated by “sport.” He wrote about jugglers. He wrote an essay about a boxing match he traveled to witness.) What is interesting about Hazlitt was that at the time he was writing, sport was seen as a “low” form of entertainment and definitely not worthy of a writer’s attention. Hoity-toity response: “You cannot expect people to take you seriously if you keep writing essays about circus performers and pugilists, my good man.” But people loved Hazlitt’s sports writing, because they came from the unwashed hoi polloi (or who knows, maybe they were washed, but I doubt it), and this was how they unwound after a hard days’ work, circuses and boxing and games. Hazlitt’s critics saw his focus on sport as a degradation of the form. I don’t know if that attitude lasted through the 18th and 19th century (I am not an expert), but lively vigorous sportswriting, that counts as literature, is a relatively new phenomenon.

This anthology has dug up gems of writing in places you might miss. Or, a typical baseball fan might miss. For instance, did you know that Marianne Moore, the First Lady of American Poetry in the 20th century, was a voracious baseball fan? Her passion and presence at games was so well-known that she was asked to throw out the first pitch in the 1968 World Series. This event resulted in a couple of my favorite photographs ever.

The Brooklyn Dodgers were her team, and she went to all the games, a little old lady wearing a black hat with netting coming down over her face, keeping her scorecard up to date. The fellows around her often under-estimated her, because she didn’t look the part, and the guys would patiently explain what was happening on the field to her. She would then decimate them with an insightful comment about the batting average of so-and-so, and her issues with the effectiveness of the pitcher’s breaking ball, and etc. The poor men would cower, and then embrace her as one of their own. She wrote a great poem about baseball, included in the anthology, but baseball imagery shows up in all of her writing. The anthology includes excerpts from Stephen King (noted Red Sox fan), Amiri Baraka, Carl Sandberg, William Carlos Williams, and more. Excerpts from oral histories, including the one where the writer tracked down the mostly-forgotten players in the old Negro Leagues (many of whom have since been admitted into the Baseball Hall of Fame – belatedly, yes, but now they’re THERE.) The anthology is a lot of fun to flip through; as with most anthologies it’s not meant to be read cover-to-cover (although you could go that way too.)

The anthology starts with songs and poems. “Casey at the Bat,” by Ernest Thayer. (Once, when I was babysitting my nephew Cashel – who just turned 18 – I read to him before he went to bed. He was 4 years old. I pulled out “Casey at the Bat,” which was required reading in my family, and we all could recite it from memory, and said, “What about this one?” Cashel looked at the book and shook his small head. “It’s too sad.” Yes, Cashel. It is too sad. The tragedy of the ages is in that poem.) The lyrics to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Other ditties and poems from baseball’s earliest age.

Charles E. Van Loan was a screenwriter (he also directed one film in 1915) as well as a hugely popular sportswriter, maybe the first in this country to reach a wide audience. Baseball was picking up steam as the national pastime. Van Loan was born in 1876. He got his start in a couple of Los Angeles papers, and then moved to New York, where he got a gig as a sportswriter for a couple of different outlets. But it was his gig at The Saturday Evening Post, with its gigantic readership, that gave him the national platform. He and Damon Runyon were roommates. So picture that. Van Loan didn’t just write about baseball, he wrote about golf and horse-racing and boxing, as well as show business. One of those fascinating men that America could produce once upon a time and not so much now, a time when people were better-educated in general, and when education was not rigidified into limited specializations. Van Loan became an editor, and he was the guy who edited Ring Lardner’s humorous baseball-sketches that eventually became the baseball classic You Know Me Al.

In 1909, he wrote the following essay, “Baseball as the Bleachers Like It” for Outing magazine. It’s one of the earliest examples of not only analysis of the nuts-and-bolts of baseball, but an analysis of the fan-base. On a deeper level, Van Loan is after an expression of something much more ethereal, something that has obsessed baseball writers ever since. What is it about baseball?? WHY? If you’re a writer, you do not take your obsession for granted. You do not think the question “Why?” is shallow, insulting, or not of worthy your time. Non-writers may not understand this because they take the obsession for granted and get pissed when they are asked to explain themselves. But “Why??” is the writer’s WAY IN. I mean, I can relate to that from all my writings on my obsessions. Yes, everyone knows Cary Grant is great. Yes, everyone loves Elvis. Yes, Supernatural is wonderful and its fanbase is insanely devoted. But the really interesting question, and the challenge for a writer, is Why? Sometimes you must break a whole down into its parts in order to try to understand. That’s where you write from, and that’s where Van Loan is writing from here.

Van Loan gives a feel for the event of a baseball game as a whole. The ticket-taker. The folks in the grandstand. But he’s interested in the raucous wise-cracking trash-talking bleachers, where he always sits. “The true baseball fan sits on the bleachers, trimmed down to his shirt sleeves. No wire nettings in front of him, if you please. Why is he there day after day? … What is the lure of this mighty magnet – this thing, half sport, half business, which draws its millions of dollars every year?”

Van Loan goes into the game itself, what happens out there on that green diamond, the “problems” faced by the players that hold the fans in thrall. Ninth inning. 1-0. A battle of the pitchers, clearly. (I recently went to a Yankee-White Sox game which was a similar situation. Nothing happened because of those pitchers, and it was thrilling. Although “battle of the pitchers” games can be static to the point where all the players look like un-moving statues on the field, there is a different kind of thrill in that sort of game. The monumental psychological and physical battle going on between two determined pitchers on two opposing sides.) Van Loan calls such games “a very scientific contest.” Van Loan keeps his eye on the field, but he also keeps an eye on the cigar-chewing men around him, their mutters and murmurs, their groans, their sudden-tense stillness. With all that scientific stillness on the field, the fans understand what is really happening: A melodrama is unfolding right before their eyes. This is why baseball really requires an “insider” perspective. To an outsider, it appears boring. Like nothing is happening. At ALL. Where’s the overt jostle/strategy of football? Where’s the spectacle of galloping giants pounding up and down the court in basketball, a move, a play a minute? Why are those guys just standing there? Where are the home runs? The grand slams? Etc. There isn’t even a stop-watch on the damn thing to up the tension. But to an “insider,” such a game – well, all games – but “battle of pitchers” games are the best example of the challenges of baseball – is thrilling and tense, on an almost purely psychological level. What we are seeing out there is world-class skill: not letting anyone get on base, not only not letting anybody score, but not letting anybody even be in a POSITION to score. Do you know how hard that is? What is more dramatic than that?

In Van Loan’s multi-part essay are also two portraits of players who appeared to come from out of nowhere, leaping into the sport as full-blown natural phenomenons, Hal Chase and Ty Cobb. What is it that makes a great baseball player? A natural one. A combination of speed, and quick-thinking, and a three-dimensional understanding of spatial relationships. The best guys know all this without thinking. They only have three-tenths of a second to react, and in that three-tenths of a second they have to understand parabolae, rate of travel, depth of field … there are so many elements that go into making successful plays.

One of my favorite quotes in this regard was a casual remark from onetime Red Sox player Coco Crisp, when he was asked post-game how he made this incredibly flying-leap catch. Check it out.

Ty Cobb, of course, was one of the greatest baseball players to ever play the game, and he set a couple of records that lasted for 50 years. And some of his records (like stealing home base, or stealing 2nd/3rd/home in succession) still stand, unbroken to this day.

While I love nerds of all stripes (I don’t care if you’re obsessed with moon rocks, ballet, or the history of brick-laying in America: I think you are AWESOME for being obsessed about anything and I want to hear all you know), there is something special about baseball nerds. Maybe because I come from a family of baseball nerds. People who can rattle off statistics without looking them up. I come from a Red Sox family, but the stats knowledge is not (of course) limited to one team. We have had long discussions about the most unbreakable record in baseball (Example here). We discuss, we argue, we contemplate. A movie like Fastball (which I saw and loved at Tribeca this year) is MANNA for a baseball fan. Its focus is narrow, as the title suggests, but the best part was all these old-timer players, pitchers and batters, talking about facing off against such-and-such pitcher. These old-time guys still trembled at the thought of facing Nolan Ryan. And so, in terms of Ty Cobb, let’s take a look at the Baseball Almanac’s page recording the stats for stealing second, third, and home. If you’ll notice in that first chart, Ty Cobb is the only name that appears four times.

Back to Cobb: He was universally despised due to his horrible personality, and was constantly being thrown out of ball clubs. and it is rare that anybody anywhere has had anything good to say about him as a human being. This is only a problem if you are a person who requires professional athletes to be role models. Sure, it’s nice when they are. But whatever, who cares. Ty Cobb was a thoroughbred of the sport. And a ferocious competitor.

Here’s that great famous photograph of Ty Cobb sliding into third base during the 1909 season, coincidentally the same year as this essay.

So finally, after all that, just in time for the ending of the 2015 baseball season, let’s hear what Charles E. Van Loan had to say about Ty Cobb’s style of play and reputation in 1909.

Excerpt from Baseball: A Literary Anthology, edited by Nicholas Davidoff. “Baseball as the Bleachers Like It”, by Charles E. Van Loan

Tyrus was born in Georgia and early decided to be a semi-professional ball player. The difference between a professional and a semi-professional is that the former has a stated salary and always gets it, while the latter takes what he can get when he can get it.

Young Cobb walked six miles in the hot sun to play his first “money” game. When the receipts had been counted, Cobb’s share was one dollar and twenty-five cents. He walked six miles to his home and on the way decided that there was a future in professional baseball.

The Charleston team secured him. He was a wild, erratic youngster who could bat like a demon, but never knew when to stop running bases. It is just as important to know when to stop running as it is to know when to begin. He gained the reputation of a crazy base runner and Charleston sold him to Augusta for one hundred and fifty dollars and was glad to get the money.

Augusta tried him and found the same fault. He could hit, but he was wild and discipline irked him. He was a firebrand on the team and he would fight on the field or off. Ty won and lost several battles with the Augusta players and then the management sold him to Detroit for seven hundred dollars – the greatest bargain in the history of the game.

In Detroit young Mr. Cobb, the firebrand, found men who made baseball a study. It was a slugging team, but mixed with the hitting was the judgment which wins games. The players took a hand in taming that hot Southern blood. They argued with him, but as Ty wold rather fight than argue, most of the debates ended on the floor of the dressing room. Those cool, seasoned veterans of the Tier team knew that in Cobb they had a phenomenon, so they went at him methodically, literally “licking him into shape.” Some of them fought him more than once. Even to this day McIntyre plays left field and Cobb right field, because it is necessary to keep these two stars as far apart as possible.

Cobb has lost most of his rough edges. He has gone out of the rough-and-tumble business; he sheds no more blood in defense of his principles. He knows when to quit running bases, hits the ball hard and often, and makes doubles on hits which any other man would call legitimate singles.

He is as fast as a thunderbolt on the lines and the most daring man on a slide that baseball has seen in many a day. His slim, wiry legs are covered with bruises from April to October and he is always slightly lame until he hits the ball; then he forgets his soreness. Absolutely fearless, of great hitting ability, and a fighter every inch, Cobb is one of the great drawing cards in the baseball of to-day.

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Posted in Books | Tagged baseball, Baseball A Literary Anthology, essays, Marianne Moore | 15 Comments

Maestro Jerry Reed

Posted on November 2, 2015 by sheila

Jerry Reed playing an astonishing guitar medley (try to pick out the songs!) on The Porter Wagoner Show. Reed was one of the greatest guitar players who ever lived.

I love the stories of him being called in from the swamp where he was cat-fishing to play on a couple of Elvis tracks in 1969, I think it was. “Big Boss Man.” “Monkey Business.” “U.S. Male.” Reed was M.I.A., literally out in the swamp, but somehow someone got word to him and he rushed to the studio from the swamp, appearing like some Alabama Wild Man. He had never met Elvis in person. He played it cool. You listen to the tracks of those sessions, as they work songs out, nearing them to completion, and you can hear the rapport between Reed and Elvis. It’s Jerry Reed running that session. Not Elvis or the producer. Ultimately, it was Elvis’ talent in charge, his intuitive sense of the moment (Reed discusses one such instance here. That post also has clips of all the Elvis songs Reed played guitar on. An unmistakable sound.) When the session ended, a hard day’s work done, Jerry Reed said, the instant Elvis left the room, “He is more beautiful than any woman I have ever seen.” He had been holding that back for the entire session.

There’s so much Jerry Reed stuff out there, but I tripped over this one and fell in love. What a hot pairing. Jerry Reed’s song “She Got the Goldmine. I Got the Shaft” (one of my favorite song titles) is a litany of complaints about how much the dude has to pay in alimony. Dolly Parton introduces him to the stage, Reed takes over, and then she joins him, to tell her side of the story.

Pure pleasure watching these two perform together.

Posted in Music | Tagged Dolly Parton, Jerry Reed | 4 Comments

October 2015 Viewing Diary

Posted on November 1, 2015 by sheila

Moontide (1942; d. Archie Mayo – and an uncredited Fritz Lang)
And John O’Hara wrote the screenplay. How I love this film. Ida Lupino plays a suicidal girl, rescued from the waves by Bobo (a to-die-for Jean Gabin). Bobo is a womanizer, clearly has a serious drinking problem, with black-outs, and perhaps he … murdered someone the night before? And doesn’t remember it? In the meantime, Ida Lupino rests up in his “live bait” shack, floating on the waves by the docks, and over the course of a couple of days … the two connect. Despite his flaws, Bobo is a loving and warm and friendly person. Thomas Mitchell (a favorite of mine) plays Bobo’s best friend, a terrible man completely threatened by the fact that Bobo has met a woman, that Bobo may be changing his ways. Mitchell’s character is clearly gay, and has those feelings towards Bobo, but, of course, can’t express it. Therefore he takes it out on Ida Lupino. Terrible. Claude Rains is awesome, as the witty knowing friend of both. But he is first seen in the film in a flop-house, post-shower, being whipped by Thomas Mitchell with a towel. Radical. The film features explosions of feeling and emotion. Lupino and Gabin are so wonderful together. There are great little charcter portraits: the rich guy with the boat who keeps breaking down. You think he’ll turn out to be a snooty heartless guy, but he’s not. He’s drawn to Bobo too. Clearly I love Moontide.

Supernatural, Season 10, Episode 20, “Angel Heart” (2015; d. Steve Boyum)
Part of my Season 10 re-watch, getting ready for Season 11. This is why I like to return to things before commenting on them. My first response was a sort of “Meh” although that closing scene brought me to tears (and still does). There is still a “Meh” quality to some of this (Castiel meets another terrible angel and what do they do when they confront one another? A fist-fight. Come ON guys.) But the episode packs a huge punch, with its picture of family, forgiveness. I love the scenes with Sam and Dean and Claire. Sam taking her under his wing as a hunter. Dean rolling his eyes and playing miniature golf. “Well-played,” his response to her Happy Gimore zinger.

Supernatural, Season 10, Episode 21, “Dark Dynasty” (2015; d. Robert Singer)
Devastating. Honestly, though, I didn’t buy the fact that Rowena bothered Charlie so much that she would go off to a motel, and then sit by an open window working in plain view. What, you can’t put headphones on, Charlie, to drown out Rowena? Plus Castiel’s helplessness at dealing with the Estrogen-Battle going on. These plot-points felt manipulative. Okay, so Charlie must die, how do we make that happen? and etc.

Supernatural, Season 10, Episode 22, “The Prisoner” (2015; d. Thomas J. Wright)
Charlie Aftermath. Dean as badass. Dean also strapped to a table. Not a big fan of the Stynes (and their Abercrombie & Fitch model similarity in looks). But of all the “let’s stand over our burning fallen comrade” scenes in the history of the series, this one was the most brutal. Like it a lot.

Gilda (1946; d. Charles Vidor)
It was a Rita Hayworth-Gilda heavy couple of months, because of my assignment from Criterion for their upcoming release of the film. It’s been so much fun, and I floundered around helplessly for 24 hours after I handed in my first draft, thinking, “What will I do will all my time now??” And then, BOOM, the next day, the Oscars gig. Ain’t life like that.

Supernatural, Season 10, Episode 23, “Brother’s Keeper” (2015; d. Phil Sgriccia)
Hello Darkness, My Old Friend.

Welcome to Me (2014; d. Shira Piven)
Brilliant. And, best of all, it stuck to its guns. It did not “redeem” the character, except in her own mind, which is pretty fragile and out of touch to begin with. Kristen Wiig’s Alice Kleig deserves to stand alongside other great portraits of anti-social delusional outcasts (Rupert Pupkin in King of Comedy the clearest example, but there are many others. I had seen and loved the trailer. It was the kind of trailer that raised hopes. And I remember thinking, “Oh, please, don’t let this movie cop out.” And it didn’t. The movie is really really funny, but also pitch-black depressing. Almost surreal. But also a very pointed social commentary. It’s on my Top 10 of 2015, thus far.

Supernatural, Season 2, Episode 19, “Folsom Prison Blues” (2007; d. Mike Rohl)
In preparation for my next re-cap. “Poor … giant … Tiny.”

Supernatural, Season 2, Episode 21, “All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 1” (2007; d. Robert Singer)
Figured I’d move on to the end of Season 2, to get the trajectory of the whole seasonal Arc. Love these final episodes.

Supernatural, Season 2, Episode 22, “All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 2” (2007; d. Kim Manners)
Kim Manners at his highest of high-baroque Beauty-ness. Some of the episode actually hurts to look at it’s so beautiful.

Supernatural, Season 3, Episode 1, “Magnificent Seven” (2007; d. Kim Manners)
On a roll!

Supernatural, Season 3, Episode 2, “The Kids are All Right” (2007; d. Phil Sgriccia)
Welcome, Lisa, before she became, sadly, an Oompa Loompa. Dean’s behavior at the party, awkward and noticeable, knocking into trash cans, is some screwball shit. ALSO I love that for the entirety, except the last scene, Lisa’s entire vibe is, “What the hell are you doing here?” And it’s genuine. She’s busy now. She’s got her own life. Who is this guy with the Bedroom Eyes showing up all entitled 8 years later? I liked her immediately because of this. She felt real. And it’s important she feel real, due to everything that follows over the next seasons. You get the appeal. And it doesn’t have to do with hot sex. And that is very very interesting and illuminating.

Supernatural, Season 3, Episode 3, “Bad Day at Black Rock” (2007; d. Robert Singer)
I actually re-watched the original movie this month too! I love it so much, all that swaggering masculinity on display. It’s damn near pornographic. Or at least erotic. Men towering above the horizon. Men staring at each other across train tracks. Men glowering and gleaming like threatened peacocks. Good stuff. But the SPN episode is fun too and I adore Bela and will have much to say about her when the time comes. So far, the series had not featured a “femme fatale,” on the classic model of Barbara Stanwyck or Lana Turner or Gloria Grahame. Well, welcome Bela.

Supernatural, Season 3, Episode 5, “Bedtime Stories” (2007; d. Mike Rohl)
“I’m feeling dirty just thinking about it.” The entire Bela-Winchester relationship is extremely pleasing to me, since I grew up watching film noirs.

Saute ma ville (1968; d. Chantal Akerman)
Chantal Akerman died this month, and it’s a hard loss to wrap your head around. As I said elsewhere, if you read any Greatest Films of the 20th Century List and Jeanne Dielman isn’t on it: ignore the list, it’s no good. This is not just a matter of taste. This is about acknowledging the accomplishment of a 24-year-old director – younger than Welles when he did Citizen Kane, directing a film that completely changed film language. Perhaps only a young person could do that, could be so bold and confident. So it’s very upsetting that she is dead at 65. I went back and watched her first film, a 12-minute short called Saute Ma Ville (where she plays the lead character). It’s unforgettable. And it’s all there. She didn’t have to develop into a great artist. She just was one naturally. You can see Saute Ma Ville at the bottom of this post.

The Final Girls (2015; d. Todd Strauss-Schulson)
Reviewed for Rogerebert.com.

Outrage (1950; d. Ida Lupino)
An Ida Lupino-directed honest and raw film about rape and its PTSD aftermath. Ahead of its time. Insightful about what we now call “rape culture.” The entire film is on Youtube. It should be watched. Ida Lupino was a pioneer. Wrote about the film here.

The Killers (1946; d. Robert Siodmak)
A favorite noir, with a hotter-than-hot Burt Lancaster, and an even-hotter Ava Gardner. The film is a Russian nesting-doll. Flashbacks into flashbacks into flashbacks, told through varying perspectives, so that the point is, ultimately, lost. Does it matter “whodunit”? Who can figure anything out in such a dark and pessimistic world? Great film.

Supernatural, Season 3, Episode 6, “Red Sky at Morning” (2007; d. Cliff Bole)
I’ve said it before but I will reiterate, and I realize I am preaching to the choir!!: Yes, I know that the writing of this episode was dissed by the show itself in “Monster.” But I don’t care. I feel under no obligation to AGREE with anything anyone says, even if they work on the damn show. It is up to ME to decide whether or not I like something, or whether or not I think it works. I say this because people (no one here, but elsewhere) have a tendency to say stuff like this: “Remember, they themselves dissed the writing of this episode.” I see it on lots of fans’ Worst Of lists. Who knows, maybe these fans genuinely hate the episode, but it’s my contention that they feel the need to include it because the creators themselves made fun of it. “Remember … the writing staff made fun of it … so … ” Emanations from the writing staff or from Eric Kripke are not Holy Writ. Once something is out there in the world, it no longer BELONGS to Eric Kripke or the writing staff. It belongs to US. The same thing happens with Elvis’ movies. I love Elvis’ acting and I love his movies. Elvis hated the majority of the movies he was in and spoke about it at length. Nobody defends those movies. And it is my contention that the music writers who write about Elvis RESENT the movies for taking Elvis away from them, have ZERO idea how to analyze a good performance, AND have Elvis’ words in their head. “Well, he was really unhappy with doing them, therefore THAT must be the filter through which I see the Elvis films.” Really? I feel no loyalty to Elvis in that way. So I’ll write about an Elvis movie, and inevitably someone will show up and say “You know that Elvis hated all of his movies.” Again, my questions are: So? And Who Cares? I’m supposed to only agree with Elvis? I hate bananas, but I’m not gonna force them down my throat just because Elvis loved them. We have been given MINDS, so let’s use them. I don’t CARE what Eric Kripke said. I don’t CARE what the other writers said. I mean, it’s interesting (I guess), but I don’t feel pressured to AGREE with one single word of it. All of this is to say, I really enjoy “Red Sky at Morning,” its screwball-vibe, its dress-up sequence. The cemetery scene at the end is stupid, but please, there have been far FAR FAR worse episodes than “Red Sky at Morning”. And I could watch Bela go toe-to-toe with the Winchesters for hours on end. So THERE.

Supernatural, Season 3, Episode 7, “Fresh Blood” (2007; d. Kim Manners)
I miss Gordon.

No Man of Her Own (1950; d. Mitchell Leisen)
A beautiful and disturbing film (the film was remade, in more of a comedic vein, years later into While You Were Sleeping). Barbara Stanwyck plays an unwed mother who ends up being taken in by the family of their son (who had abandoned her). But she’s not who they think she is. And she can’t bring herself to come clean, because this is the first family she’s ever had. And she doesn’t want to leave. But the past, as always, comes roaring back to haunt her. I love this film, and I love the exteriors too. Snowy nights, ice-crusted roads, abandoned train stations, dark dark and gloomy. Great acting.

Supernatural, Season 11, Episode 1, “Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire” (2015; d. Robert Singer)
The amorality of Darkness was pleasing to me. A force of nature. And nature is feminine. Camille Paglia would be pleased.

Supernatural, Season 3, Episode 10, “Dream a Little Dream Of Me” (2008; d. Steve Boyum)
In my Top 10 episodes in the entire series.

The Quiet Man (1952; d. John Ford)
Coincidentally, along with the Criterion Gilda assignment and the Lifetime Achievement Oscar assignment, I had another assignment this past month: a huge essay about John Wayne in The Quiet Man. I say coincidentally only because Maureen O’Hara just died, and this was her most famous role. So I watched the movie about three times this month, so I could study Wayne’s performance more closely. That essay won’t be available for a bit, but I did talk about the chemistry between Wayne and O’Hara – and, in particular, Wayne’s open sexuality in the film – here.

Pacific Rim (2013; d. Guillermo del Toro)
A re-watch in preparation for Crimson Peak, which I was assigned to review. I love Pacific Rim.

Youtube: Hours and hours of the Jodi Arias trial. I completely missed that entire thing the first time around because I was too busy having a crack-up and going into medically-induced recovery. My, what I missed. I’m obsessed. My obsession is almost purely behavioral in nature. This woman fascinates me. And her first police interrogation (you know, the one where she does a handstand, puts pieces of paper down her pants, and sings a couple of songs when left alone in the room) is now taught in police academies and behavioral-science units across the land, because of just how revealing it is. Listen, I had one of the busiest two months in recent memory. Well, maybe preparing for my short film earlier this year rivaled it, but in that one, at least I wasn’t in CHARGE. So I needed to let off steam somehow. And to me … watching Jodi Arias lie with every breath … accomplished that.

Supernatural, Season 3, Episode 14, “Long Distance Call” (2008; d. Robert Singer)
Once I started going into Season 3, I had fun jumping around. I like the psychological tailspin Dean goes into. It’s so transparent (what a shock). I also like Sam trying to keep the boat steady. Plus Dean’s thumbs-up bonding with the telephone guy on porn.

The Quiet Man (1952; d. John Ford)
See above.

Crimson Peak (2015; d. Guillermo Del Toro)
I reviewed for Rogerebert.com.

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955; d. John Sturges)
I wrote about this above. The masculinity on display … Robert Ryan. Lee Marvin. Ernest Borgnine. Spencer Tracy. The strange “Village of the Damned” way the men of the town look at Spencer Tracy when he gets off that train. The purpose of the film is to grapple with what was done to Japanese-Americans during the course of the second World War. It’s a socially conscious film, perhaps a bit heavy-handed – but sometimes cultural sins need to be treated with a heavy hand. Spencer Tracy is the moral center of the film, carrying with him natural authority, so the impact of his humanism is enormous. It says: “What was done to our fellow citizens was wrong.”

Blue Gardenia (1953; d. Fritz Lang)
It was a film noir heavy month. I love the films of Fritz Lang and Blue Gardenia is so excellent! Anne Baxter is so good as the telephone operator, in love with a guy stationed in Korea, who rejects her by mail, and in her devastation ends up going out with Raymond Burr for a night. He gets her way WAY too drunk, and there’s an altercation at his apartment. She has no memory of what happened. But Raymond Burr ended up dead. A gigantic “man”-hunt starts for the murderer. Richard Conte plays a hot-shot journalist who begins his own investigation, trying to track down the “blue gardenia,” as the unknown murderess is called. (Black Dahlia? Hm.) She’s called that because she was last seen at a club called The Blue Gardenia, AND Nat King Cole performs that song IN the film, just to drive the point home. Richard Conte feels he must reach the “blue gardenia” before the cops do, that if he tells her side of the story before she’s arrested, she’ll have a better shot. (Richard Conte, by the way, has a pretty thankless part here, although he’s wonderful. Probably most well-known for The Godfather, Conte was great in noirs too, particularly The Big Combo in which – radical for its day – it suggested that his character was going down on his girlfriend. Good for him. And her.)

They Live By Night (1948; d. Nicholas Ray)
What a great film. And so influential. Young film-makers nowadays may think that they’re imitating Bonnie and Clyde, but Bonnie and Clyde itself was an imitation of They Live By Night. It is a film that has 100 children and 1000 grandchildren.

Supernatural, Season 11, Episode 2, “Form and Void” (2015; d. Philip Sgriccia)
Night of the Hunter. That’s all I care about. As ridiculous as it sounds, I felt personally validated by that. I’m insane.

Room (2015; d. Lenny Abrahamson)
I keep meaning to write about this extraordinary film. I started a review, but had to put it aside because of other deadlines. Harrowing. Great acting. Best not to say too much more, and I would avoid reviews before seeing it. This is a must-see, people. It’s one of the best films of the year.

Suffragette (2015; d. Sarah Gavron)
No good. I reviewed for Rogerebert.com.

Dallas Buyers Club (2013; Jean-Marc Vallée)
There’s a piece I want to write eventually about straight people playing transgender characters. I know it’s been done everywhere else but I still want to write about it. I just don’t have time right now, but figured I’d start my research. Check it off the list.

Supernatural, Season 3, Episode 15, “Time is On My Side” (2008; d. Charles Beeson).
What a messed UP episode. And here’s Rufus. That scene between him and Dean is a masterpiece, a chess-playing make-your-move-keep-your-poker-face masterpiece. I love that although Dean is the one facing death, the episode is really about Sam’s desperation. He’d have to be desperate to think that Frankenstein over there would be a valid option for his brother. But to me it’s painfully beautiful, that he cares that much about saving his brother that he’d go to this length. Also, I like it when Sam carries damsels-in-distress in his arms. It’s hot and appealing. I’m retro. Guilty as charged. PLUS the Bela sub-plot coming to a close (and I, for one, am bummed.) It’s nasty. Because you can see what happened to her in her childhood to make her who she was. And Dean had actually guessed it, if you recall. He clocked it. (Which also connects her to the classic femme fatale. Dissertations have been written about what is REALLY going on with the femme fatale’s sexuality. Because she is only seen through the eyes of men, she appears to be a voracious spider-woman, manipulative and brutal. Which she IS. But there have been other theories, having to do with sexuality and what happens to it when it has been brutalized. These are broad points, and of course there are exceptions, but that’s what I think of when I think of Bela. And Dean Winchester may not have read any dissertations on the sexuality of the femme fatale – but he looks at her, and hates her, but he also recognizes that aspect of her. Takes one to know one.) I, for one, miss Bela. But LOVED how her arc closed itself out. Because of course. Of course that’s how a “Bela” happens in the world of Supernatural. And of course both Dean and Sam would have seething contradictory love/hate fight/fuck responses to her. That’s what a femme fatale does. For her own reasons, reasons which she will never ever share. Her secrets go with her to her grave.

Supernatural, Season 3, episode 16, “No Rest for the Wicket” (2008; d. Kim Manners)
Creepy Child Alert! I honestly didn’t need TWO close-ups of the nanny’s face covered in flies. And THE most upsetting final scene in the entire series. Watching it you realize, yet again, how much the show lost when Hell became comprehensible, a place, populated by Power-Point-wielding minions.

Sensation Hunters (1933; d. Charles Vidor)
This was also part of my Gilda project. Familiarizing myself with the sheer scope of director Charles Vidor’s career. Not known for one particular style or genre, he’s mostly associated with musicals (having directed popular Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly films. Plus the 1955 Love Me or Leave Me, featuring tour de force performances from both Doris Day and James Cagney. Cagney was nominated for an Oscar). Sensation Hunters is a Pre-Code. So what does that mean? It features many scenes of women in their underwear. Bare legs. It’s frank about sex, about alcoholism, about how showgirls (or strippers/burlesque artists) can descend into a life of prostitution. Walter Brennan shows up as a stuttering waiter, surrounded by the floozy “headmistress” of showgirls/prostitution, all as the gals get undressed in the room together, sipping from flasks, sometimes getting into fist fights. You know, this kind of raw unvarnished reality (reality in some circles, anyway) would vanish completely once the Code came down.

Gallipoli (1981; d. Peter Weir)
That final shot. I saw this in a movie theatre and there was a collective gasp of total sorrow, a group “Oh NO.” Grueling. Beautifully shot. (Great special features too, interviews with everyone).

A Question of Love (1978; d. Jerry Thorpe)
Part of my Gena Rowlands-Lifetime-Achievement-Oscar gig. Rowlands is so associated with her husband’s films that it’s important to move them out of the way to see the rest of the career (which is still going on). She did some very important and radical TV movies in the 70s and 80s, the most famous one being An Early Frost, about AIDS (10 years before Philadelphia), a gorgeous film where she co-stars as Bette Davis’ daughter called Strangers, and then this, a film about a lesbian mother fighting for custody of her son. I wrote about it here.

Supernatural Season 11, Episode 3, “The Bad Seed” (2015; d. Jensen Ackles)
Pretty funny to see this right on the heels of the murderous Lilith-child at the end of Season 3. Nothing creepier than a cute small child in a dress apparently. While the entire episode was exposition, Ackles has grown so much as a director (although he started really strong). There are really cool angles, great murky colors, and a sensitivity to working with females (child and grown) that shows in the performances. He cared about how those two were framed, about how to present them: both mysterious and explicit. Season 11 so far is all about women. To mis-quote Coleridge, Women women everywhere and not a drop to drink.

Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger (2014; d. Joe Berlinger)
Love Joe Berlinger’s films and my family is from Boston, I’ve got cousins who live in “Southie” (Whitey’s stomping grounds), so he was a boogey-man from our childhood. IRONICALLY, I happened to be in Santa Monica on the day he was busted there. I still can’t believe it. I’m in the apartment in Santa Monica, and I see the news … that Whitey Bulger had been found – and it was literally 2 blocks from where I was staying. So Maria and I set out to see what we could see. She said into her phone, asking Siri: “Whitey Bulger’s apartment” which made her look like an FBI officer undercover. We got to the apartment and it was a madhouse. The poor residents in the building had put up a hand-written sign on the front door: “PEOPLE ACTUALLY LIVE HERE.” It was just a weird thing, to have this Boston Myth for decades suddenly be busted within walking distance of where I was staying all the way across the country. Anyway, it’s a really good documentary.

Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter (1979; d. Millton Katselas)
Gena Rowlands Oscar-piece Part II. This was a movie that Rowlands did with Bette Davis, in Bette Davis’ awesome Late-Renaissance period in TV movies. It’s almost too pleasurable to tolerate: watching these two actresses play scenes together. And the whole thing is just them. They play an estranged mother and daughter. It’s amazing. Whole thing is on Youtube, in 10 parts.

The Martian (2015; d. Ridley Scott)
Loved it! I reviewed it here.

Islands in the Sky (1953; d. William A. Wellman).
What a fantastic John Wayne movie. Filmed out in the Sierra Nevadas (a stand-in for the Arctic Circle), it’s about an Army Transport Plane that runs out of fuel and has to make an emergency landing in the middle of an ice field. They are beyond radio contact. Nobody died in the landing, but the temperature is 40 below, they have limited rations, and nothing lives up there in the cold white. The situation is immediately dire. Back on the Base, through snatches of radio messages and radar, the other guys try to put together the general area where the plane went down, and go out on a series of dangerous search-and-rescue missions. It’s a Robinson Crusoe story. A battle to survive. Survival has as much to do with psychological strength as physical. The flying sequences, done with actual Douglas C-47s, swooping over ice fields, have to be seen to be believed. GREAT aviation movie.

Black Widow (1954; d. Nunnally Johnson).
I love the sick sexuality in the film: we’re in the 1950s now, a far more repressed age than the 30s or 40s. WWII gave women more power, made them more visible as individuals. The GIs returned home and the culture snapped shut, with a “Well, THAT’S all over now, thank goodness” feeling. Elvis has yet to blow the roof off. But that sexual stuff is still in operation. Van Heflin plays a guy happily married to Gene Tierney. They’ve had some problems, but they overcame them. They both work in the theatre. Van Heflin is producing a hit show starring Ginger Rogers (she gives first a hilarious performance and then a truly touching performance). He feels sorry for a young writer who is looking for a “way in” to the business and befriends her and tries to help her out. Big mistake. BIG mistake.

The Killer Speaks, Season 1, Episode 1 “Ice Cold: Levi King” (2013; d. Marshall Johnson)
Okay, so sue me, I got sucked into this A&E series on Netflix and watched them all. Or as many as I could. This is a version of what my friend Allison and I call “Blood Everywhere” shows, because in each episode, someone inevitably says, “There was blood … EVERYWHERE.” Not that there are good murders, but this one was completely senseless.

The Killer Speaks, Season 1, Episode 2 “Mad Maks: Maksim Gelman” (2013; d. Marshall Johnson)
I was in New York when “Mad Maks” went on his rampage. I’m pretty hardened by now, and I watched planes fly into the World Trade Center, so I’m not easily spooked. But Mad Maks got to me. I remember subways being shut down because he was hiding out on them. He was completely out of control. And he shows zero remorse. In the interview in this episode, he still seems completely frightening and I hope he never sees the light of day again.

The Killer Speaks, Season 1, Episode 4, “Twisted Love: Dena Riley” (2013; d. Marshall Johnson)
Losers. Throw away the key.

The Killer Speaks, Season 1, Episode 5, “Payback: Earl Forrest” (2013; d. Marshall Johnson)
Earl Forrest, who seems like a nice guy actually, does not feel guilt about killing his best friend of 30 years. He maintains from prison: “None of this would have happened if she had just done what she said she would do.” Again: throw away the key. This guy still doesn’t get it.

James White (2015; d. Josh Mond)
An incredible film. I wrote about it here. If you are sick of tentpole-blockbusters, if you want to support smaller more intimate stories, independent film in general, then it’s almost a civic duty to support a film like James White. (Same with Room.)

Another Woman (1988; d. Woody Allen)
One of Gena Rowlands’ best performances. She hadn’t wanted to accept the part because it was being filmed in New York and her husband was dying. But John Cassavetes urged her to do it. She went. She has said that the separation was incredibly painful. In this film, she plays a character unlike anything she has ever played before or since. If you only saw Another Woman, you would assume that Gena Rowlands had made her name playing chilly reserved intellectuals. Like, that’s how good she is. Surrounded by powerhouse actors, who have memorable scenes (Sandy Dennis has one, and Betty Buckley has one: a 5 minute scene of acting so intense you want to look away from it), Rowlands’ character is a woman out of touch with her feelings, so much that when the depths are plumbed … her entire edifice starts to crumble. She has no stability anymore. And Gene Hackman is so so sexy.

The Fifth Estate: Russell Williams Confession (2010)
Along with Jodi Arias, I became mildly obsessed with Russell Williams this month as well. I remember that whole thing going down of course, but had actually never watched the famous confession in full. This is a TV episode, talking to police investigators about what was going on in that room, what police officers can learn, Russell Williams’ behavioral “tells.” The entire confession is on Youtube. I realize that I am 5 years late to this party, so I assume that most everyone in North America has already seen the damn thing and I am just discovering its dark fascination.

Supernatural, Season 11, Episode 4, “Baby” (2015; d. Thomas J. Wright)
I actually found this so pleasurable that 1. I almost couldn’t get through it in one sitting and 2. I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet. A magical and powerful episode. The Impala as God. Watching over them always. Taken for granted, and loved. But not perceived as powerful as it might be. Filmed from the perspective of the Impala. Plus, loved the detail that it was through two random women – Piper, and the joy-riding valet-parker and her friend – that Dean was saved. Twice. Hairpin. Penny. Objects as Talismans. Expectation: that either women would turn out to be a demon, a monster. That car-valet careening away from the parking lot would be driving the Impala right to Crowley (for example). Or something. That Piper would be seducing Sam as some manipulative demon move. But no. Women in this episode were living their own lives, having a blast, doing their thing, not obsessed by The Darkness, but out to have a good time. And they leave things behind. Objects as talismanic as the Legos stuck in the grate. Objects that can save. Like I said: Women women everywhere and not enough to drink. Here I am talking about the episode. I don’t know what it is. It made me feel tender, and it’s not a particularly familiar feeling, so I’ve had to hole up with myself over it. I love that tenderness! Supernatural withholds its tenderness and softness, one of the main strengths of the series. This was masterfully done, from conception to completion. Life and the Universe through the Impala’s watchful eyes.

Our Times (2002; d. Rakhshān Bani E’temād).
Very strange coincidence, but Jessie just showed up this morning in the thread on dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s Taxi), discussing another Iranian film called Tales, directed by the great Rakhshān Bani E’temād. I haven’t seen that one, but I did JUST see this past week her documentary about the raucous 2001 elections in Iran, Our Times. Bani E’temād is one of the preeminent film-makers in Iran, and definitely its most famous female filmmaker. Our Times is an on-the-ground portrayal of the youth organizers, politically rallying around the reform ticket, as exemplified by Khatami. It was the eighth Presidential election in Iran’s history, and really the first time that the youth got involved like they did. It also was the first election where almost half of the candidates for President were women. Some of them were just college students, but they put their names on a ticket, to make a statement. They want reform for women. They want economic reform, so that women can be financially independent. These brave women (and girls, some of them) agreed to be interviewed. One young college student talks about her decision to “run”, even though she knew she would never be elected. When her parents are asked what THEY think about the whole thing, her father jokes that they now refer to her as “Madame President.” “Madame President, could you wash the dishes?” There’s a tragic feeling in the film because we all know what happened in the following decade, the brutal bloody crackdown of 2009, etc. But it’s a powerful film about the political process.

Poison (1991; d. Todd Haynes)
I’m assigned to review Carol and could not be happier about it. I love the Patricia Highsmith novel on which it is based. So, to review, I’m going back to watch his filmography. It’s hard to believe Poison is a debut. It’s so bold, so great-looking, so audacious. It was controversial then (shots of penises, rough gay sex, etc. The whole thing is based on the works of Jean Genet), and it could still be controversial now, I suppose. A brilliant film, and very tough to take.

The Visitor (2007; d. Tom McCarthy)
I am also assigned to review Spotlight, opening this coming Friday, so I thought I should go back and re-watch The Visitor, also directed by Tom McCarthy. Sorry, though, I cannot watch The Cobbler. Richard Jenkins is so great. The film is very upsetting. The one shot of the blurry American flag at the airport was a bit obvious. We get it, we get it. Enough already. But excellent acting.

Call Me Marianna (2015; d. Karolina Bielawska)
A gorgeous film about “Marianna”, who was born Wotjek (a man) and is now going through the sex change process. She has to choose between her family and her true identity. She wants to have both. She begs to have both. Part documentary, part drama. It’s beautiful. It’s playing this week at MoMA and I’m running the QA afterwards, and interviewing the director, so I need to bone up on it. Very good film.

Magic Mike (2012; d. Steven Soderbergh)
What can I say, I can’t get enough. Went back and re-watched the first one, after the frenzy of the sequel earlier this spring. It’s a very good film, although it’s played in a minor-key as opposed to the C-major version of the sequel. Beautiful. And GORGEOUS and moving final shot as the camera pulls away from the two figures at the table. And wait for it … wait for it … it’s not over yet … don’t turn away because right before it goes to black …

Farewell, October. You were NUTS.

Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television | Tagged Australia, Channing Tatum, Chantal Akerman, Charles Vidor, Claude Rains, documentary, England, France, Gena Rowlands, Gilda, Guillermo del Toro, Ida Lupino, Iran, Iranian film, Ireland, Joe Berlinger, John Ford, John Sturges, John Wayne, Kristen Wiig, Maureen O'Hara, Mexico, Nicholas Ray, Peter Weir, Poland, Ridley Scott, Rita Hayworth, Supernatural, Thomas Mitchell, William Wellman | 70 Comments

The Sheila Variations

R.I.P. Gunnar Hansen, aka “Leatherface”

Review: The Assassin (2015); d. Hou Hsiao-Hsien

The Books: Baseball: A Literary Anthology; Excerpt from “The Glory of Their Times”, by Lawrence S. Ritter

Happy Birthday, Vivien Leigh

Review: Spotlight (2015)

Tonight at MoMA, 7 p.m.: Call Me Marianna (2015)

Supernatural, Season 11, Oops, Sorry

The Books: Baseball: A Literary Anthology; “Baseball as the Bleachers Like It”, by Charles E. Van Loan

Maestro Jerry Reed

October 2015 Viewing Diary

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