First Man down

OK, FIRST MAN, the story of Neil Armstrong and his first steps on the moon is, how do I put it? A goddamn bore. Unless you like seemingly endless close-ups of the actor playing an unresponsive Armstrong. More than once I thought the video had paused for no reason. It reminded me of, dare I say it? BARRY LYNDON. You can forget about establishing shots. Action is seen through Amstrong's eyes. The take-off from Earth, the moon landing and the ascent from the surface. I can hardly believe the man who’s directed LA LA LAND directed this snoozer.

What's on TV?

From the folks who brought you ID4 and ID4.2 is GEOSTORM. All I expected was great CGI and that is what I got. The story is lame and the dialogue is absurd. ID4.3 is in preproduction despite the fact ID4.2 was a costly flop. And a bore. 

Which brings me to: SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY, which is underperforming at the box office. At a final cost of between 250 and 300 millions dollars it must gross at least half a billion to even come close to breaking even. Ron Howard took over direction after the amateur clowns originally hired got the axe after trying to make a comedy. The joke was on them. I have not seen SOLO. I expect I never will. 

 I managed about 20 minutes of HBO's FAHRENHEIT 451. Some black guy who is supposedly well known played Guy Montag. Guy does his work broadcast on TV with American watching everything he does. He has a flame thrower that delivers a flame with the narrow accuracy of a Remington 700. He's a boxer who delights in pummeling newly discovered book readers. “That that, four eyes!” He hates ebooks. As far as I watched, no books were torched, but computers burned to cheering crowds, most who watched the burning images projected on the glass sides of high rise office buildings. There was no sign of Clarisse. I fled this disaster as Guy and his macho man captain were telling a bunch of schoolkids the Bible was the one OK book they could read. As far as I watched, the Hound was missing. The show was enough of a dog. 

 Finally, I arrived at THE CIRCLE. Minor role for Tom Hanks, who must have not read the script. The little chick who was in the Harry Potter films starred and I am somewhat under impressed by her presence and acting ability (reshoots were required to make her more appealing to the audience). The story is; Big Brother has arrived, but it is OK, because MS/Apple (whatever) is Big Brother. Bill Paxton's final film. He plays Glenne Headly's husband. She died shortly after the film's release. They both left us far too young. 

How could I forget? THE GHOST IN THE SHELL. It had the great looking Scarlett Johansson as a robot. Lots of robots in this mess. Yeah, something about robots in a future Japan. I am not clear of what it was about. I only watched because of Ms Johansson.

New Director. Trumpster's Pick

At a White House press conference today, President Trump appointed Barney Fife as the new director of the FBI. When a reporter told Mr Trump Fife was a fictional television character, the president stormed out of the room shouting the reporter was creating fake news in an attempt to discredit the nominee. Sean Spicer later told the assembled press fictionality did not prevent the new director from carrying out his duties . Fox News commentators expressed support for the president.

What' da expect, Chimes?

For the second time in 40 years I attempted to watch Orson Welles' attack on Shakespeare's histories, Chimes at Midnight. The sound, or lack of it, defeats me. The actor's voices emerge from a void. No room-tone, no presence, few sound effects. Considering his background in radio, where sound sells the scene, I would think he would not ignore that important aspect of his movie. I realize he had a tight budget, but couldn't he afford a dialogue editor? Couldn't he afford a Nigra sync recorder? I suspect he shot with a unblimped camera, perhaps with production recording as only a guide track. The dialogue is out of sync.

 All of his non Hollywood films suffer from this misfortune. It distracting, it detracts from the words. It looks amateurish. The deaf and blind "film critic" TCM hired to introduce Chimes declared it to be Welles' masterpiece, his best film; contrary to the usual declaration that Citizen Kane is his best film.

SHADOW OF THE HAWK - review, of novel by Ron Honthaner

There are few Western stories burned in the memory. THE BIG SKY, LONESOME DOVE and TRUE GRIT are three that come to mind. The choice few. All three are endowed with vivid settings, memorable characters, and dialogue that rings true. A forth novel may be added to that august list. 

 The story of SHADOW OF THE HAWK is the story Mike McCloskey and the story of the West; from the keelboats on the Ohio, downriver with the steamships to New Orleans, to the coming of the railroad in Montana. It is also the story of men like Mike McCloskey, good and bad, that populate this odyssey and make the West what it became, the good and the bad. We meet McCloskey as he pays the price for a good deed. The sort that never go unpunished. Like every tragic hero a single mistake changes his life and the lives of friends and foe alike. A posse can pursue him with the intent of taking his freedom, but his pride eludes them.

 Mr. Honthaner has constructed a door to the past and invited you to step through. Take that step. You’ll enjoy it. Ron Honthaner now joins the ranks of the likes of A.B. Guthrie, Charles Portis and Larry McMurtry. We can only hope this is the first of many novels.

ROGER EBERT: MAN OF MOVIES

“You can bark like a dog all your want, but you’re still a baboon.” Bertrand Russell to Roger Ebert. 

 I hate to complain, which begs the question, “why do you complain to much?” My answer? To get it right. Tonight my complaint concerns the CNN tribute to the late ego-bloated television personality, Roger Ebert. I give my limited exposure to this Ebert love fest thumbs down, or as The Ebert would put it, “half a star for being artistically inept”, and, “failing to achieve what it set out to achieve”, that being to convince the viewer he was nothing other than a shameless self promoter. (My understanding of what any movie sets out to achieve is simple: to make money.) 

 This lout had no other intention in newspaper work than to earn money. The regular newser “film critic” was out with the poorlyables while The Ebert was in grad school while newsing, until he stumbled into BONNIE AND CLYDE. That doctorial dissertation on English Lit. suddenly was as remote as his Catholicism was to the Avignon Papsacy. Given the choice between covering a wreck inside the Loop and sitting in a dark room for two hours then writing on a subject he knew little or nothing about was as clear as a summer’s day under an azure sky. It mattered not he did not know the difference between a jump rope and a jump cut; he was a “film critic!” (Good thing for him it wasn’t an opening for a ballet critic) Wow, Hollywood is famous for making instant experts on subjects the expert didn’t know existed but a few hours before. 

 “Tonight class, we will examine the importance of an actors eye line in the BEST FILM EVER MADE, CITIZEN KANE” (always the correct answer to any question in The Movies). He became famous when joined up with Gene Siskel (the reviewer who at times would find a film he was reviewing more interesting were it two reels of the leads eating lunch. Which brings to mind the lines from THE PRODUCERS: “Take money! Buy bullets! Shoot the actors!” “You can’t shoot the actors! They’re not animals!” “Oh no? Have you ever eaten with one?”). 

 Oh yeah, is a film thumbs-up, or thumbs-down or deserving of stars, one, two, three, four, or who gives a shit? It put films right up there with Mister Blackwell’s best or worst dressed list (to port or starboard) End reel one; pop,pop,pop, beep!

The Theory of Everything

Yesterday in History, X-ray tech, historian, film expert, and general know-it-all, John Welsh, stopped watching THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING after about 45 minutes. A film critic known for his high tolerance for boredom, he could no longer tolerate the acute tedium of a movie about Stephen Hawking that started out slow and declined to a stillness worse than death. Worse, the viewer got no sense of the great mind prisoner in a degraded body. The focus was on the soap opera like coverage on his marriage and home-life. Think gag and puke. All in all, the picture was a disservice to the greatest theoretical physicist since Einstein, and a challenge to the viewer to stay awake (the noted cinema critic did fall asleep).