ACTING CLASS, WITH BRANDO

Hamlet offered advice to the traveling troop of actors who visited Elsinore:

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently. . .

We act every day; life is performance. Most of us are not very good at it. Some elevate acting to the professional level. This clip is from a New York City acting workshop led by award-winning actor/director Thurman E. Scott.

An actor behind the scenes: Marlon Brando and Francis Ford Coppola on the set of "The Godfather."

To help us, we've recruited Marlon Brando the greatest screen actor of his generation, perhaps all time, who revolutionized and naturalized the art of acting. Even if we skip the more familiar performances from "A Streetcar Named Desire," "On the Waterfront," and "The Godfather," there are still many dynamic scenes to choose from.


Marlon Brando started on the stage, and here he plays Marc Antony in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." (1953) Contrast this big grand style of stage acting with the films that follow.


A scene with the amazing Anna Magnani from "The Fugitive Kind" (1960). Brando achieved stardom on Broadway, playing Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire." Here he plays Valentine "Snakeskin" Xavier in a film based on another Williams' play, "Orpheus Descending."


Paul's eulogy in "Last Tango in Paris." (1972) Believe it or not, this was the same year he played Vito Corleone in "The Godfather." An absolutely brilliant performance. (language warning on this clip)

Brando is interviewed in 1973, after winning--and rejecting--the Academy Award for Best Actor for "The Godfather." He skipped the ceremony and sent Native American rights activist Sacheen Littlefeather, in full Apache dress, to explain his objection to the depiction of American Indians by Hollywood and television. Needless to say, Brando stirred some controversy, especially among the old warhorses like John Wayne. Here, Brando plays himself.

BUDD SCHULBERG DIES

Marlon Brando was brilliant, and Rod Steiger was no slouch, but who put the words in their mouths? Screenwriter Budd Schulberg, who died today.

The controversial Schulberg had a fascinating life that included working with John Ford's documentary unit in WWII, and being one of the first US servicemen to liberate Nazi-run concentration camps. Later, during the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s, Schulberg was named as a communist, and he buckled and decided to "name names" as a friendly witness. It was not his finest hour.

Maybe he assuaged his guilt with "On the Waterfront." The movie seems to be a parable about the courage of a man to "name names," in this case a palooka named Terry Malloy (Brando) whose brother, Charley the Gent (Steiger) is the lawyer for a mobbed-up union boss named Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb). This iconic scene in the taxi is a testimony to Schulberg's art as well as the actors, and we feel Terry's pain as he laments his wasted life as a bum who "coulda been a contender," and then decides to do the right thing and be a "cheese-eater."

Budd Schulberg, 1954

TU VUO' FA' L'AMERICANO

You might recognize this swinging Italian tune from "The Talented Mr. Ripley," a film adapted from a crime novel by Patricia Highsmith. (An even better adaptation of the same book is "Plein Soleil," a french film from 1960 starring Alain Delon as Ripley) In this scene, Jude Law and Matt Damon join a jumping Italian band to sing Tu Vuo' Fa' L'Americano. See if you can keep up.

Tu vuo' fa l'americano !
" mmericano! "mmericano!
siente a me, chi t'ho fa fa ?
tu vuoi vivere alla moda
ma si bive " Whisky and soda"
p? te sente' e disturb?
tu abballe'o" Rocco Roll"
tu giochi al "basebal"
ma'e solde pe' camel
chi te li d? ?...
la borsetta di mamm? !
tu vou' fa l'americano
" mmericano, "mmericano!"
ma si nato in Italy !
siente a me non ce st? niente a fa
okay, napolitan !
tu vuo' fa l'american !

The original, by Renato Carosone in 1958.

What's the meaning of this canzone Napolitane? Here is a rough translation:

You want to make like an American,
You want to make like an American,
And want to live in the latest style,
But when you drink whiskey & soda it makes you sick.

You dance to rock & roll and play baseball,
Sure, but when you need money for Camels,
Where do you go? To Mamma's pocketbook.

So you want to make like an American,
But you were born in Italy.
Seems to me there's nothing to be done.
OK, you're Neapolitan anyway.

Another take on Mr. Ripley, "Plein Soleil," directed by René Clément in 1960

INCREDIBLE CONTRAPTIONS & GIZMOS

Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible!


"Be realistic - demand the impossible!"



"Gizmo," directed by Howard Smith, is a brilliant compilation of oddballs, inventors and strange contraptions from yesteryear. Highly entertaining. You must see this.

THE WATCHMEN

Who's watching the Watchmen? Everyone, evidently. It smashed attendance records this opening weekend. The comic book adaptation about a team of retired, flawed superheroes took $55.7 million - the biggest opening weekend of 2009 so far. Obviously, more then just drooling fanboys took in the show. Some of them may have actually brought dates.

Anything's possible in an alternative history. That's the case here, another speculative distopia, a what if? This title sequence sets up the backstory, to the tune of Bob Dylan, in which the Vietnam War ends in a US victory and Richard Nixon is elected for a third term. That's just the set-up. The original comic series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons came out in 1986-87 to wide acclaim. Time Magazine ranked it in the top 100 novels of all time. I kid you not.

Is it worth all the fuss? I don't know. Honestly, I'm tired of movies made from comic books and the general dumbing down of film storylines. I haven't read the comic or seen the movie, but I intend to, otherwise my cartoonist buddies will treat me like the Furies treated Orpheus. The comic looks like beautiful work, so maybe I'll start there.

'Nuff said!

A page from the comic--click to enlarge.

SPACE IS THE PLACE

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" is a brilliant movie, a science fiction film that rises above it's humble, cheesy genre to the level of a Hollywood classic. We're talking the 1951 version, not the remake currently in theaters starring Keanu Reeves.

Why?

Again, we ask the question: "Was this remake necessary?"

What next? "The Godfather" with McCauley Culkin? "From Here to Eternity" with Ben Affleck? (Oh, they actually did that one.) How about "Psycho" with Vince Vaughn? (They did that, too?)

Oh, God, no!

Here's another terrible idea. Madonna wants to remake "Casablanca." I kid you not. So far, the response has been lukewarm. If she somehow succeeds, we will personally picket her home. More on her bad idea here.

"Klaatu barada nikto!" Gort from the 1951 classic "The Day The Earth Stood Still."

You want outer space? WAY outer space? Here's a true extra-terrestrial, and brother from another planet--Saturn, to be precise--jazz master and eccentric Sun Ra.

CHE, THE MOVIE

Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh will release a four hour epic about the life of Ernesto "Che" Guevara. The 257-minute biopic will be released in two parts in January. In a stroke of inspired casting, Benicio del Toro plays the Argentine revolutionary, for which he won top honors at Cannes. This preview trailer is for a special screening later this month in New York and LA.

The real Che

Ernesto "Che" Guevara was a hero to some, a villain to others, and just a T-shirt design to many Americans. Che was a doctor, an asthmatic, a fervent bike rider, and a revolutionary who fought in Cuba, Africa, and finally South America, where he was killed by Bolivian Rangers under the direction of the CIA. This isn't lefty propaganda--nobody denies it; in fact, those involved took special pride in hunting down the rebel. They took turns posing around his corpse. I'm sure their intention was to demystify Che as a mere mortal, but the pictures provided a haunting pietà to the fallen guerrilla fighter.

After his capture and execution. Bolivia, 1967.

A declassified CIA document, an "Intelligence Information Cable" dated Oct. 9, 1967, is the first intelligence report on Che's capture. The cable states that the Bolivian army is dispatching an interrogator to confirm Che’s identity. The CIA also dispatched its own operative, Félix Rodríguez, who interrogated Guevara, gathered intelligence on his operation, and took photos of his documents and supervised his execution. To read the declassified document, click HERE for the pdf file.

The young Ernesto took a year off medical school and traveled the backroads of South America on a 1939 Norton 500 cc motorcycle

Che's dramatic life has inspired several films, ranging from the good to the terrible. One of the best is "The Motorcycle Diaries" (2004) based on Che's journals. The film (and his journal) reveals a thoughtful young man gradually radicalized by the people he meets and the poverty he encounters traveling throughout South America.


A scene from "The Motorcycle Diaries" (2004) in which Che (played by Gael Garcia Bernal) and his best friend Alberto (Rodrigo De la Cerna) meet Peruvian peasants struggling to survive.

The worst film has to be "Che!" (1969) starring--believe it or not--Omar Sharif. Jack Palance plays Fidel Castro, I swear. Skip that one.

Read A. O. Scott's review of Soderbergh's "Che" in The New York Times HERE. For more on the life of Che, click HERE. Or HERE. Or HERE.


The rebel at rest: a candid shot after the revolution

"The laws of capitalism, blind and invisible to the majority, act upon the individual without his thinking about it. He sees only the vastness of a seemingly infinite horizon before him. That is how it is painted by capitalist propagandists, who purport to draw a lesson from the example of Rockefeller — whether or not it is true — about the possibilities of success. The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Rockefeller, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this."

--Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928-1967)

LAST MAN ON EARTH DIES

Charlton Heston, scenery-chewing actor, former conservative president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), and the last man on earth, died at 84.
Famous for parting the Red Sea and battling planets full of apes, Heston retired to an apartment building after a post-apocalyptic plague swept the planet. By day, he traveled in a red convertible, hurling invectives and shooting his legally registered machine gun, but by night he was forced to barricade himself in a homemade fortress and fend off plague-infected zombies. It was a lonely life. He held out for years, but he could only hold out so long. Now he has joined the rest of us.

RICHARD WIDMARK, 1914-2008

Word just reached us that Richard Widmark passed away. Fans of film noir will remember the actor from roles in Panic in the Streets, Night in the City, Don't Bother to Knock, and Pickup on South Street, shown in the clip below. No role is more memorable, however, than his first as Tommy Udo, the giggling psycho in 1947's Kiss of Death who pushes an old lady in a wheelchair down the stairs to her death. He was a good bad guy.



For a list of my all-time favorite Films Noir, click here.

BEST MOVIES OF 2007 (I saw)

Black Book
I'm Not There
The Lives of Others
No Country for Old Men
Ratatouille
Once
Golden Door
Juno
Zodiac
Superbad
This Divided State



Honorable Mention:
Surf's Up!
Eastern Promises

Still planning to see...
There Will Be Blood
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Sicko
Persepolis
Grindhouse (in one piece)
Into the Wild

DEBORAH KERR DEAD AT 86

"Deborah Kerr, a versatile actress who long projected the quintessential image of the proper, tea-sipping Englishwoman but who was also indelible in one of the most sexually provocative scenes of the 1950’s, with Burt Lancaster in 'From Here to Eternity,' died on Tuesday in Suffolk, England. She was 86."
-- NYTimes, 10/19/07

FIRST MEN IN THE MOON

I loved this movie when I was a kid. The special effects are crude by today's standards, but this was the perfect Saturday matinée. You bought Flicks at the snack bar, and parted those heavy velvet drapes and plunged into the darkness of deep space. You navigated to your seat using the glow-in-the-dark wall clock ("Dean's Rexall Drugs") to get your bearings. The floor was sticky with spilled Cokes and smashed jujubes. People threw Milk Duds as you crossed. Laughter. The show begins! Filmed in Dynamation! In spite of the cheesy ant people costumes, you will never look at the Moon the same way again. Thanks, Ray Harryhausen.