Late March. Mixed on paper March 2021

 

Larry McMurtry 1936-2021

 

Jessica Walter 1941-2021

 

Paul Foster Playwright 1931-2021

 

Bertrand Tavernier 1941-2021

 

Beliveau Review Summer 2021

 Beliveau Review has just posted some of my art and photographs. They are on pages 50-54. You can view the issue at this link.

https://2e8a8d6d-e97c-4235-92c8-7aa31bae0d77.filesusr.com/ugd/830f0d_20941a7b958c4795a89bf726b1a967e6.pdf

Two late 40's comedy gems

 

A Foreign Affair 1948

Billy Wilder’s acid take on post war Berlin. He actually went there to film many of the exterior scenes of the destruction of the once beautiful city, and its shocking to see. He would return once again in 1961 to film One, Two, Three. This  story is about corruption and deceit among the American troops stationed there and a particular relationship between an army captain played by John Lund and a former Nazi who now sings for her suppers in a hole of a nightclub played by Marlene Dietrich. It’s a comedy. Into their tattered paradise comes a congressional committee to investigate the morals and corruption of the American victors and the havoc that is raging within their ranks. All the members of the committee are old men with the exception of one woman, congress person from Iowa who is uptight and tightly wrapped and aptly named Phobe Frost and she is played by the great Jean Arthur. As the movie moves on she becomes less uptight as she is courted by Lund in order to hide his misdeeds and dalliances with Dietrich. He plays her. Wilder with his co writers bring their acerbic wit to the proceedings with their usual flair and sophistication and generally hit their marks.  Dietrich looks swell in her black market gowns and sings three songs all written by Friedrich Hollaender who actually plays the piano for her in the dank club. There are some great lines: Dietrich to Arthur “I only live three ruins away” along with some hit them over the head political flag waving, that’s to be expected after all the war was only over for a few years. The film is a little dated and sometimes the situations wind up flat but it still has a nice poisonous punch in the punch. Nominated for best screenplay Oscar.

 

Adam’s Rib 1949

Released right on the cusp of the new year, this George Cukor biting comedy about marriage starred the team of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. They play a couple caught up in the tabloid spectacle of a jilted and cheated on wife who shoots up her husband and his girlfriend and is brought to trial by the assistant D.A. played by Tracy and is defended by his wife played by Hepburn who is a lawyer. The film featured a great supporting cast including Judy Holiday as the wife, Tom Ewell as the cheating hubby and Jean Hagen as the smart ass girlfriend. All three are top notch and really shine  bringing lots of laughs and smiles. Holiday who was just about to break through to stardom and an Oscar by repeating her role in “Born Yesterday” is treated with great care by the screenplay which was written by a real life married couple Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, and is shown to best advantage by Cukor and Hepburn. Hepburn made sure that Holiday got the best camera set up in their initial meeting in the jail house because Holiday was being put down by Harry Cohen who didn’t want her to repeat her role in the movie version of  Born Yesterday. So in the scene Hepburn is in profile while Holiday is shown to best advantage in full close up. Also in the cast is the next door neighbor who is a successful composer played by David Wayne and it is not always easy to read him. I assume he was a stand in for Cole Porter who wrote the sweet song “Farewell Amanda” for the film and I also assume that he is gay, even though the screenplay muddies the waters as he is constantly coming on to Hepburn to the annoyance of Tracy who makes biting remarks about his masculinity. Much is hidden (closeted)  between the lines here especially what we now know about some of the players and the creative team. It was however a forward looking piece on marriage and justice equality and feminism which was not a common topic for movies back in the 40’s, so applause for everyone involved. Cukor did some on location filming in a now vanished New York, and I had trouble trying to figure out the locations used. Also in the cast is the great Hope Emerson as a former acrobat who in a courtroom scene proves her strength as a woman by lifting Spencer Tracy in the air. You can make out the wires holding him up because of the finely restored transfer. Nominated for 1950 screenplay Oscar.         

 

George Segal 1934-2021

 

Monsoon 2019

 Now streaming on Netflix is this low key intimate film about a young British gay man who fled Vietnam as an infant with his family to live in England and now returns years later to return his parents ashes to their ancestral home. The lead is play by the handsome charismatic young actor Henry Golding who made a splash in "Crazy Rich Asians" and is quiet and wonderful here. He meets up with an African American who now lives in Vietnam and they begin a casual up and down affair which is very realistic and rich with feeling. Nothing much happens, he reunites with family friends and travels about the country sometimes picking up casual one night stands, and starts a friendship with a young female tourist guide. The film is beautiful to look at, rich in vibrant colors and lots of atmosphere and movement showing us the country that we nearly destroyed. Directed by Hong Khaou. See this one.

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Oddball Magazine. Today March 17th.

 

One of my photos.

https://oddballmagazine.com/poem-by-james-cole/?fbclid=IwAR0Ws0E5-sTxFNrFIqTWLK-fve9zhfj52gO3lZuLuLhmy2YvrGKx0HaVxsI

Moma in our plague year

 I went to the Moma yesterday for the first time in over a year. It was also over a year that I was in midtown and anyone who thinks we are on the road to normal should take a subway ride up there. The streets that were once crowded and bustling with people were now mainly deserted. Empty and dismal. I thought I would cry. The cold and grey weather didn’t help matters, everything looked dull and sharp at the same time. I actually stood in the center of 6^th ave with no traffic coming at me. The long and dull subway ride from Brooklyn was also pretty much devoid of people, but clean. We look like aliens from somewhere strange in our masks starring into space. The Moma itself was also empty which I guess was a blessing in a way since I had most of the galleries to myself at times. It was also quiet, the din of the crowds gone, but now replaced with talkative loud guards who acted like they were in their living rooms and some who played with their phones. The emptiness also made me more aware of just how ugly this place really is with badly designed spaces that are unwelcoming huge and dismal. I saw the small Calder show, and a pleasant but unsurprising show of drawings from their collection with the usual suspects but an unknown artist hanging here and there. The big show is the early 20^th century exhibition of Russian and European graphic design including great posters, flyers, propaganda, books, advertising and some paintings by many of my favorite artists of that period. The title like much of the Moma is longwinded and pompous “Engineer, Agitator, Constructor: The Artist Reinvented. I failed to take in their permanent collections because I was getting tired and had a long boring subway ride back home.     

Yaphet Kotto 1939-2021

 

Shutter Island 2010

 It gives me no pleasure to take down this movie, but the movie gave me no pleasure so we're even. This might be Scorsese's worst film, and its really a stain on his filmography. Far fetched and quite silly, but its not even entertaining, in fact its downright dull. I won't go into plot details, Heaven forbid I should drop some bread crumbs for you to find your way out of this dense forest. The plot thins immediately with Leonardo Di Caprio looking drained and Mark Ruffalo looking like he would rather be anywhere but here landing on Shutter Island which houses a grim and large mental hospital to investigate a missing female inmate who has disappeared into thin air. Cue the ominous music, the rolling fog, and all those menacing creepy inmates and staff especially Ben Kingsley as Dr. Cawley who is very crawly. There are big storms, hysterical hallucinations,flashbacks to concentration camps and lots of digital special effects, come of which look quite tacky along with obvious stunt doubles. There is of course a very disturbing murder which should leave you down and depressed, and some ridiculous slight of hand resolutions. This was my second viewing, I had disliked it in 2010 and thought I would give it another go hoping I would see things that would change my mind. I didn't and it didn't. My unclean unclean award of the week, maybe the month. Oh Marty Marty how could you.

New Piece February-March 2021 Mixed.

 

Barbara Ess 1948-2021