ira joel haber-cinemagebooks: May 2021

Keeper Of The Flame 1942

A somewhat shocking and unusual film for the period. Spencer Tracy plays a newspaper reporter just back from Europe after seeing the early atrocities of the Nazi’s up close and personal. On his return the first news jolt he’s following is in a small town in Connecticut where a charismatic political leader and industrialist Robert Forrest has just died under very mysterious circumstances. This is big news. The film directed by the usual droll and sophisticated George Cukor has some nice early frantic scenes that take place in the lobby of a fully booked small town hotel run by the great Donald Meek. He is overrun by pushy clichéd wise ass reporters including the rarely seen Audrey Christie as a wise cracking dame of a reporter who is an old buddy of Tracy’s. They trade barbs and sexual innuendos but it soon gets very serious when Tracy tries to get a lead on the “great man’s” widow played by Katharine Hepburn in strange solemn mode her cheek bones never more hollowed and her hair very long and wavy. She looks great in her Adrian clothes, and Tracy is pushy with her trying to get the story on this dead “hero” who served in World War I. Little by little clues about him are dropped, his youth clubs, his America first policies, getting the drift? It’s all very deju vu all over again and will surely bring up images of the real defeated fat orange slob and his legions of fascist followers. That this screaming thriller was made at the height of the war warning us of Nazi sympathizers and fascist leading right wing agitators in America is really quite amazing coming out of Hollywood and starring high end movie stars who aren’t pulling any punches. Unfortunately it falls apart in spite of the gleaming M.G.M. look and high end production values, but for about half its running time it’s pretty scary and engrossing especially for its time. Its also remarkable that it played at Radio City Music Hall which had a patriotic rah rah rah red white and blue stage show saluting our armed forces, Rockettes included to go with the film. The script was by Donald Ogden Stewart who was mostly known for light hearted comedies and romances so the whole thing was a big departure for all involved. There is plenty of background scenic paintings and studio sets lavish and complex including forests and big fortress like walls protecting mansions and secrets. The film doesn’t stretch the acting chops of the stars, and some of Stewart’s screenplay is hokey at best, but the plot of an America first dictator coming to power is riveting and disturbing. There are elements of an old dark house in the background with a crazy mother very well acted by the great Margaret Wycherley who is bossed around by a strict housekeeper played by Blanche Yurka and a nice turn by the child actor Darryl H

ickman as a troubled kid who lives in the mansion with his father who served with Forrest in war and now serves as the gatekeeper of the estate. There is also a not very happy ending which in itself was not common for Hollywood movies at the time. With a good supporting cast and lush cinematography by the great William Daniels.

The Blue Shirt May 2021

Eric Carle 1929-2021

Anna Halprin 1920-2020

May 2021 Mixed on paper

Alain Kirili 1946-2021

Another lovely artist has left us. I use to see him during the 70's. He probably made a visit to our loft. And yes that fat orange pig is still with us. Come on give us Mitchie or that moo cow marjorie or the prick in the wheelchair. Enough of all these good people leaving us. Give us little Jimmy Jordan he is worthless.

The City Is Back

The City Is Back. Or at least it seemed so yesterday on the upper east side as I made the long trip from Brooklyn to the Met to see the Alice Neel Retrospective. It's a well deserved exhibition with a few reservations from me. As some might recall I was not a fan of hers as a person and have written a few times about why so I won’t bring up my antidotes about her again.

The Met was far from empty and as I waited on line in the magnificent hall the buy my $1.00 ticket I had a nice conversation

with a young attractive African American man from Washington D.C. who was visiting the museum for the first time. He was smart,  studying to be a lawyer and was hoping to move to Man hat taaaa  and as I said he was attractive and it was easy to chat with him as he asked me intelligent questions on the Mayoral race and what did I recommend he look at on his first visit to the Met. I should have said more, done more but I didn’t.

I made my way upstairs and found a long line waiting for me to get into the exhibition. After about a 20 minute wait I made it into the show and was greeted with the portrait of my old friend Margaret Evans pregnant with her twin girls to be. I made a comment to the guard that she was a friend and that she would have 2 little girls. He was not impressed, and I decided that I would keep my comments on all the ghosts that I would soon be looking at to myself. 

I wouldn’t mention to the complete stranger standing next to me that this art critic in his underwear who I didn’t like was murdered, and that his fellow critic in the portrait who I didn’t care for much either was I was told a virgin till the day he died. He once invited me and John to dinner and ordered in Chinese food, the one thing  that endeared him to me. 

Or that the portrait (which is a favorite of mine)  of my late friend Robert Smithson who died young in a plane crash shows young  Bob in 1962 his cheek covered in acne. In 62 I was an even younger 15 and still in high school.  It would be 7 years until we would meet and become friends. So many ghosts. The city is back. 

The painting that caused me the most emotional upset was of John lying nude and starring at us, me. I remember how excited he was when returning to our loft on 27th street after a morning of Alice painting him. He refused to allow me to go with him on those outings up to Alice’s upper westside apartment where he posed unashamed in his vast nakedness. When I finally saw it for the first time I was shocked, and now it is in the Whitney’s permanent collection for all time. Sylvia Sleigh wanted me to pose for her in the nude, but all she got from me was a pose in my swimsuit that summer in the backyard of Betty Parson’s Summer house. I now hang in the Philadelphia Museum of Art for all to see. 

The exhibition is nicely installed but I found her still lives and landscapes to be dull, pretty but dull but I did like her scenes of  New York City and those marvelous portraits of her upper westside neighbors and children are spell minding and stunning. But it’s those blunt portraits of hers that command the viewer’s gaze, Warhol bare chested showing off his horrible scars from his being shot and nearly killed, the still shocking portrait of Joe Gould with his many penises, and her strong scenes of death and despair in the hospitals of depression New York. 

It is a popular show, so go knowing that, and be prepared to wait on a line, maybe strike up a conversation with a native New Yorker or a visitor. The city is back. 

Returning to Brooklyn there were people on the streets without masks including myself smiling like I was until I had to take the dreaded subway another thing I hate about New York. And it was more crowded then I have seen in the recent few times I’ve ventured into Manhattan. The crazies are back also. A deranged woman screamed and cursed for most of my ride finally I moved as far away from her as I could. She had the entire row of seats to herself. She looked deranged and like she would gladly push someone on the tracks if she got the chance. The city is back.

Charles Grodin-1935-2021

The Woman In The Window 2021

Another Amy Adams miss. Put it in a box with Hillbilly Elegy tie it up with ribbon and throw it in the deep blue sea. Taking the title of a great Fritz Lang Noir film and leading us on to think we might be in for a good thriller chiller female jep movie. Instead it crashes and burns even with a really good cast including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Julianne Moore and a nasty Gary Oldman (is there any other kind of Oldman?) Adams plays a troubled woman a child psychologist no less who suffers from a large dose of agoraphobia which renders her unable to leave her house. That house. Huge and spooky of course, a brownstone in Harlem where she rattles around watching tell tale movies like Laura, Dark Passage and above all Rear Window. Her window is in the front and one night she witnesses a horrible murder, but of course no one believes her. Some of the stuff here is bloody and nasty but ultimately it just crashes and burns. The Screenplay is by the overrated playwright and sometime actor Tracy Letts who is in this one also as her personal shrink who comes to her house to offer his services. See it if you must.

Halston 2021

I suppose I can lukewarmly recommend this latest potboiler from the house of Ryan Murphy. It's watchable for sure, what with all those clothes, sexy scenes and little nuggets of gossip and dirt dropped here and there. My problem with it was my total disgust and hatred of Halston who thankfully I never met, and all those pathetic souless creatures that were and probably still are part of that scene. I was never comfortable around the very rich and the very famous unless I was comfortably drunk and stoned and even then they gave me what Cliff Westermann would call the creeping whoopies. That said sure its only 5 hours of sleaze and it seems to be appealing to a large swatch of facebook people. I have to say if I see one more Liza with a Z impersonation I shall scream. She seems to be popping up in every series I've been watching lately. Oh there she is in Fosse/Verdon and now again here she is in Halston. I also was not smitten with Ewan McGregor playing him, and it has nothing to do with a straight actor playing a character. I could care less and how many gay actors and actresses have played straight since cinema began. McGregor is a very likable but limited actor, and he brings a big sack of camp to the role. I would have much preferred if Michael Fassbender had done the role. Anyway knock yourselves out with this one.

The Literatus

The Literatus just published 5 of my recent mixed pieces. you can view them on pags. 86,87,88,89,90. Will post the images for those who can't download it. Here is the link

https://www.magcloud.com/webviewer/1925342?__r=3040497&s=w

Shame 2011

Dismal and depressing story about a young man who has a sex addition that is out of control and pulling him down. Set in a somewhat desolate New York City that made me immediately think of our pandemic year especially in a beautifully shot tracking scene of a very late night run by our main man from the East side of Manhattan where he lives to 7^th ave which is on the west side of the city. Our “hero” is movie star handsome and is played by Michael Fassbender who is movie star handsome. He works in what I assume is a high tech company that we never learn much about, and lives in one of those sterile high rise but expensive apartments that line the streets and neighborhoods of New York City that is as empty as he is. Michael dresses well but his clothes are without style or taste, they are ugly. He is not capable of intimacy, which I suppose is a common trait among sex addicts. He uses sex workers literally night and day, and when not doing that he is pleasuring himself in the john at work and other places including after hours Gay clubs so he swings both ways when necessary. When not doing his doing he is watching porn on his laptop. I can’t and won’t judge him but for all of this he is not having fun. I’ve known a few sex addicts and they always seemed to be having a good time. The movie is full of a sad scenes and into this sadness comes his really troubled lost younger sister who is a sometime lounge singer and party girl for all occasions. Acted well by Carey Mulligan who has a moment in a club where she sings a melancholic version of New York, New York that is definitely not Liza or Frank’s version. The film directed by Steve McQueen is lush in its look, all shiny and glossy with most of the film taking place at night as this sort of life style usually does. There is a lot of sex and nudity mostly of Fassbender and this might quality as a guilty pleasure for some and one of the major pleasures of the movie for others. I would say as the cliché goes that watching this film was like watching a roadside car accident, you know you should move on, but you can’t stop watching.