Stripes Magazine

Stripes Magazine has just published one of my pieces for their issue "Nowhere Near Home" you can view the entire issue in PDF at this link just copy and paste the link and it should work. 

file:///C:/Users/irajo/Downloads/Nowhere-Near-Home-Stripes-Magazine-Issue-2-Volume-1.pdf

Strangers on a Train 1951

Generally ignored or panned when it first showed up on movie screens, it is now considered one of Hitchcock’s masterpieces and with good reason. Seen by me many times, the last being the other night on a blu ray disc it is a complex and disturbing psychological thriller based on a book by Patricia Highsmith.

The film opens with shots of two men getting out of cabs at a train station and we only see their shoes, which tell us quite a bit about the men wearing them. One pair is plain and proper, the other shoes are brown and white brogues, dapper and stylish in a show off way. The shoes and the men wearing them meet finally on the train as it travels towards our capitol and one of them is pushy and starts a conversation with the more demure and settled one.

Bruno and Guy are soon no longer strangers on a train, and if Bruno has his way they will be partners in crime. Bruno played by an unexpected and quite brilliant Robert Walker is a tease and is soon testing and baiting the more demure Guy who is a young tennis player on his way to a brilliant career in the sport and maybe later a political future. Bruno has a way of getting information out of Guy and he is soon telling him of a plan of his for a double murder pact where he will murder Guy’s treacherous cheating wife, pregnant with another man’s baby and in exchange Guy will end Bruno’s much hated father’s life. “You do my murder, I do yours”. And perhaps in gay sexual banter, we can read it also as You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.  Both are privileged men, Bruno comes from money and lives in easy leisure and the lap of luxury, and Guy the “butch” but soft   tennis player is involved with a senator’s daughter who he plans to marry once his hated wife gives him his much sought after divorce.

Matters are soon out of hand and this is what pushes the film on its twisted track of deceit and murder. Bruno is twisted and in 50’s mode he is most likely homosexual and Hitchcock drops stereotypical period pieces of pop psychology to make Bruno’s psychosis visible including a clinging mother played with disturbing humor and eccentricity by the character actress Marion Lorne who made her mark later on in network t.v. variety shows and series. Hitch is of course adept at using disturbing moms in his films. He also uses clothes as a barometer of Bruno’s fey sensibilities, including silly ties, tie pins and garish dressing gowns.

Bruno indeed takes it upon himself, to murder Guy’s wife in a pivotal and extraordinary sequence in an amusement park. We watch as Bruno flirts, follows and plays with Miriam, Guy’s wife out for a night of fun at the park with two young male friends. Miriam is wonderfully played by Laura Elliott, whose murder, strangled by Bruno will be seen by us in her fallen eye glasses a beautiful and ghastly cinematic moment. . This is one of many great set pieces in the film, but I won’t give any more away except to mention that the orgasmic climax of the film that also takes place in the same park on a run amuck merry go-round and is one of the great moments in cinema.  The casting is up and down with a somewhat miscast Ruth Roman as Guy’s love interest. She looks like she would devour him, and seems all wrong for him, and I just couldn’t see her as his lover. Someone blonde and petite would have been a better match to use a term from tennis. The other supporting players are fine especially Leo G. Carroll who held the record for appearing in Hitchcock films (6 times)  and Hitchcock’s daughter Patricia who is the comic relief in this nightmare. For a time Raymond Chandler worked on the screenplay, but Hitchcock removed both Chandler and his screenplay from the film, and instead worked with an assistant of Ben Hecht, Czenzi Ormonde who got screenplay credit along with Whitfield Cook and Raymond Chandler who the studio insisted get credit. The great Robert Burks did the cinematography (and got an Oscar nomination) and was the first of 12 Hitchcock films that he photographed. A few minor debits for me include the rather long tennis match in which we can easily make out that Granger’s double is playing and some poorly done process shots. Best film, director, actor of 1951.  

West Side Story 2021

 

just saw the new and not so improved west side story at the BAM. That it is on its way to bombsville was evident to me by it not showing in the big theatre, a sure sign indeed. Look I'm a child of the 61 version, and where that one soared and thrilled, this one pretty much just lays there. Maybe if I never saw the original one this one would have had jolted me more. The colors looked dull and faded, I want the brightness that the original had and sure it was sweet to see 90 year old Rita Moreno, its always sweet to see Rita, but this new Anita does not compare to her anita. I could take each number apart but why bother. Don't look to this west side to sweep the Oscars, lets just leave it at that.

it really frizzled for me. The dance numbers didn't reach the thrill of the original Robbins choreography. I simply don't understand all the ga ga over this. Is it a political thing? The dance at the gym and america can't be compared to the originals. Spielberg's idea of making it different was have america done in the streets. I prefer the artificiality thank you. And the sex is just not there like in the original, these dancers and I don't care if they are "politically correct" they just fade. And giving some of the jets girls compassion?? Also bad is the cool number, where is tucker smith when we need him, and the officer krupke bit also stunk.
I can't either. Its as if the "critics" are bending over backwards not to offend spielberg. Some of them are peppering their reviews with criticisms but not enough for me. Maybe I saw a different movie. Also bugging me are people praising it without even seeing it yet. I went to the BAM expecting it to be showing in the big stadium seating theatre, but it wasn't. It was showing in the smaller upstairs theatre (there are 4 theatres in the complex) I surmise that it did open in the big theatre the first week but it did so poorly that they yanked it and replaced it with nightmare alley, which should bomb also. Yes part of west sides boxoffice problems is the pandemic but it is failing to get the younger audience who as we know are not letting the death march get in the way of their fun, ie the santa drunk parties is a good example of that. At the showing I was at there were maybe 20 of us and from what I saw most were older people. My problems with this film are vast but I went hoping I would love it. I didn't. In fact I almost walked out which I have rarely done. The excuses for this mess from critics and viewers alike range from how great that they used actual latinos and latinas in it, to its new awareness of urban gentrification, and what poverty does to young people. I also thought it looked crummy and they were stuck with dealing with the fantastic opening of the original that blew me away as a 15 year old. The opening in the newer version looks like it takes place in Berlin after the war, the urban destruction thing hit over our heads and if that wasn't enough there's a big billboard announcing the development of Lincoln Center being build where all the rubble stands. I get it steven I get it. The homoeroticism of the piece is pretty much gone, we can't have that in 2021. In fact the whole film has been pretty much de-sexed, with the exception of anita and bernardo who moon and coo all over the place. In fact Bernardo's machismo is pushed up several notches, he's a tough boxer in this version. Then there is the easy dissing of Natalie Wood and the dubbing of her's and others singing and how great the new Maria is. Hey leave my Natalie alone. I left the theatre thinking this should never have been remade. I've seen the original maybe 10 or more times, this one was barely seen by me once.  another note of note is that the gun dealer who sells riff a gun, (not in the original) is black. The only black character in the movie is a black gangster. you go steven.

Hardy Kruger 1928-2022

 Sundays and Cybele

Gaspard Ulliel 1984-2022

 

Andre Leon Talley 1948-2022

 

Yvette Mimieux 1942-2022

 

The Great Beauty 2013

 

This large lavish and wonderful Italian film directed by Paolo Sorrentino opens with shots of a tourist’s Rome. We soon see a bunch of Japanese visitors to the city taking in the sights and taking photos, one raises his camera to catch a view to take home with him, and boom drops dead.  A fast cut and we are dropped into a big 65^th birthday party for the film’s lead superbly played by Toni Servillo . Its a sprawling vibrant sequence rich with conga lines (called La Colita here), beautiful women and handsome men along with quite a few grotesques all shaking it to the loud music. The birthday “boy” is Jep Gambardella  a high life habitant of Rome’s “Dolce Vita” who likes to be referred to as “the king of the high life”.

At first one can’t help but think of and be reminded of that other “Dolce Vita” film made by Fellini more than 50 years earlier. That’s ok. Great art always influences, and film is no exception to the rule. Jep lives in a beautiful apartment with a terrace overlooking the Coliseum and is an author who years back wrote a well-regarded novel, and is now living on his laurels, and his laurels are living off of him. One of the recurring questions that Jep gets asked throughout the film, is why hasn’t he written another novel and his answers are generally as vapid as the question such as “I was lazy” or his profound and mysterious response  “I was looking for the great beauty but didn’t find it”. 

 

Jep is now a journalist and critic who every so often meets with his editor, a wise and smart female dwarf who serves him homemade lunches in her office and offers up truths about life. She is one of many startling and engrossing characters who pass through Jep’s life, not counting his ghosts who come and go, along with a giraffe who appears then disappears, “its just a trick” the bearer of this majestic animal says. And it is. Maybe his life and indeed this film is just a trick. 

Where Fellini’s Via Venito was made up and built in a studio along with much of his Rome, Sorrentino fills his canvas with the real city, at dawn, in the afternoons and of course the bursting evenings. And like the Fellini film this one is also episodic and romantic. There are scenes that poke fun and some malice at the Roman art world, a performance artist who literally bangs her head into a concrete wall, and an unhappy but pampered young girl who throws buckets of paint onto a canvas and is hailed as a great artist, I’ve  seen stuff like this in real life and in real time, think Marina Abramovic.
The catholic church also comes in for a beating with a Cardinal who cares more about saving recipes than saving souls and a saint, Sister Maria who is as old as the world and with a flock of flamingos brings this marvelous adventure to an end. Jep is still alone in his eternal city, and is still searching for the great beauty that might be nowhere or everywhere. The best film of 2013.     

Jean-Jacques Beineix 1946-2022

 Made two of my favorite films Diva and Betty Blue. Meanwhile that fat orange traitor

motherfucker scum of the earth trash who has contributed nothing still walks this earth. 

Ronnie Spector 1943-2022

 The Great Ronnie Spector has passed. That voice, that look. Seminal. 

Imitation Fruit

Imitation Fruit has just posted one of my collage works in their latest issue. You can check it out at this link. 


https://imitationfruit.com/Issue_18/mygarden/mygarden.html 

Dwayne Hickman 1934-2022

 DOBIE!!!!!!

Sabine Weiss 1924-2022

 

Sidney Poitier 1927-2022

The great Sidney Poitier has passed. Heartbroken over this, especially since that fat evil pile of shit is still walking this earth. Poitier was part of my movie going childhood. Very sad week.

Peter Bogdanovich 1939-2022

 Sorry to hear of his passing. And that fat orange evil fascist piece of shit, that worthless scum still walks this earth. 

The Lost Daughter 2021

 

“The Lost Daughter” and “The Power of the Dog” are great bookends for the horrible year that just past bringing us bloated stilly stuff like "Don't Look Up" and the limp remake of "West Side Story" These are  "I loved it" movies"

”I Loved It” is the one sentence critiques of movies and indeed other art forms that many people who have nothing to say about the movie use. This form of "criticism" that is rampant on facebook reminds me of when I was a pre teen and teen and I would watch American Bandstand. Now and then they would have a rating the new records segment using the dancing teens as the judges and who usually would respond with "I love it, it has a good beat" I need more than a good beat, and these two challenging and difficult films gave me that.

I would also add to this mix Rebecca Hall's small gem of a movie "Passing" which is also not an  easy view. All three of these films are based on novels that remain unread by me and all three are directed by women, two of which are also terrific actresses


”The Lost Daughter” written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and  based on a novel by Elena Ferrante  opens with a flash forward and then on to the journey of the main character Leda, a divorced professor of literature with two grown daughters. Leda is taking a vacation on a Greek Island where she hopes to relax and maybe get some work done. The island seems pretty and gentle, and Olivia Coleman as Leda (superb)  looks like she could use a good restful holiday. Not much is known about her, but through flashbacks with the wonderful Jesse Buckley who plays her younger self we will learn some things about her past.

 

The film has a sense of dread and indeed menace hanging over it that I wasn't expecting and is mainly due to that Queens family from hell who descend on the island with their generally nasty brood. They set up a major conflict within the story between Coleman and members of the family and in a strange way with herself. She is obviously a conflicted person. There are also conflicts on the island between Leda and the caretaker of the nice apartment she is renting (never mind the bowl of rotting fruit) played by Ed Harris and a young waiter Will played by Paul Mescal. But the big conflicts are between Coleman and the “family” that begin on the beach when Coleman refuses to move her beach chair to another spot so “the family” can have more room for their brood’s birthday celebration. I applauded this move by Coleman as I have done the same thing (only my incident took place in a movie theatre when I refused to move so some people coming in late could sit together)

Funny but not in a ha ha way is an incident in a movie theatre later in the film where a nearly empty theatre of patrons are watching a print of “The Last Time I Saw Paris” why this movie I don’t know, but there is an expression of pleasure on Coleman’s face that is soon erased when a rowdy bunch of teens descend and cause a rackus so that Coleman has to complain to a non caring manager to do something. Also in the theatre is the patriciarch of “the family” who finally shuts the teens up. Another incident that I can relate to as I’ve had some in your face altercations with lousy teens in theatres myself.

So the film sets me up perfectly to feel for Leda.

 She soon makes amends with the two female members of “family” over the beach incident, the pregant Callie played by Dagmara Dominczyk who has a threatning air about her offers Leda a piece of birthday cake and the young beautiful sister in law Nina who catches the interest of Leda and is played by Dakota Johnson in her best performance to date.  Dakota has a young annoying daughter who also intriques Leda. Maybe she reminds her of her own once young annoying daughters. The child soon goes missing and is found by Leda, but the kid’s doll is also gone and this becomes the missing link in the story.

The doll which is ghastly looking has also been found by Leda but she doesn’t  return it to the child, and indeed this sets up the rolling thunder of the movie. The missing doll is so drastic for  the family that they put up flyers all over the island with a photo of the missing doll and in one scene (that made me laugh out loud) many of the trees around the house they are renting are covered with them. There are issues of complicity and short burst of unexpected violence throughout the movie and towards the end of the film, that seems to be confusing to some.

The flashbacks continue and we see many incidents of the young Leda struggling to handle her two young demanding daughters while managing her own scholary career. Mostly it doesn’t go so well, and her marriage to a fellow professor starts falling apart. The question of being lost hovers over the film since many of us are indeed lost. Our country right now is lost. Lost in relationships, lost in family matters, lost in careers, and lost in our lives. Being lost can also be used as a metaphor and also as markers on real journeys. How many times have we found ourselves lost on travels, lost walking in strange cities and lost in our dreams and nightmares. Both Ledas young and old are lost and then found. A bit worn and weary but still found. We are all in our own ways “lost daughters” looking to be found.  One of the ten best films of 2021.
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