ira joel haber-cinemagebooks

There’s No Business Like Show Business. 1954

2012-01-26T13:25:00.000-08:00

This garish ,brash fun musical was made in the second year of the cinemascope revolution and directed by 20^th Century Fox’s in house director Walter Lang. Lang who had a very long career that began with silent films and went on directing movies right up to 1961 with the lowly and ludicrous Snow White and The Three Stooges. He was a decent enough director and is mostly known for directing Betty Grable and Alice Faye in all those interminable 1940’s lavish musicals along with some Shirley Temple features. His biggest achievement to some was directing The King And I for which he received his only Oscar nomination . No Biz as I shall refer to it is big in every sense of the word and features a rousing cast, Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Mitzi Gaynor, Donald O’Connor, Johnny Ray and Marilyn Monroe. The film chronicles the life and career of a vaudeville couple played by Merman and Dailey who when the film opens is singing and dancing their hearts out on the vaudeville circuit circa 1919. They soon are having kids who also perform with them, and swiftly grow up to become O’Connor, Gaynor and Ray. At first the look of the film including the costumes tries to indicate the period but soon we are in a 1950’s version of the 1920’s through the 1940’s. The film is cramped with movement and color, and is lush with the wonderful music of Irving Berlin and a “sing out Louise” Ethel Merman, who looks like an over wrapped Christmas present. Lang’s use of the wide screen is rather ordinary, a more imaginative use of the process would have to wait for the likes of Nicholas Ray, Sam Fuller and Vincente Minnelli to show us what could be done with it. The costumes are also on the whole jaw dropping and look like they were designed by Katy Keene the comic book fashionista of the 1950’s who by the way I loved. The gals look like they were poured or sewed into them. There are the usual family trials and tribulations that one associates with this kind of film, and it floats along nicely but doesn’t really grab you until Monroe appears. She sizzles and shines and does several great numbers including “After You Get What You Want You Don't Want It” and the justly famous “Heat Wave” that was originally slated for Merman, but was given to Monroe to entice her to come aboard the project. The finale with the entire cast singing surrounded by lots of chorus boys and girls (every dancer worked that week in Hollywood) is vividly colored and kinetic.

Notebook Drawing. Collage and paint on notebook paper. Jan. 2012

2012-01-25T15:26:00.000-08:00

art looking or looking at art

2012-01-24T17:48:00.001-08:00

Today on my skip to my lou jaunt through Chelsea I took in the magnificent exhibition Jean Dubuffet: The Last Two Years at The Pace Gallery. The large and spacious space is filled with about 20 of this art brute’s paintings that mostly are very large in size consisting mostly of the colors red, blue yellow and white in abstract swirls and shapes and painted with acrylics. The sheer beauty of these works, (and they are indeed beautiful) made me dizzy with pleasure and delight. The guard on duty was eyeing me weirdly maybe because I had a soft big old smile on my face and was lingering longer than is usual and that I kept going back and forth between the two galleries. I’ve always loved this man Dubuffet’s work ever since I was a teenager. Here was an older artist with a young artist’s daring do, and he still had this daring & do right up to his death. This is an exhibit that I might have to go to again before it comes down in March. The other show that I liked quite a bit, but with some very minor reservations was the complex and sometimes daunting The Wedding (The Walker Evans Polaroid Project) which was curated by Ydessa Hendeles, who calls it a curatorial composition. This is on view at the Adrea Rosen Gallery only until Feb. 4th. Hendeles who is also a wealthy collector and curator has brought together some intriguing objects including 83 of Walker Evans’s last works that are small color polaroids of buildings and structures + several photographs by Muybridge, Atget and bird photos by Roni Horn which are of taxidermied Icelandic wildfowl in close up and from the back. All are installed on walls that surround the main piece, the focus of the show, a large and beautiful mid 19th century birdhouse from England which is more like a playhouse than a refuge for birds. This lovely structure is surround by child’s settees designed by Stickley at the turn of the 20th Century that invite the viewer to sit for a while. It all gives the appearance of a stage set waiting for the play to begin and all told this is indeed an odd and intriguing installation that some might find dense and pedantic. In fact the gallery has piled on a counter in the front room small 35pg.very nice Spiral bound catalogs for the taking in which the curator goes to great lengths to explain the meanings behind the installation and the objects included written in a clear and casual text. Also on hand in the foyer of the gallery is an architectural model of a cooper’s workshop that sits on a Stickely child’s table, all of this is visually arresting but would this elegant installation work without a 35pg. Explanation of what we are looking at. The whole thing does have the feeling of being in a church and in the press release Hendeles writes how she has never come into the Andrea Rosen Gallery “without feeling the majesty of the cathedral-like architecture of its main gallery,” a feeling I might say I have never felt. So in spite of the several lousy shows that I also saw, this is a good time to check out Chelsea not only for these two exhibits but also for the Lori Ellison, Bill Jensen Wegee and Vivian Maier shows that are still on view.

Midnight in Paris 2011

2012-01-23T06:33:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that I did not rush out to see this film mainly because my least favorite actor in the world Owen Wilson was starring in it. Ok I should clarify that, he’s one of my least favorite actors and is in a dead heat with Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler for that dubious honor. So suddenly one day it appeared in my mailbox from Netflix and I wondered did I really have it on my queue? Well I finally watched it the other night and I can say that it was not the most painful experience I’ve ever had in the movies, in fact I quite enjoyed this little bauble from Woody Allen. Set in contemporary Paris (beautifully photographed by the way, but can anyone not beautifully photograph this city?) it stars Wilson who is the most recent stand in for Allen and plays a successful but unhappy Hollywood screenwriter. Wilson is on a holiday with the very beautiful but interchangeable with several other young beautiful blonde actresses, Rachel McAdams. They are not exactly the couple of the year, and things get more dour for Wilson, when McAdams staunch conservative Republican parents arrive who are wonderfully played by Mimi Kennedy and Kurt Fuller. This pretty much sets up the story. Wilson who longs for yesterday, 1920’s Paris to be exact is for no given reason jolted back to that era one night and mixes it up with some of his literary heroes including Hemingway, Fitzgerald and G. Stein. Complications with his real life naturally set in, some of them quite amusing, but after a while his nocturnal wanderings for me started to become somewhat dull and expected. True there was a very funny encounter with Luis Bunuel who just doesn’t get Wilson’s idea for a movie where dinner guests can’t leave, and keeps asking but why can’t they just walk out. I think we’ve all had longings to go back in time, to escape our frantic dull or unhappy lives I know I do, and quite often me and a close friend moan and groan about if only we can go back in time to the city that once was New York.

Etta James 1938-2012

2012-01-20T14:43:00.000-08:00

The great singer Etta James has passed. She was always one of my favorite singers and in the early 70's I introduced her music to many art world friends playing her music at dinners. About 12 years or so ago, I went to a concert of soul and blues divas at Lincoln Center which featured Ruth Brown, Irma Thomas, Coco Taylor and Etta. She was the last on the bill, and was very heavy and most likely not well at this time, she came out kicked off her shoes and did her set in her bare feet. She was extraordinary and brought the house down. I'm feeling sad, but so happy that I did hear and see her in person.

The Ides of March 2011

2012-01-20T05:56:00.000-08:00

Just in time for the campaign of 2012 comes this glib and somewhat condescending little political drama starring George Clooney (who also directed) as a charismatic governor who as the film opens is running for president of the country. The action (if one can call it that) takes place over a period of days in Ohio where Clooney is running neck to neck in the democratic primary with a somewhat phantom (we never really see him) rival. Dirty deals and political intrigues abound as his two top advisors played by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ryan Gosling finagle, lie and coerce in order to get him over the top, and on his way to the nomination. Clooney is not covering anything new in this sub genre, we’ve seen it all before from The Great McGinty (politics as surreal satire) to Primary Colors (thinly disguised Bill and Hilary take on the world). All the clichés and stereotypical characters are in place, and most are entertaining and well acted by Hoffman, a ferocious Paul Giamatti as the rival’s main advisor and a rodent like and very fine Marisa Tomei as a prying journalist. A predictable and dull scandal erupts that threatens to bring Clooney down, and I was somewhat bothered by the unnecessary lamb to the slaughter plot device that happens to the most vulnerable character and by the cynical and expected ending. Still it’s not a boring or bad film mostly because of its short running time. If only the current political campaign was this short.

Notebook Drawing. Collage, ink and paint on notebook paper. 2012

2012-01-18T12:43:00.000-08:00

Crummy

2012-01-18T12:39:00.000-08:00

In spite of the crummy weather yesterday I took in a few shows in Chelsea, and no I did not see the Damien Hurst dots, but I did see the terrific Weegee show at Kasher. I've always loved his photographs, and I have an original edition of his Naked City. His work kinda smashes you in the face. Also of note was Bill Jensen's elegant show of diptychs and triptychs at Cheim & Read. His surfaces are always compelling. I should add that he is an old friend, and I had for many years one of his early paintings which I sold in the late 80's, a sad day for me. The piece of mine that Bill had was destroyed in the awful fire in Margrit's loft, another sad day for me. I also liked Thomas Woodruff's show of strange and mysterious gorgeous paintings that you can really get lost in. I wish that I liked the Joyce Pensato show more than I did, yes accumulations can be fun, but these were just too obvious and her batman paintings are totally without interest.

Missive

2012-01-18T06:50:00.000-08:00

Missive literary Magazine has just posted 5 of my notebook drawing-collages. You can view them at this link

http://www.missivelit.com/2012/01/featured-artist-ira-joel-haber.html

The Two Mrs. Carrolls. 1947

2012-01-14T08:16:00.000-08:00

Somewhat creaky stage bound thriller starring Humphrey Bogart as a psychopathic American painter living in England with his second wife played by Barbara Stanwyck. Based on a play that had a decent run in the early 40’s on Broadway, which explains its static boxed in look. Stanwyck should have known better falling for Bogie but if she did then we wouldn’t have a movie, so it’s all well and good. Short on logic and exposition, this Warner Bros nearly B movie does have nice production values, and some good atmospheric touches including lots of rain and windy nights. Stanwyck is a rich heiress, (she’s British but Babs doesn’t even attempt an accent) who is madly in love with Bogie, but who slowly realizes that he is completely nuts, (Don’t drink that milk Babs) and that’s when the film picks up. Also on hand is a very beautiful but nasty Alexis Smith who would like to become the third Mrs. Carroll, Nigel Bruce as a country doctor, the marvelous Isobel Elsom as Alexis’s bitchy mom and the lovely child actess Ann Carter, (you might recall her as the haunted child in Curse of The Cat People) as Bogie’s daughter by the first Mrs. Carroll. There are a few jolts near the end, which made me spill my cranberry juice all over myself. Directed by the competent but forgettable Peter Godfrey who was an in house B director at Warner Bros. In the 1940’s. Only available from the Warner Bros. Archive.

Some Recent Photographs

2012-01-14T07:50:00.000-08:00

Beginners 2011

2012-01-12T16:41:00.001-08:00

Beginners. 2011.

This film only comes alive when Christopher Plummer is on screen and for my money this is not long enough. Plummer who gives an elegant and moving performance (the kind of role that wins Oscars) plays the father of Ewan McGregor who finally comes to grips with being gay at the age of 75 and begins to live his life as he always wanted to. Never mind he was married to McGregor’s mother for 44 years, and existed in a very deep and dark closet, but now he’s out with a vengeance. The writer director Mike Mills based the film on his own life and his relationship with his father, but unfortunately instead of focusing on Plummer, he throws in his deadly dull affair with a somewhat broken young and pretty (but vapid) French woman played by Mélanie Laurent whose accent is as thick as an old piece of fromage. Once more a current film has a cute dog running around in it, but the really wonderful moments are the ones that show Plummer with his new gay friends and his lover who is much younger than he is. I don’t doubt that Mills is a sincere person, who really wanted to tell his unusual story, but unfortunately only half of his story is vibrant and compelling. A big disappointment.

Hugo 2011

2012-01-09T20:19:00.000-08:00

I saw this Martin Scorsese valentine to childhood and the movies today at the first screening in one of those ugly theatres on union square and I was the only person in the theatre which was fantastic. It was like my own private screening, except they kept the heat off, and I nearly plotzed when the ticket seller said $14.00 please, and that was a senior ticket. Anyway I really enjoyed it, Scorsese uses 3-D in a delicate, imaginative and smart way, and some of the scenes just take your breath away. I really didn't know much about the story, and was so delighted to find Georges Méliès as one of the main characters. The cast is good, and finally a 3-D movie that is truly special. It’s like a fantastic pop-up book. Try to see this one on a big screen and in 3-D. Charming all the way and easily one of the ten best films of the year.

Orion Headless

2012-01-08T09:20:00.000-08:00

Orion Headless has just posted five of my photographs from California and Tijuana 1982. You can view them at the link below.

http://orionheadless.com/california-and-tijuana-1982/

3 paintings on paper from the early 80's recently photographed

2012-01-05T21:17:00.000-08:00

Eve Arnold Photographer 1912-2012

2012-01-05T14:25:00.001-08:00

2 movie reviews

2012-01-04T16:59:00.000-08:00

Betrayed (when Strangers Marry) 1944

This is a really good and cheap little Monogram thriller directed by of all people William Castle before he became the gimmicky schlock master of Hollywood B's. The original title "When Strangers Marry" was changed for some reason to Betrayed, and this little thing is loaded with many nice touches. The story is about a very sweet but naive young waitress played by Kim Hunter who comes to New York City to meet up with her mysterious husband who she married after knowing him for only 3 days. A murder happens in Philadelphia (why Philadelphia?) and her husband played by Dean Jagger in a rare romantic lead is the main suspect. Kim spends most of the quick 67 minutes trying to prove his innocence with the help of former boyfriend Robert Mitchum. As I said its very cheap and somewhat sordid just they way I like my men and movies, so I had a really good time with it. Influenced by Hitchcock and the films of Val Lewton there are scenes set in movie theatres, an after hours jazz joint in Harlem, various hotel rooms and paper thin New York Streets. The very young Ronda Fleming has a tiny part at the end of the film Its available only through the Warner bros. archive, and you might be able to get it from your library.

Bridesmaids 2011.

I really can't understand all the love shown this film. It’s not horrible, but its really like an overlong sitcom, it looks like a sitcom and sounds like one, (I almost expected to hear a laugh track) and that's probably because of the cast which is filled with tv performers. I wouldn't know Kristen Wiig if I tripped over her, since I have never seen her on SNL She's not bad, looks a little too much like a taller meg ryan and she tired me out after a while as did the rest of the cast and I found none of these women likable or believable. Maybe it’s me, but I just don't know women like these, and I don't want to. Basically they are presented as vain, stupid, materialistic vulgar insensitive tarts and I had trouble thinking that they can maneuver through a day without getting run over by a bus. I really don't like scatological humor, so the big set piece at the wedding dress salon only grossed me out but I suppose one can say that this is a big step forward for feminism and woman's equal rights proving that they can be just as gross as men.

First two new notebook drawings of 2012. Collage and paint on notebook paper

2012-01-03T14:46:00.000-08:00

Eva Zeisel 1906-2011

2011-12-31T07:06:00.000-08:00

From My Archive. Lily Literary Review. December 2003

2011-12-25T20:16:00.000-08:00

http://freewebs.com/lilylitreview/4_8muslim.html

John Chamberlain 1927-2011

2011-12-21T19:38:00.001-08:00

The Best Art Exhibits of 2011

2011-12-20T21:02:00.001-08:00

My list of the best shows that I saw this year is not very large, mainly because I didn’t see that many shows, or that many shows that I liked. I saw a lot of bad, mediocre or overrated (B. Wurtz anyone?) exhibitions, and there were exhibitions by major artists that were anything but major (Jasper Johns and Richard Tuttle anyone) but to be fair It’s difficult to see everything because there is so much of everything. Also of note were the really terrific works that passed in front of my eyes this year on Facebook, strong bodies of work by many of my facebook artist friends were at times more exciting and rewarding than what I saw in museums and galleries. So in no order of preference is what I liked in 2011.

Lyonel Feininger: At the Edge of the World June 30–October 16, 2011 Whitney Museum. This is the kind of show that the Whitney does best, and they should lay off giving large shows to minor contemporary artists who do not deserve the attention or the recognition, and instead focus on the great and sometimes forgotten American artists who deserve the light that is usually withheld by museums like the Whitney who are way too much in awe of the flavors of the month. This was a beautiful and eye opening show for me, rich and full of Feininger’s lovely lyrical landscapes. Also notable were his roughhewed wooden toys.

Richard Serra-the metropolitan museum, Gagosian Gallery. Two major shows by a forceful and pioneering sculptor who manages to manipulate space and weight with imagination and grace that is not usually found in minimal art. His large maze like sculptures at Gagosian were towering and tactile.

H.C. Westermann Lennon, Weinberg Gallery. Any season that offers up a show of this great man’s work is indeed a good art season. I was just getting to know him as a friend when he passed at a way too early age. This was small but beautiful show that included a series of drawings that had never been shown before.

Richard Pousette-Dart-East River Studio-Luhring Augustine. This show was a revelation for me, I mean when was the last time I even thought of this artist. Every painting in the exhibit was absolutely brilliant and exciting. There was also some terrific sculptures.

Eva Hesse Spectres 1960. Brooklyn Museum. Not great paintings but interesting to see how they led this superb artist to her compelling sculptures, a few years later and while they were minimal were also eccentric and cranky with an inventiveness of materials that were an. Inspiration for a whole generation of artists including myself. The clues in these works were her use of greys which would later show up in her sculptures. An unfinished life.

Youth and Beauty: Art Of The American Twenties. Brooklyn museum. I don’t think there was one bad work in this beautiful show and it works very well as a companion show to Hide/Seek, because of the many homoerotic works included.

Hide/seek Difference and Desire In American Portraiture Brooklyn museum. Although flawed and predictable with a weak third act, this is a show that should be seen, and I’m indeed grateful that I had a chance to see it after its controversial run in the district of contempt.

George Tooker (1920-2011) Reality Returns As A dream: Memorial Exhibition DC Moore Gallery. A dream of a show by one of my favorite artists from my youth, this was one haunting exhibit and a rare treat to see so many of his works in one place.

Wonder of the age. Master painters of india 1100-1900 metropolitan museum. Beautifully installed and probably the best show to lose yourself in.

Stieglitz and his artists: Matisse to O’Keeffe. Metropolitan museum of art. I was surprised by the size and scale of this show, I was expecting a small exhibit, so it was a treat for me to have rooms of Hartley’s and Dove’s. Granted some of his artists never please me much, especially Marin, but still the guy had a great eye for talent.

New galleries for the art of the arab lands. Metropolitan museum of art. This is one of the great galleries in the city, and it’s so large and intense that I could only sample a little of it on my first visit and will be returning for many more samples.

Martín Ramírez: Landscapes Ricco Maresca Gallery. Way too small an exhibit for my money, but what was shown was magnificent. His story and life were indeed sad, but what he left behind is so inspiring, this is work to get lost in.

Matta: A Centennial Celebration-The Pace Gallery. This was another surprise for me, and if nothing else the size and scale of these works were impressive, plus all that color made for an impressive environment and finally one of these huge spaces gets it right.

de Kooning: A Retrospective. Museum Of Modern Art. Another great example of what the Museum of Modern Art does so well, and once again we have a major museum that is too focused on the now and not enough on the then, but this ravishing show makes up for their many blunders of recent years with regards to contemporary art and in particular with “installation and performance art.” I mean can it be that they finally get Fluxus?

Vivian Maier-Steven Kasher Gallery. A great photographer who almost got away, and suddenly and thankfully we have one of the great street photographers when nobody was looking. Saved from the garbage, this makes me think that there is indeed a God watching over us.

Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art-The Museum Of Modern Art. A little too cramped and crowded this is what must be meant by the chickens coming home to roost. The murals were great, but I really loved his small sketches that he did in Russia.

John Chamberlain at Pace and Gagosian. No surprises here, except lots of great sculptures by one of our major sculptors who managed to mash together the car culture into big bright overwhelming and yes beautiful pieces of expressionistic pop works that no one would have to worry about tripping over.

An Intimate Circle. Paul Cadmus, Jared French, Margaret French, George Platt Lynes and George Tooker. D.C. Moore. This was a beautiful show bringing together many rarely seen works including photographs by a group of friends most of whom were gay and who managed to put their lives out there in sometimes coded images during a generally repressive time in our history. The works might seem precious and too particular for some tastes but I found it to be overall impressive in its wide range of eroticism and fantasy.

untitled paintings from the 80's Recently photographed

2011-12-17T07:30:00.000-08:00

A Year Of Collages

2011-12-15T07:18:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas

2011-12-15T07:13:00.000-08:00

Last Collage of 2011

2011-12-13T09:38:00.000-08:00

The Torch Has Been Passed.

2011-12-09T21:07:00.000-08:00

Torch song-1953

Where was the great liberal head of M.G.M. Dore Schary when this movie was being filmed. Put together on the cheap in garish color and with what looks like costumes and sets from other films and with Joan Crawford basically playing herself. What was she thinking, was she so hungry for the attention that she would play a "star" that is clearly based on her off screen persona and reputation for being a BITCH. This drek was directed by Charles Walters an out gay man who also should have known better, but we do get to see him dance (he was a major choreographer) with Joan who jumps at the chance to show off her gams. He pushes and pulls her around like a dead weight but he plays ineffectual screwing up their dance routine which of course is a ha ha in moment for those of us who recognize Walters. Joan wearing a deep crimson slash where a mouth is usually found wears a horrible red unfeeling wig, smokes and drinks up a storm and bosses everyone who comes in her path. Her assistant is played by the African American actress Maidie Norman who in one scene throws daggers at Crawford with her eyes, looking like she wanted to smother Joan in her sleep with a pillow, and will turn up in a few years as Joan and Bette’s housekeeper in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? It’s a good moment because it feels improvised. Her blowsy and boozy mom is played by the veteran actress Marjorie Rambeau, who for some reason was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar for three short scenes. Michael Wilding who was bi and at the time married to Liz Taylor plays a blind pianist who takes over the job of playing for Joan during rehearsals for a show that is coming to Broadway. They have problems of course, even Mikes seeing eye dog hates Joan and growls whenever she comes near. It seems that Mike is in love with this gorgon because before the war (where he lost his vision) he was a critic and saw the young Joan in her debut on Broadway and fell in love with her, and still sees her in his mind as she was. And then there is that number that comes out of nowhere (Joan’s singing is dubbed India Adams) and is shocking not only for the racism but also for the sheer look of it. Joan, in brown face and looking like shiva, goddess of destruction is surrounded by a dancing chorus of clumsy male and females also in brown face who embarrassingly dance and sing their way through a rejected number from The Bad Wagon whose out takes featuring Cyd Charisse still exist. Gig Young is also in it, and I couldn’t quite read his character, that’s how vapid he was. The film itself is a gay romp if you know where to look and as awful as this film is, I couldn't stop watching this car accident of a movie.

My upstairs neighbor has disappeared

2011-12-07T14:42:00.000-08:00

My upstairs neighbor disappeared. Well she didn’t really disappear, her nephew and niece came from Maryland to take her back with them to a little room or apartment somewhere in that state. She’s 78 and not doing so well, imagining things that weren’t there, complaining about no heat, and claiming that she owned our building and was the landlord. So how about giving us some heat Maureen I jokingly asked her one chilly morning. “I’m working on it” she replied. For a few days and nights I heard noise above me, things being moved, dropped and shoved around. What the hell was she doing up there I wondered. It turned out that Ken her nephew was up there packing up some of her things. He knocked on my door one evening to apologize for all the noise and asked if I wanted to come upstairs and pick out anything I wanted to take. At first I said no. I had more than enough things and was myself trying to downsize my own belongings and stuff, but I thought why not, and went up to have a look. “It’s all junk,” Ken said. He was pretty much right in that department. The apartment was a mess, crowded and hoarded. Maureen had lived here all her life; she grew up here and, lived in this small apartment with her mother until she died. Maureen remained there all these years. I thought she was a lesbian, and all the bowling trophies that were everywhere in the apartment cinched it for me and no I didn’t take any of them as a souvenir. She took out her stove a few years back. “What do I need a stove for?” she asked me. Over the years on and off she was trying to fix up her apartment herself, which included replacing the electricity. So the two bedrooms had no lights when I went up there to take a look. I was always appalled by her messiness and worried that it was a disaster just waiting to happen. Thank God she didn’t smoke. I guess I could have taken some things if I could have seen what was up there, and I know I could have gone back up there during the day, but it was too sad. I mean a life was being dumped. There were lots of photographs and some of her paintings that she did on Sundays, but I just walked out of there with a nice lime green bowl, that Peter’s Thanksgiving day mashed potatoes looked really nice in, and a cheap white ceramic Nativity scene whose figures I thought would look nice next to my colorful clay one that I bought in Baja so many years ago. I knew that soon the landlord would be gutting her apartment, ripping everything out, the floors, the walls, the toilet and anything else that he could tear out, so he could do a cheap renovation and charge big bucks for it. Maureen was paying $400.00 for it, but she had lived here since 1933. She was a good neighbor quiet and nice and now I hope that whoever moves in above me is also quiet and nice. So last night my landlord, who by the way is also a nice young man called to tell me that the renovation will start tomorrow and the worst should be over by Friday. In the rain today the workers ripped, tore and threw out her life as I watched from my kitchen window. The noise was very bad, so I took myself out in the rain to The Museum Of Modern Art to look at the Diego Rivera murals and all the cute boys from foreign countries.

Disgusting.

2011-12-07T14:29:00.000-08:00

No this is not Iowa or Kansas. I took snapped this disgusting foul thing on the 49th street subway station today coming home from The Museum Of Modern Art. The barbarians are indeed at the gate.

The best films I saw on dvd during 2011

2011-12-05T20:52:00.000-08:00

This is not really a list of the best films of the year. Its simply a list of some really marvelous films that I saw on dvd and wrote about in 2011. There were 100’s of other films that I saw on dvd that I loved, liked or simply enjoyed that I didn’t write about.

Animal Kingdom, 2010.

Sensational first film from down under by David Michôd about a small time crime family living and dying in Melbourne. A perfect fit for the genre with standout performances by Ben Mendelsohn and 17 year old James Frecheville who plays the nephew of this highly dysfunctional and dangerous family. In a startling opening scene we see Frecheville on a couch watching tv with a woman who appears to be napping, but it turns out that she is dead from a heroin overdose and is his mother. He is soon brought back to the criminal lair by his grandmother played by Jacki Weaver the Matriarch of the brood and the mother of his dead mom. Looking like a dried up apple with a blonde wig, tiny Weaver plays the mother from hell in a hair raising performance that is low keyed with her cards held close to her chest so you really don’t know where she’s coming from or going. When she tells one of the characters “You've Done Some Bad Things, Sweetie” you want to duck and take cover. If there is any justice, she would be taking home an Oscar. The violence and blood letting is there but its not in your face gory or grisly. With Guy Pearce as a good cop trying to do his job. One of the years best films

The Films of Christopher Smith

Christopher Smith Is a youngish British horror movie director who is obviously very smart and knowledgeable about the genre. I’ve seen three of his films recently, all with one word titles, CREEP 2004, SEVERANCE 2006 and TRIANGLE 2009 and unfortunately like most contemporary films of this genre they tend to come undone and fall apart around my feet. Still he does have an original streak in his filmmaking and is full of good and odd ideas. He sets his films in places that one would not want to be caught dead in: a deserted “ghost ship”, an isolated cabin in Eastern Europe and the tunnels of the London underground and peoples them with very good attractive, and vulnerable (a given in this genre) young actors who are usually set upon by crazed maniacs and killers. Sounds like the usual set up for grizzly horror movies, but Smith has more going on in his vision and has more juice and talent than most directors who slosh around in the genre. Creep pits an attractive, but not particularly nice or endearing strong young woman against a horrible creature (and I do mean horrible, wait until your peepers get a gander at him) who lives in the London underground and kills at will. In Severance a group of young employers from a multi-national weapons company on a sales retreat get lost in the mountains of what might be Slovakia or Hungry and are killed off one by one a scary rogue group of soldiers, and in Triangle which is the most supernatural of the lot, a young group of friends go sailing and encounter very serious problems on the open sea. Sometimes droll and tongue in cheek, the films do offer up quite a few jolts and jumps without resorting to extreme violence and gore. Now that opinion is mine, a seasoned and hardened horror aficionado and some people might still find his films too violent and gory for their taste. If they do they have no business loitering around this genre, because yes there is blood and gore, but he also mixes in a nice blend of humor and an unexpected political awareness that is particularly evident in Severance. There are also lots of loose ends along with big gaps and holes and unexamined and unexplained threads in the plots but these are common defects of the genre and not just his films.

Kiss Of Death 1947

This is a superb noir thriller that Hathaway made in 1947, with mostly “real” New York City locations. This film of redemption and revenge opens on Christmas Eve as Victor Mature and two other hoods enter the Chrysler Building to rob a private jeweler and of course everything that could g...o wrong does. This is a striking sequence to open a film with, and Hathaway milks the suspense as the crooks are stuck in a slow moving elevator. Mature whose fabulous face looks like it belongs on the side of a mountain is amazingly touching and moving as Nick Bianco a small time crook who decides to squeal on the psychotic Tommy Udo played in his debut film role by a scary Richard Widmark who throws a wheel chair bound Mildred Dunnock down a flight of stairs and then gives off his creepy giggle. This is still a shocking sequence and Widmark deservedly received a supporting Oscar nomination only to loose to Edmund Gwenn’s Santa Claus, in Miracle on 34th Street. Sweet always wins out over sour. The screenplay is by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer with wonderful nourish documentary like cinematography by Norbert Brodine. One of the Ten best films of 1947.

Crime Wave 1954

This rapid dog of a B Noir movie directed by one eyed Andre De Toth and released by Warner Brothers in 1954 follows a familiar story line common to Nor B flicks. A trio of newly escaped cons pull small heists jobs in southern cal just to get by, a hamburger joint here, a gas station there, but meanwhile they’re working on a plan to pull off a big bank heist. The film opens with a beautifully shot sequence with the camera in the back of the thieves car as it roams the dark L.A. streets of 1954 and pulls into a gas station run by that runny cheese of a character actor Dub Taylor who is all cheerful and up because the radio is playing a request of his, sung by the magnificent Doris Day. Already I know I’m in for something special because of this on location shot, and the actual voice of Ms.Day on the soundtrack singing. S Wonderful. The three hoods are played by Ted De Corsia, Charles Buchinsky ( who down the road will change his name to Bronson and become a super duper super star) but for now he is Buchinsky, with that sexy ugly chiseled face of his and Nedrick Young all proper and dandy in a a suit and tie. Young who was also a screenwriter won the Oscar for best screenplay for The Defiant Ones under the pseudonymous Nathan E. Douglas after being blacklisted for invoking his Fifth Amendment rights while testifying before the 1953 House Committee on Un-American Activities. We are soon introduced to an ex con on probation unexpectedly played by the very good dancer Gene Nelson who was one year away from making his mark in the film version of Oklahoma. But for now he is an ex-con trying to go straight pulling his very pretty wife played by the lovely Phyllis Kirk, who supports her man no matter what along with him. Gene his dancer’s body taunt, tense and wiry spent time in the big house with the three cons and they want him to take part in their big heist, and of course he wants no part of it. There is a strong hard turn by the terrific Sterling Hayden as a ramrod of a detective who does the whole film with a toothpick stuck between his lips, you see Hayden is trying to give up smoking and since Nicorette was not yet invented his oral fix of choice is a toothpick. A nice eccentric touch, and Hayden does more with a toothpick than anyone I’ve ever seen. The film is thrilling and exciting in its narrative flow, and also in its beautiful visuals with real exterior and interior locations shot with mostly available light and hand held cameras, (the cinematographer was the great Bert Glennon). De Toth uses lots of extreme close ups and one memorable and beautiful shot is of two hands reaching for a late night ringing phone .that is as breathtaking as any shot I’ve ever seen in a film. There is also a small but pivotal and moving performance by the great Jay Novello as a once proud alcoholic doctor who also spent time in the cooler with the boys and because of this can no longer practice medicine and instead turns to the healing of animals and criminals on the run, and a scary small bit by the always compelling and freaky Timothy Carey as a minor accomplice on the heist. One of the ten best films of 1954.

Easy Living 1937

A screwball fairy tale from the depression. So one day Jean Arthur who plays Mary Smith is riding on the top of a double decker bus on her way to work down a rear projected 5^th ave when a sable coat lands on her head. We know where the coat has come from .because minutes before we’ve seen millionaire banker Edward Arnold who annoyed at his wife for spending 58,000 on it in the middle of a depression , angrily tosses it off the roof of their building where as I said it lands on Jean Arthur. This sets the film in motion. Jean wants to give the coat back, but Arnold will hear of no such thing, so Jean has this very expensive coat but no job and a $7.00 a week apartment whose rent she does not have. The plot is complicated as only a Preston Sturges script can be and is loaded with recognizable Sturges touches that will serve him well in his future Paramount films. There are mistaken identities, apoplectic fathers, lots of pratfalls, outspoken and pushy servants, lovable immigrants, prissy salesmen and of course sweet love affairs that always turn out fine in the end. Arthur’s love interest is a young Ray Milland who happens to be the son of Arnold, but of course Jean doesn’t know this. They meet very cute at the Automat where Milland out to prove to his father that he can make his way without his help has a job as a busboy, and is smitten with Arthur the minute he sees her. Wearing her sable coat but broke with only a nickel to her name, Milland decides on a scheme to get her food, and this leads to one of the wildest and memorable scenes ever put on celluloid. More confusion follows but that’s all I’m going to spend on the plot and instead I would like to sing the praises of Jean Arthur who I fell in love with one early evening in my young life watching a showing of The Devil and Miss Jones on the early show which showed vintage films heavily cut to fit in the 5 o clock time schedule right before the news. No doubt it was her unique voice that caught my 12 year old attention, and her unusual looks. This was not your typical lady movie star, she was awkward and real, was she really even acting. I don’t know, but I really fell hard for the lady. Her career began in the silent film era but it wasn’t until Frank Capra cast her in Mr. Deeds Goes To Town that her career really took off, and some terrific movies followed. Reclusive and secretive, rumors persist to this day that she was lesbian and that’s what accounted for her low profile in such a high profile town like Hollywood. Easy Living or Living easy if you prefer is a fast and furious 88 minutes and if a movie can be said to be out of breath it’s this one. Well directed by the underrated Mitchell Leisen who did some very nice films with many top female stars including Carole Lombard, Claudette Colbert and Olivia DeHavilland (who by the way won an Oscar in his To Each His Own), he was however disliked by Billy Wilder and Sturges who complained that Leisen ruined their screenplays, which is nonsense. Their anger and dislike of him had more to do with Leisen being gay, and the homophobia that ran rampant and unchecked back then. The cast is wonderful with many actors who Sturges would embrace and use many times in his is own films, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn, Luis Alberni and Robert Greig and If you’re quick you might pick out Dennis O’ Keefe and Lee Bowman in short uncredited early roles. One of the ten best films of 1937.

Alibi. 1929

Made right on the cusp of the coming of sound films, this Art Deco gangster movie is riveting mainly for its look. Directed by Roland West best known for The Bat Whispers this one is very much influenced by German expressionist films and has some jaw dropping beautiful images, most of which was shot for the silent version. The plot is simple and concerns the story of a very nasty gangster who lies and hides his true feelings so he can get away with murder. Played by Chester Morris who was very handsome with patent leather hair and a classic profile, (check out his nose) he not only deceives many of the other characters but also the viewer. As I said this is a stunning film with sets designed by the great William Cameron Menzies and beautiful cinematography by Ray June, who you can tell was experimenting with his shots. There are also several musical numbers that take place in Deco nightclubs that are oddly shot from the side and not head on. They were of course injected into the action to take advantage of the craze for musicals that the newborn sound techniques made possible. Morris who never really became an A list star was mostly known for the series of Boston Blackie films that he made in the 1940’s but he did work a lot appeared on many tv shows. There are problems with the quality of the sound, and I wish Kino had spent more time and money cleaning it up. At times you can hardly make out the dialogue, and the soundtrack sounds like someone was dragging a snow shovel across a just cleaned sidewalk, or someone was doing an old soft shoe on a floor with sand thrown about. The film is a bit stagy and static which is to be expected for an early sound film, but the “exterior” shots (there is some actual footage shot at night in L.A. in which the camera is attached to police cars as it roams through the city) and the interior expressionistic sets are as I said simply beautiful. Nominated for 2 Oscars. Best Picture and Best Actor but surprisingly the great cinematography and art direction were ignored

L.I.E. 2001

This is a marvelous deep, dark and disturbing first film by Michael Cuesta who is most known for his work on a series of deep dark and disturbing t.v. shows such as Six Feet Under and Dexter. Cuesta tells us the story of a neglected sensitive and very intelligent 15 year old boy growing up in the suburbs of Long Island. His mother has recently been killed in a car accident on the L.I.E. (Long Island Expressway) and his father who seems to be well off (they live in a lavish house) is involved in some shady real estate dealings and is distant and incompetent when it comes to being a father to his son. The boy is played by an impossibly young Paul Dano who is simply brilliant and who takes up with some bad kids who roam the dismal landscape breaking into houses. One of the houses that they break into is owned by a well liked and respected member of the community who by the way is a pedophile and is played by the fine actor Brian Cox who gives a complex shaded performance. They break into his basement as he is celebrating his birthday with family, friends and his latest boy catch upstairs, and trouble, trouble, trouble follows. This could have been a nasty piece of work, but thankfully Cuesta who also co wrote the screenplay handles this explosive story with style and sensitivity. He is helped by these two wonderful performances and I guess one could find fault with the ending which can be seen coming down the expressway at a rapid speed, but the film is so compelling and worthwhile and Dano just breaks your heart. One of the ten best films of 2001.

Road House 1948

This is a sultry and smooth semi film noir with the great Ida Lupino playing torch singer Lily Stevens who gets hired by Richard Widmark out of Chicago to sing for her supper in Jefty’s his googie styled road house sprawl of a joint ( there is even a bowling alley) that is plopped down in some backwoods place near the U...S Canadian border. Besides Ida and Widmark the cast includes the lavishly luscious Cornell Wilde and the sparkling Celeste Holm as the gal assistant to Widmark. Celeste did this film right off of her Oscar win for Gentleman’s Agreement and again plays stoic and hopelessly in love with the male lead ( Wilde) who hardly notices her. So Ida is this tough been around the block a few times broad who looks great in her starched wigs and late 40’s clothes, and a special placard should be held up for this film, because Ida does her own singing that Celeste says sounds like gravel, and “She does more without a voice than anybody I've ever heard!” True her voice is like gravel but its well worn gravel, and when she sings "One for My Baby" attention must be paid. Ida who Smokes wildly and intensely as she performs leaves many cigarette burns on her white piano (this is a nice touch to show time passing) and Widmark somewhat Psycho once more has the hots for her but she has no interest in him other than the nice paycheck that he gives her.

Ida only has hot thighs for Cornell, who at first is not so nice and friendly to Ida’s Lily Stevens, but soon they are all over each other, kissing and what not, and when Widmark finds out watch out. This was only Widmark’s 3rd film and he was desperate to drop the sick giggle and psycho ways that became almost a trademark after his startling debut Oscar nominated performance in Kiss Of Death and finally after 3 nasty man roles he started to appear as good guys in many of his films. As you might surmise things don’t end so nice, but that’s the way of Noir. Beautifully directed by Jean Negulesco who did some good and not so good films in the 40’s and 50's and great cinematography by Joseph LaShelle who did his best work at 20th Century Fox which produced this reclusive little gem.

Detour 1945

Made on a shoe string budget and looking like it was filmed in that shoe, Detour was made in a matter of days using a few cheap sets and some rear projections. This poverty row raw noir is about a guy on a hard luck life trip who tells his story in flashbacks as he sits in a dive of a diner (the waitress is none other than the great Esther Howard) nursing his cup of coffee and moaning over his fate. The film stars real life bad guy Tom Neal and a shock to the system actress Ann Savage as Vera the nightmare that Tom picks up on the road. The background to the story goes something like this. Tom plays piano player Al Roberts who works in a cheap joint in a pulp paperback New York City. His girlfriend Sue played by Claudia Drake also works in the club and sings for her supper very nicely, but she’s tired of Manhattan and wants to op out of the place to try her luck in L.A. So off she goes and soon Tom gets depressed missing his babe and wants to join her but is broke and decides to hitchhike and that’s when his troubles start and my pleasure with this great film begins. Tom Neal who was a real life problem, was arrested a few times, and made headlines in the early 50’s ’s for beating the crap out of Franchot Tone for playing around with his tootsie the really bad Barbara Payton who Tone later married. Tom also shot one of his wives dead and served 6 years in the clinker for it. Nice going Tom. His career didn’t amount to much, but Detour is a great tombstone to put on his grave. Neal was bad and dark and sexy as hell, and he’s very good in the film. As for Savage her performance is startling to say the least, with her rough hewed face and nasty countenance, she is unique, troubling and very scary. The movie is art povera, a lost and found assemblage of parts put together by Edgar G. Ulmer over at PRC pictures home to cheap and I mean cheap B programmers. It’s dark and grimey, running only 68 fast and furious minutes, and is an example of why movies sometimes can matter, why they sometimes can be works of art, why they make some of us scream for joy. A note about the print. The transfer put out by Alpha Video is not as bad as I expected it to be considering that this company’s product is usually hit or miss but this is a film that should be restored by Criterion with lots of extras. One of the ten best films of 1945., and Ann Savage the best actress of 1945.

Caged 1950

The sub sub genre of women’s prison movies have long been fodder for various television shows, exploitation movies, and even Off -Broadway camp musicals and with Caged we have the grandmother of them all. Directed by John Cromwell (the father of the very good contemporary character actor James Cromwell) for Warner Bros. an...d shot in inky black and white on a tight claustrophobic cheap looking set. In this grimy grim tale of injustice and mistreatment Cromwell brings the lovely young actress Eleanor Parker to this prison for a long internment for a crime that did not fit her sentence of 1 to 15 years. Parker who was 28 at the time received an Oscar nomination for best actress that year and plays the nineteen year old naive Marie Allen with ease and believability, you really worry about her. Still shocking after all this time, the film when first released in 1950 must have horrified the cold war audiences what with the sadistic violence, the implicit and explicit lesbianism and the very bleak ending. Situated in this pit of hell are all the various stereotypical types of women we have come to expect to find in this kind of place. There is the prostitute with a heart of gold, the old lady who’s been in prison for most of her life but has a heart of gold, the I’m loosing my mind gal with a heart of gold, the sensitive type who can’t take being locked up any longer with a heart of gold, the tough broads and bull dykes all with hearts of gold, and the mean sadistic guards and matrons without any hearts what so ever. The pot is boiling for sure, and a big part of our prurient interest in watching this film is the fabulous cast of actresses who fill the cells and patrol the corridors. Besides the lovely Ms. Parker some of her cell mates include the great Betty Grade as the aptly named Kitty Stark who on the outside runs a shoplifting racket and is the big shot dame of the joint until Lee Patrick as Elvira Powell a big time Madame and a rival of Kitty’s on the outside gets thrown back in the slammer. The gloves are off, and they both want a piece of Eleanor who they want to work for them when she gets out. Nix nix Parker tells them both, but it is the horrible Evelyn Harper the sadistic prison matron played with hot house relish by the larger than life Hope Emerson (who received an Oscar nomination for her performance) who really wants Eleanor for her own. Over 250 pounds of rolling flesh and built like a brick shit house, Emerson is a frightening presence throughout the film as she rolls down the corridors causing hate and fear in the inmates. Also in the cast is Agnes Moorehead as the kindly director, Ellen Corby, Jan Sterling, Olive Deering, Jane Darwell and Gertrude Hoffman as Millie Lewis the oldest inmate in the cell block who takes no crap from Emerson. A classic of sorts and one of the ten best films of the year

The Dark Corner 1946

Before she became Lucy, Lucille Ball made a lot of movies, some comedies, some musicals and some dramas including this well done Noir directed by Henry Hathaway. Lucille as I will refer to her here plays secretary and girl Friday to Mark Stevens’s angry private dick who was framed for a crime he didn’t commit back in San Francisco and got sent up the river for 2 years. The movie opens with the great William Bendix in white suit eye balling Stevens’s office near the 3^rd Ave El. Bendix has been hired by someone to follow Mark for reasons that we learn slowly but surely. This is a nice tough noir with a sweet and sour script and smooth direction by Hathaway who did a number of these nourish tough movies at 20^th century fox during the late 40’s. Hathaway started his long career doing low budget western programmers and worked his way up at Fox finally getting his hands on some A projects including what I consider to be his best film “Kiss of Death” made one year after Corner and unlike this dark corner Death was shot almost entirely on location in New York City. This one was shot on the backlot of the studio but there is still a nice feel of the city on an early warm spring evening. Bracketed by 3^rd ave sleaze and 5^th ave art galleries the movie is swift and very entertaining, and how could it be otherwise with a cast featuring Clifton Webb, Bendix, Ball and Stevens. Mark Stevens was a very attractive actor who really didn’t go very far in films but I always liked him and he handles this part with cool assurance and hot anger, not easy to pull off especially at the same time that he’s necking with Lucille. Also of note is the lush cinematography by Joseph McDonald, the well known “"Manhattan Melody" theme, that was used in so many films of the 40s, and first heard here, and Colleen Alpaugh as the little girl with the slide whistle and her encounters with William Bendix. Almost one of the ten best films of 1946.

Side Street. 1950

This is a taunt little B noir thriller directed by Anthony Mann that reunited Farley Granger and Cathy O’ Donnell who appeared as the doomed lovers in Nicholas Ray’s “They Live by Night” the year before. This time we find the couple newly married with a baby on the way living in her parent’s small dingy Manhattan apartment and having trouble making ends meet. Granger is a good guy, works hard at a temporary job he has as a mail man but does a stupid thing. One day as he’s dropping off the mail at the office of a shyster lawyer and blackmailer played by Edmond Ryan, he sees some high end bills lying around and decides to go back when the office is empty and rob them of the loot. Rayan along with his partner James Craig ( a ham hock of an actor) run a shake down racket of milking rich men of their money after they’re set up to fall into the clutches of Lucille 'Lucky' Colner. Lucille turns out to be not that lucky and is played with rancid relish by that nourish B dame of dames Adele Jergens. Lucky Lucy and her pals push some tangy and damaging photos of her and the unlucky johns on them in order to get a lot of moola out of them, and if they don’t pay up they better watch out.. So stupid Farley now has a lot of money but he also has a conscience and decides to return the money to the crooks, but this isn’t as easy as it sounds, and so the chase as they say is on all over Manhattan. Mann who worked in many genres does a great job with this shoe string B shooting most of the film on location in New York City. M.G.M was not known for Noir, but in the late 40’s and early 50’s they did a small series of B Noirs and being M.G.M. the films have the gloss and production values of their A movies. The beautiful cinematography is by the great Joseph Ruttenberg whose remarkable career began in 1917 and who went right on doing films up to 1968. Part of the pleasure of watching this movie are the glimpses we get of a city that no longer exists including the Third Ave El and a peek at 8^th street in the Village where the marvelous Jean Hagen comes on as a cheap nightclub singer (she’s dubbed) whose relationship with her sometime lover Craig comes to no good. Also in the cast is a boatload of good character actors including Paul Kelly (who in real life found himself in a boatload of trouble), Paul Harvey, Charles McGraw, Harry Bellaver, Whit Bissell, a very young Ben Cooper, the delightful Mineva Urecal and in a bit the real life Marie Crisis who owned and operated the famous cabaret Marie Crisis’s in the Village. Mann ends the film with a great car chase through the concrete canyons of lower Manhattan, and hopefully after it’s over you’ll sit back and say to yourself this was a damn good little movie. Thank you Mr. Mann.

They Live By Night 1949

An American masterpiece directed by Nicholas Ray. Opening with a dramatic arial shot of a speeding car along a dusty country road, we are soon introduced to 3 escape convicts who have high jacked a car from a trusting farmer. They show him some mercy by only knocking him out instead of killing him. The three cons are played by Jay C. Flippen as T-Dub a fearless character actor if ever there was one, Howard Da Silva frightening as the one eyed Cyclops Chickamaw (yes I know his one eye is not in the center of his face, and the young and handsome Farley Granger as Bowie. The gang holes up in the backwoods cabin of De Silva’s drunk and lazy brother (well played by another ever present wonderful character actor Will Wright ) and his lovely young daughter Keechie played by Cathy O’Donnell. The three cons plan a bank robbery and they do pull it off getting quite a bit of money from the heist, but soon things start to go bad and everything is falling on them so they take it on the lam leaving Granger and O’Donnell to fall in love. The couple hastily decide to get married in a morose and depressing ceremony at a roadside wedding chapel where a jaundiced justice of the peace played with relish by Ian Woolfe reigns. They are soon on the run as Granger is being blamed unfairly for all of gang’s dirty dealings. His beautiful face is in all the papers, and he is being set up to take the fall by Helen Craig who plays Mattie a friend of the crooks. Mattie is the poison nectar of the piece, a dark Greek chorus of one who makes a deal with the authorities to get her husband out of prison if she tells them where Bowie and Keechie are hiding out.

Craig who was an odd and striking actress makes one hell of an impression but unfortunately did very few films along with a bit of t.v. before fading unfairly into oblivion. At one time the film was going to be called “Your Red Wagon” (in fact the paperback movie tie-in published in 1948 uses this title), and there is a nice small moment in the film, when the couple have a night out on the town and go to a nightclub where the African American singer Marie Bryant wonderfully warbles a song called “Your Red Wagon”. The couple on the lam is nothing new in American movies, the earliest one that comes to mind is Fritz Lang’s 1937 film “You Only Live Once”, and in the same year “They Live By Night” was released “Gun Crazy” which is a rougher nastier film then this one also saw the light or noir of day. Remade in 1974 by Robert Altman using the title of the original Edward Anderson novel “Thieves Like Us” and setting it in the 1930’s where the novel takes place and not in the late 1940’s where Ray’s version is set. No doubt production budgets and not aesthetics had a lot to do with this decision. With beautiful black and white cinematography by George E. Diskant. One of the ten best films of 1949.

Sweet Smell Of Success. 1957

There are a few films from my childhood that have stayed with me throughout the years. The Little Fugitive, Night of The Hunter, Psycho and Sweet Smell Of Success are all films I saw when I was very young. I can’t imagine why when I was ten years old I wanted to see Sweet Smell of Success, but I did and off I went with my uncle Natie to the Loew’s State to see the film. I don’t remember if I liked it or not, but I probably did. It was real (just outside the theatre the actual locations where the movie was shot were vividly there). Also the strangeness of the characters and the language that they spoke must have appealed to me. And of course the film starred two virile youngish beautiful male movie stars, and no doubt the combo of 1957 Lancaster and Curtis beckoned me. I’ve seen the film many times since then, and the new restored transfer from Criterion is stunning. The film’s dynamic plot is told in the first few minutes of the movie by Sidney Falcon acted by Tony Curtis, a good-looking but sleazy Broadway hustler who likes to think of himself as a press agent.. His nemesis is the well known gossip columnist who resides over his small kingdom, (most notably 21) with a fierce anger and hostility to one and all. J.J. Hunsecker (based on Walter Winchell) and is played by a very fine Burt Lancaster, who gives it a good try at playing down his attractiveness. In fact both Curtis and Lancaster are terrific and give memorable and lasting performances, which are among their best. The film rides on the attempts of Lancaster to manipulate Curtis into doing dirty deeds for him for a price. Lancaster usually wins but with some severe consequences. Curtis is also a big time taker and he’s willing to put up with an amazing amount of shit to get ahead. He’s derided and ridiculed and even physically hurt through the film but that doesn’t stop him. During the film Falco is called pretty, a poodle and is constantly referred to as less than a man. Lancaster who is sexless but seething and has an unhealthy relationship with his mink and meek beautiful sister played by Susan Harrison who came and went with this film. Harrison is in love with a Jazz Guitarist play by Martin Milner who gives what I think is the film’s weakest performance. This relationship is the crux of the film that moves it towards near tragedy. As I said Curtis plays a big taker but he was also a manipulator and this can be seen in the famous “What I’m I a bowl of fruit scene between the great Barbara Nichols, Curtis and David White as Otis Ellwell another creepy columnist and arch rival of Lancaster’s. Nichols as the cigarette girl who is herself a bruised piece of fruit is superb giving a wonderful performance that only lasts two scenes but was worthy of an Oscar. The film spills over with the great and biting words by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman whose novelette they based the screenplay on. Many of the lines are classics and in fact Barry Levinson has one of his diner guys constantly quotes lines from the movie. Quite a tribute. Needless to say the direction by Alexander Mackendrick is great. Mackendrick who made a few of those quirky and funny Ealing studio comedies in the late 40’s and 50’s which usually starred Alec Guiness. But here in this gritty American film does Mackendrick make his mark. This is his unexpected masterwork. A film that originally came and went quickly it’s now considered to be a great film by many critics, directors and people who love movies. The city that the movie takes place in does not exist anymore, nothing stands where it once stood, and so what is probably the best film ever shot in New York City also serves as a mini documentary of what a part of New York City once was like. You sometimes have to look fast but it’s there with the beautiful cinematography by the great James Wong Howe. The supporting cast is very good with excellent performances by Jeff Donnell (a stand out as Falco’s harried but loyal secretary) ,Sam Levene, Emile Meyer, Lawrence Dobkin, Lurene Tuttle and Queenie Smith one of my favorite bit character actress in a tiny spot. Music is by Elmer Bernstein. The best film of 1957.

Torrid Zone. 1940

A fast and furious 88 minute Warner Bros. action comedy that features a great cast of WB contract actors. Set in a small Central America country with most of the action taking place on a troubled banana plantation the plot involves a not so nice Pat O'Brien who is the manager of the company and his efforts to get back his top banana foreman played by James Cagney who sports a sexy pencil thin mustache and wants no part of returning to the plantation to run things. Instead Jimmy is on his way to Chicago until O’Brien makes him an offer he can’t refuse and he gets a look at Ann Sheridan. Sheridan is her usual gorgeous self smooth and shinny with a voice to match her looks and delivers most of the good lines. The beautiful Ann plays a nightclub singer and card sharp who is stranded in the town, and only wants to make a few bucks singing in the local club and cheating the men in cards so she can move on to greener cooler pastures. O’Brien who not only runs the company but also the town, takes a strong dislike to Ann and orders her out on the next boat. Soon they are all mixing it up on the plantation exchanging zingers which fly back and forth with the speed of bullets including many sexual barbs, and take note of all the homoerotic sexual innuendos between Cagney and O’Brien. Cagney- “Oh, Lee, (Sheridan) if you see Case,(O’Brien) give him a kiss for me. Sheridan “Not even a foreign general would kiss that guy!” How these got by the censors I’ll never know. Also in this Irish stew is George Tobias who plays a good hearted and somewhat lovable revolutionary who keeps escaping from prison. Andy Devine, Helen Vinson, Jerome Cowan and the always wonderful Grady Sutton round out the cast, and also look for a brief bit by George Reeves as member of Tobias’s band of bandits. Shot by the great James Wong Howe on the Warner Bros. back lot the film looks good, in fact better than it should with top notch art direction, (where did they get all those bananas?), and steady workman like direction by W.B in house director William Keighley

The Fallen Idol. 1949

Made a couple of years before his masterpiece “The Third Man”, Carol Reed's “The Fallen Idol” for most of its running time is a beguiling fairy tale of childhood magic and angst. The film covers a few days in the life of the privileged nine year old Phillipe who is the son of a foreign ambassador based in London. He’s a lonely child, spending most of his time by himself in the huge Embassy while his father is either busy or away. His mother who is never seen has been away for months being treated for an untold illness, and Phillipe's only two friends are his small pet garden snake McGregor and his beloved Baines the majestic butler played by the great Ralph Richardson. There is terror and danger in the young boy’s life mostly caused by the housekeeper and wife Of Baines who is straight out of a Grimm fairytale. Mrs. Baine played with rich nasty gusto by Sonia Dresdel is always on her husband or Phillipe's case running the beautiful embassy like a Nazi storm trooper. The story hinges on an affair that Richardson is having with the light, lovely and beautiful Julie a secretary at the embassy played by the very beautiful and appealing Michèle Morgan. One day Phile (that is what he is called) sees the couple in a tea shop having a romantic rendezvous and soon the deception and deceit is upon them and even though we know no good can come from this, we still hold out hope that our fairy tale will have a happy ending, (it actually does). Phile adores Baines and Baines adores Julie and they all hate Mrs. Baines, who of course finds out about the affair. There are two superb sequences in the film that I love, one is a beautiful nighttime game of hide and seek, played after a day at the zoo among the white sheet covered furniture in the temporary closed embassy that Phile, Baines and Julie play while the dreaded wife is supposedly away for a few days taking care of a sick relative. This game of our childhood is scary and threatening anyway and in this sequence we hold our breath because we know the evil that lurks. The other great sequence which follows the hide and seek scene is a brilliantly filmed nighttime escape by Phile in his pajamas and bare feet through the glistering cold London night. Reed shoots the sequence like a nightmare (and indeed that's what it feels like) as the young boy is finally rescued by a policeman and brought to the station where he is befriended by the local kind prostitute who seems to spend a lot of time there. This is the only comical and very British scene in the film. The cast of course is great, and special mention should be made of Bobby Henrey the young unprofessional child who plays the pivotal role of Phile, who is both charming and annoying and who by all accounts drove the director crazy during the filming. Filling out the cast is a bevy of wonderful British actors, Jack Hawkins Denis O Dea, Torin Thatcher and Bernard Lee as members of the police force who arrive late in the film. My only problem with this marvelous film is that it ends too abruptly and seems a little rushed. The screenplay which is tight and minimal is by Graham Greene who based it on his short story. With beautiful cinematography by the great Georges Périnal. Also of note is the elaborate embassy set designed by Vincent Korda.

The Year in Review. 2011

2011-12-05T20:03:00.000-08:00

This was a very good year for me with regards to my art being published in many on line literary magazines and journals.

http://frontporchrvw.com/issue/january-2011/article/eye-sight

http://www.blotterrag.com/back-issues/2010-10.pdf

http://www.broadsidedpress.org/switcheroo/april11.shtml

http://guerillapamphlets.webs.com/Guerilla%20Pamphlets%20Volume%20%208.pdf

http://www.foliateoak.uamont.edu/archives/february-2011/artwork/ira-joel-haber/ira-joel-haber

http://www.broadsidedpress.org/bsides/2011/72-Botanical.pdf

http://www.breadcrumbscabs.com/issue27.php

http://www.bapq.net/winter-11/feature_paintings-by-ira-joel-haber.asp

http://frontporchrvw.com/issue/april-2011/article/nyc-f-words

http://centrifugaleye.com/

http://www.broadsidedpress.org/responses/2011japan/SlidingHouse.pdf

http://www.imitationfruit.com/Issue_8/urban_drawl/urban_drawl.html

http://www.broadsidedpress.org/bsides/2011/75-Weeds.pdf

http://hofd.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/hodissue4final.pdf

http://www.convergence-journal.com/summer11/su11p4.html#Haber

http://inkfilledpage.com/current-issue-2/summer-2011-issue/

http://www.shoemusicpress.com/mastodondentist/files/mastodondentist10webview.pdf

http://freewebs.com/lilylitreview/5_5Vicari.html

http://hofd.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/hodissue5final.pdf

http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_40.html?page=18#3230

http://freq.uenci.es/2011/11/25/contradiction/

http://www.grumpsjournal.com/jue2/stories/jue2-marshall.html

http://www.imitationfruit.com/Issue_9/narcissus/narcissus.html

Notebook drawing early December 2011. Collage and paint on notebook paper

2011-12-03T14:36:00.000-08:00

Ken Russell 1927-2011

2011-11-28T06:01:00.000-08:00

Products from Cafe Press

2011-11-27T07:39:00.000-08:00

I'm going to be closing down my cafe press site in Feb. so now is the time to buy wonderful gifts for Christmas with my images and designs. Visit the site and the link below.

http://www.cafepress.com/irajoelhaber

Open Box # 5. 1971. Mixed. 8" x 11 3/4" x 6"

2011-11-27T06:48:00.000-08:00

Untitled box November 2011. Mixed. 7" x 7" x 2 1/2"

2011-11-27T06:35:00.000-08:00

freq.uenci.es a collaborative genealogy of spirituality

2011-11-25T07:03:00.000-08:00

I have no idea how this collage of mine turned up on this spirituality literary magazine. I must have submitted my art to them at one time, but I have no recollection of doing this. Below is the link to the site.

http://freq.uenci.es/2011/11/25/contradiction/

Digitally Altered Collages 2007-2011

2011-11-24T20:16:00.000-08:00

Photographs of California from 1982-84

2011-11-21T08:45:00.000-08:00

These were taken by me when I was teaching at The University Of California from 1982 to 1984 and include some from Tijuana.

Two paintings from the 80's recently photographed

2011-11-21T08:20:00.000-08:00

Paintings on paper from the 1981 recently photographerd

2011-11-19T16:08:00.000-08:00

notebook collage November 2011

2011-11-16T16:46:00.000-08:00

the Journal of Unlikely Entomology

2011-11-16T08:35:00.000-08:00

My collage has been published in the journal of unlikely entomology. You can view it at this link.

http://www.grumpsjournal.com/jue2/stories/jue2-marshall.html

Notebook drawing early Novmember 2011

2011-11-09T14:02:00.000-08:00

Eddie Murphy is Gone From The Oscars. Great News

2011-11-09T13:59:00.000-08:00

This is great news. I've always despised him, and especially so after he made fun of gay men and people with AIDS during one of his disgusting concert films. I've always thought he was a big closet case anyway, and his sexual encounters with transvestites makes me think that he is a big queen locked in his homophobic self hating closet. I say good riddance to this piece of shit. I hate him so much that I won't honor him by using a picture of his ugly mug.

white house in a box. 5 3/8" x 2 1/8" x 6 3/4" mixed

2011-11-06T07:05:00.000-08:00

August In A Brown Brick Box. 1972. 12" x 11 3/8" x 5" Mixed

2011-11-02T21:04:00.000-07:00

First exhibited in the whitney sculpture annual. 1972. The piece was bought from the show, and I haven't seen it since.

Notebook drawing early Novmember 2011

2011-11-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

imitation fruit Issue 9 November 2011

2011-11-01T06:53:00.000-07:00

http://www.imitationfruit.com/Issue_9/narcissus/narcissus.html

A Handful Of Dust

2011-10-31T16:55:00.000-07:00

A Handful Of Dust as just posted their latest issue with several photographs and drawings of mine. You can view the issue at this link. Its a PDF

http://hofd.wordpress.com/current/

Notebook drawings 1980

2011-10-29T07:20:00.000-07:00

Installation of my paintings on paper at Ohio State University 1984

2011-10-29T06:43:00.000-07:00

When I was a visiting artist at OSU in 1984 they asked me to exhibit some of my art, I decided on a whole wall of my paintings on paper.

Low Landscape 1971

2011-10-29T06:40:00.000-07:00

I've been scanning lots of old slides of my art that I haven't seen in years. This is one of them. The colors are somewhat off, but still think it looks good, and I figure its more important to document them and not worry too much about the colors or the quality of the slides.

The end of October Notebook Page. Collage, ink, pastel and paint on notebook paper

2011-10-27T14:49:00.000-07:00

Collages on found paper. 2002. 37" x 17"

2011-10-27T07:40:00.000-07:00

Late October Notebook drawing. Collage and paint on notebook paper

2011-10-25T14:16:00.000-07:00

No Orchids For Miss Blandish. 1948

2011-10-24T14:13:00.000-07:00

This is one sick puppy of a movie; it’s like something that you scrape off the bottom of your shoe before you enter a friend’s house that has white wall-to-wall carpeting. So why didn’t I like it more than I did. Well for one thing the direction by St. John Leigh Clowes (he never directed another film) is wooden and stagy. He directs his actors as if they were cardboard cut out figures in a children’s play theatre, moving them about without them showing much emotion from one claustrophobic set to another. He also fills the movie with way too many second rate musical numbers (a lot of the action takes place in the nightclub “Grisson’s” run by Ma Grisson) that stretch out and interrupt the flow and action of the narrative. The story is based on a novel by James Hadley Chase and was quite a shocking read back in 1939. The plots concerns a rich spoiled heiress who on her wedding night is the victim of a robbery and kidnapping (her new hubby is murdered in front of her eyes) by a pair of cheap gangsters and is then removed from their clutches by Slim Grisson another gangster who wants in on the ransom. Jack La Rue Somewhat too old and not very slim and who played a similar role in the earlier pre code film “The Story Of Temple Drake” plays Slim. Eventually and unbelievably the unlikely duo fall in love and plan to run off but fate enters the film and everything ends on a very unhappy note with lots of dead bodies lying about. The movie is set in New York City but since the film was made in Great Britain the cast struggle with their American accents or just give up and speak in their normal tongue, thus causing no end of confusion as to just where are we in London or New York? Linden Travers plays the Heiress Miss Blandish and she’s not bad, however the rest of the cast leaves much to be desired. Ma Grisson is played by the strange, plump and very butch Lillie Molnar who wears the same dress through much of the film and slaps around anyone who gets in her way. The film’s violence and sexual innuendos caused much controversary and held up its American release for a few years, and the film still met up with more problems here when the distributors changed the title to “The Snatch.” Yikes. Later remade in 1971 by Robert Aldrich as The Grissom Gang.

Retrospective Rutgers University Art Gallery, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1980

2011-10-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

Some Recent Photographs

2011-10-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

Some more notebook drawings from 1978

2011-10-19T08:15:00.000-07:00

Notebook drawings from 1978

2011-10-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

October Notebook collage. 2011

2011-10-13T18:43:00.000-07:00

Early Sculptures.

2011-10-12T08:07:00.000-07:00

Untitled. 1992. paper and mixed. 9 1/2" x 4 1/4" x 5"

Burnt floor pieces 1969-1970. mixed various sizes

Memorandum. 1974.Mixed. 24 1/2" x 10" x 9 1/2"

In My Studio 1971

2011-10-12T08:01:00.001-07:00

Diane Cilento 1933-2011

2011-10-10T08:15:00.001-07:00

Early October Collage 2011

2011-10-03T12:03:00.001-07:00

Mungbeing magazine

2011-10-02T06:25:00.000-07:00

Mungbeing Magazine has just post 8 of my photographs for their costume issue. You can view them and the entire issue at this link.

http://www.mungbeing.com/issue_40.html?page=18#3230

Richard Serra

2011-09-29T13:55:00.000-07:00

Took in the Richard Serra show at the Gagosian gallery the other day, and it was extraordinary. It consists of two very large weatherproof steel sculptures that fill the space like mazes. The fact that you can walk "through" them also adds to the experience of experiencing them and adds a touch of anxiety. I was overwhelmed by the scale of course but also by the texture and the color of the work. The steel was so soft and smooth that I thought it was wood but of course that is not his medium. A brilliant show of force by one of our best sculptors.

The end of September Notebook Page. Collage, ink and paint on notebook paper

2011-09-28T06:53:00.001-07:00

another late september notebook page. collage, ink on notebook paper

2011-09-26T08:05:00.000-07:00

Sale Books priced form $5.00-$10.00

2011-09-24T07:12:00.000-07:00

This is my sale list of books featuring nearly 200 items priced from $5.00-$10.00 none higher. New items added daily.

http://www.cinemagebooks.com/?page=shop/browse&category_id=26&CLSN_857=13168726048579bb5e25cc572cd5669a

Mid September 2011 notebook drawing. Paint and collage on notebook paper

2011-09-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

Pop

2011-09-21T11:12:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I like best about some of Andy Warhol’s work is that it’s like looking through one of those large fashion celebrity magazines. You can take it all in quickly, and then move on to more important things. It passes the time. The recent show of Warhol at the Gagosian Gallery is totally taken up with his “Liz” portraits and are pretty and vapid at the same time. This may have to do with the subject of these portraits, I would much prefer a gallery full of his Marilyn’s or the soup cans, but the show did make me smile and the back room gallery with lots of Liz’s is the best part of the exhibit. The other pop show now up is at the Paula Cooper Gallery and is a dull exhibition of Roy Lichenstein’s paintings of architectural moldings which he called the Entablatures Series. He did these between 1971 and 1976 and these are pop without the pop, they just poop. Lichentstein always worked best when he was lifting images from the comics and other obscure popular imagery and was not so successful when making up his own images, like these borders which are minimal and for me devoid of any visual excitement. They are big. Or to quote Barbara Rose from the press release:

“the mechanical reformulation of the romantic tradition of landscape and seascape, an anti-naturalism as appropriately satirical of our technological environment as the anti-humanism of the cartoon style was of the traditional heroic subjects of love and war. ” No wonder I can’t stand most art criticism.

African American Material For Sale

2011-09-19T11:52:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try to post all my catalogs from cinemage books. The first one is for African American books and other items.

http://www.cinemagebooks.com/?page=shop/browse&category_id=17&CLSN_857=131645804185779c55888ea549551996

Two paintings from the early 80's and one from 1990 recently photographed

2011-09-19T11:46:00.000-07:00

Some Recent Photographs

2011-09-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

Mid September 2011 notebook drawing. Paint and collage on notebook paper

2011-09-16T08:09:00.000-07:00

Richard Hamilton 1922-2011

2011-09-13T12:07:00.001-07:00

September notebook drawing. Ink, paint and collage on notebook paper

2011-09-12T17:15:00.000-07:00

Cliff Robertson 1923-2011

2011-09-10T20:43:00.001-07:00

Mastodon Dentist

2011-09-09T21:51:00.000-07:00

I just got this very nice copy of Mastodon Dentist that was originally done in 2007 on line and is now available as a copy for only $5.00. The entire issue is illustrated with my drawings (about 14) that I did when I was a teenager. The front cover is a portrait of an old friend done when I was about 25.

http://www.shoemusicpress.com/mastodondentist/files/mastodondentist10webview.pdf

The Fallen Idol 1948

2011-09-07T17:49:00.000-07:00

Notebook drawing September 2011. Paint, ink and collage on notebook paper

2011-09-06T20:19:00.000-07:00

Gods And Monsters. 1998

2011-09-05T22:00:00.000-07:00

Just finished watching “Gods and Monsters” Bill Condon’s elegant and very moving mixture of fact and fiction dealing with the last days of the important filmmaker James Whale. I haven’t seen it in some time but was drawn to it again mainly because there was some controversy on a facebook post about it being demeaning and hurtful to gay people, and that the film was full of lies. Well this is of course total rubbish. At no point was I offended by the “gayness” of the story or put off because of the mixing of fact and fiction in telling this tale of Whale. The film directed and written by Condon is based on the novel Father Of Frankenstein by Christopher Bram. It was not based on a biography or a academic study of the director, and no one connected with the film ever said it was. Whale who is most known for his four “horror” films Frankenstein, The Bride Of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man and The Old Dark House, was gay, and was quite open about it, and lived for years with the producer David Lewis, a brave and not easy thing to do in 1930’s homophobic Hollywood. The movie covers a few days in the last year of Whale’s life and introduces several characters that did not really exist, the most important one being Clayton Boone played with delicious beauty and vulnerability by Brendan Fraser who plays Whale’s gardener. Whale is played to perfection by Ian McKellen in his Oscar nominated performance but who lost the award to the ludicrous performance of Roberto Benigni in the dreadful and offensive Life Is Beautiful. Also wonderful is Lynn Redgrave as his dedicated but judgmental Hungarian Housekeeper Hanna. The film is dark and sad, but has moments of outrageous humor (the garden party for Princess Margaret that George Cukor throws is especially amusing), and for a low budget film looks and feels expensive. Oscar winner for Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published.

September Collage 2011

2011-09-05T06:31:00.000-07:00

Slightly Scarlet 1956

2011-09-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

I’m still scratching my head over this one. Made in 1956 and directed by the veteran director Allan Dwan who began his career in 1911 and was 71 when he directed this nourish B movie. Based on a novel by James M. Cain the novelty of the film is that it was filmed in Superscope and in garish Technicolor by a master of black and white cinematography John Alton who was known for his moody and atmospheric work on many noir’s and B’s This is basically a silly little movie about two sisters who have red hair. One played by Rhonda Fleming is a secretary for a businessman who has political ambitions and heavy breathing for Rhoda. The 2^nd red head is played by Arlene Dahl who when the film opens is being released from prison for shoplifting. She’s met by Rhonda and the sibling rivalry and trouble begins the minute Rhonda opens the door of her fabulous car for her sister to climb in. Her home which is also fabulous and big enough to house an army (don’t ask how a secretary could afford this abode, oh wait she’s being kept by her businessman boss) is run by her housekeeper played by the wonderful Ellen Corby who dishes out happy advice and delicious crab salads. You would think that in a house this big Arlene could have a room of her own, but strangely the girls share a bedroom, maybe it’s a call out to their poor childhood. The color scheme of the film is unique and is really the big selling point of the film for me. Saturated with pastel colors and full of shadows and pools of darkness, one could get lost in the visual splendors of the interiors and the clothes worn by the two ladies. Its mix and match time with the gals flaming red hair set against dresses of green, and lavender, white and black and blue. This is Googie Architecture and design carried to extreme, and I wish the simple and familiar plot was better. What we have here is another one of those films that take place in a small town (this one on the coast of California) run by a corrupt political machine this time led by the very good bad heavy Ted de Corsia who also lives in a lavish house full of stuff. John Payne looking puffy and tired works for him, but is not above trading secrets and double crosses if the pay is right. Payne also falls big for Rhonda, which is a confusing plot hole for me, as one minute they hardly acknowledge each other and the next minute they’re snuggly and huggy all over the place. What gives? Both Fleming and Dahl give monumental performances of ineptness, two drop outs from the Dorothy Malone School of acting with your eyes who never finished the coarse. The ending is as bizarre as everything that went before it, so I would say that if you’ve seen at least 450 of the 500 greatest films ever made, you might out of curiosity give this one a look.

Lily Literary Review

2011-09-02T06:46:00.000-07:00

Lily Literary Review has just published their latest on line issue and have used two of my photographs.

http://freewebs.com/lilylitreview/5_5Vicari.html

http://freewebs.com/lilylitreview/5_5Denenberg.html

Painting on paper from 1982 recently photographed

2011-09-01T12:29:00.000-07:00

End Of August Notebook drawing. Paint, collage and crayon on notebook paper

2011-08-31T14:14:00.000-07:00

untitled paintings from the 80's and 90's Recently photographed

2011-08-31T09:07:00.000-07:00

Some Recent Photographs

2011-08-29T13:22:00.000-07:00

Paintings from the 80's and 90's recently photographed

2011-08-28T11:09:00.000-07:00

Late August notebook drawing. Collage and paint on notebook paper. Aug. 2011

2011-08-27T08:12:00.000-07:00

Meat For Tea

2011-08-25T13:38:00.000-07:00

Finally got my issue of Meat For Tea in the mail today. Its a nice looking literary magazine and they used 4 of my black and white paintings inside.
http://meatfortea.com/

Mid August Notebook drawing.2011. Collage, paint and ink of notebook paper.

2011-08-24T10:05:00.000-07:00

John Howard Davies 1939-2011

2011-08-24T07:29:00.001-07:00

Mid August Notebook drawing.2011. Collage, paint and ink of notebook paper.

2011-08-21T09:55:00.001-07:00

Mid August Notebook drawing. Collage, paint and ink of notebook paper.

2011-08-18T13:26:00.001-07:00

Rick Perry An American Nightmare

2011-08-18T11:57:00.000-07:00

Every day there are stories and rumors bouncing all over the internet about this horror. A friend sent me this ad today and I don't know what to believe about all of this, except that I find him a despicable man who should never even be considered as presidential material, let alone run for the office. He is shocking in his arrogance and stupidity and along with Michelle Bachmann offer up a double dose of embarrassment to our country. I worry and fear for our country.

There was also this story today.

Texas Governor's Gay Sex Scandal Covered in Austin paper, the First Non-Internet Media Outlet to Report On It.
By Jackson Thoreau

and I've included the link to this jaw dropper.

http://www.opednews.com/thoreau022704_texas_governor.htm

Berlin Express. 1948

2011-08-18T11:49:00.000-07:00

I saw Berlin Express the other day at the Film Forum. I won 2 tickets in a trivia contest, and I gave away one of the tickets to someone waiting on the line to get in. He was so surprised by my gift. The first person I offered the ticket to, drew back from me as if I was pulling some kind of scam, silly woman. The film which was shown as part of the Robert Ryan retrospective is a good decent cold war thriller directed by Jacques Tourneur and that alone makes it worth seeing.Very influenced by the films of Hitchcock, most notably The Lady Vanishes and The 39 Steps, and in fact there is one scene that is a direct homage toThe 39 Steps. Full of twists and turns most of which you don't see coming, and no one is who you think they are, which can get a bit tiring. Ryan is not given much to do, he’s part of the good ensemble which includes Merle Oberon who was on the last legs of her film career. The really memorable thing about the film for me is the location photography by the great cinematographer Lucien Ballard who was married to Oberon at the time. Filmed in Frankfurt and Berlin the footage of the destruction and devastation of these two cities is reverting and shocking.