Duck Soup (1933)

Directed by Leo McCarey
Starring The Marx Brothers, Margaret DuMont and Raquel Torres
Produced by Paramount Pictures

So what happens when the Marx Brothers stick to a coherent storyline with characters that are relatively consistent firing off jokes that don't overstay their welcome?

You get a pretty good comedy.

Duck Soup sets up Groucho Marx as Rufus T. Firefly, recently installed as the leader of Freedonia. The country wanted to borrow money from Mrs. Teesdale to avoid a tax increase and she will only agree so long as Firefly is in charge.


One of Firefly's first acts is to insult the ambassador from Sylvania.  The rest of the film sees the two countries threatening war, only to reach a diplomatic solution that Firefly inadvertently sabotages.

Zeppo has only the tiniest of roles as Firefly's secretary. Chico and Harpo are Sylvanian spies attempting to get Freedonia's war plans. You would think this task would be easy as Firefly impulsively makes Chico his Secretary of War. But this is a Marx Brothers movie so nothing comes easy.

There is some fun political commentary throughout this set up from Chico's peanut vendor being elevated to Firefly's cabinet to the country's leader firing on his own people.  When the countries finally go to war, it is basically to sate a couple of people's egos.

Beyond that, there are the trademark gags. The best sees Harpo dressed as Groucho acting as his mirror image in a doorway.  There are moments you think you know what's going to happen, but then it goes a different direction.

That said, Harpo continues to be the weak link for me. He's a being of pure chaos, but he is given to some of the most predictable and agonizingly long bits. There's a repetition to what he does, particularly in a scene with a rival street vendor.  I find myself annoyed every time he enters a scene.

It's been a long slog of Marx Brothers films, but Duck Soup marks the first I actually enjoy.  I think the film's strengths underline what I have disliked in the past. It's tighter and more focused.  I am definitely not ready to hop on the Marx bandwagon, but I am enjoying it drive by.

Final Score:
B

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Quantifying Cinemania: Summer 2013 vs. 2014

So this article starts with a random thought....

A year and half ago, movie reviewers were focused on two summers: 2013 with Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel and Star Trek The Wrath of Totally Not-Khan Into Darkness, and 2015 which brings Star Wars Episode VII and Avengers: Age of Ultron and Jurassic World.  Our current summer was the forgotten middle child.

Or so we thought.

A funny thing has happened in the ensuing 18 months.  Summer 2013 kinda sucked.  And this summer has been kind of great.

At least that's my own impression of things.Nothing I looked forward to last year delivered. Everything I anticipated this year has been solid if not spectacular.  And the "eye test" of other movie reviews seemed to suggest the same.  But is my gut accurate?

Time to bring in some numbers.



To start, I took what were advertised as the biggest releases in May and June of both 2013 and 2014.  The list looked like this:

2013

• Iron Man 3
• The Great Gatsby
• Star Trek Into Darkness
• The Hangover Part III
• Fast & Furious 6
• Epic
• After Earth
• The Internship
• The Purge
• This Is the End
• Man of Steel
• World War Z
• Monsters University
• The Heat
• White House Down

2014

• Amazing Spider-man 2
• Neighbors
• Godzilla
• Million Dollar Arm
• X-Men: Days of Future Past
• Blended
• Malificent
• A Million Ways to Die in the West
• Edge of Tomorrow
• The Fault in Our Stars
• 22 Jump Street
• How to Train Your Dragon 2
• Think Like a Man 2
• Jersey Boys
• Transformers: Age of Extinction

I then averaged the Rotten Tomatoes scores for the movies from each year.  So far, 2014 films are averaging 2.87 percentage points higher on Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer.  Not a massive difference but still a difference.

What's more interesting to me though is the range of scores.  Last summer's highest scoring film in June and July was Star Trek Into Darkness with 87%, followed by This Is the End with 83%.  Everything else is below 80%. In contrast to that, 2014 has seen 3 movies with RT scores of 90% or higher (X-Men: Days of Future Past, Edge of Tomorrow, and How to Train Your Dragon 2), with 22 Jump Street and The Fault in Our Stars in the 80s.  There are simply more quality movies this summer (at least based on this data).

The rest of the numbers are remarkably similar.  Of the 15 films from each year, 7 are certified rotten at this point.  Both years have 2 films below 20% (ugh).  

Obviously, Rotten Tomatoes has limitations as a data source, but it's not a bad starting point.  If a movie summer is defined by its best films, so far 2014 is eating 2013's lunch.  Wouldn't it be fascinating if this year turned out to be the classic movie year we were all expecting last year and anticipating next year.

What are your thoughts?  Other sources of info to use?  Films you think should be on or off these lists?  Is this a useful exercise?

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Christopher Strong (1933)

Directed by Dorothy Arzner
Starring Katharine Hepburn, Colin Cive and Billie Burke
Produced by RKO Radio Pictures

Let me get this out of the way: Christopher Strong takes the oddest approach to gender politics one could imagine.

On the one hand, we have Lady Cynthia (Katherine Hepburn), who may be the world’s most interesting woman.  She does what she wants.  She dresses how she wants.  She flies all over the world and, if she can’t set an altitude record right this moment, she will settle for a distance record.

However, she falls for Christopher Strong (Colin Clive), a member of Parliament who is interesting because…he gives good speeches? I don’t know. They don’t really tell us much about him other than he is a buzz kill in every way.

Strong’s daughter is seeing a married man and he and his wife just cannot have that.  Until of course, he falls for Cynthia and starts understanding why adultery might be an attractive option.

There’s an interesting tension in Christopher and Cynthia’s romance, but I’m not sure I ever bought that after rejecting every other man in the world, this is the guy to catch the independent aviator’s attention.  He’s just so milquetoast as to almost not exist.

**SPOILER**

It’s hard to talk about the movie without getting into its ending.  Christopher and Cynthia have separated, but he regrets it.  She meanwhile decides to try for that altitude record she’d been putting off since she met him.  As she climbs toward the ceiling, she rips off her oxygen mask.  It’s unclear whether she is attempting suicide in spectacular fashion or simply feeling claustrophobia because of her mental state and removes it in a moment of passion.  After a few moments reflection, she struggles to replace the mask, but fails.  Her plane plummets to the earth, killing her instantly.  We follow this with the odd coda that Christopher and his wife are headed to America via a newspaper headline.

The ending is certainly tense, but it also feels like it undermines Cynthia’s character.  She’s been strong and independent.  Killing herself seems an overreaction based on what we know of her.  The movie presents the record attempt as dangerous, but they also present her as an incredibly competentent pilot.  The cockpit is one place she is in total control.  None of the end feels authentic. 

Couple this with everything seemingly turning out fine for Christopher and we learn what? That adultery works out?  That someone else’s death might solve your problems?  It’s just an odd place to leave a film, particularly one that is at least as much about Christopher as it is Cynthia.

It’s an interesting early effort from Hepburn and Clive turns in a great performance playing against type. Still, the overall point of the movie seems confused. 

Final Grade:

C+

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Baby Face (1933)

Directed by Alfred E. Green

Starring Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent and Donald Cook

Produced by Warner Bros.

For many of us, our job (or lack of one) comes to define us.  We are bankers or lawyers or writers or contractors.  Other things certainly define us as well, but one of the first questions inevitably asked and answered in any new encounter is “So what do you do?”

If you ask Lily Powers (Barbara Stanwyck), the lead character of Baby Face, that question, she may say she works at a speakeasy or at a bank.  But that’s not her real job.  The professional occupation she has chosen is dream girl and concubine. 

Throughout Baby Face, Lily uses her feminine wiles to seduce men only to discard them when the next social and class climbing opportunity presents itself.  After watching her father (who basically pimped his daughter to his customers) die in a speakeasy fire without a shred of regret, Lily’s climb through the offices of a bank becomes literal.  With each sexual conquest, the camera pans up yet another floor in the bank building to show us Lily’s ascent right up to the bank president’s office.

Once there, she has achieved everything she’s dreamed of.  She has money and cars and jewels.  The only problem is one of the people she left behind was the bank president’s almost son-in-law (he broke off the engagement after falling under Lily’s spell).  He tries to move on, but can’t which leads to murder/suicide that leaves Lily covered in scandal. 

To this point, Baby Face is all campy fun with Stanwyck as a very believable seductress.  However, Lily meets her match in the new bank president, Courtland Trenholm (George Brent).  When she tries to blackmail the bank’s board by selling her diary to the highest bidder, she casts herself as a victim who has no choice but to use the scandal to pay her bills.  Trenholm sees right through and offers that, if she just wants to move on with her life, he can get her a nice position with their branch in Paris.  Lily needs to stay in her role as victim and reluctantly agrees.

At this point, Stanwyck stops being a fun villainess and the movie tries to cast her in the role of heroine as it rounds its final turns.  Trenholm falls for her during a visit to Paris, but instead of redeeming her, it makes him appear dumb and naïve. 

Baby Face is ultimately two-thirds a great movie with a phenomenal lead performance. Lily constantly teeters on the edge of losing the audience but always manages to make us want more.  Like her many suitors in the film, we just can’t stop falling for Lily and that’s in large part thanks to Stanwyck.

Final Grade:

B

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The Fault in My Stars: Why I Moved to Letter Grades

Long time readers will notice I have moved from a five star grading system for movies to a letter grading system.  There is a reason.  And frankly I probably have given this more thought than it deserves.

The fundamental question is what grade makes something a “good” movie in my opinion.  Five stars? Awesome.  Four stars? Really good.

The trouble comes when you move lower than that.  How good is three stars?  If 2-1/2 is average, than it’s above average, right? 

But if I’m giving a letter grade in school to someone who scored a three out of five, that’s a 60 and they failed.  Hell, if I give someone four out of five in that scenario, it’s an 80 which is like a B-.

Beyond that, the 2-1/2 stars started becoming such a non-committal grade that I stopped giving it entirely.  In a world of binary grades (Ebert’s thumbs or a Rotten versus Fresh rating), it felt to me like the worst kind of fence sitting.

However, if I give a movie an A or C or F, you have in your mind what I thought of that movie in much clearer terms.  You know what a B student looks like and you know what a D student looks like.  It’s cleaner to me as an explanation.

So that’s why I’ve changed.  I’m genuinely curious what other bloggers think about their scoring systems.  Please share your thoughts below.

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A Study in Scarlet (1933)

Directed by Edwin L. Marin

Starring Reginald Owen, Anna May Wong and June Clyde

Produced by KBS Productions Inc.

People love their police procedurals.  The traditional whodunit is amongst the sturdiest movie foundations you can build a movie on.  It’s got good guys. It’s got bad guys. It has tension as you are never 100 percent sure who the good guys or bad guys are.

Tales involving Sherlock Holmes (when they are good) traditionally ratchet these movies up a notch.  Holmes is a superhero, except instead of flying (Superman) or looking impressive in wifebeaters (Wolverine), Sherlock notices the clues that no one else does.  And he has Watson as his overmatched partner who serves as the audience stand-in so Holmes can explain the crime and the culprit in ways that make you want to go back and see what you missed.

A Study in Scarlet is a procedural.  And it features a guy named Sherlock Holmes.  And it’s pretty terrible.

The set up here is widow comes to the detective explaining that her husband was murdered and he was part of a secret society whose members pooled their resources.  The problem for Mrs. Murphy is that when a member dies, the spoils get divvied up by the other society members so she gets nothing.

Now, we embark on the whodunit.  Except we don’t.  Because Holmes learns that Merrydew is a member of the underground group.  And Holmes has been trying to catch him for a while so now we can move on because it must be him.

The film never really stops to lay out clues and show us Holmes’ deductive process.  Indeed, Watson is barely around for Holmes to explain much to anyway.  A Study in Scarlet’s depiction of Holmes treats him more like Batman solving one of Joker’s riddles from the 60s TV show: “These numbers are big so they must be page numbers from a large book everyone has… just because.

Reginald Owen’s depiction of Holmes is unmemorable.  He doesn’t look much like the character as he is traditionally portrayed which would be fine if he did anything to make the role his own and distinguish himself.  He does not and so we get a guy playing a detective whose name happens to be Sherlock Holmes instead of anything close to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation.

By the time we get to the end of A Study in Scarlet, things just get silly in terms of the leaps in logic Holmes must make.  But more importantly, I don’t care about the outcome.  The stakes are trifling and the explanation is more like a Law & Order twist than anything the audience could follow from the story.  As a detective story, this is bad.  As a Sherlock Holmes mystery? It’s terrible.

Final Grade:

D

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The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933)

Directed by Alexander Korda

Starring Charles Laughton, Robert Donat and Franklin Dyall

Produced by London Film Productions

History and culture have a way of condensing figures over time to an easy shorthand.  I say “Benedict Arnold, “ you think “traitor.” “George Washington” brings on thoughts of cherry trees and river crossings.  And if I say “Michael Bay” three times in a darkened bathroom, a helicopter somewhere explodes.

The thing about this condensation of historical fact and myth into bullet points is we end up minimizing the humanity of these figures.  We forget that they had to eat and sleep, love and hate, and deal with all manner of human emotion even as they dealt with world-shaping events.

Which brings us to the titular king as played by Charles Laughton in The Private Life of Henry VIII.

You hear Henry VIII and you think about his wives.  The monarch as womanizer.  He married a lot and this fact more than any is what popular culture understands and remembers about him.

Laughton and director Alexander Korda start with that myth and systematically blow it up.

We first see Henry VII at his most familiar.  His second wife Anne Boleyn is about to be executed so he can marry Jane Seymour.  It is the most perverse of set ups: killing your wife to marry another because you need the male heir, all made perfectly lawful by the fact that you happen to be the law.  This is the king we all think we know, a ruler who leads with his loins.  And Korda gives us a remarkable juxtaposition, intercutting the wedding and the execution to show just how alike the two events may be.

But then Jane dies in childbirth.  Henry grieves, but must move on for the sake of England.  He agrees to marry Anne of Cleves in order to help cement an alliance with a German duke.  Henry is disappointed in her appearance and Anne herself is not thrilled about the match.

They marry, but never consummate the relationship.  On their wedding night, Anne plays Henry in a card game.  The stakes?  A divorce.  And Henry’s marriage for political advantage comes to a quick end.

That leaves the king free to marry Katherine, an ambitious maiden who had caught the king’s attention by speaking against his treatment of Anne Boleyn.  He becomes intrigued with her and, perhaps for the first time, starts falling in love.

For her part, Katherine had fallen for Thomas Culpeper, an advisor to the king.  After she marries Henry, she continues seeing him.  And in betraying the king, she dooms not just herself and Thomas, but Henry as well. 

See,  Henry is 100 percent in love with his latest wife.  And when he learns that she is seeing another man, he’s impotent.  The human side of him loves her and always will, but he is a king and cannot afford to be weak.  So he does what he must.  And executing the woman he loves shows him the truth of being a king: that for all his power, he is a slave to his title.

His final wife is merely what he needs to live out the remainder of his life: a nurse and a mother, but not a lover.  Not someone who stirs the king’s passions.  She’s there to roust you from your bed, not to climb into it.

Laughton inhabits the title role with all of Henry’s reputed larger than life excesses, but grounds him with insecurities.  All his bravado serves only to spackle over all his mundane humanity.  By the end of the movie you are not shocked he married six times; you understand why he did, and even the burden his nuptials sometimes required.

The Private Life of Henry VIII may lack historical accuracy, but through Laughton’s performance, it gets at more fundamental truths.  Even the most powerful man in the world can be brought low by love lost.

Final Grade:

B+

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1933: Did You Miss Me?

Well, we have reached 1933. And if it seemed like that took a while it's because...it did!

1933 saw the inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his famous "nothing to fear but fear itself" speech. Prohibition is repealed. Across the globe, Adolf Hitler becomes dictator of Germany.  And Alcatraz becomes the property of the U.S. Department of Justice, paving the way for an inescapable prison that only Clint Eastwood or Sean Connery could break out of.

In film, the tragic career arc of Fatty Arbuckle comes to a close with his death.  New Jersey becomes the home of the first drive-in theater.  Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers make their film debut.  We also get the creation of Twentieth Century Pictures and the first screen appearance of Popeye.

As to what movies we are watching, the biggie (literally) is one of my all time favorites: King Kong. I've seen it countless times, but any excuse to rewatch is good enough for me.  Beyond that, more Marx Brothers (groan), Footlight Parade, and Disney's Three Little Pigs are musts.

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Rocky II vs. Logic

I am introducing my son to the Rocky series of films (as one does).  The first remains just awesome in every way, but that second film has some insane film logic as though in writing the film, the screenwriter completely forgot what the characters did the scene before...

• Apollo challenges Rocky to a rematch, but Rocky has an eye injury so he retires.
• Apollo calls Rocky names so Rocky says I will fight again, but Adrian doesn't approve. Apparently Rocky never heard of "sticks and stones...
• Because of Adrian, Rocky doesn't really train. Because what better way to demonstrate your manhood to Apollo and make your wife happy then by going into the ring and suffering a debilitating injury in the first round.
• Then Adrian goes into a coma, comes out of the coma and tells Rocky he should fight.  Comas apparently help people come to irrational decisions.
• Rocky trains really hard and works on his speed.  We know this because he can catch a chicken.  Mickey tells us how fast he is.
• Rematch arrives and is 14 rounds of Rocky getting pummeled because he is not fast.  Exactly the opposite of the thing Mickey told us he was.

To sum up: Rocky won't fight, he will fight, Adrian doesn't want him to fight, he totally should fight, Rocky needs to train to become fast, he is not fast at all. And I won't even get into the brilliant "fight right-handed for 14 rounds while getting beaten to within an inch of your life, then switch to southpaw when you can barely stand and immediately win the match" strategy.

So this film is basically a whole lot of filler that means nothing just so we can get to the fight.  Nostalgia had me remembering Rocky II as okay.  But this is a BAD film.

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Noah and the Difference Between Deepening Faith and Reinforcing It

[Spoilers for Noah and The Last Temptation of Christ ahead.]

I'm a Catholic.  I went to 16 years of Catholic school.  I go to Mass every Sunday.  My kids go to a Catholic grade school.

But I have a confession to make...

I liked Noah. A lot. 

Why is this is this a confession? Because according to some, Noah is blasphemous and sinister and anti-Christian.

I am always mystified by these reactions from religious organizations and others.  If they really feel so strongly, they are stirring controversy (and publicity) for a film they are decrying. Of course, they are also holding themselves up as defenders of the faith and if that heroism gets more views, subscriptions or donations, so be it.

But I digress.  What I really want to talk about is the state of Christian filmmaking.  And frankly, it's not great.

Part of it goes back to the messaging above.  The Blind Side and Fireproof? Good. The Last Temptation of Christ? I'll just hold your reservation for this seat in hell right now.

The problem from my perspective is two fold:

• Media supports a view that films that reinforce faith are good and films that challenge and potentially deepen it are at best dangerous and problematic.
• Audiences are trained by these accounts to view movies based on what happens in them and not based on what they are about.

Christian films are generally safe, reflecting back the values that are already widely accepted.  When Fireproof's Caleb (Kirk Cameron) accepts God into his life, we know everything is going to be all right.  There's nothing to think about.  It is engineered to make you say "that's right!" by the time it reaches its inevitable conclusion.

Now, I'm not here to bash a movie like Fireproof.  I personally don't think it's a very good movie, but I also appreciate the fact that it allows people of faith to experience God in a different way.  I just wish there was a bit more open-mindedness about other films.

The Last Temptation of Christ remains amongst the most controversial films of all time in religious circles.  It shows Jesus trying to reject God.  It doesn't just talk about prostitutes, but shows them at their profession.  And it imagines a scenario in which Jesus saves himself from the cross and lives a normal life, getting married, having sex and growing old.

For Christians, Jesus is both God and human, but seeing him this human was beyond the pale.  A savior with human desires? No thank you.  Please give me the near robotic version of God's only Son I have seen in countless other films.  Even showing Christ in this way is to invite people to reject basic teachings of the Church.

But all of that focuses on what happens in the film, not what the film is about.  What the film is about is the weight of the choice Jesus makes.  In this telling, He could have decided at any point that He was done with dying for the sins of the entire world.  In another telling, He could have reigned hellfire and brimstone upon his tormentors.  The point is He is all-powerful and all-knowing, He could have decided we were not worth it at any point, but Jesus went through with it anyway.

Which is more powerful? A savior predestined to carry out God's will or one whose humanity screamed out against, but who went through with it anyway?

Noah will meet many of the same hurdles as The Last Temptation of Christ, except instead of whores and sex, it has... rock monsters.  Yes, there are large rock monsters in Noah. Okay, technically they are Watchers, fallen angels encased in earth described in the Book of Enoch, but let's just stick with rock monsters.

The rock monsters serve a thematic purpose, but what happens with them in the film is they serve as manual labor for Noah to help get the vessel built.  But the Book of Enoch isn't part of the Bible, so some Christians are freaking out.

The Watchers are an interesting part of the movie and what they represent works within the themes of Noah, but they are not what it is about.  What Darren Aronofsky successfully accomplishes here is showing the burden Noah has.

Russell Crowe's Noah lives in a world of chaos and death. He is a good man struggling to get by when he is given a simultaneously horrible and hopeful mission: to save enough animals to repopulate the world after God destroys it.

The film does a remarkable job of placing you in Noah's sandals.  Imagine you are chosen to save the world while every other human being in existence dies.  Imagine that becomes your life's mission.  What must that do to a man?

As interesting is the perspective of Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone), a descendant of Cain, creation's first murderer.  Tubal-cain fully acknowledges the existence of the Creator, but he also knows that man was made in His image.  For Tubal-cain, this means every man is like a god and can take what he wants.  Tubal-cain (and the rest of humanity) misunderstand their place in the world.

Noah ultimately fulfills his mission, but he too misinterprets God's plan, believing that Noah and his family are only supposed to save the animals and then die, taking humanity with them.  But a surprise birth shakes Noah.  He is still convinced of his righteousness and decides the child must be killed.  But when he looks at the twins, his grandchildren, he can't do it.  Love wins out.

The bottom line is if your faith is so fragile that it either needs Mel Gibson to beat up Jim Caviziel for two hours or can be onliterated by Martin Scorsese and Willem DaFoe, that is probably a stronger commentary on the strength of your convictions then it is a endorsement or indictment of a film.

By humanizing Noah and Jesus in film, it makes me think and consider what they must have gone through in their time.  And that deepens my faith.  I don't need to accept every fact that these films present to me as Gospel for the perspective they provide to make me ponder my religion in new and more meaningful ways.

And that is more valuable to me then a million Kirk Cameron vehicles ever could be.

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Set Visit: The Patchwork Girl of Oz

Posted April 1 1914 6:01:02pm

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit the set of The Patchwork Girl of Oz, J. Farrell MacDonald's adaptation of L. Frank Baum's novel released just last year.

Let me admit upfront that I am quite the Oz-phile so of course I jumped at the chance to see what MacDonald was up to in bringing Baum's world to life.

Upon arrival, I got to see some production designs that would blow your mind.  MacDonald and his crew are clearly going all out to bring Oz to life.  Sadly, I was not able to take any pictures here and was sworn to secrecy so you will just have to wait for the film's release to behold its awesomeness.

From there, I got to tour a couple of the sets.  Specifically, I got to see both Unc Nunkie's hut and Dr. Pipt's lab.  It was like walking into a storybook.  The painted facade of Nunkie's fireplace as well as the imaginative contraption that allows Pipt to concoct his wonderful creations are more spectacular than I could have possibly imagined. For fans of Baum's stories, you can rest assured that you are in good hands.

At the end of the day, I got to watch them film a scene.  It was a small moment with Unc Nunkie and Ojo attempting to cross a bridge while the stubborn mule named Mewel (a typical Baum flourish of a name) prevents their crossing.  The scene itself is humorous, but what really astounds is the imaginative costuming that allows Fred Woodward to play Mewel.  The actor in every way becomes a mule.  It is seamless.  I cannot wait to watch how the effect translates to the big screen.

Sadly, I only had a moment with MacDonald himself as I was leaving.  I asked him how they would carry off the effect of creating the Patchwork Girl.  He smiled and said he couldn't reveal much but that it would "blow my mind."

Earlier, we reported on some of the effects work for this film and you can find that here.  Suffice to say, Baum fans will be more than satisfied if what I saw is any indication.  And for moviegoers new to Oz? Prepare to have your mind blown.

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Gertie the Dinosaur and the Future of Animation

Posted April 1, 1914 3:00:32

Earlier this year, Winsor McCay released the remarkable Gertie the Dinosaur, a painstakingly crafted two dimensional animated film that clocks in at a robust 12 minutes.

The wild success of McCay's animated dinosaur has industry insiders wondering: is this the end of one dimensional animation?

At the end of last year, animator Dan Baines released what was to be his masterpiece The Adventures of Dot & the Infinite Plane.  However, instead of accolades and box office glory, Dot was met with a tepid critical response and poor ticket sales. What went wrong?

Many point to the wider audience's reaction to two dimensional animation like How a Mosquito Operates and Little Nemo.  However, 1D films still thrived when early 2D line animation was first introduced.

Production Still: Fixed Point Follies

There are rumors that studios will be closing down their 1D animated production houses.  That would be an absolute shame to me.  Fixed Point Follies remains a formative film experience for me and I would hate to live in a world where my children did not have an opportunity to see the work of brilliant animators like Baines.

What can you do? For one, let your voice be heard.  Baines has started a foundation to support the one dimensional arts.  Details can be found here.  I will be donating and hope you can too.  There should be room for both dimensions.

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Opinion: Theaters Have No Future

Posted April 1, 1914 12:00:13pm

Later this month, the Mark Strand Theater will open in New York.  The so-called movie "palace" will seat 3,000 people accommodate a full orchestra and show its features up on a stage on a massive screen.

All of which I give a hearty "thanks, but no thanks" to.

So right now, I can walk to the corner of my street walk into the nickelodeon, plop in seven cents, and boom! there's my film.  Easy. No fuss. No muss.

Now, we are getting a supposed improvement that means traveling to the city and hoping I can get a ticket for the show I want to see. Assuming that goes well, what do I win? The chance to sit behind a gentleman who talks to his companion throughout the film? And what if I'm stuck in the front of the theater? What kind of experience is that?

Who pays for this? We all do. D.W. Griffith (whose work I have enjoyed) is supposedly prepping a three hour "epic" that is already being talked about as "needing" a $2.00 ticket price to make it work.  You read that right. Two. Dollars. Who wants to pay that kind of price to sit in a theater for THREE HOURS?

Obviously, this is a film experiment doomed to failure, but it's not my money.  If you are interested, you can prepurchase tickets here. People will not change their viewing habits to accommodate new technology and the film industry needs to get that message.

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Casting Rumor: Farnum for The Virginian?!

Posted at April 1, 1914 9:01:23am

Really? The Virginian? Really?

Cecil B. DeMille is starting pre-production on one of his next films and the early favorite for the role is a familiar face.

Dustin Farnum, who was just featured in DeMille's The Squaw Man in February, is apparently at the top of the short list for the lead in the upcoming adaptation of The Virginian. 

I, for one, hate this casting.  I get that DeMille wants to keep working with actors he is familiar with, but Farnum is just too much of a lightweight.  As a huge fan of Owen Wister's novel, I can say that Farnum has not demonstrated any of the gravitas necessary to carry this one off.  The Squaw Man was fine, but with a revered franchise like this? 

And if early word that the film is aiming for an almost 60 minute running time?  I really have to wonder whether DeMille is the guy to carry off this project without producing a bloated mess.

I predict a lot of controversy on Twitter over Virgin-num. There's already a petition to stop the casting which can be found here.

Hopefully the rumors are false, but I am not optimistic.

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Fantastic Four Has Its Cast and It Is Fantastic

Fox is rebooting this.

After months of rumors, we finally have the cast list for director Josh Trank's Fantastic Four reboot.  They are Miles Teller as Reed Richards, Kate Mara as Sue Storm, Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm and Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm.

For years, my favorite Marvel comic book property has been The Fantastic Four.  It was better than Spiderman, better than The Avengers, better than Captain America (well, until Ed Brubaker started writing Cap). I fell in love with the team during Mark Waid's run on the comic and stuck with it through the years, even following the alternative dimension book Ultimate Fantastic Four.

There's some things to unpack in the casting that are obvious.  First, it seems clear based on the age of the actors that they are following the Ultimate team (assuming they are following anything from the comics at all).  Second, Sue and Johnny obviously will not be blood relatives (yes, Michael B. Jordan is black; everybody freak out).  Finally, Trank and the studio decided to go with actors as opposed to, you know, Jessica Alba.

All of this is for the good. All of it.


Marvel purists will hate that this isn't the traditional line up with a middle aged Reed, a maternal looking Sue, and (sigh) a white Johnny.  That last one will make for some hilarious comments on message boards as people twist themselves in knots complaining about the casting while insisting it has nothing to do with race.  Seriously, it will make for some amazing reading over the next few days.

I have one huge concern and one huge hope for the project and they both involve Joss Whedon and The Avengers.

My concern is that Fox is going to use this clearing-the-decks reboot to completely change Fantastic Four into The Avengers-Lite.  If you are a studio chief, it is the easiest, basest instinct to follow.  Make them a team of superheroes who don't get along, but have to unite for the common good.  Marvel is making gobs of money and "me, too!" is the default setting for Hollywood when they see something do well at the box office.

I pray that Fantastic Four does not go that root.  Amongst comic book properties, it is special to me.  It is a book about family.  It's a hopeful comic about exploration and adventure.  For Fox and Trank, it's an opportunity to tear up the superhero playbook and stretch a bit (pun intended).

Which brings me to my hope and that's Joss Whedon.

If you want a template for how to do a modern Fantastic Four, look at every non-Avenger's thing Whedon has done.  Buffy. Angel. Firefly. What are they about? Family.

In the case of those shows, Whedon always focused on the family we find as opposed to the one we are born with.  Blood be damned, Xander was Buffy's big brother and Giles was her dad.

The Fantastic Four reboot can explore the central theme of family without having any family relationships in it.  Johnny doesn't even have to be an adoptive brother.  He can just act like Sue's brother.  We will get it.  Audiences are smarter than they get credit for.

So the big concern comes down to the script.  They need a writer who gets the core of the Fantastic Four.  Who gets that Reed's superpower isn't stretching; it's that he's the smartest guy in the room (and not in an absent-minded way). Who writes a Sue that is both caring and fiercely protective. A Johnny who is completely reckless and utterly devoted. A Ben whose melancholy is only surpassed by his loyalty.

Give me a team of explorers who have each others' back no matter the odds, and I will follow you to the edges of the Negative Zone.

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Updates from the Tundra

As I write this, my home is surrounded by a foot of snow that has been here forever a week.  I'm nestled in my basement, Philadelphia Flyers hoodie providing most of the warmth with the glow of my monitor filling out the rest.

I'm sure you've noticed things at 100 Years have been slow. Make that anemic.  Okay, completely nonexistent.  There are a number of reasons for that. In order of importance, they are:

1. Spending time with my wife and four kids,
2. Spending more time on my actual job that pays the bills, and
3. The 1930s.

For those keeping score, I am up to 1932 (about to start 1933). It's taken me *** months to get from 1930 to 1933.  There are a number of reasons for that (see number 1 and 2 above), but a lot of it comes down to the 1930s kind of sucking.  After the experimentation and the inventiveness of the 1920s, I was jazzed for what the next decade would bring. But the reality is the introduction of sound forced movie technology back a couple of steps and turned every plot into a game of how many sounds can we squeeze into this film.  It's getting better, but I have not been anticipating each movie the way I used to.

So after a couple of months of soul-searching, here is where we are:

• I definitely want/need to keep going with the website.
• I plan on expanding the site to include observations about current film news and releases. This will be a bit of whatever strikes me.  I'm never going to be a movie news site and I'm not planning on becoming a new release review location either.
• The 100 Years project will remain a core component of what I am doing.

I plan on doing a bit of a redesign (nothing drastic as I am computer illiterate) to capture my new direction. For those still following and reading, thanks for your patience.

More to come soon....

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