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11Mar

Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993)

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We can argue till we’re blue in the face whether chess is a “game” or a “sport,” but maybe we can agree on this: Searching for Bobby Fischer, the 1993 drama about chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin, might be the best movie ever made about … well, let’s call it “competition.”

When the real-life Waitzkin was very young, he was given conflicting advice about how to succeed. “You have a good heart – and that’s the most important thing in the world,” Josh’s mother (Joan Allen) tells him. His chess instructor (Ben Kingsley), on the other hand, tells Josh the secret to what made Fischer the best chess player on Earth: “Bobby Fischer held the world in contempt.”

Writer-director Steven Zaillian’s low-key approach to the universe of chess masters and child competitions yields high humor (especially from misguided parents) and nail-biting drama. Never before, nor since, have scenes involving two people seated at a game board been so deliciously suspenseful.

In the end, young Josh has to make a choice that faces all of us. Should he emulate the explosive Fischer, winning at all costs, developing a “killer instinct” and playing only to succeed? Or did his mom have the best advice?

Turns out Bobby Fischer might not have been worth looking for, after all. Grade: A

Director: Steven Zaillian Cast: Max Pomeranc, Joe Mantegna, Joan Allen, Ben Kingsley, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Nirenberg, David Paymer, Robert Stephens, William H. Macy, Laura Linney Release: 1993

Watch the Trailer (click here)

09Mar

Endgame

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by Frank Brady

If you are an undisputed champion in one area of life, does it necessarily follow that you are the master of everything else? That seems to have been Bobby Fischer’s perspective – and downfall.

Brady, who knew the American chess master for most of Fischer’s life, had a tough task in compiling this biography. Fischer wasn’t so much reclusive as he was abusive; cross him once, and he would erase you from his world. That obstacle might explain why, fascinating though Endgame is, it leaves so many unanswered questions. Why did Fischer have no meaningful relationships with women (other than his mother) until late in life? Why was he declared unfit for the draft during Vietnam? Who was his biological father? Brady does capture Fischer’s volatile personality, including painful examples of his many anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-Soviet rants – along with other, what might kindly be called “eccentricities.” Mostly, Endgame is a harrowing examination of the demands and pitfalls of celebrity.

08Mar

Free Flick of the Week: “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”

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There’s a good reason most vampire movies bear little resemblance to their primary inspiration, the 1897 novel, Dracula. Bram Stoker’s classic story is elegant, atmospheric, and creepy, for sure. But it’s no longer very “scary.” Ditto for this 1992 adaptation from arguably America’s greatest living director, Francis Ford Coppola. The movie is overlong and rarely frightening, but it is gorgeous to look at, and on the eeriness scale it ranks high. Watch it for free by clicking here.

06Mar

The Weekly Review: February 27 – March 5

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Post-Oscar Ruminations

The King’s Speech and The Social Network both purport to be “true stories.” Evidently, those claims are unadulterated bullshit. According to an essay by Christopher Hitchens, the real King George VI was a man who sought to appease Adolf Hitler. The Social Network has a very different agenda: It demonizes wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg, who, judging from what I’ve seen of him in interviews, is actually quite genial.

Oscar voters, presented with the option of voting for one of two truth-spinning biopics, opted for the one that made them feel better.

I won’t bitch (much) about The King’s Speech’s Best Picture award, because it is an entertaining, well-made film.
I will complain about Natalie Portman’s Best Actress triumph. Portman apologists point out that she learned ballet for Black Swan. Big deal. Charlie Sheen learned how to throw a baseball for Major League. That kind of thing is simply part of an actor’s job description. Besides, Portman acknowledged that a stunt double was used for some of her shots. She did, however, perform her own masturbation scene — quite admirably.
James Franco and Anne Hathaway hosted a dull and predictable ceremony, but I blame lackluster writing more than the hosts. Ricky Gervais couldn’t salvage some of those lame one-liners.
The hoopla about the Oscars reaching out to a younger demographic? Something must have gone terribly wrong, because the biggest laughs came courtesy of 94-year-old Kirk Douglas and 73-year-old screenwriter David Seidler.
Biggest Oscar snubs: The Ghost Writer, Blue Valentine, and David Fincher’s direction of The Social Network.

*****

Reasons To Hate Charlie Sheen:

1) If you’re female, because he allegedly beats women. 2) If you’re in the media and host a show like CNN’s Showbiz Tonight, because Sheen eliminates the middle man (you) by going straight to the public, which means we don’t really need your show. 3) If you are an arrogant, preening egotist named Dr. Drew Pinsky, because Sheen called you a “clown” on national TV. 4) If you are CBS … well, I’m not sure about CBS.

Reasons To Love Charlie Sheen:

1) He might be crazy, but he is refreshingly honest — I think. 2) He’s a big star, but he’s still managed to paint himself as “the little guy” battling faceless corporate honchos at CBS. 3) He is quotable. Two of my favorites: “Just got invited to do the Nancy Grace show … I’d rather go on a long road trip with Chuck Lorre in a ’75 Pacer.” “I will cut your head off, put it in a box and send it to your mom!”

Sheen could well be in the middle of meltdown, but a lot of what he says rings true — to men, if not women.

28Feb

Free Flick of the Week: “A Boy and His Dog”

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Here’s a real oddity from 1975, a science-fiction flick about a punk (Don Johnson) and his telepathic dog struggling for survival in a post-holocaust world. Don’t be fooled by the title; this is no kiddie film. You can read my review of the movie, then watch it for free by clicking here.

28Feb

Repulsion (1965)

Posted in Books, Movies, TV & Web, Oldies | 1 Comment

Some people you should never leave alone.

Poor, beautiful Carole is one of those people. When Carole peers into the hallway of the apartment building where she lives with her sister, she sees one example of the sort of life she herself might one day live: her elderly neighbor, a pudgy battleaxe who likes to walk her dog – and spy on fellow apartment dwellers. When Carole instead looks out her bedroom window and across the street, she sees another possible future: the cloistered, celibate nuns at a nearby convent. When she is older, Carole will likely become an eccentric dog-walker or a nun. This much is certain: Carole will not live a typical life, because Carole is batshit crazy.

She is sexually repressed, lord knows why, and painfully shy. She is repulsed by men, which is easier to explain: the construction workers who ogle her as she walks to her job as a manicurist; her sister’s boorish boyfriend, whose takeover of Carole’s bathroom space she finds unforgivable. And then there are the horror stories older women at the beauty parlor relate about the beastly behavior of males.

Carole is stunningly good-looking, but she is also quite insane. When her sister and the boyfriend go on holiday, leaving her alone for ten days, what on earth will she do?

Roman Polanski, at his obsessive and stylish best, pulls the audience along as Carole descends deeper and deeper into madness, utilizing a master storyteller’s grab-bag of tricks: distorted lenses, a ticking clock, the girl’s obsession with cracks, the distracted way in which she keeps brushing at her face.

Catherine Deneuve, the ravishing French actress, is a revelation in Repulsion. Her Carole is mousy most of the time, but when she gets a certain gleam in her eye ….

Some of this 1965 film’s shocks are no longer very shocking. Others hold up quite well. But it’s Deneuve’s performance and Polanski’s direction that make Repulsion such a superb psychological thriller. Grade: A-

Director: Roman Polanski Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser, Yvonne Furneaux, Patrick Wymark, Renee Houston, Valerie Taylor, James Villiers, Helen Fraser Release: 1965

Watch the Trailer (click here)

26Feb

The Weekly Review: February 20 – 26

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I’m beginning to believe the nutcases — maybe the world really will end in 2012. Wars and threats of war in Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea. Natural disasters in New Zealand, Australia, and Haiti. All of this chaos is covered by social media, including Twitter. Could it be that the world will end not with a bang or a whimper, but with a tweet?

*****

I’m afraid the world has passed by poor Bill O’Reilly. The Fox News figurehead was discussing the upcoming Oscars, and Bill said he hadn’t seen any of the “crazy movies” up for awards. Bill said that he used to be a big movie fan. On the other hand, Bill never misses an opportunity to mention The Andy Griffith Show or Leave It to Beaver in his quizzes and pop-culture references.

But there are signs that Bill is trying to modernize his pop-culture worldview: This week, he interviewed that up-and-coming Hollywood stud, Ernest Borgnine.

*****

I’m still waiting for the angry backlash over Beyoncé, Mariah Carey, Usher, and other A-List American celebrities who pocketed millions by performing for the Gaddafi family in recent years. Isn’t Gaddafi supposed to be, like, “the enemy”? And oh, yes, let’s not overlook the American stars who enjoyed hanging out at Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s decadent parties. Apparently, we only have room for Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan in our cultural doghouse.

24Feb

My Life and Hard Times

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by James Thurber

Thurber is a revered American humorist, but I thought this autobiographical collection of essays was hit-or-miss. Some of the stories (“The Day the Dam Broke,” especially) were laugh-out-loud brilliant; others ranged from mildly amusing to forgettable. Thurber, like a turn-of-the (20th)-century David Sedaris, chronicles the comic misadventures of his oddball family members, but too many of the stories simply end, with no real point or punch line.

21Feb

Free Flick of the Week: “Freaks”

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Tod Browning’s Freaks has come a long way since its disastrous premiere in 1932. The drama, in which Browning (Dracula) cast people with real deformities to play circus sideshow “freaks,” opened to horrified audiences and critics alike. It was banned in Britain for 30 years and effectively put an end to Browning’s directing career. How times have changed: In 1994, the movie was selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry. Watch what remains of it (extensive cuts were made and are now lost) free of charge by clicking here.

21Feb

Being There

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by Jerzy Kosinski

Kosinski published this amusing dissection of pop culture’s influence on American life in 1971, back when remote controls and TVs in limousines were considered state-of-the-art luxuries. But there is nothing dated about Kosinski’s novella Being There, which chronicles the fallout when a simple-minded gardener’s simple-minded pronouncements – many of them influenced by what he sees on television – are repeatedly mistaken for philosophical genius.

You have to wonder what the Polish-American Kosinski would make of “reality TV” in today’s world. Chance the gardener, the author’s blank-slate antihero, would probably feel right at home on Big Brother.