Whistle Down the Wind (UK 1961)

With all the crap available on DVD and streaming video, it comes as a surprise when you can't find something that was good or widely considered to be good.

I looked for Whistle Down the Wind. I don't remember how it came to mind. It starred Haley Mills, Alan Bates and Bernard Lee. Haley Mills finds a bearded man hiding out in her family's barn and for various reasons thinks it's Jesus Christ. He makes her promise not to tell anyone he's there. She tried to keep in secret but after a while the local children all find out.

They used to show high brow movies on the PBS station every day at one PM, and I'd usually watch them over the summer when I was out of school, and that was one of the movies they'd show every year. I never sat through the whole thing. I remember it being somewhat realistic, the guy in it not being much of a Christ figure.

The movie was based on a novel which was written a few years earlier by Haley Mills' mother. The children in the story were based on her own children including Haley. So she was playing a character based on herself.

There are adults who find this sort of thing touching, and I do, too, to some degree. Because of that, I'm resistant to it. There was The Littlest Angel which starts with a child dying a horrible death. He goes to heaven where the dead become angels, and the angels were given orders to have a present for Jesus on the occasion of his birth. The littlest angel gives Him some crap he saved when he was alive---whatever kind of stuff an 8-year-old in the Bible days would save. A feather and maybe a rock.

I looked The Littlest Angel up on line a few years ago and read a comment from a father whose children couldn't understand why he couldn't read the story without crying.

They took it too far with the Little Drummer Boy. He had no gift to bring so he entertains a newborn by banging on a drum.

I've never sat through the whole movie, Whistle Down the Wind. I saw bits of it on TV years ago, I've read about it over the years and I watched some clips on YouTube.

The kids had some kittens in the barn. They expected Jesus to take care of them, but He lets one of them die.

Haley Mills go to the vicar and asks him why Jesus would let a kitten die. She was asking a reasonable question under the circumstances. Essentially, Is Jesus some kind of idiot who can't take care of a cat? Either the guy isn't Jesus or Jesus isn't all He's cracked up to be. But the vicar takes is as a theological question. It might have been a funny scene if it didn't involve a child and her dead kitten.

The Littlest Angel (1969)

I learned something surprising.

The Hallmark special, The Littlest Angel, from 1969 was filmed in just three days.

I've heard filmmakers marvel at this before---about how fast you can film in front of a green screen. At least if you're not trying to do anything especially good.

Watch this video:

They had a nine-year-old working sixteen hour days, working to three AM on that abomination. Yet it's those of us who can't stand that kind of crap who are attacked as heartless monsters.

Rainy Day In New York reviews coming in

TWENTY-FIVE MILLION DOLLARS!!!

According to Wikipedia, that's what Woody Allen's Rainy Day in New York cost. Maybe he was paying his actors more than the union minimum what with all that Amazon money he had to work with.

Apparently, they're flying critics to Poland to see the movie. This means the poor Poles in the audience had to sit through a subtitled, dialog-laden movie.

Variety made fun of a character's name---Gatsby Welles. But he was played by an actor called Timothee Chalomet. It's like the joke people used to make about Hawaii Five-O. "Kam Fong as Chin Ho? Why doesn't he just use his real name?"

But the movie is getting better reviews elsewhere.

From Screen Daily:

Anyone shunning Woody Allen’s artistic output will be depriving themselves of a bittersweet comedy peppered with splendid performances if they give A Rainy Day In New York a pass. An endearing blend of madcap ingenue of yore and self-reliant young woman, Elle Fanning plays bubbly college student Ashleigh whose trip into The Big City with mopey Manhattan-raised boyfriend Gatsby Welles (Timothée Chalamet) doesn’t go as planned. Although the opening scene is rocky as the young couple discuss their travel plans, from there on in the film just continues getting better, juggling characters and situations in a manner that may baffle millennials whose idea of a movie is more MCU than MGM but will feel like home to viewers who have always enjoyed tuning into Allen’s wavelength.

The review notes that Chalomet is the least interesting character.

Oddly enough, while his performance is adequate, the usually irresistible Chalamet is the least compelling of the main characters. In a late-arriving scene featuring a quietly-dazzling monologue, Cherry Jones as Gatsby’s mother certainly proves herself.

Remember when Harrison Ford called Shia LaBeouf a "fucking idiot" for attacking his own (and Ford's) movie before it was released? That's how I feel about Chalomet and these other jackasses who attacked Allen after appearing in his movie.

The only thing I've seen Chalomet in was Beatiful Boy. Reportedly, they got the title from a John Lennon song I never heard of. But the title made me keep thinking about Chalomet's looks. I've never been a judge of male beauty, but I thought he was more Dan Quayle than Tab Hunter. I guess he was naturally scrawny enough to play a drug addict which made me wonder what Armie Hammer saw in him in the sex movie they were in.

Rainy Day in New York didn't look the least bit interesting to me, but both the good review and the bad one I read make me want to see it.

Woody Allen a bit of a jerk

An interesting excerpt from a book by Indian actor Anupam Kher, Lessons Life Taught Me, Unknowingly. He flies from India to appear in a couple of scenes in a Woody Allen movie.

https://scroll.in/reel/934448/anupam-kher-was-prepared-to-work-in-a-woody-allen-film-for-free-heres-what-happened-next

It was sometime in late 2009 or early 2010 when my agent Ruth Young called me and said: ‘There is a film already under production. It is Woody Allen’s film, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. There is father’s role . . . Freida Pintos’ father’s role. It’s only two days’ work and possibly only two scenes, and they are offering very little money.’
But those facts didn’t dampen my excitement one bit. I couldn’t believe it and replied immediately: ‘Woody Allen? Woody Allen will ask me to stand in the street scene . . . ? Ruth, I don’t want any money. I just want to be in this film, whatever the role is.’

... 

‘I want to meet Mr Woody Allen’ 

After the costume trials were over, I asked one of the assistants: ‘I want to meet Mr Woody Allen.’ 

He looked at me with a surprise and asked: ‘You want to meet Woody?’ 

I shook my head in affirmative. ‘No, he can’t meet you today. You will meet him tomorrow directly at the location . . . when you come for your scenes.’ 

I was somewhat hurt and thought to myself: Here I am, having travelled all the way from India, doing this film for so little money and he can’t even meet me? Why does it matter to him? I just want to stand behind and watch him? Why are they so adamant? After all, I am an also an actor . . . a well-known star from India. Surely, he respects another actor. 

I insisted: ‘No, I want to meet him today.’ 

He replied, somewhat politely but firmly: ‘Mr Kher, he will not meet you today. You go to your hotel now. Your trial for your costumes is done and tomorrow, I will keep them ready, well in time for your shoot.’ 

But I was equally adamant. I had to meet him. I was able to find out where he was shooting. It was in a street quite close by to my hotel. I went there, did a recce of the street and discovered that there was a Bangladeshi restaurant, very close to where Woody Allen was shooting. I went into the restaurant. The moment the staff and some guests saw me, they all surrounded me saying: ‘Dada, dada, one picture please … Mr Kher, one autograph please.’ 

I said: ‘Now, all of you hold on. You all get together . . . in fact, collect everyone you can, your friends, your relatives, your customers, everyone you can. I will go and stand in that corner there. All of you come there and ask for autographs or your pictures with me. I will do so there, with each one of you. You can take as many pictures as you want. But do collect some more people.’ 

Within just about ten minutes or so, about 15 or 20 or 30 people had collected, mostly Bangladeshis. They started creating a ruckus . . . all wanting a photograph while standing next to me, as close as possible. Soon, the word spread that an Indian actor was there and a crowd had surrounded him. The noise must have disturbed the shooting because soon, two of the production managers came. One of them recognised me and said: ‘Mr Kher? You are here?’ 

I said: ‘Yes. Came to have a bite here at this restaurant. I am in the film but I’m shooting tomorrow.’ 

‘Okay. Okay. Why don’t you come and sit with us?’ he said. 

They made me sit next to Woody Allen. I was happy, as happy as I could be. 

Though I was sitting right next to Woody Allen, he did not look at me. He was looking at the monitor for the shot going on between Freida Pinto and the well-known American actor, Josh Brolin. I discovered that he was of much fairer complexion than I had seen in his movies. But Woody Allen had no time for me. Not that I had anything in particular to say to him. But for me, this was a moment of truth. 

After the shot, as Woody Allen turned, we were face to face with each other. I said: ‘Hi.’
Now, he was forced to reply to me: ‘Hi. I am told you have done a lot of movies.’ 

I said: ‘Yes, 418.’ 

He paused, looked around and asked: ‘In how many lives?’ 

Later, Kher learns that Allen will be performing with his amateur jazz band at the Carlyle hotel. He begs an Indian girl working at the desk to get him a front row seat which she manages to do.

While playing, he did not look up at all, just played with his eyes shut. There was no eye contact. It seemed like a scene directly out of one of his films. But I was dying during that one-hour performance for an eye contact; an eye contact that conveys to him that I have worked with you my friend and that this is a historical moment, not only for me, but for you as well. I really wanted him to know that your actor is here, especially to watch and admire your performance and that too after going through extraordinary lengths to secure a seat. 

After the performance was over, he emerged from his ‘stupor’. He then gathered his instrument, packed it and got up to leave. I stood very close to him and said: ‘Sir, sir, I worked with you in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. I am your actor, sir.’ 

He turned and without even looking at me, he said: ‘Good for you,’ and just walked away.

What does it all mean?

That Woody Allen isn't a very nice person. No surprise there. I thought it was clever the way Anupam Kher used his fame among New York's South Asians to his advantage. I don't know how he felt about Allen's reincarnation joke.

I'm surprised that Allen is so well-regarded in India.

I don't think anything can stop Allen. Even if he can't get distribution in the United States, his movies have always made more money abroad. He's working cheaper and cheaper, but his movies are still expensive by European standards. As he becomes less popular, he still has room to slash his budgets.

Mia Farrow's accusations are false, Dylan Farrow is either consciously lying or has been brainwashed and Ronan Farrow knows nothing except what his mother drummed into him. I'm on Allen's side in this, but that doesn't mean I want to hang around with him.

I don't know that most people in the movie industry are terribly pleasant. It may be different in India---Mr Kher says he's often works for no money. I assume that means others do that in India do, too. Which means that directors are probably nice to people since they're working with people who have no reason to be there.

Now, there was an episode of Donahue. Jackie Cooper had just written a memoir. He had directed episodes of M*A*S*H* and said that Alan Alda wasn't a terribly warm person.

Donahue said, Maybe he was just shy.

And that is the case with Woody Allen. He's known for being terribly shy.

Maybe shy people aren't as pitiful as they're made out to be. Maybe shy people are often cold and insensitive.

Haven't the ghost writers finished Dylan Farrow's book yet?

Artist's rendition of Dylan Farrow sobbing in a fetal position because Woody Allen won a prize.

Farrow’s two-book deal with Wednesday Books is for a YA fantasy duology “where those in control of society can manipulate and silence the truth through magic,” according to a statement.

Kids already know how how truth is manipulated by people in power, and if they don't know, why not tell them? It doesn't require magic.

Forget Spain

Typical Americans.

I always thought aspiring filmmakers in the United States should forget about Hollywood and look elsewhere in the world to pursue a career. Canada would be an obvious place if they'd let you move there. I guess immigration is a problem everywhere. Just because the United States tries to keep people out, it doesn't mean other countries are dying to let Americans in.

Of course, the whole point in Canada is that they don't want to be overwhelmed by the United States. So if you're from the United States, they may not want you muscling your way into their entertainment industry.

In Spain and perhaps elsewhere in Europe, I hear that TV writers usually don't get paid. And now I hear that a tiny number of directors in Spain have a lock on the place. They consider new talent a nuisance and you'll get no where no matter how good you are.

So forget Spain.

England is struggling. Because they speak English, competition with Hollywood has always been a problem, but now a lot of European movies are being made in English, too. Look at the movies of Polanski and Lars Von Trier. They're getting it from both directions.

I don't know what the English can do about it. Make movies that are more Englandy that will somehow appeal to the English people. Don't ask me how. Put in more caning.

Indie producers steal millions

A picture that relates to the story in some way.

I found this interesting for some reason:

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/08/the-tale-producers-federal-money-laundering-scam-jason-van-eman-weathervane-ben-mcconley-1202167278/

Two executive producers, whose credits include the 2018 Sundance hit “The Tale,” are facing federal fraud and money laundering charges for allegedly running a scheme to bilk millions from investors who thought they were backing independent film projects. According to their indictment, the men instead used the money to spend lavishly on themselves: luxury cars, private air travel, real estate, and more.

...

According to the indictment, McConley and Van Eman lured potential investors with the promise of “matching” their investments dollar for dollar, which they claimed to use to secure a loan to pay for the film’s production. The victim would transfer money to accounts controlled by the men, which they would use for their own purposes. Rafael would falsely assure victims about the security of their funds, using Wells Fargo emails and letterhead to write that the funds had been matched and/or lines of credit applied for. He continued to pose as a bank employee following his 2015 termination.

 I don't know why I find this part kind of amusing:

With less than a decade in the industry, Van Eman and McConley built a long list of credits. Many were of the low-budget genre variety like the faith-based “Fishes ‘n Loaves: Heaven Sent” and “The Sound,” a 2017 paranormal horror thriller starring Rose McGowan and Christopher Lloyd.

 Here's something you can do:

Criss said she feels Van Eman may have used his smaller investments in her projects as a means to bolster his reputation. “I do feel like we were a pawn in what he was setting up long-term,” she said in an interview.

Criss is a maker of family-friendly religious movies. I've always been pro-charlatan---at least, I've always liked the idea of being a charlatan. Making a relatively small investment in a religious movie to bolster you reputation seems like a good idea, although I wouldn't do that other stuff these people were indicted for.

Why do people do things like this?

In defense of Jaws: The Revenge

Yes, as I said here, I thought Robot Monster and The Naked Witch were reasonably good movies. 

And then, a while back, I was hanging around at my sister's house for some reason, with her husband and my mother there. The TV was on with the sound off. I turned it on Jaws: The Revenge, widely regarded as a terrible movie. I was mildly amused by it. 

But Jaws itself was coming on next.

My sister enthused that we should all watch Jaws, but I wasn't keen on the idea. I don't know how many times I'd seen that thing. It's been thirty years, but I don't want to watch it again.

She suggested that there was something wrong with my taste in film. I didn't respond. But I really didn't want to watch the horrible, bloody death of a child. Or the horrible, bloody deaths of adults. 

Jaws 4 was a perfectly pleasant film. Why would I want to watch a gore movie?

Weird that she liked the movie so much but had no thought at all about the content.

Spielberg is a monster. 

Sewer line

This isn't it, but you get the idea.

Well, the new sewer line is almost done. It's all hooked up and seems to be working. I should probably go down and look in the basement and see if we're getting any sewage backing up down there.

I was nervous about it. One company would do the job for $18,000, another one would do it for $10,000. It's my mother's house and it was her decision. She went with the guy who would do it for $3,300. Why the huge price difference? We found the guy's mug shot online.

"Oh, it was just a misdemeanor," my mother said. "Looks like a domestic violence thing."

She wasn't concerned.

[He was innocent. Violated a restraining order after his wife ran away with the children. The (female) judge ruled in his favor, found that his wife was an unfit parent and gave him sole custody.]

The guy's estimate was so much lower because he thought he could do it in two days. It's been six days so far and will be seven or eight by the time it's all finished. He's got to be losing money on this.

You know how they estimate movie budgets? They estimate how much it will cost per day of filming multiplied by how many days they think it will take to film. Kind of the same process here.

Well, it will be a learning experience for him. I hope it won't be for us, too.

Some helpful advice

The sewer kept backing up. We kept paying guys to come in and unclog it. Cost three hundred dollars each time.

The house and therefore the concrete pipes were over ninety years old. The pipes had started to deteriorate. The surface of the concrete was rough and they told us toilet paper was snagging on it and causing the clog. It was happening every three months or so.

I finally got the idea watching an RV commercial to buy rapidly dissolving toilet paper made for use in boats and Winnebagos. I ordered it on Amazon. Turned out that everyone else had the same idea. The comments were all from people with sewer line problems.

This time, it went for SIX months without clogging.

Peter Fonda, RIP

He was cinema's least convincing Hell's Angel. That's a point in his favor.

I've seen him in more things than I realized.

The main movies I remember him in were Easy Rider, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, Futureworld and Fighting Mad. But I also saw Race with the Devil, The Trip, The Wild Angels and The Limey.

I've googled this and couldn't find it, but I remember hearing that Peter Fonda was at school when his father returned from the Navy. He stopped at the school to pick up his son and Peter hid. Which I can understand. I see videos now of fathers returning from a war and surprising their children at school and the kids are always excited and run to them. If it were me, I'd probably freeze up, glance in my father's direction then pretend I didn't see him and avoid eye contact.

"Only Boys Can Be President"

There it is. I don't know what to make of it. The lyrics seem under written, almost like he was singing extemporaneously.

Comments on the YouTube video were surprisingly positive.

As I recall, the episode was about Buffy coming to terms with her tone deafness while her brother becomes the glee club's featured soloist. He grinds her into the dirt by singing that he could even become president and she can't.

I remember my sister being offended by this song at the time.

It was first broadcast in 1968. The next year, Johnny Whitaker had the title role in a Hallmark Christmas special, a musical version of "The Littlest Angel". My parents turned it on. My mother wanted me to watch it. I ran and hid, got as far from the TV as I could. I was five and I told her that Whitaker couldn't sing. Even if he could sing I wouldn't want to listen to it.

I hate watched "The Littlest Angel" a few years ago. I found it on the Roku somewhere. It starts with Johnny Whitaker falling to his death and going to heaven where, it turns out, dead people become angels.

When Jesus is born, God expects all the angels to buy Him a present, which seems wrong.

Alan Dershowitz: The look of love

What's wrong with this guy? Is this how he gazes at all his clients?

Dershowitz is guilty, all right.

Family Affair (1966 to 1971)

I have no reason to be writing about this. I posted a brief comment about it on the internet somewhere so that's what brought it to mind.

It's been years and years since I've seen it. Probably unwatchable today. Twenty-five years ago, Family Affair was used in a gag in the prime time cartoon The Critic. The Critic reviews a movie based on the show starring Marlon Brando as Mr French.

There was an episode in which Johnny Whitaker sings a song, "Any Boy Can Be President", a slap in the face to female viewers. And what about foreign-born boys? Or boys under age thirty-five? His sister has to turn the pages of the sheet music as he performs. In another episode, Johnny wants Uncle Bill to spank him. But they had kind of an anti-fascist episode where they went to Spain and found the Guardia Civil terrorizing the countryside. In another, the children had a classmate dying of leukemia.

Now I've marveled at this before---during the show's run, Brian Kieth appeared in John Huston's movie Reflections in a Golden Eye. Kieth got third billing after Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor. Brando played a repressed homosexual Army officer married to Taylor. Kieth is their friend, another officer whose wife is in a mental hospital. He has a gay Filipino servant.

Brian Kieth was fluent in Russian. He played an American in The Russians Are Coming! The Russians are Coming! and coached Alan Arkin on his Russian dialog.

It was on that movie that he first saw Johnny Whitaker and suggested him for the role of Jody.

I read that the mother of the girl in it, Anissa Jones, had made a deal with a dress company that she would only wear their product. The thing is that they made dresses for young children. Anissa was twelve or thirteen when the show went off the air. By then wearing dresses designed for five-year-olds became rather demeaning. The poor girl died of an overdose at 18.

Anissa had auditioned for the role of Regan in The Exorcist. They gave the role to Linda Blair because, in her initial interview with the director, Blair showed a knowledge of masturbation and a willingness to discuss it. They knew they wouldn't corrupt her or have to explain to her the horrible things she would be asked to say and do in the movie.

Johnny Whitaker went on to star in Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. Oh, and he was in a musical version of Tom Sawyer and had a butt shot.

I don't see anything shocking in the filmographies of Sebastian Cabot or Kathy Garver, although it looks like Garver reprised her role as Cissy a couple of times.

Something Trump can do

"Trump can’t and shouldn’t do much of anything to regulate video games. But if he’s concerned about sadistic violence in the movies and on television, he does have the power to stop the Pentagon, FBI and CIA from cooperating with Hollywood on many of its most blood spattered movies."

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/09/roaming-charges-small-stains-on-the-pavement/

Pro-Trump rally fails miserably

There was a pro-Trump rally here in Eugene, Oregon, today. Attendees were be encouraged to bring guns, but urged not to bring Confederate or Nazi flags or anything racist.

My sister and her husband went to see it. They hate Trump. They just wanted to observe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BQKZ1MNyoY

The video gives a different impression that I got from my brother-in-law. He thought there were maybe a dozen Trump supporters with guns completely overwhelmed by Trump opponents but they're all mixed together and I don't know how anyone can tell. In that last half of the video, you can see a man with no shirt wearing pasties of some sort. You can't see it on the video, but he was also wearing a G string. He was using his whole body as a weapon, offending Trump supporters with his nakedness. The Trump people didn't care that much and he was tormenting the anti-Trump people just as much.

Don't make assumptions about what will upset your opponents. If they're not outraged, you're making a spectacle of yourself for nothing.

The place was crawling with cops. Good idea with all the gun-toting Trump-lovers.

There was one belligerent woman stomping around with a shotgun but nothing happened.

Glad I didn't go.

There was a time when I'd go to political events and I'd be the only one with a camera. Now everyone has a smart phone and your caught in crossfire of cameras. You can't just go and stay out of the way. You're bound to have your picture taken.

Epstein kills himself

A lawyer who represents himself has a lying child molesting Zionist for a client.

Was Jeffrey Epstein working for the Israelis getting blackmail material on powerful people? Acosta, the "prosecutor" who let him off so lightly years ago said he was told not to go after him because he was "from intelligence". If true, his association with Dershowitz and Les Wexner makes it most likely that it was Israeli intelligence.

Wexner, a devout Zionist, was the sole source of Epstein's wealth.

It's a little strange that no one is really erring on the side of protesting too much. It seems like if  you were hanging around with Jeffrey Epstein and you weren't having sex with the girls he molested, you'd angrily denounce him and call for him to be locked up and hopefully murdered in prison in some unspeakable way. You wouldn't be lying low and timidly making statements that you didn't notice anything suspicious.

Dershowitz said he visited Epstein's sex compound and got a massage, but he says he kept his underwear on. What a gentleman!

I can't see any advantage for Epstein's victims to make false accusations against Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Alan Dershowitz, Prince Andrew, a prime minster they wouldn't name and others. They could sue Epstein and easily win---why force U.S. presidents past and present to call them liars? They're obviously telling the truth.

Epstein (left) didn't go to Harvard. Pictured here with Dershowitz.

Movies triggering real crime

Yeah, I think violent movies can cause actual crimes. Or stupid acts that probably aren't actual crimes.

Reportedly, people started trying to crawl out onto the prow of cruise ships so they could do whatever Leonardo DiCaprio did in Titanic. I don't know what the death toll is from The Deer Hunter's Russian Roulette scene. There were murders triggered by Natural Born Killers. 

A Matrix fan adopted the movie's solipsism as a philosophy, decided that everything was imaginary and murdered someone. Now he's imagining that he's in prison.

"No, no, you see, nothing exists outside my mind!" he probably told the judge.

But it can be unpredictable.

Millions of people saw the trailer for The Program, a movie about college football players who, among other things, lie on the yellow line in the middle of a busy street at night in order to prove their courage. Some young people tried this after seeing the movie and discovered that cars drift over the center line all the time. People point to this as an example of how irresponsible filmmakers can destroy people's lives, but none of the millions of people who saw the movie or saw the scene in previews predicted this would happen.

In Lincoln City, Oregon, two morons murdered a couple taking a walk on the beach. They did it because they wanted to be like Dick Hickock and Perry Smith in In Cold Blood, two violent morons who spent most of their lives in prison. Hickock was a child molester. They both wound up being hanged. It was grim, depressing movie. Detectives couldn't imagine anyone wanting to be like those guys.

And now, another example.

I watched Akira Kurosawa's High and Low with commentary on The Criterion Channel. It was a kidnapping story. Kurosawa made it in large part because there had been a wave of kidnappings in Japan. The victims were all children, preschoolers in some cases, and a large number of them were murdered.

Kidnapping wasn't treated as a serious crime under Japanese law at the time. High & Low called for increasing prison sentences for the crime.

It was an anti-kidnapping movie. So what happened?

Some Japanese guy went to the movie then kidnapped a four year old off the street, murdered him and then demanded a ransom for him.

Years ago, I was sitting in my car at a railroad crossing. The train had come to a stop and was just sitting there and I was in a line of cars so there was no getting out. I was listening to the radio. The technical adviser for Breaking Bad was on. They asked if she was worried that she was showing people how to set up a meth lab. She said it didn't matter----no one would ever be stupid enough to imitate such a grimly violent TV show. I didn't have her faith.

One time, at work, I was marveling that Battle Royale, a Japanese movie so shocking it was unavailable in the U.S. for years, was directed by an old guy. He had a long liste of credits including Tora Tora Tora and Message from Space. A co-worker told me about his dim-witted friend who said he'd LOVE to have been forced to fight to the death with all his classmates in high school.

The Bridge, Germany, 1959

I'd heard about this movie years ago, the first major West German anti-war movie. A little surprising that it took them until 1959 to decide that World War Two was bad.

A small group of enthusiastic Nazi 16-year-olds are drafted into the Nazi army. They've only been in the Army a day. So when the troops are all sent into combat they're given an easy job "guarding" a bridge that the Germans intend to blow up anyway.

When American tanks appear, the Nazi teens actually do pretty well. Instead of being immediately wiped out, they blow up a couple of tanks and kill quite a few Americans.

It didn't make war seem that awful. If a group of 16-year-olds with no training can successfully defend a bridge, think of what they could do if they completed basic training. Saving Private Ryan made war look way worse, and it was pro-war.

Available on the Criterion Channel.

Movies I don't like

I sat through Midnight Run again. I don't know how many times I've seen it. I guess I half liked it the first time I saw it and I've liked it less and less with each subsequent viewing. Bounty hunters have appeared in movies for decades, always as villains. Didn't find any of it funny. Just a middling 1980's "action" "comedy".

My mother and sister-in-law insisted on watching it even though it had a nearly all-male cast.

In a discussion of other movies everyone liked but me, I was surprised that I was the only one who thought that The American President was a morbid romantic fantasy about Bill Clinton with Hillary dead. My mother keeps watching Absolute Power, made by Republican Clint Eastwood. I keep telling her it was intended as an attack on Bill Clinton but she doesn't care.

Eastwood was forty when he was a member of "Young Celebrities for Nixon". The other young "celebrities" were the head of the Young Republicans and a former Miss America.

I shouldn't complain, though. I'm sitting here now with a terrible B western playing on the Roku. They're just terrible. Even the people who made them thought so. I keep turning them on because I don't feel I have to pay attention. I'm not going to miss any brilliant plot point or anything else I want to see.

In this one, a criminal becomes a Texas Ranger to prove that his murdered Texas Ranger brother wasn't corrupt. He saves a woman herding sheep from drowning, then saves her from her abusive father who intends to flog her with some sort of whip sheep herders apparently use in order to punish her for nearly drowning.

Kevin Spacy back in action

 Indiewire reports that Kevin Spacey has re-emerged in a "bizarre" poetry reading in Rome:

Kevin Spacey has once again emerged under puzzling circumstances. The embattled former “House of Cards” star and Oscar winner, who fell from grace in 2017 after sexual assault allegations against the “American Beauty” actor surfaced, made a strange public appearance in Rome over the weekend. Spacey surprised museum-goers when he set up shop at the Palazzo Massimo to perform a public poetry reading. 

The poem, “The Boxer” by Gabriele Tinti, centers on a dejected fighter who bemoans his cruel fate while bleeding out by the ringside. “The more you’re wounded, the greater you are. And the more empty you are,” recounts Spacey, clad in a burnt-sienna suit, to a nonplussed crowd. This is no doubt yet another autobiographical flourish from the disgraced 60-year-old actor, who resurfaced last October in an unsettling video posing as axed “House of Cards” character Frank Underwood, where he used Underwood’s Shakespearean oratory to denounce the sexual assault claims that began with “Star Trek: Discovery” actor Anthony Rapp. (TMZ has the video of his latest public appearance here.

In the McCarthy era, some low budget producers took advantage of blacklisted talent. I just wrote about the movie Robot Monster, a terribly cheap horror movie with blacklisted actor Selena Royle and music by greylisted composer Elmer Bernstein.

Sadly, I don't think you're going to see Kevin Spacey or Louie CK doing low budget horror movies now. Although, now that I think about it, Andy Dick was down to nothing but ultra-cheap movies, but it looks like even they'll stop hiring him.

The #metoo movement may not be a boon to low budget cinema after all. Of course, I'm probably the only one who ever suggested it would be.

Two mass shootings in one day

I don't know about Ohio, but Texas' "open carry" laws didn't do them any good in El Paso. There were two mass shootings one one day, one in Dayton, Ohio, one El Paso, Texas.

I've seen big stupid-looking morons walking around supermarkets with guns. I'm sure they think shoppers look at them as heroes and not big dumb louts.

Ken Loach's Black Jack (1979)

I think the only other Ken Loach film I've seen is Kes, so this movie surprised me. Set in 1750 in England, about 12-year-old boy named Tolly who is forced to go on the run with a huge French criminal called Black Jack. Tolly is rather calm about it.

He rescues a girl his age who's being transported to a lunatic asylum, they escape from Black Jack and join a medicine show. There's blackmail, body snatching, child labor, traveling performers. Tolly wants to go to sea even though he's twelve.

I'll tell you one thing that surprised me: that everyone was fully literate. Tolly reads about mental illness in a medical book, another kid takes a quick look the insane asylum ledger and finds the information he needs, they write letters.

This was made a half million pounds. Reportedly, Loach had been working a lot in television at the time but heard he could get funding to make a children's movie. The story revolved around three twelve-year-olds---Tolly and the girl, Belle, and this awful kid who really does pretty well for himself as a blackmailer.

The kids were non-professional actors and had no other acting credits on imdb. The outdoor scenes were shot in 16mm, the interiors in 35mm. The sound mix was done in a weekend.

The non actors were very natural. In one scene, Tolly rubs his eye for a second as he talks to another character. A trained actor would have waited and a lesser director would have done a retake.

Available in The Criterion Channel.

Sundance TV series on Ken McElroy, Skidmore, Missouri

There's a six part Sundance TV series called No One Saw a Thing about the murder of Ken McElroy in the small farming town of Skidmore, Missouri. McElroy terrorized the place for years, shot at least two people. He was about to be sentenced for the last attempted murder. He had a lot of money, apparently from stealing from other farms and stealing and selling antiques but he had a very good lawyer who kept him out of prison.

As I recall, a large group of people in town were going to go see him get sentenced, but his lawyer got it delayed. McElroy drove into town. Bought beer. Was smirking at the helpless rage of the people who thought they were going to see him put away. He got into his truck with his daughter and was shot a couple of times with two different rifles. No one in town would admit seeing who did it.

As I recall, McElroy was suspected of committing at least one murder and a couple of arsons.

I guess once they killed him, the town felt free to act. McElroy's widow filed a lawsuit against the town so they burned her house down and she and her horrible children fled. 

I always thought it was good riddance. To hell with him.

There was already a TV miniseries or docudrama about the case,  it was reported on 60 Minutes and Frontline and I heard that the Patrick Swayze movie Roadhouse was vaguely inspired by it. 

Rick Schmidt's book Feature Filmmaking at Used Car Prices includes an outline for a movie he never made based on the case. It was about how Ken McElroy's poor self-esteem drives him to criminality and how the townspeople, after they kill him, must contemplate their own responsibility for not being nicer to him.

Schmidt's idea sounded terrible and it couldn't be filmed on 16mm for $6,000.

I tried to come up with my own ideas. One was to do something Roshomon-like, or Chan is Missing-like---have a couple of detectives or reporters go back a few years later and talk to people. I don't know if that would have been any good, either.

My other idea was, the guy who everyone knows killed McElroy returns to town after getting out of treatment for alcoholism. He finds he alienated most of the town during his time as town drunk and a few people, like his soon-to-be-ex-wife, have reason to be especially mad at him. He's afraid they'll report him for the murder, so he starts peeling them off one by one.

John Hughes (1950-2009): Was he a horrible person?

Long ago, Spy magazine ran a big article about John Hughes. Made him sound like a terrible person, firing people at the drop of a hat. They would drive around in a minivan scouting locations and he annoyed people by yelling STOP every time he saw someplace they might use. He gloated over how he made studio executives stand in a filthy trash strewn alleyway while he was filming. He stole the plot to Home Alone from something he saw on TV in France.

Later, I read something characterizing the article as a "hatchet job" and, thinking about it, maybe there was nothing really all that bad in the article. He was no Harvey Weinstein.

But then I read this, an interview with director Martha Coolidge:

Kickin' It Old School: It is reported that you were supposed to direct Some Kind of Wonderful (1987), but had a falling out with John Hughes which prevented that from happening. Howard Deutch was re-hired to direct the film. Would you consider taking us through how that really went down? 

Martha Coolidge: I have actually never talked about this before. I was hired to direct Some Kind of Wonderful, developed the script, then fully prepped the film for months and was fired four days before shooting. The press release claimed we had "creative differences" but that wasn't it. I actually had a great time with John, rehearsing and getting the film ready to go. There were no signs of any problems. Mary Stuart [Masterson] was attached and I cast Eric [Stoltz], Kim Delaney and Kyle McLaughlin in the other two leads. I had Eric get long extensions and make his hair a darker red to give him some darkness and mystery. He was very steamy. Mary Stuart is always gorgeous as was Kim Delaney.

Prior to my involvement, apparently Howard Deutch had been involved with John and the film and they had a falling out. I didn't know it, but on the weekend prior to our shoot, John and Howard met and made up. John decided in a gesture of friendship to make the studio give the movie to Howard to direct. John never spoke to me. When I came in on Monday morning I got a call to come over to see Michael [Chinich], John's partner and producer. No one said anything to me, but I could feel that something was wrong. The walk to the next building felt like I was walking a gang plank. Michael was in tears when I got there and talked about his crushing disappointment in the film and his company. He directed me to sit and told me what a great job I was doing. I thought maybe Eric had died and the movie was off. Then he said that they would be making the film but not with me. He said that I was fired, with no reason, and I had to leave the lot right away. I was in shock. I insisted on talking to my actors before I left. They were already on the lot meeting with Howard. Kim and Kyle were also fired and they wanted to fire Eric Stoltz as well. He was traumatized. He had just had a terrible experience on Back To The Future before this. The studio drew the line with Eric though and said no, he was to stay. I was called to Ned Tannen's office, the president of Paramount, and he apologized. He said I hadn't done anything wrong, I was a pleasure to work with and this was a whim of John's, but John was very important to the studio so they had to do it even though it would hurt the film, and me. He promised to make it up to me and get me a film as soon as he could. Even in shock, I realized that until I started shooting I wasn't even "pay or play". But my full check for the entire salary was waiting for me by the time I got home.

Then I found something out about Hollywood. I got about a hundred phone calls from people I knew and didn't know. They told me not to be too upset, that it happens to everyone and that I was in good company being fired by John Hughes. Major heads of companies called me and were very kind. It was one of the first times I felt truly like I was a member of the community. The experience was awful, a real artistic coitus-interruptus and I hired a publicist to help me through the "Artistic Differences" public story that the company and my agents had agreed upon. After a couple days, I left town. 

Years later, I ran into John on an airplane in a small first class cabin flying back from Japan for 12 long hours. He greeted me cheerfully and acted like nothing had ever happened and he had never caused me such pain. I was polite to him but felt good that I was returning from Japan with Rambling Rose and he had Curly Sue. 

Sadly, that's not all:

Martha Coolidge: The thing that galled me more was I had told him my story about my disastrous plane and train trip back and forth to New York one week. My plane was delayed then diverted, the train had a collision, the food ran out, a heat wave hit, etc. I wanted to make a film out of the experience. Before I knew it, he wrote Planes, Trains And Automobiles and it was in production. The moral of that story is to never tell a good writer your best stories.

Almost humiliated in my writing group

I find the idea of westerns amusing. I watched a documentary about the movie Stagecoach on the Criterion Channel and found it strange that anyone would make a serious movie in that genre.

So, I keep writing western stories in this writing group I'm in. All you do it write "A tale of the Old West" under the title and there's no further need to describe or explain anything---your work is two thirds complete.

The old people sat listening silently as I read about dead bodies, killings, teenagers being shot outside their school, college students murdering each other, blind hatred over a minor religious point. Did they think I was a monster?

That day, one guy had written about a childhood incident, one wrote about planning a party for her 80th birthday, one wrote about how she took up bicycle riding in her 50's and another wrote about her daughter who had become a truck driver working in the U.S. and Europe. Another guy used the word "prostate" when he meant "prostrate".

My story opens with a local Unitarian standing over the bodies of four men he killed. He tells the sheriff that they tried to murder him because of his religious beliefs. The Unitarian had run to get the sheriff but when they returned, the dead men's guns were gone. Someone had picked them up.

In the next scene, some impoverished girls on a failing farm strap on the gunbelts they had taken off the dead bodies.

Another girl pleads with her father for a gun. The mean rich girls at school have all started carrying guns. They had been socially dominant before; now they rule over their classmates with threat of violence. Even the school marm is intimidated. The father finally gives in. He gives her a set of dueling pistols he used in college.

At school, the mean girls laugh at the poor girl's dueling pistols, so she shoots two of them. Out of bullets, she runs for her life as a rich girl shoots at her.

The fathers of the rich girls demand that the sheriff arrest the girl who shot their daughters, but the sheriff doesn't believe that a girl that poorly armed could be the aggressor. He threatens to arrest the wounded rich girls and demands that the rich parents stop giving their children guns. The fathers vow to give their daughters even MORE guns after this.

Well, they listened silently. I read, wondering if I could stop in the middle and apologize. But I read to the bitter end and when I was done, they all seemed amused by it. Thank God for that.

I remember an episode of Bonanza where they have to explain to Mitch Vogel that he couldn't come to school with a couple of six guns strapped to him. There was an episode of Death Valley Days where a school marm takes control of an unruly class by shooting at them.