The Hours and Times (1991)

Didn't make homosexuality sound like any fun at all. John Lennon (Ian Hart) and the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein (David Angus), travel to Spain in 1963. Lennon was married and had a child and Epstein was gay and apparently in love with him.

In one scene, they meet an anti-Semitic Spanish fascist.

The guy playing John Lennon didn't really look like him, but once in a while you see him at the right angle and you can see a resemblance. Set before he switched to granny glasses.

Black and white. They drive through the city, the camera aimed out the side window looking upward so we see the buildings and not the cars parked along the street. I wondered what it would look like filmed in the age of digital video. It wouldn't be an improvement.

58 minutes. Available on the Criterion Channel.

Dwayne Hickman RIP

 

Dwayne Hickman has died of Parkinson's Disease at 87. He had the title role in the series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. That show launched the careers of Warren Beatty and Tuesday Weld, with Bob Denver and Sheila James. Appeared in Cat Ballou among other things. Became a programming executive at CBS in the late '70's.

 

I remember watching Dobie Gillis in syndication when I was four or five. Watching it again years later on Nick at Nite I was kind of amazed by it. I'd read a little of Max Schulman who wrote the series of short stories the show was based on.  It had his father ranting about "the matriarchy" and one episode with a family of health food-eating acrobats who had long hair with tunics.  

 

I lost interest when Dobie and Maynard joined the Army.

 

Peter Bogdanovich, RIP

I keep talking about this because it makes me feel better about not being a director or talented, but so many directing careers have only lasted a few years for one reason or another. I was surprised to realize that Mel Brooks' peak only lasted about five years.

Peter Bogdanovich got off to an extremely strong start but after The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon, and What's Up, Doc, didn't live up to his early promise. It could be that he thought he could do no wrong, but the same thing happens to everyone else. I was surprised to see how much television he directed after 1994.

His gift was getting great performances out of, in many cases, non-actors. He made Cher a movie star.

Peter Bogdanovich died this week at age 82.

Straw Dogs (1971)

Am I the only one who thought this? 

There was a scene toward the end of the movie where Dustin Hoffman is beating Jim Norton to death with a poker. He has bagpipe music blaring from a record player and he's swinging the poker like golf club. 

I thought this was a sight gag, golf and bagpipes both being distinctively Scottish.

I brought this up to family just a few hours ago and got a blank stare.  

Trump enrages anti-vaxxers

Trump comes under attack every time he says something that's actually sensible, like calling for an end to NATO, an end to all the wars, better relations with Russia and when he briefly called for the U.S. to be even-handed with the Israelis and Palestinians.

Now he's under attack for saying that he's been vaccinated and has gotten the booster.  He's taking credit for the COVID vaccines and has called for people to get vaccinated.

“The vaccine is one of the greatest achievements of mankind… I came up with a vaccine – with three vaccines – all are very, very good. The vaccines work. The ones that get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don’t take their vaccine… If you take the vaccine you’re protected. Look, the results of the vaccine are very good, and if you do get [Covid], it’s a very minor form. People aren’t dying when they take the vaccine.” 

His supporters are turning on him, calling him evil, ignorant and delusional. One guy talked about staging an intervention.

This should hamper his attempt at re-election. He lost the last two times anyway. And it may convince a few of his followers to get vaccinated. Nothing wrong with any of that.

Robert Bresson's Pickpocket (1959)

So much has been written about this movie. What can I say without looking like an idiot? 

It was much better that I thought it would be.

I'm still weirdly fixated on the terrible, extreme low budget westerns I was watching. I kept thinking how much better they might be if they had superficially imitated Bresson. Non-emotive acting, holding shots a second or two longer than necessary, sound effects a little louder than normal. People doing things and things happening without explanation. Narration provided by having the main character write in his diary.

There used to be a show on in syndication. People dressed as beatniks would introduce 1950's science fiction movies. They understood the parallels between art house film and the low end of commercial cinema. Or maybe they couldn't tell the difference. 

Available on The Criterion Channel.

John Hughes' Ferris Beuller's Day Off (1986)

It's New Year's Day. I celebrated by going out and hitting a drive through. I haven't eaten out since I got an air fryer three weeks ago.

I came home. My 90-year-old mother was watching Ferris Beuller's Day Off. She asked if I had ever seen it. She taught junior high school long ago before she was driven out by a Mormon administrator and was appalled that they showed this thing in school.

Seeing it again after all these years, I tend to agree. It was awful.

Looked up John Hughes. His directing career spanned only eight years. I can't imagine he couldn't have continued if he wanted. More proof that directing isn't that great.

Hughes was a little after my time. I was in my 20's when he started making teen movies.

I skipped classes all the time in high school. I never understood why missing a day of school was a problem. My mother and her friends skipped school in the 1940's and no one cared. I don't know how spontaneous it was, but I had a friend who got into his old Fiat to drive to school one morning but went the other direction. He ended up in Boise. Got home at 4 AM.