Logging & blogging

My new year’s resolution for 2000 was to start a filmlog, just to keep track of all the films I was watching, so they wouldn’t all blur together in memory, and to rate my reaction on a scale of *10*. Having gotten in that routine, my new year’s resolution for 2005 was to start a film blog, where I could share my observations and evaluations about movies and have them at ready reference -- thus you have this, which I have come to view as a public service, for however miniscule a public.

So the last few films I’ve watched fell somewhere in between those purposes. It would be no service to call your attention to them, yet to keep up with my record of viewing or re-viewing I should note them in passing. Trying to fathom the Clintons in this primary season, I re-watched Primary Colors (1998), figuring that Emma Thompson would put the most sympathetic gloss possible on Hilary and her motivations. And what did I see but a monster of political calculation? So maybe it isn’t Bill and the consultants, but the true Hillary emerging in this campaign. For the rest, Mike Nichols’ direction and John Travolta’s impersonation of Bill wear thin after a while, and the story thinner. It’s worth seeing, but not worth re-seeing.

David Mamet’s directorial debut, House of Games (1987), had stuck in my mind as an outstanding demonstration of the art of the short con and the long con, so I thought to show it to my daughter, a psychology grad. But the games have lost some of their lustre -- Mamet has gone on to do better, Joe Mantegna is no longer such a surprise, and Lindsay Crouse (Mrs. Mamet at the time) is now for me indelibly the evil government scientist in the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In this film, she is startlingly young and butch, capturing a moment of “shoulder-pad feminism” as a bestselling psychologist drawn to the tells, reveals, and misdirections of the con game. Her performance is somewhat robotic, but that is in keeping with her characterization and with the Mametian dialogue. Mantegna memorably combines the suave and the seedy, with a familiar array of shape-shifting characters around him. It’s still a smart thriller for its time, but no enduring classic.

For a Clark After Dark with the theme of The Roaring 20s, I was asked to show The Cotton Club (1984) and I was content to be paid to watch it, but I can’t recommend that you spend your time on it. A notorious fiasco from Francis Ford Coppola, it doesn’t know whether to be The Godfather or a rollicking Harlem musical, with one impulse getting in the way of the other and tripping up the footwork. Lots of familiar faces mill around, but some, like Diane Lane, are virtually unrecognizable. Richard Gere is recognizable but nothing more. Their romance throws off zero sparks. Gregory Hines hoofs okay, and even more could be made of the song and dance variety show from the likes of Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway, while Charlie Chaplin and Gloria Swanson watch from stage-side tables. But meanwhile Dutch Schultz is winning and losing gang wars. It’s all too much and too little. I was just as happy to punch my timeclock and leave the club.

On the other hand, you wouldn’t have had to pay me to re-watch She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), in glorious color on the big screen, most effective in its appropriation of the subjects, hues, and style of Frederic Remington. The film is one iconic shot after the other, but still retains some plausibility within the context of its worldview. The reverence for military ritual may be a little thick, and the obligatory bits of Fordian business, like the slapstick saloon brawl, may wear thin, but visually this is masterful and the sentiments are truer than usual. John Wayne is really very good as the retiring captain of the cavalry, while Ben Johnson and Victor McLaglen lend excellent support, and Joanne Dru and Mildred Natwick come across better than the typical Ford woman. If you’re in the mood for a classic cavalry western, this is the one.

One other thing I’ve been watching is the four-hour PBS Frontline special on “Bush’s War.” It’s not quite as focused as No End in Sight, which covers much of the same ground, but makes for a useful summation of the indictment against the criminal war “monkees” that got us into this mess -- “Daydream Believers” indeed! The clock is ticking on Bush’s term, but the deleterious effects of his administration will haunt this country for decades. And it’s just too tragic to think of what we’ve lost as a nation since the Florida coup of 2000.