Category Archives: Movies

In the post before last, I mistyped the time Turner Classic Movies is airing You're in the Army Now on January 4. It's 12:30 PM, not 12:30 AM. Thanks to Ken Kahn for the catch.

Jerry Carr writes to ask…

Thanks for the informative and funny article about screeners. Now, since you get these things, can you tell us who the nominees will be for Best Picture?

Certainly. As you may have heard, there will be ten nominees this year in this category. The ten nominees will be, in alphabetical order: Avatar, An Education, Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Invictus, Nine, Precious, A Serious Man, Up, and Up in the Air. And by the way, we're probably lucky that Billy Crystal isn't hosting the ceremony. He and Marc Shaiman would probably get hernias trying to whip up song parodies about all of those.

This is one of the times o' year when I get a lot of "screeners," that being a Hollywood term for a DVD of a recent film or TV show. Back in the Byzantine Era, it used to apply to something called a VHS tape. If you don't know what that is, here's a link to the Wikipedia listing.

It's primal human nature that we all like to do something that sounds a little special, a little more like a privilege not afforded to all. Therefore, if you ask some folks if they want to go to a "movie," they'll say no but if you suggest going to a "screening," well, that's a whole 'nother thing. And viewing a screener is ever so much more enticing than watching a DVD. Anybody can watch a DVD.

I get screeners because I'm in the Writers Guild and I'm in the TV Academy and I'm on a lot of press lists. In some cases, a screener is sent because someone thinks it will do the movie or show a world of good to generate good press or just "buzz." In most instances, it's sent because they're hoping it will yield votes for some upcoming award. There's no evidence that it does. In fact, there's anecdotal evidence that the louder the campaign, the less likely a movie is to cop an Oscar. Still, the studios mount these campaigns and it's sometimes contractual. There are movie stars and directors who have it in their contract that the studio must spend X dollars trying to get them an Academy Award…and "X" is often a rather high number. So they have to spend it on something.

Screeners seem to be changing lately. Most used to come in much more elaborate packaging — fancy, obviously expensive cases, sometimes enormously cumbersome things. There was one — a documentary of some kind — that arrived inside a world globe at least a foot in diameter. You flipped open Portugal and there was the DVD. There was some biblical film that arrived inside an alleged replica of the Ten Commandments. You opened up a little plastic slab labelled "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife" and there was your DVD. The fact that I don't remember the movies in question should tell you something about how effective this kind of thing can be.

Recently, I think the publicists figured out that the stunt wrappings were more annoying than promotional. There was no easy way to store some of their offerings…or even to have them around your house until you found time to watch the DVD within. To the environmentally-conscious, the extraneous debris seemed anti-green and wasteful, plus it all smelled of desperation; like the folks sending them out were admitting the film or TV show didn't merit attention without a lush gimmick. Way too many of the screeners that arrived inside Rose Parade floats never got a nomination for anything. In any case, most of 'em now show up in pretty basic casings, some in just cardboard sleeves. The ones lobbying me to vote for something in the Writers Guild awards often include a copy of the script, as well.

A friend who also gets them suggested to me that the simpler packaging was because of the bad economy. I don't think so. I think it's because of the reasons I just gave. They're still spending unnecessary bucks on screener dissemination, lately by sending most of them FedEx overnight, signature required. This calls attention to the DVD and makes you feel special — like they really wanted to make sure you received yours — even if it is a bit annoying to keep answering the door and signing for a copy of Alec Baldwin's lastest performance. (One arrives about every other day. I think that's about how fast he makes them.)

I suspect they're not trying to stroke us with all this FedExing so much as get written proof that we received the DVD. Lately, most of them come with this lawyer-written warning that I should watch the DVD…and then I'm on my honor to break it in half or otherwise destroy it, lest it fall into unauthorized hands. My copy has been secretly encoded with my DNA or something that will enable them to trace it and arrest me if anyone but me ever has possession of it. Should that someone mass-duplicate it, I would, of course, receive the death penalty. Never mind that I didn't ask for these DVDs in the first place. It's like a total stranger sent you a gift out of the blue…and threatened you with prison time if you didn't take proper care of it.

The threats are especially odd now that movies are turning up on commercial DVDs about eight minutes after they play the Cineplex at the mall. Some of the DVDs sent me this season are special pressings but some are mass-market releases you can buy on Amazon or rent from Netflix. Still, they come with these threatening letters from folks who are trying to woo me into voting for their products.

Odd? Yeah, but not as odd as this: If I send a screenplay to most of these studios, they'll return it unread with a stern letter — probably written by the guy who writes the threats in the screeners — that they don't accept unsolicited material. And then they send me unsolicited material…including copies of their screenplays.

I recently watched a "screener" DVD of Frost/Nixon (that's a DVD they send out free to folks in the industry who can vote for awards) and I wish I knew what I thought of it. I enjoyed the film. It held my attention all the way through and I thought the performances and direction were excellent. I will probably watch it again.

But a lot of things bothered me about it, starting with the fact that I thought it overinflated the importance of the legendary Frost-Nixon interviews. They were a nice bit of entertainment to those of us who were waiting to see Richard M. Nixon squirm a little and put on the defensive…but in the end, I think that's all they were. Nixon got a lot of money and from some quarters, some much-craved sympathy. Beyond that, things remained largely status quo. Those who insisted he'd been railroaded from office still insisted it. Those who disliked him still disliked him. "The system" did not change much except that those in it were reminded that it's possible to get caught.

I am a bit surprised that Sir David Frost is making the rounds, talking up a movie that makes him look like such a weak, shallow figure. Frost was a much better interviewer than the one portrayed by Michael Sheen in this movie, and less the underdog. I don't recall his reputation and career at that stage being so fragile that he desperately needed the success of the interviews the way the Frost on screen does. Making him a true David to Nixon's Goliath was probably wise from a dramatic standpoint but I couldn't help but think that while a more accurate weighting would have lacked a certain punch, it might have gotten at more truth about its subjects.

One interesting bit of simplification is that in the movie, Frost contracts for four hours of interviewing Nixon, and Nixon proceeds to dominate the first three hours with tangents and trivia, making for naught but self-serving froth. And so it all comes down to the last hour, the one devoted to Watergate, in which Frost must land some sort of punch that will legitimize the whole project…and by cramming like a college student the night before an exam, he manages to do this. That's not what happened. For one thing, Frost scored points aplenty in the earlier sessions. (Nixon's defenses of the bombing of Cambodia were probably more damning admissions than anything he said with regard to Watergate.)

Also, in reality, Frost went into the tapings well aware that Nixon could and would stonewall, deviate, double talk and generally control any conversation. The original contract called for a four-to-one ratio — Nixon would sit for twenty-four hours of interviewing which would be pared down to four 90-minute shows. (Eventually, an additional hour-long show was added.) About halfway through the tapings, when Nixon's ramblings were consuming too much of the time, Frost requested additional taping time. Nixon refused…so Frost responded with a pretty clever threat: If Nixon wouldn't grant more hours of interrogation, Frost would merely leave out a number of topics, like normalization of relations with China, that Nixon regarded as his legacy and triumphs. Nixon gave in and four more hours of taping were added. So the questioning went on for 28 hours, not four.

Another departure from reality: In the climax, at the critical last taping session, Frost gets Nixon to blurt out his famous and incriminating line, "When the president does it, it's not illegal!" But Nixon actually said that in an earlier conversation, not the final one.

The movie treats that line as the moment of Frost's victory and vindication and maybe, in terms of making the interviews a media success, it was. But in reality, when it was all over, Nixon was still Nixon. In the early part of the film, one of Frost's associates speaks of giving Nixon "the trial he never had." I sure didn't think that's what happened. Frost got Nixon to tear up and admit he'd let his country down and — in the passive voice — that mistakes were made. He arguably went a little farther than that but, inarguably, not very far.

I'm probably overthinking the movie, which is fine for what it is. The performances are excellent. The story is gripping, even though you pretty much know exactly where it's going and how long it's going to take to get there. Like I said, I'll probably watch Frost/Nixon at least one more time because I enjoyed it very much. What I guess I didn't enjoy was after, when I thought about how much Nixon got away with. Yeah, he had to resign in disgrace but he also never had to answer for what he'd done. The worst that happened was that David Frost made him cry a little.

In an attempt to appease the never-ending demand for Olsen and Johnson movies, Trio is running their 1943 film Crazy House this week and next in multiple airings. And it may take you multiple viewings to figure out all that's going on it, and to savor the amazing supporting cast of comedic actors. The roster includes Billy Gilbert, Shemp Howard, Edgar Kennedy, Hans Conried, Franklin Pangborn…well, lots of good people. In fact, everyone's funny in this movie except its stars, Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson. Well no, I take that back. They're sort of funny. But what's really funny is the frenetic pace as they appear in a movie about them appearing in a movie about them appearing in a movie. Ole and Chic were the masters of keeping it moving and keeping it silly, and they not only broke the fourth wall but would sometimes erect a fifth or sixth wall, just so they could knock them down, as well. Trio also runs old episodes of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and that show was an obvious descendant of the Olsen and Johnson style, as seen in several movies and Broadway shows, most notably Hellzapoppin'.

I think. It's been a good thirty-something years since I've seen Hellzapoppin', which is among the most famous allegedly-great comedies that almost no one has ever seen. Apparently, some legal problem has kept it off TV and home video for decades but no longer. It's recently been released in Australia on a DVD which is alleged to be "region-free," meaning it should play on players in this country. I'm going to find out what I can about this and report back to you here.

While I've got you here: Early Wednesday morning, Turner Classic Movies is running the 1931 Parlor, Bedroom and Bath. This is one of those early talkies that Buster Keaton made as his career and sanity were deserting him and the first half is pretty slow. Near the end, it gets a lot better but you have to really like Keaton to make it that far.

As mentioned on my old weblog, Turner Movie Classics is running an awful lot of Harold Lloyd movies this month. If you're ever going to watch, tonight would be a good time since they're offering Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy, a 1962 compilation that features highlights from a number of Lloyd's movies. For years before its release, Lloyd's work was generally unavailable to the public. Actually, silent movies have never been all that available but even the limited venues that showed them back then couldn't get their mitts on Lloyd's best. He controlled them and told all who inquired that he was waiting for the "right moment" to rerelease them.

He was also waiting for what some said was an unrealistically high price. Financial expectations were scaled back as he watched film festivals and college courses praise Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, ignoring the man whose comedies had outgrossed the both of them. Lloyd's business strategy was backfiring on his reputation. When one of his films did get shown, it was the early, unimpressive ones he didn't control. So in '62, he dropped his price and personally selected the contents of a film that was designed to remind the world who he was and why he was important. The showcase was a bit heavy on wild action scenes from his silent films and some curious choices from his talkies, the latter reportedly included because he was angry at books and articles that had suggested his career had ended with the coming of sound. Still, it did well at the box office and, coupled with the attendant p.r. campaign, did a lot to restore Lloyd's fame. A follow-up called Harold Lloyd's Funny Side of Life received scant distribution in the U.S. and did most of its business overseas.

In any case, Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy is a great time-saver: If you watch it and don't enjoy yourself, there's really no point in watching any other Harold Lloyd movie. If you do like it, Turner is running a batch of good shorts afterwards, followed by two of Lloyd's best features — Grandma's Boy and Dr. Jack. As you'll see, he did a lot more than hang off clock faces.