By Jason Apuzzo. Star Wars was released 35 years ago today. It’s hard to believe it’s been so long! All these years later, the original Star Wars and Errol Flynn’s The Adventures of Robin Hood are still my favorite films of all time. Unlike with Robin Hood, however – which I first saw on TV – I had the good fortune of seeing Star Wars when it first came out in theaters back in 1977. My six year-old imagination was completely overwhelmed, and I was hooked on the movies for good.
If memory serves, the trailer above represents all that many of us knew about the film prior to its release – and it was pretty exciting stuff. And although a lot has changed about the Star Wars universe since that time, it’s worth remembering how fresh, original and imaginative the film seemed back in 1977. I know that watching Star Wars in 70mm Dolby stereo with excited crowds at the then-Plitt Century Theater in Century City (Los Angeles) still represents the most fun I’ve ever had at the movies. And really, the film hasn’t changed that much for me after all these years – the many special editions and digital revisions aside. I still love the film, and I don’t think it’s ever been topped.
Writer-director George Lucas did a marvelous job with this film, breaking a lot of new ground and opening up a whole new imaginative universe to audiences and filmmakers. I’d say even more about the film, but I have to go over to the Toshi station right now to pick up some power converters. 😉 Congratulations on Star Wars‘ 35th.
By Jason Apuzzo. I wanted LFM’s regular readers to know that although I’ve been busy of late, I’m still keeping close tabs on what’s happening at your local multiplex. Here are some micro-reviews of important recent releases:
The Avengers
Sparkling interactions among the characters, an electrifying sequence aboard a floating aircraft carrier, cheeky good humor, and another breakout performance by Tom Hiddleston as Loki lift Marvel’s The Avengers far above conventional comic book fare – to the point that it’s already become its own event in pop mythology. Several things hold The Avengers back from being a gold-plated classic, though: trite assertions of moral equivalency between the good guys and the bad guys, cringe-inducing scenes involving goofy aliens, and a third act copied (lamely) from Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Still, you sense that this is what comic book movies were supposed to be like all along.
LFM GRADE: A-
Spotting the enemy in "Battleship."
Battleship
After a dreadful first act involving a soccer game and a chicken burrito (don’t ask), Battleship settles in and delivers some exciting combat sequences – especially when the USS Missouri gets hauled out of mothballs to exchange ear-shattering salvos with an invading alien cruiser. Director Peter Berg – the son of a naval historian – takes the tactical, cat-and-mouse aspects of naval warfare (and of Hasbro’s board game) seriously, although he can’t summon a credible performance out of Taylor Kitsch – assuming that’s even possible. Kudos to Berg, however, for featuring real-life combat veterans in the cast like Col. Gregory Gadson, an inspiring Iraq war vet and amputee who brings an aura of seriousness to the movie’s otherwise over-the-top scenario. And if that’s not enough for you, there’s also Brooklyn Decker in a tank top.
LFM GRADE: B
Admiral-General Aladeen enters New York in "The Dictator."
The Dictator
A treasure-trove of great gags at the expense of petty Middle Eastern tyrants is drowned away in a deluge of mindless vulgarity and gross-out humor, all of which probably should’ve netted this film an NC-17 rating. Writer-director-star Sacha Baron Cohen also throws in an obnoxious closing speech in which he essentially equates America with Middle Eastern dictatorships. Is this guy kidding? Take your dictators-are-brainless-narcissists act to Syria, Sacha, and see how well it plays with the local gentry. A major disappointment, and probably Cohen’s final shot at mainstream success.
By Jason Apuzzo. Memorial Day weekend is approaching, a time when Americans traditionally focus their attention on corn dogs, guacamole burgers and LeBron’s fading playoff hopes – but it’s also a time when we remember the men and women who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice for their country and for freedom.
And although Universal’s new film Battleship just capsized at the box office, unable to compete with the entertaining spectacle of The Avengers or Facebook’s Hindenburg-style IPO, it’s still a perfect excuse to take a look at The Top 10 Naval Warfare Movies of All Time.
Movies about America’s naval heroes – and there have been some great ones – teach us about courage under fire, about the importance of strategy, and recall a more romantic era when tactical masterminds made split-second decisions that changed the course of world history.
Old-school naval warfare in "Battleship."
Granted, America’s enemies these days don’t seem to like the water very much. Long gone are the days of legendary naval adversaries like Japan’s Isoroku Yamamoto (the Harvard-trained mastermind behind the Pearl Harbor attack), Germany’s Alfred von Tirpitz (whose submarines raised havoc during World War I), or even Britain’s Lord Sandwich – who somehow took time out from battling America’s Continental Navy to invent the sandwich.
Even the Russians don’t seem eager to confront the U.S. out in the open ocean, anymore – possibly due to the traditional Russian difficulty of keeping nuclear-powered ships afloat.
All of this is why Hasbro and director Peter Berg resurrected the cinema’s most reliable enemy, space aliens, to serve as the foe in Battleship.
And even though Battleship doesn’t make the Top 10 list below, as Memorial Day approaches the film may nonetheless put you in the mood to watch one of these classics of the World War II era and beyond, from the days when America proved her might – and sailors proved their mettle – by battling for supremacy on the high seas:
1. The Enemy Below (1957)
The Enemy Below pits laconic World War II destroyer captain Robert Mitchum against a craggy, war-weary German U-boat skipper played by Curt Jürgens. Mitchum and Jürgens play cat-and-mouse with each other across the south Atlantic, putting their tactical skill and nerves to the maximum test. And as their duel grows more intense, so too does their respect for one another. With a great musical score by Leigh Harline and directed by actor Dick Powell, The Enemy Below set the standard for realism in its day – although it’s Mitchum’s rivalry with Jürgens that puts the film over the top.
Best line: “I don’t want to know the man I’m trying to destroy.”
2. Destination Tokyo (1944)
Destination Tokyo stars Cary Grant as a conscientious sub captain who leads his crew on a daring mission from the Aleutian Islands to Tokyo Bay. Co-starring John Garfield as a skirt-chasing sailor named ‘Wolf’, and featuring colorful performances from Alan Hale and Dane Clark, Destination Tokyo brings the action like few other war films of its day. Grant’s sub torpedoes destroyers and aircraft carriers, and conducts bold night missions along the Japanese coast – all while dodging minefields, depth charges, bombs, even an appendicitis attack among its crew. Destination Tokyo was so good, it inspired a young Tony Curtis to join the Navy – years before he would appear on-screen with Grant in Operation Petticoat.
Best line: “Congratulations, Wolf … It’s been an hour since anything reminded you of a dame.”
3. Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)
A mega-production that tells the story of the Pearl Harbor attack from both the American and Japanese perspectives, Tora! Tora! Tora! was so big that it needed three directors to make – one of whom initially was Akira Kurosawa. Tora! Tora! Tora! takes its history seriously, exploring the political and military context behind the infamous December 7th, 1941 raid. An epic film in every sense, including in its methodical pacing, Tora! Tora! Tora! shows what a complex, risky gamble the attack was for the Imperial Japanese – along with the many tactical failures on the American side that made it possible. In the pre-digital era, few war pictures seem bigger than Tora! Tora! Tora!, and the final attack sequence still looks incredible today – because so many of the pyrotechnics are real.
Best line: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
Sean Connery as Marko Ramius.
4. The Hunt for Red October (1990)
A signature film of the Cold War era and based on the famous Tom Clancy novel, The Hunt for Red October stars Sean Connery as Soviet sub captain Marko Ramius, who decides to defect to the U.S. and hand over his undetectable sub, the Red October, before the Russians can use it to launch World War III. Connery is perfect as the wily Ramius, and a young Alec Baldwin does a nice turn playing Jack Ryan before Harrison Ford took over the role in later films. A great musical score by Basil Poledouris – along with sharp performances by James Earl Jones, Sam Neill, Fred Thompson and Scott Glenn – rounds out this must-see classic.
Best line: “We will pass through the American patrols, past their sonar nets, and lay off their largest city, and listen to their rock-and-roll … while we conduct missile drills.”
5. Sink the Bismarck! (1960)
This neglected classic recounts the harrowing story of how Germany’s massive Bismarck battleship, the naval Death Star of its day, threatened to obliterate Britain’s Royal Navy – and actually did obliterate the HMS Hood, Britain’s most powerful battlecruiser. Sink the Bismarck! also dramatizes how blind luck often factors in to history’s most decisive battles. Strong performances by Kenneth More and Dana Wynter, as well as a colorful turn by Karel Å tÄ›pánek as Germany’s Admiral Lütjens, make Sink the Bismarck! key viewing for naval warfare buffs.
Best line: “We are unsinkable … and we are German!”
6. They Were Expendable (1945)
Director John Ford’s They Were Expendable brings an element of poetry and heightened realism to the genre in telling the story of how America’s PT boats fought the war against the Imperial Japanese in the Philippines. They Were Expendable stars John Wayne and Robert Montgomery – who actually commanded a PT boat during the war, and who took over directing the film when Ford (who shot footage of the Battle of Midway and also of D-Day for the Navy Department) fell ill. A sobering, moody look at the sacrifices made during wartime, and also at military innovation in the face of numerically superior forces, They Were Expendable was Ford’s last wartime film – and a memorable one.
Best line: “I used to skipper a cake of soap in the bathtub, too.”
7. Midway (1976)
With a boffo cast featuring Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Glenn Ford and Toshiro Mifune, and with music by John Williams, Midway recounts the decisive Battle of Midway on an epic scale. Although the film sometimes feels cobbled together with too much stock footage, Midway takes combat strategy more seriously than most war films – painstakingly setting up the options facing both the American and Imperial Japanese fleets in this crucial naval conflict that turned the tide in the Pacific. And even with Mifune playing Admiral Yamamoto, and Fonda as Admiral Nimitz, it’s Heston who steals the show as hard-ass Navy captain Matt Garth.
Best line: “‘Wait and see.’ We waited. December 7th, we saw. The ‘Wait and see’-ers will bust your ass every time.”
Best line: “The first thing you’ve got to learn about this ship is that she was designed by geniuses to be run by idiots.”
9. Pearl Harbor (2001)
Michael Bay’s epic telling of the Pearl Harbor attack brought a new level of realism and detail to the depiction of combat – with ILM’s visual effects team re-creating not only the Japanese attack, but also the Doolittle raid and the Battle of Britain. Although the film’s romantic subplot never totally clicks, Pearl Harbor still packs an emotional punch once the Japanese raid kicks in – and the film’s old-fashioned, patriotic sensibility fits the subject matter perfectly. Bay’s team actually re-created a large-scale section of the doomed battleship USS Oklahoma and capsized it for the film. Don’t try that at home.
Best line: “I’ve got some genuine French champagne. From France.”
10. Action in the North Atlantic (1943)
Another classic from Humphrey Bogart, this wartime Warner Brothers gem was Bogie’s first film after Casablanca made him a superstar. Action dramatizes the vital role of the Merchant Marine in transporting armaments during World War II, as Bogie and Raymond Massey guide a Liberty ship on a harrowing mission to Murmansk – battling U-boats and the Luftwaffe along the way. Action is well-named, with more combat scenes than any World War II film outside of Destination Tokyo. And although the film was shot exclusively on the back lot, Bogie and Massey still made real-life dives off one of the film’s burning ships … after a few drinks.
Best line: “The trouble with you, Pulaski, is you think America is just a place to eat and sleep. You don’t know what side your future’s buttered on.”
Honorable Mentions: Crash Dive (1943), Operation Pacific (1951), In Harm’s Way (1965).
"The Avengers" was photographed digitally, whereas "The Dark Knight Rises" was shot on film.
[Editor’s Note: the piece below was featured today on the front page of The Atlantic.]
Digital moviemaking is on the rise, but some high-profile directors still shoot popcorn flicks the old way.
By Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty. This summer, Hollywood’s blockbusters are engaging in a high-stakes format war between cutting-edge digital technology and old-fashioned, photochemical film. Digitally photographed thrillers like The Avengers, Prometheus, and The Amazing Spider-Man will be battling it out with equally epic movies shot on film such as The Dark Knight Rises, Men in Black 3, and Battleship. Indeed, no summer in recent memory boasts so much variety in terms of how films are photographed and exhibited.
Yet with studios looking to trim costs on increasingly expensive “tentpole” movies, traditional celluloid film—easily the more expensive of the two formats—may be on its way out as the cinema’s medium of choice. Still, advocates of film continue to make compelling arguments about why theirs is the more enduring medium, even as both sides pull out their biggest guns this summer in an effort to prove definitively the commercial value of their respective formats.
Right now, advocates of film have numbers on their side. Of this summer’s major blockbusters, more were shot on film than digitally. Aside from The Dark Knight Rises, Men in Black 3, and Battleship, other summer tentpole movies filmed photochemically include Snow White and the Huntsman, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, and The Bourne Legacy.
But digital technology has the momentum and the prestigious advocates who will likely help it win out eventually.
For the rest of the article please visit The Atlantic.
Wearing dark shades, and clutching my plastic media badge and a $7 bag of greasy popcorn, I stealthily ducked into a Chelsea multiplex to watch some of my youth flicker by across the big screen.
When I say ‘my’ youth, I’m also talking about the youth of millions of other guys who were teenagers during the late 1980s and tuned into politics. If you were around at that time, there’s probably one name you’ve never forgotten – no matter how hard you’ve tried: Morton Downey, Jr.
The movie I was watching was the probing and hilarious new documentary, Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie. If you never had the chance to experience Downey in his prime, you really missed something. Downey was easily the most popular and controversial TV talk show host of his day – although that’s sort of like saying Genghis Khan was the most popular and controversial equestrian of his day. It doesn’t really capture the scale or the savagery of the phenomenon.
Downey was the id of the 1980s – a real-life Howard Beale, if you remember Paddy Chayefsky’s Network. Like some wild, genetic fusion of Howard Stern, Michael Savage and Howard Cosell, Downey invented the modern political talk show almost overnight during his colorful, meteoric career in the late 1980s – while becoming a tongue-in-cheek folk hero for political junkies like myself, especially (but not exclusively) for those of the teenage male persuasion.
Part rock star (he was a former singer, like his famous father), part populist firebrand, part stand-up comedian, Downey transformed political debate on TV from the staid, genteel disquisitions of David Brinkley’s “This Week” program into something closer to a Vegas floor show – or a night with the Rat Pack. Dangling his trademark cigarette, and wielding a cutting wit, Downey turned the political talk show into the kind of uninhibited, boozy, late-night pleasure it had never been before – and has never really been since.
Watching Downey do his routine all over again in Évocateur (more on the film below), several ideas came to mind about how to liven-up today’s creaky political talk shows:
Talk show maverick Morton Downey, Jr.
1. Encourage In-Studio Fistfights.
Let’s face it: most guests on today’s talk shows look like they’re just going through the motions – like they’re only concerned with their hair, and with being invited back. When was the last time someone upended a table, or stormed off a cable news show? It never happens anymore. Before Downey’s show, no one had ever seen political activists throw chairs at each other on national television, or watched ACLU lawyers battle screaming teenagers with mohawks, or watched Hollywood directors get dragged off stage – their legs flailing helplessly, as Downey’s working-class crowd hooted with joy. Downey’s guests were passionate, and always willing to put their bodies on the line when it counted (watch the legendary Al Sharpton-Roy Innis throwdown). There should be more fistfights, and table- and chair-throwing on political talk shows today – then maybe we’ll believe more of the nonsense these shows are spouting.
2. Bring Back Live Studio Audiences!
Why are today’s political talk show hosts so afraid of live studio audiences? Downey began his shows by high-fiving his crowd, even kissing the women in his studio audience. Downey’s hyped-up, seemingly inebriated audience (they often dressed in Halloween costumes) was encouraged to talk back to the show’s guests from a lectern known as ‘The Loudmouth.’ It was at ‘The Loudmouth’ that the audience lived out the primal fantasy of speaking truth to power – as teenagers, truck drivers, dental assistants and other regular folk got their chance to berate corrupt officials, phony celebrities, radical professors or gasbag political activists. It was this cathartic opportunity to abuse and humiliate the powerful that gave Downey’s show its special electricity. (“Step up to the Loudmouth” even became a catchphrase of the day.)
Downey with Al Sharpton.
3. Invite Actual Human Beings on as Guests.
This is an important point: consultants, political strategists and journalists should be replaced by actual human beings on political talk shows. Although media figures of today like Al Sharpton, Gloria Allred and Alan Dershowitz got their first big breaks on Downey’s show (alongside even wilder guests like Joey Ramone of The Ramones, or Ace Frehley of Kiss), Downey rarely played it easy by inviting on the usual pundits – or even people conversant in the English language – to talk about issues. He instead found people who were colorful, off-beat, or in some way good foils for him and his hyper-charged studio audience. As a result, a lot of all-too-real people made their way onto his show: street hustlers, pro wrestlers, strippers, UFO conspiracy theorists, communists, small-time evangelists. Not even Fox News covers as much ground in this respect as Downey once did.
4. Boot Bad Guests Off the Show – Frequently.
This is the flipside of #3. Downey took great relish in booting dull or belligerent guests off his show – and this is really something today’s political shows should consider doing. Although Downey invited the most radical, combative and often freakish public figures of his day onto his show, sometimes their schtick didn’t work and the guest had to be cut loose – quickly. As an example from today, Fox News keeps bringing on some guy who’s listed as a ‘conservative comedian’ – but the guy’s never made me laugh once. He should be barked-at and ridiculed by Bill O’Reilly, then hauled off by security guards while a live studio audience throws wads of Kleenex at him. Then he might be fun to have around.
Firing up the crowd.
5. Get Up Off Your Behind!
Downey was rarely seated on his show; he prowled around the set for the full hour, gesticulating with a cigarette, pointing at the camera, hovering over his guests and bantering with the studio audience. It brought pizzazz and theatricality to the show. Plus, Downey understood that he was the real star of his show, which he why his guests as a rule stayed firmly planted in their seats – under threat of getting booted. Today’s hosts should get off their asses, get out from behind their desks, and start moving around more.
6. Drop the Dress Code.
Part of why people are so inhibited on today’s shows is that everybody dresses like they’re at a GE stock holders meeting. It’s boring. Downey frequently came onto his show in jeans, sans coat or tie. He also dressed up as Dracula once, and even wore war paint and army fatigues. Plus, his audience members sometimes dressed as gorillas, carnival clowns, or Cuban revolutionaries. It set the tone, and people loosened up.
7. Learn to Ignore the News Cycle.
This is a big one with me. The term ‘news cycle’ is really just another way to say: ‘whatever somebody else is talking about.’ It’s tedious to turn on the big cable news networks and see them covering identical subjects, day in and day out. Branch out! Be creative, the way Downey was (he once did a show on “Strippers for God”). Find news stories nobody else is covering, like: “Oil Drillers Who Dig with Their Teeth,” or “Green Technology You Can’t Afford.” It would liven things up.
8. When You Say Something Stupid, Apologize.
It’s inevitable that a host will say something stupid or otherwise regrettable over the course of doing a daily political TV show. Downey certainly did, and apologized when necessary. What’s annoying is when today’s hosts, in an effort to save their careers, double-down on stupid comments later – pretending that their inane remark (“Senator Smith’s wife has skin like a Maine lobster”) was actually a carefully considered policy statement (“Actually, my critics aren’t aware that before I was a TV talk show host, I worked at The American Crustacean Society. So I know what I’m talking about!”). It’s embarrassing. When you say something inappropriate, fess up, apologize and move on – in other words, be a human being.
Downey with rockers Honey One Percenter and Ace Frehley.
9. Feature Live Music.
A former singer himself, Downey occasionally brought live bands – mostly hard rock acts – onto his show to great effect. It gave the show a late-night, uninhibited vibe that today’s political shows desperately need. (Side note: in the absence of music, such primitive group behavior as chanting or catcalls should be encouraged from the studio audience.) Downey understood that the enemy of political talk shows is stuffiness – and nobody ever called his show stuffy.
10. Bring Cigarettes & Liquor Back to Late Night.
OK, admittedly this one is never going to happen – but it should.
Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie
The suggestions above are just a few examples of what Morton Downey, Jr. would likely do to liven up political talk shows, were he around today. And who knows? Maybe somebody will actually take some of this advice and turn today’s dull, grimly earnest shows into the glorious, Rabelaisian carnivals of human excess that they could be.
In the meantime, thanks to Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie, we can look back at how cathartic and liberating it once was to “step up to the Loudmouth.”
A populist at heart.
In Évocateur, filmmakers Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, and Jeremy Newberger dig into Downey’s personal story, beginning with his privileged youth as the son of popular singer Morton Downey and actress Barbara Bennett (the sister of actresses Constance and Joan Bennett). We learn, in an incredible irony, that Downey was actually raised next door to the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port – and was a lifelong friend of Ted Kennedy, with whom he clearly shared the same salty sense of humor.
Downey rambled through a series of careers as a singer and radio announcer until he finally hit his stride as a New Jersey TV host in the late ’80s, channeling mostly working class resentments against liberal cultural elites. (Sound familiar?) The moment his opera buffa-style talk show went national in 1988 it became an overnight hit – although it would last less than two years. After jumping the shark a few too many times – at one point even staging a fake assault on himself by neo-Nazis in an airport bathroom stall – his show petered out, his audience moving on to more sedate fare.
Évocateur does a fabulous job of bringing Downey’s cracked brilliance back to life with a slew of archival clips from his show, and interviews with former guests and co-workers. It’s clear that even liberals loved the guy – Gloria Allred and Alan Dershowitz have especially warm words for him, in particular.
Colorful and groundbreaking.
After the Tribeca screening I asked Jeremy Newberger, one of the film’s directors, what made Downey different from today’s talk show hosts of either the conservative or liberal variety. “The [hosts] today … there’s more machinery in place to protect them,” Newberger said. “They have more infrastructure … a lot of these guys are in a vacuum, where no one gets to come across and have a different opinion without being edited out.”
“This guy [Downey] was tough, he was willing to speak his mind, and he had an interactive show – and he was pretty brave to do what he did.”
Newberger is right – Downey was brave. His show was a far cry from the stale, corporate programs of today that seem intent on insulating their high-priced hosts from criticism, awkward questions or interaction with regular citizens. Downey didn’t avoid such public exposure – he thrived on it.
Downey’s raucous show may not have been particularly noble or elevating – no doubt he turned political debate into something more vulgar and carnivalesque than it had ever been. But he also made political TV more earthy, entertaining and human – and nobody’s equaled him in that way since.
The best posters are simple, and alert us immediately to the subject matter at hand. These three new posters for the forthcoming Chernobyl Diaries, Piranha 3DD and Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained really cut to the chase in that regard.
