By David Ross. My wife and I rewatched Billy Wilder’s Sabrina (1954) with our five-year-old daughter. I must be growing old and stodgy, because Audrey Hepburn’s pixie beauty excited me less than the film’s burble of conservative – or at least capitalist – sentiment.
Humphrey Bogart plays Linus Larrabee, an industrialist whose various empire-building activities the film seems more or less to endorse. His latest brainchild is an indestructible sugar-based plastic. In the interest of vertical integration, he’s arranged for his playboy brother David (William Holden) to marry a sugar heiress, setting the stage for the following exchange:
David: You’ve got all the money in the world.
Linus: What’s money got to do with it? If money were all there was to it, it’d hardly be worthwhile going to the office. Money is a by-product.
David: What’s the main objective, power?
Linus: Ah, that’s become a dirty word.
David: Well, then, what’s the urge? You’re going into plastics now. What will that prove?
Linus: Prove? Nothing much. A new product has been found, something of use to the world, and so a new industry moves into an undeveloped area. Factories go up, machines are brought in, a harbor is dug, and you’re in business. It’s purely coincidental of course that people who never saw a dime before suddenly have a dollar and barefooted kids wear shoes and have their teeth fixed and their faces washed. What’s wrong with a kind of an urge that gives people libraries, hospitals, baseball diamonds, and movies on a Saturday night?
Throwback.
It’s true enough that Linus bolts from the boardroom to catch the steamer that’s conveying Sabrina (i.e. Audrey) to Paris, but there’s no suggestion that he repudiates his former life. He loves Sabrina; Paris is incidental. He will presumably return and resume his role as an Atlas – or at least chess master – of industrialism, without apologies.
The great figure of the film, however, is Linus’ father Oliver Larrabee (Walter Hampden). He’s a reactionary of the nineteenth century, an unrepentant, cigar-sneaking, Martini-swilling robber baron, in comparison to whom the sniveling, canoodling modern (David) and the Ivy League bean-counter (Linus) are wan indeed; in the end, the film’s particular affection is for the salty throwback.
When David announces that he’s in love with Sabrina, the chauffeur’s daughter, Linus temporizes, “This is the 20th century.” Mr. Larrabee responds with one of the great reactionary bons mots:
“The 20th century? Why, I could pick a century out of hat blindfolded and come up with a better one.”
Who knows whether this line conveys genuine ire, or whether it’s meant merely in fun. What impresses me is its mere awareness that history is a dodgy business, with the implication that those who believe ‘we’re the ones we’ve been waiting for’ must at least argue their point.
By Jennifer Baldwin. “You’re never going to get me to do anything Swedish people do.” — Peggy Olson
This week’s episode of Mad Men was an episode of returns. There was the return of Creepy Glen the neighbor boy; the return of old fashioned (but endearing) ad man Freddy Rumsen (“Fredrick Van Rumsen!”); and most important of all, the return of the patented Joan Holloway Walk. When Joan struts her stuff, it’s not hard to see why Christina Hendricks is getting just as much buzz in the media (if not more) as Jon Hamm’s Don Draper.
Joan & The Walk are back.
Besides Joan and her Walk, I was also excited to see the return of Trudy Campbell (Allison Brie) and our second chance to watch “Trudy and Pete Do a Wacky Period Dance.” Last season we watched the Campbells do their best George and Mary Bailey imitation, dancing the Charleston. This time it’s the conga and Pete and his wife are in gung-ho form again. It’s moments like the office Christmas party conga line that make Mad Men such a treat. I will go on record as saying that I hate the way my generation dances, so I’m a little jealous to see how much fun Pete and Trudy made that conga line look.
There were also a number of funny lines in this week’s episode, particularly coming from Roger: “I feel like with my hair, you can’t see me in here” (speaking of his newly decorated, ultra-white office). John Slattery really does get all the best lines.
While “Christmas Comes But Once a Year” was a dark and rather depressing episode of Mad Men, it also boasted a number of witty lines and sparkling scenes. The episode really popped, from all of Roger’s scenes, to the aforementioned conga line scene, to the “Swedish way of love” scene between Peggy and her boyfriend. Matthew Weiner has a way of giving even his darkest episodes a light touch.
But make no mistake, this was a dark episode. The time is Christmas 1964, but the subject matter is all sex, both its uses and abuses. And what is the sexual act? What does it mean? Does it mean love? An escape from loneliness? A business transaction? Something purely physical, with no deeper meaning? Or do we avoid the “deeper meaning” at our peril? Continue reading Mad Men Season 4, Episode 2: “Christmas Comes But Once a Year”
Stallone, wife Jennifer Flavin and cute daughters at premiere.
By Jason Apuzzo. • The Expendables had its premiere yesterday. I certainly hope it does well – but I think I’ve figured out why my enthusiasm is muted with respect to this film: the apparent lack of a major star villain. The problem with having all these action dudes lined up together is that they need a formidable foe, and I haven’t a clue from the marketing who that might be.
I think it’s great that Stallone uses his wife’s skin care products, by the way. He should convince Mickey Rourke to do the same thing – Rourke’s currently looking like a mummy from one of those History Channel specials.
• Revenue on 3D movies is dropping like a stone (see here and here). I hate to sound like a broken record, but for the umpteenth time I repeat: this is the result of the cheapening of an otherwise legitimate and exciting new technology by bad, overnight conversions. This is so frustrating, because we’re watching something novel and exciting – a technology that is the product of years’ worth of expensive, complex R&D – be ruined by greedy executives looking for short-term cash-ins.
The basis for "Inception"?
• Did Christopher Nolan steal the idea for Inception from … Scrooge McDuck? Oh is this funny, if true! Someone’s apparently dug up an old comic in which the Beagle Boys break into a sleeping Scrooge McDuck’s bedroom and use a small machine to tap into his mind … in order to invade his dreams and steal the combination to his vault! Well, how about that?
This must be a tough story to take for all those critics who’ve been telling us what an original thinker Nolan is, how he’s rewriting the history of philosophy, etc. Besides, if Nolan had been half the genius he’s supposed to be he would’ve stolen from Elmer Fudd instead.
I’m not the first critic to note that director Phillip Noyce puts the public’s distrust of Jolie to use in his ace spy thriller “Salt.” For most of the picture, we don’t know whether Jolie’s Evelyn Salt is a CIA agent or a Soviet mole. The question of Salt’s allegiance is finally answered, but Noyce’s masterstroke is that he makes the answer irrelevant to the pleasure of watching the splendor of Jolie in her full leonine regality …
The twists and turns of the plot allow Jolie to remain a solitary being. With Salt’s allegiance constantly in question, Jolie can stride through the movie with no allegiance, except to the camera regarding her. Noyce and cinematographer Robert Elswit realize they’re dealing with one of those rare performers comfortable with allowing the camera to drink her in (a quality often mistaken for narcissism). And since the audience is there to drink her in, we bond with her …
It’s not simply that “Salt” gets us on Jolie’s side. It’s that by forging our allegiance to Salt and keeping it firm no matter what side she appears to be on, Noyce affirms the truest values of movies: beauty, style, charisma. If virtue was what we craved from movies, then the heroine of “Gone With the Wind” would be Olivia de Havilland. When, in “Salt,” Jolie starts roughing up cops and Secret Service agents, it takes us a few beats to ask why she’s doing it. The truth is, at first, we really don’t care. All we know is that they’re somehow in the way of the person we’re there to bask in, and we just want to watch her stride and fight, and to look at that extraordinary face, some more … Jolie’s appeal is about the movie aristocracy of beauty and charisma …
What Jolie does in “Salt” goes far beyond the now-clichéd move of putting a woman in a male action role. The picture is, as few recent movies have been, a demonstration of the sheer power of star power. That the star in question feels like such a solitary being may be proof of just how small the pictures have gotten.
I could not agree more. Click on over for the rest of Taylor’s drily amusing article.
• If you want to know what vacuous L.A. entertainment culture is actually like behind the scenes, the best thing you can do is watch The Rachel Zoe Project on Bravo.
RZP is a completely hilarious show that Govindini and I catch whenever we can; it’s essential viewing if you want to understand the ditzy, narcissistic and mostly harmless people who inhabit the industry. The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog today gathers some of the best lines from the show’s season premiere, and there’s also a new controversy brewing over at The New York Post about why Rachel’s blonde assistant Taylor really got fired! My favorite line from last night’s show: “My Blackberry is at another level.”
“I am sensitive to [boyfriend] Russell taking the Lord’s name in vain and to Lady Gaga putting a rosary in her mouth. I think when you put sex and spirituality in the same bottle and shake it up, bad things happen.”
Making grown men stammer.
I think there’s some truth to this. The fine, razor’s edge line connecting (and separating) spirituality and sexuality is the line that, for example, Federico Fellini treaded artfully over his entire career; and it’s the boundary that dolts like Lady Gaga and Madonna stumble over bafoonishly every day.
It’s entirely possible for entertainers to be sexy and playful without crossing the line – provided they have the talent, of course. And I think that’s what bugs me about Gaga: she doesn’t have the talent, so she makes up for it with cheap theatrics. By contrast, Perry’s goofy, playful “California Gurls” video plays like a campy, fun burlesque show – but at no point does it make you feel that you’re watching something ugly or sacrilegious (quite the contrary, actually). We’ll be watching this Perry-Gaga catfight as it unfolds.
• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Contrary to what you may think, LFM is not morphing into a Christina Hendricks fansite, but – like Angelina Jolie last week – she’s certainly got our attention!
By Jason Apuzzo. • In the buildup to The Expendables, new clips of the film are being released (see above), and Sly Stallone is talking a little bit more freely about the political situation in Hollywood. Here’s what he says today, in an interview conducting with Aint It Cool News readers:
[I]t’s a minor miracle the last RAMBO would even be released, but I took a gamble there … [for people who] desire to see an action film unfold that wreaks of pride and manly individualism that has unfortunately fallen out of vogue. I believe that everything is a cycle. And once again America will have its cinematic heroes reflect the incredible honor it is to be defending the most extraordinary country the planet has ever known. Just give it time, everything is a cycle.
I sincerely hope he’s right – that these things proceed in cycles. Suffice it to say that if he’s right about this, then we’re long overdue for a correction toward more pro-American, pro-freedom material. We’ll see. Most of the action on the pro-freedom front seems to be coming from independent filmmakers, not from within the Hollywood system.
"Transformers 3"s Rosie Huntington-Whiteley .
• The debate rages on over the merits of 3D cinema. Today J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon are more or less weighing in against 3D. What’s interesting here is that nobody was having this debate right after Avatar. It’s the recent run of crappy 3D conversions that have been causing doubts. I continue to say: filmmakers should shoot natively in 3D, or not use the technology at all.
• Hollywood Elsewhere’s Jeffrey Wells asks a fascinating question today: “[W]hat about the next generation of Hollywood Republicans? Are there any industry righties from among [the] under-35 set? A movement without young blood is no movement at all.” How true! Boy would I love to answer this question in detail for Mr. Wells, whom I suspect would be fascinated by the answer. Let’s just say that it’s to the benefit of certain people’s media careers that you never hear about the younger crowd – or about anyone currently involved in actual filmmaking, for that matter. You’ll always here about them here at Libertas, though, because that’s our entire mission: to promote and support pro-freedom filmmaking. Plus we have great pin-ups.
• And speaking of which, Tron‘s Olivia Wilde, who is quickly establishing herself as a go-to sci fi babe, apparently just shot a nude scene for Jon Favreau’s Cowboys & Aliens in which she stands “naked in front of a bonfire in front of 500 Apache warriors.” Hey, this sounds like my kind of film! Maybe Favreau read this.
[Editor’s Note: Today we introduce a new contributor to LFM, The Joker.]
By The Joker. I’m a comedy writer who works mostly for studios on mainstream movies. Trust me when I tell you that you’ve seen some of my films.
Today I want to dispel a major myth about the environment of movie studios, at least when it comes to comedies: that the powers that be are trying to enforce a political agenda. If you’ve spent any time at all at a studio, you know how ridiculous that sounds. That’s because studio executives are governed by one – and only one – emotion: fear… of losing their jobs. If Hollywood has one reigning ideology, one overriding “agenda” that governs everything that happens, it’s this fear of being fired.
Fear is the unified field theory of Hollywood.
I have great respect for most executives at the studios, because they do generally have a skill set. They are fairly good with story structure, and give surprisingly well-thought-out notes. But on certain issues, the political ones, the notes tend to gravitate towards the absurd because their Number One Rule of Comedy is: Offend No One. Why? Because executives are basically afraid.
So given the mandate of “offending no one,” comedy writers are generally asked to excise all politics from the plot, characters, and themes. When in doubt, go to a cliché – a tried and true device – so the executive can point to the market research if the movie bombs. Since the underlying plot of many comedies is usually irrelevant (e.g., who remembers that Happy Gilmore is trying to save his grandmother’s house?), no executive wants to go out on a limb by depicting something out of the ordinary. Go for the safe bad guy (corporations), the pat ending (the divorced couple gets back together), the inoffensive villain (Russians and Nazis okay, Arabs and African-Americans not so much).
The Joker dispenses advice about Hollywood.
This leads to a haphazard situation in terms of the values that are promoted in a mainstream Hollywood comedy. Sometimes those values will be liberal, but sometimes conservative. Instead of realistic behavior befitting the year 2010, for example, we’ll substitute family values straight out of the 1950’s – such as the total ban on characters having abortions in studio movies. But sometimes the dice roll the other way, and the cliché is a modern liberal one. So real estate developers are the bad guys, and homeless people are always white (unless they’re down-on-their-luck geniuses or violin virtuosos). But no matter what, it’s got to be a cliché – because clichés don’t offend anyone (except for people looking for something original).
This reminds me of a romantic comedy I worked on for a major studio, in which the couple has sex with other people during a break in their relationship, only to get back together in the end. The studio’s one note was: The girl can’t have sex with another guy. She can almost have sex (whatever that means), but she can’t go through with it. I asked, “Okay, so they both ‘almost’ have sex with other people?” But the studio said, “Oh, no, the guy can have sex with someone else, just the girl can’t.” And the executive giving the note was a woman. So was her boss and the head of the studio. How’s that for progressive Hollywood feminism?
So don’t think that studios are always nefarious cabals with an evil liberal agenda. It’s more like Office Space, with fearful corporate bureaucrats just trying to keep their jobs – even if it means making comedies dumber and less original. Because at the end of the day, it’s not that important for an executive’s career advancement to make hit movies. It’s much more important not to make a bomb. That’s really something to be afraid of.
The new, War on Terror-tinged "Battle: Los Angeles" poster.
By Jason Apuzzo. • Inception was the #1 film at the box office for the 3rd straight weekend. This is unbelievably depressing, and I’m having flashbacks now to Avatar‘s box office run from earlier this year. Salt slipped to #3, behind Dinner for Schmucks. Actually, if you go to the cineplex these days, mostly what you’re getting is Cinema for Schmucks.
Sony really should’ve courted Fox News and others of us in the alternative media – far in advance – given how strongly anti-communist Salt is, and given the rather obvious fact that the film’s star is Jon Voight’s daughter. [Does this stuff really need to be spelled out?] The film’s somewhat tepid performance – in summer tentpole terms – is now basically killing its chances for big-time success, along with the potential of a franchise. What a shame. [Sigh.]
• Stallone’s Expendables is tracking well, and is otherwise getting plenty of hype. I wish I cared. Nothing I’ve seen about this flick looks even remotely interesting – it just looks like a bad 80’s action film rehash that would normally go straight to DVD. We’ll see. I’ll be happy if it does well … but does that mean I have to see it? [Sigh.] Stallone’s also making noises about a Rambo prequel that he might direct but not star in.
• Liam Neeson has dropped out of Steven Spielberg’s Abraham Lincoln project. It sounds like this project’s just been too long in development, basically, and there still isn’t even a script. (Tony Kushner’s writing it.) I think this film isn’t going to happen, because Spielberg’s doing his World War I flick next and then probably Indy 5.
• Mel Gibson is hiring! Don’t you love this? Icon Productions is looking for its next batch of interns. Really what they should be looking for are paralegals.
By David Ross. My wife and I rewatched Billy Wilder’s Sabrina (1954) with our five-year-old daughter. I must be growing old and stodgy, because Audrey Hepburn’s pixie beauty excited me less than the film’s burble of conservative – or at least capitalist – sentiment.
