“Life is a crazy, dark circus.”

FANTASTIC, inspired filmmaking. (I gotta look for more Todd Haynes.)  Maybe I was super-well prepared for it by this late date, but as it was, I could easily follow it, and it painted a brilliant million-dollar-picture.

Obviously the unsuspecting could be caught off guard by the allegory and non-linear storyline, and I can see how it might come across as not entertaining or helpful for non Dylan fans – but for those familiar with this major artist’s life and work, it’s just full of humor and incredible detail in scene recreations (which are then played with), all mixed in with archival footage of Greenwich Village and such. — Especially the dustbowl Hattie Carroll, and all the Don’t Look Back reenactments! :-) . . . the press conference, the hotel rooms, and the encounter with the Duchess and the overly analytical fan!

I just LOVED the script! How it skipped around in time, but still flowingly told a chronological story. It was like a merge between Bob’s books Tarantula and Chronicles — poetically licensed autobiography (see, also: Kerouac, Jack).

And nobody seems to talk much about the editing, but it’s Brilliant! And the sound editing, and cinematography. (sorry, this is just post Oscars )

It was a lot like Masked & Anonymous — both very surreal musical dramedies starring Another Side of Bob Dylan — both with similar wonderful soundtracks of original Bob mixed with other’s versions — and both featuring a calliope of strange characters, and with a black child singing and stealing the show.
And B), it’s a helluva lot like Renaldo & Clara in many of the same ways. Life is a crazy, dark circus.

This is the kind of movie, like a great CD, that you could just put on at a party and let it play in the background — a series of music & words with images, called “scenes” instead of “songs” — you can dip in and out anytime, for as long as you want, then go back to your conversation. With all the Bob-inspired dialog and songs woven together it’s like a Dylan musical for two hours.

And how ‘bout that hilarious scene at the cross on the hill with Ginsberg & Bob yelling up at it! “Why don’t you do your early stuff?!”

Or that sweet Hitchcockian overhead B&W slo zoom-in of Dylan writing Tarantula with all the pictures surrounding him on the floor.

Or the scene in the car after the great, “That was Allen Ginsberg, man!” –> into the battle between Bob and the reporter –>  into that epic Ballad of a Thin Man!! Sick!

And the whole thing interspersed with a Spinal Tap mockumentary riff! woven into Don’t Look Back and a nature documentary about a grizzled Grizzly Adams Gere living in the woods! Great poetic storytelling.

I really liked every one of the Dylan actors’ performances — (in order) Cate (of course), the black kid (Marcus Carl Franklin), Bale, Gere, Heath, and even the 19 yr old in B&W at the table, Ben Winshaw. And how cool about Richie Havens playing the soulful father figure?!  And his partner mother-figure telling the young boy, “Write about your own time.”

It was realistically surreal. Like Terry Gilliam can capture it, or van Gogh, or Lewis Carroll, or Alvin Ailey. It’s crazy, it’s distorted, but it’s real.

All around, a playful joyous complex poetic work of art befitting its subject.

*  *  *

oh, and I noticed in the Special Thanks at the end: Neil Young! , Jeff Tweedy (Wilco), and Ramblin’ Jack.

And that it was mostly shot in Montreal! Beauty, eh!

and A Grate Family Friendly Film Tip – Watch Masked & Anonymous RIGHT After this –
the greatest One-Two-Blow-Off-My-Shoe
Bob Brain-blast Double-Feature Ever!
Bake the brownies in advance.

And it made me think of some commonly-perceived “Great Americans” who weren’t born here, like  . . .

Christopher Columbus (Italian)  (“discovered” America, and for whom cities & holidays, and circles & squares are named after)

William Penn (English)  (founder of Pennsylvania and champion of religious acceptance)

Thomas Paine (English)  (author of Common Freakin’ Sense, 1776)

Alexander Hamilton (British West Indian)  (Founding Father, co-author of The Federalist Papers)

General Lafayette (French)  (huge hero in the American Revolution under George Washington)

Charles Darwin (English)  (scientist, naturalist, founder of evolution theory)

Alexander Graham Bell (Scottish)  (scientist, living in Canada when he invented the telephone)

Adam Smith (Scottish)  (a founding father of modern economics)

John Kenneth Galbraith (Canadian)  (economist, Presidential advisor, ambassador, author)

James Smithson (English)  (scientist who bequeathed the free-to-all Smithsonian Institution in Washington)

Andrew Carnegie (Scottish)  (patriarch of the industrialist and philanthropist family)

Meyer Guggenheim (Swiss)  (patriarch of the other industrialist and philanthropist family)

Albert Einstein (German)  (relatively important physicist)

John Roebling (German)  (designed The Brooklyn Bridge and many others)

Levi Strauss (German)  (inventor of blue jeans)

the Gimbels brothers  (German)  (founders of the department store chain)

the Warner Brothers (Jack was Canadian;  Harry, Sam & Albert were Polish [temporarily Russian])

Marshall McLuhan (Canadian)  (philosopher, author, teacher)

Stephen Hawking (English)  (physicist, author, teacher)

Madeline Albright (Czech)  (Secretary of State)

Henry Kissinger (German)  (Secretary of State)

George Soros (Hungarian)  (financier and philanthropist)

Bill Graham (German)  (producer of rock concerts)

Morley Safer (Canadian)  (journalist, 60 Minutes reporter)

Peter Jennings (Canadian)   (journalist, ABC news anchor)

Jerzy Kosinski (Polish)  (author)

*

Not to mention . . .

Harry Houdini   (Hungarian)  (magician, escape artist)

Charlie Chaplin  (English)  (actor and director)

Alfred Hitchcock  (English)  (film director)

Walter Huston   (Canadian)  (actor and father of John)

Mary Pickford   (Canadian)  (actress, and co-founder of United Artists)

Norman Jewison   (Canadian)  (director, In The Heat of The Night and Jesus Christ Superstar)

Milos Forman   (Czech)  (director, Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus, Hair, Ragtime, etc.)

Roman Polanski  (French-born, Polish raised)  (director, Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, etc.)

Robert Frank  (Swiss)  (photographer, filmmaker)

Arnold Schwarzenegger  (Austrian)  (Governor of Caleefornia)

John Lennon   (English – famously applied for U.S. naturalization)

Bob Marley   (Jamaican)   (musical philosopher)

Neil Young  (Canadian)  (musician, green car investor)

Yo-Yo Ma   (French)  (cellist)

Itzhak Perlman  (Israeli)   (violinist)

Leonard & Phil Chess  (Polish)  (founders of Chess Records)

Martin Short, Jim Carrey, Mike Meyers, Dan Aykroyd, Phil Hartman, Howie Mandel, Lorne Michaels, David Steinberg, Tommy Chong, John Candy, Rich Little, etc, . . .  (Canadian comedians)

.

in joy,

Brian Hassett

Even if this list makes someone see just one great movie that they never have, it’s worth it.

.

Brian’s Top Elevan Movies:
(movies that are essentially perfect — every shot, every word, every scene, roughly speaking)

Rear Window
Treasure of The Sierra Madre
In The Heat of The Night

Woodstock
Goodfellas

The Sting
Fargo
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
Forrest Gump

Matewan
Round Midnight
= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Lesser known Character actors I love:
Jane Adams
JT Walsh
William Hickey

title(s): “Movies to See — Four or More and Lots of Stars”

This is not a list of what you necessarily think are “the greatest movies of all time” but rather a list of the movies you’ve actually watched all the way thru a minimum of 4 times (maybe this should be 3) and could watch ten more.

Seeing a movie twice is very different than seeing it three or four times. we all see a lot of movies once, then maybe a second time passively with a friend. but it’s when you intentionally watch it for a third and especially a fourth time that the film crosses a line into a special category.

some say there’s no point in watching a movie twice, or they’re too busy. but I say: can you only look at a great painting once? Or listen to a great song or read a great book once?
The only reason movies are listed is based on the number times watched – not whether you want to say you liked it or not, or that you recommend it, or think it’s one of the great films of all time. those are different lists – for critics and academics and film institutes and such. this is Your List, a People’s List, and Actually Watched List. And it’s a game as you fill in your own puzzle, make your own movie of your life’s movies. what you’ve watched, not what you should have watched, or fib or pretend that you’ve watched, or wished you’d watched more than once. I wouldn’t put “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” on a Greatest Films list, or even want to admit I watched it three times – but I know I have. And that’s part of the discovery of going down this path.

You must have physically — and joyously. sat thru the entire movie many times, not just done it in your head, and not just watched it once then seen snippets a few times. and you should really really want to watch it again, like, right now.

If you can’t remember the movie in great detail, you probably didn’t see it 3 or 4 times. You should be able to recount the plot, the arc, lots of key scenes, the actors, and parts of the dialog in detail.
The movie should give you chills or goosebumps, or make you laugh yourself silly, or cry at some point. in the best cases, several of the above.

do Not list movies you’ve only seen twice! it’s very tempting to embellish your memory. you have to really think about it to confirm you’ve actually seen the whole thing 3 times.
you could have seen a movie once or twice and it really stuck with you, but those don’t count.
also – it Really doesn’t count if you started to watch it one more time but then didn’t see it all the way thru! — we’ve all got Lots of those!
also – it doesn’t count if you Want to see the movie a 3rd time. if you want, you can start a “seen twice and wanna see more” list for these movies

also – don’t worry that some movies make it on the list because your all-movie cable network happened to be playing them in heavy rotation for weeks or months. I would never have seen the great Cage & Travolta performances in “Face/Off” if it wasn’t on some digi movie net when I was homebound for a spell. You catch a few minutes flippin the channels one day, and go, “Hmm, this is actually pretty good.” then you make a point to catch it from the beginning, and then it’s so good, you watch it again. and then once you get the rhythms of it, the different subtexts, and subliminal themes, and subtleties of performance, you can really enjoy watching it a third time as an insider playing in the orchestra and riding the score, the arcs, hit the cymbal-crashing peaks, and rise to the top with the solos while simultaneously keeping the beat with the supporting melody-players. Do you want to hear Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” only once in your life? Those rare moments in art where it all comes together. Nobody’s ever even heard of his “1811 Overture” because it probably sucked.

and films are even harder to create than a symphony. there are so many variables that all have to come together. the weather — see “Lost In La Mancha”, or a problem actor — see “Heart of Darkness, A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse”., or meddling producers — see “Hollywood Ending”. or a cheesy script — see ?
you remember the first time you saw a movie – the discovery, the unfolding, the first impressions.
and you know if you saw a second time – when you knew what was happening and what was coming.
and you should remember the third time – when you could really relish in it, dance with it — or realized you’ve seen it enough and you won’t be coming back..
and you know you’ve seen a movie four times because you’ve almost memorized it, played right along with it, became one with it.
The there’s the Watched-A-Ridiculous-Amount-of-Times List. these are the movies that have really become a part of you.
also – Screen Size Does Matter: I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: “You can’t really say you’ve seen a movie unless you’ve seen it on the big screen. That’s what they’re made for.” And I still stand by that. but for me — and most people for most multiple viewings. usually the repeat viewings occur on a TV at home. and that’s okay.

also — there are lots of great movies not on this cuz I didn’t like them enough to watch them more than twice, and there’s lots I just haven’t seen four times but I want to; say, Dr. Strangelove, Touch of Evil, the Maltese Falcon.

also — older movies have an advantage since they’ve been able to play over and over again on TV for so much of your lifetime.

a few movies will also make anyone’s list because they were an old girlfriend or boyfriend’s favorite. that’s okay, too. If you’ve seen it 4 times, you’ve seen it 4 times.

“guilty pleasure” — define, redefine, and/or come up with other term for.
the most important thing is to be honest in putting all movies on the list and not editing the truth. it makes a more interesting, fun and complete picture.

it’s useful to make this list for yourself as you’ll discover directors you didn’t know you liked so much – and then check out or reconsider their other films.
this really amounts to: Brian’s Required Viewing – If I was to teach a film course, this would be the curriculum.
or recommend movies for friends to rent. if people shared their lists, you’d have a list a great movies to rent — for when you can’t think of one..
it should also have the “Oh, Yeah!” factor – when somebody reads down the list they suddenly remember a movie they always wanted to see, or saw once and always wanted to see again.
the idea is: every one of these movies has to be great or I wouldn’t have watched it four times. if you had passed on the movie for some reason, my hope is you’ll reconsider.
other orders: style/genre; chronological; by director; best to worst — in your opinion.; alphabetical

a greatest movie shouldn’t have a bad scene or subplot in the movie.
what are the commonalities with these films?

you could write your own little synopsis review for each film and why it’s great
and that becomes your own movie review book.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Movies I’ve watched so many times I’ve lost count. say, at least 7 or more times.

The Watched-A-Ridiculous-Amount-of-Times List:
(all these movies ARE ON the master list already)

Woodstock
Festival Express
The Last Waltz
Goodfellas
It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World (as a kid)
Jesus Christ Superstar
The Sting
Don’t Look Back
Masked & Anonymous
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Shining
Rebel Without a Cause
A Hard Days Night
Fargo
Lucky Numbers
Star Wars (as a kid)
Fawlty Towers
The Civil War series (PBS, Ken Burns)
Round Midnight
My Cousin Vinny
Groundhog Day
Forrest Gump
In The Heat Of The Night
Primary Colors
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
Treasure of The Sierra Madre

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

format:
Title — year; director; writer; stars; notes.

my 4+ times watched movies:
– in the order I thought of them.

Rear Window — 1954; Alfred Hitchcock; Jimmy Stewart & Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr.
Fargo — Coen brothers.
Lucky Numbers — Nora Ephron.
State & Main — Mamet.
Goodfellas — Scorcese.
The Sting — George Roy Hill.
Woodstock — Wadleigh.
The Last Waltz — Scorsese.
Festival Express — Bob Smeaton.
In The Heat of The Night — 1967; Norman Jewison (Torontonian); Sidney Pottier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Lee Grant, Anthony James (creepy diner guy); “They call me Mr. Tibbs.” 
This is such a masterpiece, but so many people don’t know it. Just tonight I’d sent out an email to get people to catch the PBS airing of it, and a few did, one writing to ask me if this was a “cult classic”?

I’ve watched it many times — and next time FULLY dig and study the ancillary music — It’s all Quincy Jones, and all the piano playing is Ray Charles.

also listen for the diversity and both musical styles and instrumentation. I don’t know if this won awards for the music, but boy it sure shoulda.

This is an amazing movie for blind people.
It almost sounds as good at it looks.

The Talented Mr. Ripley — Anthony Minghella.
The Curse of The Jade Scorpion — Woody Allen.
Airport — 1970; George Seaton; from Arthur Hailey novel; Dean Martin, George Kennedy, Burt Lancaster, Jacqueline Bisset, Helen Hayes, Van Heflen (bomber), Maureen Stapleton.
It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World — 1963!; Stanley Kramer; Buddy Hackett & Mickey Rooney, Ethel Merman & Phil Silvers, Jonathan Winters, Milton Berle, Spencer Tracey, and a ton of cameos!
The Player — 1992; Robert Altman; Michael Tolkin; Tim Robbins, Vincent D’Onofrio, Fred Ward, Cynthia Stevenson, Whoopi Goldberg, Dean Stockwell, Lyle Lovett, and million cameos.
Matewan — John Sayles.
Best In Show — Christopher Guest.
Don’t Look Back — D.A. Pennebaker.
Psycho — Alfred Hitchcock.
North By Northwest — (1959) Alfred Hitchcock; Gary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Martin Landau — GREAT script and cinematography – great Manhattan location shots circa 1958; great Mount Rushmore shots

Forrest Gump — Robert Zemeckis.
Masked & Anonymous — 2003; Larry Charles; Dylan.
Star Wars — George Lucas.
Spinal Tap — Rob Reiner.
The Big Chill — Lawrence Kasdan.
Happy Birthday Wanda June — Mark Robson; written Kurt Vonnegut; Rod Steger, William Hickey amazing performance
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest — Milos Foreman.
The Shining — Stanley Kubrick.
The Big Picture — Christopher Guest!. Kevin Bacon
Memento — Chris Nolan.

The Wizard of Oz — Victor Fleming.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail — Terry Gilliam.
Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid — George Roy Hill.
Groundhog Day — Harold Ramis.
What About Bob? — Frank Oz.
Rebel Without A Cause — Nick Ray.
Citizen Kane — Wells.
Annie Hall — Allen.
Young Frankenstein — Mel Brooks.
Hudsucker Proxy — Coen brothers.

Round Midnight — Bertrand Tavernier.
Beat The Devil — 1953; John Huston; Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Jennifer Jones, Robert Morley. I can’t believe these guys (Houston, Bogart, Jones) weren’t comedic actors & director. this is SO funny – if you look at it right. Morley is Brilliant. and the dialog is brilliant. I would love to have this script. this is one of my favorite movies of all time. there’s also so many plot changes. great characterizations. Jennifer Jones out Marilyn’s Monroe in 1953 playing the most wonderfully dreamy and deluded blond. The Talented Mr. Ripley is a kind of later version (although that’s not a comedy).
The Planet of The Apes — Franklin Shaffner.
A Streetcar Named Desire — Kazan.
Pull My Daisy — Robert Frank & Alfred Leslie.
Lust For Life — Vincente Minelli, father of Liza.
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof — Richard Brooks. – it’s all about the acting. and sex.
Dead Poets Society — Peter Weir.
The Poseidon Adventure — 1973; Ronald Neame.
Paper Moon — Peter Bogdanovich.

Jesus Christ Superstar! — Norman Jewison!; Ted Neally.
Hair — Milos Foreman; Treat Williams, Beverly De Angelo. fantastic
Secret Window — 2004; David Koepp; (from a Stephen King novel; starring Johnny Depp, John Turturro; music Philip Glass.
Throw Mama From The Train — Danny DeVito.
The War of The Roses — Danny DeVito.
Funny Farm — 1988; George Roy Hill; Chevy Chase writer-in-the-country comedy.
Big Business — Jim Abrahams; starring Better Midler & Lily Tomlin.
The Ladykillers — 2004; Coen Brothers.
That Thing You Do! — dir & written by Tom Hanks!.
The Haunting — Jan de Bont; starring Catherine Zeta-Jones.

A Hard Day’s Night — Richard Lester; starring The Beatles.
Apocalypse Now — Coppola.
Fast Times At Ridgemont High — 1982; Any Heckerling; written Cameron Crowe; starring Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Phoebe Cates.
Bonnie & Clyde — 1967; Arthur Penn; starring Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway.
The Devil’s Advocate — 1997; Taylor Hackford; Al Pacino, Charlize Theron, Keanu Reeves, Jeffrey Jones.
Jaws — 1975; Stephen Spielberg; Peter Benchley novel & screenplay; Richard Dreyfuss, Roy Schnieder, Robert Shaw.
Sling Blade! — 1996.
The Untouchables
The Blues Brothers!
Sleuth — 1972; Joseph Mankiewicz; written by Anthony Schaffer; Lawrence Oliver, Michael Caine.

Deathtrap — 1982; Sidney Lumet; Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, Dyan Cannon.
The World According to Garp
Broadcast News
Harold and Maude!!
Being There!
The French Connection!
MASH!!!
Cabaret!
Duck Soup! — Freedonia!. — 1933, Leo McCarey; Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo Marx, Margaret Dumont.
Swiss Family Robinson!

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken!!!! — Don Knotts! — have on VHS, with captions
Quiz Show!!
Yellow Submarine!
Meet The Parents
Ghost
Ghostbusters
The Birdcage!
Animal House!
My Cousin Vinny!!
Cast Away

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Breakdown! — 1997; Jonathon Mostow; Kurt Russell, J.T. Walsh, Kathleen Quinlan.
Trading Places — 1983; John Landis; Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche.
Beetlejuice! — 1988; Tim Burton; Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, Catherine O’Hara, Jeffrey Jones, Robert Goulet, Dick Cavett; Keaton’s only on scene 17 min., but with Burton’s permission, totally created the vibe of the movie, and is his favorite movie that he’s in..
A Fish Called Wanda!! — 1988; Charles Crichton; John Cleese, Michael Palin, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline. brilliant.
The Candidate — Robert Redford, Peter Boyle.
Thelma & Louise! — Susan Sarandon & Geena Davis.
Witches of Eastwick — Nicholson, Pfiffer, Sarandon, Cher.
The Gods Must Be Crazy! — 1980; dir & written by Jamie Uys; starring N!xau, Marius Weyers, Sandra Prinsloo.
The Odd Couple! — 1968; Gene Saks; Neil Simon; Walter Matthau & Jack Lemmon

The Aristocrats — 2005; Paul Provenza (and Penn Jillette); featuring nearly every comedian you’ve ever heard of, but the key & funniest ones I remember are: Gilbert Gottfried, Bob Saget, Drew Carey, Sarah Silverman, Paul Reiser, George Carlin, Andy Dick, Martin Mull, Mario Cantone (as Liza Minelli), Kevin Pollak (as Christopher Walkin), Eric Meed the card trick guy, and South Park.
* Dogtown and Z-Boys — memorizing “birth of skateboarding” documentary — 2001; dir: Stacy Peralta (the famous guy), Jay Adams, Tony Alva; Craig Stecyk (original writer & photographer); narrator: Sean Penn;
The Sunshine Boys – 1975; dir. Herb Ross, written by Neil Simon; Walter Matthau & George Burns; best scenes are the 2 in Willy’s (Matthau’s) apt. where they rehearse and reminisce (have on Aristocrats VHS); brilliant portrayal of aging entertainers; love the city vs. the country combative theme
Salesman – the 200th film added to my list! filmed in 1966, released in 1969; Maysles Brothers riveting masterpiece documentary about four door-to-door Bible salesmen. starts outside Boston (Webster, Mass), then they go down to Miami. first saw in Phyllis’s kitchen. seen twice. will be my 200th film in the list! what’s amazing is the complete breakdown on one of the salesmen . REWATCH/LISTEN TO COMMENTARY – he explains HOW he makes them — empathy: from commentary: Albert Maysles became lifelong friends with Paul Brennan (the guy who lost it). David Maysles loved Arthur Miller plays, would see them multiple times. just the two of them, no assistant. David on sound (directional microphone, into a customized Nagra to record for 15 times at a time), Albert on camera (weighted 20 pounds; had early zoom lens). he says — took 30 years to get it on TV. shot 100 hours, boiled down to 90 min. cost $200-300,000!!! the processing of the film. the editor’s salary (the woman)
National Lampoon’s Vacation – 1983 – dir; Harold Ramis; written by John Hughes, Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Randy Quad, Imogene Coca
National Lampoon’s European Vacation – 1985 – dir. Amy Heckerling; written by John Hughes; Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo,
The Treasure of The Sierra Madre — John Huston. his father, Walter Huston, won Best Supporting Actor; plus Huston for both directing and screenplay
For me it was one of those movies i had to see more than once to appreciate. i started watching it once or twice and found it REEEALLY boring — these old farts trudging around the desert and pawing in the dirt. Whoopy! was it actually filmed in slow motion?

then . . . ah, Then . . . on the 2nd or 3rd try all the pieces came together and now i recognize its mastery and why it’s one of the greatest films ever made. The original story, perhaps dating back to Chaucer, who could’ve picked it up from somebody else. Maybe it’s a lost Homer epic. The story is eternal. Like “absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

how greed can overpower an otherwise good man. how some, in the face of wealth, become a-holes, and others always retain a clear vision of what’s important in life (Howard/Walter). which kind of person are you? we all think, as Dobbs/Bogart did, that we would never become morally corrupted — yet we’ve seen in the real world (and as depicted in this movie) how that happens.

the arc of the Dobbs character is a classic in 2-hour cinema, and how Bogart portrays the transition from sanity and good-will into madness, greed & murder is up there with the greatest performances of any actor ever. the leprechaun magic of Walter Huston. the authenticity of the location shooting, including all the extras and bit roles. the depth, detail and polish of the script. the torn, sweat-soaked costumes. the fabulous music that mutates as the characters do.

if it was a standard western or movie in general, it all would have taken place in the first town and been about how they exacted revenge from the unscrupulous businessman who rips them off — the workers against the corporation.

but then the characters are taken beyond that to where they form their own limited partnership — and how some people turn out to be good and some don’t. it’s life.

if only we got to watch our own life movie several times until we got it. but since we can’t, you have another shot at this movie. it took my reincarnation as a viewer to finally get it right.

“It wouldn’t be that way with me. I swear it wouldn’t. I’d take only what I set out to get.”

boy, would this be a great movie to see the alternate takes from!
and think how Walter Huston’s performance pushed Bogart.
Top 10 movie – gotta list those
(107)
= = = = = = = = = = = = =
the Seen Three Times list: be careful not to list movies you’ve seen twice!
– in order I thought of them.

Titanic — James Cameron.
Luck
Phil The Alien
All The President’s Men
Waiting For Guffman — Christopher Guest.
Clockwork Orange — Kubrick.
Shawshank Redemption
It’s A Wonderful Life — Frank Capra
Some Like It Hot

Lost In La Mancha — doc on Terry Gilliam making movie
Giant – James Dean
Places In The Heart
Return of the Secaucus Seven — Sayles.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe?
Sleepless in Seattle — Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan.
When Harry Met Sally — Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan.
Blow — 2001; Ted Demme; Johnny Depp, Jordi Molla, Paul Reubens.
Deliverance — Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ned Beatty
2001: A Space Odyssey — Kubrick; Keir Dullea.

Caddyshack – Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight.
The Grateful Dead Movie
Almost Famous — Cameron Crowe.
Raising Arizona — Coen brothers.
Face/Off — (1997) dir. John Woo; John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen, Gina Gershon, John Carroll Lynch (as the prison warden, was the husband in Fargo) and Harve Presnell (as the FBI, and was William H. Macy’s father-in-law in Fargo – made the year before this movie).
Midnight Cowboy — Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight.
The Graduate — Dustin Hoffman.
Requiem for a Dream — 2000; Darren Aronofsky; Hubert Selby wrote; Jared Leno, Jennifer Connelly, Ellen Burstyn.
JFK — 1991; Oliver Stone; .
Being John Malkovich — 1999; Spike Jonze; written by Charlie Kaufman; Cusack, Cameron Diaz.

Stand By Me — 1986; Rob Reiner; written by Stephen King; Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Keifer Sutherland.
Misery — 1990, Rob Reiner; written by Stephen King; Kathy Bates, James Caan.
Mississippi Burning — Gene Hackman & Willem Defoe.
Midnight Run — 1988; Martin Brest; Robert De Niro & Charles Grodin.
Rain Man — 1988. — Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise.
Dances With Wolves — Kevin Costner.
Hannah and Her Sisters — Woody Allen, Michael Caine.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels — Michael Caine, Steve Martin.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles — John Candy, Steve Martin.
Network — 1976; Sidney Lumet; Paddy Chayefsky; Peter Finch, Fay Dunaway, William Holden, Robert Duvall, Ned Beatty.

Papillion — 1973; dir. Franklin Schaffner; Dustin Hoffman & Steve McQueen. only AA nomination was for music!?
Little Big Man — Dustin Hoffman.
Cool Hand Luke — Paul Newman
The Wild One — Marlon Brando.
Arsenic and Old Lace — Cary Grant.
Miracle on 34th Street
The Thin Man — 1934, W.S. Van Dyke; written by Dashiell Hammett; William Powell & Myrna Loy; early classic climax scene with all suspects assembled in same room to reveal the murderer.
Live and Let Die! — Roger Moore.
Bowling For Columbine — Michael Moore.
E.T.

Men In Black — 1997; Barry Sonnenfeld; Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones.
Mrs. Doubtfire — 1993; Robin Williams.
Pretty Woman — Julia Roberts, Richard Gere.
Tootsie — Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Bill Murray.
City Slickers — Billy Crystal.
On Golden Pond — Henry Fonda, Katherine Hepburn, Jane Fonda, Dabney Coleman.
American Graffiti — 1973; George Lucas; Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Cindy Williams, Wolfman Jack, Harrison Ford)
Analyze This — 1999; Crystal & De Niro.
Good Will Hunting — Matt Damon, Robin Williams.
Pulp Fiction — Quinten Tarantino

Kramer vs. Kramer — Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep.
Back To The Future — Robert Zemeckis.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off — 1986; John Hughes; Matthew Broderick.
Flirting With Disaster — 1996; David O. Russell; Tea Leoni, Ben Stiller, Lily Tomlin, Alan Alda, Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal.
Hollywood Ending — 2002; Woody Allen; Tea Leoni.
Happy Accidents! — 2000; Brad Anderson; Vincent D’Onofrio, Marisa Tomei.
Carny — 1980; Robert Kaylor; Jodie Foster, Gary Busey, Robbie Robertson.
Swear To Tell The Truth — Lenny Bruce documentary — 1998; Robert Weide.
Wag The Dog — 1997; Barry Levinson; Robert DiNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Denis Leary, Anne Heche, Willie Nelson.
Zoolander — Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson.

Desperately Seeking Susan — Madonna.
Club Paradise — 1986; Harold Ramis; Robin Williams, Peter O’Toole, Rick Moranis & Eugene Levy {the two Barry’s}, Twiggy, Jimmy Cliff.
Phantom of the Paradise — Paul Williams.
Pleasantville
[prior 3 Not found by looking up "p's" !  ]
Diner – 1982; Barry Levinson; Kevin Bacon, Mickey Rourke, Paul Reiser, Daniel Stern, Ellen Barkin, Steve Guttenberg
Showtime – 2002; Tom Dey; Robert De Niro & Eddie Murphy
Primary Colors – 1998; John Travolta, Emma Thompson, Kathy Bates; about the Clintons, by Joe Klein
Glengarry Glen Ross – 1992; Mamet screenplay
I Love You To Death – 1990; Kevin Kline, Tracey Ullman, Joan Plowright, River Phoenix, William Hurt & Keanu Reeves
Bob Roberts – 1992 – written & directed by & starring Tim Robbins; plus Gore Vidal, and Ray Wise (the guy from Twin Peaks & Good Night, And Good Luck); tons of cameos, including a very young Jack Black; Robbins wrote and performed his own songs; done in mock-documentary style; this could almost be on the Most Disturbing List, and is particularly scary post Iraq War II;

Haiku Tunnel
Trees Lounge – Steve Buscemi wrote, directed and stars
The War Room – Clinton’s 1992 Presidential campaign doc.
Pushing Tin — 1999; Mike Newell; Billy Bob Thornton, Angelina Jolie, John Cusack. not to mention Cate Blanchett and Vicki “NewsRadio” Lewis — fantastic performances by all. Plus a cameo by the great John Carroll Lynch (husband Norm in Fargo) as the scared Dr. Freeze.
Shut Up and Sing – 2006 – Dixie Chicks (seen twice) mindblowingly great — it’s like Don’t Look Back in so many ways — London, controversy, news + backstage + stage + young performer(s) caught in a contemporary controversy . . . Rick Rubin scene in the middle is super insightful – core of the movie. plus they play an awesome version of Bob Dylan’s “Mississippi” at one of the climaxes of the movie. Also, Toronto has a sweet and proud cameo.
The Gates – Albert Maysles – amazing doc about Christo’s show in Central Park
I’m Not There – 2007 – Todd Haynes; Cate Blanchett (just fantastic!), Richard Gere, Health Ledger, Christian Bale, Marcus Carl Franken (the little black boy), Julianne Moore (as the Joan Baez character), David Cross (as Allen Ginsberg), Richie Havens, Michelle Williams (briefly), Kris Kristofferson (narrator); great! a surreal symphony! (I wrote a review for this on BH.com and IMDB.)

28 Days – Sandra Bullock – about rehab, really good; small role for Steve Buchemi

(86)

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =
movies that were so effectively disturbing, I don’t want to see again:

Rosemary’s Baby – 1968; Roman Polanski; Mia Farrow, Ruth Gordon, John Cassavetes (Guy), Charles Grodin
Midnight Express – 1978; Alan Parker; written by Billy Hayes; Brad Davis, John Hurt (Max), Randy Quaid.
Grizzly Man — 2005; Warner Herzog; Timothy Treadwell.
Schindler’s List – 1993; Steven Spielberg.
The Exorcist — 1973; William Friedkin; William Peter Blatty; Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow.
Harsh Times – Christian Bale
(6)

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

The Movies about Making Movies:

The Big Picture
The Player
State & Main
Hollywood Ending
Living in Oblivion — 1995; writ & dir. Tom DiCillo; Steve Buscemi.
The Independent — 2000; Jerry Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Ben Stiller, a zillion cameos. funny
I Love Your Work — Giovanni Ribisi, tons of cameos, Elvis C, Vince Vaughan, Jason Lee,
docs:
Lost in La Mancha
Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse — 1991; writ & dir by Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper;
The Kid Stays In The Picture – 2002; Nanette Burstein, Brett Morgan; from Robert Evans book; Robert Evans and most of Hollywood.
(5 – not on other lists)

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

the Made-for-TV Exceptions:

Fawlty Towers – BBC; 1975 and 1979 (6 episodes in each year, 12 total); ? dir ?; written by John Cleese & Connie Booth; Cleese, Prunella Scales (Sybil), Andrew Sachs (Manuel), Connie (Polly), Ballard Berkely (the Major).
True West — PBS; 1984; Allan Goldstein; Sam Shepard; John Malkovich & Gary Sinise.
Death of A Salesman — CBS; 1985; Victor Schlondorff; Arthur Miller; Dustin Hoffman, John Malkovich, Kate Reid, Charles Durning.
The Civil War — PBS; 1990; Ken Burns; made by Florentine Films for WETA PBS in Washington, D.C.
Magical Mystery Tour — 1967; dir by George Harrison!? and Bernard Knowles; The Beatles.
Liza with a ‘Z’ — NBC; Sept. 10, 1972; dir & choreographed by Bob Fosse; Liza Minnelli; Marvin Hamlisch musical Director; Phil Ramone engineer; won 4 Emmy’s, best Single program, best Director, best Choreography, best music; shot live, one take.
“The Campaign” – The Newsroom episode – Ken Finkleman
Canada-Russia ‘72 (CBC; 2006) unbelievably great

(8)
(107 + 86 + 5 + 4 + 8 = 210 total)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

zip.ca

Movies I want to see — for the first time, or again: (These movie are NOT on the master “seen” list — may be added as viewed)

Once Around – (seen once) would love to see again – Richard Dryfuss, Holly Hunter, Danny Aiello, — funny wild bizarre family comedy

Zodiac – 2007 – Jake Gyllenhaal (see twice) LOVED it. totally surprised — i’m not a seriel killer fan at all — other than Scorsese there’s not many movies with much killing on my list. there’s not much in this either, but again, it’s just not a movie i would normally watch — but, like many a great movie, i discovered it cuz it was on regular rotation on the movie network. first of all, i LOVE Jack Gyllanhalle, AND his sister Maggie!
i love how it’s set in a newspaper newsroom, and how the JG character is a lowly guy with ideas.
also — Robert Downey is his typical great self.
and just his whole pursuit of how he tries to track the killer down is a well-told story.
plus i love that it’s a period piece set in the 70s and also set in and around SF, one of my very favorite cities.
also — Great Casting — all the secondary / supporting roles are just perfectly cast. (another big thing i appreciate in films)

Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein — 1948; Charles Barton; Bug Abbott & Lou Costello, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney; Jerry Garcia’s favorite movie. (seen once)
Dr. Strangelove — 1964; Stanley Kubrick; Peter Sellers — 3 roles., George C Scott (seen twice)
A Prairie Home Companion — 2006; Robert Altman; Garrison Keiller; (see twice). boring, even though it’s Altman, etc.
The Cocoanuts – 1929; Marx Brothers – Florida real estate (seen twice)
Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit — 2005 (seen once)
The Comedy of Terrors – 1964; Jacques Tourneur; – Vincent Price (great), Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, bizarre funny black comedy parody of the horror genre; very much like Young Frankenstein, or Beat The Devil. soundtrack funny too. (have most of it on VHS) (seen once)
East of Eden – James Dean (seen twice)
The Maltese Falcon — 1941; John Huston; written by Dashell Hammett & John Huston; Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Mary Astor) (seen twice)
Donnie Brasco – 1997; Mike Newell; Al Pacino, Johnny Depp

Good Night, and Good Luck — (seen twice) — David Strathairn, Ray Wise.
Miller’s Crossing
Touch of Evil — Orson Wells (see once)
On The Waterfront – Kazan’s justification for giving names to the McCarthy hearings — (Kazan in Brando role) won best picture, director, actor, screenplay
The Crucible – Arthur Miller’s reaction to Kazan testifying before McCarthy hearings; John Proctor as Arthur Miller — final speech.
The Front — staring Woody Allen, but not written by him; about the McCarthy hearings. (seen once)
A View From The Bridge (Vu du pont) 1961; Sidney Lumet; Maureen Stapleton; one act play. Miller’s response to Kazan’s On The Waterfront. B&W 110 min.
Lenny – docudrama on Lenny Bruce — Dustin Hoffman, Valerie Perine — seen once.
Lenny Bruce Performance Film – 1965 (late-career “routine” but mostly a broken down rant)
Laurel Canyon — (seen twice) — 2002; dir & written Lisa Cholodenko; Kate Beckinsale! Frances McDormand. “inspired by” Joni Mitchell

Ruby in Paradise — 1993; Ashley Judd (seen once)
The Fisher King — 1991; Terry Gilliam; Robin Williams, Jeff Bridges (seen twice – hard to get through)
Pay It Forward – Kevin Spacey (seen twice)
Silver City – 2004; dir & written by John Sayles; Chris Cooper, Tim Roth. about politics
This Film Is Not Yet Rated – 2006; dir. Kirby Dick; doc about film ratings. (seen once)
Coney Island – Ric Burns doc (60 min) (Joey pick)
The Donar Party – Rick Burns (Joey pick)
National Treasure – 2004; partially about the Templars (Dunc) (have on VHS)
Withnail & I — 1987 British comedy, set in 1969 (Cutts recommendation)
Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers — 2006; Robert Greenwald (doc)

Eulogy – (saw once) 2004 – Zooey Deschanel, Hank Azaria, Ray Romano, Debra Winger, Piper Laurie, Glenne Headly; really funny, absolutely great black-comedy about family funeral
* Drop Dead Gorgeous – 1999; Michael Patrick Jann; Kristen Dunst, Alison Janney, Denise Richards, Ellen Barkin, Kirstie Alley, Nora Dunn; twisted dark comedy; pretty dumb, but some surprising spitter lines! Prairie Home Companion & Fargo meets Spinal Tap fake doc.
Soylent Green – 1973; Edward G. Robonson, Joseph Cotton, Charlton Heston, Dick Van Patten, numerous people have recommended it, and referenced it.
Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days (2001, AMC) amazing doc, with the 37 missing min. of last film “Something’s Got To Give
Factotum – Matt Dillon portraying Bukowski – Albert recommendation
I Know I’m Not Alone – 2005 – Michael Franti – goes to Baghdad and Gaza, funny guerilla doc. – Albert recommendation
* Paris When it Sizzles – 1964 — pretty surreal and comedic! Audrey Hepburn, William Holden – about a screenwriter and his girl,- “the screenplay within the screenplay”
Coffee & Cigarettes – Jim Jarmush (Megan & Adam in PA)
Office Space — 1999 – dir. Mike Judge; Ron Livingston, Jennifer Anniston (Judge did Beavis & Butthead – so it’s kind of that take on corporate life (seen twice)
“The Rocket” (aka “Maurice Richard”) – 2006 – this, along with Miracle may be the 2 best sports dramas.

Miracle – 1980 U.S. hockey team gold medal – Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks
Cookie’s Fortune – 1999; Altman
These Girls — 2005; comedy – 3 girls, the dude in town (seen twice) have on VHS
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington — (seen twice) mom would like
City Lights – Chaplin – one of the top rated of all time
Modern Times – Chaplin – one of the top rated of all time
The Brothers Grimm – 2005 — Terry Gilliam – saw once 2/07 – AMAZING – another Gilliam masterpiece – gorgeous Lena Headley, like a young Jaquiline Bisset – also about writing! the sets are to die for (as usual in Gilliam movies) and it’s about forests (where I like to spend my days!) “You’re my brother. I want you to believe in me.” Jacob Grimm Ghostbusters from the 1800s
Smoke – Megan and others keep quoting it.
The Shining – Steven Weber, Rebecca de Mornay – really scary, actually better than Kubrick’s (seen once)
Blades of Glory – comedy about figure skating, Will Farrell

Monty Python episode – party-crashing scene
Mystery Alaska – funny hockey movie, Russell Crowe, Hank Azaria, Michael McKean, Burt Reynolds, Phil Esposito, Mike Myers, Terry David Mulligan, Little Richard, Mary McCormick
Kinky Friedman: Live from Austin, Texas — 1975 PBS Austin City Limits – never aired, released 2007
Tucker – Jeff Bridges, about re-life Preston Tucker the car inventor – great! (seen twice)
The Battle of San Pedro – documentary — 1944-ish – dir. John Huston
Bullworth (seen twice) – Warren Beatty
Nixon – Anthony Hopkins
Bird – dir. Clint Eastwood – extraordinary Charlie Parker bio-pic (seen twice)
Man of The Year – (2006) — Robin Williams (seen twice) – he says many lines similar to Obama. this is made shortly after Obama’s speech at the DNC Convention in 2004.
Straight, No Chaser – the Thelonious Monk documentary

State of The Union – Spencer Tracey, Katherine Hepburn, Angela Lansbury (seen once)
Dave – Kevin Kline — great political comedy
Ocean’s Eleven – Sinatra version – (seen it twice)
Thirteen Days – (2000) – great historical political drama about the Cuban Missile Crisis; Kevin Costner (seen once) great movie – cuz of the subject (parts of the script were taken from transcripts of Oval Office conversations) and the portrayal of the two Kennedy brothers.
No Country For Old Men – (seen twice) SUCH a first-view movie; Mesmerizing on first viewing; very so-so on second. this movie is all “style” — there’s plot holes and bad scenes all thru this – no wonder the Coen’s were surprised they won Best Picture, and acted like they didn’t deserve it. I can sure see why JB won best actor. riveting memorable performance. But I needed closed-captions to understand what many of the others were saying. It’s very disturbing, like Natural Born Killers.
Short Cuts – 1993 – Robert Altman; (seen twice) there’s no through-plot to follow – it’s a series loosely connected scenes of lives in and around LA; it’s hard to watch
The Beach – 2000 — DiCaprio, Tilda Swenson (seen twice)
Sicko – 2007 – Michael Moore – fantastic doc. (seen twice)
Let’s All Hate Toronto (2007) doc 75 min. by Albert Nerenberg and Rob Spence – very funny, very well done doc. (seen a few min. of it – seems Great)
Blood Diamond – DiCaprio (seen twice)

Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 – Walter Matheau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsim – (seen twice)
Little Children – 2006 – Kate Winslett, Jane Adams, Jennifer Connely, Patrick Watson – amazing, powerful, stayed with me – Jane Adams character, and the haters. (since once)
Prey For Rock n Roll – (2003) — Gina Gershon, Drea de Matteo – two robo-babes in an all-girl rock n roll band – very authentic (written by a rock n roller) (seen twice)

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movies — from above list. that you’ve seen 4 or more times but don’t really plan to / need to see again:
– which also means, to some extent, that you don’t really recommend the film to others.
except – if somebody’s never seen one of these movies, they should.
every one of these movies should be seen once, if you’ve never seen it.
Star Wars
Happy Birthday, Wanda June
Wizard of Oz
Planet of the Apes
Back to the Future
The Poseidon Adventure
Phantom of the Paradise

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Comedies: [59]

Fargo — Coen brothers.
Lucky Numbers — Ephron.
State & Main — Mamet.
The Curse of The Jade Scorpion — Allen.
It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World
Best In Show — Guest.
Spinal Tap — Reiner.
Happy Birthday Wanda June
The Big Picture — Guest!.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Groundhog Day
What About Bob? — Frank Oz.
Annie Hall — Allen.
Young Frankenstein — Mel Brooks.
all 12 episodes of Fawlty Towers
Hudsucker Proxy — Coen brothers.
Beat The Devil — Huston.
Throw Mama From The Train — Danny DeVito.
The War of The Roses — Danny DeVito.
Funny Farm — George Roy Hill!.
Big Business — Jim Abrahams; starring Better Midler & Lily Tomlin.
The Ladykillers — 2004. — Coen Brothers.
A Hard Day’s Night — Richard Lester; starring The Beatles.
Fast Times At Ridgemont High — 1982; Any Heckerling; written Cameron Crowe; starring Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Phoebe Cates.
The Blues Brothers!
Harold and Maude!!
Being There!
MASH!!!
Duck Soup! — Freedonia!. — 1933, Leo McCarey; Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo Marx, Margaret Dumont.
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken!!!! — Don Knotts! — have on VHS, with captions
Meet The Parents
Ghostbusters
The Birdcage
Animal House
My Cousin Vinny
Trading Places
Beetlejuice — 1988; Tim Burton; Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, Catherine O’Hara, Jeffrey Jones, Robert Goulet, Dick Cavett; Keaton’s only on scene 17 min., but with Burton’s permission, totally created the vibe of the movie, and is his favorite movie that he’s in..
A Fish Called Wanda — 1988; Charles Crichton; John Cleese, Michael Palin, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline.
——– — below: seen 3 times. ——-
Phil The Alien
Some Like It Hot
Waiting For Guffman — Chris Guest.
Caddyshack
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels — Michael Caine, Steve Martin.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles — John Candy, Steve Martin.
Arsenic and Old Lace — Cary Grant.
Men In Black
Mrs. Doubtfire — 1993.
City Slickers
Analyze This — 1999; Crystal & De Niro.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off — 1986; John Hughes; Matthew Broderick.
Flirting With Disaster — 1996; David O. Russell; Tea Leoni, Ben Stiller, Lily Tomlin, Alan Alda, Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal.
Hollywood Ending — 2002; Woody Allen; Tea Leoni.
Happy Accidents! — 2000; Brad Anderson; Vincent D’Onofrio & Marisa Tomei.
The Aristocrats
Drop Dead Gorgeous
The Comedy of Terrors
Office Space — 1999 – dir. Mike Judge; Ron Livingston, Jennifer Anniston (Judge did Beavis & Butthead – so it’s kind of that take on corporate life)
I Love You To Death – 1990; Kevin Kline, Tracey Ullman, Joan Plowright, River Phoenix, William Hurt & Keanu Reeves
National Lampoon’s Vacation – 1983 – dir; Harold Ramis; written by John Hughes, Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Randy Quad, Imogene Coca
National Lampoon’s European Vacation – 1985 – dir. Amy Heckerling; written by John Hughes; Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo,
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Serious, Compelling Dramas — non-comedies, even tho they might have funny bits.: [91]

Rear Window — Hitch.
Fargo
Goodfellas — Scorcese.
In The Heat of The Night — Norman Jewison – Torontonian.
The Talented Mr. Ripley — Anthony Minghella.
Airport — ‘70. — George Seaton.
The Player — Altman.
Matewan — Sayles.
Psycho — Hitchcock.
North By Northwest — Hitchcock.

Forrest Gump — Robert Zemeckis.
Masked & Anonymous — 2003; Larry Charles; Dylan.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest — Milos Foreman.
The Shining — Stanley Kubrick.
Memento — Chris Nolan.
Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid — George Roy Hill.
Rebel Without A Cause — Nick Ray.
Citizen Kane — Wells.
Hudsucker Proxy — Coen brothers.
Round Midnight — Bertrand Tavernier.

True West — for PBS. — 1984; Allan Goldstein; Sam Shepard; John Malkovich & Gary Sinise.
Death of A Salesman — for PBS. — 1985; Victor Schlondorff; Arthur Miller; Dustin Hoffman, John Malkovich, Kate Reid, Charles Durning.
A Streetcar Named Desire — Kazan.
Lust For Life — Vincente Minelli, father of Liza.
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof — Richard Brooks.
Dead Poets Society — Peter Weir.
The Poseidon Adventure — 1973; Ronald Neame.
Paper Moon — Peter Bogdanovich.
Secret Window — David Koepp; starring Johnny Depp.
The Haunting — Jan de Bont; starring Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Apocalypse Now — Coppola.
Bonnie & Clyde — 1967; Arthur Penn; starring Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway.
The Devil’s Advocate — 1997; Taylor Hackford; Al Pacino, Charlize Theron, Keanu Reeves, Jeffrey Jones.
Jaws!
Sling Blade! — 1996.
The Untouchables
Sleuth — 1972; Joseph Mankiewicz; written by Anthony Schaffer; Lawrence Oliver, Michael Caine.
Deathtrap — 1982; Sidney Lumet; Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, Dyan Cannon.
Harold and Maude!!
Being There!

The French Connection!
MASH!!!
The Civil War — Ken Burns. — one of the 4 made-for-TV exceptions.
Quiz Show!!
Ghost
Cast Away
Breakdown! — 1997; Jonathon Mostow; Kurt Russell, J.T. Walsh, Kathleen Quinlan.
the Three Times on-the-fence list: (dramas cont.)

Titanic — James Cameron.
Luck
All The President’s Men

Clockwork Orange — Kubrick.
Shawshank Redemption
It’s A Wonderful Life — Capra?.
Treasure of the Sierra Madre — Huston.
Lost In La Mancha
Giant
Places In The Heart
Return of the Secaucus Seven — Sayles.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe?
Blow — Ted Demme; Johnny Depp.

Deliverance
2001: A Space Odyssey — Kubrick.
Almost Famous — Cameron Crowe.
Face/Off
Midnight Cowboy
The Graduate
Requiem for a Dream — 2000.
JFK — 1991; Oliver Stone.
Being John Malkovich — 1999; Spike Jonze; written by Charlie Kaufman; Cusack, Cameron Diaz.
Stand By Me — 1986; Rob Reiner; written by Stephen King; Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Keifer Sutherland.

Misery — 1990, Rob Reiner; written by Stephen King; Kathy Bates, James Caan.
Mississippi — Gene Hackman & Willem Defoe.
Midnight Run — 1988; Martin Brest; Robert De Niro & Charles Grodin.
Rain Man — 1988. — Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise.
Dances With Wolves — Kevin Costner.
Hannah and Her Sisters — Woody Allen, Michael Caine.
Network
Papillion — Dustin Hoffman, Steve McQueen.
Little Big Man — Dustin Hoffman.
Cool Hand Luke — Paul Newman

The Wild One — Marlon Brando.
The Thin Man — 1934, W.S. Van Dyke; written by Dashiell Hammett; William Powell & Myrna Loy; early classic climax scene with all suspects assembled in same room to reveal the murderer.
Live and Let Die
On Golden Pond
Good Will Hunting
Pulp Fiction
Kramer vs. Kramer
Happy Accidents! — 2000; Brad Anderson; Vincent D’Onofrio, Marisa Tomei.
Carny — 1980; Robert Kaylor; Jodie Foster, Gary Busey, Robbie Robertson.
Swear To Tell The Truth — Lenny Bruce documentary — 1998; Robert Weide.

Wag The Dog — 1997; Barry Levinson; Robert DiNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Denis Leary, Anne Heche, Willie Nelson.
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Music Movies: [14]

Woodstock — Wadleigh.
The Last Waltz — Scorsese.
Festival Express — Bob Smeaton.
Don’t Look Back — Pennebaker.
Masked & Anonymous — Larry Charles, Dylan.
Spinal Tap — Reiner.
Round Midnight — Bertrand Tavernier.
Jesus Christ Superstar! — Norman Jewison.
Hair — Milos Foreman.
That Thing You Do! — Tom Hanks!.
A Hard Day’s Night — Richard Lester; starring The Beatles.
Cabaret
Yellow Submarine
The Blues Brothers
Magical Mystery Tour — 1967; dir by George Harrison!? and Bernard Knowles; The Beatles.
Liza with a ‘Z’ — 1972; dir & choreographed by Bob Fosse; Liza Minnelli; Marvin Hamlisch musical Director; Phil Ramone engineer; won 4 Emmy’s, best Single program, best Director, best Choreography, best music.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Documentaries: [13]
Woodstock
The Last Waltz
Festival Express
Don’t Look Back
The Civil War
Lost in La Mancha
Dogtown and Z-Boys
Bowling For Columbine
Grizzly Man
Swear To Tell The Truth — Lenny Bruce
The Aristocrats
Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days (2001, AMC) amazing doc, with the 37 missing min. of last film “Something’s Got To Give
The War Room
The Gates – Albert Maysles – amazing doc about Christo’s show in Central Park
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Great Movies about Politics (15)

Primary Colors
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
All The President’s Men
The Candidate
Wag The Dog
Bullworth
Bob Roberts – Tim Robbins
Nixon – Anthony Hopkins
Man of The Year – Robin Williams
The Newsroom’s The Campaign episode – Ken Finkleman
The War Room – documentary of ‘92 campagin
State of The Union – Spencer Tracy & Katherine Hepburn, Angela Lansbury
Dave – Kevin Kline
Run, Granny, Run – 94 year old Doris ‘Granny D’ Haddock’s run for the 2004 New Hampshire Senate seat
Recount – about the 200 election – HBO – amazing! Kevin Spacey
The American President – Michael Douglas
Charlie Wilson’s War

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

By Auteur: am I counting 3 timers on this? I should be.

Rear Window — Hitchcock
Psycho — Hitchcock
North By Northwest — Hitchcock

Fargo — Coen brothers
Hudsucker Proxy — Coen brothers
The Ladykillers — 2004 — Coen Brothers

The Sting — George Roy Hill
Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid — George Roy Hill
Funny Farm — George Roy Hill!

Animal House — John Landis
Blues Brothers — Landis
Trading Places — Landis
The Player — Altman
M*A*S*H – Altman

Best In Show — Guest.
The Big Picture — Guest

Goodfellas — Scorsese
The Last Waltz — Scorsese

The Curse of The Jade Scorpion — Woody Allen
Annie Hall — Allen

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest — Milos Foreman
Hair — Foreman

Forrest Gump — Robert Zemeckis
Back To The Future — Zemeckis

In The Heat of The Night — Norman Jewison (Torontonian!)
Jesus Christ Superstar! — Norman Jewison

Throw Mama From The Train — Danny DeVito
The War of The Roses — Danny DeVito

Star Wars — George Lucas
American Graffiti – George Lucas

Lucky Numbers — Ephron
Sleepless In Seattle – Ephron

Matewan — John Sayles
Return of the Secaucus 7 — Sayles

State & Main — Mamet
Wag The Dog – Mamet screenplay
Glengarry Glen Ross – Mamet screenplay
The Untouchables – Mamet screenplay

A Streetcar Named Desire — Kazan. written by Tennessee Williams
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof — Richard Brooks. written by Tennessee Williams

Woodstock — Wadleigh.
Festival Express — Bob Smeaton.
The Talented Mr. Ripley — Anthony Minghella.
Airport — ‘70. — George Seaton.
It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World — Stanley Kramer.
Don’t Look Back — Pennebaker.
Masked & Anonymous — Larry Charles, Dylan.
The Big Chill — Lawrence Kasdan.
Happy Birthday Wanda June — Mark Robson; written Kurt Vonnegut.
The Shining — Stanley Kubrick.
Memento — Chris Nolan.
The Wizard of Oz — Victor Fleming.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail — Terry Gilliam.
Groundhog Day — Harold Ramis.
What About Bob? — Frank Oz.
Rebel Without A Cause — Nick Ray.
Citizen Kane — Wells.
Young Frankenstein — Mel Brooks.
all 12 episodes of Fawlty Towers — Cleese.
Round Midnight — Bertrand Tavernier.
The Planet of The Apes — Franklin Shaffner.
Beat The Devil — Huston.
True West — PBS – Malkovich & Sinese.
Death of A Salesman — PBS, Hoffman & Sinese.
Pull My Daisy — Robert Frank, Alfred Leslie.
Lust For Life — Vincente Minelli, father of Liza.
Dead Poets Society — Peter Weir.
The Poseidon Adventure — Ronald Neame.
Paper Moon — Peter Bogdanovich.
Secret Window — David Koepp.
Big Business — Jim Abrahams.
That Thing You Do! — Tom Hanks!.
The Haunting — Jan de Bont.
A Hard Day’s Night — Richard Lester.
Apocalypse Now — Coppola.
Fast Times At Ridgemont High — Any Heckerling.
Bonnie & Clyde — Arthur Penn.

Best / Favorite Scenes Ever in a Film:

Marisa Tomei on the stand in My Cousin Vinny
William Hickey’s cookie scene in Prizzi’s Honor
Pottier & Steiger’s first scene in In The Heat of the Night
the final Jordi Molla – Johnny Depp confrontation in Blow
Kathleen Turner & Michael Douglas – dinner party Bacarat story scene
Favorite / Unforgettable — greatest? Acting Performances Ever:
– in order I thought of them.

Joe Pesci in Goodfellas
William Hickey in Happy Birthday Wanda June
Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade
Bill Murray & Richard Dreyfuss in What About Bob?
William Macy in Fargo
Ruth Gordon in Harold & Maude
Mia Farrow in Rosemarie’s Baby
Brad Davis in Midnight Express
John Travolta in Lucky Numbers
Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump
Dexter Gordon in Round Midnight
Gene Hackman in French Connection
Nathan Lane in The Birdcage
J.T. Walsh in anything — Breakdown, The Big Picture, Sling Blade, Good Morning Vietnam, A Few Good Men, Pleasantville, Nixon.
Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor in Virginia Woolfe
Dustin Hoffman in Papilion
David Strathairn in Good Night and Good Luck
Ray Wise in Good Night and Good Luck
Cate Blanchett in Aviator
Brad Davis in Midnight Express
Best overall bunch of actors in one film (ensemble?):

Talented Mr. Ripley
Lucky Numbers
++Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
That Thing You Do
Spinal Tap
A Hard Days Night
Throw Mama From the Train
Beetlejuice
Duck Soup
Mad Mad Mad Mad World
Midnight Express

http://www.imdb.com/user/ur2433069/comments

including:

Shine A Light  (2008)

The Rolling Stones, with Darryl Jones, Chuck Leavell, Blondie Chapman, Bernard Fowler & Lisa Fischer, and a 4-piece horn section led by a wailin’ Bobby Keys.

Special Guests:  Buddy Guy, Christina Aguilera, Jack White 

Directed by Martin Scorsese

Cinematographers:  Scorsese brought together seven of the best in the business, all of whom would normally be heading up their own pictures:  lead d.p. Robert Richardson (The Aviator, JFK);  Robert Elswit (just won the Oscar for There Will Be Blood, also Good Night and Good Luck);  Andrew Lesnie (all three Lord of the Rings;  King Kong);  John Toll (The Last Samuri, Braveheart);  Emmanuel Lubeski (Sleepy Hollow, Lemony Snicket, Children of Men);  Stuart Dryburgh (The Painted Veil);  Ellen Kuras (The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind),  and several other top cameramen.

Filmed over 2 shows, in the fall of 2006, at the Beacon Theater, NYC (cap. 2800).

Length:  122 minutes

Shine A Light  is originally a song from Exile on Main Street.

18 songs – “some never played live before” – probably just “Champaign & Reefer”. 

(although some reports say 20 or 22 songs)

            (4 from Some Girls;  3 from Exile;  2 each from Beggars & Let It Bleed)

All songs Jagger/Richards, except Just My Imagination and Champaign & Reefer.

.
Jumpin’ Jack Flash  (released as a single, June ‘68, recorded during Beggars Banquet)
Shattered  (Some Girls, 1978)
* She Was Hot  – some cite as a highlight  (released as 2^nd single from Undercover, 1983)
All Down The Line  – Ronnie on slide — (Exile, 1972)
Loving Cup,  with Jack White  – reportedly fairly lame  (Exile, 1972)
As Tears Go By  — Keith on acoustic 12-string (December’s Children, 1965)
Some Girls  – a highlight – the band has fun with it — (Some Girls, 1978)
Just My Imagination  (Temptations song, from Some Girls, 1978)
* Far Away Eyes  – is great!  Ron Wood on peddle steel; Jagger on acoustic — (Some Girls, 1978)
* Champagne & Reefer,  with Buddy Guy (Festival Express star! J ) – a movie highlight – Mick on harp; (written by Muddy Waters, on his King Bee album, 1981) 
Tumbling Dice  (from Exile, 1972)

   band introductions
You Got The Silver – slide guitar, with Keith lead vocal (his first ever on a Stones record; Richards original, Let It Bleed, 1969)
Connection  – only partial  (Keith song & lead vocal, from Between The Buttons, 1967)
* Sympathy For The Devil  – great version — (Beggars Banquet, 1968)
* Live With Me, with Christina Aguilera – doing one sexy song, where she takes a scat solo for the 2^nd instrumental break.  —  (Let It Bleed and Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out, 1969)
Start Me Up  – reportedly only so-so  (Tattoo You, 1981)

encore:
* Brown Sugar   – great Bobby Keys sax! — (Sticky Fingers, 1971)
Satisfaction   (Out of Our Heads, 1965)

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

you can hear the Aguilera duet here:  http://youtube.com/watch?v=7e4dOi46wa0

American-based computers can watch it here:  www.mtv.com/overdrive/?vid=220655

= = = = = = = = = =

original Beacon concert set lists:
10/29/06:
Start Me Up
Shattered
She Was Hot
All Down The Line
Loving Cup
As Tears Go By
I’m Free
Undercover (Of The Night)
Just My Imagination
Shine A Light
Champagne & Reefer
Tumbling Dice
You Got The Silver
Little T&A
Sympathy For The Devil
Live With Me
Paint It Black
Jumpin’ Jack Flash
Brown Sugar

11/1/06:
Jumpin’ Jack Flash
Shattered
She Was Hot
All Down The Line
Loving Cup
As Tears Go By
I’m Free
Some Girls
Just My Imagination
Far Away Eyes
Champagne & Reefer
Tumbling Dice
You Got The Silver
Connection
Sympathy For The Devil
Live With Me
Honky Tonk Woman
Start Me Up
Brown Sugar
Satisfaction

Additional songs played during rehearsals at the Beacon (Maybe for some DVD extras):

Shine A Light
Undercover of the Night
Fool To Cry
Mannish Boy
Beast Of Burden
I’m Free 

LIVE WITH ME
(M. Jagger/K. Richards)

I tell ya,

I got nasty habits, I take tea at three,
The meat I eat for dinner
Must be hung up for a week,
My best friend, he shoots water rats
And feeds them to his geese,
Don’cha think there’s a place for us
In between the sheets?

Come on now, baby
We can build a home for three,
Come on now, baby
Don’t you wanna live with me?

There’s a score of harebrained children
They’re all locked in the nursery,
They got earphone heads, they got dirty necks,
They’re so 20th century;
Well they queue up for the bathroom
‘Round about 7:35
Well don’cha think we need a woman’s touch to make it come alive?

You’d look good pram pushing
Down the high street,
Come on now, baby,
Don’t you wanna live with me?

sax solo

Come on now, baby,
We can build a home for three,
Come on now, sugar,
Don’t you wanna live with me?

The servants they’re so helpful, now,
The cook she is a whore,
The butler has a place for her
Behind the pantry door,               (and ya gotta think of Bill & Hillary who were in the audience!)
The maid, she’s French, she’s got no sense,
She’s wild for Crazy Horse,
And when she strips, the chauffeur flips,
The footman’s eyes get crossed.

Don’cha think there’s a place for us
Right across the street,
Don’cha think there’s a place for you,
In between the sheets?

Christina’s scat solo

Come on now, baby,
We can build a home for three,
Come on now, baby,
Don’t you wanna live with me?

Originally recorded May 24, 1969. Released on Let It Bleed on December 5, 1969
Lead Vocals: Mick Jagger  Electric Guitars: Keith Richards & Mick Taylor  Bass: Keith Richards  Drums: Charlie Watts  Tenor Sax: Bobby Keys  Pianos: Nicky Hopkins & Leon Russell  Backing Vocals: Keith Richards
Brian – karmacoupon@gmail.com

http://www.brianhassett.com/

Directed by Nora Ephron; starring John Travolta, Lisa Kudrow, Tim Roth, Ed O’Neil, Richard Schiff, Bill Pullman, Michael Rapaport, Michael Moore. 

First of all – this is made by Nora Ephron!  Heartburn!  Sleepless!  Her and Penny Marshall have to be the two best female filmmakers going – at least of the older gen. You know you don’t get an amazing cast like this together unless you’ve got someone like Ephron at the helm. 

For sure this is no Best Picture – but it is some low-budget dark comedy magic. 

Flipping channels one night I happened to luck into the scene where Richard Schiff’s Jerry confronts Tim Roth’s Gig in the strip-club kitchen over the rigging of the lottery.  For me, it’s as Dylan sings of Gregory Peck, “I’d watch him in anything.”  Either of these two stop me in my tracks.  Ya gotta think this scene was at least partly improvised – and wow, what a gem! 

So i watched the rest of it.  Then tracked it down, and have now seen it about 10 times since.  Almost every scene is funny, tight and great. There’s not a lull through the first half-hour, and all the way through the hour-15 mark it’s pretty note-perfect. Truthfully, the final reel is a little uneven, but who needs comedies to get nicely wrapped up with a bow?

And WHAT a cast!  Tim frickin’ Roth, Travolta, Rapaport, Pullman, and Richard Schiff!!  Masters all.  And Travolta’s hilariously hopeless weatherman is perfectly pathetic.  After Pulp Fiction turned things around, it was this and Primary Colors that won me over to him. 

And Bill Pullman’s lazy cop is priceless!  He doesn’t even enter the movie until an hour in, but I laugh every time I just think of him.  “The lower back . . .  it’s an enigma.”  “Where . . . do you find girls like that?”  “You know what would be unfortunate — if we got into that whole ‘let’s-follow-him’ rigmarole.”  “Great.  Now I’ve got another 20,000 forms to fill out.” 

And then the insane Lisa “There is a limit to my classiness” Kudrow.  And even Michael Moore is actually believable.  And then Al Bundy with a station manager’s job!  And Michael Rapaport is perfect as dumb Dale The Thug — especially the scene when he first meets Travolta at his house. 

And there’s choice cameo bit-parts including by the great Canadian improv actor Colin Mochrie playing the manager of the Denny’s, who’s most recognized for all the “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” shows he did.  And the goofy blond stand-up comic and over-the-top actress, Maria Bamford, plays the lucky loopy waitress. 

And what a great soundtrack! The Cars’ “Moving In Stereo”!  Dr. John’s “Right Place, Wrong Time”!  “Hey, Big Spender“!  Rickie Lee Jones!  “Mack, The Knife,”  Blondie!  “Freeze-Frame by J Geils!  “Love Is A Drug“, and “We Are The Champions” when the truck’s pulling out in the snowstorm.

For the most part, the writing is just fantastic.  Almost every frickin’ scene.  I assume Ephron helped, and maybe her hired-gun pal Carrie Fischer.  It’s too good for one guy.  Adam Resnick, the main writer, was from “The Larry Sanders Show” and Letterman.  The characters are just fantastic (ly flawed and horrible!) 

If you like this kind of thing, make it a point to find “Beat The Devil” (1953), the same kind of comedy noir, except via a well-buzzed John Huston, with Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorie and a ton of other true characters. 

Lucky Numbers is based on the true story of a Pittsburgh weatherman rigging the PA state lottery in 1980.  You can learn more about it here:  http://www.answers.com/nick+perry?cat=entertainment

= = = = = = = =

by Brian Hassett 

karmacoupon@gmail.com

http://www.brianhassett.com/

Drivin’ That Train . . .        

The Festival Express Rolls Again After 30 Years

by Brian Hassett

“That was the best time I’ve had in rock and roll,” said Jerry Garcia. “There were no straight people.”

In the summer of 1970, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band and scores of other musicians took a chartered train trip across Canada. And it’s on film. Really, really good film. Coming to theaters this summer. DVD to follow. But go out of your way to catch it on the big screen for the full concert experience. At the Toronto Film Festival last fall, tears were rolling down cheeks during Janis’s soul bearing, and spontaneous applause erupted mid-song, as if it were a jazz club.

Plus, this is the best Jerry Garcia on film. I’ll let that sink in for a minute.

And it’s the wildest Band on film; looser, younger and even more alive than The Last Waltz, playing in their home country with the Hawks soaring thru ‘em.

The Village Voice said of The Janis Voice: this is “by far the most vivid evidence of her presence ever committed to film.” You will ‘get’ Janis-goose bumps, guaranteed.

And the swirling cinematic trip that Beatles Anthology director Bob Smeaton wove together from the 46 hours of uncovered footage is “the third jewel in the crown,” as Dead and culture historian Dennis McNally puts it, grouping it with Woodstock and Gimme Shelter.

“Woodstock was a treat for the audience, but the train was a treat for the performers,” somebody said on the train, no one remembers who.

But someone did remember a camera and captured the best backstage party these sculptors of modern music claim they ever attended, at a peak in their collective creative lives. “Never had such a good time in my life before,” as Robert Hunter put in “Might As Well,” his ode to the train trip. The Band had just crawled out the window of Dylan’s basement and are sprinting through their solo prime. The Dead are in their original-six lineup, Pigpen trim and on harp. They’d just presciently written “Casey Jones,” and preciously recorded Workingman’s Dead-which hit stores the day before the Toronto show and included a brand new song about playing outdoor festivals called “New Speedway Boogie,” which they deliver a fresh-out-of-the-studio version of. Garcia wrote “Ripple” in Saskatoon, and Janis worked up her biggest hit, “Me & Bobby McGee,” just three months before final flameout. It’s like finding a film of Michelangelo sculpting David.

In a garage. In Canada. “The original filmmaker had it just sitting in an old box,” says film consultant James Cullingham, who’s writing a book about it. “He called me over, and I look in the box and there’s cans of film labeled ‘Dead,’ ‘Joplin,’ ‘Band.’” (Oh look, mom, it’s our summer vacation movies from that train trip with Auntie Janis and Uncle Jerry!) “Then we found the negatives and 8-track audio masters had been mysteriously stored in the National Archives of Canada.”   

“It’s in pristine shape,” testifies film soundmaster Eddie Kramer. Both the audio and video seem like they were recorded last summer, not last century.

The pioneering promoter and conductor, Ken Walker, who brought John Lennon to town the previous summer for his historic non-Beatles Live Peace In Toronto show, said, “If we were bringing all the acts together for one festival, why not do more than one? So I got the idea of the private train and started negotiating with CN Railways,” many comical details of which are in the film.

“We were supposed to open in Montreal but it was cancelled last minute by the mayor. And we tried to do Vancouver, but couldn’t get the stadium. So we did the two shows in Toronto, June 27th and 28th, with different bands each day. Then one in Winnipeg, July 1st, and two in Calgary, July 4^th and 5^th, after which Janis wanted to hijack the train to keep it going!”  

And just like Woodstock, the whole thing came together because of Bob freakin’ Dylan! “I’d just gotten Lennon, and I wanted Dylan,” Walker said. “So I called Albert Grossman, who was also managing Janis Joplin. She’d been looking for a new band and figured Dylan had done alright with his Band from Toronto, and so her new group, Full Tilt Boogie, was from there, too. So Janis wanted to do it right away. And I was talking to Grossman, so we got The Band. Once we had them, and word of The Orient Express got out, we got the San Francisco acts.”  

The Dead brought along Jerry’s ‘other’ band, The New Riders of the Purple Sage-this being the “Evening with The Grateful Dead” era that included a Riders set with Garcia on pedal steel, and a Dead acoustic set. The other lucky gamblers onboard were the Flying Burrito Brothers the month after Gram Parsons left, Delaney & Bonnie, Buddy Guy, Mountain, Ian & Sylvia Tyson’s Great Speckled Bird, Mashmakan, Seatrain, Eric Andersen, the Good Brothers, Tom Rush, plus some local acts in each city, and that ubiquitous festival oddity, Sha Na Na. Traffic and Ten Years After also played the opening Toronto shows and are on film, but not in the movie. 

And with all these assembled masters in their prime, “Jerry was the natural born ringmaster of that 3-ringed dream train,” as pedal steel pioneer Buddy Cage put it. Not only does he seem to be in on every jam, but also as the crowd gets out of hand at the opening show, it’s Garcia who actually rises to the microphone for a solo stage-front plea for “coolness,” and he initiates the violence-diffusing free concert in the adjacent park.

“Garcia was the obvious leader in a scene that claimed no leaders,” says tour scholar Cullingham. “Jerry, Janis, Walker and [Rick] Danko were the forces of nature behind the whole thing.” 

And it wasn’t just the music Casey Jones was driving. “Jerry wanted to go up to the engine,” Walker said. “He was really interested in the geography and wanted to be up front for the moment the prairie flatlands suddenly open up in front of you. So we go up there and Jerry climbs up in the seat and sticks his head out the window until the engineer warned him about the bugs! He showed Jerry where the whistle was, and just as we were crossing into Manitoba he was blowin’ the whistle and giggling away!” 

Garcia: “It was the musicians’ train. There wasn’t any showbiz bullshit. It was like a musicians’ convention with no public allowed.” John Till, Full Tilt Boogie: “It wasn’t only a concert on stage, it was a concert for the entire trip.”   Mickey Hart: “It was like a dream music camp with all your friends.”  Eric Andersen: “It was this little La Bohème society.” 

“The promoters promised us all the pot we could smoke cuz we had to cross the border,” Mickey said. “Of course they didn’t come thru. They had cars full of Canadian liquor, but we weren’t experienced drinkers, so we all got just shit-faced drunk. I’ve never seen Jerry so green in my life! We were just heaving out the windows. I hope they don’t have that on film!”  

No, but they do have Jerry telling Janis he loves her. And Delaney playing “Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad” in the bar car where he taught it to Garcia. And Danko, Janis and Garcia singing together on a couch like a drunk hippie Rat Pack. And there even seems to be a bonafide, three-act drama played out on the stages of the three-city arc: The players first meet in Toronto, face some conflict, then bond on the road to Winnipeg where they rise and play their best “top this!” sets to each other. Then there’s more trouble ahead, but they all come together in different configurations for the triumphant Calgary climax.

In the heart of the movie and country is Winnipeg, a blissfully black and white 1950’s Pleasantville. Suddenly the swirling-color psychedelic train hits town 12-cars-long! And just to stir the prank, it’s Canada Day, out of nowhere there are gate-crashing protesters, the summer fair’s in town, and . . . the Prime Minister pulls up alongside in another train! Meanwhile, over in the small-town nearly-empty-anyway football stadium, Janis and The Band are laying down Olympian, Hall of Fame performances.

Fortunately there is a small wild crop thriving in the same wacky-weed prairie soil that budded Neil Young and The Guess Who and the real-life characters Matt Groening based Homer on, and the freak underground comes through with a healthy dose of psychedelics and combustibles for the rest of the ‘trip.’

Another soon-to-be classic scene is when they run out of booze in Saskatchewan and the Marx Brothers meet Spinal Tap on the train platform in A Hard Day’s Night. “I dunno,” Eric Andersen says, almost disbelieving his own memories. “They just stopped in Saskatoon, the whole damn train just stopped, like, in front of a liquor store!”   

“Everything was constantly revolving,” Mickey remembers. “There was a blues car, a country car, a rock-n-roll car. It was like musical chairs. There was never anything like that level of talent and musicianship encapsulated in such close quarters for that length of time.” 

And it was also an impromptu country-rock summit, with Buddy Cage a central bridge, playing with the influential Great Speckled Bird, and inadvertently passing the audition to replace Garcia in the New Riders. “Ian Tyson’s folk-country grew into country-rock, and suddenly here was everybody,” he says of the Grateful Speckled Purple Sage Burrito Band onboard. “Jerry asked me to set up the steel on the train, and that carried over to the stage in so many ways,” like when an ecstatic Garcia and others join Speckled Bird for a sunset “C.C. Rider” that explodes with the newborn joy of the train’s country-rock-blues ménage á trois.

“It was a fusion,” Mickey says. “All these different kinds of players playing each others’ music. I thought, ‘This is the world’s music.’ Here’s Buddy Guy playing country, Mountain doing gospel, Janis singing Canadian folk…” 

          Trains are hypnotic, mythical, inspiring, magical, eternal. And so is this transportive movie. From the Western Expansion to any kid hopping a freight out of town with Kerouac in their rucksack, trains meant freedom and untold adventure. And that’s without instruments. By some blessing from the archeological gods, some tremendous positive energy gift is rollin’ down the track, and for just a moment we’re all gonna get to be that headlight on a northbound train.  

As Janis adieu’s, “The next time you throw a train, man, invite me!” 

= = = = = = = = = =

SIDEBAR:

Festival Express has joined a very small family of the great rock films ever made, and it comes by its magic honestly.

It has… 

• the split-screen, too-much-happening-to-catch-it-all atmosphere of Woodstock, except common performers the Dead, Janis and The Band are in the movie!
• the backstage intimacy of Don’t Look Back – in fact, it may be the first real challenge to Pennebaker’s portrait - except this is in color and the songs are complete.
• the story-telling, big-picture of Gimme Shelter, except nobody gets killed and the Dead get to play.
• an Academy Award-winning cinematographer capturing The Band and music’s brightest lights like The Last Waltz, except it’s on a train trip and everybody’s six years younger.
• the child-like joy of A Hard Days Night set in the psychedelia of Magical Mystery Tour.
• the fiery landmark live performances of Monterey Pop, with as much backstage footage as onstage.
• the Python madness of the textbook ‘rockumentary’ Spinal Tap, except they went too far with this one and the characters are barely believable!
• a feisty promoter at the center of a high-speed, week-long all-star rock ‘n’ roll freight-train like The Last Days of the Fillmore, and filmed exactly one year to the day earlier.
• the natural, relaxed and intimate outdoor setting of Celebration at Big Sur, but . . . you’re gonna get to see this one soon!  

= = = = = = =

Brian Hassett

karmacoupon@gmail.com

BrianHassett.com  

it was written / created post Monty Python (1969-74), by John Cleese and his wife, Connie Booth.  He had an opportunity to do “something” for the BBC, so they came up with doing a grumpy hotel manager, which was based on a recent film shoot by the Pythons making Holy Grail or something in the south of England.  They stayed at the Glen Eagles Hotel, run by a crazy owner that Cleese then based Fawlty Towers on. 

first they made only 6 half-hour episodes. 

then 2 ½ years later, after Cleese & Connie broke up, they made six more.  (they’re all great – it didn’t have time to go downhill)

it’s only 4 main characters (with guests each week) and 12 episodes:

(think of other foursomes:  Seinfeld, All In The Family, The Beatles)

Cleese / Basil Fawlty – the fulcrum.  the essence of his character is he runs a hotel but hates his guests.  And he’s not too keen on his wife, the maid, the waiter, or anybody else who happens to come thru the door.  He’s also not big on working very hard. 

Connie Booth / Polly, the co-creator, plays the maid.  Cleese’s wife when they made the first 6 episodes, and they were ex’s when they made the 2^nd 6. 

Prunella Scales / Sybil Fawlty, who plays Basil’s (Cleese’s) wife did much to create the role herself, and after the first rehearsals Cleese & Connie began to write it with Pru’s character more than the character they’d originally envisioned. 

Andrew Sachs / Manuel is the waiter/bellboy.  Sachs is a major British Shakespearean actor.  I watched the show for about 15 years before I found out the guy wasn’t really Spanish.  (maybe I shouldn’t have told you.   : ) )  He won a BAFTA (British TV Oscar) for this performance.

That’s the core quartet – Basil & his wife, the maid, and the bellboy. 

And then whoever comes to the hotel each episode. 

In the second six episodes they added Terry, the chef. 

Oh, one other guy – everybody, including Cleese and Connie’s favorite character — the Major, the dottering old British guy who’s a long-term guest at the hotel.  Also played by a top of the line British theater actor, Ballard Barkley. 

It almost all takes place in the lobby of the hotel. 

and then secondarily, in the restaurant, bar, office, or upstairs rooms. 

I think there’s only 3 episodes with any scene beyond the hotel. 

ie; it’s stage theater. 

And it’s all shot live in front of an audience. 

Wonderfully, you’ll eventually notice little “theatrical” screw-ups – in fact in episode 3 The Wedding Party, 3 different times the other actors can be seen cracking up at Basil/Cleese’s character. 

First, at the end of the opening scene with Connie & Cleese behind the desk; Cleese improvises and says in character, “Oh, you find this funny, do you?” 

second, Basil’s lobby soliloque ¾ of the way thru

and then third right near the end when Pru is trying to get in the bedroom. 

one of the “guest stars” said in an interview how hard it was for them to stay in character and not break out laughing. 

they only did a couple of rehearsals, and since a lot of it was just about blocking and stage directions, they didn’t get to see Cleese in his full character blazing away. 

and the guest stars – Cleese has cited the casting director as being so key, and he’s right.  pretty much all the guest actors each episode are perfect, and most of them are actor’s actors who all did major un-Hollywood work. 

it was all done absolutely bottom-barrel BBC, so there was no budget for retakes.  ie it’s pretty much all one take. 

in episode 7, (series 2, ep 1) Prunella throws coffee in Cleese’s face – but she misses!  and unintentionally throws it right the Major’s face.  but they keep playing the scene.  and if you look really close you can see the Major is just dripping with coffee. 

also, a couple of the episodes take place in real time, basically 28 minutes of life at Fawlty Towers.  as a writer and a student of writing, there’s just nothing better that’s ever been done.  Cleese talks about how he & Connie worked for weeks and weeks on each episode to tighten them down.  no question Seinfeld and Larry David studied the hell out of these.  it’s the standard nobody’s ever reached.  but Seinfeld came the closest for laugh-lines-per-second.  but sadly “Seinfeld” doesn’t hold up today anywhere Close to Fawlty, which just shows how transcendent it was. 

also, being BBC, the episodes are not forced into a 23 minute script, which is SO to their advantage.  the lengths vary between 28 and 35 minutes.  and they don’t have to structure in ads.  So, American comedies did have unfortunate limitations this “half-hour” show did not.  

the “problem” with Monty Python’s Flying Circus was that the characters could never develop because they only existed for 3 minutes or so in a single sketch.  and the problem with their movies was that they were drawing out a single premise for 90 minutes or 2 hours.  with Fawlty Towers, the characters continue, but each premise is only worked out for 30 minutes.  ten times longer than a sketch, and just the best quarter of a movie. 

as a wiseman once said, “I envy those who have these yet to discover.” 

Savor them.  don’t watch more than 2 or 3 (tops) at a time;  I even suggest just one.  let em sink in, draw it out.  plus, they’re phucking exhausting to watch!  If you live it, you’re just drained by the end of one! 

Remember:  you can only see them for the 1^st time once. 

But it’s also something that actually gets even funnier the more times you see it – because of the depth & strength of the four main characters.  It Really seems like these people have been working and living together for years.  I’ve seen every episode probably 20 or more times and still end up laughing through every one every time. 

Watch for the evolution of the hotel’s sign in the opening credits. 

series 1: A Touch of Class, The Builders, The Wedding Party, Hotel Inspectors, Gourmet Night, The Germans; 

series 2: Communication Problems, The Psychiatrist, Waldorf Salad, Kipper and The Corpse, The Anniversary, Basil The Rat.   

episode 1 – A Touch of Class – the “pilot” experimental episode, the birth of the characters and series.  There was a different production crew, cameramen, editor, make-up and lighting from the middle 10 episodes.  The final episode (12, Basil The Rat) was also different crew due to a BBC strike. 

theme:  class. 

Pru largely created her character but based on the script Cleese & Connie created.  But once she “became” Sybil in the taping of this episode, they forever wrote Sybil for Pru’s creation. 

one of only three episodes with a scene beyond the hotel. 

it opens with a joke that works better on paper than stage — one of the very few in over 6+ hours that don’t totally work.  Basil is saying “on those trays” but Manuel hears “Uno, dos, tres” as tho Basil’s trying to count in Spanish.  It’s just weird funny (?) that the first note is a little flat. 

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In 1967, their hit “Happy Together” knocked “Penny Lane” off the top of the Billboard charts, and The Turtles’ energized comedy-pop harmonies were the talk of Musicville.  So, they go to England on a tour, and on their first night end up hanging out with their Fab Four heroes, and ultimately having dinner (and lots of drinks) with Jimi Hendrix until dawn. 

Of course you’re going, “Sure.  How does somebody play Jimi Hendrix?!”  But that’s just one of the many homeruns of the film, because the actor, young unknown Royale Watkins, is Hendrix.  Plus there’s all these other funny acting cameos, including ‘Norm’ from “Cheers”, that insane, off-center comedian Taylor Negron, John Corbett from “Sex & The City” and “Northern Exposure”, and in the lead roller-coaster role of the narrating Turtle, Justin Henry, who was the little boy in “Kramer vs. Kramer”. 

The film’s set in 1967 during the pivotal transformation period in the history of rock n roll and popular music – when the troops stormed over the bridge from lip-synching on variety shows to igniting guitars on Monterey stages, from the ubiquity of Tiger Beat to the birth of Rolling Stone, from matching ties and suits into Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band — a bridge that the film’s writer crossed himself, going from the poppy Turtles into Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention.  This was the moment in rock n roll when it all went kerflooey — the Summer of Love, the Human Be-In, Monterey Pop, long hair, and “Are You Experienced?”  Nothing had gone wrong yet, the blush of youth was still rosy, and here were the architects of the future of music all partying together in the underground clubs in England.  Now in a film.  Written by a key player, and produced by Rhino Records, quality incarnate in the music business. 

In fact, the movie itself is like the polarity of the era, with the first half set in the paper Tiger Beat home-of-The-Monkees L.A., and the second half in the surreal, edge-cutting Speakeasy lairs of London.  And every bit of crazy dialog is based on real events;  a composite of months on the Sunset Strip, and a magical night with the Mount Rushmore of rock. 

The movie’s been years in the making and is currently distributed on an ad hoc screening basis – you can check mydinnerwithjimi.com for details – but now that it’s made this will be an eternal prankster’s delight as it eventually shows up at midnight screenings and on late-night movie channels!  “What in the hell is This?!” will be said many more times in the future because of this movie.      

You’re eventually going to see it, but this is where you first heard about it.   

This is “Spinal Tap”, written by a real rock star, about other real rock stars, set in the halcyon daze of 1967.  How can this not be great? 

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by Brian Hassett,

www.brianhassett.com

karmacoupon@gmail.com