Snoopy Presents: One-Of-A-Kind Marcie

 

AIRDATE: 8/18/2023

STORY: Marcie is a lot more than just Peppermint Patty's best friend...but she likes being Peppermint Patty's best friend. Marcie is a lot more than the bookish introvert...but she likes being the bookish introvert. She also likes being helpful, even if her efforts go under the radar. It's the results, not the renown, that matter. But when Marcie's grateful peers write her in as Class President, the world becomes a lot bigger...and that, she doesn't like.

MUSIC: Jeff Morrow again, very light and mellow piano. The ideal day is one where you can lay down and not feel like you're wasting time. 9

ANIMATION: Experimental yet fun. Abstract yet sensible. The art direction and shot composition give brilliant insight into a sweet, anxious mind. 10, my favorite animation of the Apple shows so far. 

VOICES: Everyone does their character proud. Lexi Perri isn't my favorite Pep Pat (still a 9) but Arianna McDonald is probably the best Marcie to date. She puts the "flower" in "wallflower." 10 Isabella Leo does triple duty as Lucy, Tapioca Pudding and "Crybaby" Boobie. I give her a 9 just off the strength of Lucy's Marcie impression, which is so solid gold it should have dancers.

The sleeper of the special is Carlin, the first TV-exclusive character in the Peanuts universe since Charles 1997's It Was My Best Birthday Ever, Charlie Brown. Antonina Battrick is marvelous as the little Marcie to Marcie's Peppermint Patty (even calls her "ma'am). 9

GOING OUTSIDE 

--Marcie doesn't use her outlier status as an excuse to demand others kowtow to her every whim or adjust their lives for her benefit or even expect everyone to understand, exactly, what makes her clock hands go. Lots of us can learn from her example.

--Nor does Marcie fundamentally change who she is. This is a young girl as comfortable in a library as she is on a golf course. She adapts. She thrives.

STAYING INSIDE

--Love Sally to death, but I didn't even notice her absence from this special until it was pointed out.

--For a second there, I thought Marcie was going to suggest a recipe for Fish Pizza.

--Can't grab screenshots off Apple programs, at least not the best way. So here, enjoy the photos I took of my computer during two of the absolute most hilarious scenes in animated Peanuts history. 

                                                     

SCORE

Strong 9. Calm and sweet as a sunrise, sincere and profound as heavy rainfall. If you love shopping at Hallmark, but hate watching Hallmark movies, you'll love Apple's Peanuts.

Old Bay Til I'm Old And Gray

 

72 SEASONS
4/14/2023

At first, the title doesn’t make much sense. As a band, Metallica is approaching 170 seasons. Each band member has clocked over 200. This is album 11, seven years after album 10. The runtime is 77 minutes, which is close at least. Oh, wait, James Hetfield is speaking.

“72 seasons. The first 18 years of our lives that form our true or false selves. The concept that we were told 'who we are' by our parents. A possible pigeonholing around what kind of personality we are. I think the most interesting part of this is the continued study of those core beliefs and how it affects our perception of the world today. Much of our adult experience is reenactment or reaction to these childhood experiences. Prisoners of childhood or breaking free of those bondages we carry.”

It’s amazing what you can learn when you seek out information.

“72 Seasons”—Dumb but confident; like Load if the good bits had been actual songs instead of bits. The hammer falls without fanfare, and if the audience craved flash before smash, too bad. Here’s grit in yer grits. Those who try to exit via bridge shall be sliced to ribbons.

“Shadows Follow”—As they are wont to do. Far from hideous, but a distinct regression after track one.

“Screaming Suicide”—A tidy spring back with a compelling take on a tired topic.

The lessons of youth inform us. Maybe they deform us. My mud pit is your honey pot, and vice versa.

“Sleepwalk My Life Away”—Metallica is not now nor ever shall be intellectuals, furthermore their desire to craft meticulous sonic mosaics has dwindled into a a dust mite. The very human struggles of their frontman combined with said frontman’s very human desire to confront the demons responsible for those struggles has happened before, with disastrous results. Fortunately, Hetfield (and Lars Ulrich, who must receive his credit no matter how begrudgingly) remembered something vital: Metallica is a band as august as it is popular. If innovation is off the table, if complexity is no longer in the cards, fine. But ass-kicking cannot be forsaken. Metal music, no matter the permutation, depends on ass-kicking like the Earth depends on the Sun.  

“You Must Burn!”—Whatever you make of likening the online bully brigade to the marching murderous mobs of olden times (the erasure of history must not be allowed, is all I'll say in this space), “You Must Burn!” is a fine example of how dangerous the “calm yet wild” approach can be.

“Lux Æterna”—This smacks. Open-hand on bare skin. A bunny-boink at only 3:22, because looking back too long may turn a man into sand.

“Crown Of Barbed Wire”—Pop a Prilosec in honor of every poor decision you ever made in the name of the greater good.

“Chasing Light”—When turned on, Metallica’s light is still bright, still loud, still useful. But it’s an incadescent bulb in a world of LEDs.

“If Darkness Had A Son”—Initially teased on Metallica’s TikTok...which is not even jokingly one of the most depressing things I’ve ever published on this blog. 

 If Demon Boy cosplay helps Mr. Hetfield handle his temptations, who am I to raise an eyebrow at testosterone-soaked displays of vulnerability? It took a few tries, but he seems to comprehend how personal tragedy can lapse into professional comedy, and is not making the same mistakes that doomed past efforts.  

“Too Far Gone?”—I, I am unimpressed.

“Room Of Mirrors”—Oh, I like this. Mighty tight with a message for the listeners. The judgmental, the forgiving, the fans, the foes, the fisherfolk—this is for all them.

“Inamorata”—The epic, predictably placed. Three minutes over the limit. Why must “misery” be a woman? Jack Daniel, Johnnie Walker, Jose Cuervo, Jim Beam—now you tell me. 

72 Seasons is a stripped-back offering. It’s moody, bruised up, yet the taste for blood remains. I’d recommend it to any fan of the band, but I’ll make no promises. A Metallica album hasn’t attached itself to my skull since The Black Album, and I’ve adjusted my expectations accordingly. 

Salt Mines, Salt Yours: The Music Of Shonen Knife

 

2/15/2023

Four years after Sweet Candy Power, the Knife Most Shonen return to a world more sore and restless than ever before. Retirement is out of the question. Resignation is for sled dogs. Regret is the residue of shame. Naoko, Atsuko, and Risa have little to no time for gold watches, flower boxes, or witless mugs.  

"MUJINTO Rock"--Island power! The hand-painted signage is the first indicator that a place without rule is not necessarily a place without order. If it can be thought of, it can be partaken of, whether we're talking raspberry ice cream served in a gravy boat or spiritual delight attained on a mossy cliff.

"Nice Day"--A pretty pistol, strictly for display purposes. Sweet earth activities never-ending: walk the dog, talk to God. 

"The Story of Baumkuchen"--German or not, the SK ladies eat their cake with treble hooks 'stead-a forks. 

"Vamos Taquitos"--Ska is everything wrong with avocado; pop-punk is everything right with avocado. 

"Spicy Veggie Curry"--Joey Ramone never sang about the pure pleasure of a fat ravioli plate, and he should have. 

 "Girl's Rock"--An English-language re-do of a 2003 compilation track, that possessive-ass apostrophe is the signal to uplift. 

"Afternoon Tea"--A merry march meant to sell toys. Yes, Shonen Knife is/are cute, but the passion surpasses, somehow. 

"Ocean Sunfish"--I've never learned to swim, but I slash just fine. 

"Better"--Funny, the most underwhelming song here has the truest message: social media is designed to enrage and enervate. Sometimes, disconnection does a body good.

"Just A Smile"--The alternate universe where Shonen Knife reign as the world's greatest cover band bleeds over into our world yet again, to everyone's benefit. Brimming with harmonies and hand claps, this makes a prime album closer. Pilot definitely should've been a two-hit wonder, yeah? 

 

 

Better In Your Head? Pt. 2, Books vs. Movies, the Conclusion

61 novels turned into 70 movies. So what's the verdict? By my estimation, 15 1/2. Hmm? Ah, see, while the first adaptation of The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three surpassed the original, the second adaptation surpassed not even my lowest expectations. 

That's a frankly surprising 25.4%--over ten percent higher than the titles featured in Series One. 

It's still better in your head...but maybe not as often as you think.

Better In Your Head?--LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR

 

Spoiler Alert: Special Dark is the best in the bag.

THE BOOK-Written by Judith Roessner, released 1975

THE MOVIE-Directed & written by Richard Brooks, released 1977

THE STORY- Terry Dunn lives a double life--teacher by day, cruiser by night. She insists on a carefree existence unimaginable for women even a decade prior. Loved ones long to ground her spirit, but the air up there is hot with sex, drugs, death...the stuff life is made of. 

MIND THE GAP-Based on the real-life-and-death story of Roseann Quinn, Looking For Mr. Goodbar is so emotionally devastating that two decades after first experiencing book and film (in that order), fragments of the ending still pop into my head on occasion. 

The truths Goodbar coaxes forth are simplistic and shattering. Every time you walk outside into the world, you take a risk. Human interaction is rife with possibility. One-night stands can result in furtive visits from unwanted guests. Death, although unlikely, cannot be ruled out, for anyone, anywhere. This sad reality is, we are told incessantly, the fault of the victim. In every man lurks a beast, and the others around them must act accordingly and keep the beast at bay.

Terry's case of "ugly duckling syndrome" is surpassed in meanness only by her Catholic guilt. The film overdoses on the latter whilst paying the former dust. Diane Keaton is pretty, outgoing, bratty even--accusations I can't level too boldly against the Terry in Judith Rossner's novel. Book Terry is driven by a self-destructive mindset undetectable onscreen. Keaton's performance is primarily faultless; her supple rhythms are so infectious, their absence acts as a portent. 

Richard Gere is magnetic as hyperactive lunkhead Tony, and Tom Berenger makes the most of his time as Gary, a man shrouded in discordant shames. William Atherton and Alan Feinstein, in sharp contrast, each shit the bed before the lights go out. Ahterton apparently prepared by carving a wooden lizard, and Feinstein's professor is so far from the matter-of-fact manipulator I imagined, I can safely assume he prepared for the role by not reading the book.

Looking For Mr. Goodbar is up there with Schindler's List and Marriage Story as great films I've no desire to watch again. Judith Rossner detested the thing, citing Terry's makeover into a "happy" seductress, and the script's decision to turn the relationship between Terry and her father from one of solemn misgivings into one of clamorous animosity. Rossner deliberately avoided "pop sociology" in her work, and her work is all the stronger.

Then and now, Terry Dunn stands a fair distance from society's ideal woman. She enjoys sex, but bristles at emotional commitment. She enjoys teaching children, but bristles at motherhood. Women are typically celebrated not for their ambition and carnality, but for their passivity and compliance. So much has changed. So much resists change.

Looking For Mr. Goodbar and Annie Hall in the same year, damn Diane Keaton had the range.

I mean, Christ, can't a broad go for a walk? Can't a chick down some drinks? Can't a girl pass out? Must every situation be a perilous one? If Terry's fate--Roseann's fate--was inevitable, isn't that a more devastating indictment of men? Why villainize the prey and protect the predator?

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD- Stroke. Scream. Snarl. Snap. Stab. Shit.

Movie over book? It's happened a bit this series. So is that how we see it out? Well, the execution of the ending alone almost tipped the scales for me here. I couldn't tear my eyes away; I wanted to tear my eyes out of my head. The novel, though it ends essentially the same, didn't leave me so physically affected. What it did give me that those visceral visuals did not, was a picture of a woman. Diane Keaton plays a woman whose present is paramount. The past happened, doesn't matter; the future hasn't yet happened, might not matter. It is now or never, literally. Day after day, class after class. Night after night, man after man. She survives on a diet of wine and praise (and for a bit, white powder). The film shows us a woman alive.

The book, meanwhile, shows us a woman living. If Rossner's prose comes off exhausted by the last few pages, that's understandable. The film shows us the woman Terry's become; the book shows us the becoming, wonderfully, without a smidgen of showiness. We see the mind games and power plays that harden her heart, culminating in a break-up so bad it leaves her bed-bound. We see the dreams and nightmares that make a more convincing case for monogamy than the sternest lecture ever could. I don't wonder the author was tired by the end. So was I. 

All hail the slow burn.

Rest in peace, Roseann Quinn. Better she had lived, than the story of Terry Dunn be told.

Better In Your Head?--THE HUMBLING

 

Spoiler Alert: bisexuals are magic.

THE BOOK-Written by Philip Roth, released 2009

THE MOVIE-Directed by Barry Levinson, written by Buck Henry & Michal Zebede (& Levinson, unc.)

THE STORY-What fate rates worst? Abrupt defeat or protracted decline? Whatever your answer, don't bother telling Simon Axler. The legendary stage actor has lost his gift for artifice, and found in its usual place a crisis of confidence. 

MIND THE GAP-Depressed old guy, of course he'll be seeking validation via virility. 

Roth's penultimate book was his fourth death-fixated volume in as many years. The start heaves with narrative promise: "He'd lost his magic." 140 pages later, hyper-indulgent old-man meandering heaves all over said promise, a bubbly, stinky sheet of sick that sometimes looks worse than it smells, the scrambled dregs of a slow and broken life. 

Little wonder The Humbling spoke so fiercely to the artistic soul of Alfredo Pacino. Veteran of the planks, effusively praised, seldom doubted--until he can no longer cut the butter. No longer a supple exemplar of the art of pretend, and unable to quit the production, Simon Axler holes up in the green room, waiting for a restorative jolt. An extended stay in a psychiatric hospital provides a twitch, but the surprise arrival of a woman from the past is a six-pack of lightning best enjoyed over multiple sittings. Her name is Pegeen (ugh) and she's the daughter of Simon's old theatre friends. For the last sixteen years, she's slept exclusively with women, but her last girlfriend transitioned into a heterosexual male, so why can't Pegeen try being a heterosexual woman?

Great casting is dishonored by a script equal parts inventive and indecisive. Pacino digs hardily into the ribs of the role, working every wrinkle and disheveled hair masterfully as he shuffles scene to scene. He is most compelling when at his most confounded. And if anyone can monologue on lost mojo more stirringly than Al Pacino...no, they can't.

From the moment of her sudden appearance to the moment of her drawn-out departure, Greta Gerwig is a prickly refugee from a wildly popular Nineties film of tenuous influence. She's both the great redeemer and humbled recipient of absolution. Physically, both she and Pacino are wrong for their parts--he's too short, too lank; she's a decade too young, and remains recognizably feminine whatever her fashion--but an alternative universe where an adaptation of The Humbling was made without them seems impossible. Although that might be because I don't want to imagine another realm of existence where this movie was made at all.

The love affair falls apart after a threesome. The mathematics of love dictate: two plus one is not addition, it is division.

"I don't think you fucked the lesbian outta me yet." Sometimes I question my commitment to Sparkle Motion, y'all.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-A strange specimen, The Humbling. The story (creative guy wracked by self-doubt and betrayed by his own instincts, meets another professionally vain creature, pair travel entwined down the last slime trail towards death's toothless maw) is well-told..if not always told well. Consider the author. When She Was Good, Portnoy's Complaint. Consider the director. Diner, Rain Man. Consider the cast. Dog Day Afternoon, Frances Ha, Hannah and Her Sisters, Kinky Boots. Whatever the medium, there is little worth recalling here, little worth revisiting, little to endorse or condemn. The film eases up on the bleakness and smut, to no benefit. There's a couple laugh-out-loud moments in the movie, one of them intentionally so, and that convinced me Levinson messed up by not making The Humbling a full-on comedy.

Stating a preference feels like faking an orgasm. 

Roth's concern--obsession?--is the intimacy of death and dying. The book's length prevents too deep a probe. A curse in 1989, a blessing in 2009. The screenplay is bloated in comparison. For the mercy of brevity, I proclaim the book less painful, and thus, "better."

Better In Your Head?--THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE

 

Spoiler Alert: weight counts.

THE BOOK-Written by John Godey, released 1973

THE MOVIE(S)-Directed by Joseph Sargent, written by Peter Stone, released 1974

(as "The Taking Of Pelham 123") Directed by Tony Scott, written by Brian Helgeland, released 2009

THE STORY-A nutbars notion: four acquaintances hijack a subway car and demand a million dollars. If said demand is disrespected, the shooting will start. Crumblier still, doing so in cash-strapped, crime-choked New York City. Hardly a sure shot caper. And that's just the way these guys want it. Legends are made by hands keen on sifting through the debris of hubris.

MIND THE GAP-Oh how rapidly a seed, once watered, can grow. One man's harebrained scheme becomes another man's ultimate challenge becomes an entire city's wide-awake nightmare. 

While the heart of the plot is too banger to change, both films applied unique modifications. Instead of nylon stockings, Stone's script calls for the hijackers to conceal their mugs with fake facial fuzz. Furthermore, each man responds to a color-coded alias. Helgeland's script dispenses with the caution of disguise altogether. Understandably, the 21st-century Pelham integrates contemporary technology and ups the ransom (sometimes I think I'm the only person alive who'd still be hog-happy with a million-dollar payday). It also alters the main characters in unnecessary ways, and frankly the whole thing reeks of a petulant need to be different from its predecessors. 

Sargent's film just rules. The script's adherence to essence is key. Ryder/"Mr. Blue" is a phlegmatic, pragmatic former mercenary, a fatalist whose emotional shortcomings permit him access onto miry roads closed off to most other men. Dude's pure C.C.C.--cool, collected, calm--and Robert Shaw embodies him superbly. In contrast, John Travolta's Ryder is a tattooed loose cannon weighed down by a vendetta against the crooked government. He dresses like a C-tier comic book villain and speaks like a callow Tarantino acolyte. (Shaw serenely informing command center he's taken over the train is immeasurably cooler, infinitely more bad-ass, than fitting "fuck" into every sentence.)

The disparity in casts is hilarious. Besides Shaw outshining Travolta....

*Luis Guzman suffering in comparison to Martin Balsam, who was born to play Longman/Mr. Green, the disgruntled former motorman who dreamed up the whole dang shebang. (He's renamed "Ramos" in the 2009 version, 'cause ethnicity.)

*Brutish, mute-ish Steever/Mr. Brown becomes "Enri"; failed mobster Joey Welcome/Mr. Gray becomes "Bashkin." Both men are played by indistinguishable meat slabs, whereas the 1974 film had the good fortune of men with personalities, specifically Hector Elizondo and Earl Hindman.

*Denzel as Lt. Garber was a win, but no shit, it's Denzel. Ah yes, what great actor doesn't have a filmography easily split into "For All Time," "For A Good Time," and "For The Love Of God, Why?!" And that includes Walter Matthau, who originated Garber as a grouchy negotiator fighting the good fight with merely a microphone and a working man's wit in his arsenal. (There's a reason Denzel's character is named Walter Garber, and it's not because the screenwriter was a huge Steely Dan fan.)

Apple doesn't want movie baddies using iPhones, but Breitling understands the Golden Rule of Exposure.

The fates of Ryder and Longman are changed across all three tellings. The book gives the most realistic conclusions. Sargent's film provides the most memorable. Scott's film, the most contrived.

It'd be funny to say The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three did for subways what Psycho did for showers, but how in hell else are New Yorkers gonna get around?

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Forget 2009, take me back to 1999, when Tony Scott's penultimate film would've blown my mind. When the empty calories--quick edits, guitar stabs, sterile lighting--would've sent a dopamine surge through my brain powerful enough to hallucinate a new galaxy. Take me back to 1974, and let me sully my shoes on Manhattan sidewalks, smear my face with grease from a Brooklyn slice, flee the Bronx seconds from suffocation, completely avoid Queens, spew on the ferry to and from Staten Island. 

For the first time in the BIYH? series, multiple adaptations split the difference. Pelham 1974 improves on the book by comprehending what works, what doesn't work, and what will work. Without a chaotic glut of POVs, the suspense is unbroken and thus heightened. The passengers are no longer caricatures--they act, and react, as a singular freaked-out organism. Beyond what is excised, what is added also distinguishes the film as a lean, mean, real-time good time. Oh, and it features one of cinema's greatest-ever final shots. And that soundtrack! Sweet funky Jesus.

The 2009 Pelham is better than two hours spent playing hide and seek at a dumpster during mid-August, sure.

Better In Your Head?--RAPE: A LOVE STORY

 

Spoiler Alert: love wins.

THE BOOK-Written by Joyce Carol Oates, released 2003

THE MOVIE (as "Vengeance: A Love Story")-Directed by Johnny Martin, written by John Mankiewicz, released 2017

THE STORY-Take the long way home, get the short end of the stick. Take the shore most strolled, feel reason recede under ceaseless waves of rage. If you dance too close, drink too much, flirt too long, well that's too bad. 

MIND THE GAP-Begins with brutality and doesn't let up. The POV switches between third and second person, the latter of which puts the reader in the position of a pre-teen girl forced to hear her mother's dehumanization. 

One bad decision subjects Teena Maguire to scornful eyes, disdainful ears and spiteful tongues, turning a fun-loving single mom into a self-loathing recluse. She is forced to process her trauma amid rancid gossip and perverted legal gamesmanship.

Fearlessness makes the difference. Joyce Carol Oates, for all her rampaging flaws, is a fearless scribe. Rape: A Love Story shines harsh light into corners others might cut. Vengeance: A Love Story is a formulaic excuse to pay Nic Cage so he could pay whoever he owed. I know "Nic Cage as a vigilante cop" may sound awesome, and I'm sure in some other movie it is, but this ain't the one. Don Johnson gives the movie's stand-out performance as a defense attorney who deserves to drown in his own gravy--and that fact is depressing.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-One of the most baffling adaptations ever. A painfully human, compellingly ugly work from an author of mind-blowing prolificacy, 150 pages of zero filler/hero killer, became a TV movie masquerading as a theatrical release. The book swept me along on a lava wave. The movie, conversely, is as engrossing as a dying lava lamp.

Look, I get the title change. But the change in focus is maddening. Vengeance is not Teena's. She's the victim, barely holding on in the wake of a vicious gang-rape that left her on death's welcome mat, in a town that's ostracized her and her young daughter for the sins of every woman. Vengeance is Officer John Dromoor's, the one-man army whose love can only be expressed through control.

Whatever you say about Rape: A Love Story, you cannot say it is shameless sensationalism. You cannot say it is a jaw-droppingly insipid, nose-to-toes failure. But when it comes to Vengeance: A Love Story, that's all you can say.

Better In Your Head?--THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP

 

Spoiler Alert: life is a battlefield.

THE BOOK-Written by John Irving, released 1978

THE MOVIE-Directed by George Roy Hill, written by Steve Tesich, released 1982

THE STORY-The world according to TS Garp is a world of omnipresent perversity. Mutilation, dismemberment, assassination, rape, dead children. In this world, consequences matter--explanations do not. 

MIND THE GAP-When not obsessing over his libido or stressing over his kids, Garp is tackling the classic writer's dilemma: pure imagination or impure memory, which lamp best lights the path? John Irving inserts selections of Garp's atrociously-titled prose, and in doing so not only proves the fallibility of the "show, don't tell" argument as it pertains to fiction, but also allows readers a glimpse of even more explicit, gratuitous tales written by a dude working through daddy issues.

Despite Irving's most strident efforts (incessant digressions, the implication that sexless=worthless) I wound up quite moved by the end. Characters not only survive a bombardment of shitballs, they evolve. Garp, especially, overcomes his self-destructive impulses and reassesses the channels through which he receives and bestows valuation.

Obsessing over a sex life not your own blows my mind. Are you? Who? When? Where? How frequently? Is it good? Is it your business, shithead?

Another book wasted on a circumspect American filmmaker. The cast does its best, so whenever the script does its worst (that fucking ending gahhhugughhhaahgua), legacies emerge unscathed. In a rare straight performance, Robin Williams shows why he's best remembered for his comedic roles. He's fine, but he doesn't come close to matching my vision of TS Garp. Too short, no beard. Mary Beth Hurt misses the mark even more aggressively. Again, the actress herself is competent, but movie Helen is a bookish pushover, softer all over than her book counterpart--barely a suitable Garp wife. 

Making her feature film debut, as Garp mom/feminist icon Jenny Fields, is the one the only the Glenn Close. Beloved butler-face John Lithgow earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Roberta Muldoon, a transsexual former NFL star who becomes Garp's best friend. Lithgow not only plays the part with heart, soul and humor, he also looks passable in drag (a feat Robin Williams never pulled off).

There's lots to like 'bout Jenny Fields. Diligent nurse, supportive mother, loyal friend. Rapist, also. Huh, what? Indeed, Garp's mom became a feminist fave after the publication of a caustically candid autobiography wherein she confessed to rape. Desirous of a baby but not of a husband, Nurse Fields used a brain-damaged ball turret gunner as a sperm donor. A reprehensible act reframed and hung alongside other activist sketches, overlooked amid countless charitable gestures. Part of me couldn't help but feel Jenny deserved every bit of her premature end. 

Did Garp deserve his? He certainly deserved better than to entangle himself with "The Ellen Jamesians," a radical feminist group whose members excise their tongues in misguided solidarity with a young, similarly disfigured rape victim. They self-diagnose the emptiness between their ears and in the center of their chests, then self-medicate with misinformation, selective reasoning, and bottles of rage. Such unreasonables are best scorned in private, and shunned in public. Garp, among other functions, exists as an example of how failure to exercise restraint can result in tragedy.

Women should never report sexual assault. Is that too extreme? Okay, how's this: women should never report sexual assault with any expectation of justice. 

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-The happy tone of the film throws me. For all the book's tedium, Irving's picaresque is superior for its bold scope, bizarre situations and brazen storytelling. Garp grows, from insufferable philanderer to empathetic father and friend who understands that not only is the dynamic between men and women changing, the dynamic must change. The film, though not bad, is de-wrinkled to its detriment. It serves best as a preview for the novel which despite its defects (three paragraphs of drivel re: condoms) is unforgettable.

Better In Your Head?--PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

 

Spoiler Alert: you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

THE BOOK-Written by Jane Austen, released 1813

THE MOVIE(S)-Directed by Robert Z. Leonard, written by Aldous Huxley* & Jane Murfin, released 1940

Directed by Joe Wright, written by Deborah Moggach, released 2005

THE STORY-Happiness is born in the head, but lives in the heart. 

MIND THE GAP-Without fear of reprisal, I declare: I'm just here for Elizabeth Bennet. Mary's too relatable for safe sustained exposure, Jane's too rosy and cozy, Catherine goes by "Kitty" (if that don't say all) and Lydia is her mother's favorite, and thus too non-relatable for safe sustained exposure.

But Elizabeth! Line-toer extraordinaire, call-out queen supreme. None of her positive qualities (wit, intelligence, vivacity) define her personality, and none of her negative qualities (pride, youthful assumption of omniscience, haste to treat rumor as fact) signal a terminal condition. The cake is well and truly hers. One chapter she's striking feminist blows, next chapter she's swooning over a man for whom she'd previously felt an unprecedented amount of distaste. And she's a daddy's girl. A sucker I am for such stuff. 

A film of Pride and Prejudice can only be as successful as its Elizabeth. The 1940 try is, in virtually every aspect, a failure. The actors are too old, the script too fluffy, and the direction too stiff. A classic example of Hollywood pillaging bookshelves for a popular story it can snatch up and water down. Laurence Olivier thought Greer Garson a poor choice for Elizabeth, and he was right, she's as exciting as a pine cone, but he was wrong for letting his frustrations spill over into his performance. No better actor has ever played Mr. Darcy, but no actor has so underwhelmed in the role. 

Oh hey, Heather Angel is in the 1940 film, blah blah, Sonic Youth reference.

The studio behind such moon-faced punter pleasers as Love, Actually and Bridget Jones's Diary presented their version of P&P ten years after a celebrated BBC miniseries gave the world wet, shirtless Colin Firth. These Bennets are bumpkins, basically. Jane isn't especially handsome, Elizabeth isn't preternaturally mature, and the parents appear fond of one another. Younger audiences responded enthusiastically, even if literary critics and Austen stans weren't so warm. Kiera Knightley became an overnight star, and her chemistry with Matthew MacFadyen excuses some iffy dialogue choices. 

Let's get back to calling women "handsome."

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-The novel's most outstanding aspect--Austen's use of "free indirect speech," wherein the voices of narrator and character essentially blend--is irrelevant in the visual medium. Both screenplays endeavored to capture the slice and shine of the original text while selling palatable product. The 2005 film does the better job, but so far as feats go, that's a fairly flat one. Perhaps no movie can offer up such grandiloquence as is found in Austen's gem and realistically expect viewers to stick around. Definitely, no movie has done justice to Mr. Darcy's ravishing synthesis of gall and gallantry, or Mr. Collins's odious obsequiousness. Safer to shoot the works on costumes.

*Yes, the author of Brave New World. Times wuz tight.

Better In Your Head?--OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS

 

Spoiler Alert: what in the illegitimate fuck?

THE BOOK-Written by Truman Capote, released 1948

THE MOVIE-Directed by David Rocksavage, written by Rocksavage & Sara Flanigan, released 1997

THE STORY-A dirty dry summer. A lonely boy. A link in a chain that must break. A ball of yarn that must be caught. By seeking a man, he becomes a man.

MIND THE GAP-Capote's first novel is a semi-autobiographical Southern Gothic magic trick. Fringe dwellers, fueled by repression and the aggression which springs forth like delirious bullfrogs at the scantiest stimulus. Golden.

The debut flick of director Rocksavage is as dismaying as his last name is awesome. I was unfamiliar with the entirety of the cast, and I yearn to return to that paradisaical time. David Speck plays pretty boy Joel Knox as well as I play ice hockey. Aubrey Dollar plays rough-hewn tomboy Idabel, a role which might've registered were it not dreadfully underdeveloped. The most pivotal character, Rudolph, is an unmitigated disaster thanks to Lothaire Blueteau, a man whose name casts everything he does and says in a dubious light. Per Capote: "Randolph speaks without any accent...his weary voice was free of regional dialects...." Bluteau, problem is, speaks in several accents here, sometimes within a single sentence. (I heard French-Canadian, Irish and Creole, a combination as palatable to the ear as a bowl of corned beef, crawfish and cheese curds is to the tongue.)

"Swamp honey" was the name of the first lesbian porno I ever watched. Hah, nah, just kidding. It wasn't the first. 

Capote's ending isn't easily absorbed. It may defy evaluation, at trail's end. Can a thirteen-year-old boy truly make such a critical decision of his own volition? Shouldn't Randolph--an adult--discourage him? Or is reaching out to a lonely soul so plainly desperate for connection the most moral move?

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Dud backwards is dud. Watching Other Voices, Other Rooms backwards is preferable, probably. What a drastic waste of my time! A movie made to collect a bet, or settle a debt. Why adapt an essentially plotless book that's 98% atmosphere created by the author's evocative gifts, anyway? And why cast actors who appear unable to comprehend the words they say and/or why they're saying those words? Why alter the ending? Wait, lemme reword: Why betray Capote's story? 

If not for obligation, I woulda shut this sophomoric claptrap off ten minutes in. Meanwhile, it took me an hour longer to read OV,OR than it shoulda 'cause I re-read particular paragraphs just to marvel over Capote's brilliance--and to hammer home the hard fact I will never, ever write so well.

Better In Your Head?--FRIED GREEN TOMATOES AT THE WHISTLE STOP CAFE

 

Spoiler Alert: never have tried. Too scared. And I've eaten raw habanero peppers.

THE BOOK-Written by Fannie Flagg, released 1987

THE MOVIE (as "Fried Green Tomatoes")-Directed by Jon Avnet, written by Fannie Flagg & Carol Sobieski, released 1991

THE STORY-Bored with her husband, scared of her children, and deprived of anyone or anything that might point her in a healthier direction, Evelyn Couch is about to go crazy. Then she meets an old lady whose memories and philosophies are every bit as edifying as they are endless.

MIND THE GAP-When in doubt...listen. Evelyn was on a one-way sugar-coated trip to the boneyard when she met Ninny Threadgoode. A motormouth nostalgia factory, Ninny longs for the old days. She waxes ecstatic about a wild-hearted, wind-spirited tomboy called "Idgie," and a clock-stopper named Ruth, who owned and operated the best damn chow joint in Alabama. And that's all it takes for Evelyn's life to change.

Entrusted with dazzling moviegoers were a first-time director and a cast headed by two recent Academy Award winners. Jessica Tandy, winding down the sterling silver phase of her life/career, is charm personified as Ninny, a sweet old lady whose refusal to relinquish the past actually bettered her present. Kathy Bates plays Evelyn, the portly pushover led out of the doldrums and into the daydreams by someone else's memories. Save for Gary Basaraba (who was born to play a cop, just not a southern one), the cast is damn flawless. Mary Stuart Masterson's Idgie is one of the few blondes (fictional or otherwise) I've ever given an "F" grade. Another Mary, -Louise Parker, hits the static target as Ruth, sugar-free tea accent aside. (I'll drink it, but I'm cracking jokes on it the whole time.) Coulda done with an entire movie of just Idgie and Ruth, livin' and lovin' in a world where cancer doesn't exist, hoppin' on trains, tossin' hams, bakin' pies and chuckin' rocks at sheet-covered cretins.

The script turns Evelyn's husband Ed from a misogynist sleaze into an oblivious, loving lump. What a great change. Bates and Gailard Sartain together are biscuits and gravy. 

Calling Fried Green Tomatoes "women's fiction" or a "chick flick" is foolishly reductive. Does a story where an abusive husband gets brained, barbecued and served up to the cop investigating his disappearance sound girly to you?

The comings, goings, and doings of a time and region where women ask for death before divorce, and men answer to "Smokey," "Inky" and "Chattanooga Red," hold limited appeal. Furthermore, stories set in the Jim Crow South are a tricky sell to modern audiences, whose distance from said bygone era, combined with a hyper-focus on identity politics, potentially mars their impartiality. Fannie Flagg is still better known for her work as an actress than as an author, and her most famous written work is uninterested in probes and ponders of society's problems. FGT is a celebration of resilience and repasts. There are no overt reckonings for the numerous racists we meet throughout...so, reader, be aware.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-I can't beat the drum too loudly for either book or movie. The script is a wisely-condensed document. Time constraints aside, the discarded vignettes weren't terribly interesting anyway. Although I prefer the book's ending by a country mile, the film more adeptly plays cat's cradle with the heartstrings. 

Evelyn Cook is easy to root for on the page; on screen, however, she becomes someone I'd die for. Enough cannot be said about Kathy Bates. By itself, the scene where Evelyn outlines her game plan as feminist crusader "Towanda" to a non-plussed Ninny as they walk down the nursing home hallway catapults the adaptation over the original.

Better In Your Head?--THE BEST OF EVERYTHING

 

Spoiler Alert: women die from illegal abortions. Don't whisper it.

THE BOOK-Written by Rona Jaffe, released 1958

THE MOVIE-Directed by Jean Negulesco, written by Edith Sommer & Mann Rubin, released 1959

THE STORY-Toughing it out in the secretary pool of Fabian Publishing Company are five ladies young and restless: Caroline, fresh off a broken engagement; country girl/city chameleon April; aspiring actress Gregg, whose tumble cries out for a dryer sheet; single mom Barbara; and painfully prim wife-to-be Mary Agnes. Don't worry about a one of them, though. See, this story takes place in the 1950s, and women in the 1950s had it easy--just bide time till Mr. Right (a gent in a gray flannel suit, most likely) saved them from a lifetime of unfulfilled ambitions and unpleasant surprises.

MIND THE GAP-In The Best of Everything, respectability is paramount. The men think too highly of themselves; the women, too lowly. Assumptions combine and create mutant misunderstandings. Now there's some social science! 

The movie rights sold before Jaffe's work hit shelves, allowing 20th-Century Fox to participate in the novel's marketing. And what of the movie? Competent cast, if not bursting with star power. Hope Lange is a winning Caroline; Martha Hyer and Diane Baker occupy opposite ends of the seesaw as Barbara and April, respectively; Suzy Parker does the most as Gregg, but that character herself does the most, so it's all well and good.*

The men fare the same--lotsa slam, no dunk. The sole outlier is Louis Jourdan, elevating the farcically-named David Wilder Savage with the charm and panache his ink-and-paper counterpart lacked. 

Oh, Joan Crawford's in this too. Bette Davis would ne--no, actually she probably would've.

No coincidence the novel experienced a rediscovery in the 2000s after Don Draper was shown flipping through a copy in an early episode of Mad Men. From slavish secretary to dynamic editor, Caroline Bender is the proto-Peggy Olsen.

Rona Jaffe wrote without an agenda. The Best Of Everything isn't about women in New York during a particular time period, it's about a few women in New York during a particular time period. Nor is it explicitly a cautionary tale, but damned if I read it as anything else. The happiest women are validated by a man's love. "Career for crib" is the shrewdest exchange. The single ladies are horny, hostile and hopeless. The holy trifecta of connection-affection-protection eludes them as a chipmunk eludes a giraffe.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-The Best Of Everything is a by-the-numbers adaptation, a soap opera with a budget. Nothing feels spontaneous, or vital. Rona Jaffe's no virtuoso, but her story vibrates with the mania of shrouded torment. Funny, how a writer on book number one outdid a director on movie number thirty-two. The sole improvement on the source--demoting average-ass Mary Agnes--is counteracted by the botching of two key storylines and the ending. The book's conclusion surprised me, yet made total sense. The movie's last frames are non-committal and dull. 

The novel holds artifact appeal. The film holds a purse in both hands and waits for a rickshaw.

 

*Everything about Gregg suggests a woman who mixes Scotch in her oatmeal and coordinates her footwear with her underwear. Who wears high heels to stalk somebody? Yeesh.

Better In Your Head?--BEING THERE

 

Spoiler Alert: ignorance never loses relevance.

THE BOOK-Written by Jerzy Kosinski*, released 1970

THE MOVIE-Directed by Hal Ashby, written by Jerzy Kosinski** released 1979

THE STORY-This is a story of Chance. Chance the gardener, AKA Chauncey Gardiner--storyteller depending. Guy's a dolt with a solid-gold heart who becomes an accidental political darling. No one knows him, yet everyone loves him, and it's clear that the man without a past will soon become the man shaping the future.

MIND THE GAP-A great satirical work is like a traffic light with all but the top bulb busted. The first strike is a fantastic premise. Being There boasts one of the best.*** Misnamed and misunderstood, Chance/Chauncey the boob-tube baby literally stumbles upward in infantile wonder as VIPs scurry to piece together his background. 

Next, you need prose that is urgent and unyielding, driven by wit, irony and exaggeration. Oops.

Luckily for the film, Peter Sellers said "yes." With no offense toward Melvyn Douglas, Jack Warden, or Shirley MacLaine, Being There is The Peter Sellers Show. He's remarkable as the man-child bestowed savior status (although the actor's own insistence he was Chauncey in real-life might suggest less of a feat). 

Chauncey Gardiner is a Capitol Critter's dream. He is not a pre-packaged deal. He does not give pat answers or ask circuitous questions. He is not a beneficiary of nepotism--in fact, his family tree was seemingly drawn out in invisible ink. This guileless, succinct, able-bodied white guy is absolutely Presidential material.

Amazing how so many viewers take the film's ending at face value, ergo making themselves the equivalent of those high-society dopes they doubtless deride. Chance is obviously walking on either a submerged pier or a sandbar. (Note that he dips the umbrella into the water at his right side, rather than behind or in front of him.)

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Being There is a short book. A short, dry, disappointing book, virtually devoid of the screenplay's lacerating wit and palpitating humanity. 

Kosinski describes gardening well, is all I'll give him.

 

 

*Rather, plagiarized The Career Of Nikodemus Dyzma by Tadeusz Dolega-Mostowicz.

**Rather, rewritten by an uncredited Robert C. Jones

***Rather, The Career Of Nikodemus Dyzma boasts one of the best premises.

Better In Your Head?--LAURA

 

Spoiler Alert: the guy you instantly think did it, did it.

THE BOOK-Written by Vera Caspary, released 1943

THE MOVIE-Directed by Otto Preminger, written by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, Elizabeth Reinhardt, Ring Lardner, Jr. (uncredited)

THE STORY-What a woman, Laura Hunt. Smart as a whip, sweet as a Singapore Sling. Dead as a dodo. Isn't she?

MIND THE GAP-Laura is a marvelous mystery, sick with suspense. The story is told through the eyes of each major player, a super way to puzzle readers as to the culprit's identity as well as the true essence of Laura Hunt. Is she sugar and spice, or snakes and stains? Masculine pride clashes with feminine chagrin in the battle for answers. 

Future legend Otto Preminger oversaw one hell of a production. As the girl who just wants to give of herself without losing herself, Gene Tierney is pure allure. Working the murder case is Detective Mark McPherson, portrayed with proper gruff restlessness by Dana Andrews. The suspects are fiancé Shelby Carpenter (a never-better Vincent Price) and mentor Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb, award-worthy). The former is a self-righteous Southern gentleman in a super-sized suit. The latter is a columnist whose glassware collection and reputation as a wit made me wonder if he wanted to be Laura, rather than be with her. 

The idea that Waldo and Laura's relationship could exist in any realm besides platonic is, to me, hilarious. Like, second season of 30 Rock-level hilarious. Nothing about Waldo Lydecker--either version--suggests a sexual interest in women. In the book, he's a dastardly doughboy, so vain, so shallow, so handicapped by jealousy and the compulsion to romanticize every aspect of his life (Laura included, for if she was a wonderful, generous soul, the people with whom she kept closest company must share those same qualities) that to show him onscreen burdened with a hundred or so extra pounds would just insult the audience's intelligence. So casting the slim Webb was an inspired choice indeed.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Otto Preminger told Vera Caspary that her Laura was a "a non-entity" and while that statement is not entirely true, nor is it laughably false. The screenplay added layers to the lady herself, allowing a glimpse into what made her the object of such affection. Not every change works so well, though. The voice-over narrative is pointless, and switching the murder weapon just baffling.

Laura, novel, is a mystery superbly told. Laura, film, is a mystery superbly shown. Simplification enriches the story, and so the adaptation surpasses the source. 

(Helping the film's case are the following lines, exclusive to it, spoken by Clifton Webb: "I cannot stand these morons any longer. If you don't come with me this instant, I shall run amok."

Better In Your Head?--THE MAN IN THE GRAY FLANNEL SUIT

 

Spoiler Alert: once you stop running, you begin learning.

THE BOOK-Written by Sloan Wilson, released 1955

THE MOVIE-Directed & written by Nunnally Johnson, released 1956

THE STORY-Behold the overextended man! He wishes to connect and disconnect at will; if only life would allow him the pleasure! Hard to play when the world runs on work. So many responsibilities to fulfill, so many obligations to honor. Maybe more money will help. Which means more work. How, after all, can a man receive more without first giving more?

MIND THE GAP-Sloan Wilson's novel penetrated pop culture basically instantly. The title became shorthand for the discontented American businessman struggling to balance the personal with the professional. Protagonist Tom Rath stood in for thousands of young, middle-class husbands and fathers who'd traded in the foxhole for the cubicle...the helmet for the fedora...the journey for the destination. Men who walked miles on the treadmill to keep flab at bay, ignorant of the views they'd lose in the process.

Beyond dropping tidy insight into still-pertinent topics (PTSD, a woman's role in a man's world, the immediate threat of war versus the gradual threat of capitalism) the novel is also highly entertaining. For the first half, anyway. For the second half, it converts to "admirable." That's not exactly going from honey to haggis, but it is disappointing Wilson couldn't sustain the momentum.

Third book in the BIYH series featuring an ink-related mishap. 

Movie followed book quickly, and audiences ate up Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones as the little couple that could (even if they shouldn't). Peck didn't fucking miss, did he? No, he didn't, and is rightly regarded as a legend in the industry. Jones, one of Hollywood's most inaccurately-ranked actresses, handles the role of "wife whose devotion does not preclude a desire for bigger, brighter and better" with endearing gumption. Frederic March does squat for me as the beleaguered boss.

Nice seeing Keenan Wynn here, two years away from beginning his mission to appear on every TV show aired between 1958 and 1994.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Sixteen years after writing one of the most famous adaptations I've no interest in covering for this series, Nunnally Johnson tackled a timely bestseller and earned enough commercial goodwill to helm four more flicks before planting himself permanently at the writing desk. Wisely, he cast established names and kept the story uncomplicated. Unwisely, he didn't challenge the novel's greatest flaw--the ending. An intended lesson in domestic compassion, the conclusion of TMITGFS shrivels under the glare of most modern lights. Worse, it undercuts the mature and fascinating material which preceded it, and left me feeling my head rested on rotten vegetables stuffed into a silk pillowcase.

Book wins, and it's not particularly close. The film's well-written, well-shot, well-scored, and well, I was bored by frame fourteen. Oddly, Peck's magnetic performance is a big part of the underwhelming feeling. Tom Rath's search for purpose is heightened or hindered by his anger and cynicism. And Peck could pull off anger...see The Gunfighter. Peck could pull off cynicism...see Old Gringo. But sometimes Peck pulled off neither...see The Man In the Gray Flannel Suit. Perhaps more a fault of the director in this case?

Better In Your Head?--FOXFIRE: CONFESSIONS OF A GIRL GANG

 

Spoiler Alert: FOXFIRE means never having to say you're sorry.

THE BOOK-Written by Joyce Carol Oates, released 1993

THE MOVIE(S)-Directed by Annette Haywood-Carter, written by Elizabeth White, released 1996

Directed & written by Laurent Cantet, released 2012

THE STORY-The "revolution" is coming! So sez Margaret Sandovksy, better known as "Legs," leader of FOXFIRE. FOXFIRE is not a girl gang, it is the girl gang. The war is over, but the battles burn on.

MIND THE GAP-FOXFIRE--yes, all caps throughout--is a patience-tester of a book. The run-on sentences and erratic punctuation have repelled multiple readers over the years. FOXFIRE is a rampaging fable of smokes, shots, stabs, subjection, and speed. FOXFIRE is an ode to motion.

The first FF film nails the motion, at least. The kinetics are relocated and updated. Instead of a tiny industrial town in upstate NY during the Nifty Fifties, the action takes place in suburban Portland during the Naughty Nineties--just in time for riot grrrl!

The core of misogyny is discomfort with proudly sexual women. And if she doesn't match the established standard of beauty, uh oh....

The FOXFIRE girls are hard to love, and harder to hate. They're teenagers, and thus still in the phase of life where the truth about truth (that it's malleability varies from person to person, from place to place) eludes them. 

Queer people are the best dancers.

Both films are sincere and well-made. One stands too close, the other wanders too far. One a touch too loud, one a smidge too soft. One amateurish to a fault, one mannered to a fault. One has no outstanding performances, while one boasts two--then-unknown Angelina Jolie as firestarter Legs and Jenny Shimizu as butch wonder Goldie. One prominently features a Candlebox song, one does not prominently feature a Candlebox song. 

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Nothing featuring Candlebox can ever hope to be better in any circumstance. But that's not the only fault with '96 FOXFIRE. In its quest to flaunt these bad news babes in the alternative age, the script dampens the very blaze in they were forged. Legs isn't some rando, she's a lieutenant, training a besotted squad in the indelicate art of dissent, nudging and biting and kicking all the way. More than a lark foisted upon schoolmates by a tough sexy drifter, FOXFIRE meant the world to these rejects. It heated their blood, chilled their sweat. The 2012 version understood this, admired it, and devoted itself to the devotion. If only it were in more adventurous hands! The book is a heavy resistance band, but if you stick with the workout, you'll definitely notice a difference.

Better In Your Head?--THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST

 

Spoiler Alert: "BYOB" means "Bring Your Old Bay."

THE BOOK-Written by Anne Tyler, released 1985

THE MOVIE-Directed by Lawrence Kasdan, written by Kasdan & Frank Galati, released 1988

THE STORY-Meet Macon Leary, the incredible shrinking man. He writes his guidebooks, tolerates his siblings, and waits to die. Then the damn dog screws everything up. 

MIND THE GAP-Of Anne Tyler's twenty-three novels, two have received the big-screen treatment. The Accidental Tourist came first and best, although in this case "best" stands for "basically entertaining, suitably tolerable." The First Lady of Baltimore Literature favors character-driven tales, heavy on family and light on story. Line for line, she's been one of America's outstanding writers for over fifty years.

The appeals lies in how easily, how artfully she puts readers into whatever world she's whipped up--even if said world isn't terribly interesting on the surface. The Accidental Tourist is, in truth, groan-worthy. Man struck by unthinkable tragedy is rejuvenated by a romance with an off-kilter woman. Oh, and he has three eccentric siblings. How'd I make it through fifty pages? The writing, of course, which is far smarter, far funnier than such a tired premise deserves. 

Director Lawrence Kasdan (justifiably more famous as a screenwriter) recruited a cat burglar's row of actors. William Hurt is Macon, the timid hero of travelers nationwide who yearn for the familiar whenever in foreign land. There's a reason this movie broke Hurt's streak of Oscar nominations. His performance is restricted to a fault, borderline narcotized, and forbids the slightest glimpse of Macon's inner life. When he smiles at the end, I slammed my Mac shut and slapped a hand over my mouth.

Kathleen Turner is sadly de-fanged as Sarah, Macon's ex-wife-to-be. The aforementioned sibs are ably acted out by Amy Wright, David Ogden Stiers and Ed Begley, Jr. Likable as lemonade, goofy as an Arnold Palmer. Apparently the film belongs to Geena Davis, who actually won an Oscar for her turn as Muriel, a dog trainer tasked with taming Macon's recalcitrant Welsh Corgi (who steals the show, incidentally). Muriel is everything Macon is not: talkative, spontaneous, brash, a woman. Further, she's a sartorial shambles, a cosmetic cacophony. She and Macon are such a mismatch that their eventual coupling comes as a surprise only if you've literally never ready any story involving adults beforehand. Opposite Hurt's non-stop monotony, of course Geena's performance stands out. On rewatch, though, it's nothing special. Not to mention, "leggy six-footer" isn't quite how I envisioned Muriel.

No, Virginia, there is not a Taco Bell in Mexico City.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-The finest movies are filling meals. (Think scrambled eggs, bacon, biscuit and coffee.) The direst features are defective snacks. (Think an under-stuffed Combo, an eye-less Peep.) A mediocre film is a chicken salad sandwich: easily digestible, utterly forgettable. I've eaten many a chicken salad sandwich, but never without daydreaming of all the other, better ways chicken can be prepared and consumed. The Accidental Tourist is chicken salad on white bread. The book, at least, is on toasted wheat.

Better In Your Head?--ALL FALL DOWN

 

Spoiler Alert: I will not be reviewing Midnight Cowboy.

THE BOOK-Written by James Leo Herlihy, released 1960

THE MOVIE-Directed by John Frankenheimer, written by William Inge, released 1962

THE STORY-Fathoming adolescent angst through a personal journal is hardly an original technique, but Clinton Williams isn't worried about prototypes and patents. He's worried about his older brother, Berry-berry, a vice-ridden, violence-prone vagabond whose misdeeds render aimless his adoring family.

MIND THE GAP-What the shit kinda name is "Berry-berry"? Oh, beri-beri is a disease? Subtle!

So much of All Fall Down is a first novel. The blatant author avatar. Riding commas like rolling waves. Flirtations with all three POVs. Shouldn't work. Does. A sorely-overlooked gem. 

Second book in the BIYH series featuring a young man who smashes a storefront window in a fit of rancid petulance.

John Frankenheimer's 1962 is a classic case of "One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other." That year, three of his films hit movie theaters: Birdman of Alcatraz, The Manchurian Candidate, and All Fall Down. What a range of subject matter! Prison, politics, problematic Midwestern American family. 

Why'd All Fall Down break the streak? Why's it nearly as forgotten as the book is these days? The cast is...good. No one does their best, since the script doesn't demand anyone's best be done. Karl Malden and Angela Lansbury are commendable as the baffled parents (save for some dramatic overkill in Act Three concocted solely for the purpose of pummeling less-perceptive viewers with the movie's messages--negligence expedites ruin! A lack of boundaries means a lack of morals!). Warren Beatty, five years away from Bonnie and Clyde, is a physical no-brainer for Berry-beri, the half-ass asshole with a killer smile. Brandon DeWilde plays sensitive, reverent little brother Clinton, and it is in his performance the script's shortcomings shine dullest. Yeah, Clinton in the book is long-winded and short-sighted but he's also sixteen. I remember that age, and no matter the differences in experiences, one desire shared by teenage boys and girls is the desire for control, illusory though it may be. As Clinton documents, Clinton discovers. Some revelations hit harder than others, such as the fact our world's packed sick with liars--his idol among them. In the movie, Clinton's journal-keeping comes off as idiosyncratic, no more meaningful than cutting the crust off of one's sandwiches. 

Also didn't help that I had flashbacks to The Final Sacrifice every time Clinton said his brother's name.

Oh what a waste, Eva Marie Saint as sweet-hearted enchantress Echo. A restorative influence for a family in dire need, she's a heart waiting to break. I never envisioned her as airy or stylized--a movie star. And yet! What a gaffe.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-The book is alive. I could feel its pulse underneath my fingertips, smell its chlorinated breath tickling my cheek. The film merely lives, a prosy little thing. Watch Midnight Cowboy instead.

Better In Your Head?--M*A*S*H

 

Spoiler Alert: Laughter is the best medicine. Unless you have an infection, in which case antibiotics are best.

THE BOOK (as "M*A*S*H-A Novel About Three Army Doctors")-Written by Richard Hooker (pseudonym of H. Richard Hornberger & W.C. Heinz), released 1968

THE MOVIE (as "M*A*S*H")-Directed by Robert Altman, written by Ring Lardner, Jr., released 1970

THE STORY-Displeased, distrustful and dis damn close to snapping, the wisecracking caregivers of the 4077th U.S. Mobile Army Surgical Hospital spend their days in between Hell and Purgatory. The stakes are high and the laughs are lowbrow.

MIND THE GAP-One outstanding difference between M*A*S*H and Catch-22--this ribald war comedy made noise in three mediums. Why?

   1. The average doctor is more interesting than the average soldier.

2. Cynical humor holds greater appeal than humorous cynicism.

For all its flaws (laugh track, Mike Farrell), the TV show ended an eleven-season run with the most-watched episode of a scripted series.

Donald Sutherland and Tom Skerritt are varying levels of tolerable as the new cutters at camp, Captains Hawkeye Pierce and Duke Forrest, the Yankee and the Georgia Peach. Robert Duvall, the second-best actor from the state of Maryland, is utterly wasted alongside Sally Kellerman. Elliott Gould pops up rocking a look that suggests a luckier Jim Croce.

Poor taste runs rampant. One characters refers to himself as "a victim of homosexuality" which is right up there for me with Big L's verse in "Platinum Plus" as instances of homophobia so ridiculous I can't possibly get mad/offended. 

If nothing else, M*A*S*H gave the world a great blog name.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-M*A*S*H the film and M*A*S*H the TV show are much more fondly recalled than M*A*S*H the novel. (Contrast this with the continued classic status of Heller's Catch-22, while the film is widely viewed as an inessential entry in a great director's filmography, and the 2019 miniseries so blandly handsome of course George Clooney is heavily involved.) Shame. It's for sure worth a visit, a funny flyweight of a book, a better way to pass the time than the surprisingly average film. Nichols wanted so badly to craft a Keaton-esque triumph and wound up with cheap, cloddish drivel. The only difference between M*A*S*H and Porky's is the pesky ongoing war in the background.