Bylines Essays! Raise Your Standards!

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	Bylines Essays: Title/Subject/Author
	501) The Big Red One/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Having seen the original version of Sam Fuller’s The Big Red One, years ago, on television, I could see glimmers of something far grander, but did not know what it could be, and given the callowness of my youth, even had I known what was missing, I could not have mentally interpolated back what the studio that financed the film, Lorimar, had cut. Fuller was basically a B film auteur.... Fuller rocks! 502) Soylent Green/DVD Review/Dan Schneider In terms of the arts, the 1970s were a very turbulent era. In literature and the visual arts, it was the closing of a great fifty or sixty year period of creativity that has yet to be restarted. In music it was a decade that many see as a low point, due to corporate rock and disco. On television it was a Golden Age for situation comedies, from The Odd Couple to the Mary Tyler Moore Show to MASH* to All In The Family, but in film it was even a greater period of creativity, in all genres, that saw the rise of the American auteur.... Chuck rocks! 503) Black Orpheus/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Marcel Camus’s 1959 French film, Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro), made in 1959, in Portuguese, is by no means a great film, but it is a landmark film; an odd amalgam of modernity and the worst stereotypes about black culture worldwide.... So-so. 504) Vertigo/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Watching the films of Alfred Hitchcock reminds one of the fairy tale of Goldilocks And The Three Bears. Not so much in the actual filmic nature of the art, but in the critical reception accorded the films. As example, some of the films that are labeled masterpieces, like Psycho or The Birds, are just right in their assessment. Other films that are critically neglected are, in fact, among Hitchcock’s better films, such as Rope and Frenzy.... Hitchcock's most overrated film. 505) Frenzy/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Have you ever wondered about what a famous artist’s work would be like if they were living in the present age? Imagine Van Gogh living in Los Angeles, or Dante writing of the military debacle in Iraq. Well, imagine what Alfred Hitchcock- either of the early British thrillers or 1950s vintage era Hollywood classics, would be like if he were given a free hand in the 21^st Century..... Hitchcock's most underrated film. 506) Filmatic 4/Conversation(s) With Other Women/Dan Schneider One of the principle requirements of a good/great film is the ability to make the audience forget they are watching a movie. In his feature debut, Conversation(s) With Other Women, director Hans Canosa has the script and actors needed to accomplish this suspension of belief but decided to make it blatantly obvious to the viewer that they are, in fact, watching a movie.... Talking and talking.... 507) American Genius/Book Review/Kirpal Gordon Lynne Tillman has written a wild ride of a book. In American Genius she brings to the dramatic monologue, that old warhorse that’s covered many a literary waterfront, much of the whacked-out wit, subversive schtick and psycho-anarchy reminiscent of performance art as it has been practiced in lower Manhattan over the last thirty years.... What others say.... 508) Grace Paley/Short Fiction/Dan Schneider The very things that have made Grace Paley a terrible poet unfortunately affect her bad fiction as well. She is preachy, pedantic, and damns any notion of advancing skill or craftsmanship over screeding and speechifying. And it’s doubly a shame because her earliest stories showed some potential, however limited, but even more drive.... Oy gevalt! 509) Haruki Murakami/Book Review/Dan Schneider Haruki Murakami is one of the most well known Japanese novelists still living, but his small collection of six short stories, After The Quake, is a good intro to this writer. The book’s stories revolve around the brief time between a January, 1995 earthquake that devastated the city of Kobe, and the terrorist poison gas attacks in a subway a couple of months later in Tokyo.... Super-Frog rules. 510) 3 Women/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Robert Altman’s 1977 film 3 Women, which he wrote and directed from a dream he had, is not a bad film, but not a great film either. It is one of those films, ala Robert Browning, whose reach exceeds its grasp, but not in the good way. It is intended to work on a dream level, yet it is too realistic in its detail for much of the film to be seen as all dream, and not quite bizarre enough to be real dream, especially in its far too forced, and ultimately failed, ending.... Altman goes 2001. 511) Opening Night/DVD Review/Dan Schneider John Cassavetes’ 1977 film Opening Night is, what critics usually call the work of such a significant artist, ‘overlooked’. It is an excellent film, in its own right, and one of the best portraits of a midlife crisis ever put to film. It’s not a perfect film, in that, at two hours and twenty four minutes it’s about a half hour too long, and there’s a bit too much emphasis on the drunkenness of the lead character Myrtle Gordon, played by Gena Rowlands, the wife of Cassavetes, long after we’ve gotten the point.... Cassavetes in top form. 512) Mein Kampf/Book Review/Thomas Healy Mein Kampf is one of the most remarkable and disturbing books of the twentieth century. It was perhaps the only book that really mattered during the Third Reich, becoming something of a secular bible of National Socialism. Millions of households kept a copy of it on their bookshelves, and it was frequently presented as a gift at weddings and graduations. It is a book that continues to deserve scrutiny because it constitutes the vision of Adolf Hitler. It contains the basic elements of his ideology, most of his plans, and much of his character.... Taking on the plan. 513) Diary Of A Country Priest/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Robert Bresson’s 1950 breakthrough film, Diary Of A Country Priest (Journal D’Un Cure De Campagne), is one of those films that is absolutely antithetical to everything a Hollywood film stands for. It is obsessive, detailed, slow, and opaque. This, however, does not mean it is a great film, as so many knee-jerk critics claim it is. It is not; but it is a very interesting film.... Suicide? 514) Forbidden Planet/DVD Review/Dan Schneider When one thinks of 1950s science fiction films one thinks of the sort of schlocky black and white B films that were parodied on the old Mystery Science Theater 3000 television show. Yet, while there were far more films like Plan 9 From Outer Space and Robot Monster than good films, the 1950s did have some very good, if not great, science fiction films like The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, War Of The Worlds, and The Thing From Another World. Yet, the best of the bunch, for its literacy and production values, was undoubtedly MGM’s first big foray into A level science fiction, Forbidden Planet.... Robby rules. 515) The Bad Sleep Well/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Akira Kurosawa’s 1960 black and white film, The Bad Sleep Well (Warui Yatsu Hodo Yoku Nemuru), is often compared to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but it’s an inapt comparison for, while Shakespeare’s play has a higher sense of poetry, Kurosawa’s film has far more relevance, realism, and complexity, even if, like Hamlet, it’s a high class melodrama. The film was written by Kurosawa and four collaborators.... Unheralded masterpiece. 516) The Decalogue/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Art that can claim greatness deals with complex issues in complex ways. If the answers or questions posed were simple they could be framed in a single sentence, or a ten second film, then the art would not be its own best explanation. This thought stuck with me as I watched Krzystof Kieślowski’s complex and fascinating, if flawed, The Decalogue, illuminating aspects of the Ten Commandments from the third, transitional phase of his career, which included this 1988-89 Polish television series, filmed in 1987 and 1988, as well as the two subsequent feature films derived from episodes five and six.... Hit and miss. 517) Regeneration/DVD Review/ Dan Schneider In 1998 I saw a great war film that was lost in the glare of the nearly simultaneous American film releases of Terrence Malick’s remake of The Thin Red Line- which is a great film, and Steven Spielberg’s cliché and stereotype-dripping Saving Private Ryan.... Butchered film- a crime against art! 518) Vincent And Theo/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Vincent & Theo, a 1990 film by director Robert Altman, may be the worst film ever made by a major director who has made a great film. Watching this two hour and twenty minute abomination left me, and my wife, stunned by its wretchedness. From the nonexistent narrative, to the indulgence of every artistic cliché imaginable.... A crime against art- period! 519) Brotherhood Of The Bomb/Book Review/Dan Schneider In the world of historians, Daniel J. Boorstin stands head and shoulders above all lesser writers in that nonfiction genre, much as Loren Eiseley and, to a lesser extent, Stephen Jay Gould, reign supreme as literary craftsmen in the sciences. This thought was inescapable to me as I read yet another in a prolix series of books about the historic import of scientists.... Zzzzz.... 520) Amarcord/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Federico Fellini’s 1973 Amarcord is a film that has often been linked with Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny & Alexander as films by old men looking back on their youth. While this is true, in the main, the fact is that Amarcord has a loose narrative structure, in which the lives of many characters are detailed in comic vignettes, whereas Fanny & Alexander is a straight drama.... Fellini at his best worst. 521) Fanny And Alexander/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Why Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s 1982 final ‘filmic film’, Fanny & Alexander (Fanny Och Alexander), bears the appellation it does is a mystery- one of many in the film, since the first titular character, Fanny (Pernilla Allwin) is a third or fourth level supporting character at best, and in the three hour theatrical version of the film she is not even mentioned by name for nearly an hour into the film.... Ingmar goes home again. 522) No Tokens Accepted/Book Review/SuZi That which is taboo has been so much a part of literature – even American literature – that taboo topics are truly an artistic tradition. Unfortunately, serious consideration of stigmatized topics still arouses much social ire; there are plenty of provincials who become apoplectic if their padded-room, never-neverland nostalgia shows a gossamer reality. It is because of these minions of vitriol that art is shackled and gagged in our current climate. Because we live in a decade of deep deception, the corporate purveyors of culture push forth various marionettes programmed to please. Don’t be fooled by such tokenism.... Gay lit. 523) Downfall/DVD Review/Dan Schneider In the annals of film, the greatest screen portrayal of an evil world leader was undoubtedly Anthony Hopkins’ 1995 turn as President Richard M. Nixon in Oliver Stone’s Nixon. Within five to ten minutes of one’s first glimpse of Hopkins- a Brit who looked and sounded nothing like the 37^th American President, one almost forgets what the real Nixon looked like. But, now there’s a contender who could knock Hopkins off his perch- or at least give him a good fight, and that is Bruno Ganz’s turn as Adolf Hitler in the 2004 Academy Award nominated Best Foreign Language Film from Germany.... Hitler and co. 524) Everyday People/DVD Review/Dan Schneider In 2004 HBO Films decided to try their hand at the polemical subject of race in New York. Usually, this results in ill wrought PC crap like Spike Lee’s 1989 fantasy, Do The Right Thing. Instead, they crafted an improvisational workshop concoction called Everyday People, about the closing of a fictive Jewish deli and restaurant.... Underrated. 525) The Jimmy Show/DVD Review/Dan Schneider In order to be a good critic one has to rise above one’s personal biases. Period. If one cannot get past hating love stories or action films, then one should not practice the craft, because there are good films that are mere love stories or action films. It is the excellence of the film, and how it achieves its excellence, that is more important than what sort of a film it is. This basic lack of understanding how to separate one’s likes from the objective ability of art to effectively communicate, is why most critics fail in their task.... More underrated. 526) Satyricon/DVD Review/Dan Schneider The best way to understand director Federico Fellini’s audacious 1968 film Satyricon (also known as Fellini Satyricon, because 1967 saw the release of Satyricon by fellow Italian filmmaker Gian Luigi Polidoro) is within the context of its year of release. That pivotal year saw the release of such indelible film classics as The Graduate, Planet of the Apes, Night Of The Living Dead, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.... Overlooked. 527) The Double Life Of Veronique/DVD Review/Dan Schneider The Double Life Of Véronique (La Double Vie De Véronique) is the 1991 French-Polish film by Krzysztof Kieslowski, written by himself and Krzysztof Piesiewicz that was the presage for the greatness of the Three Colors Trilogy (Blue, White, and Red), and was an international sensation at both the Cannes and New York film festivals.... Overrated. 528) I Am Curious/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Time is the great leveler of all things, but most especially so in the arts. This Ozymandian verity applies to the great and the petty. There are works of art and artists that go ignored in their own time, because they are ahead of the field- think Gerard Manley Hopkins, Franz Kafka, or Emily Dickinson, to name the obvious.... Way overrated. 529) Gates Of Heaven/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Roger Ebert is perhaps the most famous film critic in America. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his writing. It should be noted, however, that that award was for the writing, not his analytical skills. What separates Ebert from most published critics is that he is better with words than most.... Ok. 530) Marnie/DVD Review/Dan Schneider After his back to back commercial and critical triumphs of Psycho and The Birds, Alfred Hitchcock decided to go ‘interior.’ By that, I mean he decided to get unfortunately Freudian in his approach to crime, as he had throughout his career. Unfortunately, all but a few of his films suffer from their reliance on the outmoded and simplistic approaches to psychology that he employed. One of them was Marnie, his 1964 color follow up to the two terrific films mentioned at the start, starring his The Birds female lead, Tippi Hedren.... Rape? 531) Signs Of Life/DVD Review/Dan Schneider No filmmaker’s career has been more defined and structured by the musical choices he has made than German film director Werner Herzog; and this claim is evident from his first full length feature, 1968’s Signs Of Life (*Lebenszeichen), which he made when he was twenty-four and released when he was twenty-five, after writing the script when he was twenty-one, but getting the idea for it, he claims, when he was fifteen or sixteen. Oddly, the film also gives a story credit to someone named Achim Von Arnim.... Great from the get go. 532) Straw Dogs/DVD Review/Dan Schneider* If there has ever been a more over-interpreted and stolidly misinterpreted film than director Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 Straw Dogs, I’ve yet to encounter it. Yes, films like Citizen Kane and 2001: A Space Odyssey have had more ink spilled over them, but most of the ideas tossed about are on the money, and far less is read into them. Also, they have one big thing going for them that Straw Dogs does not. They are great films. While Straw Dogs is not nearly as good a film as its hagiographers claim- for Peckinpah had all the subtlety and psychological depth of a sledgehammer.... Overrated. 533) Deliverance/DVD Review/Dan Schneider New on the Fox Network: When Good Movies Go Bad! Or, a review of John Boorman’s 1972 film Deliverance.... Ridiculous. 534) Late Spring/DVD Review/Dan Schneider If one were to think of an equivalent to the film style of director Yasujiro Ozu it would have to be long novels suffused with detail, but never superfluous detail. Books such as Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick- with its descriptions of the whaling industry and vessels, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes Of Wrath.... Masterful. 535) A Woman Under The Influence/DVD Review/Dan Schneider John Cassavetes was one of those rare artists of whom it could be said that his flaws were his strengths, and his strengths were his flaws. On a purely technical level, his 1974 film, A Woman Under The Influence, is not a very good film. It is often poorly lit, edited, and at times poorly acted, almost as badly as Cassavetes’ own Minnie And Moscowitz. Yet, there are moments when its dramatic power rivals that of his first great triumph, Faces, or any other work of drama.... Ok. 536) Even Dwarfs Started Small/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Werner Herzog’s black and white 1970 film, Even Dwarfs Started Small (Auch Zwerge Haben Klein Angefangen) is one of those films that is beyond such grounded definitions as good and bad, and, like its American predecessor, Freaks, is simply one of the oddest films ever made. Bad critics have praised it for all the wrong reasons- such as being a statement on politics, the Vietnam War.... Weird. 537) Juliet Of The Spirits/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Federico Fellini’s first color film, 1965’s Juliet Of The Spirits (Giulietta Degli Spiriti), which was written by Fellini and longtime collaborators Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Rondi, is, simply put, the female and color companion piece to 8½. Unlike that prior film, often considered Fellini’s best.... Weird (in color!). 538) Clouds Of May/DVD Review/Dan Schneider I am usually very wary when people recommend art to me- be it a poem, a book, or a film. Usually they are in love with a certain work or artists, and are blinded to its manifest flaws because of some emotional attachment to it. It’s the first poem that ever touched them, it’s the first book that gave them the secret to life, or it’s the first movie where a girl ever allowed them to grope her breasts without screaming.... Potential. 539) Stan & Ollie/Book Review/Dan Schneider The one thing I’ve always wanted to know about the comedy team of Laurel And Hardy was, who was the straight man? If one thinks of all the other great comedy teams of the Twentieth Century, the answer is obvious. Moe Howard was the straight man for Curly Howard and Larry Fine in The Three Stooges, Zeppo Marx was the straight man for Groucho, Harpo, and Chico in The Marx Brothers, and Bud Abbott was the straight man for Lou Costello in Abbott And Costello (for my money the best comedy team of all time, because while their slapstick was the equal of any other team, their verbal repartee was nonpareil). Even in television, the roles are always clearly defined. Tony Randall was the straight man for Jack Klugman in The Odd Couple, and Desi Arnaz was Lucille Ball’s straight man in I Love Lucy. Perhaps the only other comedy team where the straight man role was not clearly defined was The Honeymooners’ pairing of Jackie Gleason and Art Carney.... Who's straight? 540) Empire Falls/Book Review/Dan Schneider I first encountered Richard Russo earlier this year when I saw tv ads for a miniseries based upon his bestselling book Empire Falls. It looked little better than the atrocious Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet In Heaven miniseries. A few months later I came across reams of his short story collection, The Whore’s Child, in a book discounter, and was amazed at how poorly the tales’ opening and closing paragraphs were.... Richard Russo sucks. Period. 541) Floating Weeds/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Yasujiro Ozu was perhaps the greatest obsessional filmmaker in history. Thus, it’s no surprise that not only did he rework the same themes over and again in his films, but that he also redid earlier films of his own years later, such as 1932’s I Was Born But... as 1959’s Good Morning. The most famed examples of this trait are 1934’s silent black and white A Story Of Floating Weeds (Ukikusa Monogatari), written by Ozu and Tadao Ikeda.... Ozu rules. 542) The 400 Blows/DVD Review/Dan Schneider In 1959 a pair French films were released that became the twin pillars of the New Wave (Nouvelle Vague), and were instantly hailed as classics. One, Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (A Bout de Souffle), was a bad film, and the other, François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups), was a good film. Neither, however, can really be called great cinema, despite their reputations. That said, Truffaut’s film is far better than Godard’s because it mostly avoids overt clichés, even as its screenplay- its weakest element, written by Truffaut and Marcel Moussey, often bogs down in anomy. Like Godard, Truffaut shot his film in black and white, and indulged the real world, as well as doing long takes, to try to feign naturalism, even though these were often outcomes of necessity not choice, borne out of lack of financing rather than artistic vision..... Frogs on parade. 543) The Return Of The Secaucus 7/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Independent filmmaker John Sayles’ debut film, The Return Of The Secaucus 7, released in late 1979, is a film that is typical of the low budget feel of such films from that era- even such horror films like Last House On The Left or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Like those other films it is filled with inexperienced and mediocre acting, and unrealistic dialogue. Before this film was made, Sayles had been a screenwriter and script doctor for Roger Corman’s cheapo horror films. This film, however, was the first that bore his own imprint and vision. Unfortunately, the excellence of his later films only points up the flaws of this first film, written and directed by Sayles on a low budget. Like many low budget indy films, this film is long on talk and short on action and visual razzle-dazzle, and was filmed at a New Hampshire lodge.... So-so start for Sayles. 544) Hume's Fork/Book Review/SuZi The quintessential function of comedy is didactic: it seeks to teach by the most powerful of persuasive tools –the chuckles and the guffaw. In order to induce a giggle, the voice of the narrator must ally and unify the point of view of the audience with that of witness, so that all ears envision the action from the same angle. Any disenfranchisement from this unity will result in the death of the joke; all possibilities for experiencing the lesson are lost. Any good griot can hold an audience enraptured. The profit for the audience is not only the joy of the joke, but the ecstasy of enlightenment potentiated by the story’s climax.... Tuning? 545) Belle De Jour/DVD Review/Dan Schneider There was something about the 1960s that brought out a playfulness in filmmakers which allowed them to not have to condescend to audiences and wrap up every little aspect of the film in a neat little bow. When the films’ techniques and narrative strengths worked, as in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blowup, or Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, the result was a great film. When neither worked, the result was a pretentious mess, like Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby or Luis Buñuel’s Belle De Jour- his 1967 foray into color film, based upon the same titled novel of Joseph Kessler, released in 1928.... Oo-la-la! 546) Maids Of Wilko/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda’s 1979 film Maids Of Wilko (Panny Z Wilka- also translated as Young Girls Of Wilko) shows that, like such filmmakers as Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, and Yasujiro Ozu, he is an artist more interested in endurances than mere ‘scenes.’ His characters speak as if philosophers, but in a naturalistic style. They are not the hyper-educated bourgeoisie of Bergman, the spiritual elitists of Bresson, nor the everyday philosophes of Ozu. Yet, there’s something more to them, and Wajda, than what is on the screen, even if the film, as a whole, fails to reach great heights.... Babes aplenty. 547) Ordet/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Denmark’s Carl Theodor Dreyer was one of the great auteurs of early cinema, and such masterpieces as Vampyr and Day Of Wrath attest to that fact. Many critics, however, have hailed either his earlier silent film, The Passion Of Joan Of Arc, or his later Ordet (The Word) as his greatest work, and while I’ve never seen the earlier film in a full reatoration, having just watched Ordet I can say, uncategorically, that it is not in a league with Vampyr nor Day Of Wrath. This is not to say that the film is a bad one, but it is nowhere near a great one.... Night Of The Living Christians. 548) The Known World/Book Review/Dan Schneider Edward P. Jones wrote a terrific book of short stories in 1991, Lost In The City, that was justifiably critically praised, for nine of its fourteen tales are great, but it was forgotten until his 2003 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning novel, The Known World, came out. Then his publisher, Amistad Press, rushed to reprint the earlier work, to cash in on the publicity, after years of pulping old copies. It is ironic, because in this edition of the novel, the best writing in the whole book comes from an epilogue that reprints perhaps the best of those tales.... Poor blacks. 549) Native Son/Book Review/Dan Schneider Richard Wright’s 1940 novel, Native Son, violates two of the basic tenets of modern MFA dogma. The first is that it starts off very slowly, then builds up a powerful narrative steam (although not of the simplistic plot-driven variety), and the second is that it is a tale that overwhelmingly ‘tells’ what is happening, rather than ‘showing’, which violates all the simplistic MFA workshop prohibitions against same. Yet, it is a great novel- despite some flaws in length and occasional descriptive lapses into banality, because, by its end, and the courtroom speeches for and against the protagonist- a killer and rapist named Bigger Thomas, your average reader is wholly involved in the vortical scenario.... Dead black. 550) The Hidden Fortress/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Those film viewers who equate foreign films with pretense need to sit down for a couple of hours and watch director Akira Kurosawa’s first widescreen (Tohoscope) film, the black and white The Hidden Fortress (Kakushi-Toride No San-Akunin- literally The Three Villains Of The Hidden Fortress), from 1958. While it is a very good film, it is a great movie- in the feel good sense of the term. Filmmaker George Lucas claims this film was the inspiration for his third rate Star Wars films. Yes, there are a handful of similarities, but ‘influence’ is usually used when a great work of art is influenced by an equal or lesser work of art, not when bad art rips off greater art. In short, influence occurs in evolution, not devolution, and Lucas’s claims bear the stench of a lesser artist trying to parasitically sponge off a greater artist’s reputation.... George Lucas sucks. 551) The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie/DVD Review/Dan Schneider John Cassavetes’ The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie is a film that is one of those overlooked gems that is not only a great film, but a great record of its time, even if it might have more properly been titled The Murder Of A Chinese Bookie. As much as I love the early, raw films of Martin Scorsese- who reputedly thought up this tale with Cassavetes a few years earlier, no film I’ve ever seen so perfectly captures the mid-1970s Underworld.... Noirish supreme. 552) Through A Glass Darkly/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Ingmar Bergman’s 1961 film, Through A Glass Darkly (Såsom i en spegel), is not one of his best films, although it is one of his most lauded, winning an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. That said, it’s quite a good film that simply has not held up that well over the years as a de facto Chekhovian drama- partly due to the melodramatic acting of its lead character, Karin (Harriet Andersson), but more importantly because its handling of psychology and religion seems quite dated, in light of what we now know about mental illnesses and the structure of the brain.... Yawn. 553) Winter Light/DVD Review /Dan Schneider Winter Light (Nattvardsgästerna- literally The Communicants) is the middle film in Ingmar Bergman’s Spider Trilogy (as it too references the God as a spider imagery), following Through A Glass Darkly, and preceding The Silence. Made in 1963, it represents a dramatic notching upward from the well made, but often melodramatic and symbolic, Through A Glass Darkly. Where the first film of the trilogy suffers from the overacting of Harriet Andersson, and some over the top displays of incest.... Supreme Socrates. 554) The Silence/DVD Review/Dan Schneider The last film of Ingmar Bergman’s Spider Trilogy, The Silence (Tystnaden), is not as good as the film which directly preceded it, Winter Light, but is closer to it, in quality, than the trilogy’s comparatively weak first film, Through A Glass Darkly. This is because the weak link in Bergman’s filmic repertoire is his ability to handle sexuality. Through A Glass Darkly has the most of it, Winter Light is nearly void of it, and The Silence has a bit of it, although not nearly as much as the lurid American trailer for the film would suggest.... Ssssh. 555) Gertrud/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Apologists for bad art almost always speak of ‘intent’, and, in a similar vein, bad critics always try to justify their ‘liking’ a bad film by praising it obliquely, often using words like ‘abstract’ in place of ‘dullness’, or calling a boring film an ‘etude’, even if it is trite. Such is what one will find if one reads the reviews for Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer’s final film Gertrud, made in 1964. Well, my advice to such critics is to look past the bullshit and deal with what is really onscreen. Gertrud is a bad film, and is one in a long line of bad ‘last films’ made by great filmmakers. Recently, I watched Ingmar Bergman’s final film, Saraband, and it was a black mark on an otherwise sterling career. While this film is not as bad as that, it’s close, and Dreyer did not have nearly as many great films to his credit as Bergman has to offset his failure.... Oy! 556) White Teeth/Book Review/Dan Schneider I get really tired of the bland sort of reviews that pass for negative criticism. You know what I mean. In it, a reviewer who is scared shitless of making an enemy of a writer, or a publishing house, writes a few mild rebukes of the writer, but comes around in the end to praise the writer as being terrific, as a writer and person, and that it was just this book, or a portion of it, that failed.... Yawn and hurl. 557) Amadeus/DVD Review/Dan Schneider In all the years since its release, I’d never seen the 1984 Oscar winning best film Amadeus, partly because classical music did not interest me, and partly because I have an aversion to ‘period dramas’, and all their costumery. As the years have gone on, and my wife has nagged me to see this favorite of hers, I finally gave in and bought the two DVD Director’s Cut version, released in 2001, of this biopic on the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.... Pretty good. 558) Brinkley's Beat/Book Review/Dan Schneider David Brinkley was an important figure in the history of television news. But, that fact has no consequence on the fact that the man was not a particularly good writer. Before his death in June of 2003 he penned a slim book for Alfred A Knopf called Brinkley’s Beat: People, Places And Events That Shaped My Time, which consisted of minor essays on topics that concerned his career in journalism.... Yawn. 559) The Life Aquatic/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Screenwriter and film director Wes Anderson has made a career out of quirky films that have a rabid following, but offer little depth. He rarely pushes himself, and why his latest film, 2004’s The Life Aquatic, With Steve Zissou was considered worthy of treatment by The Criterion Collection, which usually reserves its accolades for films of stature- both American and foreign, is a puzzle.... Still Bill Murray. 560) The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Perhaps I was five or six when I first snuck into one of the cheapo movie theaters off of Myrtle Ave, in Queens, to see The 7^th Voyage Of Sinbad. Or, perhaps I saw it first on WABC-TV’s The 4:30 Movie, or late night, on Chiller Theater or Creature Feature. Regardless of when I first saw it, I was immediately hooked on the Ray Harryhausen special effects. Even in this day of CGI effects, I still prefer the older films.... Still a joy. 561) Where The Green Ants Dream/DVD Review/Dan Schneider There are three distinct styles of German director Werner Herzog’s films. There are his great, deep, and memorable fictive films- such as Aguirre: The Wrath Of God, The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser, and Fitzcarraldo, there are his smaller evocative documentary-like films- such as Fata Morgana, Little Dieter Needs To Fly, and Grizzly Man, and then there are his unclassifiable films- such as Even Dwarfs Started Small, Heart Of Glass, and 1984’s Where The Green Ants Dream (Wo Die Grünen Ameisen Traümen). Whereas Even Dwarfs Started Small is an enigmatic study on Fascism that is beyond evaluation on a normal scale, and Heart Of Glass was filmed with its actors hypnotized, Where The Green Ants Dream is an odd concoction that mixes all three of Herzog’s styles.... Herzog lite. 562) Hour Of The Wolf/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Vargtimmen (Hour Of The Wolf), a 1968 film by Ingmar Bergman, proves the nostrum that even lesser work by a great artist, surpasses the better work of lesser artists, for Bergman can get more from the prosaic, or even nothing, than almost any other director. Almost all the creepiness that a viewer feels watching this film comes from scenes, that in other circumstances, would be banal, even dull.... Howling. 563) The Fearless Vampire Killers/DVD Review/Dan Schneider One of the overlooked things about most of the vintage 1960s and 1970s Hammer Studios horror films is that they were quite funny, often in an unintentional way. Yes, Christopher Lee had a certain charm, but is it not true that he was also far more grandly silly than scary? Looking back on those films, they certainly do not hold up as well as even the Universal Bela Lugosi takes on the genre, much less superior vampire films like the silent F.W. Murnau classic Nosferatu, Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr, nor Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu, Phantom Of The Night. No, the Hammer films were always more along the line of the non-George Romero zombie flicks- full of hammy acting, bad gags, cheap effects, few scares, but a ton of laughs- not unlike the same era’s Godzilla films.... So-so? 564) La Strada/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini’s 1954 black and white film La Strada (The Road) is one of those films that is midway between his early Neo-Realism and his later Magical Realism, with touches of both aplenty. It made both him and its female lead, his wife Giulieta Masina, stars, won the 1954 Venice Film Festival’s top award and the 1956 Best Foreign Picture Academy Award, yet there is something missing from it. It is a good film, arguably a very good or near-great film, but it is definitely not a great film.... Fellini gets great. 565) North By Northwest/DVD Review/Dan Schneider The addition of pretense can be a killer in a film. It is precisely the lack of such a quality that makes Alfred Hitchcock’s two and a quarter hour long 1959 color thriller North By Northwest a better and more enjoyable film than his preceding film, Vertigo, even if the film comes nowhere near the excellence of his following film, Psycho. Whereas the two films that end in –o attempt to impose a deeper psychology into their screenplays.... Hitchcock gets Grant. 566) Distant/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s 2002 film Distant (Uzak)- his third feature film (his first was 1997’s black and white The Small Town- Kasaba), is a significant step up from his good but flawed 1999 film Clouds Of May (Mayis Sikintisi). The earlier film had potential, but reeked of a small budget and improvised quality in the worst ways- plot holes and wooden acting from amateurs. That Clouds Of May succeeded on any level was a testament to Ceylan’s talent.... Ceylan gets great. 567) Things Behind the Sun/DVD Review/Dan Schneider The best way to kill a technically well made film is through a bad screenplay. Exhibit 1A: filmmaker Allison Anders’ 2003 Showtime film Things Behind The Sun. Ostensibly based upon Anders’ real life ‘trauma’ of being raped as a child, the film wallows in every manner of cliché on the subject of victimhood imaginable, as well as wasting some fine performances, save that of the ever PC and increasingly hyperbolic Don Cheadle, whose performance here presages his terrible role in last year’s Oscar-winning Crash.... Anders gets PC. 568) The Caulfield Boy/New Take/Max Raskin For many a misunderstood introvert, seeing “fuck” and “phony” for the first time in print is a remarkably heady experience; not surprisingly, The Catcher in the Rye is an extremely popular novel among teens. The novel is so admired that it has bred a class of young Holden Caulfield sycophants, desperately trying to emulate this demigod of malcontent. This reverence is misplaced. When first reading Catcher it might appear that Caulfield’s carping has some validity.... Catch this, Holden! 569) The Passenger/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1975 film, The Passenger (Professione: Reporter in Europe, and at one time called Fatal Exit), written by Antonioni, Peter Wollen, and Mark Peploe, is a terrific film that falls just shy of some of his truly great films like La Notte, L’Eclisse, and Blowup. That’s because, despite Antonioni’s usual visual brilliance, daring use of silences, and a unusually reserved performance from Jack Nicholson.... Jack's back, or not? 570) Short Cuts/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Short Cuts, the three plus hour long film written and directed by Robert Altman (with co-writer Frank Barhydt), based upon a series of short stories by Raymond Carver, is an odd film. It’s not a bad film, nor is it even remotely a great film- the only two sorts of films that the hit (Nashville) and miss (Vincent And Theo) Altman has plenty of experience with. The nine stories and one poem.... Carver carved. 571) Good Morning/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Of the Big Three Japanese film directors from last century, who were known in the West, Kenji Mizoguchi, Akira Kurosawa, and Yasujiro Ozu, Ozu is by far the least well known, and this is because he was probably the least technically innovative of the troika. But, that is not the same as saying he was the least accomplished.... Ozu farts. 572) Smiles Of A Summer Night/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Ingmar Bergman’s 1955 comedy Smiles Of A Summer Night (Sommarnattens Leende) was the film that first garnered him international recognition. It would be a couple of years before The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries cemented his reputation as an international film auteur, but looking back on this film, over a half a century later, and half a world away, it only shows how differently tastes in humor can be.... Ingmar laughs. 573) All The President's Men/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Alan J. Pakula’s 1976 hit film All The President’s Men is as good an example of a filmmaker as craftsman as there is. Pakula was never a great director/auteur, a man with a ‘vision.’ Rather, he was a journeyman filmmaker who tried to best shape whatever scripts came his way. The film is a good one, but it falls shy of greatness.... Nixon plots. 574) The Dead/Comment/Norman Ball Stalin once said- in prescient anticipation of the personal interest story- kill one man and it’s a story; kill one million and it’s a statistic. People seem oddly unfazed when yet another American GI dies in Iraq. Kidnap a soldier however (or in this case, three) and all hell breaks loose.... Media yawn. 575) American Idol/Season 6/Dan Schneider The 6^th season of American Idol was the worst since its first season- in terms of talent level and excitement. Yes, the eventual winner, Jordin Blake- a seventeen year old prodigy, has far greater long term potential than that season’s winner, Kelly Clarkson, but if one looks at the last seventeen year old to make the finals, Season 3’s Diana Degarmo, it’s clear that Jordin was a cut below in talent level, even if she has more marketing potential.... Yawn.... 576) Early Summer/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Early Summer (Bakushû) is the middle entry in what has been called director Yasujiro Ozu’s Noriko Trilogy (bookended by Late Spring and Tokyo Story). All three films feature women named Noriko (all played by Setsuko Hara), who are without husbands, and embroiled in family dramas. The names of many of the other major characters recur in the trilogy, as well, which gives the films a feeling of almost being alternate world versions of each other.... Masterful. 577) The Wild Bunch/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Director Sam Peckinpah’s two hour and twenty-five minute long 1969 Western classic, The Wild Bunch, is certainly an influential and important film, but, compared to the other great Western released that year, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West, it has not held up nearly as well.... Wild, really? 578) The Searchers/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Films, like artists or authors, tend to have their critical reputations wax and wane through a few cycles until a consensus is finally reached. Of course, consensus has little to do with real world excellence or failure, but as good an example of this trend as can be shown certainly is John Ford’s famed 1956 John Wayne Western, The Searchers. Upon its initial release, the film made a solid profit, and was considered a good film.... Still looking. 579) Cat People/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Every so often there comes an artist who works in a disrespected genre, yet who has enough talent and vision to almost make that whole genre seem respectable; at least in his own takes on it. And, when two such artists get together, their synergy is even greater. Such was the fortuitous pairing of film producer Val Lewton (née Vladimir Leventin) and film director Jacques Tourneur.... Meow! 580) Chester Himes/Collected Stories/Dan Schneider In reading The Collected Stories Of Chester Himes I was reminded of another short story writer who made his name in the 1930s and 1940s as a social realist writer, and then made his mark writing pulpy novels toward the end of his career. That writer was Irwin Shaw, and while he was a superior short story teller to Himes, Himes is still a good writer.... Damned Good. 581) It Happened One Night/DVD Review/Dan Schneider It is a very rare thing when a light-hearted comedy, something that is quintessentially the stuff of a ‘good movie,’ breaches into that territory where the term ‘good film’ can also be applied, but Frank Capra’s 1934 film It Happened One Night may be an exception. Today, most people know Capra solely for his rediscovered classic It’s A Wonderful Life, made a dozen years later.... Colbert meows. 582) The Monolith Monsters/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Perhaps it is all because of Grant Williams. Williams was a B film actor who was best known for his starring and titular role in The Incredible Shrinking Man, generally acknowledged as one of the most literate and high quality B sci fi films from the 1950s. In watching the DVD of his next noted film, The Monolith Monsters, I was struck by how well written a film that film is also, even as it is another B sci fi film. No, Williams’ role in the 77 minute black and white film, from 1957-as was The Incredible Shrinking Man, is not as important as his role in the prior film.... Tinker Toys? 583) Lit Fiction/Good?/Paul Burga The stories reviewed come from The 2005 Best American Short Stories. Why 2005? Why not? Each year the overall quality of the collections is basically the same.... Yawn.... 584) Let's Eliminate High School/Idea?/Joe Reese As a career teacher (college, high school, elementary school—the list is long), I'm always interested in proposals to improve our educational establishment. Frequently these proposals stipulate that we just get tougher, and expect more from our students. Yesterday I read a suggestion that high school students be required to take four years of English, four years of math, three years of social studies, three years of science, and two years of a foreign language.... Radical, dude! 585) THX 1138/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Many years ago I came across a VHS tape of THX 1138, the first film from George Lucas, released in 1970, and was amazed by it- not only for what it was, but because of who was responsible for it. It certainly was unlike any other film he subsequently made- the lightweight American Graffiti and the Star Wars films, both in tone and quality. It was more like a Samuel Beckett work than the schlock that his later films represented.... Lucas in form. 586) The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter/Book Review/Dan Schneider Not long ago I was blown away by the 1943 novel, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, which tells the tale of the Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, during the first twenty years of the 20^th Century, via the life of a young girl named Francie Nolan. That book was the debut novel of a woman named Betty Smith, who was nearing fifty when she wrote it. A few years earlier, in 1940, the debut novel, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, of another woman, made an equally big impact, yet its author, Carson McCullers, was less than half the age of Smith.... Aces. 587) Heat And Other Stories/Book Review/Dan Schneider When one thinks of the great mysteries in life one is often drawn to the spectacular, such as whether or not aliens in UFOs have landed or whether or not there ever was an Atlantis, or to the deep, such as what is the meaning of existence. Yet, just as great a mystery, to me, at least, is how a writer like Joyce Carol Oates has first gotten into print, and second, stayed there.... Joyce howls. 588) Knife In The Water/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Roman Polanski is at his best as a filmmaker when he focuses on the realist and small moments of horror in a human life. When he goes a bit overboard, and into the grotesque or surreal, such as in The Fearless Vampire Killers, or: Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck, Rosemary’s Baby, or Chinatown, his films tend to lose their way, even if still good.... Roman rocks. 589) Cries And Whispers/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Cries And Whispers, (Viskningar Och Rop) a 1972 film of Ingmar Bergman’s, which was consistently and highly lauded around the world, upon its release, is not a great film, nor anywhere the masterpiece that it’s claimed to be. That said, it’s not a bad film, merely an interesting and lesser one from his oeuvre that is laced with some very odd moments, some really bad moments, and some cringingly self-conscious moments.... Ingmar scowls. 590) Le Petit Soldat/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Le Petit Soldat (The Little Soldier) was the second film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard, pioneer of the French New Wave of filmmaking, and after the unexpected success of his first film, Breathless- a banal, poorly acted, and dull attempt at (or satire of?) film noir, this second film was greeted with a swift banning in France- for its portrayal of the similar way Right and Left Wing terror groups behave, and the fact that it had an implicitly anti-war message at a time when the French were trying to hold on to their colonial power in Africa during the Algerian War.... Godard gets better. 591) Throne Of Blood/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Akira Kurosawa’s black and white 1957 film Throne of Blood (Kumonosu Jô- literally Spider-Web’s Castle) is a very good film, but not quite up there with the best of his films, like Seven Samurai, Ikiru, nor The Bad Sleep Well, despite its vaunted adaptation from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. That said, the hour and forty nine minute long film, written by Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Ryuzo Kikushima, features one of the best performances by its star, longtime Kurosawa leading man Toshirô Mifune.... Sharp! 592) Taste Of Cherry/DVD Review/Dan Schneider There is the old, and often neglected, nostrum about ‘gilding the lily.’ I was reminded of this watching Abbas Kiarostami’s acclaimed 1997 film Taste Of Cherry (Ta’m E Guilass), co-winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, for while it comes close to being a great film for the bulk of its running time of 99 minutes (not the oft-claimed 95 minutes), its much discussed ending, of breaking the fourth wall.... Bitter? 593) The Mole People/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Sometimes bad films get reputations that they thoroughly deserve- like Plan 9 From Outer Space, Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, or Robot Monster. These films are so ineptly staged, directed, written, and acted, that they are actually very funny, if not good. Sometimes bad films get reputations that they do not deserve- in the sense of being thought of as good or even great films. These are notoriously lauded films that do not even have the kitsch factor of the aforementioned films. They are dull, plodding, and preachy.... Oy! 594) Colossus: The Forbin Project/DVD Review/Dan Schneider There was a time, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when science fiction films seemed to be emerging from their cult status, and into the mainstream as films that could express the deepest and highest aspirations of mankind in ways that mere literary sci fi could not. There were a plethora of intelligent films in that era. Yes, there had been intelligent sci fi in the decades before. In the 1930s, there was William Cameron Menzies’ Things To Come, based upon the H.G. Wells tale.... Better than expected. 595) Lightning Over Water/DVD Review/Dan Schneider The more that I watch of the 1970s New German Cinema (Das Neue Kino) the more manifest it becomes that, despite the usual namedropping of Wim Wenders, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Werner Herzog as a trio, it truly was only a one man movement, and Herzog is and was so far above and cinematically dominant over his two rivals that to speak of the lesser two in the same breath as Herzog is like mentioning the Gawain poet whilst going on of John Donne’s or William Shakespeare’s poetic skills.... Exploiting the near-dead. 596) The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Werner Herzog is a nonpareil filmmaker. Yes, one might argue that a Stanley Kubrick or an Ingmar Bergman, a Federico Fellini or an Akira Kurosawa, were greater directors of films, but all of them have a more fundamental connection to the central- if not conventional, core of the art of filmmaking. Herzog is farther off into his own cinematic dimension than any other director. If there can be such a thing as instinct into so rigorous an art as filmmaking, then Herzog is as close to a pure beast in that art as one can get.... Exploiting the mentally ill. 597) Grand Illusion/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Jean Renoir’s 1937 black and white film, Grand Illusion (La Grande Illusion), is often bandied about with Citizen Kane on the list of all time great films, but unlike that film, Grand Illusion was a commercial and critical sensation from its initial release. While both are arguably great films, neither is really within sniffing distance of any mythic top spot. Both have flaws, but Grand Illusion has more flaws than Citizen Kane and is clearly the lesser film, although it’s still certainly a very good film. It was written by Renoir- son of the famed Impressionist painter Auguste Renoir.... The Frogs. 598) The Stuff Of Thought/Steven Pinker/Dan Schneider Take One: Steven Pinker is the premier purveyor of the parsed poesy of plain prose. No, that won’t do. No matter how accurate that statement is, its excessive alliteration is bound to sound too cutesy for such an engaging read as his latest foray into the way mankind thinks and speaks.... Aces the words! 599) Fearless/Tim Lott/Jessica Schneider I’ve always believed that a great children’s tale is a great tale. When thinking of the great works in children’s literature, one might think Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, or E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web or Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass.... Mediocre. 600) An Artist Of The Floating World/Jessica Schneider Kazuo Ishiguro is a Master of the novel. No wait, I’ll go as far as to say he’s one of the best novelists ever to have written in the English language. I’ve just finished his 1986 published novel An Artist of the Floating World, and I have to say that it is one of the best books I’ve ever read about an artist. In so many ways, Ishiguro breaks all the rules when it comes to storytelling, and it is for that very reason why his prose is so great. I first encountered Ishiguro when I read The Remains of the Day, which was a great book. I was pleasantly surprised by how great the writing was, that I went ahead and sought out more of his books. Although I believe The Remains of the Day to be a great novel, as great as it is, An Artist of the Floating World is even better.... Master. 601) The Wrong Man/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Alfred Hitchcock was the consummate Hollywood director, in that his films had high production values, big name stars, were immaculately composed and scored- usually by Bernard Herrmann, as in this film, yet they also tended to lack heart, or real human emotion. They were all basically plot-driven vehicles.... Solid. 602) Love And Death/DVD Review/Dan Schneider It’s an odd thing to experience art fresh and then re-experience it with greater knowledge about it and its sources. As example, as a Woody Allen fan I’d watched his terrific 1975 satire Love And Death, filmed in Hungary and France, probably ten or twelve times, fully getting all the references to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s and Leo Tolstoy’s works, but I had never been in the position of viewing the film having knowledge of all the sly European cinema references; especially those which poke fun at Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s canon.... Pisser. 603) Night And Fog/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Let me get this out of the way. I am not an Anti-Semite. And Night And Fog is not a good documentary, assuming it can even be called a documentary.... Downer. 604) O. Henry/Book Review/Dan Schneider O. Henry is famed for his ‘twist’ endings, and as such, many of his short stories fall into a formula. That said, it’s a pretty good formula, and if more writers that are published could find themselves a formula that works as well it would be alot better world to read in. Yet, even the best of formulae lend themselves to needless repetition and predictability. While there are a handful of tales that are great, most are merely solid, for O. Henry lacks a modern feel to his character development. In one tale he can be as realistic as turn of the Twentieth Century fiction can be and in the next he can give merely slight caricatures and corny sight gags.... Classic. 605) War-Gods Of The Deep/DVD Review/Dan Schneider War-Gods Of The Deep is one of those films whose title really makes no sense, but is right in keeping with the whole tenor of the film. It was made in 1965, the first of the famed American International Pictures post-Roger Corman Edgar Allan Poe-themed horror and sci fi films of the 1960s, that started with The House Of Usher in 1960, and was a part of the Big Four of horror and sci fi films of that era.... Classic schlock. 606) Minnie And Moskowitz/DVD Review/Dan Schneider All choice entails risk, therefore John Cassavetes’ artistic choice to structure his films based mostly on improvisation rather than hard scripted dialogue is a decision that can result in great films, like his Faces, ok films like his Shadows, and bad films, like his 1971 film, Minnie And Moskowitz, an awkwardly written and poorly acted comedy.... Classic schmaltz that fails. 607) Undertow/DVD Review/Dan Schneider When does the seep of an artist’s talent get to be too much? Is it the first time he ‘sells out’, or the third, or when all of the early potential has drained away? This was what I was thinking as I watched David Gordon Green’s third filmic effort, Undertow, an hour and forty-eight minute effort released in 2004. Oh, it’s not a bad film, but all it is is a stylized, updated version of Night Of The Hunter, and that was a vastly overrated mediocrity of a film.... Modern crap. 608) Contempt/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Of the films I’ve seen so far of French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard, his best is 1963’s Contempt (Les Mépris), adapted by Godard from Alberto Moravia’s novel Il Disprezzo, published in English as The Ghost At Noon. That statement should not be taken as an acknowledgement of greatness, for although this is his best film, it is not close to being a great film for, despite a gorgeous aping of the Michelangelo Antonioni style of shooting.... Classic mediocrity. 609) Amy Hempel/Book Review/Dan Schneider Over the years I have encountered and criticized many sorts of bad writers, from hack poets like James Tate and Donald Hall, to greeting card doggerelist Maya Angelou, to literary necrophile Thomas Steinbeck, to the deliterate prose of writers like Dave Eggers and David Foster Wallace, who cannot even construct competent nor compelling sentences, to prose hacks like T.C. Boyle, Richard Russo, and Joyce Carol Oates, who wallow in cardboard characters and clichés, and even to ‘fuck me’ writers like Jhumpa Lahiri and Nell Freudenberger, yet none of them were as consistently overhyped as the short fiction of Amy Hempel.... Oh shit! 610) Roma/DVD Review/Dan Schneider The 1972 film Roma, by Federico Fellini, lies somewhere between his 1968 film Satyricon and his 1973 film Amarcord, not only chronologically, but creatively (The Clowns, from 1970, is a minor work, by comparison). It is a picaresque film, as both the other films are, and has some of the heightened imagery and poesy of Satyricon, while possessing Amarcord’s humor and jabs at Fellini’s Fascist era youth.... Fellini on high. 611) Camera Buff/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Krzystof Kieslowski directed one of the more interesting self-reflexive films in 1979, when he filmed Camera Buff (Amator- literally Amateur), his second feature film, which runs an hour and fifty-two minutes. It is the one which made him a known commodity in the filmic world. While not a great film, it is a bit more successful a film than other fare from that era, such as his own Blind Chance, from 1981.... Ok. 612) Flatland/DVD Review/Dan Schneider This year has seen the release of two films based upon Edwin Abbott Abbott’s great 1884 novella Flatland: A Romance Of Many Dimensions. One calls itself Flatland: The Movie, and is a half hour long animated educational film featuring the voices of Martin Sheen and Michael York, while the other is a lower-budgeted 99 minute long film called Flatland: The Film. This is an independent animated feature that has many good points, but just as many bad points. Neither film is the first adaptation nor re-envisioning of Abbott’s brilliant Victorian era satire.... Misusing a classic. 613) Nights Of Cabiria/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Before Federico Fellini became the audacious and surrealistic film auteur of the 1960s he was a lauded and accomplished Italian Neorealistic film director of the 1950s, more in league with Vittorio De Sica and Lucchino Visconti, and no film better represents this era of Fellini’s art than his sterling 1957 film Nights Of Cabiria (Le Notti Di Cabiria), written by Fellini, Tulio Pinelli, and Ennio Flaiano.... Making a classic. 614) Landscape In The Mist/DVD Review/Dan Schneider There is a superlative scene in Theo Angelopoulos’s 1988 film Landscape In The Mist (Τοπίο στην ομίχλη or Topio Stin Omichli) that is amongst the best filmic depictions of sexual abuse ever shown, and should be shown as a primer to Hollywood directors on how to be subtle and poetic, especially when dealing with such terminally PC topics. In it, the young ten or twelve year heroine of the film, Voula.... Theo in high gear. 615) The Yards/Film Review/Joe Valdez Leo Handler (Mark Wahlberg) returns to Queens after serving a sixteen month prison sentence for auto theft. Guests at his welcome home party include his buddy Willie (Joaquin Phoenix), his ailing mother (Ellen Burstyn), his aunt (Faye Dunaway) and his cousin Erica (Charlize Theron), who has become Willie’s girlfriend, in spite of a history she once had with Leo.... Marky-Mark takes off. 616) Winter Kills/Film Review/Joe Valdez On a cargo vessel off the coast of Malaysia, Nick Kegan (Jeff Bridges) is visited by Keifeitz (Richard Boone), the do-dirt man who works for Nick’s father, owner of the shipping company, among other global interests. Keifeitz has with him a man in bandages (Joe Spinell) who wants to confess: he was the gunman responsible for killing Nick’s half-brother - President Kegan - nineteen years ago from an office tower in Philadelphia.... Interesting. 617) Blondes/Dumb?/Jessica Schneider So I saw something recently on CNN that was addressing the tired question of whether or not blondes were dumber than people with darker hair colors. Even Paris Hilton made the point that every decade there is at least one blonde that the culture fusses over, and now she is that blonde. Just where does this stereotype stem? From Paris to Anna Nicole, to Pam Anderson, to Britney Spears, to Marilyn Monroe, all have exuded that ‘dumbness’ quality in some way or other, which leads me to ask, what came first?.... The question. 618) Birth Control/The Pill/Jessica Schneider There aren’t a lot of discussions about this, and from what I gather, few men know much about the birth control pill and all the side effects that go along with it. To assume that any and every female can just ‘go on the pill’ as a reasonable form of contraception is untrue. Many women and their systems cannot handle it, and suffer terrible side effects from it. I was one of these people, and I thought I would share my experience.... Jess explains it all. 619) Sofia Coppola/Hack?/Jessica Schneider Last night I watched the film Marie Antoinette, directed by Sofia Coppola, and it was a really bad film. What irritates me though, is that this film, directed by a person who has only gotten where she is due to her lineage, now has convinced me that she really has no talent as a filmmaker. I’ve never seen The Virgin Suicides, and I’m one of the few who appreciated and defended her film Lost in Translation as being something that shows ‘potential’, even though the fact that she won the Oscar for the writing is ridiculous.... The end? 620) Bad Luck/Sucks!/Jessica Schneider I’m depressed. Why? For the past ten months I’ve been having literary foreplay with a literary agent who told me she thought I was a ‘terrific’ writer, had excellent credentials and that she loved my work. She loved it so much that throughout this time, we spoke twice on the phone, and I shared with her 3 of my manuscripts. It seemed like she was pretty focused on having me as a client. That is, until last week when she told me no. Her reasons? She didn’t think she could sell my work to a major New York publisher.... So do agents! 621) The Knock At The Door/Book Review/Jessica Schneider For anyone who has ever wanted an introduction to the Armenian Genocide, reading Margaret Ajemian Ahnert’s memoir, The Knock at the Door, would be a good place to start. The book deals with Ahnert’s mother, Ester, and how at the ages of fifteen through nineteen, the Armenian girl has to endure starvation, beatings, and rape—yet manages to survive. This story, based on the stories that Ester relayed to Ahnert, talks about how the Armenians were forced out of their houses.... Death abounds. 622) The Painted Veil/DVD Review/Joe Valdez In 1925, British couple Kitty Fane (Naomi Watts) and Dr. Walter Fane (Edward Norton) travel by sedan chair through interior China. In flashbacks to London, we learn that Walter is a bacteriologist who runs a government lab in Shanghai. He woos Kitty, an attractive, but immature girl. She has no romantic feelings for the serious doctor, but accepts a marriage proposal to get away from her mother.... Chinese intrigue. 623) Crumb/DVD Review/Dan Schneider I recently came across a DVD version of Terry Zwigoff’s lauded documentary Crumb, and bought it because I recall how perversely fascinating I found it on a first go-round, when I saw it in the theaters with a pal of mine over a decade ago. However, upon rewatching the film, the first thing that stands out about it is how poorly it has held up as a filmic ‘portrait of an artist’. In the intervening years, documentaries such as The Kid Stays In The Picture, American Splendor, and Mayor Of The Sunset Strip have used narrative and filmic techniques that make Crumb seem downright quaint and formulaic, by comparison.... Overrated. 624) Variety Lights/DVD Review/Dan Schneider If you have ever wondered why Federico Fellini’s film 8½ was called 8½, the reason is simple. It was the eighth full film he had directed, till that point, along with a ½ film credit, which was his debut effort, 1950’s co-direction in the 97 minute long black and white film Variety Lights (Luci Del Varietà), along with Neo-Realist film directing veteran Alberto Lattuada. The film’s story and screenplay, however, were both penned by Fellini, and the most manifest thing about the film is its similarity to the Hollywood film All About Eve, released the same year.... Fellini starts. 625) Heart Of Glass/DVD Review/Dan Schneider German filmmaker Werner Herzog is not an artist to be underestimated, even in his lesser films, like 1976’s Heart Of Glass (Herz Aus Glaus) because his films tend to have a cumulative power, in that they get better with each successive viewing. Ok, technically, the films are the same, but because they are so dense, layered, and multifarious, an appreciation and understanding of them is almost inevitable with a second or third viewing- one of the benefits that foreign films, and films with DVD commentaries afford and reward viewers with.... Herzombies! 626) Lifeboat/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Sometimes greatness can be achieved in a singular way, even if the totality of a work of art is not great. This came to me upon watching one of my dad’s all time favorite films, and one which I have watched several dozen times in my life- Alfred Hitchcock’s 1944 black and white Lifeboat, which is also one of the three or four best films Hitchcock ever made, and did receive Academy Award nominations for Best Direction, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Screenplay. While I am not a rabid devotee of Hitchcock.... Tallulah takes no prisoners! 627) A Certain Kind Of Death/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Where would contemporary documentaries be without the Michael Moore style of self-promotional agitprop, or without PBS’s Burns Brothers’ solemnly historical talking heads and recitations form of docudrama? Well, back to straightforward journalistic techniques, of the sort employed in the outstanding 70 minute long 2003 documentary from directors Grover Babcock and Blue Hadaegh.... Docudrama to the max. 628) Heaven's Gate/DVD Review/Joe Valdez In Cambridge, Massachusetts, the 1870 graduating class of Harvard College - including James Averill (Kris Kristofferson) - are bid a speech by their class orator (John Hurt), in which he refutes the high minded ideals laid down by the reverend doctor of the university, and merely advises his classmates to rise no further than each of them are capable.... Underrated? 629) The Zookeeper's Wife/Book Review/Jessica Schneider I have to say that I was pleasantly pleased after having read Diane Ackerman’s latest non-fiction book, The Zookeeper’s Wife. This is my first time reading anything of hers, and I was also surprised to find that she has talent as a poet. I say ‘surprised’ because more often than not, those who claim to have written poetry really don’t succeed at it very much at all, but Ackerman, who has a nature bent to her work, possesses both literary quality and a good sense of historical and scientific background, which makes this book work.... Interesting. 630) Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore/DVD Review/Joe Valdez In Socorro, New Mexico, 35-year-old Alice Hyatt (Ellen Burstyn) is a nervous housewife who referees battles between her husband and their smart mouthed, 11-year-old son Tommy (Alfred Lutter), who lays on the floor between speakers blasting Mott the Hoople. To push Dad’s buttons further, Tommy puts salt in the sugar bowl and is chased out of the house. But fate intervenes, and Alice and Tommy find themselves on their own.... Scorsese gets serious. 631) Curse Of The Cat People/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Rare is it when a sequel outshines its original film. Rarer still is it when that sequel and the original are both considered B films. Films like Terminator 2: Judgment Day, or Aliens, have been posited as greater than the first films in those series, although there are good arguments back and forth, but they were both big budget A films. In watching Val Lewton’s RKO produced, 1944 black and white, 70 minute long masterpiece.... Masterpiece. 632) Transcendental Style In Film/Book Review/Dan Schneider Filmmaker Paul Schrader, whose most cogent claim to fame is as the screenwriter for Martin Scorsese’s classic film Taxi Driver, got his first ‘in’ to the world of film with the publication of Transcendental Style In Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer, a book which has been lauded as a seminal work of criticism, upon its 1972 release, but which the years have not been kind to.... Bad book. 633) Schulz And Peanuts/Book Review/Jessica Schneider I am really glad I decided to review Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis. I had known a bit about Schulz in the past, in that he was somewhat a reclusive and quiet person, as well as melancholic. I had also wondered to what degree Charlie Brown played a part in being Schulz’s ‘alter ego’, and now after having read the book, I see how much a part his personal life made its way into his comic strips. Schulz, despite being a notorious self-doubter, knew from an early age that he wanted to be a comic strip artist.... The man? 634) Fire In The Blood/Book Review/Jessica Schneider I was interested in reading the second American released fiction work by Irene Nemirovsky whose book Suite Française had achieved much popularity—mainly due to the author’s tragic death. She died in Auschwitz in 1942 just shy of turning 40. Now in this novella, called Fire in the Blood (also translated from the French by Sandra Smith) I have a bit better indication of where Nemirovsky stands as a writer. My main criticism with Suite Française was that despite showing some glimmers of talent, structurally the ‘novel’ was a mess.... Eh? 635) Chris McCandless/Hero or God?/Jessica Schneider I am feeling a little agitated. Ok, so I found out that on September 21, 2007 the release of Into the Wild will be coming to theatres, and then opening nationwide in the U.S. on October 5^th. What is this all about, you ask? His name is Chris McCandless.... The questions. 636) A Generation/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Sometimes films get reputations way out of proportion with their artistic merit simply because they expound a point of view that the public, or critics, like or agree with. Such is the case with the first feature length film from Polish film legend Andrzej Wajda. Released in 1955, the 87 minute long black and white film A Generation (Pokolenie), is not a particularly good film.... So-so. 637) Little Dieter Needs To Fly/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Little Dieter Needs To Fly is another in the remarkable body of Werner Herzog’s filmic work that is without peer. Having recently rewatched it on DVD, nearly a decade after its initial US release in 1997, it has lost none of its power, and one can see its influence on documentaries as diverse as Herzog’s own recent Grizzly Man and Errol Morris’s Academy Award winning The Fog Of War.... Herzog on top. 638) Il Grido/DVD Review/Dan Schneider So much attention has been paid to Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni’s later New Wave films that his earlier Neo-Realistic films of the 1950s have been overlooked, as if the work of merely a talented tyro. But, even though he was not as consciously ‘experimental’ in those films as he was in the films of the L’Alienation trilogy.... Excellent. 639) A Passion/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Ingmar Bergman’s 1969 film A Passion (En Passion, misnomered in America as The Passion Of Anna) is a great film, and out of the series of late 1960s films (also including Persona, Hour Of The Wolf, and Shame) dealing with relationships and the self, it may be the best. It stars many of the Bergman retinue of actors: Max Von Sydow as Andreas Winkelman, Liv Ullman as Anna Fromm, Bibi Andersson as Eva Vergerus, and Erland Josephson as Elis Vergerus.... Great. 640) US Guys/Book Review/Dan Schneider If there is one thing more depressing than bad writers, it is bad critics, who are clueless as to what constitutes bad writing. As example, how many blurbs for books have you read that basically state: ‘’I knew exactly where this story was going from page 7, and loved every banal minute of the book.... Insightful. 641) Fitzcarraldo/DVD Review/Dan Schneider I first watched Werner Herzog’s 1982 film Fitzcarraldo back in the late 1980s, on PBS, and found it to be a great film. All these years later I still find it to be a great film, if not quite in a league with Herzog and Klaus Kinski’s other most famed filmic pairing, Aguirre: The Wrath Of God. The earlier film, made a decade before.... Magnifico. 642) A Decade Under The Influence/DVD Review/Dan Schneider In 2003 the Independent Film Channel produced a nearly three hour long three part documentary called A Decade Under The Influence (a nod to the 1974 John Cassavetes film A Woman Under The Influence), about American cinema during the 1970s. The general posit of the film, co-directed by Ted Demme and Richard LaGravenese.... Ugh. 643) The Virgin Spring/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Ingmar Bergman’s 1960 film The Virgin Spring (Jungfrukällan) is, despite its winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1961, one of his lesser outings. Part of this is, no doubt, due to the fact that the bulk of the film was not written by Bergman, but by novelist Ulla Isaksson.... Ok. 644) 20 Million Miles To Earth/DVD Review/Dan Schneider 20 Million Miles To Earth is visual effects wizard Ray Harryhausen’s 1957 black and white interplanetary King Kong remake, as well as a tribute to his stop motion photography mentor Willis O’Brien. No, it’s not a direct analogy, but there are so many scene for scene knockoffs from Kong that one must believe that only Harryhausen could have gotten away with so much theft.... Ymir or not? 645) James Emanuel/The Poems/Whinza Ndoro Any experience can be turned into art, and great art at that, if you learn to clarify, translate then craft it against the modulation of certain abundant silences. In his Whole Grain, Collected poems 1958-1989, James A. Emanuel attests to this dictum in poem after lively poem, that future generations (as some now have luckily noted) see will rival the best of Rilke, Stevens, Frost, Hayden, Plath, (Judith) Wright and Hikmet.... An assessment. 646) Unspeakable Writings/Terry Southern/Dan Schneider Let me state up front, one of the greatest films ever made, in any genre or form, and one of my all time personal favorites, is Dr Strangelove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb. Stanley Kubrick’s Camelot Era satire on mutually assured destruction and nuclear brinksmanship is not only one of the funniest films ever made, but one of the most important. Its brilliant screenplay was penned by Terry Southern.... Ugh! 647) Eternity And A Day/DVD Review/Dan Schneider The 1998 film by Greek director Theo Angelopoulos, Eternity And A Day (Mia Aioniotita Kai Mia Mera or Μια αιωνιότητα και μια μέρα), is not merely another film about a supposed poet wherein the art of poetry and the act of poesizing are never on display. Yes, it’s true that, technically, neither are onscreen, but it is a superior film about a supposed poet wherein the art of poetry and the act of poesizing are never on display.... Yea! 648) The War/DVD Review/Dan Schneider In regards to art, greatness is not merely a difference of scale, but a difference of kind, in that the elements that constitute greatness force an almost alchemical change in the nature of the beast. The brushstroke, wordly coinage, motion of the camera, or whatever it is that constitutes the given art, becomes more than the brushstroke, wordly coinage, or motion of the camera. There seems to be an almost ineffable rise in the ability to invoke reaction from the art’s percipients, and while certainly not supernatural, the great art and the great artist is a cut above, even if the mechanism of the ascendancy is not immediately evident, even to the most astute critic.... So-so. 649) Japan's War, In Colour/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Recently, the PBS network ran Ken Burns’ 15 hour magnum opus, The War, about America’s involvement in World War Two, and while it was a passable effort, detailing the war from our point of view, both militarily and on the home front, there was a great deal of room for improvement, stylistically, and in the effective use of music on the soundtrack. That said, a few days back, my wife and I were in a Best Buy, looking for cell phone plans, when I passed by a DVD rack, looked down, and glanced a DVD called Japan’s War In Colour- an hour and a half long documentary.... Great. 650) The Mind Of The Market/Book Review/Dan Schneider Michael Shermer has a new book coming out in early 2008, titled The Mind Of The Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, And Other Tales From Evolutionary Economics. Shermer is perhaps the foremost skeptic in the land, and founded Skeptic magazine. He has written a number of excellent books in the past- Why Darwin Matters, Denying History, and Why People Believe Weird Things, to name a few. The Mind Of The Market is also a well-written book, but it is not in a league with the others.... Silly ideas, well wrought. 651) On James Emanuel/New Perspectives/Josh Rouen Reading through the poems of James Emanuel that have been collected here, I was both enlivened and saddened – enlivened because that is always my response to great poetry, and saddened because these poems have yet to find a wide and appreciative audience. That a poet of such quality has been neglected while lesser poets earn awards and titles speaks clearly to the wretched state of American letters. But this review is not meant to lament the current state of poetry, but rather to highlight one of its great living artists.... Another take on an old fave. 652) Turning The Wheel/Book Review/Dan Schneider Charles Johnson is a fictionist best known for his award winning novels like Oxherding Tale, Middle Passage, and Dreamer. He is one of the rare published writers and intellectuals willing to publicly state his displeasure with the current low state of American writing. Yet, despite his novels and short story collections, Johnson is also an essayist and Buddhist.... Solid. 653) Au Revoir Les Enfants/DVD Review/Dan Schneider In 1987, Louis Malle, after a run of American produced films that worked (My Dinner With Andre, Atlantic City) and failed (Pretty Baby, Crackers), decided to return to his roots and write and produce a small budget French film, Au Revoir Les Enfants (Goodbye, Children) about a supposedly true experience he had as a child.... Adios kiddies. 654) James Emanuel/Book Review/Neil Hester So ends the one-page Preface, brief and concise, for Emanuel, unlike so many poets, does not need a list of awards and accomplishments to justify his worth as a poet; instead, his worth as a poet is justified by – believe it or not – his poetry. And yet, this is rarer than one would think in a time rife with poor writers, and poor critics to match, for, instead of sifting for gold, critics are inclined to shovel dirt and rocks into a homogenous pile and paint it gold with worthless praise.... Another take. 655) James Emanuel/Book Review/Anthony Zanetti The poetry of James Emanuel first presented itself to me on the website Cosmoetica, which featured his poems on its Neglected Poets page and discussed his work in several essays. Lines from poems like “For a Farmer” or “Sonnet for a Writer” slowly worked their way into my mind, lingering in my thoughts as a result of their images, word choice, or insight.... Another take. 656) Kafka On The Shore/Book Review/Jessica Schneider This is the first time I’ve ever read a novel by Haruki Murakami. I’d read a collection of his short stories called After the Quake a while back and found them to be good. So I wanted to try one of his longer works. Overall, I have to say that this is one of the most unusual books I’ve ever read. He delves into both the real and surreal, the dream and waking—that you are not sure which world you are in.... So-so. 657) Young Stalin/Book Review/Dan Schneider Because I was interested in learning some history behind Josef Stalin, I wanted to read Simon Sebag Montefiore’s Young Stalin. As the title reveals, the book deals with Stalin’s early years and how he eventually evolved into a megalomaniac. Although I think this book would make an excellent film.... The killer smiles. 658) Mr. Deeds Goes To Town/DVD Review/Dan Schneider There is a tendency amongst some to think that all the art produced by a great artist is great. This is false, but it gives cover for bad critics who just recycle old blurbs and tendencies about the artist. Think of the unthinking and fawning that goes on in discussions of Shakespeare.... Classic. 659) Major Dundee/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Sam Peckinpah’s 1965 western Major Dundee is a near-great film that has a checkered history. The tale of its mangling by the studio that took it out of Peckinpah’s hands is as well known as the butchery that accompanied Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons or Touch Of Evil, or Erich Von Stroheim’s Greed. But, Columbia studio’s restored 136 minute long DVD version of the film really shines.... Neglected classic. 660) The Saddest Music In The World/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Guy Maddin is a filmmaker I’ve heard alot of. Not good, not bad, but weird. So, it is no surprise that his hundred minute long 2004 film The Saddest Music In The World is not good, not bad, simply weird. Visually, however, it’s a truly brilliant work, with color freely mixing with black and white, on contrived sets that evoke German Expressionism from the 1920s, and with Vaseline smeared on the lenses.... Mediocre. 661) Stalker/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 film Stalker (Сталкер) is not the great nor masterful film its most ardent critical supporters proclaim, nor is it the slow, boring Eurotrash that its most vocal critics counterclaim. It lies somewhere in between- a film that risks and occasionally fails, although it is far closer to greatness than trash. That’s because Tarkovsky has crafted a film of unusual visuals with even more unusual power.... Near-great. 662) Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Of the three Theo Angelopoulos films that I have watched, currently available on American DVDs, all have been truly great films. 1988’s Landscape In The Mist is a terrific tale of two children on an unattainable quest; 1998’s Eternity And A Day is a great film dealing with the complexities of imminent death; but, having just watched his most recently completed film, 2004’s Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow (Trilogia I: To Livadi Pou Dakryzei), I can honestly say, ‘There’s great, and then there’s Great!’ As excellent as the first two films are, this film is superior in almost all ways.... Great. 663) Santa Claus Conquers The Martians/DVD Review/Dan Schneider When is sweetness that thing that rescues the tart from bitterness, and when is it the thing that makes the already sweet sweeten to vomitus? I pondered this whilst rewatching the 1964 color film ‘classic’ Santa Claus Conquers The Martians. This little film routinely shows up on many folks’ Worst Films Ever Made lists, along with such abominations as Plan 9 From Outer Space, Robot Monster and The Beast From Yucca Flats.... Eeeew. 664) Into The Wild/Film Review/Dan Schneider How did the bus get there? Of all the questions (pseudo and real) that Sean Penn’s latest film, Into The Wild, is so manifestly trying to provoke- and in a semi-retarded hippy-cum-tree hugger sort of way, this most basic and elemental plot point is never addressed. But, more on that later.... Ugh. 665) Sonny Liston Was A Friend Of Mine/Book Review/Dan Schneider When reading the postmodern preenings of a Rick Moody or David Foster Wallace there is always a suspicion that behind the poses there might be a writer capable of an occasionally compelling sentence or metaphor, and that they simply choose imposture instead because of hubris or lack of self. With Thom Jones’ writing there is no such suspicion at all. He’s simply a bad writer.... Pugs suck. 666) Elizabeth: The Golden Age/Film Review/Dan Schneider To flee the brats of Halloween, my wife dragged me to see Elizabeth: The Golden Age, even though the reviews I’d seen of it made Halloween, and the need to get out of the house for a night, the only viable excuse to see the film. It is a sequel to a mediocre film from 1998: Elizabeth, which made a star of actress Cate Blanchett. The nearly two hour long sequel is not mediocre- it is *bad, Bad, BAD.... Ugh! 667) The Rape Of Nanking/Book Review/Jessica Schneider* The Rape of Nanking is a well-written account of what happened in Nanking in 1937 when the Japanese invaded and slaughtered 300,000 Chinese. Known for being “The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II,” this book goes into the detail not only of the Rape itself and what it entailed but also addresses the ways the Japanese tried to deny it ever happened and likewise cover it up. Iris Chang published her book in 1997 and I only came to learn of her suicide in 2004. Many speculate her sudden suicide was due to not only her personal depression but also because of the impact that this grisly subject matter must have had on her.... The Japs attack! 668) On Chesil Beach/Book Review/Jessica Schneider On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan is an OK book, but nothing more than that. It’s not bad, and nor is it really good either. It’s actually one of those books that after having finished it, upon reflection, I do not think it’s as good as I first thought. I actually do not understand the public’s obsession with McEwan. Critics seem to praise him to no end, talking about how immensely talented he is. Is he a bad writer? No. Is he a great writer? Still no.... Yawn. 669) In The Shadow Of Man/Book Review/Jessica Schneider Jane Goodall is of course known for her observational work with chimpanzees. In the Shadow of Man is a highly interesting read for anyone who has ever wanted to know more about her work, and the nature of chimpanzees in general. While humans seem to take for granted the intelligence of the chimpanzee—our closest relative whose brain resembles ours more than the gorilla—this book will give you a new appreciation for the species as well as the individual chimps themselves.... Good(all) stuff. 670) Mr. Sebastian And The Negro Magician/Book Review/Dan Schneider While I’ve not read Daniel Wallace’s second and third published novels, I have read his first, Big Fish, and now fourth, Mr. Sebastian And The Negro Magician. While both books are similarly good in quality, they are quite different in approaches, even if both subvert expected narrative strategies. However, the real question I have, after reading such a book is, why is Wallace not considered a top tier ‘name writer?’ Yes, one can argue that neither of his novels is unadulteratedly great, as both have some manifest flaws, but, compared to what is consistently published by houses that are clueless as to how to edit a book, his books should have a larger audience than they do.... Gooder stuff? 671) Forever/Book Review/Dan Schneider Sometimes a skill that works well in one area, or art, is not as suited for another. That’s my working thesis as to why Pete Hamill’s 2003 novel, Forever, is not as good as some of his shorter fiction, such as the brilliant stories in his terrific collection Tokyo Sketches. Don’t get me wrong. It’s certainly not a bad novel. It’s a good one. Quite a good one, in its best moments. But, it could have been a great one.... Minor disappointment. 672) An Artist Of The Floating World/Book Review/Dan Schneider Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1986 novel, An Artist Of The Floating World, which won that year’s Whitbread Prize, may be a great novel, but it just misses out on that elite company. Of course, the fact one can make arguments pro and con means the book is worlds above the tripe one would read were the author’s surname Oates, Boyle, or Eggers. The reason for the miss, in my mind.... Solid stuff. 673) Thoughts on The Planet Of The Apes/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Whilst searching Amazon a while back, I happened to come across a copy of Planet Of The Apes: The Ultimate DVD Collection which was significantly cheaper than the other editions sellers had listed, yet was listed in excellent condition. I could not resist the urge, so splurged for this massive thirteen disk collection that includes the five original films, the 2001 remake by filmmaker Tim Burton, the 1974 CBS television series, and the 1975 NBC Saturday morning television cartoon. For a fan of all of the named, as well the great original dystopian novel, La Planète Des Singes, by Pierre Boulle (who also penned The Bridge On The River Kwai), it was a no brainer.... Better than remembered. 674) The Golden Notebook/Book Review/Jessica Schneider There is an old joke among writers, poets mainly, about how one of the worst types of poems is that which involves a speaker talking about sitting in a café writing a poem about writing a poem. The Golden Notebook is essentially the novel equivalent of that—only this is about a writer trying to write a novel. Although Lessing is a much more skilled writer than many of those young poets who write poems about writing poems, The Golden Notebook is a novel which takes risks yet fails at them.... Noble failure? 675) Revolutionary Road/Book Review/Jessica Schneider I first became acquainted with Richard Yates after having read his Collected Short Stories, which was very good. Following up, I finally had a chance to read his most famous novel Revolutionary Road, which was also nominated for the National Book Award in 1961 and lost.... Underrated. 676) Taro & Tomi/Book Review/Jessica Schneider For anyone out there who is a cat lover, I’d like to recommend this short yet delightful story about a woman adopting her 2 cats and her experiences with them. From demanding attention, to plopping on desks while work needs to be done, to being warm and affectionate to then turning cold and distant, the story begins with her adoption of her male cat Taro. From fleas, to getting him settled into her apartment, to his unconditional love, this book briefly chronicles the development of the human-cat relationship.... Kitties galore. 677) Robot Monster/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Ok, a DVD review is not exactly what this is. Yes, I watched the 1953 legendary schlock B sci fi film Robot Monster on a DVD, but since it was on one of those cheapo 50 movie DVD packs, there were no extras whatsoever- ok, there was a chapter selection. Yippee! But, given the level of the ‘art’ the film attains, is there anything wrong with going virtually featureless? And, given that the 66 minute black and white film was originally shot in 3-D, who cares that it has nothing else to offer.... But I must! 678) Thicker Than Water/DVD Review/Dan Schneider I had never heard of Jack Johnson before I came upon his DVD called Thicker Than Water, at a used DVD store, which, if the DVD package was accurate, seemed to be a documentary about sailing around the world. The back cover features robed Buddhists on the bow of a boat.... Surfer dudes gone wild. 679) Peter Ward/Book Reviews/Dan Schneider A few years ago I gave a very weak recommendation to a book ostensibly on paleontology, called Gorgon: Paleontology, Obsession, And The Greatest Catastrophe In Earth’s History, by a Peter D. Ward. Some time later I got a hilariously inane and non sequitured email from said Mr. Ward, detailed here. I lay this all out so that those reading such a review will know all the whys wherefores and such, so to not be accused of a bias. In my initial review I correctly pointed out that Mr. Ward was simply a very poor prose stylist.... Whiffing? 680) The White Diamond/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Lessons Of Darkness, Fata Morgana, Little Dieter Needs To Fly, My Best Fiend, Grizzly Man….These are just a few of the documentary type films that Werner Herzog has unspooled at the public, over the decades. They are unlike typical documentaries seen on PBS or the BBC, in that they are never really about the putative thing itself.... Interesting bit. 681) Betty Smith/Book Review/Jessica Schneider Although a hundred years has not passed since Betty Smith’s death in January of 1972, as of yet she seems to have been right in her assessment. With more than 35 years since her death, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn has elevated into the rankings as one of the greatest classics of all time. And this is the first published biography ever written about Smith, which I have the pleasure of reviewing. Just to give a little background.... Solid. 682) The Mascot/Book Review/Jessica Schneider A Jewish Nazi? Just reading the title with those two incompatible words, and one can see why this book has been published and pushed. If you think you’ve heard all the stories involving World War II, well clearly you haven’t. Of course we will never know all of them, but in this new memoir by Mark Kurzem, he describes his young father’s life during the war and how a Jewish boy went from being, in a sense, target practice for the Nazis to becoming one of them. If it sounds far-fetched.... Nazi Jew! 683) God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater/Book Review/Jessica Schneider It is hard not to enjoy Vonnegut. Although Slaughterhouse Five still remains my favorite book of his, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is a quick and entertaining read that cleverly pokes fun at capitalism and greed while being fun all the way through. Eliot Rosewater is a fat slob. His family has recently inherited a large sum of money ($87,472,033.61 to be exact). From the very start, readers are given Vonnegut’s quick wit and humor.... Vonnegut in fine form. 684) Lacombe, Lucien/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Every so often a director makes an inspiring casting choice to not hire a real actor for a role, but go with an unknown, an amateur. Perhaps the best example of this was in Vittorio De Sica’s 1952 film Umberto D., wherein he cast Carlo Battisti, a retired college professor from the University of Florence, as the lead character. Yet, not that far behind has to be Louis Malle’s decision to caste the lead character for his 1974 film, Lacombe, Lucien with an amateur named Pierre Blaise. No actor would likely be able to capture the natural ferality that Blaise brings to the role of a none too bright French farm boy.... The end? 685) Ringers & Rascals/Book Review/Dan Schneider In the plethora of books that see print in any given year there are literally only a handful that will ever make any impact in the world. A good 99.9% will be, ultimately, wastes of time and effort. However, other than those few books that have any literary, historic, cultural, or scientific value, there are simply books that entertain.... Good stuff. 686) Network/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Film director Sidney Lumet is, with the possible exception of Robert Wise, the most underrated director in Hollywood history. When one looks at the list of great films in Lumet’s career: 12 Angry Men, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Fail-Safe, Serpico, Murder On The Orient Express, Dog Day Afternoon, and a handful of others.... Take it, or not? 687) Paws And Effect/Book Review/Jessica Schneider I admit that I am a dog liker but a cat lover. Still, despite my like for dogs I was interested in reading Paws & Effect because as an animal lover, I have always been curious in knowing more regarding their “healing power”. It has been observed that dogs have an uncanny ability to not only sense physical danger (as in natural disasters) before it happens, but also an ability to detect cancers and illness in people.... Woof! 688) Snow/Book Review/Jessica Schneider This is my first time reading a novel by Orhan Pamuk and given his large reputation, my expectations were high. Reading it, however, left me cold—and that’s not meant to be a pun off the title. It really did. Although the work is itself very “ambitious” for its political agenda, ultimately the narrative is plodding and disjointed with no real purpose for either.... Yawn. 689) The Red Desert/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Michelangelo Antonioni is often referred to as a director whose work is not for all tastes. Well, what artist is? What the utterer of such sentiments usually means is that they do not ‘like’ his films, because they are not filled with insipid action, worse dialogue, lack of character development, etc. In fact, some critics of Antonioni even claim that his characters are all warped and one dimensional loners, potential Lee Harvey Oswald types bathed in depression and anomy. What this evidences is that the critic has not really watched the film, or confuses a character that is confused with a confused portrayal of the character.... Greatness in all measures. 690) The Fallen Idol/DVD Review/Dan Schneider The Fallen Idol is the third film of British filmmaker Carol Reed’s that I’ve seen. Prior to that I’ve watched the dreadful Oscar-winning musical Oliver!, the solid Charlton Heston biopic of Michelangelo, The Agony And The Ecstasy, and now this. Yes, I have also watched The Third Man, the 1949 film attributed to Reed, but have always hedged upon taking the Warren Commission-like stance that it was Reed’s film alone, and not an Orson Welles film merely bearded by Reed. Well, after watching The Fallen Idol, the 1948 film that directly preceded The Third Man, I can tell you that I have no doubts that the bulk of The Third Man was a Welles project.... A beard? 691) Viridiana/DVD Review/Dan Schneider The criticism of intent is a killer on bad films that have no real depth and do not last a few years beyond their intent’s purpose. Such was re-emphasized to me watching Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel’s vastly overrated black and white 1961 ‘shock classic’ Viridiana. Of course, all the alleged shock value had to do with Buñuel’s puerile attempts to poke fun at and scandalize both the Roman Catholic Church and the regime of Fascist dictator Francisco Franco, and nearly five decades later it looks more like a college prank video than any serious cinema. Furthermore, it is not in the least bit subversive, as many poor critics claim, because its criticism of the Church, especially- and even then, was so manifest as to make one wonder if those who claimed it had subversive qualities even knew what the term meant.... Yawn. 692) The Reserve/Book Review/Dan Schneider This being my first time reading Russell Banks, I had high hopes. Yet after reading his latest novel, The Reserve, coupled with the many negative reviews it has gotten, my hopes have been a bit deflated, yet not totally. It turns out that while The Reserve is not a great book, it’s not as bad as some of what the reviewers said.... Yawn 2? 693) Desperate Passage/Book Review/Jessica Schneider The Donner Party. When I first learned about them I recall my history teacher telling me about a comic strip involving two pieces of bread with a leg sticking out of it. Yet we all remember learning about this in history class, about how these families became trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains for months, having to live off the flesh from those who died. It is the ultimate survival tale, and also one that could have been avoided had certain egos not gotten in the way.... Yum. 694) Intervista/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Old men tend to make art that is shallow, imitative of their earlier, better works, and which would never garner an ounce of praise were it not for their backlog of greater works somehow letting their patina still rub off. In America, the best proof of this nostrum is the awarding of the lifetime Academy Award to a film director, or actor. Apparently, Europe is not immune to such worthless laurels either.... Fellini melts down. 695) Gates Of Eden/DVD Review/Dan Schneider There are many ways that bad writing makes its way into print. I’ve detailed too many of them over the years, but, what the hell- let’s have another go at it. First, the reading public is stupid….really stupid. But, a good or great artist should always write up, respect the potential reader, even if just one in a million. To write down to a reader is to beg a bad piece of writing out of its element. Second, the publishing industry is lazy….very lazy, and obsessed with profit over art.... Yawn. 696) The Race Card/Book Review/Dan Schneider In reading Richard Thompson Ford’s The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse, I was put in mind of one of William Shakespeare’s most quoted bon mots. To paraphrase: Kill all the social psychologists! This came to mind precisely because most books penned on race relations in this country are written by social psychologists, social scientists, sociologists, or folk of that ilk, and inevitably the too-long tomes are weighted down by psychobabble and spurious reasoning.... Good stuff. 697) The Magic Flute/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Ingmar Bergman’s 1975 film/tv version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute (Trollflöjten) is a serviceable film, and nothing that really takes advantage of either of its media- opera and film, to its fullest; although it begs the question as to why it was ever made? It is basically a filmed version of the play.... Wolfgang and Ingmar. 698) Fata Morgana/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Fata Morgana, the 1971 documentary-like film by German filmmaker extraordinaire Werner Herzog, filmed over several years in the late 1960s, is one of those rare DVDs that should be listened to with the commentary turned on. It is a visual feast of North African (mostly Saharan) imagery that is timeless.... Shapes shift. 699) Chinese Coffee/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Watching the 2000 film, Chinese Coffee, starring and directed by Al Pacino, I smiled because, yet again a film proved to me the utter primacy of the written word over the moving image, even in an art form that would not exist without pictures. The film is based upon a play written by Ira Lewis, who did the screenplay as well, and, given the superb and realistic dialogue uttered by the two main characters, Harry Levine (Pacino) and Jake Manheim (Jerry Orbach), the play seems likely to be a great one.... Good stuff.... 700) Red River/DVD Review/Dan Schneider A great genre film is not necessarily a great piece of cinema, for the dictates of genre often run counter to the dictates of art; namely that genre demands familiar elements (aka clichés). As good an example of this dictum that can be found is director Howard Hawks’ 1948 (although filmed in 1946) black and white western Red River. There is great debate amongst western aficionados as to who was the greater director of westerns, John Ford or Howard Hawks? Well, if one compares the two westerns most consider the two directors’ apexes in the genre.... Ok. 701) Of Time And The River/Book Review/Jessica Schneider The things people have told me about Thomas Wolfe. Descriptive. Long. Boring. Plodding. Misogynist. Etcetera. Ok so yes, Of Time and the River isn’t exactly a short book since the version I have finishes at 866 pages with small print and it took me a little over a week to read. But am I glad I did.... Classic.... 702) Fidel Castro/Book Review/Jessica Schneider There are many different ways one could approach when reviewing this book. On one hand, it’s an excellent source when thinking of Fidel Castro. Not so much because of historical and objective accuracy, but one of Castro’s character. On the other hand, could one claim this a pleasant read? Unless you are just a die-hard Fidel fanatic, I think most readers would find this boring.... Asshole! 703) Salo/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Why is it that bad artists always try to justify their garbage by claiming to be experimental, political, or any other aspect that does not pertain to the quality of the art? Well, simple- they cannot justify it any other way. Naturally, when the film or novel or painting’s been banned in many places, it only allows the puerile artist to stroke himself more. But, since that’s the only reason such art is made- witness all the art made from or with bodily excretions and/or simply used evoke outrage by lowest common denominator means, it means that the base reaction sought is easily achieved. Of course, astute art lovers and critics see through such crap with ease, while a few dilettantish asses do not; yet it’s the asses who seem to always be quoted.... From bullshit to eat shit. 704) Park City/Book Review/Dan Schneider Reading Ann Beattie is an odd experience. She’s not a good writer, but not a bad writer either. She’s that most forgettable of all writers: barely competent, dull, and uninspired. She is perhaps the best living practitioner of the classic New Yorker formula tale about upper crust New Yorkers who vacation in New England and worry of their fading sexuality, or sip champagne with brie at chichi art galleries and museums, bemoaning the encroachment of barbarianism or philistinism in one form or another- for the better or the ill. It is no irony that AB’s short story corpus is almost an unbroken chain of the same from that earlier New Yorker formulaicist.... Dull. 705) Woyzeck/DVD Review/Dan Schneider One of the signs of a great artist is that even when not at the top of his game he is still capable of flashes of utter brilliance. Such is the case in Werner Herzog’s 1979 film Woyzeck, starring his friend and bane Klaus Kinski. It is not a great film, but is a film with moments of greatness in its eighty minute length, and was the third of five films made by the director-actor team. Part of the reason the film, as a whole, does not reach greatness is because it wears its stage roots too strongly.... Aces. 706) Breakfast Of Champions/Book Review/Jessica Schneider Why ruin a Vonnegut review with a plot summary? Could I possibly? For those who are wondering, Vonnegut is definitely an acquired taste. [“The use of the identical expression as the title for this book is not intended to indicate an association with or sponsorship by General Mills, nor is it intended to disparage their fine products”]. A taste that happens to soothe my buds just fine. Ok, I am being cheeky.... Good for the body and mind. 707) Portnoy's Complaint/Book Review/Jessica Schneider This is an odd book. Yet, highly entertaining is it as long as excessive sexual details don’t deter you. Honestly, this book was better than I thought it would be—it’s quite funny actually, and I found myself laughing out loud. Here’s the thing: I had read Philip Roth in the past, two novellas of his, and found them to be rather humorless and silly. Portnoy’s Complaint, however, is rather silly and full of humor. So that’s not so bad.... Silly Philly. 708) The Lucifer Effect/Book Review/Dan Schneider Everyone has their biases, but the thing that distinguishes a real intellectual from a phony is recognizing the bias and moving on. This thought struck me as I read social psychologist Dr. Philip Zimbardo’s 2007 book, The Lucifer Effect. I received the book gratis, from the publisher, because I will be interviewing Zimbardo at a later date, and immediately I thought of the book The Lucifer Principle.... Good for the mind. 709) Against The Machine/Book Review/Dan Schneider Sometimes the mere knowledge that one is not alone in the cosmos is enough to suffice one’s view. But if that ‘other’ not only exists, but elucidates their own similar and cogent viewpoints well, it is cause for celebration. Such was my feeling when I finished Lee Siegel’s latest book, Against The Machine: Being Human In The Age Of The Electronic Mob. In just under 180 pages, Siegel illustrates, in very simple language, and lucid terms, what is wrong with the current state of the Internet. Or, more precisely, the many things that are wrong with the current state of the Internet.... Good for the soul. 710) Kagemusha/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Watching Akira Kurosawa’s three hour long epic color film (his third) from 1980, Kagumusha (The Shadow Warrior) reminded me of the historical plays of William Shakespeare. While more famed for adapting the dramas of Shakespeare (Ran from King Lear, The Bad Sleep Well from Hamlet, The Hidden Fortress from Macbeth), Kurosawa’s long film reminds me more of the detailed histories, where a single character is less important than the whole milieu (as well as being a more epic version of the old The Prince And The Pauper fable). And he succeeds very well at it.... Good till the end. 711) Day For Night/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Perhaps it has to do with his name, Truffaut. It sounds so much like truffles that it’s hard to imagine anything of real intellectual heft emanating from him. Yes, in his films he shows considerably more technical skill, overall, than his great rival, Jean-Luc Godard; but even when Godard woefully misfires, as in some of his early films, he’s at least striving for something. Truffaut, by comparison, likes shiny, pretty things, and anything that disturbs that safe universe is averse to him.... Yawn. 712) Ulysses' Gaze/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos’s 1995 film Ulysses’ Gaze (To Vlemma Tou Odyssea) is the first of that director’s four films that I have seen that is not unequivocally a great work of art. Yes, there are arguments that can be made in favor of that claim, but at 173 minutes in length, especially, it takes the most out of a viewer, especially considering that it’s the least poetic of his films I’ve seen (which include Landscape In The Mist, Eternity And A Day, and Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow). This does not mean it is a bad film, nor that it lacks Angelopoulos’s trademark visual poesy; it has that. But, there are some missing narrative elements, some poorly scripted moments, and a too slow dramatic movement, especially in the latter third of the film, which takes place in the city of Sarajevo.... Solid film. 713) Irene Nemirovsky/Book Review/Jessica Schneider Generally I find it a good rule of thumb that if one is searching for book reviews regarding a literary “classic” writer or even a “rediscovered classic” writer like Irene Nemirovsky, one can pretty much forget finding any reasonable criticism. Why? Because people have it so ingrained into their heads that if a writer lived a long time ago and has maintained his or her name in print, then the public just assumes that writer is great. Not all, mind you, but many of the reviews on Amazon, for example, will even rave about an incomprehensible mess like James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake simply because Joyce wrote it. If I had written it for example, one would expect to see very different responses.... So-so. 714) Tin Lizard Tales/Book Review/Jessica Schneider Upon reading this book, there are several ways in which it could be classified. On one hand, it is definitely travel writing, and yet it is also a compiled memoir broken down into separate essays—which discuss not only Wallace’s actual month long trip but a history of all the places he and his wife visited, the food that they ate, the people they encountered. So in other words, it is a little bit of everything.... Better than expected. 715) An Inconvenient Truth/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Let me state, up front, I have never been a fan of former Vice President Al Gore. He was a right of center Democrat who worked in an administration whose environmental record was considered, by most ecological groups, worse than the two Republican administrations that preceded his, and held that office at a time when the earliest stages of global warming, which he now decries, were first becoming known. As the second most visible politician in the country, did he sound the alarums then? Well, no. He wrote a book or two, but did nothing of any real consequence with the power he had. However, his Johnny Come lately status as an environmentalist, which led to his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, as well as an Oscar for the 94 minute 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, has nothing to do why it’s a bad film. That’s due solely to the film’s director Davis Guggenheim, most noted as a network television director.... Al Gore's nose hairs win. 716) Jason And The Argonauts/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen is perhaps the only technical person in the history of the film business to be treated as the primum mobile behind the films he worked on. In effect, to use the European cinema parlance- he was the auteur of his films; the directors were utterly interchangeable. In fact, the only constant through many of his classics was producer Charles Schneer. This is most evidenced in the 1963 action and fantasy classic Jason And The Argonauts, part of the five film DVD collection The Fantastic Films Of Ray Harryhausen, Legendary Monster Series put out by Columbia Pictures.... Killer Harryhausen. 717) The Philosopher At The End Of The Universe/Book Review/Dan Schneider Most books on philosophy are a bore because a) unlike art, which is ideas in motion, philosophy is merely ideas (no matter how wonderful nor complex they may be), and b) most philosophers (who claim that title in primacy) are simply bad writers- the two most notable exceptions to that rule being Plato and Friedrich Nietszche. And one of the main reasons why most philosophers are bad writers is that they eschew the notion that good writing (or good art, for that matter) has to entertain, as well as enlighten. Often the medicine must be put into a sugar lump, or, the exact opposite way the modern publishing industry, and Hollywood studios, work.... Good stuff. 718) Campaign 2008/Obama/Dan Schneider I am a political Independent who has voted in the last three Presidential General Elections for Ralph Nader. I did so, despite my Democratic roots, because I am a pragmatist and the last three Republican candidates for President were unappealing- not a budding Abe Lincoln nor Teddy Roosevelt in the lot. In 1992 I voted for Bill Clinton because of the disastrous 12 years of Reagan-Bush policies that destroyed the middle class, decimated the poor, and threatened civil liberties with their radical agenda for the Supreme Court. The choice was clear. The only other choices were the elder George Bush, who reaped the evil Ronald Reagan sowed, or a psychotic billionaire dwarf named Ross Perot, whose only vindication, all these years later, is that he was correct about the large flushing sound created by NAFTA.... Da man. 719) The Quiet Earth/DVD Review/Dan Schneider The 1985 sci fi film from New Zealand, The Quiet Earth, is one of the best of the ‘Last Man/Woman On Earth’ apocalyptic films. That said, since that is a sub-subgenre of film (subgenre being Apocalyptic films in the genre sci fi), it’s merely a good film overall, for it progressively gets weaker as it goes on, as do all films in that vein. Like most films in this sub-subgenre, it falls prey to tropes that undermine it- the first being the predictability of sexual or racial conflict (two for two), and the second being following the Dumbest Possible Action, wherein characters do really dumb things no one would do in real life, just so the film can move along.... Too little. 720) Russian Ark/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Russian Ark (Russkiy Kovcheg) is one of those films more notable for the technical expertise it exhibits (or preens of) than any real artistic merit. It reminds one of Mike Figgis’s 2000 film Timecode, wherein that whole film was supposedly done in four separate single takes, in real time. That claim was debunked by a simple watching of the film, and the film itself was notable for being a screenplay disaster. The four stories, which occupied one fourth of the whole screen the whole time, had volume turned up on one section while the others were backgrounded, and then switched, which made it difficult for the viewer to even stick with whatever tale he preferred. Technically, the film was a mess, and, as there was no real story, just a gimmick, the film bombed critically and financially. Russian Ark, made in 2002 by the infamously somnolent director Alexander Sokurov, has a similar gimmick.... Too much. 721) Dr. King's Refrigerator/Book Review/Dan Schneider In his long career, American novelist Charles Johnson has published three collections of short stories. His first, The Sorceror’s Apprentice, in 1977, was the best. Soulcatcher And Other Stories, in 1998, was solid, if unspectacular, while this third collection, released by Scribner’s in 2005, is by far the weakest. Granted, compared to the usual dreck that is released in short story collections, it’s a passable, solid offering; but imagine if Mozart had written a hit song for a Boy Band, and you will see the drastic fall from heights I am referencing. While I am averse to the criticism of intent, wherein one critiques claims for a work rather than the work, the genesis of a book can play a great deal of a role in its eventual success or failure, and this is the case in comparing Johnson’s three collections.... So-so. 722) Sansho The Bailiff/DVD Review/Dan Schneider One of the nostra about Japanese film director Kenji Mizoguchi is that he is ‘the most Japanese of all filmmakers.’ Another is that, compared to his two titanic contemporaries, Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa, Mizoguchi was the hardest to pin down in a style or genre. Having just watched his 1954 film Sansho The Bailiff (Sanshô Dayû) I can agree with both of the above sentiments, for Mizoguchi excels at the jidai-geki (historical drama) genre. Furthermore, I can do so after having seen just one other Mizoguchi film, Ugetsu Monogatari. Whereas Ugetsu is spiritual and poetic, Sansho is worldly and realistic. This despite the fact that the source materials for the film (legends and short fiction) are rife with supernatural overtones.... Great one. 723) Rap & Poetry/Connections?/Alex Sheremet Yes, most listeners don’t read hip-hop journalism, or at all for that matter. Serious and intelligent fans, too, might avoid books and cultivate few significant interests. Still, there is something remarkable about the latter: they have great artistic sense, and are often far more discriminating in creative matters than many educated non-listeners. Contrast, for example, the bizarre “intellectual” discussions of undeniably bad poems with the precise criticism on Alternative Hip-Hop forums.... Do you see what I see? 724) Mad, Bad, And Sad/Book Review/Jessica Schneider The catchy title of Mad, Bad, and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors says it all. With actual text finishing just under 500 pages and an extensive list of source notes, Appignanesi has provided readers quite the thorough read. From the history of psychiatry and early mental health institutions, to both the artistic and non-artistic woman, she discusses many cases of individuals who, either due to their madness, badness, or sadness, have been a little emotionally off course—causing them to sometimes commit crimes, or just perpetuate their own cycle of madness, badness and sadness with more self-loathing and/or self-inflicted injury, emotional or otherwise.... Not so classic. 725) The Naked Ape/Book Review/Jessica Schneider Every human on the planet should at one time take a look at the human species from a detached point of view. What I mean is to really just look at people and view them from the mind of some alien species and then question if you think we’re a bit odd, predictable, or whatever descriptive word you want to use. What is interesting about Desmond Morris’ 1967 classic The Naked Ape is that he achieves just that.... Classic. 726) Knockemstiff/Book Review/Dan Schneider One of the most reliable tipoffs to the fact of a writer’s not being of high quality is when he is overpraised, and overpraised in a way that stresses nothing of a literary nature, usually by a published writer who lacks any skills of his own. Such was reinforced to me upon reading the new collection of short stories by first time writer Donald Ray Pollock, Knockemstiff.... Or Cockamstiff? 727) The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time/Book Review/Jessica Schneider It is always frustrating to begin a book that has some potential but ultimately just doesn’t deliver. Such is the case with Mark Haddon’s debut novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. It is not so much that this is a bad book, just one that could have been so much better than what it was. Allow me to explain.... Yawn. 728) Tabloid Dreams/Book Review/Dan Schneider After winning a Pulitzer Prize for his 1992 short story collection of Vietnam-based stories, A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain, Robert Olen Butler followed it up with a collection of a dozen tales, Tabloid Dreams, based upon the sort of headlines ripped from the tabloid weekly newspapers one finds on checkout lines at supermarkets. After a lackluster career as a novelist, Butler seemed to be verging on becoming a great writer for, even though A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain had its ups and downs, there were two or three genuinely great short stories. The work in Tabloid Dreams, however, seems to manifest that A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain was an aberration, and Butler is merely a competent writer who lucked into the Pulitzer- one of the rare times in recent decades that the award was given to a worthwhile book.... Yawn II. 729) A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints/DVD Review/Dan Schneider If one has never directed a film before one should not, I repeat (with even greater emphasis), should NEVER direct an adaptation of one’s work. This is because one will have enough problems trying to learn the new medium that those problems born out of adaptation will only bog one down, especially if the work adapted, itself, has problems. That said, let me introduce you to Dito Montiel, director of the 98 minute long 2006 independent film, A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints, adapted from his similarly titled nonfiction work.... Yawn....where are the bullets? 730) The Beast Of Yucca Flats/DVD Review/Dan Schneider I watched the legendary The Beast Of Yucca Flats for the first time ever on one of those cheapo 50 movie pak DVDs, so there were no extras, save for chapter selection. Given my years of childhood staying awakings throughout the 1970s, and watching every film, it seemed, in the catalogs of such legendary shows as Chiller Theater and Creature Feature, how I missed this is beyond me; especially given that its lead star is the truly legendary Tor Johnson, of Plan 9 From Outer Space infamy.... Ugh! 731) Not My Turn To Die/Book Review/Jessica Schneider When I think back to the years 1992-1994, I was in high school and worried about boys and where I should apply to college. Being a teenager, I, like so many other teens, would melodramatically label our lives as “hellish” since we were going through that typical adolescent rebellion and complaining about too much homework. Add to that the acne and one can see what a “nightmare” it all was.... Death in the Balkans- or not? 732) Carville's Other Woman/Politics/Alex Woodward Long-time Clinton operative James Carville used to be cute, with his bald head and his boyish grin and his quick smart-ass wit, especially when he appeared on talk TV debating against his wife Mary, an equally intelligent if slightly less feisty and less amusing Republican operative. These two political enemies “hooked up” around 1991 (before couples “hooked up;” Mary, without irony, once called it "consorting") and by the following year James was helping Bill Clinton get elected for the first time while Mary was fighting to keep Pa Bush around for a second term.... Cojones rock. 733) Surprised By Joy/Book Review/Jessica Schneider For those interested delving past the Narnia world, I invite you to read C.S. Lewis’ “spiritual autobiography” where the author discusses the Christianity of his early youth, his later denouncing of such (leading him to atheism), and then to his eventual full circle back to Christianity. Yet, all the while Lewis is discussing his search for “Joy” and what that really means.... Lewis world. 734) Chico/Fiction/George Dickerson I was hollow-standing before the door. The door was a greenness and had a thick rectangular small glass-window eye. The Eggshell pushed the button again and I could hear it ringing far off. The Eggshell, pushing hard on his white eggshell M.P.'s helmet, as a young chicken hatches into crowing, held his bolt of sudden lightning carbine in his tight hands. He pointed the open mouth of nothingness at me, daring me to run down the long length of the hospital corridor. I did not move.... Where's the Man? 735) A Mussel Named Ecclesiastes/Fiction/George Dickerson The first time I saw Pony she was standing on Sullivan Street, looking wild and pretty in St. Anthony's Fair. Her real name was Penelope Stewart from somewhere in southern New Jersey, though I've never been that far south.... Shellfish heaven? 736) Stardust Memories/DVD Review/Dan Schneider One of the interesting things about a great work of art is how, upon re-experience, it a) holds up and/or b) deepens and filigrees into something even better. From the first time I saw Woody Allen’s 88 minute long black and white 1980 film Stardust Memories (made early on in Woody’s Golden Era of 1977-1992), on a VHS tape, I knew I was watching one of the greatest films ever made. In the years, and 12-15 rewatchings of the film (progressing to DVD), nothing has changed my mind in this regard. Not even the red herring of linking this film to Federico Fellini’s 1964 opus 8½. Having just rewatched the film, I can state not only is it one of the greatest films ever made, but arguably Allen’s greatest film (although fans of Another Woman and Crimes And Misdemeanors may have a case), and definitively better a film than Fellini’s.... Masterpiece. 737) Last Year In Marienbad/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Forget all prior claims you’ve read about Alain Resnais’s 90 minute long, 1961 black and white film, Last Year In Marienbad (L'Année Dernière Á Marienbad, and Last Year At Marienbad in North America)- from the bad to the good, from publicity nonsense which declaims the three main characters are named after letters, when they are unnamed, and see it raw; for then you’ll see why greatness is its own company. This is because the difference between this truly great film, a work of art considered an art film high point, and Carnival Of Souls, considered a B horror film, which was released a year later, are minimal. The similarities between the films are considerable, even though I doubt that the latter film’s director, Herk Harvey, had even seen Last Year In Marienbad while making his only feature film.... Masterpiece Deux. 738) Universal Solipsism/Essay/Eric Goldman We value the individual in our Western society. It is known as the American Way to be unique and self-reliant. We live in a culture founded upon personal freedom. Most times, this spirit of the self is a virtue that drives us on to new creative innovations. Yet, in some places in this country there is an overwhelming spirit of rigorous individuality which even extends itself to an atmosphere of a type of addictive-selfishness where none matters but “me.” It is “I” who is the person of significant singular import. Indeed, selfishness lies at the root of every possible addiction, the motives and behaviors pertinent to which demand self-service in all its obsessions for more.... You or me? 739) Never Let Me Go/Book Review/Jessica Schneider One of the bad things about being a great writer is that readers will come to expect that writer to reach greatness each time, and so if a work just falls short at very good or merely excellent, this can be a disappointment. This is just what Kazuo Ishiguro’s most recent novel, Never Let Me Go does. Because I have read now all of Ishiguro’s works—who has written great books like The Remains of the Day and An Artist of the Floating World as well as near great books such as A Pale View of Hills and The Unconsoled--I can say that Never Let Me Go let me down a bit but that is only because I expect more from him.... Good, not great. 740) The Secret Of Roan Inish/DVD Review/Dan Schneider If John Sayles, the independent American filmmaker, is not the greatest director in the history of the medium, he certainly has to be considered among the most daring and diverse filmmakers ever. From tales set in America’s past (Matewan), to yuppy dramadies (The Return Of The Secaucus Seven), to urban social satires (The Brother From Another Planet), to more modern looks at American life (Sunshine State, Lone Star, Casa De Los Babys), Sayles has shown a desire to explore things no other filmmaker has.... Classic. 741) On Critical Fair Play And Ethics/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Today I received my complementary copy of Contemporary Fiction: The Novel Since 1990, a slim volume of fictive criticism published by Cambridge University Press, and edited by Pamela Bickley. I received a copy because a review of mine is mentioned in the piece. That review, of Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, first appeared in the April, 2007 edition of the online literary magazine Hackwriters. Here is a link to the original piece at Hackwriters. I later reposted the essay on Cosmoetica.... Taking on the deceivers of power. 742) Cobra Verde/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Twenty years ago saw the release of the final Werner Herzog-Klaus Kinski collaboration, Cobra Verde. It is a good film, but not nearly on par with such classics as Aguirre: The Wrath Of God, Nosferatu, Phantom Of The Night, nor Fitzcarraldo, and it is a film even Herzog has expressed dissatisfaction with. The film was written by Herzog, who adapted it from a novel by Bruce Chatwin, The Viceroy Of Ouidah; but it’s probably the least affecting screenplay of the major Herzog-Kinski films, as well as the film the two made together that has the least for Kinski to do- i.e- strut his stuff and dominate whole scenes. Things move far too quickly and illogically, there is little explanation of scenes and events, and little in the way of character development, in either the lead character or the few minor characters that say anything.... Good film. 743) Good Faith, Stupidity, And The Internet/Part 1: The Failure Of Dialectic/Dan Schneider Recently I posted an article in which I ripped the poor professional ethics of Cambridge University Press, for having violated a promise made to me in excerpting a review of mine, and in deliberately slanting their quotation against my piece by quoting out of context and deliberately berating my opinion vis-à-vis a counter-opinion; all under the guise of an impartial textbook. The piece was titled On Critical Fair Play And Ethics: Cambridge University Press’s Contemporary Fiction: The Novel Since 1990, edited by Pamela Bickley. I write these pieces, including this one (the first in a new series of essays on the Internet) for one simple reason; so that later generations will know and understand the tremendous odds that great artists such as myself, my wife, and a handful of others I have known, had in getting their work out to a receptive audience. The battles to find a book agent, an editor, and a publisher who will ‘like’ your work, irrespective of its manifest quality, is bad enough. But there is a tendency to forget history if not scrupulously documented.... Taking on the idiots! 744) Autumn Sonata/DVD Review/Dan Schneider Ingmar Bergman’s almost fated 1978 filmic teaming with Ingrid Bergman, Autumn Sonata (Höstsonaten), is amongst the very best of the films in his canon. It is also the most emotionally intense of the series of Strindbergian or Chekhovian chamber dramas he has filmed over the years, which includes his Spider Trilogy (Through A Glass Darkly, Winter Light, The Silence) and such other films as Cries And Whispers. That said, it is perhaps the simplest film that Bergman ever directed, even simpler in plot than The Silence. It was filmed in Norway whilst Bergman was in his self-imposed exile.... Classic. 745) The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian/Film Review/Dan Schneider One of the major problems with all film series is what might be called middle filmitis. This is when films that are not first in a series rely too heavily upon an audience’s memories of earlier films to inform them of the traits of characters, the chronology of prior events, and a general knowledge of the world the film series is set in. Such is the case with the latest C.S. Lewis adapted book, The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Oh, yes, there are other major flaws in this film, which I shall limn, but middle filmitis is the overarching ill that infects all others.... Overdone. 746) Anne Of Green Gables/Book Review/Jessica Schneider I have been a long time fan of the Anne of Green Gables made for T.V. movies, starring Megan Follows as Anne. Those films had done such a good job that I thought they’d be impossible to beat, and hence I finally got around to reading the classic children’s tale, published back in 1908. The book is a very good one, and certainly a great children’s tale, yet it falls just short from the films.... Classic for kids. 747) Ruthless/Book Review/Jessica Schneider If you are laughing upon sight of this review, I can say that I join you in your laughing. I’m going to be upfront and say that I’m no fan of Oprah Winfrey for many reasons. Yet, one would think that I’d be giving this trashy anti-Oprah book positive reviews then, right? First, a bit of background.... How now, brown cow? 748) Canadian Poets/Suck Ass/Anthony Zanetti In 2005, Signal Editions, an imprint of Montreal’s Véhicule Press, published The New Canon: An Anthology of Canadian Poetry, edited by poet and critic Carmine Starnino. The book collects the work of 50 Canadian poets born between 1955 and 1975. Though I’ve had the book since 2006, I’ve not read it cover to cover until now, mostly because, aside from the occasional good selection, many of the poems were boring, with most of the longer poems being especially deadly. Carmine Starnino has a reputation as a ‘tough’ critic within Canadian letters, yet my essay will show that Starnino is a bad editor, and that this stems from the fact that he is a bad critic who has no real ability to discern objective quality in art—the duty of the genuine critic.... Big Carmine Starnino lays down the law, and gets it back in spades! 749) Collected Stories/Ellen Gilchrist/Dan Schneider Having read Thom Jones’ Sonny Liston Was A Friend Of Mine and overdosing on its phallic ejaculations I turned to the Collected Stories of Ellen Gilchrist for a change. In a sense I went a hundred and eighty degrees. These tales are dripping with femininity, but I also went a full three hundred and sixty degrees, in that Gilchrist’s tales are as bad in their own clitoral way as Jones’ are masculinely. If Jones is a tenth rate Hemingway wannabe, then Gilchrist is a fifth rate Alice Adams idolator.... Yawn. 750) The Wild Places/Book Review/Jessica Schneider Whenever I read a book that isn’t great but merely good, the writer will fall into two categories. The first is where the writer could be great, if only some trimming and tweaking were done. Frank McCourt falls into this category with his classic memoir Angela’s Ashes, for while the book is filled with terrific scenes and description, structurally the book is weak. The second involves a writer that, despite being good technically, lacks the “highs” of the first writer. MacFarlane falls into this second category, for while The Wild Places is technically a good, solid book, there is something missing from the writing that no amount of tweaking could ever make it a great work.... So-so.


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