reeltime

On Monday of this week I got a job being an extra on the HBO series, “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” The shoot took place at a Santa Monica restaurant, Matteo’s, which was once co-owned by Frank Sinatra. I showed up before the appointed time, dressed in a conservative navy suit and carrying a change of clothes, as was requested, and parked in the Westside Pavillion lot.  A shuttle taxied the numerous extra to the set on Westwood Blvd. After checking in with the assistant director in charge of wrangling the extras, I went to wardrobe, and the lady asked if I would change into my sport coat and khakis because lots of other people were wearing dark suits and she liked that my coat was a little different. I went to the men’s room and awkwardly riggled out of the suit and into the alternative suit of clothes, and waited. After not such a long time we were brought downstairs and seated at different places in the restaurant — I was at the bar. And finally the cast arrived, including Larry David, Jeff Garland, Susie Essman, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, and the shooting began. There were lots of takes and re-takes. The cast improvises the dialogue, so over the course of the shoot the lines always varied. Later on, I was chosen to walk into the frame just as Larry was walking toward other actors in the scene — so I could almost say I did a scene with Larry David, although that’s stretching it a little. Later on, guest star Christian Slater showed up on the scene, but by then it was time to leave after 12 hours on the set.

The New York Times (free registration required) has a piece on “The Story of Bonnie & Clyde.” That’s Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, who robbed and shot their way through Texas, Oklahoma and adjacent states in the bad old days of the Great Depression.

B & C was a landmark film in two ways: It reinvigorated the mostly dormant genre of American gangster films, and it depicted graphic violence more intensely than any other U.S. film of its day. 

Above, see the real Bonnie in Clyde. Below, the Hollywood version, with, from left, Gene Hackman, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. As the Times article says, myth has obscured the true story of the legendary American outlaws.

There’s nothing like a good film noir, and if you can’t get enough of those vintage crime dramas you can find a plenty of info on the Web to satisfy your noir jones.

I’ve only just started to skim this site but it looks good. Crimeculture.com has, from initial appearances, some well-written text and links to good stuff about crime, gangsters and the movies that get made about them. It even has a film noir page. It’s got lots of good stills and movie posters.

The “about us” page explains:

“Crimeculture.com, established in Summer 2002, is an academic Internet site that we hope will have something to offer anyone teaching or studying crime fiction, film and graphic art.”

Also check out the “true crime” page and the site’s reading list.

First of all, let me apologize for my insufferable whining in yesterday’s blog. I got all insulted because no one has seen fit to comment on my blog so far. But I thought about it and realized it’s only been five posts so far — OK, this is the sixth. So there’s nothing to get pissy about. I accepted that and decided to move on with my life. I know that there are things that I can change and things I have no control over, and for the love of God I cannot force anyone to comment on my blog. But now it’s Monday and I logged onto to my account — nothing. No comments. Zero. Nil. Zippo. Nada.

I don’t know what else I can say to you people to make you understand. So I won’t comment on it again. But just remember, Satan is watching you and he notices that you haven’t commented yet. Every time you log off without commenting on this blog, ReelTime, Satan smiles.

Hey, how about those Golden Globes — and I’m not referring to Madonna’s breasts? One of the most cynical, and therefore I suspect, most truthful accounts of the Golden Globes and the Hollywwod Foreign Press Corps. can be read here, in Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood column . Gotta love Nikki. She takes no prisoners and says things no one else in this town (Hollywood, I mean,  I live in Culver City) has the cajones to say. Read on, and inhale the rancid stench that is Hollywood greed.

Clint is the king of clenched-teeth acting, and “Get off my lawn” will join his other famed utterances, “Do you feel lucky?” and “Go ahead, make my day.”

That little line of bile-inflected speech will be this week’s catch phrase that political hacks can pick up and regurgitate instead of saying anything of substance. So, “Grand Torino” is number one at the box office, which makes the catch phase all the more appetizing to hacks and no-brains. That means lots of people have heard it and will think it’s a really cool expression, just like, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more,” the catch phrase Peter Finch shouted in “Network.” But “Network” was more honest and introspective about the use of cheap catch phrases than is Clint, who likes to exploit them for their meat-head appeal. In “Network,” Finch urges the public to lean out their window and shout “I’m mad as hell.” But that was as far as their rage carried them. They didn’t take action. They didn’t phone their congressman or so much as follow that thought up with another thought — maybe one thought is all most people can handle at a time. Instead, they pulled their heads inside the wondows, turned on the TV and zoned out. So much for outrage.

The problem with Clint’s newest hackneyed catchphrase is that people will mistakenly think that it really means something important or relevant and will repeat it into infinity.

Here’s a hint: If you’re faced with a no-brain who won’t shut his face, take another tip from Clint and load up the shotgun. It has a way of making that type scatter.

If you like all things vintage, as I do, you’ll find a lot of visual appeal in “Revolutionary Road ,” the new film Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as Frank and April Wheeler. The Wheelers live in Manhattan when they first meet, but once they tie the knot they make the inevitable move to a comfortable Connecticut home and have a couple of kids. Frank works at a respectable job in the city, and on the surface all seems well. But the claustrophobia of living the American dream proves too much for the pair, and the wear and tear of lost dreams and stunted ambitions takes its toll. We’ve seen this take on suburban life in other films, notably “Far From Heaven, ” “The Ice Storm ” and especially in “American Beauty ,”  another movie by “Revolutionary Road director” Sam Mendes. Like the other nostalgia-soaked films before it, “Revolutionary Road” shows us people whose lives are going to hell while the world they live in looks great — imagine Ozzie and Harriet with a Vicodin problem. The clothes, the cars and the furnishings are vintage eye candy — sort of a guilty pleasure to take in as you watch the Wheelers’ lives rot.

Almost anyone else in the cast of Valkyrie could have given a deeper performance as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg than did Cruise.
It’s not hard to believe that Kenneth Branagh, Thomas Kretschmann or Eddie Izzard would have found something more arresting than Cruise’s dial tone performance. Cruise did a remarkable job in “Magnolia,” but he’s not known as a “Hollywood leading mannequin” for nothing. His cardboard cutout performances are as legendary as Madonna’s lack of vocal talent. Valkyrie is a reasonably good drama inspite of Cruise, but his performance drags the film into the doldrums of mediocrity.

So why is it that non-actors, such as Scientology wing-nut Cruise, are the ones who can green-light a picture, while true actors can’t get arrested in this town. Audiences, including yours truly, who paid good money to see “Valkyrie,” are dumb — how else do you explain it?

Here’s an idea: Let’s all agree to stop seeing bad and mediocre movies, even if it means staying home and watching reruns. When you pay to see bad movies it only encourages the hacks to churn out more of the same. So, let’s stop. OK?

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ” kept a huge number of special effects technician employed during production, but other than that, what was the point of this shameless exercise in heart-string tugging? Director David Fincher did a terrific job on the tightly focused 2007 “Zodiac ,” a true-life crime drama with an equally long running time. That these two films are as different as can be is evident from the subject matter. “Benjamin Button,” a fairy tale that offers platitudes on aging and death and is a thinly veiled remake of “Forrest Gump,” looks all the weaker when compared with the crime drama about the hunt for a notorious serial killer. It’s evident where Fincher’s heart and strengths lie, and it’s all the more incredible that in a moment of bad judgment he accepted this oddball and unappealing assignment.