"Cactus Flower" Matthau, Bergman & Hawn

Based on the hit Broadway play which starred Lauren Bacall and Brenda Vaccaro, the 1969 film, Cactus Flower, with Ingrid Bergman, Walter Matthau and Goldie Hawn is a lighthearted romantic comedy which earned its female leads Golden Globes and wan newcomer Hawn an Oscar in her debut supporting role. The film tells the story of a philandering dentist whose affair facilitating alibis catch up with him when he decides to play it straight. He has lied to his girlfriend, telling her that he is unhappily married, when he is in fact single, but does not want to commit. Now he not only needs to find a pretend wife, but he also has to divorce her.

Bergman plays successfully against type. Her go-go dancing scene in the film inspired the infamous Elaine Benes dancing scene in TV's Seinfeld. Rick Lenz, who plays Igor Sullivan, Hawn's handsome neighbor, sounds eerily like James Stewart. The writing is funny, if typical sit-com fare. Matthau and Hawn fall out of love but each falls into another. The youngsters are in many ways more mature than their elders. The ending is happy and plausible. In the end, the cactus blooms. This film makes few demands, but it is a rewarding delight. The film plays occasionally on cable, including Turner Classic Movies, where I first saw it. It is also available on DVD and here at YouTube:

The RuPaul Presidency?

Journalist, author, Broadway critic, and talking head Mark Steyn (recently acquitted of hate crime charges in Canada, and author of the brilliant best-selling book America Alone on the geopolitics of jihad) describes Barack Obama as America's first two-dimensional presidential candidate. The performance artist RuPaul, best known for his 1990's hit song "Supermodel (You Better Work)" has picked up on this theme, and shows that if it's a matter of appearances, Obama will be our first drag-queen president, if not our first black one. It looks like the next four years will be a golden age for comedy, if little else.

Here is an excerpt of Steyn's comments from the November 8th post to his blog, SteynOnline:

In Tokyo last week, over 1,000 people signed a new petition asking the Japanese government to permit marriages between human beings and cartoon characters. "I am no longer interested in three dimensions. I would even like to become a resident of the two-dimensional world," explained Taichi Takashita. "Therefore, at the very least, would it be possible to legally authorize marriage with a two-dimensional character?"

Get back to me on that Tuesday night. We'll know by then whether an entire constitutional republic has decided to contract marriage with a two-dimensional character and to attempt to take up residence in the two-dimensional world. For many of his supporters, Barack Obama is an idea. He offers "hope, not fear." "Hope" of what? "Hope" of "change." OK, but "change" to what? Ah, well, there you go again, getting all hung up on three-dimensional reality, when we've moved way beyond that. I don't know which cartoon character Taichi Takashita is eyeing as his betrothed, but up in the sky Obamaman is flying high, fighting for Hope, Change and a kind of Post-Modern American Way.

The two-dimensional idea of President Obama is seductive: To elect a young black man of Kenyan extraction and Indonesian upbringing offers redemption both for America's original sin (slavery) and for the more recent perceived sins of President Bush – his supposed enthusiasm for sticking it to foreigners generally, and the Muslim world in particular. And no, I'm not saying he's Muslim. It's worse than that: He's a pasty-faced European – at least in his view of state power, welfare and taxation.

Here is RuPaul's hit video from the 1990's.



And here is MadTV's musical parody from the 2008 Democratic campaign:

Canciones: "Cucurrucucú Paloma" & "Volver"

Although I am a huge fan of Pedro Almodóvar, I cannot recommend all of his films. Some are simply much too dark, and Talk to Her, which won an Oscar for best screenplay, is one of these. The heroine, were she allowed to be one, is gored by a bull, and dies in a coma. A second plot revolves about a deranged male nurse who rapes another woman in a coma. There is nothing to celebrate or admire. Yet as always, Almodóvar's mechanical skills are top notch. And as is his wont he interjects this otherwise morbid work with a beautiful musical interlude. In a flashback we see the bullfighter and her boyfriend at a party. There the Spanish musician Caetano Veloso gives a haunting rendition of Cucurrucucú Paloma by Tomás Méndez which we can enjoy as an excerpt, available here at YouTube:



Another wonderful song, Volver, from Almodóvar's much better movie of the same name, (see here) is also available. Here we see Penelope Cruz lip sinking to the voice of Estrella Morente. But that is easy to forgive.

Orson Welles "Touch of Evil"

If you are a fan of one of the best shows on TV, House, M.D., with Hugh Laurie, you have probably seen the poster for the Orson Welles film, Touch of Evil, hanging in the office of Dr. Gregory House's best friend, oncologist James Wilson. If you haven't seen House, then you should, and you can either rent or buy the series to watch it from the beginning (recommended) or jump in now and watch a recent episode here at Hulu.com. Why the poster of Touch of Evil? Perhaps it's just a classic film that the writers thought would give Wilson depth. Or maybe there is an implied comparison between House, a curmudgeonly cynic who walks with a cane, and Orson Welles' cane-using Hank Quinlan? But Welles' captain Quinlan has moved beyond cynicism into taking law and life into his own hands. (Well, one could argue that Gregory House has done that too, but he has so far not framed anyone for his own murders.) In any case, if you haven't yet watched the film, this too is a classic you should not miss.

Directed by Welles, Touch of Evil, 1958, is one of the most popular masterpieces of film noir. The movie stars Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh, as well as Welles, and features appearances by Joseph Cotten, Dennis Weaver, Mercedes McCambridge, Marlene Dietrich and Zsa Zsa Gabor. The opening scene, an uninterrupted 3 1/2 minute long single-cut shot from a crane depicting a border crossing that literally ends with a bang, is a classic Wellesian cinematographic accomplishment.

Like many of Welles' films, such as the difficult The Magnificent Ambersons, the work was drastically cut by the studio without his consent before its release. But Welles did write a long memo to Universal regarding his intentions for the production. This memo survived, and, in 1998, after a legal battle with his estate, a restoration based on archival material was printed which remains as faithful as possible to his intentions with the surviving footage. The film does seem to shift abruptly at some points, but there is much less confusion than in Welles' other continuity-challenged film noir masterpiece, The Lady From Shanghai. Rent or buy the 1998 'director's cut' today.

Here is the famous opening seen from YouTube:

"Orlando" Tilda Swinton

Sally Potter's 1992 film, Orlando, based on the roman à clef by Virginia Woolfe, is a haunting and visually stunning work of art that combines elements of fantasy, period piece and social commentary to make a satisfying whole. The actress Tilda Swinton, perhaps most widely known for her role as the Ice Queen Jadis in the movie version of C. S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, defines the film which is a lengthy study of the androgynous immortal British nobleman she portrays. Billy Zane plays Orlando's 19th century lover and Quentin Crisp, author of The Naked Civil Servant, then aged 83, plays the elderly Queen Elizabeth I.

While certainly more a cerebral excercise than an action flick, the story maintains interest with several short parts set in ages from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries. Orlando, born a nobleman in Tudor England, becomes a paramour of the aging queen who grants him an estate with the proviso that he not fade, that Orlando not age. Orlando complies, falling into a deathlike sleep every few decades to awaken rejuvenated, and, after one transformation, as a woman. With gay icon Quenton Crisp playing Elizabeth and Swinton playing a person who changes gender, this has been seen as a gay film. But Crisp simply plays Elizabeth as Elizabeth, with no camp and no agenda. Orlando's sex change is treated matter-of-factly and Orlando's love interests are heterosexual to his or her gender of the moment. Any attempt to shoe-horn this timeless film into a serving a parochial modern agenda is a disservice to it and its audience.

Filmed in England and Khiva, Uzbekistan (as a stand in for Constantinople) the film is full of atmosphere. Eschewing the 'Technicolor' cinematography of such films as Elizabeth, with Cate Blanchette, or The Other Boleyn Girl, with Scarlet Johanssen, with their spectra of saturated colors and casts chosen in part for their Hollywood good looks, director Sally Potter shrewdly relies on simple and authentic settings and on actors with character to achieve its visual effect. Romantic touches are achieved through intelligent direction, not bootleg shortcuts.

Orlando, based in part on the life of Vita Sackville West, (portrait by Laszlo) is considered Woolfe's most accessible novel and this adaptation admirably translates her literature to the screen. With its sly wit, subtle humor, gothic beauty, intelligent writing, interesting cast, charming settings and thought-provoking story, the film entertains successfully on many levels. It is available for purchase or rental. Here is the studio trailer from YouTube:

Greg Bear "The Forge of God"

President Crockerman asked, "Do you believe in God?" Without a moment's hesitation, the Alien replied "We believe in Punishment."

Greg Bear, born in 1951, is a Hugo and Nebula award winning author of some three dozen novels and short story collections. A writer of hard science fiction, he often focuses on biology, especially diseases and microbiology. His Nebula winning Darwin's Radio and its sequel Darwin's Children explore political repression, retroviruses and speciation. Vitals deals with bacteria as communal organisms, as well as devling entertainingly into conspiracy theories. (You will never guess who the KGB has kept alive in a fishtank in the middle of modern Manhattan.) His Hugo winning Blood Music (expanded from a Nebula Winning novella) portrays an apocalyptic transformation of the nature of the self brought on by the escape of genetically enhanced human blood cells down a bathtub drain.

One of his best reviewed books, The Forge of God, deals not with microbiology, but with the Fermi Paradox. If the galaxy is full of alien life, then why aren't they here yet? Why have aliens not yet visited the earth? The answer quickly becomes evident. First, the Jovian moon Europa disappears. Then mountains appear overnight where there was none before in Australia and in Death Valley. Robots promising a golden age emerge from the Australian mountain. In America an enigmatic alien is found near death, apologizing for bearing bad news, and telling the president its simple punitive theology.


Bear is not only a great story teller, he is an artist of literary caliber. His works feature complex interwoven plots with twists that surprise the reader yet fit seamlessly together without resorting to the arbitrary deus ex machina. His characters are well developed, strongly individuated. In Forge of God, the president, a likeable man, is driven to the edge of insanity by the revelation that the world will soon end. His response is religious in form, but Bear does not portray him as some mindless religious stereotype, and, in a touch of sophistication, the populist preacher that Crockerman summons to advise him in fact doubts the appropriateness of a religious response to the physical threat and turns to the president's science advisors to admit that he is out of his league and that the Presdient could perhaps use some more conventional strategic advice.

Whether likening squiggles of toothpaste to little blue tadpoles in the sink or graphically comparing the City of Los Angeles, its citizens transformed into blobs of jelly and sentient fungal growths by a plague, to a vision from a Max Ernst painting, Bear uses vivid concrete images that often approach the poetic in their evocativeness. One can form a detailed mental image of his characters' physical traits and their bearing and gestures. Conflict is well motivated, antagonists act not just out of opposition, but because of an alternate, if mistaken view of the good. Psychology is made apparent through telling thoughts and dialog. Yet facts not known to the characters are not revealed to the reader until they become clear to the protagonists. This maintains a sense of realism and especially of suspense. Is the dying alien in league with the supposed robot benefactors? Is the earth truly at risk? The aliens provoke paranoia in some and disbelief in others. What, we ask, are the plots within the plots?

If you have not read Bear, you can think of him as combining the fast-paced plots of Larry Niven and his knack for contemporary social commentary with the analytic depth and literary quality of Frank Herbert. While I have not been able to get into his The Way, Queen of Angels, or Songs of Earth and Power series, I have thorougly enjoyed all the books of his which I have read past the first few dozen pages. The apocalptic Forge of God, with its epic and very differrent but highly complimentary sequel, Anvil of Stars, is a good place to start.



Read the excellent article on Bear at Wikipedia. Check out his official website. And pick up one of his books, today. The painting above, Into The Forge of God, by Alan Gutierrez depicts the launch of a NASA probe into Jupiters atmosphere and was used on the cover of Bear's novel.

"Heroes" David Bowie & Brian Eno

While it failed to chart in the US and only reached 24 in the UK, David Bowie's and Brian Eno's collaborative single "Heroes" has become one of Bowie's most enduringly popular songs, widely regarded as one of the top 100 pop songs of all time. The track features inspirational lyrics and innovative recording methods, and this as well as its conception in Berlin in 1977 as a love song for a couple separated by The Wall has secured it a place in the cultural history of the Twentieth Century.

Originally conceived as an instrumental track, "Heroes" was the intended title for the peice even before Bowie composed the lyrics. The guitars, percusion, synthesizers and intentional feedback and reverb (see Wikipedia) give the song a Phil Spector-like "Wall of Sound" effect. Bowie, not the most dynamic of singers, begins the song merely speaking the lyrics. He is recorded with one microphone for the introduction. As the power of his voice grows, another microphone was opened up at twenty feet, and as he belts out the climax a third mic is recording him at a fifty foot distance. Although Bowie goes from talking to yelling without passing through what could truly be called song, this lends his performance an everyman atmosphere which only heightens the epic effect.

The song has been recorded in English and German as well as several other languages and the conservative American magazine National Review has listed it as 21st in its list of all time conservative rock songs. It has continued to be adapted for use in commercials and as a theme for popular TV shows until today. When it was released, even though its creators realized its epic romantic and triumphant nature, they did suffer from this moral cowardice; they added scare quotes to lend the title an ironic air. Given their achievement, I vote we forgive them. Given the end of the Cold War, the fall of The Wall, and the triumph of freedom, I suggest we imagine the quote marks as pairs of fingers raised in a double sign of victory.



Here is the original video with the English lyric studio-version release: