Cousins (1989)

I absolutely hate this kind of formulaic love triangle movie. I rented it only because I find Isabella Rossellini irresistable. But I actually ended up really enjoying it. Unfortunately, Sean Young, whom I also enjoy, seemed over-medicated. But the characters were largely sympathetic, the one-offs and running gags were funny, the photography was quite good, and the story was engaging enough that I might have enjoyed it even if it hadn't starred Ingrid Bergman's daughter.

Given the subject matter it was a really wholesome movie, with only one gratuitous scene, the son Mitch's movie project, which is brief and serves a point. It's not a movie I would watch a second time. But if you are a fan of Rossellini or liked My Big Fat Greek Wedding this is worth checking out. By the way, if you keep wondering where it was filmed, the sets were located in and around Vancouver, Canada.

Based on the French film Cousin, Cousine, stars Ted Danson, Isabella Rossellini, Lloyd Bridges, Sean Young, Joel Schumacher Director, 1989, 113 Minutes.

Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson "Hopscotch"

Miles Kendig (Walter Matthau), senior field man for the CIA, has once again outwitted Yaskov of the KGB (Herbert Lom), making the biggest bust of his career. But his by-the-book boss, Myerson (Ned Beatty), is tired of Kendig's liberty taking, and decides to promote him to a desk job. Kendig opts for retirement with his Austrian girlfriend Isobel von Schoenenberg (Glenda Jackson), but on his own terms, and the fun begins.

This delightful, light-hearted and witty 1980 film didn't stand out at the box office, but it does stand the test of time. The plot, which details Kendig's exploits as he settles some scores and manages to avoid CIA and KGB agents who would rather kill him than let him publish their embarrassing secrets, is fast-paced and well constructed with plenty of surprising hi-jinx to which the comedic Matthau is well-suited. British actress (and now Labour party MP) Glenda Jackson is a perfect counterpoint as his love interest, adding class with her Shakespearean skill. Sam Waterston plays Matthau's sympathetic protege who works to bring him in for Myerson, just not too hard. The movie is full of the slapstick comedy at which Matthau was never better. But it works especially well being integrated into Kendig's clever schemes to out-spy and outwit his former bosses and secure his freedom. Here is the article at Wikipedia, avoid the spoilers in the plot summary. The film is available and can be streamed instantly at Netflix.

Marlene Dietrich "Shanghai Express"

"It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily." This 1932 pre-code classic, directed by Joseph von Sterberg and starring Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook and Anna May Wong, is one of the early greats of the last century. Dietrich plays a woman who, after losing her love after a silly stunt to make him prove the strength of his affection, becomes a "coaster" – a woman who makes her living by her wits along the coast of China. Boarding the coastal express from Peiping to Shanghai, her love, military surgeon Captain Donald Harvey learns that she is now none other than the notorious Shanghai Lily.

Sternberg and Dietrich collaborated on seven films. It is easy to see why they liked working together. Dietrich's genuine charisma on stage and off is the stuff of legends, and she is in top form here. Sternberg is limited by the technical capabilities of the era. There are, for instance, no zooms. There is only one shot, a scene in a corridor, where the camera moves other than to pan left or right. But Sternberg knows how to use his lead, highlighting her pale beauty with dramatic poses, the use of shadow and spotlight, and the use of one black, one white, and one midtone-grey form in the foreground of most shots.

While the story does feature stock characters, the compulsive gambler, the prudish matron, and the corrupt and cowardly opium merchant, it also has witty lines, complex leads, and true drama. Along with our heroes, the mysterious Henry Chang (Walter Oland, a Swede, famous for his role as Charlie Chan) boards the train. Questioned early on by the clueless loudmouth gambler, Chang admits that he is only half Chinese, and he is not proud of his white ancestry. Also on the train is Hui Fei, (the Chinese-American trailblazer Anna May Wong) another courtesan who some viewers suspect was Lily's former lover. After the train is stopped by revolutionary forces, we learn that Chang is the rebel leader. He holds Captain Harvey hostage. Lily and Hui Fei each get a chance to shine in dealing with Chang, who himself is not an unsympathetic villain.

The movie features some interesting lines and takes some sophisticated shots at conventional hypocrisy. Hui Fei tangles with the boarding house matron, who assures her and Lily that she "only associates with ladies of the highest standards." While her standards turn out to be gossip and fawning over a silly pet dog, Hui Fei shows her mettle as she earns a government reward with some quick and practical action. Early on, Captain Harvey, who loves Lily but doesn't want to admit it, punches Chang for trying to take advantage and tells her that he "would have done it for anyone." Lily returns the favor, lying to Harvey that she too, "would have done it for anyone."

This film is a true joy to watch. It has long been unavailable on US-format DVD. (But see here.) It does play on occasion on Turner Classic Movies. And it is available here at Youtube:

"Jodhaa Akbar" an Epic from India

I don't know the reason why I selected this movie, Jodhaa Akbar, from Netflix. I suspected it was from Ted, but I can't find the reference. [see here. -Ted] It is a truly breathtaking spectacle and has a theme that will appeal to all those who value personal integrity, honor, and bravery. In the 1550's, a benevolent emperor, Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar, has the ambition to unify Hindustan by peaceful means. The scenery is gorgeous, the characters are well crafted, and the plot is heroic in scale.

This movie will be roundly condemned by the usual militant supects because the hero is tolerant of all religions and even marries a Hindu while he himself is a Muslim. Some viewers may be critical of it for being too long (3 hrs 45 min) and for being subtitled, but I found neither to be distracting. This film is available on YouTube. For a detailed description you can read more about it at Wikipedia. I recommend it, unreservedly. There is no doubt that Bollywood can produce first rate, grand scale movies.
–Sam Erica

Here is the studio trailer:



And here is the first segment of the full length film with better sound and English subtitles:

Bogart & Hepburn "The African Queen"

The African Queen is, perhaps, a flawless movie. Directed by John Huston, filmed on location in Africa, starring Katherine Hepburn as the naive missionary Rose Sayer and Humphrey Bogart, who won his only Oscar for his part, as steamboat captain Charlie Allnut, the 1951 film portrays their escapades escaping from German occupied Tanganyika during the First World War. (Bogart and Lauren Bacall were newly married. Bacall accompanied Bogart on the shoot and took home movies.) The African Queen entertains on several levels. It succeeds as adventure, drama, character study and love story.

Rose and her brother Samuel are lone Protestant missionaries in a remote native village visited monthly by captain Allnut, a scrappy "Canadian" (he has a New York accent) expatriate and alcoholic. Charlie warns them that war has broken out, and that the Germans are coming. Doing God's work, they choose to stay on. The Germans beat Samuel, and he dies from the shock. Rose relents, and after Charlie buries her brother the survivors set off down river for civilization. They face a series of adventures against man and nature. when all seems lost they emerge on lake Tanganyika only to face the Luisa, a German gunboat built on the lake and commanding its waters.

While much of the film consists of discreet episodes, such as the famous encounter with leeches, and Rose's learning what it is to be a woman as she climaxes riding the rapids, unity is provided by the interaction of this couple thrown together by adversity. She inspires him to overcome his vulgar vices, he inspires her to overcome her Christian virtues. We come to care deeply about the couple as they come to care about each other. Just as the Luisa runs a circuit on the lake, the movie comes full circle, and ends with the heros blown out of the frying pan, and into the water.

This movie should be a part of your video library. You can buy it or rent it or watch it here in full on YouTube:

"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:

"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:

Man of the Century

Johnny Twennies, columnist for the New York Sun Telegram, wears a fedora, sends telegrams, whistles for taxis, and he thinks his girlfriend is just swell. Of course, after 27 dates Samantha's still wondering when she's going to get kissed. Johnny is a man of his times. His times are the late 1920's, even though he's living in 1990's New York. Cheerfully oblivious to the coarse, cynical and sexually liberated modern world, Johnny refuse to see the ugliness or surrender to the unhappiness around him. He woos his girl, does his job, teaches the bullies a lesson, shows the mob who's boss, and shows himself a hero, all without breaking a sweat.



This film is a welcome treat. The writing is witty. The story works just fine as either farce or straight up. Double entendres and screwball comedy abound. Frank Gorshin (TV Batman's The Riddler) and famed Manhattan night club performer Bobby Short play small roles. The black and white cinematography lends to the atmosphere and allows of certain artful touches. The period piece musical scenes are delightful. This film is a cult favorite, and bears repeated viewing. It should have won its star and co-writer Gibson Frazier and its director an co-writer Adam Abraham an award. It's a great date movie. Rent it today. Here is a trailer from YouTube:

"Heathers" Femmes Fatales II

A mix of Nietzsche and teen angst ending with the words, "There's a new sheriff in town," Heathers, a 1989 dark comedy starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, is a wicked satire of high school cliques, disfunctional families, and the therapeutic culture. While the film was not a box office success, it has attained cult status, with continuingly solid DVD slaes and rental revenue. It was a critical success for first-time director Michael Lehmann, and the first major lead for co-stars Slater and Ryder after his appearanced in Name of the Rose and hers in Beetlejuice.



Heather Chandler, Heather Duke and Heather McNamara are three vicious, sexually manipulative, and deeply unhappy "popular girls" whose clique terrorizes the student body of Westerburg High. The pretty and intelligent but alienated Veronica Sawyer (Ryder) joins the croquet-playing prank-planning sorority as an "honorary Heather." Her first assignment is to humiliate her former friend, Martha "Dumptruck" Dunnstock. Veronica, whose parents show their concern for her well-being by assuming, as they sip their martinis, that she must be suffering every fad teenage syndrome they hear of on TV, is just going through the motions. There is nothing more empty than a teenage suburban limbo where "that's so 1987" is the worst imaginable put-down.

Then bad-boy Jason "J.D." Dean (Slater) transfers in to Westerburg. With his shades and leather jacket and his disdain not only for authority but also the Heathers, he embodies for Veronica the possibility of a sufficient self. But J.D., for all his apparent bravado, is an empty shell as well. With no real values of his own, this nihilist lives to expose the emptiness in others. Finding the lone wolf in him attractive, Veronica decides to explore the dark side, beginning with a visit to the top Heather who is suffering the effects of a hangover. But J.D. switches the pick-me-up Veronica pours for her with poison. In a frantic attempt to avoid blame for her surpise demise, Veronica forges a suicide note. Not only is the note successful, but Heather's suicide is seen as an example by her classmates, and the ensuing farcical deaths are celebrated as an "opportunity to heal" by the school guidance counselor.



Veronica begins this movie as a burned out cynic. In search of the thrill that she can no longer get from Barbie Dolls, she joins the "elites" of her school to prey on her former friends who are seen as nerds and losers. Finding this even more barren, she turns on the predators with J.D.'s help and takes down the Heathers and top Jocks. J.D., a true psychopath, revels in the destruction. When Veronica abandons him, he plans murder to silence her, and a holocaust for the school. But Veronica, realizing the real worth, if not the supposed glamor of her former true friends, realizes that she has a value she wants to protect. A woman with a mission, she goes up against a killer, and completes her metamorphosis from delinquent to champion.

With its dark humor, over-the-top performances, stylized lunacy, and disdain for convention, Heathers resembles many critical hits of the seventies such as A Clockwork Orange and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The top-grossing teenage flick of the 80's, The Breakfast Club, would have us believe that mean teachers and low self-esteem are the central problems of youth, and that the cure is self-therapeutic weekend bull-sessions. Heathers blows that unintentional farce out of the water. At times surreal, almost psychadelic, Heathers succeeds as black comedy and as biting social commentary. But while Heathers succeeds as satire, it does not settle for mere cynicism. While Veronica flirts with nihilism, she never commits, ultimately withdrawing in horror once she sees the nature of that drooling beast. Beautiful and brilliant, a lack of strength was never Veronica's problem. Once she is wakened from her funk, she acts with courage. Veronica goes beyond the femme fatale, and choses to be a heroine instead.

Rent the film, buy the film, watch the film in full at YouTube:



Read Femmes Fatales, Part I and Part III

Delibes "Lakmé" The Flower Duet

While I do enjoy classical music, I mostly prefer instrumental pieces, for example Beethoven's Symphonies or tone poems such as Liszt's Preludes. I am not much of an opera fan. Having greatly enjoyed the musical Amadeus I was disappointed to find that just about everything of Mozart's that I liked was already in the film, and I found such works of his as Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute unappealing.

In college, a friend rented a favorite movie of his, The Hunger, with Susan Sarandon, David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve. A stylish vampire movie, it is just a bit too bloody for my taste, but it is quite worth seeing for those who like the genre. The greatest reward from watching it was learning of the "Flower Duet" from Léo Delibes' opera Lakmé. I immediately piurchased the opera. The bulk of it did not interest me. But the price was well paid to have a recording of that song. The story is simple. The daughter of a Hindu priest and her servant girl sing of a garden filled with flowers, jasmine and birds. I have placed some of the French lyrics and the English translation below, under the YouTube clip. The lyrics are for the part about 1:09 into the song.

In the movie The Hunger Catherine Deneuve says the "Flower Duet" is a love song, and Susan Sarandon asks Deneuve if Deneuve is seducing her. (Deneuve is.) But whether we imagine the duet as a love song or a vision of some oriental paradise, or even recall it as a theme that we have heard in commercials for Godiva Chocolate or British Airways, the melody is incomparable, the music transcendant. If you do not recognize this piece by the title, you will recognize it, and enjoy it immensely, upon hearing it.

I have chosen a performance by Carolyn Withers & Melissa Batalles accompanied only by Piano. There are other versions, with full orchestra. I think this simple arrangement shows the power of the music, without any need for strong back-up orchestration. It is divine without need for special devices. Enjoy.



Sous le dôme épais, où le blanc jasmin
À la rose s’assemble
Sur la rive en fleurs, riant au matin
Viens, descendons ensemble.

Doucement glissons de son flot charmant
Suivons le courant fuyant
Dans l’onde frémissante
D’une main nonchalante
Viens, gagnons le bord,
Où la source dort
Et l’oiseau, l’oiseau chante.

"Under the thick dome, where the white jasmine
Gathers with the rose,
On the riverbank in bloom, laughing in the morning,
Come, let us go down together.

"Gently let us slip from the pleasant rising flow,
Let us follow the fleeting current
In the shimmering stream,
Without any care,
Come, let us reach the bank,
Where the spring waters slumber
And the bird, the bird, she sings."

"Romeo is Bleeding" Femmes Fatales I

Conflict, says Ayn Rand, is the essence of plot. A plot requires struggle. Man can struggle with nature, with himself, and with other men. A struggle with nature provides a simple, one-sided plot. There is no psychological element, no conflict of human values in such a struggle. A struggle with oneself can be very dramatic, but it affords limited scope unless it is played out in the context of a wider struggle with others. It is in conflict with others that the widest range of plot developments are available. And one of the most popular, if not profound, scenarios for a dramatic plot is the crime story. Inherent in a crime story is the conflict between the criminal and his victim, necessarily with opposing interests.

The femme fatale is a particularly interesting type of character. In the crime story with a femme fatale we have not only the criminal element, with its dimension of good versus evil, we also have a shared romantic interest between the hero and the villain, as well as a conflict in the hero's values. If the hero has a love interest in the villain, then he must struggle "with" her while struggling against her. He may want to love her, but have to kill her. This leads to an internal struggle within the her which allows the dramatist to explore the hero's motivations and to develop his character.

The first femme fatale movie that I would like to examine is Romeo is Bleeding with two of my favorite actors, Gary Oldman (Jack Grimaldi) and Lena Olin (Mona Demarkov). Grimaldi is a cop on the take, working for the NYPD and the Italian Mafia. He has a wife, (Annabella Sciorra) a mistress (Juliette Lewis) and several hundred thousand in cash buried in his back yard. The mob hires him to kill Demarkov, who is being held by the police in a Brooklyn safe-house, but instead, she seduces him and he is found by his colleagues in a compromising position.

Demarkov is a case study in Ayn Rand's dictum that in a struggle between criminals, where the initiation of force determines the mode of interaction, the more ruthless will win. While Jack wants to live a life of crime while keeping the benefits of middle-class domesticity, Demarkov is fully depraved and uncompromisingly brutal. A succubus (she literally ends up sitting on Grimaldi's chest in almost all of their indoor scenes) she combines intelligence and ravishing beauty with the soul of a psychopath. She taunts Jack with the possibility of a partnership. Mona has her charms. She is exotic, brilliant, glamorous, and seems fully self-assured. But when she finally tells Jack of her first "love," and how she left his body on the beach where they had their one encounter, we see that Grimaldi's hope for a possible match is nothing more than fatal wishful thinking.



This fast-paced and very sytlized movie while not gorey in the sickening manner of a horror film, is incredibly violent, so much so as to be over the top. Yet, as it always furthers the plot, the brutality is not gratuitous. We see Grimaldi strangled, bloodied and maimed. Demarkov is shot and loses a limb. Mob Boss Don Falcone (Roy Scheider) gets his comeuppance in a darkly humorous scene.



It is Lena Olin's sultry black widow performance that has made this movie a cult classic. In a climactic scene, where Demarkov has captured and handcuffed Grimaldi to a bed, baring her prosthetic arm, asks as she mounts him, "with or without?" The answer is without.

For movie stills, see http://lenaolin.net/romeo.html

Here is the theatrical trailer:



Read Femmes Fatales, Part II

Johnny Depp in John Waters' "Cry-Baby"

Cry Baby is a cult-classic teen musical parody written and directed by John Waters and starring Johnny Depp as Cry-Baby Walker and Amy Locane as Allison Vernon-Williams. The hip but "square" Allison falls for the "drape" (greaser) Cry-Baby, a softy at heart with a bad reputation. Both are orphans whose parents died in ridiculous circustances. They overcome social division, their ex-steadies, the hard heart of the charm-school charm-school head-mistress, and the Baltimore legal authorities to secure their passionate romance.

A loving tribute to 50's teen-delinquent movies, the film features hits from the era in plenty of cute musical numbers. There is kitsch, camp, and comedy. The prison guard has his juvenile wards pray at bedtime for Eisenhower, Nixon and the Rosenberg case prosecutor Roy Cohn. There is plenty of leather-jacketed greased-haired hot-rodding and spontaneous song. There is just enough parody to remind you that the film is a farce, (the infamous Traci Lords and Patricia Hearst play supporting roles) but with its charismatic leads it entertains as a comedy and a light-hearted love story. This happy film is appropriate for anyone from puberty to second childhood.



Cry-Baby and Allison sing their first duet, and Allison steals the show:



Watch the entire film, here is Part 1 of 10:

Ian McKellen "Richard III"

Shakespeare's Richard III will do all and lose all to win the crown he so briefly possesses. It seems the real-life king did murder his two nephews to gain the throne uncontested. But Shakespeare allows us to sypmathize with his stagecraft villian, who addresses us as a friend and wittliy defeats all his opponents but the last. Unlike MacBeth, whom fate and his wife conspire to make a villain, Shakespeare's Richard III, out of jealousy and hatred for the joy of others, resolves in his opening soliloquy:

"And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid...
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one against the other..."

Ian McKellen's 1995 production of Richard III, also starring Annette Benning, Maggie Smith, and Robert Downey Jr. and available in DVD format, is one of the best movie adaptations in the genre. Swift and suspenseful, yet lush and poetic, the story is well-adapted to a 1930's setting. The language, well illustrated by the action, is easily accesible to the popular audience. The film bears repeated watching. Much of the play has become the common heritage of the Anglosphere. This play should also be a part of your library.

Much of the play, including the opening soliloquy is available on YouTube. Here is the trailer:

The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane

Jodie Foster's immortal place in American culture is, of course, unquestioned. Even today at 50 she regularly tops Angelina Jolie in polls of Ayn Rand fans for their fantasy cast of Dagny in Atlas Shrugged. Strong, beautiful, self-assured, no contemporary star outshines the lead of such films as Contact, Nell, The Accused and Silence of the Lambs. Foster began work as a child actress in 1968 and by 1975 she starred in two feature films, the very different Freaky Friday and Little Girl who Lives down the Lane. She does play an smart and independent child in each role. Freaky Friday, a Disney film, has been remade several times. But there is only one "Down the Lane." I enjoyed the first, I fell in love with her when I saw the second.

In this film, an homage to film noir, Foster plays a gifted child living alone in a rented New England home. Her nosey landlady Mrs. Hallet and the landlady's pedophile son Frank (Martin Sheen) question her on the absence of her father and otherwise threateningly intrude on her privacy. Foster, used to dealing with adults as an equal, faces a crisis when her landlady dies in a suspicious accident. Foster and her boyfriend hatch a scheme to allay the suspicion of the townfolk. The movie ends with a classic dark resolution of her difficulties with Frank Hallet. This film is a must see both for itself and as a vehicle for Foster. Here is an expository clip from YouTube:

Richard Adams "Watership Down"

Frank Herbert's Dune was rejected by almost twenty publishers. Made into two movies, it is now the best selling science-fiction book of all time. Ayn Rand's Fountainhead was rejected by twelve publishers, and has been made into a movie, sold millions of copies, and was voted second-favorite novel of the 20th Century in Modern Library's reader's poll. Richard Adams' Watership Down was rejected by 13 publishers. It has been adapted for film and television. It is 79th on the Modern Library poll. It has sold more copies than any other novel under the Penguin Books label.

Watership Down is the epic adventure story of Fiver, Bigwig and Hazel, three rabbits whose warren is destroyed and who must brave the threats of men, predators, and a band of rabbits run as a military dictatorship in order to build a home in peace and freedom. A critical success, the novel has been likened to Tolkien's work for its complex back-story including a mythology and an invented language. It has been likened to Homer's Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid for its plot and epic scope. It is the story of the triumph of bravery and cooperation over submission and force.

While the subject might seem juvenile, the story is written at an adult level and will appeal to all who like a well-plotted adventure with a positive theme and a happy ending. This is one book that no parent will begrudge reading his children.

The 1978 movie adaption is quite faithful to the book. It should, of course, be enjoyed after you have read the novel. It is also available in full on YouTube, here:

"Yaadein" a Bollywood Treat

Back in 2001 an Indian friend (who had to leave the country after 9-11 when his work visa was not renewed) lent me the movie Yaadein ("Memories"). I had told him I was interested in hearing some classical Indian music. He suggested I watch this Bollywood movie with its pop music. The movie was nothing high-brow; a soap opera plot, 1970's disco attire, boy-band performances, Busby Berekely for the Twenty-First Century. But the sense of life was positive, the music catchy, and the spice exotic from a Western viewpoint. The story was forgettable, just a vehicle for the music. I am sure there must be better movies than Yaadein, but you'd have to ask a Hindi speaker.

Here you can listen to "Jub Dil Miley, Tub Gul Khiley." (I am pretty sure it means "When the heart is sweet the rose blooms.")

Johnny Guitar & Women on the Verge

In Pedro Almodovar's Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown the protagonist Pepa Marcos (Carmen Maura) has just been unceremoniously dumped by her lover and co-worker Ivan (Fernando Guillén) with whom she does voiceover work. Exhausted and about to discover she is pregnant, Pepa takes too many sleeping pills and arrives after her lover has finished a session of dubbing Johnny Guitar, the 1954 classsic western with Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden.

"Lie to me. Tell me you've always loved me. Tell me you would have died without me."

Both movies featue drama and struggle between women slinging guns as they ride. Johnny Guitar portrays murder, while in Women on the Verge at worst a bed is burnt to death. With music, color and melodrama the two make an interesting pair. Women on the Verge is Almodovar's best, and Crawford was never better than in Johnny Guitar. Here a few clips from each. My apolgies for the lack of subtitles for the Spanish.

"Lie to Me" Johnny Guitar



Pepa's Dub Session (Pepa oversleeps, and misses Ivan's break-up call. The Doctor tells her she's pregnant. Pepa does her dubs. She calls Ivan from work, but gets his wife, who having just left the insane asylum, thinks she's still young.)



"The Piano Scene" Johnny Guitar



Pepa, packing Ivan's things, and "sick of being good" forgets she shouldn't be smoking, and burns the bed, to Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade

"Solea" from Almodóvar's "Flower of my Secret"

Unrequited love, a style of dance that combines the grace of ballet and the energy of tap...is it Rand's lost novel To Lorne Dieterling? No, it's The Flower of My Secret, the story of a passionate writer looking for just a little bit more out of life. One night, at a dance recital where Miles Davis and Pedro Almodovar intersect, she finds it.

As with many of his films, distinctive for their melodramatic plots and vibrant color, Pedro Almodóvar's 1995 Flower of My Secret (La flor de mi secreto) also features a dramatic musical performance however loosely tied to the plot structure. This movie tells the story of Leocadia, (Marisa Paredes) picured here with her elderly mother and her "crab-faced" sister, a writer of popular romance novels, who looses one love, and, in trying to switch to a more profound style of writing, finds a better. This is one of Almodóvar's best films, if one of his least outlandish. One of the highlights is Joaquín Cortés and Manuela Vargas's interprative/flamenco dance performance to Miles Davis' "Solea" (Sketches of Spain) which can be seen here:



Here is the trailer:

Ravel's "Bolero" from Allegro Non Troppo

Bruno Bozzetto's Allegro Non Troppo ("Not so Fast") of 1977 is a parody/homage to Disney's Fantasia. It suffers from the second-handedness of a parody, both in spirit and execution. The music is downbeat, the animation obscure, the depiction of life pessimistic, and the interspersed live action scenes, shot in black and white, a poor mockery of the Three Stooges. This film is thoroughly European, cynical and self-mocking in a way totally opposed to the American exuberance and earnestness of Fantasia. But it is art. The music can be grand. One can fast forward through the live action bits. It is certainly worth renting from Netfilx, but is not suitable for viewing with children. Here is, perhaps, the best part, the animation of Ravel's Bolero, meant as the counterpart to Disney's animation of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

Bolero, Part 1



Bolero, Part 2

Almodóvar "Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down"

Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down (Spanish Átame) was one of Pedro Almodóvar's most successful films, even given its original X rating upon its release, which sparked a lawsuit and the development of the NC17 rating as an alternative. The film depicts the story of Ricky (Antonio Banderas) a recently released mental patient and Marina (Victoria Abril) his ex-porn star love, whom he kidnaps and keeps tied up until she comes to realize his love for her. Considered risqué and by some feminists highly objectionable (one wonders if they saw the film) the film is a love story and features very little explicit nudity. The films joyous sense of life is excellently expressed by the cast and Almodóvar's vibrant signature direction. Enjoy this brief scene where Marina's sister Lola (Loles León) sings and dances at the cast party for Marina's latest film.