Hollywood Tiki bar legend: Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt, also know as Donn Beachcomber

When I was a boy Southern California was Tiki Country and I was Tiki Country's native Son. Until today I didn't realize I had a patron saint of Tiki coolness as well. Of all the people in the whole wide world that I should have known about, why wasn't I clued in earlier to Ernest Gantt?

I knew and loved all things Tiki, as we all did back in the early sixties, but somehow I missed living the bigtime tiki life. I never acquired tiki mugs, never achieved tropical drink greatness with my paper umbrella influenced rum, 7-up and fruit cocktail drink and I never made it to the original Trader Vics before it went away. I do remember going to a Beachcomber knockoff, Kon Tiki, for my junior prom, but alas my crew was all too young at the time to sample anything more than virgin drinks from the bar.

I don't remember doing up anything tiki on my trips through Hawaii, but then again, all we were interested in, back in those swaggering sailor days, was knocking back Primo beer and looking for stray round eye tourists to impress. Tiki pretty much passed me by since then and it's no wonder. I have no illusions about my inner savage and knew that it wouldn't be calmed by all that kitchy Tahitian flora and fauna from my childhood anyways. My parents didn't just furtively glance at the post WWII tiki movement, they totally embraced it. It snuck in the house in the form of faux Far Eastern cuisine, bamboo furnishings and culminated in the building of our storied backyard patio, complete with requisite drift nets, dried starfish and potted birds of paradise. Yeah, I thought I graduated from the tiki life and left it behind me, but instead I fell back into it when the grey skies of Washington demanded a dose of sunshine and flowery shirts. I ended up working through five or six Pacific Northwest winter seasons dressed in comfy Hawaiian prints, and I didn't even have to work for Trader Joe's.

Until today I wasn't aware of the legacy of Donn Beachcomber, of his seminal Hollywood bar, of all the famous celebrities who gave creedence to his slice of the tropics. I know that whenever I want I can cross the pond and hit up Archie McPhees and walk away with bags of tiki gear, but never really thought of it as a lifestyle or as a fashion statement outside of wacky houseparty decor. I thought it was a movement that came and went like shag carpet and bell bottoms, but instead of ending up in second hands it left behind a serious wake of detrius in my life. Not just worn out paper umbrellas, dried blowfish and glass fishing floats but snaps of a my life as it was once lived.

I don't have the original anymore, but I do have a color copy of a old photo that was taken back in the late fifties, early sixties, a picture of my Mom standing next to my godmother Estella. They were dressed up in mumus, the middle class party going outfit of the time, tropical drinks in hand, the house resplendant and packed with all the tiki goods the good host could afford at the time. They both were laughing, obviously having a good time, mai tai in hand or not. Looking at that photo I can see that tiki was a big deal in my family life, bigger than I remembered it being. Looking at that snap I have to wonder if Art was really my godfather after all. Maybe it was Mr Gantt. How cool would that be? Pass me a Zombie and we'll talk about it!

Action!

LA Times Magazine: The Story of Don the Beachcomber:

http://www.latimesmagazine.com/2010/02/drink-in-paradise.html

Tiki flavored blogs:

http://www.mrbalihai.com/goof/

http://www.tikiroom.com/

America's sweet embrace of Tiki: Enchanted Tiki Room, Disneyland, CA:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6220763240510093398&ei=Qj2KS8roJoygqQPP-tyRBw&q=enchanted+tiki+room+disneyland&hl=en#

"Live long and prosper!"

I was never a Trekkie, a real pity considering that the original series aired on my watch. As a kid I preferred Rat Patrol, Combat, Hogan's Heroes and Wild, Wild West. I cozied up to science fiction with the Outer Limits, Twilight Zone and Lost in Space but somehow I just couldn't wrap my head around Captain Kirk, Spock and the rest of the Starship Enterprise crew. Like all good tv watchers of the time I tuned in, but chose to drop out and forget about it after a few viewings. The series cancellation pretty much washed over me and I went onto other things, other shows. Apparently I really missed out on a pretty big cultural deal.

Fast forward a million years or so. The new Star Trek film was coming up and I just couldn't get excited about it. Come on, wasn't all that Trekkie stuff passe? Maybe it was just me. Ok, I confess: I never went to a Star Trek convention, never bothered to plug in old VHS tapes of the series, never caught up with any of the new series on tv and only caught two or three of the older Star Trek films when life was at it's most boring around the house. Face it, Ricardo Montebalm pretty much ruined any hope of a Star Trek revival for me. Tell me I wasn't the only one.

So, this summer my Estranged One took the two oldest to the Rodeo Drive-in to catch a double feature: Transformers II and the latest Star Trek. I can't say that I envied them as it didn't get dark until almost ten. That meant a double bill lasting until damn near three in the morning, if not later. What got back to me later the next day was that I missed out on what was considered by those three hearty film goers to be pretty much the ultimate drive-in double bill. Once the Estranged One threw in a pizza, some popcorn and ample amount of caffeinated beverages they were all good to go. A partially drained battery was about the only real problem that resulted from such a long slog in the van. Sleep, well, it was put to me that we can pretty much sleep plenty when we're dead.

I caught up with Transformers late last year and loved it, but put off JJ Abram's flick until tonight. "Wow!" is an understatement. It was truly a film lover's kind of movie. Pure escapism. A true stand alone kind of flick that said to me that I didn't have to feel bad about missing out on that seminal Roddenberry series when I was a kid, that I could turn my sci-fi jones on full blast and groove accordingly and that I could feel good about wishing and hoping for more of the same later on. This movie had "franchise" written all over it. I do hope for a summer or two up the road with more of the same crew and the same kind of action that was doled out on my tv screen tonight. Goodness, wasn't that what it was all about to begin with? A television voyage on a small screen to a place that I had never been to before?

Huzzah JJ Abram and your new Star Trek! Hopefully it was the beginning of a grand new frontier.

Action!

A really great Allmovie.com film review: Star Trek:

http://www.allmovie.com/work/star-trek-356492/review

Return of Captain EO

I was the source of all forms of envy when I was a child. I had a doting grandfather who lavished me with toys. I was a good student and was the pet of all the ancient aunts who made it a bad habit to rub my good grades into the noses of my pesky, wild cousins. I also had the distinct priviledge of being the only kid in the family tree to go to Disneyland twenty some odd times before I hit high school. It was a sore point in many circles of kiddom, but I didn't care. I was a true Disney nut. I caught their movies whenever I could, read the comics, cried the day that Walt died. As I grew up I cultivated friendships with other Disney nuts, making major battle plans for each and every vacation and holiday period in order to maximize our time in the park. Didn't hurt that I lived six miles away, close enough that I could walk there, close enough that I could sit on my garage roof and watch the fireworks go off each and every summer night.

So, it baffles me to this day that right before I went off to join the fleet I stumbled on a job there and turned it down. Disney offered me a job selling ice cream bars full time, or, as full time as a summer job can be. My head wasn't in the right place to sell ice cream at the end of high school. I was spoiled, I must admit, with the wild times my free drive in pass and my swap meet job offered. I looked hard at the restrictions that working every night until one or two would have on my "love" life and drinking soirees with my pals and said nix to that. Closest I ever got to renewing that particular form of joy was bagging a reference library job with their research firm right out of the service. Instead of pushing ice cream bars at the Park I ended up checking out books to the Grand Old Men of Disney. What a difference a few years before the mast make.

All the same I've remained a big fan of the organization and their product all my life. My kids were raised on a steady diet of renewly rereleased classics and were treated to big screen thrills whenever new Disney product hit the market. And while we haven't made the Disneyland pilgrimage as much as I would have liked, all but the youngest has had a chance to visit the Magic Kingdom. So that makes it almost time to load up the van and haul them down for a week or so to do the long soak in the all various forms of magic that make up Disneyland.

In the meantime I keep up with the business of the Parks with posts on Miceage.com or via news announcements in the LA Times. It was great to see that the old Michael Jackson attraction Captain EO was back online. It was never a grand piece of 3-D but it had serious film pedigree. Francis Ford Coppola as director, George Lucas as producer, Angelica Huston as a the very scary space witch and Michael, hip thrusting, moon walking Michael Jackson as Captain EO.

After reading the article posted below I might have to race down the coast and catch it again but luckily for me and the rest of the world the film is available for all to see on YouTube. It was grand to see it again, even without the 3-D specks. I was amazed to see how fresh and vital that incredibly cool young man was back in his heyday. It truly was a great time to see him up on the screen like that, in a family park like Disneyland. Now, with his passing, the movie is a sweet bit of homage, a nice touch of nostalgia, a nice "adios, Michael". Give it whirl. It was far more fun than I remembered, and maybe, just maybe you'll feel the same way, too.

Action!

LA Times: Captain EO rides again!
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/02/michael-jackson-fans-line-up-at-disneyland-for-return-of-captain-eo.html

Captain EO, Pt I:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AstW05bDiQU

Captain EO, Pt II:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2Zt-57Cg0U

Yesterland's story of Disneyland's Captain EO attraction:
http://www.yesterland.com/eo.html

Great all around source of Disney news:
http://www.miceage.com/

Not Wendy and the Lost Boys, that's for sure..

Stumbled on Vinyan at the local rental house a few weeks ago in the new releases section. Lurid cover, just enough to make me peek at the liner notes. I thought, aside from the award winning/festival playing pedigree stamp on the face, that it might just be another one of those wonderful time waster horror films that I've stumbled on and viewed over the last couple of days. But you see, I should have looked back in time into my repetoire of foreign thrillers and known that it wasn't going to be some direct to video rip off. I looked at it and set it down, didn't deem it worthy of my time. I didn't have faith, that's all there is to it.

So, I stumbled upon Vinyan again last week. Yet another brick and mortar joint was closing out it's stock, shuttering it's doors, all that. Two copies for sale on the shelf. Then I thought, man, why should I buy it when I can rent it? I mean, if all I'm going to do is be disappointed why have it at home collecting dust? What a silly man I was, let me tell you, for having let it go. Borrowed it, waited for sundown, got in a bit of supper, a bit of vino and plugged it in. From the moment it started out I knew I was treading dangerous waters. The whole story was about dangerous waters, tsunamis, lost children, a mother's love for her swept away child, all that. A wretched, dangerous sort of sadness.

The story revolves around a wealthy couple who lack closure after the 2005 Indian Ocean tidal wave washes away their kid out to sea. Mom never really recovers, thinks she sees her boy in an newsreel video snapped by an wanderlust type in a sea gypsy village on the Thai/Burma border. Against all reason her husband bankrolls the venture to find the boy, hires underworld thugs to get him and the wife to the village where the boy was last seen. Add one leaky craft, a lot of mystical mumbo jumbo about angry souls, a large dollop of very wet, very nasty jungle and you have the makings of one very paranoid and scary bit of movie watching. I wasn't freaked out in the way that American horror films might have made me. There were no outrageous startling moments, nothing untoward jumping out at me for the sake of making me jump. Just a bunch of wicked looking feral children doing their Lord of the Flies best to freak me out. I was practically on my knees thanking god for travel videos and for a lack of a major travel jones.

As much as I would just love to see Thailand again, do the Pattaya Beach thing again, indulge in a lot of their local ganja, great food, wonderful surf, all that, I think I'll have to pass, that is, until they do something about that feral child population. It's a long ways to go just to have your bride wisked off into the wilds to be some Lost Boys wannabes. I like my gal just fine, let them find someone else to be their new Mama of the Week.

Wild film, wicked drama. Unsettling, nerve wracking, worthy of your time just for the sake of the Bangkok side of the travelogue. But let me add that it was tough watching the sheer madness and folly of a mother's broken heart unfold on the screen. Four of out five stars...er..scares! Watch it before you go!

Action!

Movie Review: Vinyan:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1029241/

On the couch with Jane: Time Traveler's Wife

The review said that The Time Traveler's was a multi hanky affair but a film that you had to hand over your sense of incredulousness. I couldn't quite say if it was a two or three Kleenex number, as I had nothing but my shirt sleeve and crumpled cotton bedding around to wipe away my tears. I will say that the movie was close enough to the book to keep me entranced and wrenching enough to keep me glued to the screen, not only because is was a well told tale of doomed love, but because we have already lived the story.

The book was a mighty big deal in our lives. It was the biggest, baddest book in our Fall book group collection. We took that title and made it the gospel of our times, turned our Calcopo Forest to the Sea Book Discussion Group (party of two) into the must attend, had to be there, true come hell or high water kind of event not to be missed. As you used to like to say to me, Jane, "it was always my favorite time of the month".

When we chose that book back in December of '05 we had no idea that it was anywhere close to being optioned for a movie. I suppose I should be more thorough, do my researchy reference librarian best to find out when it was picked up, when key actors were chosen, when it went into pre-production, all that. All I know is that once I knew it was wrapped up I could barely wait to see it. Not that that excitement translated into movie tickets, no. It didn't mean that I ran down and bought a new copy on the day of it's release, or that I waited in line for it to show up at my local rental store.

No, in the end I was leery about watching it, damn near afraid to see what it might cause. It too much like having my own form of Pandora's Box in the house. After a week of sitting on the shelf downstairs it finally migrated upstair to my room. Seeing you yesterday put it back in action. Once I put it in the player I knew that I would be doing some time traveling, too. Would the experience be kind? Would it cause some sort of wrenching drama in my life the way that that book did when we read it oh so long ago?

All I know is that tonight that film played upstairs at the Futon Cinema and I was kind enough to let it weave it's magic. The book, along with assorted shared dishes at the China Chef, a cold winter night, The Snowman and assorted birding gifts, all wove into a special sort of flying carpet for us. Tonight I had no birdbaths on my bed, no crumpled Chinese menus, no sky hinting of snow to whisk me back in time. All I had, Jane, was that old familiar feeling, one that said to me that I am beyond happy for all the good times we shared. We did our own sort of time traveling way back when. Maybe that's why the book, and now this movie, are all so important. The story is all about love and the inevitability of death. Love while you can, the book said, love with all your heart and soul and sinew. Make this life count. We did. And so did the characters in tonight's screening of the The Time Traveler's Wife. It was grand, as were we.

Action!

Movie Review: Time Traveler's Wife:

http://www.allmovie.com/work/the-time-travelers-wife-394946/review

Kathryn Bigelow: thrill junkie, baby!

Hurt Locker, another war film filled with adrenaline junkies, thrill seekers and wild men. Not much of a stretch from those damn vampires Kathryn doled out years ago in Near Dark. Blood, mayhem and murder and all the assorted accoutrements of any good horror flick were there in abundance in her latest blood soaked celluloid opus. Face it, that war film had pedigree written all over it. Look at the director and the cornerstone work of her early director days. Near Dark is a near perfect pitch scary movie. Vampire "family" on the loose in Texas with a certain kind of twisted moral code that ensured they protected their own, outsiders and daylight be damned. They were skilled in gettng what they needed in order to survive, they knew that discipline and hard work and their heightened sense of bloodlust would yield them a peculiar kind of riches.

Then there were those moonsuit wearing cats in Hurt Locker. Those soldiers were pretty much cut from the same cloth as those night riding vampires. Hardworking, hard partying, solid in their skill set but still somewhat fractured by the uncertainty of the environment, by the recklessness of the FNG, the bomb disposal tech sergeant. That is, until he proved himself, showed that he had brass plated cojones and could take on bombs and bad guys and bottles of whiskey with equal measure.

I feel I keep stumbling on Ms Bigelow's films instead of actively seeking them out. I can still remember the first time I even heard of Near Dark. I was up in Seattle visiting an old library pal. He was a quirky dude, a major film head, worked Tower Records for the music deals, knew where all the great little ethnic restaurants and interesting watering holes and bargain movie houses were like nobody else around, 'cept maybe some equally culture crazed staffers from The Stranger. He was a movie poster collector, too, and had a major oversized print of Ms Bigelow's vampire opus up on his living room wall. My pal, for having such a big movie jones, had one vital link missing from his possessions chain: he was lacking a VCR. Big pity, but then again I didn't have one at home, either. All the same I was intrigued, got caught up in the search for the film. Years later I tracked it down and was left seriously unsettled. I felt then and still feel now that Near Dark is one of the most vicious horror films ever created. Yeah, good stuff.

So I must admit I was surprised when I found out that Ms Bigelow put out a war film. Read about it, put it on the things to view list. Somehow missed it as it blew through the local cineplex and the neighborhood arthouse. Was HL destined to be missed? Not with such a big awards presence, it wasn't. Finally found a rental copy last weekend, watched it once, gave it a day's rest and watched it again tonight. What got me was that it wasn't really a war film at all, but a full out horror fest draped in the lastest Middle Eastern conflict. It's heroes were fragile, tough, covered with blood and gore, the bad guys ellusive, the episodic scenes packed with tension, edgy lighting and edge of your seat mood music. A good scary flick will have stuff jump out at you willy nilly to make you scream, to jack up the goosebumps. Instead of lunging bloodsuckers Hurt Locker was packed with modern day bloodletters like remote control bombs, assault rifle weilding assassins, sinister civilians and miles of det cord with no end in sight. More, it made our innocent daily existence in the States seem highly suspect, too. I can still picture the unease that the furloughed soldier felt as he scanned a long aisle of boxed cereal in an apparently deserted supermarket. I felt more discomfort in that scene that I have felt in a half dozen recent zombie flicks. Yeah, it's the everyday normal stuff that kills you in the end.

Vampires may be the stuff of legend, but our various conflicts overseas are the real horror stories we get read about every day in the newspaper. The innocent flotsom and jetsum of lives turn sinister by degrees when you have no idea who is a friendly and who is a foe. Wander about in the dark of night and more than likely will not stumble upon a wandering family of bloodsuckers. Wander about in the daylight in soldier's uniform a bustling town in Iraq circa 2007 and the chances were that you would experience some sort of horror guaranteed to make your hair white overnight.

Hurt Locker. Near Dark. Horror films deluxe. Watch them with the lights off. And thanks alot, Kathryn, you thrill junkie, you.

Action!





Kathryn Bigelow: IMDB overview, with connections to Hurt Locker and Near Dark:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000941/

Madness

Aguirre. Madness, sheer madness.

Not the kind of madness found in the Madness of King George or in the midst of the crazed ones in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Not the politically maniacal, bug eyed patriot sort of mad found in Doctor Strangelove. Not hell in a handbasket kind of crazy, either, in the way that some war films can be, although I must admit anything to do with the Holocaust and concentration camps is about as sad crazy as it gets.

No, it more the mad, sad, outrageousness of people and the insensible things that they do that're chronicled so well in documentaries like Koyaanisqatsi and it's successors. It's more the wild madness of hubris discarded as captured in Mosquito Coast, the type of glorious homocidal madness that propelled Gloria Swanson down the staircase in Sunset Blvd, the sort of wickedly brazen kind of madness that drove that wee riverine warship up the Nung River to Colonel Kurtz's compound. Aguirre captures a poetic madness of the grandest sort and is best seen captured in the final frame of Werner Herzog's masterpiece, as the conquistidor played by Klaus Kinski floats down river on a raft filled with corpses and monkeys. That final take, with Aguirre stumbling about his sodden funeral barge, is the cinematic moment that truly defines a beautiful, waay out there, totally cuckoo kind of mad.

We are and need to be sensitive about those kinds of things these days. There are groups and organizations and pharmaceutical houses out there that would take umbrage to the fact that I am even using the word crazy in a sentence. I mean, look at how much trouble using the word retarded caused the White House chief of staff? I have nothing against crazy people. I look at Van Gogh and am very thankful for folks who are and were a bit off their rockers. It's just when they are leading us, when we are far, far from home that having a Mad Hatter at the helm of the good ship Nevermore bothers me a bit.

I have to admit that I put off watching Aguirre for years because of Klaus Kinski's bio, because of the tell all book, My Favoite Fiend, chronicling the fractious, violent relationship between Kinski and Herzog. I put off watching it because it was one of those films I championed during my somewhat snotty art house phase, back in those days when nothing that came out of Hollywood, new or old, was worth a damn. I put it off, too, because I didn't want to be disappointed. I had memories of this monumental film tucked in one of the back corridors of my brain and I didn't want to let it out for fresh air. I wanted that dusty image to be preserved deep in my psyche, I wanted it to sit tight and hang out with all the rest of my self righteous, full of myself college memories. It was a good fit back then, the story of Spanish conquistidors doing their best to conquer wild jungle, filmed by a German director, the main actors speaking German instead of Spanish. The strangeness fed me and I trumpeted the weirdness of it all to all my equally nerdy pals.

Aguirre isn't for everybody, but then again, a film with impact of a blunderbus slug that isn't driven by an insipid plot, drippy dialogue and CGI effects is not everybody's cup of tea, either. Hell, I must admit that there are days when "insipid" and "drippy" and loud sonic "BOOM!"'s are just what the doctor ordered. Somedays I put on something strange and foriegn and avant garde just because I want to go to sleep. But Aguirre isn't one of those kinds of films. You get caught up in the film right away, if you are the breathing type, if you are the kind of person who's blood is circulating properly. From the moment you see that shot of those hapless Indians, those gold crazed conquistidors carrying cannon and chickens and bulky sedan chairs down the slopes of the Andes you know you're hooked. From that moment on you know that you are embarking on a trip that qualifies as one of those Thank God It Isn't Me kind of tales.

Kinski. He has the kind of face that is repellent to a twenty some year old guy hung up on movie star looks. That face is too waay out there, too much, too filled with expression and awe and a sort of unearthly glow that says saint or zealot or madman, look out. The more I watch him play Aguirre, the more I truly appreciate that there was no other man born to play the role. It's the eyes, his sneer, the rubbery exoticness of his face that says "stay away, come, do whatever you please but know that the ship is in my hands now and that your days are numbered".

I watched Aguirre the other night and knew from the beginning that Man was never in charge, that nature and the jungle would prevail, that everything we do to poison the earth and take away it's power is for naught. To struggle against it is madness, to think we are masters of our fate is madness. Watch Aguirre and be thankful for your time and place in history, but at the same time resign yourself to knowing that like the crew aboard that rotten raft sailing down a tributary of the Amazon, you are not in charge, not now, not ever. We are lost, hapless souls on a journey, at the mercy of fever dreams, green monkeys and fashionably long arrows.

Action!

Movie review: Aguirre, Wrath of God:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068182/

Telegraph Hill Blues

Thanks Wikipedia! I just finished watching Peckinpah's Killer Elite and started jotting down titles of films that I could remember being shot in San Francisco. Gave up after ten or so. Needed a bit of help, a bit of filler. Got more that I bargained for, and not just movies with car chases in them, either! Studio classics, sci-fi, screwball comedies, CGI explosion filled fests, film noir, you name it, San Francisco has been the back drop for it all! So here you go, film fans, a wide assortment of movies that take place in San Francisco:

10.5 (2004)
40 Days and 40 Nights (2002)
48 Hrs. (1982)
After the Thin Man (1936)
Arachnophobia (1990)
Another 48 Hrs. (1990)
The Bachelor (1999)
Barbary Coast (1935)
Basic Instinct (1992)
Bedazzled (2000)
The Birds (1963)
Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)
Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
Born to Kill (1947)
Boys and Girls (2000)
Bullitt (1968)
Burglar (1987)
Cherish (2002)
The Conversation (1974)
Copycat (1995)
The Core (2003)
D.O.A. (1950)
Dark Passage (1947)
The Darwin Awards (2006)
Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
The Dead Pool (1988)
Dirty Harry (1971)
Dogfight (1991)
Dopamine (2003)
Double Harness (1933)
Double Jeopardy (1996)
Dr. Dolittle (1998)
Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001)
EDtv (1999)
The Enforcer (1976)
Escape from Alcatraz (1979)
Experiment in Terror (1962)
Family Guy Presents: Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story (2005)
The Fan (1996)
Fearless (1993)
Foul Play (1978)
Four Christmases (2008)
Freebie and the Bean (1974)
Funny People (2009)
The Game (1997)
A Gathering of Eagles (1963)
George of the Jungle (1997)
Golden Gate (1994)
Good Neighbor Sam (1964)
Greed (1924)
The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
Haiku Tunnel (2001)
Hardcore (1979, concluding scene)
Heart and Souls (1993)
High Crimes (2002)
Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco (1996)
The House on Telegraph Hill (1951)
How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998)
Hulk (2003)
I Married a Communist (1949)
I Remember Mama (1948)
The Impatient Years (1944)
Innerspace (1987)
Interview with the Vampire (1994)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955)
The Joy Luck Club (1993)
Just Like Heaven (2005)
Jagged Edge (1985)
Killer Elite (1975)
Kuffs (1992)
The Lady from Shanghai (1948)
The Laughing Policeman (1973)
Magnum Force (1973)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Metro (1997)
Milk (2008)
Monsters vs. Aliens (2009)
Mother (1996)
Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
The Net (1995)
Nine Months (1995)
North Beach (2000)
Old San Francisco (1926)
The Other Sister (1999)
Out of the Past (1947)
Pal Joey (1957)
Pacific Heights (1990)
Play It Again, Sam (1972)
The Presidio (1988)
The Princess Diaries (2001)
Psych-Out (1968)
The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
Quicksilver (1986)
Race Street (1948)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Romeo Must Die (2000)
The Rock (1996)
The Room (2003)
San Francisco (1936)
Serendipity (2001)
Sister Act (1992)
Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993)
The Sisters (1938)
Skidoo (1968)
Sneakers (1992)
So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)
Star Trek (2009)
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
Sucker Free City (2004)
Sudden Fear (1952)
Sudden Impact (1983)
Sweet November (2001)
Terminator Salvation (2009)
The Sweetest Thing (2002)
Thieves' Highway (1949)
Time After Time (1979)
The Time of Your Life (1948)
The Towering Inferno (1974)
Twisted (2004)
Vertigo (1958)
A View to a Kill (1985)
The Wedding Planner (2001)
What's Up, Doc? (1972)
The Woman in Red (1984)
Woman on the Run (1950)
Woman on Top (2000)
War (2008)
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
Yours, Mine and Ours (1968)
Zodiac (2007)
[edit] Documentary
The Bridge (2006)
Crumb (1994)
Jonestown (2006)
Thoth (2001)
The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)
The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (2005)
Fog City Mavericks (2007)

Map of selected film sites, San Francisco:

http://www.sfgate.com/maps/movies/

San Francisco's Film Noir Festival, Noir City:

http://www.filmnoirfoundation.org/aboutnoircity.html

Rio

So, what was it that got me going on Rio? Was it realizing that it was summertime down there after facing yet another dreary grey Pacific Northwest winter day up here? Was it hearing Stan Getz et al knock out their classic sublime and atmospheric song Girl from Ipanema once again? Maybe it was the almost back to back experience of viewing of City of God and Elite Squad, which made me wonder why the hell would anybody want to live there, let alone visit the place.

But then there were the Saint's pre-Lenten Superbowl victory parades in New Orleans last week, which jump started Fat Tuesday in the Big Easy . I mean, who wouldn't like to go down there and do Mardi Gras at least once in their lifetime? Then, to take that to a higher and more psychedelic level, who wouldn't want to take in Rio's Carnival and experience to Fat Tuesday in a completely wild and reckless new way?

I suppose I could get out my Janis print of Black Orpheus and some sort of vicarious experience instead , but I can only see getting so much out of that. Maybe I should research this further, check into air fare, hotel costs, all that. Or maybe I need to check out my homegrown U S of A version first. Or maybe I should just forget about it, pop on my Verve compliation of Antonio Carlos Jobim classics, mix up a fruity tropical drink and chill out, groove on the grey wonders of our Pac NW maritime weather, forego the street crowds, the hustlers, the long flight and airport strip checks, all that.

Naw, I would rather be bold and witty and brave like Bronques over at Last Night's Party dot com and groove on the wonders of night life of Carnaval down in Rio. A man's gotta dream. Maybe I should start brushing up on my Portuguese just in case. Although I am sure that a hearty "WOO HOO!" is the same in any language!

Action!

Rio Carnival 2010:

http://www.rio-carnival.net/

Girl from Ipanema Tom Jobim and Joao Gilberto Reunited: video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmV0TcTNJ3o

Film review: Elite Squad:

http://www.allmovie.com/work/elite-squad-426475

Film review: City of God:

http://www.allmovie.com/work/city-of-god-265461

Film review: Black Orpheus:

http://www.allmovie.com/work/black-orpheus-5910

NY Times article: cracking down on Rio's beaches:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/world/americas/10rio.html

Hollywood without the Hollywood sign?

The Hollywood sign was a boyhood staple, least ways, on those days where I could see it.

Smog in LA was legendary back in those pre-unleaded gas days. The smog totally sucked, totally goofed with your play, and for a kid with asthma it was especially hellish. You went outside, or were kicked outside, to play and within minutes found yourself breathing hard, the deep parts of your lungs feeling seared, then leaden on the verge of wheezing.There was nothing like a hot summer afternoon in the Pico district to make you a believer in the virtues of quiet indoor play.

I was lucky, I suppose, in many ways, to grow up in that bygone era of big finned cars and high test fuel and unknown mileage variables. We got around just fine in our big pieces of Detroit metal and didn't care a bit about air pollution or the effects of all that heavy lead exhaust on our health, no more than my parents worried about the impact of their unfiltered cigarette smoking on my fragile lungs. We just happily swam along in the polluted air with the rest of the hapless fishes, pretty much sucking on the tailpipes of Big Oil, taking what we could get in the way of fresh air whenever the winter rains would come along and wash the skies clean for a few days.

Staying with my mom's folks in the summertime meant a break from the stullifying, bitter brew of my parent's life. I was always glad to get away, to take the Santa Fe on that short hour ride through old Anahiem and Pico Rivera , past the Los Angeles river, through the train yards to my terminus there at the Union Station. It meant a break from one form of fighting to deal with another, but looking back I am sure that I thought the daily sparring between my Mama and Tata was comical, or at least, escapeable. Whenever the bickering got too hot my grandfather would round me up, put away his lawn tools and the take us away in wee Ford Falcon to places that would be far out of reach of my grandmother's vocal range. When we found ourselves at the Original Tommy's at the corner of Beverly and Rampart we knew wouldn't be able to hear her cry out "Albert!", and that was a good thing, indeed.

I could sit on the couch in my grandparent's living room window see the Hollywood sign. Grant it, it small and far away and had to be on a good day, when all air quality factors were in concordance and the lighting just so. Pico and Vermont was not too far from that monument, something that I regularly saw as I goofed outround the neighborhood, as we drove up and around Griffith Park or as we headed up Vermont towards the observatory. I think of folks who come from all around the nation and the world to tourist trip around So Cal, who make the pilgrimage to see The Sign, something that I completely took for granted as a boy, something that I assumed was my birthright to see whenever I wanted because I was a native Angeleno.

I read the article posted below and thought that the purchase of the hillside was yet another turn in the worm of the tale of the Hollywood sign. It has been through alot over the years, has endured fires and vandalism and neglect. Now that it is a regional and national historical trust, it deserves space and the light all around it, and not to have view homes perched on it's crown. If I had a few million bucks to throw around I would put it towards the purchase of Cahuenga peak. Just because their might be some other little boy out there who grooves on the Hollywood sign the way that I did when I was a boy, whenever I could see it through the smog and the haze of those hot summer days in LA.

Action!

LA Times article on the effort to raise money for Cahuenga peak:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/02/hollywood-sign-coverup-will-announce-effort-to-purchase-cahuenga-peak.html

LA Landmarks: Hollywood sign lore:

http://laist.com/2008/02/09/la_landmarks_th.php

A bit more lore:

http://www.tomborst.com/hollywood.htm

Ted Van Cleave fine art Hollywood sign photos:

http://tedvancleave.com/hollywoodsignseries.htm

LA Times story: Save the peak story:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hollywood-sign12-2010feb12,0,1108482.story

Functionally unnerving

I don't mind reading subtitles but they can throw a viewer's focus off the screen and make it somewhat difficult to be focused on the action, so we can be caught unawares for all those juicy, unexpected moments of terror that we crave in a good horror film. Subtitles didn't wreck [REC] for me, but they did distract enough to take the "OH MY GOD!" factor out of the startling bits.

It all started when I picked a copy of Quarantine at the pawn shop a couple months ago. It was just another interesting title found in a pawn shop dollar bin, so I added it to my stack and didn't think too much of it afterwards. As a matter of fact it languished on the shelf for weeks and only due to a quickly glimpsed trailer did it find it's way to the fore. One night last week I was itching for some mindless entertainment. It was late, the house was dark, the cat outside. I took the flick upstairs, set up the gear and let the dvd spin thinking, okay, I can fall asleep if I have to, it's just another point of focus Blair Witch wannabe.

Damn, was I ever wrong.

I got sucked into the You Are There storyline, into the innocence of the young, good looking talking head, of the stand up, capable man behind the camera. I watched them go about their business, filming firehouse antics, following various firefighters around the station and thought, okay, time to get cozy, time to get under the blankets. Things changed once they all went out onto the streets to film a routine call. Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary when the crew and the fire folks met a local police patrol at the door of the old and swanky apartment house. Nothing really seemed out of place as they advanced up the stairs, a woman's gutteral screams off camera leading all of us on into the mystery.

What was it that got me sitting up in bed? The bloodied woman, now clearly in focus in the background of the action? The policeman and the firefighter advancing, telling her to calm down, only wanting to help her? Or was it the moment she lunged forward and took a nice chunk of meat out of that nice policeman's neck? Yeah, I think that's when all hell broke loose and all bets were off and I seriously began to pay attention. In just a matter of moments I found myself deep in the midst of an urban horror story, one that took off running and for the next forty, fifty minutes never stopped to take a breath. I am sure that I didn't either.

So as soon as the credits rolled I hit up all my online film sources and discovered that it was a blow by blow remake of an earlier Spanish horror flick, so I put that film, [REC], on the things to watch list. Ran into another film nut in the stacks of Hollywood video the following day who, when he saw me pick up a copy of the film, proceeded to tell me all about it. Another fan, another teller of film tales, another guy who watches more than his share of movies. I took the film home, gave myself a couple weeks inbetween viewings and then popped it in.

What can I say? It wasn't a bummer, not by a long shot. It was just as good as the remake, as a matter of fact went in a completely different direction as far as the ending was concerned and that ending, or rather, the reasons behind the madness on the film, turned it into a completely different yarn, more one based on the supernatural rather than terrorism. I still was left in a completely unsettled state. I just wasn't as freaked out. Damn subtitles.

Horror film endings are not chick flick, rom-com happy go lucky endings if they are done right. I want my scary movies to leave me running around the house turning lights on. But that film duo left me shaken in a different way, wondering where and when the unpredictable bad shit could happen. Horror films these days remind you, oh so clearly, that you are not in charge. It doesn't matter if the horror is delivered via vampires, robots from the future, asteroids or serial killers. It's the things we don't know, can't see, never in our wildest imaginations ever imagine, that'll get us in the end. No dying quietly in our beds. Maybe that's reason enough not to watch horror films in mine anymore.

Action!

Review: Quarantine:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1196221-quarantine/


Review: [REC]:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10009132-rec/

Dorothy and the big box set

What was it? Spring of 1964? 1965? It would have been a Kodak moment, that's for sure.

Mr Zigler was out on manuevers, and the Bubbas, well, there were too many of them and they were far too rowdy to ask over, and Allen, who was three or four years older than me, was probably too old and far too cool to sit and watch tv with the rest of us "little kids". I'm sure that there other kids there than Mary and Karl, my next door neighbors, maybe possibly even one of those damned foster kids my mom had living with us there for awhile just to help keep me from being bored.

The image in my mind of the Wisteria house living room that night feels far away and yet very expertly staged, with funky 60's coffee table lamps burning all around my parent's well appointed living room and the big new RCA console set expertly anchored in the middle of the living room floor. The reception was about as good as it could be thanks to the quiet efficiency of the high quality aluminum aerial up on the roof. Yup, it was quiet a picture: restless kids, shushing parents, aluminum clad popcorn, cane sugar sodas and the annual migration of one the finest fantasy films of all time all happening at once in the comfort of my living room.

I'm not sure what comes first in my memory file: the purchase of our first color television set or The Wizard of Oz. I don't think that that film rated remembrance before color. It would have been lacking the drama and wonder that the Land of Oz imported when it was displayed in Technicolor . It would have been one long black and white epic, totally missing the sepia and emerald green hues that made it so magical to watch on that behemoth wood encased RCA set.

I'm not sure exactly when my parents purchased that television, but it seemed to me like it was the only one in the world at the time. I'm sure that we musth have lagged behind the rest of the neighborhood, as My Pop was only a barber and laying out cash for a toy like that must have been one of those super secret parental money decisions that seriously impacted the bottom line of the household budget. When you're a kid things like that just show up, like brand new refrigerators or big used cars.

Yeah, back in those days big electronics meant big vacuum tubes, burley repairmen, cables running out the living room window and up onto the roof. You could always tell who had great reception back in those days just by looking up at the neighborhood skyline. I'm sure that I had no idea what kinds of televisions my buddies had and I didn't care. We had color and that changed the way that I looked at movies and the world. I don't remember what other movies I might have seen up to that point on tv that really left an imprint. I know that I had favorite television programs like Lassie. Mr Ed, Sky King and the Mickey Mouse Club. But it was the advent of color that made Saturday morning cartoons really pop, that made old Technicolor flicks like The Wizard of Oz something beyond special to watch and to look forward to.

I'm sure that the Dorothy and the gang had shown up somewhere along the line when I was younger but that posse didn't click wasn't until that RCA set showed up and the rest of the neighborhood plonked down in our living room to enjoy and appreciate the spectacle. I am sure that we kids were wild and jittery from too much sugar and preshow anticipation, that the adults were grooving and filled with anticipation, too. It would be nice to have a photo of that time, just to see what was being passed around, just to know what kinds of noshing and cocktails and cold heavy cans of beer were circulating about, all of it adding up to one big block party kind of event.

And while there is no way that I can possibly remember the particulars, I know that there must have been a sort of silence that settle in and hung about the room once Judy Garland warbled Over the Rainbow. Hell, I hear it now and it stops me cold. I know, buried someplace deep and golden in my childhood, that that first color viewing of the Wizard of Oz was truly some sort of magical moment, a touchstone and a very safe place to revisit now and again.

Truly, back in those days there was no place like home, home with a color television set, family and friends and the Wizard of Oz .

Action!

Wikipedia: The Wizard of Oz on television:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_on_television

Internet Movie Database: The Wizard of Oz:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/

Website: The Color Television Revolution:

http://www.ev1.pair.com/colorTV/index.html

Television history, the first 75 years:

http://www.tvhistory.tv/1956%20QF.htm

Sundays with Mom

Sundays were always phone call day. No matter where I was or what was happening that day I would do my best to make time, even if it was just a check in, to see how Mom was doing.

Mom lived with my step pop and half brother till the end of her days. They lived a strange life, my old man marking out his territory in the living room, and my forty some year old brother pretty much taking over the den and a spare bedroom. So that left my mom, who was fairly much an invalid by that time, to her quarters in the back part of the house. They each had their own television sets, which pretty much defined the social aspect of their desparity. Whatever it was that they shared outside of meals was never very clear to me. Whenever I called all I ever heard was bickering.

But our conversations, in the best of times, went from my weather to her health to food to film. I think that movies was the biggest and best thing, outside of new recipes tried and discovered, that helped keep my mother's life tied to mine. We could only talk about housekeeping and the kids for so long. I could only handle so much chat about medications and the numerous aches and pains that she suffered through. In the end we went back to the beginning, back to the thing we always shared, and that was a mutual love of movies.

My old man was not much of a movie head so that left me, and later on, for awhile, my brother, to fill in the void that my old man so conspiciously left open for us fill. Looking back I can't say that I minded much. As a boy it allowed me a bit of grace on the weekends to stay up as late as I could whenever there was a film on that was deemed to be important by my mom, sometimes important enough to stay up past midnight. It always meant Jiffy Pop and Dad's rootbeer for NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies. It meant always finding available quarters in the house jar for weekend matinees at the Broadway or the West Coast (50 cents for a double feature!), and it meant being given special dispensation for setting aside homework whenever a good afternoon flick came on. Movies were a language that we shared, a common tongue. We spoke old Hollywood, the Golden Age of Fox, MGM, Warners, RKO and Columbia. We talked endlessly about new releases, old classics available on various medias, films impossible to find, old favorites discovered at swap meets and specialty stores and pawn shops. It was something that we found to fight about, to care about, to share in a way that made all our other petty bickering disappear.

One memory in particular comes to mind that truly defines this joint no mans land of film we shared. I was down south on a mission of mercy visit. I went with the idea of spending two weeks at her house, filling up her freezer with food, doing errands with her, all that. My good intentions fell apart almost right away as she was a miserable patient to work with and a horrible eater as well. Nothing I could do or make had any virtue to it. We didn't so much fight as make each other totally and completely miserable. One evening after a particularly hard day she left me in tears. I packed up my cooking gear, rolled up my sleeping bag, packed my kit and prepared to leave that night. My mom, God bless her heart, laid down a bough of peace. She saw what her hard ways were doing to our relationship and how it was driving me out of the house. She had me come sit with her back in her room, and after a bit of a scuffle over selection, we settled into watching The Uninvited with Ray Milland.

What made that movie moment special was that we would always stop whatever it was that we were doing in order to watch that movie together. We would always pretend not know what the outcome of the movie was,we would always work through the mystery together as if it was the first time we ever watched it. I think I must have watched that movie a dozen times with her as a boy. We watched it together that night in a tired state of truce with my mother's weariness of life telling and wearing, with my ragged life up north laid aside and forgotten for the moment.

I left the next day to visit an old friend, and returned a day later as I prepared to leave the region. I came back with a key lime pie, hugged her and then left the Southland. We talked on the phone every Sunday after that, sometimes more, once in a awhile missing our scheduled chats.

Today is my mom's birthday: she would have been seventy six years old today. Tonight I will dig around in my film collection and find something that we might have both enjoyed,or, at the very least, had a great phone conversation about later on.

Happy birthday, Mom. Life is interesting, somedays even fine. I miss our talks, especially our movie chats. If I never told you before I just want to say thanks for Rear Window, The Great Escape, for Sunset Blvd, for Casablanca, for Bridge on the River Kwai, Samson and Dehlilah, Ben Hur, Flight of the Phoenix, Fort Apache, The Quiet Man, The Third Man, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The War of the Worlds and all the rest. Rest in peace, gal, you deserve it.

Action!

Movie review: The Uninvited:

http://www.allmovie.com/work/the-uninvited-51864

"The good times..they're coming.."

..and they're coming real soon."

What ever became of Lee Marvin? I had to wonder almost all the while watching Monte Walsh. He sure was a hell of a good looking man, but more, this story felt like it fit him like second skin, like it was telling his tale, the tale of a man who was the last of a breed. Too, it was a timely tale of a time that was no more, of a West that was slowly fading from memory, with towns drying up or going civilized, with ranches disappearing and being consolidated by Eastern cattle syndicates, where grub stakes and fence riders gave the way to "capital" and wild west shows. It was almost hard to watch, all those references to lay offs and looking for the next best thing over the rainbow, up around the bend, in another town that only wants your soul and could give a damn about your best interests. It felt all too real, and then, when the reality would just about buckle the film, Lee Marvin and Jack Palance (doing a complete turnaround on this bad ol' gunslinger moment in Shane) would make you crack up, steal away the tension and bust it like a mean ol' bronc.

It's easy to watch those old revisionist Westerns, as they come across as being more authentic and gritty and "real" than those old classic Howard Hawk or John Ford Westerns ever could be. Not that I would turn a blind eye to Red River or Shane or My Darling Clementine. It's just that cut of 70's Western cloth is more appealing. It's what I used to watch in the movie houses growing up. No black hats, no singing cowboys, no strong men tall in the saddle, just cowpokes going from ranch to ranch looking for work. Just broken down men holding onto the end of the great Cowboy Dream. Maybe Anthony Mann noirish Westerns played too big of an influence in my life and I just didn't know it. Maybe Peckinpah and his Wild Bunch, or better yet, Junior Bonner, showed me a different path that a hard working, idealistic and somewhat non-rulebook embracing cowpoke could take in this world once he understood and appreciated that the plains were fenced, the towns were policed and the churches took over, leaving the heart of man on the dusty floors of the shuttered saloons and whorehouses.

It's been years since I've seen Monte Walsh in any capacity. I was happy to stumble upon a coph of it on tape. I watched with interest, sighed and laughed and thought for a moment or two that "this film is just a bit too real for me". Then I would look at that lovely craggy smile that Lee Marvin would throw up against the screen and know that it was just a movie. That the real world out there hasn't quite shook me off yet like a wild bronc, that the love of my life hasn't been whisked off by consumption, just religion, and that the world of work still awaits me out there, somewhere down the road and over the horizon. I just hope that I look as good as Lee Marvfn at the end of the day, at the end of the ride, at the end of that last roll of fence wire.

Action!

Lee Marvin bio, great quotes:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001511/bio

I wouldn't know about the Tom Selleck teleplay, I watched Fraker's directorial debut of Monte Walsh. If you want to see it, it'll be a bit of a trick. Catch on TMC if you can. Oh, and this overview stinks:

http://www.allmovie.com/work/monte-walsh-33193

Nice conversation about Monte Walsh and Lee Marvin on Technicolor Dream blogsite:

http://christiandivine.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/monte-walsh-1970/

A better life

Normal people, regular lives. Artists, blue collar workers, writers, thinkers, doers. Just plain folk going about their business, making babies, raising families, getting up in the morning and going ot work. All it takes to see that the world is filled with folks whose lives are being screwed with every day is to pick up the paper and check out where the latest hotspot is. There are too many out there to list here, but Haiti and Afghanistan come to mind as being the latest poster children. Why is it that folks in power, in places where trouble brews up at a drop of a hat and folks fight for scraps with little or no provocation, seem to exascerbate things even more by applying really stupid and selfish stuff like greed, incompetence, power madness and religious intolerance into the mix? As my mother-in-law used to say to me, "why can't we all just get along?"

Seems like my film viewing has gravitated towards subjects like that recently. I fight the inclination to watch realistic movies almost every day. There are days when I want nothing more than mindless explosions, titillating celluloid filled with feigned sex, stunt doubles and dubbed dialogue. There are days when all I want is the delivery of that upfront promise, that what I plan on seeing will be a pure and total escape from the troubles of the day. When the world and all it's headlines scream out alittle bit too much reality I perfer to head towards the comfort and hilarity that old Columbia prints of the Three Stooges deliver, or, if really crazy and serious shit has gone down, yet another botched hijacking or horrific bombing or over the top natural disaster that seems to be yet another bit of divine retribution then yet another screening of Animal House or Airplane! is needed. There are days when we know we've had enough and that the rest of the world feels that way, too. If only the rest of the world had the option to turn it off for awhile and head to the movies, instead.

So, over the course of the last few weeks I've caught some old school stories about the Eastern Bloc before the fall of the Wall. The tales were all about folks not too far removed from people like you and me who ran afoul of the government at hand because they didn't know how to kowtow, because they wouldn't shut up, because they were stand up kinds of people who just wouldn't stand still for injustice. What got to me and made these films so recommendable is that they proclaimed the universal quest of the common man and that's just to be free to make a better life for themselves and their loved ones. I was touched by their need to tunnel or strike or cast aside draconian rules and live a life of integrity, to challenge the fist that was trying so damn hard to strike them down, to just be brave.

I know that my travails are small fish in comparison to what everyday folks suffer through,m be it political persecution, earthquakes, revolution, holy wars and the long term effects of Imperialism. I'm just a man who ran afoul of a system that couldn't and wouldn't tolerate a man who dared to write about the story of his life, who dared to wear his heart on his sleeve, blog style. The folk portrayed in these films are full out heroes in comparison to me. I haven't had to dig anyone out other than myself, I haven't had to go up against the machine and lose my life. I was "listened to", sure, but I wasn't hauled into prison for my words. All well and good. I am happy that the stories tghat I watched were all in the past tense, that the political systems that held them down, persecuted them, imprisioned them, are gone and that other ways of thinking and living are now available to them.

I feel lucky every time I watch movies like Strike or The Tunnel or The Lives of Others. What I feel is ectasy, joy, relief. Movies like that might not be filled with fast cars, hot women or CGI fakery, but they leave me limp, in a state of thankfulness, which is something far more wonderful than a bit of escapism ever could hope to give me.

Action!

The Tunnel:
http://www.allmovie.com/work/the-tunnel-244159


The Lives of Others:
http://www.allmovie.com/work/the-lives-of-others-350173

Strike:
http://www.allmovie.com/work/strike-360010