Lambert & Huppert in "White Material"

"There can be only one..."

...01 / 01 / 11

How about that funky date today? Happy New Year.

The New Year couldn't come soon enough because I was informed yesterday that this blog had run out of storage space! The renovated site should be up in the next 36 hours to rescue us. I'll let you know.

Today's very special once in a hundred years date reminded me oof Highlander's Christopher Lambert.  On account of all the #1s.

"There can be only one!"

I assume this mnemonic moment was brought to me by Claire Denis's White Material which I was just watching the other day (in theaters and on IFC on demand) in which he plays Isabelle Huppert's ex-husband who -- I'm not sure if I got the details right because Denis always makes you work for them -- still lives on the African coffee plantation with her (and his new wife and his two wildly contrasted sons from both marriages).

It's crazy enough to live with your ex. When your ex is Isabelle Huppert (she's always trouble) and you're running a plantation in a region that's slipping into violent chaos and the French military are helicoptering out and dropping you survival kits on their way, you are totally off your gourd. Everyone in this movie is insane. But Huppert is contagious like that.

Lambert's presence is an extremely clever bit of casting since the international star already famously embodied everyone's favorite white-man-rules-Africa imperialist fantasy in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan Lord of the Apes. In White Material there is no fantasy unless you count the delirium one can sometimes experience when faced with Huppert's riveting confrontational opacity. You'd expect, given the plot, that her plantation owner Maria is a stubborn delusional but Huppert tilts her closer to the implacably deterministic. She isn't flaunting a death wish so much as a death expectation. Rebel forces and their child soldiers have had it with this "white material" on their land but Maria is staying put.  Disturbing movie.

"Manuel" (Nicholas Duvauchelle). Does he get his death wish from his mother?

I can't say I fully connected but I always love Denis's reliable command of atmosphere and I appreciated what Guy Lodge correctly described as "laudably complicated politics". I'm desperately awaiting Nick's full review because his twitter capsule

Agonized and fearless, eerily sympathetic, formally electric, like the last visions of someone being burned alive

...makes me love the movie more in retrospect than when I was watching it. That happens sometimes with the best of film criticism.

Tuesday Top Ten: The Best of 1984

For no reason whatsoever I have declared today 1984 day! It's a 25th Anniversary Jamboree or some such. (Don't ask questions. Just go with it) Herewith a tripled top ten: What the public liked, what Oscar liked, what I liked from the year that was. All movie title links go to their Netflix page in case you're interested in giving them a looksie. First a little historical entertainment context: Vanessa Williams was not starring on Ugly Betty but resigning her Miss America tiara due to nude photos (the more things change...), Ricky Martin was a new member of Menudo, people were just discovering what Madonna looked like on MTV, and Scarlett Johansson was fresh out of the womb.


What Oscar Liked
The Oscar nominees for Best Picture were the Mozart bio Amadeus (11 noms / 8 wins), the legendary David Lean's swan song A Passage to India (11 noms / 2 wins), Roland Joffé's war drama The Killing Fields (7 noms /3 wins), Robert Benton's farm widow period piece Places in the Heart (7 noms / 2 wins) and the stage to screen transfer A Soldier's Story (3 noms / 0 wins) still one of a scant handful of predominantly black movies to be shortlisted for the industry's top prize. It featured Denzel Washington in one of his earliest roles.

For a speculative AMPAS top ten I'd add these five as "runners up" since they were probably on multiple Best Pic' ballots: Barry Levinson's all star baseball drama The Natural (4 nominations), The River (4 noms and one special Oscar) another farm drama pictured left with Mel Gibson and Sissy Spacek as the Mr & Mrs, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (3 noms), John Huston's alcohol-soaked Under the Volcano (2 noms) and maybe 2010 (5 noms... though all were technical).

What Audiences Liked
I'm not using actual box office numbers per se but I am adjusting for inflation (reports differ across the internet) to give you a vague "range" of box office success comparable to today's hits.

1. Ghostbusters & Beverly Hills Cop $400+
   
2. (websites disagree on which film won the year. Both were massive hits)
   
3. Indiana Jones & Temple of Doom $300+
   
4. Gremlins $250+
   
5. The Karate Kid $100+
   
6. Police Academy $100+
   
7. Footloose $100+
   
8. Romancing the Stone $100+
   
9. Purple Rain, Star Trek III and Splash $100+
   
10. (websites disagree on which order those three came in, too)
    

So many franchises were born in the 80s, never to die again. Even the dead franchises are only hibernating. I'm actually surprised it's taken so long for Hollywood to get serious about romancing that stone again.

What Nathaniel liked
This is an unholy amalgam of what loved back then, what I caught later, and how I remember them as an adult. It is by no means definitive. If I could add 8 hours to each day I'd probably use 4 of them for re-screenings of old pictures in order to finally nail down these retroactive lists. The List is Life! Consider these ten pictures rental suggestions if you're the cool kind of movie fanatic (i.e. the kind that understands that cinema is ∞ and exists outside of whatever year you're living in)

Honorable Mention: Careful He Might Hear You was hugely lauded in Australia and made a tiny critical splash in the US. The acting was phenomenal. Wendy Hughes won raves and Nicholas Gledhill offered up one of the best child performances I've ever seen. Alas, I don't remember details, just that it unnerved me something fierce. Netflix doesn't offer this one. So sorry.

10 Splash - Ron Howard's best movie if you ask me. You heard me. He's so much better at fluff than at serious drama. I wish he'd stick to fluff. It's not shameful to be good at that. Why do I love Splash so? Well, I do have a thing for mermaids. But perhaps it just comes down to Madison, her crimped hair, her unpronounceable name and her nude walk on Ellis Island. I've loved Daryl Hannah ever since.

09 Another Country was an English boarding school drama of clashing sexualities and politics. It often gets credited with being the feature debut of three new stars: Cary Elwes, Rupert Everett and Colin Firth. Firth and Everett had great chemistry onscreen but they apparently hated each other, only ending their long feud last year (!)

08 Romancing the Stone - previously discussed

07 Gremlins -I looooved this movie at the time and though I haven't seen it in years I suspect it's still richly macabre, clever and weird. If you've seen it recently, am I right? The concept itself was so terrific. One might say it impishly fused Jekyll & Hyde terror with pet ownership angst. We never know what our furry friends are thinking. What demons lurk within them just waiting to get out?

06 Places in the Heart -I remember this movie being quiet and gracefully moving (especially the ending) but it got a bad rap for what I assume were several reasons: Sally Field's infamous "you like me!" acceptance speech, the glut of farm dramas, not being as popular as Benton's previous Oscar hit Kramer Vs. Kramer, and accusations of sentimentality (especially the ending).

05 Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan Lord of the Apes is the style of movie I'm kind of hoping the upcoming The Wolf Man apes. It was a seriously expensive looking, prestige adaptation of a mythic character that's usually treated with haphazard 'make a quick buck' B movie gloves. This film briefly threatened to ruin Andie MacDowell's career (Glenn Close was called in to dub her voice) and briefly made French actor Christopher Lambert an international star. Within the next few years he was co-starring with the likes of Isabelle Adjani and Catherine Deneuve onscreen and Diane Lane offscreen and starring in the Highlander franchise.

04 This is Spinal Tap -It's hard to remember that Rob Reiner directed this film which starred Christopher Guest (among others) and which seemed to birth the whole Guest dominated mockumentary genre but damn if this movie isn't über hilarious. My favorite bits are the whole Anjelica Huston / Stonehenge debacle and the quotable "this one goes to 11" idiocy.

03 The Terminator - I'll discuss tomorrow... we'll use it to wrap up the 1984 party.

02 The Times of Harvey Milk won the Oscar for Best Documentary and, if you can believe it, it's even better and more moving than last year's Gus Van Sant picture Milk.

01 Amadeus, or Salieri vs. Mozart: Death Match, was a "wow" on just about every level in the 80s. Most surprisingly it was a major hit, finishing 12th at the box office for all 1984 films and earning, in today's dollars something like $100 million at the box office. Can you imagine a 160 minute costume heavy biopic with and about classical music doing that well today? Neither can I. I wonder if it holds up. Has anyone seen it recently?
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All that and no room to mention The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension, Irreconcilable Differences, Sixteen Candles, The NeverEnding Story and Birdy. Anyone love or hate those? A few of them I barely remember a frame of but I was into them at one point for better or worse. Two films I should definitely revisit: Blood Simple and Stranger Than Paradise both of which I was too young for when I first saw (not in 84). I didn't "get" them. I have never seen the much loved Paris, Texas and am deeply ashamed.

Were you even alive in 1984? Maybe people have forgotten your birthday. It happens.


Share your movie memories of any of these plentiful pictures in the comments... even if you didn't see them until the 21st century. For those of you who lived through it, put on some Prince or Madonna if it'll help jog your memory.

Happy-Go-Linky

Collider video interview with Taraji P Henson. She declares her Benjamin Button to be Best Pic material. But then she would (not that it's not. We shall see)
IMDB Joaquin Phoenix says he's quitting acting. Are you vexed?
The Playlist shouts "En Ra Ha" for Happy-Go-Lucky's Eddie Marsan. Have you seen the film yet? It's worth a look. I'll share my interview with Sally Hawkins right here soon
Banned in Hollywood Disney's new Tarzan toy is, uh, right handed
Reverse Shot remembers the classic Buffy episode "Hush" --perfect viewing for Halloween. I think I'll watch it tomorrow

Olympian. Flash... A-ah!

We're celebrating Cinematic Olympians in August


Behold: Buster Crabbe, Olympic gold medalist, but best known today for his stints as Flash Gordon, Tarzan (previous post), and Buck Rogers in those old movie serials. He died back in 1983 but after that wonderful rescreening & conversation about Wings a month or so back (here) my head and heart have belonged to the B & W gods of yesteryear.

Flash - a-ah - saviour of the universe
Flash - a-ah - he'll save everyone of us
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Flash - a-ah - he's a miracle
Flash - a-ah - king of the impossible

Was there a prettier blonde man in Hollywood than Buster? Until Paul Newman showed up in the 50s, that is.

I think not.
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Link Well and Prosper

Muckworld finds INLAND EMPIRE to be even more of a shapeshifting revelation on DVD
Hollywood Elsewhere thinks the poster for 3:10 to Yuma is selling 'a Bob Fosse western' Hee
Greenbriar Picture Shows on the marketing of the early Tarzan pictures
Heroine Content on feminist and racist critiques of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Film Critic movie quiz [thx]
Zoom In Last weekend Susan and I watched Married to the Mob again which led to me missing Jonathan Demme and wondering exactly what does happen to some filmmakers after they win Oscars. Scorsese: Watch out!

Two Actresses I Was Thrilled to Be Wrong About
Gretchen Mol Cinematical talks to her re: Post-Bettie Page career
Rose Byrne turns 28. She was totally watchable in 28 Weeks Later and especially in The Dead Girl. Her blah stint in Troy sure had me fooled

RIP
As Little As Possible a tribute to cinematographer László Kovács
World of Wonder gives over a full day to the memorable Tammy Faye
Lindsay Lohan No, she's not dead (not yet anyway)... she's just dead to me. I can't do it anymore. I'm a little sad but I'm done feeling foolish for rooting for her all these years.

Tarzan, Lord of the Bad Musicals

Remember last week when we took a tour of hairless nearly naked ape men to celebrate Tarzan's opening? Well... it was just an excuse to take a tour of hairless nearly naked ape men really. I didn't mean to celebrate the Broadway musical. I just wanted to clarify in case that post read like an endorsement. Because the new musical?

It.

Sucks.


I didn't even pay to see it and I want my money back.

I can't emphasize its suckitude strongly enough. If you're a tourist and you're thinking Disney + something I've heard of + fun night at the theater, please please please think again. If it has to be Disney go see Lion King again (but better yet see real musical theater like the hilarious Drowsy Chaperone or the brilliance of Sweeney Todd. The first 5 minutes of Tarzan, which is basically the shipwreck prologue, features truly great visual effects work. But that's before the songs and the story starts. My favorite part of the show was probably seeing the people ushered in after the prologue. If you're late to a show you have to wait until some sort of break to take your seat. In this case that's harsh punishment for tardiness because you've missed the best part. The rest of the two and half hours is t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e. But if you're late, it's your own damn fault. Don't be late to the theater. There's live actors on stage. They can see you being rude to them.

I don't even know where to start. Over-amped lengthy dreadful songs which don't know how to move the story, they just repeat the book. Hideous set (or lack thereof). Almost impossibly lame dialogue. Uncomfortable performances. The lighting received the show's only Tony nomination and you can see why --there are a few moments that work due to their lighting effects but the nomination still should've gone to Sweeney Todd which uses its harsh red light to considerably more dramatic effect than this show uses it's Wicked-inspired purples and greens.

The thing I found most confusing was that whoever created the whole shipwreck sequence also must have designed the rest of the show and that's just weird because the rest is garish or cheap looking. In one moment late in the first act, a giant spider enters the set hoping to feast on Jane. I suddenly flashed back to my high school float construction party (that's how amateurish the giant spider looks). There I am trying to watch a 15 million dollar Broadway show and all I can think about is building the float with my buddies Linda, Christine, Therese, and Annette!

Thinking about my high school girls is way more fun than sitting through the show so perhaps I shouldn't complain about the mnemonic mishap.

tags: Tarzan, Broadway, theater, movies, musicals,

An (Illustrated) History of... Tarzan

For this week's "history" we're heading to the jungle because a new musical a new Disney product opens on Broadway is available for purchase on Wednesday. It's Tarzan! wherein the chief selling point (if you don't include the Phil Collins "score" as a selling point --and, honestly, who in their right mind would?) is Josh Strickland in a loincloth.

The last time I saw a musical in which the chief selling point was a buff male bod it was atrocious. [The musical not the bod, no siree.] This time I'll just look at pictures rather than buying a ticket.

For your viewing pleasure and historical edification, Tarzan throughout the (movie) ages... [click on the photos to enlarge]

The Silent Era
Elmo Lincoln was the first credited Tarzan (in 1918) to swing across the screen. Those vines musta been sturdy. Silent films also gave us the first transsexual Tarz--oh, I kid. That's just James Pierce, Edgar Rice Burrough's son-in-law enjoying some Hollywood nepotism long before Tori Spelling was ever an apple in Aaron's eye. I love the smart print top. 'He Tarzan, you Wilma' --er, I mean, Jane. Jane. Stuntman Frank Merrill was the last silent Tarzan. Only he wasn't. Just as films began to experiment with sound he got to emit the first famous 'Tarzan yell'.

The 1930s
Or "When Tarzan Got Hot" And by hot I mean molten lava temperatures. Technically Johnny Weismuller deserves his own page. He will always be considered "Tarzan" in the way that Sean Connery is still considered "Bond." But Flash Gordon himself, Buster Crabbe, also played Tarzan during the decade... so I had to share the visuals. Jane hadn't a prayer. Talk about jungle fever. There was bound to be a little Tarzan Jr added to the movies before long. There were at least two other Lords of the Apes during this decade, too, which means there's probably lots of fascinating legal copyright issues to consider but I'm too busy staring at Johnny and Buster to do real reportage. Don't judge.

The 1940s and 1950s
"The Post Weismuller Years". After Weismuller vacated his long held jungle post there was never again even a threat to his definitive Tarzan status though it wasn't for lack of trying. Lex Barker was first up. He has the distinction of rapidly rotating "Janes". What? Did he have Clark Gable breath or something? He starred with five of them. The 50s also dropped beefcake pinup Gordon Scott into the mix. I'm not sure what happened to the gene pool but that physique only existed in the 50s. Some of his Tarzan flicks are, incidentally, considered among the best in the series. At the tail end of Tarzan's last busy decade, Denny Miller took over. He carries the distinction of being the first blonde Tarzan. He's still alive so Daniel Craig might want to give him a call if you know what I mean.

The 1960s
Difficult as it may be to believe, this is not a still from the latest release from Raging Stallion or Falcon This is just Mike Henry a former football pro who played Tarzan thrice in the 60s.

The 1970s
Nothing much to report. Tarzan's dark period. The only Ape Men the American public showed any interest in had names like Cornelius and Dr. Zauis

The 1980s
Tarzan took a backseat to a bimbo-fied Jane in the 1981 Bo Derek jiggle fest Tarzan, the Ape Man. In fact Tarzan in the form of Miles O' Keefe didn't speak at all. Not one line of dialogue. It's basically Chippendales Dancer gone savage. But all was not lost for our favorite elephant riding hero in the Me Decade. It only took sixty-six years of the franchise before the movies finally gave Tarzan the prestige treatment with Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. If I'm not mistaken it's the only Tarzan film to receive multiple Oscar nods. French actor and hottie Christopher Lambert starred as the titular character before his days of chopping off heads in the Highlander movies (cool at the time) and sleeping with Diane Lane offscreen (cool forever).

The 1990s
Remember when Casper Van Diem had a career and bragged in magazines about his 27 inch waist? Neither do I. [Blogger also pleads amnesia upon hearing "Casper Van Diem" and proclaimed so by refusing to upload his photo from Tarzan and the Lost City] Moving on... This decade also brought us the first incarnation of Phil Collins Oscar-winning musical version for Disney. You didn't need to see his photo either.

The Aughts
The public hasn't been truly devoted to Tarzan for some time. But Hollywood will keep on trying. There was that failed TV series a few years back and now this new Broadway show ... which brings us up to date. *whew*

Beat your chest like Cheetah if you're swinging from his vine.

* If you're new to this blog, please look around-- there's lots more.
* Also vote on part 2 of the favorite actor poll (non Tarzan related)
If you're interested in more shirtless Ape Man pictures (and I do mean a lot more) check out these expansive fan sites: "Tarzan Movie Guide", "Down Memory Lane with Tarzan", "Edgar Rice Burroughs Tribute Zine" and the scrumdiddlyumptious "Brians Drive In Movie Theater"

Previous Histories...
Missions: Impossible * Dakota Fanning *Bunny Rabbits * Sharon Stone * Jodie Foster *Gender Bending * Bald Women * Sarah Jessica Parker * Gay Cowboys * Julianne Moore's Screen Kids * Gyllenhaal

tags: Tarzan, Broadway, theater, movies