MM@M: Deneuve & Godzilla Gamera, Cinema Giants

I never thought I'd see anyone on Mad Men shouting "MONSTER!" at a movie screen but that's why Mad Men at the Movies is great fun to write. You never know what's coming.

Episode 4.3 "The Good News"
In this episode, Joan focused for once (yay Christina Hendricks!) the worlds curviest office manager handles her confusing marriage with surprise tenderness and her career with less control than usual, her temper flaring. Meanwhile, Don (Jon Hamm) travels to see his first ex-wife and gets very bad news. He returns home early, ditching a planned Apaculpco vacation. Come the middle of the holiday afternoon, Lane (Jared Harris) and Don are already drunk and planning a boys night out.

Don: [drunk, with mouth full] We're going to the movies.
Lane: Do you think we should?
Don: Does Howdy Doody have a wooden dick? [reading from newspaper] Zorba the Greek -- seen it, but would see it again. It's a Mad Mad Mad World -- no kidding. Send Me No Flowers?
Lane: No.

Cut to: Different office. The movie ads have switched hands. Don is pouring a drink, missing the flask entirely.

Lane: The Guns of August!
Don: I hate guns and I hate August.
Lane: It's all over the rug!
Don: Then we''ll have to smoke the dress.
Lane: Don't know that one. [Back to paper] The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
Don: [pause for entirely appropriate internal actress reverie] Catherine Deneuve.
Lane: ...apparently it's for all the young lovers of the world.

[cut to:..]


Heyyyy, that's not Catherine Deneuve! No, the boys have chosen a Godzilla movie. Or wait is that Gamera? Some folks online are saying Gamera (the trailer) but that came out after this episode takes place. edit: I thought it was Mothra vs. Godzilla, which would be in the right US release time frame... but the more I look at it, yes, Gamera. My god I used to love those movies as a kid on the telly. But they all bleed together. Seriously, if you've seen one giant monster crushing Japan...

Lane and Don are now even more inebriated and loudly talking through the movie.

Don: You know what's going on here don't you? Hand jobs.
Lane: Really? What percentage do you think.
Angry moviegoer: Do you mind?
Lane: [shouts politically incorrect Japanese gibberish at angry moviegoer. Then points at the screen and shouts] ...MONSTER !!!

Drunk Lane is hilarious -- Don even thinks so. It's so rare to see him laugh! -- finally giving Jared Harris something to work with for the first time since he fired everyone in Season 3. He later will hold a slab of well done steak against his crotch and shout about his Texas sized belt buckle. This episode has four dick jokes. No joke. Season 4, only 3 episodes in, is already infinitely more crass than the previous seasons but the 1950s era propriety is beginning to slip away from virtually all of the characters save possibly old timey youngster Pete Campbell. But he's blue blood.

Anyway... the movies!

We relate to Don's reverent invocation of Catherine Deneuve. This is Deneuve circa 1964 on the set of Cherbourg.


But, really, whichever year you capture her in, she's a breathtaker. Deneuve has to be among the twenty or so greatest movie stars that the planet ever produced, n'est-ce pas?.

We're betting that even if Don hadn't yet seen The Umbrellas of Cherbourg -- it opened in NYC two weeks prior to this episode's time frame -- he'll get to it soon enough. He likes the foreign films. And if you haven't yet seen Umbrellas, better get to it. It's only one of the greatest movies of all time. Plus it's a colorful musical and we like those. It also holds one of those rare Oscar distinctions of being nominated for statues in two separate years (before they changed the rules to prevent foreign films from doing so). It was France's Oscar submission in 1964 and won a Best Foreign Film nomination. In 1965, when it was presumably released in LA during the traditional eligibility period, it was nominated for four more Oscars, three music categories and best screenplay. Today's rules would have stopped the second batch of nominations, since a Foreign Film nomination preceding your release renders you ineligible for other nods (see the Aughts case of Hero for a rather famous example. The current rules also mean that France's A Prophet and Argentina's The Secret in Their Eyes cannot be nominated in any category for the upcoming Oscars even though they opened in the States during the 2010 eligibility period.)

About the other rejected movies.

• The Guns of August opened on Christmas Eve in NYC in 1964. It was a documentary based on a Pulitzer Prize winning book. This isn't the first time I've noticed an actual illustration of a book on an old movie poster. Could you imagine a movie today advertising itself with a photo or drawing of a book? Even Harry Potter and Twilight wouldn't risk that!
• Send Me No Flowers was one of Doris Day's many popular hit romantic comedies with gay co-stars. Excuse me gay co-star. No plural.
• Zorba The Greek was released in December 64 and was a big hit with Oscar voters. Antonio Banderas will be reviving this Oscar nominated title role on the Broadway stage soon.
  
• It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (Don left out one of the "Mad"s) was an all star comedy that was actually released a holiday release the year prior to this episode but movies used to stay in theaters much longer. Anyway, it was the biggest box office hit of 1964... at least according to my ancient book Box Office Champs: The Most Popular Movies of the Past Twenty Years which covers the years from 1939 through 1989. (I must have bought it shortly after I decided to live and breathe cinema. I blame Pfeiffer on that piano top. It's all her fault.) The book tells me that the movie "brought together virtually every living Hollywood comedian from Buster Keaton to The Three Stooges to Jerry Lewis. But it opted all too often for tired slapstick gags instead of moments of genuine wit. On balance, it was funny -- clearly it was a hit with audiences -- but so much talent should have produced something so much better." GEE, THAT DOESN'T DESCRIBE ANY OF TODAY'S COMEDIES!
  

Which movie would you have picked to see?

With its pared down cast (only Joan, Lane and Don get any play) and weirdly aborted vacation sequences, the episode aired to some unusually charged online griping. Maybe the naysayers wanted the show to stay in 1960 with its original cast and character dynamics for its entire run? It's true enough that the show has lost parts of itself that we loved but there is no way to stop the world from spinning. And the times they are definitely changing.

Best Moment / Line
The finale. Five ad men are seated for a department head meeting. Joan Holloway Harris sits at the head of the table. "Gentlemen, shall we begin 1965?" With all of their personal lives spinning rapidly towards destinations unknown, 1965 is beginning whether or not they're ready for it.

Further Reading
Mad Men Unbuttoned explains that Harry "Hollywood Brown Derby" scene
Omega Level got great screenshots and thinks Don & Lane's big night out was the funniest 8 minutes of MM ever.
Time Abortion legalities from December 1964
The New Republic Matt Zoller Seitz thinks "The Good News" was Mad Men's first bad episode.

"I'm here to see Francis!"

Butler: Francis is busy.
Pee-wee: Busy doing what?
Butler: He's having his bath.

Pee-wee: Oh, really?
Where are they hosing him down?


[Great Moments in Screen Bitchery #301,
Paul Reubens in Pee Wee's Big Adventure]

JA from MNPP here.

There are about a dozen lines of incredible bitchery between Francis and Pee Wee that've become classic insults - "I know you are but what am I?" is right up there with "Et tu, Brute" as far as I'm concerned in lines for the ages - but I always loved this scene especially because Pee Wee's always at his best when he's deranged, and the way he stomps into that pool fully-clothed and they do battle like Godzilla and the Crab Monster among the tiny ships is hysterical.

Happy 25th anniversary, Pee Wee!

.

Further reading/laughing:
Pee Wee Art He looks so different in each painting, despite that signature suit.
Tina the Tour Guide the greatest cameo of all time.
"Good Morning World" Breakfast with Pee Wee

What are you seeing this weekend?

Or what have you seen already? Do tell in the comments.

[If you've just seen The Kids Are All Right (it expanded considerably (nationwide at end of month) or Inception click on the titles for previous posts now that you're in the know. Also... I'm experiencing terrible case of creative block the past two days. All advice/tricks/suggestions to "get unstuck" from you creative types will be welcome in comments. I'll try anything out. And, no, I have no idea why I placed a photo of Godzilla in this post so it won't help to ask.]

The Chicken Of The Sea (Is Me)

JA of My New Plaid Pants here, wishing a very merry vacation to Nathaniel, along with much thanks for allowing me to spread my nonsense even further across this crazy world wide web.

Perhaps it’s just because I finally watched An Inconvenient Truth this week, but news of Shamu* trying to drown his trainer this morning is making me feel antsy. Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin gets stabbed in the heart by a stingray, there are giant jellyfish swarming off of the coast of Japan… well, is anyone else feeling a bit 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea these days?

Homer was really on to something making Odysseus & friends have to pass between Scylla and Charybdis way back when – is there anything creepier than the sensation of something slimy slithering past your foot when you’re submerged in water? And the movies have fully embraced exploiting the terror of what’s just beneath that glimmering water’s surface. From that giant squid piling onto the sub during the climactic scene of 20,000 Leagues, to its multi-million dollar CG brother, The Kraken, in this past summer’s blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, we just need to face it: the sea monster is coming to get us all.

(*Okay, it wasn’t Shamu, it was another trained killer whale, named Kasatka, but it was in "Shamu Stadium" so close enough; if Shamu's lawyers contact me I'll make the necessary changes)

Here are some highlights from the sea monster’s many cinematic appearances through the years:

1933 – King Kong – The brontosaurus attacking the raft was always my favorite scene in the original, so I was pissed it got cut from Peter Jackson’s 12-hour remake. I guess something had to go so we could get more Jack Black mugging (the scene is apparently restored in the new, 47-hour DVD director's cut, though).

1954 – 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea – From IMDb: “Peter Lorre claimed that the giant squid got the role that was usually reserved for him.”

1955 - Bride of the Monster - Bela Lugosi wrestles with a plastic octopus in a mud puddle. (ETA - thanks to Steven @ The Horror Blog for the correction here - closet Wood fan no more!)

1966 – Godzilla Versus The Sea Monster – This is the one with the giant crab, right? All those Saturday matinee viewings have blended together. Godzilla giving the water-logged smack-down to a man in a crab costume was one of the more memorable moments, though.

1975 – Jaws – The shark, nicknamed Bruce, had three sequels written into his contract, so blame him!

1977 – Orca - A terrible Jaws rip-off, sure, but I think I must’ve seen it 20 times on HBO as a kid. Meaning that a key image of my development was a dying whale aborting its enormous fetus onto the deck of a ship. Hmm.

1981 – Piranha Part Two: The Spawning – Okay, the first movie’s actually a lot of cheesy fun, and I’ve never even seen the sequel - directed by JAMES CAMERON! sort of – but come on, the piranhas can fly! I vividly remember staring at the cover art for this movie in the video store as a kid, with the piranhas flapping their little fins and attacking people on the beach, and being mesmerized. I have to see this immediately.

1989 – The Abyss – James Cameron’s triumphant return to underwater thingamajigs!

1993 – Free Willy – Not exactly a monster movie, unless you felt your tear ducts were wrongly assaulted, but I know I'm not alone in having wished that damn fish would've ended up devouring that "lovable" little boy, right?

1997 – Anaconda – Jon Voight is REGURGITATED ALIVE. For this and this reason alone, this film will always hold a dear place in my (and probably Angelina Jolie’s) heart.

1999 – Deep Blue Sea – Thomas Jane. A pair of flimsy swimming trunks. A wet suit. Movie gold, people, movie gold.

2001 – Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – Hobbits flung all akimbo by the Watcher in the Water. If that sentence is nothing but gobbledygook to you, you need to step up your geek-cred, my friend.

2003 – Finding Nemo – I still have nightmares about that mommy-eating barracuda in the opening scene.

2005 - The Squid and The Whale - Oh wait, nevermind.

2006 – Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – The Kraken snaps ships into bits with his enormous tentacled arms… but is it capable of love?

January, 2007 – The Host – The Korean blockbuster gets released here in the States, and I’m already ready to buy my ticket. Have you seen the trailer? Jinkies!

I’m surely missing important ones here (say, Harry Hamlin in a mini-skirt, or Betty White feeding a cow to a mutant crocodile, for starters); leave your favorite sea monster moment in the comments!