THINGS THAT INTERESTED ME

As it turns out, the last two days of TC silence was brought to you by ATT, which had a network outage they wouldn’t admit to. Walked into the office this morning to find a “green board” on the modem.

And so…

Another update of Things I Found That Interested Me, that might interest you, too.

First, there’s the re-do of “Shogun.” This is really a re-do, not a re-make, because it changes things dramatically from the 1980 miniseries that starred Richard Chamberlain. Here, the emphasis is on the Japanese. Shipwrecked English sailor Blackthorne is not the “White Savior” that Chamberlain was written as. In the earlier version, there was no translation of what the Japanese characters said, unless Mariko translated them for Blackthorne. Here everything is sub-titled. The Japanese society that is portrayed is historically accurate, as is the political crisis of the early 17th Century that led to the Tokugawa Shogunate (Lord Toronaga is Tokugawa) that dominated Japan until the Meiji Restoration in 1882. This is a really sumptuous historical drama, done as if it was a 10 hour Major Feature. You can get it on-demand at Hulu if you haven’t been watching so far. This one is definitely in my Top Ten of 2024, and we’re not one-third of the way through the year yet.

Sergio Leone’s butchered classic “Once Upon A Time In The West” has been restored to its three and a half hour original form by MGM Amazon. Watching it, I had no problem understanding why it had been cut by the studio the way it was. In 1968, this movie would have been incomprehensible to the average American moviegoer and Western fan. Starting with a scene that has three well-known Western character actors waiting for the arrival of a train, after which all three have been shot dead by Charles Bronson when he steps off the train, “Once Upon A Time in the West” portrays the American West as it never was ever before by John Ford or any other American director. Surprise surprise, the screenplay and story are by Benardo Bertolucci and Leone. Everything one learned to expect from Leone - his classic Extra-Extra-Extreme-Closeup of the actor’s eyes among others - in terms of visual storytelling, which transformed movies afterwards, is on display. Also worthy of mention is Henry Fonda’s delicious portrayal of The Really Bad Guy, which must have really weirded-out his fans back then and you can tell Fonda is having a ball. I didn’t have any trouble with the length (like I didn’t with the 5 hour 20 minute Director’s Cut of “1900" that you can download from MGM+). “Once Upon A Time In The West” is available for streaming from MGM+. Now please, guys - give us the four hour “Once Upon A Time In America” gangster classic!

As a long-time Bix Beiderbecke fan (he was the original “live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse” music star - the creator of swing jazz) I have long wanted to see Kirk Douglas’ second movie “Young Man With A Horn,” which informed everyone who saw it that a Major Hollywood Star had been discovered, that “Champion” wasn’t a fluke. It’s playing on rotation on TCM right now and you should record it and watch. Douglas’ character “Rick Martin” is Beiderbecke-but-not-really, and the film features Hoagy Carmichael - who was Beiderbecke’s great friend who got his career because he walked away from the University of Illinois law school to follow Beiderbecke’s “Pied Piper” - whose presence as Willy “Smoke” Willoughby gives everything a serious anchor. The music is great (that’s Harry James playing the trumpet), and Douglas went to a lot of effort in his character research to portray a driven artist and musician (which he’d later repeat doing Vincent Van Gogh), which really adds to a career-defining performance. Doris Day brings everything she learned as the “Girl Singer” for Les Brown and Bob Crosby, clearly demonstrating why Hollywood considered her a Major Catch. The ins and outs of the swing bands of the era is also shown, with a big poke at Glenn Miller without naming him, in Nestor Paiva’s Louis Galba, the band leader who doesn’t want Beiderbecke’s originality - when he exclaims “Play the score as written!” that’s pure Miller.

And coming this Sunday on HBO: “The Sympathizer.” Based on the novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen, directed by the Korean phenomenon Park Chan-wook (his films “Oldboy,” “The Handmaiden,” and “Decision to Leave” have won awards at Cannes). I read the novel when it came out in 2015, having read the author’s previous “Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War” and have since read his other novels - all of which very much deserve their 5-star ratings at Amazon. If this HBO miniseries is only half as good as the original material it’s adapted from, it’s going to be great. Two voices - novelist and filmmaker - who you may not be aware of, that you should be.

Having just read Ed Zwick’s memoir, “Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood” - which is one of the best Hollywood memoirs I’ve read (you should, too); there’s no surprise that Zwick is the guy who would write it - I have downloaded “Glory” and “Legends of the Fall” to watch again with his accounts of how they got made in mind. “The Last Samurai” and “Blood Diamond” (which is astoundingly good if you never saw it) are available for rent, and I think I will watch them soon - I never watched “Last Samurai,” but with Zwick’s account of it and the fact that it’s Hiroyuuki Sanada’s first introduction to an American audience (he plays Lord Toronaga in “Shogun” - where I think he has bested Toshiro Mifune in that role), I’ll now check it out. Zwick’s account of still working to make “movies for adults” in a Hollywood that doesn’t want them certainly hit home here at Le Chateau du Chat.

Last but far from least, I downloaded and will be re-watching King Vidor’s “The Big Parade,” the first modern “war movie” and a silent classic. (The Battle of Belleau Wood is re-staged in Griffith Park, with bass drums standing in for the cannons and snare drums for the machine guns). I love the story Vidor told on himself about arguing with screenwriter Lawrence Stallings over historical accuracy - the argument ended when they traveled by train and Stallings took the upper bunk, then dropped the wooden leg he’d gotten at Belleau Wood in front of Vidor.

More to come. Stay tuned.

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