Thursday, September 28, 2006

Angelina Jolie as Dagny Taggart

These are my comments on the news from Variety that Angelina Jolie has signed to play Dagny Taggart in Howard and Karen Baldwin’s movie version of Ayn Rand’s great novel “Atlas Shrugged”. Can Angelina Jolie do the role justice?

I have only seen Angelina Jolie act in one movie, “Girl, Interrupted”. She won an Oscar for her supporting role as Lisa Rowe, a patient at a mental hospital who knows all the angles, in order to manipulate the staff so things go her way. For example, she finds ways to repeatedly escape the mental hospital, view secret files, get away with forbidden activities.

I read Susanna Kaysen’s original, short nonfiction book dealing with her bout with “borderline personality disorder”, and the film expanded rather than condensed the story. In the same way, Angelina Jolie had to create her character’s attitude and mannerisms by studying and integrating the clues from the script, and I think she did an outstanding job with that. There is very little in the original memoir about Lisa.

Some may say Jolie was playing herself, but whatever she did, it is a memorable and vivid performance. Within the mental hospital’s patient society, she is their leader, by being aloof and focused on her own needs (rational or irrational). I can see within this characterization, that Jolie has the potential to be the personification of nonconformity, of individualism, in a rational character as well. I believe what draws her to play Dagny is that aloof independence and driving ambition, that passion to pursue what she wants.

In the character of Lisa in “Girl, Interrupted”, Angelina Jolie was able to convey a type of selfishness, a driven pursuit of what Lisa would consider her values, and also a total disregard for the opinions of others. Yes, the character of Lisa is mentally disturbed, but it is what Angelina Jolie found within that character that I believe motivates her to play Dagny, and shows that she is capable of playing Dagny.

To sum up, based on viewing “Girl, Interrupted,” I can see that Jolie is able to show a driven, selfish pursuit of values, as well as total independence/nonconformity, a complete disregard for the opinion of others.

She isn’t the physical type I would have chosen for Dagny, but she is far from “wrong” for the role.

I’m not saying I expect the movie to be good; I will wait and see. But there is reason to believe it may be decent, even thrilling and worthy of the book, as the screenwriter James Hart wrote the film version of Carl Sagan’s “Contact”, which I thought was a good screenplay, and the producers Howard and Karen Baldwin were involved with “Ray” which I didn’t see yet, but have heard from reliable sources was very good. Both are thought to be films respectful of their source material–in the case of “Ray”, the facts of Ray Charles’ life.

Also, I have heard that the Baldwins are planning to produce “Atlas Shrugged” as a trilogy. This will allow it to have a chance of suggesting the scope of the story. No movie or trilogy will recreate the book word for word, as the book is too long, and no one should expect that.

The only film that I know of that recreated a normal-length novel almost word for word, was the 12-episode miniseries of Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited”.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

My Favorite Halloween Movies (A Bit Early)

Elizabeth of the Elizabethan Blog (www.elizabethan.thinkertothinker.com) asks me for a list of good movies for Halloween. Interesting question. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Some of the following I haven’t seen since childhood or my teen years, but I am fairly certain they are all worthwhile. If you don’t mind intelligently scary films, or humorous ones, as opposed to simple shockers full of gore, here are my Halloween recommendations:

1. “Frankenstein” and “Bride of Frankenstein” (don’t see one without the other), directed by James Whale with Boris Karloff. Catch a brief glimpse of one of my favorite character actresses, Una O’Connor, as Minnie, in an early scene.
2. “Dracula” directed by Tod Browning with Bela Lugosi.
3. “The Other” by Tom Tryon, directed by Robert Mulligan (recently released on DVD).
4. “Psycho” directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
5. “Something Wicked This Way Comes” by Ray Bradbury (although in the movie they ruined the ending of the novel by deleting the most important scene–the discussion of how to defeat the villain).
6. “Burn, Witch, Burn” a/k/a “Night of the Eagle” by Fritz Leiber and Richard Matheson.
7. “Bell, Book and Candle”.
8. “The Nanny” with Bette Davis.
9. “The Innocents” with Deborah Kerr.
10. “Two on a Guillotine” with Dean Jones.
11. “The Sixth Sense”.
12. TV Special: “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”.
13. “Rebecca” directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
14. “Freaks” directed by Tod Browning, with a cast of real ones, will give you chills.
15. “The Unholy Three” directed by Tod Browning, with Lon Chaney.
16. “The Unknown” directed by Tod Browning, with Lon Chaney. Pointlessly horrifying, but that’s what you want on Halloween, right?
17. “Eraserhead”. To experience a true nightmare as if you are having troubled sleep, no one has captured a bad dream on film as well as David Lynch did with “Eraserhead”. It’s not elevating or enlightening. It’s slow, nonsensical, sometimes boring and awful in many ways, but it gives you the feeling of being asleep and having your worst nightmare ever, if you want that feeling on Halloween.

For a comedic Halloween film, my wife recommends “Arsenic and Old Lace” with Cary Grant, but I haven’t seen it yet. I’ve heard good things about an animated version of Ray Bradbury’s “The Halloween Tree” but I haven’t seen that either. And you can’t go wrong with Rod Serling’s “Twilight Zone” TV series, most episodes of which I have seen and loved.

Also be sure to visit The Haunted Mansion at Walt Disney World or Disneyland if you live nearby.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Golden Age Quality Movies Being Made Today

I don’t like much about today’s popular culture, but I find gems in the hay at times, especially because I look for them. On the negative point, looking at the promotional “Fall Preview” specials about the new television season (for example, the special shown by The CW which is the merging of The WB and UPN “networks”), I find that instead of making me eager to see programs being advertised, including ones I may have wanted to see, the promotional preview makes me want to avoid those shows. These TV previews, and many movie trailers that screen in theaters, feature tasteless dialogue or activities, loud music, quick and unintegratable editing, and unappealing, ignorant or pessimistic sarcastic characters. I suspect some of the programs and films aren’t as bad as the previews make them seem. Why the promos are made to send away people like me — an employed, college-educated male in my 40s married with children, with an interest in the beautiful, the thought-provoking, the informative, the dramatic and the delightful in my TV or movie viewing — I don’t understand. One would think I’m in a good demographic.


Meanwhile, turn to TCM (Turner Classic Movies) and you are in another world. The presentation, the introductions by Robert Osborne, the short films and documentaries between features, and above all the movies themselves are elevating, quality experiences. The movies by and large are from the 1940s back to the 1920s, the Golden Age.


Well, today, although there seems an endless stream of films with titles and subjects like Beer League, or the latest horror/slasher series, one can still find films and TV series that would not seem out of place among the classic movies of the 1930s or 1940s.


If you are looking for 21st Century movies that would feel perfectly at home among the Golden Age films, I can recommend two. They have in common that they are period pieces, and that they both coincidentally feature actor Paul Giamatti. One is Ron Howard’s “Cinderella Man” from 2005, and the other is the new film now playing at your local theater, “The Illusionist”.


You can rent “Cinderella Man” on DVD, and see a beautiful tale of a man with consistent honesty and an unshaking faithfulness to his moral code and his deepest values as he struggles to survive in a boxing career during the Great Depression.


“The Illusionist” is the inspiring story of an Austrian magician so brilliant at his illusions that he is the object of a prince’s envy while he is adored by the public and respected by the police chief hired to investigate him. The plot contains some twists that are fun to observe.


Here are some other recent films with that Golden Age quality: “Kate and Leopold” with Hugh Jackman, “Apollo 13″ by Ron Howard, “Schindler’s List” and “The Pianist” for vivid views of the Nazi-perpetrated Holocaust, “Cinema Paradiso”, “The Sixth Sense” and “The Lord of The Rings” Trilogy. Although they have their flaws, the recent Star Wars prequels, especially “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith”, are of Golden Age quality as well. Beyond those, I would add the “Star Trek” films and TV series. Also, although it’s too dark and convoluted, “Dark City” with Kiefer Sutherland is a fascinating and stylized Good vs. Evil tale with imaginative plot ideas, visual effects and settings, a/k/a production design.


On television, what I’ve seen of “Smallville” and “Law and Order” usually impressed me in a similar way. Many have recommended “24″ but I haven’t seen it yet.

Friday, September 08, 2006

Easy To Understand Messages at Islamist Protest Rallies

An acqaintance of mine informed me about these images from an Islamist protest rally in London. These images apparently have been around for awhile but I had not seen them until now, because they were not publicized in American media at all. The signs state, for example, “Be prepared for the REAL Holocaust!” and “Freedom, go to hell!”

http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/muslimprotest.asp
Snopes confirms the photos are not altered.

If it weren’t such an important issue, it would be laughable that the U.S. media refuses to publicize these messages from Islamist protest rallies (so as not to offend with the truth?), and that the Israeli and U.S. governments still haven’t obliterated the terrorist-supporting anti-Western leaders in Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia and their weapons and armies, and their progeny like Hezbollah and Hamas. What more motivation and justification do they need, after the many “we will attack and destroy you” comments of Iran’s President and other Islamic leaders. It’s especially horrible that Israel quit their self-defense war against Hezbollah too soon, simply handing the enemy a “win”. I suspect the United States pressured them, and I know Europe did, for “diplomatic” reasons.

See these links for more:

http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49865
Mushroom Cloud on the Way

http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40338
Islamic Leader Hails Chechen Attack

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/10/26/
ahmadinejad/index.html

Iran’s President’s comments.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/26/news/iran.php
Iran says wipe Isreal off the map.