For many years, we have attended the Hollywood Bowl Movie nights and enjoyed the live orchestra as an accompaniment to the images that they show on the screen. Last night was a similar experience but instead of scenes or clips we got the whole film with a live symphony.

The movie cannot be faulted in any way. Almost universally “The Godfather” is recognized as one of the great achievements in cinema. It is another reminder of the second golden age in Hollywood that lasted most of the decade of the 1970s. The music from the movie is iconic. It is immediately identifiable and has become iconic. A few notes and suddenly anyone in listening range will be transported to the violent, romanticized world of the mafia from the mid-20th Century. The sounds of the film have been used in a million parodies because everyone knows the central themes.

This was my first visit to the Nokia Theater in the L.A. Live plaza. The theater, which has been seen by many on a dozen award shows, seats over 7,000 which is comparable and maybe even a little larger than the Radio City Music Hall in NYC. We arrived early because the Will Call message said there would be line ups, but we were so early I could walk right up. With some time on our hands, the three of us walked over to have dinner at the Lawry’s Carvery on the corner. This is an informal dining experience that features some of the same foods served at my favorite dining establishment, Lawry’s The Prime Rib. We each ordered a prime rib based sandwich, and a drink, as well as a dessert to share. The total was just over $60, that is until they ran my VIP card and discovered my accumulated points. The three of us ended up dining on .48 cents. That was a nice treat.

We walked back to the theater and enjoyed all the lighted marquees for the restaurants and events and movies and television programs that were being advertised. The Electronic marquee of the Nokia had the logo for the event on it in dramatic red, white and black. There was a minor glitch in trying to enter the theater. I had three sets of keys in my pocket and on two of the key rings I have small tools which include knife blades that are maybe an inch long. I hardly every think of these, much less consider them as potential weapons, but the woman at the metal detector was having none of it so I sent my wife and daughter in and I walked back to the car to unload my dangerous tools.

On returning to the theater, I sought my companions but I ended up on the mezzanine level instead of the loge level and had to be redirected. The theater is impressive in size and elegantly simple. It is not overly ornamented but it has some classic lines and there are subtle colored florescent accent lights on the loge boxes on the sides of the theater.  When we first sat down, the seats were nearly empty, we were almost forty minutes away from the start of the program. By the time 8:00 arrived, every seat was filled. Seven thousand people had shown up to see a movie that is forty three years old.That is the power that “The Godfather” still holds over cinema lovers.

Instead of one large screen, there were three. One located immediately above the orchestra on stage and then one on either side of the stage. You would have a very clear view no matter were you sat in the venue. The movie would be digitally projected, which must certainly simplify the process of synching up the score as played by the musicians with the images on the screen. It was never distracting to me, but I could see that the conductor had a computer screen on the podium in front of him, with the click track imposed on top of the film images so that everything would be timed perfectly. For three hours that is exactly what happened.

The score by Nino Rota, is filled with original music but also traditional Italian melodies and American popular jazz of the 1940s. The musicians moved seamlessly from style to style and they were all excellent. Special notice should however be given to the lead trumpet, the pianist, the mandolin player, and the principle cellist. They had to work the hardest and there are several sections in the movie where they are unaccompanied by any of the other musicians and their solo work was excellent.

One thing that is very noticeable when watching a film with an orchestra playing the music, is the number of times that there is no background music. The dialogue in so many scenes weaves a musical tapestry all by itself. At the convocation of mobsters, the voice of Marlon Brando, and the words that he speaks, flow smoothly through the scene as if they were a music passage. The sounds of gravel and crickets in Sicily, and the noisy children and gunfire on the New York City streets also fill the atmosphere a number of times with any musical sweetening. Of course when a dramatic act takes place, there is a powerful punctuation of the emotion with a fanfare or motif that fits just as it should.

One of the first dates I took my wife on, was a double feature of “The Godfather” and “The Godfather Part II”, at the State theater in Pasadena, California. Together, the two films are almost six and a half hours long. At that distant screening way back in 1976, as the first movie ended and we stood up to take advantage of a break, the lights suddenly went down again and the second film stared almost immediately. We sat right back down and made it through both movies without a break. Last night, the screening inserted an intermission right after Michael assassinates Sollozzo and Captain McClusky. I know all too well that there was no intermission in the original film, but it worked well last night and I’m sure it was as much for the musicians benefit as it was for the audience. That gave us an opportunity to narcissisticly   have our picture taken in our seats. Those are very genuine smiles because we were having a wonderful time. The love song from “The Godfather”, “Speak Softly Love” was the music we played at our wedding back in 1980. The minister at my childhood church questioned us about it a little but she understood that it was a love song and not really an endorsement of the gangsters in the film and she went along with our preference very easily.

At the end of the film, when I was waiting in the lobby for my companions in the ladies room, I checked my phone and saw there was a message on my Facebook page. I’d posted that we were attending and an old high school friend messaged me that he was there as well. I would have loved connecting with him for a few minutes, we haven’t really seen each other in forty years but it looks like the movies of that decade still hold sway over those of us who came of age at that time. Next time Ron.

Amanda heard someone in the bathroom suggest “Lawrence of Arabia” for a similar experience. I am already waiting for such an announcement, “long live classic movie music!”. I know that this event played in New York last summer, I hope it makes it to your town so that you can share the experience of a great film with a magnificent score, performed right in front of you by professionals that really know how to bring it all home. Here in Southern California, we have the finest studio musicians in the world and they did this movie and it’s score proud.

In case any readers were wondering, “JAWS” is my favorite modern film. Some day I will do the list that everyone else works up for their top ten, and depending on the day, “JAWS” will be either one or two on the list (because “The Adventures of Robin Hood” will have to fight for that spot as well). Five years ago, we saw “Jaws” at a screening on Sunset Blvd. at the Vista Theater. Mr. Gottlieb spoke for a couple of minutes before the movie and as the principle screenwriter for the film, we hung on every word. After the movie, my daughter (who is an even bigger “Jaws” fanatic than I am), had him sign her copy of “The Jaws Log”, the book he wrote about his experience working on the film (he also appeared on screen as the editor of the Amity Newspaper). I did not have the foresight to go out to the shed, dig through twenty boxes of books and locate my original paperback edition, so I missed out.

My blogging colleague at “It Rains, You Get Wet“, posted a notice that Carl Gottlieb would be at an authors signing at “Dark Delicacies” a horror themed bookstore in Burbank this Saturday. After making sure I had no other conflicts, I hijacked my kid the fanatic and off we went. I’ts been years since I was in this part of town but she recognized it right away, having recently visited a vintage store that sells movie and TV castoffs. It was not hard to find, the Gothic Lettering stands out on the street.

We got there a few minutes before the 2:00 starting time and they were still setting up for the dozen or so authors they were expecting  for the event. As we walked in the door, there was a stack of the 30th Anniversary Edition of the book and maybe four or five of the recently expanded edition. Having no self control, we picked up two copies and went to look for the line. Mr. Gottlieb was the first author there, he was set up at the first spot and he was ready to go, so we did not wait.

  I walked up, introduced myself and shook his hand. He smiled quietly and took my book and asked me the name I would like to have him sign it to. As he was looking for the title page to inscribe, I asked if it would be alright to get a picture with him. He said “of course” and invited me behind the table. This was only possible because the other authors had not yet arrived so there was room and not a big crowd to jockey through. I happily sat down next to him and watched as he wrote in my book.

I’m happy to add this to my recently growing collection of signed books. Most of them have not been personalized like this one was so I will be able to appreciate this even more. I wish I knew the horror and gaming based books that were written by the other authors today. As people were coming in they were very impressed to meet their favorites. As I said, it looked like they were set up for a dozen writers or so. The bookstore was never overcrowded but it did start to fill in and I felt fortunate that we had gotten there when we did.

Since my daughter accompanied me all the way across town to keep me from being alone, I consented to purchasing another copy for her to get signed. Short of going on ebay and hunting down collectibles at Christies, she is doing a good job of accumulating “Jaws” memorabilia. 

 Here is the signature she got which is really appropriate because she does not go in the water, even as a lifelong resident of Southern California.

We ended up walking down to the soda and candy store, Rocket Fizz, after our visit and found some hard to locate treats that should make the rest of the weekend just as memorable. As we walked back by the store, the shop was full of people waiting for their signatures. I noticed the sign in the window and could not resist getting one more shot for the post here.

I tried to talk her into getting a souvenir key fob from the “Amity Island Motor Hotel” but she said she did not want anyone to think that she was just another of the summer ginks coming into town for the weekend.

  Thanks Michael for the heads up in this, sorry you missed out.

There are haters out there who have it in for Tom Cruse. Something about his personal life, or his good looks, or his incredible career just sets people on edge for some reason. Well if you are in that class of people get ready for more reason to hate, because Tom Cruise has a new film that will piss you off because he is good in it and it is a big success. I don’t know what the financial return will be but the accomplishment of the film is something to admire and the performance of Cruise will remind everyone that he is talented and as charismatic as all heck, despite the whatever personal baggage the haters want to make him carry.

In anticipation of the summer season, I heard people ho hum this movie. “Another Tom Cruise Action film” big whoop. I just looked at his list of recent films, of the last five which arrived since 2010, four were very solid and only one was a turkey. That’s an .800 batting average. In the major leagues that puts you in the Hall of Fame. True, only one, the fourth Mission Impossible, will be a home run, but all of the others were solid singles or doubles. The guy has proven himself time and again and waiting for him to fail is a pastime that people should give up. I’ve heard the names of several actors who are up and coming, or were at one point, as the next Tom Cruise type. All of them are good actors with quality parts under their belts, but none is even close to the consistency and quality of Mr. Cruise.

Having outed myself as a Tom Cruise fan, let’s talk about the movie. “Edge of Tomorrow” is a science fiction action flick. It’s already sitting in my breadbasket with that description. It is also intelligent, fresh, and extremely well made. One thing it has going for it is that it is not a sequel and it does not lend itself well to serialization. It is a stand alone film that tries to do something somewhat original. Maybe that sounds strange since the movie has been described as “Groundhog Day” meets “Halo”, but it sure feels original despite those comparisons. The science fiction gimmick that provides for the plot twist is original. The relationship between the two main characters is original. The performance of the star is original as well. Cruise plays craven rather than bold. He is cocksure but out of his depths and he makes some strong choices to show that. He starts off in what he sees as a position of power and quickly discovers his powerlessness. The terror in his eyes is real as his character Cage, is required to become something he has never been, a sincere and dedicated soldier. He overplays his P.R. creating hand and ends up on the front-line of an invasion of Europe, very similar to D-Day, on the 70th anniversary of that undertaking. He is the incompetent version of Tom Hanks in “Saving Private Ryan”. It is only through an accident of battle that he acquires the ability to reset the day and live it over, hopefully changing things for the better.

Unlike “Groundhog Day”, this repeated experience has nothing to do with his journey as a better man. That does happen but it is a by product rather than the purpose of the technique. Cage’s real journey is one of victory over an invading force that threatens the planet. His “gift” is a stolen secret of the invaders that allows them to anticipate every action of the Earth forces because they have already experienced them before. Of course, if you start pulling too hard at the treads of any time travel story, you will start to find imperfections, the most successful of these stories work because you are too busy enjoying the events that worrying about timelines, logic and means becomes unimportant. “Edge of Tomorrow” manages to do that by surrounding the character with state of the art special effects, effective action sequences, and enough colorful characters to distract but not pull you away from the central plot. Rita Vrataski is the heroine of the Earth forces. She is known for leading them to their only victory in the war. Emily Blunt, in a departure from the characters she has played in a dozen movies I’ve seen, is a hardnosed battle weary figure, who does not suffer fools gladly, and Bill Cage is a fool at first. She turns out to be one of only two people in the world who know what is happening to Bill. She becomes his focus and his bane. The reset button on the time travel concept being his death. She sometimes seems to be a little too happy to hit that reset button. These two actors build a believable relationship in unbelievable circumstances.

The other soldiers in Cage’s squad get just enough character to be distinctive and to give us some reason to care when they become part of the plot and not just background. Bill Paxton plays against type as the humorless tough Sargent that every military based film has ever had. Usually he is the craven soldier, faking bravado for his brothers in arms. Clearly he knows how to become a hard ass and in spite of his tough demeanor, his reactions create some of the humor in the film. Brendon Gleeson is equally without humor, and it is easy to see how men like Sgt. Farrell and General Brigham would despise Major Cage and are all to happy to see him put on the front lines, knowing he will die almost immediately. The Major Sargent and the General are military professionals engaged in a serious endeavor, Cage is play acting at being an officer and undermines the cause. They become obstacles themselves to winning the war because they have been exposed to the creature that Cage was once. Only Rita sees a new man every time she encounters him. It is a strange relationship that the two have to navigate as they become close and understand one another, only to be forced to start over again and again.

When the film first came on my radar, it was known by the title of the manga book that it is based on, “All You Need is Kill”. That is a great title and I thought that changing it reflected a lack of confidence in the material and the audience. “Edge of Tomorrow” sound nondescript by comparison. As I watched the film however, I realized that the title really does reflect the theme of the movie more that the original. It is a clever recognition of the time element in the story and the dangerous situation the characters face. Sometimes the marketing department has a good idea, and when that happens they should get credit. I also love the tagline on the publicity material. The shampoo like directions “Live. Die. Repeat.” contains enough of the concept to make it intriguing and the movie does that really well. You wo’t feel the repeat sections with discomfort because they are subtlety changed at first then they are truncated and finally they become mere punctuation points to the story.

The action sequences looked amazing and they might be even better in the 3D format that the movie is being pushed in. We saw a regular screening and the shaky cam during the battle could be vomit inducing so in 3D it is probably more so. I liked that this is an alien invasion movie that is not all about showing us the destruction of buildings and mass deaths. Those are implied by some of the scenery and backgrounds, but the movie, while having some dramatic battle scenes is not really focused on destruction as much as it is focused on a pretty creative idea. The stars do a good job portraying their characters, and the big star, fills the screen with his presence and shows that Tom Cruise is still a force to be reckoned with. 

I do not mean this in a disparaging way, but every teen age girls and most young women in their twenties will be going to see this movie. The book has been huge, the stars are well cast and the time is right since all the other book based films aimed at this demographic have either flamed out or are still in the process of being made. It is as if God said “Let there be a movie for young girls to love”, and this was the result. Here is the phrase that someone heard and said let’s do this, “Young cancer love story.”

What can you say about a romantic couple that dies? (My apologies to Oliver Barret IV) Tragic love stories are the best, because everyone is suspicious of a happy ending, with tragedy no one worries about the future when the lovers are separated by death. That’s why Romeo and Juliet has lasted five centuries and “Say Anything” is mocked by the character in this movie. One of the “cancer perks” is that you will be forgiven for belittling other stories because yours is more tragic. You will also be forgiven because the story you tell has it’s heart in the right place. This is not a maudlin story or one about facing the incredible odds courageously. It is a story that feels real despite the obvious emo trappings that surround it. This is due in large part to the cast and the light touch of the director. They have processed what this book represents and translated it faithfully to the screen.

Cancer patient support group does not sound like the typical “cute meet” in a romance. It sounds like something out of “Fight Club” without the cynicism. Whenever love manages to appear, even in the movies, if it is earned and reflects a legitimate path, then it is something you can respect. I respected this love story because the characters don’t fall in love instantly. One becomes enamoured of the other and then there is some real cat and mouse pursuit. That they are destined to fall in love is obvious going in to the story, but the story shows us why it happens instead of merely showing us that they are in love. Unusual circumstances bring them closer and they handle it in a way that seems reasonable for the situation.

Shailene Woodley is perfectly cast as Hazel Grace, the central figure in the story. This is a tale told from the perspective of the girl. Even when the guys experience is driving the story, it is the female love interest that we follow through the plot. She is young and destined to not get much older. Her infirmities are such that the physical toll does not require her to fade in beauty as the movie goes on. Miss Woodley is a charming young woman with some nice screen charisma and she carries the story for the most part. Her counterpart is the weakness in the story, and not because the actor Ansel Elgort is not good. He is excellent at the clever by play and winsome smile and romance stuff. Where he falls down is with the dying cancer patient material. In the book (which I did indeed read), there is a physical transformation and a slow decay of the handsome and confident young man. He loses weight, and energy and looks sick according to the descriptions. In the film, he looks like the same guy we saw for the rest of the movie, only now he is in a wheelchair. It feels to be a little bit of a cheat that Hazel says in the prologue that this is the truth, not the sugarcoating, but in the end it is a little sugarcoated.

There are some wonderful moments in the movie. I loved the dinner scene in Amsterdam. The hurling of eggs at Monica’s car worked pretty well on screen. I liked the cute script in the dialogue bubbles that represent the text messages. The visit to the Anne Frank house is also very good.  Laura Dern as Hazel’s mom delivers some very strong lines about the hurt that she faces and the reality that they will go on. It did not sound like the platitude of a parent comforting a child, but the resignation of an adult to the hardest thing they will ever endure. Willem DeFoe looks more normal as the drunk writer than he usually does in his films, so it was played very realistically and for the most part. There were some appropriate cinematic changes to the end of the story and they improve on the clarity of the resolution without dragging in a search mystery at the last minute. Honestly, the only thing I missed from the book was the added resolution of Sisyphus the hamster.

OK, I don’t have a lot to say about this today. Someday I will do an Indiana Jones Festival and invite anyone interested in participating. For now I will say I saw three movies in theaters this weekend, and if I had to choose only one to have gone to,this would have been it. Raiders is a fantastic adventure movie that continues to show how much better off we were creatively and as an audience, before Computers replaced everything we see with pixels.

There is a lot of humor in Raiders and Harrison Ford never gets as much credit for these physical performances as he deserves. A slack jawed expression here, a scowl there and a smirk laughing at his own situation fill this character with more personality than most action stars get through a whole series of movies. I haven’t seen all of his recent performances, but I will be there on opening day to see Harrison Ford as part of the cast in “The Expendables III”. I think he will fit in fine if they give him some funny business to go along with the action stuff.

If you haven’t seen my post on “Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom“, you don’t need to see Raiders first but it could not hurt. Anytime I encounter it, Raiders of the Lost Ark on the big screen it going to pull me back to 1936 for 115 minutes. That’s right my friends, this movie is less than two hours long and still packs more into it’s contents than films that add another hour to their running time. There is always something new in the background, foreground or dialogue that I haven’t focused on before but makes each experience unique. Today I was absorbed by all the little pieces of business that Ford does with his hands and face.

AMC has done one thing with this current series that it failed to do with the last, lower the prices. These are movies that people will come out to see but $12 for a thirty-five year old movie on a Sunday afternoon was a little steep. They’ve dropped the price to $6, less than the cost of an early morning screening. Today, there were a dozen people in our showing. I may go again on Wednesday if the schedule works out for me. Two years ago with the release of the Indiana Jones films on blu ray, there were some Raiders IMAX screenings. Today’s presentation was a standard viewing but still worth the time and energy.

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Disney is doing it’s darndest to exploit all their properties and keep us entertained at the same time. A traditional retelling of “Sleeping Beauty” could have worked fine, just as the live action “101 Dalmatians” did a dozen or so years ago. Somewhere in the bowels of the Imagineering Department or in the Production agreement with big movie stars, someone has decided that a straight remake is not cool, and a story needs to be tweaked to make it fresh. The best known example of this in the recent past has been the musical “Wicked”. A couple of years ago, Disney re-imagined “Alice in Wonderland”. Now it is time for a classic fairy tale to get it’s own variation and they have chosen one with a great villainess which makes the visualization a handy shortcut to the story.

There is a great deal to admire about this movie. I thought the opening section in which the character of “Maleficent” is introduced in her child form was really marvelous. The character was appealing and there is a nice romantic edge to the story line that is being developed. The character of Stephan however, is not quite as nicely developed and it was hard to see the conflicting choices he was faced with until the key scenes in the movie. The character development here was incomplete which makes some of the plotting a little muddled. Although a conflict between the two worlds was suggested in the narration, we are not really shown any of that except in a direct combat scene. One side is immediately presented as evil and as a result, they lose any interest as part of the story. A whole Kingdom becomes a cardboard cutout villain. The movie shows armies and battles but nothing that would back up the need or desire for those battles.

My daughter has watched “Once Upon a Time” and we have both seen “Frozen” so the twist in the movie is not as great as it should be. I liked it pretty well but she feels that it is almost becoming a contemporary cliche. The movie is aggressively unromantic and that trend may reflect blowback from all the years that Disney has been accused of brainwashing little girls about “true love” and the handsome prince. The switch in tone is meant to appeal to more modern audiences and ways of thinking, but it feels like something of the magic is being lost by doing this. The outcome does differ from tradition and while that might sometimes be appealing, it does feel strange when being thrust upon a story like this. In a way it makes the calculation of changing the character focus even more noticeable.

Angelina Jolie was obviously perfectly cast in the movie. She almost has the high cheekbones without the prosthetic and special effects makeup. Her eyes do a lot of the acting in the movie but her voice is also used exceptionally well. She is the main reason to see the film. She appears to be invested in telling the story and selling her performance. She has two emotional transformations that she has to pull off and both of them succeed pretty well. The second one is more subtle and takes up much of the storyline but it feels solid because it is allowed to play out. You can see the turn coming, but you can also believe that it might not get here, That is the value of her performance. It is a bit disconcerting that the bad guy has to be the hero and the reverse happens as well. I hope that the desire to tell traditional stories doesn’t require us to subvert what came before every time. I’m willing to go along today because of the casting and performance, but screenwriters should be careful about going to that well too frequently.

This may have been a film where the 3D process would be worth seeing. I saw it in a regular two dimensional form and the edges of characters looked soft and artificial to me. I saw several spots where the extra dimensionality would be exciting in the scene, and make the events in those sequences more dynamic. The creatures of the moors that Maleficent is the de-facto queen over look a bit cartoonish and sometimes silly. There are long sequences where the beauty of the woods is supposed to be a marvel but it just looks conventional and weak. The best live comparison I could think of to make was Ridley Scott’s “Legend”. The enchanted forest in that film looked more real on the sets than anything in this CGI wonderland that has been created for the character here to inhabit.

You may notice that I’ve said nothing about Sleeping Beauty herself. Elle Fanning is a good actress, she was great in “Super 8” a couple of years ago. She is fine in this film but there is so little to her part that almost any pretty young actress would have been fine in the role. It has to be a thankless task to star in a fairy tale as the princess who is subject to a curse, and end up playing second fiddle to a character that might be mostly defined by her horns. The three good faeries are played strictly for laughs and between them and King Stephan, there is no emotional investment in what goes on with Aurora. There is more to say but it is late and I’ve been busy this weekend as you will see if you visit the other blog.  I may come back and add some more to this review but for now i can say it was an interesting experience that I can’t quite warm up to, but did admire at times.

 Click the Poster for a link to the KAMAD Vlog Review