The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time! (1982)

THE WEAVERS: WASN'T THAT A TIME! 
    D: Jim Brown                         (1982)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
A tuneful documentary centered around a reunion concert by the Weavers at Carnegie Hall in 1980. With a string of hits that included "Good Night, Irene" and "On Top of Old Smokey", the Weavers - Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays and Fred Hellerman - were the premier folk act in the country in the early 1950s, till the blacklist caught up with them. Their influence on other socially conscious folk musicians was enormous. Any one of them could anchor a song and hold the stage, but the commanding presence here is Hays, the group's bass and resident storyteller. Confined to a wheelchair after losing his lower legs to diabetes, Hays talks jokingly about being laid to rest in his compost pile, and in a bit of inspired gallows humor, gets a ride to New York for the Carnegie Hall gig in a limo borrowed from a funeral home. Hays gives the concert and the film a resonance they wouldn't otherwise have: the realization, unspoken but all too clear, that this isn't just another chance to sing the old songs and try out a few new ones. It's the last go-round, the last time these folks would sing together, ever, and there's a sense of joy and fun and affection in every fleeting second of it. Hays died eight months later. His ashes were scattered on his compost pile.

Pete Seeger

(1919-2014)

The 2013 Scobie Awards

Picture: "Nebraska"
Actress: Cate Blanchett, "Blue Jasmine"
Actor: Bruce Dern, "Nebraska"
Supporting Actress: Amy Adams, "Her"
Supporting Actor: Harrison Ford, "42"
Cameo: Jane Fonda, "The Butler"
Ensemble: "The World's End"
Director: J.C. Chandor, "All Is Lost"
Cinematography: Dion Beebe, "Gangster Squad"
Musical Score: Aaron Dessner, Bryce Dessner 
                           and Kubilay Uner, "Big Sur"
Foreign Language Film: "Wadjda"
B Movie: "Machete Kills"
Documentary: "A.K.A. Doc Pomus"
Revival: "Manhattan"
Title Sequence: "Red 2"
Trailer: "The Grand Budapest Hotel"
Print Ad: "Beyond Naked"
Career Achievement Award: Harry Dean Stanton

Down To the Sea In Ships (1949)

DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS  (1949)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Henry Hathaway
    Richard Widmark, Lionel Barrymore, Dean Stockwell,
    Cecil Kellaway, John McIntire, Gene Lockhart,
    Harry Morgan, Harry Davenport, Jay C. Flippen
Life lessons and the laws of the sea, with three generations aboard a 19th-century whaling ship. Barrymore's the crusty old captain who refuses to retire. Stockwell's his grandson, just promoted from cabin boy to ship's crew. Widmark's the new first mate. It starts out slow, but gets exciting once the first whales are sighted, and especially once the ship sails into the fog and ice. Widmark's first sympathetic role, after starting his career as a specialist in outlaws and psychopaths. 

The Armstrong Lie (2013)

THE ARMSTRONG LIE  (2013)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Alex Gibney
How Lance Armstrong, premier cyclist, cancer survivor and hero to millions, won seven straight Tour de France titles, doping and lying about it all along the way. Gibney's original idea was to make a documentary about Armstrong's comeback to compete in the tour in 2009, but the controversy surrounding his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs and his repeated, emphatic denials wouldn't go away, and that's what the movie ended up being about. It's a little long, and it might be more effective if Gibney had figured out a way to keep himself out of it, but the access he had gives Armstrong plenty of screen time to make his case, or undermine it. There's a lot of footage of Armstrong dissembling - ducking, dodging, spinning and trying to evade the mounting evidence against him. What's striking isn't the lies as much as the viciousness behind them, and Armstrong's obsession, on the race course and away from it, not just to win but to destroy anybody who gets in his way. It's a toxic combination of ruthlessness, spite and egomania that earns Armstrong some outspoken enemies in a sport where a traditional code of silence would normally protect him. The same pathological drive that makes him great is the thing that does him in.

As Long As You've Got Your Health (1966)

AS LONG AS YOU'VE GOT YOUR HEALTH 
    D: Pierre Étaix                               (1966)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    Pierre Étaix, Denise Peronne,
    Simone Fonder, Sabine Sun
A compilation of four comic sketches, each starting with some simple activity and moving on to practically anywhere. One begins with a man in bed reading a book. Another involves a trip to the movies. In the third, some jackhammers pound away at a city street. In the last, a man drives a post into the ground to fix a wire fence. This is where Jacques Tati meets Ernie Kovacs. Étaix is practically unknown in the United States, and his films were tied up for years in legal disputes over ownership and distribution rights. His humor is mostly visual, and his movies play by their own cracked rules, in a universe where, of course, if a sheet of music gets knocked around enough, the notes will just naturally start to drop off the page. The films are hard to describe, really. You've just got to see them. And it's probably no coincidence that the guy in episode four trying to repair the wire fence is dressed like Buster Keaton.

Before Midnight (2013)

BEFORE MIDNIGHT  (2013)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Richard Linklater
    Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Walter Lassaly,
    Xenia Kalogeropoulou, Athina Rachel Tsangari,
    Ariane Labed, Yannis Papadopoulos, Panos Koronis
The last time the screen went dark on Jesse and Celine (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) was nine years ago in Paris. Nine years before that, they were talking the night away, walking through Vienna. This time, they're in Greece, and the young lovers of the first two films are a middle-aged couple now, with twin daughters, dealing with issues and baggage their younger selves never had to think about. The conversation continues and it's as sharp and funny as ever, but there's a different edge to it now, a sense of time passing and dreams not entirely realized. They haven't completely grown up, but they've grown older, and they've had enough time together to figure each other out. So they play games. They're evasive. They get on each other's nerves. And they've reached a point where there are compromises to be made, big ones. Life's become complicated. After that rendezvous in Paris nine years ago, I wasn't sure I wanted to see Jesse and Celine again. I wanted to leave them with their dreams and ideals intact. Now, after this one, I'm curious. It's hard to know where they'd be in another nine years, and questionable whether they'd even be together, but if Linklater and his stars want to bring them back to hash things out in some picturesque European location, I'm in. At least one thing's for sure. The conversation will be worth tuning in. 

The 10 Best Movies of 2013

THE TEN BEST:

"Nebraska"

"All Is Lost"

"Gravity"

"Wadjda"

"Blue Jasmine"

"Jin"

"Phantom"

"7 Boxes"

 "Gangster Squad"

"Hors Satan"

TAKE FIVE:

"Holy Motors"

"Crystal Fairy"

"Before Midnight"

"Big Sur"

"Much Ado About Nothing"

SECRET TREASURES:

"Still Mine"

"A.K.A. Doc Pomus"

"Jump"

"Sun Don't Shine"

GUILTY PLEASURES:

"Escape Plan"

"Machete Kills"

"Red 2"

"World War Z"

BACK ON THE BIG SCREEN:

"Manhattan"

"Dracula"

"The Wizard of Oz"

"How the West Was Won"

FOUR FROM THE VIDEO STORE:

"One Way Passage"

"Babes In Toyland"

"Sisters"

"Grandview, U.S.A."

The Cheyenne Social Club (1970)

THE CHEYENNE SOCIAL CLUB  (1970)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Gene Kelly
    James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Shirley Jones,
    Sue Anne Langdon, Elaine Devry, Jackie Russell,
    Jackie Joseph, Sharon De Bord, Robert Middleton,
    Dabbs Greer, John Dehner, J. Pat O'Malley
Two old Texas cowboys saddle up and ride north to Wyoming, where one of them has inherited some property. It's not till they get to Wyoming that they learn what the property is: the most widely revered brothel in the territory. Overcome by an acute case of respectability, the new owner (Jimmy Stewart) decides to close the place down and open a boarding house, a plan the establishment's working girls and their devoted clientele fail to appreciate, and his partner (Henry Fonda) doesn't understand too well, either. A broadly played western, worth watching mostly  as a vehicle for its two stars, who were best friends in real life, and play off each other with a good-natured, bickering ease that can only come from years of riding the range together. They even spoof their respective political affiliations, a subject they avoided discussing offscreen. If nothing else, it's almost certainly the only movie you'll ever see whose plot summary could justify using the words "Jimmy Stewart" and "owner of a whorehouse" in the same sentence. 

Despicable Me (2010)

DESPICABLE ME  (2010)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud
A mildly entertaining animated feature about a world-class evildoer named Gru, who decides to outdo a rival villain by shrinking and stealing the moon. When he adopts three young orphan girls to help with the scheme, he finds something in himself he didn't know he had: a heart. Steve Carell does the voice of Gru, and amateur linguists could have a good time trying to pin down his accent. The movie's cute, but not in a totally bad way. Kids should like it.

Fellini's Casanova (1976)

FELLINI'S CASANOVA  (1976)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Federico Fellini
    Donald Sutherland, Tina Aumont, Cicely Browne,
    John Karlsen, Daniel Emilfork Berenstein
It's just as well that the filmmaker put his own name on the title of this, as a warning, or at least as a qualification. It's not a biopic as much as it is a dreamscape, a long, strange, episodic, lavishly designed vision of life in the courts and salons of 18th-century Europe. Donald Sutherland plays the famous spy, musician, adventurer, librarian and self-described ladies' man, and while it provides irrefutable proof of his courage as an actor, it's not a performance that brings Casanova to life. That probably has less to do with 
Sutherland than with Fellini, who's much more intent on posing his beautiful grotesques in exotic, colorful settings and playing them off against each other. Early on, there's a shot of Casanova rowing a boat over the sea at night, and it's obvious that the moonlit waves aren't real water but billowing sheets of plastic. Fellini makes no effort to conceal the fakery, suggesting that he's not interested in picturing life as it was or might have been, but the way some half-mad artist might have painted it. The movie will be slow going for some, but it's an undeniable eyeshow, the human carnival as only Fellini would imagine it. Weird and then some.

Gangster Squad (2013)

GANGSTER SQUAD  (2013)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Ruben Fleischer
    Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Josh Brolin, 
    Nick Nolte, Emma Stone, Giovanni Ribisi,
    Robert Patrick, Michael Pena, Anthony Mackie,
    Mareille Enos, John Aylward, Troy Garity
Sean Penn, foaming at the mouth, plays Mickey Cohen, a vicious gangster who's determined to put all of Los Angeles, and maybe the entire western United States, under his thumb. Nick Nolte plays the hard-assed, gravel-voiced police chief who's determined not to let him do that. So Nolte calls on square-jawed war hero Josh Brolin to recruit an elite gang of tough-guy cops to take Cohen down. These cops don't carry badges, but they do carry guns, and they use them. A lot. And they wear great hats. And they act cool, especially Ryan Gosling, who smokes a lot of cigarettes and steals Mickey Cohen's girl right from under Mickey Cohen's nose. That takes balls, huh? It's pure pulp, a stylish, blood-soaked shoot-'em-up and a gun nut's wet dream, like "The Untouchables", but more in the style of Walter Hill. Bang bang bang. Bang. The End.

Final Reel 2013

PATTI PAGE, 85, singer, actress

"Elmer Gantry"

"Dondi"

"Boys' Night Out"

DAVID R. ELLIS, 60, stunt coordinator, director

"Patriot Games"

"Body of Evidence"

"Snakes On a Plane"

MICHAEL WINNER, 77, director

"Scorpio"

"Death Wish"

"The Big Sleep"

PATTY ANDREWS, 94, singer, actress

"Buck Privates"

"Follow the Boys"

"Hollywood Canteen"

CONRAD BAIN, 89, actor

"Bananas"

"The Anderson Tapes"

"Postcards From the Edge"

LLOYD PHILLIPS, 63, producer

"Twelve Monkeys"

"The Legend of Zorro"

"Inglourious Basterds"

STUART FREEBORN, 98, makeup artist

"Star Wars"

"The Omen"

"The Mouse That Roared"

GERRY HAMBLING, 86, editor

"Midnight Express"

"In the Name of the Father"

"Angel Heart"

JOHN KERR, 81, actor

"Tea and Sympathy"

"South Pacific"

"Pit and the Pendulum"

RICHARD COLLINS, 98, writer

"Lady Scarface"

"My Gun Is Quick"

"Riot In Cell Block 11"

ALAN SHARP, 79, writer

"Night Moves"

"Ulzana's Raid"

"The Hired Hand"

MARIANGELA MELATO, 71, actress

"Flash Gordon"

"The Seduction of Mimi"

"Swept Away"

DALE ROBERTSON, 89, actor

"Devil's Canyon"

"The Silver Whip"

"O. Henry's Full House"

HARRY REEMS, 65, actor

"Deep Throat"

"For Your Thighs Only"

"Lust In Space"

RICHARD GRIFFITHS, 65, actor

"Hugo"

"Venus"

"Withnail & I"

FAY KANIN, 95, writer

"My Pal Gus"

"The Opposite Sex"

"Teacher's Pet"

ROBERT NICHOLS, 88, actor

"Giant"

"This Island Earth"

"The Thing From Another World"

RUTH PRAWER JHABVALA, 85, writer

"A Room With a View"

"The Remains of the Day"

"Howard's End"

MILO O'SHEA, 86, actor

"Ulysses"

"Barbarella"

"The Verdict"

ROGER EBERT, 70, writer, critic

"Sneak Previews"

"At the Movies"

"Beyond the Valley of the Dolls"

LES BLANK, 77, director

"Burden of Dreams"

"Gap-Toothed Women"

"Cigarette Blues"

VIRGINIA GIBSON, 85, actress

"Tea For Two"

"Funny Face"

"Seven Brides For Seven Brothers"

ELLIOTT REID, 93, actor

"Inherit the Wind"

"The Absent-Minded Professor"

"The Thrill of it All"

DIANE CLARE, 74, actress

"The Haunting"

"The Plague of the Zombies"

"The Wrong Box"

JIM KELLY, 67, actor

"Enter the Dragon"

"Black Belt Jones"

"Three the Hard Way"

ANNETTE FUNICELLO, 70, actress

"Beach Party"

"How To Stuff a Wild Bikini"

"Bikini Beach"

JONATHAN WINTERS, 87, actor

"The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming"

"The Loved One"

"It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World"

STEVE FORREST, 87, actor

"North Dallas Forty"

"Mommie Dearest"

"The Longest Day"

MICKEY ROSE, 77, writer

"Bananas"

"Take the Money and Run"

"Student Bodies"

RICHIE HAVENS, 72, singer, actor

"Woodstock"

"Greased Lightning"

"I'm Not There"

BERNADETTE LAFONT, 74, actress

"The Good Time Girls"

"Killer Spy"

"The Mother and the Whore"

ALLAN ARBUS, 95, actor

"The Electric Horseman"

"Volunteers"

"Greaser's Palace"

DEANNA DURBIN, 91, singer, actress

"First Love"

"It Started With Eve"

"Lady On a Train"

RAY HARRYHAUSEN, 92, special effects

"Clash of the Titans"

"Mysterious Island"

"One Million Years B.C."

ESTHER WILLIAMS, 91, actress

"Bathing Beauty"

"Million Dollar Mermaid"

"Dangerous When Wet"

OTTO SANDER, 72, actor

"Wings of Desire"

"Far Away, So Close"

"Das Boot"

JAMES GANDOLFINI, 51, actor

"The Last Castle"

"Zero Dark Thirty"

"In the Loop"

RICHARD MATHESON, 87, writer

"Burn Witch Burn"

"Die! Die! My Darling!"

"The Legend of Hell House"

DENNIS FARINA, 69, actor,

"Mac"

"Get Shorty"

"Saving Private Ryan"

MEL SMITH, 60, actor

"Twelfth Night"

"The Princess Bride"

"Morons From Outer Space"

EILEEN BRENNAN, 80, actress

"Private Benjamin"

"The Last Picture Show"

"The Sting"

MICHAEL ANSARA, 91, actor

"The Manitou"

"The Comancheros"

"The Greatest Story Ever Told"

HAJI, 67, actress

"Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!"

"Beyond the Valley of the Dolls"

"Killer Drag Queens On Dope"

KAREN BLACK, 74, actress

"Nashville"

"Family Plot"

"Invaders From Mars"

MARGARET PELLIGRINI, 89, munchkin

"The Wizard of Oz"

ELMORE LEONARD, 87, writer

"The Moonshine War"

"Cat Chaser"

"Joe Kidd"

JAY ROBINSON, 83, actor

"The Robe"

"Demetrius and the Gladiators"

"The Malibu Bikini Shop"

TED POST, 95, director

"Go Tell the Spartans"

"Hang 'Em High"

"Magnum Force"

JULIE HARRIS, 87, actress

"The Haunting"

"East of Eden"

"Reflections In a Golden Eye"

DON NELSON, 86, writer

"Hot Lead and Cold Feet"

"Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo"

"The Munsters' Revenge"

NIGEL DAVENPORT, 85, actor

"Chariots of Fire"

"The Last Valley"

"Zulu Dawn"

GRAHAM STARK, 91, actor

"The Sea Wolves"

"Victor Victoria"

"A Weekend With Lulu"

RICHARD C. SARAFIAN, 83, director

"Vanishing Point"

"Man In  the Wilderness"

"Fragment of Fear"

ED LAUTER, 72, actor

"The Longest Yard"

"Seabiscuit"

"Thirteen Days"

HAL NEEDHAM, 82, director, stunt man

"Smokey and the Bandit"

"The Cannonball Run"

"Stroker Ace"

MICKEY KNOX, 91, actor

"Knock On Any Door"

"Cemetery Man"

"Frankenstein Unbound"

AL RUSCIO, 89, actor

"Showgirls"

"Jagged Edge"

"Any Which Way You Can"

JEAN KENT, 92, actress

"The Browning Version"

"The Haunted Strangler"

"Bonjour Tristesse"

PAUL WALKER, 40, actor

"Pleasantville"

"Flags of Our Fathers"

"Into the Blue"

TONY MUSANTE, 77, actor

"The Incident"

"The Bird With the Crystal Plumage"

"The Last Run"

ELEANOR PARKER, 91, actress

"Caged"

"The Sound of Music"

"The Man With the Golden Arm"

PETER O'TOOLE, 81, actor

"Lawrence of Arabia"

"The Lion In Winter"

"My Favorite Year"

JOAN FONTAINE, 96, actress

"Rebecca"

"Suspicion"

"Kiss the Blood Off My Hands"

TOM LAUGHLIN, 82, actor, writer, director, producer

"The Born Losers"

"Billy Jack"

"The Master Gunfighter"
JEFF SHANNON, 52, critic
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Seattle Times
Amazon.com

JEFF POLLACK, 54, director, producer

"Above the Rim"

"Booty Call"

"Lost & Found"

FRÉDÉRIC BACK, 89, writer, director, animator

"Illusion"

"Crac"

"The Man Who Planted Trees"

JAMES AVERY, 68, actor

"Fletch"

"The Linguini Incident"

"8 Million Ways To Die"

        "The point is not to avoid all stupid movies,

          but to avoid being a stupid moviegoer."

                                                                           Roger Ebert

1941 (1979)

1941  (1979)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Steven Spielberg
    Dan Aykroyd, Treat Williams, Robert Stack,
    Tim Matheson, John Belushi, Ned Beatty,
    Nancy Allen, Slim Pickens, Toshiro Mifune,
    Christopher Lee, Warren Oates, John Candy
A comedy of mass destruction, about what happens when a Japanese submarine surfaces off the coast of California a few days after Pearl Harbor. A big, long, loud slapstick diversion in which a lot of gags get pitched against the wall and only some of them stick. Spielberg himself said he probably wasn't the ideal director for this, but it's fun to see him playing it so fast and loose. He's never done anything else this crazy. Highlights: Slim Pickens spoofing his role in "Dr. Strangelove", Susan Backlinie spoofing her role in "Jaws", Robert Stack reduced to tears watching Walt Disney's "Dumbo", and any scene featuring the maniacal John Belushi.