GIMME SHELTER (1970) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin
On December 6, 1969, barely three months after Woodstock, the Rolling Stones wrapped up a North American tour with a free outdoor concert at a racetrack in Northern California. A good time was not had by all, and Altamont quickly became a cultural metaphor marking the end of the 1960s. People on various drugs freaked out. The Hell's Angels, hired to provide security around the stage, drank a lot of beer and beat people unconscious with pool cues. Finally, during the Stones' set, a black man in a green suit apparently pulled a gun and was stabbed to death by one of the Angels. Remarkably, this documentary captures it all on film, together with uneasy closeups of Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts self-consciously watching the replay and responding to it. (Keith Richards is around, too, but looks too zoned out to respond to anything.) Young George Lucas was one of the cameramen.
Albert Maysles
(1926-2015)
ZOMBIE WOMEN OF SATAN (2009) ¢
D: Steve O'Brien, Warren Speed
Warren Speed, Victoria Hopkins, Victoria Broom,
Seymour Mace, Marysia Kay, Peter Bonner,
Kate Soulsby, Gillian Settle, Joe Nicholson
Lots of boobs and blood in a moronic schlockfest from Britain, about what happens when zombies in lingerie meet up with the members of a deranged circus. Thanks to digital technology, the kinds of people who used to introduce really bad horror movies on late-night TV, or just watch them, can now make their own really bad horror movies and show them on DVD or YouTube. It's not an improvement, even with the boobs and blood.
LILI (1953) ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Charles Walters
Leslie Caron, Mel Ferrer, Jean-Pierre Aumont,
Zsa Zsa Gabor, Amanda Blake, Kurt Kasznar
A Technicolor confection from MGM, starring Leslie Caron as an orphan girl who joins a traveling carnival, where she falls for a charming magician and goes to work for a surly puppeteer. The "Oz"-like dancing dream sequence is a highlight, and the puppets have more life in them than some actors do. The Bronislau Kaper-Helen Deutsch song "Hi Lili, Hi Lo" won an Academy Award.
I read an interview with Burt Lancaster years ago, and he said something in it that stuck with me. I couldn't quote it exactly now, but it was something to the effect that he was 65 years old and he could still be turned on by the charms of a 19-year-old girl. He added that if that made him a dirty old man, so be it.
I'm a couple years older than Burt was then, and in the interest of full disclosure, I can relate, at least when I go to the movies. And I suspect that what Burt said is true of more men than will ever admit it.
It's something I thought about last year, after watching the Scarlett Johansson movie "Under the Skin". In the movie, Scarlett plays a mysterious alien who comes on to a series of men and seduces them. One of the things that's interesting about the way the movie plays out is that as she goes from one encounter to the next, the scenes become incrementally more graphic, revealing a little more of Scarlett each time. And I've got to admit that watching Scarlett Johansson get naked on the installment plan didn't bother me a bit. Does that make me a dirty old man? Sure. I guess. Maybe. Am I the only one out there? Not a chance.
I haven't seen every movie Scarlett Johansson's been in, but I think this might be the first time she's appeared completely nude on screen. It's all very discreet - "artistic," some would say - but, still, there she is, no body double, or anything. And countering the trend toward anorexic actresses who look like skeletons with skin stretched over them, Scarlett has real curves. They look good on her, too. I think there's something reassuring about that.
I couldn't say whether women respond the same way to naked men. The pornography industry, which is huge, certainly caters a lot more to men looking at women. It always has. And if there was a buck to be made going the other way, you can bet more X-rated auteurs would be cashing in. On the other hand, there's a reason for Matthew McConaughey's periodic shirt removals, as there was for Clint Eastwood and Paul Newman and Clark Gable before him. And I know a few women (of a certain age) who probably wouldn't look away from an "artistically" lit nude scene, if the featured player in it was Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp.
The point, I guess, is that we're all sexual (at least most of us are), and movies are a voyeuristic medium. We're all out there watching, and every time the lights go down, or the DVD kicks in, or we hit "play" on the remote or the keyboard, we're looking in some way - emotional, intellectual, visceral - to be stimulated, to be turned on.
Scarlett Johansson in "Under the Skin" works for me, but face it. We're all voyeurs, and only some of us are dirty old men.
PANIC ROOM (2002) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: David Fincher
Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart, Forest Whitaker,
Jared Leto, Dwight Yoakam, Patrick Bauchau
"Wait Until Dark" for the new millennium, about a woman and her daughter who move into a Manhattan mausoleum the size of San Simeon, where they're terrorized by intruders on the their first night in the house. Suspension of disbelief could be difficult for some, but fans of escapist suspense, eye-catching camerawork, or Jodie in a tank top aren't likely to care about that. The first entry in Foster's unofficial commando trilogy, followed by "Flightplan" three years later and "The Brave One" in 2007.
THE WORLD'S GREATEST SINNER (1962) ¢ 1/2
D: Timothy Carey
Timothy Carey, Gil Barreto,
Betty Rowland, James Farley
Longtime character actor and weapons-grade eccentric Timothy Carey wrote, produced, directed, distributed and starred in this proto-indie experiment about an insurance salesman who decides to reinvent himself as God. If it's not one of the worst movies ever made - and it might be - it's at least one of the craziest, but give Carey credit for not wasting his one shot at being an auteur. If nothing else, it's uncompromising, a work that practically defines the border between artistic ambition and madness. A young Frank Zappa, billed in the credits simply as "Zappa", composed the musical score.
STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (2013) ¢ ¢ ¢
D: J.J. Abrams
Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch,
Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho,
Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood, Chris Hemsworth,
Peter Weller, Heather Langenkamp, Leonard Nimoy
Kirk, Spock and the crew of the Starship Enterprise boldly go into Klingon Territory to take out a rogue Starfleet officer who's been using his exceptional intellectual powers for nefarious ends. Benedict Cumberbatch (TV's "Sherlock") plays the villain, and he's a good one (or a bad one, depending on how you look at it, I guess). The accent's on action this time around, but it's a respectable outing for the new old "Star Trek" gang, and Leonard Nimoy's cameo marks the final trip to the final frontier for the original Mr. Spock.
Leonard Nimoy
(1931-2015)
