In an earlier post, I reflected on how Patricia Neal's life had proved that F. Scott FitzGerald's maxim, "there are no second act in American lives," wrong. While Leslie Neilsen did not have the physical challenges that plagued Ms. Neal, his career change from dramatic leading man to comedy icon certainly constitutes a second act.
Although Canadian by birth, Neilsen had acted in American Theater, Television and Film since the 1950s. He starred in the science fiction classic, Forbidden Planet; was cast as the Captain in The Poseidon Adventure; and portrayed George Armstrong Custer in The Plainsman. Along the way, he made guest appearances in classic or enduring TV series such as, "Gunsmoke, "Hawaii Five-0," "Ironside," and "The Streets of San Francisco."
For much younger audiences, however, it will be his roles from Airplane (1980), "Police Squad" (1982), and then the subsequent Naked Gun Movies; Dracula: Dead and Loving It; and Spy Hard that will "Shirley"mark their memories of Leslie Neilsen's screen presence.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Tools for the toolbox
I have been intently reading John Gallagher's Reimagining Detroit. The book is analysis of the problems facing Detroit and some possible solutions. Of course, the text deals largely with the most obvious problem Detroit faces: abandonment. Mr. Gallagher does not offer a panacea, rather he proposes some "tools for the toolbox" to reimagine the city as we know it now.
The book is compelling and offers innovative, insightful suggestions.
I keep thinking one thing: Metro Detroiters expect a panacea, a quick fix, and an awaiting savior to implement it. I hope we all take Mr. Gallagher's suggestions to heart. I will take more than one champion to fix the problems. It will take the whole region.
The book is compelling and offers innovative, insightful suggestions.
I keep thinking one thing: Metro Detroiters expect a panacea, a quick fix, and an awaiting savior to implement it. I hope we all take Mr. Gallagher's suggestions to heart. I will take more than one champion to fix the problems. It will take the whole region.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Detroit's True Blood Connection
He's 3000 years old, controls wolves, is the Vampire King of Mississippi, and that's just on the surface! As the prime antagonist of Season 3 of True Blood, Russell Edginton is a more than an equal in power and guile to Eric Northman, Bill Compton or Sophie-Ann. And he is also played by an out actor with Metro Detroit roots.
Dennis O'Hare, who plays Russell Edgington on True Blood, was born in Kansas City, but grew up in Oakland County. After graduating from Brother Rice in High School in 1980, he then went to Northwestern University. He was a noted Chicago stage actor before moving to New York. On Broadway, he has been in Cabaret, won a Tony for Take Me Out, and received a Tony Nomination for his role in Assassins.
On the small screen, he had recurring roles in Brothers & Sisters, Law and Order and CSI: Miami as well as True Blood. On the sometime bigger screen, his film roles have included parts in Duplicity, Milk and Charlie Wilson's War.
O'Hare was interviewed by Between the Lines in November 2008 about his role in Milk, where he played the virulent homophobe and California State Senator John Briggs. Briggs attempted to pass a California Proposition to ban gay teachers from the classroom as a way to advance his visibility in California Politics. Milk and other gay activists led the "charge" against the initiative. Even though the pollsters though it would pass, the measure was defeated.
Let's look forward to Season 4 of True Blood.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Made for Mystery Science Theatre 3000
Some movies are made to go straight to DVD, Dracula 3000 was made to bypass theaters, DVD and just straight to mocking cable. The premise itself is intriguing enough: a derelict ship (the Demeter) is adrift in the Carpathian Solar System and discovered by the salvage ship Mother. the Mother is captained by Van Helsing (Caspar Van Dien) with a crew that includes Vice Captain Aura (Erika Eleniak), Navigator Intern Mina Murray (Alexandra Kamp), Information Specialist Arthur Holmwood (Grant Swanby), Cargo Specialist 187, (Coolio), and Cargo Specialist HMV (Tiny Lister).
Aboard the Demeter, the Crew discovers boxes of sand in the cargo bay, wooden crosses and a long dead body. Whoshing about is a spectral figure, later revealed to be Count Orlock, in search of blood. For those of you familiar with the novel and some film adaptations, you know what happened to the original crew of the Demeter.
It was a vain attempt to have 187 become a quasi-Renfield and the reworking of a few original characters was another half hearted attempt to ground the film, but by the time Orlock is seen in costume....all bets are off. His cape and collar resemble something that was rejected in the story boarding of the Drak Pak or the Monster Squad.
Unless you are in a mood to throw popcorn at the small screen, leave Dracula 3000 out of your Netflix Que.
Aboard the Demeter, the Crew discovers boxes of sand in the cargo bay, wooden crosses and a long dead body. Whoshing about is a spectral figure, later revealed to be Count Orlock, in search of blood. For those of you familiar with the novel and some film adaptations, you know what happened to the original crew of the Demeter.
It was a vain attempt to have 187 become a quasi-Renfield and the reworking of a few original characters was another half hearted attempt to ground the film, but by the time Orlock is seen in costume....all bets are off. His cape and collar resemble something that was rejected in the story boarding of the Drak Pak or the Monster Squad.
Unless you are in a mood to throw popcorn at the small screen, leave Dracula 3000 out of your Netflix Que.
Friday, August 27, 2010
The Moment of Psycho
I just finished reading David Thomson's The Moment of Psycho How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder. Not only great insight in to Hitchcock as a director, businessman and human being, but also America as a society on the verge of recognizing something it was but would not want to admit.
The Hollywood of 1960 still had some of trappings of the Golden Age, but also had a censorship office that was nothing as to what it had been in 1930s and 1940s, was losing viewership to television, and the lions of the earlier age were going toothless, if not dying on the plain.
America was on the edge of a decade that would see unrest through the assisnation of a president, the expansion of and reaction to civil rights and the smouldering then burning war in Vietnam.
And to begin that decade in American film, we had an Englishman telling us the story of an American Beauty trapped in despair, with her one apparent attempt at salvation ending in a shower and not in the arms of her "lover." It is also the story of a man trapped in the horrors of his own mind, with props that brought those horrors to "reality." And when the two meet, well, you know the rest of the story.
Psycho, Vertigo, and the Birds would influence later works by later directors, including Roman Polanski, Francois Truffaut and Brian DePalma. And yet, Psycho and the Birds met with sharp critical disdain in the hands of American Film critics at the time of their release. In filming the shower scene, Hitchcock padded the film footage to willingly make sacrifices for the production code office, who would object to a toliet even merely show on screen, let alone flushed. And violence, outside of war movies, was just as dirty as sex in the eyes of some code reviewers. So, in 1960 Hollywood still felt the need to have moral guardians.
Meanwhile, on Television, in something as buttoned-down as the news, violence, real graphic violence, began to be common place: how many times was the Zapruder film shown in slow motion? And by the end of the decade, the napalm of Vietnam and a summary execution of a supposed Viet Cong Agent by a Vietnamese Military Official would bring death and violence into the small box in front of the TV tray as news was watched over Swanson's Saulisbury Steak and Potatoes.
And the Code Office was worried about glimpses of moleskin and chocolate syrup.
The Hollywood of 1960 still had some of trappings of the Golden Age, but also had a censorship office that was nothing as to what it had been in 1930s and 1940s, was losing viewership to television, and the lions of the earlier age were going toothless, if not dying on the plain.
America was on the edge of a decade that would see unrest through the assisnation of a president, the expansion of and reaction to civil rights and the smouldering then burning war in Vietnam.
And to begin that decade in American film, we had an Englishman telling us the story of an American Beauty trapped in despair, with her one apparent attempt at salvation ending in a shower and not in the arms of her "lover." It is also the story of a man trapped in the horrors of his own mind, with props that brought those horrors to "reality." And when the two meet, well, you know the rest of the story.
Psycho, Vertigo, and the Birds would influence later works by later directors, including Roman Polanski, Francois Truffaut and Brian DePalma. And yet, Psycho and the Birds met with sharp critical disdain in the hands of American Film critics at the time of their release. In filming the shower scene, Hitchcock padded the film footage to willingly make sacrifices for the production code office, who would object to a toliet even merely show on screen, let alone flushed. And violence, outside of war movies, was just as dirty as sex in the eyes of some code reviewers. So, in 1960 Hollywood still felt the need to have moral guardians.
Meanwhile, on Television, in something as buttoned-down as the news, violence, real graphic violence, began to be common place: how many times was the Zapruder film shown in slow motion? And by the end of the decade, the napalm of Vietnam and a summary execution of a supposed Viet Cong Agent by a Vietnamese Military Official would bring death and violence into the small box in front of the TV tray as news was watched over Swanson's Saulisbury Steak and Potatoes.
And the Code Office was worried about glimpses of moleskin and chocolate syrup.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Michael Sheen: monsters and statesmen
After just watching Twilight: New Moon, it struck me that Michael Sheen is noted by Independent/Art House film viewers for his role as Tony Blair in The Queen with Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth; on the other hand, horror and younger fans may know him more for his role in the Underworld Series as Lucian and his role of Aro Volturi in the Twilight Series.
Sheen's Tony Blair received accolades, although at the awards ceremonies his role was overshadowed by Mirren's Elizabeth. Sheen had practice for the playing Blair in TV Production The Deal and in a later production, The Special Relationship, reprised the role for a third time.
Sheen's Tony Blair received accolades, although at the awards ceremonies his role was overshadowed by Mirren's Elizabeth. Sheen had practice for the playing Blair in TV Production The Deal and in a later production, The Special Relationship, reprised the role for a third time.
Although, he has many years of acting ahead of him, I think that we see a foreshadowing of another versatile versatile Welshman, Anthony Hopkins. For as Hopkins can play Lechter, Hitler, and Nixon, he can also play Jack Lewis, Burt Munro and John Quincy Adams. After all, it is only acting.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Patricia Neal: Proving F. Scott FitzGerald Wrong
With the news of the death of Patricia Neal, I was reminded of many things: her Oscar winning role as Alma in Hud, her marriage to Roald Dahl and her recovery from a stroke that had left her speechless and paralyzed.
A Southern Girl, who came to the Stage and Screen via Northwestern and her own sheer will, Neal's Breakout role was as Dominique Francon in King Vidor's direction of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. In real life, she began an affair with her leading man in The Fountainhead, Gary Cooper. The affair ended with heartbreak, when Cooper would not leave his wife and Neal terminated a pregnancy.
Neal next married Roald Dahl; later admitting that she didn't love him but dearly wanted children. She would have 5 children with Dahl, but their life was marked with death and disability. A son would suffer a traumatic head injury and a daughter would die at seven. Neal herself would suffer a massive stroke which seemingly would cut short her 15 year, Oscar winning career on film and television. In part she was a trooper(and in part Dahl was a bulldog), but she learned to walk and talk again. In 1968 she staged her comeback in The Subject was Roses, which led to her being nominated for an Academy Award. Her co-stars, Jack Albertson and Martin Sheen, won an Oscar and a received a Golden Globe nomination for their roles.
After The Subject was Roses she created the role Ma Walton, was portrayed by the actress Glenda Jackson in The Patricia Neal Story (Dahl was played by Dirk Bogarde) and was a fierce advocate for paralysis victims. Her own Tony Award, the first ever presented, was lost and she was presented with a "new" award by Billy Irwin in 2006.
Ms. Neal: Old Hollywood and Broadway, solid television performer and a damn stubborn woman.
A Southern Girl, who came to the Stage and Screen via Northwestern and her own sheer will, Neal's Breakout role was as Dominique Francon in King Vidor's direction of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. In real life, she began an affair with her leading man in The Fountainhead, Gary Cooper. The affair ended with heartbreak, when Cooper would not leave his wife and Neal terminated a pregnancy.
Neal next married Roald Dahl; later admitting that she didn't love him but dearly wanted children. She would have 5 children with Dahl, but their life was marked with death and disability. A son would suffer a traumatic head injury and a daughter would die at seven. Neal herself would suffer a massive stroke which seemingly would cut short her 15 year, Oscar winning career on film and television. In part she was a trooper(and in part Dahl was a bulldog), but she learned to walk and talk again. In 1968 she staged her comeback in The Subject was Roses, which led to her being nominated for an Academy Award. Her co-stars, Jack Albertson and Martin Sheen, won an Oscar and a received a Golden Globe nomination for their roles.
After The Subject was Roses she created the role Ma Walton, was portrayed by the actress Glenda Jackson in The Patricia Neal Story (Dahl was played by Dirk Bogarde) and was a fierce advocate for paralysis victims. Her own Tony Award, the first ever presented, was lost and she was presented with a "new" award by Billy Irwin in 2006.
Ms. Neal: Old Hollywood and Broadway, solid television performer and a damn stubborn woman.
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