"You Will Get Nothing"

The title is another phrase that plays on constant replay in my mind, usually whenever I think of something that I would like to be able to have but am certainly not going to get. Writing the other little catchphrases out as blog post titles does seem to have done some good as far as not having them repeating in my (mind) ad nauseam after I did it, so maybe I will have a similar result with this one.  

Birds of Prey (1973)

Another weird selection, this is a made-for-TV movie from 1973 that somehow got on my list and that I could never find a copy of. One night when I didn't have any DVDs, due to a delay in the mail probably, I was searching through the fairly large group of movies on my list that have never been available to see if any of them happened to be streaming for free on Amazon, and this one came up. It had not been re-mastered or anything, so the quality was reminiscent of watching an educational movie on a reel-to-reel projector in school in 1978. It was only about 70 minutes long, but I fell asleep about 20 minutes in, and while I would occasionally revive myself, I could never do so enough to concentrate long on what was happening. I saw enough that I didn't feel the need to try to watch it again on a night when I was better rested. The premise, about a middle-aged World War II pilot who was working as a helicopter traffic reporter on the radio in Denver* who has to assist the police in chasing down (through the air) some people who have committed some kind of major crime and escaped via a helicopter of their own, was not uninteresting, but the whole movie was too subdued and yellow-hued to keep me awake. 

In my memory Denver was kind of a trendy, up and coming place in the 1970s, but it has faded in the national consciousness in our day compared to places like Seattle and Portland. I never think of it or have any sense of what kind of people live there now.

The Sea Hawk (1940)

Swashbuckling, big budget (for the time) Errol Flynn vehicle, in which Flynn was reunited with his frequent collaborators, director Michael Curtiz and co-stars Claude Rains and Alan Hale, Sr (but not, alas, Basil Rathbone and Olivia de Havilland). I was probably influenced by the general deprivation of late of golden age Hollywood movies that I have inflicted upon myself (lest I never bother to explore anything else) but this was real excitement for me. I love the dialogue in these movies, the espirit du corps, the usually outrageous but highly entertaining interpretation of history. I almost never like post-1965 male movie stars, especially if they are considered good-looking, but Errol Flynn--safely long dead and not any kind of immediate personal threat to one's self, to be sure--I always find eminently likable in his film roles. He is always believable as a man that other men would trust and gladly follow even in the most dangerous or hopeless situations, and it is certain that such men have existed at such times in the world and accomplished astonishing feats, though we do not see this depicted or celebrated much it seems to me in our time, at least in such an appealing way. 

This movie is set in the time of Elizabeth I and the Spanish Armada by the way, with all of the accompanying madcap tomfoolery in the depiction of the arrogant Spanish ruling class that might be expected. Flynn's daring sea captain is pretty obviously based on the career of Sir Francis Drake, though he is not named as such. Made during the early part of World War II before the entrance of the United States into the conflict, the parallels between the contemporary English position and the historical period of the movie probably don't need to be spelled out. 

A Civil Action (1998)

I admit I groaned when this came up on the program. Apart from being about lawyers, it has a very off putting promotional poster featuring an unbearably smug-looking John Travolta adjusting his cufflinks. I also had an idea that it was based on a John Grisham book, which kind of put me off as well. Not that I have anything particularly against John Grisham, but I think of him as representative of the rather bloodless, data-driven New Class of the 90s that has kind of ruined everything that I used to like in American public and cultural life. However, this was not based on a John Grisham book--it was in fact based on an actual case that was already fairly famous--and it was not that bad, as far as such things go though it isn't like I enjoyed it or anything. I had a few disparate thoughts while watching it that I will try to remember, since I neglected to write them down.

1. It is set and filmed in and around Boston, in largely unglamorous parts of it, especially in suburban Massachusetts, which being a longtime resident of this region, I get some pleasure out of seeing on film. When I was younger, it felt like nothing was ever filmed in New England--even if a movie was supposed to be set there, they would still shoot it in California. But over the last twenty years I note a great many more films being shot around here, in Boston and its environs especially. One oddity is that while most of the outdoor scenes seemed to be filmed during the grittier and most unattractive parts of the year, when the trees are bare, the sky is gray, and the snow is dirty, Robert Duvall's Harvard professor/corporate superlawyer character is always listening to the Red Sox game on the radio whenever he appears (of course there are rarely games played in the middle of the afternoon except on Sunday either, when I would not expect even top law offices to be operating at full capacity, but this is nitpicking).

2. Not having studied up on the case beforehand, I naturally expected a typical Hollywood resolution ending in John Travolta attaining a complete triumph for the average schmo over Harvard and corporate America, so when this did not happen I don't know exactly what I thought, because I approached this movie with deliberate detachment, but I suppose I felt some credit was due. From the vantage of the present day I found it quaint that the complainants in the case were insistent that they did not want money but an apology and admission of wrongdoing (which needless to say they didn't get) from the corporations. 

3. I guess you would say that this movie is a well-made generic late 90s Hollywood product, completely bloodless, full of famous and highly competent actors, glossy. The stars are maybe too big for their parts. They all come off as if they visiting the world of this movie in their Hollywood personae rather than inhabiting it in for some kind of artistic. One imagines John Travolta and Robert Duvall are on the plane heading back to Los Angeles even before the closing credits have started to roll.

Play It Again, Sam (1972)

Written by and starring (though not directed by) Woody Allen in his early period, this movie is, to be honest, kind of a mess, and it may even be inappropriate for anyone with no memory of the 1970s to put what they are seeing into some context (I was only two years old in 1972, but I remember the second half of that decade very well). It really isn't very good, and I didn't even find it to be all that funny, which was disappointing since it deals with all of the great early Woody Allen themes ("Why can't I be cool?") which I usually find hilarious. It is, however, still interesting, mainly for being smack dab in the middle of that insane era (the Woody Allen character's main goal for most of this movie, to which the viewer is supposed to be sympathetic and to bring about which the spirit of Humphrey Bogart has been summoned up for assistance, is to bed his best friend's wife) which was comparatively such a departure, both artistically and socially, from what has traditionally prevailed in this country (and which I thought of, coming into my first consciousness of the world, as the normal state of affairs, or at least what would be the normal state of affairs henceforth. We get a little glimpse into the 1970s cinephile scene, which I would have been into for the babes alone, but I also miss watching the kinds of movies I like on a big screen in a public theater or auditorium. I hadn't realized Diane Keaton, who I really do not like, was on the scene this early. The guy who always played Woody Allen's more successful and worldly friend in the 70s and 80s, whose name is Tony Roberts, is in this as well. I find it somewhat of interest that all three of these people are still alive, since watching this movie now feels like coming upon an artifact not much less remote, and in some ways even more strange, than something from the era of Beowulf. 

I am aware that this film as a stand alone work of cinema has its fans, and I mean to make a point of seeking out some of that commentary after I make a record of my personal reaction, since I am interested in seeing what others of a sharper or more penetrating eye may have seen in it.  

Sleepless in Seattle (1993)    

Yes, even though it was, and still remains popular, I knew this was going to be bad going in. I was even prepared for it--one gets these kinds of creeping feelings about certain things--to be one of the worst movies I have ever had to watch for this blog; and despite all of this advanced preparation it still managed to be brutal beyond what I was already resigned to. Was anyone involved in this seriously trying to make something good? It is hard to see any evidence of it in what made it to the screen. Supposedly this is one of the key roles that cemented Tom Hanks's superstardom and status as his generation's Jimmy Stewart. Huh? What is the role? What is the character? It's all a big bucket of slop and nothing. The plot is stupid, the screenplay is completely unfunny and unendearing. I know that you, (my idealized reader), know all of this without having had to actually watch the movie. Still, most things that are genuinely popular even when I know they are no good I can usually understand why people like them. But I am baffled by this one. The only remotely saving grace of the whole thing, and even it is a minor one, because I don't really like her either (though I would have happily gone dancing with her, don't get me wrong) is that Meg Ryan is confessedly very pretty and has beautiful hair. Her character is ridiculous however.

A few more brief notes on this. I was in college at the time this came out, though like most mainstream Hollywood rom-coms at that time, it was about the later baby boomers, who are only about ten years older than I am, though I think of them as having belonged to a completely different world, as one does. In the early 90s, Seattle--which, I might note, I have never been to--was widely seen as being perhaps the coolest place in the country, certainly among the more up-and-coming cities. I thought of it as being especially identified with the alienated Generation X grunge people, though that is certainly not the "Seattle" that is depicted in this movie. Granted, "Seattle" is not depicted in this at all, other than as somewhere with yuppie restaurants where one can live on the water if one makes the kind of income a person should, though I had assumed that they had the character live there rather than Cincinnati or Binghamton because it was currently fashionable...

I would have organized this last section better but I want to post this as I have to leave the computer for three days now...