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I, Tonya

      In the 1980s I enjoyed watching women's figure skating competitions.  The gracefulness and beauty of the skaters appealed to me, but I never thought about the behind the scenes dramas probably going on, the competitiveness leading to jealousy, resentfulness, or a skater's frustration with judges.  By the time of the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding drama of the U.S. Figure Skating Championship in Detroit in January 1994, I had ceased to pay attention to the sport, but I remember getting off a plane, going to a grocery store with my friend who picked me up, and seeing tabloid photos and headlines showing the biggest news story in the United States:      Some creep had whacked Nancy Kerrigan's lower right thigh with a telescopic baton, causing acute pain and baffled distress from the champion skater.  At first, her main American competitor, Tonya Harding, appeared to have had nothing to do with the assault, but as the truth unfolded, it came ...
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Mr. Sleeman Is Coming

      Herr Sleeman kommer ( Mr. Sleeman Is Coming ), a television movie directed by Ingmar Bergman in 1957, stars Bibi Andersson as Anne-Marie, a young woman living with her aunts Bina (Naima Wifstrand) and Mina (Jullan Kindahl).  To reduce living expenses, these two old women have arranged with the county manager, Herr Sleeman (Yngve Nordwall), to marry their far younger niece to this old bachelor, "...second in importance to the governor."      Anne-Marie, naturally, isn't thrilled.  She's to meet Sleeman the next morning at eight o'clock; per his letter to the aunts, he'll stop by and ask her to marry him.  The aunts coach Anne-Marie on how to greet him, saying he's "...infinitely welcome."  Infinity and the finiteness of minutes and hours running out on Anne-Marie's freedom show frequently on the clock face in the living room.        Anne-Marie's true love interest, Walther (Max von Sydow), shows up after the aun...
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Swamp Thing II, Thor, Conan the Destroyer, I Love Lucy

      The Return of Swamp Thing crossed my eyesight.  Seems more like the swamp scenes were shot in a studio, though the end credits mention Savannah, Georgia, as the filming location.  Heather Locklear as Swamp Thing's love interest.  He resurrects her after her step-father has drained out her life force, sucking it into himself, before he gets pinned underneath a piece of lab infrastructure.  The whole place goes up, but Swamp Thing and Heather get out, he brings her back to life, they kiss, a little flowering plant comes out of her foot.      Doctor Arcane (Louis Jourdan) makes hybrids out of human beings and animals.  A man with a baby elephant head sticking sideways out of his head is an example.  A cockroach man, ordered to be exterminated by Arcane.        Heather Locklear, plant-loving step-daughter of Louis Jourdan, has the genetic blood thingey the bad doctor seeks to rejuvenate himself, as he wis...
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Faust Comes To Bedrock

      Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble's testicles are made of stone.  Barney's drum sticks are human humeri.  He's in a band called Rubble's Five.  Components of the band:      Fred Flintsone: Bass      Wilma Flintstone: Lead Vocal, concertina, electric violin      Barney Rubble: Skins, backing vocals yelling things like "Yippee-ki-yi-yay!" and "Hullaballoo!" writes all lyrics.      Betty Rubble: 6 and 12 string guitars, cowbell, background exclamations like "Yahoo!" "Give it to me straight," and "Blow it out yr ass!" and "Drop dead, muthafucka!""      Bam Bam Rubble: Bugle, drum kit, congas, bongos, spoons, marimba, xylophone, glockenspiel, wood blocks, tambourine, harmonica, trumpet, sitar, sound effects, Moog Synthesizer, clarinet, oboe, English horn, tuba, bass trombone, tenor sax, soprano sax, French horn, piano, organ, cello, viola.      Pebbles Flintstone: Rap...
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How I Watch Films

     I don't always watch a film all the way through.  The films I write about are usually ones I've seen all the way through.  Within a week I write about the film, sometimes right after seeing it.  Sometimes I write during the viewing, making note of scenes, characters, then rewriting the whole thing as a crisp post.  Sometimes I don't write about movies I've seen.  Sometimes I don't watch movies.      A few thoughts:      Every movie has a Gollum.  Fredo in The Godfather Part Two .  Herman in The Vampire Bat, Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy .  Deep Throat (Hal Holbrook) in All the President's Men is a Gollum.  He appears only in a parking structure, a cave, he has precious information, but then, short (Hobbit-like) Dustin Hoffman is in All the President's Men as Carl Bernstein, the less famous of the intrepid Washington Post reporters.  Bernstein now offers a pundit's views, for the last...
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Fellini's Casanova

     Il Casanova di Federico Fellini ( The Casanova By Federico Fellini ) from 1976 can be understood simply from the title: it's Fellini's vision applied to an historical and literary figure whose name became a noun meaning "a man notorious for seducing women."        Giovanni Jacopo Casanova de Seingalt (1725-1798) was a man with many interests; economics, politics, literature (his memoirs are considered classics illuminating eighteenth century European society), but he's best known as a prolific fucker of women.  Fellini's film emphasizes this last aspect of Casanova's life.  The voiceovers by Donald Sutherland in the eponymous role (the film's in English) hint at his inner life, that deep down he was a serious man, but his taste for bedroom adventures consumed him for most of his life, getting him into trouble with the law sometimes, too.      The movie's mix of theatrical moments, like showing a roiling seascape as litera...
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The Big Country, William Wyler's Great Western

     William Wyler's The Big Country (1958) reminds me of Marlon Brando's One Eyed Jacks (1961) in that both Westerns sprawl in screen time, 166 and 141 minutes respectively.  Both films also remind me of Sergio Leone's "Spaghetti" Westerns in their use of narrative space: the amount of time given to primary and even the supporting characters creates a richness of detail and interlocking events leading to powerful climaxes in all such epic Westerns.      Better known for leading a successful invasion of Continental Europe, President Dwight Eisenhower said The Big Country was his favorite film.  I imagine he appreciated the story of a decent man, an Easterner, Jim McKay (Gregory Peck), journeying West to marry his fiancée, blonde Patricia "Pat" Terrill (Carroll Baker).  She's the pampered daughter of hard-edged retired Major Henry Terrill (Charles Bickford), a cattle rancher who employs a small army of hands led by foreman Steve Leech (Charl...
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