Johnny Depp has been good to me. I realize that this sounds like an exaggerated form of name-dropping, but I should state that simple fact at some point, and I guess this is that point. I'm not sure when it dawned on me that he wasn't just being his charming self--which everyone will tell you is his standard demeanor to all--but he was serious about...More
I have been bad. I just needed a break from updating this blog for a bit, and I've had to travel more than usual for a while (and will for the next few weeks until the blessed holiday break).
Perhaps I can get some sympathy since the interviews have been so many and so fast: I mean, for THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON alone, I did the three stars, the director, the whole vampire family, the vampire court, and the werewolves; in between that and through the last film I covered, NINE, there have been almost twenty other interviews, ranging from THE ROAD to NINJA ASSASSIN. Not good enough? OK, how about having to fly to L.A. on Friday for UP IN THE AIR and then go immediately after interviews for that to NYC for BROTHERS? Still no? Well, there's much more, but I'm boring you, so I'll just have to apologize for the delay and get on with life. As the box office explodes for the TWILIGHT sequel, it's time to mention that its young stars have grown more sophisticated in dealing with the media in their year of newfound fame. Frankly, Kristen just wasn't a very good interview when I did her for the first movie; she seemed to resent that this was the film that was getting all of the attention when she cared more about others, but she was excellent this time--frank, down-to-earth, and interesting. Rob is basically shy, but he wasn't defensive this time--probably because he knows that he's going to be well-received now--and there were some good moments. The third part of the triangle in NEW MOON is Taylor Lautner, and he will not only become a new interest for the millions of young women going to see this film, but he's also an excellent interview--enthusiastic, well-spoken, and a serious actor who understands the opportunity this gives him. In a very different kind of movie, Viggo Mortensen is a real possibility for an Oscar nomination for his role in THE ROAD--a relentlessly gritty film that makes many demands on its main characters including Robert Duvall and Charlize Theron in relatively small roles. Of course, I suppose the greatest collection of good interviews we've ever had the opportunity to do at one time for a single film was for NINE--a movie that won't come out until Christmas and will be featured on Oprah before any of us can use our interviews, by contract. Nicole Kidman didn't make it all of the way through the day, but I got Judi Dench, Kate Hudson, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Stacy Ferguson, and Sophia Loren, as well as the director. There was an amusing connection to Sophia and Kate. First, many years ago, when Sophia Loren was going around the country promoting her perfume, she sat down for interviews, and since I was a film critic, my station asked me to do one with her. So, we went over to one of the large hotels in Philadelphia in a large, empty banquet room and set up a little island of lights and chairs for the interview. It was delightful: she talked about Cary Grant and Fellini, among many other film subjects. What made this unusual was what happened the next day. It must have been the slowest news day in the history of Philadelphia and the rest of the world, because the Philadelphia Daily News (basically the same look and style as the New Daily News) put our picture on the front page, across all of the columns. There was me and Sophia in the foreground with the interview obviously going on and then there was a large distance of blank carpet with the small image of a woman in the background on the extreme left. The caption read, Sophia Loren is interviewed by Patrick Stoner as a maid gazes starstruck in from afar. Needless to say, I framed that. The other somewhat amusing connection in the NINE interviews was with the delightful Kate Hudson who always makes you feel special and is a great interview as well. I've interviewed her for years, but I had never mentioned to her before that I knew the first boyfriend of her mother, Goldie Hawn. Several years ago, when I first met Goldie, I dropped his name before the interview, and she leaped in her chair and insisted that we talk after the interview; she had very fond memories of him. It was fun to mention that first boyfriend's name to Kate and let her tease her mother by dropping it into a conversation. There are some pleasures in doing the same thing with many of the same people for so long. So much is routine and rushed. The little moments are, therefore, more valued. You can view more about films and get podcasts and other things by going to http://www.whyy.org/flicks where you can also follow Patrick Stoner on Twitter |
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I have either been flying, waiting to fly, unpacking from flying, packing before flying, and--constantly--been bored near to death by flying over the past couple of weeks. My idea of a good day is one where I wake up and realize that I don't have to fly that day. WHERE the flying takes me is not a factor.
I mean, I very much enjoyed seeing Yellowstone National Park and the associated interviews and standups for 2012 were well handled; the quick jump to New York was not much fun, but variety in coverage is important, so THE STEPFATHER coverage gave another angle, and I love London, so I enjoyed being there for PIRATE RADIO and getting the interview with Bill Nighy (one of my favorite actors since first talking to him for his award-winning stint in LOVE ACTUALLY--one of my favorite romantic comedies), but I centrainly didn't enjoy going there and back. Having whined about that, and with the full knowledge that flying is only going to get worse, not better, since we're all slaves to the airline industry which will just cooperate in downgrading their product rather than improving it like conservatives always promise us the free market guarantees (by the way, how's that going on Wall Street and in the anti-trust protected insurance industry?), I'll try to contain my distaste of GETTING there long enough to comment on BEING there. Yellowstone is everything Ken Burns says it is, and--although we rode through it for over two hours before getting to the Old Faithful area, I still saw just a small fraction of--I suspect only Yosemite can surpass it. It WAS, however, bitterly cold; that would be cold whipped by wind so bitter that you could be a couple of feet away from boiling steam and magma-heated pools and yet in pain from the cold. It was a great encouragement to get our taped pieces done in one or two takes, rather than several--out of a sense of survival. It's odd that the cold isn't evident on the tapes. I think the reason it doesn't look like it could be that harsh is that the air surrounding the thousands of bubbling mini-geysers disperses what would otherwise be breath converted into clouds of vapor, but I'm not sure about that. All I know is that it looks rather pleasant under the blue skies with the gorgeous natural wonder stretching for many miles behind every shot. In addition to the material that I did in connection with the movie, I taped introductions to the six episodes of Ken Burns series, THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA'S BEST IDEA for WHYY-TV's use when we re-air the series in January. That's a pretty slim connection to this magnificent production, but I'm proud to be connected to it even in such a small way not only because it's good, but also because--in these strange times--we need to be reminded why we are saving these vast spaces for our posterity. I had to cancel a film class to get out to London a bit early since the weather looked like it might keep me from going, but that got me into my favorite city a day before I needed to be there where I caught the very amusing takeoff on Alfred Hitchcock's THE 39 STEPS (which is also on Broadway now) at the Criterion Theatre. My only regret is that I couldn't stay long enough to see Stephen Fry's one-man show in that same theatre on Sunday evening. Fry and Russell Grant are the only celebrities that I follow on Twitter because they are simply more erudite and amusing than any others. You would think that Grant and Fry would give me a clue about how to tweet, wouldn't you? Russell is outragious personification and Stephen is all gentle charm; I'm sort of gentle personification--whatever that is. Anyhow, I once promised myself that I would never let a year go by without visiting London, and I kept to that for a few years; then, there was a gap of two or three years, then another, and so on; fortunately, I've been back on track for the last several years, and it's the one city that gives me as much pleasure exploring alone as it does sharing it with someone. That's because my interests are not necessarily the same as most people's: Yes, I'm a Sherlock Holmes fan, and that's quite common, so trips to Baker Street, the specialty shop there, the Sherlock Holmes Pub with its recreation of his and Watson's apartment upstairs with tables to eat, and some locations around the city that are associated with Doyle's detective are not unusual. When you throw in my--unusual for a straight guy, I admit--Jane Austen addiction, my interest in all things Samuel Johnson, my constant re-reading of the Palliser novels of Anthony Trollope, and all of the efforts I make to follow British politics with my favorite places to visit connected with Parliament (including the nearby, horseshoe-shaped hotel, the St. Ermin's, where the members historically have gone for their affairs and I stay when I go there on my own), and the various nooks and crannies that I enjoyed from previous visits, you can see why it's hard to find any one person who shares that particular combination of interests. So, a visit to London is always like going to see an old friend from time to time who changes as she ages but is always a good companion. The Mayfair Hotel, where I stayed and did the PIRATE RADIO interviews, seemed to be ground central the night I got there for London Film Festival partying--on the public level, that is. Generally speaking, I avoid these things because it seems to me that everyone is trying to look the same, act the same, and be the same as whatever L.A. type gets on the other side of VIP rope. Not only does that create a rather pathetic wannabe image--at least to me--but also it sets the bar very low for success since it's all about image rather than accomplishment. It's especially sad to see the British--who have given us a much larger percentage of quality films over the past few decades than the size of their industry could have expected--imitating the more garish side of this business that I love in spite of itself. Still, it was an interesting two weeks, and there are some important films coming up shortly that must be covered, but--in the meantime--I'm going to enjoy waking up to the pure pleasure of knowing that I don't have to fly for one more day. To visit a site about films and their stars, go to: http://www.whyy.org/flicks where you can also follow Patrick Stoner on Twitter. |
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In a week or two, I'm going to make my first visit to Yellowstone National Park to do the interviews connected with one of the major films of the year, 2012. It's obviously a most unusual location for a movie-related event, and I have no idea what we're going to see and do there, but it should be an amazing visual backdrop for the interviews.
That, however, is not the subject of this journal entry. There's time to talk about that and the various things coming up in L.A., NYC, and even London. What interests me at the moment is the way the two worlds of film and PBS happen, by coincidence I assume, connect, and the way these two strings of my current life reflect on the one I led just prior to beginning my long association with a PBS station. Once upon a time, children, in a decade long ago, I was very active in one of the main environmental organizations in the world, the Sierra Club. I held a number of offices in a couple of different state chapters, including one year as the president of one (when we fought and won the fight for the Alaska Lands Bill and where I first met then Senator Joe Biden--a sincere public servant), and I actually was a registered lobbyist for the Sierra Club just before splitting my time between university teaching and television made it too difficult to continue that. Currently, the most successful producer in public television history and one of the few names that just about everyone knows who is not in front of the camera, Ken Burns, is doing a magnificent series on America's national parks, subtitled "Our Best Idea". He's been by our Philadelphia station twice in the past few months, and I've seen the first episode in his new series; it will not surprise you to hear that it is as majestic and moving as his earlier work has been. That series, my environmental history, and the events surrounding the film 2012 remind me what really matters right now in a world that seems to be intent on ripping us all apart. You know how nasty things have gotten in the political sphere; the crazies who believe in every kind of mad apocalyptic theory and, therefore, their right to act with fantatical certitude even when it hurts the innocent have risen again as they have in every other tense time in history; and, even the small, narrow, insecure minds of our daily personal lives justify their own dishonesty and selfishness. And yet... In the midst of so much idiocy and cruelty, it's important for the majority of people with more normal instincts of kindness and protection to remember what is going right. Ken Burns probably didn't set out to create a series that does that in particular, but it is a bright light in a dim world at the moment. Think about it: elsewhere in the world, the rich create areas of beauty for themselves and their friends; closer to home, people like me look across their back yards onto a vista of streams and woods for the enjoyment of me and my friends; but, in America, in spite of war and want, we have created these palaces of natural beauty and historical significance that belong to all. Long after we're gone, long after nobody is left alive who remembers that we were here, there will still be these special places preserved to share among those who will be here. They aren't there by accident. People with real personal and national concerns took the time and the effort to think about our natural legacy. Anybody who ever contributed even a little of themselves to that effort did something that was bigger than themselves. Anybody who guards that legacy will still be there in the future, if not in body, then in what matters even more than body: That would be the fourth and most private of my connections to all of this. As a pre-ministerial student, I wanted to devote my life to my ideals of the time. I decided that I didn't have the qualities or the certainty to be a good minister, but I also had no interest in the things that seemed to animate others--money, status, power; so, I now am within a few years of being certain that I've made it through without abandoning or changing that desire (although flawed with failures at it along the the way). It was John Muir (whom Ken Burns so impressively describes) that noted that man (meaning humankind) is not above nature, but rather is part of it, interconnected and eternal. I would love to have walked the mountain trails of what are now national parks like Yosemite and Yellowstone with Muir. As usual, Ken Burns puts it better: he calls our environmental heritage the scripture of nature. Meanwhile, I look forward to looking upon that at Yellowstone National Park as my three worlds come together for this brief moment in time. To view a site about movies with interviews, reviews, podcasts, and more, go to: http://www.whyy.org/flicks where you can also follow Patrick Stoner on Twitter. |
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Do you feel the excitement? Can you sense the tension? No? Then you're not in Toronto at the best film festival on the North American continent.
We're talking about hundreds of movies from around the world and stars falling all over themselves as they are taken around to screenings and interviews (and whisked privately to their suites at...oh, sorry, never mind). I'm covering five films: THE INFORMANT, THE INVENTION OF LYING, PRECIOUS, CAPITALISM, and WHIP IT. That will be over three days; the festival lasts for ten days, and the Toronto media--the hardiest and most hard-working group of people in the world in this period--will do dozens of interviews. I've mentioned before that one of them (a very bright and talented man named Richard Crouse) told me that he did over a hundred interviews during one festival period. Of course, that still is just a fraction. You can buy tickets, of course, but if you haven't already, I doubt if you can get into much of anything that is attracting attention now; still, with as many movies as they have, you could still fill your schedule. What you won't get to do is chat with George Clooney as he strolls through the lobby. In fact, I wouldn't recommend trying (you may not have noticed those folks walking near his buddy and publicist, Stan, but they will notice you). Of course, perhaps you know somebody else and get invited to one of the parties the studios throws for their film. Then, it's true that you'll get past security and get some satisfaction at being inside of the rope (if that's important to you), but you won't get into the VIP area and you'll have to endure those endless conversations in the main area about which major stars have been spotted. Let's assume that you're actually interested in the films since eventually they will be coming to theaters near you and this is an excellent headsup opportunity. Putting aside the ones above that I'm covering since it's not appropriate for me to do anything that sounds like a review until they open, here are some names worth remembering: THE ROAD--based on Colman McCarthy's post-disaster novel UP IN THE AIR--George Clooney against corporations A SERIOUS MAN--the Coen Brothers THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS--Terry Gilliam directing Heath with Depp, Law, and Farrell filling out the late actor's role LEAVES OF GRASS--Edward Norton playing twins GOOD HAIR--a Chris Rock documentary on...hair THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS--star-studded cast with a story from real life about psychic assassins. Naturally, when the festival comes to an end, some movie that hasn't received much buzz will be all the...buzz. Last year, that film was called THE WRESTLER. The Toronto Film Festival...it's even worth flying to go to it. To view a site covering films with interviews, podcasts, reviews and more, go to: http://www.whyy.org/flicks where you can also follow Patrick Stoner on Twitter |
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With the opening of TAKING WOODSTOCK, there has been a huge nostalgic look back at the iconic event in 1969. For a while there, I was rather depressed about it because the evaluations were so positive, and all intelligent people know that you only matter if you're attacked by the insecure and the jealous. Being ignored or praised is sort of beige.
Nobody attacks people or things that don't matter. Why would they? Anything that matters unnerves the nervous, irritates the irritable, and drives those who don't matter slightly insane. So, articles about how Woodstock's legacy is alive in the music of today, or pleasant walks don't memory lane worried me. Then the people without anything meaningful to do with their time but try to cut down what matters got out their mostly anonymous axes. That was more like it. Shut up, they moaned. We've heard about you and your time all of our lives; we hate it; we hate you. You don't matter! Cool. We baby boomers still rule. The world still spins as it should. Wail on... So, it goes without saying (by me, but it would be great if it grates enough to generate some vitriol) that it was an unique time in world history. Let me tell you what it was like in the summer of the appropriately numbered '69. First, you don't know. You can't. You think we're sex-dominated now? You couldn't handle 1969. Birth control had become widespread by that time, and there were NO--that's what I said--no sexually transmitted diseases among the college crowd. Yes, decades before, Al Capone died of one; and, I suppose, if you went to prostitutes, you might have gotten something, but why on earth would a college student have needed to go to prostitutes? Half of the people around you were naked half of the time, and nobody gave any thought about WHETHER to have sex or not. Was that good? Actually, it turned out to be boring, ultimately. It turns out that romance, seduction, and a challenge are all more interesting. Still, that's the way it was in the summer of '69. What else? I got sex out of the way first so we could concentrate on more substantive things: You have to understand that we were the generation of plenty. Our parents had worked hard, survived a depression before a world war, won that, and survived a recession after it. They saved and sacrificed so we wouldn't have to do that. They were amazing. Naturally, almost none of us appreciated it. There were a lot of us. That's why we're baby BOOMERS after all. Our numbers made us powerful; our easy life gave us time to use those numbers to demand some changes in what we took to be a repressive society (to say we overdid that point is like saying that the current batch of high school students is ill-educated). Some of what we pushed and shoved and shouted and marched and agitated for was good: civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, the environment, social justice for the poor, and an end to war without question. Yes, the music wasn't bad, either--much of it. The sex thing turned out to be a mistake, I think. It certainly made the advance of very bad diseases, including the cruelest one of all, spread faster and more easily--until fear ended all of that. We also were idiots with our attitude about not trusting anyone over thirty. That's agism and just as bigoted as any other group prejudice. And, let's face it: we were and are arrogant. I've been making that point quite intentionally from the start of this entry. I suspect you got that if you've read this far. That demonstrates that you are not one of the short attention span crowd. So, having said all of that, how well does Ang Lee's film recreate the tone and the attitude of the time as it tells the story OUTSIDE of the famous fence at Woodstock? It's eerie in its exactitude in one way above all others, and you can see it: look at the eyes of the people who attended the festival; you will see a look that you can't see any more and I doubt anyone saw before that time. We used the word mellow a lot and it's natural to think of that in connection with drug use (that was rampant and another mistake) but it was also in straight eyes then, and it signified a lack of tension, cynicism, or exploitation. Ang Lee nailed that. Woodstock was just a symbol. I wasn't there, but I was a senior in college, and you have...NO idea...nor will it ever come again. You can find more about films and their makers by going to http://www.whyy.org/flicks and you can follow Patrick Stoner on Twitter. |
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I've been lazy about updating this blog in the weekly fashion, but it is the dog days of summer period, so it's been much more pleasant spending my off-work times watching the creek rise behind my house, enjoying the green fields and bright, blue skies, and seeing some movies that finally hold some interest for adults.
It's with that last point in mind that I reflect on the work of Quentin Tarantino. Having just seen INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS--a reference to the misspelled tag a group of Nazi-killers gave themselves in World War II, led by the Brad Pitt characer--his game-changing directing and writing are fresh. It doesn't seem that long ago when I was covering the 1995 OSCARS and PULP FICTION was the favorite of the bleacher crowd that lined the red carpet; their cheers whenever anyone connected with the movie walked in front of them needed none of the usual encouragement from the TV producers. He missed the big award that year (winning only Best Original Screenplay) and walked out before the ceremony was over--allegedly with some unpleasant references to voting members who didn't see the transformation of films that many thought he had achieved. Actually, he was right about that, although not to the extent it seemed at the time. Copies of the Tarantino style are aplenty. Some of his most famous choices have become part of the modern director's trick bag: most famously, the long steadycam follow of some character; secondly, the playing with the time line (although one of his heroes, Godard, must have had some influence); and, certainly, various iconic images of offscreen dialogue with a listener's reaction being read in subtext throughout the comments. Others are more tied to Quentin's personality and interests: his use of film plots as metaphors for something else (inside and outside of the screen); his rather odd foot fascination; and, a habit of including something connected to the Netherlands in plot references. He also clearly shows homage to the traditions of earlier directors with his framing and selection of certain shots, like closeups of hands and placing characters in doorways (note that is a natural frame within a frame) at crucial moments. All of the above can be found in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS--at least, all can IF there's a Dutch reference, which I confess I can't remember. Since the film hasn't opened, I can't be too exact because it's unethical for a professional critic to review a movie before it officially opens and, obviously, I don't want to ruin what I have alluded to as something that's bloody brilliant--which is not a review, of course, but merely a play on two English slang expressions. What I can do is note that the opening scene is the one that Quentin told me in an elevator comment in Los Angeles is his favorite in the movie, and it's also the one that is exactly the kind of scene that appeals to lovers of cinema more than it does to those who simply get excited by the action. That scene also ends with one of those homages just mentioned. Sometimes, you can almost tell that Quentin was looking for a spot to place one of his film metaphors, in this case making the case between a movie plot and history. The fact that it's contained in and just prior to one of his other traditions, not yet mentioned--the Mexican standoff of a crowd of folks all ready to exterminate some of the others at the first break. I suppose I won't give away which comic actor he uses this time in a small, serious role (under heavy makeup), but I'm being overcautious because you'll know when you see the opening titles. If the makeup fools you for a moment, you'll know from the audience laughter that others have recognized him. Casting is clearly something that Quentin enjoys. In the case of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, he had to find actors to play some of the most famous evil faces in the history of the world--beginning with Hitler and running through his most famous henchmen. They all have a superficial similarity, but each is off by a little bit. I may be overreaching for Tarantino complexity here, but I wonder if the variance in the way these familiar faces look is just a matter of taking what he could get OR if the slight dissimilarity reflects his rearranging of historical facts. That's the thing about Tarantino: he comes across personally as an enthusiastic genius teenager (he actually IS a genius, by the way, with a 160 IQ), so he often gets underestimated in the depth of his work. The Academy is increasing its nominations for BEST PICTURE to a group of ten. At the moment, I can't imagine that INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS can miss being included in that group. To see more about films, their stars, interviews, reviews, and more, go to http://www.whyy.org/flicks where you can also follow patrickstoner on Twitter. |
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The content of the 2009 films has not been varied and--generally--interesting enough to talk about until the second half of the year started. That's not a huge surprise. We began the year already in the grips of the deepest recession in living memory, and it's only now that some of the economic indicators are reminding us that there is blue sky at some point in the future. In this environment, you put out the most escapist movies you have in your inventory; box office always goes up in hard times.
Still, the studios had a number of movies that were of more interest than others, even in the first six months. It turns out that postponing the most recent HARRY POTTER until the summer worked out well for Warner Brothers, and it was an interesting film; on the other hand, it had a builtin audience base, so the production value and the darker, more complex plot can't be the reason it blasted the opening night record. Also, ANGELS AND DEMONS was basically a thriller, but all Ron Howard films have a quality above the norm. Generally, though, without looking back at the history of the above movies, there just wasn't much to cause discussion, much less argument. That's started to change. Let's take four films as examples--all products after the Independence Day midyear changeover: ORPHAN has gotten some people so upset that otherwise rational, worthy, and obviously sincere groups fear that potential parents may not adopt children out of fear that they'll get a Bad Seed (OLD movie reference). I was expecting this thriller to be in the slasher, "Jason" category of films based on the noise generated before I saw it. Instead, I got something between Hitchcock's suspense films and FATAL ATTRACTION. If anything, it was a character study of a stressed marriage with the added dimension of an absolutely amazing performance from the young Isabelle Fuhrman. When all was said and done, if you were thinking of adopting, I can't imagine this would scare you away from Eastern European children any more than another film would scare you away from children in hockey masks. And the slasher movie fanatics: disappointed, I'm betting, and that's another good thing. Then there's THE UGLY TRUTH with Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl. This film bothers women mostly because it throws the message of men's basic nature in their faces in a admittedly macho way that is, at times, making its point with demeaning examples. I get that. If I were a woman, that would bother me too, but I'm not and recognize the reality of the message which--as one who genuinely likes women and has two grown daughters--would only be delivered by someone without a bad agenda. In fact, it will always be the ones who use fake rapport and flattery (typical reaction: the next day, he was a different person) to advance that agenda. It's a conversation that should be had, without the misogyny. Now, there's also a movie that might have caused a lot of discussion two years ago because it's far and away the best film ever done about the Iraq war. THE HURT LOCKER is about a bomb disposal team and especially the best of the best in that group, a Russell Crowe-lookalike named Jeremy Renner. Kathryn Bigelow directed and Mark Boal wrote it, and you feel like you are right there--in the field with the heat, the danger, the paranoia, the bravado, the courage, and the tension. It should be nominated, but it is so small that it will need to be pushed forward by critics to have a chance. Finally, there's another small movie that shouldn't really be controversial, and it isn't in the sense that anybody is out to get it. ADAM stars Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne, and it's about a young man with Asperger's Syndrome. Put simply, that means he has a developmental disorder that causes him to have awkward social skills (being too honest too often without any sense of the impact on the other person--in the case of this movie's protagonist) but with highly developed skills in a limited area (this Adam has brilliant technical ability). The area of some controversy is that some people think that it underplays the deep trouble those afflicted with the syndrome have in real life and turns it into a charming, refreshing innocence in a handsome guy who gets the perfect girl. In other words, they feel it holds those who must deal with in real life to a standard that will discourage them. Of course, I'm not qualified to comment on that myself, but I did host a screening of the film in Philadelphia where Hugh, Rose and the director/writer Max Mayer made a convincing case that this was a positive role model that had a romantic comedy side to it, but it just made it a more complex romantic comedy with less cliches. Among those in the audience were people with Asperger's Syndrome and some who deal with those people professionally, and that seemed to be the consensus. So, those are four quite different movies, and they all are worth discussing. Let's hope that the second half of 2009 is closer to this than to the first six months. You can follow these films and interviews with people in them and others by visiting: http://www.whyy.org/flicks where you can also follow Patrick Stoner on Twitter., |
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This will not be about films; it is about the medium of television, so it's vaguely within the range of this blog, but that's about it. With all of the time spent on tributes to one entertainment figure (you'll never guess whom I'm referencing), it won't hurt to have a short one about someone who helped shape this century in which we now live without any side issues distorting his legacy.
Walter Cronkite is just a name to most people under 40 since they weren't quite old enough to be aware of his influence for about the same number of years. If they are the kind of people who keep up with the news and value the history of the great broadcasters, then some phrases associated with him will be familiar: the most trusted man in America, Uncle Walter, the anchor who told us about the Kennedy assassination and the moon landings, the media person who went to Vietnam and came back to say it was a war that could only end in a draw (making President Johnson realize that he had lost the support of middle America). There's not a major name working on any network (or anybody working with any news organization of any kind) who doesn't acknowledge their debt to him for making it possible to do what they do. So, here's a story about meeting this man many, many years ago. It may seem like a story about me, but you will soon see that it's a story about him--not one he could ever have imagined would be told to others on something called the internet after his death: The year was 1973. The nation was in a mess. Not only did we still have Vietnam to work out, but also the Watergate story was unfolding, and different groups in society were at each others' throats. The place was the University of Virginia. I was a graduate with a master's in drama, and I was running a dinner theater called the Albemarle Playhouse in Charlottesville, Virgini, and I had two shows on two different, local radio stations. I was 25; so was my wife, and she had written a tongue-in-cheek song that had been played on the local stations called "I'm in Love with Walter Cronkite". He was giving a talk in a massive auditorium on campus (which was packed with a couple of thousand people), and she was asked to sing the song as part of the introduction to the crowd. We were invited to university's president's house for a rather nice, intimate cocktail party for the Cronkites. I was one of the millions who admired him. I also was just beginning to work in the media myself and, therefore, looked up to him as someone who had risen to the top of the profession based on his talent and professionalism--not his looks or connections. The song went over well at the big event, and we went to the reception where both of us were fairly well known as the local couple from the well-attended theater. So, inevitably, there came the moment when I got a private opportunity to shake the man's hand and chat. That's where things went south. I'm a rather glib fellow, for better or worse. That's one of my few talents. I can ad lib around any subject and have it sound relatively smooth, even under difficult or unusual circumstances. It's the reason that I'm still doing what I do. Not at that moment! I started to tell Walter Cronkite how much I admired and appreciated him, but I stumbled and stuttered; I had never had that happen before, and I panicked--becoming even more incoherent. After a few moments, it had to appear that I had some kind of serious speech defect or I was mentally challenged. Eventually, exhausted by my surprise failure to say the most basic things to this man who impressed me so much (and, as you can imagine, humilitated by that), I simply stopped talking. Fortunately, I couldn't see my own face. Then, it happened. Keep in mind that Walter Cronkite had been given no evidence that I was a completely rational person with a normal level of intelligence. He hadn't interrupted me; in fact, he seemed to piece together from my drivel what I was trying to say. And then, this is what he did: He spent the next several minutes telling me about how important that it was that I felt this way because he was under pressure from the administration to an extent he had never known before, and he shared his frustration and unease at the level of the efforts being used against him and other newsmen. He told me about specific instances when calls had been made and his bosses contacted, and more. Now, I was not someone in a position to help with that fight for the continued power of the First Amendment; I was just out of college and had no power of any kind. Further, he had no reason to assume I could even communicate what he had said to anyone. I was not worth the effort, except to a man like he was. Mr. Cronkite then introduced me to his wife, and I gratefully made way for them to spend time with the others at the party. Now, deep into old age, that nice, courageous, important man has died. But I remember his kindness to a young man. I remember what kind of a man he was and what kind of man I would dearly love to be. Rest in peace, Walter. |
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I've now covered six HARRY POTTER movies. As I went off to cover the latest (HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE), I took a nostalgic look at Daniel Radcliffe in a photo that my friend Gino was kind and quick enough to snap of the two of us outside of this castle-like manor house on the outskirts of London where we did the first set of interviews the night before HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE had its world premiere. What hits me about this photo of me hovering over the young boy in an unconsciously protective manner is that it's a record of the last 24 hours when Daniel was just another person; the following night, as the excited crowds in and outside of the premiere site screamed their enthusiasm for the young actor who was perfect for the immensely popular title character of the world's most successful book, his days of normality ended.
That was in 2001, and he's spent this entire century to this point as one of the most famous people in the world. He's also remained gracious, self-deprecating, and secure in himself. That's an amazing accomplishment. The same can be said for his costars, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. Think of it: the first one in 2001; THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS the next year; THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN two years later; then THE GOBLET OF FIRE in 2005; THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX after another two years; and, up to date but with more to come, HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE now. Those of us who were there at the beginning have literally watched not only the stars, but also many of the supporting players, grow up. When I talked to Emma on the red carpet, I asked her if it sometimes seemed like there was a small group of media people stalking her, and she showed her new maturity by saying, graciously, "No, just the opposite, I feel like you are part of my family. You've been there from the start, and it just seems natural to me to see you again, each time a new one of these comes out". Of course, we also lost Richard Harris along the way--the original Dumbledore. What charming rascal he was. He did the interviews sitting cross-legged in the chair, and showing on his face not only the aging you would expect but also the craggy result of a life spent living on the edge with his buddies Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton. Somehow that just makes it even more amazing that they held onto their Harry, Ron and Hermione for all of these years, not to mention the supporting players that have become more important in the later stories (like Tom Felton's Draco Malfoy, Alan Rickman's Snape, Bonnie Wright's Ginny Weasley, Robbie Coltrane's Hagrid and, especially for those of us who know her legendary status, Maggie Smith's Professor McGonagall). In this latest film, the excellent actor Jim Broadbent plays--with a wonderful range of nuance and eccentricity--Professor Slughorn, and the part could not have been better cast. David Yates is the director again, and his sense of dark romanticism is ideal for this one. That's important because J. K. Rowling's series of novels does something that no other grouping does, that comes to mind: each of the books (and, therefore, each of the films) is aimed at the age group that Harry inhabits at the time. Now, it goes without saying that people of all ages enjoyed and continue to enjoy; in fact, I'm one of the proofs of that (I even took HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX into Hyde Park in London when I was there to cover another movie and spent a free day reading it under a huge oak tree with the clouds swirling around as if they wanted to add to the atmosphere). There are two more films to come over the next two years since they've split up the lengthy final book, HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS. Needless to say, they need to get all of that done before the stars exit into overly obvious adulthood. Even in this latest film, the sexuality of the plot will bother some people who don't want them to grow up. It will be hard to let them go. I loved the books; I feel a ridiculous pride in the young people that have kept their dignity and decency when so many people with far less reason to implode have done the opposite; yet, both the fictional characters and the young actors need to move on to other things pretty soon. Rupert Grint said that he was beginning to realize that this life he's led and this family he's known won't be there that much longer. That reality is something all of us need to consider from time to time--whether wizards or just us earthbound creatures. To check out more on films and their stars, go to: http://www.whyy.org/flicks and you can follow Patrick Stoner on Twitter by clicking on the link there |
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It's the week of the Fourth of July holiday, and neither you nor I should be spending it on blogs.
So, since next week will be all about the HARRY POTTER movies--the new one and the ones past and future--I'll sum up the year in film in a few words and leave it at that: The Great Recession scared moviemakers into releasing very little beyond films aimed at teenagers (and just beyond) and family films (especially animated, when possible). Few, if any, of the movies you've seen in the first half of 2009 will be mentioned in the awards season. Don't assume that people with positions of authority in Hollywood aren't scared; they're almost universally smart (with the usual range of other qualities), and they know that box office figures aren't enough to satisfy the corporate bean counters above them who are reporting to people who prefer cutbacks to compliments. We have months to go before improvement begins. In the meantime, those on all sides of the business need to look past the near future and make sure they are well-positioned as the century hits its teenage years. Meanwhile, appreciate what you have and enjoy the holidays. You can explore the details about movies and their stars by going to http://www.whyy.org/flicks, or checking out the larger PBS site at http://www.whyy.org/video, and clicking on FLICKS, and you can follow Patrick Stoner on Twitter. |
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