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Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Dom DeLuise,1933-2009
I cannot claim to have been a great fan of Dom DeLuise, but he was one of those performers who tended to make me smile, even when he was in movies that weren’t as funny as he was. David Poland put it best at The Hot Blog:
“It’s been 35 years since Blazing Saddles debuted. Korman, Kahn, Little, and Pickens are all gone. Now DeLuise. Sad. But after a year in which we lost both Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella, I guess it’s time for me (and others) to grit my teeth and get used to the idea… younger, older… the losses come… but the work does live on… the pleasure of the work keeps coming…
“Dom DeLuise is dead. And I am smiling, thinking of him.”
Me too.
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What are the movies that most influenced you?
A few weeks back, I wrote a post about Turner Classic Movies’ list of the 15 most influential movies of all time. I was astonished and delighted at the response. That was a great conversation, and I offer a belated thanks to you all for reading and/or commenting.
Obeying the laws of Hollywood, I have decided a hit demands a sequel, but this time I would like to ask a different question:
What films have influenced you the most personally?
Most everyone has at least one film that had a big impact on their life, whether it made them fall in love with movies, or it gave them a new outlook on life, or whether it introduced them to someone special.
Me being the film nut I am, I have several.
Yellow Submarine: I have pointed out more than once on this blog that this was the first movie I could clearly remember seeing in a theater. It turned me on to the two things that gave me my claims to fame - the Beatles and movies. (In school I was famous for being the Beatlemanaic - so much so I can do things like name the seventh word of the ninth song on the sixth Beatles album - which, for the record, is “story.”)
Also - I first saw the film at the Victoria Theatre, which was then known by the slightly less regal name “Victory.” Note to the programmers of the just-announced classic film series there: I WOULD LOVE IT if you could book the film in your theater some year!
2001/A Clockwork Orange/Taxi Driver/After Hours: I list these all in a group because these were the ones that kicked my interest in movies into high gear in the late 1980s. These were the movies that A) Made me aware of what a director does, and B) Made me recognize different directors’ styles, so I could like at a movie and say “That’s a Scorsese” or “That’s Kubrick.”
The Fisher King: The film itself didn’t influence me per se, but it did give rise to my alias. I was so taken with the movie - one of my favorites of that year - that I wrote my review using ye olde medieval language, on the order of a night. I called myself Sir Phil M. Critic. The name stuck and has been my moniker ever since.
Hercules: Most people don’t rank this 1997 Disney film all that highly, but I do. It brought me to two very special people. When I first saw it, I was absolutely dazzled by the female lead Megara, who had this wonderful, femme fatale voice you normally didn’t hear from a Disney. Here’s the scene that really wowed me:
“Who IS that? I’ve GOT to find out!” I said.
And so I did. Her name is Susan Egan. I got in touch with her, told her how much I loved her work and was lucky enough to get to be friends with her. That’s what she calls me on her Web site. See?
And Hercules’ influence doesn’t stop there. Because I became a fan of Susan, I met fellow fan Angela Allen, who has been a dear and loyal friend for 10 years. You may remember her as the co-author of the review of the American Girl movie. So anybody who cracks on Hercules deals with ME!
I could name many more, but I want to turn this over to you. What films have had the most impact on your life?
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Quick Transformers question …
Is anyone else as amused as I am that the abbreviation for the Transformers sequel, Revenge of the Fallen, is ROTF? Here’s what it means, for the acronym challenged.
How apropos! That’s what I usually WOULD be doing at Michael Bay’s movies - if they didn’t give me such headaches.
Disclaimer: I still to go into Transformers with an open mind. I am not prepared to hate it. I hope it’s good. What I hope, and what I except, however, are not one and the same.
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Catching up on DVDs - Ben Button and others
Last week’s summer movie preview pre-empted the DVD coverage, but it returns this week, with reviews of an Oscar favorite (numerically, anyway) and an unassuming but touching romance.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Entertainment Weekly recently described the movie as less a compelling drama than “a two and a half hour magic trick,” and that’s about the size of it. Still, it’s a very impressive magic trick. As ever, director David Fincher’s visual sense is astonishing and even lyrical here, producing many memorable scenes about a man who ages backwards - yet somehow the whole ends up as less than the sum of its parts. It’s a film I greatly admired more than I loved. GRADE: B+
Oh and PS - the griping about this film getting a Criterion DVD can stop right now. If Armageddon can get the Criterion treatment, Benjamin Button jolly well can. End of discussion.
Last Chance Harvey: Sometimes what you see in movies is exactly what you get, and what I saw here was a lovely, low-key charmer of two people (Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson) who are down on their luck but find solace in each other. The story unfolded more or less as I expected, and it runs a touch longer than it should, but it was still a pleasure to watch two consummate, well-matched actors sell a story so gracefully. GRADE: B
Also out now
Bride Wars: From all the evidence I saw, Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson were cashing their checks, pulling each other’s hair, and indulging in material beneath them. I don’t take thee.
Hotel for Dogs: And so another kids vehicle with Emma Roberts comes and goes without much notice. Isn’t she supposed to have a real hit at some point? (Addendum: It seems she rather did. See comments below.)
The Uninvited: I heard it actually wasn’t half bad, at least by the admittedly low standards of PG-13 horror. True?
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