Phave Philm Phontz Eye Luv

The quality of said films, notwithstanding…

Politrix, or “Viva La Revolucion!”

“Hell, I never vote for anybody, I always vote against.”—W.C. Fields
“And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”—Barry Goldwater
“Reality is ultimately that which resists.”—Slavoj Žižek
Perhaps it was Contagion’s B-movie-like distrust of The Man that has caused this rebellious attitude in us, but The United Provinces of Ivanlandia is a revolutionary state!
And lately The National Film Board of Ivanlandia has been screening a variety of films of a strong political nature, usually very mistrusting of the status quo and “business as usual.”

And we can appreciate that—the entire population of Ivanlandia had rotten childhoods, and likes it when sacred cows are turned into hamburgers.

That said, there will be some changes coming soon to this section of the intertubian blogoverse—
For one thing, much of the film, literature, political and cultural content herein has been acquired by the recently incentivized-synergistic corporotron,
LERNER
INTERNATIONAL
ENTERPRISES
What will continue here after the separation of id and superego will be more… I dunno yet.
Freeform? More of an excuse to create Exquisite Corpses or Headline Hit Parades? Maybe bring back the Zexy Replikant of the Veek? That feature was a fan fave, boy howdy!

And as I transition myself from the internet methadone of Il Face`-book, I might be using Ivanlandia as more of a dumping/whining ground. A place to get snarkalicious? A photo of the day? Mayhaps!
Or maybe not.

But one thing’s for certain:
At LERNER INTERNATIONAL, as it’s known colloquially, there will not be as many of these damn megaposts I force myself—and you—through.
A more frequent publishing schedule, and a less scattershot and purposefully obscure art direction are some things that will be strived for.

(I really wished I’d learned more about creating a “fold” back before Blogger threatened to change your layout completely if you only wanted to alter one item. That’s why Ivanlandia’s format hasn’t changed in a long, long time!
It’s my own fault really…)
LERNER INTERNATIONAL will be a much more disciplined operation.


And now some righteous flicks!
Power to the People!
State of Siege (État de Siège; 1972; Costa-Gavras)
State of Siege is a new entry into One of the Best New Old Films Discovered This Year! It is really almost a perfect film for me, all the details and performances just right, with an intelligent script that neither preaches nor condescends.

The film attacks US involvement in Latin America, especially how American “advisors” routinely turn up working with the local secret police on interrogations, and side with the military juntas in all matters. It’s quite critical of US policies, and it’s no wonder State of Siege is not available domestically for home viewing—I caught it via YouTube HERE.

Set in an unnamed South American nation, the film follows
leftist guerillas/revolutionaries, whom the film’s government refers to only as “terrorists” (and the movie’s Senate has even banned the name of the rebel organization from being spoken!), as they kidnap several foreign diplomats as well as an American civilian.
It seems at first that kidnapping the Yankee was a mistake—by all accounts he’s no one important, but it turns out he was the prime target: he has been the head of secret police training programs using torture in several Latin American countries, and now he’s here, en esta tierra sin nombre.
Much of the film centers on the philosophical battle of wills between the professional interrogator and his interrogator, with the rest focusing on the police breaking every law in the book to find the missing American.

Great use of telephoto lenses abound, delivering an unsettling “You Are There” feeling, and the film is
shot in a clinical, almost cold manner, which may appear to be objective, but if anything reinforces the “logic” of the rebels’ arguments.
Not that that’s bad: I agree with this agitprop—the US has done/is doing nasty shit, colluding with horrible, horrible regimes.

That said, the flick is visually exciting and intellectually engaging, full of intrigue and suspense, with compassion for both sides (to an extent).
It’s a damn brilliant piece of filmmaking—worthy of being the successor to both director Costa-Gavras’ Z and screenwriter Franco Solinas’ The Battle of Algiers, directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. (Solinas also scripted other agitprop action flicks like Ivanlandia faves like A Bullet for the General, and Burn!)

BTW, State of Siege was filmed primarily in Chile—which roughly one year after the film was released, suffered its own US-backed military coup against its democratically elected government (September 11 means something very different to Chileans), including monstrous cases of torture. Now that’s eerie…

Socio-politically, the National Film Board of Ivanlandia also screened:
Battleground (1949; William A. Wellman) This war movie, set during the Battle of the Bulge and covering the 101st Airborne’s attempts to hold back the Nazis under wretched and freezing conditions, was probably a bold and shocking film when it was first released.
But after seeing so many movies that covers the same topic (essentially a variation on the “lost platoon” subgenre) but more intensely, Battleground feels a tad superfluous—heck, Sam Fuller’s Fixed Bayonets, made two years after Battleground (and while set in Korea, basically tells the same tale), still holds up today!

As one of the bridges between gung-ho war-time propaganda and noirish post-war cynicism in US action films, Wellman’s Battleground is best for buffs of history or war movies.
It’s enjoyable, but not essential, with its “cynical take” a bit lumpy and now heavy-handed.

Executive Action (1973; David Miller) A conspiracy theory “Who Shot JFK?/Behind-the-Scenes at the Grassy Knoll,” this film would be a great triple feature with Robert Altman’s “Nixon Agonistes” Secret Honor (1984) and Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View, the ultimate paranoia/conspiracy film ever—

I haven’t seen Oliver Stone’s lysergic JFK since it was in the theaters, so I don’t think I can compare—but honestly, I prefer Executive Action’s cold detachment, humorless documentarism, and industrial-film level of plotting to Stone’s fireworks and hysterics.

Not that Executive Action can’t be as intellectually histrionic as JFK,
this flick’s as subtle as a bag of bricks—but I like that sometimes, it gets to the point: this film doesn’t present a balanced argument; I’d certainly call Executive Action agitprop—but being straightforward jacks up the intensity, especially as Kennedy dances into the noose, and all other obstacles are removed from the assassins’ path.

This is a film for those who can appreciate sangfroid—
Like State of Siege, Executive Action takes a “nuts & bolts” approach: socio-economic and political motivations are given to the regicidal cabal of industrialists, oilmen and other sneaky types, and then the movie goes into a quasi-documentary mode, becoming a “how to coup d’état.” It’s a very matter-of-fact film, like “A Day in the Life of The Parallax Corporation.”

In one of the film’s few examples of wit, secret-shadow-government conspirators Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan chuckle almost with amazement as their plans are routinely aided “unwittingly” by the CIA, FBI and Secret Service, all of whom are at best antagonistic towards POTUS.

Aside: Kennedy’s assassination assured his canonization, but also allowed everybody to pretend to have liked him, and get to jump on the mourning wagon.
In today’s outrageous and shameful political climate, where a maelstrom vomiting hate is considered discourse, it’s good to be reminded that right-wing loons are nothing new, and
how much President Kennedy was actually HATED back in the day.

Support Your Local Sheriff (1968; Burt Kennedy) Seeing this film’s unofficial sequel “first,” as it were, makes me realize that it wasn’t until the later Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971) that director Kennedy & star/producer James Garner got the “formula” right: Surrounded by lunatics, Garner’s the calm eye of the storm.
He’s got The Zen Cool and a breezy, yet intelligent unconcern combined with an obvious, but unforced masculinity and solid ethical core: Garner’s character doesn’t care if you spend your money on whores and gambling, but he will punch you out if you’re mean to a dog.

And rather than making a third “Support Your Local Whatever”—maybe “Bushwhacker”?
Anyway, instead of doing that, Garner wisely adapted the formula to a contemporary setting, and TV history was born with The Rockford Files.

As for Support Your Local Sheriff, it has its own merits in addition to Garner’s charm, especially:
—Bruce Dern as a goofball badman (like a stupider version of his biker characters)—his interactions with Garner are classic comedy routines, and Dern does great double-take.
—Harry Morgan as the quasi-Libertarian mayor who regrets that civilization is encroaching on his boomtown: he grumbles that churches will arrive, and that they’ll want to close the whorehouse (platitudes that are incredible coming out of the mouth of the man who was Dragnet’s straight-arrow sidekick, and MASH’s wise Colonel Potter).
—and in a delicious piece of casting, saddle-vet Walter Brennan is the cattle baron squaring off against Sheriff Garner—the grousing villain is more worried about his “eating teeth” getting broken in a shootout than whether his sons are safe.
Casting Brennan was as smart a cross-cultural meta-move as was Mel Brooks’ later casting of Slim Pickens in Blazing Saddles: you need the real deal so the joke has stronger impact.

Zero for Conduct (1933; Jean Vigo) Wonderful, anarchic 40-minute short that Lindsay Anderson completely rips off for If… (And Allan Arkush admits was an influence on Rock ‘n’ Roll High School.)
Somewhere in France, kids (and one sympathetic teacher) ultimately rebel over the arbitrary and callous treatment from the school’s administrators (a wretched collection of greasy pederasts, hypocritical thieves and morbid sadists—ruled over by a vain dwarf!).
—This feels very much like a Bunuel film, like the missing link between his L’age d’Or and Los Olvidados—a feeling enhanced when Zero for Conduct uses various experimental techniques, including animation and slow-motion, to give the situation an almost surrealist touch, and perhaps that’s because a successful rebellion at a children’s school is just a dream?
Wonderful, nonetheless, as
Zero for Conduct takes a very entertaining hot poop on all that is “holy”—Very much worth your time.

Missing (1982; Costa-Gavras) Watched again (since first seeing it on its initial release, and not since) after being so impressed with Costa-Gavras’ State of Siege (see above). But Missing is much different from that film, which while borderline-nihilistic, still celebrated the spirit of revolution—
On the other hand, Missing is heartbreaking and depressing—a sad tale of the innocence lost by a man nearing the end of his life, anchored by performances from a strong Sissy Spacek and an incredible Jack Lemmon.
While set in an unnamed country, State of Siege was filmed in Chile, but Missing is about Chile, yet that country is never named (it was filmed in Mexico, though). Set during the bloody and horrible coup, it’s essentially about a square, very devout Christian businessman trying to find his son—which is why the film succeeds, but also disappoints.

Produced by Universal, a very mainstream company, the movie is to be applauded for not pulling punches in its accusations against US military and diplomats in their ordering the murder of a naïve American schnook. (The Latinos wouldn’t care that he knows anything, they’ve won the civil war; but US is supposed to be neutral, and certainly wasn’t—and this kid knows too much.)
The sanctimonious brush-off Lemmon gets from US officials is emotionally much worse than the brutal blank stares and obvious lies of the junta.

(But I wished this subtext of bad American foreign policy eventually leading us to kill our own children had been explored to further detail, but director Costa-Gavras is primarily trying to touch the audience via the heart more than the intellect.)

The film is almost an anti-procedural, with an investigation that brings up horrible, useless information that clouds more than clears, and
where a violent, surreptitiously-backed, one-sided power-grab that left thousands dead is used as the backdrop and cover-up for the death of a Yankee.

And that’s a gripe I had with this movie, and with an entire subgenre, actually: those people over there, those dark and hungry ones? Yeah, their problems don’t mean jack shit till Whitey shows up.

Now, Missing is the least egregious offender of this sort of condescending Caucasian-centric filmmaking—John Boorman’s misbegotten Beyond Rangoon takes the cake for that one, where nearly all important events in the Burmese freedom movement are meaningless until blonde hottie Patricia Arquette wanders through in slow-motion looking great in a sarong.

Unfortunately, in Missing for the most part, it’s Americans… and then dark-skinned soldiers. We are only given cursory introductions to characters of Spanish and/or Indian ancestry, so we never really meet any Latinos who aren’t brutal thugs wielding bayonets and machine guns.

It’s not that Missing is trying to be part of a xenophobic film tradition—this is more a result of location (and budget): The Mexican government cooperated with Costa-Gavras, and allowed him to use actual Mexican Army soldiers as extras.

But the thing is, most of the regular grunts in the Mexican Army are from either Mestizo or Indian extraction—which generally means they have darker skin than most Yankees, and especially when compared to palefaces like Lemmon and Spacek. Scenes of these two actors being threatened by jabbering little brown men only reinforces the subconscious racism of “US vs. THEM.”

(An interesting factoid: As long as you don’t directly slam them, the Mexican government allows filmmakers to say whatever they want about other Latin American nations. This is why El Jefe’s hacienda is only identified as being in “Latin America” in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.)

The “Only Americans Are Important” syndrome was avoided in State of Siege as star Yves Montand is a Frenchman who hardly looks American (although he was playing one), and the balance between the actors who either looked like descendents of Spaniards or Indians was essentially equal for all characters in the film, whether on the Right and Left.

Because I was so moved by Lemmon’s interpretation of the script, I’m almost loathe to note this as well, but I was especially annoyed by the naivety shown by Lemmon and his son, which bordered on the suicidal!
Of course, that may be part of it—specifically, why the boy is dead—but then Costa-Gavras is being too heavy-handed: Americans, SO naïve! (Of course, since it was a Universal release, maybe CG was trying to make the flick’s message as obvious as possible…)

That all said, Missing is a flick that’s thought-provoking, heartbreaking and disturbing—don’t even think about a happy ending, it’s that fucking bleak. Yes, watch it.

Hallelujah! The April 2012 Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule Quiz!

Testing, testing—one, two, three…

Once again, it’s time for one of Mack-Daddy Dennis Cozzalio’s fab movie quizzes via his essential film blog, Sergio Leone & the Infield Fly Rule (sorry I’m late to the party)—this time it’s a quiz sort-of centered on nuns and religion—personally I could’ve used some more seriously religion-oriented questions—but I’ll be throwing some of my own questions into the mix later, so….
[Previous Ivanlandia entries into Sergio Leone Quiz Territory can be found HERE and HERE.]

Before we start—
One thing that really ticks me off about snarky, self-consciously hip flicks—and Todd Phillips’ Road Trip immediately comes to mind, but I’m sure there are others (mumblecore, I don’t trust you!)—is that they make a character an obvious and devout Christian for no other reason but to mock that person further, so stupid “crazy” things come out of the character’s mouth. It’s a cheap shot, and usually done without a point. The dickhead R.A. at the dorm from Road Trip doesn’t need to be a Xian just for more cheap shots.

And I like films that respect a person’s belief—it was such a breath of fresh air to have Keith David’s space traveler in Pitch Black be a devout Muslim, and that the film treated his devotion with respect.
I believe in respecting other peoples’ religions because I’m superstitious, and I like to hedge my bets.
However, I have a tattoo of Cthulhu on my leg as A) a memorial to my late stepfather, Keith Michael McMahon Lerner; and B) as a catch-all image to demonstrate my belief in The Big Weird Thing(s) OUT THERE Beyond Our Comprehension.

Personally, though, I do think monotheist desert religions are just lots of bad news—religions are fascinating to me overall because they are all mythologies, just stories—but some are still believed, however. And the desert monotheists just seem to want to start trouble…

I love the Japanese yokai concept, on the other hand, that there are spirits everywhere and in everything—and most of the time they don’t care about you. Ghosts and the supernatural ain’t always after you per se.
The indifference of the Spirit World is comforting to me…

And Now, from the wonderful Sergio Leone & the Infield Fly Rule,
Hhhhhhhhhhhere’s
Sister Clodagh’s Superficially Spiritual, Ambitiously Agnostic Last-Rites-of-Spring Movie Quiz:
1) Favorite movie featuring nuns
The Blues Brothers (visiting The Penguin!)
Ms. 45
But I much prefer it when nuns are used as a sinister background element, as in Michael Winner’s Death Wish, or (if I remember correctly) in Brian De Palma’s Sisters or the vastly underrated Exorcist III: Legion. The X-Files: I Want to Believe also used background nuns in a similarly sinister fashion.

Also, I really wish I could think of a porn movie where hot wenches were wearing latex nuns’ habits but I can’t remember any right now, as my porn collection ain’t what it used to be.
I do recall that Marilyn Chambers (RIP) was accosted by nuns in The Mitchell Brothers’ porn-classic Beyond the Green Door (1972), but I can’t remember if that scene was any good…

However,
Ivanlandia’s Fave Pervo Comix About Nunz: The Convent of Hell

2) Second favorite John Frankenheimer movie
The Manchurian Candidate
First: (tie) Seconds/The Train
Third: (tie) Black Sunday/Ronin
Fourth: (tie) Seven Days in May/The Island of Dr. Moreau (a crazy, crazy, crazy movie that jumps the rails and doesn’t stop going—until it implodes: an unholy mess that I like very much. I saw this in the theater opening day, and I now own a copy of this outrageous movie. I also own Frankenheimer’s The Train—damn, that is probably one of the best action films ever made: they crashed genuine life-size trains! That’s madness! And awesome. Thank you, John Frankenheimer!)

3) William Bendix or Scott Brady?
Seen both in plenty of movies, but don’t know enough about either—
Maybe it’s a familiarity thing—had you asked “Geoffrey Lewis or Richard Jaeckel,” I might have an answer. (Jaeckel!)


4) What movie, real or imagined, would you stand in line six hours to see? Have you ever done so in real life?
Let’s see, on May 28, 1977, my parents and I arrived at the Loew’s Astor Plaza at 12:30pm to pick up tickets for the 2pm show. We were informed that 2pm was sold out, and that the line that went around the block—and the next corner—and the next—was for the 5pm show. We got tickets, got in line, and that’s when we saw Star Wars.

Annnnnnnnnd—I remember at first being really disappointed that there were no trailers before the movie! HA!
But once it started, that’s all she wrote.

That said, the only movies that I’d stand in line for six hours to see as an adult (can I be the only one in the theater, though? Please?) are imaginary films:

Stanley Kubrick’s The Wasp Factory
John Frankenheimer’s American Tabloid
John Milius’ biography of General Curtis LeMay (a movie he was actually trying to make for some time; I’d love to read the script!)
Sam Peckinpah’s The Hunger Games
Bruce Lee’s Ip Man
Otto Mannix’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Ivan Lerner’s Plutonium Hyperdrive



5) Favorite Mitchell Leisen movie
The “People Are Alike All Over” episode of The Twilight Zone (1960).
But otherwise, I am very completely unfamiliar with this director’s work.

6) Ann Savage or Peggy Cummins?
See #3 (although Cummins—heh-heh—has got a sweeeeeeeeeet tush! Love those tight cowgirl pants she wears in Gun Crazy.)

7) First movie you remember seeing as a child
The ones that stick with me—
If it wasn’t Attack of the Crab Monsters or George Pal/Byron Haskin’s The War of the Worlds on WNEW Channel 5 one Saturday afternoon, then it was Goldfinger on the ABC Sunday Night Movie.
In a theater for the first time, I know I must have been to others before this—we were a serious movie-going family—but I think it was either THX-1138 or The Andromeda Strain (I remember the big “601” projected on a screen).
Or else it was the late-1960s revival of Fantasia: I remember seeing the dancing mushrooms from a seat in a theater….

[We were/are a genre family, too: Mater enjoyed partaking in “New Wave Feminist Science Fiction,” like Anne McCaffrey or Ursula K. LeGuin, as well as works by Frank Herbert and Philip Pullman; while Pops dug the pulpy &/or druggy sci-fi and comic books: Robert E. Howard, R. Crumb and Jack Kirby could be found in his “mancave,” and he was a rabid fan of Clint Eastwood movies and horror flicks.]

8) What moment in a movie that is not a horror movie made you want to bolt from the theater screaming?
The, uh, climax of In the Realm of the Senses. Yeeeeee-OUCH!
True story: the first time I saw In the Realm of the Senses was at a revival theater in San Francisco in the late-1980s.
In the audience, for some reason, was a blind man.
The blind man did not speak Japanese, so he had someone whisper the subtitles to him!

It would have been annoying, but the whisperer was doing it so well: very sotto voce—that the sound of her voice was a relief in the more tense and unnerving moments in the flick, a sort of a distancing element.

Hmmmmm… It’s funny, while writing the preceding paragraph, I was actually reliving how I felt when I saw In the Realm of the Senses for the first time ages ago, not how I felt when I watched it a few years ago, after my career in porn had desensitized me to cinematic portrayals of uglies bumping.

With that later screening, I wasn’t shocked, and was even kind of bored by the sex scenes. “C’mon,” I’d yell at the screen. “Get back to the symbology about the ruinous effects of Japan’s past militarism!”

But that first time? With no real prep? In the Realm of the Senses was intense.

The movie that drove me out of the theater in sheer unrelenting boredom was Derek Jarman’s The Last of England. I was so happy when I willed myself out of the seat and walked out the door.

9) Richard Widmark or Robert Mitchum?
I refuse to choose between these two pillars of awesome.
See #3

10) Best movie Jesus
Kenneth Colley in The Life of Brian
2nd Place: South Park’s cartoon Jesus—he’s so sweet and awesome! “Happy Birthday to Me!”
3rd place: Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke


11) Silliest straight horror film that you’re still fond of
Roger Corman’s Attack of the Crab Monsters, natch.

12) Emily Blunt or Sally Gray?
See #3
(How about, Mimsy Farmer or Martine Beswick?)

13) Favorite cinematic Biblical spectacular
I’ll go old school here and vote for CB DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956).
But honestly, it’s been almost 30 years since I watched a “Bible Epic”—they used to be shown all the time on the old 4:30 Movie on NYC’s local ABC-TV affiliate; I remember they showed many of the Victor Mature biblical movies, like Samson & Delilah, and would repeat Robert Aldrich’s Sodom & Gomorrah all the time.
Both of those movies are deffo snoozers, BTW, but with great explosive endings. Sort of like The Bible itself…


14) Favorite cinematic moment of unintentional humor
You can’t beat the sun setting into the East in The Green Berets.

Then there’s Pacino’s juggling the speakerphone over his cocaine-covered desk in Scarface (but that actually could be in the flick intentionally).

15) Michael Fassbender or David Farrar?
See #3—but I’m really looking forward to Fessbender’s perf in Prometheus, as well as seeing the DVD of A Dangerous Method; and I did enjoy Mike F.’s Magneto in X-Men: First Class, and he was okay in Ingluutonis Bizturds.

16) Most effective faith-affirming movie
If you mean by that, the film that touched my soul as no other one has, and made me actually feel good to be part of the human race—not in any intellectual “I’m glad about civilization” way, but in a spiritual, “holy moly I’m glad to be alive way!”,
then
I’d say Lili.
Released in 1953, directed by Charles Walters, and all about fixing broken hearts, the supremely magical Lili starred Leslie Caron (very young and lovely), Mel Ferrer and a bunch of puppets. The film is a favorite of both John Waters and H.L. Mencken (Baltimore loves Lili, eh?), and has never been available for home viewing, except for a rare showing on Turner Classic Movies.

Charming and (bitter)sweet, Lili really gets under your skin—probably because like its main character, the film is guileless: perfect for melting cold, cold hearts.


17) Movie that makes the best case for agnosticism
Agnosticism means needing proof that there’s a deity—or deities—some sort of Supreme Intelligence, or Power Unseen, Prime Mover Unmoved, right?

Well these give proof of something moving its hand across the waters, as it were:
The Blues Brothers
Frailty
The Ninth Configuration
The World’s Greatest Sinner
The Rapture
George Pal/Byron Haskin’s The War of the Worlds
Final Destination series

And this second batch says, nope, there is no supreme being, it’s just us projecting our beliefs onto one another until we are all at each others’ throats:
United 93
Beneath the Planet of the Apes
Blue Collar (God is an illusion used by The Man to keep us in line)
Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue
Men Behind the Sun

I do like it when a movie takes a stand and says, “Yes, there is a God,”
but movies that reinforce a doctrine bug me—like The Exorcist or The Omen (so the Catholic Church is right? Yipes…), or Raiders of the Lost Ark (so there was a guy named Moses and these tablets are from a mountain where they were carved by the flaming finger of Yahweh?).

But I prefer my deities with a heap of mystery—
To think that something/-body that immense cares or even pays attention to us is pride at its worst.
I do believe in “God helps those who help themselves,” however, that hard work and Direct Positive Action will always trump prayers:
Only when you are doing everything you can to get something done, that is the time your prayers will be answered.
If you are not already giving 150%, then ain’t no chance of some supernatural ultraterrestrial sky cake showing up and rubbing some luck on you.


I believe (that’s what it always is about, right?) that there is a supernatural side to things; but for me, it’s stuff we haven’t discovered beyond a theoretical stage—like the fourth dimension, or alternate universes, or simply things we cannot yet see or hear because our senses can’t detect them—like the critters in From Beyond that “share” our space, for example.
Maybe our pineal glands do need to evolve some more…

Not that I ever turn down any good luck that anyone offers—I’m like Gordo Cooper in The Right Stuff when he's on his way to the big radar dish in the middle of the Australian outback; the native men ask Cooper if he wants any help. Sure, Gordo’s amenable: the astronauts could use all the help they can get.
While science has explained this away as mundane phenomenon, I like the movie’s interpretation that the sparks from the Aborigines’ fire ceremony took off through the atmosphere and into orbit to help out John Glenn’s capsule—that the old gods don’t look disapprovingly on man’s latest adventures—
They encourage us, we’re fun:
“Look Hera, the latest Ulysses has a new type of flying boat that goes so high!”

18) Favorite song and/or dance sequence from a musical
Dremble Wedge & the Vegetation from Bedazzled
"Uncle Fucka" from South Park
"Stay One Step Ahead" sung by Boris Karloff in Mad Monster Party
Christopher Walken’s number in Pennies From Heaven (1981)
The retelling of Uncle Tom’s Cabin {“The Little Cabin of Uncle Thomas”} in Yul Brynner’s The King and I—“Run, Eliza, RUN!”
That said, I am a big old softy for Singin’ in the Rain and The Wizard of Oz, as well.

Meanwhile, I think the scene with “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” from Bob Fosse’s Cabaret is brilliant and completely unnerving.

19) Third favorite Howard Hawks’ movie
Glad you asked for third, because like hell if I could figure out Number One.
As such, I’m copping out with a tie: Ball of Fire/The Big Sleep.

20) Clara Bow or Jean Harlow?
See #3

How about…
The Apostle or The Conversation?

21) Movie most recently seen in the theater? On DVD/Blu-ray/Streaming?
Theater: The Cabin in the Woods—reviewed HERE
Streaming: The Gate (1987)
DVD: Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixen (1979)

22) Most unlikely good movie about religion
Bad Lieutenant

23) Phil Silvers or Red Skelton?
Never liked that dipso Skelton; always loved Sgt. Bilko.

24) “Favorite” Hollywood scandal
Kirk Douglas raping and beating Natalie Wood
Robert Mitchum’s dope bust
Douglas Kenney’s “mysterious” death

25) Best religious movie (non-Christian)
Sita Sings the Blues,
Kung Fu Hustle (cameo by the Buddha!),
Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain,
and John Milius’
Conan the Barbarian. I’m serious.
Conan’s wonderful, neo-existential, very pagan prayer before the confrontation with Thulsa Doom and his goons:
“Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad. Why we fought, or why we died. All that matters is that two stood against many. That's what's important! Valor pleases you, Crom... So grant me one request. Grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, then to HELL with you!”

Special Mention goes to Mustapha Akkad’s The Message for making the type of sentimental middle-of-the-road epic H’wood used to churn out, but this time it’s Islamic, and a biopic of the Prophet Mohammed, someone whose image can never be depicted!

Milius also provided us with the rousing adventure tale The Wind and the Lion, which is also very respectful (and supposedly very accurate) in its depictions of Islam.

26) The King of Cinema: King Vidor, King Hu or Henry King?
King Vidor made The Fountainhead—a great film;
King Hu made Come Drink With Me—a great film;
Henry King made Twelve O’Clock High—a great film;
and Stanley Kubrick is the King of Cinema.


27) Name something modern movies need to relearn how to do that American or foreign classics had down pat
Modern movies need to
make me think that the people behind the camera have emotional ages above 14,
and had read some books beyond what had been assigned in class.

28) Least favorite Federico Fellini movie
Y’know, I hate to say this, but I haven’t seen enough Fellini movies to come up with a “least favorite.”
Holy moly, me be am ignant! I just checked IMDB, and I’ve only ever seen two Fellini movies:
La Strada, which I’ll admit I love, and the
“Toby Dammit” sequence from the triptych movie The Spirits of the Dead—in which some idiot had dubbed Terence Stamp’s beautiful voice into Italian (!), but is still a necro-licious cinematic headtrip. So to speak…

29) The Three Stooges (2012)—yes or no?
Yes, but on DVD from the library for free. I’m sure if I pour enough booze down my gullet, I’ll laugh.

30) Mary Wickes or Patsy Kelly?
See #3

31) Best movie-related conspiracy theory
That Kubrick made 2001 as a run-up to NASA’s faking of the moon mission.

32) Your candidate for most misunderstood or misinterpreted movie
Now, there’s a difference between “misunderstood and misinterpreted,” and “controversial,” which basically means, “Some People Get It, And Some People Are Assholes.”
Now recognized as a classic, Peeping Tom was misunderstood and misinterpreted enough upon its initial release that Michael Powell’s career was effectively ruined.
And then the now-recognized-as-atomically-incredible Kitten With a Whip was a critical and financial flop that stopped writer-director Douglas Heyes’ film career in its tracks—afterwards he only worked in TV—and scared Ann-Margaret away from meatier roles until Carnal Knowledge, which maybe gave her the courage to return to Kitten With a Whip territory when she headlined Ken Russell’s Tommy.

Released in 1964, Kitten With a Whip is wonderfully sleazy, with excellent, crisp and stark B&W cinematography—probably greenlit as a mash-up of Lolita with Touch of Evil, it’s still overwrought campy madness with some beatnikilicious “hepcat” lingo peppered throughout that must’ve really zlorched some brains back in ’64. “You think you’re a smoky-something, but you’re really a nothing painted blue!” taunts our heroine at one point.

Speaking of Ann-Margaret, she is just… fantastically feral, pinballing from emotion to emotion, keeping the intensity level always above “8” and usually around “10.”
John Waters said that he and Divine would see this flick while tripping on LSD, and that explains a lot.

Kitten With a Whip is another flick that I’d known about for decades but hadn’t gotten around to seeing till recently—and am kicking myself really hard over that.

Other misunderstandings—
Personally, I cannot see why moviegoers worldwide didn’t love both Will Farrell’s Land of the Lost [reviewed HERE] or Johnny Knoxville’s The Ringer.
Both of these flicks were incredibly hilarious—for me, nonstop laugh riots. I was laughing so hard at one point during The Ringer that I had to stand up; my sides were hurting so much.

And that they’ve generated so much critical rage simply blows my mind. I could get why some might not like these two flicks, but yowzers! The hatred!
At Rotten Tom, LotL gets 27%—ooof!—and The Ringer? It lucks out with 40% (but that is 85 reviews as opposed to 181, so…).

I’ll also say that the Scooby-Doo remake is absolutely one of the funniest damn movies ever. I’ll also confess that I saw Scooby-Doo after about 24 hours with no sleep, and after about four or five hours in various coffee-shops in Amsterdam (RIP). So…


33) Movie that made you question your own belief system (religious or otherwise)
The Devils?
My evil twin brother Darth Mischievous had a monkey on his back and thought that by splitting town he could kick—HA!—and wound up couch-surfing in Chicago in the first weeks of October, freezing himself to death—anyhoot, it was a real low point in his life—and that’s when he watched Ken Russell’s The Devils on a crappy pan&scan VHS twice in a row, drinking a ton of whiskey to deal with the other pains, and he called me into the room and I got my mind blown—
This obscene movie was speaking such gut-wrenching truths! Government and organized religion will use whatever means to crush anyone in their path. Yeah, sure, I felt I knew that stuff before—but seeing it so brutally, ruthlessly, unashamedly displayed and portrayed on film WAS a revelation!
Not to mention that the film is essentially perfect—script, acting, direction, camera all working together perfectly—I could tell this even from a pan&scan tape, but it was still a joy to have it confirmed by a gift from Toestubber of the Spanish letterboxed DVD.

The Devils is still a great film.

Even earlier in life, I was taken to see Monty Python & the Holy Grail during its initial release in 1975—in the lobby was a model replica of the Trojan Bunny!—I was ten years old, already a fan of the TV show, and of course I thought the movie was funny from the very first frames.
But during the scene with Arthur and the Black Knight (“None shall passssss…”), something snapped—the spouts of gore were the funniest thing ever! I shrieked with laughter (like a leeetle gurl), but my mind was blown. BLOOD IS FUNNY. I was an absolute gorehound after that.

YOUR TURN!!! YOU’RE NEXT!!!
Since I was grumbling a little about Dennis C.’s questions before, I thought I’d put my money where my mouth is, and ask some questions myself…

QUESTIONS FOR READERS OF IVANLANDIA (and anyone just passing by)—

ONE
What movie would you time-travel back to attend the première?

TWO
Favorite non-Harryhausen film with stop-motion animation?

THREE
Favorite title sequence that isn’t Maurice Binder or Saul Bass (this can include TV shows)

FOUR
Fave knife fight in a film—btw, you can include sci-fi cutting implements—

FIVE
Second favorite Jerry Goldsmith score.

SIX
William Castle’s Vincent Price, or Roger Corman’s Vincent Price, or 1970s-“Phibes” era UK-based Vincent Price?

SEVEN
Albert Whitlock, or DouglasTrumbull?

EIGHT
When did David Fincher “lose it” for you?

NINE
The Apostle or The Conversation?

TEN
1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as an Old Testament parable—discuss:

BONUS QUESTION:
Favorite Satan (or Lucifer, the Devil, Prince of Hell, etc.) from the movies?

[If people leave answers in the “comments,” eventually so will I…]

Religion 101 Summer Extra Credit Syllabus—
Other religious movies that should have been discussed but none of the questions herein really related to them (oh well…):
Marjoe
The Ruling Class
Citizen Ruth
Angel Heart
The Devil & Daniel Webster
Prince of Darkness
Seven
The Prophecy
Faust
The Devil’s Rain
The Great Yokai War
Spartacus
There Will Be Blood
Lord of the Flies (1963)
Q: The Winged Serpent
Haxan
Altered States
Zardoz