Rage against the (Hopper) machine

“Those opposed to DRM contend there is no evidence that DRM helps prevent copyright infringement, arguing instead that it serves only to inconvenience legitimate customers, and that DRM helps big business stifle innovation and competition. Furthermore, works can become permanently inaccessible if the DRM scheme changes or if the service is discontinued.” – Wikipedia

Well, as I initially suspected, Thursday was the last day of our receiving the Buzzr channel at Rancho Yesteryear with our DISH “Flex Package.”  What made me wary that it would be a temporary thing was that we experienced something similar when DISH added the Grit subchannel a while back; when I noticed that they added a few “new” reruns to their lineup—one of them being The Californians, which I was curious to check out—I went to program the DVR only to discover it had completely vaporized from our system.

I recorded reruns of To Tell the Truth, What’s My Line?, and I’ve Got a Secret from Buzzr for two purposes—the most important being that I had planned to use these episodes as “filler” whenever I dubbed a ninety-minute movie to a DVD-R.  (I’m kind of anal about that sort of thing.  Please do not look upon me with bewilderment and pity.)  Friday afternoon, I decided to get started with the dubbing and as I set up the first installment of Truth…I get an onscreen message telling me that I can’t watch this recording because I’m not subscribed to the channel.

This is not the first time this has happened.  My Mom had the same trouble watching Gone Baby Gone (2007), which I snagged during a Starz “freeview” some time back.  (I had already managed to dub this one off onto a disc, and offered to run it for her but she waved me off.)  The peculiar thing about all of this is that we never experienced these difficulties until DISH uploaded a new “interface” for their Hopper DVR about two weeks ago.  I got an earlier heads-up about this from Andrew “Grover” Leal, who told me he could no longer watch a movie he DVR’d from HBO a while ago.  (He’s also been experiencing trouble programming his DVR since the changeover.)  I checked out an HBO recording I made—I believe it was The Sixth Sense (1999)—and it seemed to play fine, so I didn’t think much more about it.

But the Buzzr situation really got me steamed.  It angered me because the recordings were only a month old, if at that—I could understand it if I had DVR’d these last year but this just seemed to be one big clusterfudge.  I decided to call someone at DISH about this nonsense.

You’d think when you get to be the age I am now you’d learn that anytime you must contact a cable or satellite company about a problem it’s not going to end well.  There is a simple reason for this.  These companies are staffed by people working for human-weasel hybrids.  (I used to think that everyone employed there was some sort of half-human, half-weasel until I further contemplated on the matter and decided that it was probably just upper management—the rest of the proles were unhappy humans forced to work for the company to afford luxuries like food, clothing, and shelter.  This does not, however, resolve them from any of the evil their masters do nor their tireless efforts to see just how high they can raise my blood pressure.)

When we moved into Rancho Yesteryear (the Winterville edition) in July of 2015, we didn’t have many options re: TV service; although our mailing address is Winterville, we’re technically outside the city limits…where no cable installer has gone before.  So, it came down to DISH or DirecTV, and after hearing a few of my friends bitch about how DirecTV loves to raise their rates more than they love their children I decided to go with DISH as our provider.  (Plus, there was already a DISH dish in the yard.  I figured it would make things easier.)  Since that foolish decision, DISH has gone above and beyond the call of duty to keep me in a continually ulcerated state.

It started when Mom and Dad were upset because they couldn’t watch Braves games on the weekend; the channel (Fox Sports South) that televised the games would have a notice onscreen that the outing they wanted to watch had been blocked in our area.  I called DISH to ask what the dealio was and the rep I spoke with swore on the lives of her children that this was completely out of the company’s hands.

Yes.  This woman flat-out lied to me, thinking smugly: “This guy sounds too dumb to even look it up on the Internets.”  Because here’s the thing: it’s bad enough that you’ve aroused my ire by doing this kind of sh*t in the first place (although it was really more of my parents’ ire…since I had no f**ks to give regarding the televised games) but then you compound this by not being straight with me.  All she would have had to say is: “Yes, we’re too cheap to pay Fox for the weekend games.  I know you, as a customer, probably don’t agree with what we feel is a principled stand…but we really don’t care because you have no other options regarding TV.  Have a nice day, asswipe.”  (Sure—I still would have been angry…but it would be an honest anger.)

Let’s get back to the present.  Before DISH instituted its new “interface”—there was never any problem with my DVRing movies from freeview weekends and then watching them when I had the time.  After the changes, however—this crap starts happening.  Now—I know that believing correlation equals causation is a logical fallacy…but it just seemed odd that this kind of problem would rear its ugly head after DISH changed their Hopper/Joey.  I had an online chat with a rep to find out what was going on.

I should have foreseen that this person was not going to give me any sort of honest answer—that she had, in fact, been conditioned by her human-weasel masters not to get sidetracked from the official story (I’m guessing it was a combination of snakes and live electricity).  She kept prattling on about it being a DRM (digital rights management) issue—that practice that companies have adopted to, in the words of Wikipedia, “restrict usage of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works.”  Since I wasn’t subscribed to Buzzr, I couldn’t access any programming I might have recorded…and if I did record a show, it would expire after a 24-hour period.  (“What’s the point of having the DVR if I have to watch this stuff before that time limit runs out?” I asked to no reply.)

This made no sense to me whatsoever.  What she was saying was, if I was subscribed to Buzzr—I could continue to access the programming I had legitimately recorded…but how would that stop me from “piracy”?  (Wikipedia: “Proponents of DRM argue that it is necessary to prevent intellectual property from being copied freely, just as physical locks are needed to prevent personal property from being stolen, that it can help the copyright holder maintain artistic control, and that it can ensure continued revenue streams.”)  The most infuriating part of the conversation was that she steadfastly maintained that this had nothing to do with the new interface…even though these “piracy” threats were not a problem with the old interface.

My favorite part came at the end, when she acknowledged that this might not have reached a satisfying conclusion but was there anything she could do to “better the experience”?  My response was no, there was not.  “You are doomed to spend eternity in Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell, along with politicians and pedophiles,” I explained to her. “I couldn’t do what you do for a living because I have a conscience.”  All she would have had to say to me would be: “Yes, unfortunately one of the side effects of the interface change is that it puts the screws to people who like to record movies.  Here’s a coupon for the inconvenience.”  (The ‘rents would have liked that part.)  I guess if there is a bright side to all this I now have some space cleared on the DVR because I had to delete all the movies I grabbed during the freeview weekend as well as some TV episodes I obtained from the Encore Westerns channel.  (Oddly enough, there were a couple of movies I could continue to access…though those might be history by the time this tirade posts.)

And they wonder why people despise cable/satellite companies so much.  Okay, rant over.  Back to business tomorrow.

Hurry on down to Hardie’s

My fellow classic movie mavens are well aware that in the month of February (and first three days of March—except leap year), The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ runs their “31 Days of Oscar” tribute.  This event and “Summer Under the Stars” usually allows me to catch up with whatever I have squirreled away on our DISH DVR, and I was very much looking forward to watching the content (and slapping my favorites onto disc).

But…in the immortal words of Robert Frost: “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/Gang aft a-gley.” (Who says this blog isn’t highbrow?  Besides 98% of the blogosphere, I mean.)

The good people at DISH decided to have a “freeview” weekend of HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime the weekend of February 17-20.  The following weekend, we were treated to free Starz.  The weekend after that, Encore.  And we just finished up a freeview of Epix this past weekend.  For a recovering movie nut like your humble narrator, this is an embarrassment of riches—particularly because when there isn’t anything on the schedule worth grabbing, there’s always On Demand offerings I can download.  I have been spending every free waking moment luxuriating in movies, movies…and more movies.

Laramie stars John Smith and Robert Fuller

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I went hog wild during the Encore freeview…because their On Demand features episodes of the classic TV westerns they offer on their schedule—this is how I was able to build my substantial Wanted: Dead or Alive collection back in December of 2015.   Encore Westerns on Demand has episodes of Death Valley Days, Laramie, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Tales of Wells Fargo (a recent acquisition), and Wagon Train—which presented me with a dilemma: which show do I download?

I eliminated Death Valley Days and Wagon Train right off the bat; I like both shows—but they’re not something I have to have.  I leaned heavily toward Laramie, particularly due to the piss-poor quality of the Timeless Media Group DVDs…but I’ve got a 30-day window with these downloads, and I didn’t think I could get all EW had in that amount of time (particularly since they’re 50-minute shows).  There’s DVR space to consider, too—I like to have enough of a “buffer” in case Mom (who learned how to work the DVR during her convalescence) wants to grab any Rambo movies or something with Jean-Claude God Damme.  (I don’t know why she insists on recording stuff with commercials…particularly since she hasn’t learned to fast-forward yet.)  So, it came down to either Wyatt Earp or Wells Fargo…and since all six seasons of Earp have been released to disc, I went with Fargo (its DVD release history is a little spotty).

Tales of Wells Fargo originally premiered as a December 14, 1956 episode of CBS’ Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, “A Tale of Wells Fargo”—with a teleplay by Frank Gruber from a Zane Grey story.  The producer of this episode, Nat Holt, had also produced the 1949 film that gave future Wells Fargo star Dale Robertson his first onscreen credit, Fighting Man of the Plains (Fargo creator Frank Gruber also wrote this screenplay…in addition to the novel on which it was based).  Holt had quite a time talking Robertson into doing “Tale” as a regular series—Dale initially didn’t think much of the script, and only agreed to commit to the pilot as a favor to his friend.  He never dreamed that the show would leap to #3 in the Nielsens in its second season (Tales of Wells Fargo officially premiered over NBC on March 18, 1957).  (Wells Fargo remained in the Top 10 in its third season, and continued to be a solid ratings performer until its final season in 1961-62.  More on this in a bit.)

I thought that by downloading all the Wells Fargo Encore Westerns had to offer, I could play a few for mi madre—a longtime fan of the show.  I know I mentioned this on the blog in the past (my previous experience with Wells Fargo was a single episode, “Jesse James,” which was on Timeless’ The Classic TV Western Collection) but my father used to tease my mother unmercifully about this series, derisively referring to the star as “Dale Roberts” and saying…well, I won’t repeat exactly what he said (it’s a little insensitive) but he hinted that Mr. Robertson was a few horses shy of a remuda.  I’ve watched 13 out of the 14 episodes in the first season (“The Silver Bullets” did not download properly, much to my dismay) and a couple from Season Two…and I don’t know why Dad kids Mom so.  Granted, I do not possess the sophisticated television tastes as my old man (and by “sophisticated television tastes” I mean shows about UFOs and cops placing people under arrest) but I’m finding Tales of Wells Fargo to be a pretty entertaining series.  It’s not a great show (there are superior western half-hours, like Gunsmoke and Have Gun – Will Travel) but it’s far and away better than The Cisco Kid or any other juvie oater you’d care to name.  Robertson didn’t consider Wells Fargo an “adult western” or a “kids western”—but a “family western,” assuming your family conducted private investigations for the Wells Fargo company for a living.  (That’s the premise in a nutshell: as Jim Hardie, Robertson chased down bad hombres who robbed the company’s stagecoaches or freight wagon in the 1860s/1870s/1880s, and brought the miscreants to justice.  This was quite a few years before the Wells Fargo company started committing fraud on a major scale.)

Hugh Beaumont as Jesse James

One of the aspects of the program that I’ve observed is its rather compassionate portrayals of its outlaw element: in the aforementioned “Jesse James” (07/01/57), future Leave it to Beaver dad Hugh Beaumont portrays Jesse as a very sympathetic sort, and in “Sam Bass” (06/10/57), rifleman Chuck Connors makes the titular bandit a jovial, happy-go-lucky fella (the real Bass was apparently also a “no worries” kind of guy).  (Connors also appears in the premiere episode of Tales of Wells Fargo, “The Thin Rope”—adding some interesting shadings to the villain.)  The nature of Hardie’s work dictated he make contact with many Old West legends, including Belle Starr (a nice turn by Jeanne Cooper), John Wesley Hardin (Lyle Bettger), Billy the Kid (Robert Vaughn), and Butch Cassidy (Charles Bronson).

Jack Elam

Of the episodes I’ve viewed so far, I was very impressed with “The Hijackers” (06/17/57); Hardie puts a premature end to his vacation by tracking down the son (Harry Holt, Jr.) of a wealthy man and his fiancée (Jacqueline Holt) and finds their trail leads to a ghost town, where they’re being held captive by Jack Elam and his gang.  There’s a beautifully done (and wordless) sequence in which Robertson and Elam play hide-and-seek in the abandoned burg, and when the closing credits rolled I was not at all surprised to see serials ace John English attached as director.  (The author of this one is N.B. Stone, Jr., later responsible for Ride the High Country.)  The following episode, “Stage to Nowhere” (06/24/57), is also first-rate; Hardie is escorting an outlaw (Walter Coy) to the hoosegow when their stagecoach is chased down by the man’s gang—also on board are a timid newspaper reporter (the ubiquitous Lyle Talbot) plus a woman (OTR’s Barbara Eiler) and her son (Bobby Clark), who have an important connection to Jim’s prisoner.

Michael Landon

You’ll spot a good many familiar future TV faces and veteran character thesps in these episodes of Tales of Wells Fargo: Michael Landon is not only in “Sam Bass” but “Shotgun Messenger” (05/07/57)—which I’d wager was the first time he worked with his future Little House on the Prairie co-star Kevin Hagen (as one of the bad guys, of course).  Some time back on Facebook, I made a joking reference to actor John Carroll being “the poor man’s Clark Gable” …and my social media compadre Christopher Snowden (the proprietor of Television Diary) responded that he always considered Dale Robertson to be quite Gable-ish.  When I concurred that I can definitely hear a Gable-ness in Robertson’s speech patterns, Chris observed: “[H]e's also there in scenes where Robertson's character is charming the ladies—chin down, and eyes uplifted as a big ingratiating smile spreads wide.  And all of these mannerisms are still in place twenty-odd years later, when he appears for short stretches on Dallas and Dynasty.”

The moustache helps a lot.  (From a 1965 TV pilot, Diamond Jim.)

William Demarest with star Robertson

In the fifth season of Tales of Wells Fargo, Earle Lyon replaced Nat Holt as the series’ producer; Lyon related in an interview: “I took over the last two years.  Dale Robertson called me one day and said he felt Nat was getting too old and couldn’t remember things.  Dale was pretty upset with the way things were going with the series.” NBC decided to side with the show’s star, and Holt’s inaugural season as producer went so swimmingly the network made the decision to not only expand Wells Fargo to an hour in Season Six but produce it in Living Peacock Color.  A cast of regulars was also added as Jim Hardie acquired a horse ranch near San Francisco (star Robertson was quite the horseman in real life) including future My Three Sons co-star William Demarest (as the stock crotchety ranch foreman, Jeb Gaine) and future Folgers’ pitchwoman Virginia Christine (as Hardie’s neighbor, The Widder [Ovie] Swenson).

Tales of Wells Fargo had stiff competition in its final season—it was scheduled Saturday nights opposite Perry Mason, and though it came in a respectable second, ratings-wise, the decision was made (the show was getting a bit expensive for the cost-conscious MCA/Revue to produce) to send it to the Old Syndication Retirement Home.  Star Robertson would later headline Iron Horse, another boob tube oater that barely hung on for two seasons, and J.J. Starbuck (1987-88), a Stephen J. Cannell creation that also resurrected Ben Vereen’s character of E.L. “Tenspeed” Turner (which he had played on the short-lived 1980 series Tenspeed and Brown Shoe, also created by Cannell).

Tales of Wells Fargo’s first and second seasons are available on DVD (Tales of Wells Fargo: The Complete First and Second Seasons); in addition, there’s a collection containing “selected” episodes from Seasons 1-5, and Tales of Wells Fargo: The Best of the Final Season in Color.  In looking at what I downloaded from Encore Westerns, neither seasons five or six seem to be in their package—perhaps they will air these in the future.  Wells Fargo plays much, much better than I had hoped…and later, I will make a small sacrifice to the satellite gods for allowing me to grab these episodes for the dusty Thrilling Days of Yesteryear archives.

Still can’t get the parts…check back next week

Earlier this month, I received an e-mail from the folks at AT&T U-Verse that over the (Thanksgiving) holiday weekend, they were going to give all subscribers a free preview of their “U-450” package—which is the company’s top of the line subscription deal (the ‘rents and I have the “U-200”).  What this entailed for us was four days of premium channel largess: HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, The Movie Channel, Starz—you get the idea.  What this entailed for me was that because the On Demand access is also included (I think the only channels exempt from this were the ESPN stuff and Disney), it gives me carte blanche to add a few movies to the dusty Thrilling Days of Yesteryear archives.

They have some sort of block on the HBO/Cinemax stuff, so I wasn’t able to record anything off of those channels.  (Drat.)  This didn’t keep me from helping myself to a look at a few newer movies that I had not seen; my BBFF Stacia mentioned in an e-mail that she and Mr. Stacia were amused by The Lego Movie (2014), and I sat down with that Friday night.  I wasn’t particularly fond of the fact that the movie shifts gears toward the end (it gets a bit sappy) because a good portion of it is some fairly smart satire in a kind of Rocky and Bullwinkle mode (the kids will enjoy the Legos while the adults chuckle at the jokes) but overall it was most entertaining.

The best HBO offering I watched was Dallas Buyers Club (2013), which I thought Mom would like because she’s a big Matthew McConaughey fan (though not so big that she’s been able to figure out why I keep saying “All right, all right, all right” every time his Lincoln commercial comes on) and I didn’t think I would because the subject matter sounded depressing.  Yet I thought the movie was sensational (both McConaughey and Jared Leto won well-deserved Oscars) and she hated it (thought the profanity was a bit much—“It’s Texas, ma…whaddya gonna do?”).  A genuine first-rate film, one of the best I have seen in a long while.

Starz offered up the 2011 Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Feature—Inside Job (2010), which I also thought was a winner.  (I put this on for Dad…and he shrugged at it in a most uninterested way.)  Curiosity also bid me welcome to Saving Mr. Banks (2013), which, sadly, was simply not my cup of Harmless Harvest.  I liked Emma Thompson’s performance as P.L. Travers, the author of Mary Poppins…but the movie seemed to suggest that she was a bitch because she had daddy issues and it was up to ol’ Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) to come to her rescue.

I guess what I’m trying to say is because I have been distracted by all this movie goodness—not only have I been able to watch some more recent films but I’ve been indulging with past favorites like Blow Out (1981), Big Trouble in Little China (1986) and The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)—that’s the reason why there’s no Serial Saturdays in this space…and why there’ll be no Doris Day(s) on Monday.  (Now…now…let’s not all be disappointed at the same time.)  But I will have material at the ready this week, including an interesting entry in Tuesday’s “Overlooked Films” feature and a review on a Grapevine Video purchase as well.  In the meantime, my look at The Strange Love of Molly Louvain (1932) is available for your perusal at ClassicFlix.  Now—back to the screening room!

Game of Showns

It was a most productive cinematic haul this weekend as I enjoyed AT&T U-Verse’s free HBO/Cinemax weekend; I watched a bodaciously large number of flicks courtesy of their On Demand service…and what offerings weren’t On Demand I DVR’d off the schedule for transcription at a later time.  (Something that takes meticulous planning, I should add…I’m like one of those generals you always see in the movies playing with toy cannons and soldiers on a map.)  I was stymied by a power outage this morning (something that apparently affected U-Verse subscribers all across this great land of ours) that kept me from recording Walk the Line (2005), so I guess Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon will wait another day.

Oh, and a little poking around at AT&T U-Verse’s website revealed that a free Showtime preview is in the works for May 9-11.  And with that, here are some of the movies I gazed at intently this weekend.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) – Okay, I knew from the title that this one was going to induce a lot of eyeball-rolling…and it’s pretty much what you’d expect: an over-the-top horror pic that posits that the sixteenth president of the United States was also a badass destroyer of the undead in his copious free time.  Based on a novel by Seth Grahame-Smith (who also penned the screenplay), Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter stars Benjamin Walker as the rail-splitter himself…who teams up with a man named Henry Sturges (Dominic Cooper) to dispose of bloodsuckers willy-nilly when his ma (Robin McLeavy) dies at the hand of a slave trader (also a vampire) named Jack Barts (Marton Csokas).

Again, a guy who’s also written a book entitled Pride & Prejudice & Zombies (which will be released to motion picture theaters in 2015) is naturally going to take a little literary license…but I think Vampire Hunter would have worked better if they had left such figures as Harriet Tubman (Jaqueline Fleming) and Jefferson Davis (John Rothman) out of the narrative (in this alternate universe, the institution of slavery was set up so that the undead would have access to a constant food source) as well as concentrated Abe’s hobby to the years before he became president.  Still, while I was able to tolerate a lot of the explodiations and stuntery of this popcorn movie (including a fiery train sequence that’s impressive in its sheer audaciousness) the disappointment came in the performance of my beloved Mary Elizabeth Winstead (who I adored in Smashed) as Mary Todd Lincoln (way too anachronistic, even in this wacked-out world).

Dark Shadows (2012) – Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’s Seth Grahame-Smith also wrote the story and screenplay for this one (so it seemed only fitting that I watched it after Vampire Hunter—sort of a bloodsucker two-fer), inspired by the Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, which was a cult favorite of TV audiences from 1966-71.  Johnny Depp plays Barnabas Collins, the heir to the substantial Collins estate who receives a mojo from a vindictive witch named Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green) that transforms him into a vampire.  Imprisoned underground for nearly two centuries, he’s freed from his coffin and sets out to restore the family fortunes that have suffered from the machinations of the same sorceress who cursed him.  Barnabas also falls for the new family governess, Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcoate), whom he believes to be the reincarnation of his dead wife.

When I saw the trailer for this movie back in 2012, I fell prey to that familiar eye-rolling malady of mine because the coming attractions played up the comedic aspects in the film—and while there are light moments in Dark Shadows it’s a fairly straightforward homage to the TV series, with a few tongue-in-cheek tweaks here and there.  (I’m not sure if this was such a good idea because part of the appeal of the TV show was that it was unintentionally funny.)  Johnny Depp is not a favorite of mine, though I am considerably more charitable to him than my mother (which is probably why I watched this one alone), yet I’ll freely admit he’s pretty good reprising the role made famous by Jonathan Frid (who makes his swan song in a cameo in this film, along with Shadows alumni Kathryn Leigh Scott, David Selby and Lara Parker in a party sequence)—particularly when he’s able to deliver a line like “Goest thou to hell, and swiftly please, and there may Azmodaeus himself suckle from your diseased teat!” while maintaining a straight face.  (It helps that he’s a fan of the show.)  Any movie that features Christopher Lee (as a sea captain) and Alice Cooper (as himself—Depp’s Collins remarks he’s the “ugliest woman I’ve ever seen”) can’t be a total loss, and I was amused that famous movie creep Jackie Earle Haley plays Willie Loomis (essayed by future Cagney & Lacey cast member John Karlen in the original TV version) because it’s pretty much the part he was born to play.  Watch this one if you’re in the mood for something silly.

Disconnect (2012) – One of the real gems I watched this weekend; Disconnect highlights three stories—a couple (Paula Patton, Alexander Skarsgård) find themselves victims of computer identity theft; a teenager (Jonah Bobo) tries to take his life after being cyberbullied; and an ambitious TV reporter (Andrea Riseborough) wants to interview a teen (Max Thieriot) who earns his living at an adult webcam site.  Written by Andrew Stern and directed by Henry Alex Rubin, the movie’s stories are separate yet intersect at two points: the father (Jason Bateman) of the suicidal teen is also the lawyer for the station that employs the reporter and the ex-cop (Frank Grillo) investigating the identity theft is the father of one of the kids responsible for bullying the teenager.

This engrossing thriller hooked me from the get-go and marvelously sustained itself from start to finish; I applaud its message of how individuals find it difficult to relate to one another despite the leaps and bounds made by “social media.”  The writing, direction and performances are all solid but I was pleased that one of my favorite actresses, Hope Davis, plays the role of the suicidal teen’s ma (I’ve loved her since the days of The Daytrippers and Next Stop Wonderland)…and Kasi Lemmons, best known as Jodie Foster’s roommate in The Silence of the Lambs, also appears as an FBI agent.  (Lemmons’ directorial debut, Eve’s Bayou, was a film that I enjoyed tremendously and recommended to one of my friends during my exile in Morgantown.  A decision I would soon regret, since one of her friends watched it with her and never missed an opportunity to inform me how much it “sucked.”  Philistine.) 

The East (2013) – If you stop by the blog on a regular—or even irregular—basis, you know I’m not much of a fan of noisy movie blockbusters with their penchant for blowing things up real good.  The East is a remedy for that: an operative (Brit Marling) for a private security firm infiltrates an anarchist collective (I will not refer to them as “eco-terrorists” because I don’t believe any of them work for BP) whose mission is to give corporations a taste of their own medicine; led by their charismatic leader (Alexander Skarsgård again!), “The East” crashes a party and dopes the champagne swilled by pharmaceutical execs with a drug that they sell (and claim is safe), for example.  The agent, who identifies herself as “Sarah,” soon develops an emotional attachment to the group members that threatens to compromise her allegiance to the people for whom she works.

What impressed me so much about The East is that while it’s truly a first-rate suspense thriller…it doesn’t need to throw in a bunch of car chases or explodiations.  The movie’s star, Marling, co-wrote the screenplay with director Zal Batmanglij, and the screenplay also promotes the belief that irresponsible corporations need to be confronted about the severity of their actions (even though Sarah doesn’t entirely improve of the methods used by the group).  Patricia Clarkson co-stars as Marling’s formidable boss, with Ellen Page in a nice turn as one of the group’s purely idealistic members and Jamey Sheridan as her dad, an exec whose company’s chemicals resulted in a young boy’s death from cancer.  (Julia Ormond is also on hand as one of the Big Pharma bosses.)  John Ritter’s son Jason also has a small role as Sarah’s husband, demonstrating that talent is often diluted the farther down the family tree you go.

Infamous (2006) – George Plimpton’s book on Truman Capote (which interviews folks who knew him) was the source for this movie written and directed by Douglas McGrath that was released the year after the movie bio Capote won the late Philip Seymour Hoffman a Best Actor Oscar.  Infamous covers similar ground, focusing on the background that would inspire the author (played by British thesp Toby Jones) to write what many consider to be his finest novel, In Cold Blood—in fact, it wouldn’t be stretching things to note that the film is in many ways a remake of the 1967 Blood…only told from Capote’s point of view.  (McGrath does take a few liberties with the book, including a sexual encounter between Capote and Perry Smith that would not have happened unless both of them were in the sneezer.)

Film critic Rex Reed went on record as saying that he wasn’t particularly on board with Hoffman’s Academy Award triumph, noting “they gave the Oscar to the wrong Truman Capote” and that Hoffman was doing more of an impression while Jones “moves into Truman's skin, heart and brains.”  I never met the real Capote so I’m not going to split hairs as to whether Reed is accurate (he would probably know him better than I) but I did enjoy Jones’ performance, as well as Juliet Stevenson’s dead-on portrayal of Diana Vreeland and Sigourney Weaver as Babe Paley (the wife of CBS president William S.).  (Hope Davis is in Infamous, too—that was a plus.  But I will warn people who are not Bill Crider that Gwyneth Paltrow is also in this movie…and that she sings.  Run fast, run far.)  I was less enamored of Peter Bogdanovich’s attempt to convince folks he was Bennett Cerf…for the simple reason that Bogdanovich was pretty much playing Bogdanovich.  I’ll admit that my longtime preference for Catherine Keener gives her a slight edge in her Capote interpretation of Truman’s longtime BBF (Nelle) Harper Lee over Sandra Bullock (I’m just not a fan of hers—she’s like TDOY bête noire Julia Roberts, only with less teeth) but I did think Bullock acquitted herself nicely here.  As for Daniel Craig—he’s a shoo-in for the eventual Tommy Lee Jones biopic (the man known as the current 007 plays murderer Smith).

Killer Joe (2011) – Playwright Tracy Letts reworked his 1993 play into this film (directed by William Friedkin) that casts recent Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey as an ice-water-in-his-veins hit man who’s hired by a trailer-trash family to dispose of a relative in order to collect the insurance.  The son (Emile Hirsch) can’t come up with the $25,000 deposit for McConaughey’s services so McConaughey arranges to avail himself of the sexual charms of the son’s Baby Doll-like sister (Juno Temple) as a “retainer.”

This jet-black comedy thriller is admittedly not for all tastes but I thought it was a crackerjack piece of filmmaking; Friedkin nicely captures that endearing (if dangerous) loopiness that often defines the Lone Star State (there are a lot of Blood Simple overtones in this) and the performances are superb, particularly McConaughey as the titular assassin and Thomas Haden Church as the clueless patriarch (I’ve been a longtime fan of Church’s since Wings, and his Ansel Smith in Joe makes Lowell Mather look like a Mensa candidate).  Gina Gershon is Church’s duplicitous wife, who performs a bit of fellatio on a KFC chicken leg (she calls it “K-Fry-C”) that won’t disappear from your memory banks anytime soon.

Mama (2013) – Oddball horror film focuses on the plight of two little girls (Megan Charpentier, Isabelle Nélisse) whose father (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) scoops them up and takes them with him when he has to lam it out of town (he’s just killed two of his business partners and his estranged wife), only to be murdered by a mysterious “something” as he and his daughters become stranded in the woods.  Five years later, the girls are located (and are in a feral state) and returned to his twin brother (also Coster-Waldau), who attempts to provide a home for them along with his girlfriend (Jessica Chastain).  The problem is—that “something” (which the girls call “Mama”) has followed them home—and when “Mama” ain’t happy…ain’t nobody happy.

An exercise in “old school” horror, Mama terrified the absolute sh*t out of me even though a few of the plot strands left me a little bewildered.  Directed by Andrés Muschietti (who elaborated on his 2008 short of the same name), the movie delivers the fright goods in spades; I was thinking the whole time that if I saw half of what goes on in Chastain and Coster-Waldau’s house you’d be forwarding my mail to Cleveland someplace.  Produced by famed director Guillermo del Toro, whose The Devil’s Backbone (2001) I would have DVR’d during the free Starz/Encore preview had U-Verse not demonstrated such ruthless efficiency by removing the channel on schedule.

Man of Steel (2013) – I don’t remember if it was Matt Zoller Seitz—or possibly the crazy lady who stands outside the Golden Pantry every morning yelling at invisible people (I didn’t take notes)—who mused some time ago that a movie like Superman (1978) could never do well in the current tenor of the times, when most of the “superhero” motion pictures have a kind of dark quality about them (thank you, Tim Burton).  Man of Steel adds a little “dark” to the Superman story (the screenplay is by David S. Goyer and directed by Zack Snyder…but Batman rebooter Christopher Nolan left a few fingerprints as producer) by re-telling the legend of the superhero (played by Henry Cavill): from his escape of doomed planet Krypton (Russell Crowe plays his pop) to arrival on Earth (Kevin Costner as his Earth Pop), where he must do battle with some renegades from planet K, led by bad guy General Zod (Michael Shannon).

Confession time: I am such a huge Superman fan (I even liked Superman Returns—sue me) that I enjoyed Man of Steel…even though I was disappointed that a lot of the wonderment from the 1978 classic has given way to that darkness I mentioned earlier.  I don’t think Cavill or Brandon Routh can measure up to Christopher Reeve’s take on the World’s Mightiest Mortal so the strengths have to be searched for elsewhere: Crowe and Costner are great as Jor-El and Jonathan Kent, respectively (though I will admit Kev pales slightly in comparison to Glenn Ford in the role) and Diane Lane was a revelation as Supe’s mom (I always have difficulty seeing beyond her teen years in The Outsiders and Streets of Fire).  I also liked Amy Adams as Lois Lane but I’m not sure I’m comfortable with a Daily Planet that erases Jimmy Olsen (I know he’s useless…but it’s Superman, ferchrissake) from the masthead.  Man of Steel was pretty much what I expected—stunts and explodiations—but I’d be lying to you if I didn’t admit it makes me want to see the sequel.  (By the way, I told Mom that Christopher Meloni was in this movie—and she still took a pass on seeing it.)

The Place Beyond the Pines (2013) – Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling) gives up his stunt motorcycling gig with a traveling carnival to stick around the burg where his girlfriend Romina (Eva Mendes) hangs her hat; he’s just learned that she has sired him a son and to make life better for them he embarks on a career of robbing banks with the help of a mechanic buddy (Ben Mendelsohn).  But Luke’s outlaw spree comes to an end thanks to the expert police work of uniformed cop Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), who capitalizes on his “hero” status to fulfill his political ambitions.  Along the way, Cross gets an idea of what the concept of what bearing “the sins of the fathers” is all about.

Derek Cianfrance’s three-act tragedy was promoted relentlessly last year—it seems like every time I watched an episode of Community or Parks and Recreation on demand I’d also be treated to that damn trailer.  My hesitancy to fully embrace The Place Beyond the Pines stems from the fact that by the time the movie enters its third act—concentrating on Luke and Avery’s sons (Dane DeHaan, Emory Cohen)—the viewer finds out that their story just isn’t as compelling as their dads’.  Cianfrance is reunited with Gosling after the two of them worked together on the critically-acclaimed Blue Valentine; Pines also features Ray Liotta (playing a corrupt cop, which is a bit out of his wheelhouse—don’t you think?) and TDOY fave Harris Yulin as Cooper’s dad.

Teeth (2007) – Here’s another offbeat horror vehicle that didn’t quite scare me as much as Mama (though I laughed a lot more): chaste teen Dawn O’Keefe (Jess Wexler) is saving herself for marriage (she even belongs to an abstinence group dubbed The Promise) but it’s not easy—she begins to have impure thoughts about Tobey (Hale Apperman), a fellow Promiser she’s just met, and the afternoon the two of them head off for an innocent swim results in alarming consequences.  Tobey starts to have his way with her the way rough boys often do…and discovers to his horror that Dawn has what is referred to in various mythologies as vagina dentata.  (Google it, non-Latin majors.)

For those males out there who just crossed their legs after Googling that last part—Teeth assures us in the closing credits that “No man was harmed in the making of this film.”  It’s a hysterically original film that explores the horrifyingly comic side of teenage sexuality, with a wonderful performance by Wexler (who won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance that year).  There’s plenty of smart satire on hand, as well as none-too-subtle symbolism and in-jokes (my favorite is the clip from The Black Scorpion)…and the fate that befalls Dawn’s surly stepbrother (John Hensley) shouldn’t happen to a dog.  (Apologies for that last part.)  If anything, Teeth lets us know that Lenny Van Dohlen—who I remember from Tender Mercies and Electric Dreams (the Her of its day)—is still working; he plays Dawn’s pa.

The Dodo is not extinct…

My evil plans were to resurrect Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s award-winning* feature Doris Day(s) this week since I had also promised a new installment of Serial Saturdays…but while I was able to fulfill the commitment of posting Chapter 14 of Riders of Death Valley (1941) on the blog (and it was riveting stuff, was it not?) I fell woefully short in the Doris department.  The reason for this is because I spent this weekend gorging on the free goodies offered up during our HBO/Cinemax preview (which I will highlight in a post later today), as well as working on a few things for Radio Spirits.  (I had the Riders chapter done before all this.)  I’m really hoping to have Doris back on the blog next Monday where she belongs.

But I thought I would share with you the above photo, which I rooked off of Jackie Joseph-Lawrence’s Facebook page (not to mention the one of Dor clapping); while we haven’t progressed that far in our weekly dissections of The Doris Day Show you might be aware that Joseph was a co-star on the sitcom from 1971-73, along with Mister John Dehner.  Some of Dodo’s friends got together and threw a big birthday shindig in her honor last week…and everyone had their gasts flabbered when Ms. Day made her presence at said affair since she’s been somewhat reclusive in recent years.  Anyway, the above snap was taken of the two women during that raucous get-together; I had a mad crush on Jackie during the show’s run that has yet to subside and she’s the real reason why I drop in on the occasional Josie and the Pussycats rerun from time to time as well.

For those of you who availed yourself of Me-TV’s tribute to Doris’ ninetieth natal anniversary with airings from her sitcom yesterday afternoon…well, I did try to warn you.  You have no one to blame but yourselves.

*This is a lie.  Sorry about that.

Of previews and blogathons

Last time on the blog, I highlighted a few of the movies that I was able to watch during a Starz/Encore preview weekend AT&T U-Verse was kind enough to offer us this past March 21-23…something that I’m sure came as a surprise to some who were no doubt thinking: “Doesn’t he ever watch anything from the 21st century?”  Well, I did some more snooping on the U-Verse Messaging Center and learned that the upcoming weekend of April 4-7 will bestow upon us an embarrassment of riches in a gratis HBO/Cinemax preview…so if I find anything there that I’ve been anxious to see, it will no doubt be the subject of a blog post coming soon.  I mentioned the free HBO/Max news to the ‘rents, and joked to Dad that he would be able to catch up on Game of Thrones via On Demand.  Stony silence followed…which I sort of expected, since I have yet to install the new Hip Parents software update.

I know I’ve been meaning to post more regularly but I’ve been working on a couple of Radio Spirits projects…and since they’re responsible for groceries on the table now and then they get to be at the head of the line.  Believe you me, no one is more anxious than I to open up some of the DVDs and Blu-rays that I’ve recently purchased because when Mom sees them lying around in an unopened state she starts singing a little ditty we call “Dem Ol’ eBay Blues.”  (I shudder to think of the consequences.)

The Classic Movie Blog Association—or as we informally refer to it, the CMBA—has the first of two yearly blogathons scheduled for this May 22-26 (sorry about the lack of a link—they’ve only got as far as the above banner) that will spotlight Fabulous Films of the 50s.  Yours truly has already RSVP’d to official blogathon coordinator Page, so Thrilling Days of Yesteryear is going to tackle one of its all-time favorite cult films, Johnny Guitar (1954).  Son of a gun, we have big fun on the bayou.

In other blogathon news, Margaret Perry will host a tribute to four-time Oscar winner Katharine Hepburn from May 10-12, in the appropriately titled The Great Katharine Hepburn Blogathon.  (As opposed to the Not-So-Great Katharine Hepburn Blogathon, which was such a dismal failure I’ve been asked not to talk about it.  Look, I just don’t think it was a good idea for everybody to write about Dragon Seed [1944], that’s all I’m saying.)  TDOY will be participating in this event as well (Margaret asked me, and I said yes) and have chosen my favorite Kate-Cary Grant feature, Holiday (1938) as the entry.  (I considered doing Sylvia Scarlett [1935]…but I wasn’t certain I could locate my copy, which is somewhere lurking in Entertainment Centerland.  Don’t ask me to explain this joke.)

And just this morning, I received word that The Lady Eve’s Reel Life (positively the same dame!) and They Don’t Make ‘em Like They Used To are joining forces (Patty and Patti, which amuses me because stuff like that just does) to host Power-Mad, a celebration of actor Tyrone Power on what will be his centennial birthday May 5.  TDOY has asked to be dealt in, and will discuss Nightmare Alley (1947) for the blogathon…only because I knocked over a few women and children to be the first to do so.  (I’m not proud of this…but I do love that movie.)

To the many reader who inquired as to whether or not I ever plan to get back to Panamint and wrap up Riders of Death Valley (1941)…the answer is yes; Chapter 14 will be discussed not this Saturday but the next (the plan is to watch it before the free HBO/Max weekend), and if you’re especially good and keep mum about how I let you eat ice cream in the car I’ll jump-start Doris Day(s) the following Monday.  As always…thanks for encouraging my behavior.