100 Years of Vincent

Andreas here. Today marks the centenary of horror icon Vincent Price, whose prolific seven-decade career also included forays into comedy, film noir, and historical drama. Price holds a special place in many a film fan's heart, whether for his spine-chilling voice— put to excellent legendary use by Quincy Jones for Michael Jackson's Thriller— or the aristocratic aura he brought to countless cheap William Castle and Roger Corman horror movies. Price could even elevate a project as inherently undignified as Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine with his camp greatness.

He could capably play science-minded everymen, as he did in The Tingler and The Last Man on Earth (taking on the mantle later carried by Will Smith in I Am Legend), but the really fun Price parts are his hammy madmen. He sought gruesome vengeance in the 3-D House of Wax, twice in the '70s as the scarred Dr. Phibes, and most delightfully as a pissed-off thespian in Theatre of Blood.

There, he systematically murders all the theater critics in London by reenacting Shakespeare, and occasionally altering the texts to suit his own whims. (In his version of Titus Andronicus, for example, Queen Tamora is Robert Morley, getting fed his own poodles.) While filming Theatre of Blood, Price also met his second wife, Coral Browne. In the film itself, he electrocutes her while pretending to be a hairstylist wearing a giant afro wig.

Price never really slowed down: he was in his seventies when he voiced one of the greatest Disney villains of all time, The Great Mouse Detective's Ratigan. In 1982, he was the subject of Tim Burton's Vincent, a stop-motion animated tribute to his cinematic legacy. "For a boy his age, he's considerate and nice," says the short film's voiceover, read by Price himself, "but he wants to be just like Vincent Price." Truth be told, who doesn't?

What's your favorite Vincent Price memory?

Maureen O'Sullivan. She Jane!

10|25|50|75|100 in celebration of major film anniversaries

One hundred years ago on this very day, Maureen O'Sullivan was born in Ireland. She went on to become Hollywood's first major female Irish movie star. Though she appeared in The Thin Man (1934) and an early version of Pride and Prejudice (1940) she is best remembered as Jane from six Tarzan adventures. Tomorrow on "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" we'll be looking at Tarzan the Ape Man (1932). The Weismuller and O'Sullivan pairing is basically what people think of when they think of Tarzan at the movies though the character had plentiful interpretations before and since.

Here she is talking about how the controversies that swirled around "Jane" for her skimpy wardrobe.

O'Sullivan retired for most of the 1940s (her thirtysomething years) and in that time she gave us what might have been her greatest gift to the cinema, the incomparable Mia Farrow.

Before her death in 1998 she was even graced with a wonderful elegiac exit from the movies 25 years ago playing both Kathleen Turner's dearly departed grandmother in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and Mia's screen mother (art imitating life) in Woody Allen's masterpiece Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).

Maureen & Mia

So here's to Maureen O'Sullivan on her 100th birthday!

Still Top Gun? 25 Years With "Maverick"

Michael C here to commemorate an auspicious occasion. This week marks the 25th anniversary of Tony Scott’s Top Gun (1986). Having managed to navigate this last quarter century having never seen Scott’s slick recruiting poster of a movie, I though it might be interesting to evaluate it with fresh eyes. Up until now my only experience with Top Gun was as an enormously frustrating Nintendo game from the late 80’s.

So I was eager to finally catch up with it. This is a film, after all, that Avatar only just bumped off the all time 100 highest grossers (adjusted for inflation). Surely there was some core entertainment value that held up underneath all the dated Berlin songs and catch phrases.

So I watched it.

Ummm….

Okay, let’s start with the stuff that holds up.  The aerial dog-fighting scenes remain beautifully executed. If anything, with their clarity of action and still-convincing effects they may actually play better in the current age of cartoony CGI and hyperactive film cutting.

And for the record Tom Cruise performance remains as slickly effective as ever. I noticed no evidence that his current cultural infamy intrudes on Maverick. He basically has two poses – smug smirk and jaw-clenched intensity, each in sunglasses on and off varieties – and Cruise executes both about as well as humanly possible.  

Two Poses: Smug Smirk and Jaw-Clenched Intensity

As for the rest of the film, let’s just say it was tough to get involved in. 

Here is an incomplete list of the subsequent pop culture landmarks that intruded on my viewing of Top Gun:

Lethal Weapon (1987) and Die Hard (1988)
Top Gun really suffers when compared with the legacy of its ultra-violent action contemporaries. All these films have been ripped off ad infinitum but Top Gun offers nothing like that the Gibson-Glover chemistry or Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber that holds up despite the familiarity.

Rain Man (1988)
Cruise’s personal life doesn’t detract from the movie but that doesn’t mean Cruise’s other roles don’t haunt Maverick at every moment. I could name any of a dozen talented, yet arrogant wild cards with Daddy issues, but I singled out Rain Man because Levinson’s film has the wherewithal to peg Cruise's character as an insufferable prick in need of redemption from frame one, whereas Top Gun seems to think he’s a charmer.

Speaking of which…

Frank TJ Mackey approves of Maverick's mastery of the muffin

Magnolia (1999)
I couldn’t shake the impression that Cruise's Pete Mitchell had just completed a Frank Mackey seminar. Seriously, he is one of the most unlikable protagonists I’ve encountered outside a Neil LaBute film. Kelly McGillis's character seems to drop 50 IQ points in the process of falling for him. I kept siding with Kilmer’s Iceman and his entirely reasonable requests that Cruise stop showboating before he kills everybody.

Quentin Tarantino
So, yeah, I was never able to forget QT’s notorious monlogue on Top Gun’s gay subtext and it pretty well destroyed the volleyball scene which was ridiculous to start with. If anything it built it up too much for me. Homoerotic, sure, but I was expecting a cross between 300 and a number from Showgirls.

Team America World Police (2004)
You would think Hot Shots would be the one to distract but Parker and Stone were the ones who conclusively eviscerated the action clichés present in every moment of Top Gun. Try to get through Tom’s serious speech about his father’s past without thinking of Team America’s CATS monologue.

And as long as we’re on the subject…

Every Action Movie Ever
From the end of act two crisis of confidence to the evil black-helmeted pilots who flew in from the nearest Bond movie they really do leave no action trope unturned. If you had a drinking game where you took a shot every time someone yelled at Maverick for being too damned awesome you'd be blotto by the thirty minute mark.

Birthday Man George Clooney

We probably shoulda done some celebrating but today was the big "5-0" day for one of the world's most justly beloved stars, George Clooney.

Today offered up 50 Reasons to Love Him and if we had time we'd list 50 more. But we've always enjoyed his betting with Nicole Kidman & Michelle Pfeiffer about his private life and the fact that he starred with both of those goddesses early in his film career (Lucky man). They each owe him $20,000 because they keep losing, the last winning bet that he'd still be childless at 50.

Our ten favorite George Clooney performances presented without comment.

1. George Clooney
2. "Ryan Bingham" Up in the Air
3. "Michael Clayton" Michael Clayton
4. "Everett" O Brother, Where Art Thou?
5. "Danny Ocean"
   
6. "Mr. Fox" Fantastic Mr. Fox
7. "Archie Gates" Three Kings
   
8. "Dr. Ross" E.R.
9. "Seth Gecko" From Dusk Till Dawn
10. "Sparky" South Park

Which are yours?

4 Things We Didn't Get Around To Saying This Week...

Which we really meant to. It was a sorry week in time management. So... Let's cover them right quick now.

1. The cast of Moulin Rouge! will be reunited on May 3rd on MTV for the 10th anniversary. The movie's exact anniversary is kind of confusing, so I'm choosing to celebrate the 10th anniversary on June 1st which is the date it went wide. May 30th through June 3rd is MOULIN ROUGE WEEK!

2. Congratulations to Darren Aronofsky for his Venice Film Festival Jury gig. I've always said that artists aren't necessarily the best judges of art so you can't really tell if a brilliant person at any one particular thing will have any brilliance at recognizing the brilliance in others within that same thing (hi sentence. You are too long). Nevertheless, it's always interesting to see which film luminaries the prestige festivals choose and who their jury ends up being.

3. I would pay good money for a way to watch old sitcoms with the laugh tracks removed. Why is this not an option? I literally can't watch anything with a laugh track -- with one or two exceptions -- it just takes me right out of what I'm watching.

4. It was 18 years ago this week that the death of Brandon Lee on the set of The Crow was proclaimed "negligence" That was such a sad creepy movie story back in the early to mid nineties but me and my friend Kevan, who I went to every movie at the time were really obsessed with the movie.

I have a soft spot for the movie (it's set in my hometown on a holiday I always had to explain to people "Devil's Night" once I left Detroit) though it's not exactly a great movie. And I love Brandon Lee in it. So I've been sad to hear about the rethink these past couple of weeks (to star Bradley Cooper?). Although technically a revival of this franchise isn't at all sacrilegious because it's a resurrection myth and there's no reason why the Crow can't keep raising the dead, you know?