THE WRECKING CREW! (2008)

Not the 2026 Dave Bautista/Jason Momoa action-comedy, not the 1968 spy spoof for Dean Martin’s Matt Helm; not even the 2000 Black Actioner with Ice-T & Ernie Hudson Jr.  This WRECKING CREW! (note exclamation point), is a homey documentary charting the ‘60s heyday of a tight group of about 20 or so West Coast studio session musicians whose careers peaked just as the center of Pop music influence shifted from New York to L.A., from the Grill Building to that stack of 45s known as the Capitol Building.  Sinatra & Co. to the Beach Boys; and everything in-between.  The ‘crew’ played for/with everyone.  (Boomers should stick around for the end credits to hear clips from fifty to sixty hits they’ll recall not included in the main film.)  There’s a bias in the film since it was put together by Denny Tedesco, son of main guitar player Tommy Tedesco (there’s a better film somewhere inside the clips & fresh interviews), but these nostalgic touchstones offer a lot.  Especially if you don’t mind a bit too much of interviewee Dick Clark’s idea of Rock ‘n’ Roll.  You might even be surprised to find out the Wrecking Crew played all the music not only for The Monkees, but also for The Byrds, The Association, even a lot of Beach Boys stuff under Brain Wilson.  Good vibrations, indeed.  On the other hand, imagine the thousand of schlock ‘pop’ they were paid to polish.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  Gary Lewis without ‘the Playboys’ a typical interview, speaking on how his band was swapped out for Wrecking Crew musicians at recording sessions.  The Playboys’ names on the album, but not a note.  BTW Gary’s dad, Jerry Lewis set the bar for passive/aggressive behavior naming his first-born not Jerry Jr., but the near sound-alike Gary.  (Later raising the bar by disinheriting him.)

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Their slow ‘70s decline came two ways.  From new bands who wrote & played their own stuff; and (as told by Plas Johnson, the crew’s saxophonist famous for laying down The Pink Panther solo in two takes) thru the rise of twenty-four track technology which had them record in sections rather than together with the singer as a band.

DOUBLE-BILL:  20 FEET FROM STARDOM/’13, has a somewhat similar take on the great girl backup singers for some of the best known Black Pop vocalists of roughly the same period.

MINAMATA (2020)

With a new version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL in the can (EBENEZER/’26), much press on how Johnny Depp has beaten ‘Cancel Culture’ after nearly a decade without a mainstream Hollywood release.  (A domestic ‘He said/She said’ dispute Depp legally, if not in all hearts, won.)  But being ‘cancelled’ not the only crisis Depp has faced, already in career decline from being ‘enabled’ to death, done in by success.  Specifically the one-two commercial punch of the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN series and ALICE IN WONDERLAND.  Depp taking all the wrong lessons from these mega-hits, doubling down on OTT eccentricity to steadily diminishing results, less interested in character development than in seeing how much he could get away with before someone called his bluff.  Enablers never do.  (Depp hadn’t co-starred with late-stage Marlon Brando for nothing.)  But then a can’t-miss’ ALICE sequel missed, THE LONE RANGER failed and he was axed from FANTASTIC BEASTS.  (The last something of a blessing in disguise.)  Could Depp still play a normal human-scaled character?  This true story (and it’s truer than most) involving a difficult character in a tragic situation ought to be right up Depp’s alley.  An American  photo-journalist approached by a group of Japanese admirers with a terrifying job, W. Eugene Smith (Depp), an on-and-off LIFE magazine regular, pitches their project to expose mercury poisoning by the Japanese factory that controls the town of Minamata.  But he’ll not only have to break thru all sorts of local protocol, a local police force working for the owners, bribes from the factory to lay off, refusals from families unwilling to allow victims to be photographed (the heart of any LIFE Magazine article), Smith must also confront personal demons that have kept him off the camera and on the bottle for too long.  (We're not so far from Depp’s own situation.)  Excellent characterizations on all sides (in Japan and back in NYC), and truly lovely interactions between Depp and a young victim learning to take photos.  Yet, the film barely makes its mark.  Some of the problem stems from Depp’s old-age makeup (was he going for elderly Groucho Marx or Billy Crystal?), but more from the inexperience of co-writer/director Andrew Levitas on just his second film.  He misses a lot and explains less, with flat staging even in a riot.  Then, when he does try for action, it’s overdone.  Still, except for an awkwardly handled romance with his interpreter, Depp is able to show what he can do given the chance.  If only his comeback project didn’t call for a return to OTT eccentricity in a story that’s been done to death.  (As well as to a T.*)

DOUBLE-BILL:  *Lots of CHRISTMAS CAROL coverage on this site.  Type Scrooge or Christmas Carol in the Search Box (Upper Left corner on the Main Site - Link below if needed) to find heaps of previous Ebenezers.

THE STALKING MOON (1968)

After seven films from 1957 to ‘68 (including TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and FEAR STRIKES OUT), producer Alan J. Pakula and director Robert Mulligan* went out with a bang.  But only because their final project was a violent Chamber Western with lots of shooting.  Elsewise, it’s something of a whimper.  Gregory Peck (only 52, but looking at the downside of his career) is a retiring Cavalry man who gets stuck escorting Eva Marie Saint’s abducted White woman, and her unwilling half-Indian eight-yr-old son, East after a decade of life on the range with her Tribe.  Two problems: ONE - she hasn’t got a home to go to (or any place for that matter); TWO - the boy’s father, a full-blooded Native American warrior, our Stalking Moon, is already on the Trail, killing anyone who comes between him and the boy.  It’s not bad, though the film takes its time getting a move on thru all the desert dust, but it sure could use a bit of surprise.  Something easier to get from an unpretentious B-list Western without so many big names in front & behind the camera on what is a pretty straightforward Avenging Father/Isolated Cabin Under Siege story.  Note that A-list scribes Alvin Sargent & Wendell Mayes let third-wheel ‘good’ Indian Robert Forster break thru the troubled Indian boy’s defenses rather than giving Peck a warm fatherly moment.  Kudos to Peck, not that many big-time movie stars would let that scene go to someone else.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *After this, Mulligan continued directing with various producers to reasonable effect, but Pakula’s switch to producer/director went into award-winning overdrive.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Pakula post Mulligan doesn’t need a push, but Mulligan post Pakula less celebrated.  Try clever/creepy THE OTHER/’72.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/02/other-1972.html

MILLE MILLIARDS DE DOLLARS / A THOUSAND BILLION DOLLARS (1982)

Patrick Dewaere’s penultimate film; sadly unworthy of his great talent.*  It sounds okay, a French take on ‘70s conspiracy thrillers, not political/military conflict & subterfuge, but focusing on International Business practices and near-sighted Investigative Journalism.  Dewaere’s steady/determined reporter unaware his latest exposé of a major figure in French business, culture & politics used him (and his publication) as part of a plan to make the man's murder look like suicide.  But once Dewaere starts investigating the suicide, he puts himself and his family in jeopardy.  If only we weren’t under the dependably mediocre hand of writer/director Henri Verneuil, here surpassing himself with some of the dullest exposition of his career.  And the film’s all exposition, the dramatic underpinnings facile/suspense-free.  Talk,, Talk,Talk: all in medium shot.  Four short, carelessly staged bits of action in a two hour film while Mel Ferrer’s conglomerate mogul squeezes competitive companies into his orbit and secretly sends out agents to keep Dewaere from finding a folder of evidence proving his story before attempting to kill him.  There's even a trick populist ending that's pure Frank Capracorn.  Jeanne Moreau shows up briefly as the suicide's widow to claim she got married in 1941 (she’d have been 13), while Verneuil calls in other big names for near cameos to bulk up his cast and make the film seem important.  And Philippe Sarde's four piano score?  A Verneuil stunt.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT:  What was lost in Dewaere’s early death at 35 can be well judged by watching the raucous soccer comedy of COUP DE TÊTE/’79 and the family drama UN MAUVAIS FILS/’80.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2023/03/coup-de-tete-hothead-1979.html    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2023/11/un-mauvais-fils-bad-son-1980.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Stateside, Dewaere still best known by two early films teaming him with Gérard Depardieu, acclaimed in their day, they’ve aged as poorly as M. Depardieu.

SYMPHONY OF SIX MILLION (1932)

David O. Selznick, for better or worse the epitome of a Golden Age Hollywood producer, only made two films that deeply resonated with his personal life.  The WWII homefront drama SINCE YOU WENT AWAY/’44 (like a tribute to wife Irene Mayer Selznick whom he’d soon leave for that film’s Jennifer Jones - as we said, for better or worse), and this, his first at R.K.O. as Executive Producer after leaving Paramount, showing striking elements from his own family: NYC setting with Yiddisher Mama; overworked/cash-strapped Papa (Selznick’s ill father dying soon after this film's release); materialistic older brother; et al.  Adapted from a Fannie Hurst short story, we’re considerably below the real Selznick’s finances, specifically Lower East Side Jewish Ghetto (‘ghetto’ the term used thru-out the film), it might be a trial run for a previous Hurst movie, Frank Capra’s far better realized Part-Talkie THE YOUNGER GENERATION/’29.*  Both films featuring Ricardo Cortez as a gifted doctor to the needy who moves uptown (first 89th/West End; then Park Ave.) and regrets it, losing his soul to become a rich society doctor.*  In the earlier film, Cortez even pretends not to recognize his unrefined tenement parents, while here losing confidence in his ‘miracle’ surgical hands when he can’t save his father on the operating table.  It’s the film’s best scene, with striking direction, lighting and daring agogic editing from Gregory La Cava, Leo Tover & Archie Marshek.  It also points up Max Steiner’s pioneering underscoring, ironically by having it suddenly drop off the soundtrack.  Generally, the cast plays broadly as possible, Papa Gregory Ratoff in his film debut straight from Second Avenue Yiddish theater.  Only Irene Dunne, as Cortez’s limping childhood pal, now teaching blind students near his old free medical clinic, holding down the emoting to Episcopalian levels.  It’s all a bit much, but also just right.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Ricardo Cortez, né Jacob Krantz, got his movie name during the Valentino craze.  Brother Samuel Krantz, great cinematographer of MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS and NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, followed suit, becoming Stanley Cortez.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *As mentioned, superior Hurst in Capra’s THE YOUNGER GENERATION, as well as hands-on producer Selznick’s sole original screenplay credit in SINCE YOU WENT AWAY.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2024/09/the-younger-generation-1929.html    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/03/since-you-went-away-1944.html

FAST CHARLIE (2023)

Director Philip Noyce and actor Pierce Brosnan were at their professional peaks about thirty years ago.  Safe, dependable bets to handle medium to big projects and keep anxious studio heads calm, but missing anything distinctive in their work.  Occasionally, Noyce went out on a limb (see RABBIT-PROOF FENCE/’02), but by-the-numbers Tom Clancy adaptations and dud sex thrillers more common.  And Brosnan?  Think of his career this way: while certainly not the worst James Bond, he certainly was the least memorable.  Their past likely making this diminutive revenge actioner (from Victor Gischler’s novel, an Elmore Leonard manqué of a book) seem more satisfying than it might otherwise be.  Still crud, but likeable crud.  Brosnan (sporing a come-and-go North Florida accent), is hitman & fixer to physically & mentally failing mob boss James Caan (his final role).  Caught in the middle of a gang war after a new partner blows a rubout; the partner’s ex (sadder-but-wiser Morena Baccarin, super!) wants the $50 thou he owed her; one of Caan’s deputies about to take over Caan’s territory; and bodies dropping like flies shot thru the head.  The film surprisingly gory.  Just the moment for Cupid to show up for 70-something Brosnan and 40-something Baccarin.  Noyce gets a lot out of basics (car chases, coastal roads & glaring sunlight; action meeting immovable object; logistical complications; Brosnan’s tarnished looks.  All told, I’d pick this over  peak Noyce or Brosnan for something with some distinctive, if borrowed, flavor.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Noyce’s lack of distinctness landing only one other write-up on this site, THE QUIET AMERICAN/’02.  And that post largely leaning toward another version of the story.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-quiet-american-1958-2002.html    

THE FACE BEHIND THE MASK (1941)

Just before starting as contract player at Warners (and all his best remembered Hollywood films), Peter Lorre was ‘jobbing’ at various studios, M-G-M, Republic, and here Columbia on this modest Horror programmer.  As an enthusiastic naïf, a fresh-off-the-boat immigrant, his plans are literally burned to hell when a fire at his residential hotel leaves him with a face so ghastly no one will employ him in spite of his abilities with anything mechanical.  Stopped from suicide by passing bum George E. Stone (excellent*), he finds a use for his talents in robbery, stealthily moving in & out of shops, vaults, warehouses, anything.  Lorre’s once strict moral code crumbling in the face of rejection by decent society, only the underworld having any use for him.  One exception: Evelyn Keyes, a blind costume jewelry maker who can’t see the hideous face or how Lorre gets around unnoticed by hiding himself (and his tortured soul) under a latex mask.  But then the possibility of recovery with new plastic surgery techniques raise hopes and he tries to go ‘straight’ with disastrous results.  The rest surprisingly bleak.  Director Robert Florey must have talked a good game, his films never quite matching his ambitions after making his name on the experimental LIFE AND DEATH OF 9413, A HOLLYWOOD EXTRA/’28.  His films don’t ‘swing.*  But he holds this to just over an hour and gets a boost from cinematographer Franz Planer, still fairly new in town, but soon a regular for greats like Wyler, Zinnemann and Ophüls.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *More horror for Florey & Lorre over at Warners in THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS/’46.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-beast-with-five-fingers-1946.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Stone very much part of the criminal gang, yet not only does he receive no punishment, he’s rewarded!  The Hollywood Production Code ‘raped in its sleep,’ as James Agee would soon put it (though for a different film).

THE BALLAD of GREGORIO CORTEZ (1982)

Actor/producer Edward James Olmos was the driving force behind this groundbreaking ‘Chicano’ Western, based (pretty accurately) on a simple verbal misunderstanding during an arrest-gone-wrong that snowballs into a manhunt and scores of innocent dead.  A real life ‘failure to communicate’ tragedy from 1901 Texas.  Olmos is Gregorio Cortez, a man on the run after killing that local arresting officer, a sheriff who drew a gun on Cortez, murdered his brother and put Cortez on the run, but doomed to be caught.  The non-linear presentation, along with actions repeated from alternate POVs, lifting this beyond simple suspense.  All while a unit of Texas Rangers blunder into indiscriminate murder of uncomprehending local Mexicans they take for Cortez confederates.  The purposeless killings only stopping when a legit sheriff takes charge, informing the Rangers there’s no gang involved, it’s been a one man job . . . and possibly self-defense.  Once arrested, Cortez is soon being mythologized by the Mexican community in Texas (as he is to this day) though the situation remains complicated.  Something Olmos doesn’t shy away from, hiring Robert M. Young, a superb technician too often pigeon-holed as a one-trick socially-conscious director, who rewrote an overly hagiographic script to admit nuance without softening the basic injustice.  Even more important, making a one million dollar ‘Super 16' budget look fully realized.  (Superb natural-light lensing from Reynaldo Villalobos.)  Only a few bad actors and a synthesizer score giving away the cost factor here and there.  The film doubly important for offering a rare Mex/Tex tilt historically (1901) and currently (1982) in presentation & attitude.  (It plays in English and Spanish without subtitles to emphasize language barriers.)  The film briefly heralding a road across a cultural  border still not taken.

DOUBLE-BILL:  Instead of another film with Chicano orientation, watch the excellent Extras on the Criterion edition, especially Olmos’s talk on how it all came about and, especially, how its distribution was purposefully fucked up by the head of Embassy Pictures.

STALLION ROAD (1947)

This modest feature is mainly interesting for figuring out why its three stars teetered just below the A-list*, and for an unusual lack of dramatic incident in its first half.  It’s like everyone’s on holiday in SoCal horse country.  Rather pleasant.  It’s midway in before life & death melodrama, along with romantic tangles kick in.  Pity journeyman director James V. Kern, out of his depth in both halves.  But for as long as nothing much is happening (other than a scare for Alexis Smith’s kid sister at the beach), horse rancher/veterinarian Ronald Reagan, visiting novelist pal Zachary Scott and pants-wearing/horse breeder neighbor Alexis Smith play a friendly game of catch and release visits to figure out which two parties make the natural couple.  Stephen Longstreet, scripting from his own novel, happy just to observe.  Then anthrax comes to cattle country, and melodrama breaks out.  Stupidity, too; one of those plots where you’re not allowed to make a simple explanation if you want to keep the plot going.  So Doc Reagan may be saving the entire livestock population of the area and working on an experimental serum, but Smith isn’t told of his heroics.  All she knows is he didn’t show up for her sick show horse.  It gives Scott an opportunity to move in, leaving Reagan with a clinging married gal he once dabbled with.  It’ll take a (near) fatal diagnosis to sort this one out.  A shame, that directionless first half was something singular for ‘40s Warner Brothers.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Watch how the film gets around the Hollywood Production Code during an unethical medical procedure.  People say editing can save a film, it also can save a hero’s life.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Why didn’t these three hit the A-list?  Best guess: Reagan only able to play one note at a time.  Smith too tall for three-quarters of Hollywood’s leading men.  Scott . . . well, that’s a tough one.  Too good for his own good?  See what he does under Jean Renoir in THE SOUTHERNER    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-southerner-1945.html