I WAKE UP STREAMING

It’s official — I’m superfluous!

With theaters shuttered (temporarily, we hope) due to the coronavirus, and no one going out to the movies, nobody needs to know my opinion of a movie they can stream from the privacy of their own couch.

It’s not like they have to pay to get in!

So my column in Good Times is suspended until further notice. If we, as a town/state/country/planet ever achieve normalcy again, I expect to be back on the job. But who knows how long that will take?

In the meantime, I encourage housebound film fans to boldly go into the archives of the product-delivery service of your choice — Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, You Tube, Viewmaster, whatever — and explore titles from over a century of vibrant cinema.

Silent films, for instance, are astonishingly creative!  Check out anything from about the turn of the last century through the 1920s, back when the pictures were first learning to move, and they were making it all up as they went along. You’ll be amazed at their ingenuity!

Then there are Errol Flynn swashbucklers, Film Noir, MGM musicals, French New Wave, Hitchcock, Fellini, the Marx Brothers; they’re all out there, just waiting to be discovered.

Be adventurous! If something doesn’t grab you in the first 20 minutes, dial up something else. There won’t be a quiz, and there isn’t anywhere else you have to be.

Me, I’ve been catching up on movies I missed the first time around. Last night it was The Greatest Showman, an utterly berserk fantasia on the imagined life if P. T. Barnum, staged like a Hollywood musical.

Famed 19th Century opera diva Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson) sings a power ballad. Keala Settle as the Bearded Lady leads a chorus of Barnum’s circus sideshow attractions in an empowering Millennial-style anthem.

But, hey, in the midst of it all, there’s Hugh Jackman in the top hat and ringmaster’s outfit, singing and dancing up a storm. I’m home alone — I have to have some fun!

Sure, I’d much rather be watching movies the way God intended, on a great big theater screen. And I fervently hope all this enforced home viewing doesn’t signal the end of the neighborhood movie house down the road, by giving viewers one more excuse not to interact with each other in public.

Still, there’s something to be said for watching a move with a cat on your lap — as long as she doesn’t mind the occasional popcorn kernel bouncing off her head.

THEIR AIM IS TRUE

Early production sketch of Princess Merida in Brave

I admit, I'm not a big fan of weaponry. When the Southern guy on Antiques Roadshow starts relating the long, complex history of somebody's great grandaddy's Civil War sabre, I go out and do the dishes. There's no surer way to persuade me not to see a movie than to show me a trailer full of cannons, six-shooters, machine guns, flame-throwers, Uzis, and/or space guns firing off in all directions.

Yet there is one weapon whose mythos appeals even to me. Humble, yet elegant, it's something I have even used on occasion (although not in self-defense). I refer to the bow and arrow, a weapon practically as old as humankind itself,  which is experiencing a sudden resurgence in "cool" right now.

First, it was Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, racing through the forest in survival mode, armed with only a bow, a quiver of arrows, and true grit. Then came Hawkeye in The Avengers, taking aim with cold precision while the rest of the team were hurtling off into space in their jet-propelled suits or smashing things to smithereens. Next up is Brave (we've all seen the trailer), a Disney/Pixar adventure where a spirited young Scots princess puts the kibosh on an archery competition for her hand in marriage by out-shooting the menfolk.

Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) & pals, The Avengers

What could be more simple, stealthy, and reliable than a bow and arrow? It doesn't make any noise, except for a subtle sproing and whoosh, it doesn't require any kind of internal combustion or ignition, and it doesn't explode on contact (unless you're shooting a flaming arrow into a powder magazine).

And it's all about individual skill—one person, one bow, one arrow; a keen eye, a sure grip, and the steely composure to go into the zone in the midst of utter chaos and choose your moment. Best of all, it's not gender-specific; it can be wielded just as surely by a woman as a man.

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, The Hunger Games

I took a semester of Archery back in junior college. I loved that it wasn't a team sport, and it didn't require a uniform; you could do it in street clothes. (And, OK, since I couldn't take more than two semesters of Modern Dance for credit, it fulfilled my dreaded P.E. requirement.)


It takes a lot more strength to draw back the bowstring than you think. To nock the arrow into place, feel the fletch pass by your cheek, stay focused on the target—let me tell you, it's a Zen-like experience.

Of course, I trace it all back to those early Robin Hood, movies of my misspent youth, especially the Errol Flynn version (scroll down to the bottom of the page). With his usual brio, Flynn made archery look like fun, not a warrior's tool, but  a character-building skill to be mastered for the sheer joy of it.

I thought Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe did an admirable job with the material 70 years later, except for one thing: for a story whose heroes were employed in the king's company of archers, there wasn't enough, you know, archery. (Although there was plenty of cannon fire, siege weaponry, and things blowing up, which is always considered more macho.)

Archery is an anti-macho discipline; it takes skill and smarts, not brawn. No wonder archery lessons are becoming popular again, especially among women. Personally, I'm looking forward to a Disney Princess doll who comes equipped with something more useful than a tiara.

PIRATES, POSTERS, & KINGS (OH, MY)

This kills me. Santa Cruz's own Laurie R. King has written a pirate novel!

Or, at least, her new novel, "The Pirate King" (due out September 6), places King's brilliant detective series heroine, Mary Russell, and her husband, Sherlock Holmes (no slouch himself when it comes to solving mysteries), behind the scenes in the silent movie industry during the making of a pirate swashbuckler, ca. 1924. Bookshop Santa Cruz will be hosting a reading by King on Tuesday, September 20. In the meantime, check out King's website for details about the 10 weeks of piratical shenanigans and contests she's holding during the run-up to publication day.

One of the contest prizes is a copy of this fabulous faux movie poster being used to advertise Laurie's book. (It's not the book jacket cover, but a separate promo item.) This image is based on a classic Howard Pyle illustration, but the whole concept harks back to the glory days of silent movie posters.

Of course, pirates and silent movies are two of my favorite subjects. I especially love the idea that (according to the preview on Laurie's website) the maniacal filmmaker in her book gets involved with real pirates to lend his film authenticity. This makes perfect sense if you know anything about the early days of silent filmmaking. In particular, the superb 13-part video series by Kevin Brownlow, Hollywood, documents the outrageous DIY spirit of intrepid movie pioneers who were making up the rules as they went along. (If the script called for a fistfight on the wings of a biplane, for instance, they sent two actors up in a biplane with a camera strapped on the wing.)

The most famous pirate movie of the silent era is The Black Pirate, starring the inimitable Douglas Fairbanks. By 1926, Fairbanks was such a huge star, he got name-above-the-title billing on the poster art; his buoyant athletic brio was always the soap his movies were selling.

But according to the strict moral code of the era, a pirate couldn't be a hero, so when Fairbanks, the most popular actor in Hollywood, wanted to make a pirate picture, he had to play a disguised nobleman who joins the pirate crew for a "noble" reason—to avenge himself on the scurvy dogs who caused his father's death. Through this device, Fairbanks got to have all the fun of playacting the pirate life without tarnishing his heroic image.

This is an all-Fairbanks production: he wrote the script (under his alias, Elton Thomas) and sketched out every shot before a director even came on board. He revels in plundering every pirate cliche in the canon, from buried treasure to walking the plank. And in one of the most memorable of all silent movie stunts, he climbs out on a yard, plunges his knife into the top of the sail, and slides all the way down to the deck by grasping the handle as the blade slices the sail in two. Yowza! Don't try this at home, kids. (Read more)

Meanwhile, other silent filmmakers were pillaging all the same source material that later became vehicles for Errol Flynn and his swashbuckling brethren in the talkies. The most famous of Flynn's pirate movies is a gritty and rousing adaptation of Rafael Sabaini's Captain Blood, made in 1935. (Arguably, by me, the best pirate movie ever made.) But there was also a lavish silent version, starring one J. Warren Kerrigan, made in 1924.

Only about half an hour of footage from this film exists today. But this cool poster remains. It's unusual for a pirate movie in that it features no ship, no sea, no Bounding Main; it's all about mood and tension. I just love that looming shadow figure. This poster tells you: prepare to be thrilled!

Apparently, this early version of The Sea Hawk (also produced in 1924), stuck far more closely to the original Sabatini novel than the more famous Errol Flynn/MGM version made in 1940. Milton Sills stars as an Elizabethan sea captain framed for a crime and sold into slavery to the Spanish; when Muslim corsairs eventually board his ship and free him, he renounces Christianity and transforms himself into the Algerian pirate, Sakr-el-Bahr—The Hawk of the Sea.

This was obviously a plot point that wouldn't wash in 1940s Hollywood. But this terrific poster conveys all the lush Eastern exoticism of Sabatini's tale.

Robert Louis Stevenson's evergreen pirate classic, Treasure Island, got the silent treatment in 1920, from French-born filmmaker Maurice Tourneur. (Father of Jacques Tourneur, who became a Hollywood film director of note in the '40s.) True to its era, this film featured a female actress in the role of boy-hero Jim Hawkins. More intriguing, the great Lon Chaney was on board as eerie pirate, Blind Pew, who gets innkeeper's son Hawkins involved in the pirate plot. (A couple of stills exist of Chaney in costume for the role, but the film itself is lost.) But this poster doesn't care about the stars; it's selling a rip-roaring, boy's own pirate adventure!

Setting down Russell and Holmes in the midst of all this lively ferment as the movies struggle to invent themselves sounds like a brilliant idea to me. Me timbers are shiverin' already!

DRAMA QUEENS, PRINCELY ROGUE

Hands up, everybody else who thinks that Mondo got robbed last week on "Project Runway." The challenge was to design something wearable from a lineup of godawful shiny neon bridesmaids' gowns, to be worn (and modeled) by the ex-bridesmaids themselves. (Reality alert: this means real women in a variety of interesting shapes and sizes.) I'm sorry, but designer Mondo's simple, chic little black and pink cocktail dress (with its one impudent epaulet) was the coolest thing on the runway. Michael C's winning dress wasn't bad, but a little too sci-fi for me—too much structure, too many asymetrical panels, and boring black, black, black. (I forget what the original gown looked like, but it couldn't have been ALL black!)

But poor, beleaguered Michael C was the PC choice this week according to the way this weekly drama is playing out. Sure, so-called "reality" shows may not be scripted (as far as we know), but they are definitely edited for maximum viewer manipulation. Next time you tune in, look at the show as if you were watching a movie. Who are the bad guys? Who are the good guys? Out of the thousands of hours of footage the crew must shoot of the designers in the workroom, at the runway, or over drinks in the penthouse at night, what random remarks are being edited and pieced together to create rivalries or alliances or other kinds of drama onscreen? Particularly notice from week to week how it's often the most expendable designer, not the very worst outfit, that gets ousted. The best designers rarely go home for one bad design, while the most antagonistic personalities tend to stick around long past their expiration date because the make good TV—they're the ones we love to hate.

Right now, Michael C is the designated martyr; many of the other, snootier designers bad-mouth him behind his back (also in front of his back), and never let him join in their reindeer games. Someone decided that Gretchen, the golden girl after she won the first two challenges (and probably the most consistently skillful designer so far), needed some of her luster knocked off, so now she's morphing into a controlling bitch before our eyes. Well, they couldn't let her sail through the entire season to victory (as she very well might) without any conflict—that wouldn't be good TV. The question now is how they'll position her to regain he stature (and viewer sympathy) in time for the season finale. Stay tuned.

All that said, however, I have to admit that the worst outfit did lose last week, and justifiably so. That horrible seasick-green number from Peach, with the droopy, shapeless top and that weird fringe of what looked like moss-green pocket handkerchiefs jutting out from the hip line? Egad. Still, I hate to see Peach go. Not only was she a woman of (ahem) a certain age (she's 50), she was the funniest person in the workroom. I’ll miss her droll one-liners and her down-to-earth Chicago accent.

(What exactly is a "cocktail dress" anyway? Does anyone know any real-life women who actually wear them? Is there some element that makes it more suitable for going out for drinks as opposed to eating? (If you're going out to dinner afterwards, do you have to go home and change?) Or maybe its like a lobster bib at a seafood restaurant, designed to protect the messy. In that case they better make one in merlot-red for me.)


Speaking of drunk and disorderly conduct, there's a helluva drunk scene in Going The Distance. It's written in our marriage contract somewhere that Art Boy and I go see every single Drew Barrymore movie (even the ones with Adam Sandler). This is actually okay, since I like Drew too, especially when she's gutsy and funny. In this R-rated romantic comedy, she plays a 30-something woman struggling through a bi-coastal relationship with Justin Long (he's very funny too, although he looks about 12). In a staggering economy where neither dares quit their jobs to relocate (he works for a music label in NYC; she's a journalism grad student/waitress about to get her big break as a reporter for the SF Chron), they cope with rare, brief cross-country visits they can't afford, texting, live chats, an unfortunate attempt at phone sex, and oceans of alcohol. This essentially sweet-natured story (directed by Nanette Burstein, from a script by Geoff LaTulippe) is told with plenty of raucous profanity, which reaches its apex when Drew's character, completely wasted, has to be hauled physically out of a bar by her male buddy while she's shrieking insults at a gigantic tattooed biker (none of which are printable). It's not the kind of dialogue you'd ever hear in a Golden Age Hollywood comedy, but Drew turns in an absolutely bravura piece of comic acting.


Here's an update on the Weekend Classics series at Aptos Cinema. I dropped in on The Adventures of Robin Hood this weekend, starring that most princely rogue, Errol Flynn, and it was even more fun than I remembered! The color print was beautiful, the clean narrative dynamic and exciting. I particularly noticed the use of vertical space (in that pre-Cinemascope era, they must have depended on the towering height of the image to awe the audience): the tall, arching trees of Sherwood Forest, drafty-looking medieval interiors under high, vaulted ceilings, those great diagonal staircases winding up and down turrets (suitable for chases and swordfights), even an overhead shot of Robin climbing up a trellis, Romeo-like, to Marian's window. You just don't get this sense of scale on a small screen.


Best line that I'd forgotten: Robin crashes the feast to defend his right to bedevil the usurper, Prince John, in the name of the rightful (but absent) King Richard. The shocked Marian cries, "You speak treason!" "Fluently!" Robin agrees, jauntily. I have nothing but respect for the recent Russell Crowe/Ridley Scott Robin Hood makeover, but the Errol Flynn production is still the real deal.

Best of all, Aptos showed the movie with a cartoon (!), the well-chosen "Rabbit Hood," starring Bugs Bunny. What more could you ask for six bucks?