The Next Picture Show

A few months ago I saw a CBS Sunday Morning profile of a great man who said a great thing. He said that when he’s debating whether or not to do something, like go to a party for example, he does it. His reason is that if he ends up not liking the party he’ll get over it, but if he doesn’t go he’ll wonder if he missed out on something good.

Who is this brilliant philosopher? Michael Caine. Actually, I don’t think he’s the first person to espouse this theory, I’ve heard Charlie Rose say you don’t regret the things you do, you regret the things you didn’t do, but for me, it’s the Michael Caine Theory. And it’s in the spirit of Michael Caine that I spent a recent Monday traveling into Manhattan to audition for the movie week edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

I had a bunch of reasons why I didn’t want to go. There was the cost of the train ticket and spending all that time (about four hours total) on a futile quest. And I have such a fear of actually making it on the show and getting the first question wrong, earning my stupidity a permanent home on YouTube.

But I went. I took the train (on which I napped and read some Sherlock Holmes) into Pennsylvania Station, then took a subway to the ABC studios. There were two lines, one for people who had appointments and one for people who were hoping for a “wild card” spot. A man with a clipboard ordered me to the line for people with appointments. He was pretty direct, close to rude, but he had a lot of people to help so I understood. And I always listen to people with clipboards, they seem so authoritative.

No one around me on line said a word to me, so I kept reading. I wanted to ask if anyone had done this before and knew what it was like, but I was shy. Eventually we were led to what looked like a cafeteria. I’d guess there were about 250 people there. We were handed manila envelopes with a number (I was 81 or 89, I think) and a test sheet like those used on standardized test. We were also given pencils with the name of the show on it, I kept mine, it would be the only thing I won that day.

I was seated with three other people, two men and a woman. I worked up the nerve to ask if any of them had auditioned before. There are two steps to the audition process. First, you have to pass a written test. Then there’s a personality test. If you pass both, you’e placed in the contestant pool.

The two other men at my table had both taken the written test before, but didn’t pass. A man at the table next to mine said he had passed the written test for the regular edition of Millionaire, but didn’t get past the interview portion. I was surprised by that - he seemed like an ideal quiz show contestant based on his appearance and outgoing manner.

The test consisted of 30 questions, 22 of which I’m positive I got right. The other eight were guesses, and I guessed pretty poorly. One was a technical question - how many frames per second run through a movie projector showing a 35 millimeter film? How I wished I had a lifeline, Princeton-based film archivist Bruce Lawton or Al Nigrin of the New Jersey Film Festival would certainly know the answer.

I wished I had seen Say Anything more than once, there were two questions about it on the test. Another one that stumped me was about an ’80s movie that had a paper boy yelling at a customer “I want my two dollars!” One of the choices was The Goonies. Adam Grybowski of Timeoff loves that movie and has told me I have got to watch it. If I had listened to him, I would have been able to narrow my choices. (The answer was Better Off Dead, I was torn between that and The Goonies, which is what I answered.)

Another one I got wrong was about American Gigolo. What fashion designer became famous after Richard Gere wore his clothing in the movie? Giorgio Armani jumped out at me, but another choice stole my attention. I penciled in the oval for Calvin Klein because his clothes became all the rage in the ’80s, I thought Armani was already well established by then. I was wrong, but some consolation came when a fellow contestant told me afterward that he did the same exact thing I did.

After we finished, we put our tests in the envelope and waited as they called out numbers of those who passed. One of the men at the table who had take a movie week test a few days earlier said this one was much harder. People were wondering what a passing score was. My hunch is that they picked the top 10 scores, but I didn’t keep count.

My number wasn’t called but one of the men I was sitting out made it. I was very happy for him, he seemed like a nice guy, and I hope I see him when movie week rolls around next season.

As for me, I kept that pencil and shuffled out the door onto the streets of Manhattan with the (approximately) 240 other people who didn’t pass the test. That’s where we shared answers. I told someone that it was definitely Marlon Brando who sent a fake Native American to pick up an Oscar, and he told me it was definitely Armani who became famous after American Gigolo. A woman told me 35 millimeter film runs at 24 frames per second.

Based on these conversations, I think I made the wrong guesses on all eight of my questionable answers. But I headed back to the subway very happy that I had taken the test. I met some cool people who, like me, love movies and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. It was just plain fun, and I plan on taking the test again some day.

That Michael Caine is a genius, I tell ya.

Is summer over yet?

That may seem like a crazy question with kids still in school and June 21 days away, but the season is pretty much done for the first of this year’s so-called summer blockbusters.

Wolverine was marketed as summer’s first big action event movie (even though it was released in the middle of spring) and is pretty much gone from theaters, giving the furry guy plenty of time to hang out at the beach.
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Whenever Pixar releases another of its amazing movies, I find myself debating where it ranks among the animation studio’s canon. And its adults with whom I have these conversations, not kids.

I place Up among Pixar’s masterpieces. It is an amazing, exquisite work about an old man named Carl Fredrickson (voiced by Ed Asner) who goes on a journey of a lifetime as his life approaches its end.
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I didn’t get a chance to see Pixar’s Up this weekend, the weather was too nice for a movie theater. But I did catch the trailer for Toy Story 3 on-line, and I thought I’d share it here. It doesn’t say anything about the movie itself, but seeing these characters again put a smile on my face. What a great way to start the week!

A few weeks back I was searching my DVD collection for my copy of American Graffiti to lend to a friend when a few things occurred to me. First, I own too many DVDs I’ve never watched, and I have no idea when I will have time to watch them. Second, I own (or owned) multiple copies of several movies.

I attribute all of this to $5 DVDs, something I wasn’t prepared for when I got a DVD player about 10 years ago. I’ve never seen Murder on the Orient Express so when I found the DVD in the cheap bin at Wal-Mart, I figured why not buy it. That was at least two years ago and I still haven’t watched it. I love Memento and bought it when it was first released and watched it a couple of times. Years later, I bought the special edition (It includes a cut of the movie telling the story in chronological order - how could I live without that?) for about $6 at Best Buy. That edition remains unopened. Months ago I instituted a freeze, I don’t buy DVDs anymore.
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Warning: lots of spoilers ahead.

Critics and bloggers avoid discussing endings because they don’t want to spoil anything for viewers. It’s a fair practice but it leaves a gaping hole in movie criticism and comment. For me, a great ending impacts a movie more than anything else — how can I possibly write a blog about the experience of watching movies without addressing endings?

So from time to time, I’m going to write about final acts. I’ll give fair warning and usually address older movies. If you don’t know Rosebud’s a sled or that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s pa, you should have seen Citizen Kane or The Empire Strikes Back by now.

I’m going to start (so to speak) with The Purple Rose of Cairo. It’s my favorite Woody Allen movie and would make a list of my 10 favorite films if I were to ever comprise such a list. It will be screened at the Princeton Public Library May 19 as part of Bruce Lawton’s series of films about the Great Depression.

Mia Farrow stars as Cecilia. And before I go on, let me say that the heart may want what it wants, but Allen’s best and most joyous work came when he wrote for Farrow. Cecilia lives in Depression-era New Jersey with her bum of a husband Monk (Danny Aiello). She works as a waitress and cleans laundry while Monk gambles away her hard-earned money, hollers at her because she puts too much pepper in tomato sauce, and cheats on her.

Cecilia makes lots of threats to leave, but her true escape comes with going to the local picture house. The current feature is The Purple Rose of Cairo, a romantic adventure featuring Gil Shepherd, an up-and-coming star, as adventurer Tom Baxter. After losing her job and catching Monk in the act, a depressed Cecilia heads to the theater, and watches the movie over and over.

During her fourth or fifth viewing, a miraculous thing happens, Tom looks at Cecilia — “You must really love this movie,” he says before leaping off the screen into her life. Tom and Ceclilia run off together, panic ensues, and Gil is soon sent to Jersey to try to gain control of the character he created. (In a great moment, Cecilia tells the actor that he didn’t create Tom, a writer did.)

There’s tons of great stuff in this The Purple Rose of Cairo, but let me get to the ending. Both Tom and Gil are promising Cecilia a dreamlike life. Tom vows to take her around the world, Gil offers Hollywood glamor. Cecilia chooses Gil — Tom’s love is real but he’s fictional — then convinces Tom to return to the screen. With the fictional character out of the picture (actually, he’s back in the picture), the studio orders all prints of the films to be destroyed — Too bad, it’s a good picture, one executive laments.

Cecilia rushes home to pack her suitcase, defiantly telling Monk she’s finally leaving him for real. But when she arrives at the meeting place outside the movie theater, she’s told Gil has headed to Hollywood without her. Defeated, she goes to the movies — Tom Baxter has been replaced by Fred Astaire’s singing “Cheek to Cheek” to Ginger Rogers. Cecilia is crushed, tears streaming down her cheek, but within minutes she’s looking at the miracle that flickers on that screen — the elegant dancing, the glamorous clothes, the fantasy-like set. The camera fades as she smiles.

Has there been a better statement on the power of movies? Watch Farrow’s expressions in that final scene. She is absolutely distraught, but can’t help but be taken in by Astaire and Rogers. Has an actor ever expressed so much without uttering a word? It’s so sad, yet in its way hopeful. You might think Cecilia is out of touch with reality, I like to think that if she believes in the magic of movies, there’s hope she’ll find something (or someone) else to believe in one day.

Heaven, I’m in heaven.

The Purple Rose of Cairo and Two Bits (starring Al Pacino) will be screened at The Princeton Public Library, 91 Witherspoon St., Princeton, May 19, 5:30 p.m. Admission is free; 609-924-9529.

Here’s the great team of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel reviewing The Purple Rose of Cairo.

A trailer for Land of the Lost, a comedy based on the old Sid and Mary Krofft kids show features a gag with Will Ferrell running from a dinosaur in “serpentine” patterns. It’s funny, but I think it’s important to note that this bit first appeared in the great comedy The In-Laws.

That movie featured a scene where Peter Falk keeps telling Alan Arkin to run “serpentine, Shelly, serpentine” amidst gunfire. At one point, Arkin gets away from the gunfire but, realizing he forgot about serpentine, runs back into the gunfire, then returns to safety “serpentine.” If you haven’t seen The In-Laws - the original, not the remake with Albert Brooks and Michael Douglas - add it to your Netflix queue right now.

I like to think of myself as a discerning, thoughtful - but not elitist - movie watcher, but I have a flaw in my game. I love one of the most cliched, overused plots in history.
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Keith Carradine is starring in Arthur Laurents’ New Year’s Eve at George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, and I was lucky enough to interview him for a TIMEOFF story previewing the show.

Carradine was generous with his time and his answers. The article was mainly about the new play, and I couldn’t fit in some of the fascinating things he told me about Robert Altman, who directed Carradine in three movies. Thanks to this blog, I can share them with you here.
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One day in 2005, when I was worked in Manhattan, I spent a lunch break walking around Central Park through giant orange gates draped with giant curtains. People I knew who were interested in art had varying opinions of the installation by Christo and Jeanne-Claude (called simply “The Gates). Some thought it was an incredible piece of work, both aesthetically and emotionally, and some saw it as nothing but a bunch of big, orange gates.

I thought it was pretty neat (that’s a sentence sure to instill envy in art critics everywhere), but I can’t quite tell you why. I do know that I enjoyed walking through the gates and seeing them lined throughout the landscape of Central Park.

A documentary screening at the Princeton Public Library April 23 offers the chance to learn about “The Gates” and what it meant to the community. Luckily for area film lovers, the director of the film, titled The Gates, will be at the screening.

Antonio Ferrera will answer questions about his experience making the documentary, which chronicles the artists’ 26-year journey to create one of the largest public art installations in history. “The Gates” was a 7,503-foot, fabric-paneled installation that was finally completed in the park in 2005.

The documentary received its premiere in 2007 at the Tribeca Film Festival. It is one of four features being screened this spring at the Princeton Public Library as part of the Alive Mind Film Series, all released by the innovative programming company Alive Mind Education.

Ferrera and Albert Maysles followed the artists in their long pursuit of their dream. The film weaves together archival interviews with committees, politicians and on-site conversations with visitors, ultimately posing the question, “What is art?” The Gates is Ferrera’s first feature-length film as director.

The Gates will be screend at the Princeton Public Library, 65 Witherspoon St., Princeton, April 23, 7 p.m. Admission is free; 609-924-9529 or visit www.princetonlibrary.org