Curio: Movie Vinyl

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here. I was fascinated by this article in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks back on the collaboration between Barnard Herrmann and Alfred Hitchcock. Little did I know that Hitchcock originally wanted the shower scene in Psycho to be silent, and that he may have had some insecurities about how much his style relied on Herrmann's music. Certainly there have been many attempts at duplicating that synergy (Brian De Palma used Herrmann at his most Hitchcockian; M Night Shyamalan and James Newton Howard try hard for something similar). So when I spotted this LP of the soundtrack to North by Northwest, I had to snap it up.


Shawn at Movie Vinyl sells lots of great vintage soundtracks for you vinyl junkies like me. Here are a few other choice ones. As soon as he finds a rare Bugsy Malone LP, I'm ordering it.

Before There Were Websites... (Pt 2)

...there were scrapbooks (prev. pt 1)

Let's continue that silly reveal of my "Movies of the Eighties" scrapbook. I'm still hoping to locate the "Movie Stars of the Eighties" companion volume in which I ranked all the actors and actresses of the decade. Wouldn't that be a ROTFL experience? If I can find it I will share, despite the loss of dignity it will surely occasion.

Behold! To your left is the tv guide cover that started it all. I guess it wasn't an actual TV Guide as my personal mythology has always relayed but whatever television magazine thingie was inserted into the Detroit Free Press back in the day. That cover right there started my whole Oscar obsession -- look how worn, damaged and fingered it is. I thumbed through it so many times. What is this naked gold man they call Oscar??? This cover unlocked my latent awards mania. I had seen Tootsie and E.T. (massive family friendly hits both) but it was the center statue that seized my imagination. Soooo shiny.

Shiny shiny sha-na-na-na.
Shiny shiny bad times behind me

From there I became more and more movie obsessed. Based on the "everything I've seen" scribblings it looks like I was seeing about 25-40 films a year. Not all of the clipping collages matched the screening lists. I can't recall exactly what dragged me to theaters back then, but Dennis Quaid was a factor.


Do you know the 14 films displayed there? Some of them I barely remember...

The 1988 and 1989 pages are heavily Burtonesque with a late blooming burst of Pfandom by way of The Fabulous Baker Boys. I thought this clipping below was an interesting time capsule: a note about who might play The Joker before Batman (1989) was even filming. It was superhero casting speculation before steroids the internet.



It's smudgy but it reads

Although an unknown will be considered for Batman, Jack Nicholson (far right) has been mentioned in connection with the Joker. _____'s personal picks for the role are Ray Liotta (Something Wild, left) or Willem Dafoe (Platoon, center).

For the Record: Heath Ledger was 10 years old when Tim Burton's Batman arrived in theaters. Who imagined that Nicholson's Joker would eventually have to stand down?

If you want to see more of this scrapbook, say so in the comments.

But I wanted to wrap up this part 2 peak with this: Lists! Apparently I thought the best "losing sanity" performances of the 80s were:

Jack Nicholson Batman
Meg Tilly Agnes of God
Glenn Close Fatal Attraction
Meryl Streep Plenty

With the distance of time, I'd only feel comfortable standing by the bunny boiler. Not that there isn't much to admire in Streep's 1985 performance. But why only four performances? The magic number is five, Nathaniel, hello. Everyone knows that.

Stranger still is the "best sequels of the decade" ranking

5. Superman II 4. Star Trek IV 3. Aliens 2. The Empire Strikes Back 1. Return of the Jedi

That order is ALL wrong: Jedi is a sorry sibling to Empire, The Wrath of Khan crushes other Trek adventures and sentient humans and drooling monsters alike recognize that Aliens is the sequel of the 80s as well as one of the best action flicks ever. I like to think that somewhere inside I knew this and thus felt compelled to scribble A-L-I-E-N-S in large capital expanding letters.

Finally, there's the list of the movies I saw most often, "Again and Again and Again" This one honestly surprised me. I don't remember seeing some of these movies multiple times. I never see things more than twice in the theaters now. Unless the movies are called Moulin Rouge!

(4 times) A Chorus Line, The Empire Strikes Back, Dreamscape, Fire and Ice, The Lost Boys, The Princess Bride, The Secret of My Succe$s, Romancing the Stone, The Karate Kid, The Little Mermaid, Beetle Juice and Ladyhawke
(5 times) A Room With a View, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Clue, St. Elmo's Fire
(6 times) Batman
(9 times) Return of the Jedi
(10 times) The Breakfast Club

You know what question I am forced to ask now: What movie did you see the most in grade school, junior high and high school?
*

"Oh I know what y'all really want..."

.

" ...is some gross, caricature of a woman to prove some idiotic point that power makes a woman masculine, or masculine women are ugly.

Well shame on you for letting a man do that, or any man that does that. That means you, dear. Miss Marshall. Shame on you, you macho shit head."

.

RIP Sydney Pollack

This morning while brewing coffee and getting ready for the day, I've been listening to NPR reports about the passing of Sydney Pollack (yesterday, of cancer). The name fills me with so many memories. Tootsie came immediately to mind. I think it was the first film of his I saw and I fell absolutely in love. I didn't always enjoy Sydney as an actor -- probably because he played the same type of role frequently -- but his work as Michael Dorsey's agent remains my favorite of his supporting turns. The scene when Michael first approaches him as "Dorothy" is a perfect comic jewel. Pollack does flustered double taking with the best of them. I think about that scene almost every time I think of Pollack and it continually endears me to him. He must have been so proud of the scene and Dustin. He must have known that film was gold. But he's digging for his own there at the table.

I love so many of his films as a director. My other two favorites are They Shoot Horses Don't They (previous appreciation) and The Way We Were (with apologies to Out of Africa and This Property is Condemned --but mostly for Natalie Wood in the latter).

Regarding The Way We Were: I think it's one of the best romantic dramas Hollywood ever produced. When I first saw it in college --I'm not sure what prompted me, but it was probably one of my many aborted attempts to get through all nominated Best Actress Oscar performances -- I was completely wowed by how substantial it actually was. Romantic films are so often critically dismissed. Even the smashes are often scorned once there's a little distance (see Titanic appraisals for a modern case). I liken this to people being embarrassed about their initial openheartedness... sort of the way that most of us are so easily aggravated by our significant others after the heady rush of the falling in love phase passes. Surely the contempt with which many romantic dramas (and comedies come to think of it) are held with both the public and critics after the fact has more to do with human nature than with the work. Like any genre, romance has its masterpieces. I think it's better than the other Robert Redford picture that won Best Picture that year (The Way We Were was not nominated)

It's always interesting to see how people view the work of artists when they pass on. One of the voices on NPR was talking about the lack of auteurial signatures or visual flourishes in his movies. This was spun in the most flattering possible way. It went something like 'it makes you concentrate not on the man behind the camera but on the film itself' When people pass away, you should always go with the positive. In this case it isn't difficult.

Sydney Pollack, you will be missed.
*

(click here for latest posts)

*