Southern Bookman

New York Times' A.O. Scott switches from movies to books

Longtime New York Times film critic A.O. Scott is returning to his first love, books.

Scott, who has reviewed more than 2,200 films for the Times since 2000, will move to the newspaper's Sunday Book Review, wrtiting essays, notebooks and reviews "that grapple with literature, ideas and intellectual life," according to the announcement written in vintage Times-ese.

In last Sunday's farewell to the movie beat, Scott lamented the decline in serious Hollywood films. He denounced the rise of social media "fandom" and its violent attacks on critics of superhero and action movies.

Manhola Dargis remains as The Times' chief film critic, and the newspaper will name a replacement for Scott's coveted position.

While Scott's film reviews were often dry and passionless, he generated soaring fervor for movies he really liked. In his farewell, he disclosed that his all-time favorite movie is Frederico Fellini's "La Dolce Vita."

Perhaps Scott will show more spirit writing about books, his primary interest as a Harvard graduate and young newspaper critic. The bland and creatively stagnant Sunday Book Review could use a jolt of originality, which Scott might step up to deliver.

 

 

David Milch's "Life's Work" tells redemptive story of self-destruction, Hollywood fame

Only David Milch could have transformed St. Paul and the cross into Deadwood and the South Dakota gold rush.

Milch, famed TV producer and writer, details that shift in his entertaining, self-absorbed memoir "Life's Work."

Although Milch finished the book with the aid of his daughters while battling the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease, "Life's Work" gives a full account of his troubled childhood, heroin and gambling addiction, Yale education and  unlikely TV success.

The change from Christianity and the Roman Empire to gold and the American West is not that surprising coming from a writer who taught a course at Yale titled "Strategies of Indirection in Fiction."

Noted poet and critic William Logan in an article in the current New Criterion recalls taking the course, presenting a vivid portrait of Milch, an inveterate gambler on football games and horse racing and a superb writing teacher.

Milch in his memoir looks back on his career as a rebellious Yale undergraduate. Although seriously addicted to heroin and alcohol, and frequently in trouble with local law enforcement, Milch enjoyed a warm relationship with Yale professor, novelist and poet Robert Penn Warren.

Warren, as Milch fondly remembers, gave special attention to Milch's work, praising his novel in progress as containing the best dialogue that one of his students had ever written. Warren treated Milch as a wayward son, inviting him to visit his home and giving him career advice.

Milch also built a close relationship with the famed Yale critic R.W. B. Lewis, assisting him with his research on Lewis' Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Edith Wharton. All the while, Milch was searching for drugs and betting on horses and sports, while struggling to finish the novel praised by Warren.

The book looks back on Milch's abusive, reckless father, a surgeon also addicted to gambling who treated gangsters to pay off debts. Milch also was sexually abused as a young boy by a camp counselor. He used his chilhood traumas as material for his TV shows.

After Yale, Milch received a chance opportunity to write for Steven Bochco's ground-breaking NBC police drama "Hill Street Blues." Milch and Bochco then collaborated on the controversial crime saga "NYPD Blue," a smash for the network while drawing fire from conservatives because of its violence and explicit sexuality. A few flashes of nudity shook the foundations of network TV.

TV's gain was literature's loss; Milch never finished his novel. Yet characters like Dennis Franz's alcoholic detective Andy Sipowich in "NYPD Blue"  laid the foundation for HBO "quality TV" productions  like "The Wire" and "The Sopranos."

With a wife and family, Milch entered rehab, leading to his fascination with St. Paul's conversion to Christianity, his evangelistic career and New Testament writings, and his martyrdom in Rome.

Milch pitched HBO a show based on Paul's establishing the church throughout the Roman empire, but the cable network already had a show on ancient Rome in the works.

Seeing gold as analogous to St. Paul's world-changing symbol of Jesus' cross, Milch instead sold HBO on  the series"Deadwood," which explored  the rough life in the South Dakota boom town where the precious metal was discovered in the 1870s. It was famous as the place where "Wild Bill" Hickock was murdered, the subject of a powerful "Deadwood" episode.

"Deadwood," known for its vulgar dialogue, shocking violence and striking characters, was one of HBO's most memorable shows although it only lasted three years. Despite battling Alzheimer's, Milch completed the show with a movie-length conclusion.

"Life's Work" while often disjointed and egocentric tells a compelling story of redemption. After all of his destructive behavior, Milch achieves grace.

 

Academy Awards nominees unappealing

I'll watch the Academy Awards Sunday night, although I like many others have lost my love for the movies.

Unlike in years past, I haven't seen most of the films nominated for Best Picture.

I liked Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis," and will root for Austin Butler to win best actor for his portrayal of the singer. But the movie went on too long, pushing too far into melodrama.

The only other Oscar-nominated film I saw, Steven Spielberg's "The Fabelmans," was entertaining, but hardly rose to the heights of  "The Deer Hunter," "The Godfather"  or "Casablanca."  Yet many Oscar winners of the past now appear unworthy.

Like many film fans, I rarely if ever to to the theater anymore. I watched "Elvis" and "The Fabelmans" at home, on my TV screen.

That's where I could now watch "Tar" and "All Quiet on the Western Front." But neither is appealing.

I'm sure Cate Blanchett gives a wonderful performance in "Tar" as the impervious conductor who suffers a downfall, but the character sounds too monstrous for me to spend several hours with.

"All Quiet on the Western Front" looks worthwhile, yet I recoil at all of that trench warfare.

Nor am I drawn to the Oscar favorite, "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once."  I just don't think I would get it.

I used to love watching all of the Best Picture nominees before the big show. Now, the movies have passed me by.

 

 

 

Vanity Fair shows old excellence with 29th Hollywood issue

Vanity Fair's excellent Hollywood issue proclaims that film glamour lives on in a new generation.

The 29th annual celebration of the movies sizzles with the magazine's old flair, a triumph for Editor Radhika Jones, beset by seismic cultural shifts and falling circulation, news-stand sales and advertising since she took charge in late 2017.

Jones' compelling mix of Hollywood features and in-depth journalism recalls the great issues of  predecessors Graydon Carter and Tina Brown.

Disputing a prevailing belief that the film star is dead, a photographic gallery of Hollywood's rising generation glows with film magic.

Photographer Steven Klein and stylist Patti Wilson capture the charisma of Selena Gomez, Jonathan Majors, Austin Butler, Ana De Armas, Florence Pugh, Keke Palmer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Julia Garner and Rege-Jean Page.

Hollywood's glorious past is honored with Mark Seal's history of the 100-year-old Hollywood sign and Wayne Lawson's reminisces of co-writing Gloria Swanson's autobiography.

Magazine staff writer Joe Pompeo examines a new media update of the film gossip publications of the past with a feature on Ankler, a movie industry news site.

Writer Richard Rushfield, a fedora-wearing throwback to newspaper entertainment columnists of the past, started the popular news source, and now seeks to expand it on Substack in partnership with media entrepreneur Janice Min.

Washington politics receives attention with Abigail Tracy's profile of Maxwell Frost, the first Gen Z congressman.

Writer James Pogue in a disturbing article investigates the "New Right's" desire to withdraw from American society and live in isolated communities, hoping to survive the collapse of civilization they foresee.

Pogue gives a soberting portrait of wealthy American "preppers" who have colonized rural areas of Montana, driving up property values and forcing longtime residents to  flee. The revealing article is one of the most important the magazine has published in several years.

Like Hollywood, Vanity Fair shines on.

Tara Theater revival brings hope to Atlanta film lovers

The Tara Theater lives!

Tara's closure by the Regal Corporation in November deprived Atlanta cinema-lovers of films like the documentary "Turn Every Page," about the long and sometimes volatile relationship of biographer Robert Caro and editor Robert Gottlieb.

For months, I've been anticipating the film's arrival in Atlanta, but no local theater has booked it, although it's been showing for weeks in other cities. "Turn Every Page" is the kind of out-of-the mainstream movie that for years found a place at the Tara.

Perhaps such films will return to Tara's screen. Chis Escobar, owner of the independent Plaza Theater in Poncey-Highland, plans to resurrect the Tara at its old location in a strip shopping mall on Cheshire Bridge Road. 

Escobar in making the announcement Tuesday at the close of the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival said he plans to show 35 mm and 70 mm films, along with digital productions.

A fund-raising campaign is under way to reopen the theater, Escobar said, reporting that Regal took all of the production equipment and perhaps even the popcorn machine.

Film goers can buy ticket vouchers for redemption when the theater reopens, or give a donation, at the Tara's web site. Escobar and fellow investors seek to return the Tara to the glory days of local film entrepreneur George Lefont's ownership.

The Tara's reopening would bring back Atlanta as a serious film town. The fund-raising campaign allows film-goers to have a sense of ownership.

Like clapping for Tinker Bell, we can bring Tara's magic light back to life.

Tom Hanks' sparkling story "Lingua Franca" raises excitement for his first novel

Tom Hanks really can write a good story.

I was skeptical about the 66-year-old actor's writing ability, even though he published a best-selling short story collection, "Uncommon Type," several years ago.

But Hanks' story "Lingua Franca" in the current Harper's magazine restored my long-lost enjoyment of the genre. With its crisp dialogue, fast-paced plot and engaging characters, the story appropriately takes place in the 1940s, the gold era of popular short stories in magazines like the Saturday Evening Post and Esquire.

Reminiscent of traditional masculine-flavored stories by Ernest Hemingway, Tom McGuane and Raymond Carver, "Lingua Franca" turns upon the difficulties of World War II veterans in returning to normal life back home in America.

Rich in the slang of the era, the story builds to a mesmerizing dramatic climax in which two former Marines share a moment of awkward sympathy and healing in a deftly imagined roadhouse in the American West.

The story is an excerpt of Hanks' first novel, "The Making of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece," to be published in May by Knoph.

Drawing upon Hanks' acting career, the book will range across several decades, registering the changes in American society from World War II to the present, according to a plot summary.

In the book, a veteran's experiences inspire a comic book written by his nephew, in which the former soldier appears as a character. Later, a movie is made from the comic, with a series of plot complications.

Hanks' story has me looking forward to reading "The Making of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece," an anticipation for a spring book I haven't felt in years.

 

 

Farewell, Burt Bacharach

Burt Bacharach's music had a signature cinematic quality, making his pop songs like movies.

His brass flourishes, bossa nova beats and piano reveries created an almost visual background for the voices of his mostly female singers and the lyrics of his main collaborator, Hal David.

Yet, his distinctive chord changes and time signatures were also like a chorus, a musical language commenting upon the words. Like all great songs, his work told stories.

Bacharach, who found success as a movie and Broadway composer as well as the writer of numerous pop hits, died Wednesday at age 94 at his home in Los Angeles.

Dusty Springfield's recording of "The Look of Love" for the 1967 James Bond film "Casino Royale" is the pinnacle of Bacharach and David's art.

Springfield's husky, yearning voice rises to the near breaking  point, blending desire and vulnerability. A bossa nova rhythm, bluesy piano and soaring sax solo underscore her declaration of love. At the end, a driving big band's dance beat carries the song away to new heights of passion.

Dionne Warwick, Bacharach's favorite singer, gave an alternative musical sophistication to the rock-dominated era. "Walk on By," "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" gain in stature through the years.

The most poignant interpretation of Bacharach's music is Karen Carpenter's "Close to You," recorded with her brother, Richard, and a tight group of musicians and background singers. Carpenter's aching, angelic voice elevates the overly sentimental lyrics, showing that she was one of America's great singers.

Bacharach's impressionistic melodies hold a distinctive place in American music. They are haunting dreamscapes, telling complex stories of love and desire.

Discovering Woody Allen's "Interiors"

Fruitlessly searching through streaming land for the Robert Gottlieb-Robert Caro documentary "Turn Every Page," I instead clicked upon "Interiors," Woody Allen's first "serious" drama.

Allen wrote and directed the moody 1978 film, not appearing in the production as he had in his previous comedies. The movie mixes Ingmar Bergman-flavored angst and New York intellectual despair. Not a lot of laughs, except for the unconscious self-mockery of the self-indulgent characters.

The film like Allen's later "Hannah and Her Sisters" explores the wounded love of sisters. Allen's wonderful cast mirrors the generational family dynamics: Maureen Stapleton, Geraldine Page and E.G. Marshall from the old guard and the then new generation of Diane Keaton, Mary Beth Hurt, Kristin Griffith, Richard Jordan and Sam Waterston.

Stapleton's appearance late in the movie as the raucous, earthy Pearl brings a welcome shot of energy to the film after long stretches of pretentious New York intellectual dialogue.

Marshall as the patriarch of the family, a successful New York attorney ready for an adventurous retirement, and Page as his mentally fragile ex-wife, an interior designer, give a masterful performance. Keaton, Hurt, Griffith, Jordan and Waterston rise to match their classical acting. .

Keaton, Allen's paramour and muse, stands out as the reflective Renata, perhaps named in homage to the New Yorker film critic Renata Adler. Her implausible success as a poet contrast with the career disappointments of her sister, Joey, played by Hurt, who resembles another winsome star of the time, Carrie Snodgress. Their conflicted relationship is the film's main dramatic fulcrum.

Waterston's performance as a long-haired counterculture radical amusingly displays the same mannerisms and vocal inflections exhibited in in his long-running role as the district attorney Jack McCoy in "Law and Order." Now 82, Waterston is again playing McCoy in a revived "Law and Order."

After unveiling the film's human relationships with dialogue and restricted settings, Allen impressively shifts to film's visual power with images of the sea, a homage to Bergman. Allen's imagery - a vase, flowers, the beach - complements his theatrical language.

The film ends with Keaton and her sisters looking out the window of their childhood home to a calm sea. They are at last ready to move on with their lives.

Allen was more European than other Hollywood directors. "Interiors" opens a different path for American cinema, sadly rarely followed.

 

 

 

 

Noah Baumbach's "White Noise" and Steven Spielberg's "The Fabelmans" share affinities

I ended 2022 viewing at home "White Noise" and "The Fabelmans," two oddly similar films about middle-class American families coping with the modern world.

Noah Baumbach's "White Noise" captured the satirical spirit of Don DeLillo's novel, while Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical "The Fabelmans" presented an engaging portrait of postwar America, with its technological and economic advances and middle-class aspirations.

Both films depicted an "airborne toxic event," a chemical cloud in "White Noise" and a tornado in "The Fabelmans." Both films looked at the special stresses of gifted children, the ravages of adultery, and the changing expectations of fatherhood. 

"White Noise's" satiric skewering of academia and its pretentious intellectual posturing matched "The Fabelmans" send up of early Silicon Valley's technological jargon and futuristic dreams.

With strong casts, sharp writing and astute, fully realized directors' visions, both pictures used the past - Baumbach's 1980s and Spielberg's 1950s and 1960s - to mirror the present.

 

Goodbye, Tara Theatre, Atlanta's temple of film sophistication

The Tara Theater's closure makes Atlanta a less sophisticated city.

Despite its title dripping with Southern nostalgia -"Gone With the Wind" was the first film shown when the Tara opened in 1968 - the art-deco theater mixed Academy Award-worthy Hollywood spellbinders with foreign movies and iconoclastic productions from independent American filmmakers.

The theater gave a sense of big-city cinema excitement not matched by suburban mega-plexes. Lending elegance to funky Cheshire Bridge Road and sitting at the corner of one of Atlanta's bland shopping malls, the theater expressed the city's international cultural aspirations while remaining a friendly neighborhood place.

Atlanta independent film pioneer George Lefont owned the theater for several years, bringing an avant garde ethos that faltered a bit under subsequent corporate owners like United Artists. But the theater still had a place for films outside the mainstream.

Covid and the increasing popularity of streaming at home led to declining audiences. Its corporate organization mired in bankruptcy, Tara owner Regal Cinema last month shuttered the theater, a major loss to Atlanta's artistic landscape.

That leaves Atlanta with two theaters for art films: the Midtown Cinema and the revived Plaza Theatre on Ponce de Leon, now beset by Atlanta's relentless gentrification.

Another venue once owned by LeFont, the Springs Cinema and Taphouse in Sandy Springs, has recently turned to more popular fare in an effort to compete with the struggling mall theaters. Before Covid, the Springs offered quirky films and revival big-screen showings of classics like "Chinatown" and "The Godfather."

Perhaps some Quixotic entrepreneur will bring back the Tara and present more challenging movies than Marvel extravaganzas and cartoon adventures. More likely, the old movie house will be replaced by another apartment-office-hotel complex, as if the city needs any more.