BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN’S NEW ALBUM IS HIS ‘ANGRIEST’ YET

Like a new Stephen King novel, I miss being excited about upcoming Springsteen albums, and now even the ones I did enjoy (pre-2001) sound a little silly and simple. I haven’t even bothered to listen to his last few releases. Never thought that would happen. And it’s not Springsteen’s obnoxious politics, either. He just bores me, kind of like Wes Anderson’s “sensibility.”

Sinatra. Everything you need to know about life, love, youth, growing old, and what it means to be a man is found in the combined works of one Francis Albert Sinatra.

FIVE NEW POSTERS FOR STAR WARS: EPISODE I THE PHANTOM MENACE 3D

Unless the tagline reads: Watch It Suck In a Third Dimension!, a class action false advertising suit is imminent.

ARE BIOPICS BAD FOR US?

This captures some of the problem:

Indeed, I’m not actually sure The Iron Lady does have any meaning, and would rate it primarily as a simply a striking replication, hamstrung in its ability to be much else. It skips across themes of power, struggle, loss, aging and personal conviction but audiences aren’t going to get any depth, because they’re too distracted by the novelty of Meryl Streep’s uncanny makeup.

If you want movies with genuine character that offer affecting tales of strong female outsiders overcoming great difficulties you can watch, say, An Education, Whip It, Hanna or The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, to name a few diverse flicks of recent vintage. All of them are built around fictional lead protagonists but have way more soul, substance, human heart and authenticity than The Iron Lady.

I fear that we lose the theatrical magic of moviemaking if impersonations and cold replication are deemed to be more important than telling stories, exploring the human condition and relaying emotion and ideas to audiences. Filmmaking shouldn’t be a karaoke contest where creativity is stifled and human spirit and depth are secondary. If this trend carries on so fervently, the film industry will be damaged as it becomes a stagnant scene crowded with statues, urging personality cults over imagination and the infinite richness of fictive worlds.

Biopics such as “The King’s Speech,” “Blind Side, ” Walk the Line,” “Ray,” “The Fighter,” “Seabiscuit,” and “Moneyball,” that are about overcoming adversity and aspiring, are usually pretty memorable and do quite well at the box office.

HULU CEO JASON KILAR: WE NOW HAVE 1.5M PAID SUBSCRIBERS

Hey, almost as many viewers as that cultural phenom “30 Rock!”

CINEMARK THEATERS TO OFFER HEALTHY SNACKS

Great news. Now we’re gonna get price-gouged for food that doesn’t taste as good and less of it:

[Cinemark] is introducing a 450-calorie snack pack called Lite Bites, containing a “calorie counter” portion of Orville Redenbacher popcorn, a Jamba Fruit and Nut Trail Mix, and a 16 oz. cup of Coke Zero. In a statement, Bob Shimmin, head of food and beverage for Cinemark, said that the exhibitor recognizes that “moviegoers want options, and we continue to seek out lower calorie, lower fat, and smaller portioned alternatives.

Makes sense, actually. We’re paying more for less satisfying movies, so why not have concessions follow suit.

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

Warrior (2011) and The Whistleblower (2010): Reviews coming.

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINKTACULAR

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HUGO SCREENWRITER JOHN LOGAN TO PEN MOVIE VERSION OF ‘JERSEY BOYS‘

TIM BURTON CONFIRMS HIS INTEREST IN DIRECTING ‘BEETLEJUICE 2′

‘CHICAGO’ DIRECTOR ROB MARSHALL TO BRING STEPHEN SONDHEIM’S ‘INTO THE WOODS’ TO THE BIG SCREEN

‘STRANGER THAN FICTION’ WRITER ZACH HELM TO ADAPT PATRICIA HIGHSMITH’S ‘DEEP WATER‘

BRITISH SCIENTIST CLAIMS BOND FILMS RESPONSIBLE FOR NUCLEAR POWER’S PUBLIC IMAGE

WHAT WAS IT LIKE FOR AN ACTOR FILMING ‘SAVING PRIVATE RYAN’S’ OMAHA BEACH SCENE?

10 GREAT DOCUMENTARIES ABOUT FAMOUS FILMS

PJ MEDIA TAKES A LOOK AT COLIN QUINN AND HIS SPECIAL ‘LONG STORY SHORT‘

20 UNDERAPPRECIATED MOVIES CURRENTLY PLAYING ON NETFLIX INSTANT

HOW STANLEY KUBRICK INVENTED THE MODERN BOX-OFFICE REPORT BY ACCIDENT

WHY GOOD MOVIEGOERS CHOOSE TO SEE BAD MOVIES

50 GREAT ACTION MOVIE POSTERS

SOME OF TV AND FILM’S FUNNIEST SELF-SATIRES

39 THINGS WE LEARNED FROM THE ‘DARK CITY’ COMMENTARY

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CLASSIC PICK FOR SATURDAY,  JANUARY 14

TCM:

5:15 PM  EST: Bound For Glory (1976) –  True story of folk singer Woody Guthrie, who rose to the top while fighting for the rights of migrant farm workers. Dir: Hal Ashby Cast:  David Carradine, Ronny Cox, Melinda Dillon. C-148 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format.

Not only is this one of the greatest biopics ever made, but the legendary Herman Wexler’s Oscar-winning cinematography makes “Bound for Glory” the most beautifully photographed film not shot in black & white or Technicolor.

I would buy this on Blu-ray in a heartbeat.

Carradine is nothing short of amazing in the central role, and the fact that he wasn’t nominated for an Oscar is a notable snub. Not to take a thing away from the field of nominees that year, but I not only would’ve nominated Carradine, I would’ve handed him the win.

Very special film that transports you to another place and time, casts a storytelling spell, and never lets go.

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Please send comments, suggestions and tips to jnolte@breitbart.com or Twitter @NolteNC.

A look at Carradine’s resume is a look at an actor who loved to work, relentlessly searched out paychecks, or both. My guess is that genetics might have played a part. His old man, John Carradine, has a list of credits longer than the end titles of a Michael Bay movie.

There are stories about David Carradine. Plenty of them. And if today’s reports prove true — if he indeed did hang himself in some Bangkok hotel room, well, obviously there was some bad news, personal demons, or a toxic mixture of both. Whatever it was, I’m not interested in hearing the story or passing it along. Unless it’s in self-defense, demystifying movie stars borders on the profane in this house.

Whatever it was, I hope he’s found peace.

And I hope that in life he found some peace in knowing he had achieved artistic immortality playing Woody Guthrie in Hal Ashby’s 1976 “Bound for Glory,” one of the finest bio-pics ever produced, thanks mainly to Carradine’s Oscar-worthy performance. (He did win a Golden Globe.)

At 147 minutes, “Bound for Glory” must’ve looked awfully difficult to pull off on paper. Essentially, it’s a character study covering just a few years in the life of a complicated, difficult, and frequently unlikable man. Thanks to Ashby’s direction, the best of his career, and Haskell Wexler’s Oscar-winning cinematography, “Glory” hits in all the places an actor can’t, but this is also the kind of film where the central performance can make or break, and Carradine makes it, and then some.

Thanks to a real screen presence and a quiet, understated performance, Carradine carries the film all on his own thin, angular frame. He inhabits most every scene and quickly makes you forget all that “Grasshopper” stuff. His Woody Guthrie is mostly silent but always fascinating; conflicted by ambitions and a loathing for what it takes to fulfill them, he’s willing to risk death in order to rouse the working man to stand up for himself, but can’t summon the everyday decency to remain faithful to his own wife. And that’s Carradine singing the songs and playing the guitar, but not one note is impersonation, just pure performance.

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Though nominated for Best Picture, “Bound for Glory” got a little lost when released, probably because it was made about five years too late. This is a 1971 film, not 1976 — the year of “Rocky” — the year before everything would change with “Star Wars.” But thanks to DVD and some love on Turner Classic Movies, “Glory” has enjoyed a bit of revival these past few years, an appreciation I think will continue to grow until the film receives a wider recognition for the timeless classic it is.

Certainly it helps that Wexler’s photography created one of the five most beautiful color films of the last thirty-five years, but having first seen it only last year, I can tell you it’s Carradine’s work that lingers long after the fade. After decades of seeing him as the guy who made an odd television show in the seventies, this one performance changed my perception entirely.

David Carradine was a great actor capable of great art and an integral part of something that will be appreciated and enjoyed long after TMZ and the like have had their fun.

Preliminary reports have the death as a suicide by hanging.

The circumstances of his death, however, should not be allowed to overshadow his accomplishments as an actor.

As the son of actor John Carradine, David Carradine both benefited from his Hollywood family connection and rebelled against the industry that employed him. He appeared in a few very good movies, such as Bound for Glory and The Long Riders, and many, many very poor ones. He played a wide variety of roles, with numerous appearances as villains, some of which were quite memorable, even in some very bad films.

What he’ll be most remembered for, however, is probably the TV series Kung Fu. The show ran from 1972 through 1975, and it reflected a big change in American attitudes. Set in the Old West, Kung Fu featured Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin monk, a serene and peaceful practitioner of Eastern religion and Chinese martial arts transplanted to the United States. Kung Fu included only a couple of minutes of physical action scenes per episode, concentrating most of the time on interesting angles on personal relationships.

In that regard, however, the show was actually quite traditional. Many excellent Western TV series tended to concentrate on personal stories instead of mere action, notably classics such as Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and Have Gun, Will Travel. What Carradine and the show’s writers brought to the genre was a post-Vietnam attitude of weariness toward conflict, a yearning for peace that manifested in an oddly Christian way: a simple refusal to seek revenge for wrongs done to oneself.

In this regard, Kung Fu had the blend of traditional elements and innovation that makes for good entertainment and sometimes real art. The show was serious in its presentation of Caine’s ideas and their source in Eastern thinking, including frequent flashback scenes depicting his childhood years in a Shaolin monastery in which he learned the lessons he applies in the main story lines.

Like any conventional Western hero, Caine seeks peace for himself and others, but he always must ultimately employ violence in pursuit of that elusive goal. In that way, Kung Fu still has resonance today, for the attempt to bring peace to a violent world perpetually requires the use of force, as is evident both in national defense issues and society responses to crime. Carradine’s work in Kung Fu remains a valuable contribution to that eternal debate over when and how the use of force is justified.

–S. T. Karnick, editor of The American Culture