As the co-creator and producer with Christopher Lloyd Bratten of the “For The Record” series of live events held at the Barre VT bar in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, he has paid tribute to the films of the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino. The series features performers re-enacting the most iconic dialogue exchanges of those filmmakers’ features, as well as singing and dancing their way through the greatest tunes of their oeuvre.

But Scheel has topped himself big-time with his current show, “John Hughes: Holiday Road,” which plays Wednesday through Sunday nights before closing Dec. 30.

The two-hour extravaganza features an amazingly talented six-person cast and a five-piece rock band bringing the best of Hughes’ scenes and songs to life from his ‘80s films through “Home Alone.” Whether you’re a fan of Hughes’ high school movies (“Pretty in Pink” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”) or the “Vacation” series and “Planes Trains and Automobiles,” the interactive cabaret-style show is one of the most entertaining nights of music and comedy you’ll ever experience.

Scheel spoke with Big Hollywood recently about how the “For The Record” series – which next takes on Baz Luhrmann’s films including “Moulin Rouge” – came about, and why he thinks Hughes’ films continue to resonate with American film fans.

“I had been working in LA for a few years and my partner, who’s music director for the shows, had been looking for a project to do,” explains Scheel, who ironically grew up in the small town of Buhler, Kansas. “We started by taking complete soundtracks, knew a lot of really great singers and actors and decided to pull the best ones together and started these as concerts. We later decided to add quotable lines.”

The producing duo started with the films of Tarantino because his soundtracks actually included the most memorable lines from his films. As they refined their hybrid concept, they tried to create shows so strong that they would help define Los Angeles entertainment, creating a scene unique to the city.

Yet they also learned from a viewing of the failed “Sister Act: The Musical” that the balance of music and dialogue had to be just right if the shows were going to work.

“I was in London a year ago and went to see ‘Sister Act: The Musical,’” Scheel says. “As an audience member I was expecting to hear some of the songs that made the movie what it  was, redone in a very fun fresh way. When I got there it was an original score with none of the original songs from the movie, which was a little disappointing. Soundtracks are under-appreciated, but music helps tell these stories and in particular John Hughes helped launch a lot of British bands in the ‘80s through his movies.”

Scheel feels that Hughes’ enduring appeal lies in the fact that “we were all teenagers once,” yet Scheel was careful to make sure that the show was evenly divided between the high school era of Hughes’ work and the films set outside the academic scene.

“I’ve read a number of times that he gave teenagers a very clear, fresh, unapologetic voice, as real people with real problems and a real clear voice for that time period as well,” he says. “He had such great archetypes through the geek, rebel, princess, basket case and jock. We all identify with one of those and that’s where the universality of his material came from. I watched my dad with the ‘Vacation’ movies laughing and laughing, and kids have a classic in ‘Home Alone.’”

“There are universal truths in all his movies, I think we can all identify with different portions of his career,” he adds.

The show ends with a rousing, gospel-style romp through “Joy to the World,” which Hughes used in at least one of his many Christmas-set movies. Having built a long-running career in production management for many touring musicals, Scheel knew that sending people out with a burst of extra-spiritual uplift was a winning proposition and underscored the broad appeal of the show.

“I grew up in the church and know a ton of gospel songs, plus a number of our actors have strong ties to that music and one of our performers is married to a minister,” Scheel says. “Just like in Hughes’ movies, there are a couple of words you might want to tune out, but this is a show I can bring my church to.”

Scheel hopes to bring “John Hughes: Holiday Road” to Chicago and New York in the future, but for now, it can be seen at Barre VT bar, located at 1714 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles.

Francis Ford Coppola toiled in the Roger Corman B-movie mines before striking gold with ‘The Conversation,’ ‘The Godfather,’ and ‘Apocalypse Now.’ James Cameron got his feet wet on ‘Piranha Part Two: The Spawning’ en route to the ‘Terminator’ franchise.

However, ‘Blood Simple,’ the Coen brothers’ first film, immediately showcased the duo’s ability to conquer any film genre they choose.

‘Blood Simple,’ recently released on Blu-ray for the first time along with ‘Raising Arizona’ and several other early Coens features, finds the brothers marinating in classic film noir. The 1984 thriller is so bleak you’ll all but beg for comic relief, but the few laughs found here catch in your throat. These brothers have always played by their own rules.

Frances McDormand (future Mrs. Joel Coen) stars as Abby, a married woman having an affair with one of her hubby’s employees (John Getz). Abby’s husband Marty (Dan Hedaya) learns of her indiscretions thanks to a chatty private investigator (M. Emmet Walsh). Marty can’t get Abby’s treachery out of his mind, so he hires the investigator to kill both her and her lover.

What follows is anything but linear; ‘Blood Simple’ quickly becomes a rage-soaked saga of revenge where few things are quite as they seem.

The Coen brothers have long been accused of talking down to their characters. Here, the key players get too little attention for that claim to stick. ‘Blood Simple’ cares far more about mood, tension and the wickedness in our hearts than thoroughly sketching out Abby or anyone else. The romance between Abby and Getz’s character feels honest at first. Their passion forces them into a dangerous situation, but neither fully trusts the other.

The characters become an afterthought as the Coens’ script takes detour atop detour, showing the audience that the dead don’t like to stay dead for long, and your eyes just might play tricks on you.

‘Blood Simple’ may feel like classic noir on the surface, but the Coens tweak the formula with their sly dialogue and abrupt camera flourishes. You’ll never look at a window sill the same way again after Abby’s showdown with the investigator.

What the brothers’ chicanery can’t camouflage is a weak plot device involving a corrupted photograph, a still which manages to impact almost every crucial event that follows.

However, the fact that ‘Blood Simple’ stands as one of the Coen brothers’ lesser achievements is proof not only of the duo’s greatness but of the consistency they bring to the big screen.

The Blu-ray edition arrives only with the theatrical trailer and a faux-commentary track from Kenneth Loring of Forever Young Films.

We’re a list-crazy culture, and movie buffs of all stripes can’t help but place certain films in their personal hall of fame.

This film scribe is no different. And, in response to a Big Hollywood reader who suggested I post my own Top Ten Movie List to better introduce myself to this site’s audience, here goes nothing.

A quick note: To me, a Top Ten Movie List is deeply personal. It’s not a list of films that are more poignant, or better directed, or more richly artistic, than most movies. These films spoke to me in some profound way, reflecting both my formative years and the person I eventually became.

1. “Raising Arizona” – I didn’t love “RA” the first time I saw it, but being date-less more often than I’d like meant plenty of time to re-watch films that at the least caught my attention. Not sure if it was the second or third viewing that won me over, but before long I needed to watch this grand Coen brothers romp as often as possible. Great quotable dialogue, slapstick delivered in a deliriously cockeyed fashion, and the single funniest sequence ever committed to celluloid – the Huggies chase. I wanna pop it in my Blu-ray player right now…

2. “Star Wars” – Is there a child from the ‘70s who doesn’t have this space saga on his list? George Lucas’s vision remains a near-perfect depiction of good versus evil set in a galaxy far, far away — no special editions or 3D upgrades required, please.

3. “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” – The funniest, raunchiest, sweetest comedy I’ve ever seen.

4. “Jaws” – Director Steven Spielberg may have, for better or worse, kick-started the summer blockbuster tradition with “Jaws,” but for me it distills everything I love about movies into one beautifully constructed package. Bristling tension. Lived-in performances. The fear of the unknown. It’s not summer unless I watch “Jaws” at least one time.

5. “Miller’s Crossing” – It’s the Coen brothers’ most overlooked masterpiece, brimming with dialogue so rich you wish you could print it out and frame it. “Crossing” is a gangster picture without peer, one which has little interest in aping other films in the genre.

6. “Once” – Proof that great movies don’t require big budgets, A-list stars or even a happy ending. The songs are magical, the acting heartfelt and the conclusion so sublime you wouldn’t want it any other way no matter how much your heart breaks.

7. “The Wizard of Oz” - Yes, the Toto connection can get tiring. But Dorothy’s trek to see the wonderful wizard is a testament to great art enduring time and taste upgrades.

8. “Raiders of the Lost Ark” – It’s the benchmark all action movies must be measured against, and 99 percent of them stumble along the way.

9. “Alien” – The ultimate fusion of horror and science fiction. Those seven stranded souls are no match for a killing machine aped by nearly every monster maker in Hollywood. Moody, atmospheric and heart-stopping, “Alien” is director Ridley Scott’s masterpiece.

10. “The Descent” – Horror junkies rank “The Exorcist,” “The Shining” or “Halloween” higher, and they may have a point. But this shock fest gave me gigantic scares while taking advantage of modern movie-making techniques along the way. The first half is a smart, assured look at women in charge of their destinies. The second — a monster mash for the ages.

The Coens specialize in bizarre crime movies, and each of these movies has its own, unique feel and tone.  Their first film, Blood Simple, is a a humorless, Texas-fried noir with an atmosphere that would inform their later adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men. Even the opening of the Coens Oscar-winning comeback recalls their debut, where one of the characters monologues in a morose tone over various shots of the desolate Texas landscape.  The story would serve as the skeleton for many of their future films, a crime that is thrown into bloody chaos by a villainous loose cannon.  Said rogue is played in this film with cool menace by M. Emmett Walsh, a sleazy private dick hired by a jealous husband to murder his cheating wife and her lover, not realizing the detective has plans of his own.

Blood Simple was a quiet, somber affair, especially compared to the hilarious antics of their kidnapping caper Raising Arizona, which features Nicolas Cage doing over-the-edge crazy the best way he knows how.  The camerawork is reminiscent of their pal Sam Raimi’s debut feature, Evil Dead, in which the camera zooms along in a terrifying yet comedic manner (fun fact: Joel Coen was an editing assistant on Evil Dead).  Many consider this to be one of their best movies, and I certainly think its up there, as it is relentlessly entertaining and as colorful as movies get in terms of action and character. 

Miller’s Crossing has little in common with its two predecessors, aside from the basic element of crime.  It’s an Irish gangster story in keeping the tone of the Dashiell Hammet novels that served as the inspiration for movies like Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars in the manner in which it features a character who plays two groups against each other so in the end, he comes out on top.  The plot to Miller’s Crossing is a bit like The Big Lebowski in that it doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense upon first viewing, however it grows more rich with each viewing, making it a fun one to revisit. 

Fargo is similar to Blood Simple in that it has the factor of a perfect crime gone sour, however the quirky golly-gosh Minnesota setting and the fantastic Oscar-winning performance by Francis McDormand gives it a lighter tone than their debut, despite it being one of their most violent yarns.  Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare give stand-out performances as a couple of violent thugs hired by a scheming husband (a perfectly wormy William H. Macy) to kidnap his wife so her father will put up the ransom money. Of course, the goons can’t be trusted, and pretty soon the bodies start piling up and everything goes to Hell against the snowbound small-town middle-America setting.

If you already own the DVDs of these movies and are considering an upgrade, know that there isn’t anything new on these discs in terms of extras.  It has the exact same features that were included in previous editions, so if you want to trade-up, it better be for the HD transfer.  I have the DVDs already, and given there’s no new commentaries or other features causing me to turn my head, I think I’m good with what I got.  If you don’t own these movies, though, now is a perfect time to pick them up.

Available on Blu-ray

Other Noteworthy Releases

Nightmare Before Christmas 3D: I love Nightmare Before Christmas, but never in the many times that I’ve seen it did I ever once think, “Hmm, you know what would make this better?  3D!”  This Blu-ray set includes the original 2D version as well on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital (as Disney is wont to do lately), so I guess it’s nice that they include the option.

Available on 3D Blu-ray

Prom: Disney’s teen flick didn’t perform the way they had hoped at the box office, but I doubt it’s because it wasn’t the crass high school flick some critics hoped for.  Perhaps it will find its audience on home video.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

Madea’s Big Happy Family: I’ve never seen a Tyler Perry movie, but I can’t help but respect the way in which he’s built an empire from nothing outside of the Hollywood system.  If you dig his stuff, here you go.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

The Complete Jean Vigo: Criterion is putting out this box set featuring the entire body of work by director Jean Vigo, who had a brief career cut short at the age of twenty-nine by tuberculosis.  The box set includes À propos de Nice, Taris, Zéro de conduite, and L’Atalante.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

Orpheus: Jean Cocteau’s modern adaptation of the old myth comes to Criterion. The disc features a bounty of extras, including a feature-length documentary on Cocteau and a 16mm Cocteau short.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

If….: Lindsay Anderson’s bizarre movie starring Malcolm McDowell gets a Criterion update on Blu-ray.  This is the movie that inspired Stanley Kubrick to cast McDowell in the role of Alex in A Clockwork Orange.

Available on Blu-ray

Strike: Innovative Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein’s debut feature detailing a worker’s strike may be commie propaganda, but it features some of the incredible editing techniques he would come to perfect in his classic Battleship Potemkin.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

Rio 3D: In case watching this movie in 2D at home wasn’t good enough for you.

Available on 3D Blu-ray

Good Will Hunting: The movie that made Matt Damon an expert on education comes to Blu-ray

Available on Blu-ray

Top Gun: I have a friend who lumps movies into two categories: pre-Top Gun and post-Top Gun.  I have to convince him really hard to make him watch anything pre-Top Gun, with the exception of James Bond movies and Star Wars.

Available on Blu-ray

The Twilight Zone – Season 5: Some of the best writing there’s ever been on TV comes back again on Blu-ray.

Available on Blu-ray

This article originally appeared over at Parcbench

The big hullabaloo at the Oscars was that all of the best picture nominees but one were indy movies. Big deal, sniffed Cam.

“The English Patient” – I’m with Elaine Benes on this one.

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“Jerry Maguire” - I’m sure I’m in the minority here, but I still love just about everything about “Jerry Maguire,” despite its clunky moments.

“Secrets & Lies” – Other than “Naked,” which I saw under the influence of…something…I never have cared for Mike Leigh’s movies. Nor do I hate any of his movies, or find him to be a hack. But his movies don’t illicit anything more than a “that didn’t suck” outta me.

“Shine” - Really never got all the fuss over this one, either. I kinda hate it, in fact.

“Fargo” - From the lie that it’s based on true events to every aspect of the execution — everything about “Fargo” screamed instant classic.

WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED:

“Tin Cup” – Yeah, tt’s fluff. But damn if isn’t rewatchable and entertaining. Costner is so on, after a string of misfires. What the hell ever happened to Ron Shelton?

“Sling Blade” – There are about a hundred lines in this movie that I use every chance I get. Complete with the Karl Childers voice. Throwaway lines, even, like when my kid says a cuss word, I poke out my bottom lip and growl, “You shouldn’t be tawlkin’ like’at, you jest a boy.”

“Swingers” – So good that they remade it with actors as bottom-feeding gangsters, and I still loved it.

“Trainspotting” - Marketed as a British “Pulp Fiction,” the film is actually more like “Good Fellas” with junkies. Its first half comes very close to glamorizing the lifestyle of heroin junkies, and then the baby dies, and the carefree tone shifts radically. Haven’t seen this in years, but it remains burned in my brain.

“Fargo” – I had always been a fan of the Coen Brothers, but with this one I finally decided they were geniuses.

WHAT SHOULDA WON

“Fargo” comes tantalizingly close to being a perfect movie. The genius of the movie: its tone. Its humor is both dark and folksy, sometimes both at the same time, and from the very first scene, in a smoky bar in snowy Fargo, North Dakota the Coens establish a tense, unshakable sense of dread: we know Jerry Lundegaard’s (William H. Macy) convoluted scheme will end badly.  Jerry hires two goons, the monosyllabic, chain smoking thug Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare), and the wiry, talkative Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) to kidnap his wife in hopes that Jerry can convince his “well-off” father-in-law to overpay the ransom. Jerry will split the overage with Gaear and Carl, and give them a burnt umber Cutlass Ciera to boot. Right off the bat, Gaear and Carl have their doubts about the plan. “That’s like robbing Peter to pay Paul, Jerry, it doesn’t make any sense,” chirps Carl, who is unwilling to debate the subject any further.

But they go along with the plan and it goes bad when they’re pulled over by a State Trooper. Carl shows his hand, the Trooper suspects something, and Gaear takes it upon himself to kill the Trooper, after which he mocks Carl sarcastically, “You’re a real smooth smooth one.” So. Awesome. Oh, and then a passerby sees them dragging the trooper to the side of the road, so Gaear takes off for’em, kills them, and we think, “Goshdarn, what a mess, yah know?”

And then we meet Marge Gunderson (Francis McDormand), the Chief of Police in Brainerd, Minnesota, home of Paul Bunyon and Babe, the blue ox. She’s, oh, about fourteen months pregnant, married to Norm “Son of a” Gunderson, a painter. A nicer couple you shall not meet, but Marge doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that the bad guys will face justice.

But it turns out that Marge is a pretty goshdarn good detective, albeit a bit naive to the darker side of human nature. She arrives at the scene of the crime and figures out what happened in about two seconds flat, “OK, so we got a trooper pulls someone over, we got a shooting, these folks drive by, there’s a high-speed pursuit, ends here and then this execution-type deal.”

I’m not the first to say it — this moment is a game changer. We know that bad things will happen, because we’re watching a Coen Brothers movie. But we also, in this moment, relax a bit, knowing that there will be some level of justice. Marge is on the case.

Marge Gunderson is one of my twenty favorite characters of all time. Laid back, friendly, smart but never smug; it’s impossible not to root for her. Francis McDormand walked away with an Oscar for the movie, and the Coen’s don’t so much direct her as turn her loose. She’s not introduced until thirty or so minutes in, but it’s her movie. The supporting cast also excels. Macy wrings empathy from a role that could have been just plain creepy, and the Coens never judge him or attempt to justify him. We sense he was at one time a decent guy, and hate that he has chosen to go down a very dark path. Buscemi is in typically motormouth, bizarro-Barney Fife form. Stormare’s Gaer is a monster, plain and simple, with a seemingly impenetrable dark heart. But, because they’re geniuses, the Coens include a scene in which a routine twist in a bland soap opera offers a brief glimpse at Gaer’s human side.

“Fargo” is, to me, a masterpiece. It’s one of those movies that make me say, “So, this is the best movie ever,” every time I watch it.

The first film, released in 1969, sits in the mid-upper tier of movies made by its star, John Wayne (as well as winning him his only Oscar), and as such has achieved a kind of classic status among both Wayne fans and lovers of good westerns. There is a brand of theatergoer who maintains that there is no need to craft fresh takes on successful pictures, any more than we need new painters to dutifully re-imagine a masterwork like Da Vinci’s Last Supper.

On the other side of the debate are those who see good reasons for taking another swing at this piñata. Ever since the appearance of Wayne’s Grit, many fans of the novel — which first appeared forty-two years ago as a Saturday Evening Post serial written by Charles Portis (1933–) — have been keen to see a cinematic version that hews far closer to the plot of the book. Others see remakes as akin to a contemporary orchestra re-recording — and in the process re-interpreting — a famous piece of classical music, imbuing it with their own particular sonic signature. Seen in this light, the announcement of a new True Grit was a welcome one.

So now that the movie is out, who is right? Is the remake ill-advised, or a welcome addition to the western canon? Does the 2010 version have what it takes to make it a classic in its own right, or is it destined to be forever overshadowed by the 1969 original?

For all of the talk by the Coens of keeping their movie closer to the plot of the novel, the differences between it and the 1969 film are fairly minor — so much so that enterprising fans have cut new YouTube trailers to the 1969 version that manage to almost exactly match the trailer for the 2010 one. Both pictures rely heavily on the dialogue penned by Portis (a good thing, as the meticulously crafted and exquisitely well-toned repartee between the characters is the best part of the book, and one only need look to Peter Jackson’s painfully inept adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s equally rarefied Lord of the Rings dialogue to see what happens when one strays too far from the original work of literature).

Both also make some of the same changes to the characters. In the novel, Rooster Cogburn is about forty years of age and sports an openly disfigured and useless eye. In both films, he is played by a sixty-one-year-old actor (Wayne and Bridges were the same age when they undertook their respective attempts at the role), with each wearing an eye patch nowhere to be found in the book. (“I noticed by the lamplight,” Mattie says at one point in Portis’ original, “that his bad left eye was not completely shut. A little crescent of white showed at the bottom and glistened in the light.”) The murderer Tom Cheney, meanwhile, changes from a twenty-five-year-old in the book to a 40-50ish man in both movies.

Neither cinematic version gives the girl, Mattie Ross, the fiery bible-quoting Christianity the novel uses to help explain her perseverance and courage (the Coens make a surface stab at this, including an epigraph card that quotes the first half of Proverbs 28:1, but they still fall far short of Portis’ immersive ideal). In the book, Mattie Ross is constantly quoting scripture with expertise and passion to justify her hardheaded prejudices and decisions, often going so far as to offer extended (and, to the degree they disagree with her own beliefs, humorously acerbic) asides on the differences in the ways Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and Catholics interpret the Good Book.

This is the kind of earthy Christianity that anyone who has roamed the South is familiar with. (Once, about ten years ago while in rural Texas, I asked an old lady whether a mutual acquaintance was a Baptist or a Methodist, at which point another old woman overhearing the conversation piped up with, “My momma told me Jesus was a Methodist!”) When writer Charles Taylor wrote in the New York newspaper Newsday that Portis’ Mattie Ross, “springs from the blood and memory of the American past, her every word a hymn to the plain grace of Puritan forbearance” he was referring to that kind of deep faith, leavened by humor. Unfortunately, although the novel is filled with it, little seeped into either film beyond window dressing.

Setting aside the few non-crucial variances in plot between the two movies (things like the result of Mattie’s encounter with rattlesnakes, and the fate of the Texas Ranger LaBoeuf), it’s in other areas that the differences between the two pictures really manifest themselves. Neither can truly claim to have superior acting: I would rate Wayne, Robert Duvall, and Strother Martin in 1969 over Bridges, Barry Pepper, and Dakin Matthews from 2010, while 2010’s Hailee Steinfeld, Josh Brolin, and Matt Damon take the prize over 1969’s Kim Darby, Jeff Corey, and Glen Campbell. The Coens are far more cinematic and talented directors than the competent but seldom inspired journeyman Henry Hathaway, but their stand-in locations for Arkansas/Oklahoma are far less memorable than the lush Colorado vistas chosen in 1969, and Elmer Bernstein’s musical score from the 1969 movie is light-years ahead of anything Carter Burwell has done here in 2010, or indeed in his entire career.

In the end, the 2010 True Grit is valuable in its own right, but doesn’t seem poised to knock the 1969 film off its pedestal as the definitive go-to version. John Wayne’s centrality to the western genre, and the film’s centrality to his reputation as an actor, guarantees that. Jeff Bridges plays a competent drunken hombre, but Wayne dug deeper into cinematic history by aping the voice and mannerisms of the great Wallace Beery (profiled in Part 2 of last year’s For Conservative Movie Lovers look at 1931’s The Champ). It’s the kind of performance that tells us that the actor is having as much fun with it as we are.

Coming full in the face of the onset of the Vietnam War and the Hippie Era (not to mention Leone’s genre-altering spaghetti westerns and Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch, which was released a mere week after True Grit), this unabashedly entertaining and overblown character study was also a courageous thing to attempt, possessing a resonance extending well beyond the confines of the picture itself. Film critic Richard Schickel captured the full measure of Wayne’s contribution in his June 20, 1969 review of the movie in Life magazine when, talking of the story’s famous climax (capped by the salty declaration, “Fill your hand, you sonofabitch!”), he wrote:

Watching, one shouts, laughs and, unaccountably, feels tears beginning to tingle. For you feel you may be witnessing not just the beginning of a good movie’s climax but a full-throated valedictory for a tradition. Here is Wayne, the last of a great generation of western heroes, committing himself again to an action that at once affectionately parodies and joyously summarizes the hundreds — thousands — of similar moments that have preceded it in film history. And there is a tremendous sense of relief in the way he goes about it.

This “tremendous sense of relief” is extended in a final scene that doesn’t appear in either the book or in the 2010 Coen version, where Mattie Ross is allowed to offer her family’s grave plot to Rooster while he is still alive, cementing their friendship, and Rooster rides off into the sunset, jumping the fence Mattie said he was too old and fat to attempt while shouting, “Come see a fat old man sometime!” Like the young boy in Shane shouting “Come back!” (which likewise wasn’t in the book, but was only added later for the film), it’s a scene so possessive of dramatic satisfaction (what Schickel called his “tremendous sense of relief”) that we walk away from the 2010 version feeling cheated that it has been replaced by the comparatively predictable, bittersweet, and elegiac ending of the novel, the kind of dreariness we’ve long come to expect from “real art.”

Regardless of the gateway to True Grit you choose — 1968 book, 1969 film, or its 2010 cousin — it has once again proven that it is a story good enough to sustain multiple treatments. I recommend taking them on in order: Portis, Wayne, Coens.

Throw us a bone – how about more than just one or two flicks a year not targeted to the demographic that thinks Lady Gaga is a boundary-pushing icon of limitless creative vision?  Maybe a couple that are not focused on shiny supernatural creatures who chat about their feelings and stare longingly into the eyes of dead-eyed starlets acting as the surrogate for the millions of lonely shut-ins who adore them?  Just a few films not aimed squarely at creepy man-children dwelling in their moms’ Kleenex-strewn basements wishing they too could winch their bloated tushes into tights and fight crime just like their cinematic heroes.

How about more than just a handful of movies for men and women who need more than five hands to count out their age, who breathe through their noses, who have lives?  I have some dough – well, at least until the President and his fellow travelers declare me rich too – and I’d like to take my hot wife out once in a while to see a movie.  I used to go a lot, a few times a month.  But it seemed that five years ago there were always at least a few movies that piqued my interest.  Perhaps it’s me – perhaps I’m too demanding, what with my stubborn insistence on interesting stories told in a coherent manner by competent actors.  Or perhaps it’s just that the recent crop of movies is exceptionally crappy.

Let’s address the curmudgeon question here and now – yes, I have occasionally turned my hose on those damn kids when they messed up my lawn, but hobbies aside, the fact is that Hollywood is both leaving money on the table and sacrificing what little artistic credibility it has left by ignoring the normal adult demographic.  It appears that Hollywood has simply thrown in the towel and decided to focus on feeding formulaic moron fodder to a waiting cohort of slack-jawed ninnies eager for the next story about a magical robot or a superhero with issues.

Let’s take a look at what’s in the theaters this Christmas to test this theory.  How about How Do You Know, with Reese Witherspoon.  It’s supposed to be a smart, mature romantic comedy.  Now take a look at the trailer:

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Oh my – yet another romantic comedy that appears to be neither romantic nor a comedy.  Tired, telegraphed jokes and Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd playing the same guys they play in every movie.  Plus Jack Nicholson in the same growly old guy mode he’s been in (except for the otherwise annoying The Departed) for the last couple decades.  Look, unless Jack is ripping the cover off a water department/incest conspiracy, I’m not interested.

The latest Harry Potter movie is still out.  But I’m a bit old for movies about teenage wizards, and I suspect a substantial number of the adult males watching it are going less to experience story than to see the now adult Emma Watson play with her wand.

The latest Narnia movie is out too, and I understand it’s C.S. Lewis and it has an important message and so on, but there’s a problem:  I’m not 12.  My kids will probably love it – when it comes out on DVD.

The Tourist with Johnny Depp and Angela Jolie is out.  But it’s rated PG-13, which kind of eliminates the whole point of having Angela Jolie in it.

There’s a sequel to 1982’s Tron coming out as well.  Finally.  I guess the 28 years of non-stop clamoring for more adventures of some guys who go into an Atari game and do stuff have finally paid off.  I suppose I’d be more interested in Tron: Legacy if I hadn’t discovered girls in the meantime.

Soul-crushingly, we have De Niro cashing yet another paycheck in Little Fockers, the third or fourth sequel to a mildly amusing movie I’ve pretty much forgotten by now.  Watch the trailer and die a little inside:

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It’s like they invented a whole series of new clichés just for this movie.  And Ben Stiller’s recycled antics are annoying enough, but Barbra Streisand too?  I wouldn’t force Julian Assange to watch this nightmare…okay, maybe I would.  As for De Niro, just keep saying to yourself, “He’ll always be Neal, he’ll always be Neal.”

Jack Black will be waddling back on screen too as America’s favorite funny fattie.  This time, he’s in a wacky new version of Gulliver’s Travels.

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Can you spot the fresh, original joke?  Trick question – there isn’t one!  It’s just more Jack Black yelling, mugging, and running about, which might be hilarious to Miley Cyrus and her pals after a couple rippers off her achy-breaky bong, but for the rest of us, this thing looks like a celluloid kidney stone that you have to pay eleven bucks to pass.

But there is hope.  The Coen Brothers have a remake of True Grit coming soon.  Let’s leave aside the sacrilege of trying to compete with the Duke – it looks badass:

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A movie about adults, doing adult things, speaking in phrases that aren’t designed so that even the average public school drop-out can understand them – who would have thought it possible?  I’m getting disoriented – how can this be?

So, maybe I will visit the multiplex this Christmas season after all.  Right after I finish running off those damn kids.

I also informed all parties involved that I would do the same for any of them under similar brutal and inhuman circumstances. Whatever it took, be it sweetheart pleas or promises of a nuclear PR war. I have since dropped the latter approach, as I have been informed by Iranians also campaigning for Mr. Panahi’s release that it was not helpful to his cause. So on Mr. Panahi’s behalf, I have traded in my sword for a plowshare for the duration. Not a problem. I’m not a total ideologue. Just mostly.

This past three weeks have also brought many valuable learning experiences as well. I have since found that Facebook, which I have avoided like the Plague because I have enough on my geek plate already, is an incredibly valuable social networking tool that reaches even into the heart of Iran itself. I have made many new friends behind the Islamist Curtain, among them a Panahi family member, by posting any good news I could find on the Jafar Panahi and Free Jafar Panahi Facebook pages.

You have no idea how badly ordinary Iranians are starved for good news from the outside world today, people. They long for it like a parched man in the desert longs for water. So I scoured the Internet for every Jafar Panahi rally, every screening of Mr. Panahi’s award-winning films in solidarity with the filmmaker, demands for his release by the French and German foreign ministers, and the big news of ten days ago: that Cannes was dedicating an empty jury chair in Mr. Panahi’s honor.

That empty chair is sure to loom larger as Cannes approaches, especially in light of the recent joint statement by many of America’s leading filmmakers calling for the release of Mr. Panahi from Evin prison. It was a bold and comprehensive PR salvo to the Islamist regime in Iran by Hollywood’s top filmmakers, dare I say far bolder than Comedy Central’s recent caving to jihadi wannabes living in their mothers’ basements in New York City. Full credit where credit is due. And I cannot tell you how excited ordinary Iranians were at that surprising news. Orgasmic would not be an understatement.

Speaking of credit, the Free Jafar Panahi campaign owes a great debt of gratitude not only to the many filmmakers who spoke in unison on Mr. Panahi’s behalf last Friday, but most particularly to entertainment writer Anthony Kaufman, who has been working tirelessly on Mr. Panahi’s behalf ever since his arrest on March 1. Mr. Kaufman was also a driving force on the NYC petition committee. He deserves our deepest gratitude for his journeyman work in Mr. Panahi’s cause. Please thank him at his Village Voice contact page. Mr. Kaufman has definitely earned the Egon Snickers bar on this one!

For the record, the campaign to free Jafar Panahi is not over. In point of fact, the Hollywood petition may only be the end of the beginning. Mr. Panahi is still being given the Winston Smith treatment in Evin prison, and the Ahmadinejad regime shows no inclination to release him right away. Just the opposite, in fact. As Mr. Kaufman himself just reported, the state Tabnak news agency responded with “West Meddles in Panahi Affair Again, This Time Using the Prestige of the Hollywood Greats.” The state-run Kayhan website went even further, calling the Hollywood petitioners “mofsed fel-arz” which translates to “moral corruption that threatens the social order,” a most severe crime in Iran.

But the international tide of support for Mr. Panahi is steadily rising. Despite steadfast resistance,  mounting international pressure for Mr. Panahi’s release may yet have a profound effect on the regime. It is sure to be raised even higher with that upcoming empty jury chair looming ever larger at Cannes with each passing day. Even in today’s chaotic Iran, the regime will release Mr. Panahi if the PR heat becomes too great as it did for Roxana Saberi. The regime can ill afford to lose allies like France and Germany right now, and Mr. Panahi is fast becoming a diplomatic sticking point for both.

A note of bitter deja vu. Last week, as I drafted my latest oped on Mr. Panahi at Digital Journal, it occurred to me that a year ago today I was immersed in the same kind of relentless campaign for Roxana Saberi’s release from Evin prison, both here at BH and at the Digital Journal news blog. It was in fact Team Oscar’s Iran trip that drove me for the first time in my ten years as a screenwriter to openly attack and criticize Hollywood and the Academy over their incredible ignorance of the Islamist regime in Iran, especially with regard to the political persecution of filmmakers there. But Hollywood has finally spoken up on Iran, and in many ways my mission here at Big Hollywood is now complete.

Perhaps now that they all know the dire situation with Mr. Panahi, they’ll start taking a closer look at what’s going on there with other persecuted Iranian filmmakers like Mohammad Nourizad, never mind the thousands of innocents who suffer endlessly in the shadows outside of the public eye. For the first time in all this time, I feel like there’s hope yet. Statements such as the one last Friday carry far more weight than the sum of their parts. Hollywood voices do get a lot of press and attention, and that is a very good thing in this situation. I hope they continue to speak out as they have, which I am sure will accelerate in full measure at Cannes. I’ll be watching. But I see a lot of very good things upcoming that could lead to Jafar Panahi’s freedom. Here’s hoping for the best: a free Jafar Panahi!

The following conversation takes place:

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The fast, witty, and flirtatious dialogue in this scene gives us light into how a man could possibly get seduced into what was to come.  This is of course, the big murder/insurance scam from Billy Wilder’s classic 1944 film Double Indemnity.

There was a time when dark crime films were popular both with mainstream Hollywood films and B-grade productions. McCarthyism, Hollywood censorship, and World War II among other things all played a role in the shaping and growing popularity of what became known as the classic period of America’s film noir (1940’s-1950’s).

How can we forget the “stuff dreams are made of” from The Maltese Falcon or the last close up (for Mr. DeMille!!!) from Sunset Boulevard??  How about the quick and sexy dialogue between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep?  These films reek of crime and desperation but remain fun and stylistically beautiful.  The high contrast, looming shadows, and dim lit mise-en-scene gave way to a bleak and seductive emotionality.

Noir films often explore the seedy underground of Hollywood (In a Lonely Place), law enforcement (Touch of Evil), journalism (Ace in the Hole) as well as many other aspects of crime and deception.  Their style is impossible to miss.  Noir film has remained popular on a cult level but hasn’t reached mainstream status since its initial movement.

There is a piece by Matthew Sweet about his new documentary for the BBC, The Rules of Film Noir.  He interviews director Werner Herzog, whose newest film, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, promises to be “a new step in film noir.”

Herzog goes on to say, “It’s not so much techniques of light or a particular kind of story.  There’s something bigger behind it. You recognize a film noir very easily because it’s a cultural mood.”  He is right, turbulent times call for films that reflect the mood of the country.

Today’s cultural climate, with the economic downturn, soaring unemployment, and the looming threat of terrorism warrants a new desire for noir film.  It provides a perfect catalyst for a stylistically cynical and dark film movement.  Turbulent times often result in artistic genius, just look at German Expressionism.

Today’s film industry is currently overlooking a type of film that could reignite some of the emotions from the 1950’s.  I hope that the current cultural climate in the United States motivates Hollywood to dig deeper into its creative and stylistic vault.

Look at some of the better movies of the last couple years; There Will Be Blood, Gone Baby Gone, No Country for Old Men, and Gran Torino.  All of these (though not noir) are tough films and offer conclusions that are not easily swallowed.  The one closest to noir quality is No Country for Old Men, which was stylistically amazing.

There are some great hard hitting films these days, but they should take them a step further and utilize the stylistic brilliance of film noir.  Now is a great time for a genre revival!  Who wants to step up to the plate?

The Coen Brothers are the best living filmmakers of noir films (Blood Simple, The Man Who Wasn’t There) and genre films in general.  Their ability to adapt genre in terms of style (Blood Simple), sound (No Country for Old Men) and iconography (Miller’s Crossing) is nothing short of brilliant.

Most noir films today are simply an exercise primarily in genre style (which is fine).  Take Rian Johnson’s Brick for example; it is a great film that puts a hardboiled detective story that feels straight out of a Raymond Chandler novel, and throws it into a contemporary high school.  Robert Altman did a similar adaptation in 1973 with The Long Goodbye, taking Chandler’s Philip Marlow character and placing him in contemporary society.  This innovative use of genre should be seen more often (especially with noir!).

The film industry needs to take another look at noir cinema.  Whether it is a new story or a retelling of an old one, there is plenty of ammunition out there for a new resurgence in film noir.  It is time for Hollywood to utilize its creative side to make the streets on the big screen once again as Raymond Chandler wrote them, “dark with something more than night.”

Some of the biggest movies of any year aren’t in wide release until January, so some of us don’t see all them until much later. As of this week, I think I’ve seen what passes for “everything” from 2008. Herewith, my list of the Top Ten for the year just passed:

10. Sex Drive. Hilarious, under-seen, low-budget comedy starring the creative partner of the funny Michael Cera. Defeated at the box office because of its name, it features a few show-stopping scenes with Seth Green and a live-action pair of Beavis-and-Butthead types who steal the whole thing. This’ll do great on DVD.

9. Appaloosa. Another under-seen gem, this time a Western. Ed Harris directs.

8. Revolutionary Road. Most saw this as a nasty swipe at those of us who live in the suburbs, and I’m sure that’s how it was intended. Yet the picture was an even more powerful statement about the challenge of and virtue in pursuing dreams. Read my original review here.

7. Forgetting Sarah Marshall. A hilarious romantic comedy from the Judd Apatow mafia.

6. Burn After Reading. A Coen Brothers comedy. Funny, tight, message-free.

5. Gran Torino. Walt Kowalski isn’t a bad guy or even particularly bigoted. He’s just a certain kind of typical person in changing times. The point of the picture: people do adjust, sometimes heroically so. Bonus: The theme was the best movie song of 2008, criminally ignored for an Oscar in favor of some PC world-beat junk. Clint Eastwood is a national treasure–for his entire body of work, not just because this picture is popular with those of us on the Right.

4. Iron Man. What a treat. Action, excitement, humor, snark. Pure joy. For big fun, there was nothing better all year. Nothing.

3. Zack and Miri Make a Porno. The best comedy of the year. Anathema to some because of the title and the crudity, Zack and Miri nevertheless promotes the most wholesome, life- and love-affirming message since, well, Knocked Up. (Dissonance doesn’t play too well in some circles, does it?)

2. Wanted. Biggest surprise of the year: an actioner that pulls you along every second without a pause to catch your breath. Special effects built around a supernatural kind of physics. Directed by the Russian Timur Bekmambetov, who made the equally wonderful Night Watch, another bizarre action picture that was at one time (might still be) the highest-grossing picture in Russian history.

1. The Dark Knight. For the first time, the superhero story as allegory carries all the heft of real literature. Plus–and this is what matters in movies–the thing is wildly entertaining and completely engaging at every turn. Among the best pictures I’ve seen in the past several years.