In a town where screenwriter William Goldman famously stated, “Nobody knows anything,” Pixar evidently knows something. It began its life in the early 1980s as part of Lucasfilm’s struggling computer division, then later was spun off into the hands of Apple visionary Steve Jobs. The debut of Toy Story in 1995 finally rocketed the fledgling studio into the public’s consciousness, and since then every one of its eleven films has become a monster hit, both critically and commercially. It’s a winning streak unmatched by any other studio in Hollywood history.

Countless articles and interviews have attempted to divine the alchemy that turns everything Pixar touches into box-office gold. Some see an increasingly tired formula at work under the hood of each film, in which only the surface trappings change. Others see a genuine creative ethos guiding the minds responsible for each picture, something almost akin to a filmmaking religion, complete with its own commandments and proscriptions.

What’s their secret? There’s as many answers to that as there are movie-loving blowhards blogging on the Internet, but here’s my take:

1. No studio interference. Pixar films are kept firmly in the charge of writer-directors with strong creative visions. The spectacle of studio executives offering reams of script notes to trained and proven artists (the equivalent of used car salesmen telling Porsche designers how to build their next model) is unheard of there.

2. Pixar University. The company has developed a formidable in-house education facility, where employees improve their skills and artistry via over a hundred courses covering a wide variety of artistic subjects and disciplines. This reminds me of the old studio system, where young actors, writers, and directors were meticulously groomed into the stars and artisans of tomorrow. It’s an idea long overdue for a comeback in Hollywood.

3. No songs. I’m a great fan of quality musicals featuring tunes worthy of inclusion in the The Great American Songbook, but the kiddie pap that adorns the typical animated movie doesn’t qualify. To date, Pixar has resisted this insipid siren call, and is on record as especially despising the dreaded “Happy Village” songs that routinely pollute modern children’s films. Good for them.

4. Likable characters. Pixar’s heroes have their faults and foibles, but at the end of the day they remain heroes, imbued with a latent Judeo-Christian sense of morality, ethics, sacrifice, and justice.

5. “Animation is a medium, not a genre.” These words of wisdom come from Pixar director Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille). Pixar’s films are always, first and foremost, cinema. Their makers insist that their stories match, in every soulful, poetic, and dramatic detail, the best that live-action dramas have to offer. Which inexorably leads to the notion of. . . .

6. Not for kids, for everyone. Pixar’s movies are great favorites with children of course, due in no small part to their G (and only occasionally PG) ratings. But we too often forget that G doesn’t stand for “Grownups Not Allowed,” but for “General Audiences.” Pixar makes movies for adults, children, families, liberals, conservatives, Americans, foreigners — everyone. They don’t pander, or needlessly exclude, or revel in the poor triumph of a political or religious cheap shot. Every few years we are reminded via some mega-hit that any story can, with intelligent adjustments, be made universally attractive to paying audiences. Pixar makes these adjustments as a matter of course, every time.

7. The Golden Rule, Pixar’s homegrown Hippocratic Oath: Do No Harm. As in harm to the audience. It’s one thing to address the many difficult subjects that make up Real Life, things like loss, death, and failure. It’s quite another to let audience members leave the theater, as so many nihilistic and mean-spirited modern movies do, with those issues still hanging unresolved in their psyches like an open wound. Pixar, in following their own personal Hays Code like the classics of yore, brings audiences safely through the darkness.

Hollywood has a lot of profit awaiting them should they ever come around to embracing the Pixar Rules for the bulk of their live-action slates. That’s not to say that there’s no room in the marketplace for R-rated or niche films, but such outliers — designed to appeal to a comparative sliver of the potential audience — should be budgeted and marketed accordingly. A full 90% of what Hollywood makes are pictures that executives hope will appeal to the widest possible audience. Given the rank mediocrity, offensiveness, and clichéd idiocy that permeates so much of that product, a better formula — one that attracts “General Audiences,” promotes healthy values, and above all Does No Harm to their customers — would be a grand thing.

Oh well, one can dream. Until they wise up, we have Pixar: an American success story worthy of the highest praise, and a veritable beacon of hope and renewal shining across our wine-dark cultural sea.

Those who have read my piece about a film noir revival and the film Brick know that I am an emphatic fan of the noir genre.  While I have a deep love for the classics that fell within the initial movement (arguably 1941-1959), there are still some neo-noir films that spark my interest (not enough, which is why I asked for a revival!).  One of these films is the extremely fun Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.  It is a very different noir film that is funny and opposite the dark, desperate, lonely noir films of years past.

In a rare combination of coincidences, Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) is a petty thief in New York City who finds himself auditioning for a role in a new detective film.  He goes to Los Angeles after being accepted as a potential candidate.  Harry is a fast-talking, chain smoking and delightfully sarcastic protagonist that makes this neo-noir film one of the best.

After getting invited to a party in the Hollywood hills, Harry meets Gay Perry (Val Kilmer).  Perry is an (ironically gay) quick-witted private investigator that asks Harry to participate in a murder investigation in preparation for his potential film role.  Perry’s homosexuality plays on the theorists of the 1940’s and 1950’s that psychoanalyzed many noir protagonists as being gay men (I know, those theories are a stretch at times).

Also at the party is Harry’s high school sweetheart, Harmony Faith Lane (Michelle Monaghan).  She is an aspiring actress who fled her life in the Midwest to pursue a career in Hollywood.  Unfortunately, her only claim to fame is a dorky beer commercial.  She is a type of spider woman (men get caught in her web of problems).  However, the difference is that she is not anti-heroic.  Her intentions throughout the film are good, but her bad luck lands hard on both Harry and Perry.  Harmony is an unintentional seductress that seduces Harry into her life.  In turn, her problems end up his problems.

As luck would have it, Harry, Harmony, and Perry all end up in the middle of a life-threatening murder investigation full of quick witted and humorous dialogue.  While aesthetically appealing, this film is largely driven by the character’s conversations.  Note one of my favorite scenes below after Harry notices a corpse in his bathtub while peeing.  Understandably startled, he turns quickly and accidentally pees on it.

Harry: I peed on the corpse. Can they do, like, an ID from that?
Perry: I’m sorry, you peed on…?
Harry: On the corpse. My question is…
Perry: No, my question. I get to go first. Why in pluperfect hell would you pee on a corpse?

Visually, the film is not necessarily noir since most scenes, even those at night, are very bright. Thematically and dialogically, however, it is very much noir. Much of the film is told by a voice over narration from Harry.   The nature of his narration is often self-reflexive as he acknowledges the film audience, which makes it fun.  Perry even says, “Do not play detective. This is not a book. This is not a movie.” Voice over Narration and self-reflexivity is common in noir film (see both at work in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard).

Harry: “Wow, I feel sore. I mean physically, not like a guy who’s angry in a movie in the 1950’s.”

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is also reflexive of the source material for many of the detective films of the 1940’s.  Harmony is a lifelong fan of hard-boiled Jonny Gossamer novels, which provide a throwback to the work of Raymond Chandler.  Many of Chandler’s books have been made into films, for example: The Long Goodbye, The Big Sleep, and Murder, My Sweet.

Harry provides a great contrast between the private eye (Perry) and the everyman (aka the viewer).  He represents everything that could possibly go wrong when the average person would attempt to be a private detective.  He realizes he can’t physically defend himself, every “real” criminal has the drop on him (they easily plant a corpse in his hotel room), and he has no real detecting skills.

In many ways Perry is a typical hard-boiled detective but the fact that he is gay makes for some hilariously awkward situations that never would have worked in the classic Humphrey Bogart films (Hays code wouldn’t allow).  Towards the beginning Harry asks Perry, “Still gay?”  Perry responds sarcastically, “Me? No. I’m knee-deep in p***y. I just like the name so much, I can’t get rid of it.”

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is a great revisionist noir that relies on self-reflexive humor to keep the film running on a positive note.  By making a big deal out of everything large and small throughout the film, Harry’s dialogue and narration keeps the audience smiling.  There are enough classical references to keep film buffs happy but there is also enough contemporary humor to keep the film from feeling dated.  It is one of the most overlooked films in recent year; if you haven’t seen it go check it out!

The word erotica typically applies to works in which the sexual element is regarded as part of the larger aesthetic aspect. It is usually distinguished from pornography, which can also have literary merit but which is usually understood to have sexual arousal as its main purpose.

Erotica should be what arouses sensuality and sexual desire in the imagination. Pornography is a cheap substitute to genuine sensuality by replacing it with naked thrusts and bursts of faux gasps of passion. How trite compared to visions created in our minds stimulated by a simple touch, look or gesture. Last night I watched the TCM channel which ran a surprising example of true erotica-Tarzan-the Ape Man. 

Laugh if you will but Johnny Weismuller and Maureen O’Sullivan generate more heat in this 1932 action adventure film then any of the actors and actresses starring buck naked and writhing in today’s features. 

I had seen the Tarzan movie on TV as a very young girl and didn’t quite understand anything other than the exciting animal scenes that would enrage PETA today. This time around I was fascinated by the primal sexual tension between the virginal Jane and her handsome savage abductor Tarzan; the feral child raised by apes to manhood and the future Lord Greystoke. Jane has warmed up to Tarzan as he has saved her time and again from other jungle creatures. After frolicking in the water, Jane lies back on some branches and puts her hand on Tarzan’s bare chest. After she says to him, “I bet you don’t even know what I mean by a kiss,” he looks at her, she looks back at her, and the long silence between them speaks volumes. He then looks up into the trees which holds her sleeping area and throws her over his shoulders. The next shot is Jane, stretching her arms behind her head and blissfully smiling, saying that she’s so happy. Her self satisfied expression of ecstasy says all we need to know about that night of love in the treetops with her Apollo. Needless to say, it’s all off screen and in the televised screening I viewed, Tarzan and Jane never even kiss. 

Another eye opening oldie was with Marlene Dietrich in the 1933 torcher “Song of Songs”. Dietrich portrays an innocent country girl who meets a handsome sculptor. She agrees to pose nude for him but we only see her from the shoulders up. The artist however, is molding a full size nude statue and as he slowly caresses and smoothes the clay over its breasts-    whew! That’s erotica. 

The irony is that these films and many more like them were made under the guidelines of the Motion Picture production Code a.k.a. Hays Code. One of the restrictions in the code was: “Scenes of Passion” were not to be introduced when not essential to the plot. “Excessive and lustful kissing” was to be avoided, along with any other treatment that might “stimulate the lower and baser element.” 

Although the code was not seriously enforced until 1934, it’s clear that filmmakers in that era were particularly adroit in producing erotica that still met the stringent format of the Hays Code. That skill is sorely missing in today’s directors and screenwriters who rely on the obligatory sex scene to score an R rating. 

There have been a few notable exceptions that induced swoons and sighs sans nudity, grunts and groans, but these are at least a few decades old.  In the 1979 movie “Tim”, a very young, gorgeous Mel Gibson suddenly grabbing Piper Laurie and planting a wet one on the older woman’s shocked face sent hearts racing.  My husband, who admits to having seen “Deep Throat “ and “Behind the Green Door,” found the love scenes in the aptly named, “Sword of Lancelot” (1963) much more arousing. 

As a child of the sixties and a visual artist, I’m not writing this as a Victorian prude but rather as a film buff who has observed with increasing dismay the lack of effort from Hollywood in producing quality sensual art that does not border on the obscene. 

Can anyone claim that the 1981 remake of “The Postman Always Rings Twice” was an improvement over the original 1946 one starring John Garfield and Lana Turner because Jack Nicholson boinked Jessica Lange on a table? 

[Tomorrow: Modern Cinema Hasn’t a Clue about Eroticism.]

The characters we now recognize as super-heroes crystallized with the debut of Superman in 1938. Representative of the American experience, Superman was the ultimate immigrant. Not merely from another country, the Man of Steel came from a whole different planet! With his success, publishers released a myriad of titles featuring crime-fighting patriotic adventurers who all fought for “truth, justice and the American way.” That included those who were born on an all-female island (the star-spangled Wonder Woman), from Atlantis (the Sub-Mariner), robots (the Human Torch) or even dead people (the Spectre and Kid Eternity)! Gaining super powers even reformed criminals as in Plastic Man’s case. 

America hadn’t yet entered World War II and super-heroes were already bashing Nazis. There were no isolationists in comics and when the Japanese attacked America the characters leapt into the fray, punishing Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini on seemingly endless covers. Individual comic titles sold in the millions and were read by all demographics. This era of comics was rightly dubbed the Golden Age. 

Super-heroes were the epitome of American Exceptionalism; there wasn’t anything they couldn’t do. In contrast, European fiction was rife with super-criminals, from Fantômas and Dr. Mabuse, on to comics with killer protagonists, most notably Diabolik. Murderers like Kriminal, Satanik, Killing and Fatalik followed. This could be due to the fact that after centuries of strife, as well as being on the losing end of two world wars, their culture was not as optimistic as the United States. 

Sales of super hero comics peaked after the war and many publishers transitioned to other genres like teen humor, funny animals and most ominously, crime and horror. 

Psychologists and social critics looking to explain the rise of juvenile delinquency latched onto the lurid content of comic books. Fredric Wertham, a psychiatrist who had defended cannibals and child rapists in court, wrote the book Seduction of the Innocent, which posited that comics, especially of the crime and horror ilk, caused kids to go bad. He accused super-heroes of sado-masochism and defined the innocuous relationship of Batman and Robin as homosexual. 

This lead to the infamous United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1954, ultimately chaired by the coonskin cap wearing Senator Estes Kefauver (D-TN). The bad publicity led to the formation of the Comics Code Authority by a cadre of comic publishers to self-censor their titles, similar to what the Hays Code did with films earlier in Hollywood. 

The net result was that comic book content was lobotomized and the medium limited to children and adults with arrested development. Super-heroes had mostly left the scene except for the triumvirate of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman… and their adventures were rendered mundane under the Code. 

The genre was revitalized in the late 1950s when DC Comics revamped its older characters for a new generation. Neoteric versions of the Flash, Green Lantern and more were introduced and, noting their popularity, Marvel Comics launched a new batch of characters in the early 1960s. They had the significant characteristic of “heroes with problems…” Spider-Man couldn’t get a date, Iron Man had heart problems and the Fantastic Four were bickering with each other. 

This appealed to eggheads and college students who preferred Marvel to the staid and conservative (read “square”) heroes at DC and Marvel started receiving positive press in magazines from Esquire to Rolling Stone. Marvel writer/editor Stan Lee got a lot of credit for the success, but it can’t be denied that the innovative and dynamic artwork of Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby is what primarily dragged readers into the “Marvel Universe.” 

Comic sales were atrophying in the 1960s with the Batman comic almost cancelled until the premiere of his groundbreaking TV series. Batmania hit the world and comic sales rose to 1940s levels with every publisher doing super-heroes again though sales soon dropped off again. 

The first generation of comic fans soon became professionals, aping Stan Lee’s work without his context and adding their own political and psychological attitudes. “Social relevance” was the rage, and while award winning and noted in The New York Times, these new themes did not translate to new sales. During this period, Green Arrow’s sidekick was revealed to be a heroin addict, vigilante heroes became killers and Iron Man was ultimately revealed to be an alcoholic.

Next: The Fall of the Super-Hero

It’s also something our movies used to portray well. We don’t get to see too many of these kinds of movies anymore. Nope, they don’t make them like they used to. That can be said of both the men and women of Bush 41’s generation, as well as the films of that era. But sometimes, in more recent times, we’re graced with shining examples of tarnished excellence, of battered beauty in our citizens and in our favorite art, the movies.   

“In Harms Way” is such a movie. It’s a great film. Imperfect, but great. When I ask learned friends of mine about Preminger’s films, they usually omit this one in their list of Otto’s greats. I’ve seen it a few times now, and I’m not sure why they leave it out. I’ve speculated it’s because they haven’t gotten around to seeing it yet. Nope, they’ve seen it, they assure me. So, when I delved deeper as to why it gets left out, I was a bit surprised to see a full spectrum of opinions expressed in describing the film and its flaws, real and imagined. It’s a good sign, though. If a work of art – and this film is art – can evoke such divergent opinions and emotions in an audience, then it’s working. Boy is it ever! 

A couple of things seemed to surface far more than others in the criticisms of this flick. Even Kirk Douglas, one of the stars of “In Harms Way” was somewhat vocal at the time in his opinion on some of these same perceived shortcomings.

Basically, he didn’t like the boats. 

With all due respect to Kirk, I think he’s wrong on this one. Recent comments I’ve heard about this film miss the mark, too. So, don’t listen to the technologically-dependent reviewers who say that the “special effects are lame.” I’ve seen plenty of worse special effects in newer, bigger budget films. But that’s not important. Because if you look for flaws, you’ll find them. To those who so easily do, I ask the following question: Have you ever had the pleasure of watching Shakespeare performed by a talented acting company on stage? Would you walk out because the stage lighting was lame or a backdrop wasn’t a perfect rendering of a landscape or village street?  It has long been my opinion that the folks who complain about special effects being “lame,” “bad” or “cheap” are missing the point.

The entire phenomenon of drama, of film is an “effect,” a cheat, an illusion, pulling the wool over our eyes twenty four times a second. The sum total of cheats and tricks are intended to transport the mind to another place, the setting of the film. The acting, scenery, effects are there to help us imagine, to aid our mind on its journey. So, when I hear one complain that the acting in a film is great, but that the effects stink, it simply tells me that the viewer’s mind is too weak to make the jump, to connect the dots, because, perhaps, some of the dots are not as boldly written as others. Either that or they just came out of a Roger Corman flick. 

As an alternative, would those critics of cheaper effects prefer to have Otto Preminger go out sink actual cruisers, torpedo boats and the real battleship Yamato for his film?  I almost expect the answer to be ‘yes’, judging from some of the commentary I’ve read on this subject and others like it. Let’s get serious, folks. Without a doubt, there seems to be a trend, more prevalent as the tooth gets long and the days go by, to confuse narrative drama with documentary. Even the Italian Neo Realists knew where to draw the line. Maybe it’s because documentaries of late have been produced like narratives, manipulative and with a clear and present intent on affecting the heart and mind of the viewer, politically and ideologically. Or maybe it’s because audiences are more sophisticated now and demand more technical prowess for their buck. Forget it. Give me a break. If the folks coming out of American Pie II are to be described as more sophisticated as compared with those exiting a screening of Bicycle Thief, then I’m in the wrong business and I need a new dictionary.  

When an old war film like this is shown on television or released on DVD, the usual suspects come out and take their hackneyed pot shots over the bow, criticizing the film for being too tame in the graphic violence department, or for using “cheap models” and other “not realistic” effects. These misguided critiques are often accompanied by the ubiquitous phraseology that goes hand in hand with such complaints, such as, “if you can get past the bad effects….”. This kind of unimaginative discourse is about as useful as Facebook in a knife fight. Often these criticisms rally together an alliance to hit the easy and much targeted Hays Code and Hollywood’s era of so called ‘censorship’, which just so happened to result in the best darn moviemaking ever seen in human history. Nope, that’s coincidence, they say. Mere chance that the obstacles, such as not having a fleet to sink, nor being allowed to show the fact that sailors when hit by the explosive force of artillery are turned into nothing more than steaming stains, actually produced better cinema.

Obstacles help.

They force the filmmaker to go around them, to be resourceful and creative with what they are able to show. Obstacles force the the creators of film art to use the power of their imaginations, and thus spark the viewer’s imagination of what they thought they just saw on the screen, but actually didn’t. By using the effects of association, montage and the art of lighting in creating a desired sensation, whether for suspense, doom or elation, great filmmaker can make us believe what we were seeing, and not seeing. And during that golden age of Hollywood, by not showing, they showed us far more than we can see now in the unbridled Hollywood of CG and anything goes. Take a modern pre CG visual masterpiece such as Blade Runner, for example. If made for the first time, in the near tomorrow of Los Angeles, 2010, Roy Batty’s “I’ve seen things” speech would be omitted in favor of simply showing computer generated attack ships burning off the shoulder of Orion. Cool, though it may be. Roy’s description sparked a fuse that still burns so very, very brightly to this day. Unwavering. The same cannot and would not be said if, the production began tomorrow, and we did see what he saw with Chew’s eyes. It would not be timeless, masterpiece of moviemaking history, but a dated and forgotten one faster than you can say, “you’re talking about memories.”  Because, over time, all effects become lame, outdated and clunky. Bar none. No exceptions. The only thing that never becomes outdated is our imagination. What we think we see. 

Others, not in favor of the CG answer, and though still not keen on how the battle action was portrayed in “In Harm’s Way” might prefer that grainy newsreel footage be used, as seen in the Pearl Harbor sequence at the outset of the film. No one can argue that such material is not real enough. The process of using stock footage can be convincing if done sparingly, for only seconds on screen, such as in the cold war classic, “Fail Safe”. Personally, I love to see war footage. But not in a feature film.  I’d rather see imperfect models than mismatched newsreel footage, which, for obvious reasons, all too often substitutes different vessels and aircraft type for those depicted in the story, usually in mid-scene! Some experts out there familiar with the cold war classic might fire back at me here and state that a movie like “Fail Safe” fails in this regard, as well, and by this very same sin. True, but the insert of stock footage happens so quickly that its somewhat inaccurate characteristics (I won’t say more) goes unnoticed by most viewers not versed in war machinery, leaving us safely undistracted and in the story. 

Also, it must be noted that though there is battle action, “In Harms Way” is not a war film, as such. It is a film that uses the war as its setting. Other critics who are able to “get past” the so-called lame effects, charge that there isn’t enough action in the film. This is a valid point. It’s based on a novel. Characterization is of prime importance. But, like From Here to Eternity and Farewell to Arms (both film versions from novels), the setting of the war is only a setting, a backdrop, a time and place to situate the activity of our characters and what kinds of messes they get themselves into. Sure, cinema by definition is about visuality and what happens next, what we see happening next, not about the written word. But there can be a very nice blend of literary greatness, storytelling and visuality that all movie classics from Hollywood’s golden era share. You show me a timeless classic film from the 30s, 40s, 50s and I’ll show you a dense script.  

Preminger deserves more credit for doing a fine job in transforming the story from the written word to the big screen. He doesn’t do it alone, of course. To help him are John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, and Patricia Neal with many fine smaller roles filled by Burgess Meredith, Dana Andrews, Franchot Tone and Henry Fonda as well as some other familiar faces I’ll let you enjoy noticing on your own. 

I won’t comment on each of the actor’s performances here either; you can see for yourself how fine or poor their acting is by your own standards after watching this admirable film. It’s my opinion, though, that you won’t be disappointed. You’ll find in at least one of them, something you can relate to, in another something you can empathize with, one you can love and maybe one you can honestly hate. 

I will add one point about the actors, though, and that is that John Wayne did a tremendous job in this film. Some say his understated performance was due to his having been diagnosed with cancer at the time. I’m in no position to say if that’s true or not. There are probably only a handful of people who still alive who are. But I can say this: if that’s the case, if his suffering from cancer was a reason why his performance was the way it was, then, rather than discredit, it says even more about the man’s strength and character and his ability to perform under such conditions than anything I can even begin to think of.

Another thing about Duke. It’s been my experience that the critics of John Wayne, of his acting, are similarly cynical concerning the topic of U.S. foreign policy and America’s role in the world. Such people, it’s been my experience to note, who resent his “John Wayneness” are often unreceptive to him as a figure of tough, no nonsense America, much more than his skills in acting. They despise what he represents, and therefore, anything he does or stars-in regardless of quality. This is a behavior we’ve all seen in the last several years with regards to George W. Bush. Those eager to mock the decisions he’s made ignore the fact that those same or similar decisions were made by other politicians which the critics themselves celebrated with nothing less than high regard and glee. 

Here’s an experiment: next time you hear someone making jokes about John Wayne’s acting, particularly if they aren’t good-natured jokes, or impressions – who doesn’t do a John Wayne impression? – discreetly inquire about their stance on U.S. foreign policy. Don’t be obvious, just see if you can wrangle it out of them delicately. I don’t think you’ll be surprised to find an overly negative and similarly cynical attitude in this area as well.

Watch the film. Ignore the shortcomings. A strong mind can do this easily. A weak mind will dwell on them. It’s your choice. Like Bush ‘41 and his generation depicted in the film,  ”In Harm’s Way” is an example of imperfect greatness that perhaps only history can appreciate completely.