Van Halen Reunites With David Lee Roth

Years ago I predicted the exact date this would happen: The second Tuesday after everyone stopped caring.

Whether you like their music or not, go back and watch Van Halen in their late ’70s-early ’80s prime. That was rock-n-roll — a guilt-free, turn-up-the-volume, dance-the-night-away pleasure. No anger, no guilt, no resentment — just a three-and-a-half minute prescription of Glad To Be Alive.

Hey you! Who said that?
Baby how you been?

Man, I miss the ’80s, and so does America.

They’re Still Colorizing ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’

A reader sent this, a clip from the new HD colorization. He writes, “Every single frame looks like a Rockwell painting.”

It might, but that’s not the way the film was meant to be seen. Technicolor was invented in 1916 and came of age in the late twenties and thirties. If filmmakers wanted to make their films in color, they could have. Sure, sometimes the cost was prohibitive, but when a film was produced for black and white the lighting, shadows, clothes and make-up were crafted and created deliberately around that reality. Nothing about any black and white film is appropriate for color. Nothing.

Jimmy Stewart himself was so incensed by colorization (his look at what was done to “It’s a Wonderful Life” was likely the last straw) he personally testified before Congress against it in 1988.

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DO 2012’s NEW RELEASES PROMISE A BOX OFFICE COMEBACK?

In the New York Times story I wrote about earlier today, there was this quote:

The good news for Hollywood is that the first quarter of 2012 looks much stronger than the same period this year, when studios had little to generate audience excitement.

Warner has two sequels — “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” and “Wrath of the Titans,” while Sony has a prominent remake in “21 Jump Street.” Disney will re-release “Beauty and the Beast” in 3-D, followed by Fox’s 3-D re-release of “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.” And Lionsgate will weigh in with its highly anticipated “The Hunger Games.”

So two re-releases, a sequel to a flop (“Journey 2″), and another remake of an ’80s television show rank as reasons for Hollywood to be optimistic?

The link in the title looks at the box office slate for the first three months of 2012. Take a look. Anything excite you?

What most struck me about those thirty or so titles was an almost complete lack of movie stars.

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Jimmy Stewart was at times morose and insecure as filming began on the 1946 film “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Since he went off to serve, Hollywood had found new leading men, such as Kirk Douglas and Gregory Peck, who both were seven years younger than he was. Some of “Life’s” early scenes called for the now graying Stewart to be just a few years out of high school. He felt ridiculous and considered plastic surgery, then thought better of it. But Jim was helped greatly by his co-star Donna Reed (Jean Arthur, Olivia de Havilland, and Ginger Rogers were among several actresses considered for the role of Mary Baily).

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Before the romantic scene where George and Mary tearfully and sensuously declare their love for each other, Reed encouraged her leading man to do it in only one unrehearsed take. Capra later joked that Stewart was so nervous during the tender sequence he was forced to wrap a phone chord around the celluloid couple so Jim wouldn’t run away.

“The nice part about living in a small town is that when you don’t know what you’re doing, someone else does.” — German Philosopher Immanuel Kant

Stewart was also helped by the actor who played the film’s villain, the wheelchair-bound Lionel Barrymore, who reminded him that movies had the power to make people happy around the world. The old man’s pep talks helped Jim regain his confidence in his acting chops, and Capra gave the Indiana, Pennsylvania-born Stewart great latitude in playing the role of the small town resident whose big dreams would never be fulfilled. Just before filming the sequence where the Bailey’s Bedford Falls neighbors came to take their money out of the building and loan, Capra advised the future grandma on TV’s “The Waltons,” Ellen Corby, to ask Stewart for $17.50, half the amount that the script called for. The leading man responded by staying in character and impulsively kissing Corby on the cheek.

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Holiday films and specials are a favorite American pastime. Whether you watch the same cherished movie with your family every year or you’re running out to the theatre Christmas morning to see that potential Oscar contender on its premiere date, holiday specials never fail to work their way into our lives as a beloved tradition.

However creating a Christmas classic certainly requires a magical mixture of ingredients.  A few cups of sentiment, a drop of imaginary wonder, spoonfuls of yuletide joy and unforgettable quotes that make it a definitive holiday trademark.

15. “Elf” - “Buddy the elf, what’s your favorite color?” Will Ferrell stars as Buddy, who thinks he is one of Santa’s little helpers, but is clearly out of place. One of the most hilarious Christmas stories ever written and Ferrell at his finest.

14. “A Christmas Carol” (Original B&W Version) - The 1951 British classic stars Alastair Sim as Scrooge and has its share of darkness and happiness as old Ebenezer is haunted by three spirits on Christmas Eve. The funniest moment is when Scrooge’s housekeeper Mrs. Dilber awakes him on Christmas morning and he raises her pay from 2 shillings a week to 10, she responds almost half frightened, “Merry Christmas Mr. Scrooge. In keeping with the situation!” (more…)

In a 1946 interview, Capra described “It’s a Wonderful Life’s” theme as “the individual’s belief in himself,” and that he made it to “combat a modern trend toward atheism.”

“It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) began as a short story called “The Greatest Gift.” Pennsylvania-born writer Philip Van Doren Stern, who said that the heartwarming tale had come to him in a dream, was unable to sell it to a publisher, so he sent the story out as a long Christmas card to friends. His agent subsequently sold the fable to RKO pictures, where it went through several transformations.

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In one version a losing political candidate contemplated suicide, only to have an angel convince him to stick around and do good works. Finally it fell into the hands of director Frank Capra, who said it was the story he had been looking for all his life. He purchased it to be the first project for his new venture, Liberty Films (started by Capra in 1945 along with Producer Samuel J. Briskin, and directors William Wyler and George Stevens). With movie attendance booming during the Second World War II, a new independent film company for big name directors seemed like a can’t-miss idea.

Capra had long been an admirer of Amadeo Pietro Giannini, the founder of the Bank of Italy in 1904, renamed the Bank of America in 1928. Giannini earned a reputation for lending money to people other financial institutions had considered bad risks, including immigrants whose property had been destroyed by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. A.P. only required a handshake and was proud to say later that he was always paid back. Giannini also believed strongly in the hopes and dreams of some of the street merchants who gravitated into the fledgling film industry, and put his bank’s money behind their ventures.

Based on Giannini, Capra’s 1932 drama, “American Madness,” told the story of a bank president (Walter Huston) who makes lending decisions based more on character than collateral, which causes his board of directors to try and ruin him. The money man is bailed by his less well-to-do friends,who personally benefited from his past generosity. A movie about a bank run had proved too topical to be a big hit in 1932; now, fourteen years later, “It’s a Wonderful Life” would allow Capra to once again tackle a similar theme.

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I love old movies, but even the first time I saw It’s A Wonderful Life I gagged on the sappy, daft storyline and banal message. Yes, the world’s a better place because you’re in it, dear reader, but really? This has become the go-to film for Christmas? Can I stop yawning now?

To be fair, I’m not Christian nor was I raised in a Christian household. I enjoy singing Christmas carols and appreciate the cheer and goodwill of the season, even if I watch askance at the capitalist excess and fist fights at Black Friday sales. A holiday about a so-called Prince of Peace subverted by a battle to get the best, the coolest, the “stuff” that says “yes, I’m a loving parent”?

That’s the backstory. When Big Hollywood asked me about my favorite Christmas films I balked, predictably, and said “not so much.” Instead, my list of five films that even us non-Christian, non-Christmas celebrating movie fans can enjoy…

The Hebrew Hammer (2003)

What, you want serious? Oy! Here’s the story: Mordechai Jefferson Carver (Adam Goldberg) is The Hebrew Hammer, an orthodox Jew who is on a mission to save Hanukkah from Santa Claus’s evil son Damien (Andy Dick), who has killed his dad after Santa got overly liberal. Now Damien is on a campaign to get rid of the Jewish holiday altogether. That’s okay; the Hebrew Hammer joins forces with the Jewish Justice League and the Kwanzaa Liberation Front to kill Damien and save Hanukkah. Hurray! (more…)

I’ve written several articles skewering HBO for producing political projects destined to air immediately prior to the 2012 election, where the vast majority of the cast and crew are passionate Barack Obama supporters, and where the content is aimed at the Democrat’s two favorite Republican villains: Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney. So, when I sat down to watch HBO’s Too Big to Fail, I prepared myself for the worst. What I didn’t expect was the big surprise awaiting me.

Too Big to Fail, which premieres on HBO on May 23, 2011, features a star studded cast recounting the events that led to the financial crisis and bailouts by the U.S. government in 2008. It is a mini-series packed into a 98-minute made-for-television movie where several essential characters are quickly introduced and where finance and economics are casually discussed. It may help if one has a baseline of knowledge about the crisis before watching the movie. If one doesn’t know who Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner are or what Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and AIG are, it may prove slightly difficult to follow.

Although the Director, Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile), was limited to telling a very long and complicated story in a very short amount of time, he was able to skillfully pull it off. Perhaps this is because the screenwriter, Peter Gould (Breaking Bad), deftly adapted Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 2009 prize winning New York Times Bestseller, Too Big to Fail. (more…)

(Warning: Spoilers abound)

Politics make strange bedfellows and movies can make strange politics…

They might not necessarily further the political ideology of the filmmakers because, when good filmmakers do their jobs and serve their story, agendas you wouldn’t anticipate crop up. How else to explain The Dark Knight’s alleged defense of Bush II era terror fighting tactics or what appeared to be a subtle stay-the-course-in-Iraq-so-we-don’t-duplicate-our-past-mistake-in-Afghanistan epilogue in Charlie Wilson’s War?

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But no example (even the ol’ “The Yellow Brick Road” in The Wizard of Oz is a metaphor for the gold standard!) is more bizarre and unexpected than the politics of Rango, opening this weekend.

Yes, I’m talking about the computer animated flick from Paramount and Nickelodeon about a domesticated chameleon who gets lost in the wild wild west of the Mojave Desert, directed by Gore Verbinski (the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy) and featuring the voice of Johnny Depp.

Much of the plot is unabashedly borrowed from Chinatown, from the pipe mysteriously dumping water in the middle of nowhere, to the character found dead from drowning out in the desert, to the seemingly innocuous old man in a wheelchair (in this case, a turtle voiced by Ned Beatty, channeling John Huston) who is clearly up to no good. If you want to know what he’s up to, well, just see Chinatown. (more…)

Yesterday, after watching a number of college basketball games, I decided to put on the classic Frank Capra film, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”  I had not seen it in about 15 years and had forgotten most of its content.  I did remember that I loved the movie and felt it was one of the most important ever made dealing with politics and patriotism.  Well, my memory served me correctly!

“Mr. Smith” is not only one of the greatest films ever made, but it also shows the love that Mr. Capra had for his adopted country.  For those of you that do not know, Frank Capra was an Italian immigrant.  He came to this country with his family as a young man and somehow ended up in Los Angeles during the early years of the motion picture industry.  He started in silent films as basically a gopher and eventually became one of the top five directors of the Golden Age of Motion Pictures.  Some would even argue today that he is one of the top five directors of all time.

In addition to “Mr. Smith,” Capra is also responsible for some of the great motion pictures of all time.  Among them are “It Happened One Night,” “Meet John Doe,” “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” “You Can’t Take it With You,” and, of course, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  From 1933 to 1946, Capra was nominated for six Academy Awards for Best Director and won three.  “It Happened One Night” was the first movie to sweep the Oscars in all five major categories.  This did not happen again until “One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest” in 1975.  It has only happened once since. (more…)

[Editor's Note: This list is arranged in no particular order. Read Part I here.]

6.  “Being exploited is different from being empowered ” – Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

Often too-easily dismissed as a raunchy teen sex comedy, Fast Time was a tremendously influential and important mirror on young America in the early 1980s.  The fact that it is gut-bustlingly funny – Sean Penn’s turn as surfer/stoner Jeff Spicoli remains his only role where he doesn’t annoy me – seems to overshadow the serious undercurrents, as does the ample nudity culminating in the unforgettable swimming pool scene starring the glorious Phoebe Cates.

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However, there is a very, very dark undercurrent to this movie that provides a serious lesson to young people.  Jennifer Jason-Leigh’s Stacy is a pretty but not-so-bright 15/16 year old who does not understand the difference between love and sex.  In a world of absolutely no parents (not a single one is ever seen), she tries to find love (or at least attention) by basically trying to have tacky sex with every guy she meets – and it’s heartbreaking.  She’s not “empowered” – she’s used.  The ugly scene where she loses her virginity to a guy in his 20s in a Little League dug-out staring at graffiti reading “Surf Nazis Must Die” is a better repudiation of the “hook-up” culture than a hundred lectures.

After scaring off the one guy who actually likes her for herself by trying to bed him too, she seeks comfort underneath his skanky pal.  A grim, humiliating encounter in a pool house leaves her pregnant and she immediately seeks an abortion.  Regardless of one’s stand on the life issue, one cannot be anything other than horrified at how the fact she sees herself as literally nothing but a mere receptacle leads her to feel nothing at all about her decision. (more…)

We conservatives spend a lot of time criticizing Hollywood’s failings, calling out its errors and pointing to its hypocrisies – and this is entirely appropriate since so much of the crap spewing out of the Tinseltown cookie cutter is borderline commie nitwittery masquerading as profundity.  But if nothing good ever came out of Hollywood – if everything it produced hewed to the same lame party-line pinkoism rejected everywhere except in Westside L.A., university faculty lounges, and Washington, D.C. – we all would have stopped paying attention long ago.

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And many conservatives have.  Many of us have thrown our hands in the air and opted out of popular culture completely, exhausted from enduring liberal sucker punches buried within crummy flicks about magic robots battling Dick Cheney vampire clones that we pay $12.50 to see in theaters maintained at the hygiene level of your average bus station men’s room.  You can hardly blame them for giving up.

But as tempting as it is to withdraw from the battlefield, to dig in and hope it somehow changes, surrender was never an option.  This is our culture, not theirs.  And they don’t get to control it. 

The fact is that among the detritus of American popular culture, there are voices of sanity.  Sure, they are nearly drowned out by over-praised hacks like Aaron Sorkin and over-indulged clowns like Oliver Stone.  Yet, occasionally, Hollywood has allowed positive, conservative messages to slip through. (more…)

Reality demonstrates that people act on their basest needs. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs says that basic needs are things like food, shelter, safety, and security.  If one progresses up the scale, needs like love, belonging, esteem, and respect become important.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Hollywood is a competitive place to live and work.  People who live and work there know that it might be the most competitive place to live in the entire world.  The drive to succeed, to find an edge that propels you to the next level can be very compelling for those who are weak.  Of those who crave the sort of attention that might compel them into the snake pit that is Hollywood, psychologists could agree that components in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs are lacking in key areas such as confidence, friendship, and even morality.  All of these mid-level needs should be met for healthy development of creativity, intellect, problem solving, and other high-level needs.  Maslow might reason that in the desperate setting of Hollywood, the underdevelopment of needs like morality, confidence, respect of self and from others might lead to the malformative finding of one’s self at the top of the triangle, with many of the more basic needs still lacking.  In Abraham Maslow’s terms, this is a recipe for disaster of philosophical incorporation. (more…)

The official Christmas season begins this month and along with celebrating the birth of my Lord by trampling each other to save 20% on an Xbox at Wal-Mart while supplies last, it also means  the airing of Frank Capra’s iconic 1946 holiday film It’s A Wonderful Life.

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For years I watched this movie and like many Americans would come away with that warm fuzzy feeling.  But one character in this film always bothered me. In fact, I believe that the more appropriate title of Capra’s project should have been It’s A Wonderful Life – If You’re Harry Bailey! Think about it.  George Bailey’s kid brother makes out like a bandit in this flick.  And why is that?  Because Harry (Todd Karns) throughout this film is a steam-roller of selfishness. I will even go so far as to say that Harry Bailey (who was never intended to be a bad guy) is one of the most despicable characters in movies. In scriptwriting it’s formulaic that two villains be created to inject multiple layers of conflict.  Obviously Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) is the uber-villain.  But who’s the other antagonist?  That would be Harry Bailey, who plays his older brother for a sucker throughout the film.  In fact, Harry is either directly or indirectly the root cause of all of George’s miseries.

From a young age Harry seems to conspire to keep George (Jimmy Stewart) pinned down in Bedford Falls, freeing him to fulfill his own dreams while leaving his older brother’s aspirations in a broken heap.  As a child he falls through the ice compelling George to jump into the freezing water to save him and lose hearing in one ear for his heroics. (more…)

On this, the one-year anniversary of Big Hollywood, it is fitting that ‘One Pissed Off Dude’ should mark it with a proper lambasting of one of America’s favorite films ever: “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  I’ve intentionally held off until after the holidays.  I didn’t want to be a Grinch Who Attempted to Steal Christmas…or a Scrooge Who Wallowed in Contrariness… or worse, a Reid-Pelosi Christmas Eve Douchebag.

I am a huge fan of Frank Capra.   And whereas it pains me to do so, I must call a proper spade a spade.  In my (what I presume will be ‘lonely’) opinion…this single movie has done more to undermine  America than any other in memory. 

And yes, I realize I’m about to infuriate both the Left and the Right… Christians and Atheists… Socialists and the ACLU… Jimmy Stewart fans, movie buffs, my entire readership, and my mother…but I have to say it:  There is an insidious lie placed smack dab within the heart of this otherwise exquisite movie.  And the strange thing is – along with hundreds of millions of people worldwide — it is still one of my favorite movies of all time.  And therein lies the rub. 

The most dangerous and injurious of falsehoods is the one that is shuffled in with the Truth. (more…)

(with deep apologies to Frank Capra)

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Scene 14: Christmas Eve, inside Bedford Falls Town Hall. Senator George Bailey confronts an angry mob of constituents protesting his vote on the new health care bill.
MAN #1
Come on Bailey, you can’t hide forever! Let us in!

WOMAN #1
Yeah, what is this mandatory insurance nonsense? Stop cowering behind that podium George! We want answers!

crowd erupts into shouting

GEORGE BAILEY
Now now now, everybody calm down, see? If you’ll, well, see, just let me explain…

MAN #2
You should’ve explained these death panels before we elected you! Let’s get ‘em! (more…)

Pretty much ignored when released in 1985, One Magic Christmas has hung in there and found an audience thanks to a solid script and Mary Steenburgen’s compelling lead performance as Ginny Hanks Grainger, a morose wife and mother whose Christmas spirit has been buried beneath mountains of unpaid bills, a soul-crushing job, and a coming eviction. 

Help arrives in the form of Gideon (Harry Dean Stanton), the unlikeliest of angels, who’s been tasked with the impossible: reminding this despairing mother of two of her blessings so that the Christmas spirit ripped from her by the hard realities of life can return. How far Gideon’s willing to go in order to accomplish this makes for some of the darkest moments you’ll ever come across in a holiday film, especially one from Disney.

This quiet, understated and sometimes grim spin on It’s A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol is not for the wee ones. But at 88-minutes there’s a ton of story and you have to be grateful that when the end credits roll no one On High has paid the bills or found Ginny and her family new housing. The film understands that God is not our own personal deus ex machina and that the angels can only help the willing to refocus their perspective on to that which really matters. Miracles are short-term solutions, it’s wisdom that helps you go the distance.  (more…)

That’s right, a 1979 television movie starring The Fonz as Ebenezer Scrooge is ranked ahead of White Christmas. (Or, if you’re younger than a hundred, the Coach in “The Waterboy.”)

I have nothing to say in my defense and await your wrath.

Well, I do have one thing to say: Henry Winkler is a marvelously talented and underrated actor, and any opportunity to boost his Winkler-ness I’m taking. See also: Night Shift (1982) and an under-appreciated masterpiece called The One And Only (1978).  

Besides, Adam Sandler loves the guy. You want to argue with that?

Other than The Disco Ghost of Christmas Past, shifting the Dickens’ classic from Victorian England to Depression-era New England was an inspired idea that adds a nice spin to the story’s familiar template. Though the characters are given Americanized names (Scrooge becomes Slade), they’re all there including a very effective Tiny Tim. Another terrific spin is making the child Scrooge/Slade an orphan after the death of his parents. This added subplot not only helps to explain why Slade whould grow into a lonely old miser but adds something different and effective to his Christmas day reformation. (more…)

It’s hard to put into words what my father means to me. He’s old school. So writing some emotional, eloquent, diatribe to his greatness would likely embarrass him more than it would pay tribute. There is an art form to the minimalist compliment among men that I’m still trying to master. My favorite scene in “It’s A Wonderful Life” is when George Bailey sits at the table with his father and can’t put into words how he feels about his old man, “You want a shock, Pop? I think you’re a great guy.”

Part of what I love about my father is how he is a vessel that carries the good things from the past into the future. His generation may have brought some bad things along with them too, but we don’t mourn or fear the passing of bad things. It’s the good things that I fear are leaving us, and our society no longer produces men like Lincoln, Johnny Cash or even my dad. That’s what a father is, a vessel that ushers greatness into the next generation. Dads bring great things from the old school to the new school. (more…)