This Week in Retro

I watched Francois Ozon's "Angel" (2007) this weekend and pretty much loved it. As Victor Morton wrote: "A sort of female bildungsroman about a teenage dreamer who becomes a writer of cheap romances and then Britain’s biggest literary star, ANGEL isn’t in any way a parody or a pastiche or a travesty of the 30s/40s woman’s picture. It is simply an example of it, a re-creation of it— outdated conventions and all (complaining about the obvious rear-projection, as does the lead review on the IMDb as I write this, utterly misses the point)... you can imagine MGM of the 30s putting out this movie, with Norma Shearer or Joan Crawford or Greer Garson in the lead..."

Exactly. This film is everything films like "Far From Heaven" and "The Good German" wish they could be. It's a modern update of an older genre that manages to have the more "adult" content (i.e.: sex scenes) mix perfectly with the older Bette Davis-type woman's melodrama style. Romola Garai continues to be one of my favorite young British actresses. She's been wonderful in almost everything I've seen -- "I Capture the Castle," "Atonement," and now "Angel" (the less said about "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights" the better) -- and I wish she had a higher profile. Make more movies, Romola!

derelict dereliction

It's been awhile, eh? I guess I've been derelict in my duty to the blog, nyuck nyuck!!! Where have I been all these weeks? Well, writing a novel for one thing. It's gloriously bad -- all about a 1930s movie star actress who leads a secret life as an Indiana Jones-type treasure hunter and how she must find a magical ancient treasure before the Nazis do and save the world, blah blah adventurecakes -- it's all completely cliche and horribly written and it's truly terrible. But I love it. It was all part of National Novel Writing Month. So, I wrote my novel, and I spent a lot of time watching old movies as "research" (heh) and now I'm back and ready to go blogging.

My only problem is: I've got too many things I want to blog about. I've got so many ideas bumping around in the brain that I can't decide which to write about first. I want to write about Big Hollywood, the conservative website devoted to movies and culture that I have a love/hate relationship with (backstory: I am a conservative. And a movie lover. And I thought Big Hollywood would be sorta like Dirty Harry's Place only awesomer but instead it turned out to be kinda okay on one hand and a total snoozeville on the other). So, I thought I'd give my critiques on why Big Hollywood needs improvement and how it can go about improving itself (not that they even care what some lame-o blogger like me thinks, but I am their target audience, so maybe for business' sake they might consider my thoughts).

But then, I thought, I've been meaning to write about Turner Classic Movies and how on the one hand it's the most amazing channel to ever grace the small screen, but on the other hand they need to seriously reconsider some of the bumpers and intros they've been using lately (i.e.: the new opening for the primetime movies, where a bunch of creepy cgi-like people stare up into the sky at a giant movie screen while annoying tinkly music plays). TCM, for the love of Bogart, these new intros have got to go!

But then, I thought I'd be a little more positive and write about all the good movies I've watched lately (like "Lured" with Lucille Ball, and "The Big Clock," and "Primrose Path," and "My Name is Julia Ross") and all the amazing stars I've been grooving too lately (like Peter Lorre and Ginger Rogers and Priscilla Lane and Joel McCrea and Marie Dressler and John Garfield.... *swoon!*).

Then there's the fact that I want to continue my "How to Watch Old Movies" series but I'm not sure which direction to take it in next (should I do a piece on credit sequences in old movies, or old movie film scores, or the importance of character actors in the old movie world? -- or is the whole thing all too ambitious and too much work and I'm just a lazy bum derelict after all....)

Actually, I've also been thinking about how I came to be such a retro fanatic in the first place and I might even write something that explains my grand theory for everything retro and how to make your family and friends into retro heads (first tip: start 'em young).

So anyway, this is where I'm at: Too many ideas and I don't know where to start. Since this post has been basically information free and was just me venting, here's something of substance:

Duke Mantee