Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Book Break: "Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination"


Author: Neal Gabler 2006
Twelve years ago, Neal Gabler wrote a great biography of Walter Winchell, the infamous gossip columnist who was really America's first multi-media star (newspapers and radio). Gabler, a fluid writer and impressive researcher, produced a compelling book, one of the best bios I ever read.
Now he's done again, focusing on Walt Disney. Don't snicker. This is a long, fascinating look at the man who made animation an art. Particularly gripping are the early sections on Disney's hardscrabble childhood and the enormous hurdles he overcame to create Disney Studios--and what he did to mine a brilliant level of creativity from his hordes of inspired artists. An epic story alone is Disney's decision to make a feature-length cartoon in color. "Snow White" was the brilliant result. Like Winchell, a very American story, and Gabler has done another excellent job.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Movie: "Casino Royale"


Director: Martin Campbell 2006
Easily the best Bond since "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (yes, the one with George Lazenby). The producers wisely chose to reinvent Bond, meaning he's been born anew as the character Ian Fleming created 53 years ago. Daniel Craig is excellent, and nearly makes you forget Sean Connery (impossible, of course, when you remember those first three Connerys). Gone are the gadgets. Craig's Bond bleeds, shows pain, betrays emotion. The film's a bit long, but that's a minor complaint. The Bond franchise easily could have gone downhill with sillier plots and invisible cars and all the claptrap that started taking over the series as early as "Thunderball." The movie ends with something of a cliffhanger--the story line will continue. I wonder if Ernst Stavro Blofeld may be resurrected in the next outing. Definitely go see this one.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Book Break: "Point to Point Navigation"


Author: Gore Vidal 2006
The first book I read by Gore Vidal was “Washington, D.C.” I still have the 95-cent Signet paperback published in April 1968 (I pretty much have every book I ever bought—the Berkeley house is groaning under their weight). I was a junior in high school, a reader who always leaned toward books unsanctioned by English class. Okay, “A Tale of Two Cities” is a great novel (great Cliffs Notes, too, as I recall), but how could it compare with “You Only Live Twice” or “Farewell, My Lovely” or “Red Harvest” or “The Martian Chronicles”?
“Washington, D.C.” had been a bestseller in hardcover, and I was anxious to read it. So there I was in April 1968, enthralled by Vidal when I should have been studying Latin or trig (I still get chills thinking about trig). I loved Vidal’s novel, in part because one of the major characters was close to my age in the opening chapters.
I became a major Vidal fan, and next read “Julian,” another terrific novel, this one about a Roman emperor who had the excellent idea of returning Rome to a polytheistic society. In other words, Julian wanted to get rid of Christianity, or at least give people some options. Think how interesting the world would be if there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of gods to choose from, kind of like all those choices on cable TV today.
Over the years, I read lots and lots of Vidal: novels, plays, essays, and criticism. His versatility is impressive (among Vidal’s American contemporaries, few can approach this output. Mailer and Updike come to mind, and it’s probably no surprise that Vidal has had disagreements with each). The popular wisdom is that his criticism surpasses his novels, which is an insult to some very good novels. “Myra Breckinridge” is one of the great novels of the 20th Century. Naturally, I still have my paperback of that, published in September 1968, meaning I read it as I started my senior year at Bishop Reilly High School in Queens. “Myra,” which is about a transgender person (a term not in use in 1968) who takes on Hollywood and other American lunacy, was not required reading at BRHS. Is it any wonder that to this day I refuse to divulge my awful math SAT scores? While I should have been cramming for the college boards, I was reading “Myra Breckinridge.” I like to think I’m a better person for so doing. Vidal’s book is funny, cruel and packed with lots of truths about the USA. If you’ve never read it, do so.
Which brings us to “Point to Point Navigation.” By my count, this is Vidal’s 46th book (he published his first novel, “Williwaw” when he was about 20), excluding several pseudonymous efforts. He’s now 81. This latest book is a sequel to his 1995 memoir “Palimpsest” and picks up where that book ended, around 1964. Sadly, this one has little of the verve of the earlier memoir. Repetitive in spots, Vidal seems somewhat disinterested in his own life, or later life. He still has interesting stories to tell, for Vidal met every famous person of the last century (a critic for the San Francisco Chronicle refers to him as Zelig-like). By far the best parts of the book are his moving descriptions of the death of his best friend and companion, Howard Austen.
But if you’ve never read Vidal, pick up “Burr” or “Julian” or “Washington, D.C.” or “Messiah” or “United States” or “Myra.” And there's plenty more.
The man’s a hell of a writer.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Movie: "Reds"


Director: Warren Beatty 1981
Imagine you’re a movie star. Let’s say George Clooney. You also write and direct films, and you have a liberal bent. So you head over to a major studio, meet the top people there. And you pitch your pet project: a movie set in the first quarter of the 20th Century and all about the rise of the left, of labor movements, of Communism. Your heroes are journalists John Reed and Louise Bryant. Supporting characters include Max Eastman, Emma Goldman and Eugene O’Neill—and lots of apparatchiks in Russia. There are sweeping scenes of revolution. There’s also a love story. And an intermission. And interviews with old people who knew the principals. And the budget is huge.
Not even Clooney could get this movie made today.
But 25 years ago, Warren Beatty did, and Paramount put up the dough. “Reds” is a fascinating—if not quite great—movie that’s well worth watching, as long as you have a spare three and half hours.
It’s a beautifully shot film (by Vittorio Storaro, who won an Oscar) with flawless period reconstruction and lots of good scenes. There are also an endless number of bickering moments between Reed (Beatty) and Bryant (Diane Keaton), so many that the first hour or so almost slips into soap opera—albeit a soap opera in which the characters discuss the Armory Show and Bolsheviks. The movie takes off when Reed and Bryant travel to Russia and witness the Revolution (Reed wrote “Ten Days That Shook the World”).
Beatty deservedly won Best Director, but the movie lost to “Chariots of Fire” that year. I would have voted for “Reds.”