The Screengrab Highlight Reel: August 31-Sept. 5, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:00:00 GMT

My friends, it has come to my attention that the liberal media elitists at the Screengrab are at it again, spreading their un-American brand of smutty snark – or is it snarky smut? – about movies all over my computer. Don’t get me wrong. I’m always up for a good Tarzan picture or inspirational sports story like The Express. And nobody mourns Don LaFontaine and Jerry Reed more than myself.

But it’s time for us to draw a line in the sand. A line between good, hard-working Americans and Michael Moore’s Slacker Uprising. A line between the God-fearing patriot and the Surfer, Dude. A line between your bank account and any theater showing Babylon A.D.

The elite liberal Screengrabbers would have you watch anti-Iraq War propaganda like No End in Sight online. They would tell you that The Top 18+ High School Movies, full of drug references, pre-marital sex and anti-authoritarian notions, are worthy of your time. They would decry made-in-America products like Gigli and Epic Movie as unwatchable. And unlike any of us in this room tonight, they would get away with saying Towelhead.

I say, enough! Enough with the Blue Velvet soundtrack, enough with George Romero’s Knightriders and enough with Robert Altman’s A Wedding! Let’s all go elk hunting with Lee Marvin, and may God bless America!

Summer of '78: "A Wedding"

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 23:00:00 GMT

All summer long we’ve been flipping back the calendar to see what was new and exciting at the neighborhood moviehouse thirty years ago. Today is Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer, and the official grand finale of…The Summer of ’78!

A Wedding

Release Date: August 29, 1978

Cast: Desi Arnaz, Jr., Carol Burnett, Geraldine Chaplin, Lillian Gish, Mia Farrow

The Buzz: If your only problem with Nashville was that you thought there just weren’t enough characters – have we got a movie for you!

Keywords: Wedding, Dancing, Dental Braces, Unplanned Pregnancy, Frog, Greenhouse

The Plot: This is about as plotless as it gets, even by Robert Altman standards. The title is no lie – it’s a wedding. The ceremony takes up the first 15 minutes or so, as feckless Dino Corelli (Desi Arnaz, Jr.) is married to braces-wearing daughter of privilege Muffin Brenner by near-senile Bishop Martin (John Cromwell). The matriarch of the groom’s family (Lillian Gish) dies while awaiting the reception guests at the family manse, but her demise is concealed by the family doctor. As at any wedding reception, numerous subplots unfold as the alcohol flows. Mother of the bride Tulip (Carol Burnett) is wooed by guest Mac Goddard (Pat McCormick). Dino is accused of impregnating the bride’s sister Buffy (Mia Farrow), much to the dismay of her overly attentive father Snooks (Paul Dooley). Exes of both bride and groom turn up to complicate matters, as does a tornado. Events take a seemingly tragic turn as it appears the happy couple is killed in a car accident en route to their honeymoon, but it turns out it was just their exes leaving together in the car meant as a wedding present – so who cares?

The Test of Time: During the production of 3 Women, a reporter asked a badly hungover Altman what his next project would be. “We’re shooting a wedding,” he snapped. It figures that a project based on an offhand sarcastic comment would end up being one of the director’s lesser efforts. In a DVD commentary (and in several interviews), Altman lays out his basic plan for the film: first, he wanted to double the number of characters from his most ambitious effort, Nashville. And he wanted the near real-time film to catalogue the follies of the typical wedding, when two families and sets of friends are thrust into an artificial union. It could have worked, but the delicate Altman alchemy fizzled this time around. All the usual tics are present – zoom-ins and –outs, overlapping dialogue, actor improvisation – but the magic just isn’t happening. Part of the blame goes to the cast: Desi Arnaz, Jr. and company aren’t exactly the Nashville A-list. But blame Altman for crowding so many of them into such a confined space and time. We spend too much time trying tell the bridesmaids and distant relatives apart, and by the time we’ve figured it out, few of the storylines are compelling enough – or developed enough – to command our attention. There is the odd worthy moment – a handful of wedding workers and guests passing a joint around outside the greenhouse as the dusky mist descends – but the disproportionately dark denouement is a downer that sums up the cynicism of the whole endeavor. Robert Altman made at least a half-dozen of my all-time favorite movies, so it’s pretty easy for me to shrug off his missteps. Still, the summer of ’78 sure ended with a bummer of A Wedding.

Quotable Quote: “You mean you don’t drink? In other words, when you get up in the morning, that’s as good as you’re gonna feel all day.”

2008 Equivalent: There will never be another Altman.

Thanks for joining us for the Summer of ’78! If we’re all still alive a year from now, tune in for the Summer of ’89!

Previously on Summer of '78: The Driver

The Screengrab : a wedding

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: August 31-Sept. 5, 2008

Summer of '78: "A Wedding"