The Screengrab : curb your enthusiasm

Beatrice Arthur, 1922 - 2009

Phil Nugent — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:30:00 GMT

Beatrice Arthur has the peculiar distinction of having provided a reason to watch the 1974 movie musical Mame, based on the Broadway show and starring Lucille Ball (and when I say "watch", I of course mean, "keep your finger pressed hard on that fast-forward button at all but the appropriate times). The movie, which was intended as a crowning high point to Ball's career, proved to be a source of embarrassment to the star, who at 62 couldn't (or at least didn't) dance and who gargled her songs in a voice that would have done Ernest Borgnine proud, but it did give Arthur a chance to reprise her Tony-Award-winning performance as Mame's formidable sidekick, Vera Charles, for the camera. (The movie was directed by Gene Saks, who was married to Arthur from 1950 to 1978.) Arthur's work in the movie inspired New Yorker critic Pauline Kael to one of those vivid prose poems of hers that made performing in light entertainment sound like an act of battlefield heroism that might get the subject's face included in the redesign of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Kael wrote that Arthur's Vera was "monstrously marvelous--like a coquettish tank. When she sings, the low growls that come out of her cathedral chest make Ethel Merman sound like a tinkling virgin. Beatrice Arthur can deliver a single-syllable word with enough resonance to stampede cattle three thousand miles away."

By the time she took home that Tony, Arthur had been a presence in New York theater and early television for some twenty years. Born Bernice Frankel--she later said that “I changed the Bernice almost as soon as I heard it."--her first husband was the screenwriter Robert Alan Aurthur, from whom she took an improved spelling of his last name. Before her Broadway successes in Mame and in the original production of Fiddler on the Roof, in which she played Yente the matchmaker, she had built up a strong cult following with her appearances in nightclubs and off Broadway, most notably with her performance as Lucy Brown in the 1954 production of The Threepenny Opera. She appeared often on Studio One and Kraft Television Theater, was a regular on Caesar's Hour (the variety show that Sid Caesar starred in after Your Show of Shows), and made her movie debut in 1970 in Lovers and Other Strangers. But of course, she made her biggest splash as the star of the series Maude, which premiered in 1972 and ran until 1978. A liberal-loudmouth spin-off of All in the Family, the show was powered by the old pros in the cast (which also included Bill Macy and Rue McClanahan) and quickly established a reputation as a place where touchy issues such as abortion and menopause went to get aired. In 1985, Arthur and McClanahan teamed with Betty White for another long-running sitcom, The Golden Girls. (It was created by Susan Harris, who wrote "Maude's Dilemma", the famous first-season two-parter in which the 47-year-old Maude had that abortion.) She won Emmys for both Maude and Golden Girls.

In between her two TV hits, Arthur starred in the short-lived Amanda's, a misconceived 1983 Americanization of Fawlty Towers in which Arthur was badly miscast in the role created by John Cleese to showcase his own gift for comic apoplexy. (A master of the slow burn, Arthur could raise her voice, but she was too regally self-contained to do conniption fits.) She also appeared in Mel Brooks's History of the World--Part One (1981) and the 2000 Enemies of Laughter, which was directed by John Travolta, as well as contributing memorable guest spots to Malcolm in the Middle, Futurams, and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Between 2000 and 2006, she toured the country, as well as London, Australia, and Canada, in her one-woman show, which earned her a Tony nomination when she did a version of it on Broadway in 2002. (She lost to Elaine Stritch for her one-woman show.) In 2005, she turned up on basic cable at Comedy Central's roast of Pamela Anderson, where she was introduced by emcee Jimmy Kimmel as "a national treasure" who "should be treated as such," a gesture that inspired me to personally remove his name from my fatwa list. At the roast, she gave a reading from selections of Anderson's novel Star: A Novel. Some would probably judge the resulting clip below to be workplace-inappropriate, but my feeling is always that the best way to find out such things is to jack the volume up as loud as it'll go and let 'er rip.

Woody Allen, Larry David, and the Blackness of Eternity

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:00:00 GMT

I think we’re all in agreement that the casting of Larry David in the lead of Woody Allen’s latest film Whatever Works is pure gold, Jerry. Well, maybe everyone aside from Larry David. “I’d always been a fan. … I asked him to do it, and he said, ‘But I can’t act! I can only do what I do, I’m not an actor, you’ll be disappointed,’” Allen told Sara Vilkomerson of the New York Observer. “You know, those are the ones who can always do it. The ones that tell you how great they are can never do it. Larry is all, ‘I can’t do it. I can’t do it,’ but when it came time to do it, right out of the box, he did it.”

It’s not that David leapt at the chance. “I gave him every opportunity to get someone else. I was kind of uncomfortable. I was out of my comfort zone,” he said. Then he laughed. “Of course, the comfort zone is not very big! I take one step to the right and I’m out of my comfort zone.”

As Vilkomerson notes in her lengthy but thoroughly entertaining piece The Unshine Boys, Allen and David are responsible for two of the most indelibly neurotic portraits of New York City in pop culture history – Allen through dozens of movies over the past few decades, most notably Annie Hall and Manhattan, and David through the classic sitcom of the ‘90s he co-created, Seinfeld. (Unlike Allen, who has always loathed the place, David has moved on to skewering Los Angeles in his current HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm.) The similarities between the two aren’t hard to spot, but David reluctantly admits he may have a slightly less bleak view of the world. “I think [Woody’s] probably more of a pessimist about the big picture,” Mr. David said. “The hopelessness, meaninglessness of it all—the blackness of eternity—those questions. Whereas I suspect I’m probably more pessimistic about the smaller things: The relationship won’t work out, Obama will lose, the Yankees will lose, the movie will bomb—things like that. People won’t watch ball games with me because I’m so pessimistic. I’m no fun to be around.”

As for Allen, he insists he’s not “cynical and misanthropic and nihilistic,” just realistic. And there’s not much chance he’ll be seeing this post anytime soon. “It’s gone past me,” he said, of the Internet age. “I don’t have a computer, I don’t have a word processor or any of that stuff… I know I’m missing something. I know when friends Google instant information or things”—he keeps a Webster’s dictionary close by—“it just seems so futuristic to me! I’m still plodding and doing it the other way. I don’t say that proudly, or like it’s a good thing. I don’t think it’s a good thing. I’ve just never been able to make the transition.” Hey, whatever works.

Related:
Take Five: Woody
Woody Allen Doesn't Care What YouThink

Star Trek Showdown II: William Shatner Responds to Sulu Snub

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:00:00 GMT

When last we checked in with the YouTube sensation William Shatner is Off His Meds, the Shat Man had a bone to pick with new Star Trek auteur J.J. Abrams. Shatner (enabled by his daughter Liz) claimed that he had never been approached to make a cameo appearance in the new movie, and went on to offer some advice as to how Captain Kirk could be resurrected for the film. (It’s as simple as putting his DNA in the hovering machine and throwing the switch on the right, after all.) Now Shatner is compelled to comment on the news that, unlike many of his former Star Trek cohorts, he was not invited to George “Sulu” Takei’s big gay wedding.

Way back when he wrote the first volume of his Star Trek Memories in 1994, Shatner was startled to learn that most of his co-stars from the original series considered him to be something of a dick. Takei elaborated in his own memoir, To the Stars, in which he complained of Shatner stealing lines and close-ups from him, and even went so far as to claim on the Howard Stern show that the Shat had denied Sulu a promotion to captain. So it’s not like there’s no crazy at all to be found on the Takei side of this story…but Shatner really outdoes himself in this latest clip. Who knows what he thinks he’s up to here? It would be nice to think he’s playing the character of “William Shatner, Unhinged Asshole,” sort of like Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm or Bruce Willis in What Just Happened, but…well, judge for yourself:

WALL-E’s Big Bowl of Jeff Garlin

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Sure, everyone adores the cute little robot who crushes garbage into a cube, and that’s perfectly fine. But how about a little love for the Captain? The blobby, genial pilot of the space cruiser Axiom could have easily let the remains of humanity drift forever through the cosmos, but darn it, he showed initiative! And dare I say, pluck! And who better to voice this genial blob of pluck than Jeff Garlin, best known as Larry David’s agent/sidekick on Curb Your Enthusiasm?

In an interview with The Guardian, Garlin discusses the early, not-so-hopeful days of his career. “I played the villain on Baywatch once, an evil disc jockey who tries taking over the beach, fights with David Hasselhoff and has a fantasy sequence with Pamela Anderson. I think it was the best acting I've ever done - even though when you watch it, it's obviously not good acting - but when David Hasselhoff is yelling at you, you try not laughing. And I didn't laugh, so I think it's pretty fantastic on my part.”

Things have improved career-wise for Garlin since then – not that he had much of an idea what he was getting into with WALL-E. “I really didn't have a clue that I was as much of a hero as I am. That was a huge surprise to me. It's like doing a radio show. I'm doing it scene by scene in a vacuum, not paying attention - you're wrestling this guy and that guy, talking to this one, doing all this and all that - so I'm totally out of it.”

Garlin has also been busy behind the camera, directing This Filthy World, a recording of a John Waters one-man show (“what a fine gentleman!”) and his debut feature, 2006’s I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With. We’re still waiting for a rematch with Hasselhoff.

Related:
Separated at Birth: "Wall-E" and "Silent Running"
Andrew Stanton's Retro-Futurism

Vanishing Act: The “Greenlight” Gang

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:30:00 GMT

For three seasons (two on HBO and a final one on Bravo), Project Greenlight attempted to capture the filmmaking drama found in documentaries like American Movie or Overnight. Since Greenlight was a reality show, a certain amount of the drama was contrived: the subjects were contest winners, and despite the stated intentions of producers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, their projects were not necessarily selected on the basis of artistic merit.

For the inaugural season in 2002, apple-cheeked neophyte Pete Jones and his family-friendly script Stolen Summer were selected for production, with budget to be provided by Miramax (which also produced the series). Jones directed his own script (an arrangement that would not be repeated in subsequent seasons), and while the series documenting his efforts proved to be quite entertaining, the resulting film was neither a critical nor a commercial success. Still, even though he came off as somewhat oafish and full of himself on the show, the old adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity held true. Jones made enough of a name for himself to take some meetings in L.A. and pitch a new comedy about a closeted gay man who decides to come out to his family, only to find they don’t believe him. No deal materialized, and eventually Jones and his brothers financed the movie, Outing Riley, themselves. Jones took on the title role and snagged Nathan Fillion and Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Jeff Garlin for the supporting cast. The film played some festivals in 2004 and was released on video last year.

Project Greenlight’s second season suffered from sequel-itis. Producer Chris Moore, breakout reality star of the first season, apparently read his reviews and played up his villainous persona to an embarrassing degree. The victims were screenwriter Erica Beeney and co-directors Kyle Rankin and Efram Potelle, the mismatched creative team behind The Battle of Shaker Heights. Rankin and Potelle have talent, as evidenced in their wacky short films like Pennyweight, but seemed ill-suited to bring Beeney’s coming-of-age story to life. Nonetheless, Shaker Heights has enjoyed a long afterlife on cable, probably because it stars current It Boy Shia LeBeouf. Beeney has no writing credits since, but Rankin has written and directed the horror-comedy Infestation (with Potelle producing, acting and supervising the special effects), due later this year from Mel Gibson’s Icon Productions.

After the second season, HBO cut ties with Greenlight, which relocated to Bravo. In a desperate attempt to keep the series going – and keep the money flowing from the Weinstein brothers – Moore, Damon and Affleck announced that the third Greenlight movie would be a commercial genre piece. This turned out to be good news for the winning screenwriters, Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, whose horror screenplay Feast led to gigs writing later installments of the Saw series, as well as a remake of Hellraiser. In addition, the DVD release of Feast was successful enough to spawn two sequels, both penned by Dunstan and Melton and directed by John Gulager, Greenlight III’s designated goofus. In this respect, the show’s third season can be regarded as the most successful, but the producers’ hoped-for outcome never materialized, as future installments of the series got the red light. Still, we’ll always have Feast:

DVD Digest for January 29, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:00:00 GMT

This week finds more titles from the late-summer/early-fall dumping ground coming to DVD, but a handful of gems as well.

DVD of the Week: In a slow week for classics on DVD, the most noteworthy new title is Seth Gordon's documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (New Line). I wasn't allowed to have a video game system growing up, and because of this I often had to sit patiently on my friends' couches while they would finish up the games they were in the process of playing on their Super Nintendos or Sega Genesises (Genesi?) when I showed up. As such, I wasn't exactly eager to see two hours of competitive gaming, but The King of Kong quickly won me over. At heart, it's an unlikely sports documentary, with all of the drama and unforgettable characters that genre's best films contain. As the movie morphs into a de facto showdown by the reigning champ, the showboating gaming legend Billy Mitchell, and the good-guy challenger Steve Wiebe, Kong becomes uncommonly involving. Little wonder that Hollywood wants to turn the story into a feature film, but why wait for the fictional interpretation when you can see the genuine article?

It's a big week for flms that premiered at Sundance 2007, with other notable new releases this week including: Spellbound director Jeffrey Blitz's debate-themed indie Rocket Science (HBO); John August's The Nines (Sony), starring Ryan Reynolds and Hope Davis; and the terrorism-themed horror film Right at Your Door (Lionsgate). In addition, this week sees the release of the Kevin Kline sex-trafficking thriller Trade (Lionsgate), the J.Lo-produced Feel the Noise (Sony), and the direct-to-DVD offerings Canvas (Universal) and Charm School (Sony). And if you're a glutton for punishment, check out Cuba Gooding Jr. in Daddy Day Camp (Sony, also on Blu-Ray), a sequel so dire that Eddie Murphy opted out of it.

TV shows coming to DVD this week: Glenn Close in Season 1 of Damages (Sony, also Blu-Ray), the sixth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO), and Emergency! Season 4 (Universal). The only major classic films coming to DVD are El Cid, getting released in two separate editions by the Weinsteins, and the obligatory 15th Anniversary cash-grab edition of Groundhog Day, coming out just in time for... well, you know.

Finally, there's the strange case of Warner's The Invasion. The Nicole Kidman-starring SF flop was originally scheduled to be released three weeks ago, but after Warner decided to commit solely to Blu-Ray, the film's release was delayed until this week. So if those of you who read my column of January 8 (thanks, by the way) wondered why The Invasion wasn't in stock at your local video store, now you know.

Morning Deal Report: Black Lantern

Peter Smith — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:00:00 GMT

Warner Bros. signed a director for the Green Lantern movie, but everyone's dying to know: is Jack Black still on board? (Okay, maybe just me.)

Cheryl Hines — Larry David's wife on Curb Your Enthusiasm — will make her feature directing debut with Serious Moonlight, from a script by the late Adrienne Shelly.

Michelle Williams will star in Lukas Moodysson's first English-language film.

— Peter Smith