The Screengrab : dick

Thursday Poll for December 18, 2008

Paul Clark — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Last week, to coincide with the release of Ron Howard’s big-screen take on Frost/Nixon, we asked you to choose your favorite big-screen version of our 37th President. According to you, the Trickiest Dick of all was the future Lt. Bookman and Jimmy Gator himself, Philip Baker Hall, in Robert Altman’s Secret Honor. Hall brought in 45% of the vote, all the more impressive when you consider that his competition was somewhat stiffer than Nixon’s was in 1972. Coming in second place was Anthony Hopkins in Oliver Stone’s Nixon, followed by the ever-popular “Other” (although readers neglected to specify precisely which Other they meant) and Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon, whose poor showing might be attributable to the fact that his film hasn’t yet been widely released. Sadly, Dan Hedaya’s comedic take on the disgraced Commander in Chief couldn’t manage a single vote, although for my part I would’ve ranked him second behind Hall.

This week, we look at the career of perennial Oscar favorite (and eternal Screengrab crush) Kate Winslet. With two new films on the verge of release, Winslet once again finds herself in the awards hunt for one or possibly even both of these performances. But before she can add yet another nomination to her already impressive five (at the age of 33, no less), let’s compare the relative merits of her already-nominated performances. Which is your favorite?

Which of Kate Winslet's nominated performances is your favorite? | BuzzDash polls

I predict this will be a landslide, although lord knows I’ve been wrong before. As always, the comments section is open. See you next week!

Set Your DVR!: October 13 - October 20, 2008

Hayden Childs — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Here’s upcoming Movies of Interest in the next week! I realized that last week’s entry gave all times in Central Time. From here on out, I’ll do the Central/Eastern thing. I will also spill things over to the following Monday, because several great movies show on Sunday night. Finally, let me know in comments if you see something I missed!

Other than that, the rules are the same: I’m trying to avoid recommending obvious movies, but I know you’re a knowledgeable reader, so some of the ones here might seem large and unsubtle to you. But that’s alright. I’m using an in-law test: I’ll stick with movies that my in-laws have most likely never heard of. And no premium channels, because I’m too broke to afford them.

Mon, Oct 13:

10:30/11:30 am: The Circus Queen Murder on TCM. Pre-code murder mystery starring Adolphe Menjou. Not available on DVD.

11:00 am/12:00 pm: George Washington on IFC (repeat at 4:15/5:15 pm and again on 10/14 at 4:30/5:30 am). Slow and thoughtful take on African-American youths in a go-nowhere Southern town directed by the guy who made Pineapple Express. Obvious influences: Terrence Malick and Charles Burnett.

2:00/3:00 pm: Vanishing Point on FMC. The lesser of the two great existential car movies of 1971 (Two-Lane Blacktop is the other). This one’s still a pop culture point-of-reference, especially for Tarantino movies. Definitely worth a viewing.

5:00/6:00 pm: Dave Chappelle’s Block Party. As mentioned last week, this one is a fun and light take on the concert film, directed by Michel Gondry and built around Dave Chappelle’s general awesomeness.

7:00/8:00 pm: My Man Godfrey on TCM. Now that we’re headed into a genuine financial depression, take a moment to consider one of the great films about the repercussions of the Great one.

Tues, Oct 14:

5:15/6:15 pm: Gerry on IFC (repeat at 7:45/8:45 am and 12:45/1:45 pm). I mentioned this one last week, too. And I think it’s on again next week. No matter, though, because it’s just brilliant. Since I mentioned it last, Scott Tobias at the AV Club wrote a great article on it.

Wed, Oct 15:

12:00/1:00 am: The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. on TCM. Dr. Seuss’s live-action insanity. Check it out!

5:00/6:00 am: Shall We Dance on TCM. Fred & Ginger. Score by the Gershwins. A dance scene on roller skates.

10:00/11:00 am: The Legend of Drunken Master (aka Drunken Master II) on G4 (repeat 10/16 at 1:00/2:00 am). It seems hard to believe now, but long before teaming up with Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan made movies that were actually funny. I mean, there’s ass-kicking galore, but the gags he stole from Buster Keaton are just delightful.

10:30/11:30 am: Carefree on TCM. More Fred & Ginger. More dancing. More joking around.

12:00/1:00 pm: Room Service on TCM. Not a bad movie for delving a little deeper into the Marx Brothers.

5:00/6:00 pm: Swing Time on TCM. And even more Fred & Ginger!

Th, Oct 16:

Got nothing for today. Go to the park!

Fri, Oct 17:

1:00/2:00 am: Kiss of Death on FMC. Film noir classic with a great turn by Richard Widmark.

Sat, Oct 18:

3:00/4:00 am: Them! on CHILLER. I don’t know what CHILLER is, but apparently it is a channel I have. Them! is a classic monster movie, complete with proto-environmentalist themes, officious foolishness from the authorities, and monsters deserving of a pronoun and an exclamation point and nothing more.

6:30/7:30 am: Gods and Monsters on LOGO (repeat at 1:00/2:00 pm). Lots of biopics want to wallop you over the head with their themes (hey, did you catch that drugs and womanizing might have affected Ray Charles’s life? I wonder if his brother’s death had anything to do with that), but Gods and Monsters, which is about the horror film director James Whale, has a lighter touch.

7:00/8:00 am: Samurai 3 on IFC. The apex of the Samurai trilogy, also known as Duel on Ganryu Island. Toshiro Mifune is in top form, and the climactic battle is the template for Quentin Tarantino’s understanding of Japanese cool.

12:30/1:30 pm: The Day The Earth Stood Still on AMC. Y’know, fuck Keanu Reeves. Go to the source.

11:00 pm/12:00 am: Dick on Oxygen. I mentioned last week that this movie is hilarious. It still is.

11:45 pm/12:45 am: Crash on IFC. This isn’t the noxious Oscar-bait Crash, but the deeply perverse Cronenberg movie based on the J.G. Ballard story.

Sun, Oct 19:

11:00 pm/12:00 am: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) on TCM. The silent version starring Lon Chaney. Yes, indeed.

Mon, Oct 20 (the overnight spillover):

1:00/2:00 am: Eyes Without A Face on TCM. Georges Franju’s horror classic that is guaranteed to give you the creeping heebie-jeebies. It's also well-written, well-shot, and well-acted, so what are you waiting for?

5:00/6:00 am: Kongo on TCM. Pre-Hayes Code movie that must be seen to be believed. A celebration of depravity loosely based on Conrad’s The Heart Of Darkness. As envisioned by Michel Houellebecq. There’s no DVD, so watch it while you can.

6:45/7:45 am: Ghost Ship on TCM. A Val Lewton production, this little horror film was on the losing end of a lawsuit that kept it out of the public eye for most of the last century. N.B. This is not the CGI craptacular from a few years back.

8:00/9:00 am: The Seventh Victim on TCM. Another Val Lewton production. I’ve never seen this one, but I know the Lewton name means it’s a moody little no-budget horror film that will stick with you for days.

1:30/2:30 pm: The Haunting on TCM. My good friend David Smay (author of the 33 1/3 book on Tom Waits’ Swordfishtrombones album, which you should buy and read and, preferably, love [plug!]), notes that when I mentioned this movie last week, I failed to include the following information, all of which increases your need to see it: (a) the coolness of Claire Bloom's sapphic sexy psychic, and (b) that she was lovers with Philip Roth for a long time (and then briefly married him). Also, if you've never seen her in James Joyce's Women then you should, because her performance of Molly Bloom's soliloquy at the end of Ulysses is AWESOME. Thanks, David! I will!

That Guy!: Dan Hedaya

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:30:00 GMT

You know, folks, it's really not my intention for this feature to just go through a list of everyone who's ever worked with the Coen Brothers or appeared in Buckaroo Banzai, but that's the way it seems to be shaking down. Some people just share my appreciation of freaky-looking middle-aged guys who behave eccentrically, I suppose. Anyway, Dan Hedaya's first movie role was in Myra Breckenridge, but don't hold that against him: not only did he go one to have a beloved television career, most prominently as the dull-witted Nick Tortelli on Cheers, but he's also appeared in nearly a hundred movies, usually as some variety of dolt or sleazebag. 1999 saw him combine the two, playing doltish sleazebag Richard M. Nixon in Dick and fulfilling a sort of physical destiny: with his weighty jowls, shifty eyes, and perpetual five-o'-clock shadow, he's a near spitting image of the Tricky One. Born to a family of Syrian Jews in Brooklyn, Hedaya taught junior high school science for a number of years before his acting career took off; his shuffling demeanor and absent-minded craziness is certainly reminiscient of more than a few science teachers we can remember from our own school years. Outside of television, the role which Hedaya made the biggest impact was that of Alicia Silverstone's wealthy father in Clueless; he also stole the show in the overblown, overpriced movie version of The Addams Family as Gomez's crooked, shiftless attorney, Tully Alford. Recently, as he closes out his sixties, he's specialized in playing the fathers of characters as eccentric as he is: he was Amy Sedaris' dad in the big-screen adaptation of Strangers with Candy, the patriarch of the Butabi Brothers in the dismal SNL spin-off A Night at the the Roxbury, and the father of the obsessive-compulsive detective played by Tony Shalhoub in Monk. His recent appearance in the controversial TV series The Book of Daniel shows that he won't stop shuffling into strange roles anytime soon.

Where to see Dan Hedaya at his best:

BLOOD SIMPLE (1984)

In their motion picture debut, Joel and Ethan Coen were already showing their deft touch with character actors, casting Dan Hedaya as Julian Marty, the possessive, sleazy strip club owner who stands between John Getz and Frances McDormand. Hedaya gets a rare opportunity to show off his capacity to express rage during his final confontation with Getz, and goes on to become the most persistent murder victim since Paul Meurisse in Diabolique. But all told, it's just one of the earliest examples of his long line of questionable scumbags, a man so dodgy that even ethics-deprived private dick M. Emmet Walsh finds him "disgustin'".

JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO (1990)

John Patrick Shanley was one of Hollywood's hottest properties, coming off of a big hit with Moonstruck, when he made this rather strange little number, a suicidal romantic comedy starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan looking as uncomfortable as ever. But Dan Hedaya almost single-handedly salvages the movie with a brief but mercilessly hilarious cameo near the start of the film as the hapless, hopeless Hanks' boss. He vanishes from the movie early on and never has much impact on the plot, but he gets some of the greatest comic dialogue of any film of the year: "I know he can get the job. But can he do the job? I'm not arguing that with you!"

MUHOLLAND DRIVE (2001)

We have it on good authority that when David Lynch approached Dan Hedaya about appearing as enigmatic movie producer Vincenzo Castigliane in Mulholland Drive, he asked him: "Dan, we know you can do eccentric. We know you can do sleazy. We know you can even do creepy. But can you do completely bugshit insane?" (He can get the job, but can he do the job?) It turns out he can, and we were all rewarded with another small but scene-stealing performance in this perplexing surrealist masterpiece from a guy who knows good character actors almost as well as the Coens.