mb palaver

MoviePalaver: Oscar Shorts

The Oscar-nominated live action and animated (including "Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty")  short films will be playing at the E Street Cinema in DC starting tonight.  For locations and dates in other areas, look for your city here.  Here's your chance to study up for Oscar night (March 7).  It's better than watching all 10 of the best picture nominees.

MusicPalaver: Shine a Light for Keith's Birthday

Today was Keith Richards' 65th birthday.  (This is one of those pieces of information that takes up space in my brain where an understanding of global warming should be.)  I'll mark the occasion by urging you to go out and buy Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones documentary, "Shine a Light," for any Stones fans on your holiday gift list.  The film shows a private benefit concert celebrating Bill Clinton's 60th birthday at the Beacon Theatre in New York, interspersed with some backstage footage and television clips from the '60s.

After I saw this at the Uptown Theater last spring I was bursting with thoughts I wanted to post, but it only remained in theaters another five minutes, so I abandoned it.  Here's what I remember: 

• The clip of Mick being interviewed in the '60s on a Granada television show by a group of very serious-looking clerics with titles like the Archbishop of Canterbury.
• Keith singing a gorgeous version of "You Got the Silver" and then, instead of letting the moment speak for itself, saying "Cool, huh?" (I think Charlie then did an incredulous double-take, though it's hard to say since he always looks like he's doing an incredulous double-take.)
• Mick's duet with Jack White on "Loving Cup" was amazing; his duet with Christina Aguilera on "Live With Me" was kinda icky.
• Ron Wood's big expensive-looking wristwatch; I mean, does he have somewhere he has to be?
• Are those fishing lures hanging from Keith's hair?
• I am in love with Bernard the back-up singer.
• Though at the beginning there are scenes of the Clintons meeting the Stones (including Hillary's mother getting a smooch from Keith), we mercifully never see the former President doing the white man's overbite in the balcony.
• I forgot about the song "She Was Hot."  What other songs have I forgotten?  I should get a new turntable.
• Keith Richards still has a nice smile.

Last week Dubliner gave me the DVD of the movie.  I just watched Keith singing "You Got the Silver." I have to admit it wasn't as moving on my substandard TV as it was on the Uptown's big screen.  You might want to add an HDTV to the package if you give this as a gift.  (Hear that Dubliner?)

By the way, getting back to Keith, did you notice back in March I managed to post a photo that showed both Rufus Sewell and Keith Richards?

MoviePalaver: "Killer of Sheep" at AFI Silver Theatre

A few weeks ago I happened upon this scene on TCM (Turner Classic Movies) during an Australian Open commercial break, and found myself mesmerized.  I guessed -- and turned out to be right -- that it was from Charles Burnett's film "Killer of Sheep," which I wrote about last June when it was being screened at the E Street Cinema. I taped it when it reran late that night, and finally watched it last night (knee surgery recovery is great for catching up on movies).  It's a short movie (only about an hour and 20 minutes), and not much happens, though there's a dread of tragedy hanging over it.  It is a powerfully touching and sad portrait of ordinary people in a certain place and time.  Check out reviews at metacritic.  Here, now, are three ways you can see it too.

First, the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring is showing it tomorrow (Wednesday) night at 6:30 pm as part of its screening of Burnett's films. If you can't make it then, Burnett's later movie, "My Brother's Wedding," will run this Saturday through Monday evenings, his short films on February 23-24, and "Bless Their Little Hearts" on March 1, 2, and 5.  See the full AFI schedule here.

Second, unlike when I wrote about it last fall, the film is finally available on DVD.  You can rent both "Killer of Sheep" and "My Brother's Wedding" on Netflix.

Finally, TCM will be airing "Killer of Sheep" again on April 20 at 4:00 am.  Can't think that far ahead?  You can sign up for an email reminder.

BookPalaver: The Prime of Muriel Spark

When I was planning a trip to Edinburgh last May someone recommended I read or watch the movie version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.  I found this confusing, because I had always thought that movie was about slavery and the civil rights movement and starred Cicely Tyson.  Evidently that was The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.  I felt like my life up to that point had been a lie.

Anyway, I did read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Spark, and loved it. Dame Muriel was born 80 years ago today in Edinburgh, and died in 2006 in Florence.  In her honor, here's a passage from the opening pages of the book:

These girls formed the Brodie set.  That was what they had been called even before the headmistress had given them the name, in scorn, when they had moved from the Junior to the Senior school at the age of twelve.  At that time they had been immediately recognisable as Miss Brodie's pupils, being vastly informed on a lot of subjects irrelevant to the authorised curriculum, as the headmistress said, and useless to the school as a school.  These girls were discovered to have heard of the Buchmanites and Mussolini, the Italian Renaissance painters, the advantages to the skin of cleansing cream and witch-hazel over honest soap and water, and the word "menarche"; the interior decoration of the London house of the author of Winnie the Pooh had been described to them, as had the love lives of Charlotte Bronte and of Miss Brodie herself.  They were aware of the existence of Einstein and the arguments of those who considered the Bible to be untrue.  They knew the rudiments of astrology but not the date of the Battle of Flodden or the capital of Finland.  All of the Brodie set, save one, counted on its fingers, as had Miss Brodie, with accurate results more or less.

(For the sake of full disclosure, I recommended it to mysterywriter, who was bored by it. Perhaps she should read The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman instead.) 

I also rented the movie version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, starring a thirty-five year old Maggie Smith (I'd never seen her so young).  I didn't like it as well as the book, which told the story through the third person but to a large extent from the point of view of the girls who made up the Brodie set, primarily Sandy, the imaginative one who was "famous for her vowel sounds."  The girls begin by idolizing Miss Brodie, but their views change as they mature and grow to see her for what she is.

The young actress who played Sandy, Pamela Franklin, looked hauntingly familiar to me. I looked her up on imdb and realized both why she was so familiar and why I couldn't say why. In addition to having a niche co-starring in B horror movies such as The Legend of Hell House with Roddy McDowall, she was evidently in every single television show made in the 70s, including Barnaby Jones, Police Woman, Trapper John, MD, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, Hawaii Five-O, Mannix, Cannon, Bonanza, Petrocelli (no one will remember that one but Dubliner), The Streets of San Francisco, The Six Million Dollar Man . . . .  I must have seen her on tv every other night.

And, as a bonus, the movie ends with the song "Jean," by Rod McKuen -- I never heard of him, but the song brought back memories from the deep recesses of my mind ("Jean, Jean, you’re young and alive . . .").

MoviePalaver: The Devil Came on Horseback

I received the following email from the Save Darfur Coalition today.  It might be hard to imagine a less pleasant way to spend the evening than to watch a documentary on the genocide in Darfur, but The New York Times says this:  "Brutal, urgent, devastating — the documentary "The Devil Came on Horseback” demands to be seen as soon as possible and by as many viewers as possible."  (See additional reviews on Metacritic.)  Screenings in other cities (including Leesburg, Virginia (tomorrow, September 7, at the Tally Ho Theatre) and Columbus, Ohio (November 27 and 28 at the Wexner Center)) are listed on the film's website.

I wanted to let you know about a week of screenings in D.C. of The Devil Came on Horseback, a poignant documentary about the genocide in Darfur.

An exciting line-up of speakers will accompany the week's shows including former U.S. Marine Captain Brian Steidle, the protagonist of the film, who served as an unarmed military observer in Darfur in 2004 and 2005.

What: The Devil Came on Horseback
Where: Avalon Theatre, 5612 Connecticut Avenue NW
202.966.6000
When: Friday, September 7, through Thursday, September 13, 8:00pm.

Speakers

Friday Sept. 7: Mickey Bergman, Clinton Global Initiative
Saturday, Sept. 8: Former Marine Cpt. Brian Steidle and Gretchen Wallace, Producer
Sunday, Sept. 9: Former Marine Cpt. Brian Steidle
Monday, Sept. 10: Jerry Fowler, USHMM and Jane Wells, Producer
Tuesday, Sept. 11: Ruth Messinger, American Jewish World Service
Wednesday, Sept. 12: Adam Sterling, Sudan Divestment Task Force
Thursday, Sept. 13: Mark Hanis, Genocide Intervention Network

For additional showtimes, please visit http://www.theavalon.org/showtimes/

To find out more about the film, visit
http://www.thedevilcameonhorseback.com.

We hope to see you there!

Coby Rudolph
Save Darfur Coalition