Last night, I binge-watched five episodes of The Rockford Files on Netflix in memory of James Garner who died on Saturday. It kept me way past my normal bedtime but it was my way of memorializing someone who gave me, and so many others, hours and hours of pleasure. Unfortunately, Netflix does not have episodes of Maverick or I would have watched those too.
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I loved watching James Garner from the time I first saw him in the cowboy TV series Maverick. He was perfect in the role of a wry nattily dressed card player roaming the west and getting into adventures. What made him unusual as a cowboy was that as far as possible he would try to avoid getting into fights (he did not like the idea of getting hurt and besides he did not want to mess up his clothes) and did not want to be a hero and preferred to use his wits to get out of trouble but at the same time his sense of what was right kept getting him involved on behalf of the downtrodden.
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I saw this film over the weekend and it was a huge disappointment. I was expecting big things because the central idea was interesting and it was critically acclaimed and won director Spike Jonze the 2014 Academy Award for best writing of an original screenplay. But I found that it really dragged.
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Another good effort from the writers of Sesame Street that is amusing even if you haven’t seen the film or read the book.
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As I have said, I am falling further and further behind in terms of technology and popular culture and I depend on the usually excellent Sesame Street parodies to give me some clue about what people are talking about, while at the same time entertaining me. Here is their effort aimed at the hit TV show about vampires.
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If I had to choose one person from the world of film to spend an evening talking to, it would be no contest. Director John Waters would win by a mile. I can easily see myself spending hours talking to him. This is despite the fact that I had seen only one of his films before (Pecker (1998)) and didn’t think much of it. I had tended to steer clear of his films because I had heard that they sometimes devolved into gross-out humor which I avoid.
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There is a new food product that supposedly provides you with all the necessary nutrition in liquid form so that you don’t have to waste time shopping for food, cooking, cleaning etc. In a move that I must admit is marketing genius, the 25-year old inventor and CEO of the company has called its product Soylent, which was certain to attract attention from those who recall the classic 1973 dystopian film Soylent Green, even if the implications from that film are disturbing.
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I recently panned the film The Wolf of Wall Street. The people who produce the funny Honest Trailers series have created something that gives a much better view of that film than the trailers produced by the film’s producers. These parody trailers are funnier when you have seen the film. They are funny even if you thought the film was good but are funnier if you thought it was terrible.
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Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan also reviews films for NPR and in general I have found his recommendations to agree with my own tastes. So I was interested to hear a clip that he had published a new book where he recommends 54 films, starting from the 1920s until today, that he thinks that everyone should see. He feels that especially with older films, there are some gems that people today are not aware of.
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This film is a mess. There is no other word to describe it.
How it got nominated for five Academy Awards including best film, actor, supporting actor, director, and screenplay beats me, unless it was because of the star power of highly acclaimed director Martin Scorcese and actor Leonardo DiCaprio. But it did not win a single one, suggesting that there is at least some justice in the world of judging films.
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