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Friday, August 07, 2009 ( 8/07/2009 01:55:00 PM ) Bill S. "THIS IS BROADWAY, YOU KNOW -- EVERYTHING ISN'T EXACTLY AS YOU SEE." From its title, you might think Joe E. Brown's The Tenderfoot (1932) was a western dude comedy in the manner of Bob Hope's Paleface movies, but you'd be off the mark. Loosely based on George S. Kaufman's play, The Egg and Butter Man, the flick (which recently aired as part of a Joe E. Brown birthday celebration on TCM) centers on Calvin Jones, a cowpoke from Beesville, Texas, who's come to the Big Apple to make his fortune. Armed with $20,000 cash on his person, Calvin quickly becomes an easy mark for Sam Lehman (Lew Cody), a Broadway producer with a turkey of a play entitled "Her Golden Sin" in his hands. "If they take it to New York, they'll have to embalm it," one Syracuse theatergoer notes after a trial performance, but gullible Cal doesn't realize he's investing in a flop. Tenderfoot, then, turns out to be a mild show biz comedy more than a fish-out-of-water tale. Lehman's sardonic secretary Ruth, against her better judgment, falls for the sap and is ultimately rewarded with a leading lady role for her new loyalty. Naturally, our hero winds up besting the too-slick city slickers and becoming a successful impresario in his own right. Brown approaches his broad role with so much of his trademark gusto that he easily carries this ramshackle comedy through its flimsier comic constructions (e.g., a scene where our newcomer wrestles with the items on a kosher menu, another where he flaunts his lack of sophistication at a haberdashers). Strutting around the city with a great goofy grin on his mug, spontaneously letting out loud whoops and malapropisms ("Ejaculations!" he shouts at one point by way of salutation), you can quickly see how the guy was able to grab a movie audience's good will. The story itself is so featherweight that the screenwriters are forced to inject a jealous husband (an uncredited Nat Pendleton) bit plus a gangster/kidnapping subplot into the final fifteen just to pad the short feature out to seventy minutes. This affords Brown the opportunity to play the two-fisted, gun-toting hero in the final act, which he does more effectively that I expected. He also betrays an honest sweetness in his scenes with Rogers, especially in the movie's climactic moment where she confesses to him that she's been on Lehman's payroll all along. Cal Jones may be a chump, but he's a decent chump who's undeniably handy with a six-shooter. And, if nuthin' else, he's got more hair than Fred Astaire. ADDENDUM: An odd moment from The Tenderfoot, utilizing dance footage from a 1930 film entitled Lilies of the Field (not to be confused with the classic Sidney Poitier flick), with shots of Brown spliced into the sequence. Check out those robots! Labels: obscuro comedies # |Thursday, August 06, 2009 ( 8/06/2009 06:16:00 AM ) Bill S. "A LENGTHY BUT ENGAGING STORY" Our first full-length review of Measure by Measure was posted on the Blogcritics site yesterday. A lot of writers huff that they don't bother to read their reviews, but we're still so new to this that I couldn't help poring over Blogcritic Robin Kavanagh's take on our baby. Miz K. is by and large positive about the work, though she does note that the overflow of characters can be confusing. Fair enough, though I remain puzzled by her reference to the "antiquated symbols" (like a dial-up modem) which show up in the book. The story's set, after in the mid- to late-nineties. Was intrigued, however, by the way the writer's review of the book also turned into a reminiscence of her own struggles with size, self-esteem and romance. Clearly, MbM tapped into something personal for her. Not a bad review at all . . . Labels: measure by measure # |Wednesday, August 05, 2009 ( 8/05/2009 06:13:00 AM ) Bill S. "IT'S THE SAME OLD DRAG, AND YOU KNOW YOU DON'T NEED NONE OF THAT." With a best-of set on its way, let's go back to one of Robert Schneider & the apples in Stereo's catchier pop-rock tracks, "Same Old Drag." # | Tuesday, August 04, 2009 ( 8/04/2009 09:17:00 PM ) Bill S.  "ALL OF THIS IS FOR JINNOSUKE'S SAKE!" Though its title is unwieldy, Shoko Fukaki's "teen-plus" rated fight manga, The Battle of Genryu: Origin (CMX) moves along zippily enough in its opening volume. The story of a teen, Jinnosuke Tajimi, who gains strength and extraordinary fighting powers for one day every month, Origin opens with our hero showing off his process on one of his good days -- then falling on his face the next. "You were so cool yesterday," one of his schoolmates notes, "but that's you all over!"A genial goof of a student, Jin is surrounded by the requisite cast of sharply typed peers: shapely Fusano is a serious-minded fighter capable of holding her own against a trio of street toughs even with one hand clasping a slashed blouse; bespectacled Tomonori is nerdy enough to recognize when a faux cop's badge is "slightly different from the real deal," while Jin's sparring buddy Choji has a history as the member of a street gang. More mysterious are the members of Jin's own family: his putative father vaguely worries about being unable to keep something "at bay," while his bodacious sister Toko is invited to a clandestine meeting with a sinister fighter named Soichiro, with whom she appears to have shared a onetime romantic thing. Soichiro claims to be Jin's older brother, leading the marginally attentive reader to conclude that there's something major our hero hasn't been told about his bio family. How any of this relates to the series' title battle is anybody's guess. Is Genryu a place or, perhaps, some type of preternatural treasure? All we know for certain is it all revolves around Jin's undefined powers, which have been manifesting themselves more frequently over time. ("At first I had my 'good days' like twice a year," he tells his sis, "but now it's about once a month.") The fake cops sent to attack Jin were working for his nefarious older brother, though the reason behind this assault is kept vague. It looks as if Soichiro is invested in building up his brother's powers, however. When our hero later attempts to come to his girlfriend's rescue near the end of the first volume, the image of a tiger appears behind him. "Now there's my little brother," Soichiro says just before he kicks Jin's ass. Okay, looks like what we've got here is your basic coming-of-age shonen martial arts story centered on a hero who's ignorant of his true past and the full-extent of his skills. Not much different from Naruto at heart, though Jin doesn't possess as much hyperkinetic impulsiveness as the fox-faced boy. Fukaki's art is generally serviceable -- particularly in the fight scenes -- but I regularly found myself getting distracted by his characters' cauliflower ears, of all things, which are too often penned with more detail than they need to be. I also didn't accept the book's occasional slapstick moments as readily as I do the ones in Naruto, perhaps because the artist didn't draw 'em with enough cartoony flair. As shonen manga goes, Battle of Genryu doesn't try to cover any new ground, though I suspect it will have its followers much as many second tier American superhero comics also have their own devoted fans. If your idea of a good action sequence features characters pontificating between well-placed kicks about the reason and philosophy behind each individually titled move, you'll probably have fun with this fast-paced formulaic series. Labels: sixty-minute manga # |Sunday, August 02, 2009 ( 8/02/2009 08:53:00 AM ) Bill S. "THE LION DON'T LIVE THAT CAN OUT-ROAR ME!" Reading the description of the 1934 Joe E. Brown Circus Clown offered by Turner Classic Movies during a daytime marathon of Brown thirties comedies, definitely piqued my interest. The story of a small town bumpkin who is smitten by an equestrian female impersonator into joining the circus, Clown grabbed me in two ways: first, I've long nursed an abiding fascination with old-fashioned circus and sideshow -- and love to watch movies set in that milieu -- and, second, Brown was the one who delivered the knock-out punchline to Jack Lemmon in the classic drag comedy, Some Like It Hot. While there's no way that this mild kid-friendly comedy was gonna match Billy Wilder's film for big laffs, it could provide an intriguing contrast to Hot, I thought. Brown's hero, Happy Howard, is the son of a former circus performer who dreams of joining the Big Top against his father's wishes. To this end, he spends all his free time practicing on a trampoline in the barn, though non-observant papa (also played by Brown) apparently remains oblivious to these goings-on for years. Things come to a head when the Busby-Bixley Circus comes to town, and both father and son sneak out to watch the show. There, our hero is twitterpated by the sight of the beautiful rider, "Mademoiselle La Tour," a female impersonator named Jack (Donald Dillaway), and he runs away to join the circus. Once discovered, he's given a series of menial jobs (washing the elephants, babysitting the circus's tame lion Leo) as he dreams of some day being a big-shot midway performer. Though he still doesn't know the truth about the flirtatious "Mademoiselle," this subplot is largely relegated to the background as our hero befriends the fetching aerialist Alice (Patricia Ellis) and her nephew Dickie, whose father is an alcoholic aerial clown billed as Laffo. The cute kid scenes are, thankfully, kept to a minimum. The flick's big moments of extended comedy include a sequence where our hero gets pushed into being the target of a jealous knife-thrower's sideshow act ("Don't throw any more," Happy advises as the knives head close and closer to his most sensitive area, "you're gonna ruin my suit!") and a bit where he mistakes an escaped savage lion for a tame one. There's also a moment where our big-mouthed hero gets into a yowling contest with one of the caged beasts; no surprise as to who wins that particular competition. Since the comedian originally started out as a circus performer, he's able to do most of his acrobatic moments on camera by himself, though reports vary as to whether he actually performed the movie's climactic trapeze work or had a double do it. Our hero has taken the place of Alice's alcoholic brother Frank on the trapeze, a subplot that primarily exists to provide a romantic complication between Happy and Alice after our hero temporarily enables Frank's drinking problems by pretending to be a lush himself. It's only a minor bump in the storyline -- much like the female impersonator bit -- so we never really doubt that Alice and Happy won't be smooching by movie's end. As thirties comedies go, Circus Clown can't compete with one of Brown's best (the baseball comedy, Alibi Ike, for instance), though it has its agreeable moments. It captures its circus backyard milieu quite nicely, though I can't help wishing that director Ray Enright had given us a good pan of the show's sideshow performers in the movie's sole Ten-in-One scene. The drag set-up never gets as comically outlandish as you wish, but perhaps that's putting 21st century standards on a movie produced during the same time that the censorious Hays Office was gaining power. At this writing, Brown's circus pic does not appear to be available on DVD or Blu-ray, though, perhaps, its presence as part of a TCM bloc signifies its eventual release as part of a set of thirties era Brown comedies. If there's not a single moment in Clown which makes me laugh as hard as Osgood Fielding III's tango with a dismayed "Daphne," the movie's essential good-nature carries it in a way that many modern movie comedies can't match. I credit Brown's easygoing performance for this: the man clearly had a way in front of the camera, even if the vehicles he selected weren't always up to his comedic talents. (Here's the flick's trailer, which mainly focuses on Clown's final ten minutes, but also gives us plenty of patented Brown holler:) Labels: obscuro comedies # |Saturday, August 01, 2009 ( 8/01/2009 09:50:00 AM ) Bill S. WEEKEND PET PIC: Kyan Pup investigating something in the backyard.  THE USUAL NOTE: For more cool pics of companion animals, please check out Modulator's "Friday Ark." # | ( 8/01/2009 08:35:00 AM ) Bill S.  "ALL I DID WAS TELL HIM TO HANG IN THERE." Mention the word "shinigami" to many American manga readers, and the first thing that'll likely come to mind is Ryuk, the grinning demonic death god from Ohba and Obata's Death Note. Yet the title lead in Asuka Izumi's supernatural shojo series, Ballad of a Shinigami (CMX), is a much less malevolent creation. A "white shinigami" who alternately goes by the name Momo or her designated number A-100100, Momo typically appears to comfort humans on the brink of despair or death.Accompanied by a talking bat-winged cat named Daniel and carrying a scythe much like the traditional Western image of Death, her basic task on Earth is to provide humans with a reason to keep on living. It's not as if she's necessarily doing 'em a favor -- "Living is a much harder course to travel than dying," she tells her familiar Daniel at one point -- but it is her role in the cosmic scheme of things. Though Daniel calls her a "busybody" for her atypical shinigami behavior, it's clear she's meant to stand apart from the other death demons. Where the others are bedecked in dark gray cloaks, Momo appears in white, looking girlishly large-eyed and innocent. She's like a benevolent mirror to the manga/anime vengeance creature Hell Girl; where the latter's appearance always portends death and dire happenings for the humans she visits, Momo saves her visitants. Based on a series of young adult novels by K-She Hasegawa, Ballad of a Shinigami was adapted in 2006 into older teen shojo format that will ultimately comprise three volumes in CMX's reprint paperback series. Per Hasegawa's brief afterword, the decision to do Shinigami as a shojo (girl's) series was not something he pitched to his publisher, though the series' "sad but sweet" tone seems suited to Izumi's flowery art. First volume in the series, which was recently released by CMX in the U.S., features four stories, all wrapped around Momo's attempts at helping out a young despondent human. The short opening "prologue" quickly establishes the basic direction the stories will take. In it, our heroine appears before a suicidal girl who is beating herself up because the last words she said to a sick friend were angry ones. Momo brings a last comforting message from the now-dead friend to the young girl, prompting her to turn away from self-destruction. "Ending your life like that," the death demon also tells her, won't reunite her with her friend. "It will only make you a shinigami like us." When the young girl asks Momo if that is how she became a white shinigami, we're told that the shinigami remembers nothing of her former life. Whether that's true is perhaps answered in a later volume. Rated "Teen Plus" for "mild violence and suggestive situations," Ballad offers a take on its subject quite different from the pulpish Death Note. Though the stories may have darkly violent elements -- in one episode, for instance, a young boy starts seeing shinigami after he's witness to his abusive father's violent murder of his mother -- their overriding tone is more melancholy and ultimately hopeful. In this light, the manga can be seen as a counterpoint to more sensationalistic dark fantasies like Note or Hell Girl. Be interesting to see if it garners a comparable reading audience. Labels: sixty-minute manga # | |
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