Kennelco Film Diary

(1973) dir. Howard Zieff
viewed: 01/19/07

A strange, off-beat comedy loaned and recommended to me by a friend, Slither (1973) leans more to the odd and subtle than the broad side of comedy.  James Caan, in a subdued role as a small time crook just out of prison, is more light and amusing, hardly the tough that he often is known for playing.  It also features a surprising, wacky, and sexy Sally Kellerman and the decidedly nutty Peter Boyle playing an embezzler who hides out as an RV enthusiast (or “Rec Vee” as they refer to it in the film).

The film maintains an entertaining air, hard to guess where it’s going ultimately, a little hard to pin down the tone.  Really, it’s comedy, just a twist on a semi-caper-ish theme.  It has some surprises, some nice moments, some good lines.

Not available on DVD, and not directed by a too-notable filmmaker, I guess this is a bit of a lost cult film.  It’s not entirely Earth-shatteringly good, just decent and surprising and fine.  I liked the ending, the ultimate twist and the final shot.  It all fits together and underscores its character and humor.

Also, I liked the shots of Pismo Beach circa 1973.  Quite different.  Don’t know 100% that that is where it actually shot.  If so, it was kind of neat.

(1985) dir. Tim Burton
viewed: 03/04/06 Found with some looking in an old box of videos was a copy of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure that I had found many years ago for $5 or something — an old video store copy sent for the glue factory. I have had a fondness for the film, as well as other Tim Burton works (mostly his earlier stuff). These were back in the days when I actually bought videos. I don’t do that anymore really. Very rarely, anyways. But I had been teasing my son that he danced like Pee-Wee Herman and I felt maybe it was about time to show him what that jibe meant.

The film still holds up for what it is. There is an incredibly low-budget quality to it that sort of redeems its “plot”. I mean, there is the plot that Pee-Wee’s bicycle is stolen and he has to find bike. This, of course, takes him on a road trip to the Alamo. I think it’s probably most fun to work with this film in genre, like that of the road movie.

This time, many years since I had last seen it, I was really struck by the sexual identity of Pee-Wee. I mean, I am assuming that most readers are familiar with the sexual indiscretions of Paul Ruebens, the real-life counterpart and his ultimate fall from fame to infamy that he took. Maybe that adds a layer of sexualization or intensifies that mode of viewing in this film, at least nowadays.

Pee-Wee reads as largely asexual. Dottie, his bike store friend, a cute young girl played by Elizabeth Daily (who I have always had a fond spot for), actively seeks a date with Pee-Wee. On more than one occasion he tells her that he is a “rebel” and a “loner” in a mock-serious way that ultimately gets him out of the situation. Another time, he fakes phone-static to pretend he can’t hear her asking him out. In the end, when he acquieses to a date with her, they are both on their own bicycles, in a very platonic pose.

His appearance, as the classic 98 lbs. weekling is also heavily patted with make-up, both foundation and lipstick. While not feminzed, per se, there is an effeminate quality to him.

In one scene, he disguises himself as a woman, with the escaped convict posing as his husband. Pulled over by a police officer, Pee-Wee is ogled and admired as a female. Upon returning to the car, Pee-Wee leans in flirtatiously with the convict, gleefully playing in his “role”.

I don’t know enough about the character or the man to posit exactly what is being intended, though I reckon it’s more playfully ambiguous that clearly codified.

As a film, I still enjoy it, though it’s in many ways a series of gags strung together over a thin plot. Lots of the gags are still funny. The dance sequence is pretty classic. I found myself recalling and waiting for certain moments to unfold as I remembered them and enjoying the punchlines when they came. It’s still pretty fun.

“Tequila!”

(1998) dir. John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton
viewed: 06/27/05

I know I said that I hate this format, but at the moment, the VCR in the living room works while the DVD player is on the fritz.

I am enjoying the experience of getting to watch films with my soon-to-be 4 year old son. I get to introduce him to stuff, but he’s still so young that he finds films even as seemingly kid-friendly as A Bug’s Life to be intense and scary, and in some cases, hard to follow.

Watching stuff with a child really makes one reconsider the material through different eyes,…or at least that is how parents/guardians ought to think. So often people let kids watch stuff that is way over their heads or so incredibly inappropriate, it’s downright scary. My wife and I are careful about what we allow my son to watch and try to talk to him through the process to make sure that he is understanding and supported.

It surprised me how this film was a bit “adult” for him, how scary the villan Hopper is, and how adult some of the humor is.

Still, I think that Pixar is the cream of the crop of feature digital animation filmmaking. Greg designs, fun characters, good storytelling abound. They are very conventional, like they follow traditional narrative forms and largely mainstream ideologies. They do well the sort of filmmaking that Disney used to do well. I’d seen this moving in the theater when it first came out and I liked it this time around too.

I think Felix enjoyed it. But he was cuddled up with his blanket when the villain arrived onscreen.

(1969) dir. George Roy Hill
viewed: 06/14/05

Watching a film on an old VHS tape might be the second worse way to watch a movie. Regular TV broadcasts of movies, edited for language, violence, nudity, and time elements hack movies to bits and roll them in advertising, which is even worse than VHS.

The worst thing about VHS is the poor quality of the image, which degrades seemingly over time to a point that it just looks like the movie was shot horribly. And the cropping of the image to meet the full-screen television aspect ration feels like you are close up to the image and missing most of the composition as well.

I mean, it was a breakthrough in its day, allowing access to older films that previously one could only see in screenings or revivals. And you do get to “see the film” so to speak. But really, this is no way to see a film. I usually avoid it like the plague.

The poor viewing of the film makes it hard to really estimate the qualities of the visual aspect and keys one in to focus on the story and characters, performances, etc. And in that sense, I feel like I have now seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a cinema classic that I had never managed to see before. Still, it feels a bit cheapened.

The film was a smash hit in 1969, putting Robert Redford on the map and reaffirming Paul Newman’s stature at the time. They both bring a genuine charm in their rapport, though ultimately they also are essentially two-bit criminals and not entirely likeable.

There is a Pop quality to the movie, with the Burt Bacharach pop music (especially the “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” sequence, which just seems like a very surreal moment and out of step and context with the rest of the film). As well, the light air that the film takes in tone, is an interesting contrast with the serious quality of the Western as a genre. It’s very strange.

But it’s plenty entertaining, with a few flashes of classic scenes and some good character actors in smaller roles.

The character of Etta, played by Katharine Ross, is particularly odd, too. Being the somewhat shared girlfriend of both title characters, she also tosses out painful lines about joining them on their foray into Bolivia because she, at age 26, isn’t good for anything being a single woman. She says that she’ll darn their socks and cook for them, she might as well go along. It’s hard to know if this was a comment on the period, 1895-1905, or weird sexism of the late Sixties. I assume perhaps the former, since she later participates in the robberies and teaches the gringos Spanish to help with their lives of crime.

It’s a weird mixture of things, this film.

(1978) dir. Ralph Bakshi
viewed: 12/23/02

It’s hard to believe that I hadn’t watched a single film on VHS all year until I borrowed this video from my nephew. The moment that the movie started, I remembered why I have switched over to DVD so permanently. This video was an old one, so it suffered from quality and degradation issues, but significantly, its pan-and-scan format cheapened the look of it considerably, which I think hurts the film quite a lot. So much of this film was trimmed down (as the pan and scan principles do trim), it looked more like an old Johnny Quest episode than as if it had ever been a theatrically released film.

As a student of animation, or an aficionado, or what have you, the film certainly has merit.