Classic Movie Review: The Sixth Sense (1999)

Title: The Sixth Sense
Release Date: August 6, 1999
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Production Company: Hollywood Pictures | Spyglass Entertainment | The Kennedy/Marshall Company | Barry Mendel Productions
Summary/Review:

In the summer of 1999, The Sixth Sense seemingly came out of nowhere to be a BIG! HUGE! DEAL! that everyone was talking about.  The biggest thing that people talked about was the movie’s SHOCKING TWIST! Getting the gist of what the film was about – a child who saw the ghosts of dead people – it was pretty easy to put 2 and 2 together and figure out the SHOCKING TWIST on my own.  So, I had no interest in ever seeing the movie.

It turns out, The Sixth Sense is actually a pretty good movie and like The Crying Game before it, overemphasizing the SHOCKING TWIST does a disservice to the movie. Knowing the SHOCKING TWIST, I was impressed that the movie is told from the point of view of Bruce Willis’ character, a child psychologist named Malcolm Crowe.  Crowe takes an interest in a troubled child, Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), who reminds him of another patient he feels he failed to help.  If you know the SHOCKING TWIST is coming, the clues are all there and director M. Night Shyamalan even includes a gag with Crowe performing a terrible magic trick which lampshades the idea of misdirection.

What I like about this movie is that it is a story of empathy.  What Crowe helps Cole to realize with his ability to see the ghosts of the troubled dead that he can help them instead of fearing them.  And, along the way, Cole helps Crowe as well, in ways that aren’t readily apparent until the close of the film.  There’s a lot of talking in this film and it works because Haley Joel Osment is up to portraying a child believably participating in those conversations (poor Jake Lloyd must’ve looked like an even worse child actor having The Sixth Sense released in the same year as The Phantom Menace). Shyamalan also does a great job of incorporating Philadelphia as a character in the movie, especially as a historic city with lots and lots of troubled dead people.

The Sixth Sense is thoughtful, full of heart, and overall is well done.  It’s definitely worth seeing at least once, but I wouldn’t put it on my Top 100 of all time list.

Rating: ***1/2

2020 Election Challenge: Governors

Gubernatorial elections never get the attention of Presidential elections, but the day-to-day life of most people is affected more by what goes on in state government than at the Federal level.  In recent decades, right-wing and corporate interests have targeted state governments to consolidate power for their agenda.

If you live in one of the 11 states where a gubernatorial election is taking place it is important that you vote for the Democratic candidate, mobilize your friends and families to vote, and volunteer and donate to their campaigns.  If you don’t live in one of these states, adopt one or more states to target with your donations and volunteering.

Likely Democratic Victories

Two Democratic governors are ahead in the polls for their reelection, but don’t rest on these laurels, VOTE!

Washington: Jay Inslee (incumbent)

Delaware: John Carney (incumbent)

Competitive Races

These elections are a toss-up.  If you are limited on time or money, target these races for volunteering and donations.

North Carolina:  Roy Cooper (incumbent)

Montana: Mike Cooney

Missouri: Nicole Galloway

New Hampshire: Dan Feltes

Longshots

The Republican candidates are ahead in the polls in these states, but getting out the non-voters can still turn around these elections.  Especially in progressive Vermont, c’mon!  Even West Virginia has a progressive streak.

Vermont: David Zuckerman

Indiana: Woody Myers

North Dakota: Shelley Lenz

West Virginia: Ben Salango

Utah: Chris Peterson

 

Movie Review: Monkey Business (1931)

Welcome to Marx Brothers Mondays! I’ll be watching and reviewing the Marxist oeuvre over the next several weeks.

Title: Monkey Business
Release Date: September 19, 1931
Director: Norman Z. McLeod
Production Company: Paramount Publix Corp
Summary/Review:

Monkey Business is the Marx Brothers first film written for the screen and their second classic.  Set aboard a transatlantic liner, the four Marx Brothers are introduced as stowaways hiding in barrels. The bulk of the plot involves their various hijinks as they attempt to avoid capture by the crew while also getting recruited by opposing gangsters.  Thelma Todd plays one gangster’s daughter, Lucille Briggs, and serves as a saucy comic foil.  There are a lot of great comic bits in this film including all four of the Marx Brothers singing a Maurice Chevalier song in an attempt to use his passport.

Rating: ****

Movie Review: Aladdin (1992)

Title: Aladdin
Release Date: November 25, 1992
Director: John Musker & Ron Clements
Production Company: Walt Disney Pictures | Walt Disney Feature Animation
Summary/Review:

I missed Beauty and the Beast when it came out and didn’t see it until years later, but I have good memories of seeing this movie in the theater with my sister.  The big attraction for Aladdin was Robin Williams as Genie.  Even kids who had no idea who Ed Sullivan and Senor Wences were enjoyed Williams many celebrity impersonations and overall manic performance.  It was the first time a big-name movie star voiced a character in a Disney movie and it would not be the last.  I suspect the animators had a lot of fun animating Williams’ bits especially the constant flow of gags in the songs “Friend Like Me” and “Prince Ali.”

Speaking of songs, the movies of the Disney Renaissance were known for their great music, and The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast sold a lot of soundtracks and earned Oscars and Grammies.  But it was Aladdin that made a full assault on the music charts.  If you were not around in 1992-1993, I can’t begin to explain the inescapability of the movie’s love song, “A Whole New World,” in the aural soundscape of the time.  Perhaps only “Let It Go” from Frozen could compete with the utter ubiquity of a Disney movie song.

I hadn’t watched Aladdin in a long time, and mostly only remembered the Genie parts.  I was impressed that overall the movie is very funny and clever.  Aladdin (Scott Weinger) and Jasmine (Linda Larkin) are well-characterized and likable characters and while their romance may be swift it is believable. The themes of being true to oneself and escaping imprisonment (real and metaphorical) are well-done. Even Gilbert Gottfried – who usually annoys me – is pretty funny as the sardonic parrot Iago.

If there’s a downside to Aladdin it is that it relies on some tired stereotypes of Arabic people.  Also, the casting of Aladdin and Jasmine makes them sound like white teenagers from an American suburb rather than from the Middle East. To its credit, the Disney company has gotten better about cultural sensitivity and representative casting in recent years in movies like Moana. But it would’ve been revolutionary if they’d offered more positive representation of Arabic people and culture in 1992, especially so soon after the Persian Gulf War.

Rating: ****

Podcasts of the Week Ending September 26

The Anthropocene Reviewed :: Plague

John Greene reflects on outbreaks of the Bubonic and Pneumonic Plagues and the human response to deadly pandemics.

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RUNNING TALLY OF PODCAST OF THE WEEK APPEARANCES

• AirSpace – 1
• Afropop Worldwide – 3
• All Songs Considered – 3
• And Nothing Less – Entire series
• The Anthropocene Reviewed – 1
• BackStory – 4
• Brattle Film Podcast – 2
• Best of the Left – 2
• Coronavirus Daily/Consider This – 5
• Code Switch – 3
• Decoder Ring – 5
• Fresh Air – 9
• Futility Closet – 3
• Have You Heard – 3
• Here & Now – 1
• Hidden Brain – 3
• Hit Parade – 2
• Hub History – 1
• The Last Archive – 4
• LeVar Burton Reads – 1
• Memory Palace – 4
• More Than Enough – 4
• Mortified – 1
• The Moth – 1
• Nice White Parents – entire series
• 99% Invisible – 8
• 60-Second Science – 4
• Planet Money – 4
• The Politics of Everything – 2
• Radio Boston – 3
• Radiolab – 7
• Retro Disney World – 1
• Risk! – 1
• Science Talk – 2
• Smithsonian Sidedoor – 3
• Snap Judgment – 1
• Sound Opinions – 1
• The Thirty20Eight – 1
• This American Life – 2
• This Day in Esoteric Public History – 1
• Throughline – 10
• The Tomorrow Society – 1
• Twenty Thousand Hertz – 7
• Wedway Radio – 1
• What Next – 10

Album Review: Dandelion by Carolina Story

Album: Dandelion
Artist: Carolina Story
Release Date: September 4, 2020
Label: Black River Americana
Favorite Tracks:

• Light of the Moon
• Lay Me Down Easy

Thoughts:

Back in the late 1990s/early 2000s I was deeply invested in the contemporary Folk/Folk Rock/Folk Pop/Americana, etc. scenes.  Eventually I drifted away, partly because everything started sounding the same and I wanted to hear something different. Hearing Carolina Story reminds me of the excitement of discovering something new during the height of my folkie days.

The duo is the married couple Emily and Ben Roberts of Nashville.  They remind me a little bit of Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer with more country twang and less mysticism.  But the best thing about Carolina Story is that they interpret traditional folk sounds in a voice that’s completely their own.  They are especially good using their voices to provide a wide range of expression and the instrumentation of the duo and their backing band is particularly rich.

Rating: ***1/2

 

 

Book Review: Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover

Author: Matthew Stover
Title: Revenge of the Sith
Publication Info: Century (2005)
Summary/Review:

Continuing reading Star Wars novelizations with my daughter, we come to one of the best novels drawn from a rather mediocre movie. Stover has a highly literary style and inserts into scenes from the film the thoughts of the characters and has them remembering key moments in flashback.  The book is very character-driven and features frequent changes in point of view.  Villains like Count Dooku and General Grievous are interesting and even scary in ways that they aren’t in the movie.  There are also many revealing conversations.  While it makes for an engaging novel with great storytelling, I should note that it would translate into a far too long and dialogue-heavy movie.  (I still contend in hindsight that the prequels would be vastly improved by ditching The Phantom Menace and developing the plot and character points of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith over three films).

Rating: ****

Classic Movie Review: West Side Story (1961)

Title: West Side Story
Release Date: October 18, 1961
Director: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins
Production Company: The Mirisch Company | Seven Arts Productions
Summary/Review:

This iconic movie musical based on a Broadway musical based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet remains a cultural touchstone. I see the songs and the story referenced regularly. Even the New York City subway hums the first three notes of “Somewhere.”  The creators of West Side Story include the powerhouse trio of composer Leonard Bernstein, lyricist Stephen Sondheim, and choreographer/co-director Jerome Robbins.  Co-director Robert Wise may not be as famous as the other three, but also has a jaw-dropping list of accomplishments.

I first saw West Side Story in 7th grade after we’d read the script in class (we’d also read Romeo and Juliet and watched the Franco Zeffirelli film adaptation).  None of us kids could take a street gang seriously when they spent so much time finger-snapping and dancing ballet.  But even then I did like some of the songs and the story.

Later in life I learned that the neighborhood where West Side Story is set was demolished by Robert Moses to build Lincoln Center.  I’ve even heard, but can’t confirm, that already condemned blocks were used as sets for filming the movie.  As much as I like Lincoln Center, it makes me sad that a poor, mostly non-white community was displaced to build it.

Watching the movie as an adult, I realize that it was pretty edgy for a movie made under the Production Code. For example, the mentions of drugs and mental illness in “Gee, Officer Krupke,” or the absolutely horrifying scene where the Jets attempt to rape Anita (Rita Moreno).  While the movie does feel dated, a lot the issues it addresses feel relevant.  The racial prejudice the Jets have against the “immigrants” from Puerto Rico sounds all to similar, and police Lieutenant Schrank (Simon Oakland) is a surprisingly realistic racist/corrupt cop for a film from 1961.

The big flaws with the movie come down to casting as almost every one of the Latin American characters is played by a white person of European heritage, including major rolls like Maria (Natalie Wood) and Bernardo (George Chakiris).  The fact that Puerto Rican-born Rita Moreno is an absolute scene stealer who puts in the best performance in the movie makes it clear that it was possible to find talented Latin American actors, singes, and dancers.  Apart from Natalie Wood, I believe the cast were unknowns at the time as well, so it’s not like the white actors portraying Puerto Ricans gave the film extra star power.

Despite these flaws, this movie is a deserved classic.  The choreography, costuming, cinematography, and editing are beautifully done and the care taken in making this film reward multiple viewings.  Of course, the song and dance numbers are great.  I particularly like “Something’s Coming,” “America,” “Tonight Quintet,” and “Somewhere.”  And the final scene actually improves on Shakespeare by having one of the star-crossed lovers survive. Maria’s line “Well, I can kill now too, because now I have hate!!! How many can I kill Chino? How many — and still have one bullet left for me?” is absolutely chilling.  And anyone who isn’t weeping at “Te adoro Anton”  is made of stronger stuff than me.

Rating: ****

Let’s Win the US Senate in 2020!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say again.  If we want to restore democracy and build hope for our future in the United States, the US Senate elections are as important and maybe even more important than the Presidential Election. Please join me in an all-out campaign to guarantee that the the US Senate will be under the control of Democrats and progressive independents.

This year there are 35 Senate seats up for election this year and 23 of them are currently held by Republicans.  That means there are 23 opportunities to flip a seat to the Democrats and create a strong majority in the Senate.  Below I’ve listed the names of Democrats running for the Senate with links to their campaign website.  Your mission is to:

• Vote for the candidates running in your state
• Adopt one or more candidates running in another state, especially if there’s no Senatorial election in your state
• Donate and/or volunteer for the campaigns of as many Senate candidates as you can
• Help people register to vote and advocate for your state to support things like automatic registration or same-day registration
• Make sure that everyone is able to vote and have their vote counted by advocating for vote by mail, early voting, and sufficient polling locations
• Volunteer on election day to help at polling locations and/or observe potential irregularities

If you are short on money or time, please target the 15 senate elections marked with in asterisk where there is a very good chance of Democratic victory and/or removing a particularly odious Republican from the Senate.

2020 DEMOCRATIC PARTY CANDIDATES FOR US SENATE

* Alabama: Doug Jones
* Alaska: Al Gross
* Arizona: Mark Kelly
Arkansas: Dan Whitfield (a progressive independent candidate because the Democrats didn’t run a candidate)
Colorado: John Hickenlooper
Delaware: Chris Coons
* Georgia (regular): Jon Ossoff
Idaho: Paulette Jordan
Illinois: Dick Durbin
* Iowa: Theresa Greenfield
* Kansas: Barbara Bollier
Kentucky: Amy McGrath
* Maine: Sara Gideon
Massachusetts: Ed Markey
Michigan: Gary Peters
Minnesota: Tina Smith
* Mississippi: Mike Espy
* Montana: Steve Bullock
Nebraska: Chris Janicek
New Hampshire: Jeanne Shaheen
New Jersey: Cory Booker
* New Mexico: Ben Ray Luján
* North Carolina: Cal Cunningham
Oklahoma: Abby Broyles
Oregon: Jeff Merkley
Rhode Island: Jack Reed
* South Carolina: Jaime Harrison
South Dakota: Dan Ahlers
Tennessee: Marquita Bradshaw
* Texas: MJ Hegar
Virginia: Mark Warner
* West Virginia: Paula Jean Swearengin
Wyoming: Merav Ben-David

Two states will hold non partisan primary elections held on November 3, 2020. 

* Georgia (special)
Special Election: November 3, 2020: Raphael Warnock
Note:  All candidates will be on the same ballot regardless of party affiliation.  If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, the top two finishers will advance to a runoff election, to be held on January 5, 2021

Louisiana
Nonpartisan Blanket Primary: November 3, 2020:  Antoine Pierce and Adrian Perkins appear to be two of the strongest candidates out of 15 candidates running including 5 Democrats and 7 independents!
Note: All candidates will be on the same ballot regardless of party affiliation. If no one candidate wins a majority of the vote in the primary, there will be a runoff election on December 5, 2020.

Movie Review: Animal Crackers (1930)

Welcome to Marx Brothers Mondays! I’ll be watching and reviewing the Marxist oeuvre over the next several weeks.

Title: Animal Crackers
Release Date: August 23, 1930
Director: Victor Heerman
Production Company:  Paramount Pictures
Summary/Review:

This is the Marx Brothers first true classic film.  Like The Cocoanuts, it is adapted from their Broadway musical, which is reflected in the stage-like sets of the film.  But in this movie the songs reflect and commentate on the plot (thin as it is) and support the Marx Brothers antics. The setting is a party at the home of socialite Mrs. Rittenhouse (Margaret Dumont) who is hosting the celebrated African explorer Captain Jeffrey Spaulding (Grouch Marx). Another guest, art collector Roscoe W. Chandler (Louis Sorin) will be displaying a famous work of art by a painter named Beaugard.  Not one but two parties of guests decide to steal the Beaugard and put their own work in its place leading to the thin plot for the film and the source of most of its antics.

The movie has some cringe-worthy moments considering that Grouch is playing a man who hunts big game in Africa, thus leading to many horrible stereotypes about Africans (including being carried in a sedan chair but several Black men). Another running gag has Harpo chasing a young woman who is clearly not interested in him.  But all-in-all the movie is not as cringe-inducing as you might expect from a 90-year-old comedy.  Groucho’s song “Hello, I Must Be Going” is one of my favorite bits and a song I had on my voicemail greeting when I was in college.

Rating: ****