Abraham Lincoln and The Struggle

Griffith sound films historically interesting

WALTER HUSTON is Lincoln in "D.W. Griffith's Abraham Lincoln."

D.W. Griffith invented what we see today as the modern movie.
Before Griffith, movies were short, as little as 10 minutes.
Mostly, film crews would go to busy areas or scenes of festivals or other events and figure out a story line from there.
But Griffith took the Thomas F. Dixon Jr. novel “The Klansman” and turned it into a 3-hour plus movie, complete with the first close-up (that of Lillian Gish), sprawling Civil War battle scenes and other epic events. A tremendous enterprise for 1915.
People literally fainted from the excitement of the film and movie history was made.
Griffith was born in 1875, a decade after the Civil War ended. A southerner, he listened to his father and uncles talk about fighting.
“Birth of a Nation” was controversial in the way it depicted African-Americans, even then and the way the Ku Klux Klan “rescued” the white women from the clutches of black people, who were actually whites in blackface, since blacks could not play major roles in movies.
By 1930, Griffith made two sound movies, one of which took him back to his Civil War roots, “Abraham Lincoln,” also known as “D.W. Griffith’s Abraham Lincoln.” The opening credits tell us it was “personally directed” by Griffith.
Walter Huston played Lincoln in this stagey picture. We see what appears to be vignettes of the man throughout his life, from his birth to his early days to becoming a lawyer and finally making it to the White House.
While hailed at the time, Huston portrays the 16th president as more of a country bumpkin who talks in folksy analogies that aren’t particularly witty.
As a young man, he falls for Ann Rutledge, played by Una Merkel.
Ann unfortunately dies, with Abe at her side, as the movie tells us. He must settle for zany Mary Todd Lincoln.
This is not a riveting look at Lincoln and blame it on early sound or my hearing, but I couldn’t always understand what was going on with the southern-drawl characters.
The most suspenseful part involved Lincoln’s assassination, which is meticulously done. But the DVD compares this assassination portrayal with the one Griffith did 15 years earlier in “Birth of a Nation.” Frankly, I thought the earlier, silent version was more realistic and better executed.
Besides the film on “Lincoln,” the same DVD has another film, “The Struggle.”
Griffith was 56 when he made this film and lived another 17 years, but this was his last movie. It bombed.
But “The Struggle” isn’t bad, better than the Lincoln film.
Hal Skelly plays Jimmie Wilson, a man in love who gets drunk and vows to his wife-to-be that he will never drink again. For a long time, he doesn’t.
But eventually he is prodded to imbibe. His wife and young daughter wonder where Daddy is. When he comes home, his daughter, played by Edna Hagan, says he looks sick and his breath smells funny. Hagan, by the way, is still alive, according to the Internet Movie Data Base.
Daddy keeps drinking, makes a fool of himself at an engagement party for his sister-in-law and pretty much ruins the family.
Eventually, they are kicked out of their apartment, with all of their belongings out on the sidewalk.
These are early talkies but Griffith brings a realism to them. For instance, as in real life, people talk over each other, interrupt each other. Before this, in early sound movies, the rule was to make sure the other actor was finished with what he was saying before you said your part.
“The Struggle” was panned as old-fashioned and seeing a movie about misery certainly wasn’t something people were jumping for during the Great Depression.
It was pulled from theaters in many instances in less than a week.
Griffith worked on other people’s films on and off until his death in 1948.
“Abraham Lincoln” and “The Struggle” aren’t compelling cinema but historically interesting. These were the father of modern cinema’s only sound movies and they are conveniently on one DVD.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
• Directed by D.W. Griffith
• Written by John W. Considine Jr., adapted by Stephen Vincent Benet
• Runtime: 96 minutes
• Not rated, OK for all audiences but kids will be bored
• 2 stars out of 4

THE STRUGGLE
• Directed by D.W. Griffith
• Written by John Emerson and Anita Loos
• Runtime: 87 minutes
• Not rated, intense for some children
• 2 1/2 stars out of 4

Best of Youth

‘Best of Youth’ long but worth watching

JASMINE TRINCA, Lugi Lo Cascio and Allessio Boni in "The Best of Youth."

“La meglio gioventu” is a sprawling saga of two brothers in Italy and how their lives take different paths.
Known in English as “The Best of Youth,” it is a lengthy 360 minutes divided over two DVDs.
The story starts in 1966 and focuses on brothers Nicola and Matteo Carati (played by Lugi Lo Cascio and Allessio Boni.)
Nicola is finishing medical school while Matteo is still taking classes.
Nicola gets a part-time job taking a pretty mental patient for walks. She’s played by Jasmine Trinca.
When they see signs Jasmine has been the victim of electric shock therapy, Nicola goes to the mental hospital, wakes her up and convinces her to come with him.
The brothers decide to take her to her father.
Her father can’t take her in and decides to take her back to the mental hospital but Nicola intercedes. Unfortunately, all does not work out well with the young mental patient and she ends up in the institution again.
It is the beginning of the six-hour saga that celebrates friends and family via the backdrop of the world from the 60s to the new millennium.
Along the way, Nicola meets Giulia, who loves music and the piano, but is also a rebel who ends up on the run. The two have a daughter, who Nicola has the responsibility of rearing.
Matteo eventually becomes a police officer who starts a relationship with a photographer.
Nicola becomes a psychiatrist.
Nicola does his best to raise the daughter while her mother is on the lam.
The tumultuous lives of all of the friends and family, coupled with the beautiful scenery in Italy and the backdrop of the various eras makes for compelling viewing.
It almost reminds you of a sprawling John Jakes novel transplanted from 18th or 19th century America to 20th century Italy.
The plot actually takes a backseat to the sheer power of the personalities of the main character as generation produces generation.
Both brothers try to find and define themselves. One at least is moderately successful. The other sees his life end tragically.
The film ends on a positive note with great reconciliation and a wedding. Life goes on, even when the camera stops
It is a film of great beauty that celebrates the arts at times and denotes tremendous brutality at others.
But “The Best of Youth” is worth the investment. The film is available for rent on two discs through, among other outlets, Netflix.

LA MEGLIO GIOVENTU
• Directed by Marco Tullio Giordana
• Written by Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulii
• In Italian with English subtitles
• Rated R for language and nudity
• Runtime: 360 minutes
• 3 1/2 stars out of 4

T.A.M.I. Show

‘T.A.M.I.’ show fun to watch four decades later

JAMES BROWN set the stage on fire during the "TAMI" show in 1964.

“The T.A.M.I. Show” is oh, so dated to watch.

But parts of it will have you glued to your TV screen.

It’s considered one of the most important musical concerts ever.

Held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on Oct. 28 and 29, 1964, it was recorded on something called Electronovision, an early high-definition video camera and was later converted to film, well, not much later.

The concert was released in movie theaters on Dec. 29, 1964, a mere two months later!

T.A.M.I. stood for Teenage Awards Music International and if you don’t like that, it also meant Teen Age Music International.

It was hosted by Jan and Dean and included the Supremes, The Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, James Brown and his Famous Flames, Marvin Gaye, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Lesley Gore, Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and the Rolling Stones before they were really well known in the U.S.

The Beach Boys segment was excised from the film earlier on, but is back for the new DVD, just recently released.

Most acts are accompanied by screaming kids and go-go dancers who act like they have been given chocolate and coffee IVs for a week before the concert.

The dancers include future singer Toni Basil and future actress Teri Garr.

The DVD extras include director John Landis commenting on the trailers. He was in junior high school and was given free tickets to the event.

Lesley Gore was the biggest act of the show, at least according to Landis. She became a star at 16 singing “It’s My Party.”

Chuck Berry and Gerry and The Pacemakers played dueling songs. (Berry won.)

Jan and Dean actually did some sidewalk surfacing during an obvious lyp synced-version of “Sidewalk Surfing.”

The film is significant in an historical sense in that there were great racial barriers, especially in the South in 1964.

Yet African-American talents freely associated with white artists. You see white go-go dancers slithering around black artists like Gaye and Berry. It would seem that would cause a stir in the South.

The music is very engaging but the highlight is a mouth-dropping performance by James Brown. How in the world did that man make his legs do that?

Brown, who refused to practice beforehand, twirled across the stage on one foot in such a fashion you would think he was partially animated. Absolutely amazing!

He was followed by the Rolling Stones. A young Mick Jagger tried his best moves, but they paled in comparison to Brown.

It is interesting that this was filmed during the relatively brief period in which Stones bassist Bill Wyman harmonized in backup vocals with guitarist Keith Richards.

It must be something to have been one of those screaming kids panned by the cameras, watching the show today. Even the youngest concert goers would be approaching 60 today.

This was a time before big money was involved. While Berry refused to go on until he was paid in cash, the Four Seasons refused the gig because they wanted $45,000.

The opening theme song, sung by Jan and Dean, erroniously stated the Rolling Stones were from Liverpool. Um, that would be the Beatles, who were NOT on the bill. The Stones were from London, thank you.

This is a compelling time capsule of a period when all kinds of musicians from all genres could come together for an incredible show.

The film is so important, it was named to the National Film Registry by the U.S. Library of Congress in 2006.

No matter your age, this film is worth checking out. You will never forget James Brown’s performance. Trust me.

The T.A.M.I. Show

• Directed and written by Steve Binder

• Run time: 123 minutes

• Fine for any age

• 4 stars out of 4

Fireproof

KIRK CAMERON saves a girl in a housefire in "Fireproof."

KIRK CAMERON saves a girl in a housefire in "Fireproof."

‘Fireproof’ not a hot film, poorly made

KIRK CAMERON saves a girl in a housefire in "Fireproof."

I’m open minded about films, so when I heard about a quality movie called “Fireproof,” with Christian undertones, I decided to give it a view.

Often films with Christian themes are poorly made, with bad production values and schmaltzy storylines. Those films depend on those who are believers who will forgive mediocrity because the films jive well with their core beliefs.

So I delved into “Fireproof” only to discover a movie with bad production values and a schmaltzy storyline.

Kirk Cameron, who grew up acting in the TV series “Growing Pains,” plays a firefighter who has ample opportunities to play the hero.

But he doesn’t help around the house and his wife, played by Erin Bethea, has a busy career and doesn’t want to handle the entire load.

Seemingly innocuous situations result in major shouting matches which seem to take place more to advance the plot than to look realistic.

And no matter how angry they get, we hear nothing that hints of an obscenity. This must be a religious film.

The film opens with a firefighter being admonished for leaving his partner while battling a fire. “You never leave your partner — especially during a fire,” he’s told.

Somehow, we know that phrase will pop up again.

You can tell this movie was made on the cheap. In one scene, two sets of teen-agers in two cars are going to race down the street.

Next scene: A call comes in to the fire station of a crash caused by teens racing. Filming an actual crash apparently cost too much money.

The film does build some suspense in a few scenes. After the crash, a girl is trapped and her car has landed on the railroad tracks and the dispatcher can’t get ahold of the train dispatcher. Soon a train comes barreling down the tracks.

There are also some moments of suspense when the Cameron character rushes into a house to rescue an unconscious girl. When the room fills with smoke and fire and he can’t get out, the Cameron character uses his ax to chop through the floor into the basement where he eventually gets out.

The external views of the house make it look like one of those homes used for fire training with fake flames and smoke.

But in the hospital, as he’s being treated, his wife, a nurse, walks by. She seems unusual cold and callous to her hero husband who minutes before could have died.

Yes, it looks like the pair are headed for divorce. But the Cameron character seeks advice from his dad.

Dad, played by Harris Malcom, takes him for a walk in the park and talks about a 40-day experiment called “the Love Dare” which puts the marriage in the hands of God.

And would you believe as they talk, they stop in front of a giant cross? What a coincidence!

Much of the acting rivals a high school production and the preachiness gets thicker and thicker as the movie goes on.

There is a twist at the end of this bland film, but nothing that amounts to anything.

Oh yeah, and ENDING ALERT, they don’t divorce and end up standing in front of the cross (which by the way is near the park where Dad lives, which he says is four hours away. So after they save their marriage, they drive four hours to look at a cross.)

Cameron today is a Christian evangelist and won’t kiss any woman but his wife, not even for a movie. So in a scene where he has to kiss his movie wife, they have to use his real wife in the shadow.

If you are like me, when the film concludes, you will say, “God, I’m glad that’s over.”

• FIREPROOF
• Directed by Alex Kendrick
• Written by Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick
• Runtime: 122 minutes
• Rated PG for thematic material and some peril
• 1 star of 4

Food, Inc.

‘Food, Inc.’ won’t make you hungry

"Food, Inc." takes a scary look at the modern food industry.

—

You may never look at food again after watching

“Food, Inc.,” an Oscar-nominated documentary on the largely unregulated food industry.

Directed by Robert Kenner, the film shows how the manufacturing of food has changed since the 1960s.

Decades ago, numerous family farms put our food on the table.

Today, a handful of factory farms use technology, cruelty and cheap alternatives to produce our food.

Kenner explains it all started with that most evil of fast-food restaurants, McDonald’s. McDonald’s really created the fast-food industry in the 1960s by taking away the carhops on roller skates and reducing the menu at the time to hamburgers, fries, Cokes and milk shakes.

McDonald’s wanted its food supply to be cheap and with the rise of the fast-food industry, food manufacturers took note. The result is even if you don’t eat fast food, the food you buy in supermarkets is a result.

The director pans the rows and rows of food at the supermarket, revealing that much of our food comes from the same source: corn.

Corn is cheap and easy to produce.

It goes into everything from soda pop to meat to catsup and practically everything else.

The film chronicles how chickens are kept in dark quarters, bred to create the popular white breast meat, pumped with antibiotics. The birds go from chicks to eating birds in half the time as they once did, but they cannot walk, live in excrement and many die early.

Cows, we learn, are fed cheap corn rather than their natural diet of grass. The upshot is they become susceptible to e-coli bacteria, something that doesn’t happen with grass-fed animals.

What’s worse is in some states it is illegal to criticize the food industry. Who cares about the First Amendment!

A mother who tells how her son contracted e-coli from a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant and died must also contend with legal action from the meat industry for her criticism.

Farmers are also forced to buy genetically altered seeds from Monsanto.

The director shows us how especially during the George W. Bush administration, high officials of the food industry got jobs as government regulators.

A bill requiring people to be informed if their food was genetically altered passed both houses of the California legislature but was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The food industry wouldn’t comment for the film and wouldn’t let its farmers allow the filmmakers to record in their chicken barns.

The filmmakers also give suggestions on what the average person can do, including planting your own garden.

If you go to grocery shores and if you eat food you don’t grow, you should watch “Food, Inc.”

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On a totally different note, if you like videos and dogs — and who doesn’t — boy do I have something for you. It’s the professionally produced Boo-Wow Walk video. It chronicles the annual event, held in October at Maple Ridge Golf Course in Saybrook Township.

This is the biggest fundraiser of the year for the Animal Protective League, which houses, cares for and adopts out the county’s homeless animals.

Margie Beth Trax Page, director of the event, describes all that goes into putting on the event, from getting prizes and sponsors to getting straw, setting up, getting and cooking the food and tearing it all down when it’s all over. Page also happens to be Star Beacon Geneva reporter.

The video, less than a half hour in length, includes interviews with participants (the two-legged ones), lots of footage of the walk, and still photos as well (some taken by yours truly.) It was all put together by Adam Racinskas.

If you were there, there’s a good chance you will be spotted somewhere in the video.

You can get a copy, which includes a rare look at Trax’s tattoo (see it when she’s carrying boxes to a van), Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in front of the APL store in front of Sears. There will be baked goods and other cool stuff. The videos are a mere $18.

I will even be there. But please don’t let that stop you from attending.

• Directed by Robert Kenner, written by Kenner and Elise Pearlstein
• Runtime: 94 minutes
• Rated PG for some thematic material and disturbing images
• 3 stars out of 4

The Stranger

Great cast in Nazi fugitive drama ‘Stranger’

EDWARD G. ROBINSON (left), Lorretta Young and Orson Welles star in "The Stranger."

Actors in “The Stranger” alone are enough to make watching this film worthwhile.

Not to mention it is an excellent film that addresses the Holocaust a year after World War II ends. Oh yes, you can watch it anytime streaming from your computer by going to the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com).

Boy was Edward G. Robinson a great actor. In this film he plays a war crimes commissioner trying to track down a Nazi fugitive.

The way he finds the bad guy is by releasing a lesser Nazi criminal and following him.

Konstantin Shayne plays Konrad Meinke, who when freed heads straight to a small Connecticut town where Nazi Franz Kindler (played by Orson Welles) is posing as Professor Charles Rankin. As Rankin, he is well respected at the local college by the students and marries a beautiful local girl, Mary, played by Loretta Young.

Welles plays the character chillingly well, considering he must play him as a pleasant, small-town educator as well as a blood-thirsty war criminal. We are constantly reminded of the horror under the surface.

When he is stopped on the street by Shayne’s character, he offers to talk in a more secluded area. Shayne’s character has repented and found Jesus and wants to pray with the Welles character.

Franz wants to lay hands as well, right on Meinke’s throat and squeeze until he is dead. So he does.

Franz then buries him in a shallow grave in the woods.

Robinson arrives in town, gets in good graces with the professor and his wife and begins digging into the situation.

Unfortunately so does the family dog, who doesn’t make it out of the film alive.

Robinson confides in Young’s character’s brother, played by Richard Long, who would later play one of the sons in TV’s “The Big Valley.”

The backdrop of this drama has Welles’ character working on a clock housed in a tower in the community.

The film is ahead of its time as the Robinson character lays out to the Young character the atrocities of Nazi Germany and the deaths of millions of Jews. He then reveals one of the main figures behind it all is her husband.

Now that could ruin your day.

Except she doesn’t believe him and repeats the allegations to loving Hubby.

The climax, as you can guess, takes place in the cloak tower.

This is wonderful film noir featuring a sterling cast.

Five years before he directed this, Welles produced his masterpiece, “Citizen Kane,” described as the greatest film of all time. Welles was dubbed “the boy genius.”

That genius continued with “The Stranger.”

Not only is it available streaming from IMDB, but Netflix customers can stream the movie from their computers or televisions as well.

THE STRANGER

Directed by Orson Welles

Written by Anthony Weller (screenplay) and Victor Trivas (adaption)

Runtime: 95 minutes

Not rated but intense for young audiences, plus a dog dies

4 stars out of 5

Julie and Julia

Sony Pictures
Amy Adams as Julie Powell in "Julie and Julia."

‘Julie and Julia’ cooks up a great plot

“Julie and Julia” tells two similar stories from two different eras.
Meryl Streep does a dead-on Julia Child, an American living in France in 1949. She was destined to be PBS’ “The French Chief.”
Unsure what to do with her life after being a clerk during World War II, Julia decides to enroll in a prestigious and expensive cooking school. It appeared too grueling for a woman.
The other story deals with Julie Powell, played by the ever-perky Amy Adams. Julie works in a cubicle for an insurance company, taking calls about people suffering from the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001.
It’s a depressing job and she often cries with her clients.
She also enjoys watching Child’s cooking show, maybe because Julia isn’t suave and perfect. She regularly ends up with food outside the bowl or on her clothes.
Then Julie gets an idea. She’s going to take Child’s book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking, 524 Recipes in 365 Days” and do just that.
She’s also going to blog about it at the same time, using her self-depricating sense of humor.
While some movies have the hero saving a person or family or town or maybe the world from tragedy, the great conflicts in this film deal with how to end the life of a lobster before cooking it or the best way to debone a duck.
As we follow Julie’s cooking trials and tribulations, we also follow a younger Julia Child as an American female learning cooking in a French male’s world.
It also follows the problems Julia has in getting her famous cookbook published.
So in many ways, Julie and Julia are the same.
They are two young, married women, dissatisfied with the way their lives have taken them and unsure of their futures.
They both have a drive and determination to forge ahead and better themselves and their lives.
They also have husbands who take a backseat to their ambitions and accomplishments. In fact, the film would have easily been made without even featuring the husbands. Julia’s is played by Chris Messina with Paul Child is played by Stanley Tucci.
There is a point in the film when the Messina character leaves his wife because of all of the stress of cooking and tasting food, but that doesn’t last too long.
Cooking proves the salvation for both women and Julie’s quirkily and fun blog helps to build her growing fan base.
It’s another fine example of a movie where people work and persevere to accomplish a goal, something all too-rare in movies. So much of the time the average movie plot deals with if and when guy beds girls or whether the main character is able to save the world or solve the crime.
Here’s a film that details just how doggone tasty food can be when it’s cooked in a lot of butter.
So check out “Julie & Julia,” just don’t do it the day before you get your cholesterol checked.

JULIE & JULIA • Directed by Nora Ephron • Screenplay by Ephron, book by Julie Powell • Rated PG-13 for brief strong language and some sensuality • Runtime: 123 minutes • 3 stars out of 5