"Why Don Quixote?"

On Friday Night at 8pm Channel Zero, is gonna try some summer counter programming with a screening of G.W. Pabst's 1933 adaptation of "Don Quixote" starring Feodor Chaliapin. Cervantes classic novel is a wonder of the renaissance and a book that reverberates down to the current era as the "Knight of the Doleful Countenance" wanders Spain with his sidekick Sancho Panza desperately seeking a life of adventure and chivalry. In his battered comical armor and stern devotion to "staying in knightly character", Don Quixote is literally classical literature's first true cosplayer! Indeed the Mad Knight has all the symptoms, his entire world view is subverted, overwhelmed and guided by, the fiction he himself has imbibed. Don Quixote is literally the first character in all of literature to have a rudimentary self awareness of his own fictional status...hell its a book that literally breaks the Fifth Wall! Its always been a sort of wonderment to me at least,that this supremely subtle comical and multilayered book has never yet generated a definitive Hollywood Adaptation, although artists as diverse as Orson Welles and Mister Magoo have all taken a stab at it down thru the years. Some great books are strangely resistant to the full Tinseltown Treatment another example of which could well be "Moby Dick"...but I digress, this is fodder for a future post indeed. Director G.W. Pabst might perhaps be a good counterintuitive choice to adapt Don Quixote, he was in his heyday the only realist working and indeed prospering in German silent cinema, and sometimes as rich as character as The Old Windmill Tilter needs a steady hand to stave off caricature. Anyhow...this is also a film unseen in Boston as an experience of cinema, for perhaps eighty five years, so tell your friends. "DON QUIXOTE" (1933) Friday, July 20th 8pm The Somerville Theatre (Micro Cinema) 55 Davis Square Somerville Ma 617-625-5700 Admission: $7.50 (cheap!, cash only) In French, Subtitled in English

"When Harlie Was Dead..."

At age eight four, Harlan Ellison at last died in his sleep, much like William Randolph Hearst, a minor parallel that would move the late fantasist to litigation if the blood still surged in his veins. All snark aside, if you encountered Ellison's science fiction short stories at the right time in adolescence you'd be well served the rest of your life, the man was a strong even strident truth teller in his fiction, not many happy endings, much suspicions as to human motives, greed and cowardice very much on display in all those futuristic or fantastical landscapes. In a genre much given to fan service, cliches, stock characterizations and plain phoniness, he stood out with vigorous readable unflinching prose. His uncompromising advocacy on behalf of writers within and without Hollywood is a legendary thing, indeed writers are ripped off every day from Bangor to Guam, something he fought all thru his career. I agree with Ellison on one point, there has never been a Writer's Guild Strike in Hollywood that wasn't Completely Justified and Likely Overdue. As a scriptwriter he turned in superlative work tightly written and reasoned for everything from "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" to "Star Trek", by his own standards he was a success in Hollywood sans compromise, I have no doubt about the essential truth of this given the many shows and producers he feuded with down or else turned down thru the years. The man's capacity for litigation, even successful litigation was storied thing up to his death and beyond. He lost out on some good and bad things thanks to that unyielding attitude, a attempt to bring "Two-Face" to the small screen on "Batman" failed mostly due to an ongoing feud with ABC. On the other hand Ellison thankfully missed out on being one of Irwin Allen's pet scriptwriters mostly because of an alleged altercation during a story conference. Harlan refused to be rewritten or worse plagiarized, indeed he was a harsh critic of the many spurious reasons scripts were rewritten or simply stolen in Hollywood. That having been said, if an Ellison Fan avoid his "Man from UNCLE" "The Do It Yourself Dreadful Affair", you'll be amazed such a slack lugubrious effort was ever written by the one and only Harlan Ellison, moreover on a show where he supposedly got on well with the producers. In his truth telling, in his zeal, in his courage, in his caustic wit, Harlan Ellison resembles no one so much as Samuel Johnson, he looms that big in the realm of fantasy fiction. His volumes of film and television reviews are themselves virtual textbooks on "good criticism, well rendered", he pioneered television criticism at a time when the genre was little more than regurgitating press releases. Harlan Ellison was honest, but he wasn't flawless, the man was a notorious fabulist sometimes to an absurd degree, he once claimed that the intervention of then VP Spiro Agnew had held up publication a collection of his TV columns "The Other Glass Teat". His writings are littered with absurd hyperbole,some of it hilarious some of it frankly inaccurate and misleading and...well...wrong. His literary output peaked in the 1970's just as science fiction into a sudden profitable haven for millionaires, rightly so Ellison criticized this tendency, he pointed out that prior to "Star Wars" the celebrities in science fiction were all writers, now the big names were producers & directors, persons of wealth, whose money was made off of movie ticket sales. Harlan also pointed out, that this cataract of money never really reached the Fritz Liebers or the Robert Silverbergs so now those creatives could enjoy both poverty AND obscurity. This is a criticism of the post Star Wars world I've taken to heart and repeat endlessly....a very insightful observation from the Departed Harlan. So in the end, its always seemed to me, a dreadful irony that Harlan Ellison, the loud, righteous & pugnacious defender of the rights of writers,ended up keeping up to one hundred and fifty science fiction short stories off the market up to the time of his death because he couldn't finish editing the third volume of his notorious collection "The Last Dangerous Visions". Christopher Priest goes into detail about that whole sad ironic situation in his pamphlet "The Book on the Edge of Forever", I'm sure it can found on Amazon or Ebay, I shan't bore you with the details of an already cringeworthy tale. As Herodotus Notes "By Great Thing are The Mighty Undone"and truly "The Last Dangerous Visions" is Harlan Ellison's Waterloo. That having been said, I don't think we've heard the last of Harlan he has a huge bibliography of fiction just waiting to be adapted...sadly by others IF it happens. Like Phillip K. Dick his fiction may finally start seeping into the film zeitgeist bit by bit, one can but hope for honest guardians of Ellisonian truth telling. On the other hand Harlan also had an awesome collection of ex-wives, who knows they may have litigious drives all of themselves...that would be the last irony of a supremely ironic iconoclast. :) "I Have No Mouthpiece And I Must Scream"

Margot Kidder, A Brief Memorial

There are a lot of "Lois Lanes" out there, seven by my count and the numbers will likely rise going forward. But Margot Kidder was the "You've Come A Long Way Baby" Lois Lane, career-centered, liberated, a achiever on her way to achieving more until Superman alighted on her penthouse rooftop (what city beat reporter could afford a penthouse in 1978??? Kidder was the envy of every newsroom from San Diego to Bangor on those grounds alone). If you ever get a chance, check out the audition tapes on the "Superman the Movie" Deluxe DVD, Kidder never smirks or condescends to the material, she knows exactly where the line is between wit and toneless camp, she never steps over it. You can see instantly why she got the part (although clearly Stockard Channing made it a tight camel race to the end), Kidder threw down her endless aces effortlessly...aspiring actresses should watch Kidder's auditions there is plenty to be learned therein. In the end, Margot Kidder was a leather lunged scrapper, she happily entered into a tacit three way alliance with Superman Director Richard Donner and her costar Chris Reeve to prevent said movie from degenerating into a Campy Burlesque, and their efforts paid off. Would to God those three ever got a script they could all invest themselves in...that would've been a Supermanfor all times. She had her challenges, psychiatric, financial,marital...like a lot of actors that did comic book movies back in the day it was certainly not the sort of resume builder that would get her up on the "A-List", but she worked and worked, and when necessary she signed autographs for money at conventions. I once saw her from a distance at a convention a few years ago, she seemed alert, lively & interested in everything, clearly she had gotten the help she needed. If anyone deserved to die peacefully and painlessly even if all too soon, it was Margot Kidder.

Proof Positive that the Somerville Theatre is Doing the Lord's Work...

lies in the fact that they are still screening "The Death of Stalin" AND Wes Anderson's "Isle of Dogs", varied films to be sure, but two out of my top ten for 2018 to be sure. Of course, Channel Zero (that redoubtable film and video franchise, now in it's improbable twenty third year) has all sorts priors with The Soviet Union's Premiere Genocidal Uber Tyrant.... Over at the Coolidge Corner we screened the documentary "I Was Stalin's Bodyguard" to a sold out audience, and later on at the Somerville Theater we screened the CPSU's official "obituary propaganda movie" "History's Great Loss" which is literally the last gasp of "High Stalinism" over the leader's corpse. It also features selections of the politburo's eulogies which were in turn recreated in the current film. And yes Lavrenty Beria really did look like Boris Badenoff up there on Lenin's Tomb.

Channel Zero Proudly Presents: "Smile Til It Hurts; The Up With People Story" (2009)

Director Lee Storey examines the story of the music group “Up With People”, that relentlessly Upbeat Singing Bulwark of TV Variety Shows in the 1960’s, & 70’s. Seemingly perpetually “On Tour” for Decades this Peppy Youth Choir was embraced by everyone from Billy Graham to Richard Nixon & was a Super Bowl Half-Time Mainstay! But behind the scenes, cult-like conditions are alleged!! Arranged Marriages!, Bumptious evangelical "moral rearmament", Shady Corporates Sponsors & Weird Politics! See the documentary that dares to tell the whole truth behind “Up With People”! The Somerville Theatre (Micro Cinema) Friday May 4th
 8pm (sharp!) 
55 Davis Square Somerville Ma
 617 625 5700
 Admission: $8.50 (cash only, tickets on sale thirty minutes before showtime in front of the downstairs micro-cinema) One Night Only, A Full Cinema Experience! If there was a musical vaccine for youth rebellion in the 1960's, it was "Up With People", this is a story worth seeing!

It did my heart good to sit with a sold out audience

at the 7pm screening of "Isle of Dogs" last night @ the Somerville Theatre. I loved this movie...and I'm a tough sell on "Dog Movies", maybe its the faux stop motion animation, or the improbable all star cast, or director We Anderson's weird mixture of magic realism & Karel Zeman. Ah Karel Zeman, a filmmaker of the first rank, literally Communist Czechoslovakia's answer to Walt Disney, Dr, Suess & Ray Harryhausen all in one go! I am convinced with his emphasis on "radical unrealism" that Wes Anderson has screened such uber rare Zeman films as "The Stolen Airship" & "Off on a Comet" (both based on works by Jules Verne) wherein live action was incorporated with animation derived from the original illustrations. Someday Channel Zero will screen one of those obscure Karel Zeman science fiction titles, we won't sell many tickets, but it is a truism among us that the necessity to screen certain films is in no way conditioned by the potential audience. Wes Anderson doesn't have that problem a humorist, a stylist, an artist perfectly unafraid to make a "dog movie" and at least last night sold a shit ton of tickets as well....

2018 Oscar Predictions (last minute and incomplete)

Best Actor: Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill in "Darkest Hour". Lacking any limey disease porn from Eddie Redmayne, this immersive impersonation of Britain's Wartime PM will have to do. It'd be tantamount to treason for the Academy's Famously United British Block of Voters to go anywhere else. The only counter scenario in play is a split in that block between Oldman and Daniel Day Lewis in "Phantom Thread" but so far that "BritBlock" has never split and likely won't with A Winston Churchill In Play. Just remember, this is a great historic impersonation, but so was Woody Harrelson in "L.B.J" and Woody is likely watching the broadcast from home tonight. Best Actress: Margot Robbie, this is personal prejudice on my part, Robbie made a champion catastrophe like Tonya Harding completely sympathetic to me, that is the essence of acting IMHO. Sally Hawkins may pull off an upset, but she was working mute in the world's first Kalju-Human Interspecies Love Story...that strikes me as a reach for the Academy. Frances McDormand has an outside shot but it's more on grounds of her overall "body of work" to date than anything else. Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer in "All The Money in the World", this is "Academy Politics" at work, voting for Plummer rebukes neatly the gruesome sexual escapades allegedly perpetrated by the film's original star Kevin Spacey. Moreover, Plummer is past eighty years of age, and reshot all those scenes in under six weeks...for stamina alone he deserves the Oscar. Best Supporting Actress: Allison Janney in "I, Tonya"...As good as Robbie's Tonya Harding is, the film reaches Grand Guignol like levels of nastiness whenever Allison Janney's "Skate Mom from Hell" heaves onto the Screen....Besides when is she ever gonna be in that room again? Best Picture: This one is tough, but I am thinking "Darkest Hour", that BritBlock is pretty hardcore, they could again split their vote with "Dunkirk", but the performances in that film were more akin to neorealism, no other acting nominations were derived from it. Thus I think the race may actually be between "Darkest Hour" & "“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”, the latter being more of a "message movie" suited to Academy Prejudices. "Get Out" is "The Stepford Wives" for African Americans, and as such will likely fall afoul of the Academy's default resistance of horror-sic-fi-fantasy driven material, something that will likely keep Sally Hawkins and Daniel Kaluuya off the podium entirely.

Apropos of this week's screening of "The Siege of the Alcazar" (1940)

but its almost a cliche' to note that the salient single factor that seems to unite all the 20th century's "A-List" tyrants is a manic obsession with...movies. You name em' Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Franco, Mao...all had a imbedded notion that movies could "form opinions" in the audience's collective mind thus encouraging certain desired behaviors and deterring undesirable activities. Propaganda as defined by Jacques Ellul is a species of cost effective police supervision based on a sound theory that if the flow of facts & news to the masses is thoroughly controlled, then attitude formation can be achieved thru an atmosphere of exclusivity. The one thing that unites, all the Marxists, Fascists & Nationalists cited above is a common sociological notion of the masses as uncritical "Receivers"of state sponsored propaganda. This is pretty much Jacques Ellul's formulation but it has a hidden flaw only regimes at the height of their powers can make successful propaganda, declining regimes wracked by economic issues & foreign policy disasters can never make useful propaganda, the tide of factuality has "come in" so to speak and is washing them away. And so in the mid 20th Century the newest shiniest art form was cinema, Lenin, Hitler Stalin (the latter two watched a film every day when they could) all of them were wild about movies and also absolutely convinced that thru movies, were the masses ruled. Hitler put Leni Riefenstahl on the map, Stalin was so taken with the movies that he laid down a patently insane decree after World War Two that "All" Soviet Films must be "Epic in scope". Mao Zedong wrote unsigned movie criticism for the "People's Daily"that succeeded in getting a classic film called "The Life of Wu Xun (1950)banned for thirty five years & Mussolini rebuilt Italy's film plant while his appalling son Vittorio acted as patron to a gaggle of future Italian Neorealist filmmakers. There is a funny thing about tyrants, they demand orthodoxy, and complete obedience but they are also willing to sponsor stylistic innovations in cinema, Eisenstein, Riefenstahl and Vittorio Mussolini's pet neorealist. As I said, "obsessed" in all these despots there is more than a little "thwarted movie producer" present. "The Siege of the Alcazar"(1940) is therefore political hype work, Mussolini wanted war, only by choosing the right side in a General European War could he hope to grab off millions of square miles in North African Colonies at the Conference Table. That was his real goal in 1940, control of the Mediterranean freedom from the guns of the Royal Navy, both huge gambles, sufficient even to make the most cowed populace quail. The solution was simple, crank up the grievance machine, hype Italy's status as an underdog in Europe and build up the Marxist menace. All this was vitally necessary as the Italian Masses were completely war weary from a campaign of "pacification" in Libya, to the conquest of Ethiopia down to their intervention in support of Franco in Spain. In 1940 Italy was already militarily spent even before the war declarations, situations like this cry out for the intervention of propaganda...hence our next film. So please tell your friends, as once again Channel Zero has gone to a very obscure film title for what we think are very sound reasons. “The Siege of the Alcazar” (1940) Directed by Augusto Genina The Somerville Theatre (micro cinema) Friday February 23rd
 8pm (sharp!)
 55 Davis Square Somerville Ma
 617 625 5700
 Admission: $7.50 (cash only, tickets on sale thirty minutes before showtime in front of the MicroCinema)

"The Siege of the Alcazar " (1940)

a seminal work of Italian Fascist Propaganda is Channel Zero's inaugural screening for 2018 Next Month, Friday February 23rd.... We hear a lot of talk about authoritarianism being on the march out there, so Channel Zero thought it instructive to screen an authentic example of film propaganda from the 20th Century's First True Totalitarian Regime, Mussolini's Fascist Italy. Here the regime seeks to hype a skeptical population on the need for "Fascist Solidarity" with Franco's Dictatorship in Spain, depicting the seventy day defense of the Alcazar Arsenal in Toledo by Nationalist Troops against the "Republican Hordes". Director Augusto Genina's style could be summed up as "documentary fiction", he seamlessly dresses up a real event in the early days of the Spanish Civil War with real & amateur actors, facts are interwoven with pure dramatic invention, plain people are very much in the historic spotlight, the earliest flicker of the neorealist school can be discerned. Roberto Rossellini made a close study of "L'Assedio dell'Alcazar" in the lead up to his own directorial efforts on behalf of the Fascist regime, Michelangelo Antonioni LOVED "The Siege of the Alcazar", praising it's innovative technique to the high heavens in "Cinema" magazine (a film journal that was a veritable neorealist "petri dish" under the overt patronage of Vittorio Mussolini, the Duce's semi barbarous oldest son). It can therefore be inferred that that there was a certain amount of cinematic experimentation going on in Italy in the 1937 thru 1943 period. This was ongoing, even as the Regime started investing in "positive propaganda films" designed to persuade an already war-weary Italy on the vast territorial gains to be wrung from an aggressive European conquest at Hitler's side. The film experimenters of the 1937 - 1943 period in Italy one and all shed their fascist regalia and became some of the biggest names in Italian Cinema after the war...almost none were proscribed or disbarred from filmmaking after the war. "The Siege of the Alcazar " remains an interesting testimonial to the contradictions of the time, a stylistic advancement in many ways, but also a film itself dedicated celebrating fascist violence, grievance politics & the Cult of the Leader. Jacques Ellul teaches us that propaganda has many functions, implantation and perpetuation of certain ideas, cost effective attitude policing, both persuasion & dissuasion, "L'Assedio dell'Alcazar" is an example of an "idea replicator"summarizing the regime's own restrictive view of the Spanish Civil War (where Mussolini would ultimately commit seventy five thousand troops to fight for Franco)and the vision for a future that could be won only thru aggression & violence. The Somerville Theatre (micro cinema) Friday February 23rd
8pm (sharp!) 
55 Davis Square Somerville Ma
 617 625 5700
 Admission: $7.50 (cash only) Tickets go in sale thirty minutes before showtime in front of the micro-cinema.

Top Twelve Movies for 2017

(Apologies for the delay to one and all....) Tower (2017) Keith Maitland's documentary on Charle Whitman reign of terror as the Texas Tower Sniper does something no other film has ever quite done, made animation the servant of journalism. It is a conceit that Wellesian in it's implications. Get Out (2017) A film that conclusively demonstrates that there are worse fates to be suffered than mere race based genocide. Director Jordan Peele did something pretty amazing here, he turned perky suburban nonentity Allison Williams into a mortal threat to the survival of the human race so....respect! Colossal (2017) because ALL alcohol driven dysfunction in this world can be effectively summarized & illustrated thru Giant Kaiju Monsters AND Anne Hathaway. Wonder Woman (2017) This makes the list simply because it took decades to upgrade the Amazing Amazon to Feature Films and DC Comics is notorious for screwing up two-car funerals, so I'm astonished that they got what they got right on this one, which is chiefly casting. If Gal Gadot keeps her health she can play Wonder Woman for another ten years easily....she played the part three times already and stolen every single scene she was in...she is a super heroic bargain at twice the price. Baby Driver (2017) Because Hollywood has "Institutional Aphasia" genres that used to be no-brainers become increasingly impossible to execute, so its just bracing to see someone pull off a good "car chase/heist" movie with such brio. Dunkirk (2017) This was likely the closest we'll ever get to a neorealist revival, a bunch of characters largely defined by their jobs and uniforms in on a ghastly historic battlefield at once expansive and claustrophobic. Logan Lucky (2017) Channing Tatum should just camp out in front of Steve Soderbergh's door and wait for his next script to be completed, those two are made for one another, a dry screen presence and a director that knows what whats those kinds of actors funny and interesting. Plus...this is the first time I've ever laughed at anything Daniel Craig has done on the big screen.... The Battle of the Sexes (2017) I always give props to two things, winning historic impersonations (Steve Carell as Bobby Riggs & Emma Stone as Billy Jean King) and movies that remind us how cringeworthy we were, we are and likely always will be... Mansfield 66/67 (2017) Jayne Mansfield!! The First Modern Celebrity who proved that complete non productivity and toxic fame were easily compatible...She is literally The Mother of All Kardashians! This was pulpy gruesome stuff and I loved every retrograde minute of it, one of the best documentaries I've seen all year... The Darkest Hour (2017) Remember what I said about historic impersonations?? Is there anything more satisfying than Gary Oldman of all people playing the hell out of Winston Churchill?? I, Tonya (2017) Margot Robbie for Best Actress, Allison Janney for Best Supporting Actress and all from a Tonya Harding biopic with virtually no miscasting whatsoever! The Shape of Water (2017)...or what would've happened in "The Creature from the Black Lagoon" had finally gotten the girl at the end of the movie...Guillermo Del Toro can do no wrong in my books, even his interspecies love stories are fascinating. I liked all these movies, for a industry in decline Hollywood managed to punch way above it's weight this year, lotsa history lotsa fantasy...but those are genres I like what can I say?

Apropos of the Justice League Movie....

Not sure what Warner Brothers' plans are for their chronically underperforming DCU Movies, if I were them, I'd double down on Gal Gadot and hand the rest of it over to Bruce Timm and the WB's animation division they at least know how to make these here newfangled comic-book movies. The Justice League had its strengths (generally a good cast from a technical viewpoint) but there is meta context here, they need the right actors, and the right mix of heroes, and this particular line up was three super strength users, a speedster and The Batman. So the team as given to us was a little too reliant on sheer brute force and that is abad mix when you consider the villain of the movie is a Darkseid henchmen nonentity I had to look up on Wikipedia after the show. But I grow lyrical... If they are gonna keep Henry Cavill on as Superman...and clearly they've got no choice at this point, then someone needs to sit down with The Big Lug and tell him to stop playing The Man of Steel as an homage to Douglas Rains' "Hal 9000" characterization. No Joke, the JLA was a remarkably low affect performance from Cavill, he smirked once or twice and thats it...Ben Affleck pushed in way more chips by comparison, to say nothing of Gadot who has played Wonder Woman three times in two years and never not stolen every single scene. Sadly I suspect Affleck is out the door he sounds like he's paid his dues and wants to go back to making heist movies on the South Shore, Gadot has got three more Wonder Woman movies in her easy assuming the scripts don't tank (and this is DC so they could very well) so that leaves Henry Cavill's Superman as the other main tentpole and right now, he needs to stop phoning it in!

I don't know what the future holds...

maybe movie-going as a mass experience will end, sooner rather than later. Maybe the latest releases will simply drop into our smartphones like a gentle rain to beguile us when we are stuck on the Red Line. That having been said, before the hammer falls, if someone wanted to revive the campy humor-driven "Adam West Style" version of Batman, then I say turn the whole thing over to the "Kingsman" creatives, Director Matthew Vaughn & perhaps Channing Tatum as Bruce Wayne. Tatum would be nigh perfect, he has a dry delivery in his performance toolbox, one that is very "Westian" and wears well on the Big Screen. I can already hear him saying "I'll explain all that later Robin!". I have no casting ideas on Robin (suggestions anyone?) but I know I'd pay good money to see Emma Stone play "Batgirl", I see a light of cinema mischief in that actress' eye! James Franco as "Two Face" anyone? Its the part he was born to play!!! or Katherine Heigl as "Poison Ivy"? I could go on...notional casting is a game I like to play.... The main problem with the "Kingsman" franchise is the films go "pear shaped" in the final reel, but a revival of "Batman '66" solves all that, everything ends with a loopy lyrical brawl with multiple jobbers...simple! I wonder who has the remake rights to the original "Batman: The Movie"?? This will never happen, it plays to too small an audience, and we are lucky even to have gotten two final "West and Ward" animated features out of this, the first true Bat Franchise...but its fun to think about all the same.

Alas,

we read this week of the untimely death of David Pendleton, programmer for the Harvard Film Archive, and if repertory film had a Local Lion, it was ever himself. This is a blow to our Sacred Cause My Friends. Pendleton, had serious film chops, better than my own by any measure, he was a great believer in "The Comprehensive Retrospective" and it is only thanks to him and his willingness to get the content, that I, a mere dabbler Orsonologist could ever see Orson Welles thought-lost "Too Much Johnson Footage" or his infamous television pilot "The Gina Lollobrigida Story". It is thanks only to David Pendleton, thru the auspices of his "John Ford Retrospective" that I finally realized that John Wayne really could act and act well. And in these recent years as I grow older but ever in need of film education, the Harvard Film Archive and it's eclectic summer screenings have become a potent co-competitor with the Drive Ins for my attention & money. In life, Pendleton was a friendly low key man, he had impeccable taste, eminently approachable, not two months ago we briefly commiserated about the challenges of finding good quality subtitled Filipino cinema for revival. Here was a man with big budget and proven track record reviving obscure movies in a classy venue openly communing with the co-curator of an obscure repertory franchise that counts twenty tickets sold as "Success". Sometimes Channel Zero could out program Pendleton, on a one-off basis, but we could never beat him, he was too good at his job. His hard work and depth of knowledge was a solid asset to the HFA, I feel for anyone trying to step into Pendleton's shoes, it'll be a real job to honor the tradition. Film isn't dying, its changing...box office receipts are down for mainstream productions, VOD is pretty much the wave of the future, franchises like Channel Zero have iffy prospects over the intermediate term. Thats what makes David Pendleton's Programming so Important, as darkness falls, he proudly lit things up. Thank you David Pendleton, You Will Be Missed.

Run Don't Walk to the Somerville Theatre

there is still time to see "Mansfield 66/67" (2017) Ebersole & Hughes unique essay film/documentary on the decline and fall of Hollywood Blonde Bombshell, Jayne Mansfield, its a one week run that ends Thursday Night...so HURRY!! Long Before the Age of Trump, Instant D-List Celebrity, the Kardashians, Paris Hilton or "reality television", there was Jayne Mansfield, resolutely Hollywood B-List and the world's first true all up "Fame Junkie", a veritable "notorievore"movies, TV, husbands, kids galore, a dalliance with the Church of Satan, she loved attention...craved it, derived sustenance from it....this film doesn't delve into Jayne's "tormented psyche" it merely dances merrily thru her most picturesque neuroses and nigh operatic bids for adulation. Her sudden violent death in a car accident circa 1967 is the final irony, the family buried her in Pennsylvania, the very place Jayne had been physically, mentally & spiritually trying to escape since she was a 13 year old girl. She was in so many ways the "Jayne the Baptist", the Prophetess of the 21st Century, The Matron Saint of Publicity Stunts. For the Love of Ghod Please See This Movie!!

Channel Zero Returns, This Friday Night!

"G.L.O.W. The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling" (2012) Directed by Brett Whitcomb G.L.O.W.! The world’s first all female TV wrestling franchise, which was a notorious syndicated ratings bonanza back in the late 1980’s!! Abruptly canceled under mysterious circumstances this Amazing documentary tracks down the original “GLOW Girls” and tells their Real Story, the heels, the heroines, heartbreak and even a measure of true heroism....the pain & the fame!! You've seen the new TV Series, Now Find Out the Real Story! “Whatever happened to the Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling?” This film is the answer to that question!! The Somerville Theatre (Micro Cinema) Friday October 20th 8pm (sharp!) 55 Davis Square Somerville Ma 617 625 5700 Admission: $7.50 (cash only)

Pick of the Week:

No contest, The Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square is screening George Romero's "The Crazies" (1973) tomorrow night at 9:30pm EDT. Its cheap, the acting is uneven (at least one major role is played by an academic renowned for his biography of Orson Welles), the special effects are threadbare and its still one of the scariest movies of the 1970's. A small town in Pennsylvania (is there any other setting for George Romero?) is the mass victim of a US Army biological agent that induces violent dementia among humans. The town descends into gruesome chaos as the Army enforces martial law and a brutal quarantine, none of which puts the police or the armed forces or the government in a very flattering light...or say nothing of remedying the situation. "The Crazies"is pretty much a free range vehicle for the Late Romero to explore his abiding suspicions about police/the armed forces/"the governments" ability to avoid bungling a real crisis....the movie remains scary even today because we've all seen in our own lives how quickly and easily things can go wrong and stay wrong. These are all unpopular themes even today (when is the last time you saw an American Movie just walk away from the prospect of a heroic police or armed forces type character?)...they may seem harsh but they are worthy of exploration all the same.

Le Roi d' Crazy is Dead...

Its not that the Late Jerry Lewis was Part of the American Zeitgeist, he really WAS The American Zeitgeist...you can just start with his emeritus status as "The Last Man Out of Vaudeville" and then segue into his insanely popular partnership with Dean Martin, the break up, the solo movies, his own comedy production unit at Paramount, his invention of "video assist", "The Nutty Professor" into the 1963 television catastrophe "The Jerry Lewis Show" (two hours live on Saturday Night nuff' said), his own comic book....and then there is the percodan addiction, the "The Day the Clown Cried" and even "Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down?"...if that isn't Secular Omnipotence, What Is? The story goes that Woody Allen BEGGED Jerry Lewis to direct "Take the Money and Run", wisely Lewis counseled Allen to be his own director...follow his own ambition to it's logical conclusion. I mean who else DESERVED to be a "God in France??" Somewhere in there, even amidst his gruesome sexism & xenophobia, his famous short temper (the man literally had a fuse sputtering away on top of his head), his spotty tastelessness, his inability to cut his leading ladies in on the funny....there is an object lesson to all comedians on the sheer power and necessity of ambition, he is a living exhortation to all comedians high and low to integrate, write perform and dominate the creative process. And yet right up to the end, Jerry Lewis repeatedly demonstrated the darkest most instructive moment was maybe the last ten seconds before the explosive bolts that held his psyche together detonated and the furies out of Heaven flew out of his head. A lot of THAT went down on the MDA Labor Day Telethons.... If Jerry broke hearts, if he fell short of his own transcendent ambitions, if he failed quite literally, its all in the shadow of his monumental success, from a lowly MC on the vaudeville circuit to an Apex Predator in Hollywood...top that well...anyone. Boston is still a "Movie Theatre Town". It is inevitable that the HFA or the MFA or some likewise outfit will execute a comprehensive Jerry Lewis Retrospective. So I serve fair warning to all and sundry that the programmers of said notional retrospective would be well served to secure local writer, critic & Lewis Aficionado Betsy Sherman as their curator....she has an insight into Lewis worth cultivating.

The Pleasures of CounterProgramming...

Last Month, Channel Zero sold out the micro-cinema of the Somerville Theater with a screening of an uber obscure Filipino super heroine film "Darna: The Return" (1994) fourteenth in a successful franchise stretching back to 1951. Well...we had help....Who Knew Boston had a Filipino Community eager to see some of their native cinema on a local screen?? Turns out one of our flyers got tweeted out on Instagram and WHAMMO instant "virulence". My point is, sometime this fall, the Mighty Harvard Film Archive is doing a "1970's Filipino Cinema Retrospective" curated by one Lav Diaz. I doubt the HFA will trifle with genre films, despite the fact that the Philippines in the 1970's produced a steady stream of ribald comedies, police thrillers, super hero & heroine movies, martial arts flicks and lurid horror films...nope it'll be heavy drama as usual. Unless of course they elect to surprise us...Just Remember not matter what Channel Zero Got There First!! Doesn't matter if we are filling 31 seats or 333 seats, we used our small size and rapid decision making powers to out program an apex predator...and for what? Why boasting rights or else why make the effort? Look, if the HFA screens anything good I'll be there for sure, I'm a fool not to go, and the experience will be all the more pleasurable with the knowledge that Channel Zero beat em' to it!

Why Darna?

Why NOT Darna? Is the more likely question. Created in 1949 in Manila by writer Mars Ravelo as a sort of "Local Option Wonder Woman", Darna remains one of the Philippines most durable all out super heroes, immensely strong, incorruptible, patriotic, self reliant, altruistic, chivalrous and decorously feminine in a red spandex two-piece bathing suit & red crash helmet! What is shocking to me is the plain truth that Darna has been a box office powerhouse in some fifteen feature length motion pictures, since 1951!! TOP THAT GAL GADOT!!! And this is on top of three successful television series going back to 1977... Ah but the Philippines is an odd place, a nation of some 100 million citizens, a population more than large enough to support a thriving film & television industry, and yet very little of the product circulates outside the country. We here at Channel Zero think this is an awful shame since Darna is so clearly inspired by this summer's big box office playa, "Wonder Woman". This is yet another example of a fascinating cultural phenomenon in which the movies & television shows of the USA fairly saturate world markets, & those genres, tropes and notions all bounce off heavy objects (like a nationality for instance) and come back to us ineffably changed, in the form of The Beatles, Spaghetti Westerns or superheroes like "Darna". Channel Zero thinks "Darna's Hour Has Struck!" (hell it struck long before Wonder Woman managed to escape to television, let alone the movies), and to prove it we will be screening her last big motion picture "Darna, The Return" (1994) starring Anjanette Abayari as the Pinay Powerhouse locked into a death struggle with her Mortal Enemy, the Medusa, Valentina! The Philippines has always been a cinema market that puts a high value on sheer mythic strangeness, that much Darna always delivers, In Spades!! This is likely, Darna's Debut in the USA after only a scant sixty six years at the top of the box office in the the Philippines!! "Darna: The Return" (1994) he Somerville Theatre (Micro Cinema) 55 Davis Square Somerville Ma Friday, July 21st 8pm (sharp!) Admission: $7.50 (cash only) 617-625-5700 www.channel0.blogspot.com (in Tagalog Language, Subtitled in English)

Passages: Adam West....

Let the record show that Adam West spent about twenty years of his post "Batman" career desperately trying to "Escape the Cape" with absolutely no luck. He eked out a precarious living with personal appearances and the occasional guest starring role on television. The great irony of West's Career is that he was a classically handsome actor whose consistent go-to was to underplay the scene, this served him well when he was playing the Campy Caped Crusader as an island of calm amidst absurdist berserkers. Alas he was fatally typecast as a superhero and an over the top one at that, lost in that stereotype is the Westian dry wit and underplaying that kept the show on track for 2.5 years. I personally think the 1989 Burton-Keaton Batman was weirdly the making of Adam West, the film franchise lurched so far away from the old show's "Gilbert & Sullivan" vibe it gave the actor some territory to defend as the zeitgeist's "Batman Emeritus", West could credibly reinvent himself as the "Bright Knight" the family friendly Caped Crusader whose actions you'd never have to explain away to your kids. Every time the role got recast someone somewhere would track West down to get his opinion of "The New Guy". In the end, Adam West & Burt Ward MADE Batman into a inescapable cultural trope, the endless re-runs familiarized generations of audiences with the depth and extent of the Caped Crusader's priceless Rogue's Gallery, its that very saturation that made it easy for Tim Burton and his successors to bring Batman to the Big Screen. Adam West didn't need to "Escape the Cape" he'd handed it off with dignity and respect...and quietly segued into doing cartoon voice work. Say what you like, but Adam West was on An Odd Counterintuitive "A-List" of a disparate collection of Hollywood Actors whose fame derives literally from the cultural saturation that being in permanent re-run rotation on ye old UHF TV Stations. That is a mad tea party indeed, Co-ruled by William Shatner and Adam West, with its own collection of clowns Bob Denver, Alan Hale, Jim Nabors, Lucille Ball, Bob Crane, a vast sub strata of talented character players from Jonathan Harris to Leonard Nimoy & a potent reserve of distaff performers; Mary Tyler Moore, Barbara Eden, Elizabeth Montgomery, Tina Louise & Dawn Wells with dozens more. All of these actors had Fame, few of them were able to monetize it or parlay it into successive projects, And Adam West was the deadpan Emperor of Them All. His memoirs are instructive, chiefly but reinforcing the notion that even mediocre actors need to prepare and do their research. Its also a stunning compendium of all the risqué encounters one can rack up when you catch the cultural wave and ride it to glory playing Batman on TV for a few years. He held his ground to the last, and even managed to revive his version of Batman in recent animated feature (the inevitable sequel's voice tracks were themselves only recently completed, reputedly featuring is UHF Co-Emperor William Shatner as "Two Face" typecasting indeed). But time is no friend to the DemiGods of Our Youth and last week leukemia finally fetched Adam West off the way no Giant Carnivorous Clam ever could. If Warner Brothers really wants to honor the man who put "Batman" squarely in the center of the cultural zeitgeist they could start by scouring the vaults for UnEdited Episodes of ye old Television Show, the very expensive DVD release a few years ago while very good looking is still archiving trimmed episodes..."Adam West UnCut!" should be our battle cry!