Southern California Concert Update

The Delta Spirit will be performing at the Observatory in Santa Ana on Sunday, June 3 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 per person.

The Head and the Heart will also be playing at the Observatory on Monday, June 4 at 8 p.m. Tickets are also $20 per person.

Also at the Observatory, Sea Wolf will be performing on Thursday, June 12 at 8 p.m. Tickets are priced at $13 per person.

Former Modern Lovers maestro Jonathan Richman will be performing at the Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa on Saturday, June 30 at 9 p.m. Tickets are $10 per person.

New Music And DVD Releases For May

New Music Releases

May 15

Beach House, "Bloom"
Best Coast, "Only Place"
Jeremy Denk, "Ligeti/Beethoven"
Tenacious D, "Rize of the Fenix"

May 22

Mount Eerie, "Clear Moon"

May 29

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, "Here"


New DVD Releases

May 8

"The Big C", Season Two

May 15

"The Grey"
"Norwegian Wood"
"Rampart"

May 22

"Certified Copy" on The Criterion Collection

Peter Bogdanovich Talks With Great Directors In 'Who The Devil Made It'

Book Bracket Post By Aden Jordan

Reading interviews between journalists and filmmakers can often be cringe-inducing. Interviewers can be too eager to try and show a filmmaker how familiar they are with his or her body of work, which often leads to superficial questions or the interviewer trying too hard to show off. Overly personal questions can distract from the films being discussed, and interviewers too often mistake gossip questions for intimacy with the interview subject. Superficial and filler questions are too often the norm with filmmaker interviews, and they're prevalent in many forms- in newspapers, magazines, blogs, and more.

One film director and scholar who seems simply unable to ask a dull or shallow question is Peter Bogdanovich, the thoughtful, prepared, and intelligent author of the interview collection "Who The Devil Made It". A juggler of many hats, Mr. Bogdanovich has been a film critic, actor, writer, and director over the course of many decades. Best known for his early directorial efforts, Bogdanovich made such well-regarded works as "The Last Picture Show", "Paper Moon", and the excellent film-critical horror piece "Targets". As an actor, Bogdanovich is probably best recognized by this generation as Lorraine Bracco's therapist and mentor on "The Sopranos". Over several decades, Bogdanovich also wrote as a film historian, and some of his books cover the work of Orson Welles, Allan Dwan, Fritz Lang, John Ford, Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock.

Published in 1997, "Who The Devil Made It" includes interviews with some of film's best known and most influential filmmakers including Dwan, Lang, Hawks, Leo McCarey, George Cukor, Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Chuck Jones, Don Siegel, Robert Aldrich, and Sidney Lumet. Some of these directors knew Bogdonavich very well while others only met with him briefly. Their personalities all show through their answers. Lang comes across as eloquent while being on edge. Joseph H. Lewis speaks in a friendly and grandfatherly way to Bogdanovich. For both film scholars and casual readers, the biggest draw to the book will most likely be Hitchcock who provides a mammoth eighty six pages worth of intelligent and detailed interview conversation.

The book begins with an interview with Allan Dwan from 1968 and concludes with a conversation with Sidney Lumet in 1995. Through the sprawl of eight hundred and seventeen pages of interview material, Bogdanovich and his subjects paint a very full picture of Hollywood from its beginnings up through the mid-1990's. In doing so, the directors note how the studio system changed as did funding and distribution models. The sheer density of film history that Bogdanovich's book covers makes it very significant, and its existence is bittersweet now that all of its director subjects have passed away.

Bye Bye Blockbuster

It's official. The last Blockbuster Video store in my Orange County neighborhood finally closed down this week. Over the past two and a half years, I've watched as the two Blockbusters I frequented as a child in Brea and Fullerton closed up shop. The closing of those stores were followed by other gone for good Blockbusters in Placentia and Orange. According to their website, Blockbuster still has a hand full of brick and mortar stores open in Orange County, but their site has listed terminated stores in the past and the company's remaining stores seem to be closing shop at a rapid pace.

I don't like to write personal posts, but for me the closing of Blockbuster is bittersweet. One of the best and easiest ways to learn about film is to simply watch a lot of movies. Viewing a lot of films creates a familiarity with on screen performers and a basic introduction to film grammar. When I was in high school, I preferred to go to Blockbuster on the weekends instead of just watching whatever movies were on basic cable because going to Blockbuster gave me more of a power to choose what I wanted to watch instead of just watching what was available to me. My friend Nick told me recently that when he was growing up, his mother would take him to Blockbuster and tell him that he could pick one movie to watch. With video stores dying off, Nick told me that he realized recently that he may soon never again be able to go into a video store for the purpose of picking out one film to watch. What I'm realizing now is that Nick also might have been wishing that he could take his future children to a video store the way his mother did, but it seems unlikely now that video stores are a disappearing species.

Blockbuster has played a huge role in fostering my abilities as an amateur film scholar, but even a nostaliagist such as myself can acknowledge the downsides of their structure and services. Blockbuster stores were known for tailoring their selection to their perceived neighborhood demographic. A store in a slightly run-down area would actually have several straight to video DVDs about gang characters while a store in a more affluent area might have more back catalogue Criterion DVDs. Blockbuster stores tended to push what was new and popular, and more obscure titles were usually not carried. Most other complaints about Blockbuster would only be stating the obvious- that the company nearly killed off independent video stores, that the rental fees could be excessive and greedy, and that stores often carried damaged items that should not have been put on the shelves.

Like all companies, Blockbuster was flawed in many ways, but I appreciate the opportunities their stores gave me to find movies and become film literate. Good night to Blockbuster nights.

New Background

A heartfelt thanks is in order for Ashley Williamson who was kind enough to design a new background for this blog. Check out her work if you're interested in graphic design.

Donal Logue

Film Biography By Aden Jordan

            Looks can be deceiving, and actors of all shapes and sizes are often judged as much for their looks than their actual talents. Take the curious case of Donal Logue. He is a scruffy, slightly heavy, long-haired man with a friendly smile and the on-screen air of a good-natured stoner. He could easily fit the part of the Big Lebowski’s younger brother or even Thomas Pynchon’s shaggy private eye Doc Sportello. Behind his ordinary nice guy looks lies a deep intelligence and a great naturalism as an actor.

            He was born in Ottawa, Canada and studied Intellectual History at Harvard. After performing on stage, Logue had several years of mainly appearing on television. His film career included roles in “Sneakers”, “Gettysburg”, “Disclosure”, and “Jerry Maguire”. “The Tao of Steve” was an independent film where Logue played a slacker ladies’ man who becomes remorseful after starting a relationship with someone previously hurt by his womanizing. The film is mediocre and has hints of misogyny, but Logue was fantastic and brought a fine balance of humor and gravity to his performance.

            “The Tao of Steve” was not widely released or critically received, but it earned Logue more attention from both the movie industry and critics. More roles followed in films including “The Million Dollar Hotel”, “Reindeer Games”, and “Steal This Movie”. He was touching as a racist soldier in the American Revolution who comes to respect a fellow black soldier in “The Patriot”. From 2001 to 2005, Logue played a goofy young father in the sitcom “Grounded For Life” on television, further showing his range in moving between dramas and comedies. His workload has seemed steady with loyal buddy roles in “Ghost Rider” and “Max Payne”.

            Lastly we come to the tragic and awesome case of “Terriers”. Unusually titled and marketed, “Terriers” was a show that viewers didn’t know what to make of so they inevitably stayed away and the show was cancelled after its first season. On the surface, “Terriers” was a private eye drama about a Dude-ish beach bum and the criminal-turned-investigator partner he’d taken under his wing. In the show, Logue’s character Hank Dolworth cracked jokes and slacked around as he investigated cases for clients, but the heart of the show was much darker and more realistic. Dolworth had formerly been a respected police detective until his out of control alcoholism led to him being wrongfully accused of harassing a suspect while drunk. Hank was a believable character because he had so many good qualities including compassion, generosity, kindness, loyalty, and resourcefulness (hence the scrappiness and doggedness of the "Terriers" title), but his alcoholism was his tragic flaw and his tendency to self-destruct continued after he had sobered up and started his P.I. work.

            Logue’s performance on “Terriers” was impeccable. He brought levity and wit to his role while also displaying profound sadness and savage rage. His naturalism as a performer was always on display too, and he brought a plausible level of seediness to the role of the good guy. In a just world, “Terriers” would now be in its third season and Logue would have been nominated and won an Emmy for his work in the first season. Alas, the best works of fiction are not always the most well-regarded or popular, and “Terriers” and Logue’s masterful work become even more tragic and praise-worthy as they go under seen. Now that “Terriers” is over, it’s hard to discern where Logue’s career will go. He had a single episode role on “House M.D” and acted in the horror film “Shark Night”. My personal guess is that in about five years “Terriers” will gain an enormous cult following on video, and a significant number of viewers and critics will scratch their heads and wonder why the show was cancelled and why it didn’t put Logue firmly into the canon of great modern performances.

Guy Pearce

Film Biography by Aden Jordan

After Curtis Hanson's "L.A. Confidential" was released in 1997, two of the film's Australian actors became deservedly more in-demand in Hollywood. Their names are Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce, and the course of their careers have proven to be remarkably different in the fifteen years since "L.A. Confidential" hit theaters. Crowe quickly went on to bigger budget films, enormous paychecks, Academy Award nominations and wins, and several instances of negative tabloid attention. To this day, Crowe usually plays the lead character or one of the main characters in the films he performs in. Pearce's career so far had led to smaller paychecks and roles than Mr. Crowe, but his roles, choices, and overall body of work have been far more interesting than Crowe's years of big-budget, A-list movies.

"L.A. Confidential" had the feel of a film where everyone on screen was a character actor partly because the film was an ensemble effort and more profoundly because it was a story where there were no absolute good or bad guys- most of the film's figures were capable of both decency and corruption. Crowe has had roles in the past few years where he wasn't playing the main character, but he no longer seems cut out for just sitting back and being a supporting performer. This is the main element that separates Crowe from Pearce because Pearce's strengths lie in his ability to drop into roles where he seems to know that his character is just one piece of something bigger. He's a generous, thoughtful actor, and he clearly knows how to act with his fellow performers instead of acting at them.

Pearce looked effortlessly intelligent and meticulous as Edmund Exley in "L.A. Confidential". He seemed to take some of Exley's more unlikable qualities with him in William Friedkin's "Rules of Engagement" as a by-the-book major. His tragic, tortured, and completely human performance in "Memento" is one of the best pieces of acting to appear in a Christopher Nolan movie- maybe even more so than Heath Ledger's deservedly celebrated take on the Joker and Al Pacino's fine work in the "Insomnia" remake.

After "Memento" and its critical success and fast-growing cult following, Pearce seemed destined for bigger roles and larger movies. Despite his talents, his follow up features ("The Time Machine" and "The Count of Monte Cristo") proved to be creative duds. Pearce seemed to fade from view for a few years until out of nowhere in 2005 came John Hillcoat's brutal and poetic outback Western "The Proposition". In the film, Pearce played an outlaw in a trio of criminal brothers forced by a small town sheriff to capture his ruthless older brother or face the execution of his younger, more innocent brother. Pearce never seemed interested in playing characters who were solely good or evil, and his character in "The Proposition" was yet another morally ambiguous figure. He was excellent in the film- terse, subtle, and working with performers as strong and versatile as he is including Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Danny Huston, and Emily Watson.

For the past few years, he seems to mainly take small roles where he elevates whatever film he is in and makes everyone he works with look better just by being there. His brief, shocking role at the beginning of "The Hurt Locker" helped set the film's dark and tense tone. He also showed that he could clearly do comedy in a family film when he played a slick business snake in the silly and sweet "Bedtime Stories". The cameos continued with his very brief part in Hillcoat's "The Road". In the pitch-black bleak crime drama "Animal Kingdom", he played the one honest cop in a film where the police were as homicidal as the criminals they were pursuing. Even in "Animal Kingdom", Pearce's interest in morally complicated characters showed. His character was a good-hearted cop looking after a young man who was taken in by evil criminal relatives, but traces of the cop's own self-interest in getting a court testimony out of the boy seemed to flicker more through Pearce's complex delivery than anything in the script.

He played the bullying King Edward in "The King's Speech", the selfish father and husband in "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark", and the fey and manipulative lover in "Mildred Pierce". As of this writing, he's been in two films in 2012: "Seeking Justice" where he played the villain and "Lockout" where he was the hero. He's yet to give a bad performance.