Category Archives: Hollywood

How some agency folks got us to stop hating their spots after all

Looks like the folks at Grey must have read my open letter and taken my advice — there are now something like 7 or 8 Robe Lowe spots running in the DirecTV campaign, all very funny and no longer driving us mad with the endless replaying of the original two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st_GI73-aVE

See, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Just spend gobs of money on production and the buy and let your creatives run wild. I’m sure your client is grateful despite all those expenditures because this campaign is a high profile success that also drives home the DirecTV > Cable argument. Win-win for all concerned and I’m happy I could be of service.

Classic Movie Watch — The Magnificent Seven (1960)

Very few movies have ever packed more star power into their two hours than John Sturges’ 1960 Western extravaganza The Magnificent Seven. Featuring a presciently well-chosen collection of actors who would go on to become massive stars, the film is also fascinating for being a remake of Akira Kurosowa’s Seven Samurai with a perfectly logical transformation of milieu from the classic Samurai period of feudal Japan to the Old West of the United States/Mexico border. Highly skilled mercenaries are hired to defend a small, poor village from the depredations of a rampaging bandit and his gang, and Sturges shrewdly swaps swords for six guns even while the plot and characters of the two films remain largely identical. Of course, the ultimate irony is that Kurosowa was in fact striving to emulate a John Ford Western with Seven Samurai, so Magnificent Seven winds up being a Hollywood Western refracted back to its source by way of Japan. But it was Sturges’ singular genius to see how seven huge stars (eight if you count the bandit super villain) could fit together in one action-packed epic.

Sturges had already succeeded brilliantly with several other high wattage blockbusters like Gunfight at the OK Corral, which featured the always sparkling tandem of Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas; Bad Day at Black Rock with a one-armed Spencer Tracy being menaced by all-star heavies Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin; and the WWII action adventure Never So Few, which starred Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford and Gina Lollabrigida but was stolen by a young Steve McQueen in his breakout film role. Sturges immediately saw McQueen’s potential after the remarkable reaction to his supporting role in Few and teamed him that great bald showman, Yul Brynner, already famous for playing grand exotics like the King of Siam and Pharaoh, as the twin leads for his new project. Continue reading →

What We’re Wearing – Hats by Gary White aka “The Custom Hatter”

Over the last few years I’ve found it interesting that while men’s hats (hats – not ballcaps) have made a bit of a comeback, there are still very few people who make or wear really exceptional ones. There are a ton of cheap, stingy brimmed fedoras and trilby’s out there, but none of them are really any good. Most are made in the spirit of the fashion world, ie- disposable 10 minutes from now, and cost way too much for what they are. This is in pretty stark contrast to men’s suits, where there are now many really good tailors making some pretty fantastic clothes. But hats, alas, remain a comparative wasteland. But in the midst of the tumbleweeds, one man in New York State is making really exceptional custom made hats on a daily basis. That man is Gary White.

Above: Hat by Gary White in “dark moss” beaver felt with 3 point diamond crown with a Homburg roll on the brim. Side view.

Mr. White runs “The Custom Hatter” from a small studio in Buffalo, NY. His shop is packed with tools of his trade that reach back 100 years or more. He has sought out and acquired vintage and antique wooden forms and machinery that allow him to create any authentic hat shape or style that you could dream up or find. I appreciate his work for two reasons. The first is his adherence to tradition and not falling into line with easy fads. The second is the craftsmanship and quality of the hats themselves. They’re made from very high quality felts pressed from one or more furs. The hat making process itself is carried out by Mr. White to the customers specific desires, although he offers guidance and advice if wanted. Using a rare old machine he blocks (shapes) the hat before going on to finish the crown shape with the correct form to match the customers desires, selected from a huge collection that Mr. White has acquired over the years. The final steps involve shaping and finishing the brim before hand sewing in the lining and putting on the ribbon. Basically Mr. White is providing the equivalent of Savile Row tailoring skills for the hat making industry. You can see an overview of his hat making process here.

“Nucky” & “Jimmy” wearing hats by Gary White.

Continue reading →

Gorgeous Lady of the Week — Emily Blunt

Talent, intelligence and beauty — sloe-eyed actress Emily Blunt has those attributes in spades. Descended from a prominent English family of over-achievers, Emily was precocious enough to go directly from secondary school to starring opposite Judi Dench in a revival of George S. Kaufman & Edna Ferber’s classic lampoon of theater prima donnas, The Royal Family. After more well received stage work, including a very fitting Juliet, it was natural that her lovely visage and electric acting should grace British television, where she had a breakout performance in the award-winning dark and complicated My Summer of Love.

Following yet more British television success in Gideon’s Daughter, Ms. Blunt broke through across the Atlantic in 2006 in the hugely popular The Devil Wears Prada. Her pitch perfect Emily Charlton, the icy veteran assistant to the great Meryl Streep’s Anna Wintour-like fashion doyenne, served as the ideal foil for wide-eyed ingénue Anne Hathaway and her performance was just as important to the overall success of that picture. Nominated for a BAFTA and Golden Globe for the role, Emily was now on the A-list in Hollywood. She followed up that breakthrough by de-glamming and teaming with Amy Adams in Sunshine Cleaning as very funny misfit sisters trying to start a business cleaning up after dead people. She showed more comedy chops alongside Ewan McGregor in 2011’s charmingly offbeat Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and with Jason Segal as a couple perpetually thwarted on their journey to the alter in 2012’s The Five-Year Engagement.

Showing her versatility as well as bankabilty, Ms. Blunt then jumped easily into high-concept sci-fi action with standout support to Joseph-Gordon Levitt and Bruce Willis in the trippy and original 2012 time travel thriller Looper. Caught in another time loop this year, she was more than a match for Tom Cruise trying to repel alien invaders in the would-be blockbuster Edge of Tomorrow. Emily is also slated to be part of the cast of the upcoming big screen adaptation of Steven Sondheim’s Broadway musical, Into the Woods. If she sings as good as she looks in a futuristic exoskeleton battle suit, or most other clothing really, we’re there.

Still only 31-years-old, Emily has been married since 2010 to The Office actor John Krasinski and the couple welcomed their first child into the world this past February, daughter Hazel. To which we can only say, congratulations. And also: keep taking those improv classes, fellas, because it seems that funny guys get all the babes. That’s definitely QED by Emily.

Classic Movie Watch — Sorcerer (1977)

For years, decades even, William Friedkin’s 1977 existential thriller Sorcerer was more infamous legend than actual cinematic experience, a sort of ghost story used to scare overly ambitious directors. And this was for the simple reason that almost no one had ever seen it. Coming off the double-barreled successes of The French Connection and The Exorcist, Friedkin chose to follow that incredible duo up with a re-imagined remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s excruciatingly intense and fatalistic Wages of Fear. But instead of continuing his winning ways at the box office the film very nearly ruined Friedkin’s career. To be honest, as a “force” he was never quite the same having spent all his accumulated juice to make this flawed but compellingly nihilistic epic. And so it became one of the famous “disasters” used by Hollywood studios to claw back the power that they had ceded to the creative types during the brief but fruitful “Auteur” period of the late 60s and 70s, the beginning of the end of letting the inmates run the asylum and a sort of bookend to 1980’s Heaven’s Gate.

Sorcerer was a quixotic, almost resolutely anti-commercial endeavor pushed by a hot director, went predictably well over budget and then was relegated to near total obscurity by the seriously bad timing of its release against a movie that completely changed the Hollywood paradigm: Star Wars. As Friedkin has aptly put it, when Lucas’ sci-fi epic erupted in 1977 it was a vacuum cleaner that sucked audiences from nearly all competing movies leaving very little oxygen for more challenging works. So Sorcerer never had a chance and literally lost something like $10 million dollars, which used to be a lot of money. To make matters worse the inherent risks in the production led to two studios co-producing the film so that in future years, when Sorcerer might have been re-released into the lucrative home theater market first on VHS and then DVD, no one had the legal authority to do so until Friedkin sued to recapture those rights. That finally enabled Warner Brothers to assume control of video distribution so Friedkin could remaster and reassemble his lost classic for DVD and Blue Ray. And that is a great thing for cinephiles in general and especially for those of us preoccupied with 1970s films.

Because while Sorcerer may not be the greatest film ever made, it is certainly a damn site better than most of what passes for cinema today and absolutely holds its own in terms of intensity with Friedkin’s two more commercially successful predecessors. Expanding on HG Clouzot’s superb original, Friedkin devotes the beginning third of the movie to the backgrounds of the four outcasts who will come together to haul nitro-leaking dynamite in jerry-rigged trucks over treacherous Central American roads to an oil well that is burning out of control. Continue reading →

RIP Robin Williams — 1951-2014

Ok, I’ve been procrastinating on posting this because it is so fucking sad. Robin Williams died this August 11th of suicide by self-asphyxiation. The great actor and comedian had been battling depression, as well as falling off of the sobriety wagon in recent years. Williams was just 63 years old. His New York Times Obituary is here and a very good A.O. Scott appraisal with video is here.

Obviously the tragic irony of one of the world’s funniest men succumbing to depression is well-trod ground by now. To think that someone that successful and accomplished could not get the help they needed to make it through the darkness is simply frightening. But in the end we often walk alone in this world and what drives an amazing artist, which Williams undoubtedly was, can come from the dark places of insecurity and sadness deep within, even if the art in question is comedy with a capital C. I can’t think of another person funnier than Robin Williams when he was at his manic improvisatory best. If a talk show appearance can be called art, Williams performed it, on Carson or Letterman or a million other venues that should never have had room for such pocket Dada free associative miniature moments of brilliance. He enlivened the most mundane show business rituals with electric bolts of inspirational lightning. The sense that he was barely in control of his manic energies only added to the thrill ride.

As the years went by, well after his comet-like appearance on the scene in the late 1970s, Williams evinced a melancholy sensitivity in movies like Good Will Hunting, Awakenings and Dead Poets Society that saw him turning into a sounding board for people in need of compassion, especially young people, and an outsider’s point of view to deal with a stifling world. But that sad smile has been there from the start like the tears of Pagliacci, at least as far back as The World According to Garp, Moscow on the Hudson and bursting to raw fruition in Terry Gilliam’s revelatory The Fisher King. That undercurrent of melancholia was probably a major part of Williams as a person when he wasn’t “on”, obscured in the early days by his irrepressible, some would say uncontrollable, daffy genius when he seemed to be very nearly Bugs Bunny come to life. To be sure, Williams felt loss and sadness keenly through the years with the deaths of such friends as John Belushi, Andy Kaufman, Christopher Reeve and, most recently, his mentor and idol Jonathan Winters. Maybe we just didn’t want to believe that such real life losses would take their toll on our favorite comedian.

A genius in more ways than one, Williams’ gift must have also been something of a curse, creating the expectation in his audience that he must deliver to them transcendental moments of hilarity on demand and at all times. Continue reading →

RIP James Garner, 1928-2014

When James Garner passed away the other week at the age of 86 I felt as if I had lost a favorite uncle. Wry, worldly wise, down to earth, a little cynical, a little cranky, very funny and definitely a man’s man, Garner was a uniquely successful and uniquely American actor. The native Oklahoman started out in 1950s television after a very brief theater apprenticeship, and quickly achieved fame in Maverick as the title character Brett Maverick, the dapper and quick-witted Old West card sharp who preferred talking his way out of trouble to shooting. He then rose to stardom as a romantic lead and action star during the last gasp of the old Hollywood studio system: alongside Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson playing the Scrounger in the all-star POW epic The Great Escape and wooing Julie Andrews in Blake Edwards’ sly, sophisticated anti-war comedy, the Americanization of Emily (Garner’s own favorite film). After the excellent Western comedy Support Your Local Sheriff and a foreshadowing turn as a bemused Marlowe, he found cultural immortality back on TV as the iconic and perpetually harassed ex-cop, ex-con gumshoe Jim Rockford.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StcJVOIxLdo

For those of us who grew up in the 1970s, The Rockford Files was omnipresent, from the jaunty Mike Post theme song after the answering machine sequence to the initial run from 1974-1980 to the endless repeats in syndication. The series gleefully embraced a non-glamorous LA with the laconic and perpetually broke private eye working low rent bars and strip clubs while living in a cheap trailer home on Malibu beach, getting his meals from taco and hotdog stands and bouncing checks at the local grocery. It was a unique persona for a hero PI, totally at odds with, say, the slick rich kid mastermind of George Peppard’s Banacek. But then, maybe that’s why The Rockford Files went on to television immortality while Banacek, for all its tacky turtlenecked pleasures, is more of a fun footnote. There was just something so original about Jim Rockford as a hero: the loud sports coats with wide lapels; the wrongful conviction that gave him his cynical perspective; the beatdowns given and received; the clever ruses and identity games when on assignment; his meddling and very funny father (Noah Beery); and always a good old fashioned car chase in the mysteriously overpowered and rubber screeching gold Pontiac Firebird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pruex3pgX1g

I told you that theme song was omnipresent! Garner was, in fact, an excellent driver and racer — he caught the bug starring in John Frankenheimer’s seminal racing movie, Grand Prix, competing in several grueling Baja 1000s thereafter — and did much of his own driving on the series, as well as many of his own stunts. Continue reading →

What we’re wearing – Sunglasses by Persol & Randolph Engineering

Summer’s here and the sky is bright, so you really need some good shades. That being the case, I thought I’d share my two favourites with you – Persol’s model 649 and the Aviators made by Randolph Engineering. The two sets of glasses are very different but equally cool, and both will protect your eyes from the ravages of sun damage whilst making women want you and men want to be you!

Persol Model 649

Persol 649‘s probably need no introduction. The frames, made famous by the likes of Marcelllo Mastroianni and Steve McQueen on screen and in real life, epitomized the insouciant cool of the 60’s and early 70’s film culture. Mastroianni’s image was that of the dapper rake, McQueen’s the rough and tumble man’s man. Either way the 649 oozed cool. And they’ve still got it. The 649 is a bit sturdier than Persol’s 714 model, an essentially identical twin but for the fact that the 714’s fold up. McQueen was often photographed wearing 714’s as well, but in my experience the 649’s hold up a lot better to wear and tear as there are less fragile parts involved. Available in a number of sizes and colour combinations to suit every face, you can’t go wrong with a pair of 649’s.

Marcello Mastroianni wearing his iconic 649’s in “Divorce, Italian Style”

Mr. McQueen smiling away behind his 649’s

McQueen sporting his 714’s, foldable sibling to the 649

There is however, one pair of glasses that would make me switch out my beloved Persol 649’s, and that’s the Aviators from the guys over at Randolph Engineering.

robert+de+niro+taxi+driver+1976+randolph+engineering+ao+pilot+sunglasses

Robert Deniro’s Travis Bickle wearing Randolph Engineering Aviators in “Taxi Driver”

Since the late 70’s Randolph Engineering have been supplying the US Armed Forces with Aviator glasses, and like most mil spec items, they’re tough as hell and look really cool. Easily recognizable as the glasses of choice for military pilots, they look great on us civilians as well. They’re much better built than the more commonly seen Ray Ban Aviators, and they also come with a lifetime warranty on all the solder joints (which are the parts that usually fail on these glasses). Randolph Engineering also offers a variety of sizes and lens colours to get the right fit and sun protection, respectively. In fact, on the company’s website you can essentially create your own custom combination to suit your needs perfectly. Also, because they were designed for pilots, most of their glasses can be ordered with bayonet style temples, that hug the side of your head instead of hooking over your ears. If you’re a motorcycle guy, or an ATV or dirt bike enthusiast this might be the way to go since you can easily whip them on and off without removing your helmet. Randolph Engineering Aviators beat all others in my opinion because they really adhere to the “devil in the details” philosophy from design stage straight through production. If well built is your thing, go with Randolph Engineering. Oh yeah, Don Draper wears them. And Travis Bickle. And Johnny Depp. And Robert Redford. And Brad Pitt, and…oh you get the idea.

Randolph Engineering Aviators with bayonet style temples

Robert Deniro and Jodie Foster strutting the Mean Streets in “Taxi Driver”

Mr. Depp in a pair of blue lens Aviators by Randolph Engineering

So there you go. Go forth and protect those optic nerves! You can find Persol and Randolph Engineering on Amazon. However, with Randolph Engineering I recommend buying directly from the company. They’re easy to deal with and have good customer service (they even answer the phone!), and doing it this way ensures you’ll get the pair that’s perfect for you.

Gorgeous Lady of the Week — Zoe Saldana

Born in New Jersey and raised in Queens and the Dominican Republic, the lithe and lovely Zoe Saldana has emerged as a talented and strong leading lady in big budget epics. Overcoming childhood tragedy when her father was killed in an auto accident to find her love of performance through dance in the DR, the part Dominican, part Puerto Rican, all-lovely Ms. Saldana started out doing youth theater in Brooklyn in the mid-90s. But it wasn’t long before professional work came calling with a role on a Law & Order episode in 1999 and the melodramatic youth ballet feature, Center Stage in 2000.

From such promising beginnings, she soon caught the eye of Gore Verbinski to play one of the many pirate types seeking revenge on Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow in 2003’s mega-hit Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. Steven Spielberg also saw that special something in her, presciently casting her as a Star Trek-loving customs agent sympathetic to Tom Hanks’ stranded immigrant in 2004’s The Terminal.

After more blockbuster supporting work in the Roshomon-like political thriller Vantage Point (2008), 2009 saw Zoe have the breakout year that most actresses can only dream of: First, her dancer’s training and ultra-sophisticated motion capture brought to virtual life Neytiri the blue Na’vi princess and the main female character in James Cameron’s monster hit, Avatar. As if that wasn’t enough of an achievement, she also stepped even further into Sci-Fi immortality by assuming the pioneering role of Lieutenant Uhura in JJ Abrams’ rebooted Star Trek. That is what’s called a banner year, folks.

Not only has the 36-year-old already appeared in 2013’s hit sequel Star Trek: Into Darkness, where her fiery portrayal of Uhura assumed even more prominence among the crew of the Enterprise, but she is currently shooting a whopping 3 sequels to Avatar in New Zealand. Continuing with her Sci-Fi/crazy costume bent, Zoe is currently starring as the very green Gamora in the Marvel comic book adaptation, Guardians of the Galaxy, alongside newly minted leading man Chris Pratt. And after playing the title role in NBC’s miniseries remake of Rosemary’s Baby it’s somewhat heartening to know that Ms. Saldana will be starring in the soon-to-be-released and decidedly non-occult Nina Simone biopic, Nina. Bewitching as she is in tight latex costumes and weird skin colors, we’re looking forward to this lovely and intelligent lady playing that real live woman of great soul and complexity, thereby showing us even more of her inner beauty and acting chops. Then we sincerely hope Zoe gets a vacation because the girl is seriously working overtime!

A little Thursday comedy — Slap Shot (1977)

The Stanley Cup Playoffs may be over (proud of you Rangers, congrats LA) but Slap Shot is forever (clips definitely NSFW).

Sure, 1977 was one of the all-time great years in cinema history with the release of Star Wars, Close Encounters, Saturday Night Fever and Annie Hall, not to mention such crowd pleasers as The Spy Who Loved Me and Smokey and the Bandit. But it also saw the premiere of the best, most profane and funniest hockey film ever.

The late, great Paul Newman, Strother Martin, one of the finest character actors of the 60s & 70s, and director George Roy Hill of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid and The Sting fame team up to create not just an uproarious sports comedy but a great movie with the backdrop of the Recession in the Rust Belt grounding the hijinks in place and time and giving the rollicking plot a desperate, melancholy undertone. And for the hockey-oriented, the film serves as a knowing commentary on the eternal existential dilemma of the sport: goonism vs. skillful clean play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDXBsKnK4G8

Yes, ’77 was a landmark year for Hollywood where popular entertainment also achieved incredible quality and originality. And Slap Shot is a part of that magical run, a little gem among that year’s remarkable cinematic treasure trove.

Man's Fine Life

The Return of the Well-Rounded Gentleman