"... I'm Ready For My Closeup"

 

Thank-you, Ted Turner for preserving the oldies.

And with that moving eulogy let's talk about film making. I'm watching a series on Netflix, called, "Straight to Hell," a Japanese made melodrama which started out really well and has morphed into an opera of soap bubbles. The title for instance, what a dumb title. In the very beginning, before the drama begins we are informed it's based on a true story but with a lot of fiction. I'd guess 98% fiction with one real fact in this movie being the main character's name. The story begins in 1945 or 46, after the big war and Tokyo was a ruin and food was scarce. I was sucked in because the cinematography was gorgeous. CGI, AI, a set, I don't know, but it clearly depicted the devastation. 

Unfortunately, the rest of the series is so-so. The writing is absolutely abysmal. The acting is laughable. I hate every character in it. The music is weird and out of place at times. And I really don't give a crap anymore. The series is allegedly based on the very famous Kazuko Hosoki who told fortunes and conned men out of money. In the series she is in the thick of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. She made millions writing books about one's destination. I think. I don't know because I'm in episode seven of nine and she still hasn't written one book or told one fortune.

What bugs me more than anything is watching this beautiful film destroyed by everything else. Hey, we've been here before where massive amounts of money is spent but it's just unwatchable because there might be gorgeous scenery and beautiful wardrobes and lousy everything else. (I'm looking at you, Kraven, with your laughable CGI animals. A kid could have done better)

I love low budget horror films, especially where the writer/producer/director, gets his friends involved. There was a movie I watched ages ago, one where they must have filmed it in a friend's backyard, it was just about as low budget as you could get- except for photography. Whoever was behind that camera had found their calling. As a monster in a cheap Halloween costume chased pimply faced nerds, I marveled at how beautiful it looked, pimples, cheap masks and all. It's probably pretty rare to have such incongruity. Maybe not, but I still can't get the discrepancy out of my head. I hope the camera person is making loads of money in movieland. They deserve it.

So, back to Ted. I can't say I watched TMC very often, but my mother did. By the time the TMC was launched in the 90's mom was pretty much a recluse. She would lie on the living room sofa and watch movies. From the time I could scoot ten inches away from the television set, the classics were our sanctuary, a gift of time I could spend alone with my mother. I will forever be traumatized by Richard Widmark pushing an old lady in a wheelchair down the stairs.* There is just so much garbage movies out there today, it makes my heart ache to know so many of these old classics will never be seen and appreciated by the younger generation. Here's a few gems, but just too many to list. Just try one. 

*'Kiss of Death.'

'Strangers on a Train.'

'Adam's Rib.'

'White Heat.'

'The Thin Man.'

'The African Queen.'

'Casablanca.'

**A sad attempt to create Gloria Swanson in, 'Sunset Boulevard.'