Ooommmmmm…. Oooommmmmm….

Can you feel the chanting?  It’s an amazingly odd feeling to go “unplugged” after years of having a computer attached to my hip.  I can’t say I’m enjoying it, but I am definitely experiencing it. 

In the meanwhile, the current celebrity death cycle may be coming to a close.  These things happen in threes.  I would put Rod Steiger and John Frankenheimer in one group, awaiting a third member.  And I would put Ward Kimball, Rosemary Clooney and Katy Jurado, membership closed.  Ted Williams is in his own club, as ever.

I had Rod Steiger on my lap once.  I was playing Santa Claus one Christmas as The Puzzle Zoo at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.  I was used to the gruff Steiger and the preening Steiger that I had watched on TV and met in journalistic situations a few times.  But that morning, showing up for a children’s charity event, he was nothing but sweet.  He didn’t tell Santa what he wanted.  

What he had was a remarkable career.  He has more than 150 TV and feature appearances credited to him on IMBb.  Marty was his first TV appearance. That was followed directly by his first movie role in On The Waterfront.  He followed that with Oklahoma!  The exclamation point belongs to the show, but it might as well belong to Steiger’s career.  Has there been another start that auspicious? 

Of course, that couldn’t continue apace.  There were some good roles and some good movies, but it was eight years between Oklahoma! (in which Steiger got hit by some tough reviews) and The Pawnbroker, which was not huge at the box office but reinvigorated his career with the highly internalized role of Sol Nazerman and pushed director Sidney Lumet into the upper echelon of directors.  Soon came Doctor Zhivago and his Oscar-winning turn in In The Heat of the Night and No Way To Treat A Lady and The Illustrated Man.

But the 70s were not kind to Steiger.  He starred as Napoleon Bonaparte in a bad version of the story that, horrifyingly, kept Stanley Kubrick from making his version of the story.  (There are plans to publish Kubrick’s various preparations for that film, which he hoped to revivify up until the day he died.)   Steiger made a Leone spaghetti western and it turned out to be “the lost one.”  (The title of the little-seen film is Duck, You Sucker aka A Fistful of Dynamite aka Once Upon A Time In Mexico.)  Steiger did Mussolini (twice), W.C. Fields and even Pontius Pilate.   While his performances were revered by some, they were mocked by others and the films were roundly booed. 

By the late 70s, Steiger was being found by the next generation of filmmakers, who were thrilled to find a great star available for a price.  Stallone cast him in F.I.ST.  He took on the devil in The Amityville Horror.  Neither film ended up being a good choice.  He got occasional chances to shine, like in The Chosen.  But there were a lot of crappy films and TV slots, like the disastrous January Man and the mini-series, Hollywood Wives.

In 1994, Steiger made his last great popular stand in what was otherwise a bad movie, The Specialist.  His turn as Cuban “godfather” Joe Leon got more praise than any element in the film and reminded us all, in just a few minutes, what Steiger could deliver.  In the eight years since then, he has work in over 40 projects.  But there’s not a lot to recommend, at least in terms of Steiger’s work.

Steiger was among the last of his generation that was still working, still hoping for one more great role.  He was only 77 when he went.  That’s not old anymore.  He fought until the end.  The sad thing about these people is that it just gets quiet… especially when the next generation starts to see them as caricatures of their former greatness.  An established filmmaker who has the freedom to call his own shots - someone like Spielberg, Zemeckis or Soderbergh – should make a film with some of these older actors… give them a shot at a final grace note.

Steiger will be missed… especially by the generation that only got to see his third act.

JOHN FRANKENHEIMER was only 72.  He made 30 feature films.  But his work was born of television and he ended in television, making the best of the medium on both ends of his run.

The Birdman of Alcatraz, The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, Seconds and 52 Pick-Up are the best of his films.  If you’ve missed any of them, you should rent them. 

Very much of the same generation as Steiger, he toiled with the other early TV drama directors, like Sidney Lumet and generation closer William Friedkin, never stuck with the ego of features versus TV.  Like stage actors moving into film, they always delivered great craftsmanship… and occasional glimpses of superlative artistry. 

Frankenheimer was a filmmaker interested in serious stories.  He did a lot of work for hire.  But his heart came through when he made you think.  Between car wrecks like Reindeer Games and The Island of Dr. Moreau, Frankenheimer was doing top-notch work, cataloging  history with the made-for-TV films The Burning Season, Andersonville, George Wallace and Path to War. 

John Frankenheimer and the work that no one else is likely to do will be missed in ways we won’t even realize.

WARD KIMBALL was one of Disney’s Nine Old Men… apparently the wackiest one of all.  Animation may be the one arena in film that still reflects “the good old days.”  There may be CG 3-D, but animators still pitch gags, still animate individual characters and still even draw sometimes.  They also still live with the anonymity that top feature directors no longer have. 

I never met Kimball or saw him in person, but Sean Means of the Salt Lake Tribune did, so I’ll give him the floor:  “In your tributes, spare a line or two for Ward Kimball, who as one of  Disney's "nine old men" was credited with creating Jiminy Cricket and redrawing Mickey Mouse to make him less beady-eyed. Ward was a crazy guy, and how he wound up in Walt's genteel little shop instead of Termite Terrace with the Warner Bros. crew, I will never understand. At the Telluride Film Festival in '96, I and 250 others in the Sheridan Opera House got to laugh their butts off when Kimball and Chuck Jones started swapping war stories -- and when Leonard Maltin, ostensibly the moderator of the show (of hidden treasures from the Disney vaults), tried to butt in, Jones said, "What the hell are you doing here?" I hope Ward and Chuck are happily reunited, trading jokes in heaven.”

When you miss Ward Kimball – and he will be missed – give a little whistle.

ROSEMARY CLOONEY was only peripherally in the film business.  She did appear in some movies, but she was best known for her love life and that voice… that voice.  For some reason, Clooney puts me in mind of Jeff Wells because of her weight.  But the young Ms. Clooney, whose voice and face and body drew famous men like flies, seemed to still be there in the older, heavier Ms. Clooney.  She was, from a distance, a woman who had an earthly calm, a warm heart and welcoming smile.  And when she sang, she didn’t make you suffer like Billie Holliday or feel like you were on a world tour with Ella… Rosemary Clooney sang like she was your home, dinner in the over, red wine open, logs burning in the fireplace.  She will be missed.

KATY JURADO may be the least known of this group for Americans, but she was a superstar in Mexico.  Her last credit was the underseen, underappreciated The Hi-Lo Country from director Stephen Frears.  But her first English-language appearance was in the Budd Boetticher masterwork The Bullfighter & The Lady, followed closely by a film you might have heard of, High Noon.  I first became aware of Jurado – and the fact that I wasn’t very aware of her – thanks to One Eyed Jacks, the only movie ever directed by Brando and proof that film lovers suffered for that fact.  Jurado was Ernest Borgnine’s second wife (of five), but she chose to remain single from the time of that divorce, at 40, until her death.  Her story is probably as good as any movie she ever made.  I just don’;t know it.  Nonetheless, she will be missed by many in America and all of Mexico.

TED WILLIAMS was a man.  Like Holden or Lancaster or Oliver Reed, he defined a kind of masculinity that could not be avoided.  Unfortunately, alcohol seemed to be an inevitable part of the mix.  Regardless, Williams was as unique as Babe Ruth, yet he came into our lives at a time when we could save and retrieve the history he created.  His eyes, which were beyond perfection statistically, served him at the plate and in the air, piloting fighters in WWII.  He was a reluctant icon, but his simple perfection was unavoidable.

One last obit…

FILM FOUR has been one of the most important financiers of truly independent film in recent years.  Last year, the division of Britain’s Channel Four spent about $47 million on small films that probably wouldn’t have been made without them.  Channel Four is looking to cut that budget down to $15 million.  Ouch. 

Among the hundreds of films supported by Film Four, some of which would have been made, but many of which would never have gotten enough dollars together are; Bandit Queen, Beefcake, Bhaji on the Beach, A Brief History of Time, Buena Vista Social Club, Creature Comforts, Croupier, Damned in the USA, Dance with a Stranger, Dancing at Lughnasa, El Norte, Elizabeth, Four Weddings & A Funeral, The Full Monty, Hear My Song, Hilary & Jackie, Life is Sweet, The Madness of King George, Mi Vida Loca, Mississippi Masala, Mr. Death, My Beautiful Launderette, Naked, No Man’s Land, Paris, Texas, Prospero’s Books, The Pillow Book, A Room With A View, Safe, Salaam Bombay!, Secrets & Lies, Shallow Grave, The Straight Story, Sunshine, Trainspotting, The Red Violin and Tim Roth’s masterwork, The War Zone…

I’m sure that there are many more titles that each of you love… which makes this all the greater tragedy.  Channel Four hopes to find financial partners in the rest of the world that will make up for their financial cutbacks, but it’s rough sledding out there.  Imagine the last 20 years of film without the list above… it’s a less complex, less interesting, less compelling place. 

Film Four will be missed… again, for all the work we will never see.  Their latest film 24 Hour Party People is due soon. 

READER OF THE DAY:  MAY NOT writes:  “I’ll be queued up for XXX opening day.  Vin Diesel has charisma and style by the pound.  As for Blue Crush, hmmm, on one hand it is likely to be a trite surfer grrrrl empowerment film on the other hand…lots and lots of bikini-clad hardbodies.  I’ll probably wait for someone to review it first and as long as it’s better than Spice World, I’ll probably go see it.  But then I read Maxim, and not for the articles.

And this from R&D:  “I recently had the misfortune of sitting through the trailers for Eight Crazy Nights, The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, Blue Crush, and Swimfan. Consecutively.  I cannot remember ever seeing a string of trailers so absolutely, mind-numbingly awful strung together in a row like that.

Despite your anticipation for Blue Crush, the trailer is horrible, but does an excellent job of giving away the entire movie. Are people supposed to pay the $8.50 to fill in the blanks?  No doubt it'll do big business, regardless. One question, though, how in the world does Michelle Rodriguez keep getting cast in movies?  She has to be the second worst actress working today (behind only Rebecca Pidgeon). Is Girlfight still carrying her?  No one saw the damn thing, and she's been repellant in everything she's done since, including The Vagina Monologues in New York.

Worse than Crush, however, is Swimfan.  God-awful (and with such a clever title!). I don't even know what you'd be paying your $8.50 for with that, unless Ericka Christiansen takes off her bra in that pool scene (doubtful).

Luckily, I followed these trailers the next night with The Two Towers and Signs.  They redeemed everything.  Anyway, just thought I'd share.”

E ME:  Hey, I like Michelle Rodriguez… though she hasn’t really had a decent role since Girlfight.  Maybe Blue Crush will change that, but I gather it is another supporting performance.    Swimfan has the worst buzz of any movie that I know nothing about and people have slammed unsolicited. 

This whole computer thing is cramping my style a bit, but I have a load of news to write about tomorrow and I guess it’s time for a review of Eight Legged Freaks.  What might I have missed while I am not spending hours surfing each day?