99 Problems but the Ninth Installment of Zack's Newsletter Ain't One
THE HEARTBREAK KID! Raul Julia and Meryl Streep! The "Hanker for a Hunka Cheese" Guy!
Hey everyone!
Trying to get various drafts of these newsletters shored up and published. It’s been…oh, let’s see: Amicable breakup, visit the dermatologist, cancerous mole (Basal Cell, no worries), mole removal, Grandpa visited, work changed to new database system so training, miniature film festival, prepping for class I’m teaching, prepping for writing class I’m TAKING, occasionally remembering to clean the house, monkeys…
So, here’s what I’ve edited down from what I’ve found as of late.
THE LINK SAYS “CANNOT PLAY” BUT CLICK IT ANYWAY:
Going through film podcasts I have backed up something con’sid’ra’ble, and listened to an excellent installment of BLANK CHECK on Elaine May’s THE HEARTBREAK KID (1972), and a bit towards the end discussed how the damn thing’s NOT on Blu-Ray and the DVD’s out of print and crap anyway, and how the company that holds the rights wants WAYYYYY too much for it, so I googled and found a PRISTINE damn version on Vimeo that I downloaded as part of my ongoing quest to preserve rare excellence.
For those who haven’t seen the film…I realize some of you might THINK you’ve seen a version with Ben Stiller but that was just a mass hallucination, put it out of your mind…it’s one of the greatest cringe comedies of all time, with Charles Grodin in his breakout role as a nice Jewish salesman who marries a nice Jewish girl (Jeannie Berlin, Elaine May’s daughter), finds himself with a case of buyer’s remorse en route to their honeymoon, and then finds himself fascinated by a Shiksa goddess played Cybill Shepard. And then things get messy.
The film is sort of a mirror image of THE GRADUATE, directed by May’s former collaborator Mike Nichols; it’s about someone who goes after what he thinks he’s supposed to want, engages in increasingly questionable behavior to do so, spins line after line of double-talk that he delivers with absolute sincerity (“there’s nothing deceitful in this cauliflower”), and yet you keep watching him because there’s something fascinating in his sheer determination to keep digging himself in deeper. And it ends much the way THE GRADUATE did, again in a mirrored image that still reminds us what we want and what we need are two different things entirely.
Anyway! The Vimeo version is linked below; as noted in my headline, it says “won’t play” but clicking the thumbnail will take you to the page it’s on. Also, here’s “A Change of Plan” by Bruce J. Friedman, the short story on which the film was based (tho Elaine May and the actors took some liberties with Neil Simon’s adaptation, for the better).
UNLIKE THE PREVIOUS FILM, HERE THE REMAKE *WAS* BETTER:
On that note, I’ve been on a Michael Mann kick recently, and saw a rare 35-mm print of THE KEEP at the Carolina Theatre of Durham (it was certainly…a film, and that’s all I’ll say), and that reminded me of another rare number that sometimes materializes online, LA TAKEDOWN (1989), an unsold TV pilot that Mann later expanded into HEAT (1995). There’s only one overlapping actor between the pilot and the film, Xander Berkley in two different roles, but the story’s basically the same…just lacking that gravitas that Al Pacino and Robert De Niro brought to the roles with their iconic cinema status, or the magnificent look you get from the big-budget cinematography (and you really need the Blu-Ray of HEAT to appreciate all the night shooting). But it’s a fascinating curiosity piece to see how an idea evolves over time. It appears for brief windows on YouTube like the Flying Dutchman; see it while it is with us again:
CHECK IT OUT, YA C***S***IN’ HOOPLEHEADS:
Coming out soon is A LIE AGREED UPON: THE DEADWOOD CHRONICLES, a definitive history and analysis of the show from the excellent critic Mark Zoller Seitz. Setiz recently posted his introduction to the book, a fascinating and heartbreaking tale of how is life and career intersected with the show and its creator David Milch, and it’s as good an argument for ordering it as anything (I already did when it was on Kickstarter).
BUMPED FROM SEVERAL PREVIOUS NEWSLETTERS:
A short animation of Ronald McDonald and company that played at McDonalds’ birthday parties in the 1980s. Those were good times!
I HANKER FOR A HUNKA CARL:
Another animation I found was a “Weekend Special” starring “Timer,” the little cartoon character they used to show in educational ads proclaiming, “I hanker for a hunka cheese!” In this one, Timer takes two kids…one of whom, Kyle Richards, went on to become a Real Housewife, and you know, I’ve never watched one of those shows…inside the large, unhealthy body of their Uncle Carl. I’m not sure Timer has a leg to stand on, given all his cheese-pitchin’.
I KNOW HE WAS MORE THAN GOMEZ ADDAMS, BUT HE WAS SO *GOOD* AS GOMEZ ADDAMS:
Recently watched an AMERICAN MASTERS on Raul Julia, which is now on Amazon Prime. A major focus was on his legendary stage career, with one of his breakthrough roles in THE TAMING OF THE SHREW with Meryl Streep. The whole thing does not appear to be recorded, but there IS a documentary called KISS ME, PETRUCHIO, which is in two parts on YouTube (part one below). Watch two of the greatest actors of all time tackle Shakespeare’s classic comic romance!
BALL OF FIRE:
An amazing post about a screen legend:
WHAT I DO IN MY SPARE TIME:
As it is October, I enjoy watching horror movies I haven’t seen before to fill in some gaps! One that was at the Carolina Theatre recently that is HILARIOUSLY insane and is on Amazon Prime and Tubi for free is MAUSOLEUM (1983) a bizarre hodge-podge of elements of HALLOWEEN, SCANNERS, THE OMEN, THE EXORCIST…you get the idea…involving a housewife under a bit of a curse from her family, named “Nemod.” The cast includes the likes of Marjoe Gotiner, a former evangelical who was the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary MARJOE, and LaWada Page (Aunt Esther on SANFORD AND SON) as a maid who gets a sense there’s evil afoot and reacts the way most sane, normal people would in that situation. Unintentionally hialrious, it does have a pretty cool monster. Here’s the highlights:
COSPLAY KEEPS UPPING ITS GAME:
I was deeply impressed with this representation of classic He-Man character Man-E-Faces that I saw on Instagram.
OKAY, I ADMIT I HAVEN’T ACTUALLY MADE TIME TO READ THIS, WHAT WITH ALL THE MOVIES AND STUFF I’VE FOUND:
Comics writer Scott Snyder has his own pay newsletter that includes a comics writing course, and I’m very excited as he has an excellent reputation as a writing teacher! His first video thing (ain’t sharing, there are rules, but it’s just $7 a month) included some links and downloads, including a rejected thesis by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. that looks at the shape of EVERY short story.
I love reading writing about writing! Mind you, I need to DO some actual writing…
AND FINALLY:
I thought there were too many versions of “What a Wonderful World” already. I was wrong.
That’s all for now! I’ve got a Halloween themed mini letter I’ll send out…let’s say tomorrow, and one that pays tribute to a few recently-passed celebrities whose passings are increasingly less recent.
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