 I know you’ve probably finished your seasonal shopping, but there’s no reason you can’t still treat yourself to a goodie now and then. I just purchased what may be the weirdest collectible of the year, a Raymond Scott figurine. For those of you who aren’t yet part of the Raymond Scott fan club, he’s the guy who wrote novelty songs like “Powerhouse,” “The Toy Trumpet,” and other infectious melodies that many of us memorized because of their constant use in Warner Bros. cartoons of the 1930s and 40s. A noted experimenter in the field of electronic music, Scott has become a latter-day hero to many pop-culture aficionados. Irwin Chusid has produced several CDs of Scott's work and fellow enthusiast Jeff Winner maintains an impressive website at www.raymondscott.com. That’s where you can purchase a figurine of Scott standing next to his Clavivox keyboard. It even comes with a bonus CD of five music tracks, two of them previously unreleased. Be the first kid on your block to have one!
One man whose admiration for Raymond Scott has led to several exemplary CDs of his music is Piet Schreuders. This remarkable Dutchman is a dynamo when it comes to researching and perpetuating the artifacts of American 20 th century popular culture. For instance, he loves everything to do with the Hal Roach comedy studio, so even though he isn’t a musician he’s the guiding force behind the Beau Hunks, a musical group that has recreated the Roach soundtrack music composed by LeRoy Shield and T. Marvin Hatley. If you haven’t heard these discs you’re missing out on a little slice of heaven.
During research expeditions to Los Angeles, Piet has dug deeper than anyone else I know in exploring the primary location for Laurel and Hardy, Charley Chase and other Hal Roach comedians in the late 1920s and early 30s: Main Street in Culver City. Now you can see an account of his labors and his computer recreation of “the shortest Main Street in America” as it existed seventy years ago. It’s an amazing time-trip.
While we’re on the subject of links, you can see a rare early Vitaphone short online in an unlikely spot. Bandleader, chorister and showman Fred Waring left all of his recordings and papers to Penn State University, and their public television station streams the 1927 short Waring’s Pennsylvanians. You’ll also find a link on the same page for CDs of vintage Waring radio shows including early appearances by such disparate show business figures as Milton Berle, Kay Thompson and Les Paul.
Incidentally, if you like vintage music let me point you to my newly-posted review of a long-awaited CD by Johnny Crawford. Click HERE.
When I launched this site I decided not to waste time writing about movies I didn’t like, but every now and then I can’t help myself. There’s a scene in the new movie Bedtime Stories set in a hardware store where Adam Sandler’s character—acting on a premonition that he’s going to be set on fire—purchases oven mitts, a fire extinguisher, and a garden hose. Then he spies a can of flame-retardant spray for Christmas trees and sprays it on his hands to see what it feels like. A worker comes along and asks what he’s doing and, for no apparent reason, he sprays some of it in the man’s eyes, which causes him to scream in pain. Then Sandler sprays some in his own eyes. Blackout.
It’s this kind of so-called comedy that’s made me want to run for cover whenever a new Adam Sandler movie comes along. I’d hoped that this one, his first for the Walt Disney company, would be different, and at first it is. In fact, it has the potential to be a sweet family film about an underdog who makes good, with the help of some bedtime stories and a big dose of imagination.
Then Sandler and his writing cohort Tim Herlihy (who coscripted with Matt Lopez) get to work vulgarizing it. In a western scene, there’s a closeup of a horse farting. In a Star Wars-inspired sequence Sandler and his rival (Guy Pearce) are attacked by a giant, slimy “booger monster.” And so it goes.
If one can get past this dispiriting line of humor there’s the script to contend with. The story becomes ridiculously complicated, and rather than simplify or clarify it, the powers-that-be decided to throw money at it instead. I can’t imagine what all the elaborate costumes, sets and visual effects must have cost.
I saw this at a Disney screening with parents and young kids who seemed to enjoy it. I don’t expect ten-year-olds to be critical; I just pray that some day someone will introduce them to something better.
By the way, not a single person at the screening laughed when Sandler sprayed the fire retardant in the man’s eyes and then his own. Maybe there’s hope for civilization after all.
Like most other critics and members of the Hollywood community I have been inundated with DVD screeners over the past month’s time. I still make it a priority to see most films on a theater screen, but there are times these screeners come in awfully handy—especially for smaller films and documentaries that aren’t still playing in Los Angeles. I was very impressed with the non-fiction films Trouble the Water (which took the top prize at Sundance this year), The Order of Myths (which comes to DVD early in 2009), and Dear Zachary (which has been playing on MSNBC).
 Just this past week I caught up with a Swedish vampire film I’d heard about called Let the Right One In. Normally I avoid horror films because I have no stomach for torture and graphic gore, but I’d been told this one was different. It’s especially telling to watch this in the wake of Twilight, which romanticizes the plight of a bloodsucker who falls in love with a “normal” girl. In Let the Right One In the vampire is an adolescent girl who—against her better judgment—befriends a boy who lives next door with his divorced mom, feels like an outsider, and is constantly bullied at school.
Director Tomas Alfredson is in no hurry and lets his story unfold in deliberate fashion. The wintry Swedish backdrop only adds to the eeriness of the tale. John Ajvide Lindqvist’s screenplay, adapted from his novel, touches realistic, emotional chords and strange, other-worldly flights of fancy. The contrast of unthinkable deeds taking place in matter-of-fact settings is reminiscent of Hitchcock at his best, but Alfredson stages many of his most effective scenes from a distance, allowing the horror to play out within the tableau of the widescreen frame.
Make no mistake, Let the Right One In has its fair share of blood and violence, but its shocker moments are judiciously spread throughout the film and expertly staged. They’re visceral, all right, but they aren’t gimmicky. Let the Right One In is one of the most striking and original films I’ve seen all year. It's currently playing in a handful of art theatres around the country, and well worth seeking out.
 Don’t believe those headlines you may have read about Gran Torino being Clint Eastwood’s swan song as an actor. As he told me in an interview for Entertainment Tonight on the day of the film’s premiere, “I mused out loud in front of a journalist recently and said I thought I probably wouldn’t do it again, because how many roles are there for guys my age? But I like being behind the camera so much that I wouldn’t miss it if I didn’t do it. And I probably wouldn’t have done it again if...this little fable [hadn’t] come to the surface, because after Million Dollar Baby I felt the exact same way. I felt, ‘that’s a good one to quit on, what the hell?’ and this one’s the same way. With Gran Torino, this is a good one to quit on. So, who knows? You never say ‘never,’ but I’m not going to be actively out there on the freeway with a sign saying ‘Will Act for a Meal.’ ”
I also asked him if he’d consider taking an acting role if a filmmaker he admired came to him with a good part in a good script. His answer was immediate: yes. Wouldn’t it be great if someone took him up on that?
I’ve been fortunate enough to interview Eastwood many times over the years. He’s always been easy to talk to but it seems to me that he’s never been more comfortable than he is right now. That’s also true of his work in front of the camera, as he showed in Million Dollar Baby and proves again in Gran Torino. At 78 he has nothing to prove and only works on films that genuinely interest him. His wife Dina has definitely had a positive influence on him, as he proudly admits, and it’s clear that he’s enjoying fatherhood again, as well. (His youngest daughter Morgan is now 12; she has a bit part in Changeling as a girl on a bicycle.)
Eastwood continues to surround himself with people he’s known and worked with for years. He believes in promoting from within the ranks, so when his longtime production designer Henry Bumstead passed away in 2006 he turned to James J. Murakami, who’d worked under Bumstead on such films as Unforgiven and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. (They even included a tribute to him in Changeling: a roadside diner is named Bummy’s.) Joel Cox has edited every one of Eastwood’s movies since The Enforcer thirty-one years ago. Clint gave Tom Stern the opportunity to become a full-fledged cinematographer on Blood Work after he’d worked as a gaffer for Bruce Surtees on such movies as Honkytonk Man and Pale Rider. And Eastwood’s relationship with stunt coordinator Buddy Van Horn dates back to the 1950s. Van Horn even directed three of Clint’s starring vehicles in the 1980s, Any Which Way You Can, The Dead Pool, and Pink Cadillac.
Several actors who worked for him in Flags Of Our Fathers told me that at the end of the shooting day on location in Iceland they’d repair to the gym only to find Eastwood there ahead of them, pumping iron. And when cast member Neal McDonagh learned that his wife had had a scare during a late stage of her pregnancy, Eastwood asked if he’d like to finish all his scenes and go home to her. The astonished actor said yes, of course he would, and Clint rescheduled all the scenes he had yet to shoot.
I guess you could say this is a man who’s got his act together. You can watch a five-and-a-half minute excerpt of my conversation with him about Gran Torino at ET Online. And when I covered the movie’s premiere in early December I also got to ask his Changeling leading lady Angelina Jolie about working with him. You can see her response on the same web page.
You might say that my fiscal year ended last Tuesday, December 9 when I voted with the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (and while I don’t agree with some of the group’s final choices, I try to be a good soldier and not whine about it). Whatever remaining 2008 movies I do see with the likes of Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler may be entertaining but from where I sit the heavy lifting is done.
 In my last-minute cramming for the LAFCA vote I did catch up with some smaller movies I’d missed like Wendy and Lucy (starring Michelle Williams, right) and What Doesn’t Kill You (for my complete reviews click HERE) and some worthwhile documentaries like Trouble the Water and The Order of Myths, both of which will be coming to DVD in the near future. But as I digest the heavy-duty year-end fare I thank my lucky stars that I get to see films before they’ve been written and talked about to death. The less you know about some movies the better they can unfold before you, as fresh, new experiences. I avoid trailers as much as possible and deliberately don’t read articles about movies I haven’t seen yet. Watching films like The Reader or Gran Torino or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which opens on Christmas day, is a much richer experience for me because I come to them with no preconceived ideas or fixed images in my head.
When curiosity does get the best of me and I can’t wait to get early feedback on a film I turn to Daily Variety and my favorite critic, Todd McCarthy. His opening paragraph (printed in boldface) offers a summary opinion that says just enough, but not too much. I don’t agree with Todd one hundred percent of the time but I find his reviews to be incredibly thorough, well thought-out and incisive. He also has a commanding vocabulary. Because he writes for a trade paper and not a consumer publication I think he’s underrated. He understands the various components that contribute to a film’s success, and more often than not he nails what’s right—or what’s wrong—about a movie. As a well-schooled film buff he also has a keen sense of history and context.
In his positive review of Milk, for instance, he neatly places it within the framework of director Gus Van Sant’s eclectic career. He writes, “ The normalizing demands of the biopic genre necessarily squeeze the director into a more recognizable format than he has employed since at least Finding Forrester eight years ago, and it’s possible that the most ardent fans of his variously beautiful and aggravating subsequent works--Gerry, Elephant, Last Days and Paranoid Park--will find this one too conventional.”
If you’ve never read Todd’s reviews I encourage you to go to Variety's website and check him out.
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 As we approach the season of gift-giving I wish I could post comprehensive reviews of two recent releases, but I haven’t had time to fully assess Flicker Alley’s Douglas Fairbanks: A Modern Musketeer or 20th Century Fox’s formidable boxed set Murnau, Borzage and Fox (at left), but at first glance they both look terrific (and the complete review is now available). I hope to have complete reviews online some time soon, but I have a feeling that any true-blue film buff would be happy with either of those sets. I’m also looking forward to diving into Volume 2 of Burke’s Law, Season One from VCI Entertainment. Like all the books mentioned on my site, you can click on the cover illustrations of any DVD and be taken directly to amazon.com to order.
 I treated myself to a custom-designed “skin” for my old-school cell phone from www.disneyshopping.com. Now when I take my phone out to make a call both friends and strangers can see that I like having Mickey, Donald and Goofy with me at all times. It’s less than $20 and you can design a peel-off skin for any iPod or cellular device.
At the local Disney Store my daughter splurged and purchased a beautiful limited-edition replica of The Old Mill from the 1937 Silly Symphonies cartoon of the same name. I love Disney collectibles that are off the beaten path, especially when they evoke memories of films I care about. You can find the piece online for $150—and the Disney site is having all sorts of pre-holiday sales.
My friends at Dark Horse Entertainment surprised me by sending a wonderful 12-inch plush toy of Gus the Gremlin...but when I tried to find it on their site, or from other collectible dealers, I came up empty-handed. Then product manager David Scroggy explained to me that the toys were made exclusively for The National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana, which has shown keen interest in Dark Horse’s reprint of Roald Dahl’s original Gremlins book (for which I provided a new foreword), their ongoing series of comic books, and all the wonderful vinyl and resin figurines they’ve created. So if you’d like to have a soft, cuddly Gremlin to call your own, contact the online store at the Museum's website.
I hope you’ll also consider giving that old-movie buff in your life a gift subscription to my newsletter, Leonard Maltin’s Movie Crazy, “the gift that keeps on giving.” The latest issue is out and we’ll be happy to send it along with a personalized gift card. For more information click HERE.
I happen to think that books make the best gifts, and in addition to the ones I’ve already reviewed on my Picks page (click HERE) I’ve prepared a survey of other recently-published volumes I haven’t had time to review in full. I’m sure you’ll find something interesting for a friend, a family member, or yourself in this wide-ranging list. Click HERE.
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And I would be remiss if I didn’t cite what a great year it was for three gifted actors whom I greatly admire: Ralph Fiennes, who was so good in In Bruges, The Duchess, and The Reader... Ben Kingsley, who offered so many wonderful surprises in The Wackness, Elegy, and Transsiberian... and Penelope Cruz, who had her best opportunities to date in American directors’ films, Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Elegy.