NOTE: A slightly different version of this post first was published at FILMINQUIRY.COM, an independent film magazine.
Back in 1993, Steven Soderbergh, just off the disappointment that was his ambitious yet unloved second feature, Kafka, turned his attention to a property best described as a sure-thing, a money grab if you will: writer A. E. Hotchner’s despairing, yet uplifting, childhood memoir “King of the Hill”. Of course I jest.
The Conflicted Film Snob shares a special bond with his father. In fact, the bond is so special, I’ve never lied to him. Ever. That’s 45+ years we’re talking. All because of the bond. If you’re not familiar with the power of such a filial bond, or even question it’s existence, I’d recommend the following clip. Who better to explain its power than Albert Brooks, in a scene from his 1991 comedy Defending Your Life…
No, I’m not about to describe some long-ago fling so get your mind out of the gutter. Rather, I’m going to wax nostalgic about the incredibly fecund 28-day period in the fall of 1994 that saw the release of three terrific films, all personal favorites of The Conflicted Film Snob and, in his humble opinion, all still as vibrant, entertaining and relevant as they were—good Lord, could it really be?—22 years ago.
Back on April 18, 1945, as the Battle of Okinawa raged in WWII’s Pacific Theatre, arguably the most beloved reporter in the field, Ernie Pyle, was felled by enemy fire. Nine years later, while covering the First Indochina War, photographer Robert Capa, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the man solely responsible for the only photos of D-Day’s first-wave landings, was killed by a landmine.
Let’s pretend for a moment that you didn’t pass high-school English by the skin of your teeth and you actually spent some quality time with the poems of Emily Dickinson, specifically this one:
Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate
A minor medical scare this past weekend has resulted in the hospitalization of the Conflicted Film Snob, a shocking turn of events considering the robustness of health he felt getting out of bed on Saturday morning. Worse still, the forced downtime has given him much too much time to dwell on mortality while staring at his non-slip socks.
The untimely passing of His Royal Badness has offered up one bittersweet positive: various movie-theater chains are showing a limited engagement of Purple Rain (1984) on the big screen.
Back in the fall of 1984, at the tender age of 15, The Conflicted Film Snob was lucky enough to see the film with some friends during its original
The Conflicted Film Snob is getting a new roof today. That’s the good news. The bad new (in addition to the financial outlay) is that the noise is unbelievably distracting, as if a half-dozen man-sized woodpeckers were trying to breach the worn shingles in order to pluck me from my chair and eat me as a snack.
Mike Figgis, wherefore art thou? For those of you who don’t recognize the name, Figgis had himself a nice little cinematic run for about a decade, his first success coming with 1988’s satisfyingly noirish Stormy Monday, which starred Melanie Griffith’s fiery red, downright explosive 80s hair (coiffure soon to be overshadowed by her turn in Working Girl), a very young Sean Bean, Tommy Lee Jones and, yes, our favorite history teacher turned golden rock God, Gordon Matthew Thomas “Sting” Sumner**…
The planning of a forthcoming family road trip has put me in mind of one of the great comedies of the last 50 years, Lost in America, Albert Brooks’ 1985 ode to jumping off the career train, parting with one’s material trappings and basically dropping out of society “like in Easy Rider.” Of course, this being an Albert Brooks movie, things quickly devolve into self-inflicted chaos.