Happy 90th, Glenn Ford!
Belated birthday wishes to one of the last, living classic-era movie stars, Glenn Ford, who turned 90 on May 1st.

While he might not cast a huge shadow like some of his contemporaries (i.e. Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas or Robert Mitchum), Ford turned in consistently sturdy performances throughout the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Some of his most memorable films include GILDA (1946, with a sizzling Rita Hayworth), Fritz Lang's noir classic THE BIG HEAT (1953), THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE (1955), 3:10 TO YUMA (1957) and THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER (1963). And he lent his particular brand of low-key charisma to the small but effective role of Pa Kent in 1978's SUPERMAN.

I most remember Ford for the string of westerns he headlined in the 1950s and 60s, which showcased his reliable Everyman persona. My personal favorite of these is THE SHEEPMAN (1958), in which Ford plays a stranger in the Wyoming territory who dares to raise sheep in the heart of cattle country. A light-hearted, action-packed western, THE SHEEPMAN is a real pleasure, with a fun cast that included a young and frisky Shirley MacLaine, Pernell Roberts, Slim Pickens, Edgar Buchanan and Leslie Nielsen as the heavy. Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez (so good a few years later as Carlos in RIO BRAVO) sidelines as Ford's right-hand man.

It's been years since I've seen it, but I remember catching it regularly on TV when I was a teenager, back when local TV stations actually showed old movies on a regular basis, rather than the crap that clutters the syndicated airwaves nowadays.

(RANT ALERT!!) I truly believe we're in a new Golden Age of quality television drama right now, but let's face it -- outside of prime-time and Turner Classic Movies, it's a teenage wasteland. The 1p.m. afternoon movie has gone the way of the dodo. To sound like a crotchety old man for a bit...It's no wonder old black & white films and genres like the Western are anathema to young audiences these days...they hardly have a chance to see them when they're in their formative kid years! I grew up in the 1970s and 80s watching a heady brew of 50s bug-eyed monster movies, Jungle Theater, swashbucklers, westerns, myriad kung fu and horror flicks, not to mention reruns of such old-school television staples like THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., the original STAR TREK, THE WILD WILD WEST and THE BIG VALLEY. Today's kids get countless infomercials, JUDGE JUDY and interminable repeats of HOME ALONE 3.

Poor little punks. At least they have their iPods.

THE SHEEPMAN is a modest gem, deserving of a wide-screen DVD release. As are a good many other Ford films from the same era. Huzzah to the old-timer. There ain't many of his kind left.

Something in the water: SURFACE
I have my highbrow moments, but mostly I'm a simple, meat-and-potatoes kind of TV viewer. Put some big, mysterious man-eating beasties in the water and I'll be sure to watch.

There be many such beasties in SURFACE, NBC's entry in the new season sci-fi/fantasy sweepstakes (which includes INVASION, THRESHOLD, SUPERNATURAL, and the THE NIGHT STALKER redux, among others) and easily the most fun of the lot.

So far, it's a potent mixture of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, THE ABYSS and 50s bug-eyed monster movies, and as such, it's unlike anything else on network television right now.

In a swift, globe-spanning initial two episodes, a disparate group of characters come face-to-maw with a strange new race of possibly extraterrestrial (and decidedly massive) sea creatures - including young single mother and marine biologist Laura Daughtery (Lake Bell), government-sponsored scientist Aleksandr Cirko (Rade Sherbedegia), Louisiana fisherman Richard Beck (Jay R. Ferguson) and California teen Miles (Carter Jenkins).

All find their lives irrevocably changed after their first contact with these strange creatures of the deep.

With good special effects and a nicely dramatic, Speilbergian flair, SURFACE delivers some startling images: a haunting, deadly underwater encounter between a spear-fishing Richard, his doomed brother and a huge, shadowy monster; an homage to Ray Harryhausen's THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS as a lonely South African lighthouse receives a cataclysmic answer to its foghorn; and - most memorably- the awesome, bird's-eye-view shot of an Australian shark-fishing boat chomped between Brobdingnagian jaws which closes out the second episode.

While this show excels at dramatic incident, it struggles in building its characters. The main cast are, so far, a bland lot, and the supporting players are barely sketched and unusually grating (particularly Daughtery's insufferably bratty young son). Plus, a good deal of the science seems iffy. And at times the story - running the gamut from a governmental cover-up to the shenanigans of a baby monster running amok in the teenager's house - treads perilously close to silly.

No matter...any show that boasts this many big reveals and "Holy cow!" moments will keep me glued to the tube for a while.

A maid's-eye view of history: GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING
It's fitting that a film about the famous Dutch painter Vermeer is itself a work of art.

Every frame of GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING (2003) has been carefully and lovingly crafted to echo the play of light, shadow and color that grace Vermeer's works.

It's a visual feast, yes, but also a quietly fascinating and intensely felt portrait of upstairs/downstairs life in Delft, circa 1665.

Adapted from a novel by Tracy Chevalier, the film follows young Griet (Scarlett Johansson) as hard times and her father's disability force her to leave home to find work as a servant in the household of famed painter Johannes Vermeer (reliable gentlemanly brooder Colin Firth).

Griet may be a mere servant girl with no real formal education in the eyes of the painter's jealous wife, but soon her unadorned beauty and natural understanding of the painter's craft endear her to Vermeer. Griet is soon ensconced in his attic studio, mixing his paints and acting as his muse. Domestic strife, and the production of the titular masterpiece, ensue.

While the narrative follows a certain inevitable (though interesting) dramatic arc, it's not the real focus of the picture.

The heart of the film lives in moments of calm, keenly-observed detail: the callouses on Griet's pale hands; the pulling down of crisply frozen laundry on an icy morning; the gentle, almost sensuous grinding of ingredients in pestle and mortar to make the colors for Vermeer's palette; the washing of high windows in his studio, slowly and gradually altering the light within.

Johansson, despite her milky pure complexion, would seem the wrong choice to play a 17th century, working-class Dutch girl. She gives an almost silent performance, emoting chiefly with her big doe eyes and with subtle facial and body gestures. Rather surprisingly, it's an excellent performance, stripping away any trace of modern Hollywood starlet affectation. She makes us believe in and care about Griet, yet allows her to remain - fittingly for a muse - something of an enigma.

The rest of the cast is letter perfect. Firth can do this kind of role in his sleep, but brings a deft balance of steeliness and vulnerability to Vermeer. He portrays a man both brilliant and weak, trapped by his place in society, essentially relegated to pimping out his talent to suit the whim of his odious patron Van Ruijven (played with savage glee by the great Tom Wilkinson) to keep his wife and mother-in-law in the finery to which they're accustomed.

Peter Webber directs in a patient, studied manner, which may be the cinematic equivalent of watching paint dry for some viewers, but quickly pulled me under the movie's spell. Special marks to the superior art direction by Christina Schaffer and Eduardo Serra's stunning cinematography.

A fascinating, fly-on-the-wall slice of historic life, GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING comes highly recommended.

SERENITY rising...
The good ship SERENITY is about to touch down on planet Earth.





SERENITY the movie hits theaters this coming Friday, September 30th, in the U.S. Based on Joss Whedon's great, gritty sci-fi series FIREFLY, cancelled before its time by those idiotic suits over at the FOX network (the list of cool shows they've developed and then ruthlessly killed over the years is longer than my arm), the film promises lots of tense sci-fi/western action, leavened with trademark Whedonesque humor.

Allow me to wax fanboyish for a moment: this is easily my most-anticipated film of the year.





Whether I'll get to see it in 2005 remains to be seen. Perhaps the Movie Gods will smile down upon me and see fit to allow it to be released in Japan sometime before Christmas. I live in hope...


Meanwhile...kick some ass, River!

SONS OF KOLCHAK, Take 2: THRESHOLD
Watching CBS's entry into the new fall season sci-fi sweepstakes, THRESHOLD, is like playing the genre TV version of "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon." But here we have "Six Degrees of KOLCHAK."

First came KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER. Which begat THE X-FILES. Which begat all manner of knock-offs, including the aforementioned SUPERNATURAL.

Which brings us to THRESHOLD.
The effortlessly sexy Carla Gugino headlines a better-than-average cast as Molly Anne Caffrey, a worst-case-scenario contingency analyst for the U.S. government.

No sooner does Dr. Caffrey return to her home after a hard day of lecturing, walking her endearingly ugly little mutt Monster, when she's suddenly surrounded by armed federal agents, led by freelance spook Cavannaugh (Brian Van Holt).

"You're now the most important person in the world," he tells her.

Caffrey is promptly rushed off to Washington, where she discovers that one of her dire scenarios is actually happening...an honest-to-God alien invasion.

Some sort of inter-dimensional space crystal has appeared 80 miles off the NE Coast of America, wreaking mysterious havoc upon the small crew of a U.S. naval vessel. Caffrey's plan, code-named Threshold, is put into immediate effect.

This includes the (forced) recruitment of a motley team of hand-picked scientists: grouchy physician Fenway (Brent Spiner, Data on STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION), nervous young space engineer Lucas (Robert Patrick Benedict) and snarky linguistics expert Ramsey (scene-stealer extraordinaire Peter Dinklage). Overseeing the group is stern Deputy National Security Adviser Blaylock (the redoubtable Charles S. Dutton).

In the first episode of the two-part season premiere, our team of experts is quickly dispatched to the ship to investigate, coming into contact with, among other goodies: disfigured corpses, cockroaches moving endlessly in recurring spiral pattern, a crazed crew member (William S. Mapother) apparently under the control of the alien intelligence, and strange dreams of a forest of glass.

Part one ends with a rather-obvious cliffhanger, as a nightie-clad Caffrey is menaced in her home by the sinister Mapother. Part two is a marked improvement, as we spend more time getting to know the reluctant team of brainiacs, as well as getting ominous hints of events to come...

Aside from a few nifty sci-fi concepts, it's mainly the cast and the interesting characters they play that generates interest, more than the actual story. So far the plot is intriguing enough, even if it plays like an amalgam of government conspiracy episodes from the heyday of THE X-FILES. But the cast is unique, and Dinklage, Spiner, Pegg and Dutton make a refreshing, charismatic change from the bland stud-and-babe types that populate most shows these days.

And the typically-solid Gugino brings a nice mix of vulnerability and tenacity to her role as team leader. (Of course it doesn't hurt that the producers aren't above showing her to occasional cheesecake advantage.)

A number of TREK franchise personnel have their creative fingers on this one (including the infamous Brannon Braga), as well as BLADE guru David Goyer.

The show's got its share of problems (periodically clunky dialog, the usual lapses in logic, reliance on well-worn sci-fi tropes, etc.) but this cast and premise have potential, and it's always nice to see scientists treated as worthy protagonists. Let's see if notoriously genre-phobic CBS gives it enough time to deliver on its promise.

BONES dry
Television series, and the actors who populate them, can come to seem like comfortable old friends. You get used to seeing certain faces every week, look forward to seeing them, in fact. And then, when their shows run their course or get canceled (not always the same thing), and said actors begin to pop up on other shows, or return to the airwaves with new shows of their own...well, it's only natural to tune in and check them out.

Alas, in too many cases, those fave actors happen to be the best thing about their new shows.

So it is with BONES, the new CSI-inspired forensic procedural from FOX.

BONES is the first new show to star David Boreanz (who proved so popular as the brooding, atonement-seeking vampire on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER that he earned his own spin-off, the darker, more sweeping, ANGEL.) Both of those shows were really good. Judging from its pilot, BONES, unfortunately, isn't.

It's nice to see Boreanz out in the sun for a change, however. He brings an easy likability and charm to his character of Seeley Booth, an old-school FBI agent teamed up with the insufferable forensics genius Dr. Temperance Brennan and her team of crack scientists - who he amusingly dubs "squints" - to solve heinous crimes in the D.C. area. The rest of the show, though, is strictly by-the-numbers, complete with butt-kicking heroine, flashy crime scene re-enactment CGI effects, and snarky but ham-handed dialog.

BONES the TV series bears little more than a surface resemblance to the well-received sequence of novels by Kathy Reichs.

Dr. Brennan, or Bones, as G-man Booth insists on calling her, is aloof, crusty, distrustful of authority, a loner lacking in people skills. All of which should be more than enough to endear her character to the audience. But instead of taking a good, prickly character and running with it (ala Hugh Laurie on the same network's HOUSE), Emily Deschanel plays her flat and brittle. Despite her spooky, bug-eyed beauty, she fails to engage, repelling rather than intriguing.

The pilot's plot blatantly echoes the infamous Chandra Levy case, as Brennan and Booth investigate the death of a Lothario senator's missing intern, but ultimately pulls its punches and winds down in particularly contrived crime drama fashion. The scriptwriters seem hell-bent on channeling some kind of Mulder-Scully vibe between the two leads, but it just comes off heavy-handed. Chemistry like that can't be forced.

Bones' fellow squints (oddly loyal to such a pain-in-the-ass boss) are a listless lot as well.
Only Boreanz seems to be having any fun, an avuncular and solid presence weighed down by sub-CSI plot hijinks and egregious lapses of logic. He can only carry this show on his shoulders for so long. Then those BONES are gonna crack.

Sons of KOLCHAK, Take One
It's that time of year again...mid-September, also known as the beginning of the New TV Season! A time when the various networks send their little chicks out from underneath their protective corporate feathers to fend for themselves in an ugly and savage land known as Prime Time. Needless to say, many of these infant shows will not make it to adulthood.

I'll be doing my best to keep you up-to-speed on the most interesting new shows in the Fall 2005 sweepstakes.

This year, due in part to last season's watercooler hit LOST, strange and eerie shows are back in fashion, and this new season offers a bumper crop of them. First up, a look at the WB's SUPERNATURAL, or as I like to call it, SONS OF KOLCHAK.

Some of you poor souls may not be familiar with good old Carl Kolchak, wisecracking, down-on-his-luck, crusading reporter and monster killer, played with inimitable style by Darren McGavin on the short-lived 70s classic THE NIGHT STALKER. That show was the inspiration for the hugely popular THE X-FILES, and its impact continues to be felt. Not only with SUPERNATURAL, but also ABC's misguided, in-name-only remake (about which more in a later entry).

Channeling equal parts THE NIGHT STALKER and ROUTE 66, SUPERNATURAL is a good bit of fun, though it remains to be seen if the creators can make good on their clever premise.

The pilot opens with a suitably creepy prologue, as a mysterious boogeyman savagely murders young Dean and Sam's mother before setting their home ablaze, while their horrified father whisks them to safety.

Flash forward 20 years to find young Sam (Jared Paladecki) at college, poised to enter law school, egged on by his lovely and devoted girlfriend. Suddenly scruffy older brother Dean (Jensen Ackles) pays him a surprise visit. Seems Dad's gone missing, and before long wisecracking rogue Dean has cajoled straight-arrow Sam into taking a little road trip to hell in his shiny black '67 Chevy Impala.

In a nifty if far fetched twist, it seems that ever since Mom's murder, Dad has been obsessed with tracking down her otherworldly killer, and has raised his boys to be monster hunters, training them in the lore of supernatural phenomenon, hand-to-hand combat and credit card fraud (a monster hunter's gotta eat...)

Sam ultimately grew tired of the nomadic, demon- slaying life and left to go to college, longing for a life of normalcy and peace instead, while Dean continued to work in the family business.

A typical exchange between the squabbling bros:

SAM: When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my
closet, he gave me a .45.

DEAN: What was he supposed to do?

SAM: I was 9 years old! He was supposed to tell me
not to be afraid of the dark!

DEAN: Don't be afraid of the dark! What, are you
kidding me? You're supposed
to be afraid of the dark! You know what's out
there...


The two brothers soon vroom off to the scene of Dad's most recent case, investigating a 20-year-long string of disappearances of young male drivers on a deserted stretch of California highway. They soon find themselves face-to-face with a beautiful but malevolent and ghostly Woman in White.

They wrap up the case in somewhat lead-footed but effective style, but their father has already moved on, leaving them cryptic coordinates to follow him to Arizona.

Sam reluctantly demurs, as law school and a bright future with his girlfriend beckons. But a nasty surprise awaits him, setting the path for ensuing episodes.

The pilot's last line belongs to a terse, quietly furious Sam:

"We've got work to do."

Cue AC/DC's "Back in Black."

What's good?

SUPERNATURAL's pilot, while not out-and-out scary, does offer up some memorably creepy moments. The premise of the boys' quest, to hunt down a sort of supernatural serial killer while eradicating monsters of the week along the way, is intriguing and fun. Dean's Impala, and a soundtrack full of classic blue-collar rock tunes by the likes of ZZ Top and Metallica, are welcome presences. THE X-FILES veteran David Nutter directs with a sure hand, and the production is imbued with the typical WB sheen.

What's bad?

Well, despite some clever one-liners and quips (mostly uttered by Ackles), the script clinks and clunks at times, as the specter of Too Much Exposition rears its ugly head. So far, the leads are serviceable pretty boys but a tad bland (particularly Padalecki, who's saddled with the thankless role of stolid, by-the-book younger brother).

Overall, I enjoyed the show for what it is - good, cheesy fun. I'm a sucker for tales of paranormal investigators, so I'll admit, the show got its hooks into me. I'll give it shot for a few more episodes, at least.

If you like some spooky action with your evening viewing, then check it out. In fact, you may want to do it sooner rather than later. These kinds of shows are notoriously short-lived, and it'll definitely be SUPERNATURAL if this one makes it more than half a season.

TONY ROME will get ya if you don't watch out!
Being the avid fan of hard-boiled detective novels and films that I am, and harboring positive memories of Frank Sinatra's interpretation of a rough- and-ready private eye from a telecast many years ago, I recently snatched up TONY ROME (1967) on dvd.


Well, sometimes your memory plays tricks on you. The bloom is definitely off the rose with this one, though it does offer modest pleasures and a modicum of breezy fun.

Sinatra plays the titular hero, a (typically) hard-drinking, gambling, slightly seedy private dick who lives on a houseboat in Miami (shades of Travis McGee?). Rome tangles with the usual mix of sinister characters, sexy dames, blackmail and (it goes without saying) murder.

All the elements are here for a good crime flick: decent cast, hot babes, some infrequent but savage fights, an appropriately sleazy atmosphere and an interesting setting.

Unfortunately, while the film has its moments, it's mostly listless. Directed in a flat, TV-movie style by competent, workmanlike director Gordon Douglas, the film suffers from a script that's both overly convoluted and dramatically truncated. It also fails to make good use of its Miami locations, with only a few scenes doing justice to the city's panorama of swanky hotels and sunny beaches.

Douglas worked with Sinatra numerous times besides this film, including the following year's much better cop drama THE DETECTIVE, and the overblown but fun ROBIN AND THE SEVEN HOODS (1964). Yet TONY ROME only really comes alive when Sinatra and sultry, statuesque co-star Jill St. John share the screen.

St. John, at age 27 here already a Hollywood pro, is radiant and confident throughout, deftly trading somewhat tired innuendo-laden dialog with the 52-year-old Sinatra. She's rarely been this good since.

Richard Conte is fine as Rome's token buddy on the Miami detective squad. The always-welcome Simon Oakland (the irascible and long-suffering Vincenzo from THE NIGHT STALKER) turns in solid support as the plain-speaking millionaire whose family is at the heart of the mystery. An extremely young Gena Rowlands is fine as his wife. Veteran 60s film and TV actor Lloyd Bochner is amusing as an effeminate pusher. Blonde bombshell Sue Lyon, infamous as the jailbait from Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA (1962), barely registers as the millionaire's troubled daughter. There's also brief bits for numerous Sinatra pals, including boxer Rocky Graziano.

Sinatra, while more than capable of delivering a first-rate performance (witness FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953) and THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962), to name but a few), was mainly notorious at this stage in his film career for refusing to do more than one take of any given scene, coasting on his trademark Rat Pack charisma. He's surprisingly low-key in TONY ROME, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. He properly embodies the world-weary, cynical and rather shopworn shamus archetype, but the pic would have benefited greatly from an edgier, more energetic lead performance...like that delivered by Paul Newman in the far superior HARPER(1966).

At any rate, even low-grade Sinatra provides enough kicks to keep the movie afloat, and gets in a few good lines along with some mean punches.

Most of the film's humor is of the leering variety - a run-on joke about a newlywed couple in a neighboring houseboat was done to much better effect in REAR WINDOW (1954).

And, ironically for this sex-soaked genre, Tony Rome is so busy unraveling the case that he doesn't even get the girl! He passes up several chances to score with St. John's bored socialite but puts her off one time too many and ends up on a solo cruise, as the brassy main theme wails over the credits.


TONY ROME must have done well enough at the box office, because Sinatra and Douglas returned for a sequel, LADY IN CEMENT (about which more later) the next year.

Fox's bare-bones dvd looks fine, boasting a crisp transfer and decent sound. Colors seem a bit sun-drenched and slightly oversaturated, likely a feature of the original cinematography.

Mildly recommended if you like this sort of thing.

Wallow in fear with THE GRUDGE!
Welcome to The Fortress! My place to review, discuss, celebrate and basically just ramble on about films and television, old and new...


Even though it's a little early for Hallowe'en viewing, I'd like to kick things off with some musings on the nasty little shocker THE GRUDGE, just released to dvd here in Japan.

THE GRUDGE is the Sam Raimi-produced U.S. version of the Japanese fright-fest, JU-ON. For those who aren't familiar with the original, it's essentially a vengeful ghost/haunted house flick, served up ferociously creepy Japan-style, which means, like the seminal Japanese chillers RINGU and DARK WATER, that lots and lots of long, black hair manages to become very scary indeed.


Written and directed by the same guy who did the originals (TV movie, then big-screen feature, followed by a sequel), Takashi Shimizu, the new version, while effective, seems somewhat unnecessary, as it basically transplants a bunch of white American actors (including Raimi's actor brother, Ted, in a minor role) to the same Tokyo suburban setting, with very few new plot wrinkles added.

Perhaps "plot" is the wrong word, as the film is (like its predecessors) mostly a series of scare-the-bejabbers-out-of-you vignettes. This episodic style hampers Shimizu's films for many. But it easily qualifies as a success according to my 2 main criteria in judging horror films.

Those are, simply: 1) is it scary? and 2) is it reasonably well-made? The answer to both in this case is a resounding "yes!"


THE GRUDGE (U.S. remix) is slightly more glossy and louder than the Japanese version, but still retains the same inexorable sense of dread and terror. It should go without saying that this is not a film of character, though the American and Japanese cast - which includes Sarah Michelle Gellar (of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER fame), Jason Behr, Bill Pullman and Ryo Ishibashi - is solid.

No, this is a scare machine, pure and simple, and a very effective one. Though not as terrifying as the original (the "less is more" rule applies here), it still scared the pants off of me...and made my girlfriend cry from sheer fear.

What more can one ask of a horror film?