'La Strada'

I'm officially crushing on Giulietta Masina. It just took 50 years after her prime. Plus, the 50 years that she was married to Federico Fellini.

Of course, because she was clearly pretty dedicated towards her ultra-creative husband and they seemed pretty in love to put up with each other for that long.

However, if I were married Masina, there's really no way I could really be mad at her. She'd just put on that clown make-up and a do a song and I'd be perpetually happy with her. She has an unfair advantage.

La Strada is further evidence that Masina is just about the cutest thing in the world. She died in 1994, about a year after Fellini. The only individual to come close is Audrey Tautou, but Masina would've never have been in Da Vinci Code.

Masina's ability light up any room plays directly into her stories. Stories about good people, who are only looking for someone to hold onto and to love. There's that longing that oozes out of Masina's characters. That's why we love her.

'Pierrot Le Fou'

A recent movie that made a gigantic dent in how movies are made and viewed is Avatar.

I have not seen this movie to date. Eventually, I'm sure I will. I'm not looking forward to this. I just don't think you can go in and throw a ton of money into making something look good and let the story and characters fall off because of it.

It insults the intelligence of the viewer. And it insults the really good movies with good stories that never get any credit in the award circles or amongst the typical filmgoer.

Up is already six times the film Avatar is, and I haven't even seen the latter.

In the 1960s, filmmakers also made very visually appealing films. However, they didn't forego on the story and characters. Pierrot Le Fou fits this description.

A zany, Technicolor Bonnie and Clyde, set in the French countryside dealing with gangsters and large bags of money.

It was filmmaking at its absolute zenith in terms of creativity and not having to depend on a billion dollar budget in order to creative a box-office masterpiece.

I can not sit here and support Avatar when most haven't seen Pierrot Le Fou, Nights of Cabiria, La Strada or 400 Blows.

'Targets'

While discussing the film Contempt by Jean-Luc Godard, I brought up the circumstances surrounding Fritz Lang's cameo as himself.

In the film, Lang is himself, the great German director. Jack Palance is an American producer hiring Lang. He also hires Michael Piccoli to write the film. Piccoli's girlfriend is Brigitte Bardot.

So, Lang is himself, but wouldn't Lang also know who Bardot was? And Palance? However, we're forced to suspend our belief that Lang may indeed know Bardot and Palance, but that both of them are doing a film elsewhere, or vacationing in the south of France.

But, as it is, Lang only know Jeremy Prokosch (who looks eerily like Palance) and Camille Javal (who is strikingly similar to Bardot).

With that said, in Targets, Boris Karloff portrays Byron Orlok, an aging film actor known for his roles in the horror genre, where he's made a living playing fictional "monsters." Karloff is portraying someone, who is basically a mirror of himself.

So, why didn't Peter Bogdanovich just name Karloff's character "Boris Karloff"? It would've made a bit more sense.

"Pee-Wee's Big Adventure'

In 1,000 years, do you think our ancestors will "get" Pee-Wee Herman.

He's a man-child living an easy-as-it-goes lifestyle, with no discernible job, but the ability to have a pretty neat apartment, the time to set up the "Mousetrap"-like breakfast contraption, a pretty awesome bike, a stale wardrobe, a woman that's still interested in him and a whole stable of friends that love and support him unconditionally.

We have no history or reason as to why he's like he is. Herman has no real story or talent. If anything, he's an obnoxious eight-year-old boy in a red bowtie. Of course, the man behind Pee-Wee would get caught jacking off in a movie theater.

It would not shock me if future humans didn't quite get Pee-Wee.

As a historical note, Big Adventure was a huge financial boon as it cost them only about $7 million to make. Tim Burton was a nobody at the time. Once the success of Big Adventure came through, he balked at doing Big Top and the studio gave Burton the keys to the Batman film, which would blow the socks of everyone.

Burton's career, clearly, has certainly grown since.

'The Celebration'

The Celebration is the first Dogme 95 film.

The genre was began in the Danish filmmaking ranks by Lars von Tier and The Celebration director Thomas Vinterberg.

It's a direct rejection of expensive, shallow Hollywood films. Here are the rules, according to Wikipedia:

1. Filming must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in. If a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found.

2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed, i.e., diegetic.

3. The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place.

4. The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable (if there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).

5. Optical work and filters are forbidden.

6. The film must not contain superficial action (murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden (that is to say that the film takes place here and now).

7. Genre movies are not acceptable.

8. The final picture must be transferred to the Academy 35mm film, with an aspect ratio of 4:3, that is, not widescreen. Originally, the requirement was that the film had to be filmed on Academy 35mm film, but the rule was relaxed to allow low-budget productions.

9. The director must not be credited.

Clearly, just watching The Celebration and not realizing it was a "Dogme 95" production, it's extremely evident that this was the case. There's no music outside of the piano written into the film. It's all handheld and all very low quality compared to the behemoth films being made today on hi-def and digital. At times, the film looks like it was shot through a glass.

Vinterberg also went as far to have the actors hold the camera in order to get the shots while keeping everything handheld, most notably during the speech scenes and when Christian passes out.

Of course, Vinterberg did admit to breaking the rules (in the first of its kind) by covering a window, which affected the light and used a prop.

Apart from all the DYI bullshit that went towards making it, it's a really good film.

Although, I do have a gripe with the DVD cover art. It shows Christian with a soul patch that stretches down to the bottom of his chin. In the film, Christian has no facial hair. Couldn't we get a photo of him as it was in the film?

'Patton'

There are several things that I regret don't exist anymore:

The town mad scientist and the popular general.

Truth be told, there's a good chance that towns never had actual mad scientists and that this is a product of pop culture.

But the popular army general did exist and it exists no longer.

It's one thing to have a household name like Arnold Schwarzkopf did during the first Middle East excursion. But there was once a time when the men at the highest level of military service were being elected president.

In fact, the first, George Washington, was a general of an army. It didn't stop going through Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant and Zachary Taylor. If you do a little research, a vast majority of our presidents have done quite a bit of service, only recent inclusions putting forth minimal service. Remember, Jack Kennedy's P-boat was blown out of the water in World War II.

In fact, the longest stretch to not have a president with military service was from William Toward Taft (could you imagine his pudgy body being missed by a bullet?) through Franklin D. Roosevelt. That's six presidents and a ton of years since the high commander had no military experience.

This is not about presidents, it's about generals. The last general to be elected to the highest of posts is Dwight Eisenhower, who was good buddies with George S. Patton.

During World War II, a number of high-profile names became everyday fixtures in the American lexicon. Ike, Patton, MacArthur, Marshall, Bradley and Clark. These people were superstars and heroes. Everyone loved them and most men wanted their sons to become them.

We elected them to posts in our government. We named plans after them. And we immortalized them in film, warts and all.

Patton had a lot of warts. Still, I don't think he was a bad guy. More of a strong guy. Per the slapping incident in which he slapped an enlisted man for cowardice (this actually happened twice ... but the movie just included one incident). It makes sense, however. Here's a guy who's scared shitless whilst all around him are guys that are just as scared, but they have missing limbs, life-threatening injuries and all other sorts of problems.

Patton may have been a son of a bitch, but he was the kind of son of a bitch that you wanted on your team.

The general of this ilk is no more. There aren't enough wars and the fact of the matter is that war is just too uncool. And that's OK, too.

'E.T. the Extra-Terrestial'

My first exposure to E.T. was as a child, but it had nothing to do with watching the movie.

As far as I can remember, my aunt who lived in Dayton, Ohio had this pretty awesome basement-type gameroom. I call it a basement, but it was positioned, decorated and functioned as just another part of the house. As if the house were built as a three-story, but the second story is the one even with the door to the house.

It had lush, red, shag carpeting. Fancy-looking black furniture. A pool table. A large TV with Atari 2600 hooked up. A bathroom. And an inordinate amount of E.T. paraphernalia.

Stuffed animals, pillows, figurines, lunch boxes, posters -- I first remember seeing all of this at six, four years after the movie was released and another two or three before I actually watched it.

Honestly, E.T. kind of scared the shit out of me as a little kid, before I saw the movie. Aliens made me uneasy as a kid. In fact, I was pretty highly strung having worried about the economy, gangsta rap music and aliens. I don't know why.

Re-watching this film, several things pop out:

1. The amount of times Elliot screams. Christ. Get a grip. He's constantly screaming and yelling over every little thing that happens in his life.

2. The celebration of the bicycle. I assume that in the 1920s, kids took great pride in their bicycles. However, some time in the 1980s, bicycle envy and coolness became a huge thing. Owning a 10-speed was hot shit. BMX was huge. Huffy was OK when you were younger. Performing wheelies and making homemade ramps were what you did as a kid in the 1980s.

I blame E.T. Or it had a huge part in making the bicycle a status symbol instead of a way to get around.