Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Elmer Gentry (1960)

Lady in red on Christmas Eve: That's the trouble
with this stinking world. Nobody loves nobody.

108 years ago today the director Richard Brooks was born.

That's a picture of him (with some actor guy). Maybe you don't recognize Brooks' name? I wouldn't hold it against you because until a couple of weeks ago I could never remember it myself, even though the man's responsible for one of my all-time favorite movies (that would be Looking For Mr. Goodbar) and several others that I might not think of as "favorites" necessarily but that I still consider near perfect -- they would be the one-two "Paul Newman does Tennessee Williams" punch of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof & Sweet Bird of Youth...

... and then his brutally gorgeous 1968 adaptation 

of Truman Capote's true-crime tale In Cold Blood.

A man who directs those four movies should have his damn name remembered -- his understanding of how violence does and should register on-screen via just Goodbar and Blood alone is top tier! But for some reason Brooks' name was like sand through fingers and I never could keep it in place. Then TCM screened those two Tennessee Williams adaptations a couple of weeks back and I had this realization, regarding my Richard Brooks blindness, I really registered it, and I did what I usually do -- I tweeted about it!

I feel like, given the evidence of these four fantastic films, I should do a dive into Richard Brooks. What else should I see? I have never seen Elmer Gentry... https://t.co/1v7q3VlnYk pic.twitter.com/SQyO92WFUg

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) May 2, 2020

If you follow that tweet over to Twitter you'll see a lot of fine folks who follow me there then schooled me on what else I oughta been watching from Mr. Brooks' career, outside of those four films, and for once in my godforsaken existence I actually did the homework. In the past couple of weeks I've checked out Brooks' 1971 bank-robbery caper titled $ (yes just a dollar sign, although I think you pronounce the title in plural, as in Dollars) starring Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn...

Thanks to those of you who recommended $ (typing that title still feels silly), the 1971 bank robbery caper with Warren Beatty & Goldie Hawn -- watched it this morning and it's a ton of fun (And BONUS Warren gets real sweaty in his white dress shirt at one point) pic.twitter.com/IGrpyTpMtQ

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) May 2, 2020

... and I liked the film quite a bit. In fact it's one that's been sitting pleasantly on my mind, making space for itself, in the two weeks since -- I can feel that "like" turning into a maybe "love." I'm not a huge fan of Heist Films (I talked about this in relation to Hustlers last year) but $'s last act really goes weirder and more idiosyncratic than I expected, and now the movie kinda won't let me go. I have a feeling I'll be revisiting it often.

To make an already long post longer the second movie I did my Richard Brooks Homework with I just watched this past Saturday afternoon, and it's the one this post began with -- the Oscar-winning (and really very timely with regards to the world right now) movie Brooks made smack-dab in between his two Paul Newman adventures: Elmer Gentry with Burt Lancaster playing the drunk turned barn-storming phony-ass Christian Evangelist. The film got nominated for several Oscars and won acting statues for both Lancaster and for Shirley Jones as the preacher's daughter that Gentry long-ago corrupted, who comes back to get her vengeance in the film's final act.

Jones is good in the movie but seeing just now that she beat Janet Leigh in Psycho for that statue really clenches my fists into tight little balls -- no, she certainly did not deserve to win over Janet Leigh. If I was going to give an acting statue to any actress in Elmer Gentry it would've gone to Jean Simmons, who gives the best performance in the whole damn movie as Sister Sharon Falconer, a cynical maybe maybe-not true believer -- Simmons truly keeps you on edge every moment she's on-screen.

Lancaster though is great as well -- I never think of myself as a Burt Lancaster fan but then I see him in something and remember what a truly surprising and risky career he really gave himself. Going to Italy in 1963 to make a glorious movie with Luchino Visconti; strutting around butt-ass naked for a film truly as weird as they come with The Swimmer in 1968...

... he really didn't rest on his football-stud shoulders and call it a day. As an aside, speaking of those shoulders, you can see some pictures of Lancaster in his 1947 prison movie Bruce Force (which was written by Richard Brooks) over on our Tumblr. But I digress -- I'm not here to talk Lancaster but rather birthday boy writer-director Brooks. I can now say I have liked-to-loved all six of his films that I've seen, and I think I should dig deeper. Maybe his 1966 Western The Professionals with Lancaster again and Lee Marvin? Bette Davis and Debbie Reynolds in The Catered Affair?

Brooks worked with Sidney Poitier a couple of times -- I've seen pieces of Blackboard Jungle but never the entire thing so maybe I should give that a go? Or what about Something of Value, Brooks' 1957 movie with Poitier that also starred Rock Hudson? Before I keep listing Richard Brooks' entire filmography let's end on that note, and hit the jump for a bunch of pictures of those two fine-looking movie-stars making for a mighty fine-looking pair...

Bounce, Richard Gere, Bounce

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You wanna know tragedy? Tragedy is the fact that the 1977 movie Looking For Mr. Goodbar is still impossible to get your hands on. We've been yelling about this for ages now. It was on Netflix Instant for a brief minute last year or so, but somehow a DVD release remains absent, therefore robbing we the people of a proper copy of not only a great film with a great performance from Diane Keaton but also that above inedible image of Richard Gere doing jock-strapped push-ups. Tragedy!

I was lucky enough to see the movie on a big screen over the weekend though! It was as wonderful as you can imagine. I mean Gere in his jock, but you really can apply it to the whole movie. I'd rank her work in this movie alongside Reds and Annie Hall, I would. It's shameful it's so hard to get a hold of. Okay I meant Gere in his jock again there, but you can apply that to the movie too.

It's weird though, I'm reading After Midnight, the biography of Brad Davis written by his wife right now - every other page she feels the need to tell us how totally 100% straight her hot hubby was, and then in between goes on to talk about much of his life he kept from her, how he was amazing at compartmentalizing things, and how he was a hustler for awhile and he just happened to have nothing but gay male friends all around him all the time - and there's a lot about his rivalry with Gere. They were in acting school together, and Davis was intimidated by how pretty Gere was. Gere came really close to taking Davis' star-making role in Midnight Express, since he'd just come off of Goodbar and was looking like The Next Big Thing, but director Alan Parker wanted somebody that was pretty much unknown, and got his way. Thank goodness! Think of all we would have missed!
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"Ya scared?"

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I am scared, Richard-Gere-in-a-jockstrap! Not of your glow-in-the-dark switchblade, mind you, but of the thought that Looking For Mr. Goodbar might never ever be released on DVD. What's the deal with that, anyway? Making us have to do with crappy VHS copies of you bouncing around doing push-ups in a jockstrap. The world would be a better place if this existed in crystal clear 1080p, ya know?

Seriously, this is a fascinating film with one of Diane Keaton's greatest performances (at the height of her skills really, although I think I prefer her work in Annie Hall - duh - and Reds), and it's next to impossible to see Goodbar other than on shit-tastic VHS. Ridiculous.

This post was brought to you by this post over at Club Silencio, comparing LFMG to Twin Peaks...
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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Looking For Mr. Goodbar (1977)

Theresa: Everybody's taking something 

or they'd never make it till morning. 

Looking For Mr. Goodbar, which contains the legend Diane Keaton's greatest performance (not to mention Richard Gere dancing in a jockstrap), was released in New York City 40 years ago today. Have you seen it? It's difficult to find (it's out of print because of music rights) but if you've seen it you never forget it. (And I don't just mean Richard Gere in a jockstrap although that's true too.) You can see some of our previous posts on it right here.

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10 Off My Head - Ladies Who Lose

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Earlier this week I linked over to the latest Team Experience poll at The Film Experience, wherein a bunch of us voted on what actresses we thought gave the ten greatest performances that were nominated for Best Actress at the Academy Awards but did not win. Here was posted the Top 10 Losing Ladies, and here it was followed up with a list of Runner's Up.

Now, I have a feeling that of the all of the contributors to The Film Experience, I'm on the low-end percentage-wise of how many of the Best Actress performances I have seen. It's never been a goal of mine, to see them all or anything - why would I watch great acting when I can watch terrible atrocious acting in and endless supply of slasher movies, after all? Point being, there was a ton, a literal ton, of ladies whose work was totally unknown to me. But I figure that's part of the joy of the crowd that Nat's gathered over at The Film Experience - we're all coming at this from different angles, and that's what makes the final lists interesting. 

So anyway that's my long way of introducing the ten performances I did end up choosing out of the field of over 300... and kind of making excuses for their being a little less exciting and obscure than some of the other Actress expert's lists at the same time. Three of my list made the top ten though! And five more made the top 25. So I suppose only having two outliers makes me pretty run-of-the-mill. And if I expanded my top ten to a top twenty several more would be in here. Anyway, let's list!

10 Bette Davis, What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? - I flipped back and forth between this performance and All About Eve, but I knew Margo would be getting love (and I couldn't possibly take up two slots by one actress - I only had ten, people!) which it did (it placed second), so I decided to go with Baby Jane, which is so much greater a performance than it gets credit for from its camp reputation. She breaks my heart (while scaring me silly) in this.

9 Holly Hunter, Broadcast News - As Michael C put it in his write-up (she placed 10th), this performance is the standard bearer which we should judge all romantic comedy performances.

8 Meryl Streep, Silkwood - My favorite Meryl performance, but there are a few of hers (Sophie's Choice being chief amongst them) that I still haven't seen. But she's absolutely incredible in Silkwood. (this placed 25th)

7 Shirley Maclaine, The Apartment - Have you ever wanted to save a movie character more than Fran Kubelik? And yet Maclaine infuses her with such spirit and wit and light at the same time, amid the depression... well it just makes you want to save her more. She's having none of it though.

6 Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine - Speaking of girls who refuse to be saved, or who refuse to be your savior - this is probably always gonna be my favorite Kate performance, out of a career filled with performances I adore. It was just such a surprise at the time - Clementine is so alive and so different. And frustrating! Beautifully perfect frustrating. She makes the entire tricky thing work.

5 Diane Keaton, Reds - Give or take a Looking For Mr. Goodbar, this is my favorite Keaton performance - actually what I think I love so specifically about this performance is how un-Diane-Keaton it is. None of her tics are here - Louise Bryant doesn't have a hint of Annie Hall anywhere in her.

4 Stockard Channing, Six Degrees of Separation - There aren't enough "loves" in the world for me to say how much I love Stockard in this movie. I love love love squared times infinity Stockard in this movie. Every note, every line, is so pitch perfect - I still quote from it all the time. ("Don't think about elephants.") Watching her Ouisa Kittredge made me a better human being.

3. Judy Garland, A Star Is Born - I only saw this a couple of months ago but man, pow, right in the kisser. This performance topped the list and I totally understand why. This is why movie cameras and sound equipment were invented - to capture this.

2 Sissy Spacek, Carrie - Only one of my favorite performances of all time. And possibly the greatest horror performance of all time. Unless you count my #1 pick a horror performance, which... well yeah, I probably do...

1 Ellen Burstyn, Requiem For a Dream - Speaking of! Listen, I have been able to come to terms with Julia winning this year in the decade plus since this happened. I like her work in Erin Brockovich a lot, it's very fine movie star acting. But man oh man oh man oh man, what Burstyn does in Requiem shakes me down to my core. The speech she gives at the coffee table to her son, if I even start thinking about her speaking the lines right now I will have to go in the other room and hide because... oh wait nevermind there are the tears. Right on cue. I know some people think this performance is over the top but I have never, not eve, been affected emotionally by something on screen as I have been what she serves up here.

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Good Morning, Georgy Girl

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You maybe saw that I watched Georgy Girl for the first time this weekend - I confessed my literal explosion of affection for Alan Bates in the movie once and once more over at our Tumblr. It cannot be understated - his character of Jos Jones shimmied his ingratiatingly irritating way with full force into the pantheon of my biggest movie crushes with much haste. Despite what would be minuses in lesser hands - he's kind of a Manic Pixie Dream Boy, and those kind of characters have kind of worn out their welcome - Alan Bates makes all the Peter Pan quirks and blase cruelty of his character work, and work, and work some more. I could totally understand somebody hating his guts, but I would probably be helpless in his wake.

That "probably" has no place here. I would, I would, I would gleefully. I mean his way of winning arguments is to threaten public nudity! And yet Lynn Redgrave kept letting him win instead of fighting, fighting, fighting him down to his nethers. Way to lose my vote, Lynn Redgrave.

Anyway even besides Alan Bates I loved Georgy Girl from top to bottom. I'd put it on to kill time until I started another movie, and that other movie was tossed by the wayside once I was sucked into Georgy which took all of ten minutes. It's a great little flick with a performance from Lynn Redgrave that shouldn't be missed - it felt like a piece of the puzzle of all-time movie actressing got put into place, watching her - suddenly moments in things ranging from Looking For Mr. Goodbar to Muriel's Wedding revealed their debt to what Lynn was doing here. OK back to Alan Bates! Hit the jump for a few more pictures of him in this film and others... dreamboat!

5 Off My Head: Keen on Keaton

I have to admit that I am a wee bit surprised, having glanced back through our Diane Keaton Archives here on the occasion of the actress' 75th birthday, that I have never done this before, but it appears true -- I have never done a list of my favorite Diane Keaton performances. Now perhaps there's a reason for this -- perhaps I knew beforehand that my list of favorite Diane Keaton performances wasn't going to light anybody's beak on fire? My favorites are kind of exactly what you'd think my favorites are. But still -- my favorites are really favorites -- when she's good she's so very good. That run in the 70s is just gee-gosh-gee I mean you know. An all-time fave.

My 5 Favorite Diane Keaton Performances

Kay, The Godfather (1972)

Theresa, Looking For Mr Goodbar (1977)

Louise Bryant, Reds (1981)

Sister Mary, The Young Pope (2016)

Annie, Annie Hall (1977) 

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Runners-up: Manhattan Murder Mystery, Love and Death,

The First Wives Club, Something's Gotta Give, Manhattan

Never seen: Crimes of the Heart, Marvin's Room, 

Baby Boom, Shoot the Moon, Mrs. Soffell

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What are your favorite Diane Keaton performances?

I Am Link

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--- Time Again - If I had the opportunity to keep working with Joseph Gordon Levitt over and over again I'd certainly take it, so I don't blame director Rian Johnson one iota for hiring him again (after Brick, and a cameo in The Brothers Bloom) for the lead in his upcoming time-travel action flick Looper.

--- Jumpin' Jake Flash - I haven't read this interview with Jake Gyllenhaal yet but it's an interview with Jake Gyllenhaal so I certainly will soon. He apparently talks some about his next flick with Duncan "Moon" Jones, called Source Code, which I'm super-duper-curious about. Has Moon ushered in a bunch of smaller sci-fi pictures? Fingers crossed they'll be good! There's so much rich material there for digging into.

--- Two Linds - Lindsay Lohan is playing Linda Lovelace, eh? Hrm what do we think of this? I'm... conflicted. Because it's a role that Lohan might just be perfect for. Or it could just be like that John Lennon movie or the one where she was a dead stripper (or something?) - who knows with her anymore? I mean, this coulda been Anna Faris. But I'm reserving my judgment for now.

--- He Had Grace - Chris Pine looks lovely in this blue tux. That's all.

--- The List Is Life - Glenn continues to scrape the contents of his brain clean of the last decade and post the best and brightest chunks onto Stale Popcorn. Looks a lot like my best and brightest chunks too! Meaning there's beefcake.

--- Jackin' Diane - Since Looking For Mr. Goodbar is finally widely available to watch now after years of neglect it's been great hearing people talk about the movie. Nat takes a look at one of Keaton's monologues in the movie today over at The Film Experience. Such a fascinating complicated movie - sort of the definition of a movie that would never be made today. And god I miss Diane Keaton actually acting. She was so phenomenal.

--- Better Lock Your Door - Platinum Dunes producer Brad Fuller tweeted that they're already working on a 3D sequel to this past weekend's just released Nightmare on Elm Street film. If y'all remember, he tweeted the exact same thing last Summer the week after Friday the 13th came out, and we've seen how that's gone. Still their Nightmare is a hundred times better than their Friday (low praise, that) and I welcome a sequel.
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I Am Link

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--- Bad-Ass Brody - Rope of Silicon has got the first official images from Predators, including that look at Mr. Brody there to the left. I want this movie. I want it now. I want it to be early August so this movie and Scott Pilgrim are here. But then I want it to be now again so Summer isn't over so fast. Is that too much to ask, really? Just the temporary folding of time to fulfill my movie desires? I mean really.

--- Sam The Man - At a press conference Sam Jackson had this to say:

"The Avengers is my own starring vehicle for [Nick Fury], pretty much."

Okay. As long as the second-in-command is Chris Evans naked torso, I'm fine with this. I think Sam could have a special way of working with Joss Whedon's words.

--- Killing Keaton - Did you know that Netflix has got Looking For Mr. Goodbar in their Watch Instantly queue? Well they do! The film's still not out on DVD but you can watch it there. Billy Loves Stu took a look at the under-seen film earlier this week and made me desperate to watch it again myself. And not just because of the Richard Gere in a jockstrap parts either! (though sure, those help)

--- A Little Dream Of You - In honor of that new Freddy movie coming out soon - which maybe you've noticed I've been quiet on lately? I've stopped looking at things, stopped spoiling myself, am ready to watch it now - Cinematical made a list of their 7 favorite movie nightmares, and it's not half bad.

--- Clogged Portraits - Oh, gross. Somebody created photographic representations of the school portraits in Charles Burns' Black Hole. And they are duly horrific. Not something to look at while eating, y'all. And these made me realize that it might be tougher to make a movie from the book than I'd realized. I wish they'd just animate the book like Burns' segment from Fear(s) of the Dark.
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5 Off My Head - Siri Says 1977

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Did you guys know that if you ask Siri (that's the little lady who lives inside your iPhone) to pick a number between one and one hundred... she will! It's like magic, only borne upon the back of child labor. What a delight! So I just asked Siri to do this and the number she said was 77, which terrifyingly is also the year I was born, so I think Siri's onto me, but whatever, let's name My Five Favorite Movies of 1977 just because bored now. (These were chosen via Wiki's list of films for the year, which seems pretty complete to me.)

3 Women (dir. Robert Altman)

- released May 25th, 1977 -

Annie Hall (dir. Woody Allen)

- released April 20th, 1977 -

Eraserhead (dir. David Lynch)

- released September 28th, 1977 -

Looking For Mr. Goodbar (dir. Richard Brooks)

- released October 19th, 1977 -

Suspiria (dir. Dario Argento)

- released August 12th, 1977 -

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What are your favorites of 1977?

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Pics of the Day

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View this post on Instagram

So there was a massive online sale at a movie poster shop last week and I just got in my order and this is just PART of the ridiculous amazingness I got for PENNIES I tell you PENNIES — these are THEY SHOOT HORSES DON’T THEY, LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR, SLUGS, POLYESTER, VERONIKA VOSS, LABYRINTH OF PASSION, MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE, QUERELLE, THE STEPFORD WIVES, and WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE #movieposter #film #theyshoothorsesdontthey #welcometothedollhouse #polyester #almodovar #labyrinthofpassion #johnwaters #lookingformrgoodbar #slugs, #fassbinder #veronikavoss #querelle #thestepfordwives

A post shared by Jason Adams (@jasonaadams) on Aug 2, 2020 at 10:18am PDT

Heads-up if you're Movie Poster Inclined -- and I have a feeling many of my readers are thus -- that the Westgate Gallery in Los Angeles has been having a massive online sale on their inventory for the past couple of weeks and, as seen above, I recommend it! I probably should have done this post last week but who the hell can remember what's happening from minute to minute anymore. Anyway seen above are ten of the fourteen posters I got for dirt cheap -- actually the Querelle poster is an outlier because I got that off of eBay but I wanted to photograph it too because, you know, Brad Davis bein' gay. Anyway those posters are for some of my favorite movies of all time and my life is richer and more luxurious now is my point. I am basically the movie nerd version of Alexis Carrington.

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Bring On The Gay Villains

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You know, one complaint that I've never been behind from the "gay intelligentsia" - or whatever you want to call the homosexual art/film critical community - is the bad reception gaying up a movie villain gets. I mean, I understand the intellectual reasoning behind the argument - that the homo-encoding serves as nothing more than a further demonization of the character. That making them seem/be gay, or queer if you will, is only there to add that extra layer of ickiness for the straight audience and to make our cheering of their downfall even more righteous, and to make sure that, when the uber-straight hero eventually betters them, it restores all that hetero-normative equilibrium nonsense, aka Mom, Pop and 2.5 kids are freed of yucky sexual deviancy yay! Think Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs, think Michael Caine in Dressed to Kill and Tom Berenger in Looking For Mr. Goodbar and Jafar in Aladdin (hell yeah) and the entire running time of Cruising...

But while I get the intellectual reasons, and I don't not agree with them, at the very same time I must say I love me an evil gay, and the politically-correct constant bemoaning of them and the subsequent practical evaporation of the gay villain has depressed me for some time. Perhaps it's my obvious-to-anyone-who's-read-this-site-before love of the sick 'n twisted, but I like the thought of, to put it bluntly, scaring the straights. At least before these gay villains inevitably go down in a blaze of bullets and dehumanizing puns they undercut that concept of normality by just - again, bluntly - freaking everybody the fuck out. To quote what wise woman once said, it might not be right, but it's okay. Hell it's better than okay, it's fun, and creepy, and intimidating, and... dare I say empowering? I dare.

This isn't the "any representation is good representation" argument, because that argument is bullshit. I just, being a horror buff, really get off on people getting freaked out. It's my raison d'etre, if ya will. It's the good, meaty stuff that I enjoy. Sue me.

My point - What? He has one? - this is all in reference to AfterElton's moaning about Ben Foster's character in 3:10 To Yuma being encoded as a limp-wristed psychopath who murders left and right in some sort of deranged love-cry for Russell Crowe's manly affections. They are - shocker! - unhappy about this. And meanwhile... I am even more excited to see the film now. Bring on the gay villains again, I say! We're coming for your sons and daughters!
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