Artist Birthdays - January 30th

Lloyd Alexander (Novelist, The Book of Three) – 1924

Gene Hackman (Actor, The Royal Tenenbaums) – 1930

Vanessa Redgrave (Actress, Howard’s End) – 1937

Charles S. Dutton (Actor, Cookie’s Fortune) – 1951

Artist Birthdays - January 29th

My birthday posting has been a little irregular over the course of this past week, and in missing yesterday, I missed the opportunity to post Jackson Pollock’s birthday. Oh well… there it is now, belatedly.

And today’s birthdays… Slow day.

Barnett Newman (Painter, “Onement 1”) – 1905

Missing the Oscars

I take a day or two off from the blog over the weekend, and I miss things. Like the Oscar nominations.

I'll admit that this year's list of nominees seems more interesting than it often does (there are some very good names there), but – as usual – I don’t necessarily agree with all of the choices.

Anywho, you’ll find a link to the complete list here.

Artist Birthdays - January 27th

Samuel Palmer (Painter, "A Dream in the Appenine") – 1801

Lewis Carroll (Novelist, Alice in Wonderland) – 1832

Arthur Hughes (Painter, “April Love”) – 1832

Donna Reed (Actress, It’s a Wonderful Life) – 1921

Sabu (Actor, Black Narcissus) – 1924

Ismail Kadare (Poet, The Wedding) – 1936

James Cromwell (Actor, L.A. Confidential) – 1940

Mikhail Baryshnikov (Dancer) – 1948

Bridget Fonda (Actress, A Simple Plan) – 1964

Alan Cumming (Actor, Spy Kids) – 1965

Artist Birthdays - January 26th

Paul Newman (Actor, Cool Hand Luke) – 1925

Sal Buscema (Comic Artist, The Spectacular Spider-Man) – 1936

Scott Glenn (Actor, The Right Stuff) – 1941

Barbara Kruger (Conceptual Artist, “I Shop, Therefore I Am”) – 1946

Gene Siskel (Film Critic, The Chicago Tribune) – 1946

Christopher Hampton (Playwright, Les Liaisons Dangereuses)

David Strathairn (Actor, Good Night, and Good Luck) – 1949

Eddie Van Halen (Guitarist) – 1955

Ellen DeGeneres (Comedienne, Ellen) – 1958

Artist Birthdays - January 23rd

Édouard Manet (Painter, “Berthe Morisot”) – 1832

Randolph Scott (Actor, Ride the High Country) – 1898

Derek Walcott (Poet, “The Bounty”) – 1930

Sonny Chiba (Actor, The Street Fighter) – 1939

Rutger Hauer (Actor, Blade Runner) – 1944

Artist Birthdays - January 22nd

Lord Byron (Poet, Hours of Idleness) – 1788

Francis Picabia (Painter, "Machine Turn Quickly") – 1879

Anne Sothern (Actress, The Blue Gardenia) – 1909

Seymour Cassel (Actor, The Royal Tenenbaums) – 1935

John Hurt (Actor, Alien) – 1940

Jim Jarmusch (Film Director, Broken Flowers) – 1953

Artist Birthdays - January 21st

Peter De Wint (Painter, “Boats”) – 1784

Paul Scofield (Actor, A Man for All Seasons) – 1922

Telly Savalas (Actor, The Dirty Dozen) – 1922

Steve Reeves (Actor, Hercules) – 1926

Geena Davis (Actress, Beetle Juice) – 1956

Artist Birthdays - January 20th

Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (Poet/Novelist, Digte) – 1873

George Burns (Comedian/Actor, Oh God!) – 1896

DeForest Kelley (Actor, Star Trek) – 1920

Tom Baker (Actor, Doctor Who) – 1934

David Lynch (Director, Mulholland Drive) – 1946

Bill Maher (Comedian, Real Time With Bill Maher) – 1956

Artist Birthdays - January 18th

Rubén Darío (Poet, Prosas Profanas y Otros Poemas) – 1867

Cary Grant (Actor, Bringing Up Baby) – 1904

Danny Kaye (Actor, The Court Jester) – 1913

John Boorman (Director, Excalibur) – 1933

Takeshi Kitano (Actor/Director, Zatôichi)– 1947

Jane Horrocks (Actress, Little Voice) – 1964

Artist Birthdays - January 17th

William E. Stafford (Poet, “Walking West”) – 1914

Robert Cormier (Author, Fade) – 1925

Moira Shearer (Actress/Ballerina, The Red Shoes) – 1926

Eartha Kitt (Actress/Singer, “C’est si bon”) – 1927

James Earl Jones (Actor, Cry the Beloved Country) – 1931

Andy Kaufman (Actor/Comedian, Taxi) – 1949

Zooey Deschanel (Actress, Almost Famous) – 1980

Artist Birthdays - January 16th

Harry Carey, Sr. (Actor, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) – 1878

Ethel Merman (Stage Actress, Gypsy) – 1908

Anthony Hecht (Poet, “After the Rain”) – 1923

John Carpenter (Film Director, Halloween) – 1948

Debbie Allen (Actress, Fame) – 1950

Artist Birthdays - January 15th

Molière (Playwright, The Imaginary Invalid) – 1622

Osip Mandelstam (Poet, “Tristia”) – 1891

Lloyd Bridges (Actor, Airplane!) – 1913

Robert Silverberg (Novelist, Lord Valentine’s Castle) – 1935

Margaret O'Brien (Actress, Meet Me in St. Louis) – 1937

Jaune Quick-To-See Smith (Artist, “War is Heck”) – 1940

Regina King (Actress, Ray) – 1971

Brief Gran Torino Bit

Saw Gran Torino last night.

I’ll try to write up a full review before long, but in brief: the film is entertaining, though some of the dialogue is a bit stiff, and the film perhaps goes a little over the top in its effort to demonstrate that Eastwood’s Walt Kowalski is a bit of a bigot.

McQueen Needs a Doppelganger

I’m not a huge fan of the traditional biopic, nor do I usually post anything that could really fall under the mantle of “movie rumors,” but this bit interested me.

Anyway. Ain’t It Cool News reported today that a biopic of Steve McQueen is apparently in the very early stages of production – so early a stage that casting hasn’t yet begun.

I suspect that this is what interests me: if this project does indeed happen, the casting seems clear – in my mind, anyway.

Steve McQueen, meet Daniel Craig: doppelganger.

Artist Birthdays - January 14th

Hugh Lofting (Novelist, Doctor Dolittle) – 1886

Hal Roach (Poducer, The Little Rascals) – 1892

Berthe Morisot (Painter, “The Cradle”) – 1895

John Dos Passos (Novelist, The 42nd Parallel) – 1896

William Bendix (Actor, Lifeboat) – 1906

Harold Russell (Actor, The Best Years of Our Lives) – 1914

Dudley Randall (Poet, “Booker T. and W.E.B.”) – 1914

Andy Rooney (Commentator, 60 Minutes) – 1919

Faye Dunaway (Actress, Bonnie and Clyde) – 1941

T-Bone Burnett (Music Producer, O Brother Where Art Thou?) – 1948

Lawrence Kasdan (Screenwriter, Raiders of the Lost Ark) – 1949

Steven Soderbergh (Director, Solaris) – 1963

Jemma Redgrave (Actress, Bramwell) – 1965

Emily Watson (Actress, Gosford Park) – 1967

Jason Bateman (Actor, Arrested Development) – 1969

Artist Birthdays - January 13th

Lilla Cabot Perry (Painter, “The Black Hat”) – 1848

Clark Ashton Smith (Author, “The Hunters from Beyond”) – 1893

Robert Stack (Actor, To Be or Not to Be) – 1919

William B. Davis (Actor, The X-Files) – 1938

Jay McInerney (Novelist, Bright Lights, Big City) – 1955

Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Actress, Seinfeld) – 1961

Artist Birthdays - January 12th

Jusepe de Ribera (Painter, "Martyrdom of St. Philip") – 1591

John Singer Sargent (Painter, "Spanish Dancer") – 1856

Wayne Wang (Film Director, Smoke) – 1949

Walter Mosley (Novelist, White Butterfly) – 1952

Oliver Platt (Actor, The Ice Harvest) – 1960

Artist Birthdays - January 11th

Domenico Ghirlandaio (Painter, "An Old Man and His Grandson") - 1449

Rod Taylor (Actor, The Birds) - 1930

Eva Hesse (Sculptor, "Eighter from Decatur") - 1936

Benjamin Button

Handsomely shot, technically accomplished, with some very fine moments and a talented and engaging supporting cast, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a beautiful snore.

Scratch that – snore is too strong a word, too disparaging; Button is in many ways an extremely well made film, and is always watchable. But at nearly three hours, the story feels a tad slow and its emotional heart seems curiously cold.

The film is beautifully shot – there are very few contemporary filmmakers with a more finely honed visual sense than director David Fincher, and Benjamin Button is perhaps his best looking picture. The cinematography by Claudio Miranda lends the film a somber, slightly antiquated quality that suits both the film’s period and its overarching theme of life’s transience.

The makeup and effects wizardry behind the central character’s aging process are also commendable, and they lend credibility to a story that is ultimately pure fantasy: the arc of a man’s life as he ages in reverse. Born looking like a ninety-year old infant, Button grows taller and younger as time marches on. He falls in love with Daisy (a solid Cate Blanchett), goes to sea during WWII, wanders the nations of the world, has affairs and adventures, and meets a series of colorful characters, only to finally return to Daisy. The supporting cast is very strong. Particularly memorable are Taraji P. Henson and Mahershalalhashbaz Ali as Benjamin’s adoptive parents. Tilda Swinton (who plays one of Benjamin's first romantic interests), Jason Flemyng (as Button’s biological father) and Jared Harris (playing Benjamin’s tattooed tugboat boss Captain Mike) also make strong impressions.

But there lies the film’s chief problem: while the supporting cast of characters is truly colorful and interesting, Benjamin Button himself isn’t. In fact, he’s a rather dull fellow, and is lacking much in the way of personality. Button may meet interesting people, sure, but the film is ultimately derailed because it’s tied to the telling of its hero’s story – and its hero is a cipher. How much of this is Brad Pitt’s fault and how much is the fault of screenwriter Eric Roth is hard to know, but neither man seems to have made the right choices. Pitt doesn’t provide his character with anything much beyond good looks and a charming smile while Roth, who is essentially riffing on (or ripping off) his own screenplay for Forrest Gump here, hasn’t really helped matters by giving his central character so little verve. Any film that asks its viewers to invest three hours in the story (the love story, no less) of a lifeless main character is bound to seem a little too long.

That’s a shame when there are so many other things about the film that one can recommend.

Artist Birthdays - January 10th

Robinson Jeffers (Poet, “Hooded Night”) – 1887

Bertolt Brecht (Playwright, “Mother Courage and Her Children”) – 1898

Barbara Hepworth (Sculptor, “Family of Man”) – 1903

Ray Bolger (Actor, The Wizard of Oz) – 1904

Paul Henreid (Actor, Casablanca) – 1905

Bernard Lee (Actor, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) – 1908

Philip Levine (Poet, “Red Dust”) – 1928

Sal Mineo (Actor, Rebel Without a Cause) – 1939

Jim Croce (Singer, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”) – 1943

William Sanderson (Actor, Deadwood) – 1944

Artist Birthdays - January 9th

Thomas Warton (Critic/Poet, “To the River London”) – 1728

J.K. Simmons (Actor, Spider-Man) – 1955

Imelda Staunton (Actress, Vera Drake) – 1956

The Horror, the Horror!

A remake of a remake of an adaptation. Oy.

An admission: I am not a fan of the modern horror film. I find most of them to be any combination of the following bad qualities: banal, badly made, bloody, and bloody boring.

And so I suspect that I am not the target audience for this spring’s coming remake of The Last House on the Left. But really, I ask: does anybody need an update of Wes Craven’s 1972 original – a film that in and of itself was essentially a remake of Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring? To give voice to an old complaint: why can’t the studios spend their money making films that contain some spark of originality? There is no pressing need to remake Craven or Bergman.

Bergman's The Virgin Spring – which was adaptated from an old Russian folktale – is a stark film, occasionally brutal, and serves as a grim meditation on the issues of faith and human nature. Its plot centers on the murder of an innocent girl in Medieval Sweden, on the vengeance wrought by the girl’s parents, and on the crisis of faith that these events inspire in the girl's father.

It is a horrifying film, certainly – as horrifying as anything you will see today - but not pointless, not boring, and not at all banal. Quite unlike many modern horror films.

A Bit of Jeeves and Wooster

Lately I’ve been reading P.G. Wodehouse’s How Right You Are, Jeeves. It’s my first venture into the literary world of Wodehouse, and I can see why so many readers have enjoyed him – there is a wonderful amount of witty wordplay. Wordplay works wonders for me, though I know not everyone’s funny bone will be tickled by the verbal antics of a likeable, humane twit and his perfect butler.

I was turned on to the books by Granada Television’s Jeeves & Wooster, a wonderful series that featured Stephen Fry and a pre-House Hugh Laurie (and for my money, Laurie’s best role will always be Wooster). I usually try to read the books first but - oh well…

Artist Birthdays - January 8th

William Wilkie Collins (Novelist, The Moonstone) – 1824

Lawrence Alma-Tadema (Painter, “The Roses of Heliogabalus”) – 1836

Elvis Presley (Singer, “All Shook Up”) – 1935

Jerome Anthony Gourdine (Singer, Little Anthony and the Imperials) – 1941

Graham Chapman (Comedian, Monty Python and the Holy Grail) – 1941

David Bowie (Singer, “Life on Mars”) – 1947

Sarah Polley (Actress/Director, Away From Her) – 1979

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc

While I usually don’t include non-artistic figures in the daily “Birthdays,” I have been sorely tempted.

Take today, for example. There I was, performing a little research for the daily B-Day update, when I came across a few websites that listed January 6th as the birthday of Joan of Arc – never mind that the birth records for French peasants in 1412 are just a tiny bit sketchy.

But you know what? I’ll take it. Joan is a fascinating figure, and that birth date gives me an excuse to mention her – if only briefly.

She did not make my official birthday list, of course – historically significant, yes, but then she isn’t known for her art.

Nonetheless, her story has served as the basis for quite a few artistic projects – none of which has ever really surpassed The Passion of Joan of Arc, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent masterpiece from 1928. It was one of star Maria Falconetti's only screen roles – and she is really, really good in the part.

The restored version of the film has been out on DVD for some time now (in a wonderful print by Criterion), and yet I suspect that a great many people have yet to see the film. Trust me – it’s worth the time.

Artist Birthdays - January 6th

Gustave Doré (Illustrator) – 1832

Carl Sandburg (Poet/Writer, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years) – 1878

Tom Mix (Actor, Destry Rides Again) – 1880

Khalil Gibran (Poet, The Madman) – 1883

Benedict Wallet Vilakazi (Poet, Inkondlo kaZulu) – 1906

Loretta Young (Actress, The Farmer’s Daughter) – 1913

E.L. Doctorow (Writer, The March) – 1931

Anthony Minghella (Film Director, Truly, Madly, Deeply) – 1954

Rowan Atkinson (Actor, Blackadder the Third) – 1955

Nigella Lawson (Food Writer, How to Eat) – 1960

Artist Birthdays - January 5th

Yves Tanguy (Painter, "Indefinite Divisibility") – 1900

Stella Gibbons (Writer, Cold Comfort Farm) – 1902

George Reeves (Adventures of Superman) – 1914

Jane Wyman (Actress, Magnificent Obsession) – 1919

Robert Duval (Actor, The Godfather) – 1931

Umberto Eco (Writer, Baudolino) – 1932

Hayao Miyazaki (Animator, Princess Mononoke) – 1941

Diane Keaton (Actress, Annie Hall) – 1946)

Suzy Amis (Actress, The Ballad of Little Jo) – 1962

January Jones (Actress, Mad Men) – 1978

Artist Birthdays - January 4th

François Rude (Sculptor, "Mercury Fastening His Sandals") – 1784

Jacob Grimm (Mythologist, Grimm’s Fairy Tales) – 1785

André Masson (Artist, "A Dream of a Future Desert") – 1896

Gao Xingjian (Novelist/Playwright, Soul Mountain) – 1940

Patty Loveless (Musician, “I Try to Think About Elvis”) – 1957

Michael Stipe (Musician, "Man on the Moon") – 1960

Dave Foley (Actor, The Kids in the Hall) – 1963

Julia Ormond (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) – 1965

Artist Birthdays - January 3rd

Cicero (Roman Philosopher) – 106 B.C.E.

J.R.R. Tolkien (Writer, The Lord of the Rings) – 1892

Anna May Wong (Actress, Portrait in Black) – 1905

Ray Milland (Actor, The Lost Weekend) – 1905

Victor Borge (Comedian) – 1909

John Sturges (Director, The Great Escape) – 1911

George Martin (Record Producer) – 1926

W.D. Snodgrass (Poet, "Heart’s Needle”) – 1926

Robert Loggia (Actor, Lost Highway) – 1930

Thelma Schoonmaker (Film Editor, The Departed) – 1940

Artist Birthdays - January 2nd

Frederick Varley (Painter) – 1881

Isaac Asimov (Writer, Foundation) – 1922

Todd Haynes (Film Director, Safe) – 1961

2009

Artist Birthdays - January 1st

Arthur Hugh Clough (Poet) – 1819

Alfred Stieglitz (Photographer) – 1864

Dana Andrews (Actor, The Best Years of Our Lives) – 1909

J.D. Salinger (Author, The Catcher in the Rye) – 1919

Frank Langella (Actor, Starting Out in the Evening) - 1938

Sophie Okonedo (Actress, Dirty Pretty Things) - 1969

Catherine McCormack (Actress, Dancing at Lughnasa )– 1972

Films at The MoMA and Castro

If you’re due to be in New York or San Francisco come January – and if you know that you’re going to have a lot of free time – you might want to check out the film programs at the MoMA or the Castro Theatre. Both institutions have an interesting (and diverse) array of movies scheduled to play.

The MoMA will be covering a lot of ground – they’ll be showing films as recent as 2008’s Frozen River and Standard Operating Procedure and as old as the silent versions of Robin Hood, The Thief of Baghdad, and The Three Musketeers.

The Castro’s programs in January will range from covering the late composer Henry Mancini to the wonders of Noir. Oh, and somewhere in there they’ll also be playing The Watcher in the Woods – an old Betty Davis/Disney movie that scared the daylights out of me when I was a kid.

Good stuff.

Link to the MoMA film schedule.

Link to The Castro schedule.

Artist Birthdays - December 31st

Henri Matisse (Painter, “The Dance”) – 1869

Jason Robards, Sr. (Actor, The Falcon’s Alibi) – 1892

Anthony Hopkins (Actor, The Lion in Winter) – 1937

John Denver (Musician, "Rocky Mountain High") – 1943

Ben Kingsley (Actor, Dave) – 1943

Tim Matheson (Actor, Animal House) – 1947

Bebe Neuwirth (Actress, Cheers) – 1958

Val Kilmer (Actor, Tombstone) – 1959

Li Gong (Actress, Raise the Red Lantern) – 1965

Junot Diaz (Author, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao) – 1968

Artist Birthdays - December 30th

Max Pechstein (Painter/Printmaker) – 1888

Carol Reed (Film Director, The Third Man) – 1906

Jo Van Vleet (Actress, Cool Hand Luke) – 1914

Bo Diddley (Musician, The Originator) – 1928

Tracey Ullman (Actress, The Tracy Ullman Show) – 1959

Artist Birthdays - December 29th

Julius Caesar Ibbetson (Painter, "Sailors Carousing") – 1759

Willie Humphrey (Musician) – 1900

William Gaddis (Novelist, JR) – 1922

Bernard Cribbins (Actor, Doctor Who) – 1928

Mary Tyler Moore (Actress, Flirting With Disaster) – 1936

Jon Voight (Actor, Runaway Train) – 1937

Ted Danson (Actor, Curb Your Enthusiasm) – 1947

John Polito (Actor, Homicide: Life on the Street) – 1950

Patricia Clarkson (Actress, The Station Agent) - 1959

Dave McKean (Artist, The Sandman) – 1963

Jennifer Ehle (Actress, Pride and Prejudice) - 1969

Jude Law (Actor, Cold Mountain) – 1972