"165"

I have an ongoing love affair with New York, the city that formed me. I was born here, and though I’ve left occasionally, it was never for very long. The pace, color, and excitement of this amazing town always drew me back like a magnet, and holds me still. No surprise then that I love experiencing the potent nostalgia of great films that recall the New York City of my early years.

I will always remember the pure exhilaration I felt watching Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” for the first time in a theater thirty years ago. The memory is so clear of first realizing that I was experiencing an extraordinary piece of filmmaking, deliriously entertaining but also completely fresh and unique. What made “Pulp” so exciting and distinctive?

Film scholars may differ on the top Bogart-Bacall outing, but for me it’s their second film, “The Big Sleep” (1946), directed by the inimitable Howard Hawks. It is, first and foremost, the quintessential private eye picture, along with the earlier Bogart classic, “The Maltese Falcon” (1941). The film succeeds in spite of the fact that its dense, twisty plot leaves most viewers slightly bewildered at the closing credits.

This year, what do you say we switch things up and not dread the whole back-to-school business? No prodding the kids to plow through the summer-reading-list books they haven’t yet cracked. No bracing yourself for the logistical nightmare of getting your brood up, fed, dressed and off to their classrooms.

News flash from Cannes: It’s Nicole Kidman’s zombie apocalypse. Alright, it’s not quite that bad, but apparently her turn as Grace Kelly in “Grace Of Monaco” suggests the Aussie actress thought she was playing the part post-mortem. Though she admits to nothing (just a little botox), from all reports, her face is stitched in a puffy perma-grin in an attempt to play the much younger Kelly. And, according to early reviews, the 46 year-old Nicole has all the charm and animation of her Madame Tussaud likeness. Are the monkey glands not working?  Scott Foundas of Variety had this to say: "Handsomely produced but as dramatically inert as star Nicole Kidman's frigid cheek muscles, (director Olivier) Dahan’s strained bid to recapture the critical and commercial success of his smash Edith Piaf biopic 'La Vie En Rose' is the sort of misbegotten venture no amount of clever re-editing could hope to improve.” And we thought the festival couldn’t get any worse than Naomi Watts’ disastrous turn as Princess Di. Dare we suggest a slippery slope into "Lohan as Elizabeth Taylor" territory? For Kidman’s part, she has admitted that it is “awkward” that the royals of Monaco denounced the film as a “farce” and canceled their traditional trip to the festival – one that has some significance, as it was where Grace Kelly originally met Prince Rainier III in 1955. But what do they know? They’re just her family.  

In 1939, right before World War 2 transformed the movie industry and the world, Hollywood produced the most copious output of outstanding films in a single year, titles that endure to this day.

I found it interesting (if not particularly surprising) that the top box office performers of the last several decades have tended to be longer movies. Scanning over tent-pole movies released since the millennium, blockbusters like the “Lord Of The Rings” series clock in at about three hours per installment, while “Avatar” and “The Dark Knight Rises” run well over the two and a half hour mark. Other more recent superhero franchises show the same trend. Examples: “The Avengers” (143 mins.), “Captain America” (136 mins.), and “The Amazing Spiderman” (142 mins.) Then there’s the talented but increasingly self-indulgent Quentin Tarantino, whose pictures most always go on and on. Most recently, “Inglorious Basterds” (153 mins.) and “Django Unchained” (165 mins.) prove my point.