Julie Andrews on Blake Edwards, plus the week’s best movies in L.A.
Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
This newsletter is, of course, mostly devoted to going out to the movies. We do also spend a lot of time watching things at home, and something that really jumped out from the upcoming schedule is the new “American Masters — Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames,” which will premiere on PBS on Tuesday and will also be available on the PBS app.
The film, directed, produced and co-written by Danny Gold, is an affectionate look at the career of writer-director Blake Edwards, with a special focus on his relationship with his wife of more than 40 years, Julie Andrews. Edwards, who died in 2010 at age 88, was an exceptionally versatile filmmaker, capable of “Operation Petticoat,” “The Great Race,” “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “Days of Wine and Roses,” “The Wild Rovers” and the “Pink Panther” series.
He would direct Andrews in “Darling Lili,” “The Tamarind Seed,” “10,” “S.O.B.,” “The Man Who Loved Women” and “Victor/Victoria,” the latter of which Andrews was nominated for an Academy Award for lead actress. Edwards’ 1986 film “That’s Life!,” starring Andrews and Jack Lemmon, would feature some of their children and was shot in their Los Angeles home.
When they first got together, Edwards was known as the director of racy, sophisticated comedies and Andrews was the star of “Mary Poppins” and “The Sound of Music.” Many found the pair to be an unlikely couple.
We were such an odd fit, but of course, it didn’t seem odd,” Andrews, 88, said of their relationship in a phone call this week. “He was my boyfriend originally, and then my mate and husband.”
“I’m glad he felt that there was another side of me that he knew about and could show,” Andrews said of the work they did together. “I’m grateful that he kind of helped break the mold, although some people would say, ‘What are you doing?’ and all of that. But it was just serendipity that brought us together. He was so hugely talented. It was never boring, I can tell you.”
Edwards’ only Oscar nomination was for the screenplay to 1982’s “Victor/Victoria.” He received an honorary Academy Award in 2003.
“He was so open to new feelings, new emotions, trying new things,” said Andrews. “And it became very fascinating as a wife to watch him grow and spread. And sometimes I was just a little bit nervous at what he was coming up with. But he was such a consummate filmmaker, and I trusted him. That was lovely about working together, is that I could trust him completely and I didn’t ever worry.”
Podcasters’ choice with ‘Friend of the Fest’
This week, the American Cinematheque will launch their second “Friend of the Fest” series, in which podcasters have chosen movies to show. The series opens Friday with David Fincher’s 2014 thriller “Gone Girl,” presented by Amanda Dobbins and Sean Fennessey of “The Big Picture” podcast. Also screening on Friday is “Bridget Jones’s Diary” presented by Mia Lee Vicino and Flynn Slicker with “The Letterboxd Show,” and “The Wailing” introduced by Jack Wagner from “Otherworld.”
In what is sure to be a highlight of the series, Saturday will see a 35mm screening of Michael Mann’s 2006 “Miami Vice” at the Egyptian, presented by Katie Walsh and Blake Howard of “Miami Nice,” a podcast dedicated to the movie. I’m not sure whether mojitos are allowed in the theater, but I will be there to find out.
As critic emeritus Kenneth Turan put it in his original Times review, “From ‘Thief,’ his first theatrical feature, through ‘Heat’ and 2004’s ‘Collateral,’ Mann has always felt the attraction of the hard, cold criminal world, where the night is alive with menace and the day is not far behind. … A consummate filmmaker on a never-ending quest for increased intensity, ever-more tangible realism and heightened style, he is determined to take Miami cops Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs along with him on that particular ride.”
Other highlights include Fanshen Cox and Lillian Benson of “Sistah Brunch” presenting Ayoka Chenzira’s “Alma’s Rainbow”; Josh Olson and Joe Dante from “The Movies That Made Me” introducing Theodore J. Flicker’s “The President’s Analyst”; Allan Traylor, Tyler Austin and Justin Remer from “The Skylight Books Podcast” with Rachel Talalay’s “Tank Girl” in 35mm; and Jeff Garlin from “The History of Curb Your Enthusiasm” with Woody Allen’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors” in 35mm.
Other selections, all in 35mm, include Amy Nicholson and Paul Scheer from “Unspooled” with Savage Steve Holland’s “One Crazy Summer;” Jen Johans and Kate Hagen from “Watch with Jen” with Luis Mandocki’s “White Palace;” “Cinematic Void” presenting a new 35 mm print of Monte Hellman’s “Cockfighter;” and Rico Gagliano from “The MUBI Podcast” with Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette.”
More from 1994 at the Egyptian
The Egyptian Theatre continues its program of films from 1994, which turned out to be quite a year. Among the films screening are Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers” in 35mm, with an introduction to the evening show by journalist Kristen Lopez.
Louis Malle’s “Vanya on 42nd Street” stars Julianne Moore, Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory in David Mamet’s stage adaptation of Chekov’s “Uncle Vanya.” In his original review, Turan said the film possesses “that rare melding of cinema and drama that does honor to both disciplines.”
Tom Noonan’s “What Happened Was,” which won the grand jury and screenwriting prizes at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival, is a finely drawn character study that allowed the actor to stretch beyond villain roles in films such as “Manhunter” and “Last Action Hero.” It screens in a new 4k restoration.
The true rarity of the series may be the chance to see Adam Resnick’s “Cabin Boy” in 35mm. The film is a spotlight for the comedic gifts of Chris Elliott, who plays a “fancy lad” who gets on the wrong boat and finds himself part of a grubby seafaring adventure. Elliott began his career with appearances on “Late Night With David Letterman,” and Letterman makes one of his very few appearances in a feature film here in a small, uncredited but quite memorable role.
The Coen brothers’ “The Hudsucker Proxy” will also play in 35mm, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tim Robbins and Paul Newman in an homage to Preston Sturges, Howard Hawks and the dreamers often depicted in 1930s and ’40s Hollywood. It is here where some of the complaints that have followed the Coens ever since may have first begun. As Turan wrote at the time, “You have to admire what the Coen brothers have accomplished in ‘The Hudsucker Proxy,’ but actually enjoying their achievement is a little more difficult.”
Also showing in 35mm, “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” is an inside-out horror thriller in which members of the cast of earlier “Nightmare” movies, including stars Heather Langenkamp and Robert Englund, play themselves. The film prefigures the self-reflexive “Scream” franchise that was still a few years away. As Peter Rainer put it in his review at the time, “It’s a complicated, tricky attempt to bring out the elements of horror moviemaking in a way that’s deliberately self-conscious. It’s postmodernism for the mall crowd — a movie-within-a-movie-about-a-movie.”
Points of interest
‘Love Streams’
On Aug. 29 and 30, the New Beverly will screen “Love Streams,” the last film directed by John Cassavetes starring his wife, Gena Rowlands, who died earlier this month at age 94. The film won the Golden Bear at the 1984 Berlin Film Festival.
Cassavetes and Rowlands play a troubled brother and sister who find emotional support in each other. The cast also features Cassavetes’ frequent collaborator Seymour Cassel.
Sheila Benson wrote the original Times review of the film, noting, “This is quintessential Cassavetes. It is emotion-full, irritating, sad, hilarious, forceful and horrifying. And it is exquisitely played by these two actors who seem incapable of an emotional untruth.”
In an interview at the time with The Times’ Charles Champlin, Cassavetes described the film by saying, “Love is a stream, continuous throughout time, and it’s all that matters. The need for family has followed the ages around, and when we haven’t got it, it makes us empty.”
Cassavetes added, “You want to put people on the screen the way people can relate to each other, the way people want love, not money, not anything else, and the chances women will take to have it.”
Describing his own filmmaking, Cassavetes said, “I’ve never been able to make anything except these crazy, tough pictures. It’s not intentional. You just are what you are.”
‘Between the Temples’
One of my favorite movies at Sundance this year was “Between the Temples,” a tender-hearted comedy and the latest film from stalwart independent filmmaker Nathan Silver, working for the first time with better-known actors. The film stars Jason Schwartzman as the cantor at a small synagogue struggling since the death of his wife. He meets an eccentric woman (Carol Kane) who wants to become an adult bat mitzvah student. The two hit it off in a relationship that both of them find difficult to define and understand.
Reviewing for The Times, Katie Walsh says, “Crafted with care and a distinct point of view, ‘Between the Temples’ is the kind of film that bears rewatching just because you want to spend more time with its idiosyncratic rhythm and energy. Singing in its own key, there might not be a more authentic and purely entertaining film this year.”
We recently presented the comedy as part of our Indie Focus screening series, and it was a real treat having Silver, Schwartzman and Kane all there. (Schwartzman arrived with his mother, actor Talia Shire, who was seeing the film for the first time.) At one point, as Kane recalled how Silver arranged a showing of “Temples” for her friend Elaine May and May’s daughter Jeannie Berlin, Schwartzman began to sing “Dangerous Business,” one of the songs from May’s “Ishtar,” in which Kane appeared.
‘Strange Darling’
Having premiered at last year’s Fantastic Fest in Austin, writer-director JT Mollner’s horror-thriller “Strange Darling” is in theaters today. With eerily beautiful cinematography by Giovanni Ribisi (the veteran character actor has a promising career behind the camera), the film will be playing in 35mm at the Vista. Mollner and Ribisi are scheduled for a Q&A there after the 7:30 p.m. show on Saturday night.
With riveting lead performances by Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner (and supporting turns by Barbara Hershey and Ed Begley Jr.), the lively and inventive film tracks a serial killer as the story takes many unexpected turns.
Also in the news
An emotional evening with ‘La Bamba’
Last week I mentioned a screening of a 4K restoration of Luis Valdez’s 1987 film “La Bamba” at the Academy Museum, and it made for an emotional evening. The movie is the story of Ritchie Valens, the Chicano rock ‘n’ roll star who had three hit records in eight months and died in a plane crash in 1959 at just 17 years old.
The evening’s Q&A — featuring actor Lou Diamond Philips, actor and producer Esai Morales and actor and musical director Daniel Valdez — was held before the movie, adding perfect context for the screening that followed. Members of Valens’ family were acknowledged in the audience, heightening the feeling of the evening being a special one for the sold-out crowd at the Academy’s David Geffen Theater.
Phillips made an unannounced presentation to the museum of a guitar he used in the film, a replica of Valens’ green Harmony H44 Stratotone.
“I checked the statute of limitations for petty theft,” Phillips said, “and so now I can admit that I’ve had that for 37 years.”
Morales plays Valens’ troubled half brother Bob Morales in an electrifying performance. He noted how he was once told he missed out on an Academy Award nomination by “a handful of votes.” However, whenever people speak to him about the role, “I feel like I get my own mini Oscar of love. And so we can’t win them all. And I’m just grateful to have been in this project with these incredible people.”
In presenting the guitar to the museum, Phillips, a member of the academy’s board of governors, connected the film, which has become a touchstone for Latine and Chicano audiences, to the larger mission of the institution.
“It speaks to the nature of what we do and what we strive to represent here in the academy,” Phillips said. “And that is artistry of the finest order. We set the standard for the world. And the one thing that I will say about ‘La Bamba,’ and one of the reasons why it’s still relevant today, we are in a time where representation matters. Where being seen matters. Where our place at the table matters. We have fought for it, we have bled for it, we deserve it and we are here to claim it. And as Danny [Valdez] said, we are not going anywhere.
“This is about the American dream,” added Phillips. “It’s about our place in the American dream. It’s about the next generation taking that and being empowered to continue the American dream.”
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