La Mise En Scène Est La Chose

The house that once stood in a lot on the corner of West Market and North Highland had been a wine seller’s business in its last legitimate habitation. The house had been empty for years by the time it was torn down. Funny enough, even the corner where the house once stood is gone, the stretch of Highland that reached Market having been paved over to make way for an expanded branch of the Akron Public Library. Now that’s progress. Continue reading “La Mise En Scène Est La Chose”

The Empty Balcony: The Train

One day into filming of 1964’s The Train, director Arthur Penn was fired at the urging of star Burt Lancaster and replaced with John Frankenheimer. Penn had apparently conceived the film as largely a cerebral examination of the effect and importance of art to the French national consciousness during the Nazi occupation. A not unworthy aspiration, and one that could someday make a fine film. In hiring Frankenheimer, who had such films as Seven Days in May and The Manchurian Candidate under his belt, the decision was made that the plot of The Train should be driven by tension and action. Continue readingThe Empty Balcony: The Train”

It’s Coming Right for Us!

There was a startling sight off the foot of Manhattan this morning. A Boeing 747 trailing a fighter escort was seen making multiple low passes near the Statue of Liberty and many tall buildings in Jersey City. In response, some buildings in Jersey City and in Manhattan were evacuated, for fear another terrorist attack was under way. However, this wasn’t the case. The 747 was the backup plane for Air Force One, flying by New York City for an Air Force photo shoot. Apparently, the city had been made aware of the flight path by the Federal Aviation Administration. The NYPD acknowledged this, but also said that it had been barred from alerting the public. What were they thinking? Continue reading “It’s Coming Right for Us!”

The Empty Balcony: Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now dropped into my cinematic experience like a bomb. When I was a teenager, I had been vaguely aware that it was a film about the Vietnam War, but I thought nothing more about it other than that it had an interesting title. I had seen other Vietnam War films, notably Platoon and Full Metal Jacket, and felt like I was familiar with the material I would see in Apocalypse Now, so there was no great rush on my part to seek it out. Also, there wasn’t anyone my age (somewhere in the early years of high school, I’m not exactly sure when) who had seen it, so there weren’t any peer recommendations or condemnations to go with the film. Continue readingThe Empty Balcony: Apocalypse Now”

Ticket Fees Are Bullshit

The New York Mets are playing a home game against the Florida Marlins on Tuesday, April the 28th. There are plenty of good seats available, but I’m not interested in those. Good seats at a ballgame are a luxury that my friends and I cannot afford. Nosebleeds have been the order of the day for all but rare occasions in my sportsgoing life. Good seats are reserved for rare gifts from corporate contacts or semi-retired acquaintances ready to rip through their retirement funds. The most expensive ticket I’ve ever bought was for a Yankees/Indians matchup at the Stadium last year for sixty-five bucks...in the upper deck. A similar seat in the new stadium goes for twice that amount, now. But this article isn’t a rant about the high price of seats at sporting events. It’s about fees. Continue reading “Ticket Fees Are Bullshit”

Shitty Movie Sundays: The Transporter

Sometimes I watch movies so you won’t have to. I sacrifice hours on lazy Sunday afternoons abusing my eyes and my sense of taste not just because I enjoy bad cinema, I do, but because some bad movies descend so low that even cinematic shit-eaters like myself can find no redeeming qualities to them whatsoever, and viewers need to be warned to avoid them. Like a signpost jutting out of the desert warning of rattlesnake country ahead, or a toxic waste dump, consider this article a harbinger, for there will be trouble for those who ignore it. Continue readingShitty Movie Sundays: The Transporter”

Will They Be Called “The Bush Six”?

Six former Bush administration officials who were responsible for developing legal arguments justifying torture are likely to have criminal investigations opened against them by a Spanish court. The court is claiming jurisdiction because Spanish citizens were held at the prison at Guantanamo Bay and have said they were tortured. The case is going before a judge, Baltasar Garzon, who has a history of bringing charges against overseas defendants, including Augusto Pinochet. Should the cases move forward, arrest warrants will likely be issued. Continue reading “Will They Be Called “The Bush Six”?”

The Empty Balcony: Logan’s Run

Once again, the future is a terrifying place. This is a lesson that Hollywood continues to hammer home to moviegoers. Whether or not anyone is listening...well, that will be evident when we finally arrive in the future, won’t it? If the future is a place packed full of brain-eating zombies, cold-blooded murderous cyborgs, endless desert landscapes blasted with nuclear radiation, gigantic mutated insects, alien slave drivers, and any other myriad threats to the existence of mankind, then we have obviously failed to protect ourselves. Heed the warnings of science fiction, fair citizen, for to ignore them is to sow the seeds of our own destruction. Continue readingThe Empty Balcony: Logan’s Run”

New Lipstick, Same Pig

The Daily News and The New York Post both splashed their front pages in the city yesterday with headlines about the renaming of the Freedom Tower rising on the World Trade Center site. “NO MORE FREEDOM” read the Daily News, while the Post roared forth with “FREE DUMB TOWER.” New Yorkers can shell out a buck a day for these cupfuls of indignation.
Continue reading “New Lipstick, Same Pig”

The Empty Balcony: Burn After Reading

Watching a Coen Brothers movie is sometimes like attending a blind tasting. There won’t be any swill waved under one’s nose, but just what is in the glass could be surprising, or disappointing.

Burn After Reading, the Coen brothers followup to their best picture winner, No Country for Old Men, has a very serious plot. A former CIA analyst named Osbourne Cox, played by John Malkovich, is writing a memoir of his days with the company. His wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton), is secretly pursuing a divorce, and makes a copy onto disc of files from his computer, including the memoir and some classified materials. A secretary at her lawyer’s firm loses the disc at a gym, where it is found and comes into the possession of Chad (Brad Pitt), a personal trainer. Chad enlists his colleague, Linda (Frances McDormand), in a scheme to extort money from Osbourne in exchange for the disc. Meanwhile, Katie is having an affair with Harry (George Clooney), a Treasury agent who, coincidentally, meets Linda through an online dating service. It’s complicated, and only gets more so when plans crisscross and things inevitably go awry. Continue readingThe Empty Balcony: Burn After Reading”