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Marilyn Armstrong — Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth

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The Garner Files: A Memoir

By James Garner and Jon Winokur

Release date: October 23, 2012

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From the first time I saw James Garner on TV as Bret Maverick, I was more than slightly in love. It was one of the television shows that I watched faithfully every time Garner was the star of the episode. They tried adding additional Mavericks, but for me, there was only one.

When I saw him in “The Americanization of Emily,” our relationship was sealed. Till death do us part. I was a fan and  he could do not wrong.  Although I probably have not seen every single movie he ever made, I’ve seen most of them.  I’ve liked some, loved most. Whenever one of his movies shows up on cable, it goes on the DVR. Fortunately Garry  is a fan, too.

Now, about the book. If you had the impression that Jim Garner is a plain-spoken guy with strong opinions, you would be absolutely right. He has a great many opinions and not the slightest reticence about expressing them. He’s an unabashed liberal, egalitarian, man of the people who made good. He thinks acting should come naturally and claims he’s never taken acting lessons.

It’s true. He never took any formal acting lesson. That he spent weeks huddled with Marlon Brando when he was shooting “Sayonara” and learned an incredible amount from the man he considers the best actor ever … I guess that doesn’t count as acting lessons. And lessons or no, this is an actor who’s easy-going, deceptively relaxed acting style makes it look easy. Making it look easy took a lot of hard work. That seems to be the way of many things that look easy … when someone else does it.

Garner is an honest guy. He tells it like he sees it, or at least remembers it. He ruthlessly reviews every television series he made in detail, including his favorite episode of each with lots of great back stories and anecdotes. He reviews and rates every movie he made. I like some of them better than he did, but mostly I agree with his assessments .. We all agree that “The Americanization of Emily” was not only his best movie, but maybe the best movie. Ever. I’m inclined to agree.

For him, is was not merely a movie he made, but a movie — and ideal — he spent the rest of his life trying to live up to.

If “Emily” was his best move, “Grand Prix” was his favorite. Like many other Hollywood stars, he’s in love fast cars and racing and Grand Prix was pure fun for him and apparently the entire cast.

Who he likes and doesn’t like? You won’t have to guess. He tells you exactly how he feels about everyone. And he’s not big on forgiving or forgetting. Given that he shares his birthday with my husband, I’m not at all surprised.

He came from a  poor, rough, abusive childhood. He worked hard and is the only person who seems to have had more surgery than me. That’s a lot of surgery, believe me. It never occurred to me that acting was that physically taxing, but apparently he is by no means the only performer to have broken just about everything at one time or another.

His two famous battles with studios were history-making if for no better reason than he won. The second lawsuit revolved around “The Rockford Files” and the issue was shady bookkeeping practices employed by studios to avoid paying performers. Technically he settled out of court for what was apparently so much money he’s still laughing about it. He wanted to keep fighting because there was a principle involved. His friends told him to shut up and take the money. Eventually, he decided they were right. It must have been a lot of money. My guess is that the studios continue to play fast and loose with bookkeeping and will … as long as they get away with it.

I enjoyed reading the book on Kindle and then enjoyed it a second time as an audiobook. I wish Garner had done the narration himself. Although Audible found a narrator whose voice and intonation resemble Garner’s and it’s good, it’s still not the same as having Garner do it.

This is a must-read for anyone who’s a fan of Jame Garner and his movies … or for anyone who likes knowing what was going on behind the scenes on the set. It’s entertaining, honest, surprising and often funny. I enjoyed it a lot and I’ll probably read it again. I’d give this one a solid 8.5 out of 10.

It’s a fine autobiography. It’s available on Kindle, Audible.com, in paperback and hardcover (large print).

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Big Change Coming To The Oscars

See on Scoop.it – Movies From Mavens

LOS ANGELES — Oscar voters will no longer be required to see certain nominated films in a theater to cast their ballots.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Saturday that members will be mailed DVDs of documentaries, shorts and foreign language nominees – categories that don’t typically get lengthy stays on multiplex big screens.

President Hawk Koch says the move is an effort to expand member participation by giving voters as many opportunities as possible to see all the nominated films.

Prior to the final round of voting, the academy will mail members DVDs of films in Foreign Language Film, Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, Animated Short Film and Live Action Short Film categories.

The nomination process remains unchanged.

Marilyn Armstrong‘s insight:

Change! Wow! I’m impressed!

See on www.huffingtonpost.com


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‘Oblivion’ is a beautiful yet flawed exercise in science-fiction filmmaking

See on Scoop.it – Movies From Mavens

The arrival of the spring marks the slow roll out of the big budget tent pole movies into multiplexes across the globe. Big budget sci-fi epics are really a dicey proposition even at the best of times as they tend to be populated with some of the pickier fans out there. “Oblivion” takes us to a point in the future, where the planet is ravaged after a cataclysmic war and the human race is doing whatever it can to survive.

Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is one of the last drone repairmen stationed on Earth. Part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of war with a terrifying threat known as the Scavs. Jack’s mission is nearly complete and he and his partner Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) will get to join the remaining survivors in their new home. However when he rescues a beautiful stranger (Olga Kurylenko) from a downed spacecraft, , he begins to question everything he knows.

A great vehicle for Cruise but it could have used some script work… Photo credit:  skiny.net

Co-writer and Director Joseph Kosinski certainly has an eye for the genre, as “Oblivion” is a stunning and bold looking film that doesn’t shy away from painting a big picture filled with sweeping yet barren landscapes and stunning cinematography, sadly the script could have probably used as much effort put into it as the visuals did. The narrative dragged in several parts with dialogue that ranged from clunky to downright laughable as the filmmakers were manufacturing much more melodrama then was actually necessary. It made it hard to generate a genuine connection with the characters, everything was insanely beautiful but much like the scorched earth that the characters were maintaining and protecting it was also incredibly sterile as Kosinski and company borrowed imagery from at least half a dozen of the more popular sci-films from the past 30 years. Stylish and wonderful, but not exactly ground breaking almost playing like a greatest hits from the genre that tries far too hard. Thankfully there are some still some familiar faces to keep us engaged as an audience.

Tom Cruise too often gets a bad rap for being a substandard actor, but to be perfectly honest when is the last time anybody has seen him perform in anything truly terrible? We simply haven’t since he works as the solid, brooding everyman kind of hero and holds his own in this character driven humanistic sci-fi drama. Andrea Riseborough is a consistently under rated actress how more than holds her own opposite Cruise and they have excellent on screen chemistry. Olga Kurylenko is a classic beauty in the Hollywood mold who will manage to always look at home in a genre or action movie setting. She is slowly but surely coming into her own as a leading lady and if she keeps her career trajectory moving in the right direction, there will be nothing but good things ahead. Melissa Leo, Morgan Freeman, Zoe Bell and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau round out the ensemble but are all fairly wasted, adding little to nothing to the overall narrative.

“Oblivion” isn’t a bad film by any stretch of the imagination, but with a weak script that leans on too much manufactured melodrama and a plethora of borrowed imagery it isn’t necessarily all that great either. Worth a look if you feel like getting roped into seeing in glorious and expansive IMAX as Joseph Kosinski is certainly a huge visual talent but he just hasn’t nailed down the storytelling aspect of filmmaking quite yet.

Marilyn Armstrong‘s insight:

There have been some pretty good sci fi movies recently. I’m grateful. It was a very long drought!

See on www.examiner.com

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Loving the Masked Man

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The “new” Lone Ranger is due out next summer. I have no plans to see it. It would desecrate the memory of my first love.

From my first early encounter with The Masked Man and his Faithful Companion, I was in love. There were times when it was unclear whether I loved the horse or his rider more. I think Silver had a slight edge, but I yearned for the both.

To satisfy my passion and because I grew up when wallpaper was something you glued to walls, I had Lone Ranger and Tonto in my bedroom. Life was not easy for me, but I had the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains all around me. It helped during the really dark times.

Other girls had Disney Princesses, but I had “Hi Yo Silver” and “The Lone Ranger” all around me. Although my walls did not play music, I could hum well enough and I had many a long chat with Lone and Tonto as I lay abed pondering the meaning of life and how I could convince mom to let me have a horse.

The original Lone Ranger and Tonto — Jay Silverheels and Clayton Moore

Growing up and out of my wallpaper did not end my allegiance to masked men on horseback.
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As the years rolled on, I became passionate about Zorro too. I can sing the Zorro song from the TV show. When the two Zorro movies starring Antonio Banderas came out, I adored them.
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Remakes don’t have to be awful, even though they usually are. There have been remakes that are better than the originals. I can name several off the top of my head and probably so can you. It’s not impossible but it requires studios to make an effort to produce quality films. They know how, they just don’t bother.
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My initial delight at learning Disney was making a new Lone Ranger movie switched to dread when I realized Johnny Depp was playing Tonto. We waited for the release of  trailer of the new “Lone Ranger” with foreboding. We were right to worry.
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We watched the trailer. Garry and I, wrapped in the silence of our individual thoughts, sat for a while. Finally, I turned to him and said:  ”Let’s wait till it comes to cable.”
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He thought for a minute. “Let’s just wait,” he answered.
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Violence and Slaughter in the Old West: Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday In Tombstone

The first movie I remember seeing with my mom was “Gunfight at OK Corral.” It was a busy day at the Utopia on Union Turnpike in Queens. It wasn’t a big theater, especially not in the days when movie theaters were palaces. There were hardly any seats left by the time we got there, having walked the mile and some from home. I had a non-driving mom who was also a subscriber to healthy outdoor exercise. We did a lot of walking, she with enthusiasm and verve and I because I didn’t have a choice.

Wyatt Earp at about age 33.

Wyatt Earp at 33. (Photo: Wikipedia)

We found a seat in the second row, from which vantage point Burt and Kirk had heads 20 feet high. It left an indelible mark on my mind. I became an O.K. Corral aficionado, catching each new version of the story as it was cranked out of Hollywood. When video taped movies became available, I caught up with all earlier versions, too.

I stayed with “Gunfight” as my favorite for a long time. Maybe I’m just fond of Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. Garry generally favored “My Darling Clementine” but he is a John Ford fan, so it figures. We have our preferences and they aren’t based on logic.

In 1993, along came “Tombstone.” One viewing and it was my favorite version of the gunfight story. A few more viewings and it morphed into my favorite western, though there are a goodly number of contenders for second place.

I don’t love it for its historical accuracy, though It is nominally more accurate than any other extant version of the story. As do all the Wyatt Earp – Doc Holliday stories, it omits as much, maybe more, than it includes. The Earps were wild and crazy guys.

English: John Henry "Doc" Holliday, ...

John Henry “Doc” Holliday (Photo: Wikipedia)

Doc Holliday was an even wilder, crazier guy. They were all lethal as Hell and no more honest then they needed to be … or less.

There were other Earp brothers who are consistently left out of the story, maybe because they didn’t go into the peacekeeping business. Dad, on the other hand, was a real piece of work and deserves a movie of his own. Although I tend to be prickly about historical details, even I do not watch westerns for historical accuracy.

First, I watch them because … I’m embarrassed to admit it … I love horses. I will watch anything with or about horses. You could probably just put on films of horses running around a field and I’d watch that too.

Next, I love westerns because they make it easy to distinguish good from bad. When I was growing up seeing Johnny Mack Brown B movies on old channel 13 in New York, I always knew the guys in black hats were villains and the ones in white hats were heroes. It appealed to my 8-year old need for moral simplicity. Many people never move beyond that … a discussion for a different day.

Most of all, westerns present my fantasies in Technicolor and surround sound. In the western movie world, revenge and righteous violence are terrific. Not merely acceptable, but desirable. In the Old West, when you find a bad guy, get out the six-shooter, shotgun, or both and mow’em down. Justice is meted out quickly and permanently with no guilt attached. You can be a wimp preaching peace and love in real life, but sit down in front of another viewing of “Tombstone,” watch Kurt, Val and the rest of the gang cut a swathe of blood and death across the southwest while you cheer them on.

“Tombstone” is deliciously violent. The gunfight at O.K. corral is merely the beginning. There’s a deeply satisfying amount of killing to follow. I revel in it. When Kurt Russell declares that he’s coming for them and Hell will follow … I am there. Yes, kill the bastards. It’s so cathartic! The only piece of armament I’ve ever owned is my Daisy Red Ryder BB gun and a 22 caliber target rifle, but I can pretend. And I’m a dead shot with the rifle and have slaughtered paper plates and other inanimate targets from New York to northern Maine. I have a rich and rewarding fantasy life.

Garry and I made a personal pilgrimage to Tombstone.

Sign on a door in Tombstone, AZ

I have argued with people who keep saying the movie was filmed on a sound stage. Unless the entire town of Tombstone was victim of a mass hallucination  — mass hallucinations are not nearly as common in real life as in Hollywood — and merely thought a movie company came, rebuilt the town to look like historical Tombstone, then filmed a movie … unless you subscribe to this fairly bizarre theory, “Tombstone” was filmed in Tombstone.

I have pictures of Tombstone. We bought tee shirts. It was the best part or at least, our favorite part, of a one long summer’s sojourn through Arizona. So, although there may have been some re-shooting on a set, the bulk of the film was shot in Tombstone. It was and remains the only thing of note to happen there in the past 100 years. Everyone talks about it. It was a big deal.

August was not the best time to visit, but our host still works a real job and it’s hard to find a good time to visit when he isn’t working. Regardless, the mercury climbed to 128 Fahrenheit and never dropped below 120 while the sun shined. Which, that time of year, it does relentlessly. I think that’s why they invented awnings over the wooden sidewalks.

It was painfully hot. Maybe that’s what the fighting was about. Who wouldn’t want to shoot people living in that heat with no air conditioning? It makes one very cranky. I’ll bet the heat got to them, so they tried to kill each other.  It makes almost as much sense as any other explanation.

We don’t watch movies for a dose of reality, or at least I don’t. I have plenty of reality. More than enough. I go to escape, to move from a reality I don’t care for to another world I like better. Westerns let me immerse myself in raw emotions that are unacceptable otherwise.

I love Tombstone.

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Guilty Pleasures

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No matter how sophisticated we may become, no matter how many degrees in film, literatures or the arts we may obtain, we retain our guilty pleasures — by which I mean those movies, books, and television shows that we know aren’t great art and sometimes, are downright stupid. It doesn’t matter. We love them anyway.

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I have a whole bushel of them, ranging from television shows about vampires with glowing eyes (Forever Knight), to reruns of the original Lassie. I’m a sucker for any movie featuring a non-human, be it cat, dog, horse, or sea creature. I’ll watch pretty much anything in which Candice Bergen starred or was at least featured. I’ll watch anything from any season of any Star Trek, even if I’ve seen it a hundred times.

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I love comedies by Mel Brooks, even the bad ones because they make me laugh. Ditto the Zucker brothers for the same reason. If you can make me laugh, you’ve got me. Sometimes, I watch things that are unintentionally funny … Xena, Princess Warrior comes to mind. I don’t know whether it was supposed to be funny, but it made me laugh until I cried.

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My lists of favorite movies, books and television shows are a study in contrasts. I love The Lion In Winter and The Seventh Seal. I love Airplane and Hotshots Deux. I never miss a run of Best Of Show or A Mighty Wind. Or the original version of The Haunting.  From the sublime to the ridiculous, I will watch or read whatever grabs my fancy or makes me laugh without discrimination.

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It’s one of the reasons I think that “awards” like the Golden Globes and the Oscars need many more categories. How can you put a screwball comedy against a serious drama and have any kind of sensible outcome? It would be like having a dog show that included camels and goats. It wouldn’t matter how beautiful a goat or camel you have entered, it would never win Best of show.

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I’d love to hear about your guilty pleasures? What makes you laugh? What cheers you up when you’ve got the blues? Are you a secret fan of Gilligan’s Island or Love Boat? Fess up! Time to come clean :-)

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Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr – Garry Armstrong

Marilyn and I are sitting in the living room, wrapped in our blankets coping with resurgent cold New England weather. We’re watching Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison. It’s a charming star turn for Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum and director John Huston.

“Mitch”, as TCM host Robert Osborne called him, was a much underrated actor.

heavenknowsTCreduced

Huston, according to Osborne, said of Mitchum “… He’s one of the finest actors I’ve ever worked with … of the caliber with Olivier, Burton and Brando”.

I met “Mitch” when he was shooting Friends of Eddie Coyle in Boston. I’d been warned not to bother him. He turned out to be a terrific guy. He gave me a great interview.

Then, we moved to a seedy bar — at Mitchum’s suggestion — for an afternoon of drinks and gossip. It was obvious he cared about acting, but ” a job was a job. It was okay as long as the film company’s check was good”. He wound up doing a memorable job as a less than heroic figure in Friends of Eddie Coyle.

If you haven’t seen it, you need to watch “Mitch” co-starring with Deborah Kerr, Cary Grant and Jean Simmons in The Grass Is Greener. Old heavy eye lids more than holds his own in this clever comedy

As for Deborah Kerr, I was, like most film mavens I knew, madly in love with her. She came to Boston to do a stage play. She was courteous to all the media, including one gushing friend who did the closing lines from Tea And Sympathy in her dressing room. She told the film crew to make sure they “got my good side”.

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It didn’t matter to me. I was transfixed. Now, back to Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison.


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Crap crap and more crap

I thought when they announced the remake of the Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp, Hollywood had hit bottom. Of course, I thought they’d bottomed out earlier —  Johnny Depp strikes again — in the horrible piece of trash version of Alice in Wonderland. It did surprisingly well at the box office despite getting awful reviews from critics and viewers alike.

Cover of "Alice in Wonderland"

I really hated Alice, but golly whiz, now they’ve brought out Oz the Great and Powerful which, it having gotten a couple of zero star reviews (I didn’t know you could get less than half a star), have they finally found the bottom?

Probably not. Not matter how bad it gets, it can get worse. Asking “How much worse could it be?” is perilous. Ask it and I guarantee the Universe will answer you with a demonstration.

I saw Alice at the movies. I was doing screen checks, so I was seeing lots of new movies. I got to see some great stuff, but I also got an up close look at how many dreadful movies Hollywood cranks out every year. Wow. All that money to make so many terrible films.

I loathed Alice in Wonderland with the passion I reserve for mutilated remakes. The thing I specifically hated above all else — other than the over the top CGI and Johnny Depp, who seems intent on reaching stratospheric levels of bad acting — was  the absence Lewis Caroll’s poetry. They talked endlessly about the Jabberwock and based half the movie on it, but never once recited the Lewis Caroll poem.

I love that poem and know it by heart. When I was a drama major (one of my many and varied majors), everyone was reciting Browning or Shakespeare. I was doing Lewis Caroll. Watching this movie, which treated the book and poetry with contempt, was heart breaking. Now, another of my all time favorite children’s movies, again dissed by Disney. Yuk. Ick. Ptooie. Feh feh feh.

LoneRangerWallpaperI refuse to see the “new” Lone Ranger. It’s due out next summer. I won’t see the new Oz, either, probably not even when it comes to cable. I’m not going to let them steal any more of my heroes or childhood memories. To put this in perspective, I grew up when wallpaper was something you glued to walls. It was not flickering on your computer screen. And I had Lone Ranger and Tonto wallpaper in my bedroom.

Where other girls had Disney Princesses, I had “Hi Yo Silver! The Lone Ranger Rides Again!” Although my walls did not play music, I could hum well enough and I had many a long chat with Lone and Tonto as I lay abed pondering the meaning of life and how I could convince mom to let me have a horse.

The original Lone Ranger and Tonto — Jay Silverheels and Clayton Moore

Growing up and out of my wallpaper did not end my allegiance to masked men on horseback.
As the years rolled on, I became quite passionate about Zorro too. I can sing the Zorro song from the TV show. When did Disney abandon children? They used to be the one place you could expect them to only partly maul your favorites books. Anyway, when the two Zorro movies starring Antonio Banderas came out, I adored them.
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Remakes don’t have to be trash. There have been remakes that are better than the originals. I can name several off the top of my head and probably so can you. It’s not impossible but it requires studios to make an effort to produce quality films. They know how, they just don’t do it.
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My initial delight at learning Disney was making a new Lone Ranger movie switched to dread when I realized Johnny Depp was playing Tonto. I remember with what deep foreboding we waited for the trailer of the new “Lone Ranger.” We were right to worry.
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We watched. Garry and I, wrapped in the silence of our individual thoughts, sat for a while. Finally, I turned to him and said:  ”Let’s wait till it comes to cable.”
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He thought for a minute. “Let’s just wait,” he answered.
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