perfect/imperfect

Belatedly, but gratefully, I come to Disney/Pixar's remarkable "Toy Story 3," arguably one of the most original prison-escape movies ever made. The prison in question is the jarring day-care center where Andy's toys - including sassy cowgirl Jessie (that's her above) - are sent because Andy is grown and soon off college and his toys have become, well, obsolete.

The head toy there is an embittered old stuffed bear who sadistically puts the new arrivals in the line of fire of a bunch of stampeding brats.

Smoothly directed by Lee Unkrich, it's all alternately affecting, hilarious and heartbreaking, and among the new editions to its cast is a Ken doll who is worthy of/sleazy enough for a spot on ABC's "The Bachelor."
Lisa Cholodenko's "The Kids Are All Right" is a bright alt sitcom that benefits considerably from another thorough performance from Annette Bening and a playful one from Julianne Moore, the two (that's them above) playing lesbian partners/mothers whose world is turned upside down by the arrival their respective kids' same sperm-donor dad.

The only problem with the film is not Mark Ruffalo's usual non-actor performance, but a conventional twist in the narrative which has Ruffalo bedding Moore and Bening discovering the betrayal in a way that would be dated even on a daytime soap opera. I'm not spoiling anything here; Cholodenko sets up Moore's interest in hetero sex early on by having the two women use gay male porno films to jumpstart their own sex lives. It's an unfortunate tonal shift that mars an otherwise smart comedy.

cinema obscura: Lewis R. Foster's "Those Redheads from Seattle" (1953)

Came across an obit singer Teresa Brewer, who died at age 76 in 2007, and it brought back vague memories of her single excursion into film.

Poster art for "Those Redheads from Seattle"

Paramount's lively "Those Redheads from Seattle," directed in 1953 by Lewis R. Foster, was yet another overripe musical designed to exploit the 3-D craze, much less cheesy than two other 3-D musicals, George Marshall's "Red Garters" and Lloyd Bacon's "The French Line," both from 1954.

Brewer shares the title role with Rhonda Fleming and sister duo, Cynthia and Kay Bell, as members of a singing-sister act, The Edmunds, performing in saloons in the Yukon during the Gold Rush days of 1898 - and hoping to strike their own fortune. The inimitable Agnes Moorehead plays their mother.

Teresa Brewer with Guy Mitchell in a musical number

The plot, such as it is, involves Fleming's suspicion that the act's boss - a saloon owner played by Gene Barry (with the untrustworhty name, Johnny Kisco) - may be the very no-account who murdered the girls' beloved father.

Brewer's endearing, outsized perkiness - she was dubbed "the little girl with the big voice" at the time - made her a screen natural. The camera loved her. And, for what it's worth, she steals the movie - or what little there is to steal.

But nothing came of her film debut. The problem may be that she didn't have musical numbers here as infectious as her signature songs, "Music, Music, Music" and "Ricochet Romance." Too bad. Because if Doris Day hadn't been available (and as wonderful as she was), Brewer would have made a terrific Babe Williams in "The Pajama Game."

Another missed opportunity.

Note in Passing: Co-incidentally, Guy Mitchell, a young musical leading man of the era, had roles in both "Redheads" and "Red Garters."

Brewer above and in a publicity shot with Agnes Moorehead and Rhonda Fleming and The Bell Sisters

nolan's brilliant crackpot of a movie

Some movies have a little subtext. Christopher Nolan's challenging and quite bracing new film, "Inception," is all subtext. Gloriously so.

Structured as a state-of-the-art noir,"Inception" has something to do with a small band of intellectual adventurers who invade - and often share - the dreams of clients with lofty problems that need to be solved.

They are provocateurs who suggest ideas to their clients, manipulating their thought and dream patterns, and particularly astute viewers might sense that Nolan is using dream manipulation here as an allegory for filmmaking itself and that his chief protagonist is an auteur of sorts.

Arcane wordplay is used to explain everything and simply listening to it can lull one into a seductive dreamworld that is not unlike a movie.

And that is not at all unpleasurable.

A commanding Leonardo DiCaprio, Nolan's on-screen surrogate, is physically even a dead-ringer for Nolan here as he leads a world-class supporting cast through an intimidating maze of rushing action and melancholy moods. The latter is driven by DiCaprio's relentless pursuit of his late wife (the magnetic Marion Cotillard) in a dreamworld that he would like to share with her but, for apparent reasons, can't.

Their "relationship" is the core of "Inception" and it's clear that Nolan shrewdly used Alfred Hitchcock's woozy, iconic "Veritgo" (1958) - the last word in a man hopelessly stalking a woman - as his template.

This most audacious film tackles remarkably serious matters - loss and the fear and sense of exclusion that come with it - and, in the end, despite its willfully confusing vision, "Inception" is astonishingly simple.

It is that rare modern movie that has a moral conscience.

when men were men

Mary Badham (above) and Phillip Alford (below) both looked up to Gregory Peck in Mulligan's "To Kill a Mockingbird." So did the audience in those days.

Growing up, I paid scant attention to Gregory Peck. He wasn't my favorite movie star. I thought him too stiff and reserved, emotionally distant. What can I say? I was young and stupid.

But these days, when I look at what Hollywood passes off as men, Peck looks and sounds pretty good. Watching one of his films now, I see a genuine grown up - a fully formed, mature man. You don't see much of that on screen anymore, not even in the work of an elder statesman like Jack Nicholson.

It made me wonder - why aren't there any actors who want to be like Gregory Peck, who want to be "the next Gregory Peck" or who remind us, even slightly, of Gregory Peck? A few years ago, I read an article in which contemporary actors were asked what actors from the past they appreciated the most and hoped to emulate and the name invoked the most was Steve McQueen, a fine, commanding actor who shrewdly couched a certain immaturity into his performances. It was novel and appealing when the person in question was Steve McQueen, less so when it's (well, fill in the space with a young actor, almost any young actor, today).

Cary Grant, of course, is also a big reference point for most of today's actors. George Clooney is "the new Cary Grant," don't cha know.

But no one ever calls forth the name of Gregory Peck.

Tom Cruise is currently 48, although he seems like an eternal boy. Peck was actually three years younger than Cruise when he played his most defining character - Atticus Finch in Robert Mulligan's film of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" in 1961. (The film was released in 1962.)

No one would ever mistake Atticus Finch for a boy.

And I, for one, have given up on the idea of Cruise ever playing a character even remotely like Finch, even remotely mature.

By the way, Peck is currently being honored by Turner Classic Movies as its Star of the Month, via 26 titles. Tune in and see what it means to be a man, to be a grown up. Then go see Cruise in "Knight and Day."

Note in Passing: As another point of reference, Clark Gable was 37 - 11 years younger than Cruise - when he appeared in "Gone with the Wind."

"cyrus" - there's more there

Hill, Tomei and Reilly gamely participate in a study of dubious relationships in the Duplass's "Cyrus.

I've an elusive thought: Am I the only one to notice that John C. Reilly's relationship with his ex-wife in Jay and Mark Duplass's "Cyrus" is every bit as unhealthy as Jonah Hill's with his mother? That parallel seems to be the point of an otherwise pointless, albeit engaging, film but it's been addressed by no critics to the best of my knowledge. It's also interesting that Reilly's so-called hero consistently, and rather selfishly, intrudes upon and interrupts two relationships here - Catherine Keener's with her fiancé and Marisa Tomei's with her son. He's an interloper and a third wheel in both cases - a narcissist deceptively disguised in sheep's clothing.

the movie year. 2010. so far...

Polanski's atmospheric "The Ghost Writer," tops the movie year 2010 - 1 January through 30 June

THE FILMS

Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer"

Raymond De Felitta's "City Island"

Alain Resnais' "Wild Grass"/"Les herbes folles"

Nicole Holofcener's "Please Give"

Julian Jarrold, James Marsh and Anand Tucker's "Red Riding Trilogy"

Brian Koppelman & David Levien's "Solitary Man"

Lee Unkrich's "Toy Story 3"

Derrick Borte's "The Joneses"

Rodrigo García's "Mother and Child"

Floria Sigismondi's "The Runaways"

Noah Baumbach's "Greenberg"

Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island"

Lisa Cholodenko's "The Kids Are All Right"

Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg's "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work"

THE PERFORMANCES

Pierce Brosnan & Olivia Williams/"The Ghost Writer"

Annette Bening/"Mother and Child" & "The Kids Are All Right"

Julianne Moore/"The Kids Are All Right"

Michael Douglas/"Solitary Man"

Colin Farrell/"Ondine"

Joan Rivers/"Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work"

Leonardo DiCaprio/"Shutter Island"

Andy Garcia, Emily Moritmer & Julianna Margulies/"City Island"

Greta Gerwig/"Greenberg"

Jonah Hill and Marisa Tomei/"Cyrus"

Vanessa Redgrave/"Letters to Juliet"

André Dussollier/"Wild Grass"("Les herbes folles")

Catherine Keener, Amanda Peet & Rebecca Hall/"Please Give"

Dakota Fanning & Kristen Stewart/"The Runaways"

Michael Shannon/"The Runaways"