façade: Pierce Brosnan

"Pierce Brosnan gives the strongest performance of his rather lazy career."

 Huh?

So wrote The New Yorker's David Denby in the strongest review of his rather lazy career. (I'm joking!) Speaking from experience, when a person spends 20, 30 years reviewing movies, he/she is apt to run out of things to say and write something inane, usually in haste ("deadline" being the most convenient excuse for the lapse).

The aforementioned quote is from Denby's 8 March review of Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer," in which Brosnan indeed gives his strongest performance to date. That's not my quarrel. My problem is with the critic's rather facile use of the word "lazy." Brosnan may have made some dubious career decisions, as most actors are apt to do during lengthy careers, but that's different from a "lazy career." I think Denby simply selected the wrong adjective. Hastily.

As far as I'm concerned, Brosnan is in his prime and "The Ghost Writer," in which he indulges in a fascinating cat-and-mouse duet with Ewan McGregor (that's them together in the photo at the very top of this post), shows the actor in complete, effortless command of his craft.

Actually, Brosnan's post-007 career has been varied and impressive but then, even during the years he played James Bond, he managed to juggle things so that his resume would include such worthy films as John Borman's excellent "The Tailor of Panama," Bruce Beresford's "Evelyn," Richard Attenborough's "Grey Owl" and John McTiernan's "The Thomas Crown Affair" which, arguably, is better than Norman Jewison's original.

But it's what Brosnan has been doing in recent years that have made him so hugely watchable. He sparred aimably with Julianne Moore in Peter Howitt's "Laws of Attraction," a take on the Hepburn-Tracy flicks; he was paired with Salma Hayek and Woody Harrelson in Brett Ratner's "After the Sunset"; he was sensational as the oddball hitman hanging out with Greg Kinnear and Hope Davis in Richard Shepard's "The Matador" (great performance); he hooked up with with countryman Liam Neeson is David Von Ancken's "Seraphim Falls"; he teamed with Maria Bello and Gerard Butler in Mike Barker's curiously little-seen "Butterfly on a Wheel" (aka, "Shattered), and he, Patricia Clarkson, Chris Cooper and Rachel McAdams examined "Married Life" in Ira Sachs' dark comedy.

And, of course, there was Brosnan's game, playful turn as one of Meryl Streep's former lovers in Phyllida Lloyd's film of "Mamma Mia!," in which he demonstrated a raspy, lived-in singing voice that reminded me of an old rocker. Very appealing (but then I have a weakness for non-singers).

But, yes, "The Ghost Writer" is the film that puts him on another level altogther, and currently surrounding it are roles in no fewer than three titles - Chris Columbus's "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief," Allen Coulter's "Remember Me" and Shana Feste's "The Greatest."

And that's not all. Coming up are George Ratliff's "Salvation Boulevard" with Jennifer Connelly, Marisa Tomei, Ed Harris, Rebecca Hall and Brosnan's "Matador" co-star, Greg Kinnear, and Brian Levant's "Vanilla Gorilla" which reportedly is actually about a gorilla. Whew. Lazy?

I think not.

cinema obscura: Ossie Davis' "Black Girl" (1972)

In 1966, the great Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene made his first feature-length film, "La Noire de..." - better known in America as "Black Girl" - a powerful social drama about a young African girl demoralized and driven to thoughts of suicide when her job as a maid for a French family relegates her to slave status.

You can't say enough about this film. It's become more precious since Sembene died last June.

But there was another "Black Girl," one almost as good. Based on the searing play by J.E. Franklin and directed by actor Ossie Davis (his third), this "Black Girl" is a terrificly acted family drama achored by the bravura turns of the wonderful Louise Stubbs, the legendary Claudia MacNeil and Ruby Dee, and the always-underrated Leslie Uggams. The virutally all-female cast gets a potent shot of testosterone in the form of the imposing, towering Brock Peters.

Franklin's material is touchy stuff, dealing with a racial self-hatred that materializes during the ugly tug-of-war over a young woman's affections and her future. The debuting Peggy Pettit, plays Billie Jean, a teenager whose desire to be a dancer are misunderstood and unappreciated by her family - a clueless mother (Stubbs) and two angry older sisters (Gloria Edwards and Loretta Green, both excellent).

There's a fourth sister, Netta (Uggams), who is adopted, light-skinned and educated - three qualities that make her a pariah and an outsider in this family. Netta's encouragement of Billie Jean's ambitions strips everyone naked as the major characters claw into each other and generally numb Billie Jean. McNeil plays the family matriach, the grandmother; Dee is Uggams' mother, and Peters plays the father of Billie Jean and her two spiteful sisters.

Considering its cast of major African-American players, it's a mystery that "Black Girl" has been lost for more than 30 years now. Has it ever been telecast? It certainly isn't available on home entertainment and never has been.

Lear's "All That Glitters" (1977) - and other forgotten gems

Lois Nettleton and Robert DoQui in an episode from Norman Lear's 1977 ensemble comedy, "All That Glitters" (a still signed by Nettleton)

For no good valid reason, other than I want to, I'm going to take a break from my usual obsession with forgotten films and briefly venture into the more rarified area of forgotten television. Actually, this is a subject that Stephen Bowie covers with some expertise on his remarkable site, The Classic TV History Blog: Dispatches From the Vast Wasteland.

Every once in a while, when I least expect it, my mind drifts towards lost '60s sitcoms from my distant youth:

Ezra Stone's "The Hathaways" (1961-62), in which the inimitable team of Peggy Cass and Jack Weston plays parents to a family of chimps; Gary Nelson's "Occasional Wife" (1966-67), in which Michael Callan makes like Jack Lemmon as a careerist who enlists Patricia Harty to pretend to be his wife to help him in his job, and David Swift's "Camp Runamuck" (1965-66), a minor classic about deranged camp counselors, among them comics Dave Ketchum and Dave Madden - and Nina Wayne as Caprice Yodelman. Isn't it remarkable the things that one remembers?

Then there's Norman Lear's short-lived attempt to tranpose Lanford Wilson's raunchy, eclectic play about lowlifes, "Hot L Baltimore" (1975), to the small screen, with a dream cast that included James (then Jamie) Cromwell, Conchata Ferrell (from the play) and Richard Mazur.

But the title that I miss the most is Lear's trailblazing 1977 series, "All That Glitters," an inventive gender-bender that, not surprisingly, lasted only one season. Lear may be better known for "All in the Family," "Maude" and the surreal soap, "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," but "All That Glitters" is arguably his best, despite its status as a nonentity these days. It ran for one season ... in a late-night slot ... in syndication.

The premise was simple. The sex roles were reversed, with women behaving like dominant alpha males, running companies and the world (and having casual affairs because they earned them and because, well, they can), and the men staying home and knowing their place. Playing on the edge, the show introduced Linda Gray (who, of course, would go on to do "Dallas") as a transsexual - a woman who was once a man.

The series' two house directors were Herbert Kenwith, a sitcom specialist of the era ("Good Times" and "Diff'rent Strokes"), and James Frawley, who had directed such eccentric titles as "The Christian Licorice Store," "Kid Blue," "The Big Bus" and "The Muppet Movie."

In addition to Gray, Lear's game, delicious cast included Barbara Baxley, Eileen Brennan, Lois Nettleton, Jessica Walter, Anita Gillette and Louise Shafer as the women, and a hilarious Chuck McCann, David Haskell, Tim Thomerson, Gary Sandy and Greg Evigan as the guys. Absolutely golden.

That's why it glittered.

rothman's non-event

Against my better judgment, I watched the Fox Movie Channel's Fox Legacy showcase of the 1960 Walter Lang film, "Can-Can," based on the Cole Porter stage musical, which aired twice on Friday, 19 March.

"Can-Can," whose real auteur was star Frank Sinatra, is a fairly awful film, covered here at length on Thursday, 31 December, 2009.

But I had my reasons for tuning in.
Fox Legacy is a periodic feature on FMC, hosted by Tom Rothman, Chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment, who introduces "landmark 20th Century Fox films and provides insight about how these notable films were created."

It's news to me that "Can-Can" is a "landmark" film. Still, the film - which runs a scant 131 minutes - was given a three-hour time slot (with no commercial breaks) and, against all odds, I was hoping that Rothman might screen the long-lost "I Love Paris" number as bonus feature.

About the only thing that fascinates me about "Can-Can" is that, back in '60, someone made the inexplicable decision to delete the "I Love Paris" duet by Sinatra and Maurice Chevalier. I mean, it's the show's most notable song and it was sung by two icons. (The conspiracy theorist in me always had a hunch that, for some bizarre reason, Sinatra himself was the force behind the decision to delete the classic number.)

Furthermore, in the five decades since the film's release, the song has never surfaced anywhere, not even on the two-disc DVD of the film released two years ago. Still, I watched. Foolish, I know.

Well, Rothman aired the same lame film that's been around for 50 years now, plus lots of behind-the-scenes shots of Krushchev's visit to the set, home-movie footage that went on forever. Plus, there were clips of the movie's Hollywood premiere and a curious interview with Shirley MacLaine, curious because of MacLaine's conspicuous absence on the DVD. There's no commentary from her.

Not surprisingly, MacLaine was like a broken record, using her appearance with Rothman as, yes, yet another attempt to diss Debra Winger, "attempt" being the operative word. When she started to talk about the "chaos" on "Terms of Endearment," Rothman quickly stepped in and said, "Well, we don't have to get into that" (or something to that effect). Anyway, no "I Love Paris."

I'm a little confused. I realize that the familiar Krushchev stuff has historic value but why would Fox save all that footage but not a duet of a great Cole Porter number sung by Sinatra and Chevalier? I don't get it.

Of course, it's rather ironic that Rothman would be hosting a show celebrating 20th Century-Fox's "landmark" films, given that his studio’s classics-on-dvd department has been shut down on his watch.

Don't these people appreciate the value of their own property and can't they manage to once, just once, behave responsibly with it?

BTW, the Fox Legacy presentation of "Can-Can" will be rebroadcast at 8 p.m. on Sunday, 28 March.

cinema obscura: Hillary Brougher's "Stephanie Daley" (2006) surfaces! (under an alias)

I'm not exactly sure "Stephanie Daley" qualifies as Cinema Obscura, at least not directly, but this curious little film acutely defines why the Independent Filmmaking Scene, onces so vital and promising, has become every bit as demoralizing as the studio assembly lines.

First, an admission: I haven't seen it. I wanted to. My appetite was certainly whetted by the bits and pieces of information about it that managed to creep out of the overcrowded film-festival ghetto.

Of the three hundred or so titles that routinely play Sundance and Toronto (and are there really that many festival-worthy films?), this is one of the few of the past few years that attracted my attention, largely because of the muted excitement over the performances of its female stars.

Although "Stephanie Daley" has surfaced on DVD, its theatrical life was aborted. It didn't play in the Philadelphia area, which is where I live. Seeing it would have meant going to New York and going there within the cramped one-week period which it played. It also played in Los Angeles and probably in San Francisco and maybe Boston. But I figure that if the film couldn't make it to Philly, it really didn't get very far. (The movie recently had a one-day revival on 5 March at New York's 92Y Tribeca.)

And, frankly, finding a local store that stocks esoteric DVD titles only exacerbates the problem of geeting to see such movies. It ain't easy.

Apparently, both Amber Tamblyn, a major young star still waiting to happen, and the always reliable Tilda Swinton turned in award-worthy performances but let's face it: When a film with a good or great performance is barely released, it's like acting in a vacuum.

Tamblyn's "Stephanie Daley" is the kind of film whose most potent performances are seen only in private screening rooms or in the rarefied, often surreal, very solipsistic world of film festivals.

Directed by Hillary Brougher, "Stephanie Daley" sounds like a tough piece, with Tamblyn as a 16-year old who hid her pregnancy, lost her baby and is accused of murdering it. The initmitably creepy Swinton, always an acting powerhouse, plays the pregnant officer investigating the situation and apparently not in an entirely detached way.

The New Yorker's Richard Brody offered an enticing tumbnail analysis of the film when it played New York back in April of 2007.

Sounds like my kind of movie. Maybe I'll find it. Someday. Somewhere.

Wait! Brougher's film will show up on the Lifetime cable channel at 5 p.m. on 27 March but with a new title - "What She Knew." Hopefully, the 92-minute film will be shown intact, but it's unlikely. Ah, well...