Gary Cahall
Trapped in a world he never made...Movies Unlimited...since 1982, Gary's knack for mocking customers' tastes in films quickly moved him from the rental counter to the catalog department, where he still serves as co-writer/editor, playing by his own rules in a deadly game of cat and mouse. A lifelong fan of Alfred Hitchcock, the Marx Brothers and Three Stooges, Universal and Hammer horror films, and all things dinosaur- and superhero-related, his 2001 bantering with Regis Philbin pops up now and again on GSN. Gary's not ashamed to admit he cried at the end of Kevin Costner's The Postman, after realizing he had just wasted three hours of his life.
Gary's Posts
Gary Cahall | Staff Notes
"They just don't make movies like they used to." That's the sort of line you'll likely hear from older filmgoers who yearn for the days of Saturday matinee twin bills at the local picture house and wouldn't be caught dead at a 24-screen megaplex to view one of today's $200 million-plus, effects-laden behemoths...and certainly wouldn't pay $10 or more to be exposed to the preponderance of sex, curse words and bad behavior in such contemporary Hollywood musicals as 8 Mile and Burlesque. "Why," these longtime movie fans ask, "can't they make wholesome, old-fashioned stories for the whole family like they did back in the day, with good songs that everyone can enjoy and not rap noise like (as one ex-U.S. senator called them) the Enema Man and Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dog?"
I like to think of myself as a still-relatively young and hip cinephile (I'm not, but that's how I like to think of myself), and the musical genre was never one that I spent a lot of time watching, so I set out to view a cross-sampling of vintage Tinseltown toe-tappers and see just what the post-MTV generations have been missing. And what did I find? How about shockingly racist stereotyping, non-stop profanity, sado-masochism, abduction and implied "coerced intimacy," near-pedophilia, white slavery and Satanic worship? If you don't believe me, just check out the following examples:
Gary Cahall | Re: Animation
Last week, MovieFanFare introduced a poll asking people to vote for their "favortie classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon series." Now, the distinction between "classic" and "modern" can be a tricky one--after all, to those readers 40 and under shows like SuperFriends, Hong Kong Phooey and The Smurfs are old enough to be considered "classic"--but this does show the devotion that each generation has to its Saturday morning TV memories.
Movie buffs know what a godsend the Warner Archive and similar "video-on-demand" services have been to the discerning collector, but there have also been quite a few releases targeting cartoon fans of the 1960s, '70s and '80s. While the "regular" part of the company is busy trumpeting the debut of such deathless animation fare as Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, the CGI/live-action Yogi Bear abomination (yeah, I'm picking on it again). and whatever Pokemon series they're up to these days, the good folks of the Archive division have been busy the last couple of years putting out complete series collections and specials, mostly from the Hanna-Barbera vaults. Some may not have held up with the passage of time--assuming they ever did--but here's a sampling:
Gary Cahall | Staff Notes
For those of us, born at the tail end of the Baby Boom, who knew Fred MacMurray solely as the dad in live-action Disney comedies and My Three Sons, it invariably came as a surprise when we would see him in serious or downright unsympathetic roles in such movies as The Caine Mutiny and The Apartment. From the late 1930s through the '50s, though, MacMurray was one of Hollywood's most popular and versatile leading men. This was perhaps best demonstrated in 1944-45, when the actor headlined no fewer than eight films. Among them were director Billy Wilder's classic noir thriller Double Indemnity; a pair of romantic comedies with frequent co-stars Claudette Colbert (Practically Yours) and Paulette Goddard (Standing Room Only); the time-travelling musical Where Do We Go from Here?; and the biodrama Captain Eddie, in which he played WWI flying hero Eddie Rickenbacker. Along the way, Fred also managed to star in a marvelously goofy and unjustly overlooked slapstick dark comedy of mistaken identities, homicidal hillbillies, a glow-in-the-dark grandmother, an escaped female convict, a hidden fortune...and an NPR theme song?
Gary Cahall | Staff Notes
Quick, now: What planet in our solar system has had the most movies made about it? Okay, obviously the answer is Earth. Coming in a distant second--but still considerably ahead of the other six (sorry, Pluto, you don't count anymore)--is our cosmic neighbor, Mars. Beginning with the 1910 fantasy A Trip to Mars from Thomas Edison's studio, the red planet has been featured in various ways in nearly 200 feature films and short subjects. It's been visited by everyone from Buster Crabbe (Mars Attacks the World) and Lloyd Bridges (Rocketship X-M) to Tim Robbins (Mission to Mars) and Pam Grier (Ghosts of Mars), and by such cartoon characters as Koko the Clown, Popeye, Woody Woodpecker and Bugs Bunny. Meanwhile, a galaxy of actors--among them Leonard Nimoy (Zombies of the Stratosphere), Hazel Court (Devil Girl from Mars), Tommy Kirk (Mars Needs Women) and Christopher Lloyd (replacing TV's Ray Walston in My Favorite Martian)--has played Martians who come to Earth for reasons peaceful or sinister. With this week's release of Disney's CGI sci-fi/comedy Mars Needs Moms, it seemed like a good time to look at my choices for the five best, five worst and five oddest cinematic depictions of life on and off Mars.
Gary Cahall | Scene Stealers
First and foremost, they were people who wanted to act and entertain, part of the countless men and women who came to Hollywood in the first half of the 20th century dreaming of work and a chance at movie stardom. But for African-American performers, the racial divides of the time meant that, more often than not, they would be relegated to minor and often demeaning roles: maids, janitors, railway porters, and the like. Some artists could occasionally break away from these stigmatized portrayals (Paul Robeson, Lena Horne) or endure them long enough to garner popularity and critical acclaim (Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Oscar-winner Hattie McDaniel), but within the studio system there was little hope for anything more meaningful. One such actor who made a living walking the line between stereotypical Hollywood roles and working in independent, all-black "race films," and whose talents were rediscovered years after his passing, was fast-talking funnyman Mantan Moreland.
Gary Cahall | Academy Spotlight, Staff Notes
"It's an honor just to be nominated." This is the sort of modest, self-effacing statement that Academy Award nominees will often make to assure the public, the media and perhaps even themselves that they're not desperately, fervently hoping to take home one of the little golden men. In point of fact, one could almost make the case that it's an honor never to be nominated, particularly when you consider the legendary actors and actresses, past and present, who fit that description. After all, what can you say about a movie acting award where Carol Channing has more nominations than John Barrymore, Steve Buscemi, Mia Farrow, Errol Flynn, Richard Gere, Jean Harlow, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Myrna Loy, Marilyn Monroe, Kim Novak, Maureen O'Hara, Gary Oldman, Tyrone Power, Dennis Quaid, Edward G. Robinson, and Donald Sutherland...COMBINED?
Gary Cahall | Academy Spotlight, Staff Notes
There's about a fortnight or so to go until the pinnacle of Hollywood's seemingly unending self-congratulatory season, the Academy Awards, takes place. And, according to many film critics and Las Vegas odds makers who actually do take bets on this sort of thing, the quest for the Best Picture statue would appear to be a two-movie toss-down between The King's Speech and The Social Network, with Black Swan, Inception and True Grit further behind. Everyone trying to handicap the Oscar races has their own thoughts as to why one movie may win out over another: artistic aspirations, social significance, "feel good" themes, the size of the buffet table at studio screenings, and so forth. Well, I'm no different, and I'd like to present my own very simple theory on the subject; Simply put, The King's Speech will take top honors due to its English setting.
Gary Cahall | Staff Notes
"Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" That's what I said said to myself last week when my January article A Hundred (Minus One) Great Film Quotes Not in the 2011 Movies Unlimited Catalog took over the top spot as Movie FanFare's most commented-on post (I later found out Ma really wasn't all that impressed). I'm grateful to all the movie buffs out there who shared their own favorites lines of Hollywood dialogue, from the ridiculous to the sublime.
With all these cinematic witticisms and bonmots whizzing around in cyberspace, though, it got me to thinking about another type of film quote that's also out there...the kind that a friend or acquaintance shares with you, and you know it's just wrong, and now you're faced with the dilemma of letting it slide or calling them on it and making them look like they don't know what they're talking about. Maybe just a word is wrong or out of place, or maybe a phrase has been concocted out of whole cloth, but the following examples should demonstrate that, when it comes to movie trivia, a little common knowledge is a dangerous thing...and yes, I know I'm paraphrasing that line.
Gary Cahall | Staff Notes
"I never said all actors are cattle. What I said was all actors should be treated like cattle." - Alfred Hitchcock
Movie buffs, let us take a moment to consider the cow: humble, placid barnyard resident; source of milk, steak and White Castle hamburgers; glue endorser and grammatically challenged fast food spokes-animal; beloved Gary Larson cartoon subject; and frequent cinematic prop. Hitchcock may have wanted to treat actors like cattle, but would he have known how to handle actors who really were cattle? Even though few, if any, of their kind got the opportunity to work with Hitch, cows--not to mention bulls, calves and oxen--have had a rich and varied Hollywood career, and I'd like to look back here on some of their most memorable big screen moo-ments.
Gary Cahall | Staff Notes
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." "Here's looking at you, kid." "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse." "Schwing!" Where would Hollywood and its fans be without these and other timeless quotations? Well, back in the days of silent pictures, I guess (of course, even back then there were some notable phrases to be read on the title cards). Here's another one; "It's long been said that motion pictures are a visual medium, but true movie lovers know that there's nothing like a memorable line of dialogue." That quote comes from Movies Unlimited founder and president Jerry Frebowitz, by way of his introductory letter to the 2011 edition of the company's DVD catalog (seen on the left and available here), which pays tribute on its cover and throughout its 800-plus pages to some of the best-loved film lines from the last eight decades or so.
Gary Cahall | Staff Notes
Confession time; I was originally planning to write a review of the new Green Hornet movie, starring Seth Rogen as the verdant-masked crimefighter and Taiwanese actor/pop singer Jay Chou as his aide, martial arts expert Kato, here. And since I had already convinced myself I wasn't going to like it, I had the oh-so-clever headline "Seth, Where Is Thy Sting?" ready to go. As it turns out, the film was pretty much as bad as I had anticipated. Rogen's performance is just too goofy to be taken seriously as an action hero; the tongue-in-cheek tone meant to emulate Robert Downey, Jr.'s Iron Man turn doesn't work; and how good can a Green Hornet movie be when the soundtrack features Digital Underground's "The Humpty Dance" and Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" more prominently than it does the 1966 TV series theme by Billy May and Al Hirt? However, at least two publications beat me to the punch with the aforementioned witty headline, and the film's $34 million opening weekend box office shows that anything I might say at this point would be superfluous. What I can do, though, is offer neophytes and those too young to recall the Hornet's heyday as a radio, comic book, movie and TV star a little bit of background.
"They just don't make movies like they used to." That's the sort of line you'll likely hear from older filmgoers who yearn for the days of Saturday matinee twin bills at the local picture house and wouldn't be caught dead at a 24-screen megaplex to view one of today's $200 million-plus, effects-laden behemoths...and certainly wouldn't pay $10 or more to be exposed to the preponderance of sex, curse words and bad behavior in such contemporary Hollywood musicals as 8 Mile and Burlesque. "Why," these longtime movie fans ask, "can't they make wholesome, old-fashioned stories for the whole family like they did back in the day, with good songs that everyone can enjoy and not rap noise like (as one ex-U.S. senator called them) the Enema Man and Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dog?"
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