THEY WERE BORN TO DANCE!

Broadway Melody of 1940, directed by Norman Taurog, written (if you can call it that) by Leon Gordon and George Oppenheimer, with help from nine other writers (including Preston Sturges). Starring Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell, weird George Murphy, and the always wonderful Mr. Matuschek, Frank Morgan.

What can you say about Broadway Melody of 1940? My first response is to wonder why there’s no “year” movies today–where’s the Glee-like Tap Dancing Teens of 2012? (Not that I would want to see that.) Instead of all these sequels, why not call ‘em Vampire Lovers of 2011? Trainwrecking Transformers of 2010?

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on November 30, 2011
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WORLD WITH AN END, AMEN

Melancholia, 2011. Directed and written by Lars von Trier. Starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alexander Skarsgård, John Hurt, Stellan  Skarsgård, Keifer Sutherland, and Udo Keir as a wedding planner from Hell. Aren’t they all?

Lars von Trier’s new film, Melancholia, concerns the end of the world. Not “the end of the world as we know it”, but the literal end of the world–a planet that some scientist has dubbed “Melancholia”, that has been “hiding behind the sun” (do not even attempt to wonder if any of the astronomy is legit) has bounced free and is swooping near earth. Will it crash into us?

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on November 23, 2011
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THIS WEEK’S BIRTHDAY: ROBERT RYAN

There he is, in Act of Violence, Joe Parkson, limping, gat in hand, desperate and obsessed with blowing away clean-living Frank Enley, maybe even taking Enley’s wife out in the process.

You can’t get that one out of your head, and then there’s Crossfire, and he’s Montgomery, the anti-Semite, a vile, vicious bully, who kills a man simply for being a Jew.

He was a womanizing projectionist with a mean streak in Clash by Night. The racist happy to beat a cripple in Bad Day at Black Rock, and the racist who’s just as eager to throw over his black accomplice in Odds Against Tomorrow. His men were cowardly, they were hateful, they were mean to kids, to women, to minorities.

But most of all, they seemed to hold a special loathing for themselves.

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on November 10, 2011
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THE NEUROTIC TIGER: IT’S GONNA TAKE A LONG TIME…

Tiger Stadium then (c. 1994)…

Eleven days ago, as I watched the Detroit Tigers throw away game six of the ALCS, and with it the American League pennant which once they flew, I couldn’t help but reflect on the strange irony of the Tigers’ success. So much had been made of the “return” of Detroit, of its startling comeback from desolation. From Chrysler 300 ads to NBC nightly news talking about how Detroiters are getting used to success (read: Lions and Tigers winning) the city, pundits claimed, was crawling up off the mat.

That should make me happy. But it doesn’t. It makes me confused and melancholy.

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on October 26, 2011
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ONLY THE TRUTH IS FUNNY*

Hail the Conquering Hero, 1944. Directed and written by Preston Sturges. Starring Eddie Bracken, William Demarest, Ella Raines, Franklin Pangborn, Georgia Caine, Raymond Walburn, and the “Tacoma Assassin”, boxer Freddie Steele, playing the mother-obsessed Marine…

Was there ever a comedy as deeply honest as Preston Sturges’ Hail the Conquering Hero? The question is rhetorical. For here is a tale made and released when World War II was still white-hot, that skewers military worship and even the idolization of mothers, for gosh sakes. That makes people look like fools while acknowledging the genuine goodwill that exists in all of us. A picture about a small town gone crazy, while at the same time celebrating the inherent cozy joy of those little towns. A movie that is at once totally hilarious, then sends you reeling with its heartfelt emotion. In Hail the Conquering Hero, people are idiots, and thank God for those people. Without them, where would we be?

I’ll say this: Hail the Conquering Hero is a movie that should be remade for every war. I’ll also say this: there’s not a filmmaker alive who could remake Hail the Conquering Hero. It’s just too damned honest.

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on October 25, 2011
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THE NEUROTIC TIGER: REALITY BITES

That’s it, the season’s over. The art of fiction is alive again. Invention has wrestled itself free from reality. And now the totally banal, the most obviously mundane, is all that is plausible. Imagination will be our only escape from crushing reality.

The Tigers lose. The Rangers win. The mojo is done.

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on October 17, 2011
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THE NEUROTIC TIGER: LIKE PEE WEE, TEXAS BOUND

Honestly, I don’t have a God damn thing to add to yesterday’s incredible, kind-of come-from-behind victory (they were down 1-0 early on) the Detroit Tigers managed to pull off in their last game in Michigan in the ALCS.

Except this: oh, fuck yes!

Yesterday’s game was weird, and fortunately or unfortunately, it confirmed something in my mind: the Texas Rangers are a better team. At least right now.

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on October 14, 2011
Posted in The Noble Sport: Baseball | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

THE NEUROTIC TIGER: SPIRIT OF THE DOUGHNUT MAN

Today I invoke the awesome power of one Mickey Lolich, the Detroit Tigers’ 1968 World Series MVP. The “hero to the fat man” (as he thought of himself), won three games in that series, which was a nail biter to the extreme. The Bengals of ’68 were down three games to one, and came from behind to win.

Like this ALCS against the Rangers, the Tigers had their backs to the wall and had to win three straight–only one at home, the next two on the road. The game five ball went to Lolich; game six to our ace, 30-game winner and Hammond organ maestro, Denny McLain; game seven again to Lolich.

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on October 13, 2011
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THE NEUROTIC TIGER: TIGER MY RIDE!

Today I invoke the spirit of the crazy 1970s, the decade when I was weaned on baseball, and when I first met the man who would be my stepdad, James Younger. And I celebrate my new favorite Tiger, southern California son-of-a-fireman, jogger, zen-master, Doug Wildes Fister, who saved the season for the mighty men of Detroit last evening.

Furthermore, though I have absolutely no evidence of this, I like to think that the man from Merced drives to work right down the center of Woodward Avenue, toward the mighty fist of Joe Louis, screeching left at the Fox Theater and into Harwell Stadium, blasting his tunes from behind the wheel of the sexy Tigermobile you see to your left. He smacks the horn and Tom Jones’ “What’s New Pussycat?” roars. If we’re lucky that motherfucker does the hydraulic thing in that beast, disrupting the Rangers’ BP before peeling away, leaving angry batting coaches eating his exhaust.

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on October 12, 2011
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THE NEUROTIC TIGER: THE MOJO REFOCUSED

Jim (left) and my Mom at their home in rurual Mt. Pleasant, Michigan.

Today I invoke the the energy and spirit of one of the biggest Tigers fans I know, my stepdad, Jim Younger, who is currently in the throes of battling a failing liver at a hospital in Midland, Michigan. Not for that energy to move the team from Detroit to victory, but so that this selfsame fan gets a needed home run of his own. So I fly now, home, to Tigers country, in the hopes that the doctors and nurses can figure out what the hell needs to be done to save his life.

And here I find myself hoping that he’s coherent enough to watch tonight’s game, no doubt another nailbiter, as the Bengals’ ace, Justin Verlander, tries to stop the offensive combine known as the Texas Rangers.

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on October 8, 2011
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