By “Cinema” Dave

http://cinemadave.livejournal.com

Relief. The campaign season is over and we can start to think seriously about the upcoming public holidays — Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. For many, it is a time of renewal and a time to reconnect with family and friends. For seasoned citizens, it is a time to confront the challenges of aging, and the collateral repercussions.

Opening this weekend, What they Had is family drama that looks at this subject. There is already Oscar buzz for the performances given by Hilary Swank, Michael Shannon, Robert Forster and Blythe Danner. Danner portrays the matriarch suffering from dementia. When she goes for a midnight walk in a Chicago Blizzard, the son and daughter (Shannon and Swank, respectively) begin to doubt their father’s (Foster’s) competency to care for their mother. The drama will be real and painful, but expect the tender mercy of humor in family discord.

While Halloween created box office records for an October movie release, revenue dropped dramatically on Nov. 1, losing to Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. Despite mediocre reviews, save for Rami Malek’s performance as Freddy Mercury, Bohemian Rhapsody was last week’s box office champion. While the biopic follows the Hollywood formula, it is the Rock ‘n Roll sequences that merit seeing this film on the big screen.

Despite the cold and flu bug that has intruded upon The 33rd Annual Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival (FLIFF), the event is going smoothly with successful screenings at the Seminole Hard Rock, Savor Cinema and Cinema Paradiso-Hollywood. Philanthropist Steve Savor received the Marti Huizenga Humanitarian Award, a distinguished honor. Along with her husband Wayne, Marti Huizenga founded FLIFF in the late 1980s from the Las Olas Boulevard headquarters of Blockbuster video. A friendly face at the concession counter, Tina La Boeuf, was named Employee of the Year and received her plaque. For those who earn a plaque from FLIFF, the inscription alone is worth the honor.

This Veterans Day weekend, the fun continues with screenings and the events at Cinema Paradiso-Hollywood, Savor Cinema and NSU Art Museum in downtown Ft. Lauderdale. Viewings are free for those with museum membership for the screenings beginning Tuesday, Nov. 13. On Thursday Nov. 15, the museum will host The Art & Times of Frosty Myers at 7:30 p.m. This also is an opportunity to check out the Glackens and Renoir exhibit that opened last month.

For many years, FLIFF would celebrate the Ft. Lauderdale canals [Intracoastal] as America’s Venice with a morning cruise. With Daylight Saving Time and potential confusion, this event has been transformed into a Sunset Cruise this Monday night, Nov. 12 aboard the Musette. As we have experienced the evening darkness at 6 p.m., this is an opportunity to screen four international short subjects in the dark about a variety of topics, all of them dramatic. For info. on all FLIFF events and screenings, visit www.fliff.com.

This columnist will be hosting the last screening of House of Wax this Friday evening. While he will be donating four of his books in a post screening trivia contest, he will also donate an autographed copy of The Book of Joe written by Vincent Price. Complete with 3-D glasses, last week’s House of Wax screening went extremely well, with people laughing and screaming at the appropriate times. This film is as worthy today on the big screen as it was 65 years ago, before the advent of cell phones, cable television and color television sets.

Happy Veterans Day!

By “Cinema” Dave

http://cinemadave.livejournal.com

One month shy of her 60th birthday, Jamie Lee Curtis received an early present from the box office gross of her latest Halloween movie. When it was announced that Curtis would be returning, the hype machine cranked up, but, in the shadow of the Me Too movement, this Halloween motion picture took on added significance. Like Nightmare on Elm Street’s Heather Lagenkamp’s “Be Nancy” advocacy, Halloween places emphasis upon the heroine, with less glorification on the boogeyman.

Released 40 years ago, the original Halloween, starring a teenage Jamie Lee Curtis, had the shadow of the Chi Omega murders on the Florida State University campus earlier in the year, which led to the arrest (and eventual execution) of serial killer Ted Bundy. While a good horror movie can provide pure escapist entertainment, the subtext will provide dark unease.

There have been a total of 11 films in the Halloween franchise and Jamie Lee Curtis has been in five of them. Twenty years ago, Curtis first acknowledged her debt to the franchise. With Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, despite a strong ensemble cast, the film felt repetitive. Yet, it is significant for this film features the final onscreen appearance of Jamie Lee Curtis’s mommy, Janet Leigh. As an Easter egg, Leigh offers Curtis some maternal advice, then drives away in a car similar to the car she drove in Psycho [with score from Psycho playing in the background]. Leigh was Oscar-nominated for playing the victim (most known for the shower scene) in that classic Sir Alfred Hitchcock movie.

Ironically, Leigh was given the role that was originally written for J.P. Soles, a memorable victim from the first Halloween movie. Having been seen as a memorable bully with a red baseball hat in Carrie, Soles appeared topless in Halloween and improvised her funny dialogue and tragic death scene.

The comedic spark has served Soles well as she made appearances in comedies like Stripes, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (starring the Ramones), Private Benjamin (starring Goldie Hawn) and the Oscar-nominated Breaking Away, where she worked with her future ex-husband, Dennis Quaid. A friendly face on the horror convention and film festival circuit, Soles has a cameo appearance as “Teacher” in the new Halloween film.

Last Saturday night, Abbott and Costello meets Frankenstein played on Svengoolie on MeTV. This film effectively retired the champion monsters from the previous 18 years: Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster and the Wolf Man. As a closing gag, the Invisible Man shows up to scare off Bud & Lou. The voice of the Invisible Man is portrayed by Vincent Price, an actor who retained his reign of terror for the next 50 years of Cinema.

Vincent Price earned a Lifetime Achievement honor from the Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival in 1991. In recognition of the 65th Anniversary, Savor Cinema will be screening House of Wax on Saturday, Nov. 3 and Friday, Nov. 9 and it is this columnist’ honor to host these two screenings. At each screening, Cinema Dave will donate Vincent Price’s book about his faithful dog, The Book of Joe , which was autographed by Vinnie and his daughter Victoria Price. BE THERE and BE SCARED, if you DARE!