WCBE 90.5 FM: “The Notorious Bettie Paige,” “Goal!, The Dream Begins,” “Don’t Come Knocking”

WCBE 90.5 FM: “The Notorious Bettie Paige,” “Goal!, The Dream Begins,” “Don’t Come Knocking”
It's Movie Time co-hosts, writers, producers: John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Record Time: 1:00 pm, May 17, 2006
Air Time: 3:01 pm & 8:01 pm, May 19, 2006
Streaming Live on the web and on-demand at: http://www.wcbe.org

The Script

John

“The Notorious Bettie Paige” is a PAGE out of Clay Lowe’s youthful pinup fantasies. . .

Clay

“Goal! The Dream Begins” is the story of a young Mexican illegal immigrant who becomes a world class soccer player . . .

John

“Don’t Come Knocking” knocks the heck out of romantic notions about family and heroes . . .

HIT MUSIC THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle:

"It's Movie Time" in central Ohio with John DeSando and Clay Lowe.''

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

John

I'm John DeSando

Clay

And I’m Clay Lowe

John (“The Notorious Bettie Paige” 124 words )

Clay: as I said a few months ago, The Notorious Bettie Paige is about the most famous pin-up next to Marilyn Monroe.

A fetchingly dark haired Paige is innocently naughty with some outrageous bondage costumes or none at all because Bettie could do it all with a naiveté to make you believe she thought her soft–core, sadomasochistic photographs innocent indulgence for nice people.

Clay

Well, they were.

John

I said NICE people.

Gretchen Mol plays Paige as the perfect embodiment of sex without guile. The Notorious Bettie Page fails only by denying us a look at her emotional life either by herself or with an important man.

From Genesis: “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” When Bettie is naked, she never seems ashamed either.

Clay (“Goal!, The Dream Begins” 128 words)

Well, John, in “Goal!, The Dream Begins” the young hero is not ashamed that his father snuck their family into the U.S.A..  But he is ashamed that his father would rather have him be a gardener than a player of soccer.

Too bad.  For guess what?  A former soccer star sees him playing in a scrub game and immediately knows this kid’s championship stuff.

Sure the movie is riddled with clichés, but what rings true is the lad’s sincerity, that in turn, engenders the sincerity of those around him. Club owners, sports agents, and even his bad boy superstar teammate are smitten by his infectious idealism.

“Goal” The Dream Begins” is a rapid moving, kick ball, bang bang of movie that strongly foreshadows there’s more yet to come.

John (“Don’t Come Knocking” 125 words)

Don’t Come Knocking’s hero is an aging cowboy movie star, Howard Spence (Sam Shepard), who leaves the set of his movie on horseback to seek out the family he left behind decades ago. He finds his ex-girlfriend Doreen (Shepard’s real-life love, Jessica Lange) and children he never knew about.

Shepard’s dialogue is spare enough to make Harold Pinter’s seem wordy: It draws us into the real world of simple people who speak simply, but whose subtexts are filled with the agony of living everyday with departed dads and half-demented kids.

Shepard is capably aided by Wim Wenders, who directed Shepard’s Paris, Texas.

Howard’s mother (Eva Marie Saint) asks him, “How did you get to be such a mess, Howard?” She could’ve asked us all that.

Clay (“Don’t Come Knocking” 132 words)

Oh, John, a fine mess indeed, but who’s to say whose life was the messiest?

Perhaps it was the Mom who lived in that well ordered house full of his childhood memories.

Or perhaps it was the mother of his children who betrayed her orderly life when she dropped her guard and passionately kissed him?

Or perhaps it was his zombie eyed son whose monotonous songs could have come from Blue Velvet.

Sure they were all caricatures, and sure it’s been said before.  Think Altman, Coppola, and Tommie Lee Jones.

What “Don’t Come Knocking” does best, however, is to haunt you with its imagery, and taunt you into believing, as have the best Westerns, that the only answers worth finding are those that can only be found by riding into a sunset.

But enough of naked Betties, soccer boy heroes, and cockeyed cowboys,
John, because it’s grading time.

John

Holy Bettie’s Brokeback,  Hooray!

HIT DRUMS, THEN UNDER FOR

John

“The Notorious Bettie Paige” earns a B because BETTIE is one of the only innocent BABES in cinema. . .

Clay

“Goal! The Dream Begins” gets an “A” because its more about Aspirations then it is about winning  . . .

John

“Don’t Come Knocking” earns a B for sacking sentimentality while BRINGING out the BABY . . .

Clay

“Don’t Come Knocking” gets an “A” because it’s about a movie star who can’t go home again . . .

John

Clay, why don’t I remember Bettie Page as vividly as you do? Is it your rich imagination or your lingering libido?

I'm outta here.

Clay

John, when me and my friends were lusting after Bettie Paige, you were still trying to figure out which end of the bottle had the nipple.

I’m outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC, THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle

The award winning "It's Movie Time" is co-hosted, written, and now produced by John DeSando and Clay for WCBE 90.5. FM

Copyright John DeSando & Clay Lowe 2006