WCBE 90.5 FM: "The Good German," "Venus"

WCBE 90.5 FM
It's Movie Time: "The Good German," "Venus"
Co-hosted, produced & directed by John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Air Time: Friday, 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, February 2, 2007
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org
To listen to this show, cut and paste here:
http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/.artsmain/article/13/22/1034740/It's.Movie.Time.On-Demand/It's.Movie.Time,.February.2,.2007.On-Demand/

John

"The Good German" is good technique but bad film . . .

Clay

"Venus" is a tongue-in-the-cheek to eccentric old men . . .

HIT THEME MUSIC

Richelle:

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

MUSIC BRIEFLY UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John

I'm John DeSando . . .

Clay

I'm Clay Lowe . . .

John ("The Good German")

"Look at these sleeves, all this ruching! Nobody ever wears anything like
this anymore!"

Clay

Whatever that is.

John

That’s Cate Blanchett’s survivor in 1945, using her body to get out of Berlin in The Good German, a kind of film they don’t make anymore either. George Clooney tries to help his former lover. It is difficult to find dialogue that can recreate the idealism and world weariness Bogey and Bergman easily projected.

Steven Soderberg recreates the look of Casablanca: Lenses are fixed, CGI takes a vacation, process shots are obvious, and booms might show anytime without wireless recording.

It’s all style, 40’s style, and the actors force their characters into the same style, awkwardly and artificially.

They don’t make films like this anymore, they never did, and they shouldn’t.

Clay ("The Good German")

Well, folks, though the black and white visual look of "The Good German" IS scrupulously authentic,  it seems to have been achieved at the expense of his cast.  So, while Soderberg was running around setting the lights and running the camera, who was left to work with the actors?

John

I don't know.

Clay (laughs)

No one.

Sure, George Clooney looks great in uniform, but he's never acted so wooden and blank-faced on-screen.  And that's too bad, because it's impossible to believe in the passion he's supposed to have for his former lover, played equally distanced, by his Garbo-like co-star, Cate Blanchett. 

Worst of all, Toby McGuire's character is so obnoxious that you can't wait for him to get blown away.

But, fair enough, if Van Sant can muddle "Psycho," then Soderberg should be able to bumble "Casablanca."

John ("Venus")

Let me play this quote again, Sam:


“Do no let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly . . . .”

That's T. S. Eliot

Clay

Oh, I thought it was DeSando.

John (goes on)

In Venus, Maurice (Peter O’Toole) is an aging thespian who meets a buddy’s young housekeeper and forms a friendship built on his impotent, prurient interest in her as the embodiment of Velazquez’s Venus and in her sassiness and openness.


Although O’Toole plays Maurice too infirm for me, he is as always a delight. As good as Maurice and Jessie are at sparring, he and his ex-wife Valerie (Vanessa Redgrave) are a better match with a low-key sentimentality characteristic of this enjoyable film, in which old age is infirm but indomitable.

O’Toole again in a leading role shows greatness that endures beyond the physical fading to black.

Clay ("Venus")

Folks, you can almost feel the London damp and smell the camphor in Maurice's small apartment filled with the persona of a shaggy, shaggy Peter O'Toole playing his character as though he were ten years older than he is.

Nevertheless, O'Toole, even playing an ancient, is able to keep it bright and light because he has never lost the evanescent twinkle of his ever so clear and blue eyes.

The wonderful, and quite naughty message of "Venus" is what clever old men have come to learn over the passage of time namely, that the way to sing a young woman's body-electric is to plug your charm into her mind. 

John

“Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.”

 Clay

Seeds in a pod. Tick. Tick. Tick. (continues)

O'Toole's performance may not win him his Oscar, but it does further endear him to our hearts.

But enough of  neo-realists, failed Nazis, and wicked old men, John, because it's grading time.

John

Holy Gerontion, Hooray.

HIT DRUMS, THEN UNDER

John (continues)

"The Good German" earns a “C” because noir needs CHARACTER as well as CINEMATOGRAPHY . . .

Clay

"The Good German" gets a "D" because good DIRECTORS DON'T hang their actors out to DRY. . .

John

"Venus" earns a “B” for BARELY BARING O’Toole’s talent . . .

Clay

"Venus" gets a "B" because Peter O'Toole has still not lost that BULGE in his BREECHES . . .

John

Clay, I’d say you’ve experienced a few Venuses in your time. “Chaste and from afar,” isn’t that how you’ve described it all to me, Don Quixote? Oh, yeah!

I'm outta here.

Clay

Well, John, my own image of Venus long hung over my piano; and I loved, even her, pure and chaste from afar.

I'm outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC, THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle:

The Award-Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is written produced by John DeSando and Clay Lowe in conjunction with 90.5 FM,WCBE in Columbus, Ohio.

HIT THEME CLOSING THEME MUSIC: THE FRENCH NATIONAL ANTHEM FROM "CASABLANCA"

Copyright 2007 John DeSando & Clay Lowe