Celebrating Ward Bond’s birthday with... Hitler — Dead or Alive

On this date in 1903, actor Ward Bond was born in Benkelman, Nebraska. And I think it would be a nifty idea to celebrate the occasion by watching Hitler — Dead or Alive, an ultra-low-budget 1942 B-movie starring Bond as an ex-con who tries to collect a bounty on Adolf Hitler. No, I'm not making that up.

Back when I taught a college course focused on war movies, I often screened the final minutes of this obscure oddity, to give students an inkling of American attitudes during the early days of US involvement in World War II. Because even though the movie was an unabashedly cheesy Poverty Row production --  it dared to be a fantasy-fulfilling slice of cheese: At the end of the flick, Hitler is shot by Nazis who don't recognize him after Bond and his buddies shave off Der Führer's  mustache. Again: I'm not making that up. Start looking around the 1:04 point in this video, and you'll see what I mean.

When I saw Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, and marveled at the movie's climactic killing of  Der Führer, I couldn't help thinking of Hitler -- Dead or Alive. But I swear: I didn't know Tarantino actually was a fan the '42 film until he spilled the beans to Playboy in a 2003 interview:

When it came to Inglourious Basterds, there was a movie done in 1942, Hitler —Dead or Alive. It was just as America had entered the war. A rich guy offers a million-dollar bounty on Hitler’s life. Three gangsters come up with a plan to kill Hitler. They parachute into Berlin and work their way to where Hitler is. It’s a wacky movie that goes from being serious to very funny. The gangsters get Hitler, and when they start beating the fuck out of him, it is just so enjoyable. They shave his mustache off, cut off that lock of hair and take his shit off so he looks like a regular guy. The Nazis show up, and Hitler, who doesn’t look like Hitler anymore, is like, “Hey, it’s me!” And they beat the shit out of him. I thought, Wow, this is fucking hysterical.

Yes, it is. Who would have guessed that a hardline conservative like Ward Bond actually was Antifa? 

Six years ago tonight: I saw “Nashville” in Nashville thanks to Seth Rogen and Kim Jong-un

On June 11, 2015, I saw Nashville in Nashville on the exact 40^th anniversary of the classic film’s release. But wait, there’s more: I saw it at the Belcourt Theatre, Music City’s premier art-house, which fleetingly was home of the Grand Ole Opry.

And I owed it all to Seth Rogen. And Kim Jong-un.

And thereby hangs a tale.

Thanks to Seth Rogen and Kim Jong-un, I got to see a Robert Altman movie tonight

A funny thing happened on my way home to Houston from the CMA Music Festival in Nashville: My departure was delayed, so I got to see Robert Altman's That Cold Day in the Park -- a singularly idiosyncratic 1969 feature I had not seen since its original release -- at a major Altman retrospective organized by the Belcourt Theatre here in Music City.

But wait, there's more: At the end of the screening, I got so speak with two very special Belcourt guests: Kathryn Reed Altman, the filmmaker's widow, and frequent Altman collaborator Michael Murphy, who played a small but key role in the 1969 film. Cowabunga.

Actually, this was my second sampling of the Belcourt's Altman retrospective during this Nashville sojourn. Last Wednesday, I had the irresistible opportunity to see Nashville on the 40th anniversary of that 1975 classic's theatrical opening. And again, the Belcourt offered a special added attraction: Vintage TV news footage of the movie's local premiere, an extravaganza attended by several real-life country music stars (including Minnie Pearl, who seemed impressed by the acting but not by Nashville itself) and a few stars cast as country artists in Altman's epic. (Henry Gibson, evidently sensing that many locals were less than impressed by the film's depiction of Music City denizens, diplomatically told TV reporters how much he really, really enjoyed shooting Nashville in Nashville.) 

The Robert Altman retrospective continues through July 7 at the Belcourt Theatre, Nashville's premier art-house cinema. In a brochure prepared for the series, Belcourt programming director Toby Leonard credits Seth Rogen and Kim Jong-un for making it all possible. No, seriously.

Leonard writes:

The week between Christmas and New Year's has always been a tricky one in the art house world. Dominated by big-budget studio pictures with visions of gold statuettes dancing in their heads, what's an independent cinema to do? In 2013, we had a major success in that period with Inside Llewyn Davis on one screen and the opening of a three-week Hitchcock series on the other. In 2014, our plans were to have a solid run of Birdman going, with a series of Capra restorations tacked onto the end of our yearly holiday run of It's a Wonderful Life. By Thanksgiving, the Belcourt was already on track for a record year for ticket sales. But there were strange rumblings afoot. 

On Monday, Dec. 22, as friends and relatives were dialing down for the holidays, Sony Pictures -- at the behest of major multiplexes, fearful of North Korean retaliation -- had already put its planned Christmas Day release of The Interview on hold. By that point, many independent theaters had made offers to Sony to screen the film. I'd made my own inquiry, perhaps as some sort of joke. After all, what does a mainstream bro-comedy have to do with our mission anyhow? But by Monday evening, with the aid of the Alamo Drafthouse chain and the leadership committee of the Art House Convergence (upon which we sit), it seemed that a last-minute release of The Interview could actually happen. On Tuesday, it became a reality. Since Sony had restored the Capra films we'd planned for that week, we had no issue cutting showtimes from that to allow The Interview to open two days later. Local and national media descended. The rest is history and is totally on Google.

So, why rehash this story at all? It goes back to misgivings about the film itself and why, at the end of a banner year, would we alter plans to accommodate this movie (which was ultimately validated by an amazing outpouring of support). As programmer of the theatre and nonetheless still conflicted, I resolved to use our cut of the ticket sales for good. I decided on Robert Altman.

Many larger-scale repertory series have been underwritten by generous donors who have allowed us to really go out on a limb with some of our larger projects: Hitchcock, Bresson, the Coen Brothers, just to name a few. However, this one is different.

So, here it is, 19 features covered entirely by the proceeds from one truly remarkable folly. Thank you, Robert Altman. Thank you, Seth Rogen. And thank you, Nashville, for 90 years of support.

The return of This is the End

This is the End -- which I freely admit is one of my favorite movies released so far in 2013 -- will return to theaters and drive-ins everywhere Friday, Sept. 7, to give audiences another opportunity to... to... well, to push the domestic box-office gross to $100 million.

Mind you, that's not the reason given for the re-release in the official Sony Pictures press release:

Commenting on the announcement, Rory Bruer, president of Worldwide Distribution for Sony Pictures, said, “This Is The End really struck a chord with comedy moviegoers this summer. For everyone who didn’t get a chance to see it – or saw it and loved it and wants to see it again on the big screen – we are thrilled to have it back in theaters.”

Sure. Fine. But elsewhere in the same release, there's this tasty nugget of info: This is the End "has taken in $96.8 million to date at the domestic box-office."

Ah, yes: So close, yet so far. All the movie needs is a measly $4 million gross this weekend to bring that final total up to a nice, round $100 million. And you -- yes, you -- can do your bit to push it over the top, even if you just buy a bargain-priced matinee ticket or two.

Keep that in mind, fellow movie fans, and give generously. Remember: It's for a worthy cause.

Just how funny is This is the End?

@joeleydon thanks man. I owe you a massage.

— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) May 31, 2013

@joeleydon its not our main goal but we'll take it.

— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) May 31, 2013

A simple guide -- very simple, actually -- to The Green Hornet

When I interviewed Seth Rogen last year for Observe and Report, our conversation turned to his upcoming involvement as star and co-writer of The Green Hornet, an upcoming movie (due in theaters -- in 3-D! -- Jan. 14, 2011) about the masked hero (supposedly a direct descendant of The Lone Ranger) who’s appeared in pulp novels, radio dramas, movie serials, comic books and a ’60s TV series. Trouble is, the guy hasn't appeared in much of anything lately. So I had to ask: Really, aren’t you worried that this character might be a little too obscure to attract moviegoers your age and younger?

"We’re very aware of that," Rogen replied. "And obviously, we’re not doing The Green Hornet because we’re big fans of it. We’re doing The Green Hornet because no one knows shit about him. So we can completely re-imagine him how we want. But because there’s enough built-in familiarity, the studio will give us enough money to make the kind of movie we want to make.

"Me and Evan Goldberg, my writing partner, we’re lifelong comic-book fans, lifelong superhero fans. And we think we can have an original take on this from a writing perspective. That’s really why we pursued it. Because we thought, “OK, if we do The Green Hornet, then we’ll get the kind of big movie we want to make. We can re-invent it to the point so that it can be exactly what we want to do – but no one will get pissed off, because no one really knows that much about it.”

Judging from the above trailer, I have to say: Maybe, just maybe, they really did strike the perfect balance of tongue-in-cheek humor and wall-to-wall action. Still, I'm a little worried that Columbia Pictures feared some people might have a hard time fully grasping the complex narrative stratagems suggested in that trailer, and felt the need Monday to post on-line a plot synopsis in comic-strip form. No, I'm not making that up. Alas.

Q&A: Seth Rogen

“With most of the characters I’ve played,” Seth Rogen told me a few days ago, “I think people think, ‘Hey, I’d like to hang out with that guy.’ But this isn't one of those characters."

Damn right. Rogen was talking about his role as Ronnie Barnhardt, a borderline-psycho who occasionally crosses the line, in Observe and Report, the audacious black comedy I reviewed a few weeks ago at SXSW. A mood-swinging, quick-tempered shopping mall security guard with a ridiculously exaggerated (and altogether unjustified) sense of self-worth, Ronnie is a terse, tough-talking martinet who still lives at home with his booze-addled mom (Celia Weston), nurses a crush on a slatternly salesclerk (Anna Faris) and commands the other guards on his watch – including two clueless but loyal Asian siblings, memorably played by twin brothers John and Matthew Yuan -- with the tightly-focused intensity of a Marine sergeant in a war zone. Scary stuff, kids. But funny stuff, too.

As I write in the intro to a Rogen Q&A that appears in Friday's Houston Chronicle: "Observe and Report allows Rogen ample opportunity to behave in ways likely to shock many moviegoers who were engaged by his talent to amuse in such movies as Pineapple Express and Superbad (both of which he co-scripted with writing partner Evan Goldberg). [And, of course, Knocked Up.] Mind you, the new movie really is, at heart, a comedy. But as Steve Martin famously noted in an entirely different context: Comedy is not pretty."

A few outtakes from that interview:

Q: Are you little surprised by the reaction you've received so far at SXSW and other places where Observe and Report has been screened?

A: Yes, because, honestly, I was open to no one getting it at all. Like, I wasn’t sure it would get laughs, I wasn’t sure people would think it’s funny. And beyond that, I wasn’t really sure people would really get what we were going for. But some people could not get it more. And that’s great, because I honestly did not expect it. Obviously, we’ll see what audiences think when the movie comes out. But the fact is, I’ve seen it in theaters full of people, and it gets tons of laughs. And critics actually seem to get what we were going for to a degree that I would have never expected in a million years. It’s already far more accepted than I thought it would ever be.

Q: Some actors base their performances on people they’ve known. Do you know anyone at all like Ronnie Barnhardt?

A: Not at all. Honestly, I really approach acting from a writing perspective. I sometimes am the writer. And when I’m not, I will read the script as though I was the writer, and I just think, well, if I wrote this, what would I want the actor playing that role to do in order to bring what I wrote to life? And that’s really how I approach it.

Q: Ronnie does some pretty freakin' reprehensible things during Observe and Report. Were you yourself appalled by anything he did?

A: Well, I would actually feel guilty at times about my behavior toward the Yuan twins in the movie. After takes, I would tell them, “Look, I’m so sorry, guys. I don’t want to do this, but…”

Q: There’s at least one advantage that actors of previous generations had over you – they never had to read nasty comments about themselves on the Internet. Like, Clark Gable would never go on line, and read that someone on some website posted a snarky remark about his big ears. You’re not quite so lucky. Do you ever get upset by anything you read about yourself on the web?

A: Not really. Because I know for a fact that nothing that is said on the Internet has any effect on real life in any way, shape or form. And if it did, then Transformers would have been the biggest flop of that year. I just know for a fact that those people have no effect on anything. It’s completely irrelevant. So I don’t give a shit what they say. They’re literally just people who know how to use a computer slightly better than other people. And that’s it. They’re nerds.

Q: Speaking of high-tech stuff: Thanks to digital recording and other innovations, everything you do in movies and TV -- everything -- likely will be around forever. That, too, isn't something that actors and filmmakers didn't think much about back in the 1930s and '40s.

A: Yeah, the idea that movies are around forever – that is something we do think about, and are very aware of. And it does add a lot of pressure on us. I mean, most of the movies we watched when we were kids were not movies that were made around then. Like, I would watch videos of Woody Allen movies that were made 20, 30 years earlier. So, yeah, we want to make movies that’ll still be good 20, 30 years from now. And we kind of go out of our way to not make them too timely in their content. We want to feel current – we want people watching them to be able to relate to them now – but we don’t want to be about, like, the fuckin’ Octomom or something like that.

Q: But there are specific pop culture references in your movies, right?

A: We do like to make references to other movies in our movies, sure. But we try to be aware of the fact that, like, people might be watching this in 20 years, and we want it to be funny then, too. We don’t want them to just not get what the fuck we’re talking about. It’s like, in Superbad, Jonah makes a reference, like, “I’d like the Coen Brothers to direct my porn.” That was a very conscious choice, the Coen Brothers, because we figure, in 20 years, people will still know who the Coen Brothers are. And we should use a director who’s timeless. But that’s all the effort we put into it, really. Just so that, when you’re watching it in the future, it’s not weird. Like, in Observe and Report, there are no cell phones in the movie. Because those really date movies a lot. Like, you watch a movie from the ‘90s and somebody pulls out a cell phone – it just looks ridiculous all of a sudden. Our movies don’t usually have a lot of emphasis on the technology or anything like that. We do try to make them so that something doesn’t occur that just totally takes you out of it if you’re watching it a few years later.

Q: Of course, I have to admit that when I reviewed Knocked Up at SXSW a few years ago -- months before it hit theaters -- I enjoyed all the references to Spider-Man 3. Because I knew, just knew, that when people finally had a chance to see your movie at the megaplex, Spider-Man 3 might be playing in the auditorium next door.

A: Yeah, but we figured that people will know what Spider-Man 3 is in 20 or 30 years.

Q: Speaking of Knocked Up -- thanks for making the jokey reference to me on the DVD commentary track for that film. It gave me a whole lot of new cred with my film students at University of Houston and Houston Community College.

A: Yeah? Well, I'm about to record the commentary for Observe and Report.

Q: Well, please go ahead and jab me again.

A: Yeah, I'll say what terrible taste you have in movies.

Seth Rogen: Traitor to huskies?

From FitCeleb.com: "Actor Seth Rogen is struggling to accept his newly svelte figure -- because he's let down the legions of chubby men who looked up to him." The bastard.