The Screengrab

As you may have heard unless you've just gotten back from an alternate dimension with no public relations industry, The Dark Knight opens this weekend, and even our resident skeptic Scott Von Doviak is hailing Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker as one of the pinnacles of big-screen malevolance.  Batman is the perfect illustration of the principle that a hero is only as good as his villains; the Clown Prince of Crime is the outstanding member of an unforgettable rogue's gallery that throws the lonely heroism of Bruce Wayne into sharp relief by illustrating the other facets of his personality and demonstrating how terrible he might have been had he not taken the path of righteousness.  Indeed, there are any number of genres, from true crime to film noir to serial thrillers to even Shakespearean tragedy, that prove that a story is only as strong as its most detestable character.  Crime, as the man once said, is only a left-handed form of human endeavor, and for every enigmatic nihilist like the Joker who simply wants to watch the world burn, there's a figure whose vileness and evil are the result of a good man gone just a little bit bad.  If your showing of The Dark Knight is sold out, here's five movies featuring some of our favorite big-screen villains to tide you over until you get to hear Ledger's deadly cackle for yourself.

THE STEPFATHER (1987)

These days, Terry O'Quinn is best known for his portrayal of John Locke, the mysteriously healed castaway from Lost  who can be both hero and villain as he attempts to forge a mystical connection with the island.  But 20 years ago, when the veteran stage actor first came to the attention of the moviegoing public, it was in this smart little thriller about a man so obsessed with having the perfect family that he was willing to kill to get it.  His face an affable blank, O'Quinn goes about his father-knows-best routine with barely a harsh word for anything, until something goes wrong.  That's when the devil inside him comes up, and he moves quickly from tearing up his tool room to butchering his whole family.  O'Quinn's tightly controlled performance here is what makes the movie, and his quiet intensity is what makes it so devastatingly effective when he temporarily forgets the careful fiction he's made of his life and asks, with genuine confusion, "Who am I here?" -- before remembering, and delivering the news to his new wife in an especially brutal way.

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By the late 1960s, old-fashioned epics had fallen on hard times. With the counterculture movement in full swing, fewer young moviegoers were interested in large-scale entertainments, with sweeping vistas and larger-than-life filmmaking. However, Hollywood has always been a little slow to catch up with popular tastes, and this led to a string of big-budget flops, as the roadshow musicals and bloated period pictures failed to rope in audiences who went wild for The Graduate and Easy Rider. But if anyone could still make an old-school epic under these circumstances, it was David Lean, coming off the award-winning blockbusters Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. Unfortunately, Ryan’s Daughter wasn’t remotely up to the standard of the director’s best work.

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Quentin Tarantino's name is all over the trailer for someone else's movie. It's like 1995 all over again.

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When José Padilha made Bus 174, he was praised by many critics as having created a documentary that treated the poverty, addiction, desperation and corruption in Brazil's favela slums with exceptional sensitivity and care.  Now, a few years later, after his film Elite Squad (a narrative film that was originally meant to be a documentary) has become the most expensive -- and most profitable -- film in Brazilian cinema history, a lot of the same critics are calling him a quasi-fascist.

What happened?

In a revealing interview with the Guardian, Padilha -- alternating between defensive hostility and sincere pleading -- makes the case that whatever people think of Elite Squad, it does nothing but portray the everyday reality he set out to film.  The story of Bope, a police special forces unit that goes after Brazilian drug dealers and street gangs with the same murderous brutality with which the gangs go after each other, is so naked and unrelenting in its portrayal of the deadliest police killers since Cobra that it's easy to imagine the director meant it as an ode to oppression.  And his star, Wagner Moura, is so charismatic it's hard not to read his bloodthirsty, enthusiastically torturing Captain Nasciemento as a hero.

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Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe in THE MISFITS (1961)



The onscreen drama in John Huston’s film of Arthur Miller’s vehicle for wife Marilyn Monroe about horse wranglers and broken relationships in Reno, Nevada runs only a close second to the offscreen drama surrounding the film. Huston drank so much during the production he sometimes fell asleep on set, Monroe wound up in detox at one point during the shoot and died less than two years after delivering her final complete film performance as troubled divorcée, Roslyn Taber. The Misfits also marked the final performance of her equally iconic co-star, Clark Gable, who probably hastened his own death by a macho insistence on performing his own stunts, including (according to our old friend Wikipedia) “being dragged about 400 feet across [a] dry lakebed at more than 30 miles per hour” by a horse.  Yet despite the tragedy surrounding the film, Gable and Monroe at least ended their careers (and too-short lives) with a worthy (and timeless) cinematic milestone.

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Desmond Llewelyn, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (1999)



Despite a pretty decent theme song, The World Is Not Enough hardly qualifies as a great film (or even a particularly great Bond film), but it earns a spot on this list for one perfect scene. Desmond Llewelyn first appeared as the cranky go-to guy for state-of-the-art British spy paraphernalia in 1963’s From Russia With Love and returned in every subsequent 007 installment (except for 1973’s Live and Let Die) thereafter, outlasting Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton before finally teaming with Pierce Brosnan for three late ‘90s adventures. In his final big screen appearance, the aging Q is seen schooling his protégé (and eventual replacement) R, played by John Cleese, before disappearing from view with the classic exit line, “Never let them see you bleed, and always have an escape plan.” Sadly, Llewelyn died shortly after the production wrapped, not of old age (he was 85), but in a car crash, on his way home to his beloved wife of 61 years after dinner with a friend...not, as my dad pointed out, the worst way to go, especially after spending your life as a beloved cinema icon (who once said he’d play his signature role “as long as the producers want me and the Almighty doesn't").

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We recently asked YOU what Top Tens you’d like to see here on The Screengrab and, among the many fine suggestions, “Other Matt” proposed the Top Ten Ignominious Exits (i.e., “...films of an actor that are less than glorious and not [fitting] the last time we see them on celluloid”)... a list we’ll actually tackle NEXT week, since THIS week, in honor of Heath Ledger’s final completed performance (as the Joker in The Dark Knight), we've decided to examine the other side of the Two-Face coin: actors and directors who managed to fade to black with a fitting and/or memorable cinematic swan song.

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I’ll say this for Jean-Luc Godard- he always manages to be divisive. Last week’s quote was taken from the ending of Godard’s 1965 lark Pierrot le Fou, and while some contestants had no trouble guessing the source of the quote- one player even went so far as to call it the easiest quiz yet- others had considerably more difficulty. Perhaps this is due to the film not being made in English- after all, it’s not like you can simply hear those lines in your head, right? Or maybe it was just hard to remember anything that followed Jean-Pierre Belmondo’s explosive final scene. Either way, congrats to those who guessed it.

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One of the nice things about living in a big city is that there's always a lot of big corporations with money to throw around.  If you're an aspiring filmmaker, they might just throw some at you!  Such is the case with the Silent Film Festival, which, despite the name, is actually a competition.

Here's how it works:   You make a film (silent, but it can be accompanied by live music) under three minutes long.  It revolves around one of these themes:

-  What is New York?

-  What's your favorite emotion?

-  What emotion is New York?

-  Your favorite ghost story 

No explicity nudity or violence; otherwise, go nuts.  Submit your work on a DVD in .mpeg or QuickTime format by August 11th, along with your full name, phone number, e-mail, mailing address, and a description of your fim, category, and inspiration to:

ATTN:  Silent Film Festival

60 E. 42nd Street Ste. #659; NY, NY  10165 

The ten best films will be displayed in a prominent place in the city by the competition's sponsor, a major Manhattan real estate developer.  In addition to the free publicity, the sponsors will also pay your way into two major film festivals (your choice) you'd like to submit the film to.  You can contact the festival with any questions.

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Last week, I beseeched our readers to consider the damn-near-perfect filmography of actor John Cazale, star of five classics of 70s Hollywood cinema. And the readers responded accordingly, declaring their favorite Cazale performance to be in The Godfather, Part II. Cazale’s second incarnation of Fredo garnered an impressive 54% of the vote, with second-place finisher (and my personal favorite) Dog Day Afternoon scoring 19%. I suppose there’s a lesson here- quality aside, you really can’t mess with a Godfather movie.

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Christopher Nolan’s 2005 franchise re-launch Batman Begins ended with a tantalizing tease (lifted from Frank Miller’s comic book reboot Year One) that all but guaranteed a sequel: Lt. James Gordon (Gary Oldman) revealing the calling card of the new freak in town – a Joker, of course – and implying that by his presence, Batman has raised the stakes for theatricality and large-scale actions among the criminal element in Gotham City. To mostly satisfying results, the highly anticipated and insanely hyped follow-up, The Dark Knight, takes that idea and runs with it. The only problem is, it runs a marathon when a 10K would have sufficed.

As The Dark Knight opens, a new day has dawned on Gotham, with fresh-faced District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) leading the charge.

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Hey, remember Kevin WIlliamson?  Sure you do!  He was the highly paid screenwriter who was going to revolutionize the horror cinema for a new generation with his 'smart' thrillers, starting with Scream in 1996.  Unfortunately, it turned out that by 'smart' he meant 'marginally rewarding for those who had spent as much time watching crappy horror movies as I did'.  His moment quickly passed, and in the 2000s, torture porn and J-horror have become the new touchstones of Fangoria fans, while Williamson went on to a whole 'nother kind of showbiz glory as the creator of the slasher-deficient Dawson's Creek.  Still, he meant well, and about ten years ago, his movies were about the only evidence that could be found that the genre had any life left in it at all.  So why not give the guy a break and make one of his most famous films the subject of an entry in Summerfest '08, the weekly Screengrab feature where we review movies with the word 'summer' in the title to give you something to do for a couple of hours while you're waiting for the potato salad to cool?  If nothing else, we can guarantee you that this week's installment is going to be a bit more fun than the gloomy 1950s psychodramas we've featured for the last couple of weeks.   

So strap on your fisherman's slicker, polish up your favorite boat hook, and join us for a look at 1997's I Know What You Did Last Summer!

THE ACTION: Julie, Helen, Barry and Ray are a quartet of remarkably photogenic North Carolina teenagers who happily correspond to some of our very favorite big-screen stereotypes (respectively, the good girl, the wannabe starlet, the party boy, and the jock).  On the Fourth of July weekend just after their graduation, they're cruising around one nigher after a fun trip to the beach, and wouldn't you know it, their car just happens to plow into a shambolic wino whom they are forced to leave for dead.  Hey, it's happened to all of us, right?  Let those who have not accidentally run over a wino cast the first stone, that's all I'm saying.  A year later, they find themselves wracked with guilt and unable to fulfill any of their teenage dreams, except the dreams that involve staying drunk all the time.  That's when they get a mysterious missive reading "I know what you did last summer", and a number of their friends start to turn up dead, the victims of sharpened implements wielded by a dead ringer for the Gorton's fisherman.  Which one of them has turned on his or her friends?  Or is it some phantom stranger who has it in for them?  And which horror movie cliches will Kevin Williamson take pokes at while pretending he's above them in his own screenplay?  Only time will tell, or looking at any number of movie spoiler websites.

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Charles  H. Joffe, a talent agent, business manager, and producer best known to casual filmgoers as the producer of a number of Woody Allen's best films, has died in his home town of Los Angeles at the age of 78. 

Felled by a persistent lung ailment, Joffe had been ill for some time, but since the 1950s, he had been a powerhouse wheeler and dealer in Hollywood and New York.  His Rollins Joffee talent agency, founded with partner Jack Rollins,  was the first to book Lenny Bruce, and later handled the careers of some of the biggest names in comedy, including David Letterman, Dick Cavett, Robin Williams, Martin Short, Billy Crystal, Robert Klein, and the team of Mike Nichols & Elaine May.  He had a reputation as a tough, old-school, cigar-chewing negotiator whose gift for big-money contracts often saw his clients turning over huge profits within a short time of signing with him.  

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Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

Here’s a nice change of pace. In our last installment, we looked at the zombie western The Quick and the Undead. This time it’s the vampire western BloodRayne 2: Deliverance. If there are any mummy westerns awaiting further up the list, well, I’d just as soon be surprised.

BloodRayne 2 is the first Uwe Boll movie we’ve encountered on our journey up the Bottom 100 chart, but I’m confident it won’t be the last. Boll is, of course, the renowned videogame-to-movie schlockmeister and favored punching bag of internet movie geeks. And true to form, BloodRayne 2 is a videogame adaptation, although I must confess to being familiar neither with the game nor the first BloodRayne movie. Because I care, I did a little research before settling down to enjoy the film. Here are my findings:

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Why does almost every big-screen video game adaptation look like a third-rate ripoff of The Matrix?

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Yes, kids, once upon a time, Sharon Tate was a real live actress, and not just Charlie Manson's most famous victim, or Roman Polanski's second-biggest reason to be bummed out.

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Readers of the Morning Deal Report (or any of my other nonsense), take note: vacation beckons me, so I will be posting sporadically over the next two weeks or so. Please, for the sake of the children, keep your grieving to a minimum. Now on with your regularly scheduled briefing.

As you may know, Steven Spielberg and Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody are collaborating on a Showtime series, The United States of Tara. Now, Variety reports that Cody is scripting an untitled comedy for Dreamworks that, like Tara, is based on an idea by Spielberg. No details are available, but I do have to wonder how Spielberg came to the conclusion that Diablo Cody is the vessel through which all his wondrous notions shall be realized. There seems to be a distinct difference in sensibilities here, but maybe it’s just me.

Meanwhile, you knew it wouldn’t be long before Iron Man 2 started revving up, especially once Jon Favreau started whining on his MySpace page that he hadn’t been hired to direct it yet. (This has since been rectified.) Now the super-sequel has a screenwriter.

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If anyone epitomizes a "wild thing," it's bohemian femme fatale Uschi Obermaier, sexual icon and successful model in 1960s Germany. She was the it girl, hippie rebel and rock-star player of the time (boasting affairs with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Jimi Hendrix). With her signature pout, big hair and fearless attitude, Obermaier's free and passionate spirit made her one of the most desired women of the times.

She first earned her rebellious reputation as girlfriend of Rainer Langhans, leader of Germany's leftist party Kommune 1, but found their ideals conflicted with the freedom she desired. Her lust for ultimate liberty was fulfilled when she won the heart of adventurer Dieter Bockhorn, with whom she traveled around the world in a bus he custom-made for her.

Obermaier's story of freedom amidst the sexual revolution is documented in director Achim Bornhak's recently released Eight Miles High, which adapts her biography High Times. Actress Natalia Avelon takes us through Obermaier's short-lived life of glamour from teenage runaway to nomadic model and fought-over Stones groupie. The movie is a whirlwind tour of her life, capturing the restlessness of the time and costs of free love. Talking to Obermaier on the phone, I found that at sixty years old, she's an even more potent figure of femininity and sexuality than the film portrays. — Bianca Merbaum

So life in the '60s really was one wild party, with lots of sex, drugs and rock and roll?
It really was like that with all the ups and downs. At that time everything — the music, the fashion, the politics — everything was really new. Germany at the time was really suffocating and you were supposed to do what your parents wanted to. I just did not want it. Other people around me didn't want to put up with it either. So we tried everything, and sometimes it was good and sometimes we made mistakes. When we were so young we wanted to try out everything. And also our hormones were raging. Right away you fall in love and you think sex is a beautiful language and you want to speak it, you want to try it.

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Song parodies are tricky business.  Done well, they're delightful, working on their own terms musically, delivering on the joke, and rewarding the listener for spotting the various musical and comedic references.  Done poorly, they're about the lowest form of music there is.  One of the reasons that the ouevre of Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer works so well (and here we include This is Spinal Tap, which, although directed by Rob Reiner, was written by the three performers in much the same way that the later, Guest-directed films like Best in Show and A Mighty Wind would be) is that they have some degree of genuine affection for the medium they're skewering.  If Guest and company simply despised heavy metal, their parody would fall flat -- their unfamiliarity with or contempt for the music would result in unconvincing musical numbers, and their lack of feeling for the characters and the milieu would come across as patronizing rather than funny.  It's an undying tribute to how successful their parody truly was -- and how deeply it comes across as both affectionate and mocking -- that amongst actual heavy metal musicians, This is Spinal Tap is treated with the kind of reverence normally saved for people who play it completely straight.  The movie gets it just right, and real metal musicians know it.

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One of the oldest and most dependable of storytelling formulas is the Fish Out of Water storyline, which entails taking a character out of his natural habitat and placing him somewhere altogether different. The Fish Out of Water (or “FOW”) formula has been around for centuries, and has been a popular one for movies almost since their beginning. But the heyday for cinematic FOW comedies was the mid-to-late eighties, following the release of the 1984 blockbuster Beverly Hills Cop, one of the quintessential Fish Out of Water movies. From there, the formula caught fire in Hollywood, and studios applied it to movies of all sorts, from the fourth Star Trek movie (which placed the Enterprise crew in 20th Century San Francisco) to an Arnold Schwarzenegger family movie. But in my estimation, perhaps the purest distillation of the formula can be found in the surprise 1986 hit, “Crocodile” Dundee.

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Now that Dark Knight is finally going to be opening nationwide, we can finally return to the natural occupation of the comic book fan:  deranged obsession over Zack Snyder's upcoming movie adaptation of Watchmen.

As we've discussed before, one of the problems with the recent wave of successful motion picture adaptations of comic book properties is that while they've made tons of money for the producers of the movies, it hasn't worked the other way around. Comic book companies have slavered to get their properties on screen in recent years, in the hopes that audiences turned on by the big-screen adventures of Batman or the X-Men will follow those characters into their local comic book shop.  This is especially important in these days of direct sales, when comic book sales are at a historical low, and people speak in non-hysterical terms about the demise of the industry.  So it's worth noting that the millions in profit made my comic book movies hasn't generally been matched by a notable increase in comic book sales, one comic is bucking that trend:  Watchmen. 

One of the earliest comic book mini-series to take advantage of the 'graphic novel collection' format in the 1980s, Watchmen was already one of the most successful titles in DC's history, despite its indie sensibilities, adult storytelling, and complex, morally difficult story.  But with the movie adaptation getting ever closer, its sales have shot way up -- and DC plans to capitalize on the interest in spades.  They'll be promoting an aggressive three-pronged marketing attack to ensure that anyone sucked in by the movie to the degree that they absolutely must have the comic will be able to get one with not trouble.  The triple attack includes a retailer discount for any shops that wish to carry the original softcover graphic novel; a new hardbound edition for collectors; and a deluxe edition featuring making-of material, rare artwork, and other bonus materials, the comic book equivalent of a fancy Criterion Collection disc.

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