Cinemas vs online, one degree of Kevin Bacon & woke turnoffs

Cinemas continue to close. In Detroit two art house palaces shut their doors in recent years – the Main Art in Royal Oak and the Maple Theater in West Bloomfield. Windsor has expanded cinema offerings with the new Landmark in the former Silver City. Great but its offerings are a carbon copy of the other area multiplexes. And thankfully the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF) has created a kind of monthly repertory series which helps fill the art house void. For me, the experience of watching a movie online and in a theatre is intrinsically different. And I’m trying to figure out why. I would/will drive miles and take great swaths of time out of my day, to go to a real live bricks and mortar movie house to see a film that looks even somewhat interesting. I also subscribe to Netflix and the Criterion Channel. For all intents and purposes Criterion is an art house cinema in your computer. Its array of independent and foreign films, and classic greats, is absolutely terrific. Besides a mammoth inventory there are monthly curated series like current films starring Penelope Cruz, Donald Sirk’s post-war noir, gritty 70s-era NY cinema, horror maestro David Cronenberg (photo) and a Vietnam War series. Yet I have to slog my way to the computer to watch. If even a small fraction of these films were featured at the local Bijou my interest would no doubt be excitedly piqued, I’d circle the date and clear my calendar to attend, forking over $10-$20 per. When my CC yearly sub is just over $130 with hundreds of movies at my fingertips - an incredible deal by comparison. It just doesn’t make sense. What’s the difference? Is it the actual getting-up-and-going experience to a physical entertainment venue that breaks up the monotony of being housebound? It it the “shared experience” with other moviegoers? It is that attending a cinema seems more of an “event”? It’s a conundrum that I feel won’t be broken.  

I just finished watching Leave the World Behind (Sam Esmail 2023) on Netflix, starring Ethan Hawke, Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali and Kevin Bacon. It’s a mildly interesting horror thriller, enough to keep me watching to the end. But, my goodness, the similarities between Hawke and Bacon are uncanny. It’s not just Six Degrees of Separation (the famed Bacon cliché) but in this case, one.

More on movie wokeism, something which continues to turn me off cinema. My thoughts mirror those of UK columnist Sarah Vine, satirizing products she’d put tariffs on: “WOKE movie remakes: the all-women Ghostbusters; last year’s Mean Girls; Sex And The City without the sex, and now, disastrously, Snow White starring Rachel Zegler plus CGI dwarfs. Has Hollywood never heard of the phrase ‘Go woke, go broke’”?

Two vintage Canuck actors - one who didn't do well, the other who did

This is the tragic story of a long ago Canadian film actor who tragically descended into oblivion. It didn’t start out that way. Peter Kastner (top photo), born 1943, starred in the great Canadian Don Owen 1960s acclaimed hit, Nobody Waved Good-bye (1964), an anti-establishment film of the era. But, in one of Francis Ford Coppola’s earliest films, he stars in You’re a Big Boy Now (1966), a delightful coming-of-age film. Bordering on corny and implausibility it’s still enticing as Kastner’s Bernard Chanticleer rebels again, this time moving out of his parents Long Island home and setting himself up in a Manhattan flat. To the recurring tune of, well, Robert Prince’s bubble gummy “You’re a Big Boy Now,” Bernard tries to shake his adolescence, essentially a virgin literally and figuratively though he seems relatively old for that. Nevertheless, we follow his escapades as he tries to live independently and enmesh himself in the “cool” world of adult bohemia, even though he’s a dork all along. Coppola’s bouncy cinematography may show signs of a novice but there are some sophisticated cuts and innovative shots, perky dialogue, and most important, he always holds the audience (a great cineaste he will one

day become!). Besides Kastner there is a stellar cast of Julie Harris, Karen Black (so young!), Rip Torn and Geraldine Page. And the streets of mid-Sixties New York City shine (or don’t). But what about Kastner’s tragic end? He went on to an ill-fated TV career, including the badly reviewed sitcom The Ugliest Girl in Town, really the death knell. He ended up as a high school teacher and carried out a vendetta against his family, including allegedly embezzling money. Poor guy – he seemed so innocent and fresh in Big Boy!

Another Canadian who actually did well in Hollywood was Joseph Wiseman (bottom photo) (born 1918), who stars in Sydney Lumet’s 1968 Bye Bye Braverman. Wiseman had many film roles including in the first Bond film as Dr. No (Terence Young 1962) and in the Crime Story TV series. In Braverman he captivates as the elderly wise Jew, sardonically mocking his (Jewish) pals for their faith inconsistencies. 

These films are part of Criterion Channel’s current Fun City series, focusing on films made in NYC late 60s-early 70s, giving a raw view of Gotham’s considerably grittier streetscapes than exists today. 

Photos: Wikipedia