Sad news from Mike Welsh this morning, Rudy Ray Moore (the actor who played “Dolemite” and the “Avenging Disco Godfather” and predicted rap music in the 1970s) passed away in Akron, Ohio at age 81. During high school and college I was addicted to Moore’s movies and I made my friends watch them again and again. “Avenging Disco Godfather” was my favorite. It was the story of an ex-cop and vigilante, disco DJ (Tucker) who gets upset that “the Angle Dust is ruining the minds of our young people” and proceeds to kick some ass with plenty of weird, disco music and freaky hallucination scenes full of PCP, vampire, monster things in the guise of Tucker’s mother.

Rudy, we’ll miss you. “From the north to the south… put your weight on it!”

From the New York Times article:

Rudy Ray Moore, whose standup comedy, records and movies related earthy rhyming tales of a vivid gaggle of characters as they lurched from sexual escapade to sexual escapade in a boisterous tradition, born in Africa, that helped shape today’s hip-hop, died Sunday in Akron, Ohio. He was 81.

The other weekend we went to see a new movie called Half Nelson and tonight we rented the 1930 movie Der blaue Engel (Blue Angel). Half Nelson (directed by Ryan Fleck) used the tried and true film formula of an enthusiastic teacher/basketball coach (played by Ryan Gosling) struggling to make a difference in an inner city school. Along the way the teacher forms a close friendship with a troubled girl (played by Shareeka Epps). There’s one little twist… the teacher is secretly addicted to crack. The acting was great and the characters were incredibly dynamic. I found myself getting more emotionally involved than I’ve been with movie characters in long time. I would pull for the teacher, then he would do something horrible, and I would feel like he deserved to the bad things that were happening to him, then he would redeem himself, and the cycle would continue. Occasionally I missed riding one of the emotional tides and could see how some scenes might come off a little sappy, but I definitely think Half Nelson was the best portrait of drug addiction I’ve even seen in a movie. It made the glamorized roller coaster rides of Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream seem like campy comic books.

Fly from New York to Germany and rewind 76 years for this week’s movie: Blue Angel (directed by Josef von Sternberg). Christine and I have been on a film noir kick since we rented Chinatown a while back. We’ve watched some Bogart and Bladerunner, and I decided to dig for some really old stuff. Armed with Scott Wallace’s old copy of Understanding Movies and the Wikipedia Film Noir page. I found Blue Angel mentioned under “Noir Prehistory” as a high point of Weimar film. It was grim, super-old, black-and-white, German, and had Marlene Dietrich prancing around in skimpy outfits and a top hat. We had to check it out. Reel Video in Berkeley (of course) had multiple copies including a remastered double DVD with the original German dialogue and English subtitles (yes, we are total geeks). It turned out to be the story of straight-laced, older, prep school professor (played by Emil Jannings) who discovers that his students are obsessed with a Burlesque singer named Lola Lola (played by Marlene Dietrich). He attempts to catch the students watching Lola Lola at a night club called Blue Angel, but winds up falling in love with her and quickly begins spiraling from his distinguished post into a seedy life of brawling and booze. Just when you think he’s hit the bottom, he goes deeper, and deeper. The movie was captivating and highly theatrical, a stark contrast to the hyper-realism of Half Nelson. Both movies dealt with the concepts of respected teachers coming apart at the seams, but they each drove home completely different moral messages. I loved both of the movies and would recommend them to any hardcore movie fans. Of course Blue Angel gets a couple of bonus points because it has creepy clowns and it inspired Mel Brooks to create the character Lili Von Shtupp for Blazing Saddles.

Half Nelson Official Movie Site
Der blaue Engel IMDb Page

Mark and I were looking for a movie from the 70s that wasn’t depressing.  I found Stir Crazy in the Sidney Poitier section at Reel Movies, my favorite video store in Berkeley, and it seemed to be what we were looking for.  Is was definitely funny, and very entertaining.  I laughed a lot watching this movie, though I can’t say it’s a truly good movie.  Gene Wilder, as the soft-spoken, sensitive, playwrite and Richard Pryor as the easy-going guy looking for a good time, play off of each other wonderfully.

The opening scene is hilarious.  The Richard Pryor character is a private waiter at an uppity (all white) dinner party. Everyone is having a great time and really enjoying the food he’s serving.  Then we find out that the cooks have been putting his weed (not just any, but especially potent from Africa) in the food instead of oregano.  He is fired from his job, and that day Gene Wilder’s character was also fired from his job.  They decide to drive west, where the weather is warm and where women hang out on the beach.  The car breaks down, and they become mistaken for bank robbers and are thrown in jail somewhere in the middle of the country.

One of my favorite developments while they are in jail is that they befriend the most inhuman of all the inmates, a big scary man who has killed his entire family.  This man becomes completely calm and loyal, even sings a very pretty song in the jail cell.  While in jail, they become involved in a rodeo, which is ridiculous, but funny.  The Gene Wilder character is the best bull rider!  A group of inmates (mass murderer, young black transvestite, wise Hispanic man, Pryor, and Wilder) work together to win the prison rodeo.

Throughout the movie, the Wilder character tries to talk to everyone, no matter how crazy or scary, and he believes that everyone would get along if they get some respect and understanding.  Of course, I like that.  And, in the end it works in his favor.  The movie would have been better with more of a plot and less signs of cocaine use by the people involved in making the film.  But if you want a funny movie from the 70s (well, 1980), this one is great!

Rating: 7/10

The other morning I was waiting for the 51, when I noticed a very disturbing advertisement on the side of a bus across the street. The poster was adverting a family-friendly movie called “Yours, Mine and Ours”. It is apparently a remake of a 1968 Lucille Ball/Henry Fonda film about a buttoned-down, military-man widower who marries an artsy, flamboyant widow (you know the type). They both had tons of the kids, wind up netting a twenty person family, and (much like on the Brady Bunch) wackiness ensues. Oh, and of course there is a pig involved…

Anyway, back to the poster. It showed a bunch of kids acting precociously while the parents (Dennis Quaid and Renne Rosso) looked on with baffled amazement. This is pretty standard fair for tween empowerment marketing, but the part that really got me was the large, central image of a pig munching down on a pepperoni pizza. Now, I don’t doubt for a minute that a swine would go cannibalistic when faced with such tasty Italian fare, but I was disturbed the ad’s the total detachment from that reality. I am sure that the pig and the pig-based pizza were used completely for symbolic value. The pizza represents fun-loving, down-to-earth, good times with the family, while the pig is there as a wild and crazy gatecrasher, snorting his way into the suburban household. Watch out you uppity pig, there’s 18 hungry kids in that house!