Kibbles and Bits

If a dog barks in the wood and nobody hears it does the dog make a sound? What did a cur of the court of Marie Antoinette look like? The answer to these and other canine conundrums are answered if only metaphorically in the Best In Show exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (October 1 through January 1, 2007).
Covering over 400 years of dogs in art, one keenly observes dogs evolving from Renaissance-era stoic profiles to Romantic paintings that imbue the creature with pure emotions. A modern glance allows for William Wegman photography as well as pop art interpretations of man’s best friend. Thus Andy Warhol, who owned a pair of dachshunds, paints Ginger a cocker spaniel. Enclosed in glass is a skeletal dog grasping a newspaper in its jaws. Entitled Dog Skeleton with La Monde (or more succinctly bone and paper, 1997) its vacant yet obedient stare emanating from an ivory yellow skull adds a dash of surrealism to the already capricious surroundings.
Noted masters whose reputations were established by their animal reproductions, painters like Alexandre-Francois Desportes, Jean-Baptist Oudry, George Stubbs, James Ward and Sir Edwin Henry Landseer are duly represented and their images leave an impression that begs further study. Over 275 dogs appear in the various galleries on the second floor of the Beck Building, a touring collection that encompasses eight countries and over 30 museums. The most comprehensive assemblage of dog art ever to tour North America, the exhibit was inspired in part by Robert Rosenblum’s book The Dog in Art from Rococo to Postmodernism.
Cat aficionados can find solace in The Cat’s Meow, a sister exhibit, albeit smaller with only 23 works, on display downstairs from Best In Show.

Up Against the Screen

It’s interesting how the publicity side of films wants to rule what people think. As well they should, that’s their job.
After leaving screenings of The Departed and Infamous, the p.r. person (a contract job proffered by a public relations firm hired by a film studio) specifically asked me A) in the case of Departed what I thought about its Oscar chances, and B) regarding Infamous, how I thought it compared to Capote.
It was easy to answer the former query. Ask somebody in the Academy, I snapped back to the loaded question. When the Academy picks its five nominees I will tell you the one I think will win. If this is any indication of the ramp-up of prognostication to come, prepare yourself for the biggest Oscar media shitstorm ever.
As for Infamous, which covers much of the same ground as last year’s Capote, the real question should be how does it stack up against the films that are coming out at the same time: films as diverse as Flags of Our Fathers, Marie Antoinette, The Prestige, not to mention the plethora of October horror flicks with numbers in the title. Saw III or Grudge 2 anyone? As for comedies you can write those off to the DVD rental in two months category. Employee of the Month was not funny, and worse to sit through than School for Scoundrels, which also was not funny. How sad is it that you have to reach back to the also not funny You, Me and Dupree just to recall a film that at least allowed one to crack a smile.
The truth is a little Truman Capote goes a long way. There was a Capote comedy skit back in the 1970s where the National Lampoon Comedy Hour had a Truman soundalike explaining how “My father stuck me in a closet with a bowling ball bag over my head.” In Infamous the soundalike, Toby Jones, is also a dead ringer for the real Capote. Jones most notably plays the voice of Dobby the Elf in the Harry Potter series. Perhaps the portrayal of Capote will become the new trial by fire of contemporary actors. Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for his Capote turn, but physically Hoffman is anything but diminutive and squeaky voiced.
As similar as Infamous is to Capote in terms of plot (famous writer travels to the scene of a brutal murder in Middle America to re-invent the novel) the directorial hands are wide apart. Infamous helmer Douglas McGrath delivers a first act frothy with wit. But by the end the film has spiraled into a grim drama, with an intense near-rape scene between Jones and Daniel Craig (next month’s blue-eyed James Bond). Craig plays Perry Smith with a rage as black as his contact lenses.


If Infamous is a double with the runner sliding in safe, then Martin Scorsese’s The Departed is a home run in the upper seats.
Dense in cinematic layers – occasional brilliant acting riffs, complicated plot with plenty of double crosses, expert use of rock songs to accent violence and character – the main thing I felt coming out of The Departed was how I longed to see it a second time.
Scorsese’s direction feels like a tuned racing engine firing on all cylinders. Sure, Scorsese’s in his element with a crime film. But Scorsese goes beyond recycling Goodfellas cheer and adds taunt suspense to Departed’s truly stunning ending. Not that the film lacks violence. Early on, we see Leonardo DiCaprio mopping up a convenience store with some thugs, and as he’s turning this guy’s face into pulp the soundtrack launches into “Land of a 1000 Dances.” It’s Scorsese reminding us that, yes, he’s seen Kill Bill Vol.1 where the same musical cue left a mark.
With Scorsese’s master touch the film is sculpted to feel like an hour even though the action takes two-and-a-half hours.


It didn’t start out as a Gwyneth Paltrow double feature but there you have it – I saw Infamous and Running With Scissors on the same day - both films where Paltrow plays a supporting role. She only appears briefly in Infamous, as a lounge singer in the opening scene. The song waivers as the blonde siren experiences a moment where you think she might collapse in the middle of her warble.
Running With Scissors, set in the groovy late 1970s, places Paltrow with an ensemble that includes Jill Clayburgh, Evan Rachel Wood, Joseph Fiennes as members of an unorthodox psychiatrist’s family. Paltrow, while only in a couple of scenes, has a psycho thousand-yard stare that will chill the uninitiated. Annette Benning, Brian Cox and Joseph Cross trade off leading roles as the story switches between Cox’s insurance fraud, Benning’s medicated stupor, with Cross (playing author Augusten Burroughs) experiencing the entire farce while going through puberty.

Cavett / Snyder DVDs

For a trip down memory lane the DVD set The Dick Cavett Show: Hollywood Greats plays more like a walk through the halls of institutional memory of American pop culture during the years when said contribution could be called golden. Astaire, Brando, Capra, Hepburn, Hitchcock, Huston, Mitchum are a few but not all of the great names and moments to be found in this 4 DVD collection.
Of the names assembled only Kirk Douglas, Mel Brooks, Robert Altman, Peter Bogdanovich and Debbie Reynolds are still living. If the others were alive maybe Orson Welles would be directing films with money he made selling wine and making iPod commercials and Marlon Brando would certainly be swashbuckling alongside Johnny Depp. The cult of celebrity embraced these personalities thirty years ago (the interview shows were recorded in the early 1970s), but their appeal was based on their cumulative talent. So unlike the nipple slips that pass for entertainment news today.
Consider that Cavett was the third rated talk host after Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin, although his cool factor boosted his karma quotient. Cavett was on ABC from 1969, and periodically throughout the 1970s, although the round robin style interview show would constantly shift time slots. Sometimes in prime time for an hour, mostly ninety-minute shots after prime. When Katherine Hepburn did her first ever television interview Cavett scored. That would be tantamount to Jack Nicholson going on Jimmy Kimmel to stump for The Departed (ain’t gonna happen).
Sure stars promoted their projects back then, but the emphasis was on conversation and where tangential ideas can lead. Brando’s appearance stands out due to his adamant refusal to talk about The Godfather while also co-hosting a handful of Native American speakers. Mitchum answers direct Cavett questions like “Do you think you have a drinking problem?” with “It’s other people who have a problem with the amount I can drink.” Of course while sipping Scotch and smoking cigs. Bette Davis honestly parries to Cavett’s thrust: “Bette, how did you lose your virginity?” Some of these segments are also running in September on cable channel TCM.

Perhaps not so odd, in 1968 when Salvador Dali produced a TV Guide cover, and titled it Today, Tonight and Tomorrow, NBC did not yet have a Tomorrow show. That show premiered in 1973 with Tom Snyder. Snyder was a bit over the top and the imitation Dan Aykroyd did on Saturday Night Live actually was what Snyder could be like when he launched into guffaws of self-congratulatory commentary. Snyder never came off as essential as Cavett but he had his moments, although those don’t include the interview with Charlie Manson. That ep will probably never be issued on DVD. But Tom Snyder’s Electric Kool-Aid Talk Show has been. A compendium of different Tomorrow episodes, the single disc DVD includes The Grateful Dead with Ken Kesey for one entire show (the Dead play four songs – On the Road Again, Cassidy, Dire Wolf, Deep Elem Blues), and segments with Tom Wolfe and Timothy Leary. These shows were originally broadcast in 1979 through 1981, and capture the ambiance of that transitional time. A quarter of a century later the dialogue still rings relevant. Snyder, at one point talking to Leary, makes a joke and looks like he’s imitating Aykroyd imitating him. That’s a strange brew.