TV/Streaming

Hemingway & Gellhorn: Corny and canny

Odie Henderson

“Hemingway & Gellhorn (160 minutes) debuts on HBO May 28th, and will be available on HBO Go and HBO On Demand May 29th.

“If two people love each other, there can be no happy end to it.” — Ernest Hemingway

by Odie Henderson

Philip Kaufman’s epic HBO movie “Hemingway & Gellhorn” is old-fashioned, corny as hell and not above using cliché. None of these characteristics is necessarily a bad thing, especially if the filmmakers know they are employing them. This film evokes the rainy Sunday afternoon old-movie fare I grew up watching on TV, movies with a tough, macho hero, a smart, brassy dame and the undeniable chemistry between them. Kaufman updates the formula to modern times with belts of profanity and jolts of sex, but “Hemingway and Gellhorn” maintains the feeling of an era long since passed, wherein its leads could have been played by Gable and Harlow or Bogie and Betty Bacall.

The titular characters are Ernest Hemingway and his third wife, Martha Gellhorn. Gellhorn is widely considered one of the greatest war correspondents in journalism history, covering wars well into her 80’s. Yet, she was constantly overshadowed by her more famous ex-husband. Theirs was a torrid affair, started while Hemingway was married to his Catholic second wife and continuing through their coverage of several wars. “We were good at wars,” Gellhorn said, “and when there was no war, we made our own.” The screenplay, by Barbara Turner (“Georgia”) and Jerry Stahl (“Permanent Midnight”) is filled with prose like this, and I enjoyed devouring every purple morsel of it. “Hemingway and Gellhorn” even opens with the now-elderly Gellhorn telling us what a lousy lay she was.

Bachelorette: Invasion of the b-face girls

Jana Monji

“Bachelorette” opens in theaters September 7, and is available on demand via iTunes, Amazon.com, Vudu.com and Google Play.

By Jana Regan Monji

In this reality-TV ruled world, the word bachelorette seems firmly attached to the legacy of Trista Rehn and the female spin-off of a competitive dating game. Yet in writer/director Leslye Headland’s dark comedy, “Bachelorette,” the subject isn’t the tricks and lines men use in the warfare of love but how three women deal with being on the downside of not-married when the least conventionally attractive of their high school clique is preparing to walk down the aisle. This cocaine-fueled cattiness never rises above callow, although the acting talent is deeper than the script.

Pearl Jam at 20: American Masters? Yes.

Jeff Shannon

“Pearl Jam Twenty” is available On Demand (check your satellite or cable listings) and premieres on the PBS series “American Masters” at 9 p. m. (ET/PT), Oct. 21. It will be released on Blu-ray and DVD Oct. 25. For additional viewing, the grunge documentary “Hype!” is available on Netflix (DVD only).

by Jeff Shannon

Here in Seattle, we think of Cameron Crowe as an honorary native. When he married Nancy Wilson in 1986, he married into local rock royalty: Nancy and her sister, Ann, are the pioneering queens of rock in Heart, the phenomenally successful and still-touring Seattle-based band that is presently nominated for induction into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. It wasn’t long before Crowe became a kind of de facto ambassador of Seattle-based rock.

At the time, the rest of the world still knew Crowe as the rock-journalist wunderkind who started writing for Rolling Stone at age 15 (an experience Crowe would later dramatize in “Almost Famous”) and the author-turned-screenwriter of Amy Heckerling’s 1982 high-school classic “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” You could reasonably speculate that the seeds of the Crowe/Wilson romance were planted in “Fast Times”: Nancy Wilson makes a cameo appearance in the film as “Beautiful Girl in Car,” catching Judge Reinhold’s character in yet another moment of humiliating embarrassment. One can imagine Crowe thinking “I’m gonna marry that girl.” When he actually did, countless male Heart fans turned green with envy.

(By sheer happenstance, I made a friendly connection with Crowe three years before we actually met. Shortly after the newlywed Crowe moved to the Eastside Seattle suburb of Woodinville, he and Nancy placed a mobile home on their rural property to accommodate visits from Wilson’s mother. At the time, my father was running a mortgage business specializing in mobile/land sales in Snohomish County, and he closed their deal. When my dad informed Crowe that I was a Seattle film critic and an admirer of his, Crowe sent me a signed copy of Fast Times at Ridgemont High to my dad’s office. It was a completely unsolicited gesture of kindness, and a pleasant precursor to later encounters.)

The Magic of Belle Isle: Press the Easy Button

Donald Liebenson

“The Magic of Belle Isle” (109 minutes) is available via iTunes, Amazon, Comcast, DirecTV, VUDU and other outlets. A limited theatrical release begins July 1.

Rob Reiner’s “The Magic of Belle Isle” is an Easy Button of a film, as generic and conventional as its title. If you ever wondered what a Hallmark Channel original movie would be like if you threw some A-list talent at it — namely Morgan Freeman and Virginia Madsen instead of, say, Jeffrey Nordling and Kristy Swanson — here’s your answer.

Freeman stars as Monte Wildhorn, an alcoholic in a wheelchair and “writer (of westerns) nobody reads.” His books, once popular, are now out of print. Monte’s nephew (Keenan Thompson) deposits him in the idyllic lakeside town of Belle Isle to housesit. Nephew’s ulterior motive, of course, is that he will be inspired to stop drinking and start writing again, but the embittered Monte is a hard case. “Toss it in the garbage,” he says of his typewriter. “She’s a black-hearted whore, and I’m done with her.”

So what will it take to turn this curmudgeon into a softie? Guy Thomas’ simplistic script leaves nothing to chance. How about saddling Monte with a lazy old dog named Ringo (yes, Ringo) that has a penchant for licking itself? No? Well then, how about introducing a single mother (Madsen) who is going through a divorce with three — count ’em — daughters: one adorable, one precocious, and one sullen? Still not enough? Well then how about adding to the mix a mentally challenged boy who hops around the neighborhood and whom Monte takes under his wing as his “sidekick?”

Mariachi High: Viva Zapata, Texas!

Donald Liebenson

“Mariachi High” premieres on PBS on Friday, June 29 at 9 p. m.ET (check your local listings). A DVD can be pre-ordered at www.pbs.org for August 14 release. It will also be available digitally in August via iTunes and Amazon.

by Donald Liebenson

Having had the good fortune to attend a high school with a vital arts program, I am a sucker for documentaries about the transformative power of arts and humanities education. “Mariachi High” hits all the right notes: An underdog school district, a dedicated teacher, fiercely talented and determined students, and character-defining setbacks that raise the stakes for those “exhilarating, off the charts” moments of truth.

“Mariachi High” chronicles a school year in the life of Zapata High School’s championship varsity-level ensemble, Mariachi Halcon. Zapata, a small Texas border town (pop: 5,089 in 2010 when co-directors Ilana Trachtman and Kim Connell began filming), is somehow “a big talent gene pool for Mariachi,” observes the ensemble’s director Adrian Padilla.

To say the school of 900 does not enjoy the advantages of big city schools is an understatement. One Zapata student recalls comparing eighth grade school trips with a friend. Her friend’s school traveled to Washington, D.C. The Zapata kids visited an aquarium.

But Mariachi is where they make their mark.

There’s Something About Cherry

Odie Henderson

“About Cherry” (102 minutes) is available now on demand at IFC, iTunes, Amazon Instant and SundanceNow. Opens theatrically September 21, 2012 in New York.

After reading the synopsis for “About Cherry,” I figured I had it pegged. Here’s a movie about a fresh-faced, clean-cut American girl named Angelina who goes the photographic Full Monty before graduating to porn. “Oh brother,” I thought. “Another cautionary tale.” In American cinema, you just can’t enjoy sex. There has to be some consequence for all the ejaculations of “oh god!” and “yes I said yes I will Yes.” If you’re a man, you tend to get off scot free. But a woman who enjoys the same activity might as well be struck by lightning onscreen. So I expected poor Angelina to run afoul of drugs, sexual abuse and possibly fatal violence. The press materials seemed to support my supposition: “But Angelina’s newfound ideal lifestyle soon comes apart at the seams,” it ominously states. I braced myself for the worst.

Eighteen-year old Angelina (Ashley Hinshaw) lives in Southern California with her younger sister (Maya Raines), her alcoholic mother (Lili Taylor) and Mama’s latest man. Angelina yearns to escape her dismal home life, so with a little coaxing from her rock band boyfriend (Johnny Weston), she visits his photographer buddy Vaughn (Ernest Waddell). Vaughn shoots erotic photos, and Angelina is both erotic and photogenic. The photo shoot is such a rousing success that Weston demands Angelina avoid Vaughn for future shoots. Angelina dumps the rocker.

Legend of the Millennium Dragon: Epic anime

Jana Monji

“Legend of the Millennium Dragon” is available on DVD/Blu-ray and via iTunes and Amazon Instant. In Japanese with English subtitles.

When a movie jumps from one culture to another, especially one with a different language, expect some things to be lost in translation. If you’re not up on Japanese history and folklore, you might be a bit mystified by director Hirotsugu Kawasaki’s 2011 “Legend of the Millennium Dragon.” Based on a two-book novel by Takafumi Takada (with screenplay by Naruhisa Arakawa and Hirotsugu Kawasaki), this engrossing animation with beautifully detailed background paintings whisks us into an ancient war between gods in Heian Japan.

Names are important in this quick-moving adventure. Shakespeare wrote that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but his historical tragedies would hardly make any sense to one who thinks the “War of the Roses” involves Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. “Holinshed’s Chronicles and “Bulfinch’s Mythology” won’t help you here. Much of what happens in “The Legend of the Millennium Dragon” harks back to two ancient tomes: “Kojiki” and the “Nihonshoki.”

The original title, “Onigamiden,” means “Legend of the Demon God,” but dragons are probably more attractive to an English-speaking audience than demons. A dragon does appear, but the story involves finding courage and a sacred sword. Then there’s that age-old question: Just who are the demons?

Gnarr: Send in the clown

Jeff Shannon

“Gnarr” (85 minutes) is now available via most major on-demand platforms including cable, satellite, iTunes and Amazon Instant.

by Jeff Shannon

The United States could sure use a guy like Jon Gnarr right about now. Just take a look at the sorry state of our presidential campaigns and then consider what Gnarr achieved in his native Iceland: In January 2010 Gnarr, Iceland’s most popular and controversial comedian, began to campaign for the office of Mayor of Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital and largest city. What began as a joke snowballed into a seriously funny, but still very serious, protest vote that turned the tide of history.

Earning coverage in The New York Times, Gnarr’s campaign was a referendum on the unchecked corruption, cronyism and incompetence that turned the richest country in Europe into the morally and financially bankrupt victim of a nationwide depression. Gnarr’s campaign momentum was made possible by a climate of disgust and frustration with a political system that was broken beyond repair. In the wake of financial disaster on an unprecedented scale, Gnarr rode a wave of backlash against a gridlocked establishment.

As the playful yet firmly grounded documentary “Gnarr” unfolds, Americans can easily view the film as a reflection of our current political climate. Accounting for differences in scale (Iceland’s entire population is slightly less than that of Wichita, Kansas), Gnarr’s mayoral campaign, and the media circus surrounding it, is strikingly relevant to the political and economic woes of the world’s top-ranking superpower. Watching the film, you can’t help thinking, “What if…? “

Racy Redline: Cartoon crotch shots & Elvis fantasies

Jana Monji

“Redline” is available on demand via Vudu.com and Amazon Instant Video. It is also on DVD/Blu-ray.

There are nights when I love nothing better than dressing up in a T-shirt, my saddle shoes and a poodle skirt like a high school teen from “American Graffiti” and get ready for some East Coast swing. If I could ride in a cherry retro car, that would just make my night perfect. You’d think that the anime “Redline,” with its young Elvis-like rebel protagonist who flaunts his need for speed, would suit me just fine. My husband likes women in short skirts like the racetrack babes and bimbos of “Redline,” so this anime should have offered something for both of us. Yet we found this futuristic racing anime a hyperactive snore. I’m not saying that 44-year-old director Takeshi Koike is musty, but the characters are dead on arrival and the techno soundtrack during the action sequences made us want to flee their funeral.

All Together: Communal living, senior style

Odie Henderson

“All Together,” or “Et si on vivait tous ensemble?” (97 minutes) is available via VOD on various cable systems, and on iTunes, Amazon Instant and Vudu.

The cinema of 2012 is brought to you by Viagra, or so it seems. The year has been chock full of movies about horny old people. Sure, the characters still complain, have aches and pains, and deal with moments both senior and regrettable. But Nana’s also out to prove she’s still got the ill na na, and Gramps is in the mood like Glenn Miller on an endless loop. Films like Dustin Hoffman’s “Quartet,” with its randy Billy Connolly, and the main characters of Stephane Robelin’s “All Together” dispel the myth that once you go gray, the sex goes away. These folks are reclaiming “bitch and moan” from its grumpy origins, and turning the phrase into a cause-and-effect relationship.

Black history written with lightning

Odie Henderson

“The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975” plays on PBS’s “Independent Lens” Thursday, February 9, 2012. Check local listings. It is also available on DVD, Netflix Instant and Amazon Instant.

After viewing “The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975,” I stumbled out of the theater and into a blinding, mid-afternoon New York City sun, every nerve in my body ablaze. All my neurons seemed to be firing at once, and my brain was so full of thought I sought some way to collect myself. I started to walk, focusing more on reconciling my thoughts than a navigational direction. With no destination in mind, I walked for what seemed an eternity, trying to put my emotional responses together. I was jolted from my mental process by an old woman standing next to me on a Manhattan street corner. I must have looked shell-shocked, because she touched my arm as we waited for a Lower East Side traffic light to change. “Honey, are you alright?” she asked, genuine concern on her face.

Fully back in reality, I said “I’m fine, ma’am. Thank you for asking.”

My reaction requires an explanation. Swedish journalist and filmmaker Göran Hugo Olsson’s documentary took me back to the days when I came to a mature understanding of the implications of being Black, male, and broke. My adolescence was full of reading the speeches and works of Black leaders besides Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I chose to do this after my uncle took me to a Black-owned bookstore and suggested several books I should read. He avoided MLK not out of some form of militant stance, but because footage and information about King were everywhere. He was the star of every Black History Month on TV, and those who rejected the message of non-violence were either marginalized, demonized or ignored. I devoured works by people whose messages were downright terrifying to mainstream America: Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, and Huey P. Newton.

Booker’s Place: A Mississippi reckoning

Odie Henderson

“Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story (92 minutes) is available on-demand at iTunes and Amazon starting April 26th. It will be theatrically released in Los Angeles, CA on April 25, 2012. and New York on April 27, 2012.

“Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story” asks a question about documentaries to which I admit I’ve not given much consideration: Can a documentary negatively affect the lives of their participants? For Booker Wright, an interviewee in Frank DeFelitta’s 1966 NBC documentary, “Mississippi: A Self-Portrait,” his appearance cost him a severe beating, the bombing of his business, and potentially his death 7 years later. Wright’s “crime” was to speak too bluntly about life as a Black man in Greenwood, Mississippi. “Booker’s Place” investigates the ramifications of DeFelitta using footage he knew was incendiary, yet invaluable to his role as one who documents the truth. Did DeFelitta also commit a “crime” in allowing the footage to be broadcast, assisting in the eventual fate of Booker Wright? Wright’s granddaughter, Yvette Johnson and Frank’s son, Raymond DeFelitta, answer this and more in their must-see documentary.

 

The elder DeFelitta’s documentary aired on NBC at the height of the civil rights movement. Hidden for decades in a vault, “Mississippi: A Self-Portrait” resurfaced as Frank DeFelitta and his son were cataloguing the numerous documentaries Frank made for NBC in the ’60’s. At the same time, Booker Wright’s granddaughter, who had never met her grandfather, was writing a blog about her discoveries researching him. Although Johnson had heard of his NBC appearance, her searches for the footage yielded nothing but dead-ends. After the younger DeFelitta heard of Johnson’s blog, he contacted her. Their meeting sent them on a journey for answers to their central questions. DeFelitta wanted to know how much, if any, effect his father’s documentary had on Booker Wright; Johnson wanted to know more about her grandfather, and whether his comments were intentional or, in her words, the work of “an accidental activist.”

Johnny Carson: The man behind the curtain

Jeff Shannon

“Johnny Carson: The King of Late Night” (120 minutes) premieres on PBS’ “American Masters” at 9:00pm Monday, May 14th (check local listings). The film will also be released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 17th.

As I reflect on my life, I grow increasingly grateful for having witnessed the greatest half-century in the history of the United States. Consider just a few of the crucial events that have shaped us during the past 50 years: The civil rights movements for African-Americans, women and the disabled; the assassinations of JFK, MLK and RFK; the war in Vietnam and its domestic fallout; landing on the moon and exploring the outer reaches of the universe; the global trauma of AIDS and seemingly perpetual threats of war and terrorism; and, perhaps most important, the emergence and meteoric rise of the digital age, exemplified by the Internet and social media with the power to literally change history through an exponential expansion of human connectedness.

If you’ve witnessed these decades through the multicolored lenses of popular culture, the rewards have been astonishing. Consider the careers we’ve seen in that time: Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Springsteen, Madonna, The Clash, U2, Nirvana… Don Rickles, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Eddie Murphy, Tina Fey… Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Steven Spielberg, Werner Herzog… We could all make our own long lists and we’d all arrive at the same conclusion: The past half-century has been nothing short of phenomenal.

And one way or another, it all comes down to “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.”

Paul Williams Still Alive; movie not so much

Donald Liebenson

“Paul Williams Still Alive” (87 minutes) will be available on VOD October 16th via (Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Bright House, among other cable providers), iTunes, VUDU, YouTube, Amazon, Sony (Playstation), Microsoft (Zune, Xbox), Blockbuster, AT&T, DirecTV, DISH.

by Donald Liebenson

In begrudgingly recommending “Paul Williams Still Alive” to his legion of fans, I am reminded of a Rolling Stone magazine review of Janis Joplin’s first solo album, “I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!” Janis never sounded better, the reviewer said, but to enjoy her, you had to be able to tune out her backup band. A similar caveat is necessary here. Enjoyment of “Still Alive” will depend on your tolerance of writer-director Stephen Kessler, who takes Williams’ joke at one point that the documentary could become the “Paulie and Steve Show” as a carte blanche invitation to intrude on the proceedings.

Edwin Drood: Cold Case Reopened

Jeff Shannon

“The Mystery of Edwin Drood” (120 minutes) premieres on PBS “Masterpiece Classic” at 9 p.m. Sunday, April 15th (check local listings). The film can also be watched online for a limited time beginning April 16th. It is also available on DVD.

When Charles Dickens died on June 9th, 1870, his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, was barely half-finished. Almost immediately, completing the novel became a kind of literary sport, as numerous authors took it upon themselves to finish Drood in a manner fitting with Dickens’s own style and substance. Speculative attempts to complete the story continue to this day, and now we have a new PBS “Masterpiece Classic” version to discuss, debate and appreciate. Directed by Diarmuid Lawrence and adapted by British playwright and veteran TV writer Gwyneth Hughes (who previously penned the “Masterpiece Classic” drama Mrs. Austen Regrets), this two-hour version of “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” dares to stretch credibility almost but not quite to the breaking point.

It’s a delicate game being played here, so I’ll avoid spoilers altogether. Suffice it to say that Hughes’ solution to the mystery of Edwin Drood is in keeping with Dickens’ intentions. We know from Dickens’ own correspondence that it was Edwin’s uncle, John Jasper, who would ultimately be held accountable for the alleged murder of his nephew. Not content to limit themselves to just this one historically well-established plot twist, Hughes and Lawrence have added a familial dimension to the story that qualifies, in this context, as a surprising (though not altogether shocking) revelation. Whether Dickens would’ve approved is yet another topic worthy of debate.

An unfashionable belief in the Great Man

Steven Boone

“Bill T. Jones: A Good Man,” premieres nationally Friday, November 11 at 9 p.m. (ET/PT) on PBS. Check local listings.

by Steven Boone

Bill T. Jones looks like an epic hero of dance. His cheekbones are as intricately chiseled as his sable Jack Johnson physique. When working as a choreographer-director, he projects artistic heroism, naturally striking poses of sage leadership straight out of Classics Illustrated. Having created a show celebrating Africa’s great musical activist, Fela Kuti (“FELA!”), to worldwide acclaim and Tony awards, he wasn’t yet done with the subject of heroes when it struck him to complete a long-gestating piece about Abraham Lincoln titled “Fondly Do We Hope/Fervently Do We Pray.”

“Bill T. Jones: A Good Man” is a documentary about Jones’s attempt to understand his lifelong hero-worship of The Great Emancipator, using an entire dance company as his investigative tool. Many of the dancers grew up idolizing Jones the same way he has bowed to Lincoln since childhood — an ingenious meta-reverberation of theme that’s clearly intentional. Jones wants to know if Lincoln was, indeed, the “good man” official history portrays. Leadership in times of war and social upheaval entails traversing a minefield of cynical agendas. Jones wants to know if idealism can truly flower in such a toxic climate.

A day after bitching at many of his collaborators well into rehearsals, Jones gathers the company to apologize, but also to confess: He needs their help. Wearing dancer’s tights and no shirt rather than his usual sweats and t-shirt, he appears as vulnerable as his performers. He’s one of them for a moment, and he admits to having been puzzled about where he was steering this artistic ship. Now he realizes that the show isn’t about Lincoln but about Bill T. Jones and his unfashionable beliefs.

Love and death (not necessarily in that order)

Kevin B. Lee

Manoel de Oliveira’s “The Strange Case of Angelica” is available on demand via Netflix Instant and for download on iTunes. It is also on DVD and Blu-ray and is coming soon to Vudu.

Few of us can expect to live 100 years, much less have that age represent the prime of our career. But Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira, who last month celebrated his 103rd birthday, has averaged one new film a year since 1985 (Ron Howard’s “Cocoon,” in which Florida retirees meet space aliens who hold the secret to youth, was released the same year — coincidence?). Two-thirds of Oliveira’s 30 features were made in his eighties and nineties; Clint Eastwood, who last year turned 81, has his work cut out for him.

Oliveira’s prodigious output, which would put most directors to shame regardless of their age, may be his way of making up for lost time. While he can trace his career all the way to the silent era, he didn’t make his first feature “Aniki Bobo” until he was 34; his second feature “Rite of Spring” came 21 years later. His stalled output can partly be attributed to his decades-long resistance to Portugal’s oppressive right-wing Estado Novo regime, during which Oliveira spent time in jail. Ironically, when leftists finally took over in the 1970s, they seized Oliveira’s family business that had sustained him throughout his artistic struggles. Fortunately by that point he had achieved international acclaim, heralded by film critic J. Hoberman as “one of the 70s leading modernists” just as he entered his seventies.

The Loving Story: A romantic interracial landmark

Steven Boone

“The Loving Story” premieres on Valentine’s Day, February 14, at 9 p.m. on HBO (check local listings), and is available via HBO On Demand and HBO Go thereafter.

“The Loving Story” is as modest and taciturn as its subject, an interracial couple who, in 1958 rural Central Point, Virginia, just wanted to be left alone. For the most part, they were, and that was the problem as much as it was their fervent wish. When the local sheriff busted into their bedroom at 4 am and hauled them off to jail for violating the Racial Integrity Act, there was no national audience, in contrast to the fire hosings, bombings and other acts of racist terror that couldn’t help but make the evening news at the time. The whole world was not watching. It’s hard to fathom why after seeing the luminous 16mm footage uncovered in “The Loving Story.” Documenting many pivotal moments in the case, it adds a dash of something rarely seen in the grand narrative of the American Civil Rights struggle: romance.

In the footage and iconic photographs, the Lovings appear to be deeply in love. Richard is a silent, barrel-chested Ed Harris lookalike; Mildred is shy and beautiful, the essence of poised intelligence. How could a story this simple and universal, with two photogenic romantic leads captured in a Life magazine feature, get lost in the Civil Rights shuffle?

The Loving case eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court, and all along the way, the couple insisted upon discretion and privacy. Only a small documentary crew — filmmaker Hope Ryden and cinematographer Abbot Mills — gained access to their home, but they made the most of it. The photography is as discreet but watchful as Mildred herself. When she, well, lovingly buckles her little daughter’s suede shoe as they prepare for an outing, the camera isolates the mother’s slender brown arm steadying her child’s pale leg. In the film’s context, as assembled by producer-director Nancy Buirski, moments like this one simply cry out, “Why on earth would a decent person want to disrupt this beautiful life?”

On “The Rack” with Paul Newman and Stewart Stern

Jeff Shannon

• “The Rack” (1956)

• “Until They Sail” (1957)

• “The Prize” (1963)

• “Tales of Tomorrow: Ice From Space” (1953)”The Rack,” “Until They Sail” and “The Prize” are now available on made-to-order DVD from the Warner Archive Collection for $19.95 each. “Tales of Tomorrow” can be viewed on Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Video.

by Jeff Shannon

You would think that every film Paul Newman ever appeared in would be readily available on home video, right? Guess again. One of the best films from Newman’s early career has managed to slip through the cracks of home-video distribution for decades, and unless you’re old enough to have seen it in theaters or on TV over the years, it’s possible you’ve never even heard of it.

So when I heard that “The Rack” (1956) was available on home video for the very first time, I couldn’t wait to break the news to Stewart Stern.

For anyone who’s wondering “Stewart who?” there’s a convenient shortcut you can use when discussing the impressive life and career of Stewart Stern. All you have to say is, “He wrote ‘Rebel Without a Cause.'”

Uh-huh, that one. With a credit like that, any screenwriter could legitimately claim a slice of movie immortality, like James Dean did as the now-iconic star of Nicholas Ray’s 1955 teen-angst classic.

But to say that Stern only wrote “Rebel” is a bit like saying Frank Lloyd Wright designed a house. In the course of his distinguished, decades-spanning career, Stern wrote rich, psychologically perceptive scripts that were magnets for great actors and great acting: His script for “The Ugly American” (1963) gave Brando plenty to chew on; his Oscar-nominated script for “Rachel, Rachel” (1968) gave Joanne Woodward what is arguably the best role of her career (under the direction of her husband, Paul Newman; they also earned Oscar nods); and Stern’s Emmy and Peabody-winning teleplay for “Sybil” (1976) transformed cute TV actress Sally Field into an Emmy winner with a pair of Oscars in her future. A few years later, Stern left Hollywood, weary of the rat race and struggling with writer’s block, the delayed effect of post-traumatic stress from service in World War II. In the mid-’80s, Stern relocated to Seattle and never looked back.

And while Stern may have been a nephew of Paramount Pictures founder Adolph Zukor, with additional family ties to MGM moguls Arthur Loew Sr. and Jr., his closest Hollywood connection was more personal and more warmly indicative of the man’s soul and spirit: For 55 years, Stewart Stern was one of Paul Newman’s very best friends.

The Girl: Putty in Hitch’s hands

Jeff Shannon

“The Girl” premieres on HBO at 9:00pm (8:00pm Central) on Saturday, Oct. 20. It will also be available on HBO GO.