Monday, May 17, 2010

Tap-dancing into the bottom - "An American in Paris" (1951)

“That’s quite a dress, what holds it up?”
“Modesty.”

As we sat munching on traditional “I have a cold and don’t care” Friday night fare of chicken nuggets and potato gems, the film was broken up by a call from Sharon who recounted the horrors of giving birth to her second child in the NSW public hospital system – maybe the gritty realism altered my ability to receive this paisley and pastel offering from the master tapper.

Cut back to 1951 and the film-making was obviously broken up by Minneli divorcing Judy Garland, the leading lady (Cyd Charisse) getting knocked up and the replacement 19-year old leading lady recovering from post-war malnutrition. Somehow, they danced gaily on. But why? And why did it capture the hearts of a usually far more cynical academy?

It started off with a quick and witty script, and some great performances, but apparently they overtaxed the writer so much that the last 20 minutes of the movie has no dialogue at all as they dance their way through the French masters. I’m a wannabe dancer at heart and Mat’s an artist (of the fine kind) and neither of us got anything pleasant from that experience.

A struggling artist, a French ballerina, a blonde and saucy sugar mama (perhaps the first celluloid cougar?) and an incredibly cantankerous and talented pianist should have been and started off to be pure MGM gold. We’re treated to numerous dance numbers as Kelly hangs in mid-air and delivers his usual flawless performance, but why that has to be in a beige Wiggles skivvy and matching skin tight pants I just don’t know.

Mat thinks I’m being too harsh, but it is in concert with my level of disappointment – this was a Gene Kelly dancing movie that won Best Picture up against “Streetcar Named Desire”, I was really expecting something special et ca n’est pas ca.

I gave it 58/100 and Mat was even less impressed with 57/100.

So “Out of Africa” and “Forrest Gump” are left in the dust and “An American in Paris” takes the lead as the worst of the Best Picture Winners.

'I had a farm in Africa' - "Out of Africa" (1985)

Here’s the problem with “Out of Africa” in a nutshell. It’s just not inspiring. That’s why it hasn’t scored well and it’s why it’s the last of our movies that I’ve gotten around to reviewing, despite it being watched well over a month ago.

I was utterly disappointed because it had everything, Meryl Strep (and we know how much I love and admire her), Robert Redford (and we know how much my mother-in-law loves and admires him), actually shot in Africa with real lions really menacing Meryl Strep. But even with all of that it’s just really underwhelming.

The photography is impeccable, the scenery and Africa, as a character in the film is beautiful, but you just never feel the chemistry; not between Redford and Streep (except for one brief shining hair-washing moment) and not between Streep and the country her character purportedly loves so much. This means there’s no way you can feel for them once they’re separated which kind of kills the emotional impact of the main plot points.

Given this was up against the stunning movie, “The Colour Purple” we just really can’t figure out why it won. Streep is good as always, her Danish/African accent is flawless (I’m judging that on the basis of knowing a man from that region of Africa and she sounds a lot like his mother!) and there are some wonderfully subtle moments. When she’s told she has contracted syphilis from her philandering husband - her reaction is pricelessly Victorian and painfully understated. Maybe that was the problem – they overdid it on the understatement!

Despite the presence of some redeeming features and interesting behind the scenes tidbits (e.g., Meryl completing an extended take with her normal poise and elegance despite the fact that a large flying insect had made it’s way into her underclothes moments before ‘action’ was called), this didn’t score well with any of us – including our enamoured Lyn or our visiting reviewer, Stella and actually falls to the bottom of the list of Best Pics to date.

Lyn = 58/100
Mat = 60/100
Stella = 61/100
D = 68/100

I still love you Meryl!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Extraordinary Film - "Ordinary People" (1980)



Mat here.

Ordinary People (1980) tells the story of Conrad, a teenager who has gone through some painful times and now struggles to face the banal monotony of everyday life. His parents want to carry on as if nothing's wrong (though in very different ways), and Conrad eventually seeks help from a therapist.

We came to this movie with no expectations and were floored by the quality of the acting, writing, direction and cinematography.

The three principle actors, Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore and Timothy Hutton, all give the performance of their careers. Hutton's performance in particular outshines just about any actor and role I'd care to name - early in the film, his anxiety is so palpable it's like he's vibrating off the screen. He was awarded a well deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his work (despite having more screen time than Mary Tyler Moore was nominated for Best Actress).

The tragic banality of the dialogue is masterful, ramping up the discomfort and disconnection Conrad feels, and the therapy scenes are some of the best of their kind. Special mention from me goes to the cinematography - their are some truly exceptional sequences, compositions and one-shots (longs scenes where there are no edits), and they are all the more impressive given the bland suburban settings of the story.

This film marks the directorial debut of Robert Redford who won Best Director, and Alvin Sargent received Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay).

This film is not easy to watch, with lots of uncomfortable truths and themes of guilt, suicide and grief, but it is extremely rewarding and believable and we can understand it's nomination and win for Best Picture this year.

Danielle gave this a 94/100 and I gave it 95/100, equalling my score for Silence of the Lambs, and making it equal first place so far. My mum, Lyn scored it 75/100 - but she's a hard marker and it beat out "Coal Miner's Daughter" which is a personal fave of hers! Lyn's main complaint was the lack of exposition, which didn't bother us as much, probably because of the amount of time we've spent studying psych!

D here - and I had to add as a budding therapist myself it was great to see some serious therapy going on onscreen - no "Good Will Hunting" breakthroughs on the last session before his 18th birthday. Nasty and gritty and confrontational - just the way it should be! (Although I have yet to advocate masturbation to a patient - I'm usually trying to encourage them to cut down or at least stop doing it in public - but we're talking pretty different patient populations!

Monday, May 10, 2010

He Said/She Said - "Forrest Gump" (1994)

Mat and I are usually in fairly close agreement on a lot of these movies - not this time though!

The only fair thing to do seems to be to include both our views on this one, so, Mat's review is up first in blue and mine follows in purple (I know it looks pink, but it's purple!)

"Stupid is as stupid does"


This is the first time our project has felt like hard work. We watched this travesty with our friends Jen and Adam, an act that is bound to test the friendship. Jen, Adam and I agree that this is probably the worst movie to win the Best Picture Oscar (although Titanic might be a close second).

Despite being a terrible movie, there were some things Forrest Gump scored well on. Well, two things. First, the soundtrack was excellent with really great music from the 1960's and 1970's. And the visuals, always Robert Zemeckis' strength, were also impressive with nice long shots, stunning landscapes and cutting-edge special effects (Lt. Dan's legs, inserting Gump into old footage etc).

Pity it was all stuck inside such a shallow and manipulative piece of manufactured Hollywood schmaltz-shlock.

In order to win Best Picture, it was judged to be more entertaining than Four Weddings and Funeral, more interesting than Quiz Show and superior to The Shawshank Redemption, which to me is insanity.

I scored it 44/100 and I was being generous.

And that's all I have to say about that.


"I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is"

When we first started compiling lists of Best Picture winners, I will admit this was not on the top of my ‘can’t wait to see’ list, but no way it’s worse than Titanic! (Of course the scores aren’t in yet).

I will admit that it’s manipulative and not particularly subtle about it.

I will also admit that I can’t see why it beat out “The Shawshank Redemption” which was an incredible movie.

But I can’t say it’s the least deserving ever. What’s wrong with a little schmaltz?!

All we’ve been watching for the last several months has been war and crime, blown up, shot up or skinned up bodies and psychopaths eating people’s livers! So again, what’s wrong with some schmaltz!?!?

It was a visually beautiful movie – there’s a shot (ok, in the war scenes) where a helicopter comes into frame just as another takes off behind it and the composition of that logistically difficult shoot was perfect.

Gary Sinese puts in one of the most moving portrayals of a man trying to reconcile himself with a new destiny that I have ever seen and Tom Hanks spends the entire movie mimicking the kid who played Forrest as a child. And doing it well!

Apparently the original book was intended as (or at least has been interpreted as)an attempt to portray the baby boomer generation’s blindness to what was going on around them through a man too stupid to realise what he was involved in.

I took a different message away from the film, which I actually enjoyed watching (despite the odd derisive laugh at clumsy attempts to jerk the heart strings) and scored it 74/100.

I saw it as an example of living up to expectations. It would have been easy (and more hygienic) for his ‘mama’ to give up on him and let him go to special school and let his back stay crooked; she never expected below average for him and he never delivered below average. And finally, despite all the money, fame and success in the world, love is the hardest but most precious asset you can ever attain.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Off topic - "Julie & Julia" (2009)



We're now 3 movies behind ("Out of Africa", "Ordinary People" and "Forrest Gump") but I had to make special mention of 2009's "Julie and Julia" considering it tells the parallel stories of the two "Js" making their mark on life and features a blog poster prominently.

It was such a charming movie - so nicely split between the two stories and I was so glad they didn't give in and go for the more Hollywood of endings (no spoilers, as promised). Meryl is, as always, incredible - you'd swear Julia Childs was back to life and Amy Adams is her usual adorable self - even when playing a self-obsessed narcissist!

But most importantly and why I chose to include this in a blog of Best Picture winners is, I just want it on the record now that we are totally open to book deals, movie/tv offers, anything that involves copious amounts of cash to offset our spending on this experiment! We'll spruik your short films and student assignments (hell I'll edit your assignments if you want and the pay's right!) and generally sell out to 'the man' anytime and for pretty much any price.

We clear?

Ok good. Now up next is "Out of Africa" (and more of the incomparable Meryl Strep) but soon to come will be a 'throw down' of insignificant proportions as Mat and I go head to head over "Forrest Gump". This could actually signal the end of our marriage - well at the least the happy part of it! But we're willing to do it for you, our loyal (and as yet anonymous) reading public!

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

An offer we couldn't refuse - "The Godfather, Part I" (1972)



Mat here. It was time for the godfather of all mafia movies.

Our gracious hosts for this film were Jen and Adam. Jen had never seen The Godfather, but afterwards she said it felt like she had already seen it due to how much pop culture has borrowed from the film.

The Godfather (1972) is the first in a trilogy of films based on Mario Puzo's award-winning novel of the same name. The first film tells the story of the Corleone crime family during the 1940's and 1950's. Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) tries to keep his business respectable by refusing to buy into drugs, but this results in an attempt on his life. His son Michael (Al Pacino in his first major role) takes his place as part of the crime family and avenges his father, which sparks a war between the families.

Pacino is excellent, portraying a young man certain he's never taking part in the family's criminal activities who gradually becomes more calculating and ruthless than any of his initiated bothers. Director Francis Ford Coppola campaigned hard for Marlon Brando to play Don Corleone. Brando was notoriously difficult to work with and the movie studio Paramount was against the idea. True to form, Brando read much of his dialogue from cue cards and refused to accept his Best Actor Academy Award, instead sending along Native American actress Sacheen Littlefeather in his place.

George Lucas, a good friend of Coppola, put together the 'To The Mattresses' newspaper montage of real footage from the 1930s mob wars. This was in return for Coppola’s work on “American Graffiti” so Lucas asked to go uncredited. This sequence was supposed to bring us back from the intermission Coppola was going to include, due to the length of the film.

The film also won the Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) Oscar for Coppola and Puzo.

Unsurprisingly, we scored The Godfather well across the board with Danielle giving it 80%, Adam 83%, Jen 84% and 89% from me.

In addition to the outstanding acting; the direction, dialogue, cultural importance and believability all contributed to the film's high marks.

We're also looking forward to watching The Godfather Part II, as it also won a Best Picture Oscar.

NB – from Danielle: if you’re interested in movie making/mob history then check out the making of/behind the scenes stuff on the Godfather. Reportedly, when Coppola asked one of the supporting characters if he could spin a revolver for the shot, he replied “What, are you kidding?” And in true life imitating art (imitating the mafia) one character supposedly won the part based more ‘who he knew’ than sheer talent! But I can’t say anymore!

Monday, May 3, 2010

"Good Evening Clarice" - "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991)



So this was the first movie we watched with a bit of a broader audience – our two best friends, Jen and Adam. We all decided we didn’t want war or tear jerkers but psychopathic serial killers would be fine!

This is one of only 3 movies to win the ‘grand slam’ top 5 Oscars – we’ve already watched the first grand slam winner, “It Happened One Night” and I have to say expectations were high. Not least because this is such a well-known film (“I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti”!) and because to date it is the only horror film to win a Best Picture Oscar. So it must have been pretty good, right? Right?!

I’m no good with the misdirection - it was great! So entertaining! Anthony Hopkins is the living embodiment of gleeful evil and Jodie Foster’s portrayal of the floundering Starling with the first assignment from hell is completely compelling. Jen and Adam’s chief complaints were about the 'emotional response' and ‘did it make you think’categories but for me, way back in 1991 it started a love affair with all things true crime and may have lead (in some strange and small way) to my chosen profession. I love a psychological thriller that’s true to the psychology of it’s characters, as I told Clarice to wait for morning to search “Yourself Storage” Adam rightly pointed out, she wouldn’t do that – she’s a boots and all kind of girl!

Jen didn’t care much for the lambs, which probably contributed to her lower score (given that the whole ‘screaming lamb’ thing is kind of important to Starling), but we all agreed it deserved to win against it’s competitors that year (“Beauty and the Beast”, “Prince of Tides”, “Bugsy” and “JFK”). Of course anything that doesn’t require catheterisation to get through beats “JFK”.

We thoroughly relished the pure entertainment value of such great actors really getting to sink their teeth into such extreme characters and I loved the exposure it provided to criminologists and forensic specialists. Anything that increases understanding of the incomprehensible aspects of human nature scores well in my view! Like “The Hurt Locker” it makes you ask yourself what these people give up to keep us safe from the horrors in this world.

One of my favourite (and horribly disturbing) anecdotes comes from John Douglas, the FBI profiler who was the inspiration (and consultant) for the Jack Crawford character. He had returned home from a devastating body recovery scene involving multiple child victims to find his wife cooking dinner. As she chopped the carrots she managed to take off a portion of her finger. Crying in pain and surprise and trying to bandage her bleeding hand she called for help. Dispassionately her husband surveyed the scene and responded, “It’s not that bad, what’s the fuss?”

Needless to say that his marriage did not survive, but who knows how many people did survive because of his sacrifices? I think that’s a story worth telling and “The Silence of the Lambs” does make you consider those kinds of stories. “You don’t want Hannibal Lector in your head.” But sometimes that’s the only way to catch them!

Overall we scored it 85% (Jen), 87% (Adam), 91% (D) and 95% (Mat), putting the delectable Hannibal Lector and ‘good bag, cheap shoes’ Clarice Starling well ahead in the Best of the Best Picture stakes!

Back to basics - "Rebecca" (1940)



This blog thing is hard! I want to make the entries as interesting as possible, but I also want to catch up as less than a month in, we’re already nearly a month behind!

We had “Rebecca” delivered via our Bigpond account (essential for all movie lovers without limitless budgets!) and as soon as it arrived I wanted to watch it. I had studied the book in highschool and always loved the story, so I wanted to see how it was adapted to film. We were both really curious to see Hitchcock’s only Oscar winner and we both enjoy watching Hitchcock torture his female leads (on and offscreen) and this certainly didn’t disappoint.

Joan Fontaine is absolutely stunning and suitably awkward as the young and naïve new Mrs De Winter next to the frosty and inscrutable Laurence Olivier. Apparently poor Joan was detested by her onscreen love interest, Laurence, who had wanted his then real-life girlfriend, Vivien Leigh in the role. In true Hitchcock style this was used to enhance her discomfort on set; he told her that the entire cast hated her and she spent most of her time between takes hiding in her trailer and I think that really comes across in the film! She just doesn’t fit in (as of course she isn’t supposed to).

Our biggest problem with this film is our chief complaint with many of Hitchcock’s films; he was such a control freak he would film most scenes against a screen rather than risk having outdoor conditions interfere with his ‘process’. This really distracted us in some scenes; they were having an emotional discussion about the drowning of the first Mrs DeWinter on top of a cliff and it’s supposed to be a very tense, emotional scene, but you’re just watching the bad screen effects.

Mrs Danvers was suitably creepy and cold and you really feel the new Mrs DeWinter's discomfort and awkwardness. One of my favourite scenes involves her breaking a small ornament and hiding it in the back of a drawer because she’s too intimidated by the house staff to tell them she’s broken it.

It’s a great story, full of the twists from Daphne Du Maurier’s original book, masterfully adapted by the master of the twist (and the original blue screen) Hitchcock. The acting was a little overwrought, which was interesting considering how natural the acting was in “It Happened One Night” which was made 6 years earlier.

Apparently the film was so big in Spain that even now, the two-piece cardigans that Joan Fontaine wears in the movie are still called ‘rebeccas’; so that has to bump the score up on Social Context/Relevance scale! (which we use to take into account pop culture value).

Our final scores were: Mat – 77%, Danielle – 73%.

No more deserts! "It Happened One Night" (1934)




We decided it was really time for something that didn’t feature sand or copious amounts of blood and death! So we went the polar extreme (time and genre-wise) and watched our oldest movie so far, 1934’s “It Happened One Night”.

This movie had so much trouble being made – with many of its stars being ‘loaned out’ by larger studios as punishment for large egos! Capra was considered a ‘renegade’ with his new fangled romantic comedy road movie and all the actors were embarrassed by the script and story with Clark Gable reportedly saying on the first day “Let’s get this over with”.
Despite this, “It Happened One Night” was the first movie to win the “Oscar Grand Slam” (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Screenplay); a feat that wouldn’t be repeated for another 41 years with “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”!

It also forms the basis of so many modern movies like, “Forces of Nature” and “Spaceballs” most obviously (and oddly!); the spoilt brat runaway and the older, wiser (but of course secretly insecure and damaged) guide. Interestingly enough, Clark Gable’s character was also used as the basis for Fritz Freleng’s later creation of Bugs Bunny!

Capra’s dialogue and direction was snappy and really modern. The acting was naturalistic (no over the top soap opera type acting with the fainting and the swooning of the females) and it was really fun to watch. Despite the lead actors reportedly hating each other, their chemistry is flawless (if time-appropriately misogynistic and patronising) and it’s fantastic to watch what was probably the very first “mis-matched buddy road movie” (not to mention the origin of Bugs Bunny!).

This was highly entertaining and would have to hold a special place in the heart of any film historian – or film buff. Mat gave it 62/100 and I scored it 70/100. Highly recommended!

Sunday, May 2, 2010

More war and more deserts! - "The Hurt Locker" (2009)



Ok, so we said we’d lay off war and desert movies for a while then headed straight to La Premiere for “The Hurt Locker”. The first Oscar winning female director and damn did she earn it! It was an incredible film. I think Mat may have stopped breathing a few times and I caught myself holding my breath like I was going to set off a bomb if I didn’t!

The shoot must have been a nightmare, everyone got sick and suffered under hideous desert heat, but they produced a really different movie looking at the life of a small number of soldiers in an extreme occupation and explored the idea of an ‘action junkie’ really well. One scene shows a recently returned soldier standing in the American ‘super sized’ cereal aisle; his ability to comprehend such a scene is as impaired as our ability to comprehend walking into a building and working out the most likely places to hide a bomb to cause maximum damage. It’s a great exploration of what we ask these soldiers to do and how they are fundamentally altered by their experiences.

There are some fantastic actors cropping up in small (and usually quickly lethal roles) but the leads are mainly unknown which actually helps the ‘everyman’ feel. These guys could be anyone and the constant wild swings between high intensity sheer boredom (e.g., waiting out a sniper trap) to high intensity, high adrenaline active disarming or explosions messes so much with the audience’s heads enough – it’s hard to imagine what it’s doing to these guys. The tension is expertly handled and there are some incredible and really innovative shots (watch out for the slow-motion shot of rust being blown off a car!)

We rated this really highly because we felt it was an important story being told in a quite a new way. We felt the innovations in story-telling and pacing should work to reach and affect an increasingly cynical and shock-proof audience because the film does a good job relating these ‘action junkies’ to other kinds of addictions, which may help to make it more accessible to modern (non-military) audiences.

Plus despite the free soft drink – neither of us even considered leaving for a bathroom break! That’s always a good sign and helps us rate “The Hurt Locker”, 91% (Mat) and 89% (Danielle).