Monday, June 21, 2010

"The Greatest Show on Earth" (1952) - my arse!

Shite. Utter shite.

The best part of this movie was literally when it was over.

Ok. There were some other positives. The circus stunts and photography were amazing. Really incredible and you really got into the rivalry between the two trapeze artists. I mean you knew one of them was going to be horribly maimed at some point, and I must admit after the first half hour I was just begging for one of them to fall just to break up the monotony of the rest of the film – but still their work was impressive.

This is especially true because Cecile B. De Mille (aside from being a McCarthy loving rat) was apparently a bit of a ‘method’ director and insisted all his stars do their own stunts – which entailed all the leads learning highwire, trapeze and elephant training! Again, considering one of the male leads was terrified of heights, this is especially impressive to watch and does increase your involvement with those stunts.

But overall this completely deserves its reputation as the least deserving Best Picture Winner. Given the poor acting, the terrible script, the plodding plot line, the predictability and the overly long and pointless musical numbers we couldn’t understand why it had ever been nominated, let alone how it won! Then we did some research and discovered that De Mille was a loyal fan of McCarthy who was well and truly on his commie witch hunt at the time and the other films nominated that year all had some sort of connection to ‘black-listed’ writers, directors or producers.

As if McCarthy didn’t do enough damage – he had to destroy the Oscars as well! Nothing makes that clearer than the fact that 1952 saw the release of arguably the greatest (certainly one of the most enduring) movie musicals ever made, Gene Kelly and “Singing in the Rain”, but with a writer on the ‘black-list’ and directors leaving left (haha) right and centre ‘under suspicion’ it didn’t even rate a nomination.

By far the funniest moment came when Sebastian (the renegade trapeze artist) corners the young yet competitive ingĂ©nue, Holly on a haystack. In a scene seemingly ripped off completely from a Pepe Le Peau cartoon he whispers haltingly (in a terrible French accent), “The girl may say no, but the woman in you says yes”.

By far the most disappointing element was the climactic train crash (spoilers are ok because really, we don’t want anyone subjecting themselves to this thing – ever!) with lions and tigers on the loose through the wreckage and not a single person gets eaten! Or even nipped a little! And you’re seriously dying for someone to get eaten by that point! It just drove home what a fluff piece this was, the good ol’ American way of life and how it should be preserved for all.

On the upside, the lead male, Charlton Heston clearly inspired Steven Spielberg, whose father took him to see it (instead of taking him to a real circus!) and that bit of childhood disappointment resulted in the iconic image of Indiana Jones which I'm sure you can recognise from the poster pic of Charlton.

Overall, I scored it 33% and Mat, 32% making this the lowest scored Best Pic Winner to date, and dear god I don’t see how any could be worse!

Sailing to byzantium - "No Country for Old Men" (2007)

Jen’s not going to like us after this, but we loved this movie. In the way you love getting a really big, nasty splinter out – it’s not fun and it’s usually gross, but damn it’s satisfying at the end!

This was an incredible movie, and like so many of the Coen brother’s pictures (where so much rests on their shoulders as editors, directors, writers and producers) it is truly a joy when it all comes together. The film, based very closely on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, follows one of the oddest cat and mouse games ever played out on screen; absolutely epic at times, yet fundamentally simple and tragically inevitable without once being predictable.

This is definitely not for the squeamish as the main bad guy’s weapon of choice is a cattle stunning captive bolt pistol and everyone ends up bleeding profusely at some point. The hitman who is the source of much blood shed is played with understated, psychopathic glee by Javier Bardem who deservedly won the Best Actor Oscar for this role, despite initially turning it down because he couldn’t drive, spoke bad English and hates violence! You really couldn’t pick it!!!

Tommy Lee Jones delivers such a peaceful and solid performance that it encouraged us to watch “The Missing” that same weekend, just to keep watching him (of course that was a mistake), but he is really enjoyable in his role as the small town sheriff dismayed at the creatures he finds invading his world and knowingly outclassed by their sheer bravado and psychopathy.

This is not a happy story, and not one to watch when you’re distracted, but it’s well worth the effort of paying some attention and allowing yourself to get caught up and taken away by the character’s and their journeys. I gave it 83/100 (it lost points on social relevance and ‘did it make you think’ and Mat gave it 92/100 because he liked the idea of the comment on an increasingly violent society and the people who are sometimes ill-equipped to deal with such evil. While we loved “Juno” which was also up for Best Pic that year, we think this did deserve the coveted Best Picture Oscar for 2007.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

"I coulda been a contender" - On The Waterfront (1954)


Mat here.


This week we watched the Marlon Brando classic 'On the Waterfront' (or 'Fronte del Porto' as we have on the Spanish movie poster Danielle found to illustrate the film for this week).


Brando plays Terry, a former boxer turned dockworker. The film throws us into the middle of the action with Terry unwittingly setting his friend up to be murdered by thugs working for local dock boss and gangster Johnny Friendly. Terry wrestles with the tough choice of keeping his mouth shut and maintaining the status quo or breaking ranks and angering both the gangsters and his fellow dockers.


Brando owns this role (for which he won Best Actor), and you really feel for this tough guy trapped in this life and struggling to figure out why he feels so bad and what the right thing to do is.


Here we have another great performance from Karl Malden (whom we last saw in fellow best picture winner Patton) as the drinkin', fightin' & swearin' preacher encouraging the oppressed dockers to stand up against the men controlling the waterfront. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for this.


The visual language was very strong with lots of shots using barriers like fences and pigeon cages to separate characters and enforce the idea that the characters are trapped in this life. Danielle felt this was not subtle enough, but it worked for me.


The music deserves singling out for being awful! So intrusive and overblown, emotional moments were blunted by the score's sledgehammer approach. The score was nominated for an Oscar, which baffles me.


On the Waterfront won eight Academy Awards. In addition to Best Picture & Actor, it also was awarded Best Director, Screenplay, Supporting Actress, Set Decoration, Cinematography and Editing.


Danielle gave this 67 and I gave this one 78. This is a fairly large difference in the scores (although not as large as the 30-point gap in Forrest Gump), which I'm attributing to this being the first time I've seen the movie, whereas Danielle had seen it before.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Another glimpse at a bygone era - "The Last Emperor" (1987)

We had a guest reviewer join us for our on-theme dinner and viewing tonight. We ate salt and pepper squid with julienne stir fried vegetables and drank Tiger beer while watching the Best Picture winner from 1987. This was an odd movie. An incredibly epic movie and the scale and logistics behind it were phenomenally detailed and grand, but an odd movie. It maps a fascinating time in Chinese history, from the coronation of ‘the last emperor’ at age 3 in the Forbidden City to his abdication in 1912 (that he didn’t know about, because he was still only 7 years old) and traces his life of opulence and absolute rule as the all powerful ‘Lord of 10,000 years’ at age 3 to the life of peasant gardener in the communist China of the 60s.

It is this illustration of the extremes of his life that make it such interesting, odd, but compelling viewing. In the midst of this epic movie (nearly 15,000 people were hired as extras) and life, the director is able to find and highlight some painfully sweet and subtle moments; the young boy climbing roof tops to get a glimpse at his ‘kingdom’ beyond the Forbidden City, the young man asking his new tutor not to tell his minders of the existence of his pet mouse – his one true friend.

There are some gaps in the story-telling - but it does justice to the span of his life and his humbling journey as he faces truths few of us would have the courage to confront.The script is simple, but to the point and the photography is breath-taking in places and suitably claustrophobic in others. The outstanding element for us was the quality of the (for us) mainly unknown actors amongst the more seasoned faces; Peter O’Toole is there as the new tutor determined to open the eyes of his isolated pupil and Joan Chen is the 17-year old Empress eager to please her 12-year old Emperor. The stand-out though was John Lone as the adult Pu Yi. His performance was understated, soulful and suitably constrained but the confusion is always evident on his face. Wherever he happens to be imprisoned at the time; his own palace, with the Japanese, the Russians, finally his own people, he never lets you forget that he is striving to find his place and challenge the system from within.

We didn't know too much about it's contenders in 1987 - but I can say categorically it absolutely deserved to kick "Moonstruck" and it's overwrought arse! Overall, Mat scored it 69 out of 100, Anthony gave it 65/100 and I came out with the highest score at 70/100 – I think in part due to my overall interest in Chinese history which would definitely increase the enjoyment factor for any viewer (I think the salt and pepper squid helped too).

The Hills Fill My Heart with "The Sound of Music" (1965)



I’m not too sure how many people in the world don’t thrill just a little to the image of Julie Andrews swirling atop an Alp and breaking into “The hills are alive with the sound of music…” If you know anyone, I put it to you now, that they are lying. Certainly amongst our generation it is one of the most successful and enduring musicals; the story of the love between a wannabe nun and a stern sea captain in the time of Nazis is as timeless as Rodger and Hammerstein’s specially written score. The original von Trapp’s musical selections were considered just a little too folksy for the wider audience and hence, the music we know and love today was created, “Sixteen Going on Seventeen”, “Favourite Things” and “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria”.

I knew this was going to be a difficult review to remain objective on – this movie revolves around some of my fondest childhood memories and I can’t help but feel happy when I watch it now. I did promise I would try and remain objective though, so here goes…

From the opening shot flying over the Alps you know you’re in for something different – apparently the downdraft from that helicopter nearly blew Julie clear off the mountain – but you would never know it from the shot. According to back stage rumours Christopher Plummer didn’t enjoy working with Julie Andrews, he likened it to “getting hit over the head with a Valentine” and didn’t care for any of the children, insisting that the child he carries up the mountain in the final scene be switched because the actor playing Gretal had put on too much weight on location. Here’s the thing though. You would never know it. The film immerses you completely in that changing world – the first half keeps you in engaged in the burgeoning relationship between Maria and the children, then Maria and the Captain. The second act is all about how those relationships are going to be affected by the charge of the Nazis into Austria and the sacrifices the Captain is willing to make to keep those relationships intact.

Mat thinks the second act drags as the focus shifts to the politics of the Anschluss and the family’s escape from Austria and the mood definitely shifts and the pace slows – in that way it almost becomes like a different movie. However I wonder if we were able to watch it fresh and not after 20 years of watching it with a child’s eyes and interpretations if we could enjoy the second half more because the first half invests us in the characters and what happens to them towards the end of the movie.

Or maybe it would still just drag! We may never know!

Regardless and with full bias in mind - I gave it an objective 79% and Mat a very generous 74%. We both really did try to watch with an open mind – but this film is so well-known to us and so pervasive in our culture we may not have quite succeeded – but then that speaks to the resonance of the film anyway and makes it a worthy Best Picture Winner in our blog!