Coming Soon

broderic on June 27, 2007

I usually don’t like watching a show at The Charles because it’s so far away and antiquated. Except they have a couple of movies playing that I really would like to watch, Paris, je t’aime and Once. They may be only playing for a limited time so I think I need to hurry up.

Also, The Charles is having a film noir retrospective until the end of summer. There’s some films there I want to see. In particular, Double Indemnity on the big screen would be rather cool. You know why.

Of course, also this upcoming week is a big movie one. Die Hard 4 is opening up today, Ratatouille for the weekend, and Transformers for July 4. That’s a lot to see in the theatres.

I hope to get to some of these.

1408

broderic on June 26, 2007

You may wonder if 1408 is Steven King revisiting his seminal work, The Shining. In a ways it is. Creepy hotel. Creepy hotel workers. A writer loosing his mind or is he? All themes and signs that King has worked into his writing throughout his career. If I told you that 1408 was nothing more than a cheap imitation of The Shining, would it surprise you when I told you it isn’t? Perhaps not, but you can still guess all the plot threads in this film.

John Cusack is an unheralded writer in the throes of finishing out his career as the go to guy for ghost hunter guides. He debunks supposedly haunted places. Out of the blue, he receives a card not to spend a night in the titular room of the Dolphin Hotel in New York. After researching it, he has to find out why he shouldn’t and visits anyway. He spends the night in the hotel room. Does he get scared out of his mind? He goes crazy for the hour. And the ghosts and the room get to him.

I read a lot of ghost stories in my time. I can imagine this one as a story rather than a movie. It would seem to have fit in with the later day stories. Not the Victorian ghost stories that I dearly love. They all have a sceptic who falls into a frightening place, and eventually comes to believe in the supernatural.

This movie had some scares. I am glad for it. Because of the prevalence of the new wave of slasher/torture pics coming, the horror genre didn’t seem to be for fun. The movies have been given to being about the violence. Like pulling the wings off a fly for the sake of being sadistic. 1408 was a throw back to just plain atmospheric creeps. No cutting throats or half-sawn faces. Just trying to say, “BOO.”

BOO!

It won’t scare you, but it will on occasion make you have goosebumps. And that’s good enough for me.

3 of 5 stars.

100 movie 100 years the list

broderic on June 21, 2007

Here’s the list of AFI’s 100 movies of 100 years. I’ve counted mine and seen 51% of the movies on the list. I probably seem to have seen at least another 10 more, but I don’t count those.

1. Citizen Kane (1941) (1)
2. The Godfather (1972) (3)
3. Casablanca (1942) (2)
4. Raging Bull (1980)(24)
5. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)(10)
6. Gone With the Wind (1939)(4)
7. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)(5)
8. Schindler’s List (1993)(9)
9. Vertigo (1958)(61)
10. The Wizard of Oz (1939) (6)
11. City Lights (1931)(76)
12. The Searchers (1956)(96)
13. Star Wars (1977)(15)
14. Psycho (1960)(18)
15. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)(22)
16. Sunset Boulevard (1950)(12)
17. The Graduate (1967)(7)
18. The General (1927)
19. On the Waterfront (1954)(8)
20. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)(11)
21. Chinatown (1974)(19)
22. Some Like It Hot (1959)(14)
23. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)(21)
24. E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)(25)
25. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)(34)
26. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)(29)
27. High Noon (1952)(33)
28. All About Eve (1950)(16)
29. Double Indemnity (1944)(38)
30. Apocalypse Now (1979)(28)
31. The Maltese Falcon (1941)(23)
32. The Godfather Part II (1974)(32)
33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)(20)
34. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)(49)
35. Annie Hall (1977)(31)
36. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)(13)
37. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)(37)
38. Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)(30)
39. Dr. Strangelove (1964) (26)
40. The Sound of Music (1965)(55)
41. King Kong (1933)(43)
42. Bonnie and Clyde (1967) (27)
43. Midnight Cowboy (1969)(36)
44. The Philadelphia Story (1940) (51)
45. Shane (1953)(69)
46. It Happened One Night (1934) (35)
47. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)(45)
48. Rear Window (1954) (42)
49. Intolerance (1916)
50. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
51. West Side Story (1961)(41)
52. Taxi Driver (1976) (47)
53. The Deer Hunter (1978)(79)
54. MASH (1970) (56)
55. North by Northwest (1959) (40)
56. Jaws (1975) (48)
57. Rocky (1976) (78)
58. The Gold Rush (1925) (74)
59. Nashville (1975)
60. Duck Soup (1933) (85)
61. Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
62. American Graffiti (1973)(77)
63. Cabaret (1972)
64. Network (1976) (66)
65. The African Queen (1951) (17)
66. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) (60)
67. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
68. Unforgiven (1992)(98)
69. Tootsie (1982) (62)
70. A Clockwork Orange (1971) (46)
71. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
72. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
73. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)(50)
74. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)(65)
75. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
76. Forrest Gump (1994)(71)
77. All the President’s Men (1976)
78. Modern Times (1936) (81)
79. The Wild Bunch (1969) (80)
80. The Apartment (1960)(93)
81. Spartacus (1960)
82. Sunrise (1927)
83. Titanic (1997)
84. Easy Rider (1969) (88)
85. A Night at the Opera (1935)
86. Platoon (1986) (83)
87. 12 Angry Men (1957)
88. Bringing Up Baby (1938) (97)
89. The Sixth Sense (1999)
90. Swing Time (1936)
91. Sophie’s Choice (1982)
92. GoodFellas (1990) (94)
93. The French Connection (1971) (70)
94. Pulp Fiction (1994) (95)
95. The Last Picture Show (1971)
96. Do the Right Thing (1989) (2nd review)
97. Blade Runner (1982)
98. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) (100)
99. Toy Story (1995)
100. Ben-Hur (1959) (72)

Recently Seen In Theatres

broderic on June 19, 2007

Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer.

The first one was boring, but given that it has to establish the characters, their relationships, and the milieu they’ll be functioning in, it can be slightly forgiven for being too expository. Slightly. But I’m not the one to accept it. The first one was listless and the plot stank.

Sequels should be much better. There’s no longer a need to establish the situation. They should hit the ground running and therefore they should generally be a rocking good time.

This one wasn’t. It retained the boring, listless atmosphere of the first one. It also makes the mistake of making the Silver Surfer into the most boring of characters. I mean, come on, the Cosmic Force. What happened? Also, Galactus as a cloud was plain stupid. That was really the reason why I wanted to see it. I was interested in who would be playing Galactus. I was hoping for Bruce Willis, but a cloud of smoke. It seems that Lost’s smoke monster has got a really good agent. Coming soon to the multiplex near you smoke monster in Dukes of Hazard 3!

Jessica Alba with blue eyes is extremely disturbing to look at. She should not act anymore. She should just be a Maxim girl. The dude who played Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic, was struggling to put on brave face. The show must go on.

The problem with the Fantastic Four franchise is that the writers and director do not believe in the comic book. They seem to have abandoned the stories of the comic for something not quite like it. A fake and a no good facsimile of the Fantastic Four just plain sucks.

2 of 5 stars.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

What can be said about this third installment? It’s a bloated, disjointed movie. I couldn’t keep up with the various double crosses throughout the movie. Who was backstabbing whom? I don’t know nor do I care. It left me pondering what happened to the fun and exciting pirates of the first movie. Then it left me deducing that hoboes are the new pirates and the old pirates are just world weary sailors.

I can’t wait for Hoboes of the Railyards: The Black Pearl.

2 of 5 stars.

Hitchhikers Guide

broderic on June 17, 2007

I’m not a big fan of Clark Gable or Claudette Colbert, but in It Happened One Night, they do the funniest scene. It’s a classic and if you’ve seen this movie or know anything about the screwball comedy genre, you’ll know it — the hitchhiking scene.

Here it is in several screen shots.

Move number one. This shows independence. You don’t care if they stop or not. You’ve got money in your pocket.

Move number two. This means you have a brand new story about the farmer’s daughter.

Move number three. The pitiable one. Works better with a long face.

Try number one. Keep your eye on the thumb. How’s that work?

Not that good!

Give number three a go!

It don’t work either.

Here’s a new move!

This’ll stop ’em every time.

And of course this is a classic scene. It had me rolling on the floor. Besides Clark Gable in this scene is pretty much the inspiration for bugs bunny. He’s chewing on a carrot the whole time.

Ocean’s 13

broderic on June 14, 2007

Ocean’s 13 is another of the dreaded third installment of a trilogy that seem to have infected the movie theatres this summer. In this one, Danny Ocean and his band of con-men have come back to Vegas to avenge the honor of one of their own who was put into the hospital after a deal had gone sour. By coming back to Vegas, the story arc has come full circle. It tries to capture the magic from the first Ocean’s movie, but it fails to be as inspired as that one.

The key to these films is to know that they all have fun happens. And this one didn’t have much fun. I think it was because of the lack of Bernie Mac and too much of Matt Damon. Did you notice that he’s the one who fools around with the girl? So the first had George Clooney, Brad Pitt the second, and this one Matt Damon’s turn. Plus, he doesn’t get the girl in the end. Ellen Barkin’s character was used for laughs. She was treated very respectfully and in a film with guys you needed a girl for some balance. They should’ve hit her on the head or punched her in the face. With the way they treated her it wouldn’t have seemed out of place.

Anyway, this installment was just so-so. Neither exciting like the first or embarrassing like the second. It just went along, to make it’s money.

3 of 5 stars

"Don't let them tease you. You can tell me all about her."

broderic on June 9, 2007

As you know, I am currently keen on Barbara Stanwyck movies. Ever since I saw The Lady Eve, I have been going through her films weekly. I must have watched The Lady Eve several times already, and almost daily do I put the DVD in the player to watch a few minutes. But, there are so many classic scenes in the movie that I lose myself in it and end up watching it fully. I just dig her in it.

My favorite scene happens half way through the movie as Jean starts her ploy to ensnare Hopsie in her revenge. She poses as the Lady Eve Sidwich at a party given by Hopsie’s father in her honor. There she meets Hopsie face-to-face.

She casually and non-chalantly greets him as if they had never met.

Hopsie was incredulous and caught tongue tied. He couldn’t believe this English Lady was the same grifter he had met on the boat.

He asks, “Have we met?”

“Of course we have, your father just introduced us.”

And it goes downhill quick for Hopsie from there.

Stanwyck plays it marvelously. Her face as she lies to him does not betray one hint of recognition. She is daring him to call her bluff. He doesn’t, and she subtly mocks him for it.

It’s enough to make Hopsie fall over himself.

The scene ends with a Hopsie’s father’s toast to the Lady Eve over her wily ways.

“Well, I don’t know what she looked like, but if she looked anything like you, here’s to her.”

She looked just like her, because it was her. She and her being the same person. It’s a brilliant line that gets to the theme of the movie.

If you haven’t seen it, I recommend that you do. It’s on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 comedies. Put it in your Netflix queue.

Joy of Parenting

broderic on June 4, 2007

Like other weekends of the year, this weekend I saw a movie. The one where the young woman goes out for a wild night on the town, drinking, dancing, and carousing with young men. Eventually, when she sobers up from her night out she finds out that she’s pregnant. The imminent arrival of a baby causes much trouble. Hilarity ensues. It had me laughing.

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is another of the Preston Sturges oeuvre that I received in my Netflix queue. What you thought I was talking about Knocked Up? Wait a second and I’ll get to it in a minute. The Miracle of Morgan Creek has a similar and familiar plot to that of Knocked Up, but the morals are distinctly rooted in the forties.

The young Trudy Kockenlocker (great name) finds herself pregnant AND married (I told you it was the forties) after a night of seeing the service men off to war. A combination of champagne and a knock on the head causes her to do the foolish thing of marriage and sex. In the morning she can’t remember his name. She used a fake one herself so she’ll never know who’s on the marriage license. Scandalous! It’s a low down dirty shame if the town finds out. She spends the film trying to enlist the help of her 4F childhood sweetheart, Norval Jones. Scheming with her younger sister to make her situation legitimate, they plan another sham marriage for the license. Then she can divorce the serviceman and marry Norval and make her pregnancy respectable for her, her familiy, and for the town. I told you it was old timey.

The Miracle of Morgan Creek is very much another of Sturges’s comedy of remarriage in which the second marriage makes the first one legit like The Lady Eve. Although he wasn’t married to her at first, Norval eventually gets to be the husband as decreed by law. It’s all tidied up nicely. This is a wonderful funny film. In fact, it was a big hit the year it was released in 1944. The funniest thing about it is how it got through the censors of the Hayes office. It’s basically a girl who got drunk and pregnant. That’s got to be against the code. She also wants to perpetrate bigamy, dual marriages at the same time. Weird that they could make a movie with such topics in that era. Perhaps the comedy genre makes it more acceptable. It’s a farce so what can be wrong here.

Anyway, it’s got wonderful performances. Betty Hutton does the hysterics of the knocked up Trudy Kockenlocker (great name). William Demarest as the beleaguered father puts up with it all. Dianna Lynn the younger sister, Emmy, gets to be the smart gal, saying lines that wouldn’t seem out of place coming from Jean Harrington (The Lady Eve). It’s all so fun. And funny. Sturges does it again.

I also saw Knocked Up. That ones funny, too. It was riotous. Like Sturges who relies on a cast of regulars, Judd Apatow, has his regular troop. It’s great to see these dudes working. Triumphing over the dumb tv execs who didn’t have the sense of knowing comedy gold if it smote them over the head like a hammer. I would say that Apatow follows the footsteps of Sturges. He writes and directs his own stories. After Knocked up becomes the comedy hit of the summer, he may also be considered a comedy genius.

It too starts with a night on the town where the girl has sex and gets pregnant. Yet unlike the forties, there is no marriage then sex. Just sex. Marriage maybe later. The wonderful modern world. Except what was queer about it is that the morals are just as conservative as they were back then. She doesn’t think about a shma-shmortion. She wants the baby to have a father engaged in the child rearing. Even the fact of marriage comes up to make it all work out. Would it have been any less funny for the girl not to need a man to make it all fine in the end? See Waitress for that. That’s what was bothering about the film. She didn’t need him. And he didn’t need her. In fact, when you think about it. The plot is straight out of a sitcom. Or it could be the basis of one. A more realistic plot would’ve been nice, but perhaps its just as big a farce as one of Sturges’s work. I wonder if Knocked Up’s modern setting makes it harder to imagine if it was a farce.

There are some truly hilarious scenes. The pregnant sex. The crowning. Vegas on shrooms. Doc Brown. Then again, Apatow likes his movies long. Should comedies last longer than two hours? The best I can say about that is this one didn’t feel as long as his other films. The 40 Year Old Virgin was 30 minutes too long as was Ron Burgundy and you knew it. Knocked Up didn’t feel like it. Some scenes could’ve been excised, but it seems that Apatow has learned to move things along. Thank god.

I should’ve put my Waitress review here too. It seems to fall into this film genre, the unexpected mother. Weird that I would see a set of disparate films with the same plot. When are the hobo films coming then?

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek: 4 of 5 stars.
Knocked Up: 4 of 5 stars.

Sullivan’s Travels

broderic on June 1, 2007

Ants in Your Pants of 1939 sounds like a fantastic movie. If it was real. It’s one of the funny films directed by John L Sullivan. It’s such a great money maker for his studio that the execs want him to direct another comedy, perhaps Ants in Your Pants of 1941. Sullivan doesn’t want to. He wants to direct a movie with pathos and gravitas like a Capra film. And maybe with a little sex in it. But he doesn’t have the life experience to direct such a movie. What does he know? So he outfits himself as a hobo and goes in search for that American experience. Hilarity ensues. That’s the film in a nutshell. The film he wanted to make was “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” Needless to say it doesn’t get made because of the epiphany he experiences in his search for hobo gold.

Sullivan’s Travels was Preston Sturges’s film after The Lady Eve. It’s one of several films he wrote and directed during the 1940’s which was a very creative and fruitful period for him. I bought his box set that not only had both The Lady Eve and Sullivan’s Travels but five other good films. Each one hilarious in their own right.

If you like movies with some really good dialogue, you can’t do better than one of these Preston Sturges flicks.

4 of 5 stars.