"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.

Waitress

broderic on May 27, 2007

I am always down for a Kerri Russell flick.

In this small, quirky film (it debuted at Sundance) she plays a waitress in a small town pie diner stuck in a bad marriage. She bakes pies, gets pregnant, and has an affair with her OB-GYN. And she looks as cute as ever.

But back to the film. It fits as one of those Sundance films. I haven’t been this charmed by one of these types of films since Ruby in Paradise. It may seem overly trying at times, but the sweetness of it wins you over. Kerri Russell was winnning as the main character. She bring back Felicity who’s been sorely missed. The supporting cast worked well.

4 of 5 stars.

A Barbara 5

broderic on May 25, 2007

As you know, I’m on a Barbara Stanwyck jag. It’s been her movies which I just want to see. My Netflix queue has several. My DVD collection has expanded because of her. My Amazon shopping cart is crammed with her films. Anyway here’s the post which got me started on this cinematic journey.

Movies 2.0

broderic on May 25, 2007

This New York Times article is certainly laughable. It’s arguing that the future of movies is in the third dimension. 3-D!

That’s no punchline.

Yet, to predict that 3-D is the next big thing in movies is to miss out on the resurgance of virtual reality. VR movies will supplant the lame 3-D technology of today. You can’t get more into a movie than virtually walking through the sets.

Take that to the bank.

28 Weeks Later

broderic on May 22, 2007

Contrary to what Marge says, I wanted to write up my review, or thoughts on, 28 weeks Later…

In most horror films, there is the jerk. The character that does things against the grain in service of selfish ideas rather than in service of the survivors, like Burke in Aliens or Ed in Shaun of the Dead. It’s the character you want most to die, and to be there when it happens in the most gruesome of way. In 28 Weeks Later, I felt that the two kids where that character. If not for their own selfish reasons, this movie would’ve been over in half the time. They were the prime motivators for killing off the human race, but they shouldn’t have survived. They should’ve died the gruesome death of the jerk onscreen for us to cheer. I would’ve liked the movie that way. I couldn’t like this movie when the characters I really wanted to live didn’t.

Plus, there were plot points that made no sense. Why did it take hours to find the children in a deserted London? Why is the US Military incometent? How on an island can you let zombies escape? WTF?

The movie is badly plotted. And the twist, which I thought wasn’t going to happen, happened. And I called it when I did not want to believe it. That’s what killed it for me.

2 of 5 stars.

“Yo, man, Spidey is a byotch! Batman wouldn’t’ve cried!”

broderic on May 6, 2007

Spiderman 3 is no Spiderman 2. It took the momentum built from the last movie, “Go get ’em tiger,” and threw some grit and Sandman into the gears grinding the franchise to a halt.

The biggest problem was Sandman. I was at the comic shop this weekend where they had lots of old time Spidey comics on the wall. Issue 2 was Doc Ock. Issue 1 must’ve been the Green Goblin. Issue 3 was, guess who? The Vulture, but issue 4 was Sandman. So they producers felt they had to stick with the schedule of villains established by the comic book. But Venom is a fanboy favorite, and was added to the trilogy to appease them. So it feels like they started with the Sandman as the prime villain, found out his story was weak, and added Venom. It results in an uneven story.

We first get Sandman. But did I mention Green Goblin Jr? He’s in it and his story line takes the most unconvincing turn of all. Back to Sandman, he’s a two-bit crook on the lam to see his daughter. That’s it, and by the way, he also killed your Uncle Ben. Hunh? Did he really kill him or did they make that up for the movie? Fanboys, help. They needed that in order for Spidey to work himself up for a showdown. Sandman then gets defeated at the two hour mark about which I wanted thought the ending should’ve occurred. He shows up in the last reel though to team up with Venom and kick some Spidey ass. Lame.

Venom was also problematic. They had to explain the entire emotional change in Peter Parker without losing time for Sandman bits. Peter becomes emo boy without the eyeliner. So after Sandman disappears, Venom takes over, but it was plainly a compression of a longer story arc from the comic book and the measly half hour it got didn’t do it justice.

Raimi I respect for making the first two very fine comicbook movies. He had a lot here to handle. Bottom line they should’ve had one villain. I think with the third installment they should’ve gone for the tried and true final act by redoing the first movie (see Indy and Star Wars for hints).

Caught this in the last showing on opening Friday. The audience was looking for a better time. I think plenty of people were disappointed judging from the number of people leaving before the first fake out ending occurred. It didn’t stop them from running to the doors after the second fake out ending, also.

3 of 5 stars