Olympic Image(s) of the Day: Day 5

  

First off, to prove that yes, I'm aware there are more than just American Olympians, I love this picture of Chad Le Clos of South Africa, enjoying a surprise win at the 200 m butterfly (and a huge win-that was a great race).

For the first time in history, a mother was able to give a medal to her daughter.  Of course, the mother and daughter are quite recognizable.  The mother is Princess Anne, the Princess Royal of Great Britain, and a former Olympian herself in equestrian.  Her daughter, Zara Phillips, won a silver medal in the Team Eventing Equestrian competition.  Being a huge fan of the Royals and their mystic, I couldn't pass up including this photo.

I was, well, I'm a little leery to say how old I was, but let's just say I wasn't yet a teenager, when Jaycie, Amy, Dominique D, Dominique M, Amanda, Shannon, and of course Kerri took home the gold medal in Atlanta and left a country and a generation awe-inspired that anything was possible.  Today, (from left) Jordyn Wieber, Gabrielle Douglas, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman, and Kyla Ross have done the same thing.  Well done ladies!

And, for me, he is the Olympics.  As a swimmer, and roughly the same age as Michael Phelps, he's hands-down my favorite Olympian.  Whether it was a talent crush or an actual crush (in reality quite a bit of both), I have watched him since his first Olympics, and was crying quite a bit when I saw him take medal number 19.  You rock Mike!

Olympic Image(s) of the Day: Day 4

I'm including two again, because I have much love for so many of the performers.  Go Missy!  Go Michael!  Go spectacularly tall Matt Grevers!  Here are two of my favorites:

I chose this one because it looks like three world-class athletes actually enjoying themselves and representing both excellence and their countries to the highest.  From left to right are: Emily Seebohm of Australia with the Silver, Missy Franklin of the United States with the gold, and Aya Terakawa of Japan with the bronze, all for the 100 meter backstroke.

Yesterday I included my new favorite gymnast Gabby Douglas.  Today I have to include my other new favorite gymnast, Danell Leyva.  Yes, he didn't do quite as well on the pommel horse, but his floor routine was breath-taking, and the fact that he can balance like that is just crazy (seriously-how do they do this?!?).  He'll have his chance on the horizontal bar and the men's all-around in the days ahead.

Olympics Image(s) of the Day: Day 3

First off, my guys, taking the silver.

And secondly, my favorite gymnast since Dominique Moceanu, Gabrielle Douglas, who is awesome and I'm hoping takes the All-Around.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Film: The Dark Knight Rises
Stars: Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Director: Christopher Nolan
Oscar History: In an absolute stunner, it didn't get a single Oscar nomination in the tech categories
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Typically when I write a review I know an approach that I want to start with, but here, I have so many thoughts racing through my head about the film it's hard to know where to begin.  My first thoughts, and I think most of our first thoughts, are on the senseless tragedy that took place in Aurora, CO.  It's hard to imagine, even years later, that we won't think of the movie and the incident as intertwined.  My second thought is on the Batman films that preceded it, and whether it's fair to compare and contrast the films.  And my final thought is on Nolan himself, the magician who has every fanboy in the country clamoring for his every cinematic thought and nuance.  I'm going to comment right now on the latter two.

The Dark Knight Rises, for those of you who have been living under a rock on Mars (and even if you are living there, you've probably still seen the movie and also skipped John Carter), is the third installment of Christopher Nolan's epic Batman trilogy, and indeed, epic is the optimal word here.  Spoilers are coming, so avert your eyes if you haven't yet caught the latest Caped Crusader flick.  It's been years since I've seen the first film in this trilogy, but I still remember a handsome, sturdy production with a charismatic and shadow-y villain in the Sandman (ably played by Cillian Murphy).  The film opens with a darker, more sinister Batman than even Tim Burton could have imagined.  Despite some silliness (Katie Holmes does not have the acting chops of Maggie Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, and what is with the bad Clint Eastwood impression for Batman's voice?), it was a strong, if slightly vacant, superhero film.

The second film, on the other hand, I get the hype around.  While I'm not one of those blind Nolan fans who will praise his every decision (I thought the Two-Face arc was a bit forced and a bit too quick for my tastes), that doesn't stop me from enjoying a truly spectacular film.  Nolan knows how to make some truly stunning and awe-inspiring visuals, and the opening scene, with a descending camera zooming in on a bank robbery that's about to get a little...stranger-it's just deliriously good cinema.  It's easily the best scene in the entire series, possibly one of the best scenes of the past decade.  And Nolan went for the top of the heap with Heath Ledger's Joker, a carnal and live-wire performance by a gone-far-too-soon actor who still managed to give us two of the finest performances I've ever seen on film (for those who are confused, the other one is in Brokeback Mountain, not 10 Things I Hate About You).

All this is to say that I came into this with expectations that couldn't possibly be met, but I was aware they weren't going to be met, so I was expecting to be underwhelmed when I knew I would be overwhelmed (only Chris Nolan himself would be able to understand that sentence, so let's move on).  The opening plane-hijacking scene is strong, though it's a teensy bit been-there/done-that compared to the Bank Robbery in The Dark Knight, and it gives us the new "haunt-our-dreams" villain, Bane.  I'd start to compare him to the Joker, but I think if we spend this entire review comparing the previous films to this one, it's going to get dull, but let's just say that this was a promising choice of villain, even though I don't particularly agree with having the gorgeous Tom Hardy's mug covered the entire movie (yes, I'm aware that's what the character looks like, but the double standard comes in here-when was the last time a female super villain didn't look like she'd wandered out of Victoria's Secret catalog?).

I'm not going to detail every inch of the movie (that's what the entire rest of the internet is for, apparently), but I will highlight some of my best and worst moments in the movie.  I loved the first half of the film's Bane, a menacing, physical brute whose crusade against the 1% (I made it five paragraphs before mentioning Occupy Wall Street-I think that deserves a freaking medal) gives a shade of grey to his character that I found rather remarkable for a big-screen movie (since most summer action films deal so exclusively in strong levels of black-and-white never allowing for a complicated villain).  I also adored Catwoman, as Anne Hathaway plays her as a woman who doesn't know what she wants for her future, she just knows she doesn't want her past.  And while much has been said about JGL's "right place, right time" character coincidences, I think his strong, morally upright cop is a great counterweight to Batman's more fluid code-of-ethics (similar to Gary Oldman's outstanding work in The Dark Knight...dang it, I compared again).

However, I think that the latter half had some messiness.  While the snow-coated Gotham was a rather sharp and clear visual (many things can be said of Nolan, but a lack of vision is not one of them), the late twist of Talia al Ghul's secret identity was a slap in the face to the entire idea of Bane.  Instead of him being a man with a mission gone too far, he is simply a gun-for-hire at the mercy of a madwoman with daddy issues.  By throwing this in, the shades of grey are now gone, and Nolan has taken the most interesting aspect of his movie away.  And did we really need the entire cave sequence?  Come on-we all know that Batman's going to get out of that prison.  And how the hell did he survive a nuclear blast when he's five feet above the bomb-this isn't Superman we're dealing with?

And what about you-have you seen The Dark Knight Rises?  Where does it rank in your personal Batman list?  Did you like the choices of Bane, Talia, and Catwoman, or were you (like me) hoping more for a Riddler and Harley Quinn duo?  And what about Nolan-the next David Lean or simply the next Michael Bay?

Olympics Image of the Day (Day 2)

Day 2: Yes the grill is terrible, but the dimples (and the gold) are to die for!  Go Ryan!!!

Olympics Image of the Day (Day 1)

Day 1: I'm aware that it's already Day 3, but I've been busy, well, watching the Olympics.  I love the Olympics as much as I love movies and politics, though I don't get to talk about it more than once every two years, so I'm going to indulge with a picture each day.  I'll be picking my favorite picture/moment of each day throughout (expect a lot of the swimmers-my favorite event).  Since this combined three of my personal passions (the Royals, the cinema, and the Olympics), it seemed like a no brainer.  Danny Boyle, well done.

OVP: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)

Film: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)
Stars: Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers, Jack Gilford, Buster Keaton, Michael Crawford
Director: Richard Lester
Oscar History: 1 nomination, 1 win (Best Scoring of Music)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

There are a few characters so big and bold that even their modest filmography cannot stop them from being an instantly recognizable star.  Zero Mostel is most definitely one of those characters.  Though his temperament off-screen precluded him from getting a large amount of roles (including Fiddler on the Roof, a role Mostel originated on Broadway and a role for which Topol, his on-screen replacement, received an Oscar nomination, something Mostel was never able to achieve), that doesn't mean that he didn't make an indent on the silver screen.  His most famous cinematic role is that of Max Bialystock in The Producers, but his work as Pseudolos runs a close second in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

The film opens with the musical number "Comedy Tonight," and Mostel is able to introduce all of the principle players.  One of the sad things about the movie is that, since the movie was made in the late 1960's and musicals were starting to go out of vogue, a number of the Broadway numbers, including Mostel's "Free," are not featured in the film.  No matter, though, as we are treated to a madcap ride after the opening number where Mostel's slave is given a chance at freedom if he can unite Michael Crawford (yes, the Phantom of the Opera himself) with a virgin courtesan whom he has fallen in love with.  Hilarity continues to ensue and I couldn't even begin to explain all of the twists and turns of the movie.  Suffice it to say, Stephen Sondheim's brilliant lyrics, though sidetracked, still shine through and you're treated to a host of comic interludes between Mostel, Silvers, and Gilford, all three of whom are in drag at some point during the film if memory serves me right.

The play also has time for some hilarious side-characters, most notably Leon Greene in his screen debut, as a swoon-worthy, but blood-thirsty Roman general who is constantly threatening to burn everyone to the ground. There's also a bit part for Silent Era star Buster Keaton, as a befuddled and nearly blind man searching for his long lost children.  Keaton's talent for physical comedy is on full-display here, and he is not silent, so this is surprisingly the first time I've ever heard his voice, though I've seen many of his movies.  This would be Keaton's last film; he would die months before the film was released theatrically.

The film received one nomination, for Best Scoring of Music (okay, that's not the technical name of the category, but it's essentially the idea and that category changed its name every single year, so we're just going to go with it for continuity's sake).  I haven't seen any of the other films (I've actually barely heard of the other films), but it's hard to believe that anyone will top the fun of this (albeit brief) score.  I actually believe this category is still on the books, and I'm a bit surprised considering the influx of musicals in the last decade (Moulin Rouge, Chicago, Dreamgirls, amongst others), that it hasn't returned.  It allowed for non-original scores to make it into play, and I truly wish the Academy would bring back the category, if only to inspire the studios to bring on more musicals.  If they could make them of the quality of this film, that'd be a reward to us all.

What about you-do you wish we had more musicals each year?  Do you share my fondness of Zero Mostel?  And can you imagine him putting on the dramatics of Fiddler on the Roof, rather than Topol?

2012: The $100-Million Record Breaker?

I’m getting extremely excited for the upcoming fall season, but everyone always seems to focus on the fall season through the lens of Oscar and the summer season through Box Office, so I’m going to look at this in a different way: can 2012 break the record set in 2009 of the most $100 million movies?

It's an interesting conundrum-the last two years in a row, the Box Office has come up with 30-$100 million movies, but the record actually currently belongs to 2009, when 32 films would go on to win $100 million at the Box Office.  Taking a look at 2009, you get a number of guaranteed $100 million movies (Transformers, Harry Potter, Twilight, Pixar, Ice Age, Night at the Museum, X-Men, and Fast & the Furious all had installments in their respective franchises), but you also had a strong cadre of non-franchise hits: romantic comedies were huge (The Proposal, It's Complicated), come-out-of-nowhere gross-out comedies took off (The Hangover, Paul Blart), new franchises were started/attempted/re-booted (Avatar, Star Trek, Gi Joe, G-Force, Watchmen, Sherlock Holmes), animated non-franchise hits (Monsters vs. Aliens, A Christmas Carol, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), and adult thrillers did surprisingly well (2012, Taken).  In fact, if you look at $90 million-plus, there were four more movies that don't scream $100 million movies just about to get there: Public Enemies, Julie & Julia, He's Just Not That Into You, and Madea Goes to Jail.  And perhaps most tellingly, Academy Award-nominated films were actually watched by people: a grand total of 5 of the Top 10 Best Picture nominees (Avatar, Up, The Blind Side, Inglourious Basterds, and District 9) all passed $100 million.  Compare that with last year where The Help was the only Best Picture nominee to make over $100 million, and the next closest was War Horse at $79 million.

So currently, in 2012, we have seventeen films that have crossed that $100 million point, and we may see why 2009's record could stay intact.  We do have a stunningly high list of franchise hits for either new, rebooted, or ongoing franchises (ten in all, eleven if you count Pixar as a franchise).  You do have a couple of surprise non-franchise hits (Denzel can still pack them in with Safe House, Ted was a come-out-of-nowhere film that is still packing them in enough to score $200 million by the end of its run, and the magic that is Channing Tatum has elevated 21 Jump Street, The Vow, and Magic Mike to $100 million).  Throw in the stand-alone hit of The Lorax, and those are the seventeen.  Unless The Watch explodes this weekend (doubtful), there are no films in theaters that will join them-the closest was Think Like a Man at $91 million (a solid hit, for sure, but there's no way it gets another $9 million).

 

So now's when we look at the upcoming films; I’ll sort them into four remaining categories.

Films that are Guaranteed to make $100 million: Skyfall, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,

These films could be in the $100 million column, depending on audience/critical reaction: Total Recall (August action movies either flame out spectacularly or are money machines running on the remaining summer cash of teenage boys), The Campaign (if the duo can sell something other than elves and drunken frat parties gone horribly wrong), Hope Springs (don’t mock, Meryl’s Box Office Gold lately), The Expendables 2 (the original, though a hit, only made $103 million so I’m not guaranteeing anything here in a Twilight/Bond sort of way), House at the End of the Street (horror films sometimes surprise, and Lawrence is a big star as of late), Taken 2 (the first was a surprise hit-will this be a one-and-done sort of situation, or will audiences want more?), Here Comes the Boom (like it or not, Kevin James is a Box Office Draw), Paranormal Activity 4 (like The Expendables, it toes the line pretty closely with $100 million, so it’s not guaranteed), Cloud Atlas (once-upon-a-time people liked Tom Hanks, and this actually sounds strong as a stand-alone hit),  Flight (Denzel may be the most consistent Box Office presence still left from the 1990’s-Safe House proved that), This is 40 (a strong bet, though Funny People proved he can falter at the Box Office), Jack Reacher (will Tom be affected by the divorce?),

These Films are Mainstream and Animated, and Therefore Are Always a Threat for $100 million (there is no genre that consistently hits $100 million more often these days than animated, mainstream hits): Paranorman, Hotel Transylvania, Frankenweenie (there’s a lot of spooky-themed animated films this year-weird trend considering that isn’t where animated studios have gone with this lately), Wreck-It-Ralph, Rise of the Guardians

If they get a Best Picture nomination, they could pull a “King’s Speech” and get in: Won’t Back Down, Argo, Killing Them Softly, Anna Karenina, The Great Gatsby, Lincoln, Life of Pi, Hyde Park on Hudson, Les Miserables, Django Unchained

So looking at the list, there’s a lot of possibility, but in reality, I just don’t see 33 in the cards.  Adding in the guaranteed three hits, you’re at twenty.  If you gently peruse the possible $100 million hits and if I were forced to make a prediction, I’d say that Total Recall, Taken 2, Paranormal Activity 4, Cloud Atlas, Flight, and This is 40 will all take in $100 million, getting us up to 26.  Looking at the Best Picture lineup, the only three that scream $100 million are Django Unchained and Les Miserables-Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg have both made $100 million movies before, but the last time they did it with a non-franchise/blockbuster film was 2000 and 2002, respectively.  For the sake of argument, let’s say there’s a Blind Side/The Help still left in the year, and that brings us up to 29.  That would mean of the five remaining animated films of the year, four of them are going to have to make $100 million to break the record.  An extremely tall order, especially since three of the films seem incredibly similar.  I suspect that we may be in for yet another 30-$100 million film year.  And it’s said every year, but it can never be said enough-the way that Hollywood could repeat the success of 2009 is to trust audiences that aren’t teenage/college-age boys or children under 10, along with the parents that are dragged with them.  Looking at 2009, you saw films for nearly every age or gender demographic represented.  And yet, in the upcoming months, despite the huge hits that were The Blind Side, The Help, and Bridesmaids, do you see a large number female-ensembles or female-led movies?  No, you don’t, and wouldn’t you think some smart studio head would see that and start consistently filling that hole that pops up in every Summer and Fall calendar lineup?

Anyway, we’ll be back to the Oscars soon enough, but what about you?  What are you most looking forward to in the second half of 2012 (for me, it’s The Hobbit, Anna Karenina, Life of Pi, Django Unchained, and To the Wonder)?  Do you think that 2012 can produce 33-$100 million movies?  And when will Hollywood start marketing big pictures to all age and gender demographics, instead of just two?

OVP: Emma (1932)

Film: Emma (1932)
Stars: Marie Dressler, Richard Cromwell, Jean Hersholt, Myrna Loy
Director: Clarence Brown
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actress-Marie Dressler)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I swear I didn't plan this, but we're going to take time to combine the last two films reviewed here and take the director of Romance and one of the stars of The Hollywood Revue, and combine them into this short, sweet (or saccharine, depending on the scene) movie from 1932.

Emma tells the tale of a housekeeper who looks after four children for the bulk of their entire lives.  Being as this is Marie Dressler, the housekeeper is an "all bark, no bite" sort of character who may scold and scold the children but the second their backs are are turned, she's praising and forgiving them to high heavens.  The film unfolds in three parts, the first establishing the death of the children's mother, the second with Emma going on a vacation and (SPOILER ALERT) being proposed to and married to the children's father, played by Jean Hersholt.  The last third is about Emma, who has inherited the entire state of Hersholt's suddenly dead father, fighting for her life as she is accused of murdering him by the three older ungrateful children (including a woefully underused Myrna Loy).  Only Richard Cromwell's youngest child Ronnie believes her, and tragically dies in a plane crash trying to save her.  Dressler of course gives the inheritance then to the three remaining children (but not before being fully exonerated) and joins a new family with five young children.

If it sounds like your typical melodrama, it is, but you can't help but love Dressler even if her performance is a bit "paint-by-numbers."  Dressler, who is largely unknown to today's audiences, was an enormous star of the early Sound Era.  Even though she was in her late 50's and was overweight, she still won the exhibitor's poll three years in a row (the sign of the "most popular" actress in Hollywood) over the likes of Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, and Jean Harlow.  Dressler was known for her comic mannerisms, and they are on full display here.  It's hard not to be charmed by her, even when you're cringing occasionally at the "broad-as-a-barn" comic and sentimental tropes she relies upon (an actress of the stage for many, many years, it's evident that she's relying on some vaudeville tricks for the film's most famous flight simulator sequence).  It's a tough call between her and ultimate Oscar-winner Helen Hayes in the same year, though I think I'd give the tip of my hat toward Hayes just because her character has more emotional range.  I'm looking most forward to the remaining nominee, Lynn Fontanne, the great, great stage star (though probably not quite as great as Helen Hayes-you can debate that one), whom I've heard is the best of the three.

Like he did with Garbo in Romance, Brown fixates his camera on his leading lady (she's in all but two of the scenes in the movie), and has little time for the remaining players.  Even so, the rest of the cast is serviceable.  I believe this may be my first introduction to Jean Hersholt as an actor, though his charitable work is far more well-known today.  He is indeed the man that the annual Academy Award for do-gooders is named after, and here he is a sweet if bumbling inventor who struck it big and now wants to retire with the woman who has raised his children.  Myrna Loy is probably the most well-known member of the cast, but clearly wasn't at the time, as she is relegated to the role of snooty villainous instead of being able to exercise her considerable comic chops alongside Dressler.  Rounding out the cast is Richard Cromwell, who plays the typical youngest child with a strong sense of fun and aw-shucks appeal.  Not much is there to be said of his acting ability, though he was a ridiculously beautiful man, particularly in this film, and would go on to briefly be married to Angela Lansbury and (allegedly) become a favorite lover of Howard Hughes.

What about you?  Are you a fan of Marie Dressler and her hambone antics, or do you lean more toward the Crawford/Garbo end of the Sound Era?  Do you have a favorite in Clarence Brown's filmography? And do you also find yourself developing crushes on movie stars from the Thirties?

OVP: Romance (1930)

Film: Romance (1930)
Stars: Greta Garbo, Lewis Stone, Gavin Gordon
Director: Clarence Brown
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Director, Best Actress-Greta Garbo)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

There have been many great actors in the history of cinema, but far fewer are the ranks of movie stars.  It's a rare breed, and something difficult to qualify.  After all, what makes a movie star?  Is it simply someone who is a leading actor, someone with great longevity, someone who transcends any era?  Is it an extinct species of Hollywood's Golden Age (this, I definitely disagree with-the likes of Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise, and even younger movie stars like Ryan Gosling could rank alongside the best of the 1940's and 1950's)?  Perhaps the best way to describe a movie star is o take a quote from Justice Potter Stewart out of context: "it's hard to define, but I know it when I see it."  And when I see Greta Garbo, I know I'm looking at a movie star.

One of the weird side effects of movie stars, since they always appear ageless, is that they also occasionally appear older than they actually are in their initial films, and so it's difficult to comprehend that Garbo was barely 25 when this film came out.  At the time, she had just finished her first talkie and was the toast of MGM, alongside Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford.  Her place at the top of the cinematic heap is evident with the confidence she exudes in this role, laughing and smiling gaily as she plays a "lost" woman, a beautiful opera singer torn between an older (Stone) and younger (Gordon) man.

The film is not what you'd call "strong," even by the melodramatic metric of the time.  The moral code of Gordon's character especially is horribly dated, and the fact that (SPOILER ALERT) Garbo ends up leaving him and becomes a nun is evident that the film was clearly made in 1930 and not even 1960.  And yet, Brown, a largely forgotten director now despite having six Oscar nominations to his credit, knows how to use his greatest asset, Ms. Garbo.  Every scene he lights her up with a glowing aura, as if a goddess has descended onto the screen and he only has a few moments to capture her before she fades.  It's a truly remarkable thing, and even as Garbo tosses out lines so heavy-handed they'd make John Keats look cynical, you don't particularly care.  You just want to stay on her, absorbing the magic this screen star (there's no other word for it) is radiating.

I'd write more, but I'm actually going out in a few minutes and the film is terribly short (at only 76 minutes, it's one of the shorter films to ever compete for Best Actress), but I have to end with a few questions for thought.  What do you think defines a movie star?  Was there or is there another Garbo, or was she one for the ages?  And what's your favorite of her many (largely unseen by the general public) films?

OVP: The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)

Film: The Hollywood Revue of 1929
Stars: Conrad Nagel, Jack Benny, Joan Crawford, Marion Davies, Anita Page, Marie Dressler, Buster Keaton, John Gilbert, Norma Shearer, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy
Director: Charles F. Reisner
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Picture)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars (with a caveat below)

Contrary to what it says below, this is not my first Best Picture nominee-it's actually my 275th.  But it is the first nominee since I've started chronicling the OVP on the blog, so hooray for Best Pictures!  And what a strange but spectacular film to start with.

There's a part of me that wants to address the caveat right now, and so I will (hell, I'm the one who is writing here).  This film is not a narrative film in the traditional sense, and so therefore it's difficult to rank it alongside the other films of the year, and indeed, alongside other Best Pictures).  There are parts of the film, which I'll get to in a minute, that are pure and utter joy-a 5/5 star cavalcade if there ever was one.  But this is essentially a variety program-it's not the sort of film you'd ever see today, because you'd see it on television (or you would, if we still did variety programs instead of just results night on American Idol and The Voice).  So I'm going with a 3/5 because some of the musical numbers work well, some are horribly dated and probably weren't that great to begin with, and that seems to be a solid compromise.  I've seen none of the other 1928-29 nominees (and one of them is purportedly lost for all time-The Patriot by Ernst Lubitsch, check your attics!), but if none meet the 3/5 star ranking, this will almost certainly be my strangest Best Picture choice.

But let's get into the movie.  A musical revue, our masters of ceremony are Jack Benny and Conrad Nagel, though Nagel seems to disappear after about twenty minutes (being one of the studio's biggest stars at the time, he was probably rushed off to a different film), and so Benny does most of the heavy lifting in his film debut.  From a retrospective angle, the fascinating thing for me was the sort of, "where are they now?" aspect of the movie.  Not the actual question (this film is from 1929-they are all long gone), but the celebrity status of everyone.  In 1929, these were some of the biggest stars in the world, largely on equal footing from the poster.  Over eighty years later, Joan Crawford and Buster Keaton are still huge names, and Laurel & Hardy and Norma Shearer are somewhat familiar at least to cinephiles, but Marie Dressler, Conrad Nagel, and John Gilbert are names only known to the most devoted of film fans.

Crawford, by the way, does a song-and-dance to start the film, which is thoroughly enjoyable for the sheer sake of seeing Joan doing her flapper routine for the world to see.  Crawford, one of the biggest stars in film history, was always a trooper, doing whatever a film required, and she dances and sings with the best of them at the beginning of the film.  The bits with Keaton and Laurel & Hardy are slightly less adventurous, as anyone familiar with them have seen these bits a zillion times before.  The truly amazing performances are the ballet contortions and extended sequences, which include, and I'm not kidding here, a woman being used as a jump rope by three other men in a scene that OSHA would have killed in a nanosecond decades later.  There's a number of random song-and-dances, including hammy late-in-life success Marie Dressler (who was about to have two of her biggest career successes and her only two Academy Award nominations in the next couple of years).

And of course, there's the technicolor sequences, so vibrant and bold, and the two scenes that were ripped off by the most classic of musicals, Singin in the Rain.  The first, the balcony scene from Romeo & Juliet (played by Norma Shearer and John Gilbert), which Jean Hagen and Gene Kelly would memorably spoof, which isn't nearly as awful as you would think-Gilbert would be the most high profile of actors to lose their career from the silent-to-sound transition, and though he has a serviceable tenor, it is markedly different from the strong lady's man he was trying to portray on-screen.  Shearer, of course, would find mad success in the "talkies" and become one of MGM's biggest stars in the coming decade, with an incredible six Oscar nominations.

And finally, the film ends with the classic Hollywood song "Singin in the Rain," with the entire cast coming out for the number (if you ever wanted to see Joan Crawford channel Gene Kelly, here's your chance, and notice Buster Keaton, who was not yet allowed to speak on screen, being the only person on stage not singing).  I do have to admit that it would have made the film twice as nice had they figured out a way to get Garbo into the movie (can you even imagine Garbo in a vaudeville act?!?), but as I stated above, a fun but hit-and-miss movie the likes of which you wish you could see again today, if only for the nostalgia of it all.

What about you-do you have a favorite number from this movie?  Are you, like I, not as well-versed in the late 1920's cinema or are you secretly listing the filmographies of Marion Davies and Bessie Love right now?  And what do you think Garbo would have done had she been in the picture (she was scheduled to star, but was pulled due to scheduling)?

OVP: That Forsyte Woman (1949)

Film: That Forsyte Woman (1949)
Stars: Greer Garson, Errol Flynn, Walter Pidgeon, Robert Young, Janet Leigh
Director: Compton Bennett
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Costume Design)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

There are film twists that, currently, seem like obvious choices that years later actually lose a bit of their potency, and this is where I start on this rather dour and overstuffed movie.  The Forsyte Saga, for those familiar with the series of books by John Galsworthy or the Masterpiece Theater classic starring Gina McKee and Rupert Graves, is a terrific soap opera about an upper-middle class family in Britain, and truly great fodder for a film.  However, this particular movie has all of the mechanics of a soap opera, but none of the suspense and fun.

Perhaps I should go to the first, seemingly obvious choice that falls flat on its face, the casting of Errol Flynn as the brutish Soames Forsyte, a man who gets what he wants, especially when told he can't have it.  Flynn seems like an obvious choice for this, and if off-screen rumors are true, was fairly similar to Forsyte in multiple ways.  However, Flynn cannot seem to master any of the emotions that are required to play such a complicated character (Damien Lewis was much better years later), and only manages to be domineering without giving any indication as to the "why" behind his character's decisions.  Granted, this is Classical Hollywood, but Bogart, a similar leading man, was able to do this beautifully in most of his films in the 1940's.  With such a blank slate at the leading man, everyone else's fears and actions seem terribly out-of-balance.

Greer Garson, of course, is intensely watchable in tragic melodramas, and gives her all, but her leading men continue to be too dour and too dull to compare to her.  Walter Pidgeon has undeniable chemistry with her (they appeared in eight films together during her years at MGM), but he's so briefly onscreen, and quite frankly, casting him sort of ruins the suspense of the movie.  (Spoiler Alert, though if you've made it this far, you're probably already familiar) Throughout the film, there's actually a solid question of whether Garson will end up with Flynn or Pidgeon, but casting her opposite her favorite leading man sort of seals the deal.  And the less said about Robert Young, who is badly miscast and is the least appealing of the three leading men whatever Garson's Irene decides toward the end, the better. Garson has the most fun onscreen with Janet Leigh, who is a joy to see in her vivacious young glory.  Janet, like another woman who shares her last name, is eternally attached to a few classic films (in Janet's case, Touch of Evil, The Manchurian Candidate, and of course Psycho) and rarely does anyone notice the remainder of her long and impressive filmography.  As I continue working my way through the 1950's, I expect I shall.

The film received only one Costume Design, but there's little arguing with it.  The Costume Design in the film is beautiful and incredibly bold.  The designs seem to be borrowing as much from the 1940's as they do the 1880's (that remarkable black-and-white number that Garson wears seems far too modern for Victorian England), but it becomes the thing you most look forward to from scene to scene: what decadence will Garson and Leigh be wearing next?  Also of note, and if anyone can point this out to me, I'd appreciate it-this film, according to both IMDB and Wikipedia was released in the US in 1949, but was not nominated until the 1950 Oscars, putting it against the unstoppable Samson and Delilah (it may have had a better chance the year prior).  Anyone know why that is?  Did it really take that long to get the film to Los Angeles?

What about you-which version of the Forsyte Saga do you prefer?  Do you have a favorite Pidgeon/Garson matchup?  And what is truly Janet Leigh's finest hour?

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Film: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Stars: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Sally Field, Martin Sheen, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary
Director: Marc Webb (I'm sure I'm the 1000th person to point it out, but what an appropriate last name!)
Oscar History: None
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I despise remakes.  There, I said it.  Maybe it's because I write for a blog that's primarily about having random conversations (or rantings!) about movies of every era, but I think all cinema, all art, is current.  You can easily discuss the works of Michelangelo, Beethoven, and Scorsese at any time, whether it's a movie from last week or a thousand year old tapestry.  That's the beauty of art-it can constantly be interpreted and appreciated and dissected.

That being said, I also love Oscar, and looking at the handsome production design and excellent Makeup work in this film, it seems destined to at least get one nomination come January, and despite what this blog may seem, I actually don't play catchup very often with the movies-usually I've seen 60-70% of the nominees come Oscar nomination morning, because I have carefully sought them out throughout the year.  And don't worry, if you're following the tags, I plan on having an extensive "go-back-and-update" party for all of the films I've reviewed and got nominated.

But enough about my OCD-ness when it comes to labels.  Let's get into the Amazing Spider-Bum...err man (though really, could the spandex have been any more snug on Andrew Garfield?  Not that I'm complaining, quite the contrary, but hot damn!).  The problem with the constant swinging door on comic book properties is that you always have to watch the same damn origin story, and they're nearly all identical.  At some point, Superman, Spider-Man, and Batman are all orphaned, and then they find some reason (usually related to the death of a loved one) to become anonymous superheroes.  And the first film always focuses on one love interest, followed by learning about your powers, and then finally saving the city (if not New York, always modeled on my beloved NYC) from certain doom.  It's hyper-cliche, and for those of you that are older than, say, 23, you saw this a decade ago with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst.

But there's always some way to improve, and while I think Maguire is a serviceable actor (can't wait for Gatsby!) and love Dunst (rent Melancholia, immediately!), the improvement here is clearly the sexy and charming Garfield and Stone.  Seriously-Garfield has a wonderful knack for playing an awkward but incredibly handsome and witty nerd, and Stone is just pure bliss-seriously, when was the last time someone who could have such terrific chemistry with everyone she meets (Ryan Gosling, Andrew Garfield, Viola Davis, and Patricia Clarkson are all excellent actors, but very different approaches, and she works well with all of them) but also has talent and brains and beauty came to the screen?  Seriously, the young Diane Keaton comparisons seem a little premature, but you know she could get there.  You cheer every time they come onto screen, and sort of wish this were more of a romantic comedy than a superhero film, as I suspect that they would fit well in an Adam's Rib sort of situation if given the chance (though, for god's sake, we don't need a remake of that too!).  I also enjoyed the small roles played by Sally Field and Martin Sheen, who also have chemistry and are believable as a longtime married couple, and it made me even more excited that Field will be starring in Lincoln later in the year, as it's about time for a resurgence of the underrated actress.

The film's best technical aspects, aside from Garfield's suit and all that comes with it, have to be some superbly constructed makeup (done by Tricia Sawyer, who has worked on the Hunger Games and Pirates of the Caribbean films), and the absolutely wonderful crane sequence (you'll know it when you see it), which I found an incredibly beautiful camera shot.  All-in-all, a handsome if unnecessary film that will surely spark some intriguing sequels.  As long as Stone and Garfield stick around, I likely will as well.

What about you-do you think that constant reinventions are a good thing for comic books or that they should invest in the many other properties available to Marvel and DC?  Do you find Stone and Garfield as magnetic onscreen as I do?  And for those of you who (like me) are comic book nerds, whom do you hope will be the next villain in the series?

OVP: The Dark Angel (1935)

Film: The Dark Angel (1935)
Stars: Fredric March, Merle Oberon, Herbert Marshall
Director: Sidney Franklin
Oscar History: 3 nominations, 1 win (Actress-Merle Oberon, Art Direction*, Sound-Recording)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

After a few days off from movie-viewing, I have returned to what will hopefully be a long weekend of Oscar-watching (my TiVo is fuller than Chris Christie at the moment, and I make that joke not because he's overweight, but because of the inordinately high amount of hot air he seems to be constantly spouting).  So I decided to get back into the groove with one of those early 1930's films that the Academy seemed to so love at the beginning of its inception-a long, tender, occasionally overwrought melodrama called The Dark Angel.

Written by Lillian Hellman, which should be indicative of exactly what direction we're about to take, the film is the story of a woman (Oberon) drawn to two men, one strong and silent (Marshall), the other literary and debonair (March).  In later years, when movies were made more formulaic, the strong and silent Marshall would have gotten the girl, but it doesn't take much of a spoiler to tell you that 2-time Oscar winner and movie star par excellence Fredric March is going to end up with Oberon, which is apparent from the beginning scenes, with Oberon as a little girl tormenting him into marrying her.

The film drags quite a bit at the beginning, before World War I comes, and without the charm of March to carry it through its slower, "do you love me?" sorts of scenes, it would likely fall on its face.  However, March shows both his serious and playful sides throughout the film, and this gets you to the best parts of the film, the tough war scenes.  It's always puzzled me that filmmakers in the latter half of the century have found most of their wartime inspiration in World War II, when World War I with its iconic trenches and its start-of-war naivete is more suited to the silver screen.  Luckily, Richard Day, who won a stunning seven Oscars for Art Direction, knows a thing or two about design and makes a deeply intimate trench that adds a claustrophobic element to the film's middle.  It is in this part, that Marshall, angry because he believed that March had had an affair after announcing his engagement to Oberon's Kitty Vane (what a moniker!) sends March off to a seemingly impossible mission, and March's character is assumed dead, though is really just blind and taken to enemy camps.

I don't need to tell you the rest, because you already know it (story short: March's character is ashamed of his disability, doesn't return home, Oberon mourns but then becomes engaged to Marshall, the day before the wedding they discover that March is really still alive, and Oberon comes running back into his arms).  I toyed with a 2-star rating, but couldn't quite bring myself there-the art direction is terrific, though not quite up to the Art Deco that Top Hat also brought that year, and the Sound work, especially in the stilled night silences, is also top rate, and I personally loved some of the cinematography.  March didn't receive an Oscar nomination, and considering who did that year (basically all of the Bounty sailors), it's easy to see why, but he's a weirdly underrated actor, and it seems odd that his star has gotten so horribly lost considering his career longevity and his place at the head of one of the great American classics, The Best Years of Our Lives.  Oberon did, however, get nominated, her first and only nomination, and while she's terribly beautiful, she doesn't add the layers that say, Vivien Leigh would do in Sidney Franklin's later melodrama (and a personal favorite), Waterloo Bridge.  Oberon would be considerably better, though not nominated, four years later for her most iconic of roles, Catherine Earnshaw, in Wuthering Heights.

What about you-do you find the works of Lillian Hellman captivating or plodding (or perhaps a little bit of both)?  Do you think that Oberon deserved the Oscar over Bette Davis this year (or are you in the camp of say Katherine Hepburn in Alice Adams?) And what of Fredric March-why is it that he never became the iconic Hollywood star that his peers, the likes of Gable and Bogart did?

OVP: A Cat in Paris (2011)

Film: A Cat in Paris (2011)
Stars: Steve Blum, Marcia Gay Harden, J.B. Blanc, Anjelica Huston
Directors: Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Animated Feature)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Occasionally, the Animated Feature race likes to go for the foreign films, and in the past year, they went for not one but two (the other being Chico & Rita, which will hopefully come to the blog in August), giving Arthur Christmas coal on nomination morning, and for the first time ever, ignoring Pixar (though when the movie is Cars 2, can you really blame them?).

The movie opens on a cat attacking a lizard, and a girl storing that lizard in a sardine can, which is never really explained except perhaps to prove that this film is clearly not domestically made (if it were American, the lizard would come back to life and be voiced by Albert Brooks).  The girl has stopped speaking after the recent murder of her father by a notorious crime lord (Blanc), and has bonded with her new nanny (Huston) and has become distanced from her mother (Harden), a detective trying to find the man who killed her husband.

The cat, meanwhile, has a double life as a thief's (Blum) assistant, swiping jewels and priceless art all across Paris, making them quite literally...(wait for it)...cat burglars.  Groan.  Despite this horrible entendre, their capers are actually good solid fun, and involve an hilarious bit with a sleepwalker.

The film, of course, takes many twists and turns, and keeps you bouncing off the edge of your seat as the girl, thief, detective, and crime lord jump on and off the rooftops of Paris, only to find themselves on the top of one of the City of Lights must celebrated landmarks.  The pacing is excellent, primarily because it's just over an hour long (making it possibly the shortest film ever nominated in the Animated Feature race).  This brevity helps keep things moving (the film is fairly predictable, and though the animation is shiny and plum, the little girl and the Hanna-Barbara gang of buffoon henchmen make "wearing out the welcome" a great risk), however it leaves a large amount of plot holes, particularly what happens to the thief's many exploits and plunder.

The film competed against a rather middling lineup (without a Pixar gem to spruce things up, the Animated Feature race gets a little disheveled), but it cannot compete with Rango, which still remains my favorite of the five nominees.  Chico & Rita, which is usually the choice of the critics who don't go with Verbinski's film, may change that, however.

With this, by the way, I have officially seen all but four of 2011's OVP films, and three are at the top of my Netflix list, so stay tuned!

And per usual, here's some food for thought questions-do you prefer international to domestic animated films?  Did you find A Cat in Paris superior to the wild west reptiles (or were you more on board with the swashbuckling cat, karate-chopping panda, or the 1940's singer/songwriter?)?  And what year would you most like to have completely finished from your Oscar-viewing?

OVP: Last Summer (1969)

Film: Last Summer (1969)
Stars: Barbara Hershey, Richard Thomas, Bruce Davison, Catherine Burns
Director: Frank Perry
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Supporting Actress-Catherine Burns)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Occasionally, Oscar throws some uncharacteristic films in your way.  The movies of Frank Perry are not what you would consider "Oscar-Bait," even when the little gold man was going through a bit of a rebellious stage in the 1960's and 1970's.  And yet, Oscar deemed his classic David and Lisa worthy of two nominations, and seven years later, they threw another look his way by nominating Last Summer for Best Supporting Actress.

For those unfamiliar with the film (which I would imagine would be most people-this isn't a well-known film, and honestly I didn't know going in that it had three "name" actors starring in the movie until Robert Osborne told me right before the show), it's a coming-of-age story of three teens on the threshold of adulthood (Hershey, Thomas, and Davison), who slowly develop strong feelings (in a variety of directions) for a fourth member (Burns) who desperately wants into their tight-knit clique.

The film, despite it's 43-year-old date, ages fairly well-the cruelty of Hershey's character in particular is oddly reminiscent of some of the bullying stories that have come out in the last year.  Even at a young age, the beautiful Hershey was able to find that wicked blend of malice and allure that she would later exhibit in films like The Natural and Black Swan.  You can't help but be drawn in to her.

Thomas looks like a cross between Nic Hoult and Taylor Lautner in this movie, and aside from Burns, is probably the best actor on display.  He plays teenage angst with the most believable share of uncertainty, drawn to both the girl that he's supposed to fall for (Hershey) and the girl he is falling for (Burns).  As the film continues, sex and violence start to sneak into the natures of Hershey's and Davison's characters.  (SPOILER ALERT) Toward the end, the film moves back to Hershey's true nature, which is exposed when she kills the bird at the film's halfway point, when she convinces Thomas's and Davison's characters to rape Burns character as punishment for encroaching on her territory.

While the others are all strong, Burns is the obvious reason to invest yourself in the film.  In the best scene in the movie, she does a superb monologue about her mother's drunken drowning death, alternating between confused anger and, in a need to feel accepted, a casualness that only a teenager can muster when faced with emotions they cannot understand.  Burns was making her screen debut in the movie, and after only two more films and a couple of television appearances, would disappear from acting completely.

She also, obviously, received an Oscar nomination for the film, and if you want a smirky treat, go look for her rolling her eyes as Fred Astaire announces her name as a nominee.  Clearly, she didn't care that Goldie Hawn was going to take the eventual trophy.  While Burns is excellent, and I'm still missing two performances (the aforementioned Hawn and Dyan Cannon's spouse-swapping wife in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice), don't worry Catherine, I'm not going to be choosing you as the winner.  That slot for the time being is held by Susannah York, whose excellent and eccentric Alice in They Shoot Horses Don't They? still resonates years after I've seen it (the fifth nominee, blink-and-you-miss her Sylvia Miles, seems destined for fifth place).

What about you-who is your favorite supporting actress of 1969?  Does it seem odd that Richard Thomas never got the Oscar nomination that his three costars eventually did?  What was with the seemingly random gay make-out scene on the beach (were we supposed to recognize those characters?)?  And do you think that Katy Perry has seen this (or any film) in her great uncle Frank's filmography?

OVP: The Bachelor Party (1957)

Film: The Bachelor Party (1957)
Stars: Don Murray, E.G. Marshall, Jack Warden, Patricia Smith, Carolyn Jones, Nancy Marchand
Director: Delbert Mann
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Supporting Actress-Carolyn Jones)
Snap Judgment Rating: 3/5 stars

There are few screenwriters that merit as much name recognition as film directors-Aaron Sorkin, Dalton Trumbo, and Michael Wilson come to mind, but perhaps none is as recognizable to a certain sect of moviegoer as that of Paddy Chayefsky.  Chayefsky is one of only two men to have won three Academy Awards for screenwriting solo (the other being Woody Allen).  While The Bachelor Party didn't get him one of his three trophies, it still has his trademark kitchen sink realism on sharp display.

The film centers around five men, each in different stages of their lives and relationships: one well into his 40's worrying about paying for his child's college education (Marshall), one a swinging bachelor (Warden), one a man doing night school and realizing that his wife is having a baby (Murray), one a former philanderer turned family man, and one, of course, the groom-to-be.  The first half of the movie centers around these characters, interchangeably we see them interact with Murray, a man in that brief period in your late 20's/early 30's where you have to decide what dreams will become reality and what dreams there is no longer room to strive toward.  The bravado, the rough conversational tone of the men is classic Chayefsky, and the soft, middle income storyline is pure Delbert Mann, this film coming off of his most celebrated film, Marty, just two years earlier, which won him and Chayefsky Academy Awards.

The movie remains fascinating, not just for the shocking-for-it's time conversations that occurred (discussions of abortion, pornography, and promiscuity seem to make the film seem more appropriate 15 years later, and there are even hints at homosexuality in the reluctant, consistent cold feet of the groom-to-be).

Murray ably plays his role as the handsome man on the threshold of middle age, though his actions, particularly in the latter half of the film, become hazier and hazier, and his sudden (spoiler alert) redemption after nearly having an affair with Jones and just hours earlier suggesting his wife (Patricia Smith) consider an abortion seems like a bit of a cop-out, either on the part of Chayefsky or a nervous United Artists, trying to make sure it appealed to a wider audience.

Carolyn Jones, best known today as Morticia Adams and the ex-wife of Aaron Spelling, receives the film's only Academy Award nomination (it was her only Oscar nod as well).  She plays a character simply known as the Existentialist, and while the performance couldn't possibly be more than eight minutes in length, she makes the most of what she's given, charming Murray and showing a woman who throws herself at men to feel loved (her most famous line is, "say you love me, you don't have to mean it").  Her character gets no resolution as the film ends, however, and you're left wanting more (perhaps the best sign of a supporting actress), which is true of most of the final third of the movie.  While I would give Miyoshi Umeki a slight advantage for the win in the category that year (I haven't seen Elsa Lanchester's work in Witness for the Prosecution quite yet), I'd put Jones in a close second.  However, I have yet to be really impressed at all by any of the five performances nominated in 1957 for Supporting Actress-here's to hoping that Lanchester's work delivers.

What about you?  Have you seen The Bachelor Party (notoriously difficult to find on VHS/DVD)?  Do you have trouble not thinking of Carolyn Jones as the saucy goth "Tish?"  And whom should the Academy have thrown into the Best Supporting Actress race of 1957?

OVP: Lassie Come Home (1943)

Film: Lassie Come Home (1943)
Stars: Roddy McDowell, Donald Crisp, May Whitty, Edmund Gwenn, Elsa Lanchester, Nigel Bruce, Elizabeth Taylor
Director: Fred M. Wilcox
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Cinematography-Color)
Snap Judgment Rating: 4/5 stars

"A classic is something everyone wants to have read and nobody wants to read," said Mark Twain, and occasionally, it feels that way with the cinema.  Granted, movies like Casablanca and The Godfather are well worth everyone's time and some of my favorites, but I kind of see his point.  I've invested the time in a movie like The Jazz Singer-I was better off with the random AFI clips than actually seeing the film.  The Birth of a Nation has moved to the bottom of my Netflix list more times than I can count.  So I went into this movie, the cinema's first introduction to the most beloved dog committed to celluloid (sorry Rin Tin Tin) with a bit of hesitation.  It hasn't survived in the sense that The Wizard of Oz or The Miracle on 34th Street have-I was guessing that I'd run into a saccharine, bloated nightmare of a film that would be two parts treacle and one part "aged poorly."  Thankfully, this was (mostly) not the case.

The movie is about a young boy whose parents (Donald Crisp and Elsa Lanchester, who really does look like Shirley Jones in this film, doesn't she?) have sold his dog to a rich Duke and his granddaughter, but the dog keeps running back to his master, played by an adorable Roddy McDowell.  The Duke, however, is bound for Scotland, and thinks this is the end of the running away since the boy and his family live in Yorkshire, England.  Of course, the dog has other plans and starts a wild adventure home that has been told countless times with both dogs and war horses alike.

The movie has just enough sense not to focus too much on any one particular set of British character actors for very long.  Nigel Bruce is his boisterous self as the Duke, and in one of her earliest roles, a young Elizabeth Taylor plays his granddaughter.  Liz is almost certainly the most identified character in the promotions for the film these days (outside of the collie), but she has a bit role and the dog quickly moves on to a host of characters, most notably Dame May Whitty, who plays a lonely old woman who takes in the dog after he swims into England, and Edmund Gwenn, free of his Santa Claus beard and armed with the most adorable of little dogs named Toots (which in my opinion steals the film's second act away from Lassie herself).  The ending of the film, as expected, brings tears to your eyes right around the time the entire town recognizes this brave dog, limping her way back to her owner.  Only a heart of stone could stay intact while watching dog and owner reunited, even if you've seen it copied in a hundred other movies and know that there's quite a bit of sap to mingle with those tears of joy.

The Cinematography, the only aspect of the film to be nominated, is handsome and shiny technicolor, but like most technicolor, it becomes a bit much at times and somewhat distracting and saturated.  Overall, though, Leonard Smith, who three years later would win a shiny golden man for the equally revered The Yearling, finds a strong light throughout the movie.

What about you?  What are your fondest memories of Hollywood's Best in Show?  Do you also think that Elsa Lanchester bares a resemblance to Mrs. Partridge?  And what child stars do you wish had followed Roddy McDowell and Elizabeth Taylor's leads and become stars as adults?

OVP: Julie (1956)

Film: Julie (1956)
Stars: Doris Day, Louis Jourdan
Director: Andrew L. Stone
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Original Screenplay, Original Song-"Julie")
Snap Judgment Rating: 1/5 stars

One of the things that I've noticed about Oscar is that he sometimes deems to endorse some really odd and occasionally atrocious films.  Click is an Oscar-nominated film, even if Once Upon a Time in the West is not.  Norbit, Oscar nominee-Mean Streets, again, not so much.  Unfortunately, Julie is the sort of film that belongs in the "Oscar nominee-really?" category.  Julie's a thriller, so I am required to say spoilers ahead, even though I think it should be implied.

Starring the eternally lovely Doris Day and the handsome Louis Jourdan as a recently married couple who are on their honeymoon, the film starts out so suddenly that you sort of wonder if the DVD accidentally got edited incorrectly and you've missed the first fifteen minutes.  Day is fighting with Jourdan, and suddenly Jourdan pounds on the accelerator, and Day is forced to make more sharp (and ludicrously accurate) turns than Mario Andretti did in his entire career.

The film continues on high, high adrenaline, and you quickly learn that Jourdan killed Day's first husband, and that for some reason he has decided she must die as well.  We get no background into what drove him to kill her husband outside of jealousy (had he pined for her for years?  We'll never know), and we also don't learn what drove Day so quickly to get over her husband and marry Jourdan. What does happen is a case of constant bumps in the night, crank calls, dark alley trailings, and finally and most ridiculously, a showdown between Jourdan and Day, who is forced to land a plane with absolutely no training whatsoever.  There's occasionally some "it's so bad it's good" moments, particularly surrounding an incredibly hammy Jourdan, but as a whole this is a largely forgettable and heavy-handed melodrama.

1956 has never been my favorite Oscar vintage, but it's hard to believe that the Academy couldn't have found a better Original Screenplay.  The song is slightly more forgiving, though it only plays over the credits and if you listen to the lyrics, makes little sense in the course of the film, as the song is about being in love with a man who is dangerous, and the movie spends absolutely no time on the "in love" portion of the two leads' tale.

What about you-have you seen Julie?  Was it is "so bad it's good" or just "so bad it's terrible?"  Would you mind terribly if the debonair Louis Jourdan was stalking you?  And what original screenplays should the Academy have chosen in 1956?

Magic Mike (2012)

Film: Magic Mike (2011)
Stars: Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Matthew McConaughey, Cody Horn
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Oscar History: None
Snap Judgment Rating: 5/5 stars

There are only a few movies that would get me to the theater on opening night (I usually wait for the fanboys to clear out), but for obvious reason's involving amongst other things Channing Tatum's rather stunning physique, Magic Mike is one of them.  Unfortunately, the film was sold out everywhere opening night so I had to settle for a late Saturday viewing.  Perhaps the delayed gratification made me more anticipatory, and therefore, more forgiving, but I have to admit-this was a way better movie than I expected going into the film.

I suppose, with Soderbergh at the helm, I shouldn't have been surprised that this film didn't fall into the pitfalls of most "gimick-y" flicks, and delivered a bevy of real, human characters, but I was.  I can partially blame the advertising campaign, that promised me The Lucky One but instead delivered something closer to Boogie Nights.  The film, for those of you living under a rock, is about a group of male strippers from different walks of life and about how each comes to embrace or distance themselves from their questionable line of work.  The film becomes a slight morality tale at points, but it never goes too far into that direction to be considered preachy.

The performances were perhaps the most surprising part.  Look at that cast list-it doesn't have the...gravitas of the lineup in Soderbergh's Traffic.  And yet, it works.  Tatum, who has had one of those years that screams "arrived!" with hit films like The Vow and 21 Jump Street, has that charisma and chemistry with his costars that is essential to a true movie star.  If he hasn't earned that title quite yet, I suspect he's on his way to deserving it, and more directors of Soderbergh's caliber are certainly taking note.  His equal in the film is McConaughey, an actor of which I'm not typically a fan, but who is perfectly cast in this film.  Borrowing a bit from Joel Grey's Emcee (yep, I'm going there), he has an evil mischief that he brings to the surface just enough to be menacing AND enigmatic (a tough balance), and toward the end of the film, when he chooses to indulge in his own striptease, you get the sense that this is a man who will keep going out on all cylinders until he's hit his blaze of glory.

There's so much more to discuss (the brilliant mirroring of Pettyfer's/Tatum's rise or fall, however you take it; the fact that Cody Horn can act and has a voice freakishly similar to Kristen Stewart's), but since it just came to me yesterday I'm going to let it breathe for a bit.  Maybe in six months when I'm reflecting on the year's best films, I'll know whether I saw a quiet, quicker version of Paul Thomas Anderson's masterwork or was just blinded by Matthew Bomer's torso.  In the meantime, I can say wholeheartedly, it's a fun and wild ride worth checking out.

What about you?  Were you surprised by the depth of the film?  Did you think the marketing was deceptive or right on the money?  And which of the 'Cock Rocking Kings of Tampa' would you most want a lap dance from?

OVP: The Town (2010)

Film: The Town (2010)
Stars: Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively
Director: Ben Affleck
Oscar History: 1 Academy Award nomination (Best Supporting Actor-Jeremy Renner)
Snap Judgment Rating: 3/5 stars

Ha, proof I can post at least twice a year.  Progress!  So, for those of you who didn't see the post I posted 5 minutes ago, I am returning to the blog with a single purpose-to see every film ever nominated for a narrative, feature length Oscar category.  I'm calling it the Oscar Viewing Project (or for the ease of my fingers, OVP).  Since I'm working backward and I've seen almost every film from 2011, it will be a number of films from 2010 for a while.  First up, Ben Affleck's recent crime caper, The Town (spoilers to follow if you haven't seen the film).

The film opens with Affleck's handy Boston accent narrating an impending bank robbery.  In the following moments, we are introduced to the world of Charlestown (a Boston neighborhood) bank-robbing, as four masked men work through a quick, tried-and-tested series of events to rob the bank.  It's fairly standard-fare heist stuff, but it introduces us to our three primary players-Affleck, a "wrong-side-of-tracks" criminal with a heart of gold, live wire Jeremy Renner that you know will continue to get all maverick-y up in this film later, and the downtrodden, broken assistant bank manager Rebecca Hall, who must unlock the safe.  The robbers of course escape, but not before an inexplicably cast Victor Garber gets the butt of a gun in his head (why cast such a well-known character actor if you aren't going to use him later?), and madness continues.

Affleck, never a strong leading man, has a sturdier hand as a director, and keeps this film going at a strong clip, and has surrounded himself with a strong enough cast in Renner, Hall, ludicrously handsome Jon Hamm (playing a strong FBI agent) and Pete Postelthwaite as an enigmatic crime boss to hide the fact that this film is a rather routine crime tale.

The film has trouble juggling its many plotlines in its two hour frame. Affleck clearly cares most about the odd love story that develops between himself and Hall, who isn't aware that she's dating the man who held her hostage, but even that he can't come to a head to when he glosses out an apology when she inevitably discovers that he once held her at gunpoint.  The other storylines-about a damaged childhood, a deranged friendship with Renner, and a developing rivalry between Affleck and Postelthwaite all get their moments in the sun, but never long enough to develop into a really compelling cinematic moment.  Affleck's character makes a joke in the film about knowing a great deal about crime due to watching serial crime series like CSI, but his film occasionally lapses into the pitfalls of these series by focusing more on the actions of the characters rather than the reasons behind those actions.

Renner's explosive performance as an increasingly unhinged bank robber received an Oscar nomination for the film, and he definitely is the highlight of the film.  The best scenes in the film surround him and Affleck, and the terrific worn chemistry Renner brings to a friendship that is now built more out of obligation than genuine admiration.  Even so, of that year's nominees, I still preferred the subdued nature of Mark Ruffalo's sudden dad in The Kids Are All Right and the frighteningly enigmatic actions of John Hawkes in Winter's Bone to Renner.

What about you-what are your thoughts on The Town?  Do you like Ben Affleck better as a director?  Do you think that this and not Winter's Bone or 127 Hours should have been included in the Best Picture lineup in 2010 (at the time, it seemed like a battle between the three for the final two slots)?  And who was your favorite Best Supporting Actor of 2010?

The Many Rantings of John, Part 2: The Oscar Viewing Project

So, where were we?  Okay, so I may have abandoned this blog three years ago, but I'm glad to see that accident attorneys, pharmaceutical companies, and hundreds of posts with Chinese character symbols still had a home on the internet.  I am nothing if not accommodating.

I can't promise I'll stick around for a long time-I've attempted blogging enough times to know that this could be my first and last post in three years.  However, I'm going to give it a college try, so let's hold off on the Propecia sales for a little while.

While I will probably pipe in on politics (Mitt Romney's inability to give a direct answer about the Dream Act is something that should be talked about) and other topics that interest me, my primary reason for return is I want to start tracking my Oscar Viewing Project.

What is the Oscar Viewing Project? I decided a few years ago that I wanted to start seeing every narrative, feature length film that had received an Academy Award nomination.  For those of you not fluent in Academy-speak, essentially this means that I want to see the nominees in every category that isn't a Documentary or Short Film category.  Not that I don't love short films or documentaries (I do), but let's keep this slightly realistic-it's hard enough to find 70-year-old films starring film legends like Gable and Crawford-how do you think I'm going to do scouring short films that haven't been seen in public in 60 years?

I know it's a project doomed to failure-though I don't have the exact number, I'm sure there are at least a dozen films that are either the way of the dodo or hiding in the attics of Louis Mayer's grandchildren, never to be seen by cinephiles again.

If my count is right, I have 2259 films left to finish the project.  This includes the predecessors to nominated films, as well as the Cannes Palme d'Or winners, because, well, if you're going to go with the Oscars you might as well hit the Nobel Prizes of Cinema.  I'll be largely working my way backward chronologically through the Oscars, so we'll be doing my missing pieces of 2010 and 2011 first.  I'll be checking in with every film as I see it, as well as other films that I encounter along the way.  I can't promise fancy graphics or gif's (I can barely program my TiVo), but stick around if you'd like to discuss the movies or the Oscars.  It should be a fun ride.