Maroc 7 (1967)

Film: Maroc 7 (1967)
Stars: Gene Barry, Elsa Martinelli, Leslie Phillips, Cyd Charisse, Denholm Elliott, Alexandra Stewart
Director: Gerry O'Hara
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Cyd Charisse-click here to learn more about Ms. Charisse (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Throughout the month of March, we have looked at four of the seminal films from the career of Cyd Charisse.  While I have questioned her abilities as an actress on occasion, there's no denying that all four of the movies we've profiled for Charisse are considered classics, and correctly so-there's much to lend to all of them.  Charisse, however, is our first actress (of four this year) to recieve 5 Saturdays in the same month, and so we get to continue on in her career past the MGM years.  I considered doing one of her final straight dramas like Party Girl or Twilight of the Gods, but on the advice of my brother, I went further into her filmography, into the 1960's, and found one of the most bizarre spy knockoffs I've seen in a while.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Simon Grant (Barry, best known today for either his series of B-movies at Paramount in the early 50's or his stoic dramatic work in the 1960's in shows like Bat Masterson and Burke's Law depending on your genre preference), an undercover detective who seems to be a bit shaky on the law.  He's hired to infiltrate the jewel thief ring that is run by Louise (Charisse), a fashion editor by day and an impeccably-coiffed criminal by night.  In the process of his investigation into Louise, Simon begins to fall for Claudia (Martinelli), one of the fashion models working within Louise's ring, one whom he thinks could be persuadable to his own side.  Along the way, we see an increasingly ridiculous series of chase sequences interrupting ornate, gaudy modeling shoots with about a dozen women that somehow all look like Lois Chiles (even though none of them are in fact Lois Chiles).

The movie is clearly borrowing from the Sean-Connery style Bond films that were popular at the time, with pictures like the James Coburn Flint series being a huge coup for FOX.  Maroc 7, however, doesn't have the cheekiness of the Coburn films, and also doesn't have the budget, and is clearly more a way to make a quick buck off of a series of scantily clad women and a recognizable name (though she deserves above-the-title billing, this is very much a supporting role for Charisse) to make a buck for Paramount.  There's so much camp potential here (one of Charisse's henchman is an irritable, likely gay, photographer, for crying out loud), but only Denholm Elliott seems to realize that they aren't making an important film.  Instead, we have actors actually trying to land their parts without any irony, and none of them (save, again, Elliott) probably have the actorly heft to be able to pull off an A-picture to begin with.  As a result, it's kind of boring, and the characters are almost interchangeable.  You'd be forgiven for not even distinguishing key characters in the film, which is a problem because the film's final third, which involves two different actresses betraying our main character, plays flat because you honestly would struggle to even remember which characters they were playing.

The movie took place at the end of Charisse's filmography, and was the last movie in her career that she'd get star billing.  At this point, she'd been out of dancing for over a decade (MGM largely abandoning musicals to make action movies like Maroc 7, albeit higher-quality), and other than a part in the uncompleted Marilyn Monroe picture Something's Gotta Give, hadn't really done anything of note since the 60's began.  She's fine in this role, even though it's easy to see someone like Anne Bancroft having more fun with the part; Louise is meant to be effortlessly glamorous, and Charisse, now in her mid-40's, certainly still could do this in a series of elegant suits.  I leave Charisse's filmography weirdly conflicted about her as a performer-she's a great dancer, but not a particularly compelling actress.  However, either her studio or her agent or Charisse herself had impeccable taste in scripts, making her a star with iconic hit after hit (Maroc 7 notwithstanding) during the waning days of the Golden Age.  Monday we'll unveil our next star, someone who came before Charisse but has a rather cheeky connection to the actress that I'm hoping you enjoy, but in the meantime please sound off in the comments on your favorite Charisse films we've profiled, and if there's a really great one that might change my mind about her.

Transit (2019)

Film: Transit (2019)
Stars: Franz Rogowski, Paula Beer, Godehard Giese
Director: Christian Petzold
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Occasionally you are confronted with the fact that an up-and-coming filmmaker, one whose name you've seen written and raved about, is someone whose filmography you've never actually encountered.  This was the case after I saw Transit, and realized Christian Petzold was the man behind the picture, and had also been behind Barbara & Phoenix, both of whom I remember thinking "I need to see that movie" after the trailers played in my local Landmark.  Thankfully, I'm no longer estranged from Petzold's filmography (and have added both of his previous films to my Netflix queue), as Transit proves him to be a rare talent, someone who knows how to mine drama in the strangest of places, and to mess with historical form to give a truly compelling story.

(Spoilers Ahead-And I Mean It!) I usually start by explaining the plot of each movie, so you have some grounding in the story we're discussing, but it's difficult to sum up Transit without getting into the theoretical aspects of the picture's plot.  Suffice it to say, Georg (Rogowski) has been traveling from Paris to Marseille in hope of escaping an oppressive regime, strongly indicated to be the Nazis though that's not entirely clear and we'll get to why in a second.  He's accompanied by a writer named Heinz (Ronald Kukulies), who is dying, and in fact passes away on the covert ride to Marseille.  Georg met him because he was giving Heinz a letter from the writer's wife Marie (Beer).  Georg goes to Marseille, and is mistaken for Heinz.  He soon realizes if he pretends to be Heinz for three weeks, he'll be able to flee from Marseille, which is supposedly about to be taken over by the authoritarian regime (at least that's that's a ticking clock in the background of the picture), and go to Mexico, where he'd be safe from this oppression.  While he's waiting, he bides his time becoming a surrogate father to a boy called Driss (Lilien Batman), and eventually meets Marie, who is having an affair with a doctor named Richard (Giese) but mostly just waiting for her husband to return.  The film unfolds with Georg having his own affair with Marie, convincing her to take the ticket that was intended for her all along.

The movie's power comes from a very tight script, one that easily could have fallen apart considering the complicated angles that Petzold's playing with Georg and what's clearly going on in the background.  I described the movie right after seeing it as a weird combination of Casablanca, Vertigo, and Celine & Julie Go Boating, which feels about right (and if that doesn't make you want to see the movie, we have different tastes in cinema).  The Casablanca and Vertigo angles are most obvious-we see Georg transform into a different person, here having Rogowski somehow become both the Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak characters in Hitch's masterpiece, while the struggle to move from Marseille with only "two letters from transit" is obviously an homage to Casablanca; there's even a bartender narrator and one of the main characters is named Richard.  But Celine & Julie play a part here, as we're caught in some sort of strange, repetitive hellscape, with beautiful Marseille looking decisively modern, despite the fact that we assume at the beginning of the picture that there's some sort of allegory for World War II, and that we are witnessing World War II's driving out of the Jews.

This is where Petzold's genius comes in-not to name-check another classic movie, but like Cabaret, you will see the fascist ending coming a mile away upon repeat viewings, but you're so caught up in the sweeping "who will survive?" tug-of-war between Georg, Marie, and Richard, that you would be forgiven the ending, when a group of armed men come to presumably take Georg away, & we learn that Marie & Richard have likely died after their transit to America has been attacked (though Beer appears, like she does so many times in the picture, running just out-of-reach of Georg proving the story may continue to repeat).

The film is probably meant to literally be about the Holocaust, but is existentialist enough that you can't quite tell.  Petzold fills the movie with unmistakable modern touches (the cars, weapons, dress, and room decor would be preposterous in the 1940's), which gives the movie a nasty chill.  It's just as easy to assume this is about the current rise of neo-nazism in Europe & the United States, or the way that that movement has shaped our thoughts on the refugee crisis & immigration.  The fact that you can't tell the difference between the Holocaust and how the people of Syria are being treated and moved around by a seeming lottery of luck is so well-lensed you won't think about it until your car ride home.  But it works-this is a damn good movie, and one that plays better the more you think about it, which is rare for a story so dependent on twists and plot.  The acting is uniformly good, though Rogowski wins best-in-show.  Most known to arthouse audiences for his work in Michael Haneke's Happy End, he plays Georg as a vessel for the audience, but also his own Rubik's Cube of a human being, a man caught in an impossible situation, likely already doomed but still spared a bit of hope at odd junctures.  We should know that this is the end for him the moment he steps onto the screen, but to quote the film that inspired this fabulous picture, he's just "waiting...and waiting...and waiting..."

OVP: Suicide Squad (2016)

Film: Suicide Squad (2016)
Stars: Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje, Cara Delevigne, Ben Affleck
Director: David Ayer
Oscar History: 1 nomination/1 win (Best Makeup & Hairstyling*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

The Oscar Viewing Project is a labor of love, but occasionally it's just a labor.  I frequently say that I never regret seeing any movie at least once, because I learn something new from every film, but man does Suicide Squad test that theory.  Reviled by critics two years ago when it came out, it still made an absolute mint at the box office, enough to well-earn its sequel even if in the process it nearly destroyed the DC franchise in conjunction with Batman vs. Superman (since then Wonder Woman and Aquaman have done damage control, though with both Ben Affleck & Henry Cavill supposedly leaving the series, I wonder what that means for the future of a Justice League).  Suicide Squad managed to become the first movie in the series to win an actual Oscar, meaning that DCEU hit that distinction two years before the MCU did.  With that Oscar nomination, I was forced to watch it, and since I don't want you to have to endure the same fate, here's my review of this travesty of a picture.

(Spoilers Ahead) It's hard to count the ways that Suicide Squad fails on nearly every level, but it starts with the plot.  Unlike The Avengers, which had largely introduced all of the characters before the film, or X-Men, where they have the good sense to pick characters like Wolverine, Magneto, and Professor X who are well-established in pop culture before expanding into Beast or Mystique, no one in this movie (save Harley Quinn & the Joker) is a protagonist well-known to the general public.  Thus the film takes a nearly ten minute detour where Amanda Waller (Davis, a smart casting decision that doesn't pan out due to the script, as Waller is one of the coolest villains in the DC universe) just describes the different bad guys that will eventually make up the Suicide Squad, with us seeing why they're "so incredible" but then watching them become two-dimensional characterizations in the ensuing 90 minutes of movie.  Essentially Waller wants to assemble these guys to be able to fight the likes of a future Superman who isn't so magnanimous, and essentially by blackmailing them into slavery (an aspect of the film that no one seems to have a problem with even though we're off a moral cliff with forming this organization), she hopes to fight a future alien invasion.

Plot is not really essential to the movie that ultimately came about here (though it would have perhaps helped with some of the structural issues of the picture), but essentially that alien is among the Suicide Squad, as the Enchantress (Delevigne) takes over the body of June Moone and tries to destroy the Suicide Squad and enslave the human race.  This gives us a baddie, but weirdly the movie totally ignores the iconic villain at its center, the Joker (Leto), surely saving him for a future film that never panned out properly as Leto is now being replaced by Joaquin Phoenix.

The plotting in the film might have been able to help the picture should it have been well-acted; after all, effects movies can get around bad plotting all the time if there's a charismatic enough lead.  This, however, is not the case.  Will Smith is dreadful as Deadshot, lifelessly going through a film where he has to share the "hero" label with a half dozen other less famous people, and has no chemistry with anyone, including Davis or Robbie, with whom he shares a lot of scenes.  Smith hasn't actually been good in a movie in nearly two decades, so it shouldn't be a shock to see him miss here, but it's still disheartening, because the Will Smith of the 1990's might have breathed some life into this film.  Combined with Davis getting nothing to do, Leto creating a scenery-chewing ham in the Joker, and all of the rest of the cast save one just being two-dimensional (what the hell-Akinnouye-Agbaje can act and lifts Croc-Killer in zero ways), we are given a superhero movie that's not just messy, it's also dull.

The saving grace in the film is Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn, the only thing to recommend here.  Robbie got some random Oscar buzz for the film, which was absurd as this is hardly great acting, but she creates an identity for Harley, lands most of the jokes, and seems to genuinely be having fun.  It's a grand theft movie, to the point where you almost want to fast forward when she's not onscreen, but hats off to her for remembering this is a motion picture rather than just a marketing campaign checklist.

As for the Makeup effects, I have to say they're pretty good.  The hair styles are occasionally too similar, but the makeup work is extensive and realistic, blending well with the special effects.  We'll get to the OVP for this right away in our 2016 rundown, so I'm not going to give away the farm, but this isn't a bad nomination.  It's just a bad movie.

The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018)

Film: The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018)
Stars: Jack Black, Cate Blanchett, Owen Vaccaro, Kyle MacLachlan, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Sunny Suljic, Colleen Camp
Director: Eli Roth
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars (though more 3.5 than if I did halves-this is better than you think it'd be)

With the advent of things like the Disney Channel and Freeform, family-friendly movies that were once a 90's staple in theaters have largely migrated into the world of cable television.  For all of the nostalgia of movies like Hocus Pocus or The Sandlot, by-and-large it frequently feels like movies that are completely focused on just kids, family-friendly fare that doesn't have gigantic winks to the grownups in the audience in mind, are a thing of the past.  Perhaps that's why The House with a Clock in Its Walls began not with trailers, but with a nod to the past (a 3-D viewing of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video, which was delightful and I realized while catching it that I'd never seen the film in its entirety).  I'm a bit behind on this review, but color me pleasantly surprised by director Eli Roth's insistence on having such a throwback to an earnest, more-fun-than-you'd-think little picture.

(Spoilers Ahead) Based on the novel by John Bellairs, The House with a Clock in its Walls feels antiquated in its story approach, but never in a way that feels dated.  We see Lewis (Vaccaro), a precocious ten-year-old who is forced to live with his Uncle Jonathan (Black) after his parents die. He knows little of Jonathan, and they essentially meet at a bus stop (that looks like it was straight out of The Shape of Water, a movie I have to imagine Roth loved even if this was released too soon after the film to be a proper homage).  Uncle Jonathan's best friend is his neighbor Florence (Blanchett) and they have a quick banter that feels like it's headed for romance but thankfully never does, and we soon learn why they are such chums-they're both magic, a warlock-and-witch next door.  Lewis wants to learn the ways of these two, but accidentally unleashes an evil wizard named Isaac Izard (MacLachlan) in the process.  Madness and mistaken identities ensue, with Colleen Camp joining the fun as a nosy neighbor with a secret, but by-and-large it's just playful, gaudy fun.

Roth, most noted for his grotesque horror films like Hostel, weirdly feels right at home in the PG-rated world of The House..., to the point where I hope this becomes a side business for him similar to Wes Anderson and animation.  Though he occasionally indulges his ridiculously bloody makeup work (look at the final scene where Kyle MacLachlan is watching his face disappear), overall he finds a strong channel through a well-cast Vaccaro, who serves as Roth's surrogate here, endlessly curious about the world his Uncle Jonathan has created.

The film also gains a lot from Black and Blanchett's splendid chemistry.  Blanchett is world-renowned as one of the great working actors, so even in a film like this it's not surprising to hear she's living up to the challenge, but I've always had something of a soft spot for Jack Black, and am so pleased that he was given yet another opportunity to shine, showing off his inner-child.  Black is in a weird area of his career, where he isn't getting the star vehicles he once did opposite Will Ferrell or Ben Stiller, but he's still got great comic sensibilities, and I hope that he continues to be able to invest them in little movies like The House with a Clock in Its Walls, which could have been forgettable but is instead an unlikely gem.

OVP: Tanna (2016)

Film: Tanna (2016)
Stars: Marie Wawa, Mungau Dain, Marcelien Rofit, Charlie Kahla
Director: Martin Butler, Bentley Dain
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Foreign Language Film-Australia)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I have officially completed 2016 for the Oscar Viewing Project as of yesterday morning, when I caught Tanna, the final film of that year that I hadn't seen.  I will be working hard throughout April to give you 2015's final few articles (the next week I have a different writing project I need to invest some time in, otherwise I'd guarantee an official ballot or two this week), but suffice it to say I ended the 2016 rundown with two diametrically opposed films, both of which we'll be looking at today and tomorrow.  For the final film, I took a chance on Tanna, Australia's first ever nomination in the category, though weirdly not a single bit of the film actually takes place in Australia and features an enormous amount of ni-Vanuatu actors, since the whole film was lensed on this South Pacific island, so I'm curious how this movie didn't get disqualified (as other similar films have done) for not being sufficiently Australian. That said, it's a fascinating film since it's the first movie of its kind from the island, though I frequently felt like it was fetishizing the tribes and cultures of the villages as much as trying to capture them, with gorgeous scenery played for filler in a thinly-plotted and acted film.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie's story is about two dueling tribes on the island of Tanna.  The two have been warring, and are expected to find some sort of peace through arranged marriage, as Wawa (Wawa) is being promised to the Imedin tribe as a bride/peace offering to be one of their young men's brides.  However, Wawa is in love with Dain (Dain) a handsome, tempestuous young grandson of the chief, and wants to marry him instead of having an arranged marriage.  The movie follows them as the two consummate their love and then run away, rather than being forced to marry.  Eventually, they are caught on a different island, and instead of Wawa leaving their love forever, they commit suicide atop a volcano.  As a result of their sacrifice, the chiefs decide they should no longer forbid love marriages.

The movie is based on a true story, and indeed in the 1980's the tribes of Vanuatu decided that love marriages should be allowed as a result of this tragedy.  This makes the ending somewhat surprising and effective (it's not entirely clear until the end of the film whether this is based on a legend or real events), but the rest of the movie is a mixed bag.  Everyone in the film appears to be an untrained actor, and it shows in some of the performances.  While the leads are effective, particularly Wawa, the rest of the supporting players aren't nearly as good, and even when they're clearly embodying classic roles like Friar Laurence (there's an obvious similarity to Romeo & Juliet even if this is inspired by real-life events), it comes across as wooden, and occasionally like the filmmakers were taking advantage of the actors in an exploitive way.

The movie also suffers from odd tangents, particularly Wawa's little sister Selin (Rofit), who is something of an instigator of the whole affair, and yet it's hard to connect with her at all since the movie cares so little about her until the end of the picture.  The film's best asset, a balmy cinematography, overshadows too much of the movie, with it almost feeling like a tourist video to come visit Vanuatu than a moving film.  The movie has had some recent heartbreak (Dain died at the age of only 24 from an infection in his leg), which may be why you've heard it more recently in the news, but the film itself is more a curiosity than a great picture.  Hopefully its Oscar nomination will serve a higher purpose in giving more attention to cinema in the South Pacific, particularly among persons of color in Oceania, but its citation is more historic than anything else.

OVP: Five Easy Pieces (1970)

Film: Five Easy Pieces (1970)
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Susan Anspach, Lois Smith, Ralph Waite
Director: Bob Rafelson
Oscar History: 4 nominations (Best Picture, Actor-Jack Nicholson, Supporting Actress-Karen Black, Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

It's always a little bit odd to see Jack in a film before Cuckoo's Nest, when he started his slow descent into the crazy, wild-eyed cartoon that we know-and-admire from The Shining or Batman.  Before that, while he always had that signature intensity and a carnality in his onscreen personas, he was still trying to prove himself as a genius for his generation, one of the truly great screen presences.  In many ways, this mirrors what happened to his Ironweed costar Meryl Streep, who also eventually became so famous and so identified with her offscreen persona that it became impossible for her to incarnate character acting roles.  Five Easy Pieces is one of the first films in Nicholson's legend as a great actor, coming a year after his big breakthrough in Easy Rider, and was his first nomination for Best Lead Actor at the Academy Awards, a category he'd compete in a total of eight times (to date).  The film has the feel of a 1970's classic, occasionally too lost and dated in the years since to land all of the punches it surely would have hit in 1970, but Nicholson is sensational as a little boy lost in the violent persona he's crafted in his adulthood.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers on Bobby Dupea (Nicholson), an oil rig worker with a brainy side, as he was once a child prodigy & classic pianist.  He spends his days cheating on his air-headed girlfriend Rayette (Black), who whines about the world while blasting Tammy Wynette records.  After finding out from his sister Partita (Smith) that their father has suffered two strokes and may soon die, Bobby returns back to the privileged place of his youth, where he begins to fall for his brother's fiance Catherine (Anspach).  Along the way, we start to learn about the world that Bobby abandoned, and the clear emotional scars a complicated relationship with his father have left him with, to the point where he doesn't seem capable of falling in love with a woman in the traditional sense.  The film ends brutally, with Catherine telling Bobby he's incapable of loving anyone, and then he proves her right by abandoning a pregnant Rayette at a truck stop while he heads as a hitchhiker up to Alaska, a callback to an earlier scene in the film where Toni Basil's Terry Grouse (yes, Toni Basil of "oh Mickey, you're so fine" fame) is discussing she and her friend's obsession with going to Alaska where it's "clean."

The film has a definite 1970's mold, with emotionally unavailable men trying to connect to a changing world.  Nicholson wasn't the only person who capitalized on this motif-Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, and Ryan O'Neal were all mining similar ground at this point to great success.  What sets Five Easy Pieces apart, then, is the ambiguity of the film, particularly its stronger second half.  There are scenes in the movie where you have to heavily understand what the script is giving you hints at.  Look at, say, the clear unrest in Lois Smith's work here-where she's so sexually repressed that she pursues a man she knows won't be good to her, an exact mirror of the relationship she has with every man in the film.  Or the sheer comic ridiculousness of Nicholson "fighting the man" in the form of Lorna Thayer's waitress in the movie's most famous sequence, the "chicken salad scene."  Or the very complicated, manipulative relationship that Rayette and Bobby have with each other, where you know they're destined to end up apart, but the way it happens lets them both find peace in a melancholy way.

The film struggles on occasion, and is hurt in the way that it looks at Bobby's philandering and abuse of Rayette as two-sided, when clearly it's more his fault that their relationship is poisoned.  Both actors received Oscar nominations for the film, and while it's easy to praise Nicholson's work here (the heartbreaking moment with his father, confessing things he's never said out loud to a man he was once terrified of but is now just a blank slate is jaw-dropping), I was mixed with Black's work.  She clearly embodies Rayette, but I feel like we keep going to the same well over-and-over, with the main moment at the end not being the moment we need it to be-she's expected to have not grown outwardly but grown inwardly, but to me she was still the same person at the beginning of the film.  It's easy to mix "good performance" with "I feel bad for her," and I think some of the praise for her work should fall into the latter camp even if people are claiming the former.  Black has some great moments ("I'm not a piece of crap") but her sole Oscar nomination left me mixed, even in a year of very eclectic nominees (I officially have seen all five of this year's nominated films, though I have little memory of Lee Grant in The Landlord).  The film is occasionally dated, but is one of the best of this style of "changing times" films I've seen, and one of Nicholson's most effective performances.  I'm not quite at 5-stars, but it deserves its perch as a "classic."

Silk Stockings (1957)

Film: Silk Stockings (1957)
Stars: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Janis Paige, Peter Lorre
Director: Rouben Mamoulian
Oscar History: Despite the film's rather storied place in musical history, it received no Oscar nominations.  It did, however, get two Globe citations for Best Picture & Best Actress (Charisse).
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Cyd Charisse-click here to learn more about Ms. Charisse (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We enter Week 4 of our look at the career of Cyd Charisse with what will be our final musical from the actress.  As has been noted before, Charisse's career at MGM led to a series of much-lauded musicals, many of which are still beloved today (like Silk Stockings) but the films were not particularly financially-successful, and shortly after Silk Stockings came out, Charisse largely retired from musicals and from dancing in general.  As a result, she ended up with a quintet of truly beloved musicals during this time all but one of which we've chronicled here (In Singin in the Rain Charisse wasn't the lead, and weirdly I've never reviewed the picture on the blog, something I'll rectify the next time I see it, though it's pretty much a perfect film so its place at the top of this pantheon is appropriate).  Next week, for our final outing with the actress, we'll be looking at one of her rarer non-musical roles, but this week we conclude her run as the best hoofer on the MGM lot during the 1950's with Silk Stockings.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around Steve Canfield (Astaire), a film producer who wants a Russian composer to help him score his next picture.  The problem is that the Soviet government doesn't want Boroff to leave, and is worried that he'll defect to the West (they're accurate in assuming this-he has every intention of leaving), and so they send a trio of bungling government agents (including Peter Lorre) to Paris to monitor Boroff's involvement in the film.  The men become entranced with the city and the western indulgences (and western women), and as a result Ninotchka (Charisse), a stern government agent, is sent to the city to monitor them, but in the process also falls in love with Steve.

If that plot sounds very familiar, it should.  Ninotchka was a 1939 film where Greta Garbo filled the role played here by Charisse, and was a smash hit in 1939 for MGM; George Tobias, best known today for his role as Abner Kravitz in Bewitched, actually appears in both films.  Like our last outing with Astaire & Charisse, there's a lot to offer here.  The musical and dance numbers are sublime, with particular attention to be paid to Charisse's wordless poetry in the title sequence, where she dances with (and eventually puts on) silk stockings.  There's also a great moment late in the film where Astaire smashes his top hat, which wasn't just literal but also a metaphor in the film.  At this point in his career Astaire had basically given up on musicals and was ready to retire from dancing.  Though he'd appear in television specials in the next few years, this was basically it for the spats-and-top-hat look for Astaire, and his penultimate musical.  He'd play an Irish rogue eleven years later in Finian's Rainbow opposite Petula Clark, but otherwise would only do straight or comedic roles for the rest of his career.

I've bagged a bit this month on Charisse's abilities as an actress, which feels mean, and it's not like she doesn't have talents for film, it's just that they only come across in her dancing, not her acting.  This is arguably the best performance we've seen from the actress so far this month, and while I wouldn't have nominated her for anything, she shows a comedic ability that we haven't really noticed prior to this.  However, it's hard to focus on Charisse when Janis Paige is starring opposite her.  Paige is magnificent in this role, and should have gotten an Oscar nomination for her work as Peggy Dayton, a scandalous picture star who is trying to play a serious part (but can't seem to commit to it, constantly throwing in musical numbers for herself).  Paige was never really a leading lady like Charisse, otherwise I might throw her in later in this series as I was that enamored with her work here, but I'm definitely going to be seeking her out in the future, as this is one of the better performances we've seen so far in the Saturdays with the Stars series.

Ranting On...Biden/Abrams

Vice President Joe Biden (D-DE)

History is littered with gimmicks when it comes to picking vice presidents.  Most of the time, they don't work, and honestly don't see the light of day until years later when someone includes in their memoir how history was almost changed.  Look at the 1980 Republican nomination, when Ronald Reagan briefly toyed with the idea of picking Gerald Ford as his running-mate.  Ford was certainly qualified, and keep in mind at that point Carter seemed a lot more likely to win the presidential election than the eventual results of 1980 would bare out.  However, Ford wanted to essentially take over foreign policy, which was a no go for the Reagan camp, who picked the more conventional choice of George HW Bush, who ran second place in the primaries in the months prior.

There are more ridiculous gimmicks than Reagan/Ford, which most historians agree was a plausible idea.  John Kerry thought about creating a bipartisan ticket with John McCain in 2004, though ultimately both men decided it was not going to work, particularly considering their divergent views on foreign policy.  Four years later McCain wanted to do the bipartisan ticket with Joe Lieberman, but his advisers went against it, with Lieberman's pro-choice stance being a big reason that McCain went with Sarah Palin instead (McCain, to his credit, admitted in his memoirs a decade later that he still regretted the decision not to pick Lieberman).

Perhaps the best anecdote of randomly-floated vice presidential gimmicks happened in 1988.  George HW Bush was way behind in the polls (something the fall election would not recall), and apparently considered adding then-Mayor of Carmel Clint Eastwood to his ticket, as the Dirty Harry star was a GOP politician in public office at the time.  It's not clear how seriously Bush considered Eastwood, but keep in mind he'd already ran with one actor-turned-politician, so it's not implausible he would have gone with another.

These are all amusing anecdotes-history is less kind to the candidates that actually went through with the gimmicks.  Sarah Palin is arguably the biggest blunder of John McCain's career, picking an inexperienced governor who had no concept of what it would be like to be president instead of a more serious candidate like Mitt Romney, and the presidential results bare out the stupidity of that decision.  Geraldine Ferraro is well-remembered today for her position as the first woman nominated for the vice presidency by a major party, but at the time this was a Hail Mary pass that Walter Mondale was throwing (he also considered Dianne Feinstein, Tom Bradley, and Henry Cisneros, all of whom would have been "firsts" similar to Ferraro), and it didn't pay off.  Mondale lost all but his home state and Ferraro, who had only been in Congress for a trio of terms was criticized for a lack of experience, and considering how her husband's taxes showed up seemingly out of nowhere, wasn't properly vetted.  A lack of vetting also hurt George McGovern when he picked Thomas Eagleton, seemingly as a third resort, and just weeks later it was revealed that Eagleton had been treated for depression, a potentially election-losing revelation that never came up in a shoddy background check (in 1972, this was a campaign death knell).  McGovern then chose a man who was most famous for being John F. Kennedy's brother-in-law and lost all but Massachusetts in the fall as a result.

But perhaps the most damning vice presidential runs were by two people who weren't even the nominees of their party.  In 1976, trailing Gerald Ford in the primaries, perhaps by a large enough amount that he wasn't going to be able to get to even a second ballot at the convention, Ronald Reagan decided to throw a bone to the liberal wing of his party by selecting Sen. Richard Schweiker as his running-mate before the convention.  Reagan's decision was unprecedented, as he wasn't the nominee, and common sense dictated that he wasn't likely to be, so why would he pick a VP candidate when he had no chance of being the nominee?  This has been lost to history because Reagan lost the nomination, but it was largely viewed as a last resort for a desperate campaign.

Forty years later, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz tried a similar tactic.  Coming off a series of primary losses in the Northeast to Donald Trump, Cruz needed to figure out a way to enliven his campaign, but the only way he could see to distract the media from their Trump obsession was by picking a running-mate, and after briefly hoping for Marco Rubio, he went with another of his opponents, Carly Fiorina.  The entire affair was seen as odd, and a desperate ploy to gain some traction headed into the Indiana primary, which Cruz saw as pivotal to his campaign.  After the primary, Cruz dropped out, with Fiorina getting the bizarre title for shortest VP campaign in American history.

State House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams (D-GA)

Which brings us to Joe Biden and Stacey Abrams.  While there have been no indications from the Biden camp other than a meeting with Abrams (and to be fair, Abrams has met with other campaigns, and their meeting could have been anything from gauging Abrams for an endorsement to persuading her not to run for POTUS & instead go for the Senate), there has been a cavalcade of rumors that Joe Biden will forego tradition, and pick Stacey Abrams as his running-mate right out of the gate.

If the above isn't any indication, know that this is an idiotic move, and this is coming from someone who literally had a picture of Joe Biden hanging on his wall as a teenager-he's that much my personal hero.  Biden, at age 76, is going to be dogged in a primary featuring a diverse group of candidates for being "too old, too yesterday, too white/straight/male" and so I get the impulse here.  Announcing with Abrams could defer some of that criticism, as she's a young, African-American woman who lit the campaign trail on fire last year and nearly won an office thought unwinnable.  If Biden already had the nomination and it was next May, I'd think this was a very smart choice, and he should consider her for his shortlist, no doubt.

But announcing here basically concedes that Joe Biden can't win the presidential primary.  For starters, no one votes based on the VP, certainly not this early in the race.  Picking Abrams would just underline all of Biden's deficits, and would make him easy fodder against his opponents, who would say "if you like Stacey Abrams, why not vote for her instead?".  It'd also stop him from gaining ground late in the race, either for media attention (the VP pick is a great way to stack a couple months worth of attention toward your campaign, and since he's taking on an incumbent, its attention Donald Trump can't replicate), or for leverage.  What if the race comes down to, say, Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke and Joe Biden, a very real possibility?  Biden is in the lead but the convention looks locked, and suddenly there are rumors that Harris & O'Rourke will join forces to take out Biden with their own ticket.  We don't think about that often in this modern era where most conventions are de facto coronations, but with nearly twenty candidates running at this point, it's not inconceivable that Biden would be throwing his negotiating power by running with Abrams when there would be a more tangible chip to cash in later.

This also costs Abrams.  Not only does she give up the option of winning the nomination on her own or taking a shot at the US Senate, but she's now stuck on the Biden train for the rest of the contest.  Abrams would be on most of the candidates shortlists, but if they beat Biden, they also beat Abrams, and why would they go with someone who has already proven to have no lift to her ticket?  Yes, if Biden were to somehow win the nomination, it'd look like genius, but history doesn't bare out that he'd gain anything here or that this will work, and let's not forget that Joe Biden has twice lost the presidential primary, and probably would have lost the primary four years ago against Hillary Clinton.  And with that, Abrams' promising career gets benched, with her looking like an historical footnote like Fiorina.

I genuinely want what's best for Joe Biden and Stacey Abrams-I have a lot of personal admiration for both of them.  But I don't see a way this ends well, and other than chaos or desperation (neither of which are a good start to a campaign), I can't fathom a good reason that they would do this.  If Biden is just going to get Abrams endorsement, I say "bravo, well done"-it'd be a coup in this race.  If they have a secret agreement that she's his running-mate that never makes the light of day, I'm fine with it, though it's hard to imagine that would hold for a full year.  But I personally couldn't endorse such a candidacy in the primary, and as I'm about as much of a "target audience" for a Biden/Abrams ticket as you can get, you're doing something wrong if I'd rule you out for such a move.  Biden/Abrams in June 2020 is a great idea-March of 2019, it's political suicide.

Captain Marvel (2019)

Film: Captain Marvel (2019)
Stars: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Djimon Hounsou, Lee Pace, Gemma Chan, Annette Bening, Clark Gregg, Jude Law
Director: Anna Boden, Ryan K. Fleck
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I'm having mixed feelings about the upcoming Avengers: Endgame cinematic event, and they could not be better encapsulated than in watching Captain Marvel this past weekend with my Marvel-going movie buddy.  The 21st film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the movie itself works as a weird diversion before we go into the literal end game of a saga that has been on our big-screens for over ten years.  Watching the film, I was struck by how much of my opinion of this film, which should theoretically work as a standalone product, felt like an episode of a television series toward the end of its run rather than a single movie.  Perhaps more damning and interesting for the movies post-Avengers, I feel like the movie doesn't necessarily work as a stand-alone film anymore, which is going to be bad if (as expected) most of the original Avengers are about to be replaced by a new class of superheroes in a non-ending tale.

(Spoilers Ahead) But before we get into that discussion, let's talk about the movie at-hand.  The film centers around Vers (Larson), who is really Carol Danvers, being trained as a soldier in the Kree Empire, and has unusual powers that her trainer Yon-Rogg (Law) is trying to help her control and master.  Through a series of fights, she is brought to Earth in the 1990's (we know this because she crashes into a Blockbuster Video), and meets up with a pre-Avengers Initiative Nick Fury (Jackson), whom she convinces to help her in finding Wendy Lawson (Bening), who was once a mentor of Carol's when she was on Earth, and has discovered a way to travel at the speed of light.  Carol eventually realizes that the Kree are the bad guys, and she's been brainwashed, eventually joining sides with Earth & the Skrulls (their leader played by Mendelsohn), defeating Yon-Rogg.

This is all well-done, and a fine action film.  Larson has been one of the more promising actors of her generation so far, with brilliant work in Room and Short-Term 12, and fits into the mold of action-hero movie star like a glove.  She's charming, has great chemistry with Jackson, and underlines the feminist importance of her character without it every feeling like she's exploiting the historical nature of the film (both the first Marvel movie to feature a female lead, as well as the first Marvel movie directed by a woman).  The supporting cast is good-Law is great in villain mode, I love the instant gravitas that Bening's character demands (which is needed even if the character would've felt "too much" in the hands of a lesser actress), and Jackson hasn't been this good in a while, showing that underneath the "I'll take anyone that clears my asking price" nature of the past twenty years, he's still got the talent that launched him into this stratosphere twenty years ago.  It's a 3 star, maybe 3.5-star, movie if you take it on its merits.

The problem, though, is that this is being framed entirely against the Avengers movies.  Many of the jokes in the picture don't work without acknowledging it against other films (particularly those surrounding a young Nick Fury).  And let's be real here-the moment all of the fans were most excited about in this film is the end credits sequence, where an uncredited Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, & Mark Ruffalo appear as their Avengers counterparts in "modern day" post-Thanos world, summoning Captain Marvel through Nick Fury's pager.  This is a problem because Avengers: Endgame is not the end of the movie series-if it was, this would be a really cool episode, much like "Across the Sea" in Lost, showing us where our final savior came from.  Instead, it's hard not to wonder how a constantly stretched and molded story without proper stakes (if a story never ends, there's always the chance that characters will return) should be judged as a singular entity.  Marvel has, with its last couple of movies, so made this a "previously on..." type of story that you almost have to judge it as a whole, in which case Captain Marvel might not be particularly good if it doesn't work to the end of the larger story.  I've made no qualms about not liking the "TV-ization" of films, but as a critic I have to state that it's getting harder to judge any of these style of movies without knowing how they'll end.  And if they never end, at what point does this become a franchise like Modern Family or The Simpsons that would have been a lot better if they'd stopped while they were ahead?  Something to consider if, as I suspect, this story doesn't end with Avengers: Endgame but just tries to re-up the stakes over-and-over again to lessening effect.

Two thoughts before I go.  First, I loved the ode to Stan Lee's cameos over the opening credits, and Brie Larson's little wink at Lee felt so sweet considering his recent death.  This was a well-done moment, and while I haven't checked to see how many more movies Lee filmed his cameos for, if this is the last one, what a fitting tribute.  Secondly, I want to talk about the de-aging of Clark Gregg & Samuel L. Jackson.  I have not been a fan of this for a couple of reasons, namely that it feels like actors shortsightedly (and narcissistically) signing their own death warrants (in many ways it feels like a travel agent giving you a link to Travelocity), but mostly because it never looks realistic.  Previous instances of this in the Avengers series have looked washed out, as iconic stars like Michael Douglas, Kurt Russell, and Michelle Pfeiffer looked plastic and "off."  One could argue this is the best instance of de-aging we've seen so far, and the most aggressive (Jackson is de-aged the entire film), but let's be real here-this is good on a scale, not good.  You see scenes where Jackson stands next to Brie Larson, and you instantly can see the tells between the two characters.  This isn't a Gollum or Paddington situation where they're supposed to look different-they're supposed to look the same, but Larson's face has freckles and feeling that is simply lacking in Jackson's character.  You can tell the directors realized this considering the way the film is edited (frequently close-ups of Jackson are done with no other actors in the shot to avoid comparison), making the editing slightly choppy.  Jackson's really good work here makes you want to dismiss criticism (I think it's his best MCU performance to date), but it has to be said-if this is the future of film, I hope at least the technology gets better.

4 Mini Reviews

We conclude our review roundups today with four more more movies from 2018 that I'll be giving mini-reviews to for the sake of time as we put a finish on last year and roll into our 2019 projects.  We still have some more 2018 movies that I want to get into, but we'll be doing that via our traditional full reviews, with these last four films getting the one-paragraph treatment (tis the curse of not getting an Oscar nomination and landing on a day I was too busy to complete the review).  I've made these films wait long enough, though, so let's dive in to their discussion.

The Old Man & the Gun (dir. David Lowery)

This film works better if you assume that Robert Redford is, indeed, retiring from acting.  If you do, you get the sense of wistfulness for an actor who has dominated movie screens for decades.  Redford's kind, handsome face and voice resonate with the audience even as he treads on familiar beats.  It's an odd story, the kind I'm surprised Clint Eastwood hadn't gotten his hands on (about a bank robber whom tellers genuinely like and has been robbing banks nearly all of his life).  Being based on real life, there are less twists than you'd hope for/expect, and the back-half where you 100% want him to get away with it but know he can't if this movie ever got made, is a bit of a drag, but Spacek & Redford have good chemistry, and with the knowledge that Redford won't make any more movies, there's enough nostalgia there to give you a good experience. (Ranking: 3/5 stars)

Ant-Man and the Wasp (dir. Peyton Reed)

It must have sucked having to follow something as emotionally-draining as Avengers 3, but Ant-Man in theory works better as a standalone comic film, thanks in large part to the compelling main antics of Paul Rudd, our unlikely hero.  The film doesn't have the same level of panache and focus, unfortunately, that the first film had (which is my second favorite of all of the Marvel Universe films after Winter Soldier), getting too bogged down in the Ghost villainy, which goes nowhere, and perhaps not realizing that the movie doesn't really need a villain since bringing back Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer), is more than enough plot.  Still, Michael Douglas's work here is continually great and I love the chemistry between Rudd & Lilly.  I just wish the film had trimmed about thirty minutes off of its runtime, avoiding expanding in too many directions. (Ranking: 2/5 stars)

Colette (dir. Wash Westmoreland)

Keira Knightley's post-Pirates career has perhaps been one of the best I've ever seen out of an actress that could've so easily just been "the love interest" in a pair of 2003 movies.  An adventurous artist, I can think of no better person to play the charming, provocative Colette in the early stages of her career when she was writing the Claudine books under her husband's name.  Unfortunately the movie never really captures the bite that Knightley seems raring to give to this character, with the thick plot feeling thinly handled by Westmoreland, trying to fit traditional story beats into the life of an untraditional woman.  Still, Knightley remains an actress I'm obsessed with, and will follow her pretty much anywhere. (Ranking: 2/5 stars)

A Bag of Marbles (dir. Christian Duguay)

A tiny little film that probably escaped mention with most people last year, I was intrigued by the film trailer of two young boys forced to flee the Nazis during World War II on foot, abandoned by their parents in hopes that they'd someday get to reunite.  The movie is based on a true story, an extraordinary one that became a bestselling memoir in the early 1970's, and there are moments that live up to the potential I saw in the trailer.  The cinematography is terrific, and I loved some of the side touches, particularly the brief interlude in the middle of the film when they're in Southern France, getting a respite from the war.  However, the movie never captures the startling fear of the real-life journey, and the child actors responsible for the main characters feel adrift in the movie's direction.  (Ranking: 2/5 stars)

It's a Gift (1934)

Film: It's a Gift (1934)
Stars: WC Fields, Kathleen Howard, Jean Rouverol, Tom Bupp, Baby LeRoy
Director: Norman Z. McLeod
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

What a joy to see a movie in theaters that you normally never would.  I recently had a delightful evening at the Heights Theater, an historic movie house in Minnesota that was built in 1926.  The theater plays first-run pictures, but seems to specialize in retro screenings, and added a bit of pomp to my festivities by not only having a local film fan talk about his personal experiences meeting the family of WC Fields, but also having a Wurlitzer Pipe organ playing before the commencement of the film, and featuring three WC Fields juggling shorts prior to the main curtain rising on It's a Gift, one of the most important classic films I'd never seen before.  I had, in fact, never seen WC Fields in anything despite countless parodies and visages of him in cartoons I've spotted, so it was a fine evening to be introduced to such an important early cinematic comedian.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie features Fields as Harold Bissonette, a curmudgeonly grocery store owner whose wife Amelia (Howard) has visions of grandeur for their lives (where they live in near-poverty) after Harold's uncle dies, leaving him his money.  Harold, though, wants to pursue his dream of owning an orange ranch, which he buys sight-unseen, only learning later that the land that they've bought is basically worthless with a dilapidated shack on the property.  Harold lucks out in the final moments of the film, though, when he sells the worthless land for a fortune to a developer who needs the property "at any price."  Shot at the depths of the Depression, this had to have been the fantasy of every "Harold Bissonette" in the country at the time, trying desperately to make their lives happy for their family in the worst of conditions.

The movie is less a story and more a series of comic shorts strung together with a flimsy plot.  The movie has multiple set pieces used as excuses for Fields to do some of his best mumbling bits.  The best of these is the one where Harold, cast outside to sleep on his porch swing, is tormented by the neighbors, including Baby Dunk (LeRoy) who is throwing grapes at the man.  Fields famously hated Baby LeRoy in real life, and begrudged the young actor stealing laughs from him on films like It's a Gift (if you look at vintage posters of the movie, LeRoy shares top billing with Fields on the film), but you don't see that in his performance, where he does quite well opposite the child star.

The problem for me is it's hard to grade such a film since on-its-merits its not a great movie, and the reasons that make it a classic are hard to praise eight decades after-the-fact.  Fields' comedy was revolutionary, and it's still funny, but the movie itself is only the sum of these physical slapstick pieces, and in many ways it sort of feels like if Adam Sandler had been a comedic genius...but still chose to focus on low-grade films.  I'm going to go with, therefore 3-stars as I understand the history of this and there are genuinely amusing bits, particularly the ones surrounding Fields & Baby LeRoy, but by-and-large this is the sort of movie that was a classic, but now just needs to be respected rather than enjoyed.  The Heights Theater, however, puts on a fine show & you should make sure to patronize it in the future (I know I will).

What Makes You Love a TV Show?

I talk a lot about movies on this blog (there was a review this morning from one of several film-related series I run here), but I do genuinely like television.  I watch a lot of it, and have at any given time 14-16 fictional series that I'm watching that are currently on, which is easier to do than it used to be since so many shows take a long hiatus or air right in a row without an extended run over nine months like broadcast shows.  Recently I got into a show called The Other Two, and binged it all in one day, and I like it.  It has some great stuff to say about celebrity, and there are enough twists on this standard plot (the best being that the central celebrity, Chase Dreams, is genuinely a nice kid and not a spoiled teenager which would have made this just a Difficult People ripoff) to keep my attention, and I'll see it through at least to the end of the season.  But it also got me thinking-what does it take for me to genuinely love a television series?  And honestly-are there any shows airing on TV right now that I love?

I will say this-I can appreciate a film or TV show without falling in love but because of the finite aspects of a film & the fact that I just see more of them, I tend to love movies faster or more frequently than I would love a television series.  What I am looking for from a TV series is at least a few characters I want to root for, whose travails make me cry and who will sustain me over a few years.  I tend to favor dramas, but not always, and I tend to favors ensembles, almost always.  I need there to be an end to the series-staying past your prime will eventually make me downgrade the show from love to just "I've seen every episode" and I generally favor (for live-action, at least), shows with a continuous story, rather than a series of standalone episodes.  High concept is a plus.  As you might guess, despite us apparently being in "Peak TV," there are almost no shows on TV right now that are genuinely compelling and fit those descriptions.

This wasn't always the case.  Looking at my Top 25 favorite TV series of all-time (an article I'll do eventually), I see 2009-10 was probably the best time for me with television (it was not coincidentally a time in my life I'd rather forget, so perhaps escapism was an appropriate outlet).  Shows like Lost, Desperate Housewives, Community, The Office, and Mad Men aired at the time, all shows I genuinely would use the L-word to describe and whose characters I still think about and invest in when I watch the shows, not just letting them scamper in the background.  I want to make sure I clarify that that's what I'm referring toward here-it's not just "OMG-I love that show" or "I'm so into that"-it's the sort of love where five years after it's on, you still think about it, you still have to watch it from start to finish and genuinely care about what's going on onscreen even though you know what's going to happen, the same way you would when rewatching a movie or rereading a book.  

For me, there are probably 18-20 shows ever that I have felt that way about, and only a couple are on television right now, almost all of them animated.  South Park, The Simpsons, and Bob's Burgers are all shows I'll love forever-all three I've seen EVERY episode (yes, even The Simpsons) and they feel like warm bread cooking in the oven when I'm watching them.  South Park and The Simpsons haven't been in their prime for a number of years now, but they feel like going home at this point, and I rewatch a classic episode with total care.  But if you venture into non-animated, there's really only one show that I can claim a genuine obsession with that will last longer than a first-run viewing: Game of Thrones.  That show, with its epic scope and at least a few characters whose fates I'm dying to know (Sansa, Jon, Cersei, Arya), and will always care about how large & vast the tale was, forgiving its imperfections.

But that's really it.  Modern Family is on my Top 25, but the last few seasons have been a chore, dragging down its once fresh storytelling with constant retreads, to the point where I cling to my favorites like Jay because the other characters have become cartoons they're so ridiculous.  The Good Place could be something I'd love, but it feels like it only embraces depth with select characters (specifically Eleanor & Janet), while keeping others in the shallow end, holding the show back; plus, the series is so dependent on how it ends that it's hard to invest emotionally when you don't yet have confidence they're taking you to a very specific spot (Season 3 stole my confidence by repeating plot-points to stretch the series even if there were some great moments like "Janet(s)," always a bad sign).  Crazy Ex-Girlfriend does the same thing, as does Westworld (which I was totally ready to love after the first season, but the second season took some detours that make me question whether the end will be too convoluted).  Bodyguard is too cold, Veep is too mean, & Big Little Lies too new.  The only show that comes close to Game of Thrones is Jane the Virgin, which I have a feeling I'm going to falter on because the ending will feel cheap & unearned considering the late Season 4 twist, though the fact that it's ending right when it's supposed to is a good sign.

This is all a way for me to wonder-is, like music, television something you become less likely to love as you get older?  I don't generally have this problem with music, though it's less abundant in what I adore in recent years, and I certainly don't have this problem with movies (recent films like Call Me By Your Name and Cold War certainly are in the "love" column), but I think it's weird that once Game of Thrones goes off the air later this year, I will have no non-animated show that I love, despite watching a lot of series.  I asked my brother this same question, and he said he's in a similar boat.  I'm curious for you, then-what show do I need to be watching if you love one, or are you like me lost in a cavalcade of "Peak TV" wondering why you aren't seeing more peaks?  Please share in the comments-I'd love suggestions as this is a problem I want corrected.

OVP: It's Always Fair Weather (1955)

Film: It's Always Fair Weather (1955)
Stars: Gene Kelly, Dan Dailey, Cyd Charisse, Dolores Gray, Michael Kidd
Directors: Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Story and Screenplay, Best Scoring)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Cyd Charisse-click here to learn more about Ms. Charisse (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

You may have guessed this from exploring my blog, but I have a really good memory for movie references, and for remembering what I read about particular films.  In 1999, Entertainment Weekly put out a list of the "100 Greatest Movies of All Time," a list I'm still working on (but am likely to finish sometime in 2019), and unlike a lot of other EW product in the years since, it's a genuinely strong list of pictures (there's no Breakfast Club or Dazed and Confused to appear hip-and-now).  In the Singin in the Rain piece in the magazine, there's a laundry list of other great Classic Hollywood musicals that they considered before going with the cliched choice for their Top 10.  The movies listed were Meet Me in St. Louis, On the Town, An American in Paris, The Band Wagon, and Silk Stockings, all of which I'd at least heard of when I bought the magazine at age 15, but they also name-checked It's Always Fair Weather, the most obscure film in the sentence and that mystery has stuck with me in the years since.  It's a very small, odd thing to remember almost twenty years after I purchased it, but I wanted to make sure that the last of the films on that list that I had ever seen was the least known It's Always Fair Weather, and thanks to Cyd Charisse Month (she's in two of the other films, one of which we'll get to next week and one of which we've already hit), I got to do just that.  Twenty years after I first read the title of that film, I finally saw It's Always Fair Weather.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie's central premise surrounds three men: Ted (Kelly), Doug (Dailey), and Angie (Kidd) who were infantrymen serving together during World War II.  At the end of the war, they realize that they must move on and start the lives they dreamed of in the bunker, but are afraid of life without these two buddies to have their backs.  They make a pact to meet together ten years later, at the same bar they always went to, and then go on with their merry lives.  They do, in fact, come back together ten years later at the bar, but things are not the same.  None of the men has achieved his personal dreams, and they feel like strangers to each other.

This is where the film takes some really interesting turns, because it leans into the pessimism of these men having lost their youthful vigor and also that they genuinely are an unlikely group of friends, and time should probably tear them apart.  This is in an era before movies like Fiddler on the Roof or Cabaret had inserted darker or more somber musicals into the lexicon, and as a result it is likely why the film was a box office dud when it first came out (MGM also royally screwed up the film's release schedule), and many cite the film as the prime example of how MGM couldn't make a profit any longer off of musicals and would instead have to move on to films like Ben-Hur, Goldfinger, and Doctor Zhivago to pay the bills.  While it's unfair to call it the last great "dance musical" as some do with Silk Stockings still to come (not to mention MGM's last significant musical Gigi three years and nine Oscars to come), It's Always Fair Weather was definitely the beginning of the end for the Classic Hollywood musical.

Which is a pity, because this is a great movie.  It takes a while to get its rhythm, and it's never entirely clear that the Kelly/Charisse romance is worth the squeeze (the film would easily function without her, and she was probably just included to stop the film from being a sausage fest), but there are some truly splendid moments in It's Always Fair Weather.  The wonderful number where the guys are complaining in their heads about their companions is funny but melancholy, and the dancing is sublime, though it's clear from number to number that Gene Kelly's style was competing with the more modern trappings of Michael Kidd, making his film debut.  Best of all is Kelly doing a musical number that has to be seen to be believed in "I Like Myself."  Kelly somehow manages to sail across the MGM lot in a pair of rudimentary roller skates, tapping and dancing without missing a beat in a scene that sure looks like it was shot in one take.  It's just jaw-dropping, even more so than the famed Donald O'Connor scene in I Love Melvin which Kelly is clearly stealing from here, and even if the rest of the movie wasn't as good as it was, this alone would be worth watching the flick.

Charisse is, well, unnecessary though she's fine here.  She gets one great dancing number in a boxing gym; her million-dollar legs (literally-they were insured by MGM for reportedly $5 million) have rarely been on such dynamic display, but the rest of the film she's fun, but ancillary to the plot.  The writers make her a busy businesswoman who has a photographic memory (used to intimidate Kelly but totally unnecessary as the movie progresses), and doesn't even really dance with Kelly in a major number.  As a result, this won't be changing my opinion on Charisse as a "great dancer, okay actress," but it made me fall even more for the MGM musical.  The film received a pair of Oscar nominations, for Best Scoring and Original Screenplay, and it's hard to begrudge either even though neither is a home run (the screenplay too sentimental, the score lacking one big, memorable number).  That said, I'm happy that EW made me aware of such a movie twenty years ago-it was worth the wait.

Oscar's Long-Suffering Gentlemen

As you may have guessed due to the massive increase in articles on this blog in the past two weeks, I'm in a bit of a house-cleaning mode for the blog, getting all of the articles I meant to write in 2018 but never had time to, out the door for your enjoyment before we dive into some of the new series/articles of 2019.  While doing so, I was looking through my drafts folder and realized that I owe you a sequel to an article about Oscar bridesmaids that I wrote in December.  There I took a look at the living actresses who have been nominated 3+ times but never won a competitive Academy Award.  At the time, it seemed possible that both Glenn Close & Amy Adams could be removed from such a list, but instead they just moved further into the front, both still waiting for an Oscar that might never come (but don't tell them that).

Today we're going to look at the 12 men who are living and don't have an Oscar, but have lost at least three times.  Despite the focus on Close & Adams, there are actually three men on this list who moved up thanks to this past year's ceremony, and we actually had a tragic change in this list from what it would have been had I finished it in December, as the man who would have been our #1, Albert Finney, passed away last month.  Since I didn't have time to write him an obituary at the time, consider this a bit of a memorial post to the fine actor.

Finney was very rare when he died.  I wrote in my December article that only 11 women have died with 3+ Oscar nominations and never winning a competitive one, but for men it's nearly as rare, with 13 such men who have died without a competitive Oscar.  This list includes such icons as Mickey Rooney, Peter O'Toole, and Charles Boyer, all of whom won Honorary Oscars, as well as noted character actors such as Clifton Webb and Charles Bickford.  Below you will find an additional dozen that are waiting for that competitive Oscar-speculate in the comments which ones you think have the best shot at actually taking a trophy home before their final curtain call.

Honorable Mention: Warren Beatty, Matt Damon, and Brad Pitt have 3+ acting nominations without ever taking a trophy for their thespian abilities (and are still with us), but they all have competitive Oscars of their own.  Beatty won Best Director for 1981's Reds, Pitt won Best Picture in 2013 for 12 Years a Slave, and Damon won Best Original Screenplay for 1997's Good Will Hunting.  As a result, I kept them off of the list even though technically they'd qualify.

Note: These are ranked by how many nominations an actress made, then by who got their most recent nomination the latest, and then by who got their first nomination first.

12. Viggo Mortensen

Nominations: Eastern Promises (Actor in 2007), Captain Fantastic (Actor in 2016), & Green Book (Actor in 2018)
He Lost to: Daniel Day-Lewis, Casey Affleck, & Rami Malek
Closest to the Win: It would have been 2018 had awards bodies not A) fallen weirdly in love with Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody and B) Green Book hadn't gotten a significant amount of flack for its treatment of black characters, though that latter hardly stopped it in the Best Picture & Screenplay categories so maybe it was just the former.  You could make an argument that Mortensen may have been a more palatable choice than, say, Christian Bale had Malek not been on a missile trajectory to winning his Oscar.
Well, He Still Won...: Mortensen hasn't been very lucky with awards bodies.  About the most notable trophy he's picked up would be for Best SAG Ensemble for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, but he's never won a significant award for his solo acting.
Is This Happening Someday?: I don't know.  Aside from Green Book, Mortensen's past nominations were genuine surprises, and ones that had no chance of actually winning.  If he continues to make populist films like Green Book this could theoretically happen, but he's not the type of actor who seems comfortable with campaigning, and as a result I'd wager he won't take this, unless he gets the right biopic.

11. Woody Harrelson

Nominations: The People vs. Larry Flynt (Actor in 1996), The Messenger (Supporting Actor in 2009), and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Supporting Actor in 2017)
He Lost to: Geoffrey Rush, Christoph Waltz, & Sam Rockwell
Closest to the Win: The Messenger?  1996 he was in fourth or fifth place, and Three Billboards was a near-miss for a nomination, so The Messenger you could quite plausibly state that he was second place, though a distant second place to Waltz.
Well, He Still Won...: Harrelson has never won a major trophy for film, but he did take an Emmy for his time in Cheers.
Is This Happening Someday?: I think so.  Harrelson is the sort of actor who demands respect at this point, and appears in prestige films regularly (he works regularly, period).  Give him the right supporting part in a film, and it feels like he'd be able to sneak in as a career-capper sort of trophy.

10. Mark Ruffalo

Nominations: The Kids are All Right (Supporting Actor in 2010), Foxcatcher (Supporting Actor in 2013), & Spotlight (Supporting Actor in 2014)
He Lost to: Christian Bale, JK Simmons, & Mark Rylance
Closest to the Win: None of these movies.  I honestly can't even wager-he was at least in third for all of them, perhaps no higher than fourth.  Ruffalo's nominations are weird because all of these felt like citations you could predict, but also are for work that was never going to come close to an actual win.
Well, He Still Won...: Ruffalo took the Emmy for Best TV Movie for his work as a producer on The Normal Heart but he hasn't picked up a major trophy yet for acting.
Is This Happening Someday?: Yes, it is.  Ruffalo just turned fifty, is well-liked (all of his costars seem to adore him), and now that he's not under contractual obligation to Marvel, he's got more time to make arthouse films, which feels like where he's at home.  He just needs to get in on a Best Picture nominee, and he could win...I honestly think he's famous enough he could win lead.

9. Edward Norton

Nominations: Primal Fear (Supporting Actor in 1996), American History X (Actor in 1998), & Birdman (Supporting Actor in 2014)
He Lost to: Cuba Gooding, Jr., Roberto Benigni, & JK Simmons
Closest to the Win: Call me crazy, but maybe 1996?  The Academy was feeling frisky that year (just ask Lauren Bacall), and he had just won a Golden Globe.  Most pundits, if you look back, thought it was a battle between Gooding and William H. Macy for Fargo, but I wonder if Norton (who also appeared in Everyone Says I Love You and The People vs. Larry Flynt) was more in the thick of the wins than people gave him credit for at the time.
Well, He Still Won...: Norton lost the Oscar to Gooding, but managed to pick up a Golden Globe in 1996 for Primal Fear.
Is This Happening Someday?: I'm going to guess no.  Norton has had a lot more pits than valleys in a career where he's never really stopped working.  I think he's the definition of an actor who starts out strong (surely everyone assumed he was the next big thing by 1999), but Birdman feels more the exception than the rule, and he's not the type that will go after the (quality) Oscar-bait projects.  They'll need to come to him.

8. Joaquin Phoenix

Nominations: Gladiator (Supporting Actor in 2000), Walk the Line (Actor in 2005), & The Master (Actor in 2012)
He Lost to: Benicio del Toro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, & Daniel Day-Lewis
Closest to the Win: None of these are close wins.  Walk the Line couldn't even get a Best Picture nomination, and that's the one that makes the most sense when you compare it to its competition (and he's at best in third behind Hoffman & Heath Ledger).
Well, He Still Won...: It always feels weird to say this, but the only major trophy that the deeply method & dark Phoenix has ever won was for the Comedy Golden Globe (for Walk the Line).
Is This Happening Someday?: I don't think so.  If anyone on this list is the modern successor to Albert Finney, it's Phoenix, who is an actor that is too good not to occasionally be nominated for awards, but also clearly hates them and I doubt the Academy would ever want to give him a microphone.

7. Nick Nolte

Nominations: The Prince of Tides (Actor in 1991), Affliction (Actor in 1998), & Warrior (Supporting Actor in 2011)
He Lost to: Anthony Hopkins, Roberto Benigni, & Christopher Plummer
Closest to the Win: You could make a sincere argument that he was the frontrunner in 1991, with tough competition from Hopkins and Warren Beatty (Hopkins victory has aged very well, to the point where we feel like it was inevitable but that was not what people thought at the time).  However, he was also in the thick of things in 1998, when James Coburn stunned for a victory in Supporting Actor, so there was clearly a lot of support for Affliction (considering how Benigni's career aged, the Academy probably wishes they had given it to Nolte).
Well, He Still Won...: Nolte nabbed the Golden Globe for his work in The Prince of Tides (hard to believe in this era of uniform awards seasons, but Nolte managed to win Drama Actor over the man who'd eventually take the Oscar)...please take note AMPAS-creativity is a good thing.
Is This Happening Someday?: No.  Nolte's shot at ever winning this Oscar died the day that infamous mugshot was taken.  He's nearly 80 years old, and he wouldn't be an awful choice for an Honorary Oscar if it would occur to anyone, but a competitive trophy ain't going to happen-the Warrior nomination was probably the closest he was ever going to get to a career honor.

6. Johnny Depp

Nominations: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Actor in 2003), Finding Neverland (Actor in 2004), & Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Actor in 2007)
He Lost to: Sean Penn, Jamie Foxx, & Daniel Day-Lewis
Closest to the Win: Pirates, for sure.  The 2003 Best Actor race was a genuinely close affair, with Penn, Depp, and Bill Murray all in a threeway locked race.  I remember at the time some people even speculated that it could end in a tie of sorts.  Can you imagine a year where the Globes and SAG honored three different lead performers in this era?
Well, He Still Won...: Depp is beloved by the Golden Globes (he's been nominated ten times, including multiple citations before Oscar gave him the time of day), but only won once, for Sweeney Todd (the year of the strike, so we've never seen a major Johnny Depp speech)
Is This Happening Someday?: Probably not.  Depp has become something of a pariah, a sellout on-par with Nic Cage at this point, and the abuse allegations against him will age more poorly as time goes by.  I honestly don't think he'll even get an Honorary Oscar considering how much of his once darling arthouse reputation has been drowned in a series of big-budget schlock.

5. Tom Cruise

Nominations: Born on the Fourth of July (Actor in 1989), Jerry Maguire (Actor in 1996), & Magnolia (Supporting Actor in 1999)
He Lost to: Daniel Day-Lewis, Geoffrey Rush, & Michael Caine
Closest to the Win: Cruise has genuinely been close to winning all three times he's been nominated.  Day-Lewis won in 1989 because Cruise was too young and too new to prestige, Jerry Maguire was a loss because Cruise, like his idol Paul Newman, probably was still too rich & famous to need an Oscar to complete the ensemble, and Magnolia would have happened had Miramax not been shoving caviar down the entire Academy's throat (also, everyone's worked with Mike Caine, and seems to love him, so him being thirsty for the thing probably helped).
Well, He Still Won...: Proving you learn something new every time you research an article, Cruise won the Golden Globe every single time he was nominated for the Oscar for the same film.  Oscar just never bit compared to the starstruck HFPA.
Is This Happening Someday?: I can't tell.  Cruise is still famous enough that he could make this work if he really wanted to, and I think (unlike Depp) he'd be forgiven his baggage.  I just don't think he wants to make the types of pictures that would allow him into an awards season, and honestly-can he still pull off such a character?  He hasn't done something like Magnolia or even Jerry Maguire in so long I honestly don't know if he still can, well, act.  An Honorary Oscar could be in the cards though, especially if they set precedence with Harrison Ford or Sly Stallone.  A lot of Academy members paid their mortgages thanks to Cruise's star power.

4. Kirk Douglas

Nominations: Champion (Actor in 1949), The Bad and the Beautiful (Actor in 1952), & Lust for Life (Actor in 1956)
He Lost to: Broderick Crawford, Gary Cooper, & Yul Brynner
Closest to the Win: At the time, most people assumed that Kirk Douglas, then one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, was a shoo-in for a trophy for Lust for Life.  The Academy, though, seemed to like Oscar-lookalike Yul Brynner more in the crowd-pleasing The King & I and so Douglas went empty-handed.  One has to assume if they had known at the time that he'd never get another nomination that he might have won, but who knows what the Academy would do, even with hindsight.
Well, He Still Won...: Douglas deservedly won the Honorary Award at the 1995 Oscars, back when they still broadcast the Honorary winners at the ceremony, so the world was treated to his emotional tribute to his son.  In addition to a slew of Honorary trophies (everything from the DeMille to the Kennedy Center Honors to the AFI Life Achievement Award), he picked up the Golden Globe in 1956 for Lust for Life.
Is This Happening Someday?: No, obviously not.  Douglas is retired and 102.  He got his Honorary Award, and basically every other lifetime achievement award the industry could throw at him, and he'll die a legend.  Kirk Douglas will still be one of the iconic movie stars of all time even without a competitive Oscar, which is surely better than a statue.

3. Bradley Cooper

Nominations: Silver Linings Playbook (Actor in 2012), American Hustle (Supporting Actor in 2013), American Sniper (Actor in 2014), & A Star is Born (Actor in 2018)...he also was nominated for Best Picture for American Sniper & for Picture/Adapted Screenplay for A Star is Born
He Lost to: Daniel Day-Lewis, Jared Leto, Eddie Redmayne & Rami Malek
Closest to the Win: American Sniper felt at the time like it was on the rise, and honestly I wonder if with two more weeks of gargantuan box office if Cooper could have bested Eddie Redmayne.  Also, still not sure what happened this year with the similarly-gargantuan box office for A Star is Born...though at least there Malek came with his own pile of gold.
Well, He Still Won...: Cooper has competed at the Golden Globes, BAFTA's, and Tonys in addition to the Oscars, but like Dafoe, he's never picked up a major trophy.
Is This Happening Someday?: We enter a trio of actors who have been nominated four times without a victory (with Finney's death, no living male actor has received five nominations without winning at least one of them).  Cooper arguably should be first on this list since he has more losses than anyone, but I'm only counting acting trophies.  Also, he's going to win someday unless we're witnessing a Kirk Douglas situation.  Cooper surely has the respect of the industry, and has a hunger for that trophy, which they usually award (especially in men), though he may have to be a little less pretty to finally get there.

2. Willem Dafoe

Nominations: Platoon (Supporting Actor in 1986), Shadow of the Vampire (Supporting Actor in 2000), The Florida Project (Supporting Actor in 2017), & At Eternity's Gate (Actor in 2018)
He Lost to: Michael Caine, Benicio del Toro, Sam Rockwell & Rami Malek
Closest to the Win: I would guess that last year Dafoe was in second place, and I still think it's a bummer that he didn't gain more traction for a clearly better role than Rockwell's, but he hasn't really been close for any of his other work, so I'd go with that film.
Well, He Still Won...: Dafoe has won a mountain of critics' prizes, but never picked up one of the major televised awards.
Is This Happening Someday?: I would assume not, but honestly that fourth nomination threw me a bit.  There were other more obvious contenders (John David Washington, for example) that could have easily snuck in and taken the fifth slot for Best Actor, and Dafoe doing so indicates that there's some appetite to get him an Oscar...but if there was a proper appetite, wouldn't he have won for Florida?  He works with high-profile auteurs, so if one of them gets a film with a little more traction/nominations it could happen, but it'd help if it was in the next couple of years since he's got some recent losses under his belt.

1. Ed Harris

Nominations: Apollo 13 (Supporting Actor in 1995), The Truman Show (Supporting Actor in 1998), Pollock (Actor in 2000), and The Hours (Supporting Actor in 2002)
He Lost to: Kevin Spacey, James Coburn, Russell Crowe, & Chris Cooper
Closest to the Win: Other than The Hours, Harris was close on all three of the other films.  It was down to he & Kevin Spacey in 1995.  In 1998, it was down to he and Robert Duvall (and then in a huge upset James Coburn won, proving that this "closest to the win" is very much a guessing game).  And in 2000, he was surging at the last minute enough to get his costar Marcia Gay Harden across the finish line, but he wasn't able to invade the Crowe/Hanks battle.
Well, He Still Won...: Harris grabbed Golden Globe awards for The Truman Show and Game Change (the HBO TV movie).
Is This Happening Someday?: I doubt it.  Harris still works (Westworld), but he refuses to campaign, and honestly has gotten to the point where I don't even think he'd show up to accept it (he didn't for Game Change), and unless you're Maggie Smith, you don't win if you don't show up.