I'd like to spank the Academy

Moulin Rouge (1952)

October 29, 2015

Poster - Moulin Rouge (1952)_11Directed by John Huston

I will freely admit that part of the reason I’m doing 1952 right now is because after watching Moulin Rouge! (2001), I was curious about this movie. I wasn’t sure if the 2001 version was a drug-induced remake of the same story or a weird Baz Luhrmann fantasy that had nothing to do with John Huston’s movie. It turns out that except for the setting, they don’t really have much to do with each other. That made me glad, because I much prefer John Huston’s vision over Luhrmann’s, and I hate it when people are more familiar with subpar remakes than with the fantastic originals.

So what’s the story? Aristocrat Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec turns his back on his privileged upbringing to become an artist during the heady days of late 19th century France.

The Good: Josè Ferrer. Toulouse-Lautrec is a complicated character in this movie. He’s an angry drunk who is convinced that life won’t bring him anything good. Ferrer does an excellent job with that.

Henri has two different women in his life: Marie Chalet and Myriamme Hayam. Colette Marchand is Marie Chalet, a beautiful, yet poor, woman who doesn’t mind Henri’s deformities. Marie is a hateful, pettish gold-digger, and Marchand plays her perfectly. The more sympathetic, mature Myriamme is played heart-breakingly well by Suzanne Flon.

Another great thing about this movie is that it has Zsa Zsa Gabor. Even though she has top billing after Jose Ferrer, her role is rather small. But you can tell that she’s having so much fun basically playing herself that you just have to love her. I have to admit, I find the Gabor sisters fascinating; they were kind of like the Kardashians (famous for no good reason), but super classy. I think they would have interesting people to know. And I will stop crushing on Zsa Zsa now and move on.

There is some clever camera work in this movie. In real life, Toulouse-Lautrec was 5’1”. Josè Ferrer was much taller. He spent quite a bit of the movie walking on his knees to be closer to the right height. You can’t tell, and I love that you can’t tell. This movie would have been just silly if they had done a bad job with Henri’s height because it’s so central to the story.

The dancing in the movie is ridiculously amazing. I have never seen the cancan done in real life, but I had a vague idea that it involved high kicks while balancing on one foot. I would suggest that even if you don’t ever watch this movie, at least google the cancan scene from this movie. It takes serious skill and athleticism to do it. I was blown away. Oh, and in case you’re wondering (or worried), no, the dancers don’t wear split bloomers. The movie’s from the 1950s; that would have been too scandalous.

I love how 19th century Paris and Toulouse-Lautrec’s art were brought to life. The clothes and the colors and the costumes are all fantastic. There are rich people and poor people and you can differentiate between them (which isn’t always the case in the movies). The costume and makeup people paid close attention to the art and took some of the clothes, makeup, and hairstyles straight from his paintings. I loved it. I also loved the two interludes where the paintings themselves were flashed on the screen to music that matched them. It was a good way to show passage of time and also to highlight what Toulouse-Lautrec did and what lower-class Paris was like at the time. It was very cool.

Even though I minored in art history in college, I don’t know much about Toulouse-Lautrec’s life in general. Seeing as how this is a biopic based on a novel based on his life, it’s probably not completely accurate. But I liked the story. It didn’t make Henri out to be perfect, but it gave him more dignity than he had in Moulin Rouge! (2001), which was something that really bothered me about that movie.

The Bad: I can’t think of anything about this movie that’s bad. It’s mostly good, except for the ending, which flies past “bad” and lands in “ugly”.

The Ugly: The ending is so cheesily bad. It rivals Goodbye, Mr. Chips for cheesy badness.

Oscars Won: Best art direction-set decoration, color; best costume design, color.

Other Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best actor in a leading role (Josè Ferrer); best actress in a supporting role (Colette Marchand); best director; best film editing.

Random Fact: It is really hard to type “Moulin Rouge”. My fingers want to type “Moulin Rogue,” which works, too, but it sounds like a superhero who patrols the streets of Paris. (“Who was that masked man by the mill?” “Don’t you know? That was the Moulin Rogue!”)

Another Random Fact: Peter Cushing (AKA Grand Moff Tarkin) has a small role in this movie. Watch for him at the horse races!

Category:

Drama, Historical

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Ivanhoe (1952)

October 28, 2015

Ivanhoe (1952)_01

Directed by Richard Thorpe

I read Sir Walter Scott’s novel Ivanhoe when I was fourteen or fifteen, and I thought it was fabulous. It has all the necessary elements for an excellent swashbuckling story: adventure, romance, chivalry, and jousting. I had high hopes for the movie, too, but sadly, they were dashed. The elements were all still there, but something was missing. It didn’t feel alive somehow.

So what’s the story? Saxon knight Ivanhoe, who has been to fight in the Crusades, refuses to believe that King Richard is dead. As he makes his way back to England, he rides past every castle he can find, hoping that his English singing will attract the attention of a captive king. This long and slightly foolish plan works; King Richard throws him a letter explaining that he is being held for random. Prince John knows about the ransom, but refuses to pay it so that he can be king instead of his brother. When Ivanhoe reaches England, he not only has to raise the ransom, but right many wrongs and rescue damsels in distress.

The Good: The music is beautiful. It’s scored by Miklos Rozsa, who would go on to score Ben-Hur several years later. The music is very rich and full. The adjective I want to use is “orchestral,” but I’m not sure that would mean anything to anyone else. Hmm. How to put it? He uses the full orchestra to great effect. That makes it sound really boring, but it’s not. It’s really quite stirring.

The best actors in Ivanhoe were not the main characters. The person whose acting stood out to me the most was George Sanders as the villainous Norman knight De Bois-Guilbert. Even though his character was not the most chivalrous, his emotions rang true and he managed to take his flat character and make viewers pity him. It was impressive.

Other people with smaller parts were also able to make the most of their parts. Emlyn Williams as Ivanhoe’s slave-turned-page, Wamba, provided some welcome comic relief. Cedric, Ivanhoe’s bitter Saxon father, was played excellently by Finlay Currie. And Guy Rolfe was the vilest and scariest Prince John I have ever seen.

Although I read the book several years ago, I remember thinking that Rowena was terribly disappointing for a Saxon princess. She was just so blah. (That impression may have been wrong; like I said, it was a while ago.) But in this version, she has spirit and is a lot more awesome. Joan Fontaine did a very good job of showing her strength, her pride, and her jealousy, even if I thought she was a little old for the part. (Side note – this is the first time I’ve seen Joan Fontaine and thought, “Oh, yeah. She and Olivia de Havilland are totally sisters.” The resemblance really shines in this movie.)

The jousting scenes were pretty cool, even if some of the men’s colours were not manly looking. That was a seriously impressive sport, although I’m glad it’s not a big thing anymore because it also looks incredibly dangerous.

 The Bad: Robert Taylor is terribly miscast as Ivanhoe. He doesn’t even bother to try an English accent, which is a little jarring when everyone around him has one. He’s too old to convincingly be a young, dashing knight, and he’s much too solemn.

There is a scene where Ivanhoe has been taken captive, along with Rowena, Rebecca, Cedric, and Wamba. Robin of Locksley (yes, THAT Robin of Locksley) comes with his men to free them. There’s a huge battle with falling rocks and longbows and battering rams and swordfights, and it should be awesome. But it’s not. Watching people fire arrows at each other gets really boring after a while, and the swordplay is not well-choreographed. It may be the most disappointing medieval battle scene in a movie ever.

The Ugly: Elizabeth Taylor is so wooden as the Jewess Rebecca. She is extremely beautiful, but a damsel in distress should show some actual distress once in a while, instead of just looking pretty and putting her hand to her mouth. When she spoke, she sounded like she was reading lines, not speaking from her heart.

The worst thing about this movie was that it was so stiff. There was no sense of fun. There was no swash to the buckle, so to speak. Everything was taken so seriously. I wanted to say, “Hey! People! You’re in a castle! You’re fighting baddies! You’ve got awesome clothes! Smile once in a while. Look like you’re having fun!” No one ever did. Most of the separate elements were fine, but it just didn’t meld in a good way. A movie like this, set in the same time period and with so many of the same elements as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), is going to get compared to that movie. It needed to distinguish itself in some way, and sadly, it didn’t.

Oscars Won: None.

Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best cinematography, color; best music, scoring of a dramatic or comedy picture.

Category:

Adventure, Drama, Historical, Romance

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The Quiet Man (1952)

October 27, 2015

the-quiet-man-movie-poster-1952-1010203160Directed by John Ford

 As a librarian, I spend a lot of time using the alphabet, so yes, I realize that I by reviewing The Quiet Man today, I am doing things out of order. But Maureen O’Hara died on Saturday, and I’ve been thinking about her and her movies a lot the last couple of days. Because of Miracle on 34th Street and The Parent Trap (the originals of both, NOT the inferior remakes), I grew up admiring Maureen O’Hara as a strong, beautiful woman, completely unafraid to be herself, no matter what society thought. After reading obituaries and tributes to her the last couple of days, I get the feeling that she truly was that way. Since Maureen O’Hara plays another beautiful, strong woman in The Quiet Man, I’m posting my review of it today as my little tribute to a wonderful actress.

I grew up watching John Wayne movies, so I’m not sure how I missed this one. No, it’s not a Western, but I’d seen lots of other non-Western John Wayne movies. But even though I had never actually seen The Quiet Man, I had seen E.T. the Extraterrestrial, so I was really excited to finally know which movie included the dramatic kissing scene that E.T. watches on TV. It was a gap in my movie trivia knowledge, and I was ecstatic to have it filled in. Beyond that bit of trivia, I was glad to finally see The Quiet Man for another reason: it’s a dang good movie!

So what’s the story? Sean Thornton left Ireland for America with his parents when he was three years old, but his mother always talked of Ireland as if it were paradise, so he decides to move back and buy the cottage where he was born. He sees fiery-spirited redhead Mary Kate Danaher as soon as he steps foot in the village of Innesfree and decides that she is the girl for him. Unfortunately, Sean offends Mary Kate’s brother almost as soon. Although Mary Kate makes no secret about her reciprocation of Sean’s feelings, will her brother and her Irish customs keep them apart?

The Good: I’m going to mention cinematography first, because this movie is so beautiful that it literally made me cry. During the race, when the horses are pounding across the beach with the green mountains in the background…oh, it’s amazing. I can’t even begin to describe the beauty of it all. I know that Ireland is beautiful, but photographers still have to have an eye to capture the beauty, and the cinematographer did a fabulous job.

This movie is perfectly cast. I can’t think of another actress who could have done a better job at playing Mary Kate than Maureen O’Hara. She’s strong and proud and just plain wonderful. John Wayne is good as always as the man who is trying to live his dream, but who just doesn’t understand the culture of the woman he loves. He’s confused and frustrated, but so wholly in love. John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara were good friends in real life, and they have excellent on-screen chemistry.

The supporting cast is also so good. Ward Bond makes a surprisingly convincing Irish priest. Victor McLagen, although perhaps a little old to look like Maureen O’Hara’s brother, is full of bluster and silly pride as Will Danaher. Barry Fitzgerald brings a fabulous sense of humor to the role of Michaleen Oge Flynn, and his real-life brother Arthur Shields is excellent as the Protestant Reverend Cyril Playfair. Mrs. Playfair, played by Eileen Crowe, is mischievous and fun. I love them all!

The musical score is gorgeous. Victor Young used a lot of old Irish melodies, but also wrote some beautiful themes of his own. The music complements the movie perfectly.

The story and screenplay are fabulous. I’m not a huge fan of romantic comedies in general, because they’re just so fake. But The Quiet Man is so real. Two proud, stubborn people fall in love, but have a hard time adjusting to each other. Even though they love each other, they don’t completely understand one another. Movies don’t usually show that. Romantic comedies also tend to end with the wedding as the happy ending, but The Quiet Man is not like that. I wish more moviemakers would be brave enough to tell a real story like this one.

The Bad: Because I am a modern woman, I was incredibly uncomfortable with the scene where Sean drags Mary Kate off the train and pulls her across the fields and through the village. Yes, she was asking something of him that he didn’t want to do, but he wasn’t trying to understand her culture, either. Also, I’m not sure how accurate the Irish culture was portrayed. It felt very stereotypical to me, but maybe the stereotype happened because of reality. I don’t know. I just had to turn off the cultural sensitivity part of my brain, and then I was okay.

The Ugly: Nothing, unless you are even more sensitive than I am about the dragging through the fields scene.

Oscars Won: Best director; best cinematography, color.

Other Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best actor in a supporting role (Victor McLaglen); best writing, screenplay; best art direction-set direction, color; best sound, recording.

Random Fact: Even though The Quiet Man won an Oscar for best color cinematography, I once had a library patron who refused to check out the copy we have because it wasn’t in black and white, which, according to her, was the original. I did some research and apparently, ABC only had a black and white print, so that’s what was shown on broadcast TV for a while. The patron never did believe me that The Quiet Man was originally in color. Sigh.

Category:

Comedy, Romance

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An Explanation and An Apology

October 26, 2015

70 years of the oscarHello, my loyal readers (at least those that I haven’t alienated yet)! It has been a really long time since I’ve written a post, and I am so sorry. I know everyone was waiting on tenterhooks for the rest of the movie reviews from 1952. I know that the world has been holding its collective breath for the last four or five months. Please know that I wouldn’t have left you all hanging if I didn’t have a very good reason. That reason is called mononucleosis. This is a really stupid and annoying reason, because I am too old to get mono, it’s the second time I’ve had it in less than two years, and I don’t know why I got it because I haven’t kissed anyone for almost a year. You might think that having mono would actually be great for my blog, because it would give me lots of time to sit around and watch movies and write about them, but you would be wrong. Mono made it practically impossible for me to watch an entire movie without falling asleep. It also made my brain shut down, so writing was definitely out. I’ve slowly been recovering; that means that at this point I care that I haven’t written anything for a while, whereas before all I could think about was when my next nap was going to be.

My amazing sister-in-law deserves a good deal of the credit for getting me back on here. About six weeks ago, she gave me a book by Robert Osborne (whose job I would love to have, by the way) called Seventy Years of the Oscar, which is an awesome book with a very self-explanatory title. The fact that she thought of me when she saw it and got it for me made me feel very supported. Also slightly guilty. 🙂 So thank you, Meagan, for kicking me a little in the behind so I would get back to this project.

The movie reviews are going to start coming back this week. They may not happen at the rate of five a week for the next little while, but they will be posted. Please be patient with me and please keep reading. Knowing that even just a few people are reading what I write is what keeps me writing, and that makes my life better. So watch for more reviews coming soon, and thank you for being awesome!

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Uncategorized

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High Noon (1952)

June 8, 2015

high noonDirected by Fred Zinneman

I love westerns. It’s probably because I watched so many of them growing up that now they make me feel like a little kid again. Whatever the reason, I’m always glad when they show up on the list of best picture nominees. However, High Noon isn’t exactly a western. It’s a thriller that just happens to take place in the Old West. It’s about relationships and small towns and above all, people. I’ve seen it before, but it’s always exciting to watch.

So what’s the story? Will Kane has just married his Quaker sweetheart and given up his marshal’s badge when he gets a telegram that Frank Miller, a murderer that he arrested, has been let out of prison. He’s set to arrive on the noon train and hell-bent on getting revenge on the man who sent him to prison. Miller’s old gang is already waiting for him at the platform. Realizing that a true man faces his problems, Will refuses to run, but can he get the help he needs from the townspeople he’s protected in the past?

The Good: High Noon happens in real time. It’s about 10:40 when Marshal Kane gets his telegram, and an hour and twenty minutes later in real life, the train comes in. This adds to the tension in a way that very few things could have. I’m not sure if High Noon was the first movie to use this tactic, but it’s very effective.

The editing is fantastic. I love really good editing, but sometimes I feel like good editing can be hard to spot. Every once in a while, though, I’m blown away by it. That’s what happened in High Noon. After all the tension has built up and the train is finally coming into town, there are shots of all the different groups waiting for the train to stop. The editing makes that part of the movie so stressful. It’s awesome.

Once again, the acting is superb (can a movie be nominated for best picture without having at least some good acting?). Gary Cooper plays Will Kane, a man committed to his path even though it may cost him the woman he loves. Grace Kelly plays his bride, Amy, who is understandably frightened at the prospect of losing her new husband. Bitter deputy marshal Harvey is played wonderfully by Lloyd Bridges. Even Henry Morgan (aka Colonel Potter in M*A*S*H) has a small role. But the standout actress in High Noon is Katy Jurado as Helen Ramirez. She is ridiculously good in her rather complicated role.

Helen Ramirez is actually another wonderful thing about this movie. Minorities in westerns generally only have tiny roles, and they are usually horrifically stereotypical. However, while Helen is a scarlet woman, she is smart, strong, passionate, and fair. She isn’t scared of anything and she doesn’t take anything from anyone. I love her. She’s a great character.

The cinematography is great. It manages to highlight Will’s forced solitude and the attitudes of the people surrounding him. It does what good cinematography should do.

The Bad: There is nothing bad about High Noon. Everything about this movie is either on fabulous or horrifically bad. I suppose I could say that it’s not fun to watch Thomas Mitchell, one of my favorite character actors, not be awesome. That’s just how the story goes, though.

The Ugly: The title song is awful. I think I could have rationalized it as a 1950s cowboy song if it weren’t for the fact of these two lines:

He made a vow while in state prison
Vowed it would be my life or his’n.

I think it should be a crime against the arts (is that a thing? Can we make it one?) to use “his’n” as a rhyme for “prison”. Bad, bad, bad. Even then, I might have been able to make my peace with it if bits of the song (including that line) didn’t keep playing throughout the movie and reminding me of its existence. The musical score by Dimitri Tiomkin itself is very good, but this song… So bad.

Oscars Won: Best actor in a leading role (Gary Cooper); best film editing; best music, original song (“High Noon [Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin’]”); best music, scoring of a dramatic or comedy picture.

Other Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best director; best writing, screenplay.

Category:

Drama, Historical, Thriller, Western

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74th Academy Awards: My Verdict

June 6, 2015

74_academy_awards_posterI don’t have much to say about the 74th Academy Awards. The Oscars were quite spread out that year. No movie won more than four awards, and based solely on what I’ve seen, I feel like the awards went to people who deserved them. I would have picked Helen Mirren in Gosford Park over Jennifer Connelly in A Beautiful Mind for best supporting actress, but that’s just my preference. Jennifer Connelly didn’t do a bad job, and I’m not upset that she won. I just would have voted for Helen Mirren. I feel the same way about the award for best makeup. While A Beautiful Mind had fabulous aging makeup and the makeup in Moulin Rogue! was so good I didn’t even recognize Jim Broadbrent, The Fellowship of the Ring would have deserved best makeup just for the Hobbit feet.  I guess there were a lot of technically proficient movies made in 2001. The biggest thing I learned from this year is that I need to watch more movies, because apparently five a week isn’t enough. After watching Russell Crowe’s fabulous performance in A Beautiful Mind, I don’t understand how anyone else could have won best actor. On the other hand, I haven’t seen Training Day; maybe Denzel Washington’s performance is just as amazing. Not having seen all the movies makes it really hard to judge whether or not the Academy got it right. I guess I will just have to content myself with saying that Russell Crowe gave the best performance that I saw from the movies that year.

Man, it is really hard to write my opinions when I feel like the Oscars went to the right people. Controversy makes for much better blogging.

So how do I rank the nominees?

5. Moulin Rogue!
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
3. In the Bedroom
2. Gosford Park
1. A Beautiful Mind

Look, they’re in alphabetical order! That pleases my librarian mind to no end.

Join me next week for gunfights, boxing matches, nightclubs, jousting tournaments, circus performances, and actual controversy in the awards!

Category:

Academy Awards, Best Picture, Oscars

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A Beautiful Mind (2001)

June 5, 2015

beautiful mindDirected by Ron Howard

It was late the night I put this movie in the DVD player, and I wasn’t going to watch the whole thing. But even though it’s not the most action-packed movie ever made, A Beautiful Mind is an extremely gripping movie. As it got later and later (or earlier and earlier in the morning), I kept thinking, “I should really turn this off and go to bed,” but I just couldn’t. I needed to know what happened to John Nash.

So what’s the story? John Nash is a genius mathematician from West Virginia. He doesn’t fit in with all the other Princeton graduate students, mostly because he is completely asocial. He makes a great mathematic breakthrough and gets a job at MIT with the Department of Defense. He meets and marries Alicia, but the top-secret decryption project he’s working on suddenly takes a dark turn.

The Good: The acting was superb. I haven’t seen a lot of Russell Crowe’s movies, and I wasn’t expecting much from him in A Beautiful Mind, mostly because what I’ve seen him in lately is clips from Les Miserables (no, I haven’t seen the whole thing yet, because I don’t want to watch it). Anyway, Russell Crowe became John Nash. I’m always impressed when actors can play a person with a mental disability without overacting. I loved his performance. The supporting cast was great, too. Paul Bettany as Charles, John’s crazy-fun roommate; Jennifer Connelly as John’s wife, Alicia; Ed Harris as John’s government contact; Adam Goldberg, Josh Lucas, and Anthony Rapp as John’s mathematician colleagues; and Christopher Plummer as Dr. Rosen, John’s psychiatrist are all wonderful. I don’t think any of the roles could have been easy to play, but all of the actors did very well.

The costume design was well done, especially since the year in which something happened was rarely given. The clothes were a clue to how many years had passed, and I was very thankful for that. The makeup was good, too. The stars were aged well. I didn’t much care for John Nash’s old look, but that’s because he looked uncomfortably like someone I know, and I couldn’t get past that. But everyone looked definitely, believably older (unlike the people in Giant, which is still my baseline of terribleness when it comes to aging in movies).

The screenplay was good. John Nash’s story could not have been an easy one to tell without giving too much away, but the writers did an excellent job.

The Bad: The music was beautiful, but there were some moments when James Horner copied his own music. At the very beginning of the movie, the music sounded exactly like the music from Sneakers, which I wasn’t even aware James Horner had scored. I had to look it up to be sure. Later on, there are bits from Titanic, which has a brilliant score. It makes me sad that someone who is as obviously talented as James Horner reuses his own stuff.

The Ugly: There wasn’t anything ugly in A Beautiful Mind. It’s a well-made movie that takes a hard topic and treats it sensitivity and tact. Ron Howard deserves major kudos for this movie.

Oscars Won: Best picture; best actress in a supporting role (Jennifer Connelly); best director; best screenplay, screenplay based on material previously produced or published.

Other Oscar Nominations: Best actor in a leading role (Russell Crowe); best film editing; best makeup; best music, original score.

Category:

Best Picture, Drama, Historical, Thriller

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Moulin Rouge! (2001)

June 4, 2015

moulin rouge!Directed by Baz Luhrmann

I was a freshman in college when Moulin Rouge! came out, and I had a friend who was obsessed with the soundtrack. Whenever we would go and hang out and play games at his apartment, that CD would be playing. It made watching the movie kind of surreal; the music had seeped into my subconscious without my knowledge. I knew all the music, but I had never seen the movie before (overprotective friends again), so I had a strange sense of déjà vu. I’m not sure that helped my general perception of the movie, which was of noise, color, and oddness.

So what’s the story? Young Christian comes to Paris from Great Britain so that he can write about the Bohemians ideals of truth, beauty, freedom, and love. At the famous nightclub Moulin Rouge, he meets and falls for Satine, a performer/prostitute who has dreams of being a real actress. Will they be able to find happiness in the noisy, colorful life that is Paris?

The Good: There was some good acting. Nicole Kidman did a nice job as Satine, even if I did think she was Amy Adams ninety percent of the time. Jim Broadbent was excellent as Zidler, the owner of the Moulin Rouge, who is sympathetic to Satine and Christian’s love, but who also wants his own dreams to come true. Ewan McGregor is a little bit nondescript as Christian at the beginning of the movie, but he does jealousy and heartbreak well towards the end. Toulouse-Lautrec is played by John Leguizamo, who does a good job of showing the yearning for a love that he will never have.

Before I talk about the cinematography, I want to make something clear. I don’t get carsick. I don’t airsick or seasick or rollercoaster sick. But I have known to get sick from certain visual stimuli. I can’t play first-person shooter games, for example, or any first-person games, really. I have run, not walked, out of IMAX movies because I was about to be sick. Moulin Rouge! did the same thing to me. The jerky, constantly moving cinematography did not make agree with my stomach. Or with my head. So I was watching Moulin Rouge through a haze of headache and stomachache. But just because I didn’t like the cinematography and it didn’t agree with my stomach doesn’t mean the cinematography is bad, per se; it’s creative and different and fits with the whirling gaiety of the nightclub. I just didn’t personally like it. I wish I had a section called “Things I didn’t personally like, but can respect for their artistry.” That would make writing reviews easier sometimes. But I since I didn’t feel it was bad, I’m going to leave cinematography in the good category.

The makeup and costumes and production design were over the top and crazy, but so were the lives of the denizens of the Moulin Rouge. Like the crazy cinematography, it worked for the film and what the filmmakers were trying to do accomplish. Again, I’m not sure I liked it that much, but it was admirable.

The Bad: The music rubbed me the wrong way. Yes, it is very clever to use modern music in a movie that takes place over a hundred years ago, but I feel like the filmmakers were a little too clever sometimes, like they were drawing attention to their own cleverness. I feel like they were saying, “Look how clever we are! We used ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ to show how immature all these men are who frequent nightclubs! Aren’t we smart?” It became more of a gimmick than something meaningful.

The Ugly: The story was terrible, unoriginal, and uninspired. It was kind of a cheap rip off of Cabaret combined with La bohème. (Possible spoilers ahead) Christian and Satine fell in love for no reason at all. The Duke was silly and not believable as a real person. Also, if you were coughing up blood in 19th century Paris, you knew you were dying of consumption. Tuberculosis wasn’t uncommon then. And while I’m no expert, I’m pretty sure that if you are about to die from tuberculosis, you don’t have the energy to appear in a musical theater production, especially not one based in India with lots of high-energy dancing. The ending is curiously flat. The movie as a whole feels more like an excuse to do crazy musical numbers with modern music than a movie that has anything meaningful to say.

Oscars Won: Best art direction-set decoration; best costume design.

Other Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best actress in a leading role (Nicole Kidman); best cinematography; best film editing; best makeup; best sound.

Category:

Comedy, Drama, Historical, Musicals

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The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

June 3, 2015

The_Fellowship_Of_The_RingDirected by Peter Jackson

Although I usually plan out which movies I’m going to watch a couple of weeks in advance, I don’t always. I found myself this week with a couple different years’ worth of movies out from the library; I had choices. I was kind of leaning toward 1997, but I realized on Saturday night that I really wanted to watch Gosford Park. I hesitated, though, because I also knew that that meant I would have to watch another Lord of the Rings movie. I had seen this one before (twice, even), but I had disliked Peter Jackson’s interpretation enough that I didn’t want to see the rest of the movies. My desire to watch Gosford Park overcame my negativity about Fellowship, so here I am trying to write unbiasedly about another movie that is apparently universally beloved, but I don’t quite get why.

So what’s the story? Frodo Baggins, an Hobbit living in the idyllic Shire, discovers that a family heirloom is actually a dangerous artifact belonging to an ancient evil sorcerer. Frodo sets out on a journey with his friends to destroy the ring and save the world.

The Good: The production design is fantastic. There are many different races in Middle Earth, and the design gives each race their own look for everything, from clothing to dwellings. It’s all done very well, very beautifully. I don’t necessarily agree with all their decisions, but I still admire the look of the film.

Howard Shore’s music is beautiful. It captures everything from the naiveté and joy of the Shire to the heroism of Aragorn to the eerie beauty of the Mines of Moria. I may not care much for the movie in general, but I do love the music.

Ian McKellen does some seriously good acting as Gandalf, the wizard who sets the events in motion. The moment where Frodo volunteers to take the ring and Gandalf’s face falls…just beautiful. Gandalf is many things – jolly firework-maker, stern counselor, frightened man betrayed by his master. Ian McKellen shows all of those facets very convincingly. Sean Astin is the other acting standout. He plays Samwise Gamgee, Frodo’s gardener and faithful friend. He isn’t glad to leave the Shire, but he refuses to abandon Frodo, no matter how dark the journey gets or how scared he is. It’s fabulous work.

The Bad: The Elves all talk like Jareth the Goblin King (aka David Bowie) from Labyrinth. I think they’re supposed to be showing how wise and calm they are, but because they also kind of look like Jareth, especially Elrond, it’s kind of distracting.

I wasn’t a big fan of how much time was spent on Aragorn and Arwen’s love story. I felt like there were other things that must have been cut to explore that at length. Boromir, for example, didn’t get much backstory, only a line or two about how his people are already fighting for survival. This lack of development made it hard to see him as anything but a bad guy, when he was really a proud, desperate Man who wanted to save his city and his people.

Some of the acting in Fellowship of the Ring is good; some is indifferent. But some is downright bad. Elijah Wood never showed much emotion as Frodo; he was just kind of….there. Orlando Bloom was just as wooden as Legolas. He looked nice, but luckily he didn’t have much to do beyond yelling out dangers (“Wargs!” “Orcs!”) in a noble voice.

The Ugly: There were a couple of glaring plot holes and inconsistencies. (Possible spoilers here, although I feel like everyone in the world has seen this movie, so…) For example, if the chain Frodo was wearing the ring on fell off his neck when he stumbled and fell on the mountain, how in the world did it stay on when the lake hydra-creature had him by the ankle and was waving him back and forth in the air? The ring should have been lost in the lake. And why did Pippin and Merry go to Bree and beyond with Frodo and Sam? They had no reason to. And why did Elrond let them go as part of the Fellowship? They had no training in any kind of weapons, no survival skills, nothing. They would really be more of a hindrance than an asset. And why did the Hobbits trust Strider in the first place? He gave them no sign, no reason for them to trust him. It really bugged me. How did Strider know to have four Hobbit-sized swords ready? Pippin and Merry were impulsive last-minute additions. Grrrr.

Oscars Won: Best cinematography; best makeup; best music, original score; best effects, visual effects.

Other Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best actor in a supporting role (Ian McKellen); best director; best writing, screenplay based on material previously produced or published; best art direction-set decoration; best costume design; best film editing; best music, original song (“May It Be”); best sound.

The part where I get to whine about how different the movie is from the book: Actually, The Fellowship of the Ring follows the book much more closely than The Two Towers does. Things are left out, and Glorfindel is sacrificed to give Arwen more screen time, but at least there is no Aragorn-goes-over-a-cliff-but-is-saved-by-his-horse moment. I wasn’t a big fan of changing Arwen so much, but the lack of female characters in the trilogy could be a concern for this day and age, so it’s kind of understandable. I also don’t like that Tom Bombadil was left out. He himself is perhaps not important to the story, but the Hobbits did need to stumble into the Barrow-Wights to find the swords that can break the spell on the Ringwraiths, and Tom saves them from the Wights. I haven’t seen The Return of the King, so I can’t say how Peter Jackson overcomes that important plot point, but it should have been set up in this movie.

Category:

Action, Adventure, Drama, Epic

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In the Bedroom (2001)

June 2, 2015

in the bedroomDirected by Todd Field

Even when I recognize the titles of the movies that I’m watching, I don’t always know anything else about them. Sometimes, though, the title gives me a very good idea of what the movie is about. Other times, I am completely wrong. I had never really wanted to see In the Bedroom because I was convinced it was a raunchy sex comedy. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. I was surprised to find that it is instead a slow-moving drama about how a family deals with tragedy. I think I will have to stop judging movies based on their titles.

So what’s the story? Frank Fowler is a college student home for the summer. To his mother’s dismay, he starts dating Natalie, an older woman with two little boys. Natalie also has an ex-husband with a temper. As the summer heats up, tensions mount, and tragedy soon follows.

The Good: In Ian McEwan’s (rather dull) novel Saturday, two people are discussing Tolstoy, and one says, “The genius is in the details.” I feel that way about In the Bedroom. Everyone is believable, partly because the screenplay allows for details. When she’s depressed, Ruth Fowler sits on her couch, watching pointless TV and smoking. Matt Fowler likes to meet his son, Frank, for lunch. Natalie makes awkward conversation with her boyfriend’s college-educated parents, trying to get them to like and accept them. These little scenes, while not action-packed, reveal character and make the people real. The realism makes the sadness later much more real.

Because the screenplay moves so slowly, the acting had to be incredible. Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek are Matt and Ruth Fowler, who are trying to understand and be supportive of their son’s choices, while at the same time not being happy about them. Marisa Tomei is Natalie, a woman who enjoys dating a younger man, but can also see his naiveté. Frank is played by Nick Stahl. He makes Frank a very sweet young man who is enthusiastic about life, but doesn’t really understand that choices have consequences. They are all a joy to watch.

The cinematography was interesting. It would have been very easy to film this movie about a normal family with straightforward camera angles, but instead the filmmakers took the opportunity to use the camera to show that people have inner lives and thoughts. I liked that a lot.

The Bad: Because this movie allows for the details, for the normal conversations between ordinary people, it gets a little boring sometimes. But guess what? Life is boring sometimes. I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about the ending, though. It might have been too exciting to be believable.

The Ugly: I spent a lot of time being annoyed that Natalie and Frank spent so much time with her boys when both Frank and Natalie kept insisting it was only a summer fling. It seemed like such an irresponsible thing to do, to let kids get attached to a boyfriend you’re only planning on dating for a few months. It made me grumpy.

Oscars Won: None.

Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best actor in a leading role (Tom Wilkinson); best actress in a leading role (Sissy Spacek); best actress in a supporting role (Marisa Tomei); best writing, screenplay based on material previously produced or published.

Category:

Drama, Thriller

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