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Posts tagged ‘Based on a book’

Of Mice and Men (1939)

1939 Of mice and men - La fuerza bruta (ing) 03Directed by Lewis Milestone

I read the book Of Mice and Men when I was a junior in high school. I didn’t care for it much; I couldn’t figure out how John Steinbeck could fit so much misery into such a short book. And I haven’t read it since, but watching this movie made me want to, because even though the movie Of Mice and Men is still sad due to the utter hopelessness of these men’s lives, the fact that someone out there understands their situation and dreams and feelings gives hope back to those who feel downtrodden by life. I’m not a Depression-era drifter, but this movie gave me some hope. It made me realize that I am not alone in what I want out of life. That’s a very powerful thing for a work of art to do.

So what’s the story? During the Depression, friends George and Lennie go from ranch to ranch looking for work. George is a small guy, but he’s smart. Lennie is hulking giant; he’s mentally slow, but he works hard and is very kind-hearted, especially towards small animals. George and Lennie have a dream of having their own small place where they can farm for themselves and do what they want to do when they want to do it. They are starting work on a new ranch. Curly, the ranch owner’s proud, jealous son, has a wife, Mae, whom he constantly suspects of cheating. Being the only woman on the ranch is lonely for her, but it’s even worse because none of the ranch hands will talk to her because Curly doesn’t like it when they do. The tensions on the ranch are about to explode and take away George and Lennie’s dreams.

The Good: This movie was exceptionally well-cast. Lon Chaney, Jr. plays Lennie and does a wonderful job of playing a kind man who truly doesn’t understand his own strength. His performance is powerful, and I’m really trying to decide why he didn’t get nominated for an Oscar for it. Burgess Meredith plays George very well. He gives a very good performance of a man torn between his love and loyalty to a friend and his frustration when that friend makes mistakes that pull them both down. Betty Field, who plays Mae, also does a good job. Mae is kind of crass and low-class, but she’s also so lonely. Her desire to really live life is just bursting out of her. I felt much sorrier for her than I remember feeling when I read the book. The rest of the cast is good, too. The hands are especially sympathetic. I don’t know how they got such perfect people for every role, but it happened.

I noticed the music from the beginning. I kept thinking it sounded more symphonic, more complex somehow than a typical 1930s movie score. I found out that Aaron Copland wrote the music, and it suddenly made sense. It was beautiful music, and it didn’t overwhelm the movie like some scores did in the 1930s. It fit the movie just perfectly.

The Bad: I can’t exactly put my finger on just why I felt this way, but I feel like it dragged a bit in some places. I can’t really think of a boring scene, but the pacing was off somehow. Maybe it’s because when I watched it, my mind wasn’t the sharpest it’s ever been. So yeah. Take that comment with a grain of salt. Or better yet, watch the movie and tell me in the comments if I was right or wrong!

The Ugly: This is not a happy story. It’s the story of men living on the fringes of society, wanting no more than the freedom to make their own decisions about life, but who can’t rise above where their circumstances have placed them. The ending is heart-wrenching, because John Steinbeck understood life, and life is not easy.

Oscars Won: None.

Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best sound, recording; best music, scoring; best music, original score.

Random Fact: This movie was adapted from the play that was based on the book. Weird, huh?

Category:

Drama

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Wuthering Heights (1939)

WUTHERINGHEIGHTSTRADEAD2Directed by William Wyler

Yep, this one is out of order, too. I had to take the DVD back to a somewhat far away library, so I had to watch Wuthering Heights instead of the more alphabetically appropriate movie I was planning on; ironically, it was Of Mice and Men. Best laid plans and all that. But they will all get reviewed eventually, so I don’t really suppose it matters the order that I do them in. I just like to do them alphabetically so that people know that I’m being impartial and not putting them in order of which I like best.

Film adaptations of books are tricky. Books are so personal, and everyone has their own interpretation, so you will never be able to please everyone. But I hate the book Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff is a terrible person who makes everyone around him miserable in his quest for revenge. I had heard that this wasn’t a very faithful adaptation, so I hoped that they would have been able to turn this movie into something that I liked. Sadly, they didn’t.

So what’s the story? Heathcliff, a starving, ragged orphan, is adopted off the streets of Liverpool by the kindly Mr. Earnshaw and taken to Earnshaw’s house, Wuthering Heights, to be raised with Earnshaw’s children, proud Hindley and impulsive Catherine. Cathy and Heathcliff become great friends and vow undying love, but when Mr. Earnshaw dies, Hindley takes over and makes Heathcliff a servant. As they grow up, Cathy and Heathcliff fall more deeply in love with (or become more obsessive about) each other, but Cathy wants to be rich. She urges Heathcliff to go away and make something of himself so that they can marry. After an accident, Cathy stays for some time with the Lintons, her wealthy, kindly neighbors and glimpses what a future with wealth and comfort would be like. When Edgar Linton proposes, Cathy accepts. What will Heathcliff do to get revenge for all the wrongs done to him?

The Good: Geraldine Fitzgerald, who also did an amazing job in Dark Victory, plays Isabella Linton heartbreakingly well. She’s a silly girl, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t feel the wrongs done to her by Heathcliff. So good.

Laurence Olivier plays Heathcliff. He was a very good-looking man and an incredible actor. I felt sorry for Heathcliff in this movie, which I never did while reading the book, so props to Olivier.

The Bad: Merle Oberon’s Cathy is a spoiled, selfish girl who is unwilling to give up her place in society and a comfortable home for true, pure love. If it’s the screenplay’s fault that she appeared like that, than she did a good job of acting. But I felt like they were trying to make her sympathetic, and that never came across for me. I was kind of hoping that Heathcliff would fall in love with someone else, just so she could see that she wasn’t that great.

This is another movie from the 1930s that fell victim to the idea that accurate costuming didn’t matter. If the director and/or producers decided to have it take place in the 1860s, which is what the clothes vaguely suggest, that’s fine, but Heathcliff was gone for a while, right? And yet the ladies are still wearing the same fashions that they were before he left. The passage of time through clothes wasn’t shown at all. That would have been a very nice touch, but since it didn’t happen, I was left with the feeling the Heathcliff didn’t really leave for all that long. I guess people could make fortunes in America incredibly quickly in those days.

The Ugly: The ending is so incredibly bad. It makes Cathy and Heathcliff out to be tragic lovers who, due to circumstances beyond their control, were unable to be happy in life, but can now be happy together after death. The movie was already melodramatic, but the ending takes the movie past melodramatic to beyond cheesy. Ugh.

Oscar Won: Best cinematography, black-and-white.

Other Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best actor in a leading role (Laurence Olivier); best actress in a supporting role (Geraldine Fitzgerald); best director; best writing, screenplay; best art direction; best music, original score.

The week is over, but the nominees of 1939 aren’t! Join me next week for the rest of the best of 1939, including the juggernaut: Gone with the Wind.

Category:

Drama, Historical

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Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

Goodbye,_Mr._Chips_(1939_film)_posterDirected by Sam Wood

I remember watching this movie when I was a young teenager. I liked it then. It’s a sweet movie. But watching it now was a totally different experience. Now I understand Mr. Chips so much better. We are actually very much alike; we are both slightly shy, rather reserved people who work with young people, but have a very hard time actually connecting to them. Because of this, I could empathize with his experiences, and I spent most of the last half of the movie in tears. It’s not an excessively tragic movie, but life itself is very sad sometimes.

So what’s the story? Mr. Chipping arrives at Brookfield School, a boarding school for English boys, in 1870. Over the next fifty-odd years, he experiences love and joy, heartache and heartbreak, all while teaching classics and other life lessons to the future leaders of England.

The Good: Often in movies that span a lot of time, two actors will play a single part, with one person playing the young man and the other playing the old man. That’s not the case in this movie. Robert Donat plays Chips from his twenties through his eighties — and he does a fantastic job. He walks differently as he gets older, he holds himself differently, he even moves his mouth differently. It’s very impressive. And that’s not all he does. Mr. Chipping changes dramatically personality-wise through the movie. It’s a struggle at first, but eventually being open and loving and caring towards the boys becomes second nature. Robert Donat shows us all of that through his portrayal of Mr. Chips. It’s an excellent performance.

The makeup artists did a very good job, too. They had to, or it would have been silly to pretend that a man in his mid-thirties was really in his eighties. They didn’t just put Donat in a grey wig and call it good(I’m looking at you, Giant!), but they gave him wrinkles and old man eyebrows and everything he needed to convincingly play an old man.

I also like how they showed the passage of time with the boys coming to the school in different uniforms and talking about current events. That was a nice way to handle a lot of years without something conventional like a fluttering calendar and without simply putting the date on the screen.

The Bad: When you are making a sentimental movie, it’s hard not to cross the line into cheesiness. Most of the time, this movie stayed on the right side of that, but the ending was a little much. Superimposing the face of Colley, who represents four generations of students, onto the screen was cringe-worthy. I know, I know, it was the 1930s, and people were less cynical then I think, but it was still a bit much.

This movie also has a slight costuming problem. I was trying to figure out about how old Chipping would have been when he met Katherine, but her clothes and hairstyle don’t quite match any era. Lots of movies throughout the history of movies have had the same problem; the actors are just put into clothes that feel old-timey without being from any specific time period. It can get ugly. Goodbye, Mr. Chips isn’t the worst I’ve seen, but it could have been better.

The Ugly: There wasn’t anything ugly about this movie unless you don’t like sweet sentimental movies about the difference one person can make to many. If that’s the case, don’t even bother with this one.

Oscars Won: Best actor in a leading role (Robert Donat).

Other Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best actress in a leading role (Greer Garson); best director; best writing, screenplay; best sound, recording; best film editing.

Category:

Drama, Historical, War

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The Pianist (2002)

the-pianistDirected by Roman Polanski

When I was ten or so, I got interested in Holocaust literature. I think it’s because my teacher read us Daniel’s Story in class. Anyway, from that time on, I read lots of books written for children and teenagers about the Holocaust. I even read some written for adults. But that all stopped when I was sixteen. That year, my history teacher showed us footage of the liberation of the concentration camps. Reading all those books hadn’t prepared me for what the Holocaust really was. I hadn’t understood what it really meant, what it looked like when people were slowly being starved to death and being killed indiscriminately. But now I do, and now Holocaust movies are hard for me to watch. I don’t want to believe that people could treat other people that way. At the same time, even though they can be so terrible, movies about the Holocaust can also be testaments to human goodness and resilience.

So what’s the story? Wladyslaw Szpilman is a young pianist living and working in Warsaw in 1939. After Germany invades the country, Szpilman, who is Jewish, lives through the horrors of the Warsaw ghetto.

The Good: Adrien Brody. His performance is heartbreaking. His transformation from a carefree young musician to a starving, terrified shadow of a man is amazing. I cried as I watched him trying to open his can of food. Incredible.

I loved the costume design. It helped to tell the story in way I haven’t often seen. Wladyslaw starts out wearing fashionable suits, but as his life gets harder and harder, his clothes change, too. The contrasting clothing of the people in the ghetto also highlights the differences of the people. Some were dressed poorly; others had furs. Each of those people in the ghetto had a different story before they were forced together, and their clothes remind us of that. They aren’t just faceless people or numbers, but people with various pasts who faced a tragic future together.

The production design made me sad not just for the Jewish people, but for the Poles, also. Their capital was destroyed; many people died. I’m not sure how they were able to show such widespread destruction, but it was devastating to see a city in rubble.

The Bad: I know I’m not supposed to say this, especially about a Holocaust movie, but there are a couple of boring stretches in this movie. From the time Wladyslaw is separated from his family until he stops living in empty apartments, it’s not the most exciting movie. I suppose it really must have been boring trying to live silently in an apartment that is supposed to be empty, but it doesn’t make for thrilling cinema.

The Ugly: Roman Polanski was a Holocaust survivor who escaped from the Krakow ghetto, and he witnessed some horrific things. He doesn’t pull his punches in this movie, and so there is some very graphic and shocking violence. I don’t feel like it’s gratuitous in any way; it’s what happened. But that means there are some parts that are very difficult to watch.

Oscars Won: Best actor in a leading role (Adrien Brody); best director; best writing, adapted screenplay.

Other Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best cinematography; best costume design; best film editing.

Category:

Drama, Historical, War

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The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

The_two_towerDirected by Peter Jackson

I knew when I started this project that I would have to watch some movies that I didn’t want to watch. I was thinking about movies like Taxi Driver, with its rough subject matter, and Raging Bull, with its graphic violence. I had forgotten that I would have to watch The Lord of the Rings. You see, I love the book. A lot. I’ve read it several times, and I have a very clear picture in my mind of what everyone and everything looks like. I saw The Fellowship of the Ring when it first came out, and I wasn’t impressed with what Peter Jackson had done with Tolkien’s masterpiece. I had no desire to see the other two, especially since the Ents are my favorite race. I didn’t want Jackson to ruin them for me. But I love writing this blog, so I made the sacrifice and watched The Two Towers. (And I was right. The Ents sucked.) I am going to try very, very hard to judge this film based on its own merits and not compare it to the book, but I may not succeed. Please just bear with me.

So what’s the story? This isn’t a stand-alone movie. It’s hours three through six of a nine-hour movie, so it’s a little hard to recap. But Frodo and Sam are making their journey into Mordor to destroy the ring. Merry and Pippin have been kidnapped by Orcs, and Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are on their trail. Merry and Pippin meet the Ents, a race of tree-people, while Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli meet the Riders of Rohan, a tribe of Men. Saruman is growing bolder, sending out his armies to destroy both Rohan and Gondor. Confused? Yeah, don’t watch these movies out of order. There is no recap from one to the next, so you will be lost if you don’t already know the story. You might be lost even if you do know the story, because the movie and the book are rather different.

The Good: Sean Astin is wonderful as Sam, Frodo’s loyal friend and servant. His complete devotion to Frodo and their cause shines out of his faces. It’s great to see. I do rather like Ian McKellen as Gandalf. He manages to appear both grave and kind, both serious and cheerful. Good stuff.

The set design is quite good. The world of Middle Earth comes to life in these movies. Although it’s not quite the same as what I envisioned, I am willing to admit that it is a wonderful vision.

There are some wonderful effects. Gollum was especially well done, which I feel is also partly due to Andy Serkis’s acting. The animation or capture or both of Gollum made him come alive with all his facets.

The Bad: There wasn’t a good balance between battle and storytelling. I feel like there was a lot of time spent on the Battle of Helm’s Deep, while some other things (like everything in the court of Rohan) were skimmed over. The Ents and their destruction of Isengard are barely shown, even though it’s a crucial part of the fight against evil. Also, what was that Arwen/Aragorn interlude? Jackson is already telling multiple stories at once; throwing in one more just bogs the whole thing down.

I didn’t like how no one in this movie but Our Heroes are willing to do what they need to do. Aragorn tries unsuccessfully to get Theoden to fight against Saruman’s masses, but Theoden thinks that hiding is a better option. Of course, when the armies come to Helm’s Deep, it’s Aragorn who gives the pep talks and plans the defenses, even though Theoden has defended Helm’s Deep before. The Ents don’t care about helping fight Saruman until Pippin reminds Treebeard of what Saruman has done: he has cut down trees that were friends of Treebeard’s. If Pippin hadn’t come, Treebeard would have melted into the forest and sat peacefully watching his friends die to feed to fires of Isengard. The only problem with that is that Theoden and Treebeard are both noble men, leaders of their people. They would have taken action without a third party telling them what to do.

The Ugly: There were some seriously cheesy moments in this movie. I groaned out loud when Legolas slid down the stairs on a shield, shooting arrows all the way. I know Legolas is good, but that’s just silly. Also, the “Aragorn being rescued by his horse” scene was a bit much. It didn’t fit in this movie. (And here is where my book-loving part comes out: There is so much in the book that had to be cut because of time constraints. Why did Peter Jackson feel like he had to make stuff up and add it in? That time could have been spent better. Anyway, that’s my rant. I tried really hard to write this review based solely on its merits as a movie and forget that it was based on an extraordinary book, so I figure I am allowed one little rant.)

Oscars Won: Best sound editing; best visual effects.

Other Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best art direction-set direction; best film editing; best sound.

Category:

Adventure, Drama, War

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The Hours (2002)

The_Hours_posterDirected by Stephen Daldry

When I saw the poster for this movie, my first thought was, “Wait. It says Nicole Kidman is in this movie, but none of those three women are Nicole Kidman. Why isn’t she on the poster, and why doesn’t the third lady on the poster get higher billing?” So I looked it up on IMDb and realized that the makeup people did an amazing job; they managed to make Nicole Kidman look frumpy.

So what’s the story? Three different women from three different time periods have three parallel days that are all connected by parties, mental illness, and Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway. I realize that doesn’t sound terribly exciting, but it’s a hard movie to sum up.

The Good: Like I said earlier, the makeup artists were amazing. They did a good job making Nicole Kidman look like Virginia Woolf, but they also did a fabulous job of aging Julianne Moore fifty years. Apparently, they weren’t eligible for an Oscar because a little bit CGI was used to make Nicole Kidman’s false nose look flawless, but still. Major kudos to them.

Major kudos also goes to the editors. The director is telling three different stories, but he jumps around from story to story often. The editing had to make that feel seamless and show the parallels in the different stories. It was very well done.

The soundtrack was beautiful, a lovely piano score. I thought it sounded very similar to the music from The Truman Show; sure enough, Philip Glass did the scores for both. But even though it wasn’t the most original, it was so lovely that it made me want to find some sheet music and learn it.

The acting was excellent. Nicole Kidman completely inhabited Virginia Woolf. Julianne Moore played a frustrated 1950s housewife, and Meryl Streep gave a moving performance as the woman of today (or 2001. But that was today when the movie was made.). John C. Reilly played Moore’s incredibly devoted husband, and Ed Harris was a poet dying of AIDS, a former lover of Meryl Streep’s character. Miranda Richardson felt completely natural as Virginia Woolf’s sister Vanessa.

The Bad: This movie is based on a book (which I haven’t read, so I can’t compare anything), and it shows. All three main character women spend a lot of time staring into space. I’m sure that in the novel, they are having deep thoughts, but those thoughts don’t always make it across on the screen. That got annoying.

I also felt like the three stories didn’t fit together as well as they should. Meryl Streep’s character had many parallels to Mrs. Dalloway, even down to the names, and her story dovetailed neatly with Julianne Moore’s, but the only connection that Julianne Moore had to Virginia Woolf was that she was reading Mrs. Dalloway, and I wanted it to be better than that.

The Ugly: Confession time: I struggle with depression. I have been suicidal in the past. I am a woman who doesn’t quite fit in her society. And even with all that, I never felt a deep connection with this movie. Maybe it was because we couldn’t get a deep look at these women’s inner thoughts, but it felt so shallow. The only woman I really felt like we got a good, sympathetic look at was Virginia Woolf; I would have happily watched an entire Virginia Woolf biopic starring Nicole Kidman and Stephen Dillane because they were the only very well-developed characters. That shouldn’t happen in a character-driven movie.

Oscars Won: Best actress in a leading role (Nicole Kidman).

Other Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best actor in a supporting role (Ed Harris); best actress in a supporting role (Julianne Moore); best director; best writing, adapted screenplay; best costume design; best film editing; best music, original score.

Category:

Drama, Historical

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Gangs of New York (2002)

gangsofnyDirected by Martin Scorsese

There were two discs in the DVD case when I picked this movie up from the library, but I figured that one was the movie and one had special features like most DVDs do. Nope! I was wrong. For whatever reason, this movie is spread over two DVDs, with parts of the movie and special features on both discs. Yes, Gangs of New York is a long movie, but it’s shorter than Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line, and they each managed to be on one disc. I kind of get the feeling that whoever made that decision wanted to make the movie feel more epic, but it really just made it seem long.

So what’s the story? In New York City in 1846, two rival gangs battle it out for supremacy. Bill the Butcher, the leader of the American-born Natives, kills the Priest, leader of the Irish Dead Rabbits. Sixteen years later, Amsterdam, the son of the Priest, comes back for revenge.

The Good: The set direction was fabulous. Every little detail combined to make me feel like I had been transported back to the 1860s. I thought the costume design was good, too, but this movie made me realize that I know very little about historical clothing when it comes to the poor, so I could be wrong on this one. But I can’t imagine anyone would put men in those ridiculously ugly plaid trousers unless it was accurate.

The story was good one. Revenge plots are always exciting, and there were some good moments where Amsterdam struggled between admiration of Bill the Butcher and his desire for revenge.

The best acting in the movie was done by men in supporting roles. The standout actor was Brendan Gleeson. He didn’t have a lot of screen time in his role as an Irish mercenary unaffiliated with any gang, but he played his part so convincingly. His scenes were among the best in the movie. Jim Broadbent as real-life corrupt politician Boss Tweed was hilarious, and Gary Lewis made a very intense Irishman in the wrong gang. The only lead actor who did a very good job was Daniel Day-Lewis. His performance was sometimes over the top, but so was his gang-leader character, so it worked.

The Bad: Leonardo DiCaprio. His acting wasn’t terrible all the time, but his Irish accent came and went, especially when he narrated. Were there no actors that were actually Irish that could have played the part? It would have helped a lot.

The story followed Amsterdam as he followed his plan to get revenge on Bill the Butcher. Everything led up to that, and then the climax was actually about the New York City draft riots of 1863. Yes, the draft and the dissatisfaction of the poor people about it were touched on throughout the movie, but not enough for it to be the climax. I thought that that was kind of sloppy storytelling. Also, sixteen years after 1846 would have been 1862, not 1863, so they got their year wrong, too.

Also, what were so many Chinese people doing in New York in the 1860s? Especially Chinese women? That rang false. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Chinese immigrants on the West Coast at the time, but I don’t think there were very many in New York.

The Ugly: When I told my younger brother about my quest to watch these movies, he said he’d seen some nominees from 2002 and that Gangs of New York was a pretty good movie – except Cameron Diaz ruined it. Now that I’ve seen it, I have to agree. I feel like Amsterdam was so focused on revenge that he wouldn’t have the emotion left over to fall in love. If he did fall in love, it would have to be with someone amazing. Cameron Diaz never made me feel like Jenny Everdeane was anything special. She spent most of the movie looking either smug or confused. Maybe another actress could have done a better job, but since Cameron Diaz was chosen, that part of the story should have been left out altogether.

Speaking of leaving things out…This movie is almost three hours long, and I felt every second of it. It actually took me over four and half hours to watch because I kept falling asleep and having to find my place again. Granted, I had a cold, but still. Other three-hour movies have managed to keep my attention. Saving Private Ryan is actually a little bit longer than Gangs of New York, but I was surprised to find that out because the time flies by in Saving Private Ryan. I’m not asking for non-stop action; I like character development and plot intricacies. But this movie had too many scenes that didn’t move the action along or even really develop the characters. It needed to be cut down.

Oscars Won: None

Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best actor in a leading role (Daniel Day-Lewis); best director; best writing, original screenplay; best cinematography; best art direction – set direction; best costume design; best film editing; best sound; best music, original song (“The Hands That Built America”).

Category:

Drama, Historical

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In the Heat of the Night (1967)

In_the_Heat_of_the_Night_(film)Directed by Norman Jewison

I have a hard time sitting still and doing nothing when I watch movies. I get kind of antsy unless I have another project to occupy my time, so I’ll paint my nails or play a game on my phone or crochet a hat while the movie plays in the background. But doing this project has forced me to change all that. If I want to appreciate good acting or interesting camera work or immerse myself in another time through excellent production design, I have to give the movie my full attention. The first time I watched In the Heat of the Night, I was messing around on my computer. I thought it was a good movie, an interesting movie, but not that great. Then I watched it again on my big TV instead of my little computer screen, and I didn’t do anything but watch the movie. I was blown away. It was a totally different experience, and I understood the (well-deserved) acclaim.

So what’s the story? Late one summer’s night in Sparta, Mississippi, a police officer finds the murdered body of a prominent man lying in the street. The police start searching for the murderer, and they soon find and arrest the perfect suspect: Virgil Tibbs, a black man who is sitting in the train station. However, Virgil says he’s not a transient or a criminal, but a police officer from Philadelphia; he was just waiting for his train home. Sheriff Gillespie, the head of police in Sparta, calls Philadelphia to verify this, and the police chief in Philadelphia tells Gillespie that Tibbs is the best homicide detective in Philadelphia and that Tibbs should help on the case. None of the (white) police officers in Sparta want to accept help from black man, but the widow of the murdered man insists that Tibbs remain on the case. Tibbs and Gillespie now have to overcome their prejudices to work together to solve the murder.

The Good: I always seem to start with the acting, but I think that’s because bad acting ruins a  movie so quickly. There was some good acting here. Rod Steiger won an Oscar for his portrayal of Gillespie. I wasn’t completely convinced that he deserved it over Spencer Tracy in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner until the scene where the four thugs have cornered Tibbs in the warehouse. At that point, something clicked for me, and I realized what a truly stellar job he was doing. Sydney Poitier is excellent as he always is as Virgil Tibbs. Lee Grant plays the widow; she isn’t in the movie much, but she commands every scene she’s in. Her heartbreak when she’s told of her husband’s death is so painful that it’s difficult to watch.

The story here is excellent. It’s based on a novel that I haven’t read, so I’m not sure what’s been changed and what was original, but it makes a great movie. I love how well-developed all the characters are. It would have been so easy to make Tibbs perfect, but he has his flaws, too, which are shown when he fixates so strongly on a suspect (who is admittedly a terrible person) that he loses all perspective on the case. The story and screenplay are so well done. And this movie gave us a classic line: “They call me Mr. Tibbs!”

The cinematography was interesting. I loved the part where Tibbs is examining the body. The camera cuts to his hands to show his skill and confidence as he explains what he will need to do a proper examination. The camera focuses hands in another scene, too. When Tibbs and Gillespie are going to go visit the wealthy cotton planter, they drive past a field of cotton being picked by black workers. Here, the camera’s focus serves to contrast Tibbs’s job and skills with those of the workers. If Tibbs had lived here, it seems to say, this is what he might be doing. At other times, the cinematography feels almost musical. As the cameraman zooms in on a fleeing suspect, for instance, it accentuates the tension almost like a crescendo in a piece of music. It adds a lot to the movie.

The Bad: The only thing that made this movie feel dated was the music. It just screamed the 1960s to me. It might have been groundbreaking at the time, but it feels very old-fashioned now.

The Ugly: The ugliest thing in this movie is the attitudes of the people, from the moment Tibbs is arrested because he’s an unknown black man to the climax where the thugs show up at Mama Caleba’s. But it’s this ugliness that allows the beauty of the eventual mutual acceptance and respect of Tibbs and Gillespie shine through.

Oscars Won: Best picture; best sound; best actor in a leading role (Rod Steiger); best film editing; best writing, screenplay based on material from another medium.

Other Oscar Nominations: Best director; best effects, sound effects.

Category:

Best Picture, Drama

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The Graduate (1967)

the-graduate-poster1Directed by Mike Nichols

When I was a sophomore in college, my roommate and I were talking about movies late one night. I don’t remember how it came up, but I admitted that I had never seen The Graduate. She was shocked. “But Melanie,” she said, “you’ve seen every other old movie out there. How have I seen an old movie that you haven’t seen?” I didn’t want to admit to my more sophisticated roommate that I hadn’t ever watched it because I was so uncomfortable with the subject matter; I had no interest in watching a forty-something-year-old woman and a man in his early twenties have sex. Now that I’ve seen it, though, I’ve learned that I was worried about the wrong thing. Nothing explicit is shown. No, what did make me uncomfortable was how very awkwardly that young man handled the affair.

So what’s the story? Benjamin Braddock has just graduated from college and come home to California. On the night of his welcome home party, his neighbor Mrs. Robinson asks him to drive her home. Once there, she tries to seduce Ben, but he gets spooked and leaves. He can’t stop thinking about it, though, and phones her one night to ask if the offer is still open. They begin to have an affair. It’s all going well until Elaine Robinson, Mrs. Robinson’s daughter and Benjamin’s contemporary, comes home from Berkeley. At the insistence of his parents and her father, who is unaware of the affair, Ben takes her out. But now he has a new problem: he’s starting to fall in love with Elaine.

The Good: Dennis Hoffman is ridiculously awkward as Ben, and it was fun to see William Daniels (without his Bostonian accent!) as Mr. Braddock. But Anne Bancroft and Katharine Ross were the standouts for me. I had only seen Anne Bancroft do comedy before, so it was a revelation to see her as an unhappy, alcoholic predator. And Katharine Ross did wonders with the part of Elaine, a girl in a seemingly impossible situation.

The soundtrack is fabulous. It features several Simon and Garfunkel songs, including “The Sounds of Silence”, “Scarborough Fair/Canticle”, and (of course) “Mrs. Robinson”. Good stuff.

I feel like the cinematography is a standout, too. There are lots of interestingly-composed shots that add to the emotions of moments in the film.

Like Bonnie and Clyde, this movie has an excellent ending. It’s not exactly happy, but it’s not sad, either. It fits the mood and the theme of the movie perfectly.

The Bad: I know that Mrs. Robinson is the villain of the piece, but I wished I had gotten a better sense of her motives. Why was she seducing Benjamin? I understand that she was unhappy, but that didn’t feel like enough of a reason to seduce the son of your husband’s business partner. I would have been better convinced by the movie if I had had more of an understanding of her character.

The Ugly: I get embarrassed for people very easily, and there is a lot to be embarrassed about in this movie. Ben is just so awkward, especially at the beginning of the affair. He is so far out of his depth that it can be hard to watch. I’m pretty sure that that’s what the director was going for, and he definitely succeeded. But man. Sometimes I just want to shake Benjamin and say, “Ben! Stop trying so hard! Also get away from that crazy lady!”

Oscar Won: Best director.

Other Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best actor in a leading role (Dustin Hoffman); best actress in a leading role (Anne Bancroft); best actress in a supporting role (Katharine Ross); best writing, screenplay based on material from another medium; best cinematography.

Category:

Comedy, Drama

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Doctor Dolittle (1967)

doctor dolittleDirected by Richard Fleischer

An actual conversation:

Me: Guess what I watched last night! Doctor Dolittle! The one with Rex Harrison.

My mother (in a horrified voice): WHY?

Me: For my blog. It was nominated for best picture.

My mother: Well, you really took one for the team on that one.

Contrary to the way this conversation makes it sound, Doctor Dolittle is not an evil movie. It is, however, a rather tedious movie in which forty-five minutes’ worth of plot is stretched to fill two and half hours.

So what’s the story? Dr. Dolittle is a kindly country doctor who learns to talk to animals with the help of his parrot, Polynesia. Because he can communicate with animals better than humans, he decides to be a vet instead of a doctor. For reasons not made clear in the movie, he wants to find the Great Pink Sea Snail and talk to it, so after he gets enough money and breaks out of the insane asylum, he goes on a voyage to find it.

The Good: As I watched this movie, I kept thinking what a nightmare it must have been to make. It was the 1960s, so the animals aren’t CGI or puppets, but real live animals. If you count the ducks and the goats and the pigs and the cows and the bears and the ridiculously cute lion cubs and all the other animals, there must be hundreds of animals.  I can’t even imagine trying to orchestrate such a thing. That alone is very impressive.

There was some fun humor. I even laughed out loud a couple of times. I enjoyed the song that Emma sang as she was storming away from meeting Dr. Dolittle for the first time.

I will also admit that Rex Harrison did a good job. Although on the surface the role of Dr. Dolittle is quite similar to that of Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady (a middle-aged linguist who doesn’t get on well with people), he didn’t play the roles the same way. Dr. Dolittle is much kinder and gentler, and it showed in Harrison’s face.

The Bad: There wasn’t much of a story. The movie kind of meandered around various vignettes. There’s the house scene, where we and Stubbins are introduced to the doctor and his many animal friends. There’s the ugly scene between Bellowes and the doctor. There’s the courtroom scene. There’s the breaking out of jail scene. There’s the voyaging scene and the island scene. I remember being amused by the book when I was a child, which makes me think that there was good source material, but the writers couldn’t seem to find a straightforward linear story from it.

Also, the love triangle was…odd. I could see no reason for Emma to fall for Dr. Dolittle, the middle-aged linguist, over Matthew, the charming young Irishman. I don’t care what My Fair Lady teaches us. Attractive young women do not fall in love with middle-aged linguists who don’t get on with people and can’t sing. I don’t buy it.

The Ugly: It was two and one-half hours long. With fourteen mediocre musical numbers. Enough said.

Oscars Won: Best effects, special effects; best music, original song (“Talk to the Animals”).

Other Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best cinematography; best film editing; best sound; best music, original music score; best music, scoring of music, adaptation or treatment; best art direction-set direction.

A Curiosity: Richard Attenborough is in this movie for about as long as Judi Dench is in Shakespeare in Love, but Richard Attenborough sings a song. He got a Golden Globe for best supporting actor for this. I didn’t know he could sing. And I’m not sure that what he did counted as being a supporting actor. I wish I knew how these things are judged.

Category:

Comedy, Historical, Musicals

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