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Posts tagged ‘Small Town’

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

beasts-of-the-southern-wild-posterDirected by Benh Zeitlin

The nice thing about doing this project is that sometimes, I get around to watching movies that I’ve been meaning to watch for a while. Beasts of the Southern Wild is one of those movies. I’ve been wanting to see it since it came out, but I haven’t ever had the time, the desire, and the DVD at the same time. Now that the stars have aligned and I’ve seen the movie, my opinion of it is: huh? I had heard it was a fantasy, so I was expecting something along the lines of Pan’s Labyrinth. It wasn’t like that at all. I liked it, but was left confused (and a little disappointed) when it was over.

So what’s the story? Little Hushpuppy lives with her daddy, Wink, in a poverty-stricken Mississippi River Delta area known as The Bathtub. She loves her community and her daddy, but when the polar ice caps melt, The Bathtub is flooded, ancient animals called aurochs are released from the ice, and Wink becomes desperately ill. Hushpuppy must confront her fears and go on an epic journey to save her daddy.

The Good: The whole time I was watching Beasts of the Southern Wild, a quote from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream kept running through my head: “And though she be but little, she is fierce.” Quvenzhané Wallis was fantastic as Hushpuppy. She had the most determined, ferocious look I have ever seen on a child. I couldn’t believe she was only five when she did that acting. And she didn’t do a good job of acting for a child; she did a good job of acting, period. It was an incredible performance. I can’t get over it.

The soundtrack fits the movie (and Hushpuppy) perfectly. There are moments of dreamy bells that reminded me of childhood fantasies and imagination. There are some great zydeco fiddles and accordions that are reminiscent of the area. It’s very moving and very well-done.

I don’t know the technical term for this, but I really liked the look of the movie. The blending of the fantastical elements with the more realistic elements of the Southern poverty worked really well. It’s not quite set decoration; maybe art direction fits. Whatever you choose to call, it was artfully done.

The Bad: I don’t like the feeling that I don’t know what to make of this movie. I admired Hushpuppy’s ferocity and determination, the love that everyone had for The Bathtub, but I don’t understand how that translates into their need to blow up the levees. I kept thinking that it reminded me of something like The Odyssey, but it wasn’t quite a direct retelling of that story. The lines were extremely blurred between the reality of Hushpuppy’s situation and the fantasies that she created to cope with reality, so it’s hard for me to know what happened and what didn’t. I really don’t like feeling this way about a movie. Maybe I just need to watch it again someday.

The Ugly: I didn’t find anything bad enough about this movie to make it into the ugly category. Beasts of the Southern Wild is very good as a whole. It’s just a confusing good.

Oscars Won: None.

Oscar Nominations: Best motion picture of the year; best performance by an actress in a leading role (Quvenzhané Wallis); best achievement in directing; best writing, adapted screenplay.

Category:

Adventure, Drama, Fantasy

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The Quiet Man (1952)

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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High Noon (1952)

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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In the Bedroom (2001)

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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Johnny Belinda (1948)

johnny-belinda-movie-poster-1948-1020435490Directed by Jean Negulesco

When I was a little girl, my family always had a copy of Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide on hand. This was in the days before IMDb, and we liked to look up people who looked familiar in movies to figure out what other movies they had been in. In the back of the books was a list of the Oscar winners for best picture, actor, actress, and director for every year. Johnny Belinda was on that list because of Jane Wyman’s win, but that was all I knew about the movie before I saw it. I had a vague idea it was about a boxer; I’m not sure why. It most definitely is not. It’s a beautiful and moving story about people in a small town.

So what’s the story? Dr. Robert Richardson is the new doctor in a small fishing village in Nova Scotia. He goes out to the mill to help the mill owner and his sister deliver a calf. There he meets Belinda, the owner’s daughter, who is a deaf-mute. Because she can’t communicate, everyone in town assumes she is mentally incapable, but the doctor recognizes her intelligence and teaches her lip-reading and sign language. Belinda begins to blossom under his tutelage, but when she is raped and becomes pregnant, the town turns on her and the doctor.

The Good: Johnny Belinda was deservedly nominated in all four acting categories. Jane Wyman plays Belinda with sensitivity and tact, never over-acting. It’s a fabulous performance. Lew Ayres is the outsider doctor who ties to a more modern society allow him to help a woman who would have been stuck in her own world for her entire life. Belinda’s father is played by Charles Bickford. He grows from an impatient, rather uncaring father to a man who is proud of his smart, beautiful daughter. Agnes Moorehead, perhaps best known for her role of Endora in Bewitched is Belinda’s aunt Aggie. Aggie isn’t impressed with Belinda’s progress and is unkind to Belinda until Belinda becomes pregnant. At that point, Aggie becomes protective and loving. It’s a quick turnaround, but it’s very realistic. All of those performances were fantastic. And they weren’t the only ones. Stephen McNally is nicely creepy as the cocky Locky McCormick (and yes, his name is Locky, not Lucky; it’s short for Laughlin, apparently), and Jan Sterling plays the vain, pettish Stella perfectly. The whole movie is very well-cast.

The screenplay was also excellent. The story is sad, yes, but there were moments of humor, because that’s life. I loved the part where Dr. Richardson takes Belinda into a bigger city to see a doctor about her deafness. She looks into the window of a store and sees a brassiere for the first time. She has no idea what it is, and asks Dr. Richardson to explain it to her. He has no words for her, and the look on his face is priceless. Moments like that keep the movie from being too depressing. The subject matter is not easy, but the screenplay treats it sensitively. It’s very well done.

The music underscores the movie well. It helps plot Belinda’s moods and her growth as she becomes more a part of her world. The cinematography helped with that, too. Both elements added a lot to the movie.

The Bad: I had a hard time figuring out what time period the movie was set in. The townspeople didn’t look particularly modern, but the doctor’s clothes were completely 1940s. But then I thought about my grandma. She grew up in a small cabin in backwoods Tennessee in the 40s. Her family didn’t have electricity until after World War II. I’m sure her family wasn’t wearing the latest fashions, either. So although it took me awhile, I don’t have a major beef with it. If you’re aware that it’s contemporary to the time that the movie was made, it shouldn’t bother you at all.

The narration at the beginning bothered me, but I can’t think of another way they could have established some of the background without a lot of conversation that would have seemed kind of stilted and pointless, so I guess I can’t really complain.

The Ugly: I have never seen a more obvious stunt dummy than in this movie. I know this movie was made in the 1940s, but still. Real bodies don’t move like that. It makes a high-tension moment a little less dramatic.

Oscar Won: Best actress in a leading role (Jane Wyman).

Other Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best actor in a leading role (Lew Ayres); best actor in a supporting role (Charles Bickford); best actress in a supporting role (Agnes Moorehead); best director; best writing, screenplay; best cinematography, black-and-white; best sound, recording; best film editing; best music, scoring of a dramatic or comedy picture.

Category:

Drama

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