Best celebrity death match ever? I think so. I know I just put up a blog like two days ago, but I had already seen a few of the films for this year since they're actually good. Don't worry: there's still plenty to complain about. But this year also contains yet another of my childhood (or pre-teenhood as it were) favorites and also a film that is now one of my all-time favorites too! America celebrated its 200th birthday by not making me angry. Stay classy, USA.
Just not with this movie, one of the most overrated that I've seen recently: All The President's Men. I'm going to give it faux brownie points for assuming that it's a take-off of "all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty back together again." If not, then it loses one of its only creative aspects. The film gives us such a realistic portrayal of the Watergate investigation that it's really quite boring at times. And I can't imagine it being interesting to people in 1976, all of whom knew about President Nixon's infamous scandal. I've said this before and I'll say it again: illustrating an injustice that everyone already knows about is neither brave nor interesting. It just...is. And they could have at least done something interesting with the filmmaking. The opening of the film and the exact end are done in an interesting fashion, but the other 2 hours and something basically give you the same experience you would have sitting in an editor's office. The Netflix sleeve told me the movie is still shown to journalism students, well good! It'll give them an idea of how tedious their jobs will be. But since when are Troy McClure-esque films worthy of the Academy's recommendation? In addition, the movie has like 11 F-words and it's rated PG! It was initially rated R but they lowered it because it "carries important social significance." Translation: we don't want to negatively influence children unless we're also teaching them something that they could learn from literally any newspaper, radio station, or hobo on the street. Slightly-more-cynical-but-probably-more-accurate-translation: even though everybody already hates Nixon we want to make sure they also hate him at the movies. It's all just one big social statement, which would be fine except the entire movie consists of Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman talking to people on the phone. That's as creative as it gets. Ron Howard's excellent 2008 film Frost/Nixon illustrates many of the same points as this movie while also giving us some interesting insight. I completely endorse and appreciate social/political commentary in film but I think it should be displayed in a thought-provoking fashion and not just as a really long episode of 20/20. On a positive note, the acting is solid and the writing is good. But that's about it. And the AFI added it to their top 100 list just after Deepthroat's identity was brought to light. Hmmm...how interesting. Feebly trying to remain socially relevant AFI? For shame.
Somewhat in the same category, though certainly better, is the movie Bound For Glory. This film deals with a lot of the same issues as one of my most universally despised books: "The Grapes of Wrath." I'd rant about that now but I have to save it for the movie version from the 40s, which I'll probably get to sometime around the alleged Mayan apocalypse. Anyway, the movie illustrates many of the societal problems that occurred during the "dust bowl" period of American history, and at least does so in a comparatively interesting fashion unlike the movie I was just talking about. The film is about a guy, played by David Carradine, who wanders around the American West and finds people who are having trouble while also befriending and helping them...wait a second, isn't that the plot to Kung Fu? I mean, it's based on a true story...so it's more probable that Kung Fu was the television adaptation of Woody Guthrie's life, where he beat people up instead of singing songs with his guitar, and then when the show was canceled they decided to adapt the story more accurately with a film version. That is the indisputable truth on the subject, the foot has spoken. Anyway, if you've heard the song "This Land is Your Land" (or more importantly: the Jib-Jab version) then this is the story of the guy who wrote that song. It's also about that guy if you haven't heard the song. Much like Nixon's movie, this film goes on for too long while essentially making the same point over and over again. But it's long enough after the real-life events that inspired the movie that the initial point-making is at least justified. The story is essentially what I've already described, but the nuances are too varied to list here. They include various ways of portraying how bad it was for many citizens back then, especially citizens who made their living through farming. Woody Guthrie used his gift of singing and song-writing to give a voice to the plight of the common farmer, to the point that he even refused to become consumerized/famous/rich. If that's the way he wanted to live then I guess that's respectable, as long as it was for his own peace of mind and not because he thought it would be unfair to people who couldn't sing or write songs. Because then that's just dumb. And as Quark once said on DS9: "dignity in an empty sack is worth the sack." I jest, but in all seriousness I think it's cool that he lived his life the way he wanted to live it by using his music to bring hope to those that really needed it and not Ivy League college students who would listen to his music and ergo felt they were entitled to say they "recognized with the commoner." As I said, the movie goes on a bit long for what it is but it also has some filmmaking innovations that are difficult to notice today (since they're now in every movie). So I give the director of photography his due credit and I'll say it's a fairly solid movie overall.
A movie that I found to be quite outstanding is Network. What a great film. I felt like I might have written it, if I wasn't -12 at the time. And it was interesting to note how many of the issues raised in the story are still incredibly relevant today. I'm sure I won't do the movie justice by writing about it now, because I've only seen it once and it's fairly layered. But I shall do my best. At its simplest: it's about a TV anchor near the end of his career who is fed up with the system. It's also about the TV station itself as it struggles with low ratings. The whole thing is done in a darkly funny and satirical way, but like most satire it has a deeply serious message. In this case: the tendency of human beings (and especially Americans) to blindly follow things and people they don't fully understand. Howard Beale (played superbly by Peter Finch) delivers his now-famous "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" speech right from the deepest depths of his soul. He was trying to tell everyone that the system was a sham and that they should destroy it before it took over their lives more than it already had. So what did the network do? They made his speech the catchphrase for his new show. They turned a rant against mindless viewership into a vehicle for mindless viewership. That is truly brilliant. Because even when people think they're opposing "The Man" they're really just serving a different "The Man" or possibly even the same one. Which is why my motto isn't "stick it to The Man" but rather "sometimes The Man is too big to be stuck." I recognize the system as ridiculous so I don't let it get to me, but I also have no delusions about changing the entire nation's way of thinking. But to return to the movie: the ending is a bit over-the-top but it fits with the satirical and already slightly over-the-top tone of the film. It can be overly chatty at times but the ideas being spoken are all quite fascinating and important to think about. Roger Ebert said that the film was "like prophecy" and I couldn't agree more. During one of the longer speeches near the end I couldn't help but think of Jersey Shore and the umpteenth amount of Saw sequels. The acting, directing, and writing of the film are all top notch. It's simply a movie that everyone should watch. I'm a big fan of this year's winner, and I understand why it won and I'm glad it won, but this is probably the better film and in another year it might have had a shot. It didn't fade into obscurity though and it's still rightfully listed on many lists as one of the best movies ever, so that's not too shabby.
Another great and somewhat depressing movie is Taxi Driver. Actually, change that to "definitely depressing." I probably should've watched this movie again as I've only seen it once and that was three-and-a-half years ago. I remember because I initially bought and watched it when it was recommended to me by the TA in my Study of Film class (which I may or may not have mentioned before, but it was the best class ever). He described it to me as an "Eastern" because it's essentially a Western in New York City in what was then the modern day. Now here's an example of a film that subtly deals with Vietnam-era America without being preachy. Travis Bickle is a former Marine and a misanthrope who drives a cab and ends up befriending a young prostitute played by Jodie Foster. And as I'm sure you're aware this was the film that "inspired" John Hinckley Jr. to shoot Ronald Reagan. I've always found that to be quite disturbing on many levels. The most disturbing of which is that I could see shooting some Russian higher-ups to get Bond girls to like you, but going after the president for 13-year-old Jodie Foster? Gross. The film also made quite an impact when it came out due to its fairly extreme violence and non-heroic/disturbing protagonist. Because of these things it was one of the pioneer films for anti-heroes. Even though Dirty Harry was the first, and one of the best, he still comes off as fairly heroic. I'll talk about that more in my 1971 write-up. Travis Bickle was a pioneer not for guys like The Punisher and Jack Bauer, but for guys like Vic Mackey and Dexter Morgan (from The Shield and Dexter, respectively). We're talking about guys you cheer for even though you know you really, really shouldn't. Bickle was a man scarred by the war to such an extent that he couldn't connect with other human beings anymore. After forcing himself to view people as things in the war, he couldn't come back from that. And so a young girl that can only be helped (in his mind) by a killing machine was the perfect way for him to feel human again. It's all played as far more disturbing than that, but that's the gist. Here is yet another film that in another year might have netted itself the Oscar. Although I think both it and Network were a little too "out there" to win, I find it interesting that in some ways they're not "out there" enough to win today. Maybe in the 80s...we all know that decade of nominees needed them.
And after all of that build-up we are brought to this year's winner: Rocky. I've seen this movie SO many times because I was quasi-obsessed with the series when I was like 13 or 14. Today people might think of it as the stereotypical sports movie, but it was really the first of its kind in a lot of ways. Basically every sports movie that comes out is still compared to it. And after several years of nominees and winners that were mostly depressing (excellent, but depressing) I think the Academy wanted to restore some hope. And I can respect that, especially since it made the movie much like its titular hero: Rocky Balboa. There's been a lot of interesting analysis about the film in recent years, including that it's representative of the white man trying to rise to prominence in an age dominated by female and minority heroes (in real life, not the movies). This is of course exemplified by the fact that the main "antagonist" of the film is a black man: Apollo Creed. While this is interesting, Stallone wrote this movie over the course of merely a few days and Carl Weathers got the job because Stallone liked his attitude during an audition. So basically all of that analysis is crap. In that it wasn't the intended message, but I do find it interesting. And it's possible that those ideas were in the back of Stallone's mind. It's also possible the producers thought of it. So let's roll with that for a second: during the 60s and 70s there were plenty of people like Rocky who were struggling just as much as anybody but who were also villainized by society because that was when the idea of "the evil white man" was coming into prominence. And so the point of the film, whether you look at it that way or simply as an underdog story (for the record, I just view it as an underdog story but I thought it would be fun to share), is that the man who thought he was worthless proves that he is worth something. Not necessarily that he was the best (not until part 2 anyway) but that he was better than people thought he was. I think that's extraordinary, especially in today's society of: "if I'm not number 1 and if I don't get a nice shiny medal then I'm no good." Rocky sums it all up himself better than I could in the much overlooked and underrated sixth film, Rocky Balboa: "it ain't about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward." And that's a good lesson for anybody. But it's better learned if you just watch the first one, the other ones are more fun than philosophical. Also of note: Burgess Meredith's fantastic performance as Rocky's trainer Mickey and of course the iconic "Gonna Fly Now" music by Bill Conti. If you haven't seen the movie, there's something wrong with you. Seriously.
Isn't the 70s shaping up to be better than the 80s? I am once again correct, not that anyone should be surprised. It'll probably take me a bit longer to crank out 1975 because one of the movies is about 3 hours long and even though it's a Kubrick, Full Metal Jacket taught me that that's not quite as reliable as a Scorsese of Coppola film. But anyway, all I can say about the next year for now is that it'll include more country music, more iconic John Williams music, and the musical tones of Al Pacino firing weaponry.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
1977: The Year that The Neurotic Hypochondriac Beat the Insurrectionary Wookie
I've decided that all of my titles should be turned into really bad 70s and 80s television. Preferably they would all be spin-offs of Happy Days. On a side note, I find it ridiculous that one of those spin-offs is Mork and Mindy. How can a non sci-fi show all of a sudden decide to have an alien storyline just to fuel another show? And did you know the infamous "jump the shark" episode was in season 5 and it went on for another six seasons? Almost all of Joss Whedon's shows get canceled prematurely though. That's not cool. All of this is somewhat relevant because I find these things out when I'm surfing Wikipedia during times when I'm bored watching a nominee for the escapade. And I was driven to this by 3 films from 1977. So yeah, it's gonna be one of those. BUT, there's good stuff as well. Including my aforementioned epitome of childhood. I don't think I used the word "epitome" before but I should have.
But first we have to deal with The Goodbye Girl. If I was one of those "I think I'm snarky and clever but I'm not" reviewers I'd say: "the producers should have said goodbye to this script!" or "viewers should say goodbye to this film!" That's probably because they're trying to be succinct and polite, and I of course believe in being neither of those. Although I do find Richard Dreyfuss' performance to be entertaining, it's not enough to save the film. Because he's playing off of Marsha Mason who is really quite terrible. I often talk about performances being overrated or not being as good as other performances or whatever but she is really, truly bad. Throughout the whole movie I felt like I was watching the screen test for Dreyfuss who was acting wonderfully even against the casting director's terrible intern who would need narcotic assistance to be believable. I looked up some old reviews of the film and apparently many, including Roger Ebert, felt the same way (albeit in a more dignified fashion). However, I also really didn't care for the script too much. The overall plot is your generic "people who hate each other who learn to love each other" drivel, which can be saved by some good dialogue. But I really didn't like the dialogue. At all. Part of this was the delivery, because a lot of humor is only good in the delivery. Most of the lines on modern comedies like The Office and Community aren't that funny on the page but in their delivery they're hilarious. In this case, the lines themselves are cheesy. But humor was different back then, as it was a time when the more "traditional sitcom" flourished. Not that it doesn't still flourish today in terms of ratings, but there are also plenty of non-traditional sitcoms that never would have aired back then. So okay, the lines themselves are cheesy but they can still work with a good delivery. Dreyfuss achieves this some of the time, but even he screws up in the same way Marsha does with basically every line (and I blame the director who I also believe was the writer). And that common screw-up is hard to define but the closest I can define it is: they're waiting for people to laugh. They deliver a snappy and clever line (or they wish it was snappy and clever) and then they stand there with their heads down for a second or two as though waiting for the off-camera A.D. to give them the cue of when to start again. This would be okay on stage, when there is actual laughter, and I'm sure it was less noticeable in a theater where there was actual laughter. But comedies should always have jokes you missed the first time around because you were laughing. That's natural comedy. This script is the type of junk that would come from a formula: "insert joke here. (pause) Put line in that illustrates emotional conflict. (pause for reflection) Justify serious moment with another snappy zinger." I've gone on a bit much with this one, I guess because I just really hate bad comedy. Even more: I hate when people like bad comedy. It's why there were 6 more seasons of the Fonz than there should've been and not nearly enough Arrested Development.
A movie that's bad for a completely different reason is Julia. It's shocking to me how similar Roger Ebert's thoughts on some of these movies are to my own. Does this mean I've seen almost as many films as he has and have ergo gained a similar heavily-critical view on them? It's entirely possible. I hope his viewings came with a social life though, it would've been a lot tougher to spend time alone in the 70s since Instant Watch Netflix didn't exist. Anyway, what he said about the film is that it tries to make it about both women and thus it becomes about neither of them. The two women I'm talking about are the title character Julia (based on a real person) who fought against the Nazis (in an espionage kind of way) and her childhood friend Lillian. Julia's story is interesting, but we only experience it from the non-interesting perspective of Lillian. This could be interesting but the way it's delivered is really sloppy. Plus, Jane Fonda is the non-interesting character and she annoys me enough already. Vanessa Redgrave does a good job as Julia, although I wouldn't say she was in the movie enough to warrant the Oscar she received. Now, a movie about an ordinary woman who fights the Nazis with espionage that stars Vanessa Redgrave in more than 12 minutes of footage? I'd like that movie. A movie where Dashiell Hammett is an uninteresting drunken hippie who's also not in it enough to warrant the Oscar that the actor received, which also features Jane Fonda being her screechy self? That's not particularly good. I'm sure the book was far more interesting, and I also find myself wondering if this was a precursor to Prince of Tides syndrome where they change the story so that the more famous actress gets more screen time. Although I guess in Streisand's case it was: "the bigger producer who sees herself as a big star." So I should've used a different example. From now on I'll use Fonda as the example, so there. The point being that the film could have been interesting, could have been enthralling, and could have even been moving. But instead it's just kind of boring. I like to think that the modern filmmaker would rather use Vanessa Redgrave more, the far superior actress, but since Megan Fox continues to be in movies that don't have titles like "Drilling Miss Daisy" I'd say that maybe Hollywood has remained the same.
And on that note of adult cynicism, let's talk about the reason I love movies: Star Wars. Hell. To. The. Yeah. First off, this is the one and only time I will refer to it in this way and not as Episode IV: A New Hope. I could get into the long saga of why all of that went down the way it did, but the fact remains that when it was nominated it didn't have that part of the title. Anyway, this was the last time that a true sci-fi film was nominated for Best Picture until very recently (literally last year). In many ways it's still the standard that all other sci-fi is held up against, and for good reason. Just yesterday I was reading a retrospective of the first HP movie and how it had a similar task that George Lucas had with this movie. It has to show you a bunch of ridiculous nonsense and make you say, "I buy that" and then "I buy that and it is awesome." If this was any other movie, I'd probably complain about some of the acting. But what people fail to realize about all six films in the saga is that they're not about the acting or the dialogue. Much like the old movie serials on which they are based, it's all about the scope. The sweeping musical score (John Williams' best, which was rightfully called the greatest film music of all time by the AFI. The one time we've agreed), the operatic quality of the battles, and the envelopment of the story itself. Although the films are not devoid of interesting moral, political, and religious issues that I won't get into (because I wouldn't stop typing for 20 paragraphs or so) they largely function as being straight-up enjoyable for people of all ages. And there's something wonderful about that. Because filmmaking itself doesn't always have to be about being artsy or thought-provoking, sometimes we recognize a filmmaker's talent for bringing a world to life and transporting the audience to another realm for a mere few hours. Not many directors or writers have actually achieved this (for me it's really just Lucas, Peter Jackson, and the creators of Lost) but when they do it is magical. I won't even bother describing the plot because if you haven't seen it then there is something missing from your life. Although interestingly: George Lucas, and myself, put this film at the bottom of the saga in many ways. Not because it's bad, it's fantastic, but because once you know the world then the first half-hour of introducing the world isn't as meaningful. The film also introduces Darth Vader, who some may recall was my top-ranked villain of all time, and though his true emotional impact on the story comes in later movies there is simply no comparison to his "I find your lack of faith: disturbing" scene. Films like this never win any of the big awards of course, but that's okay. George Lucas hates Hollywood anyway. I could also go on about his business genius but I won't. I simply love the series too much, and thus have too much to say about it. So I'll just end by saying that perhaps the Academy was a lot better back then. A lot of the movies I personally dislike were popular at the time, so I respect them for nominating films that people had actually seen. And even though Lucas' space opera never stood a chance at winning, at least they didn't totally snub him like they recently did with Nolan (and will probably do again this year). And even the AFI knows some of the greatest music ever written when they hear it.
I considered just writing about George Lucas' whole saga for this entire blog entry and then summing up the other 3 non-winners with "they weren't very good" but I decided against it, and so I shall talk about The Turning Point. I figure that if I start cutting corners then soon I'll stop watching the films in their entirety and then that means that the time I've spent watching a lot of it was time wasted. And I hate wastes of time. So I'd rather waste another 50 years worth of time on some more movies I might not like, just in the off chance that some of them are excellent (which some will be) and so I can say that I did. This film is probably one I'll have trouble recalling things about in the weeks to come (or possibly even hours) but not because it's bad just because I don't find it personally interesting. Something interesting that I've neglected to mention before is that all of a person's life experiences alter how they view films. And they can't really view them any other way. That's why you can tell a lot about a person based on what they watch, and especially what they re-watch. There are likely many films I've reviewed that I saw as bad because I couldn't see them any other way. Someone else might have had different experiences which would cause them to like it. There are, of course, exceptions on both sides because no one should like Gigli and everyone should like Iron Man. But, after all of that blathering, this particular movie fits into the category of "well-done but not compelling for me." I empathize with a lot of the themes of the film: missing out on one's true potential, being sabotaged not by bad decisions but by life itself, etc. Because most people can recognize with those issues, but the overall pull of the movie is kind of a mid-life crisis thing with an added element of vicariously living through one's children. As 22 hasn't been "mid-life" since the 1800s and I certainly don't have any kids, I really can't fully become emotionally attached to this movie. Also, I'm not a female. Just saying. But its storyline of the ballerina who missed out on her big break when she became pregnant is well-delivered, well-acted, and contains some great classical music. I'm not a big ballet person, as I probably proved by not knowing a more dignified word than "ballerina." By comparison it's probably like the feeling I get when people call a graphic novel a comic book (Archie is a comic book, "The Dark Knight Returns" is novel-quality fiction with pictures). But I don't know any better in this instance. One thing that did annoy me about the film is that before a lot of the ballet performances the credits for the classical piece were put up on the screen. If they had projected it on the back wall of the stage, thus making the credits exist in the movie, that wouldn't have taken the viewer out quite as much and would've achieved the same goal (which was probably legally-based). And who knows? Maybe the filmmakers wanted to do that but couldn't. Anyway, I'd recommend any moms with daughters to watch the film and I guess any moms in general. For me: it was meh. But I still respect what they accomplished.
On the complete flip-side of things, this year's winner hits a little bit too close to home: Annie Hall. Comedies rarely win, and only one since then has won, Shakespeare in Love, and I wouldn't consider it a real comedy anyway. If Woody Allen was dead, I'd think I was the reincarnation of him. As he is not, I think we were both cursed by the same shaman. Because his misadventures with women, social gatherings, and life in general are all too familiar. I mean, not really. I can't say as I've ever embarrassed my girlfriend by sneezing into cocaine (I know, I know. I haven't truly lived). And in reality, Woody Allen's misadventures dwarf everyone else's. That's why people like him: you feel a lot better about your life when his movie is over. This is easily his masterpiece. Its narrative style in particular is outstanding. It has a "stream of consciousness" style that makes it so grounded and real because it evokes memory itself. He's reflecting on things that happened to him and showing it to us in ways that we remember our own lives. So everything feels so real even though it's totally over-the-top. But isn't life over-the-top a lot? Mine is. And the beginning of the movie focuses on Woody talking about how everyone in his grade school classes annoyed him because he felt he was ahead of them in many ways. As this closely mirrors the beginning of my forthcoming autobiography, I'd like to go on the record and say that you can check when my Word document was created and my Netflix history to see that I did, in fact, start the book before I saw the movie. I'm sure Woody would enjoy and empathize with my book enough that he'd ignore the similarities anyway. And then endorse the book and make it huge. Note to self: create more parallels to Annie Hall in memoirs. Anyway, want to hear what actually snappy dialogue sounds like? Watch this movie. It was SO ahead of its time in the way that it structures its comedy. Along with Mel Brooks, he really ushered in the era of modern comedy. I'm not kidding when I say that Young Frankenstein should have won for Screenplay and been nominated for Picture, it is truly brilliant. And whereas Brooks usually spoofs and references things, Allen basically makes movies that can be viewed as behind-the-scenes footage of his stand-up routines. I usually dislike when comedies are nominated, because they're usually no good. If more comedies were like this then not only would I endorse their nomination, but their wins as well (depending on what they're up against of course). By means of a plot: neurotic guy seems charming to woman, woman finds his neurotic nature annoying after a while, and they break up. The story is largely irrelevant, because it's Allen's views on what happens and the mini-vignettes that make the movie. The part where Allen is in line for a movie while standing nearby an obnoxiously loud movie-goer was especially great, and it illustrates why I usually wait for the DVD nowadays.
Way back in the 7th grade I got all mad when I found out that some comedy beat out one of my personal favorites for Best Picture. But now I understand why, and I also recognize that some movies are better when they exist outside of the Academy. It makes them cooler in the same way that minor forms of rebellion are cool in a "it's cliché and stupid to rebel against the establishment but everyone still likes it anyway even if they don't admit it" kind of way. And what's this? Next year is even better? Not in the sense that it epitomizes my childhood, but it might epitomize my pre-teen years. I haven't quite finished it yet but I know it will include the precursor to the Internet meme, superfluous social commentary, and the little-seen and much-overlooked foil to the Western: the "Eastern."
But first we have to deal with The Goodbye Girl. If I was one of those "I think I'm snarky and clever but I'm not" reviewers I'd say: "the producers should have said goodbye to this script!" or "viewers should say goodbye to this film!" That's probably because they're trying to be succinct and polite, and I of course believe in being neither of those. Although I do find Richard Dreyfuss' performance to be entertaining, it's not enough to save the film. Because he's playing off of Marsha Mason who is really quite terrible. I often talk about performances being overrated or not being as good as other performances or whatever but she is really, truly bad. Throughout the whole movie I felt like I was watching the screen test for Dreyfuss who was acting wonderfully even against the casting director's terrible intern who would need narcotic assistance to be believable. I looked up some old reviews of the film and apparently many, including Roger Ebert, felt the same way (albeit in a more dignified fashion). However, I also really didn't care for the script too much. The overall plot is your generic "people who hate each other who learn to love each other" drivel, which can be saved by some good dialogue. But I really didn't like the dialogue. At all. Part of this was the delivery, because a lot of humor is only good in the delivery. Most of the lines on modern comedies like The Office and Community aren't that funny on the page but in their delivery they're hilarious. In this case, the lines themselves are cheesy. But humor was different back then, as it was a time when the more "traditional sitcom" flourished. Not that it doesn't still flourish today in terms of ratings, but there are also plenty of non-traditional sitcoms that never would have aired back then. So okay, the lines themselves are cheesy but they can still work with a good delivery. Dreyfuss achieves this some of the time, but even he screws up in the same way Marsha does with basically every line (and I blame the director who I also believe was the writer). And that common screw-up is hard to define but the closest I can define it is: they're waiting for people to laugh. They deliver a snappy and clever line (or they wish it was snappy and clever) and then they stand there with their heads down for a second or two as though waiting for the off-camera A.D. to give them the cue of when to start again. This would be okay on stage, when there is actual laughter, and I'm sure it was less noticeable in a theater where there was actual laughter. But comedies should always have jokes you missed the first time around because you were laughing. That's natural comedy. This script is the type of junk that would come from a formula: "insert joke here. (pause) Put line in that illustrates emotional conflict. (pause for reflection) Justify serious moment with another snappy zinger." I've gone on a bit much with this one, I guess because I just really hate bad comedy. Even more: I hate when people like bad comedy. It's why there were 6 more seasons of the Fonz than there should've been and not nearly enough Arrested Development.
A movie that's bad for a completely different reason is Julia. It's shocking to me how similar Roger Ebert's thoughts on some of these movies are to my own. Does this mean I've seen almost as many films as he has and have ergo gained a similar heavily-critical view on them? It's entirely possible. I hope his viewings came with a social life though, it would've been a lot tougher to spend time alone in the 70s since Instant Watch Netflix didn't exist. Anyway, what he said about the film is that it tries to make it about both women and thus it becomes about neither of them. The two women I'm talking about are the title character Julia (based on a real person) who fought against the Nazis (in an espionage kind of way) and her childhood friend Lillian. Julia's story is interesting, but we only experience it from the non-interesting perspective of Lillian. This could be interesting but the way it's delivered is really sloppy. Plus, Jane Fonda is the non-interesting character and she annoys me enough already. Vanessa Redgrave does a good job as Julia, although I wouldn't say she was in the movie enough to warrant the Oscar she received. Now, a movie about an ordinary woman who fights the Nazis with espionage that stars Vanessa Redgrave in more than 12 minutes of footage? I'd like that movie. A movie where Dashiell Hammett is an uninteresting drunken hippie who's also not in it enough to warrant the Oscar that the actor received, which also features Jane Fonda being her screechy self? That's not particularly good. I'm sure the book was far more interesting, and I also find myself wondering if this was a precursor to Prince of Tides syndrome where they change the story so that the more famous actress gets more screen time. Although I guess in Streisand's case it was: "the bigger producer who sees herself as a big star." So I should've used a different example. From now on I'll use Fonda as the example, so there. The point being that the film could have been interesting, could have been enthralling, and could have even been moving. But instead it's just kind of boring. I like to think that the modern filmmaker would rather use Vanessa Redgrave more, the far superior actress, but since Megan Fox continues to be in movies that don't have titles like "Drilling Miss Daisy" I'd say that maybe Hollywood has remained the same.
And on that note of adult cynicism, let's talk about the reason I love movies: Star Wars. Hell. To. The. Yeah. First off, this is the one and only time I will refer to it in this way and not as Episode IV: A New Hope. I could get into the long saga of why all of that went down the way it did, but the fact remains that when it was nominated it didn't have that part of the title. Anyway, this was the last time that a true sci-fi film was nominated for Best Picture until very recently (literally last year). In many ways it's still the standard that all other sci-fi is held up against, and for good reason. Just yesterday I was reading a retrospective of the first HP movie and how it had a similar task that George Lucas had with this movie. It has to show you a bunch of ridiculous nonsense and make you say, "I buy that" and then "I buy that and it is awesome." If this was any other movie, I'd probably complain about some of the acting. But what people fail to realize about all six films in the saga is that they're not about the acting or the dialogue. Much like the old movie serials on which they are based, it's all about the scope. The sweeping musical score (John Williams' best, which was rightfully called the greatest film music of all time by the AFI. The one time we've agreed), the operatic quality of the battles, and the envelopment of the story itself. Although the films are not devoid of interesting moral, political, and religious issues that I won't get into (because I wouldn't stop typing for 20 paragraphs or so) they largely function as being straight-up enjoyable for people of all ages. And there's something wonderful about that. Because filmmaking itself doesn't always have to be about being artsy or thought-provoking, sometimes we recognize a filmmaker's talent for bringing a world to life and transporting the audience to another realm for a mere few hours. Not many directors or writers have actually achieved this (for me it's really just Lucas, Peter Jackson, and the creators of Lost) but when they do it is magical. I won't even bother describing the plot because if you haven't seen it then there is something missing from your life. Although interestingly: George Lucas, and myself, put this film at the bottom of the saga in many ways. Not because it's bad, it's fantastic, but because once you know the world then the first half-hour of introducing the world isn't as meaningful. The film also introduces Darth Vader, who some may recall was my top-ranked villain of all time, and though his true emotional impact on the story comes in later movies there is simply no comparison to his "I find your lack of faith: disturbing" scene. Films like this never win any of the big awards of course, but that's okay. George Lucas hates Hollywood anyway. I could also go on about his business genius but I won't. I simply love the series too much, and thus have too much to say about it. So I'll just end by saying that perhaps the Academy was a lot better back then. A lot of the movies I personally dislike were popular at the time, so I respect them for nominating films that people had actually seen. And even though Lucas' space opera never stood a chance at winning, at least they didn't totally snub him like they recently did with Nolan (and will probably do again this year). And even the AFI knows some of the greatest music ever written when they hear it.
I considered just writing about George Lucas' whole saga for this entire blog entry and then summing up the other 3 non-winners with "they weren't very good" but I decided against it, and so I shall talk about The Turning Point. I figure that if I start cutting corners then soon I'll stop watching the films in their entirety and then that means that the time I've spent watching a lot of it was time wasted. And I hate wastes of time. So I'd rather waste another 50 years worth of time on some more movies I might not like, just in the off chance that some of them are excellent (which some will be) and so I can say that I did. This film is probably one I'll have trouble recalling things about in the weeks to come (or possibly even hours) but not because it's bad just because I don't find it personally interesting. Something interesting that I've neglected to mention before is that all of a person's life experiences alter how they view films. And they can't really view them any other way. That's why you can tell a lot about a person based on what they watch, and especially what they re-watch. There are likely many films I've reviewed that I saw as bad because I couldn't see them any other way. Someone else might have had different experiences which would cause them to like it. There are, of course, exceptions on both sides because no one should like Gigli and everyone should like Iron Man. But, after all of that blathering, this particular movie fits into the category of "well-done but not compelling for me." I empathize with a lot of the themes of the film: missing out on one's true potential, being sabotaged not by bad decisions but by life itself, etc. Because most people can recognize with those issues, but the overall pull of the movie is kind of a mid-life crisis thing with an added element of vicariously living through one's children. As 22 hasn't been "mid-life" since the 1800s and I certainly don't have any kids, I really can't fully become emotionally attached to this movie. Also, I'm not a female. Just saying. But its storyline of the ballerina who missed out on her big break when she became pregnant is well-delivered, well-acted, and contains some great classical music. I'm not a big ballet person, as I probably proved by not knowing a more dignified word than "ballerina." By comparison it's probably like the feeling I get when people call a graphic novel a comic book (Archie is a comic book, "The Dark Knight Returns" is novel-quality fiction with pictures). But I don't know any better in this instance. One thing that did annoy me about the film is that before a lot of the ballet performances the credits for the classical piece were put up on the screen. If they had projected it on the back wall of the stage, thus making the credits exist in the movie, that wouldn't have taken the viewer out quite as much and would've achieved the same goal (which was probably legally-based). And who knows? Maybe the filmmakers wanted to do that but couldn't. Anyway, I'd recommend any moms with daughters to watch the film and I guess any moms in general. For me: it was meh. But I still respect what they accomplished.
On the complete flip-side of things, this year's winner hits a little bit too close to home: Annie Hall. Comedies rarely win, and only one since then has won, Shakespeare in Love, and I wouldn't consider it a real comedy anyway. If Woody Allen was dead, I'd think I was the reincarnation of him. As he is not, I think we were both cursed by the same shaman. Because his misadventures with women, social gatherings, and life in general are all too familiar. I mean, not really. I can't say as I've ever embarrassed my girlfriend by sneezing into cocaine (I know, I know. I haven't truly lived). And in reality, Woody Allen's misadventures dwarf everyone else's. That's why people like him: you feel a lot better about your life when his movie is over. This is easily his masterpiece. Its narrative style in particular is outstanding. It has a "stream of consciousness" style that makes it so grounded and real because it evokes memory itself. He's reflecting on things that happened to him and showing it to us in ways that we remember our own lives. So everything feels so real even though it's totally over-the-top. But isn't life over-the-top a lot? Mine is. And the beginning of the movie focuses on Woody talking about how everyone in his grade school classes annoyed him because he felt he was ahead of them in many ways. As this closely mirrors the beginning of my forthcoming autobiography, I'd like to go on the record and say that you can check when my Word document was created and my Netflix history to see that I did, in fact, start the book before I saw the movie. I'm sure Woody would enjoy and empathize with my book enough that he'd ignore the similarities anyway. And then endorse the book and make it huge. Note to self: create more parallels to Annie Hall in memoirs. Anyway, want to hear what actually snappy dialogue sounds like? Watch this movie. It was SO ahead of its time in the way that it structures its comedy. Along with Mel Brooks, he really ushered in the era of modern comedy. I'm not kidding when I say that Young Frankenstein should have won for Screenplay and been nominated for Picture, it is truly brilliant. And whereas Brooks usually spoofs and references things, Allen basically makes movies that can be viewed as behind-the-scenes footage of his stand-up routines. I usually dislike when comedies are nominated, because they're usually no good. If more comedies were like this then not only would I endorse their nomination, but their wins as well (depending on what they're up against of course). By means of a plot: neurotic guy seems charming to woman, woman finds his neurotic nature annoying after a while, and they break up. The story is largely irrelevant, because it's Allen's views on what happens and the mini-vignettes that make the movie. The part where Allen is in line for a movie while standing nearby an obnoxiously loud movie-goer was especially great, and it illustrates why I usually wait for the DVD nowadays.
Way back in the 7th grade I got all mad when I found out that some comedy beat out one of my personal favorites for Best Picture. But now I understand why, and I also recognize that some movies are better when they exist outside of the Academy. It makes them cooler in the same way that minor forms of rebellion are cool in a "it's cliché and stupid to rebel against the establishment but everyone still likes it anyway even if they don't admit it" kind of way. And what's this? Next year is even better? Not in the sense that it epitomizes my childhood, but it might epitomize my pre-teen years. I haven't quite finished it yet but I know it will include the precursor to the Internet meme, superfluous social commentary, and the little-seen and much-overlooked foil to the Western: the "Eastern."
Friday, November 12, 2010
1978: The Year that My Criticism Was Poorly Timed and Oliver Stone Was Reverse-Upstaged
My title will be explained eventually, let's just say I'll be trodding some sensitive grounds due to recent events. Intrigued yet? It's really not that interesting, but I haven't decided yet whether I'll be taking the blatant Family Guy route or if I'm going to tiptoe through the tulips at the risk of not sharing my true opinion. Either way, my apologies for taking so long to crank out this blog. I realized that unemployment is a lot less depressing when you're teaming up with anthropomorphized animal polygons to fight a bunch of Disney villains on the PS2. Which is my long-winded and slightly douchey way of saying, "I've been playing video games and not watching Oscar nominees." But now I'm back, and so we shall get to it. Except that I should also mention that in my last post I mentioned the book that inspired my blog title! Holy crap! I love in books when the book title shows up. Okay, I'm done now.
This first movie turned out to be better and less whiny than I expected: Coming Home. Since it's about a Vietnam vet who loses the ability to walk and has to return home to be treated like crap, I was expecting the usual fare. I was expecting more of a Born on the Fourth of July type thing, which as you may recall from my 1989 post: I did not like. It's also based on the same book, so it's funny that in the Oliver Stone version the vet is consumed with protesting loudly and comparing dead baby counts and in this movie he becomes a quiet romantic. So...which one actually happened? Was it the "I had a passionate love scene with Jane Fonda and then became a better person" version or the "I had a shouting match with Willem Dafoe and disgraced the music of John Williams" version? I prefer the first, but not because of the Jane Fonda part. I find her annoying. But Jon Voight is oddly compelling in this film. He manages to show the audience the pain that was felt by many of our Vietnam vets without being too blatant or preachy about it and then he shows us a truly human side as well. Here I was expecting to write in my blog: "well this film teaches us that if you treat your nurse like crap then she'll eventually love you" as the newest installment in my continuing frustrations with sadly accurate film romances that involve a jerk and a perfectly nice woman. Thankfully, this didn't go that route. Voight's character shows some real warmth and in the few scenes in the movie where he is protesting, he doesn't go in the Cruise/Stone direction by saying: "here's a logical argument, I am in a wheelchair and should ergo be heard." Instead, Voight comes across as very soft-spoken and opposes the war from a human point of view instead of a political one. This engages the viewer instead of polarizing them. Don't let my optimism fool you, aside from Voight's performance this movie is fairly ordinary. But since it's better than the other movies of its type that I've seen, I give it credit. And anytime Oliver Stone gets upstaged, it's a good time. Of course, this movie came out 11 years before his version and so he's only upstaged when you watch them the way I have been watching them...hence yet another invented phrase of mine: "reverse upstaged." I wish I had come up with it sooner.
This next movie can only be described as "cute:" Heaven Can Wait. I guess in a year of 2 dreary Vietnam movies and a brutal prison escape movie, maybe they wanted to lighten things up a bit with a fun comedy. And this movie is definitely fun. Literally nothing more than that. It's about a football player who dies before his time and is thus sent back in another man's body. I think I laughed out loud a grand total of about 2 times during the whole movie, but it was still enjoyable. And it's predictable with the love story and the football aspect of course remains relevant and yadda yadda. Even on the level of charming comedy film it still could've done a few things a bit better, such as showing us a bit more often the actual body that he was inhabiting. Because we just see him as Warren Beatty the whole time (if they showed the old guy whose body he ended up in, they didn't do it enough because I don't remember seeing it). And why is it important to do this? Because it helps us connect with some of the more absurd concepts: the old guy is married to a way younger woman, the old guy becomes a quarterback, etc. The first one would be especially important to establish because the older the guy is the funnier the relationship is. Having seen ye olde "body switch" episode on basically every sci-fi show ever, I know it's important to keep reinforcing the whole idea (such as seeing an old guy in the mirror as Warren Beatty stands before it). Plus, who doesn't love a good sight gag? My point is this: I wouldn't nitpick about stuff like that with a movie of this type, but when it's nominated for Best Picture then it better pull off ye olde body switch better than at least most movies/shows. It better revolutionize the gimmick. Know what's wrong with Bruce Almighty? Nothing that really comes to mind, it's pretty funny and has a surprising amount of heart. Know what would be wrong with it if for unknown reasons it was nominated for Best Picture? Many, many things. Everything is different when viewed through an Oscar lens, and I hope that also explains some of my many tirades. Anyway, as I said, this movie is cute and I enjoyed it but that's about all.
And speaking of Oliver Stone, he wrote this next movie: Midnight Express. I know I wasn't actually just speaking about him but a paragraph back is a small enough distance to warrant me saying that right? I think so. I had mixed feelings about this movie, but instead of the usual mixed feelings phenomenon of "I love aspects of it and hate others" (like Avatar) it was more of an "I somewhat neutrally dislike aspects of this film and mildly appreciate other aspects of it" (like...Mexican food?). Actually, the only aspect I dislike is the main character. Although you grow to like him as the movie progresses, and I give the actor credit for that, in the beginning he's a schmuck. Because anybody who tries to smuggle drugs into a country like Turkey is a moron. There are plenty of illegal activities you can do in the United States if that's your thing. But there are a lot of countries in the Middle East where they do terrible terrible things to drug runners. And why was he running the drugs? For the money. And the money is for...what now? No idea. New car I guess. It's based on a true story so I hope in real life his dog needed an experimental back surgery and the only way he could pay for the surgery was with copious amounts of unmarked bills. That, coupled with the fact that it was written by Oliver Stone, led me to think that maybe it was going to be a "we're almost as bad as that country and we should make all drugs legal" thing. If someone wants to make a movie exploring the pros and cons of various drug arguments, fine. But using a man's personal story? That's bad. So it's thankful that that's not what the film ended up doing. Instead, we see a frat boy turn into a better man by realizing all of the things he was missing. So this made his lackluster decision to smuggle drugs more plausible and more interesting. He was one of those "I'm bored so I break the rules" type guys who then became a better man in prison. Moral of the story: don't be a douche and you can avoid being beaten, stabbed, and attempted-raped in prison. It was also good to see John Hurt as always, even in a supporting role, and the other roles were solid as well. Overall, the film was well-done but not overly fantastic. It beats pretty much most of the 80s nominees, but the 70s seems to be a whole new playing field and the bar has been raised.
And now, here comes some possible controversy with: An Unmarried Woman. I was all set to rant and rave about this movie. But sadly, the female lead in the movie died last week. And in case you're having trouble interpreting my often sarcastic writing style, I am saying that it's sad that she died and not that my rant was ruined. There will be other rants, other movies. It sounds like she was a down-to-Earth actress who people enjoyed working with. I haven't seen any of her other work, but her performance in this movie is solid and quite honestly (not just saying this because she died) I think its faults are with the writing and not her performance. She played the character well but the character was annoying. This was yet another in a string of 70s films that went along with the sexual revolution, but here's something I find amusing: why are they all written by men? All of these movies have the same claim to fame: portraying women in an empowering way. So why would a man know anything about an empowered woman? All they basically do is write male characters and give them breasts. In this movie the woman's husband cheats on her and so she leaves him and then tries to have some random loveless hookups with random guys, ends up falling for one of them, so on and so forth. She ends up not being with him for whatever superfluous melodramatic reason that I forget. But allow me to outline the plot if it had a male lead: dude's wife cheats on him and he becomes a notorious Casanova. He's a lovable rogue but ultimately a jerk since he objectifies women (so they can't hurt him) until he meets the woman that gives the crap right back to him and ultimately shows him that it's okay to love and blah blah blah. I know what you're thinking: "but Domenic, didn't you just say that they wrote a male character with breasts? So wouldn't what you just described be the same as this movie's plot?" Nope! And here's why: audiences wouldn't want a movie with a lovable female rogue because women would say she's a tramp and men would find her intimidating. Instead, this movie has a female lead that basically bumbles through her various romantic encounters. That way, women can laugh at her and say "haha I've been there!" or "what a klutz!" and men can say "boy, I'm not threatened at all by her and I am in no way emasculated as I view this film!" Isn't the study of culture grand? Well anyway, since I had to talk about societal things that I find interesting which only somewhat apply to the film, that will tell you that there's not much there. And like most movies of its type, it's a bit too long. But Jill Clayburgh: she seemed like a nice lady and a solid actress. I'll have to check out more of her work, and not just so I'll feel less guilty about bashing her movie.
And this brings us to this year's excellent winner: The Deer Hunter. I saw this several years ago, but it stuck with me so much that I felt I didn't have to view it again. That's a good thing. Also, it's like 3 hours long and even I won't sit through that much movie again unless I feel I need to in order to pick up on something I missed. Remember when I said that Apocalypse Now was the best Vietnam movie because it was more of a humanity movie? Well this is a straight-up Vietnam movie and in that category there is no better film. Because it doesn't exist solely to say that the war was bad. Everyone already knows that anyway, and even if they didn't you can pick that up from the movie. The characters are the focal point of the film and that's the way it should be. DeNiro and Walken lead the excellent ensemble cast and Meryl Streep is there too in an early role of hers that is way less annoying than usual. The film centers around several friends who all go off to fight in Vietnam and how their lives change because of the war. And though the film is long, it portions its sections so well. It roughly evens out to: the first hour is spent getting to know the characters how they were, the second hour is Vietnam, and the third hour is seeing how the characters changed. Remember that LXG/On Golden Pond moment I mentioned in 1981? And yes, I realize I'm the first and last person to pair those movies together. Well as my mother quite accurately pointed out to me: another excellent example of that dynamic comes in the most important scene in this film. Early in the film, we see DeNiro hunting deer in a fairly nonchalant manner (get it? That's where the film title is from!). But then during the big scene, he can't bring himself to kill a deer because the war has changed him. And oddly enough, it was for the better. He grew to appreciate life after his harrowing experiences and who was he to take away the life of an innocent creature when he himself had been spared? Sadly, Christopher Walken goes the other way after the war. In the beginning he was a happy patriot giggling in the happy aftermath of a wedding with friends (I believe it was his wedding but I forget, and I didn't feel like just rewatching that part). The point is that by the time it's the end of the movie, with the famous Russian Roulette scene, we see quite plainly the terrible personal costs of the war. Quite honestly, and Apocalypse Now was already filming when this was released so it doesn't count, no one should have made a Vietnam movie after this movie came out. Because it did everything so well. It got its point across without being too blatant and it beautifully told a very personal story with relatable characters. It didn't whine, but it made the same points that Oliver Stone feebly tries to get across. Why Jon Voight's movie also got nominated in the same year I have no idea, because even though it was pretty good it's got nothing on this movie. So watch it on a day when you have 3 hours to spare and you feel like your life sucks, because you will probably end up feeling better about your life by comparison.
Well that's it for this year, which even though it took me a while to finish up I really quite enjoyed. I have already seen every other winner for this decade, because they're all really good and one of them is the greatest film of all time, so I hope that the nominees that I haven't seen are also of high quality. All I know for now is that the next installment will include: classic neuroticism, nazism...umm...and on a more positive note: LITERALLY THE EXEMPLIFICATION OF MY CHILDHOOD AND A BIG PART OF WHY I LOVE MOVIES AS MUCH AS I DO. So yeah you'll want to be here for that.
This first movie turned out to be better and less whiny than I expected: Coming Home. Since it's about a Vietnam vet who loses the ability to walk and has to return home to be treated like crap, I was expecting the usual fare. I was expecting more of a Born on the Fourth of July type thing, which as you may recall from my 1989 post: I did not like. It's also based on the same book, so it's funny that in the Oliver Stone version the vet is consumed with protesting loudly and comparing dead baby counts and in this movie he becomes a quiet romantic. So...which one actually happened? Was it the "I had a passionate love scene with Jane Fonda and then became a better person" version or the "I had a shouting match with Willem Dafoe and disgraced the music of John Williams" version? I prefer the first, but not because of the Jane Fonda part. I find her annoying. But Jon Voight is oddly compelling in this film. He manages to show the audience the pain that was felt by many of our Vietnam vets without being too blatant or preachy about it and then he shows us a truly human side as well. Here I was expecting to write in my blog: "well this film teaches us that if you treat your nurse like crap then she'll eventually love you" as the newest installment in my continuing frustrations with sadly accurate film romances that involve a jerk and a perfectly nice woman. Thankfully, this didn't go that route. Voight's character shows some real warmth and in the few scenes in the movie where he is protesting, he doesn't go in the Cruise/Stone direction by saying: "here's a logical argument, I am in a wheelchair and should ergo be heard." Instead, Voight comes across as very soft-spoken and opposes the war from a human point of view instead of a political one. This engages the viewer instead of polarizing them. Don't let my optimism fool you, aside from Voight's performance this movie is fairly ordinary. But since it's better than the other movies of its type that I've seen, I give it credit. And anytime Oliver Stone gets upstaged, it's a good time. Of course, this movie came out 11 years before his version and so he's only upstaged when you watch them the way I have been watching them...hence yet another invented phrase of mine: "reverse upstaged." I wish I had come up with it sooner.
This next movie can only be described as "cute:" Heaven Can Wait. I guess in a year of 2 dreary Vietnam movies and a brutal prison escape movie, maybe they wanted to lighten things up a bit with a fun comedy. And this movie is definitely fun. Literally nothing more than that. It's about a football player who dies before his time and is thus sent back in another man's body. I think I laughed out loud a grand total of about 2 times during the whole movie, but it was still enjoyable. And it's predictable with the love story and the football aspect of course remains relevant and yadda yadda. Even on the level of charming comedy film it still could've done a few things a bit better, such as showing us a bit more often the actual body that he was inhabiting. Because we just see him as Warren Beatty the whole time (if they showed the old guy whose body he ended up in, they didn't do it enough because I don't remember seeing it). And why is it important to do this? Because it helps us connect with some of the more absurd concepts: the old guy is married to a way younger woman, the old guy becomes a quarterback, etc. The first one would be especially important to establish because the older the guy is the funnier the relationship is. Having seen ye olde "body switch" episode on basically every sci-fi show ever, I know it's important to keep reinforcing the whole idea (such as seeing an old guy in the mirror as Warren Beatty stands before it). Plus, who doesn't love a good sight gag? My point is this: I wouldn't nitpick about stuff like that with a movie of this type, but when it's nominated for Best Picture then it better pull off ye olde body switch better than at least most movies/shows. It better revolutionize the gimmick. Know what's wrong with Bruce Almighty? Nothing that really comes to mind, it's pretty funny and has a surprising amount of heart. Know what would be wrong with it if for unknown reasons it was nominated for Best Picture? Many, many things. Everything is different when viewed through an Oscar lens, and I hope that also explains some of my many tirades. Anyway, as I said, this movie is cute and I enjoyed it but that's about all.
And speaking of Oliver Stone, he wrote this next movie: Midnight Express. I know I wasn't actually just speaking about him but a paragraph back is a small enough distance to warrant me saying that right? I think so. I had mixed feelings about this movie, but instead of the usual mixed feelings phenomenon of "I love aspects of it and hate others" (like Avatar) it was more of an "I somewhat neutrally dislike aspects of this film and mildly appreciate other aspects of it" (like...Mexican food?). Actually, the only aspect I dislike is the main character. Although you grow to like him as the movie progresses, and I give the actor credit for that, in the beginning he's a schmuck. Because anybody who tries to smuggle drugs into a country like Turkey is a moron. There are plenty of illegal activities you can do in the United States if that's your thing. But there are a lot of countries in the Middle East where they do terrible terrible things to drug runners. And why was he running the drugs? For the money. And the money is for...what now? No idea. New car I guess. It's based on a true story so I hope in real life his dog needed an experimental back surgery and the only way he could pay for the surgery was with copious amounts of unmarked bills. That, coupled with the fact that it was written by Oliver Stone, led me to think that maybe it was going to be a "we're almost as bad as that country and we should make all drugs legal" thing. If someone wants to make a movie exploring the pros and cons of various drug arguments, fine. But using a man's personal story? That's bad. So it's thankful that that's not what the film ended up doing. Instead, we see a frat boy turn into a better man by realizing all of the things he was missing. So this made his lackluster decision to smuggle drugs more plausible and more interesting. He was one of those "I'm bored so I break the rules" type guys who then became a better man in prison. Moral of the story: don't be a douche and you can avoid being beaten, stabbed, and attempted-raped in prison. It was also good to see John Hurt as always, even in a supporting role, and the other roles were solid as well. Overall, the film was well-done but not overly fantastic. It beats pretty much most of the 80s nominees, but the 70s seems to be a whole new playing field and the bar has been raised.
And now, here comes some possible controversy with: An Unmarried Woman. I was all set to rant and rave about this movie. But sadly, the female lead in the movie died last week. And in case you're having trouble interpreting my often sarcastic writing style, I am saying that it's sad that she died and not that my rant was ruined. There will be other rants, other movies. It sounds like she was a down-to-Earth actress who people enjoyed working with. I haven't seen any of her other work, but her performance in this movie is solid and quite honestly (not just saying this because she died) I think its faults are with the writing and not her performance. She played the character well but the character was annoying. This was yet another in a string of 70s films that went along with the sexual revolution, but here's something I find amusing: why are they all written by men? All of these movies have the same claim to fame: portraying women in an empowering way. So why would a man know anything about an empowered woman? All they basically do is write male characters and give them breasts. In this movie the woman's husband cheats on her and so she leaves him and then tries to have some random loveless hookups with random guys, ends up falling for one of them, so on and so forth. She ends up not being with him for whatever superfluous melodramatic reason that I forget. But allow me to outline the plot if it had a male lead: dude's wife cheats on him and he becomes a notorious Casanova. He's a lovable rogue but ultimately a jerk since he objectifies women (so they can't hurt him) until he meets the woman that gives the crap right back to him and ultimately shows him that it's okay to love and blah blah blah. I know what you're thinking: "but Domenic, didn't you just say that they wrote a male character with breasts? So wouldn't what you just described be the same as this movie's plot?" Nope! And here's why: audiences wouldn't want a movie with a lovable female rogue because women would say she's a tramp and men would find her intimidating. Instead, this movie has a female lead that basically bumbles through her various romantic encounters. That way, women can laugh at her and say "haha I've been there!" or "what a klutz!" and men can say "boy, I'm not threatened at all by her and I am in no way emasculated as I view this film!" Isn't the study of culture grand? Well anyway, since I had to talk about societal things that I find interesting which only somewhat apply to the film, that will tell you that there's not much there. And like most movies of its type, it's a bit too long. But Jill Clayburgh: she seemed like a nice lady and a solid actress. I'll have to check out more of her work, and not just so I'll feel less guilty about bashing her movie.
And this brings us to this year's excellent winner: The Deer Hunter. I saw this several years ago, but it stuck with me so much that I felt I didn't have to view it again. That's a good thing. Also, it's like 3 hours long and even I won't sit through that much movie again unless I feel I need to in order to pick up on something I missed. Remember when I said that Apocalypse Now was the best Vietnam movie because it was more of a humanity movie? Well this is a straight-up Vietnam movie and in that category there is no better film. Because it doesn't exist solely to say that the war was bad. Everyone already knows that anyway, and even if they didn't you can pick that up from the movie. The characters are the focal point of the film and that's the way it should be. DeNiro and Walken lead the excellent ensemble cast and Meryl Streep is there too in an early role of hers that is way less annoying than usual. The film centers around several friends who all go off to fight in Vietnam and how their lives change because of the war. And though the film is long, it portions its sections so well. It roughly evens out to: the first hour is spent getting to know the characters how they were, the second hour is Vietnam, and the third hour is seeing how the characters changed. Remember that LXG/On Golden Pond moment I mentioned in 1981? And yes, I realize I'm the first and last person to pair those movies together. Well as my mother quite accurately pointed out to me: another excellent example of that dynamic comes in the most important scene in this film. Early in the film, we see DeNiro hunting deer in a fairly nonchalant manner (get it? That's where the film title is from!). But then during the big scene, he can't bring himself to kill a deer because the war has changed him. And oddly enough, it was for the better. He grew to appreciate life after his harrowing experiences and who was he to take away the life of an innocent creature when he himself had been spared? Sadly, Christopher Walken goes the other way after the war. In the beginning he was a happy patriot giggling in the happy aftermath of a wedding with friends (I believe it was his wedding but I forget, and I didn't feel like just rewatching that part). The point is that by the time it's the end of the movie, with the famous Russian Roulette scene, we see quite plainly the terrible personal costs of the war. Quite honestly, and Apocalypse Now was already filming when this was released so it doesn't count, no one should have made a Vietnam movie after this movie came out. Because it did everything so well. It got its point across without being too blatant and it beautifully told a very personal story with relatable characters. It didn't whine, but it made the same points that Oliver Stone feebly tries to get across. Why Jon Voight's movie also got nominated in the same year I have no idea, because even though it was pretty good it's got nothing on this movie. So watch it on a day when you have 3 hours to spare and you feel like your life sucks, because you will probably end up feeling better about your life by comparison.
Well that's it for this year, which even though it took me a while to finish up I really quite enjoyed. I have already seen every other winner for this decade, because they're all really good and one of them is the greatest film of all time, so I hope that the nominees that I haven't seen are also of high quality. All I know for now is that the next installment will include: classic neuroticism, nazism...umm...and on a more positive note: LITERALLY THE EXEMPLIFICATION OF MY CHILDHOOD AND A BIG PART OF WHY I LOVE MOVIES AS MUCH AS I DO. So yeah you'll want to be here for that.
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