Yeah you heard me. This was a rough year with a great winner and another great nominee but the rest were oh so painful. Thankfully, I watched them before January 1st which means that they still fall into the "2010 sucked" category and doesn't screw up the "2011 promises to be way better" category. Because after all, the first half of 2010 was pretty great with my graduation, the finales of Lost and 24, and Scarlett Johansson beating up bad guys while sporting black leather. The rest of 2010 felt like one long William Hurt movie. So I hope 2011 will be better, it has 4 summer superhero films so it's looking pretty good. I hope 2010 proves to be the 1973 of the new millennium. A year that occurred between two great years (Oscar-wise anyway, otherwise my metaphor fails miserably).
We'll have some nice bookends in this entry because only the winner is good, along with this first movie: American Graffiti. It's probably the only coming-of-age tale that I like. Because unlike other movies of its type, it's not an angsty disaster. This is what most of them do: start off cheery and funny, turn sour, end on a slightly upbeat note. That's annoying. It's annoying because most people who recognize with the story get caught up in the angst and then dislike the characters for having the upbeat ending that rarely occurs in real life. This movie is funny and charming almost all the way through, only letting up in the final seconds that tell us the fates of the various characters. The scene functions almost as an afterthought and thus succeeds at being a powerful and sobering statement about the fading of youthful splendor. But it does it at the very end where it belongs and it doesn't linger. The film uses period music splendidly and appropriately (I'm looking at you: The Big Chill). The soundtrack doesn't feel like a mixtape or a Time Life CD collection. I mean...it does in the sense that all of the songs play organically on the radio or in a diner or something, and they're all what would have been playing at the time. BUT using a song like "The Great Pretender" (which is one of my favorites) is a much better choice for a certain type of scene than say, "My Baby Does the Hanky Panky" (which is a good song choice for exactly zero scenes). It also reflects the nature of teenage society back then. If you wanted to recreate it today, you'd have to have Call of Duty and Facebook in the background of every scene and that would just be clunky. So even the social commentary was more charming back then. The whole movie plays as charming actually. It's funny and it's touching and it's fun but it also has the harsh reality of life lurking in the background. And as I said, the background is where it belongs because that is where it is most effective/powerful and least annoying/whiny. It's of course not up to par with Lucas' later work (what is?) but it is a step up from his first film: THX-1138 which is mostly only remembered during Dolby tests.
This next movie I expected to dislike, and I did: Cries and Whispers. What you may not know is that when I expect to dislike a movie I often end up enjoying it all the more. I think I've mentioned this as pertaining to some of my mom's favorite movies that I ended up liking, but who remembers what I've said and what I haven't? I certainly don't. Anyway, I'm really not an Ingmar Bergman fan. Granted, I've only ever seen this and The Seventh Seal but since the latter is considered his best work I don't think I'll ever like any of his stuff. Kind of like how you probably won't like anything Tarantino if you don't like Pulp Fiction. The difference being that Tarantino is a genius and Bergman is a poster boy for movie snobs. "Ohhh, the movie is in Swedish! If I like it then that means my taste is better than yours!" I truly hope that the 3-hour epic of his from 1972 at least resembles something watchable when I'm forced to sit through it soon. Bergman's problem is that he has good ideas but they only ever take up a small portion of his movies. The photography is undeniably stunning in this movie, to the point that I would've been content to just look at the images without sound or subtitles. I'd have gotten just as much out of it probably. The story revolves around three sisters, one of whom is dying of cancer. And as she's dying all of the bad blood comes out about various goings-on in the past. Wow, a movie about someone who's dying and all of their family members are still troubled about unimportant crap that happened when they were kids is the focal point. Either every deathbed situation in human history is a ripoff of this movie, or it's the other way around. Which is fine, because that makes it a compelling story. Too bad only about 1/3 of the movie actually directly involves that. What was the rest of it about? I truly don't know. I didn't care. I was not paying enough attention to recall anything directly afterward, let alone several weeks later. Just like The Seventh Seal: the premise of a knight playing chess with Death and discussing religious/philosophical issues is fantastic. Too bad it amounts to literally about 16 minutes of movie. So I remain convinced that Bergman is the go-to guy for international relations when the Academy feels like saying "hey, let's pretend like we're not the self-centered American douches that we are by throwing a token nomination to a guy you have to be Swedish to like." I'm being facetious but I truly think you have to be part of a society to appreciate its art sometimes. That's why way back in the day when I talked about A Serious Man I mentioned that you might have to be a pessimistic Italian/Jew/other Mediterranean descendant to enjoy it.
Whereas you have to be a frightenable person to enjoy The Exorcist. Or really to appreciate its existence at all. Because there's no particular point to the film that I can figure out. I detest horror films in case I haven't mentioned that, because they usually only exist to scare people with cheap gags. There was a recent "horror" film that is truly outstanding and that I will hopefully get a chance to talk about fairly soon (and I will if it gets nominated, as it should). But other than that the only horror films that are any good are: A) spoofs B) a horror story within the world of another genre or C) so bad that they should be spoofs but aren't. There are even horror movies with interesting undertones of social commentary. I don't like those either but at least they're trying, sort of. This movie only seems to be interested in being shocking. If there was a deeper meaning, I missed it completely. On top of that, it's not even particularly good as a horror film if you ask me. Part of that is that it's dated by now of course. But I would have never had the possessed girl lip sync to a different "demon voice" because that just feels fake. They should have either had her mouth closed with the voice coming out (pretty creepy) or her mouth should have just stayed open with the sounds coming out (creepier still). Neither of those would have taken you out of the experience by reminding you that a lot of dubbing was used. And the name of the demon in the film is Pazuzu. Pazuzu. Say that aloud for a second. Sound menacing? No. Sound scary? No. Sound like a Fraggle Rock reject? Probably. Of all the Beelzebubs and Asmodeuses (Asmodeii?) they picked that particular demon name? It is a legit obscure dark god from back in the day South America apparently, and how his pendant ended up in the Middle East in the ruins of a completely different religion's structure is anyone's guess. And the theme music? Perhaps I've heard it spoofed too often, but it's only used in a handful of ansillary scenes in the film and never in the actual exorcising scenes. Plus, its tone and the pace at which it is played sounds like it's on an organ grinder being played by an especially spastic monkey. So to sum up my thoughts on the movie, as Cleveland Brown might succinctly say: "I did not care for it."
On the complete opposite end of what makes a movie bad is A Touch of Class. The title is meant to be ironic because neither character has anything resembling class. Get it? It's funny! Except you can't have an ironic title with a movie that has about as much irony as an after-dinner mint. It's as cliché as they come, except it's not even done well. Much like the movie I just finished ranting about. It's a romantic comedy with a woman who has a sharp British appearance complete with a sharp British accent and sharp British bangs. I don't find that particularly attractive, but that's just me. Other British ladies yes, in case you were wondering. And the dude is George Segal, a mostly-out-of-shape, ordinary-faced tool of a man. Not in real life necessarily (the tool part, he's probably nice enough in reality). If I was interested in two ordinary looking people going on dates while engaging in uninteresting conversation and bickering, I wouldn't bother with the second half of "dinner and a movie." People want funny! And this movie isn't funny, but it's not particularly serious either. Thus it manages to build as much of an interesting story as you'd expect from a Rom-Com (none) while also retaining the humorless atmosphere of a Lifetime movie. I will say that the dialogue was at least fairly realistic, unlike The Goodbye Girl where the actors were pausing for the laugh track that wasn't there. Still, they seemed to mix and match the exact wrong things. If you have two unlikable lead characters then that's fine, if you have a dark sense of humor (which it doesn't). If you have a happy-go-lucky rom-com structure then you should have a cliché happy ending to fit the rest of your movie (it doesn't). I wouldn't be surprised if two entirely different scripts got mixed up on the floor of some studio and when the chocolate got in the peanut butter and vice versa, the result was neither delicious nor marketable. I'm starting to sound like Roger Ebert with my obscure metaphors that sort of make sense. To make a long rant just slightly longer: George Segal has aged well. Looks almost the same now as he did then. Good for him. Maybe he'll be in something good sometime.
This year's winner, and by far its best offering, is The Sting. I saw this when I was like 10 so I decided to watch it again. It's a pretty great movie to be certain. It's obviously not on the same level as the '74 and '72 winners but then again, neither is anything else. What makes this film really work is that it's made in the style of a film that would have been around in the time period it depicts. The pacing is similar and the colors are a little too vibrant in just the way they were back in those days when color in film was new. In addition, the film is separated into "parts" each with their own title card and old timey music (old timey source music plays through the whole thing). Since I've referenced myself several times today, why not a little more? This is sort of what Scorsese did in The Aviator and it's exactly what Coppola failed to do in The Godfather Part III. To me, you don't have to go all out with your stories set in the past but don't make a 1930s movie look like a 1970s movie. And they don't, much to their credit. I'm sure younger audiences of the day were just as thrown as young audiences today are when a film is done in a slightly old fashioned way. On top of all of that, I love stories about con men. Because if I ever get bored enough during my current state of unemployment to turn into a criminal (it could happen) I would probably be a con man. I respect any profession that requires you to be smarter and slicker than your fellow man, even if you're robbing your fellow man blind. I would also consider being a pool hustler but I'm not sure that's a thing anymore. Robert Redford and Paul Newman ooze their usual debonair coolness in this movie, and the plot is just twisted and complex enough to be believable and not so much that you have to watch it 3 times just to figure out what happened at all. The basic plot is that a con man and a washed up con man team up to get revenge on a crime boss who killed a friend of theirs. They could have just written a straight revenge story but the revenge of a con man is far more interesting and far more entertaining. So while it might not be the artistic/philosophical tour-de-force that many Kubrick films are (none of which I've gotten to write about yet) it is nonetheless a very well done film that everyone should watch at some point. It's on Netflix Instant so there's no excuse not to!
Well I guess 1973 redeemed itself in some ways, and even if I didn't like everything in the year there were some iconic and famous movies which is more than I can say for most of the 80s. But you must prepare yourself for the awesomeness of 1972. Little known fact: 72 is my lucky number. Because it's my grandfather's lucky number backwards, it's the tetragrammaton number (not that anyone knows what that is, but it is of religious significance and more importantly: Assassin's Creed significance), and it is also the year of the greatest movie of all time. Not to oversell it or anything. And some other stuff came out that year too I guess, something about some southern hicks, some German dancers, and some Swedish settlers. You won't care by comparison, but I suppose we'll discuss them anyway.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
1974: The Year that Had an Outcome Even More Predictable than Most Seagal Movies
I mean, come on. If I was another movie this year, I'd have delayed my release date so I would have had an actual shot at winning something. Although only one of these movies would have had a real shot in any other year anyway, so I guess it's all good. Not to say that the nominees are all good, because they're not. But there's only one actually bad movie, which I'm still watching because it's really freaking long and I need something to distract myself. As I'm all out of Cheez-Its, I figured I'd blog it up.
To get things rolling, the our first movie is the one that might have had a shot in a different year: Chinatown. And what a fantastic film it is. I saw it a long time ago on TV and remembered that I liked it, but I'm glad I re-watched it because there's no way I could have truly appreciated it back then. For me: it's the last of the great film noirs. Although it's technically a "neo-noir," don't ask me what the distinction is, it still focuses on the basic noir structure: "private eye gets mixed up in a scheme that's too big for him, everybody ends up crappy in the end, and there's sad trumpet music." In some ways, this was the Jack Nicholson role that created his caricature. Which is funny because he does a really outstanding job, including some scenes of rage that don't come off campy (as they might if he did them today). The actual plot of the film is mostly irrelevant because it's all about the style and the manner in which Jake (the character's name, not a typo) starts unraveling the mystery. At its most basic: the story is about a conspiracy surrounding L.A.'s water supply. It was meant to showcase a very sketchy period of early Los Angeles and was intended to be the first in a trilogy. The other two were supposed to deal with land and highways I believe. The second one was made, but I hear it sucked horribly so there wasn't a third. And I mean, without Roman Polanski what was the point? Because he had fled the country by the time the second one was coming out. This film is actually the last one he filmed in the United States before fleeing and with one notable exception (see 2002) he might as well have called it quits on directing anyway. Because this was the high point. What makes it more interesting than the usual noir is that it takes place in the past. It's showing you a U.S. that doesn't exist anymore. You're watching Jake go about his business, in the only business he's suited for, while keeping in mind that his profession would not be long for this world. The villains of the world were getting too powerful and a private eye with a gun and an attitude wasn't going to cut it anymore. So when he fails at the end of the movie, it's not because of some fatal character flaw or a momentary lapse in judgment. He never had a shot at winning. He never even had a chance with the girl, played by Faye Dunaway. Side note: Faye replaced Jane Fonda, who was the original choice. This is merciful as I detest Jane Fonda and her self-righteous vocal tones would have ruined the whole movie. By the time filming was completed she would have Princed the Tides of the movie to the point where Jacko was a supporting actor. Obscure reference to previous blog post! Anyway, Faye Dunaway really got into the role as she reportedly instructed Jack to actually slap her during the famous scene (which I won't spoil). And even though her part in the movie is relatively minor at times, she really comes across as the type of damaged woman that would attract a guy like Jake. I could go on, but it's really a movie everyone should watch. I'll just add that Jerry Goldsmith's sad trumpet music is truly fantastic and Roman Polanski may be a statutory rapist but he's also a really talented director. And in Hollywood, I'd say that's not too bad.
Sorry for that last bit of hypobole (a word I've invented, meaning the under-exaggeration of something for comedic effect) but I wasn't going to get a chance to use it for The Conversation. Which is unfortunate, because it's a movie that's all about playing things down. Dialing up the tension by making it more subtle. In many ways, it's a little bit like the first film I discussed in that it's about a private investigator who gets in over his head. Okay, that's basically the same overall plot. BUT it's done completely differently. It's a Coppola film (who officially had 2/5 of the year's nominees, impressive) but it doesn't completely play like one. This could be because he wrote it in 1966, prior to his Academy Award winning screenplays/movies. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a great movie, but I thought it was quite well done. Gene Hackman plays the anti Gene Hackman in this movie: a fascinating voyeur called Harry Caul. Okay, he's not really a voyeur since he doesn't look at people from afar for twisted pleasure. It's his job. He listens in on people's conversations from afar for the purposes of exposing possible affairs, general misconduct, etc. His theory is that people feel safe to talk in public and so that's the best place to eavesdrop. Plus, it's not technically illegal to listen to someone's public conversation. Not sure if it's still legal with all of the equipment and whatnot, but I doubt Harry cares. What makes him so fascinating is that he has trouble connecting with real people. He spends so much time watching them from afar that he can't see them as anything but points of interest. Self-serving motives and conspiracies walking around in human form. One particular conversation gives him cause for alarm because he believes that a murder is being plotted (by none other than young and kinda spindly Harrison Ford, who sort of looked like me once). There are, of course, many moral dilemmas surrounding how he should handle this situation. Because if he reveals how he knows, that could destroy his business and even get him into serious trouble. But he also doesn't want to get someone killed. But were they being serious when they said that or just vocalizing some frustrations? These all run through Harry's mind, and reminded me a little bit too much of myself. The manner in which he listened and re-listened and re-re-listened to the same patch of audio was comparable to the constant over-analyzation that happens in my head on a daily basis. And by the time it's the end of the movie, he's gotten so paranoid that he's torn his apartment asunder. All that remained was him and his saxophone. I'd rather not end up like that. Mostly because I can't play the saxophone. I kind of ruined the ending, but I doubt many people will go watch this movie. It's appropriately slow-moving but that wouldn't work for a lot of people. I'm glad that I was in just the right mood to watch it when I did because I highly enjoyed it. I believe my dad referred to it as "an interesting little movie" and I couldn't put it better myself.
Another interesting little movie is Lenny. In fact, I found it far more interesting and entertaining than Lenny Bruce's actual standup routines. I listened to several of them for an American Humor class and I found them to be vulgar just to be vulgar. Something that exists just to exist or just to make people mad is never funny to me. BUT when you watch it from the point of view of someone who was around at the time, it becomes a lot more heroic. Not funnier, just heroic. Although the line about how "it's a good thing we didn't kill Jesus nowadays because then little schoolkids would be wearing electric chairs around their necks" was pretty brilliant and made me laugh out loud. In fact, a lot of the best parts of dialogue weren't necessarily funny but they were interesting. And I agreed with most of it, which is always pleasant. It's weird to watch this and something like Network and think to myself, "I said something just like that the other day! Except without the F-bombs!" And it's all every bit as relevant today as it was then. Because even though we don't have comedians being dragged off by the police anymore, at least not for the content of their standup, we do have the same odd cultural norms. You can show fairly extreme violence on network TV, even more extreme if it's a cartoon, but say the F-word that every kid hears in school anyway? Forget it. I can write about any number of terrible things from a movie, but if I say bad words then I'd have a stigma attached. Let me rephrase: if enough people read my blog to allow for the possibility of a stigma, I'd have a stigma attached. And that's a bit silly. I knew that Lenny was a pioneer in this way, but I only knew it abstractly. Seeing it portrayed was entirely different, and now he's kind of my hero. Dustin Hoffman gets on my nerves at times but in this movie he's excellent. What I don't understand is why Valerie Perrine won for supporting actress that year (she plays his stripper wife, or if you find that offensive: his exotic dancer wife). She's pretty much in the movie for about 12 minutes and 3 of those are just her taking off her clothes. So either the voters that year were adolescent boys or they were middle-aged men who couldn't afford Playboy subscriptions. Yep, that's the one. Though the film is almost 2 hours long, it doesn't feel that long. The pacing that director Bob Fosse uses is just perfect. There's just enough standup material and behind-the-scenes drama. He balanced it out so well and I give him credit for that. Because of that and because the writing was good and I liked the black and white cinematography, this is the rare acting-driven film where I endorse its nomination for Best Picture. I doubt there will be many more of those. So take a good look Michael, because it's the last time. I am just rolling with the obscure references today.
And I'll probably need a lot of them to make this movie interesting: The Towering Inferno. This is quite seriously junk. Its only redeeming quality is its John Williams score and this was early in his career so we'll forgive him. I'm not sure how great actors like Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, and Faye Dunaway got mixed up in this nonsense. I was completely not surprised to learn that this was originally two movies that were so similar that they decided to just make it one movie. And they gave it a double-feature length of 2 hours and 44 minutes. That might be okay if the two movies being combined were based on books that were different. Then you've got multiple plots to fill up the running time. But this is based on two disaster books and they come together to form almost 3 hours of "there's a fire in the tallest building on Earth and we need to get everyone out safely." Oh. My. God. That's the basic premise of Rescue Me and even they have never done an entire episode of just rescuing people from a fire. So if they can't fill up 44 minutes with it, how did these people fill up that amount of time plus another 2 hours? Answer: they did not. Well, they did but it's not good. And the screenwriter's name is Sterling Silliphant which can't actually be a real name. That has to be a slight alteration of "hurling siccophant" which is probably what he felt like when he wrote it. This is a studio film if ever there was one. A mish-mash of popular actors in a movie with a lot of effects and very little plot. It was the Avatar of its day. You were waiting for me to say that, right? Well at least the one with the blue people has some awesome fighting at the end. All this has is fire-fighting. I have nothing but respect for the brave men and women who dedicate their lives to saving people from deadly fires. I also have nothing but respect for brave men and women who dedicate their lives to saving people from congenital heart defects, but I wouldn't want to watch 3 hours of that either. I really don't know what else to say, except that I guess it's interesting (comforting? disturbing? anthropologically fascinating?) to note that disaster movies wowed the mindless masses back then just as they do today.
A movie that couldn't be any more the opposite in terms of both the audience it attracts and the quality it possesses is this year's winner and a true masterpiece: The Godfather Part II. Holy freaking crap. There are great movies and then there are movies like this. I don't know how Coppola continued being motivated to make movies, because this was part 2 of not only his career high point but also filmmaking in general. Along with its predecessor, it makes up the only instance in history where a film and its sequel won Best Picture. That will probably never happen again. And I kind of hope it doesn't. For the record, I am more a fan of the first film. Not that I think the difference in quality is too vast, I just prefer the "nice guy turning bad" story to the "bad guy turning worse" story. Although this film actually gives you both, since it is a prequel and a sequel tied up in one. If they tried to do that today it'd be a regular length movie and it would kind of suck. But they gave it the full 200 minutes that it deserves, and I have not once noticed the time going by in the 5 or 6 times that I've seen it. I'll avoid mentioning too many plot details, since if you haven't watched it then you should immediately do so and stop being a human being with no taste. I do feel kind of bad for Al Pacino, because he does an incredible job in this movie but he once again has the show stolen by the actor playing his father. This time it was DeNiro and not Brando. I believe this is the only time that two actors have won an Oscar for playing the same character but I could be wrong. Anyway, the best aspects of these films are the little moments. The fact that the first movie ended on Kay being shut out of Michael's life with the famous door closing on her and in this movie he shuts the door on her himself. Brilliant. Because in a single scene it encapsulates the entire journey of their relationship. The music is wonderful and subtle. The violence is especially well done, because it isn't too gory. It's not tame either. This makes it quite realistic and kind of disturbing. It makes you realize the seriousness of the violence as though it's actually happening, and not as though you're watching a baggie full of food coloring exploding. The film somehow finds a way to forward the plot while delving deeper into the characters. The dialogue is filled with double-speak and straight-up lies. It was so daring to put forth a movie so potentially confusing and expecting audiences to get it. And the film's ultimate betrayal is realized so simply, in such a little moment. That's perfect, because people who lie for a living aren't going to majorly screw up and let loose the important secrets. No character's motivation feels unreasonable. There are no true villains or heroes because everyone has an agenda and pursues it in a very human, very flawed manner. I could go on and on about it, but it'd be insulting to suggest that I could sum up its brilliance in a single paragraph. I once wrote a 12 page paper that compared this film series with The Sopranos TV series and I pretty much only talked about 2 or 3 scenes. Anyway, it's the rare movie that lives up to the hype. My Creative Writing teacher once said that it, along with the first movie, were her favorite films because they're "like artwork that moves" and I'd say that's pretty perfect.
Notice how all of my mentors sum things up succinctly? That's a trick I've never quite learned. As my college professor said Jonathan Swift said, "sorry for the length of this letter, I didn't have time to write a short one." Love that. Thankfully, Coppola didn't know that quote because shorter wouldn't have worked. So this was one of the best years, because it had one of the best movies. But I was surprised by the quality of the other nominees as well. That's why it took me about a week to run through them instead of close to a month. I can't say the next year will be the same, only that it will include growing up in the 60s, growing up on the street, and growing up as a demon.
To get things rolling, the our first movie is the one that might have had a shot in a different year: Chinatown. And what a fantastic film it is. I saw it a long time ago on TV and remembered that I liked it, but I'm glad I re-watched it because there's no way I could have truly appreciated it back then. For me: it's the last of the great film noirs. Although it's technically a "neo-noir," don't ask me what the distinction is, it still focuses on the basic noir structure: "private eye gets mixed up in a scheme that's too big for him, everybody ends up crappy in the end, and there's sad trumpet music." In some ways, this was the Jack Nicholson role that created his caricature. Which is funny because he does a really outstanding job, including some scenes of rage that don't come off campy (as they might if he did them today). The actual plot of the film is mostly irrelevant because it's all about the style and the manner in which Jake (the character's name, not a typo) starts unraveling the mystery. At its most basic: the story is about a conspiracy surrounding L.A.'s water supply. It was meant to showcase a very sketchy period of early Los Angeles and was intended to be the first in a trilogy. The other two were supposed to deal with land and highways I believe. The second one was made, but I hear it sucked horribly so there wasn't a third. And I mean, without Roman Polanski what was the point? Because he had fled the country by the time the second one was coming out. This film is actually the last one he filmed in the United States before fleeing and with one notable exception (see 2002) he might as well have called it quits on directing anyway. Because this was the high point. What makes it more interesting than the usual noir is that it takes place in the past. It's showing you a U.S. that doesn't exist anymore. You're watching Jake go about his business, in the only business he's suited for, while keeping in mind that his profession would not be long for this world. The villains of the world were getting too powerful and a private eye with a gun and an attitude wasn't going to cut it anymore. So when he fails at the end of the movie, it's not because of some fatal character flaw or a momentary lapse in judgment. He never had a shot at winning. He never even had a chance with the girl, played by Faye Dunaway. Side note: Faye replaced Jane Fonda, who was the original choice. This is merciful as I detest Jane Fonda and her self-righteous vocal tones would have ruined the whole movie. By the time filming was completed she would have Princed the Tides of the movie to the point where Jacko was a supporting actor. Obscure reference to previous blog post! Anyway, Faye Dunaway really got into the role as she reportedly instructed Jack to actually slap her during the famous scene (which I won't spoil). And even though her part in the movie is relatively minor at times, she really comes across as the type of damaged woman that would attract a guy like Jake. I could go on, but it's really a movie everyone should watch. I'll just add that Jerry Goldsmith's sad trumpet music is truly fantastic and Roman Polanski may be a statutory rapist but he's also a really talented director. And in Hollywood, I'd say that's not too bad.
Sorry for that last bit of hypobole (a word I've invented, meaning the under-exaggeration of something for comedic effect) but I wasn't going to get a chance to use it for The Conversation. Which is unfortunate, because it's a movie that's all about playing things down. Dialing up the tension by making it more subtle. In many ways, it's a little bit like the first film I discussed in that it's about a private investigator who gets in over his head. Okay, that's basically the same overall plot. BUT it's done completely differently. It's a Coppola film (who officially had 2/5 of the year's nominees, impressive) but it doesn't completely play like one. This could be because he wrote it in 1966, prior to his Academy Award winning screenplays/movies. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a great movie, but I thought it was quite well done. Gene Hackman plays the anti Gene Hackman in this movie: a fascinating voyeur called Harry Caul. Okay, he's not really a voyeur since he doesn't look at people from afar for twisted pleasure. It's his job. He listens in on people's conversations from afar for the purposes of exposing possible affairs, general misconduct, etc. His theory is that people feel safe to talk in public and so that's the best place to eavesdrop. Plus, it's not technically illegal to listen to someone's public conversation. Not sure if it's still legal with all of the equipment and whatnot, but I doubt Harry cares. What makes him so fascinating is that he has trouble connecting with real people. He spends so much time watching them from afar that he can't see them as anything but points of interest. Self-serving motives and conspiracies walking around in human form. One particular conversation gives him cause for alarm because he believes that a murder is being plotted (by none other than young and kinda spindly Harrison Ford, who sort of looked like me once). There are, of course, many moral dilemmas surrounding how he should handle this situation. Because if he reveals how he knows, that could destroy his business and even get him into serious trouble. But he also doesn't want to get someone killed. But were they being serious when they said that or just vocalizing some frustrations? These all run through Harry's mind, and reminded me a little bit too much of myself. The manner in which he listened and re-listened and re-re-listened to the same patch of audio was comparable to the constant over-analyzation that happens in my head on a daily basis. And by the time it's the end of the movie, he's gotten so paranoid that he's torn his apartment asunder. All that remained was him and his saxophone. I'd rather not end up like that. Mostly because I can't play the saxophone. I kind of ruined the ending, but I doubt many people will go watch this movie. It's appropriately slow-moving but that wouldn't work for a lot of people. I'm glad that I was in just the right mood to watch it when I did because I highly enjoyed it. I believe my dad referred to it as "an interesting little movie" and I couldn't put it better myself.
Another interesting little movie is Lenny. In fact, I found it far more interesting and entertaining than Lenny Bruce's actual standup routines. I listened to several of them for an American Humor class and I found them to be vulgar just to be vulgar. Something that exists just to exist or just to make people mad is never funny to me. BUT when you watch it from the point of view of someone who was around at the time, it becomes a lot more heroic. Not funnier, just heroic. Although the line about how "it's a good thing we didn't kill Jesus nowadays because then little schoolkids would be wearing electric chairs around their necks" was pretty brilliant and made me laugh out loud. In fact, a lot of the best parts of dialogue weren't necessarily funny but they were interesting. And I agreed with most of it, which is always pleasant. It's weird to watch this and something like Network and think to myself, "I said something just like that the other day! Except without the F-bombs!" And it's all every bit as relevant today as it was then. Because even though we don't have comedians being dragged off by the police anymore, at least not for the content of their standup, we do have the same odd cultural norms. You can show fairly extreme violence on network TV, even more extreme if it's a cartoon, but say the F-word that every kid hears in school anyway? Forget it. I can write about any number of terrible things from a movie, but if I say bad words then I'd have a stigma attached. Let me rephrase: if enough people read my blog to allow for the possibility of a stigma, I'd have a stigma attached. And that's a bit silly. I knew that Lenny was a pioneer in this way, but I only knew it abstractly. Seeing it portrayed was entirely different, and now he's kind of my hero. Dustin Hoffman gets on my nerves at times but in this movie he's excellent. What I don't understand is why Valerie Perrine won for supporting actress that year (she plays his stripper wife, or if you find that offensive: his exotic dancer wife). She's pretty much in the movie for about 12 minutes and 3 of those are just her taking off her clothes. So either the voters that year were adolescent boys or they were middle-aged men who couldn't afford Playboy subscriptions. Yep, that's the one. Though the film is almost 2 hours long, it doesn't feel that long. The pacing that director Bob Fosse uses is just perfect. There's just enough standup material and behind-the-scenes drama. He balanced it out so well and I give him credit for that. Because of that and because the writing was good and I liked the black and white cinematography, this is the rare acting-driven film where I endorse its nomination for Best Picture. I doubt there will be many more of those. So take a good look Michael, because it's the last time. I am just rolling with the obscure references today.
And I'll probably need a lot of them to make this movie interesting: The Towering Inferno. This is quite seriously junk. Its only redeeming quality is its John Williams score and this was early in his career so we'll forgive him. I'm not sure how great actors like Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, and Faye Dunaway got mixed up in this nonsense. I was completely not surprised to learn that this was originally two movies that were so similar that they decided to just make it one movie. And they gave it a double-feature length of 2 hours and 44 minutes. That might be okay if the two movies being combined were based on books that were different. Then you've got multiple plots to fill up the running time. But this is based on two disaster books and they come together to form almost 3 hours of "there's a fire in the tallest building on Earth and we need to get everyone out safely." Oh. My. God. That's the basic premise of Rescue Me and even they have never done an entire episode of just rescuing people from a fire. So if they can't fill up 44 minutes with it, how did these people fill up that amount of time plus another 2 hours? Answer: they did not. Well, they did but it's not good. And the screenwriter's name is Sterling Silliphant which can't actually be a real name. That has to be a slight alteration of "hurling siccophant" which is probably what he felt like when he wrote it. This is a studio film if ever there was one. A mish-mash of popular actors in a movie with a lot of effects and very little plot. It was the Avatar of its day. You were waiting for me to say that, right? Well at least the one with the blue people has some awesome fighting at the end. All this has is fire-fighting. I have nothing but respect for the brave men and women who dedicate their lives to saving people from deadly fires. I also have nothing but respect for brave men and women who dedicate their lives to saving people from congenital heart defects, but I wouldn't want to watch 3 hours of that either. I really don't know what else to say, except that I guess it's interesting (comforting? disturbing? anthropologically fascinating?) to note that disaster movies wowed the mindless masses back then just as they do today.
A movie that couldn't be any more the opposite in terms of both the audience it attracts and the quality it possesses is this year's winner and a true masterpiece: The Godfather Part II. Holy freaking crap. There are great movies and then there are movies like this. I don't know how Coppola continued being motivated to make movies, because this was part 2 of not only his career high point but also filmmaking in general. Along with its predecessor, it makes up the only instance in history where a film and its sequel won Best Picture. That will probably never happen again. And I kind of hope it doesn't. For the record, I am more a fan of the first film. Not that I think the difference in quality is too vast, I just prefer the "nice guy turning bad" story to the "bad guy turning worse" story. Although this film actually gives you both, since it is a prequel and a sequel tied up in one. If they tried to do that today it'd be a regular length movie and it would kind of suck. But they gave it the full 200 minutes that it deserves, and I have not once noticed the time going by in the 5 or 6 times that I've seen it. I'll avoid mentioning too many plot details, since if you haven't watched it then you should immediately do so and stop being a human being with no taste. I do feel kind of bad for Al Pacino, because he does an incredible job in this movie but he once again has the show stolen by the actor playing his father. This time it was DeNiro and not Brando. I believe this is the only time that two actors have won an Oscar for playing the same character but I could be wrong. Anyway, the best aspects of these films are the little moments. The fact that the first movie ended on Kay being shut out of Michael's life with the famous door closing on her and in this movie he shuts the door on her himself. Brilliant. Because in a single scene it encapsulates the entire journey of their relationship. The music is wonderful and subtle. The violence is especially well done, because it isn't too gory. It's not tame either. This makes it quite realistic and kind of disturbing. It makes you realize the seriousness of the violence as though it's actually happening, and not as though you're watching a baggie full of food coloring exploding. The film somehow finds a way to forward the plot while delving deeper into the characters. The dialogue is filled with double-speak and straight-up lies. It was so daring to put forth a movie so potentially confusing and expecting audiences to get it. And the film's ultimate betrayal is realized so simply, in such a little moment. That's perfect, because people who lie for a living aren't going to majorly screw up and let loose the important secrets. No character's motivation feels unreasonable. There are no true villains or heroes because everyone has an agenda and pursues it in a very human, very flawed manner. I could go on and on about it, but it'd be insulting to suggest that I could sum up its brilliance in a single paragraph. I once wrote a 12 page paper that compared this film series with The Sopranos TV series and I pretty much only talked about 2 or 3 scenes. Anyway, it's the rare movie that lives up to the hype. My Creative Writing teacher once said that it, along with the first movie, were her favorite films because they're "like artwork that moves" and I'd say that's pretty perfect.
Notice how all of my mentors sum things up succinctly? That's a trick I've never quite learned. As my college professor said Jonathan Swift said, "sorry for the length of this letter, I didn't have time to write a short one." Love that. Thankfully, Coppola didn't know that quote because shorter wouldn't have worked. So this was one of the best years, because it had one of the best movies. But I was surprised by the quality of the other nominees as well. That's why it took me about a week to run through them instead of close to a month. I can't say the next year will be the same, only that it will include growing up in the 60s, growing up on the street, and growing up as a demon.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
1975: The Year that Doc Brown, the Joker, and Grima Wormtongue Walked Into a Bar
I guess the actor who played the Penguin was there too. But why would the Joker go to a bar with the Penguin? Penguin is a classy guy and he would not hang out in the type of dive that the Joker frequents. Whereas Grima Wormtongue is from Middle Earth and thus used to seedy places, and what's the only way he could be brought into the present to hang with Joker? Via Doc Brown's DeLorean time machine. My ridiculous title makes sense now doesn't it? Yeah, I thought so. Of course it's an insane asylum and not a bar that they're in, but the other movies in this year don't give me any good title material so there you go. It was a good year though, the worst of it was still pretty good.
This first one is the worst of it, but it's still pretty good: Barry Lyndon. Coincidentally, I've had this on my instant watch of netflix for about 8 months or something crazy. I put it on because it's a Kubrick film and I didn't watch it right away because it's like 3 hours long. And not LOTR 3 hours. Not even Titanic 3 hours. More like The Patriot director's cut 3 hours but without the action, excitement, or compelling story. It's basically a period piece from the colonial era in Europe but I couldn't tell if it was kind of making fun of movies like that or if it just was one. Because it's an adaptation of a book that was written in that time period, but I find it hard to believe that Stanley Kubrick would just up and make a period piece that didn't make some sort of modern statement on society. But I'm not sure what it was, because it's tough for me to get things out of movies that I don't care about. It's a beautifully filmed movie and it's well-acted but it's just so meh. The main guy is a colonial tool who gets screwed over by other colonial tools and then ventures across Europe to marry a woman who has a son who is a tool. That son then shoots the main guy in the leg during a duel that lasts entirely too long and that's pretty much the whole movie. It wasn't boring exactly, although I'm not sure why. By all means it should have been boring. The classical music selections and picturesque visuals keep the viewer somewhat invested but there really wasn't much more to it than that. I'd say it was largely a character study, but none of the characters are particularly interesting and they don't really change much. So it's kind of a slice-of-life movie that just happens to take place in 1700s Europe. Let's just say I did a few crosswords during it.
A far more compelling film, although unfortunately not as much for me as it was for people at the time, is Dog Day Afternoon. It's a true story of a man who robbed a bank in New York City in order to get money for his lover's sex change operation. If someone had pitched that as a screenplay, it probably would've gotten shot down. Which is why it's annoying when people say, "that would never happen in real life." Because I say: if everything occurring is physically possible then I buy it. Chance meetings? I buy it. Strange or minor reasons for doing bad things? Sadly, I buy this too because I've read some crazy real stuff. Shooting people while skydiving is a bit iffy. I might not buy that. The story of this film is mostly the backdrop though. And that's just as well because placing the entire focus on the robbery/hostage situation instead makes for a compelling film. The problem with viewing it in a modern context is that basically every movie with this plotline copies the style that this film establishes. So I felt like I had watched this before on TV many times, but I tried my best to watch it objectively. And I must say: they did a pretty superb job. The choice to have a lack of makeup on the actors was a good one because you can really see the exhaustion on their faces, the sweat, and the intensity. I've seen some pretty great makeup jobs where they can make it look like someone is out of it and dirty, but there's really no substitute for actual human skin pigment. I know that sounds weird, but it all comes off as so much more realistic because Pacino doesn't look like he just exited his trailer. He looks like he has legitimately been holding hostages for 12 hours with no nourishment or rest. John Cazale plays his accomplice, in a very non-Fredo like performance. Not just because he has hair in this one. He does a solid job but Pacino easily steals the show, as he often does. There are plenty of little touches throughout the film that really add to the overall effect but are tough to put your finger on. Moments such as pieces of dialogue that are kind of rocky, with less flow than usual. This is quite realistic, especially for a high-adrenaline situation. So I really give the filmmakers credit for taking a story that can be summed up in a headline (as it was, many many times) and really pulling the viewer in and immersing them in the experience. It's largely a product of its time and doesn't make as much of an impact this far from Vietnam-era cynicism, but it's definitely a well-done movie.
A somewhat groundbreaking picture that I find to be somewhat overrated, and this may shock you, is Jaws. Of course, this is always going to happen when you hear too much about a big movie before you see it. I watched it for the first time about five years ago, maybe a little less, but for as far back as I can remember I have been hearing about this film. I even went on the ride at Universal Studios. Although it was more of a waiting line than a ride, along the lines of the classic "want some salad with that dressing?" situation. 3 hours of line = 5 minutes of riding in the water with a fake shark. But stuff blew up and the shark got all bloody so that was pretty cool. The film itself feels kind of the same though: almost a whole movie of looking for a shark and then the shark gets blown up at the end. This is all delivered really well, mostly because of John Williams' iconic score. Though this wasn't the first American film to feature a prominent and iconic music score, it was probably the first time that people could recognize the music anywhere and instantly remember what it meant. The music itself became as much a part of pop culture as the movie itself did, if not more so. But aside from the music, which is fantastic, a lot of the movie is filler. I think it was so refreshing when it came out to have a "horror" movie, or more accurately a "suspense" movie, that wasn't filled with cliché characters and gore. There's no question that the movie effectively builds suspense without really showing the shark, and that the characters are fleshed out really well by 3 great actors: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss. The problem is that when the movie goes on for as long as it does (just over 2 hours) a lot of the suspense dies down. And whereas it's initially compelling to watch three characters who "aren't really chasing the shark, they're chasing their own insecurities," by the time you're halfway through the film you feel like they're just in therapy and they should be paying you for your time. Not to say that any of the scenes were poorly written or poorly delivered, it just gets kind of old after a while. Once the drama between the characters heats up it's better, and of course the initial beach attack and finale are pretty great, but it would seem to me that such an iconic and famous film should hold that standing for more than "it was pretty scary." Granted, if I had watched it with friends as a child then I would probably feel differently because I'd have memories of jumping around and screaming with my buddies. That's what I like to call the "Ghostbusters effect." Because I only just saw that movie this year and I thought it was stupid. Had I seen it as a kid: it would be nostalgic. As it stands to me today it wasn't that funny. But anyway, this movie certainly earned its win for original music score and I give it credit for breaking some established barriers of film. But if you haven't seen it then you should keep your expectations fairly low and you'll probably enjoy yourself.
Conversely, a movie that's tough to enjoy at all is Nashville. Literally the only reason is that it's too long. The film is supposed to satirize the absurdity of many aspects of country music, and so for the first half of the film I was enjoying the statements they were making. But when a movie is 3 hours long it ceases to be satire and becomes what it's satirizing. Especially when it's about a bunch of ridiculous people who take themselves too seriously. Because then when you're spending 3 hours on trying to make your audience become invested in the characters, then you're legitimizing caricatures. That just doesn't work. It'd be like if a Marx brothers movie went on for several hours and Harpo ended up dying for some reason. Also: a large part of the movie (seriously about an hour or something crazy) is actual country music. Original songs written and performed by the actors. Which is pretty impressive. But once again: you're trying to give the viewer as authentic a Nashville experience as possible while still telling them that Nashville is melodramatic. That just doesn't work. On a positive note: it does kind of pave the way for the mockumentary. And while it would be others who would perfect the genre, I give them credit for creating it. If I find out they did not, in fact, create it then it will have little to no redeeming value. I liked many of the points that it made about the superficiality of the business but it all gets lost in the endless solos and twang-y accents.
Easily the best of the nominees and well-deserving of the win for 1975 is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It won for picture, director, actor, actress, and screenplay. Only one movie had done this previously (in 1934, a year I'll get to in a long long time. If I'm still unemployed when I get there, come kill me) and only one movie has done it since. I'd tell you which but I already wrote about it. Use this as an opportunity to reread all of my blog entries, it's a nice way to spend several afternoons and a lunch break. This movie centers around a criminal (Nicholson in easily his finest performance, because he's not playing himself quite as much as usual) who is pretending to be crazy so that he can avoid hard time in prison and instead spend some leisurely time in an institution. So right off the bat this movie is brilliant. You've got a criminal exploiting the system (social commentary), the inevitable "plan blowing up in his face" (Greek tragedy when done well), and a sense of existential dystopianism (two words I like to put together). The hitch in the plan is of course the infamous Nurse Ratched, played by Louise Fletcher, the matriarch of the mental asylum. She plays her role so coldly and so subdued that the viewer becomes as frustrated as Nicholson's character, in an effective way. All you want is for the woman to show some genuine frustration, some weakness that would imply a lack of invincibility. But these moments are rare, and when they happen she usually just strikes back and makes things worse than they were before. Outstanding. In addition to the main two players, this film has a ton of future stars that flesh out the incredible supporting cast. Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, and Brad Dourif (from LOTR) among them. The film is bleak, meaningful, and almost completely lacking in redemption. That's the kind of movie I love, because it makes its point powerfully in such a way that you don't need to rewatch it. You should probably avoiding rewatching it too much anyway, lest you end up in the same situation as the characters. But the movie shows human nature as it truly is at its worst: ugly and self-serving. It's also an important film because it's bleak without venturing into the realm of film noir. The reason that's so significant is that you expect film noir to end badly. That's the genre. But this is just a drama, so it tells audiences that just because there's no hard-boiled detective or smoking hot femme fatale doesn't mean that things won't turn sour in the end. Much more shocking, unless of course some blogger ruins it for you. In my experience so far, this is one of the best movies I've watched on Netflix Instant Watch so you should check it out if you have that service (I highly recommend it. Can they pay me for all of these endorsements please?).
Not a bad year by any means, and I could be wrong but I think it's taking me significantly less time to get through the 70s than the 80s. AND the obscene amount of TV shows that I watch are all on now so you'd think I wouldn't be watching as much. Pretty great stuff. I'm not quite done with 1974 yet but I'm close. It's a year I've been looking forward to for years, some of you might know why. Just as a hint, more of a huge giveaway, the year will include neo-noir, post-modern b&w, and some fancy term for: the sequel to the greatest movie of all time.
This first one is the worst of it, but it's still pretty good: Barry Lyndon. Coincidentally, I've had this on my instant watch of netflix for about 8 months or something crazy. I put it on because it's a Kubrick film and I didn't watch it right away because it's like 3 hours long. And not LOTR 3 hours. Not even Titanic 3 hours. More like The Patriot director's cut 3 hours but without the action, excitement, or compelling story. It's basically a period piece from the colonial era in Europe but I couldn't tell if it was kind of making fun of movies like that or if it just was one. Because it's an adaptation of a book that was written in that time period, but I find it hard to believe that Stanley Kubrick would just up and make a period piece that didn't make some sort of modern statement on society. But I'm not sure what it was, because it's tough for me to get things out of movies that I don't care about. It's a beautifully filmed movie and it's well-acted but it's just so meh. The main guy is a colonial tool who gets screwed over by other colonial tools and then ventures across Europe to marry a woman who has a son who is a tool. That son then shoots the main guy in the leg during a duel that lasts entirely too long and that's pretty much the whole movie. It wasn't boring exactly, although I'm not sure why. By all means it should have been boring. The classical music selections and picturesque visuals keep the viewer somewhat invested but there really wasn't much more to it than that. I'd say it was largely a character study, but none of the characters are particularly interesting and they don't really change much. So it's kind of a slice-of-life movie that just happens to take place in 1700s Europe. Let's just say I did a few crosswords during it.
A far more compelling film, although unfortunately not as much for me as it was for people at the time, is Dog Day Afternoon. It's a true story of a man who robbed a bank in New York City in order to get money for his lover's sex change operation. If someone had pitched that as a screenplay, it probably would've gotten shot down. Which is why it's annoying when people say, "that would never happen in real life." Because I say: if everything occurring is physically possible then I buy it. Chance meetings? I buy it. Strange or minor reasons for doing bad things? Sadly, I buy this too because I've read some crazy real stuff. Shooting people while skydiving is a bit iffy. I might not buy that. The story of this film is mostly the backdrop though. And that's just as well because placing the entire focus on the robbery/hostage situation instead makes for a compelling film. The problem with viewing it in a modern context is that basically every movie with this plotline copies the style that this film establishes. So I felt like I had watched this before on TV many times, but I tried my best to watch it objectively. And I must say: they did a pretty superb job. The choice to have a lack of makeup on the actors was a good one because you can really see the exhaustion on their faces, the sweat, and the intensity. I've seen some pretty great makeup jobs where they can make it look like someone is out of it and dirty, but there's really no substitute for actual human skin pigment. I know that sounds weird, but it all comes off as so much more realistic because Pacino doesn't look like he just exited his trailer. He looks like he has legitimately been holding hostages for 12 hours with no nourishment or rest. John Cazale plays his accomplice, in a very non-Fredo like performance. Not just because he has hair in this one. He does a solid job but Pacino easily steals the show, as he often does. There are plenty of little touches throughout the film that really add to the overall effect but are tough to put your finger on. Moments such as pieces of dialogue that are kind of rocky, with less flow than usual. This is quite realistic, especially for a high-adrenaline situation. So I really give the filmmakers credit for taking a story that can be summed up in a headline (as it was, many many times) and really pulling the viewer in and immersing them in the experience. It's largely a product of its time and doesn't make as much of an impact this far from Vietnam-era cynicism, but it's definitely a well-done movie.
A somewhat groundbreaking picture that I find to be somewhat overrated, and this may shock you, is Jaws. Of course, this is always going to happen when you hear too much about a big movie before you see it. I watched it for the first time about five years ago, maybe a little less, but for as far back as I can remember I have been hearing about this film. I even went on the ride at Universal Studios. Although it was more of a waiting line than a ride, along the lines of the classic "want some salad with that dressing?" situation. 3 hours of line = 5 minutes of riding in the water with a fake shark. But stuff blew up and the shark got all bloody so that was pretty cool. The film itself feels kind of the same though: almost a whole movie of looking for a shark and then the shark gets blown up at the end. This is all delivered really well, mostly because of John Williams' iconic score. Though this wasn't the first American film to feature a prominent and iconic music score, it was probably the first time that people could recognize the music anywhere and instantly remember what it meant. The music itself became as much a part of pop culture as the movie itself did, if not more so. But aside from the music, which is fantastic, a lot of the movie is filler. I think it was so refreshing when it came out to have a "horror" movie, or more accurately a "suspense" movie, that wasn't filled with cliché characters and gore. There's no question that the movie effectively builds suspense without really showing the shark, and that the characters are fleshed out really well by 3 great actors: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss. The problem is that when the movie goes on for as long as it does (just over 2 hours) a lot of the suspense dies down. And whereas it's initially compelling to watch three characters who "aren't really chasing the shark, they're chasing their own insecurities," by the time you're halfway through the film you feel like they're just in therapy and they should be paying you for your time. Not to say that any of the scenes were poorly written or poorly delivered, it just gets kind of old after a while. Once the drama between the characters heats up it's better, and of course the initial beach attack and finale are pretty great, but it would seem to me that such an iconic and famous film should hold that standing for more than "it was pretty scary." Granted, if I had watched it with friends as a child then I would probably feel differently because I'd have memories of jumping around and screaming with my buddies. That's what I like to call the "Ghostbusters effect." Because I only just saw that movie this year and I thought it was stupid. Had I seen it as a kid: it would be nostalgic. As it stands to me today it wasn't that funny. But anyway, this movie certainly earned its win for original music score and I give it credit for breaking some established barriers of film. But if you haven't seen it then you should keep your expectations fairly low and you'll probably enjoy yourself.
Conversely, a movie that's tough to enjoy at all is Nashville. Literally the only reason is that it's too long. The film is supposed to satirize the absurdity of many aspects of country music, and so for the first half of the film I was enjoying the statements they were making. But when a movie is 3 hours long it ceases to be satire and becomes what it's satirizing. Especially when it's about a bunch of ridiculous people who take themselves too seriously. Because then when you're spending 3 hours on trying to make your audience become invested in the characters, then you're legitimizing caricatures. That just doesn't work. It'd be like if a Marx brothers movie went on for several hours and Harpo ended up dying for some reason. Also: a large part of the movie (seriously about an hour or something crazy) is actual country music. Original songs written and performed by the actors. Which is pretty impressive. But once again: you're trying to give the viewer as authentic a Nashville experience as possible while still telling them that Nashville is melodramatic. That just doesn't work. On a positive note: it does kind of pave the way for the mockumentary. And while it would be others who would perfect the genre, I give them credit for creating it. If I find out they did not, in fact, create it then it will have little to no redeeming value. I liked many of the points that it made about the superficiality of the business but it all gets lost in the endless solos and twang-y accents.
Easily the best of the nominees and well-deserving of the win for 1975 is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It won for picture, director, actor, actress, and screenplay. Only one movie had done this previously (in 1934, a year I'll get to in a long long time. If I'm still unemployed when I get there, come kill me) and only one movie has done it since. I'd tell you which but I already wrote about it. Use this as an opportunity to reread all of my blog entries, it's a nice way to spend several afternoons and a lunch break. This movie centers around a criminal (Nicholson in easily his finest performance, because he's not playing himself quite as much as usual) who is pretending to be crazy so that he can avoid hard time in prison and instead spend some leisurely time in an institution. So right off the bat this movie is brilliant. You've got a criminal exploiting the system (social commentary), the inevitable "plan blowing up in his face" (Greek tragedy when done well), and a sense of existential dystopianism (two words I like to put together). The hitch in the plan is of course the infamous Nurse Ratched, played by Louise Fletcher, the matriarch of the mental asylum. She plays her role so coldly and so subdued that the viewer becomes as frustrated as Nicholson's character, in an effective way. All you want is for the woman to show some genuine frustration, some weakness that would imply a lack of invincibility. But these moments are rare, and when they happen she usually just strikes back and makes things worse than they were before. Outstanding. In addition to the main two players, this film has a ton of future stars that flesh out the incredible supporting cast. Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, and Brad Dourif (from LOTR) among them. The film is bleak, meaningful, and almost completely lacking in redemption. That's the kind of movie I love, because it makes its point powerfully in such a way that you don't need to rewatch it. You should probably avoiding rewatching it too much anyway, lest you end up in the same situation as the characters. But the movie shows human nature as it truly is at its worst: ugly and self-serving. It's also an important film because it's bleak without venturing into the realm of film noir. The reason that's so significant is that you expect film noir to end badly. That's the genre. But this is just a drama, so it tells audiences that just because there's no hard-boiled detective or smoking hot femme fatale doesn't mean that things won't turn sour in the end. Much more shocking, unless of course some blogger ruins it for you. In my experience so far, this is one of the best movies I've watched on Netflix Instant Watch so you should check it out if you have that service (I highly recommend it. Can they pay me for all of these endorsements please?).
Not a bad year by any means, and I could be wrong but I think it's taking me significantly less time to get through the 70s than the 80s. AND the obscene amount of TV shows that I watch are all on now so you'd think I wouldn't be watching as much. Pretty great stuff. I'm not quite done with 1974 yet but I'm close. It's a year I've been looking forward to for years, some of you might know why. Just as a hint, more of a huge giveaway, the year will include neo-noir, post-modern b&w, and some fancy term for: the sequel to the greatest movie of all time.
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