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.
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