1962: The Year that T Rhymed with P which is Nearby R which Stands for Racism

Well I only recently put up my most recent blog entry, but I figured I'd get right to this one. Because what if I got whacked on the head and completely forgot about all of these movies? Then when I discovered my own blog, I'd think I'd still have this whole year to watch and that would be a waste of time. This was another year of some pretty freaking long movies too. They ranged from mediocre all the way up to outstanding though. Plus, soon the movies will be getting a lot shorter (overall). And contrary to some of my frequent complaints, I love a lengthy film. It has to earn it but when it does there is no comparison. This year's winner is one of those films. But we'll get to that later.

First we'll talk about a truly odd film experience: The Longest Day. I mean, it wasn't odd in the way that a Tim Burton adaptation of Cirque du Soleil would be. It actually covers one of the most overused plotlines in film (and especially Oscar) history: World War II. Specifically D-Day. Of course, anything about D-Day is reverse ruined by Spielberg's incredible depiction at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan. Actually, the WWII film that this movie reminded me of the most is The Thin Red Line. You'd have to go way back in my archive for that blog entry, but the gist was that it was one celebrity appearance after another with no real story for anybody. And it's the same case here. There are a TON of big time actors in it. But some of them are in it for such a brief scene that you barely realize they were there to begin with. Plus, I always get people mixed up in these movies anyway. Especially if I don't have their faces ingrained in my memory and especially if it's in black and white. The lack of attention to character is more forgivable in this type of film because it's unrealistic to have a bunch of soul-searching on Normandy Beach. But when you look at what Spielberg did (as well as lots of other people before him of course) then you will see how he fits little moments into the film that truly ground the characters involved. The scene I always point to in Ryan is when it's revealed that Tom Hanks' character is a high school teacher. It reminds you that these soldiers were just ordinary men, and aside from the occasional badass/nutjob like Patton most of them would have rather been elsewhere. This movie spends 3 hours doing a lot of setup and then even more of the actual battle. The battle itself is very impressive filmmaking, but it goes on WAY too long. It's basically a shortened documentary of what it would have actually been like. Which sounds interesting, but there's a lot of 50s type violence where there's a lot of shooting and not dying. And when you spend that much time on anything (I think it might be close to 2 hours of the whole movie) you lose something. There's no tension. There's already very little tension because you know who wins. And what made me laugh is the screenwriter was adapting the screenplay from his own book. And I thought to myself: "how would this fill up a book?" Unless he decimated his own work of course. Otherwise I'd imagine it was around 300 pages of: "and then another explosion occurred and people died. Then someone got shot. Then another guy whose name I missed and kind of looked like John Wayne disappeared or something." It's of course impossible for me to view it with the type of cinematic eye I would have had back then, and I'm sure it would have blown my mind back then. But it doesn't really hold up too well as compared to heaps of other movies made about the same subject.

Speaking of heaps of similar movies, another "musical about nothing" is The Music Man. Although I will say that this is probably about as good as a musical about nothing gets. It's far more charming than most and it has far less canned drama. Plus a lot of the songs are genuinely catchy and the dance sequences aren't quite as overdone (still overdone though). I was worried in the opening number though...which essentially consisted of a bunch of dudes on a train not really singing but instead making noises to a beat. Pretty much "wiki what wiki wiki wiki what!" for five minutes or so. It single-handedly killed any hopes of ever having an upper crust middle-aged white guy rapper. They eventually got to the classic songs and those are obviously better. The addition of lyrics is an important touch. And young Ron Howard was easily the highlight. Not because of his performance, just because he was Ron Howard. He looked a little bit like me when I was a small child with red hair (that eventually changed color) if you ask me. Which obviously means I'm going to grow up to narrate Arrested Development and direct The Dark Tower. Saweet. Let me point out something that bothers me about all of these movies though. There's always some gorgeous woman (in this case Shirley Jones) who's just sitting around in a nondescript job (in this case a librarian, that's right: the hot librarian) waiting for a guy to take an interest in her. I sincerely hope they were just making an artistic choice there and that it wasn't representative of the time. Because if every small town in 1962 had a Shirley Jones waiting for someone to be nice to her then I hate myself even more for being born anytime after that year. Although I'm not sure I've set foot in a library since I was a child...mostly because I still have their VHS copy of The Lorax and I don't want to get hit with a $27,000 fine. Anyway, I asked my parents if there was any subtext to the movie of showing the gullibility and possible stupidity of small town America, but they assured me that the movie barely had text text. How unfortunate. Didn't they know it was entirely possible to make a kid-friendly movie that becomes an "oh my this is actually disturbing in a social commentary way!" movie as an adult? Oh well. Spoiler Alert: the two main characters wind up together in the end and it's happy and stuff. There were certainly scenes that I truly enjoyed, mostly the scene where he convinces the town that pool tables will lead to STDs and lesbianism (subtly implied). Because I love that type of silver-tongued sneakiness. Even when it comes in the form of an over-the-top dance scene within a movie that is half an hour too long.

But half an hour too long is still better than a whole hour too long, which is exactly how I'd describe Mutiny on the Bounty. An earlier (and universally acclaimed) version of the film won Best Picture and so I'll save some of my overall story thoughts for that movie. Although...in case of that aforementioned conk on the head I'd better say everything now. I'll just repeat myself slightly in 193X. This movie was a MESS behind the scenes. They mention it in the same breath as Cleopatra, because both films went through way too many script changes on the set and went way over budget and had self-centered stars who screwed up the whole thing. But whereas Elizabeth Taylor was just a diva, Marlon Brando was a complete tool. The man was one of the greatest film actors of all time, no question. But what a jerk. So much so that Richard Harris acted his half of Brando's death scene to a log and told Brando to do the same. Gotta love that. And plus, Brando was not good in this movie. He had a British accent that was more a farce than anything else. I myself can do some pretty great voices (if I do say so) but I can't really do a British one. So I don't try. But even my ego would be supremely eclipsed by his so I guess it never occurred to him that Fletcher Christian might not have actually sounded like a flamboyant British gigolo. Trevor Howard's performance as Captain Bligh is much better, but apparently he wasn't even that mean in real life. I feel like that's kind of messed up. How did they not get sued by the dude's family? I'm not normally an advocate of rampany suing, but when you portray a dude as a sadist when he really wasn't then that's a step too far. On the subject of the "real life" aspect: this story really isn't that interesting. Not that it couldn't be done in an interesting way, because Pulp Fiction is about gangsters talking about nonsense and it's one of my favorite movies ever. What I mean is: what about the historical story itself would make anyone want to write a book about it at all, let alone make people want to adapt that book into a film? The guys on the ship are transporting breadfruit to an island so it can grow and become cheap food for slaves. Heroic, right? Scratch that. I'm not even going to pick on it for not being heroic. That's just plain not interesting at all. And no, breadfruit wasn't the pre-modern unobtanium, it was a real thing. James Cameron should pay me for all the mentions I give him I think. Then when you're over halfway through this mess of a film, the mutiny finally happens. And it lasts like twelve seconds. Seriously. I almost missed it. Okay so maybe that's how it was in real life. And I might accept that BUT they didn't seem to care about historical fact in the rest of the movie. And if you're going to crap on history, you should do it in an interesting way. I will say that somewhere in-between the extended dance sequences and excessive amounts of drinking/bro-ing out 18th Century style there was some really great cinematography and some good music. The director had done some masterpieces in the past, and maybe if Brando hadn't usurped most of his power then the movie would have been worth something.

A mercifully-short and mercifully-good film is To Kill a Mockingbird. I watched it a long time ago with my dad and found it to be quite powerful but I also decided to re-watch it recently and found it to be just as powerful. It's a great example of social commentary fueling a plot rather than replacing a plot. It's about a lot of things but the theme of racism is prevalent throughout it. It's about the immortal Atticus Finch (I say immortal because he's a well-known character. He is not, in fact, unable to die) and his quest to save an innocent man from death row. One thing I think is cool about it is that it tells the story from his daughter's point of view, which makes Atticus into a more mythical character. In much the same way a certain 1959 Best Picture winning epic did in relation to Jesus. Or the way Terminator Salvation treated John Connor. And yes this is the first time those 3 movies have been mentioned/alluded to in the same paragraph in the history of humankind. But that's why I'm here folks. In this case, I'd say it's the film's only flaw because Atticus' daughter is WAY annoying. Maybe it's just because Gregory Peck does such an outstanding job and you only want to see what he's up to, or the fact that her Southern whiny voice narrates the whole fricking movie. Plus, her nickname is "Scout." So her name is Scout Finch. That sounds like a "Fox Force Five" reject. And if any women out there immediately recognized that reference then I think we might be soulmates. Anyway, I should also point out that my Aunt used to tell me this story when I was a kid. Not the part about a white woman claiming a black guy raped her because she was ashamed that she was attacted to him. That might have messed me up slightly. Instead the part about the local strange man "Boo" Radley (played by a young Robert Duvall, who totally nails his slightly-more-than-a-cameo role) and how he was really a good guy the whole time. Everyone thought he was some sort of psycho but really they were all afraid for no reason. That of course being a big metaphor for the type of unfounced racial prejudice in the country at that time (and sadly today). And as the title expands on in the film "it's a sin to kill a mockingbird because they do nothing but make music for us to enjoy." In other words: don't bother screwing over things that aren't bothering you. The court case has a sad ending but the film leaves you with the hope that Scout's generation will grow up knowing that men like the unfortunately accused defendant and Boo Radley shouldn't cause fear in the slightest. And having that ingrained in my mind as a child was a big part of cementing my film/life philosophy of looking at possibly terrible human beings from their own point of view. One of my favorite professors gave us one of his favorite quotes that sums it up perfectly: "to understand all is to forgive all." I've written of this many times in reference to guys like Lex Luthor and Benjamin Linus and it all started with the first time I heard this story. So it holds a special place in my heart, and it's a great film to boot.

And in any other year it might have been the rightful winner, but this was the year of the incredible epic Lawrence of Arabia. Steven Spielberg himself called this the greatest film of all time. Or maybe it was his favorite film of all time...I forget. I always mix it up with a certain overlooked 1956 Western as to which is the favorite and which is the best. And the fact that Spielberg places emphasis on both in much the same OCD way that I do gives me hope for the future. Anyway, this movie is universally remembered as having some of the best cinematography of all time. All of which is accentuated by Maurice Jarre's incredible score. It's filmed in a WAY skinny widescreen so the size and scope of the images themselves define the term breathtaking. But I've used that term before to describe scenery in a film, usually within a movie that I find otherwise pretty worthless like Out of Africa. But this has an actual story to back everything up. It's a World War I tale, which is very refreshing to me. Because World War II was interesting and everything but WWI was far more politically interesting and not nearly as much stuff was made about it. It centers around a man who was a bit of a misfit, but who blended in with the Arabs better than any other British soldier ever could. He earned their respect. Notice how this is the originator in that chain I often mention that ends with Avatar. Because this movie did it first, did it best, and shouldn't have been copied. The plot itself progresses in a fairly ordinary fashion, but it really won me over with a particular succession of scenes. The first one portrays Lawrence risking his life to save one of the Bedouins from the wilderness. It's a defining moment for the film and for his character. Then a few scenes later the same man breaks the rules and the penalty is death. Lawrence elects to kill the man himself, even though you can tell he hates himself for it (excellent performance by Peter O'Toole). It's a dark scene, made even more intense by the earlier heroism toward the same man. Both scenes solidify his prestige with the Bedouins but for completely different reasons. He then goes on to lead them in their revolt in some spectacular battle scenes (David Lean outdoes himself, probably his best work) before succumbing to a mediocre death in much the same way Patton would later in American history. Both very different but both great warriors who died in vehicle accidents. Also like Patton, Lawrence found himself out of place in the world. He wasn't truly accepted in the end by either the Arabs or the British. And so, like many heroes throughout history, he was rejected. The type of filmmaking that brought this incredible film to life doesn't really exist anymore. Spielberg said it would cost like 700 million dollars or something crazy to have all real horses riding into battle on location and whatnot. That's a shame. Because CGI allows for some wonderful things but at the end of the day it's not real. Whereas this movie brought the story to life in as realistic a manner as was humanly possible. I eagerly await the highly-anticipated Blu-Ray release because it's a movie that I can truly say earned every second of its 3 hours and 46 minutes.

Well 2 blog entries in a 24-hour period isn't too bad I think. And I did this one whilst re-watching some True Blood so it was a supremely odd experience. And awesome. I hope I can say the same about the next year, but I still have 3 left to watch so it might take a bit (depending on my patience levels). All I can say for now is it will include dancing thugs, pool-playing sitcom characters, and repentant Nazis. Sadly not all in the same movie.