1964: The Year that a Spoonful of Sugar Prevented Fighting in the War Room

I literally came up with that title like a year ago. It's a miracle I remembered it at all, since I have the rather unfortunate tendency to forget a lot of my best ideas. Anyway, before I begin I'd like to give a special shout-out to Smallville which finished up its record-setting (for a North American sci-fi show) 218th episode/series finale. And it was A-MAZING. That's why you stick with things that have shown you promise in the past, because this show broke every TV rule in the book by having its 4 best seasons after it had jumped the shark. Got to tip your hat to that. I will certainly miss it as it was one of my main shows for many years and as I previously wrote, its depiction of Lex Luthor is one of my favorite villain stories of all time. And they gave him a proper send-off in the finale which I was thankful for. To segue this (sort of): it was a show with a lot of melodrama and unabashedly hokey stuff. And that's why it worked. It was very much meant to evoke that child-like wonder you first felt when you saw Superman as a kid. It was done with this tone deliberately and that's why it worked so well. This is why I always say with these Oscar nominees that you can make basically anything work if you know what it is and play to its strengths. Hokey can work! But you have to do it correctly. And this was a better year than most, especially since it contains one of my favorite movies of all time.

One of these days I'll be able to say that and then immediately mention the film, but the alphabet instead demands we first talk about Becket. Not a bad movie by any means. Unlike a lot of stage adaptations, it manages to have a larger scope in terms of sets, locations, and characters. It's not three people in a room for two and a half hours. It's a classic "friends become adversaries who still kind of care for each other" story. Is that accurate to the actual relationship between Thomas Becket and King Henry II? Apparently it is fairly accurate. Do I really care? Not in the least. I don't care as much about the accuracy of British historical films because A) a lot of them took place so long ago that it's tough to tell what was true and what wasn't anyway and B) I don't know as much about British history and so nothing sticks out. You've got people saying that the two men were lovers, people saying that they never liked each other at all, etc. So if "historians" have opinions that are so different, then I say that whatever works best in an artistic way is fine by me. As long as Becket still dies in the end in a church, which is indisputable fact, then I'm good to go. This movie does a good job of separating itself into parts. It goes from the two men being drinking buddies who cause trouble throughout the countryside and transitions into a movie about political/religious strife. It avoids being too jargon-y and makes it a very personal story about two men at odds with each other. The way I always view these types of stories is that the only reason the loyal friend is so loyal is because he's beneath the powerful douche. Side note: "Beneath the Powerful Douche" would be a great title for an Alternative Rock band I think, or obscure poetry. As soon as Henry gives him some power, Becket doesn't feel like putting up with his antics anymore. The thing I love about this time period is that all of the "religious" stuff was mostly a guise to cover up political machinations and personal grudges. Even with all of that awesome stuff, it wouldn't work without the excellent casting of Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole as Becket and Henry, respectfully. It's still a little bit too l0ng, since a lot of play adaptations try not to eliminate too much from the stage version and thus forget that they don't have an intermission, but it fills its time with better things than most movies of its type.

A movie that may well be the only one of its type, and certainly one of my favorites, is Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. First off: any movie that includes the word "or" in its title is already awesome. Because it's like the movie doesn't know how to describe itself and thus gives you an overdone and frank description of its own satire. It'd be like if the 2006 winner was called: "The Departed or: How I Learned to Solve Plot Conflicts and Kill Everyone in the Final Act." But modern audiences wouldn't get it. In fact, I talk to many people who don't understand why Stanley Kubrick's incredible anti-war dark (dark dark dark) comedy is so good. Something to remember is: it is intentionally paced very slowly. It's about Doomsday for all intents and purposes. And it was made during a time when people legit thought Doomsday was about to happen at any moment. So Kubrick makes a movie about The Cold War reaching its worst possible outcome (nuclear annihilation) and how do the protagonists respond? With bureaucracy! And red tape! How freaking brilliant is that? Because it's probably not far from the truth. If the world was falling apart most recent presidents would probably be looking at how it would affect their poll numbers for re-election. So by keeping the tone very mundane, it illustrates the lunacy of bureaucratic goings-on. My absolute favorite scene is when the president calls the President of the Soviet Union and their conversation mostly consists of: "yes I'm doing well. How are you? Oh that's good, I'm glad we are both doing well!" Their countries are about to destroy the Earth and they're making small talk! Love it. There are also a lot of subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) sexual jokes/references/imagery. All of this is meant to evoke the idea that The Cold War was basically one big...erm..."missile measuring" contest. Which is pretty much EXACTLY WHAT IT WAS. When you think about it. I could go on and on, one could write a book analyzing the movie really, but I'll just point out that Peter Sellers outdoes even himself in this. He plays three distinctly different roles and he is BRILLIANT. That man needed the Oscar. He was nominated anyway, but he was beaten out by a British guy singing. Because that had never been done before. Sadly I think both the film and the performance were too "out there" for 1964 but it has since been remembered by film buffs as the masterpiece that it is, and I've learned on this escapade that the opinions of the everyday film buff are more important than the Academy anyway.

A completely different movie, in every way a movie can be different, is Mary Poppins. Remember how I mentioned that a movie can set out to be charming and a little hokey and still be really good? This film does exactly that. Unless I'm mistaken, this was one of those movies that I watched about a million times as a kid. Which of course makes me wary to watch it again as an adult because it always runs the risk of being crap. Then when it is my childhood dies little by little. Thankfully when I did watch this again it was every bit as enchanting and wonderful an experience as when I was a kid, if not more so. Making my remaining childhood strongholds: Mary Poppins, Batman the Animated Series, and mint chocolate chip ice cream. One thing I love about the movie is that it's not meant to be taken seriously, as we see from the opening scene of Julie Andrews on a cloud. This means that if you have dancing chimney sweeps, it fits. And if you have a song about nothing, it involves people floating or dancing cartoon penguins. The children in the movie are being enchanted by Mary Poppins and that's the point of the movie. Therefore, scenes are meant to be enchanting to the audience as well and that still manages to make sense within the narrative. See how that's better than big dancing scenes for no reason when you're also trying to have a narrative about something else? It also establishes right from the beginning that everything is steeped in the imagination. So when they jump into sidewalk chalk and everything becomes animated it makes sense. Well, it doesn't make sense but you buy it without wondering what might have been slipped into your mint chocolate chip ice cream. There are also some plot points that are actually a bit somber...but they're kind of pushed into the background. When you're a kid you just ignore everything that's not the singing so you don't really notice. Just like how when you're a teenager you ignore everything that's not boobs or explosions (or "boobsplosions" as we deemed them in pop culture class). In this way, some aspects of the movie hit upon the same points as Life is Beautiful and it's just as much about embracing your childhood as it is about growing up. Plus there are cartoon penguins in it. That is awesome.

The flaw in the plan for this year is Zorba the Greek. It's pretty much the Ben Affleck in a year that was Shakespeare in Love quality. I literally can't think of anything to say about it that is positive. Like, at all. In fact, I read that no one would buy the movie when it was first looking for distributors. Probably because it's terrible. And it was the first movie I watched after my ill-fated job training so I paid more attention than I would have otherwise because I was happy to be doing anything that wasn't sitting in traffic or waking up at 4:30. It's pretty much one of those feel-good movies about how "everything sucks but life is still great for some reason!" I was imagining that as spoken by Tracy Jordan by the way, that might help with the sarcasm. There really needs to be a sarcasm font. Because you can have a movie about how everything sucks and still illustrate that there is beauty in life, but this doesn't do it at all. At one point a woman is pretty much lynched and no one seems to notice that it happened! She died! Her throat was cut! No movie that involves a woman being lynched and sliced should end with two dudes dancing on a beach. And there's a log delivery system that breaks and some widows that get wooed or something and a bunch of other stuff no one cares about. For like two and a half hours. The original cut was about 3 hours long! It barely has enough story in it to fill up a CSI episode where they try to solve a case of a female lynching. People are getting stoned (not like on drugs, like in the Bible), kids are committing suicide, but I guess life is good because a strange Greek man who chews the scenery says so. And black and white doesn't suit everything...it has the ability to make the dull duller. It also makes the intense intenser but only where that applies (also the grammar less grammar-y). So yeah it was one of those that would have caused me to take a break from my quest, but thankfully I had come off of a break so I had the mojo to go on (somehow).

This year's winner is a good example of a not-dark musical I actually like: My Fair Lady. Major credit to Audrey Hepburn for actually making her character unappealing at the beginning. It takes some serious acting prowess because she is ADORABLE. Literally gorgeous in a Pam Beesly kind of way where you just want to marry her because her adorable-ness makes you feel better about life. But as soon as she opens her mouth in this movie you just go "wowwwwwwwww I wanna die." She makes it endearing though because the cockney accent is deliberately exaggerated. The person who I really needed to adjust to was Rex Harrison, not because his performance was bad (although it wasn't better than Peter Sellers', just saying) but because Seth MacFarlane based Stewie off of Harrison's character in this movie. So I kept expecting him to say "what the deuce?" and "victory is mine!" But once I got past that I enjoyed his performance. I found the film to be overall very enchanting but I think the first half before the intermission is a complete movie in and of itself. She already becomes a more "proper lady" by the time it's intermission. So then the last half of the movie isn't really about anything. I mean, it is but it's mostly just creating canned drama while it marches toward the inevitable romance between the main characters. I did really like how we never see the romance and it's mostly implied, because that way it gives you one really nice moment instead of a lot of sappy ones. At the same time, there's wayyyyyyyyy too much buildup for just that one moment. I think they should have waited until near the end for her to become a "proper lady" and then had about 10 minutes of canned drama followed by the nice moment. It was still a really good movie with some great (not pointless) songs. It also featured a revolutionary wireless microphone for Rex Harrison who refused to lip sync his songs. That's something you don't think about much but it's HUGE for the industry today. Very impressive.

Well aside from that one mishap, this was a pretty great year overall. Oddly enough I'm already finished with 1962 but due to my OCD I still have to finish 1963 (obviously). And that might take a while because there are like six movies' worth of running time. Seriously. Some crazy long movies. All I can say for now is that it will include a Western that's way too long, a period melodrama that's way too long, and a movie that's an hour and a half and is still too long.