Yep, we're getting meta with our titles. And we're talking like Gollum now apparently. Oh man! I should have called it The French Mistake, because it's a famous meta sequence that also involves French things. Well this was a rough year. Because not only did I not enjoy most of the movies, they're not strange enough to warrant proper rantings. All I can really say is that they're dull. I'll try my best to be creative but I might risk sounding like the film snob elitist douches that I purport to despise. What a narrative this blog has, eh? I just hope that when I hit 1927 I don't Colonel Kurtz myself.
We start things off with Auntie Mame. To begin with, Rosalind Russell (the star who plays the titular character) grew up in my dad's hometown of Waterbury, Connecticut. So that's pretty cool. And I hope I see some of her more interesting work down the road. Because this was basically over-the-top nonsense. It was entertaining to see that her character was likely a large influence on the character of Edna in The Incredibles. But that character was clearly supposed to be funny. I wasn't sure what this movie was trying to tell me. Because near the end of the film she is supposed to be the heroic rebel standing against the upper class snobbery who came close to being her nephew's in-laws. But she's also an upper class snob. She eats alligator and caviar and travels the world so she can fit into that "life is for crazy adventures!" archetype. But people who are always on the move are running from something. From commitment or responsibility or reality or any number of things. The film doesn't have any sobering moments that cause her to take a step back and perhaps reveal why she is the way she is. Which means that what it should be is a comedy. Which means that it's about a half an hour too long to be an overly long comedy. The character is supposed to be uplifting in the sense that she's seeing the world and doing all of these crazy things with her nephew. But since her nephew just grows up to almost marry a snob anyway, what was the point? And then at the end she's taking her nephew's son on all of her adventures instead. But if the nephew just grew up to be like his father, a straight-laced disdainer of adventures, then why did we just watch the movie? Wasn't the kid supposed to be introduced to all these new things and then become like her? That would have been a rehash of lots of other movies but at least it would've given the film a point. Instead, the point becomes that everyone grows up except for Auntie Mame. Which makes her quite a bit pathetic in my opinion. Now I'm going to use my own Ebert-ism and reference her famous line: "life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!" Well, (in my douchey New York Times esque reviewer voice) if life is a banquet than Aunie Mame is a glutton, taking too much for herself and leaving none of the joy for the audience.
A slightly more redeemable picture is Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I always hear about this movie as being one of THE stage plays of the time. So when I finally saw it I think I was mostly underwhelmed. I thought the acting was very good but the plot was a little spotty. It wasn't quite a series of vignettes and it certainly didn't come together too well. Although I will admit that I spent most of the first part of the movie wondering when and how they'd mention the title and ogling Elizabeth Taylor. And I ogled during most of that spending. The cat in question is Liz herself, which is why it's quite odd that she isn't in most of the second half of the film. This was my problem. The first bit is mostly about her and her husband, the injured former sports hero. The second bit is mostly about her husband's father dying of cancer. Then there are some other characters sprinkled in here and there for little reason. I can't really take characters seriously who are named "Big Momma" and "Big Daddy." According to my parents it's more common in the South to hear things like that. Well it's common in Boston to hear things like "wicked smahrt!" but I wouldn't include those phrases in a Boston-set character study. Because it's unintentionally funny and it takes the audience out of the movie. But that's not really a huge deal. My main problem, as I already said, is that there's no real main character and it's not truly an ensemble piece either. Given the title, you figure Liz is playing the main character. But then she's not in it for like, forever. The whole thing plays like an unexpectedly well-cast pilot episode of some CW show. Family drama! Pregnancy drama! Relationship stuff! Boring. As you may recall, I referred to another such family drama, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as being quite good. So I'm not inherently against movies with a small cast and only family drama to drive the plot. But this was all over the place. If it was just about the aging sports star and his father, or him and his wife, that could have been good. But it ends up jumping from one thing to another too quickly and everything is ultimately the same at the end of the day. Just like a cat on a hot tin roof! OH SNAP.
Next up is this year's only good offering: The Defiant Ones. Anytime Sidney Poitier is in anything it's always going to be that much better, even if the overall product isn't that great. But this particular character study is well-paced, well-written, and well-acted by not only Mr. Poitier but also Tony Curtis. It's basically a two-man show between them and they both did an excellent job. The film would have completely fallen apart if one of them wasn't up to the same level as the other. It's basically about two escaped prisoners, one white and one black (in the deep South mind you) who are chained to each other and try to reach freedom. What's interesting is that they seem to dislike each other at first not because of their difference in race but because of their personal differences. I'm finding progressive examples of black actors MUCH more back in time than I ever expected. Needless to say, the two end up respecting each other and becoming friends and yadda yadda. But it thankfully plays as more of a character study than a "races should get along" thing. Which is really good because the second message will come across anyway if you do the first one in an effective way. Of course, it was 1958 and since no one back then wanted to set a bad example for the kiddies the two men were never going to escape. Nowadays they might have, or even in the 60s perhaps. But it's largely irrelevant because the real story is the personal connection. Speaking of Tony Curtis, I found it amusing that he has a convincing Southern accent in this. Because it would've worked a lot better than his native New Yorker accent that he uses in Spartacus, which takes you out of the movie entirely. So one wonders why Kubrick had him do that...I guess 1960 came and went and I forgot to mention that Spartacus should have gotten a nomination that year. The battle at the end is a little anemic but the rest of it is fantastically well done and it features what may well be the greatest love theme ever written, by Mr. Alex North. Anyway, back to Poitier and Curtis, the film shows up on TCM from time to time so if you see it coming up then you should check it out. It's only about an hour and a half (perfect length for the movie) and it features some truly stellar performances.
Another performance-based film that's sadly a bore is Separate Tables. I guess it's refreshing that boring British movies about people whose time has gone by are not a new phenomenon. Know what's a movie about people whose time has passed? Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch. Excellent film. Know why? It has a plot. This is just people sitting around rehashing the same conversations over and over. I was actually expecting to like this, but mostly because Rita Hayworth is in it. I have no idea why, but I am lit-trally obsessed with her. Like, seriously. Possibly more than a lot of modern actresses. It's a good thing I wasn't around back then because I would have run the risk of pulling a Hinckley on her love interest from Gilda. She has an undeniable allure, on top of also being a great actress. That's why Domenic is Team Rita and not Team Marilyn. Let it be known. She was...40 I think...yes Wikipedia says 40, anyway she was 40 when she made this and she's playing the glamour model who's time has passed. In one sense that's appropriate since I guess that was her story at the time. But on the other hand it's a bit absurd since she was still gorgeous. So she's sitting around lamenting how no one pays attention to her anymore and I'm just not buying it. Even back then 40 wasn't that old! Maybe in the Old West or something but goodness. To tell you the truth, I don't remember much of the movie. And I watched it like 3 days ago. It was just a bunch of Soap-y mess. "Oh we'll never be happy together! But we'll never be happy apart either!" Maybe if I was an aged someone-or-other I would have felt for one or several of the characters and felt a personal connection to their story. In fact, I never thought I'd say this in a million blog posts but that sort of factor added to my enjoyment of Transformers 3. It was the best of the 3 anyway, but in it the main guy just graduated with a more prestigious degree than mine and couldn't find work. And he mostly wanted to help the Autobots so that he could feel like he mattered again, and that's something I can really relate to. So I enjoyed it more than if I had seen it last year at this time, or (hopefully) next year at this time. But a movie shouldn't be dependent on a sub-sect of people having a personal connection. There should have been some more variety with the characters, but even if there was it'd still be fairly boring.
And speaking of boring, we come to this year's winner: Gigi. This won 9, count them: 9! Academy Awards. Umm...why? Not that there was much competition this year, judging by the Picture nominees, but still. Instead of describing the plot myself, I'd like to share the description on my Netflix DVD. Because it's the most absurd thing I've ever seen. "Leslie Caron stars as Gigi, an avant-garde French waif being groomed as the fille de joie of affluent and handsome Gaston (Louis Jourdan). Soon Gigi metamorphoses into a stunning beauty, and the head-over-heels Gaston asks for her hand. But Gigi's courtesan grandmother is aghast: no one in the family has ever considered something as plebeian as matrimony!" Okay...so I have a better vocabulary than most people, and I've seen the movie, and I have no idea what that first sentence means. And the last sentence sets off your douche alarm doesn't it? Even though it's all supposed to be funny, you're still watching snobs be snobs. And much like Auntie Mame, the girl who is in apparent opposition to the snobbery is a snob herself. Maybe that was supposed to make it funny. I don't know. But it wasn't. And aside from a pretty great duet that involves the two older members of the cast remembering a date they once had in completely different detail (easily more charming and enjoyable than the entire rest of the movie) the songs were forgettable. Except, of course, for the opening/closing number: "Thank Heaven for Little Girls." I could not believe my ears. An old French guy singing about how great little girls are. I know it's not meant to be taken in a perverted way, but good lord. Even in 1958 there must have been people in the audience going: "really?" Not to mention, this whole thing is basically My Fair Lady with the charm turned down. AND I checked, and MFL was already in existence on stage before this movie or its own movie came out so: HA! It is a ripoff. And critics of the time pointed this out, even though they also didn't seem to care. The only redeeming quality it has is Mr. Jourdan's character, who complains of everything being a bore. He's pretty funny when he's going around hating everything. And then it's all nice because Gigi is the only person crazy and unpredictable enough to interest him. Everyone else and everything else is just so boring. And I think that's a nice story, but it reverse-reminded me of As Good As It Gets because as soon as they fall in love the movie loses its interest. Because then it's just canned drama. It should've ended with them getting together and left the rest to your imagination. It's always better that way. If you took out the absurd opening song, either made it shorter or made them not get together until the end, and lost some of the snobbery this would actually be an enjoyable little movie. Still not even close to deserving 9 Oscars, or even a few, but it would be far better than what it actually was.
Well this wasn't as glaringly bad as some other years, and the movies were almost all mercifully short. So that's a plus. Still, I'm kind of surprised because this is supposed to be an era of good movies. And there are a lot of good ones but there were a lot of boring ones too. I know for a fact there are some really good winners coming up, so I hope they'll be in good company. All I know for sure about next year is that there will be dancing Asians, warrior Asians, and arguing Cauc Asians.
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