1968: The Year that Spent Almost as Much Time in Intermission as It Did Singing

Seriously though. I could see a 3+ hour movie having an intermission but 2 hours and 18 minutes? That's when you know the source material is exhausting, but we'll get to that later. And a 2 1/2 hour movie with an intermission is pushing it too. There were literally 4 intermissions in this year. The reason I point this out is because I'm wondering if that was a thing in the 60s or if this particular year was just a fluke. When you've put up as many blog entries on this subject as I have, these are the types of inane things you start to wonder. This year had 1 good, 1 great, 1 bleh, 1 rant, and 1 mixed-meh. I'm thinking by the time I reach the end of my escapade those brief descriptions are all I'll feel like recording. Oh and on that subject, prepare for my blog entry next week on this current year's nominees! I'm waiting for the results to write it (I got caught up on all 10 weeks ago) so I can decide how pissed off to be. Anyway, get your head out of 2010 and put it in 1968.

Or I guess put it just around World War I for Funny Girl. This movie is about a million times better than Hello Dolly! and there's no superfluous exclamation point (that's a big plus). This is the other type of musical: the kind I do like. The singing is neither over-the-top nor extraneous. Nobody is singing about the sun being up or oxygen being in the air. It tells an actual story and is aided by singing flawlessly. Nothing against Gene Kelly, director of HD!, because I'm a fan of his. But his type of movie is meant for a normal film's running time (not a sword and sandals running time). The director of this movie is William Wyler, well known for directing 3 (count them: 3!) Best Picture winners and for being nominated for Best Director a record-setting 12 times. So like I said: nothing against Gene Kelly but it would seem that there was only one William Wyler. Not to say that this movie is one of his best efforts because it's not. That's not really an insult though, considering the competition. It's a charming film with some great musical numbers and (gasp!) a performance I quite enjoyed by Barbra Streisand. As I mentioned before: I dislike her. She is a prima donna like almost no other and that's usually only backed up by her outstanding voice and not her acting talent. But I give credit to those who deserve it and she certainly does for this movie. You can tell that she recognized with real-life funny girl Fanny Brice and was thus able to portray her in such a realistic way. She exemplifies the all-too-common story of the small town performer who hits the big time with questionable results. On one hand, becoming famous and making money is pretty great. It's actually really great. It's actually my life's goal. But if you keep that small town mentality then people can take advantage of you and you can forget that "all glory is fleeting." Only Patton reference in a Funny Girl review ever? I think so. Streisand keeps that wide-eyed, smoke-in-your-eyes...smoke-in-your-wide-eyes look on her face throughout most of the film. Which is pretty impressive since her ego wiped that look off of her real-life face years beforehand. You truly feel like she's having the time of her life through every bit of her career, to a point of course. I'm not sure how long the real-life Fanny Brice's career lasted, but the film ends at a point where her small town optimism is gone. And so the future of her career was really kind of irrelevant. Made that pretty depressing didn't I? Don't listen to me, it's an enjoyable movie and it's on Instant Watch so go check it out.

Something that should be depressing is The Lion in Winter, but it's really not. It is, however, fantastic. When that happens I translate "depressing" or "intense" into "powerful." It's filled to the brim with excellent actors, including premiere performances from Anthony Hopkins (who was great even at the beginning of his career) and Timothy Dalton (the most overlooked Bond of them all). Can you imagine if your first big acting gig was having to get up in Peter O'Toole's face and match his level of intensity? I'd need to be heavily medicated, perhaps not legally. But even in the midst of all of the great actors in the movie, Katharine Hepburn really steals the show as Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. She tied with Streisand that year for Best Actress, the first and only time this has happened in that category to date, and I can't say I disagree. Totally different performances but both excellent. Of course, if I had to side with anyone it would be Hepburn. Mostly because I often side with darker and more twisted performances (in case you hadn't noticed). The film is about the complicated relationship between all of the members of the Royal Family in the late 12th Century and the question of who should be next in the line of succession. Do I know anything about this period of history? Not particularly. Did I need to? Nope. That's how you do a freaking period piece! A real human drama that just happens to take place back in time. No Bachelor's Degree in History needed. The Award-winning score from John Barry doesn't hurt either. The overall plot can be described fairly briefly (check Wikipedia if you really want to) but the meat of the film is in the acting. And unlike other films where this applies: the directing, writing, etc. is up to the same standard. And while the script itself is inherently good, the actors really take it to the next level. There are lines in it that could easily be stupid if delivered differently but when Hepburn says them they are either hilarious, acerbic, or both. Usually both. By means of a similar example from a completely different movie (just because that's how I roll): when Daniel Craig survives an attempt on his life in Casino Royale and then returns to poker to say: "that last hand nearly killed me" it was totally badass. If Roger Moore had said it, it would have sucked. Timothy Dalton could have done it too (see what I did there to bring it back?) and why he didn't have more of a career than he did after his role in this movie as King Phillip is anyone's guess. Well I think I've salivated over this one enough. Forgive me, but it's been a while since I was this pleasantly surprised by a nominee.

Which must mean that I've just set up a segue to: the fact that I was unpleasantly unsurprised by Rachel, Rachel. I thought it would be stupid and it was. I'm really running out of things to say for these "character studies" that don't really go anywhere. So I'll just repeat what I've said all along: there's no point studying a character who is uninteresting. In this case the character is a thirty-something spinster with an overbearing mother whose only respite is her work. Wow, thanks for characterizing everyone's Aunt So-and-So, Cousin So-and-So, or Self So-and-S0. Everyone knows someone at least a little bit like that. So you either go the romantic comedy route and have that be a starting point for a heartwarming-yet-standard date movie, or you do what this movie did and bore everybody to tears. Here's my "tweet" of the movie: "Oh hey, it's sad to be a spinster. Oh hey, here's another thing that's sad. Oh hey, I get happy after the end credits but you can't watch." I just saved you about 100 minutes of your life, you're welcome. Of course it was the 60s and I suppose having a subplot about a closeted lesbian who is interested in the main character was socially conscious. And I suppose having an entire movie about an ordinary woman who breaks free of her humdrum life and empowers herself was a metaphor for the entire Sexual Revolution which was going on at the time. See? I get it! I just don't care. After all, I could make a movie about World War II that uses a metaphor of a supermarket with: an angry German kid stealing microwavable pierogi and Belgian waffles from the frozen foods section, doing terrible terrible things to loaves of Challah, and then finally being relocated to the parking lot by the American and British cashiers. But that wouldn't be particularly interesting. Nor would it be very funny if it was any longer than a Family Guy cutaway. Still, everything I've just described is far more interesting than whatever movie I'm supposed to be talking about.

Which brings me to the tangent to end all tangents on Romeo and Juliet. Of course, it'll really "end all tangents" about as much as either World War did for wars but whatever. First let's start with the positive: Nino Rota's score for this movie is fantastic and should have won the Oscar. It was the single high point of the movie and if I could watch it with just the music I would. The acting is good, the costumes are good, and even the choreography is good. It was adapted about as well as you could possibly adapt it. BUT all of that is based on what I feel is faulty source material. My dislike for Shakespeare in a WAY previous blog post is at least 90% hyperbole for humorous effect, but not in this case. For starters, I really don't buy the romance. The extent of his wooing of her is basically: he sees her at a party, he kisses her briefly, and now they have to be together forever. Or in the Shakespearean: "Her feet must be as tired as the sun is of setting, for she runneth through my mind all day. Henceforth, like the morning rain into mid-summer's lake: I too must tappeth that forever." They both almost immediately find out that they are from opposing families. Families that hate each other so much that several nonsensical swordfights break out between them over the course of the movie, just cuz. But so what if they spent their entire lives blindly hating each other? They can still love each other based on 3 minutes of random interaction right? I think not. It'd be like if the President of Israel's daughter saw the leader of Hezbollah's son at the market, neither knowing the other, and they fall in love because they both enjoy figs and shared a brief kiss over one. When their identities are revealed it's like: blood feud? Meh. Sounds like a pretty great dark comedy subplot actually. Which is how most of this movie/play is structured: like a comedy. And then it ends in tragedy. It'd be like having a Beverly Hills Cop movie where Eddie Murphy dies in the end. Bad example, because that'd be awesome. But I hope you see my point. I kind of feel like ole' Billy was contracted to do a starcrossed lovers story for the following weekend and this was what he came up with inbetween brothel visits. The level of quality (in my opinion anyway) between this and his other famous works is like the level of quality between Scorsese's Raging Bull and some other movie that Scorsese wouldn't even waste his time watching, let alone directing. Like Bad Boys. One qualm I do have with Zeffirelli himself (the director) and not the Bard is that he fought tooth and nail to be able to show 15-year-old Juliet's breasts in one scene. A bit of nudity that lasts about a quarter of a second. Know who fights tooth and nail to show an underage girl naked, "in the name of art," for a scene that barely even exists? Douchey arthouse directors, that's who. But I didn't get that vibe from him for the rest of the movie so we'll let it pass I guess. Plus it provides an amusing anecdote about how actress Olivia Hussey wasn't allowed to see her own movie because her own naked breasts were in it for a quarter of a second. I find that entertaining. I am being a bit unfair on purpose, but only because hating on Shakespeare is good for getting death threats and concordantly publicity. Also because my thoughts are legit and probably more common than one might think. Hopefully my escapade will lead me toward something worthwhile that I can say positive things about, like "Richard III" or "Henry V."

Which brings me at last to this year's winner: Oliver! I hate those exclamation marks, I really do. But I like this movie overall. It's kind of an amalgamation between the two types of musicals. Because though most of the songs are personal and important to the plot, there's also an overblown dancing and singing sequence that literally stems from the minor plot progression that several characters are going outside. That song and the staging of "Consider Yourself" were the only two that really bothered me. Oh, and one other one that might have been about recreational drugs. Or life contentment or something. But "Consider Yourself" has another one of my musical pet peeves in it: random people on the street singing and dancing with the main characters as though they're omnisciently aware of the main story. Not to mention the musical and lyrical delivery of said story. Musical numbers should be held to only a few people, unless it's a whole crowd of similarly minded people singing like in certain "Les Misérables" scenes. I also found it funny that Oliver was more of a side character in the movie than anything else. They would sometimes cut to him making a facial expression during another character's solo just to remind us that he was there. But that's just as well since he's not as interesting as some of the other people I suppose. Over-the-top staging or not, all of the songs are really good. And the sets are particularly amazing and far more intricate than the sets of most movies (especially today). They created almost an entire town for the movie. Well, a small town. But still! It really adds to the experience because it gives you the continuity of a set you'd see on Broadway while also retaining the size and scope of a film. I'd say more but I've tangented quite a bit today so I'll leave it there. That's my clever way of saying, "I have nothing left to say about this picture."

Well that's it for 1968, a fairly jejune year as they go. But I was twice pleasantly surprised and that hardly ever happens. I have 4 movies for 1967 left to watch so it's likely that my next entry will be for 2010 instead. So that means I have no idea what I'll be writing about next! All I can say is it might include Freudian bankrobbers, a precursor to sub-par Eddie Murphy movies, and the original MILF. But it's more likely that it will include a vengeful 14-year-old girl, Spider-Man's adventures with the Internet, and that porn with "a little production value" that Michael Cera told us about.

1969: The Year that Had a Winner that Starred a Male Prostitute, You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Get it? Dirty numerical humor! I couldn't resist. Sadly that title is probably more exciting than most of this year's nominees. Not a great way to start off the 60s people. Come on now. The winner is good, one of the nominees is better, and the other 3 range from "meh" to "escapist fun meh." It also contains the only X-rated Best Picture winner ever and the shortest title of any nominee ever. I share this information so that I don't know it for nothing, just almost nothing since anyone who cares can also consult Wikipedia and IMDB.

Anyway, this first movie wasn't terrible and it wasn't great: Anne of the Thousand Days. It was pretty much about Anne Boleyn and how she got killed and yadda yadda. Obviously this wasn't the case for viewers in 1969, but for me this was like watching seasons 1 and 2 of The Tudors trimmed wayyyyyyyyyyy down. And though I can't fault them for failing to live up to a show that began airing 38 years later, I can still fault them for portraying a fascinating story from history as a boring costume drama. Oh and by the way, "costume drama" is pretty much in the same league as "period piece" in that it's code for "the only thing that separates this movie from other movies is that the costumes are spiffy and it takes place a long time ago." King Henry is just kind of there. He's not a bloodthirsty villain or a tortured leader. If anything he's just annoyed at the fact that he has to put people to death. When, in fact, it was his personal fury and jealousy that led to this. I also would have left his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, out of the film entirely. Because her story is largely underdeveloped and the main story suffers because of it. They should have mentioned Catherine for some context, maybe even shown her in flashback or something, but her "character" was a distraction. The actress who portrayed Anne was good but I didn't care for her characterization either. Not to say that she deserved what she got, because I don't think she did, but she was a harpie. She had an agenda and she lied to her husband (who also happened to be the King, not a wise choice). The movie largely portrays her as an innocent little girl who gets plucked from home to be the King's wife and then unjustly executed because the King felt like using her as a scapegoat of sorts. That's like saying that the Cherokee were a peaceful people who never did anything bad to anybody and then the without-a-semblance-of-humanity-or-gray-area white people killed them and cast them out. Is the gist of what I said true? Yeah. But it's more complicated than that. Even if a group of people or an individual person were definitely screwed over at some point in History that doesn't mean you should pretend they were better than they were. And after painting Anne as a somewhat sympathetic character (which is fine, as long as you include the flipside) they just kind of killed her at the end. No speech before the beheading or anything. On The Tudors Anne gives a very passionate speech that makes you feel pity for her after you spent a good portion of the show disliking her (while still thinking she was really hot). But in the movie it's just the execution and then the next scene is Henry saying, "off to the Seymour estate!" as he goes to find his third ill-fated wife. Kind of goofy for an ending to a fairly somber film. But whatever.

An entirely better film that I would have picked as the winner for this year is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Just going on the title, how could you not like it? Best. Cowboy names. Ever. This is an interesting movie because it simultaneously romanticizes the idea of the Old West outlaw and portrays it realistically. The outlaws meet a sticky end after some botched criminal operations, but they do it while looking good and fighting people. That's my kind of Western. Of course, the film doesn't even pretend to be based in too many facts. I'm just saying that there are aspects of the story which portray the outlaw life more realistically than most films of its type. It also includes the oddly placed but aesthetically pleasing Oscar winner "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head." It's pretty much got everything you'd want without overdoing it. It's a buddy movie, a Western, an action movie, a comedy, whatever. Of course a lot of people thought the film was too unbalanced to work. If you've seen it you might be wondering why I'm not saying that. Because I do have a history of mentioning such things (like oh, say, in the last paragraph). But it's all about both balance AND establishment early in the film. The funny scenes always have a twinge of darkness behind them and the serious scenes are never too dark. The tone is also established early on in the film; thus keeping it consistent. An example of too much comedy and not enough serious is Transformers 2 (Michael Bay sucks). An example of failure to establish coherent tone early in a film is Pirates 2 (Gore Verbinski does not suck, Disney might though). You can't have fun and enjoyable piratical nonsense right before having characters betraying each other and whatnot. You also can't spend more time on stereotypical and un-funny robots than Optimus Prime. Just saying. Anyway, this movie has one of my favorite endings as it combines all of my favorite things: gallows humor, gunfire, and going out in a blaze of glory. Great stuff. Brightest star in a meh year.

A ludicrous and overblown film that's not totally without merit is Hello Dolly! There are 2 kinds of musicals and this is the type I don't like. Instead of every song forwarding the plot or developing a character (like in Phantom of the Opera, one of my favorite things ever) every song is just an excuse to...sing. That might sound silly but I feel like they made a mediocre 100 minute romantic comedy and added 45 minutes of singing to it. I'm sure the original Broadway show was more enjoyable, because when you're there it's different and you can just have fun, but the movie is goofy. First off, Barbra Streisand frightens me. Always has. Scary-looking, not funny, bad lip-syncher. If she had dubbed her voice into someone else acting that would have been good. Because her singing voice is magnificent. The high point of the film is Walter Matthau's caricatured (and hilarious) performance as a late 19th century miser. If Ebenezer Scrooge was intended as a comical character, it would have been this guy. But the rest of it is filled to the brim with ridiculous old-timey rhetoric (holy cabooses!) and overblown synchronized dance sequences that go on for too long and are about nothing. "Hey! It's sunny outside so we should probably illustrate that with forced rhyming." The movie also includes a young Michael Crawford, the original Phantom on Broadway, which gives me an opportunity for a rant. I dislike Crawford's Phantom even though I really like him elsewhere. If you're a distorted man and you're singing then you shouldn't be singing in the same voice that you would use to belt out "New York, New York." You should sound distorted! That's why I prefer Gerard Butler's Phantom from the recent movie, his voice is clearly not even half as good but it's more appropriate for the character. You can really feel the rage and the pain in his voice. None of that really had anything to do with anything, but then again neither does most of this movie (burn!). I know I'm entering the era of musicals but I hope the rest of them are better than this. Of course, I already like two Best Picture winning musicals of the 60s and I expect to like a third, and I'm iffy on a fourth. All of those identities will be revealed in time (foreshadowing!). But for now I'll just leave it at: this movie is dumb but quasi enjoyable.

A movie that's about as interesting as its title is long is Z. No there wasn't some kind of coding error that deleted an entire word or a typo on my part. That's the title of the movie. It's tied for the record of shortest movie title ever with Fritz Lang's M, a sadly not-nominated movie which is a masterpiece and way better than this drivel. Anyway, this particular movie is a thinly veiled (more like non-existently veiled) dramatization of the right wing political takeover in 1960s Greece. I'm not going to pretend that I know anything about that real life situation at all, so maybe that didn't help. The only clever part of the film is the opening frame where it says "Any resemblance to real events, to persons living or dead, is not accidental. It is DELIBERATE." The other 126.8 minutes don't really live up. I appreciate what the filmmakers were trying to say: that History is written by the victors and censorship sometimes attempts to eliminate certain facts from the public eye. In this case: the right wing crazies who killed the president became "heroes" when theirs became the dominant regime and the men who led the investigation became "villains." I also find all of that to be tragic and you could certainly make a compelling, thought-provoking, and great film about it. This is not that film. It's boring, filmed in an uninteresting fashion, and a little too heavy-handed at times. It's also too reliant on its zeitgeist status (vocab word of the week!) to be much of a lasting film. I'm sure it meant a lot to counter-culturists at the time, especially since J. Edgar Hoover said no patriotic American would go to see it, but today it's just kind of dated. And as I said, I don't really know enough about the real story to get into it. Not because of censorship, just because I don't know anything about it. Also: a tragedy in Greece (not a Greek tragedy, it does not fit that trope) shouldn't be an opportunity for American college students to go "whooooooo! Screw Hoover!" I know people are turned on by the idea of "fighting the man" but when it's at the expense of the lives of real people, that's a bit much. I still don't like the movie though. Just saying.

This year's winner and easily second-best film is Midnight Cowboy. I was pleasantly surprised by this film because I thought it was going to be overrated nonsense. As it turned out, it was "better than I expected intentional nonsense." It also had a sad ending, which was an interesting twist on the buddy movie dynamic. In this case the "buddies" are a male prostitute (Jon Voight, who always annoys me) and a third-rate con man (Dustin Hoffman, who for once doesn't annoy me). I think Hoffman is largely underused here because his performance as Ratso Rizzo (best name ever) is basically the heart and soul of the peace. He's the hooker with the heart of gold, whereas Voight's Joe Buck is the hooker with the head of mush. Know what's a great idea when you've got a job in your hometown? Dressing up like a ridiculous cowboy gigolo and moving to New York to hustle old rich ladies (side note: this is my backup plan if employment eludes me). But whereas this could have been Rocky for male prostitutes (or a sort of "Pilgrim's Progress for Perverts") it instead ends up having a lot of heart. Buck is an old-fashioned country boy who's a bit too polite to make it in the big city doing much of anything, let alone spinsters. And whereas Ratso initially takes advantage of Joe by scamming him out of some money, he ends up forming an unlikely bond with him (even unlikely by the standard of the standard "unlikely bond"). Joe needs Ratso to help him survive in the unforgiving big city and Ratso needs Joe to remind him that somewhere there are people who aren't quite so terrible as everyone else he knows. The film is also surprisingly well-directed. Its tones are very atmospheric and not quite as dated as I thought they might be. It also uses flashbacks incredibly well by having Joe's memories shown sparsely and in a somewhat incomplete manner. I feel like if you're actually haunted by a singular occurrence in your life then you'd keep replaying the same bit of it over and over, while only remembering small pieces of the rest of it. That's how real memory works and that's how it's shown in this movie. So I was really impressed with that because it was ahead of its time in some ways. Other than that it's a fairly straightforward and enjoyable movie. It's also the only X-rated film to ever win Best Picture (although it was re-rated R a few years later). Why Showgirls didn't become the second is anyone's guess.

Well I guess that 60s could have started off worse. And some good things lay ahead so I anticipate some interesting posts ahead. I feel like the 50s won't have as much ammo for me though, just because of the style and the lack of "out there" movies. So the 60s could in some ways be my last hurrah. But I'm getting ahead of myself. All I'll think about for now is that the next year will include more costume drama, more Streisand, and another musical with a superfluously placed exclamation mark.

1970: The Year that We Went Through Them Like Crap Through a Goose

Probably one of my favorite lines of all time. Well, the entire speech that it's contained within anyway. It all comes from this year's winner: a film that has long been one of my favorite movies. The rest of the year I could mostly do without, which is unfortunate because that doesn't really reflect my overall feelings toward the 70s. We'll see how the 60s go...there's a lot of great stuff I've already seen. There are also a ton of musicals that are like two and a half hours long. I love musicals, but overly cheery/overly long ones are a bit trying. So I guess we'll see. But we've got to finish this decade first, so away we go.

Look...up in the sky...it's not a bird...there is a plane involved...it's Airport. See now, if this was a visual blog I would have said that in an April from Parks and Recreation/Ben Stein voice. And why? Because this "disaster" movie is horrendously boring and also not suspenseful. I was first suspicious when I saw that this movie was rated G. How can a film about a bomb on a plane be suspenseful if the ratings board said it was just as appropriate for children as Cinderella? For the record, I think the film should have been PG since the bomb actually goes off and a I think a dude gets shot too. But that's not really the point. The point is that the "crisis" doesn't enter into the plot for about an hour and twenty minutes. That is absurd. What if the terrorists in Die Hard took that long to show up and everything before that was just awkward small talk between John McClane and his soon-to-be-ex-wife's co-workers? That would have sucked. Like this movie. It spends that time developing uninteresting characters with cliché storylines, and then those storylines go absolutely nowhere because as soon as the crisis is solved the movie just ends. Not only is the comedy classic Airplane! a more enjoyable film, it's quite actually a better movie. I am not even kidding. It's structured better and the characters are better. I wish I was hyperbolizing. Because this movie has plotlines that go nowhere and a crisis story that is neither suspenseful nor solved by the protagonists. That's right. The "plan" they came up with to stop the bomb failed, even after a particularly silly piece of deux ex machina for setup, and the bomb blew up. Then they land the plane. That was the crisis. So in other words: if you're unlucky enough to be on a plane when a bomb goes off, don't worry! Because as long as your plane does, in fact, have a pilot: you will be okay. Stupid. How they got Dean Martin and Burt Lancaster into this movie is a mystery. Actually it's not a mystery, it's called money. But how they scrounged up enough money with their crap script to be able to afford Dean and Burt is a mystery. And how the Academy watched this sub-par suspense film that is also a way sub-par drama film and felt the need to nominate it is the biggest mystery of all.

A movie I'm still watching is Five Easy Pieces. You know what that means: I'm bored enough during it that I would ordinarily be also doing a crossword puzzle or re-reading Stephen Colbert's "I am America (And So Can You!)" which is probably the greatest book of all time. But when a movie such as this is the final film for a decade I like to instead do a blog entry during it, so that my time is spent doing an almost worthwhile venture. Which is a good way to sum up this film: an almost worthwhile venture. There's the big famous "wheat toast" scene which was probably over-hyped for me, although I did like it. Then there's the rest of the movie, which has an interesting premise but isn't delivered particularly well. It has one of my favorite film tropes: a person who could have been really great in a particular field but who, for whatever reason, ended up being just some schmuck working on an oil rig. That oil rig part is just for this film, but the rest is a trope. And it's one I find interesting because it raises questions of destiny and purpose. Questions that for me were epitomized by the bad guy in the new Star Trek movie (of all things) when he says, "James T. Kirk was a great man...but that was another life." Can Kirk still be the man he was supposed to be even though his life was drastically changed from the original Kirk we know and love? It remains to be seen. So could Jack Nicholson's character have lived up to his full potential if things had gone slightly differently? Good question. Too bad it's not really explored or answered. Unlike Brando's famous "I coulda been a contender" scene from the excellent 1954 Best Picture Winner. That was a great scene because it summed up an entire lifetime's worth of dilemmas in one scene. And it did it without being too over-the-top or preachy. I would have preferred this film to be over-the-top or preachy to being what it is: not much. It hints at interesting things without fully exploring them. Nicholson's character is good and he plays him well, but I never really felt a connection to him or to anything else in the movie. He was a child prodigy who grew up to not do much. So why didn't he do much? This was not answered adequately. It spent too much time showing how boring his life actually was. All of that being said, it's not a bad movie. It's well-written and the supporting cast is pretty good. I guess it's just a little too mundane for me to fully like it.

Which is still preferable to the odious mess that is Love Story. Prepare yourselves for a rant ladies and gents. This is probably one of my most hated films that I've watched on the Oscar escapade. Not worst per se, although it's pretty bad, but most hated. It's basically the origin story of the modern chick flick. So its malice just keeps going and going. And just to be clear, there's a difference between a chick flick like Music & Lyrics (which is actually quite charming and has a catchy song) and chick flicks like this which are just tears and human sadness fused onto celluloid. Not for any particular reason. Just to provide an emotional hook for the audience so they can cry and wail and go see it again with each of their girlfriends. Here's the story: guy meets girl. Guy goes out with girl, not because of an intellectual attraction but because they're both attractive and she served him coffee. Guy marries girl. Girl dies. Movie ends. There's no other point to it than that. If this was cleverly written it would be somewhat forgiveable. It's not. If its famous line, "love means never having to say you're sorry" was true or applicable to real life then that would be forgiveable. It's not. In fact, it's dangerous when applied to real life. And that brings me to my somewhat-radical point. Movies like this are basically the female emotional equivalent of porn. I say that because males are usually physical-oriented, hence classic porn. It creates an unrealistic portrayal of women and male-female relationships, which isn't nearly as dangerous as Dr. Dobson would have you believe. I say this based on an interview he had with Ted Bundy, the point of which was "porn made me do it." It will not make you kill 60+ people. But it's still pretty bad. Especially since it creates a very frat-esque mentality for a lot of men (based on my college observations, not speaking abstractly). Movies like this one, on the other hand, create a more dangerous unrealistic portrayal of male-female relationships that women are more susceptible to. The reason being that you come away from it thinking that even if things in your relationship aren't going great, don't worry! Because love means never having to say you're sorry. So if he doesn't apologize for being an ass, no sweat. And of course you can change him. The guy in the movie was changed by the girl, so your douchebag of a boyfriend will change too right? Not so much. On the male side of things: it's pretty obvious that if you're a pizza boy you won't actually bang every woman that orders the "pizza with extra sausage." But there are a lot of women who stay with men they shouldn't be with because of a mentality that is largely encouraged by movies like this. And to be clear: I think extreme violent content is too extreme to influence anyone seriously, unless they have other serious mental problems. The dangerous influences are the ones that are representational of actual real-life situations. Not that Ryan O'Neal's character is too terrible because he's not and I don't want to imply otherwise. But every now and again I see an opportunity to talk about things in society that irk me, instead of just saying "the dialogue was bad." Oh, and the dialogue was bad (by the way). Near the end she says, "I feel like I'm falling constantly. Do you ever feel that way?" And I thought to myself: don't say when you met her...don't say when you met her. And he said, "every day since I met you." Barf. I might as well have just watched two episodes of Gossip Girl. I could literally go on for forever about how much I don't like this movie and movies like it, but I'll leave it at that.

Mercifully, I really enjoyed MASH. So much so that I ordered all 11 seasons of the TV show. Because I love humor that exists where humor has no business existing. Like in the Korean War. The reason I like this so much is that all humor comes from a dark place. Humor is making light of terrible situations. Or laughing at things that bother us. Satire is pointing out things that are wrong with the world by finding entertainment in it. This film takes an incredibly serious thing, the Korean War (although it's really a thinly veiled portrayal of the Vietnam War), and makes it downright ridiculous. The theme song "Suicide is Painless," which is sung in an almost upbeat way, sets the tone for the rest of the film. The movie isn't laugh-out-loud funny too often, but it's very entertaining and certainly amusing and ingenius with regards to its satire. It's kind of a next-gen Marx Brothers film when you really look at it. Because their humor was pure anarchy: non-sequiturs and random breakings of the fourth wall. That's what this movie is: very droll and very dark humor. Love it. It includes a scene where a man nicknamed "Painless" is contemplating suicide because of his latent homosexual tendencies and so they hold a dinner in his honor (framed like DaVinci's "Last Supper") while another soldier sings "Suicide is Painless." He then takes the suicide pill, which is actually a sleeping pill, and wakes up next to a woman who sleeps with him to "cure him of his ailment." That is simply too absurd and convoluted to not be awesome. I would talk more about why this movie is great but I kind of went off on that last movie so I'm as exhausted of writing this as you are of reading it. Suffice it to say that the film was way ahead of its time, as was the show I'm told. I will find out for sure soon.

Easily the year's best film, and indeed one of the decade's and century's too, is Patton. It would be enough if the movie was just a great war film. And it is a well-written and well-directed film. But it also contains a phenomenal tour-de-force of a performance from George C. Scott as General Patton. He truly became Patton, he didn't just play him. He played him so well that Karl Malden's performance in the film went almost entirely unnoticed (but it's also a good performance). Not surprisingly, the masterful screenplay (which won the Oscar too) was written by none other than Mr. Francis Ford Coppola. And it was when he won for this movie that Paramount allowed him to continue working on The Godfather. Which makes this film even more awesome. Another great aspect is that a lot of Patton's dialogue in the film is made up of things he said in real life. The famous opening speech in front of the large American flag is almost identical to the actual speech, with the language slightly cleaned up. Coppola knew that Patton was a controversial figure because a lot of people hate him and a lot of people love him. Not too many in-betweeners. I love him, for the record. But it's written in such a way that if you want to see him as a tyrannical military leader then you can. He wrote it to appease both schools of thought. It also does something I love: fictionalizing real life without taking it too far. Scenes such as Patton reflecting on his belief that he is the "everlasting spirit of battle" illustrate this. He believes that he is this reincarnated spirit of war that arises throughout history when it is needed most. Did he actually believe this in real life? I wouldn't put it past him, but probably not. But it doesn't matter because it doesn't stretch the truth too much. It just makes it more cinematic. There's nothing in the movie that misrepresents Patton or World War II, it just takes what's true and makes it interesting from a cinematic point of view. Totally hard to do but Coppola killed it. I should also point out that Franklin J. Schaffner does an excellent job directing that is perfectly complemented by Jerry Goldsmith's score. It is a fairly long film but it earns its length and has a good amount of well-filmed action too (for those tragically only interested in that).

Well that's it for the 1970s. Not a bad decade. In fact, a pretty great one overall. Definitely some timeless classics, including the best movie ever. So that's better than William Hurt being weepy right? I think so. But the 60s now loom ahead of me and I hope I enjoy them. It will begin with a man with six wives, two criminals and murderers, and male prostitutes. Who says content got worse over the years?

1971: The Year that Lex Luthor Picked his Feet in Poughkeepsie

There's an image. Especially since it's my least favorite version of Lex Luthor, Gene Hackman. Love Hackman in general. But his Lex Luthor is not good. Like, at all. But I'll be talking about him more later when I discuss one of the most overrated Best Picture winners ever. But it's still part of one of the better ensemble years of Nominees that I've been through thus far. And the winner is still a good movie, just not that good.

And certainly not better than A Clockwork Orange. Although its "ultraviolence" and heavily disturbed sexual themes and imagery were probably a bit much for 1971. It's surprising it was nominated at all really. The mother of a good friend of mine told me she saw this movie when she was like 8 or something crazy. How she wasn't scarred for life to the point of being institutionalized is beyond me. Because I only just saw it about a year ago and it disturbed me. Not much gets to me, mind you. Today I was eating my lunch whilst watching an episode of Bones where a person's head explodes on camera. I gave a startled chuckle and continued eating my sloppy joe. But this movie is crazy. It's also SO freaking good. I go back and forth over whether this is my favorite Kubrick film or his 1964 extraordinary dark comedy that I'll be discussing when I get to that year. Some say that this movie goes out of its way for the main character to engage in acts of exploitative violence. And to that I say: that was precisely the point. He is the absolute extreme of an unfeeling and violent individual. He and his friends rape a woman while "Singin' in the Rain" plays. Great scene, didn't recover until the Glee episode with the "Singin' in the Rain" Gwyneth Paltrow mashup. Somewhat less famous is a scene where Alex DeLarge (played to perfection by Malcolm McDowell) engages in a threesome with some random bimbos. The scene plays in superfast motion to a classical piece, completely dehumanizing the act. Here is a man who not only can't feel love, he can scarcely feel lust. And so what to do with this troublesome individual? Brainwash him. At least, that's what his dystopian society thinks to do. So they put him in that classic 70s brainwashing room (not sure if this movie originated it or if this was a "legit" psychological therapy method back then) and make him experience nausea whenever he experiences arousal. Either in a sexual way or in a violent way, although I'm sure Freud would say they're one and the same. I wouldn't, but whatever. The point is that this treatment raises the film's fundamental question: is it better to have a society of automatons? Or as the book explains: a society of "clockwork oranges," something that is organic on the outside and mechanical on the inside. There's no correct answer but the question is fascinating and no one could ask it better than Stanley Kubrick. This is quite possibly his masterpiece, and we remember it that way even if the Academy didn't see it that way at the time. I wouldn't recommend it to everybody, since it's pretty tough to watch, but if you're any kind of film historian or critic then it is required (and quite excellent) viewing.

I suppose you could say the same about Fiddler on the Roof, but for completely different reasons. This is why I love doing things alphabetically: because it's the only way you can go from a movie where a woman gets killed with a statue of a penis to a movie where a song lyric is "if I were a biddy-biddy rich, daidle deedle daidle daidle man." Fantastic. I actually had the pleasure of seeing this on Broadway when Doc Ock himself, Mr. Alfred Molina, was Tevye. Loved it then. Love the movie too. Although I do think that having plot points revolving around all three of his daughters marrying was a bit much. Especially since the suitors get more and more non-kosher as they go along. If he had a fourth daughter she'd have been trying to hook up with Lenin. Other than that though, the film wonderfully balances nostalgia by having it be funny at some times and sad at others. It's about hanging onto the old while embracing the new. All while singing and dancing! On that note, some of the musical numbers are a bit rougher than others. Specifically, I always felt that "Matchmaker" and "Do You Love Me?" were a tad forced. That being said, I love all of the other numbers. Especially "Sunrise, Sunset" which perfectly segues the tone of the first half of the film into the tone of the rest of the film. Still in all, I think the movie also has a lot more substance to it than a lot of musicals where you're simply waiting for the next song and not really caring about the rest of it. Tevye's words of wisdom are thoughtful and charming and the rest of his family manages to be quirky without being too annoying. It also manages to balance the fairly large number of characters. This is tougher than you'd think. It needs to make each character distinct so you don't get any of them mixed up, so you have to switch between them in such a way that you care about each of their stories without getting confused or bored. Many many many films fail at doing this and they lose the audience halfway through (especially when they're 3 hours long like this movie). So I give everyone in the film credit for making what is probably one of the best Broadway adaptations ever. And I should also give a special mention to my main man John Williams who orchestrated and adapted the music along with TOS Star Trek composer Alexander Courage. That's an awesome team-up if ever I heard one.

And then comes the inevitable bad film to ruin all of my rare positive vibes: The Last Picture Show. How many coming-of-age stories does one need? Every filmmaker in existence did, in fact, age at some point and they more than likely graduated high school too. Did they all have to make a movie about it? And did the Academy have to recognize them every time they did? Ironically, I'm pretty sure Tarantino didn't actually complete high school and yet he's probably one of the only people alive today that could make coming-of-age interesting from a film perspective. Maybe the only other person, Chris Nolan, should direct a coming-of-age British World War II movie with a main character that has a disability. Then he can net himself a Directing nomination for once (do you feel my rant coming on that subject? I know you do). But that's enough of that for now, I'm sure you'll be sick of hearing about it by the time my 2010 entry comes along. So what can be said about this particular take on angst and aging in Middle America? Well, it's in black and white. And Jeff Bridges is in it. And it's directed by Dr. Elliot Kupferberg. So all of that is well and good. But it's the same old story. According to Wikipedia, it was one of the first films to use a contemporary music soundtrack. Well, Waterworld might have been the first movie to do something notable but who'd care? So you know what? I'm not even going to bother. Hopefully this will end up being the last picture show that I have to sit through that involves these themes. It won't be.

But I'd love to see more movies like Nicholas and Alexandra: epics that are backed up by legit stories and production values. Thankfully I'm entering the era of such films. As you know, I'll gladly sit through a 3 hour movie if it's any good and earns its length. This film certainly doesn't rank up there with the all time great epics, but it's way better than Reds which dealt with a lot of the same historical issues and themes. But whereas Reds basically said, "let's take a story about Russia and somehow make it about America" this movie instead chose to radically say "let's take a story about Russia and make it about...Russia..." I mean, how would you like it if a foreigner made a movie about the Vietnam War and turned it into a "how did this screw-up positively affect our country?" Not that the Vietnam War and the overthrowing of the Russian government are particularly comparable as isolated incidents but hopefully you see what I mean. I don't want a movie that spews historical facts with no feeling behind them, because I could get that from any history book. I want to know the people involved. I want to feel their pain and their joy. I want to experience monumental historical events in a very personal way. And that's what this film does. Although I'm sure that they went out of their way to make Czar Nicholas look better than he was since we were steeped in the Cold War at the time, but still. It has a great musical score, a really good cast (most of whom I haven't heard of), and the pacing is really well done. Similar to what I was discussing earlier, it's difficult to do historical drama because you have to balance educating the audience with entertaining them. You have to assume that the audience knows certain things but you also can't assume that they know everything. And I think they do a really good job of peppering major historical events throughout a personal storyline. The characterization of Rasputin is especially interesting. He is shown as an eccentric man who legitimately cares for the Czar's hemophiliac son and whose public image is far worse than the reality. Is this true? No one can really know for certain. History is shaky on guys like him. And he gets killed just under 2 hours into the film, which was fairly shocking considering the prominent role he played and the remaining running time of the film. So it worked really well, although it's not quite as interesting after he leaves. So even though it's not the best of the "epics" it deals with a story that you don't see all that often and it does it well.

I wish I could say the same about this year's winner: The French Connection. It's by no means a bad movie. But here's my main beef with it: it came out a mere two months before Dirty Harry which is a superior film in every way. So they were clearly filmed at about the same time and neither can be seen as a ripoff of the other. But they both deal with the idea that not all cops are virtuous (shocker!). This was groundbreaking at the time, even though now there is probably not a single stright-laced cop who plays by the rules on television or in film. I know you might be thinking that since it heralded four sub-par sequels that the original Dirty Harry was just some 70s action flick. On the contrary: it depicts a fairly disturbed individual who just happens to be chasing a more disturbed individual. The violence is very real and not over-the-top or heavily choreographed. The same can be said of The French Connection...it's just not as good! I really can't get over how crazy this is. The movies are so similar and they picked the wrong one! And plus, neither is particularly good when compared to most Best Picture winners anyway. Gene Hackman does deliver a good performance as Popeye Doyle, but Best Actor? That's a bit much. I will say that it does have a truly enthralling car chase that ends with a moment of cold-blooded menace on the part of Hackman's character. But the rest of the film is quite honestly kind of dull. It's pretty realistic as far as a police investigation goes and it also depicts the police officers very realistically because it shows them bending the rules in such a way where they could legitimately avoid being caught. But they could have done that within a more interesting narrative. I like that the big bad guy ends up getting away, but we also didn't see him developed enough to the point where we really care that he gets away. Kind of like how Starscream gets away at the end of Transformers but no one cares because he's an ansillary bad guy (Michael Bay Sucks). So all of that ends up boiling down to one of my least favorite film tropes: "let's do it this way because nobody has done it this way before." That really bothers me. Don't film a movie using a purple hue simply because "it's nifty and we haven't seen it." On that note, Nolan should do that and net himself some awards. Just saying.

Well even though I was a bit harsher on the winner than I actually would be if I was describing it to someone (that'd be not as much fun), this was a pretty great year. In other news, I did successfully find a watchable copy of Utvandrarna about 2 hours after I broke the rules and printed my blog about how I'd never find it. Isn't that always the way? So I'll try to watch that before I finish 1970 and then insert the review into the 1972 write-up, to have the illusion of continuity. Either way, 1970 will be closing out an overall pretty great decade of films and it will include a film that's sillier than its own spoof, a film that's not as good as its own spinoff, and a film that's less realistic than the real life clichés it bases itself on. Excited?

1972: The Year that Was Not Quite as Predictable as Most Seagal Movies but Should Have Been

The reason I say this is that one of the nominees this year won 8 Academy Awards, but it wasn't the winner! Kind of crazy. One wonders what the Academy was thinking, although I'm sure there were some behind-the-scenes political things going on too. I don't think they liked Coppola too much for various reasons, some of which I will describe later in this entry and some of which I will discuss in my 1970 entry. All of that aside, this was a rather interesting and varied year. There are some random choices and some obvious ones, and a 3+ hour Swedish movie that I was forced to watch on my computer because it's not available on DVD and my PS3 wouldn't play it. Not cool.

Starting things off right for this year is Cabaret. This film was the one that took home the 8 Academy Awards this year, including for director, but it didn't win Best Picture. So this is already kind of a strange year. The film is a musical...sort of. I mean, it's a musical in the sense that there's a lot of choreographed singing and dancing in it. But all of the singing and/or dancing takes place within a context that makes sense. To me, a movie can only be a real musical if the singing and dancing make no sense whatsoever within a real world context. That's what makes them awesome. Not to say that this movie isn't good, because it's fantastic. It is about an American woman in Germany just before Nazism really took hold. The titular cabaret is a place where you can go to escape the world outside and forget about the terrible things happening. This is perfect because all of Germany was pretty much sitting around whilst the Nazis took over. Or rather, they didn't take the movement as seriously as they should have. This also makes Liza Minnelli's character as the ignorant American truly brilliant. Because America dropped the ball on that one (if you can call "being isolationist to the point that millions of people die" dropping the ball). She just wants to enjoy her life one day at a time, with no thought toward the future. Her entire romance and everything that she sings can be seen as having double meaning, which has now forever changed the meaning of the song "Maybe this Time" for me. It was on the first Glee soundtrack, so I have thus listened to it an obscene amount of times. On one hand it could be seen as being about a fresh start with a new romance, but think about the lines "Everybody loves a winner, so nobody loved me...maybe this time I'll win" in the context of Germany when the Third Reich was coming into being. That's pretty eerie when you think about it that way. But my favorite scene in the film comes when a group of Nazi youth sing (quite beautifully, which makes it more creepy) "Tomorrow Belongs to Me." The kid is so bright-eyed and hopeful, thinking that he's fighting for a worthy cause. And tomorrow almost did belong to him, which boggles the mind to think about but it's true. Keeping all of this in mind, as a movie it doesn't always come through (when it's not focusing on the allegorical aspects of the plot it's a bit dull) and Liza Minnelli is only tolerable when A) singing or B) when you remember that she's supposed to be kind of irritating. Joel Grey is pretty great, and he won for Supporting Actor that year. But his whole role is singing on stage and he only does that for about 20 total minutes in the film. Comparing that to another Supporting Actor nominee in this same year who largely carries 2 hours and 55 minutes of movie and it's a bit absurd that Joel won...but no matter (that certain someone ended up doing okay for himself). This was easily the year's second best, and in most years it would be the best. I look forward to watching it again at some point to pick up on some more intricacies, and that's something I wouldn't say about most of the Oscar films I've viewed since I started.

A movie I fully intend to never watch again is Deliverance. I'm glad I saw it, because it's one of "those movies" that has fueled a good number of South Park and Simpsons jokes. But as it turns out, people really only reference the one scene so I have gained nothing comedically by viewing the entire picture. The famous "dueling banjos" scene is right at the beginning and it goes on for too long. That was the first sign that the movie wouldn't be too enjoyable. I'll try to just briefly touch on each of the things that bothered me, because there were a lot of them. First off, the film couldn't seem to decide whether the venturing men were competent or not. Burt Reynolds killed the rapist dude with an arrow from behind (appropriately, one of the few nice touches in the film) and fairly far away so he clearly knows what he's doing. But then they just bury the dude instead of attaching rocks to him and letting him sink into the river. I forgave this, until their friend died later in the movie and that's what they did with his body. So they were, in fact, aware of this method of body disposal. So...the rapist got a "proper burial" and their friend's body is lost in the bottom of the river for all time? That's not cool. The other major thing that bothered me is that I always figured it was about city boys trying to have an adventure in the wilderness and are then assaulted by "hill people." You know, inbred monsters like the ones in the X-Files episode that was pulled from syndication (my obscure references know no bounds). Well they might have been inbred, and they were definitely crazy, but they lived in a legit small town by the river and they happened to be in the woods "hunting" (not sure if that deserved air quotes or not). So they didn't have the interesting theme in the plot where the audience and the characters are reminded that nature is dangerous and that country club rich folks shouldn't screw around with it, no matter their skills with a bow. Instead they had a far less applicable "rich folks shouldn't underestimate nature at the same time that some crazy people from a nearby town happen to be in the same vicinity." So there you have it. I'm sure it made much more of an impact when it first came out, and I do respect the filmmakers for making what is essentially a horror film in a way that a horror film hadn't been done before. But I still dislike horror films and think they're stupid, even if they're pretending to be something else.

What I'd really love to do is segue that into something snarky to say about The Emigrants. Unfortunately, it's not available here in the states as it is a Swedish movie that is actually called Utvandrarna. I found a version of it on the internet but the subtitles are 5 minutes and 40 seconds behind. That'd be pretty bad for a movie that was 2 hours long, but especially bad for one that's 3 hours and 10 minutes. And so I'm going to break my own rule and publish this blog entry anyway, having not seen it. My search online will continue, and if need be I will make my own subtitles, petition TCM to show it, or wait for the highly unlikely DVD release. I will find a way to view this movie. And then I will ret-con myself (look it up) to make it look like it was written here the whole time.

Luckily, I am fully able to rip on Sounder. You have to love when the sub-par nominees are still in print. I'm not trying to sound insensitive or anything, but I'm pretty sure this movie was only nominated because it's a positive family picture that stars African-Americans in positive roles that aren't quite as stereotypical as the crows in Dumbo. I realize how big that was back then, and the Academy certainly hasn't changed its stripes with regards to nominating socially conscious films. But whereas you can look at Million Dollar Baby and say "this was especially relevant because of the Terri Schiavo case," you can also say "this is an extraordinary movie." But this movie is pretty much just a schmaltzy family story, and not even a very good one. It's one of those "movies for kids" that is actually too boring for children and probably too traumatizing. The dog gets shot! This is pretty much Old Yeller with black people. Although I guess that's a positive step forward. Because as Dr. King said, "I have a dream that little white boys and little black boys will be in therapy together after being equally traumatized in their youth." Aside from the social aspect, I'm not a fan of melodramas and I'm also not a fan of banjo music. And the whole score is pretty much banjo music. That brings 1972's total banjo movies to 2 (and possibly 3, never know what Utvandrarna might hold). That is 2 too many. The film stock evokes a 50s feeling, which is odd since it takes place during the depression. Although perhaps it evokes the types of movies made about the depression in the fifties (like the aforementioned depressing kids movie for white people). I probably mentioned this before, but I don't like when something is a carbon copy of something else with one thing changed just to be more relevant. And I know this is based on a book and everything, but it feels tailor-made to make a statement. That's not how you make a statement. The XXX movie franchise (with Vin Diesel, not with "actors" such as Trixie Carlisle and Mugsy Cypress, although the acting abilities are similar) was tailor-made to be an American take on James Bond. It failed miserably. The Bourne movie franchise set out to be good movies, and ended up becoming the American equivalent of James Bond. Although only in some ways, since 22 movies is more impressive than 3. So there's my incredibly cynical take on the film. I would have liked it more if A) the titular dog was in it more and B) if the characters weren't still mostly stereotypical and not interesting.

Plus, no film can measure up when nominated alongside this year's winner: The Godfather. Although its legacy is not as strong as I hoped. Coppola didn't win for director (a crime) and as I alluded to before, Pacino didn't win for Supporting Actor. Many would say that it's not really a stretch for Pacino to be playing an angry Italian guy. This is true. But he doesn't play an angry Italian guy. He plays an alienated son who loves his father, and slowly becomes an evil man for all the right reasons. The subtlety of his performance is the key. All of his emotions are boiling beneath the surface. So even if the delivery of his lines don't reflect his transformation throughout the movie, you can see it on his face. And it's not until his brief explosion toward his wife Kay near the end of the film that you realize how far he has come. Luckily, Brando was rewarded with a Best Actor win for his outstanding and unforgettable performance as Don Vito Corleone. Here again is a subdued performance. He could have gone completely over the top with it, but a man as powerful as the Don doesn't need to get angry to have his ruthlessness shine through. That way, when it does shine through you know exactly what kind of dangerous man you're dealing with. I could go on about those two, and about the whole movie at length, but I'll instead touch on some side facts that I find interesting. For one thing, I think Hollywood didn't like Coppola too much and this movie almost didn't come together. Coppola was almost fired, until he won for Best Screenplay in 1970. The music in the film almost wasn't included, until he forced the producers to listen to Nino Rota's immortal music and they realized that the movie couldn't work without it. Everything about the film shouldn't have come together but miraculously did. The only other stories I've heard like that with regards to film are the stories of how Lord of the Rings came together. Whenever a film survives through the troubles that these films survived, you know that the passion of the filmmakers is strong. And it shows. Coppola's magnum opus is masterfully paced, beautifully filmed, superbly acted, and directed in a way that would change movies forever. Spielberg left his first screening of the film somewhat depressed because he said that he knew he could never make a better film than that and his career hadn't even started yet. I've been sitting here for 15 minutes trying to think of which scene I'd like to highlight, but I can't. There's too much to pick from. And everyone needs to view it for themselves anyway, it's one of my personal favorites and from a purely stylistic and "scholarly" point of view it is quite possibly the greatest film ever made. That is one of the few things that many critics agree on, even including myself and my sworn enemy the Academy.

So this blog entry is just like filmdom in general in that it had, "The Godfather...and everything else." At least there was one other great movie this year. And even if it didn't comparatively deserve the 8 Oscars it won, it was certainly a great movie. This year is also the most frustrating because I'll have to go to a lot of trouble to truly finish it. With my luck the escapade won't end where it began in 1927, as I intended, but instead back here in 1972 when I finally track down a copy of what is probably 3 hours of my life I'll want back anyway. Next year probably won't be that dramatic. But it will include ultraviolent Beethoven lovers, snarky lovers of fiddle music, and a whole royal family of Tchaikovsky-philes.

1973: The Year that a Swedish Character Study was Harder to Watch Than a Tweener Possessed by a Demon

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.

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.