107. Giant (1956)

Stars:  Elizabeth Taylor (Leslie Benedict), Rock Hudson (Jordan "Bick" Benedict Jr.), James Dean (Jett Rink), Mercedes McCambridge (Luz Benedict)

Director:  George Stevens

Awards / Honors

• 1 Oscar win - Best Director
• 9 Additional Nominations - Best Picture, Best Actor (Rock Hudson), Best Actor (James Dean), Best Supporting Actress (Mercedes McCambridge), Best Writing (Adpated Screenplay), Best Art Direction, Best Music (Score), Best Costume Design
• #82 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1998)
• In 2005, Giant was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Genre:  Romantic Drama

Running Time:  3 Hours, 21 Minutes

Format:  DVD (Not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 3 Stars)

John's Take

I was a little apprehensive about watching Giant.  This is because, at first glance, Giant looks a great deal like the movie A Place in the Sun.  Both films are melodramas (i.e., chick flics).  They both star Elizabeth Taylor, and they are both directed by George Stevens.  As I have documented earlier, I really didn’t like A Place in the Sun, so let’s just say that I wasn’t expecting much from Giant.  Toss in the facts that we had just finished watching Yankee Doodle Dandy, which was a bit of a disappointment, and that Giant clocks in at just under 3 ½ hours long, and I was fairly certain that I was going to be on the receiving end of some snarky comments from Beth.  She seems to like to blame me when the movies are not very good – as if I had something to do with making them.  I try pointing that fact out to her, but usually I just get “Well, it was your idea to watch it…” in response.  In other words, if Giant ended up being as bad as or worse than Yankee Doodle Dandy, I was going to have to put with about a week’s worth of “You wasted six hours of my weekend… Six hours I will never get back…”comments. 

Luckily for me, Giant turned out to be pretty good, or at least a lot better than I had expected, and thus I was spared any snarky comments.  However, while I was watching the movie, it felt like there were one or two things tugging at me – distracting me, if you will.  It wasn’t really until I got ready to write this post, that I finally was finally able make sense of distractions.

The first distraction was the “implementation”, of James Dean’s character Jett Rink.  Traditionally in “melodramas”, this character would have the diamond-in-the-rough whose true value as a human being would come to the surface through the love and attention of the female lead, and eventually the female lead ends up with this character.  In other words, if the story in Giant had followed the traditional chick flic formula, then the story should have gone something like this:

1.  Conservative, sexist, bigoted Rock Hudson brings young, liberal, open-minded Elizabeth Taylor – his new bride – home to his cattle ranch after a whirlwind courtship.  There she meets skulking, mumbling James Dean.

2.  James Dean instantly has the hots for Elizabeth Taylor.  Elizabeth Taylor instantly sees through the uneducated, stalker-like exterior of Dean to his heart of gold and is surprised by how attractive she finds him.

3.  Rock Hudson inexplicably senses this and takes steps to separate the two.  Hudson and Taylor’s relationship hits hard times due to their differing world views (i.e., Hudson acts like a jerk).

4.  Elizabeth Taylor can’t quite seem to shake her interest in Dean, however, and seeks him out.  The two talk, and they both feel that there is chemistry between them.

5.  Due in part to the encouragement of Taylor and to a series of convenient and fortunate events, Dean becomes just a wealthy, if not more so, than Hudson. 

6.  Dean arrives during a major fight between Taylor and Hudson.  Dean confronts Hudson; rescues Taylor from his sexist, bigoted clutches and Dean and Taylor live happily ever after.

Except that is not what happens.

Oh, don’t get me wrong Giant is most definitely a chick flic, so bullet points one through five go off without a hitch.  However, at the point of the film where Dean is supposed to come in and win Taylor away from Hudson, he doesn’t.  I mean, he shows up to confront Rock Hudson alright, except he is drunk off his ass and acting even mumbleier, skulkier, and stalker-like than ever before.  He flaunts his new wealth to Hudson and is all “Hey, baby – buy you a drink?” to Taylor.  In other words, the underdog just won, but instead of riding off with the girl, he acts like such an ass that he permanently pushes Taylor back into Hudson’s arms.  This would have never happened if John Cusack had been playing Jett Rink, I assure you. 

At this point you are probably thinking the same thing that I was thinking – “Ah, this must be the event that triggers a change in Hudson’s ways.”  Nope.  Rock Hudson pretty much spends the next two hours of the movie being just as sexist and bigoted as he was at the beginning of the movie.  Oh, sure he sort of gets over his anti-Mexican stance once his son marries a Mexican woman and she gives birth to his grandson, but you sort of get the feeling that this change of heart more applies to just Hudson / Benedict’s immediate family in a no-one-messes-with-a-Benedict sort of way than to Mexicans in general.  The daughter-in-law and grandson are more than welcome at the house at Thanksgiving, but I suspect that Uncle Pedro showing up might be a different matter.  All the while, James Dean’s character just continues to get creepier and more pathetic as the film goes on.  And what of Taylor’s character?  She just seems resigned to the fact that she is never going to change Hudson and will just take whatever small victories come her way.  In short, the film starts off traveling down the well-traveled chick flic highway, only to suddenly swerve off the road into the underbrush of what-the-heck-is-going-here?

Then there was the second thought / distraction that kept buzzing around in my head.  Have you ever seen the “Mirror, Mirror” episode of original Star Trek series?  It is the one where, due to a transporter malfunction, evil duplicates of Spock, etc. are brought to the Enterprise from a parallel universe.  Well, that is what Giant is.  It is the Mirror Universe version of Gone with the Wind.  Yes, I know that it will take you a moment to wrap your head around that concept.  It took me a little while to work through it as well.  Let me run through some of the evidence and I think you will see that I am right.

Take Scarlet O’Hara and Leslie Benedict, for example.  Both are the female leads of their respective movies, and both come from rich families, but where Scarlet is self-centered, greedy, and culturally insensitive; Leslie is kind-hearted, generous, and concerned for the well-being of those around her.  Scarlet marries for gain, all the while pining away for the man she can’t have.  Leslie, while perhaps a bit hasty in her choice of husbands, works hard to make family work and never spends much time worrying about “what if”.  Put a goatee on Vivian Leigh and you definitely have “Evil Leslie”.

Then you have Rhett Butler and Jordan "Bick" Benedict.  Rhett is devil-may-care roguish charmer, where Bick is the uptight stuffed-shirt.  Rhett has a reputation for being a bit of a womanizer, where Bick would always be a perfect gentleman.  Rhett was the black sheep of the family where Bick was always the heir-apparent.  Rhett was usually kind to those less fortunate than himself.  Bick would have a hard time even seeing them.  Rhett leaves Scarlet.  Leslie leaves Bick.

Now let’s compare Jett Rink and Ashley Wilkes.  It is safe to assume that Ashley was educated at the best schools, while Jett is self-educated.  Ashley is noble and gentlemanly.  Jett is, well, creepy.  Jett wasn’t afraid of hard work, while Ashley never worked a day in his life.  Ashley started out life rich but ended up relatively poor.  Jett started out poor but ended up ridiculously rich.  Ashley couldn’t get Scarlet to leave him alone, and Jett can’t get enough of Leslie’s attention.

I could go on and on.  One movie takes place in the green, relatively fertile lands of Georgia while the other takes place in dry, dusty lands of Texas.  One movie has a happy ending, the other one doesn’t.  It is as if someone sat down with a copy of Gone with the Wind and proceeded to write a second story by making all of the characters and situations nearly the exact opposite of those in the original work.  I am not crazy here.  If you think about it some, I am sure you will come up with even more parallels.  I think Giant may in fact be physical proof of parallel universes and it has been sitting right here under our noses for over fifty years now. 

So, are all these things bad things?  No, not really.  They did upset my concept of how chick flics are supposed unfold, however.  The characters end-up acting a little sort of like real people – attitudes are not changed, just tempered; the underdog doesn’t get the girl; being poor doesn’t necessarily make you the good guy and being rich doesn’t necessarily make you the bad guy; etc..  I expected something very cliché and ended up watching something just slightly different.  As ridiculous as it may sound, however, those moments of “realism” did prevent me from enjoying the movie as much as I would like.  I found the tiny, tiny bits of reality mixed into a stereotypical Hollywood melodrama to be a bit distracting at times.

I may need to see this movie again to really determine exactly what my “final ranking” for this movie is.  However, since I went to see Letters to Juliet recently and there is a small possibility that Beth is going to force me to see Sex and the City 2, I will probably hold off on that lest all my testosterone be completely drained from my body.  In the meantime, Giant will just have to settle for a ranking of 3 Stars from me. 

John

 

 

 

108. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

Stars:  James Cagney (George M. Cohan), Joan Leslie (Mary Cohan), Walter Huston (Jerry Cohan), Richard Whorf (Sam Harris)

Director:  Michael Curtiz

Awards / Honors

• 3 Oscar Wins - Best Actor (James Cagney), Best Music (Score), Best Sound Mixing
• 5 Additional Oscar Nominations - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Walter Huston), Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Best Film Editing
• #100 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1998)
• #71 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs list - "Yankee Doodle Boy" (2004)
• #97 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes list - "My mother thanks you.  My father thanks you.  My sister thanks you.  And I thank you." (2005)
• #18 on AFI's 100 Years of Musicals list (2006)
• #88 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers list (2006)
• #98 on AFI's 100 Years.. 100 Movies list (2007)
• In 1993, Yankee Doodle Dandy was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Genre:  Musical

Running Time:  2 Hours, 6 Minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 3 Stars)

John's Take

Neither Beth nor I had seen this movie before, so we were kind of interested in seeing whether or not this movie lived up to all the hype.  The idea that Yankee Doodle Dandy, the story of legendary Broadway producer / writer / performer George M. Cohan, is a true classic is near universal in its acceptance.  As it says above, this movie is on 6 AFI movie lists (including being on both of the 100 Years… 100 Movies lists), won three Oscars and was nominated for 5 more.  It was one of James Cagney’s favorite movies, and as I understand it, this movie became the first colorized film because it was Ted Turner’s favorite.  After watching it, I can tell you that I am not necessarily in agreement with James and Ted.

That is not to say I don’t like the movie at all.  It wasn’t horrible.  I didn’t hate it.  I sort of liked it a little actually.  If I wasn’t doing anything, and someone said, “Hey, let’s watch Yankee Doodle Dandy.”, I wouldn’t say no.  However, I certainly didn’t love the film either.

The term “a perfect storm” has become something of a cliché.  Everything from the economical meltdown to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico seems to be characterized as a “perfect storm” lately.  This movie, however, begs the question:  What is the term for something that should have become a “perfect storm”, but somehow didn’t quite become one?  An Imperfect Downpour?  A Flawed Tempest?  A Marred Cyclone?  Personally, I think I like “A Reproachable Squall”.  That’s what I am going with – Reproachable Squall. Yankee Doodle Dandy should have been a perfect storm of a movie, but it kind of just turned into a reproachable squall.  How so?  Well, let’s take a look… 

The first element of the potential storm front would be the film’s star James Cagney.  He was just one of those people that the camera loves.  To me, he is undoubtedly a film legend (the American Film Institute agrees, listing him #8 on their list of male screen legends, for example).  I can watch Cagney films such as The Public Enemy, White Heat, and Angles with Dirty Faces all day long.  In other words, I love me some James Cagney.  Throw in the fact that Cagney was himself an old stage / vaudeville performer with the same half-sing / half-talk style that Cohan had, and his performance should just knock my socks off. 

The second element in this potential brew-up would be the film’s director Michael Curtiz.  Not exactly a household name like Steven Spielberg, I grant you, but Curtiz was probably one of the prolific film directors in Hollywood, directing 100 or so films.  Heard of a little movie called Casablanca?  He directed that.  How about Errol Flynn classics like The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk?  He directed those too.  All you Rocky Horror fans out there might have heard of a little horror movie called Doctor X (… will build a creature…).  He directed that as well.  He directed the James Cagney classic Angles with Dirty Faces, White Christmas with Bing Crosby and King Creole with Elvis Presley.  His directorial debut was the 1912 Hungarian movie, The Last Bohemian and his final film was The Comancheros starring John Wayne in 1961.  Curtiz’s career spanned silent, black & white dramas to Technicolor musicals and touched on everything in-between.  In other words, the man knew how to direct a movie.  Definitely sounds like someone capable of putting together a classic to me.

The third element would the subject of the movie, George M. Cohan himself. Known as “The Man Who Owns Broadway”, Cohan had an incredibly interesting life, the kind of up-by-your-boot-straps, rags-to-riches, story that everyone loves.  He did everything there was to do in theatre.  He was an actor, a singer, a dancer, a writer, a producer, a director, and a choreographer.  He created songs like “The Yankee Doodle Boy", "Give My Regards to Broadway", "Harrigan", "Mary's a Grand Old Name", "You're a Grand Old Flag" and the World War I classic "Over There".  He even owned his own theatres.

So we have three “high pressure systems” (great star, great director, great subject) all converging on an area of “low pressure” – the start of World War II.  Production on this film started in late November / early December, 1941.  In other words, just a few days before the attack on Pearl Harbor.  In response, the cast and crew resolve to make the most uplifting and patriotic film they possibly could.

So, you have the talent, you the subject, and you have the leadership all coming together in a time of fear and uncertainty.  The result of such unique confluence of motion picture conditions must have produced one of the most perfect cinematic storms of all time, and most film experts would agree that it did...

In my case, however, it simply seemed to rain just a little.

I know that I am flying in the face of commonly held belief, but I don’t think this is really a great movie.  Cagney’s performance was just OK, not great to me.  Despite Curtiz having a flair making films that have a quick pace, the movie seems to just plod along.  The film is two hours and 6 minutes long, but it felt much longer than that.  In addition, as with most bio-pics, the film takes a few liberties with the facts of Cohan’s life.  Throw in a short, but completely unnecessary blackface scene and I just ended up being radically underwhelmed.  Ultimately, the film has a hard time getting past my “for-its-time” caveat test.  Thus, I am left with no choice but to declare Yankee Doodle Dandy a reproachable squall of a movie.  Not completely without merit, but certainly not living up to what it could have been and most people seem to think it is.  It gets a very weak ranking of 3 Stars from me.

John

109. Fargo (1996)

Stars:  Frances McDormand (Marge Gunderson), William H. Macy (Jerry Lundegaard), Steve Buscemi (Carl Showalter), Peter Stormare (Gaear Grimsrud)

Director(s):  Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Awards / Honors

• 2 Oscar wins - Best Actress (Frances McDormand), Best Wrtining (Original Screenplay - Joel and Ethan Coen)
• 5 Additional Oscar Nominations - Best Picture, Best Director (Joel Coen), Best Supporting Actor(William H. Macy), Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing
• #84 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1998)
• #93 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs list (2000)
• #33 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villians list - Marge Gunderson, Hero (2003)
• In 2006, Fargo was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Genre:  Comedy

Running Time:  1 Hour, 38 Minutes

Format:  DVD, Blu-ray

Odyssey Rating:  4 Stars (John - 4 Stars, Beth - 4 Stars, Jon - 4 Stars, Becky - 4 Stars)

John's Take

Again Beth and I we were happy to have Official Friends of Beth and John’s Movie Odyssey, Jon and his wife Becky, join us during our screening of Fargo.  As you might guess we watched both Fargo and The Sixth Sense the same evening.  I believe that Jon and Becky had both seen the movie before, but Beth and I had not.

Fargo is a strange little movie.  That is not to say that it isn’t a good movie.  It is a very good movie, just a little odd.  It is a little difficult to classify what kind of genre and style that Fargo falls under.  For example, most sources just simply list the film’s genre as a “black comedy” and leave it at that.  I guess that works.  However, the standard definition of black comedy states the story be an ironic, satirical take on a rather dark, even morbid subject.  A classic example would be Dr. Strangelove (# 30 on our list).  In that movie, the subject of all-out nuclear war is played for laughs (the satire), and it is happening because the very fail-safes that are supposed to prevent nuclear war are now enabling it (the irony).  Fargo certainly uses a morbid subject (murder) for humorous effect, I am not exactly sure what precisely is being satirized (murder stories, Minnesota, both?) and where is the irony exactly?  I am not saying it isn’t there; it is just not obvious to me.  I would like to think that my level of “movie sophistication” is slightly above average.  However, I am probably not as savvy as I would like to think I am.

For example, while watching the film I was a little confused on what the purpose of the restaurant scene where Marge meets up with her old acquaintance, Mike.  It didn't seem to have a purpose, nor did it seem advance plot.  Despite being confused, I was really enjoying the story, and since the movie kind of kept chugging along, I didn’t give it much thought and kept enjoying the ride.  A few days after watching the film, I found myself thinking about that scene, so I got busy on the internet and tried to find more about the movie and hopefully that scene in particular.  Apparently, I was not the only one with questions about this scene and a number of movie sights had references to it in their FAQ sections.  If you think you know the importance of that scene, go ahead and leave a comment detailing what you think it is.  I have read three different explanations, and they are all basically the same.  I will let you know if you are correct.  However, I never would have come up with the reason of why that scene was important on my own.  Not in a million years.  I am sure many of you got it right away, but sometimes I need to get wonked upside the head before I notice things. 

The confusion I felt over which genre applied to Fargo also applies to its cinematic style.  Fargo has been called a good example of the neo-noir style.  What does neo-noir mean?  Well, the term film noir (“black film”) was coined in the mid 1940’s but didn’t come into common use until much later – the 70’s and 80’s.  It is generally used to describe American crime dramas and psychological thrillers made during the 40’s and 50’s (The Maltese Falcon – #25 on our list – is the quintessential example).  Noir films have a number of common themes, plot devices, and distinctive visual elements.  Characters were often conflicted and flawed.  They usually find themselves in difficult situations and making choices out of desperation or for self-centered reasons.  The visual elements of these films included low-key lighting, unusual camera placement, and use of shadow to establish mood.  Despite the fact that they stopped making these films by the late 50’s, the style of filmmaking and story telling had big influences on later filmmakers.  Films such as Chinatown (#19 on our list), Taxi Driver (# 49 on our list), and Pulp Fiction (#101 on our list) borrowed / were heavily influenced by those classic noir films but added their own specific variations to the established noir themes.  Since they were not classic film noir, but were clearly noir-like (for lack of a better term), these films and others often get lumped together under the heading of “new (neo) noir”.

So with all of that stated, is Fargo a good example of neo-noir style?  If forced to answer I would say no, but actually I have no idea.  It certainly doesn’t seem to share much, if any, of the classic film noir attributes – Marge isn’t a nihilistic gumshoe, for example, nor is the film particularly dark and shadowy.  About the only noir-like attributes I can think of are the facts that the film features a “detective” and a crime.  In fact, the Coen brothers seem to take great pains to be the exactly the opposite of classic film noir.  Something being the exact opposite of a particular style doesn’t seem to be a good reason to include that something in a sub-type of said style, but then again, I may be missing the obvious.

What is the point of all this babbling about genre and style?  The point is that it ultimately doesn’t really matter what genre or cinematic style a film belongs to.  Fargo is just a bit of an enigma, and one just needs to get comfortable with that.  Heck, even its the film's title really doesn't make much sense since the city that the movie gets it name from only appears in the film's open scene, has nothing to do with the plot and rest of the movie takes place in Minnesota, not North Dakota.  What is important, however, is whether or not the film is good.  And Fargo is a very good film, whether it is a neo-noir black comedy or not.

I give Fargo a ranking of 4 Stars.

John

110. The Sixth Sense (1999)

Stars:  Bruce Willis (Dr. Malcolm Crowe), Haley Joel Osment (Cole Sear), Toni Collette  (Lynn Sear), Olivia Williams (Anna Crowe)

Director:   M. Night Shyamalan

Awards / Honors

• 6 Oscar Nominations - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Haley Joel Osment), Best Supporting Actress (Toni Collette), Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Best Film Editing
• #60 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills list (2001)
• #44 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes list - "I see dead people." (2005)
• #89 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (2007)

Genre:  Suspense / Horror

Running Time:  1 Hour, 47 Minutes

Format:  DVD, Blu-Ray

Odyssey Rating:  4 1/4 Stars (John - 5 Stars, Beth - 4 Stars, Jon - 4 Stars, Becky - 4 Stars)

John's Take

We were happy to have Official Friends of Beth and John’s Movie Odyssey, Jon and his wife Becky join us during our screening of The Sixth Sense.  The four of us had all seen the movie before, but as with most things, sharing the event with friends always makes things more fun.

The Sixth Sense is a “twist” movie.  As I have said before, I don’t think that it is necessary to post “spoiler warnings” on a film that is over 10 years old.  That being said, there is no point in giving things away needless either.  So, hopefully without spoiling the story, here are the things I liked about the movie:

1. Bruce Willis

He absolutely nails the role of Dr. Malcolm Crowe.  Sure, occasionally delivers the his lines as if he is John McClane - Child Psychologist, and he looks a wee bit old to be married to Olivia Williams (who is about 14 years his junior), but it the fact that Bruce has mastered the “everyday-guy-who-is-in-a-little-over-his-head-but stays-calm-and figures-out-what-to-do” role that makes everything work.  All the things that had happened to Willis up until this point – a bit of a career slump, marital problems (he and Demi Moore would divorce almost exactly a year after the movie was released), tagged as an “action film star” – actually help him here.  As the story is unfolding, you completely buy him as a guy that was on top of the world, but it all fell apart and now is desperate to find a way to make it all right.  Well, that was Willis then, wasn’t it?

Is there any other actor that could pull off this role?  I don’t think so.  The whole film relies on our pre-conceived notions of what to expect from a Bruce Willis film (i.e., Die Hard) to help hide the twist.  Then when the twist occurs, Bruce’s mastery of playing the “every-man” totally makes us believe that he didn’t realize what was going on the whole time.  What major star at the time could pull that off?  Costner?  Cage?  Travolta?  Not really seeing it.

I am going to go on record right now and saying that as an actor, Bruce Willis is an under-appreciated national treasure.  I would go on to say that he is this generation’s John Wayne.  Yes, you read that right.  Like Wayne, not every film he has been in has been great, but every film he has been in has been better because of his involvement.  Who else plays that role in Pulp Fiction, the various Die Hard films, The Fifth Element, or Armageddon?  And don’t bother bring up Hudson Hawk. First, that movie isn’t nearly as bad as people like harp about.  Second, even John Wayne made the mistake of playing Genghis Khan once so everyone deserves a mulligan now and then.

2. The Scary Scenes

As I mentioned in the Frankenstein post, I am pretty much a wuss when it comes to horror movies, so I may not be good at commenting on a horror movie, but overall I felt that the scary scenes were pretty good.  I sure a great number of horror movie aficionados out there might find the scenes a little tame, but I found them to be sufficiently scary to make me jump.  In particular, the kitchen scene early on with Haley Joel Osment and Toni Collette is surprisingly scary for scene in which basically you see nothing happen.  My only beef was the car accident scene near the end where Collette finally starts to grasp what is going on.  It just came off a little too pat for me – she just goes from being skeptical and having no clue to complete and utter acceptance too quickly.  It is was a by-product of the rest of the movie I know – needing to keep the twist under wraps for as long as possible, the need to re-establish the mother / son bond for the happy ending, etc., etc.  It just gave off a “the movie is ending and we need to wrap this up quickly” feel for me, however.

3. The Supporting Cast

Everyone was great; everybody worked well and blah, blah, blah.  You don't need a laundry list; there wasn't a subpar performance in the movie (Toni Collette was particularly believable as the mother).  We even had a cameo appearance of director M. Night.  On a side note, a director appearing in their own film is sort of a cute touch but lately there is way too much of it. M. Night is in all of his films; Jon Favreau is many of his films (such as Happy Hogan in the Iron Man films); Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez show up on screen a great deal, usually in each other’s films but it is the same concept.  Guys, please, just because Hitchcock did it, doesn’t mean you have to do it too – just saying. 

Of course, the one real standout that everyone remembers the first time they see the film is Haley Joel Osment as the little boy, Cole.  He was very good, and despite the fact that he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, now that 10+ yeas have past, and since I started to re-think about this movie, a few things have come to mind that is making me reexamine his performance somewhat. 

First, all child actors are cute and articulate.  Think about it.  The whole point of casting departments is to spend their time weeding out everyone but the best and the brightest children to be in television and movies.  Only the best of the best, ever appear on screen, and add in the fact that as human beings we are genetically and anthropologically predisposed to like and want to care for children, it comes as no surprise that we are drawn to the performance of child actors.

Second, take a hard look at the other performances, such as A.I., Secondhand Lions, or Pay it Forward.  His job, simply make the audiences feel for his character, which he does to some degree with his acting, but largely pulls off because he is cute kid.  Don’t think so?  Have you ever gone “ohh, ahh” at a baby before?  If you have, then re-think your opinion of Osment’s performance because the baby is evoking an emotional response from you and it just lying there.  Again, as a species we are predisposed to like children.

Lastly, what has he done since he has stopped being a cute little kid?  He is 22 years-old or so now, and the last thing I heard about him was getting busted for drunk driving and drug possession, back in 2006.  I am sure he went to school, went on dates, etc., during this down time, and maybe he isn’t even interested in acting anymore, I don’t know, but I think if I was him I would be desperately trying to wake my agent out of his coma.

It may sound like I am picking on Osment a little bit, and maybe I am.  After all, he is great in this film.  However, I also think that it illustrates why it is important to go back and re-visit films from time to time.  For a period of about three years or so, Haley Joel Osment was one of the biggest stars around.  My hero in the film watching business, Roger Ebert, even claimed once that: Osment was “one of the best actors now working".  Would he write that now, 10 years later?  I am not so sure.

4. The Little Nuances

This movie was full of them. I won’t spend a lot of time harping about them since you can find plenty of other “reviews” that do.  Things like the deliberate use of the color red to depict when the world of the living and the world of the dead are crossing over are the sort of little touches that really push this film into the “classic” category.  It is unfortunate that M. Night never quite managed to put it all together in any of his films that follow this one, but it all works for this film at least. 

In conclusion, Cole may have seen dead people, but I see The Sixth Sense getting a rating of 5 Stars from me.

John

Movie List for March, 2010

We are slowly getting the blog caught up to real life. Yay!  Hopefully, we won’t have to continue our little temporary fiction that our blogging and our movie viewing are all happening simultaneously for much longer.   In the mean time, however, here are the movies will be “watching” in the month of March, 2010.  We encourage those of you who want to, to “watch along with us".  The movies are:

110. The Sixth Sense (1999)

109. Fargo (1996)

108. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

107. Giant (1956)

106. Sunrise:  A Song of Two Humans (1927)

105. Spartacus (1960)

104. All the President’s Men (1976)

103. Pulp Fiction (1994)

John

111. A Night at the Opera (1935)

Stars:  Groucho Marx (Otis B. Driftwood), Chico Marx (Fiorello), Harpo Marx (Tomasso), Kitty Carlisle (Rosa Castaldi), Allan Jones (Ricardo Baroni), Margaret Dumont (Mrs. Claypool)

Director:  Sam Wood

Awards / Honors

• #12 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs list (2000)
• #85 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (2007)
• In 1993, A Night at the Opera was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Genre:  Comedy

Running Time:  1 Hour, 33 Minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  5 Stars (John - 5 Stars, Beth - 5 Stars)

John's Take

You have to respect comedy film that even 40+ years after its release, still inspires two rock bands to name albums after it (Queen and the German heavy metal band Blind Guardian).  Neither Beth nor I had seen this movie before our little Odyssey began.  It has since become the “surprise hit” of the list.  This movie, considered one of the best of the Marx Brothers movies (along with Duck Soup -- # 66 on our list), is truly hilarious.

I feel sort of bad since I am now entering my second short post in a row, and both posts are for movies that I really liked, but I think this is just a case where the movie speaks for itself and anything I say is extraneous.  Jokes come fast and furious in this film.  Beth and I found ourselves having to pause and rewind the movie a bit to hear the jokes that we missed because we were laughing. 

I have said in earlier posts that if one has to use the “for-its-time” caveat to describe a movie, then perhaps it wasn’t really a great movie to start out with.  I think his movie drives that point home.  The spiritual predecessor of Airplane!, Naked Gun, and all the other Zucker & Abrahams comedies, it hasn’t missed a beat despite being 75-years old. 

In the movie, Groucho Marx's and Margaret Dumont's characters are boarding an ocean liner, Dumont asks Groucho, "Have you got everything?" Groucho replies "I've never had any complaints."  You won’t hear any from me either, Groucho.  A Night at the Opera gets a standing ovation and a rating of 5 Stars.

John

112. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

Stars:  Charles Laughton (Captain Bligh), Clark Gable (Fletcher Christian), Franchot Tone (Ensign Byam), Maria "Movita" Castaneda (Tehani), Mamo Clark (Maimiti)

Director:  Frank Lloyd

Awards / Honors

• 1 Oscar win - Best Picture
• 7 Additional Oscar nominations in 5 different categories - Best Director, Best Actor (Charles Laughton), Best Actor (Clark Gable), Best Actor (Franchot Tone), Best Writing (Adpated Screenplay), Best Music (Score), Best Film Editing
• #86 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1997)
• #19 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains - Captain Bligh, Villain (2003) 

Genre:  Drama

Running Time:  2 Hours, 12 Minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 Stars (John - 4 Stars, Beth - 2 Stars)

John's Take

This was a film that neither Beth nor I had seen before we started our little Odyssey.  Now that I have seen it, I am left with a single question:  Is it possible to really like a movie, but not have anything to say about it?  Because when it comes to Mutiny on the Bounty, I got nothing.

I have been thinking about what I was going to write about this movie for some time now. I  thought I might write about how this was the first movie where Beth and I really had divergent opinions.  I really liked it.  She really didn’t.  I could write about that.  As I started putting words to paper, however, I remembered that her response to the question, “Why didn’t you like it?” immediately after watching the film was “I don’t know. I just don’t”.  That didn’t really leave me a lot to write about, so I sort of ditched that idea.

Then I thought that it might be interesting to write about how Movita, one of the female leads of this film, ended up becoming getting to married to Marlon Brando in the late 50’s and they remained married until Brando starred in the 1962 re-make of Mutiny on the Bounty.  Marlon would go on to marry his co-star Tarita Teriipia, who was played Fletcher Christian's Tahitian wife in the ’62 version of the film.  An odd little coincidence to be sure, but I couldn’t figure out how to stretch that out to 1000 or so words.

It then occurred to me that I could write about how this is first time I had ever seen Clark Gable without a mustache.  I think it is pretty safe to say when most people picture Mr. Gable in their minds; they see him with a mustache – ala Gone with the Wind, It Happened One Night, etc..  But then, while a clean-shaven Clark Gable is a strange little aberration, it is hardly worth a thousand words. 

There is also the fact that Mutiny on the Bounty was the last movie to win the Oscar for Best Picture without winning an Oscar in any other category.  This is despite the fact that Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, and Franchot Tone were all nominated for the Best Actor award, yet the trophy still managed to end up in the hands of Victor McLaglen for his role in The Informer.  Again, a weird occurrence, but I wasn’t sure how to stretch that out to a full post.

I could always just fall back on the old “stand-bys”; how the acting is great, the cinematography is spectacular, the writing superb, etc., etc..  The problem is that none of those things are really true.  They are all executed well, mind you, just not spectacularly.  You can find better examples of any of those cinematic elements in the movies that preceded this one in the list.  So, I guess that idea is out as well. 

So where does that leave us?  I guess that leaves us with the answer: Yes, it is possible to really like a movie, but not be able to say much about it.  That is because it is possible that the film does all the little things just well enough to make the whole endeavor an enjoyable experience, but does not do anything well enough to make any one element truly stand out.  Mutiny on the Bounty is one of those films.  It is a film has lots of little flourishes and interesting little facts surrounding it, which all combine to make for a great movie, even if you might not be sure why it is great.  I give Mutiny on the Bounty a rating of 4 Stars.

John 

113. 12 Angry Men (1957)

Stars:  Henry Fonda (Juror # 8 - "Davis"), Joseph Sweeney (Juror # 9 - "McArdle"), Martin Balsam (Juror #1), John Fiedler (Juror #2 ), Lee J. Cobb (Juror #3), E. G. Marshall (Juror # 4), Jack Klugman (Juror # 5), Edward Binns (Juror # 6), Jack Warden (Juror # 7), Ed Begley (Juror # 10), George Voskovec (Juror # 11), Robert Webber (Juror # 12)

Director:  Sidney Lumet

Awards / Honors

• 3 Oscar Nominations - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Writing (Adpated Screenplay)
• #88 on AFI's 100 Years...  100 Thrills list (2001)
• #28 on AFI's 100 Years...  100 Heroes and Villians list - Juror #8, Hero (2003)
• #42 on AFI's 100 Years...  100 Cheers list (2006)
• #87 on AFI's 100 Years...  100 Movies list (2007)
• # 2 on  AFI's 10 Top 10 List - Courtroom Drama (2008)
• In 2007, 12 Angry Men was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Genre:  Courtroom Drama

Running Time:  1 Hour, 36 minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  4 1/2 Stars  (John - 5 Stars, Beth - 4 Stars)

John's Take

12 Angry Men may in fact be the first “grown-up” drama movie I ever watched.  I was probably around 10 or 11 when I first saw it on television at my grandparent’s house.  Don’t misunderstand; I certainly wasn’t a sophisticated child.  If a show wasn’t animated, or if it didn’t have a laugh-track you probably couldn’t get me to watch it.  Despite lacking both of these elements, there were two reasons why I ended up watching the film anyway.  The first reason was because I recognized Jack Klugman from re-runs of The Odd Couple, so I assumed he was going do something funny at some point.  The second reason was because there was literally nothing else to do.

For those of you under the age of 40, you have to keep in mind that at the time there was no such thing as DirectTV, iPods, the Internet, Nintendo DSs, or DVDs.  Heck at that time Cable TV was a new concept, the Atari 2600 was technological breakthrough, Sony hadn’t introduced the Walkman yet, and only the very well-to-do had a VCR.  Even if you did have a VCR, you were still limited in what you could watch since the concept of ‘movie rentals’ was still about 5 to 8 years away.  My grandparents lived on a dairy farm in northeastern Illinois, maybe an hour or two from both the Iowa and Wisconsin borders.  In other words, they lived in the middle of nowhere and from such a location, it was possible to receive only five, that’s correct, only five channels on my grandparent’s television – 1 ABC station, 2 CBS stations, and 2 NBC stations. All six stations came out of either Rockford, IL or Madison WI.

As “unplugged” as that sounds by today’s standards, and quite frankly even by the standards of my childhood, just fifteen years earlier, the “multi-media set-up” that my grandparent’s had was probably the envy of the county.  They had this extra tall antenna on the side of the house and it had a motorized aerial on top. You could control the direction the aerial was pointing by turning this large dial that sat on top of my grandparents TV.  The outside ring of the dial had a mark on it and the interior part of the dial had a matching mark.  You would turn the outside ring, and the center of the dial would slowly turn while making a sound similar to that of a small electric motor makes being just slightly overworked until both the red marks had re-aligned.  So, if you wanted to watch the stations coming out of Rockford, you would turn the dial to the east and the aerial would turn to the east allowing those stations to come in more clearly.  If you wanted to watch the stations coming out of Madison you turned the dial to a more northerly direction.  On a really clear day, you might get lucky and be able to pick up a station out of Dubuque, IA if you turned the dial to a more westerly heading.  Needless to say this made channel flipping a little problematic.  You would have to manually turn the channel – no remote control – through the Rockford channels, with the requisite static showing up on screen as you moved through the channels with no signal.  You then had to stand up, change move the big aerial dial on the top of the TV, and then flip though the dial again to see what was on the Madison channels.  That much exertion might just kill me nowadays.  Even as primitive as all of that sounds, I still remember my grandparents neighbors coming over and commenting how great it must be to get so many television channels.

Thus, it probably would come as no surprise that despite the large number of fond memories I have about my grandparent’s farm, very few of those memories involve television.  In fact, I only have five of them. They are:

1. Watching Lawrence Welk on Sunday nights

2. Watching Hee-Haw on Sunday nights immediately following Lawrence Welk

3. Watching The Carol Burnett Show.

4. Watching the original series of Star Trek for the first time (The Devil in the Dark was the episode in case you wanted to know)

5. Watching 12 Angry Men for the first time.

The first 3 memories are due to the near fanatical devotion that my grandparent’s had to those three shows – woe to the grandchild that suggested watching something else!  The last two are due largely to the fact that it was a hassle to keep changing the channel.

So, on a rainy summer afternoon, facing the prospect of having to choose between messing with the aerial / changing the channel or turning off the TV and having nothing to do at all, I elected to take a risk on this old black-and-white movie and hope that Jack Klugman did something Oscar Madison-like. At the time, black-and-white programming was a hit-or-miss proposition in my book. Sometimes it was good (such as The Lone Ranger or Abbott and Costello movies) and sometimes it wasn’t (say something like A Place in the Sun).  But since my mind at the time operated on the concept that nurses were always nurses, firemen always were firemen, and actors known for a comedic role always played comedic roles, I was fairly certain that something funny would happen if I just sat their long enough. 

Needless to say, nothing funny happen.  Yet, for some reason, I remained transfixed on the movie.  I suspect it was how the movie keeps re-explaining and re-examining each little detail of the case; it made it easy for me to follow the story.  By the time the movie was over, and considering my exposure to suspense drama was, up to that point, limited to Scooby-Doo, it shouldn’t be a shock to you all that I believed I had just witnessed the most brilliant movie ever produced!  I actually felt smarter, as if I was now prepared to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court. Henry Fonda (although at the time I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what his name was and for a few more years Mr. Fonda would be referred to simply as The-Guy-From-12-Angry-Men) had just taught me everything I needed to know about the American justice system.  I wanted to show off my new found knowledge.  Neither my grandparents nor my mother was overly impressed.  A simple, “That’s nice dear”, was about the best response that information concerning the miracle that is the trial-by-jury system could muster.  Apparently, they hadn’t seen the movie.  If they had, they would be just as impressive and worldly as I now was…

And that ladies and gentlemen, is the secret magic benefit of watching this movie.  There will be times in your life – usually at a dinner / cocktail party or business-related function – you will find yourself being forced to make conversation with one or more people that are trying really hard to show off how cultured and sophisticated they are.  They aren’t of course, because actual cultured and intellectual people usually don’t feel the need to prove that to anyone, but rarely are you free to point that out because it isn’t nice to tell your spouse’s co-workers or supervisor that they are pompous windbags. Fortunately for you, the members of the pseudo-intellectual set all love 12 Angry Men.  It is to them what Network is to Glenn Beck and his fans – which, oddly enough was also directed by Sidney Lumet.  Have these people seen 12 Angry Men?  Not usually, but they have all heard of it.  If you can manage to work 12 Angry Men into the conversation, the people you are talking to will start to gush over you thinking they have discovered a kindred spirit.  Their gushing gives them the opportunity to take back control of the conversation and allows you to continue to stand quietly and enjoy cocktail while you pretend to listen. 

Of course, you always run the risk that the person you are talking to has actually seen the film.  So, if you want to use 12 Angry Men as part of your arsenal of small-talk weaponry, you should actually sit down and watch it yourself.  Luckily for you, that is a good thing.  The story is a little simplistic (remember a 10-11 year-old version of me could follow it), but otherwise the film is outstanding. I could drone on about the acting and cinematography, but since we are not at a cocktail party, suffice it to say that that after 30+ years and countless numbers of viewings, the film is still one of my favorite movies of all time.  I may not think it is as brilliant as I did as a child, but 12 Angry Men still warrants a rating of 5 Stars.

John

Bonus Movie: Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Stars:  Boris Karloff (The Monster), Colin Clive (Henry Frankenstein), Valerie Hobson (Elizabeth Frankenstein), Ernest Thesiger (Doctor Septimus Pretorius), Elsa Lanchester (The Bride, Mary Shelly), Dwight Frye (Karl)

Director:  James Whale

Honors / Awards

• In 2008, Time Magazine included Bride of Frankenstein in its "ALL-TIME 100 Movies" list
• The 1996 book The Entertainment Weekly Guide to the Greatest Movies Ever Made includes Bride and considers the film to be superior to Frankenstein.
• In 2008, the Boston Herald named it the second greatest horror film after Nosferatu. 
• In 1998, famous film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum included Bride of Frankenstein on his "Alternate 100" list created to respond to the 1997 AFI 100 Years... 100 Movies list.
• In 1998, Bride of Frankenstein was added to the United States National Film Registry, having been deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".

Genre:  Horror
Running Time:  1 Hour, 15 minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 3 Stars)

John's Take

Why the “bonus post”? Because the DVD we got from Netflix not only contained Frankenstein, it also contained Bride of Frankenstein.  Since we received two movies for the price of one, we decided to watch Bride of Frankenstein as well.  Plus, I was a little bit curious to discover if I had actually seen the movie as I remembered that I did in childhood, or was my mind once again creating a false history for me as it did with Frankenstein.

I was relieved to discover that my memories of Bride all fairly matched up to the film I saw.  The two noticeable exceptions being that I still remember Frankenstein’s name being Victor, not Henry, and his assistant is still not named Igor.  In fact, his assistant isn’t even a hunchback in this film, but just a guy with metal leg braces named Karl (although still played by the same actor, Dwight Frye).  Apparently, it isn’t until the third movie, Son of Frankenstein, is the character of “Ygor” introduced.  Odd that Igor would go on to become such an iconic element of Frankenstein when it wasn’t introduced until later in the series. 

It is a fairly commonly held opinion that Bride of Frankenstein is one of those few cases in Hollywood films where the sequel is superior to original film.  In general, I would agree.  However, while many would spend a great deal of time discussing the improved visual effects, the more complex use of imagery, more pathos for The Monster, etc., I am here to tell you that you can ignore all of that if you want.  A great many of those statements / interpretations of the critics are true, at least to one degree or another, but there is one specific cinematic element that is lacking in the first film but is present in the second that often gets overlooked or simply brushed aside by the experts:

Bride of Frankenstein has a music score.  Frankenstein basically does not.

Other than over the opening and closing credits, Frankenstein has no “background music”.  Bride, on the other hand, is full scored.  What different does that make?  It is score that causes that triggers or reinforces the emotions that the filmmaker wants you to experience.  For example, when the villagers are trussing The Monster up all crucifixion-style, the story or imagery may evoke an emotional response of pity from you, but the little subconscious cue you get from hearing the “sympathetic music” is what really drives the emotion home, as well as ensures that you are experiencing the “correct” emotion – pity for the creature, instead of relief that the creature has been captured.

I have no idea why there was no musical soundtrack for Frankenstein. I remember something from film history classes in college about how in the “early days” some filmmakers didn’t use musical scores because they felt that it would confuse the audience (i.e., “The man and the woman are alone in a big empty field, so where is the music coming from?”).  I am not sure if I am remembering that correctly (especially since these two movies seem to be messing with memory), or that James Whale was such a director even if it is true, but it would be interesting to find out why there was no score in the orginal film.

So, long-winded film critics / writers drone on all you want about the myriad of perceived reasons why you believe that Bride is superior to the original film.  Your points may have some amount of merit, but there is a simpler answer to why Bride of Frankenstein is better – It is the music stupid.

As far as a rating is concerned, I agree that Bride of Frankenstein is better than Frankenstein.  However, Beth and I agreed that we would keep our individual rankings to whole number values.  In other words, individually we wouldn’t give movies ratings of 2 ½ Stars or 4 ½ Stars, etc.  While Bride is certainly better than Frankenstein, it is not sufficiently better to warrant an increase of a full star.  Like its predecessor, Bride of Frankenstein is a really good “popcorn movie” – even better than the original – but it still just receives a rating of 3 Stars.

John

114. Frankenstein (1931)

Stars:  Boris Karloff (The Monster), Colin Clive (Henry Frankenstein), Mae Clarke (Elizabeth), John Boles (Victor Moritz), Dwight Frye (Fritz)

Director:  James Whale

Honors / Awards

• #87 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1997)
• #56 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills list (2001)
• #49 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes list - "It's alive! It's alive!" (2005)
• In 1991, Frankenstein was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Genre:  Horror

Running Time:  1 Hour, 11 Minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 3 Stars)

John's Take

Frankenstein was a film that I was sure I had seen before.  If you had asked, I would have said that I had seen it years before on some locale television station’s weekend Creature Feature show, most likely WFLD's Son of Svengoolie in Chicago, but then isn’t that when we all saw Frankenstein for the first time?  Do they even have Creature Feature shows on local TV anymore?  I moved to Saint Louis some time ago and I don’t seem to remember seeing a Creature Feature-like show when I moved to the area.  I wonder if Son of Svengoolie is even on the air anymore?  Probably not.  I feel old now.  Anyway, back to the subject at hand.  Beth gets some popcorn ready.  I pop the DVD we had gotten just a couple days earlier in the mail from Netflix into the Blu-ray player.  The movie starts and I sit back to enjoy some childhood memories.

The credits appear first.  One thing that older movie have over new movies is that you don’t have to sit through a 10 minute scroll of all the names of every single person that had even the tiniest bit of involvement in making the film.  Is my life better that I know that the director’s bagel wrangler was named Boris?  Not really.  Anyhow, I got a big kick out of the fact that in the credits where it lists the actor that plays The Monster, we get to see a big question mark (The Monster ……….. ?) instead of Boris Karloff’s name.  It is like – Where they discover such a monstrous and hideous thing? Is it even human? Bwha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

It is these cheesy-little touches that make these classic horror movies so much fun.  I wish I had been around for the days back when movie promoters would do dopey things like make you sign “waiver” before they would let you in the theater because the movie was just so scary that you may die of fright.  Despite my love of such things, truth is, I am really a big wuss when it comes to horror movies.  For example, I didn’t sleep for two days after seeing the original A Nightmare on Elm Street.  After getting mocked mercilessly by friends after seeing Children of the Corn via peering through my fingers, I ended up having to develop a technique for watching horror movies without appearing like I was looking away from the screen or closing my eyes.  I had to survive the high-school dating scene after all, and jumping from your seat and screaming like a little girl every time something happens on screen doesn’t do much to inspire the girl you are with to make-out with you.  I may share this technique with you all sometime, but for now it will remain a little trade secret.  I may have to use it with Beth sometime in the future, who knows.  My point is that despite the fact that I usually get scared silly at horror movies; there was something about the cheesiness of those old-time promotions and low-budget television shows that made horror movies palatable to me.  I was just born a little too late to fully enjoy them.  Ah well.

The other thing I noticed from the short list of credits is that Doctor Frankenstein’s name is Henry in the movie. I seem to remember it being Victor like in the book. Oddly enough, Doctor Frankenstein’s best friend in the book is named Henry and in the movie his name is Victor. I wonder why the change?  It seems so pointless. I already realized long ago that besides the title, the novel Frankenstein and any number of Frankenstein movies don’t have very much in common. I had to read the book in college and I don’t remember ever seeing any movie version that actually ever told a story that even resembled the one in the book. Supposedly that version with Robert De Niro playing The Monster came close, but I haven’t seen that so I can’t comment. Anyway, I certainly don’t remember Frankenstein being called Henry. Nor do I remember the scene where Elizabeth is talking to Victor about her concerns about the good doctor.  But then again, these scenes aren’t something that my 10 to 12-year old mind would have retained anyways.  I would have been busy trying to will the movie to get to the good part with the monster.

So, then the scene shifts to the good doctor Frankenstein and his little hunchback buddy Fritz…  Fritz?  Isn’t his name supposed to be Igor?  I mean everyone knows that, right?  Isn’t that the basis of one of the jokes in Young Frankenstein – the whole “eye-gor”, “e-gor” thing?  Wow.  Fritz.  Really?  I don’t remember that either.  OK, so well, Henry and Fritz (?) rob some graves and then head off back to the tower…  Tower?  I seem to remember them being in a full-blown castle, not just a tower... 

It finally dawns on me – I, in fact, have never seen this movie before!  I had seen scenes from this movie.  I have heard people talk and discuss this movie.  I had read about the movie, and I had seen perhaps a dozen or so other Frankenstein movies – such as the later Universal and Hammer series films, but I had never actually seen the original film.  Yet, I would have bet money just 25 minutes earlier that I had seen the movie a couple of times.  I was suddenly going through a little internal crisis.  I had just realized that a memory from my childhood was in fact a lie – a lie that my very own mind had constructed, which made me feel even worse.  How many more lies about my life had my mind constructed on it own?  Something had to be done about this.  So I did the only thing I could do at that moment.  I brought this trauma that had just descended upon me to Beth’s attention.

She, as Official Friends of Beth and John’s Movie Odyssey may have already guessed, didn’t seem nearly as concerned about my newly discovered revelation as I was.  She sort of grunted an acknowledgement that she had heard me say something; gave me a only-you-would-be-concerned-about-this look and turned back to watch he movie.  I was left to work through this crisis on my own as the movie, which I could have sworn I had seen, played on before me.  As I watched the film, the idea that my entire life might be a big lie – just like Quaid in Total Recall – was soon replaced with another thought.  Sure, this is a fairly entertaining movie, but why was Frankenstein on a list of greatest American movies?

I realize that it didn’t make the cut on the ’07 version of the list, but why pray tell was it on the 1997 version of the list in the first place?  Was it that someone over at the AFI decided that the list needed at least one of the Universal Classic Monster Movies (Frankenstein, Wolf-man, Dracula, The Mummy, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, etc.) to be complete, and this was the one that everyone could agree on?  I think that has to be it.  I really need to find someone over there that can answer these questions for me, but until then, I going to go with that as an answer.

Frankenstein, along with the other classic monster movies, were all very successful films.  They are all films that we remember from childhood (instances, like mine, of your own subconscious deceiving you aside). They may have even ushered in an entire genre of popular film, but being important and historic isn’t the same thing as being “great”.  While I was watching Frankenstein, I didn’t see anything in that film that would make think “I am watching one of the greatest movies of all time”. That doesn’t mean I don’t like the film, but then I like Team America: World Police as well and I wouldn’t put that on a list of 100 greatest films either.  Hopefully, someone out there in the Inter-verse can give me some sort of explanation on why this movie would be considered one of the greatest of all time.  I would very much like to hear it.  I imagine that it is going to be fairly difficult to do without using the “for-its-time” caveat, however.

In the end, I liked Frankenstein, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it again.  Ultimately, what we have here is the second occurrence of a film that was included in one of the AFI 100 greatest American movies list – the first being A Place in the Sun – that probably shouldn’t have been. The reasons for their exclusion, however, are polar opposites. Despite the fact that I found A Place in the Sun to be a pretty crappy film, I could at least sort of see where at one time it may have been considered great, and some older members of the Institute just included it on the original list in some sort of knee-jerk, force-of-habit reaction.  Frankenstein, on the other hand, is still a pretty entertaining little film (I mean, who doesn’t get a kick out of watching the “It’s alive!” scene with the Tesla coils and all the other devices shooting electrical arcs everywhere?), but it didn’t strike me as anything more than a fairly good “popcorn movie”.  I enjoyed watching the movie; I just don’t think it is in the same league as many other films on these lists and probably shouldn’t have been included.

Then again, the movie did bring back childhood memories of weekend nights spent watching a man in bad Halloween make-up and a top hat talk to a floating plastic skull with a green mustache. That has to be worth something. Of course that is assuming that the events I remember even occurred at all…

Damn you, Frankenstein!  3 Stars.

John  

115. Patton (1970)

Stars:  George C. Scott (Gen. George S Patton), Karl Malden (Gen. Omar Bradley), Michael Bates (Field Marshal Montgomery), Karl Michael Vogler (Field Marshal Erwin Rommel)

Director:  Franklin J. Schaffner

Awards / Honors

• 7 Oscar Wins - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (George C. Scott), Best Writing (Original Screenplay - Francis Ford Coppola), Best Art Dircection, Best Film Editing, Best Sound
• 3 Additional Oscar Nominations - Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Music (Orginal Score)
• #89 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1997)
• #29 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villians list - Gen. George S Patton, Hero (2003)
• In 2003, Patton was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Genre:  War / Drama

Running Time:  2 Hours, 50 Minutes

Format:  DVD, Blu-ray

Odyssey Rating:  4 1/2 Stars (John - 5 Stars, Beth - 4Stars)

John's Take

I love this movie.  I mean I really, really love it.  I first say this movie on television back when I was around 12-years old or so, and I seen this film a 100 times or more.  At one point in time I could recite the entire opening monologue from memory.  Patton is one of my all-time favorite movies.

This is why the AFI and I now have a little problem.

First, as you can tell if you have been reading any of the entries on our little blog, the American Film Institute as part of their “100 Years...” series, have put together a number of lists of films over the last 13 years; the 100 best American romantic movies (100 Passions), the 100 best American comedies (100 Laughs), etc..  One of these lists, which they published in 2005, was AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Movie Quotes.  My problem?  The powers-that-be at the AFI decided that Patton – a movie just chock full of memorable dialogue – did not warrant a spot upon this list.  What’s up with that?  You mean the movie that gave us –

Patton:  Thirty years from now, when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks you, "What did you do in the great World War II," you won't have to say, "Well... I shoveled shit in Louisiana."

-- doesn’t deserve a spot on a list of great movie quotes?  Blasphemy I say!!

Effectively the AFI are saying that quotes like:

"Hello gorgeous." – Funny Girl

"La-dee-da, la-dee-da." – Annie Hall

"We rob banks." – Bonnie and Clyde

are better than quotes, such as:

Patton:  Now there's another thing I want you to remember.  I don't want to get any messages saying that "we are holding our position."  We're not holding anything.  Let the Hun do that.  We are advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy.  We're going to hold onto him by the nose and we're going to kick him in the ass.  We're going to kick the hell out of him all the time and we're going to go through him like crap through a goose!!!

Really? “…crap through a goose” looses out to “La-dee-da”? Something is wrong here.

Here is what it should say on that list:

#55 – The entire opening monologue – George S Patton – George C. Scott – Patton

Why at the number 55 spot?  Well, it probably deserves to be higher on the list, but the inclusion of "La-dee-da, la-dee-da" on the list (they aren’t even words after all) is so lame that it is just easier to knock Annie Hall off the list and replace it with Patton – at least until they pick a better line from Annie Hall, such as “That sex was the most fun I've ever had without laughing.”  I mean, Annie Hall has great lines too and the line that the AFI thought was the best and most memorable was "La-dee-da, la-dee-da."?  Lame with extra weak-sause.

The second thing that really has me steamed with AFI is the fact that they removed Patton from the 2007 version of the 100 greatest American movies of all time list! Wha, wha, wha…?!?!  Say, it isn’t so!  How come?  I will overlook the fact that it was only #89 on the original 1997 list, I mean sure everything is relative, yada, yada, yada.  But, for the film to get bumped from the list altogether in ’07?  Were these people high?

Patton has everything – acting, writing, beautiful cinematography.  Have you seen the blu-ray version?  It is GORGEOUS!  Sure the movie is a little on the long side but hey a lot happened during World War II.  What movie deserved to be on the list more than Patton did? Swing Time? All the President’s Men? Nashville? All good movies, but none of them deserve to be on the list more than Patton does.

I am very upset about this. I want somebody from the AFI to explain this to me.

Well, even if it didn’t make 2007 list, I say on to you that Patton is one of the American greatest movies of all time! And I would be proud, and it would be my honor to watch this movie with you all… anytime, anywhere.  Patton is a 5-Star general of a movie.

John

116. Swing Time (1936)

Stars:  Fred Astaire (Lucky Garnett), Ginger Rogers (Penny Carrol), Victor Moore ("Pop"), Helen Broderick (Mabel Anderson)
Director:  George Stevens

Awards / Honors

• 1 Oscar Win - Best Orginal Song ("The Way You Look Tonight")
• 1 Additional Oscar Nomination - Best Dance Direction
• #30 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions list (2002)
• #43 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs list - "The Way You Look Tonight" (2004)
• #90 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (2007)
• In 2004, Swing Time was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Genre:  Musical / Comedy
Running Time:  1 Hour, 43 Minutes
Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)
Odyssey Rating:  4 Stars (John - 4 Stars, Beth - 4 Stars)

John's Take
OK, so let me get this straight.  In 1997 The Jazz Singer was ranked #90 on AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Movies list.  In 2007, AFI published a new list and announced that it would do so every ten years thereafter “to mark changing cultural perspectives”.  This resulted in the removal of The Jazz Singer from the list presumably – and while this is simply speculation on my part, I can’t imagine how it didn’t play a role – because of the significant amount of performance in blackface by Al Jolson.  Yet the powers-that-be at AFI decided to replace The Jazz Singer at # 90 with another movie that contains a questionable blackface performance by the movie’s star…?

Exactly what “changes in cultural perspectives” are we talking about here?  The fact that in 2007 people were more likely to rent Swing Time than The Jazz Singer?  Was it that the questionable element of The Jazz Singer was more well know?  Regardless, the whole thing strikes me as a little odd and not very well thought out.

Swing Time was a movie that neither Beth nor I had seen before we had started our Odyssey.  Other than being aware that it was “Fred and Ginger” movie, we didn’t know anything about it.  So there we are, minding our own business, enjoying the film immensely, when – BAM! – we get blindsided by the “Bojangles of Harlem” number.  We both turned and looked at each other and Beth said “Who in their right mind thought that this was a good idea?”  It was a good question.

And it was a shame too because the dancing done by Astaire in that routine is just incredible! I mean the whole number took something like three days to shoot. I know, I know – Astaire meant the routine to be a homage to Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and to his tap-dancing teacher John W. Bubbles, but it really doesn’t come across that way in 2010.  For me, the scene just came across as offensive.

In The Jazz Singer post, I said that I found Jolson’s performance much less offensive than I found Astaire’s. I am still not a 100% sure why, but I have a few thoughts.

First, some modern reviewers of The Jazz Singer have expressed the idea of the blackface performance as a visual cue that the son of immigrants is embracing the cultural aspects of their new home.  Personally, that sounds like revisionist hogwash to me; those reviewers are simply trying to make palatable something that isn’t.  I would agree, however, that the blackface performance does, in a small way, feels like it belongs in the story.  Jakie Rabinowitz wants to grow up to become a blackface vaudeville singer.  Is that a good thing for him to want to be?  No, of course not, but at least it sort of fits within the context of the story.  Astaire’s performance in the “Bojangles of Harlem” routine, on the other hand, doesn’t have any sort of “narrative license” to fall back on.  It isn’t “necessary to the story” that Lucky do a number for the club wearing blackface and a “minstrel-suit”.  The powers-that-be in the production crew just thought it was good idea.  They were wrong.

Second, and more importantly, I think I just expected better from the likes of a Fred Astaire.  Whether it is finding out that Mark McGuire was taking steroids or that David Letterman was cheating on his wife, no one like it when their “heroes” let them down.  Hollywood spends a great deal of time and effort perpetuating the idea of Film Legends; people that we, the general public, are supposed to look up to.  So when Legends like Bing Crosby (Holiday Inn), Mickey Rooney (Babes in Arms, Breakfast at Tiffany’s), or Fred Astaire hit such a sour note, it is all the more noticeable.  Astaire had input into this performance.  He didn’t have to do it that way if he didn’t want to.  Maybe it isn’t right to be more offended because Astaire is more famous than Jolson, but there it is none the less.  If Hollywood wants to hold people up as examples of excellence then it should be OK to point out when those people made conscious, artistic choices that are clearly in bad taste.

So, is Swing Time a good film?  Yes it is. Is it a great film?  Aside from the “Bojangles of Harlem” number, yes it is.  As one might expect from a musical comedy, the story isn’t particularly deep, but the acting is superb.  Astaire and Rodgers play off each other perfectly and from this performance it easy to see why RKO would want them to make so many pictures together.  And as one might expect from the legendary pair, the dancing is amazing.  Even the “Bojangles of Harlem” number – looking at it on a purely technical level – is top notch.

So what is the final score?  Well, it would have been a resounding 5-Star rating without the “Harlem” number.  With it, Swing Time gets a very weak rating of 4-Stars.  However, do not be surprised if this film goes the way of The Jazz Singer and does not appear on the 2017 AFI list of films.

John