Periodic Movie Post

I have not watched many movies in recent months, but as my list seems to be coming back around more to the sorts of things I like, perhaps I will get back into something of a routine.


The Birds (1963)


The well-known Hitchcock movie that I had never seen before. It is above all great-looking and in places nostalgia-invoking, and these are the parts of it that I liked best. The actual characters and dialogue are rather starchier and blander than I currently have a taste for. I find I have very little to say about this, though at the time I enjoyed watching it, mostly just because it is from the classic period. I am going to try to remember things about it that made an impression on me.

1. The quaintness of the town of Bodega Bay and apparent unspoiled beauty of the California coast in the area in general. It is still like that? One could imagine it being so expensive that it has been able to preserve something of its character. There were, at least until recently (I haven't been exploring in remote corners much over the past few years) still some lost-in-time places like this in Maine and even to some extent on the north shore of Massachusetts.


2. The furnishings in the house in Bodega Bay where the main family lived, because it reminds me of my grandparents' basement.


3. Tippi Hedren's car and clothes.


4. The schoolhouse against the background of the deep blue sky.


I am bored of this exercise.






Black Beauty (1994)


A pretty faithful adaptation of the (once?) classic book, and probably even a little instructive, if, like me, one hasn't spent much time in life thinking about or looking at horses, but its most salient characteristic is that having been made as it was at the tail end of the pre-internet era it comes across as DOA as far as making any kind of impact, an instant antique. I don't think my children, or any modern children, could watch this. There is nothing about it that grabs the attention, that is necessary. Perhaps if you have read the book, which I had recently, and have a curiosity to see a cinematic depiction, you might have enough interest to get through it, as I did, but even there the movie does not differ greatly from what a normal reader will have pictured in his imagination. So I don't have a lot to say about this either.

The Ghost and Mrs Muir (1947)


Gene Tierney is starting to become for me like that girl you went to school with who was so good-looking that you weren't even going to bother spending any time thinking about her (because it would have been pointless), but then she turns out to be in a bunch of your classes so that, inexplicably given the ordinary laws of the universe, you actually end up getting to spend a significant amount of ordinary, relaxed time in her proximity, which has a salutary effect, on you at least. I say this because Gene Tierney has now turned up in a number of movies that have come up on here in recent years, all of which have been rather good, though not, as far as I could tell, especially spectacular or famous. For the record these others were Leave Her to Heaven and Laura. A Bell for Adano, which looks to be in a similar vein of quality as these others, has also come up on the list, though I have not been able to find a way to see that one yet. All of these movies are from the years 1944-1947, which besides being the brief but memorable peak of Gene Tierney's career, you know is well within the range my top five, probably top three favorite cinematic periods of all time. Given the fairly random nature of my system I could easily have missed them all, as I doubtless have to this point managed to miss out on the essential oeuvre of some director or star whom it is very likely I would find to my taste. But as I have noted in the past where I have had little runs heavy on particular stars (Toshiro Mifune, Burt Lancaster, Cary Grant) in this little stretch of years it happens to have been Gene Tierney of all people that I have gotten to know a little more than I would have otherwise imagined I would.

The Ghost and Mrs Muir seems, upon modest researches, to be a little more widely known and regarded than I would have thought, many people, both internet critics and professionals, listing it among their all time favorite movies. I wouldn't rate it quite that highly, though I liked it well enough, and it belongs to a class of film to which I am decidedly partial, the unbusy, rather somber, calmly romantic picture of the mid to late 1940s. It does feature a lot of big names who have appeared in my reports on numerous occasions, Joseph Mankiewicz the director, Rex Harrison, Natalie Wood (as a child), even George Sanders, who is a popular figure among cinephiles, though I cannot say I have ever really loved him in anything to date. And while I have warmed up to Gene Tierney a little bit, as noted above, she is still not what I would consider a great actress who excites much in the way of emotion or pathos. I don't find the idea of ghosts, except when they are used for comic or absurd effect, to be very interesting, and overall I thought the plot was a little thin. These are my reasons for not finding it great. On the whole I liked it, and it is very strong in its particular 1940s movie escapist type qualities, and many others like it much more than this.

Some Very Brief Movie Reviews

I am still months behind on recording the movies I've seen, though for the time being at least I have largely stopped watching any new ones, maybe one or two a month. There are a myriad of reasons for this. 1) A genuine, if ridiculous, desire to come current with my reactions on the blog before it becomes impossible to catch up, if it hasn't already. 2) I tweaked my selection system so as to bring more recent movies on the list to balance the classics that I would probably be happy enough to watch exclusively. But as I generally don't like these newer movies as much even when objectively I suppose they are very good, I am not as dedicated to watching them in a timely matter. My interest in this particular project is also not what was a few years ago. And then 3) similar to the problem that has affected my reading, as I get older (and seemingly ever busier) I find I am too tired in the evening even to watch most movies to which one might desire to apply some thought. All of this has been steadily been pushing me away from regular movie watching over the past year. Nevertheless I still have an incredible thirty-five titles to comment on, seven of which I will take on here.




At First Sight (1999)


One thing I will say about this is that it was not as thoroughly terrible as I thought it was going to be. Of course it is pretty blah, but it does have Mira Sorvino in it, whom I guess I knew I liked, but I guess I liked her better than I knew. She's one of the actresses about my age who is supposed to be quite smart too, as in, has an actual high IQ, which is not an inconsiderate matter to me. The movie is set on the east coast, New York but also some of the towns in the Catskill/Hudson river area of a type that would be familiar to me, and there is some material for 90s nostalgia as well, my being the same age approximately as the characters in the movie and having somewhat experienced the already long lost world they inhabit, in what would have been some of the prime years of my life.


Mira Sorvino really was a cutie. Contrary to what it may appear from my writings, there aren't that many actresses whom I like enough to sit contentedly through an otherwise lame movie to see, but for the moment at least she seems to be one of them. She has been making something of a public comeback lately as a prominent voice denouncing Harvey Weinstein and Trump, and perhaps others as well, and it's great to see her again even when she is angry.

Laura (1944)

While the older movies I love have not been turning up on my lists much lately, if I go back this far there are still a few I have to write about. I don't have a lot to say about Laura, though I remember liking its style and language and its overall essence. As is often the case in old movies where murders or mysterious deaths are involved, I didn't think the central plot was very convincing, but I don't care that much. This is supposed to be the movie where Gene Tierney achieves her peak of beauty, which is saying something, for she was unusually renowned in that department. Dana Andrews, who appears frequently is movies around this time, was also in this. The director was Otto Preminger, and this seems more often than not to be considered the best movie of his very long, up-and-down, never quite great career. Probably one I should see again.

West Side Story (1961)

Classic of a sort though it undoubtedly is, I had never seen this before, and my expectations were muted, because it has not been written about very much in glowing terms by the know it all types for pretty much my entire life. So I was surprised at how much I was able to enjoy it. All of the songs I have known all my life without particularly liking any of them, but they all work and seem to sound much better within the context of the movie. There is a lot of good energy in this, and, as many commentators have acknowledged, the design, the costumes, titles, colors, etc are somewhat surprisingly spritzy. This is another one I would probably have to see again to get a sense of how good it really is; on this first viewing I was reacting against what I had anticipated, which was something much more dated and limp and middle American, which, despite its erstwhile popularity there, it really is not. The gang of switchblade wielding blond street thugs that is supposed to be terrorizing New York cannot come off now as anything other than absurd, of course. There's nothing to be done about that.

Footloose (1984)

Footloose was a big hit among mainstream younger people without a ton of exposure to anything more interesting when I was fourteen, and as I was naturally such a person, I do remember going to see it in the theater at the time. I didn't like it that much then compared to other things, not because my taste was so advanced as much as that I wasn't much interested in the main romantic strain in the plot--the female lead was rather gangly as well as crude, which I guess is not my type. Also being from east coast suburbia and not knowing anyone who could be considered remotely religious, the bible-thumping adults who were terrified by rock and roll and the idea of teenagers dancing in 1984 seemed a bit far-fetched. I also didn't particularly care for any of the songs at the time, though I didn't mind hearing them now, probably because despite quite a few of them having been pretty big hits, I hadn't heard most of them in decades, and I identify them, even more than other songs that came out at the same time that you still hear constantly, with that summer before my freshman year of high school, which is a time I remember fondly. You are all potential at that age, people have some hopes for you if you have anything going for you, even if you haven't had any notable success with girls yet it is not the existential crisis it becomes when you are eighteen, nineteen, twenty. But now I am getting away from the movie...

Around the time I saw this my wife and older sons were watching the TV show Stranger Things, which is set in 1984 and indulges heavily in 80s nostalgia even down to featuring Winona Ryder in a starring role. I watched a couple of episodes though I can't commit to watching entire 50-episode TV series at this time, and I did find some of the 80s vibe, I don't know the word I am looking for, not endearing, or comforting, exactly, but something in that vein. The town and the high school were reminiscent of the ones in Footloose and John Cougar Mellencamp type songs, though my own high school wasn't like that, or any other 1980s movie high school (it reminded me more of the high school in Grease than anything else, now that I think about it. It is supposedly 30% Muslim now, mainly Somali, so I suspect that vibe has changed). The nostalgia of Stranger Things I thought had a  strikingly and self-consciously white quality about it, even more than what is usually the case, which I thought internet critics would pick up on and rip to shreds, and a few did, but not that many. It struck me as unusually (for the present day) matter of fact and unconcerned with explaining or defending itself, which is kind of what stands out to the contemporary eye about the atmosphere of Footloose. Every single person in the movie is white, and no one is particularly conscious of this or thinks it is remarkable, which is how it really was in a lot of places even in the 80s. There was a remake of Footloose in 2011 with presumably some more up to date diversity which I don't remember hearing about at all though it seems to have made a modest profit.

Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)

I think this is what they call a small movie about Franklin Roosevelt's girlfriend and what is portrayed as the desperate visit of the King and Queen of England on the brink of World War II during which they have to submit to the humiliation of eating hot dogs. There were some things about it I liked. As anyone who reads this page knows I am a fan of this time in America, so I like all of the period touches, the cars, the clothes, the furnishings. Many of the well-known and happy songs of the time make an appearance in the soundtrack. Bill Murray's turn as F.D.R. I found to be a welcome departure from his usual post-Rushmore screen persona as the curmudgeonly old guy who turns out not in fact to be a complete jerk and can be counted to do the right thing in the end. I have long suspected that Bill Murray is conflicted in his feelings about social life and order at present similar to the way I am, and playing these kinds of roles where he can appear (for a time) to still retain some asshole-ish characteristics are the way he deals with this in his professional life. Not that he exactly hates people or loves the Trump movement--I actually have no idea whether he has expressed any position on the subject publically--but I get the feeling whenever I see him now that he must be thinking back on his more youthful days and finding contemporary life rather weak in comparison, while being aware that bringing back many, if not most of the circumstances that contributed to the raucousness of that earlier era are either impossible or unacceptable. So I find him, more than most other famous actors/personalities at least, to be a somewhat interesting man out of time type figure. I wonder if it was not a relief to him to play someone from the past.

The film's modern take on the late 1930s political situation has been negatively assessed in most of the online reviews I have looked at. I did not have any strong opinion of it at the time that I remember.

  

It's Alive (1974)

Horror films, which I have for the most part assiduously avoided up to this point in my life, have of late begun to creep onto my film lists, particularly with the new system. I did watch this, but I don't remember much of it, and it had no appeal for me. I have developed a taste as I've gotten older for the sexier Warren Beatty/Jack Nicholson type of classic 70s films and imagining that they reminded me of the world of my very early childhood. This movie, with presumably a bargain basement budget, depicts that time in its more hideous aspect, though more extremely grotesque fortunately than I have any memory of. But as I said, these kinds of pictures do not speak to me in my current stage of life.

No, this is not from the movie. It is from 1974 however.

The Other Sister (1999)

Has there ever been anyone who liked this? Everything about it projects horridness to anyone the least bit sentient. Artworks about mentally handicapped people as a rule I find to be tedious. This movie also throws in Diane Keaton (though she at least is not playing a mentally handicapped character), who was annoying to me in Woody Allen phase of her career, and whom I find unbearable in that part of it that came after. This is because she looks like my mother, is about the same age, and has almost identical annoying mannerisms, both facial and in her achingly non-vibrant movements. Then there is the extremely rich but eternally dissatisfied late-90s aging yuppie/baby boomer milieu...perhaps this was the imagined audience for this painful movie.

If there was any point of interest for me in this it was that much of it appears to have been filmed in San Francisco, a city about which I apparently know nothing--I haven't even seen many of the numerous classic movies set there--but the cityscapes they used in this make it look extremely attractive, or at least as it was in the 90s.

I can see myself at some point in the near future limiting myself to some kind of pre-1980 (maybe pre-1990 for foreign films) classic film program, in part because there are so many all-time great movies that I still haven't seen and I'm starting to get old, and in part because I don't like enough newer works, and haven't found a reliable system by which to pick those newer works that I might be more inclined to like.