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Syd

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 12:26 am

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12921 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

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_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament

Ghulam

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 1:17 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 4742 Location: Upstate NY

In Her Shoes is a delightful movie about two sisters, their grandmother and several other equally interesting characters. It is warm, funny, smooth flowing, well written, acted and directed. I wish it had a better title.

Mr. Brownstone

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 2:10 am

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 2450

Checked out Brubaker tonight, the 1980 Robert Redford drama about a crusading prison reformer.

Pretty solid work all the way around, and some shockingly energetic performances from youngsters like Morgan Freeman, Yaphet Kotto, David Keith (not Keith David), and about a half a dozen actors who seemed to be in every movie between 1976-1985. Even Rocky Balboa's mob boss and the prick captain Eastwood slobberknockers in Heartbreak Ridge are here, as well as the "typical run of the mill bastard" assassin from The Jerk, who also played a reporter in the greatest sports comedy ever, Slapshot. Wilfred Brimley stops by for a brief visit in blustering asshole mode, too. I always liked him better doing that than whatever that House sitcom was.

Redford seems to be in full on preach mode here, and while some of the movie's liberal leanings seem justified and organic outreaches of the storytelling, I blanched a bit as Brubaker insisted on the prisoners growing their own vegetables for to eat, and then selling the surplus.

It's an idea, like most of Brubaker's political sentiments, that I agreed with, but I kept wondering how much time a real prison reform warden, even one as civic-minded as Brubaker, would spend on initiating organic lifestyle cultures in a prison where the roofs are caving in and prisoners are being publicly whipped and strung up halyards.

There's also a little too much revolutionary one upsmanship, as the inmates' claim on the governance of the prison increases. The first time or two, it's a noble dramatic moment that adequately illustrates Brubaker's argument that if you treat the men like humans rather than animals, when they are released back into society they'll act like humans rather than animals.

After about a dozen "sticking it to the man" moments, the film becomes guilty of what the corrupt prison board chief accuses Brubaker: being in love with the criminal at the expense of the law-abiding citizen.

And the end has one of those slow, single-man-clapping-that-swells-to-a-chorus-of-palm-pounding scenes that almost never works, in fact, it just never works, yet seems to crop up in every damn "inspirational" movie, even good ones like Hoosiers.

Not quite as awful as Halle Berry calling Warren Beatty her "nigga" in Bulworth, but almost.

But if you want to see a younger Morgan Freeman go apeshit and put David Keith in a lethal chokehold, this is your movie. For about four minutes, anyway.

_________________
"My name is Gunnery Sergeant Major Highway. And I have drunk more beer, pissed more blood, banged more quiff and knocked more skulls than all you numbnuts put together." - Clint Eastwood, Heartbreak Ridge

Syd

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 2:36 am

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12921 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

I just ordered The Last Command as part of a deal with Nancy, who ordered In Old Arizona a couple of weeks ago. The Last Command is one of the films that got Emil Jannings the first Best Actor Oscar and is apparently a classic, but only available on VHS. The other film he won for, The Way of All Flesh, is a famous lost film.

I also ordered The Divorcée, which won Norma Shearer the third Best Actress Oscar, and which I thought was another lost film, but obviously not.

Coincidentally, Sunrise, one of the films that won Janet Gaynor the first Oscar for Best Actress, is showing on TCM Sunday night, and I've never seen it, so good thing for VCR's. (Ebert & Roeper is opposite it, so I watch them real time for once.) I'd thought one of the other two films she won for that year, Seventh Heaven and Street Angel, was lost, but apparently not, since both of them were reviewed on IMBd. I know a site that has a copy of Street Angel, but I don't know if Seventh Heaven is available at all.

The other silent I'm looking hard for is Judith of Bethulia, the first time D. W. Griffith experimented with full length films. (61 minutes so it's sort of in between a short and a feature.) It's available on amazon.com for $22 plus shipping, but I'm holding out for a DVD reliece.

_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament

Syd

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 3:09 am

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12921 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

By the way, the second Best Actress Award went to Mary Pickford for Coquette, but reputedly that was a reward for her contributions to film in the silent era, and the film itself is pretty awful, so I'm in no hurry to see it.

I've seen the fourth winner, Marie Dressler in Min and Bill, which is pretty erratic, with some attempts at slapstick which haven't dated well, and don't blend well with the rest of the film, which is often pretty dark. It's a very interesting film to watch, in the same way The Broadway Melody, The Hollywood Revue of 1929 and In Old Arizona are, as part of a transitional era between silents and mature sound films. Since a lot of conventions of sound films hadn't been established (for example, mobile cameras), the directors had to improvise a lot to make a good film.

I like watching The Broadway Melody, for instance, because it was done before Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and Busby Berkeley, the production numbers are different because of the challenge of using an early sound camera, and because Bessie Love and Anita Page are surprisingly good. It answers the question of what a Hollywood musical would look like if nobody involved had seen one before. (The Hollywood Revue of 1929 answers the question of what a talent show would look like if done by Hollywood actors adjusting to sound and who were one step removed from vaudeville. It's a really curious film.)

_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament

Joe Vitus

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 5:51 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston

Bessie Love is much better than "good." She's amazing, and heartbreaking. The Broadway Melody is terrible as a musical, IMO. The numbers are static, the sound is bad. But it's wonderful as a backstage melodrama. Despite being an MGM movie, it has the feel of a good Warner Bros. picture. It's tough, fast paced, and knowing. No gloss at all.

_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.

-Topher

Syd

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 10:14 am

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12921 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

Anita Page is equally good, but Bessie Love has the best scene in the movie. As for Charles King, there's a reason he had a short film career (1928-32); he's pretty mediocre. He was more successful on stage, apparently. He died of pneumonia in 1944, which he caught entertaining the troops. Bessie Love lived to be almost 90, and Anita Page is still alive at 95.

_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament

billyweeds

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 4:29 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

Ghulam wrote:

Agree with you about everything except one thing. I think it's a marvelous title, alluding to the obvious metaphor and also the literal meaning of the phrase. Interested in why you don't like it.

billyweeds

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 4:30 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

billyweeds wrote:

Ghulam wrote:

Agree with you about everything except one thing. I think it's a marvelous title, alluding to the obvious metaphor and also the literal meaning of the phrase. Interested in why you don't like it.

There was, of course, no way they were going to change the title. It was adapted from a best-selling chick-lit book.

Nancy

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 7:40 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 4607 Location: Norman, OK

Syd wrote:

Coincidentally, Sunrise, one of the films that won Janet Gaynor the first Oscar for Best Actress, is showing on TCM Sunday night, and I've never seen it, so good thing for VCR's.

Syd--

Apparently the listing was wrong, and Sunrise isn't showing until next Sunday, so you can tape Ebert & Roeper anyway.

_________________
"All in all, it's just another feather in the fan."

Isaacism, 2009

Joe Vitus

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 8:06 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston

I thought In Her Shoes was generic and dull (ooh, let's eat ice creme, we're depressed women after all; let's be catty and bitchy...then bond across the generations), not to mention Toni Collette walked through the whole movie looking like she had something distasteful in her mouth...even in the later happy sections.

_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.

-Topher

Earl

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 8:21 pm

Joined: 09 Jun 2004 Posts: 2621 Location: Houston

Re In Her Shoes: For a supposed "chic movie" (I generally don't like labels on works of art, and that one's one o' the worst), there certainly were a lot, and I mean AY LOTT, of long and lingering shots of Cameron Diaz's body from several angles. Guys whose wives/girlfriends drag them to this will be pleasantly surprised, not least by Diaz's powerful acting.

_________________
"I have a suspicion that you are all mad," said Dr. Renard, smiling sociably; "but God forbid that madness should in any way interrupt friendship."

Joe Vitus

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 8:49 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston

It also helped to reinforce the "I hate her so much! She's blonde and perky and skinny, and I'm a brunette with a fat ass. It's so unfair!" stereotype. They even put Collette into a fake ass to emphasize it.

Ooh, let's try on shoes! It's better than sex!

How do people like this stuff?

_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.

-Topher

yambu

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 10:19 pm

Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area

Earl wrote:

....there certainly were a lot, and I mean AY LOTT, of long and lingering shots of Cameron Diaz's body from several angles.....

Say no more.

billyweeds

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 11:02 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

Joe--I agree about Toni but nothing else. Colette has cred from critics because of her fine work in Muriel's Wedding and The Sixth Sense, but in In Her Shoes she was acted off the screen by Diaz and MacLaine, both of whom were terrific. I loved the movie, and Norman Lloyd as the old blind professor also gave a startlingly good performance. Can't figure out why you didn't like this movie. I know, you've explained it. Doesn't compute for me. But--to quote ehle--"whatev's."

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