Ah, I do love to prognosticate! Forecating the future, a hopelessly impossible task, is my favorite thing in the whole world. Truth be told that's why I love sports so much: so many opportunities to predict! Here's this week's picks:
1/03 4:30 PM ET
Atlanta 51 (0ver)
Arizona +1
To me the Falcons were easily the most surprising team in the league this year. A year ago they were a mediocre team mired in turmoil with an unknown head coach ready to hand the reins to a rookie QB--a recipe for Detroit-style disaster. And yet Ryan the rookie outperformed the hype, Michael Turner turned out to be the single most important free agent pickup of the off-season (and my personal choice for MVP) and Roddy White emerged as an All-Pro wideout. During the year they had a respectable 3-2 record against playoff teams and now they find themselves against the enigmatic Cardinals.
The Cards started 7-3 but lost 4 of their last 6--and a coupla those were memorable defeats! They beat the teams they were supposed to beat and eked one out against the Cowboys (the beginning of their demise, if you'll recall), but didn't fare well against playoff teams. They're capable of piling up huge offensive numbers and they're just as capable of mailing it in. This is their first home playoff game since…I don't know--ever?
I think the Falcons are a better team and though they're so-so on the road, I think their lack of experience won't hinder them against another team with no experience of winning in January. I like this one to be a high scoring shootout, kick the post-season off with a bang.
Falcons 34-27 Cards. (Falcons and the over)
1/03 8:00 PM ET
Indianapolis 50 (over)
San Diego +1
The Colts came into this season with a lot of injuries and a rugged schedule. With the Titans becoming an unexpected juggernaut, Indy had to fight for their lives in a way that they're not accustomed to. And yet they are where they are supposed to be and peaking at just the right time.
The Chargers were woeful for the first half of the season. The pass rush disappeared without Merriman and LT just doesn't look like the dominating force he used to be. Rivers had an excellent season but they didn't get much luck this year--until the Broncos collapsed and personally invited the Chargers back into relevance. The Chargers are looking lean and mean at the moment, that offense is starting to kick in.
These are arguably the two hottest teams in the league right now. Indy got over their moribund start and are currently on an 8 game winning streak, San Diego is back from the dead and on a 4 game winning streak. Should be interesting. Manning the MVP is certainly capable of shredding the lackluster Charger secondary but I think Rivers is just as capable of shredding the lackluster Colts secondary. This one may come down to turnovers and kick returns. I'll go with the home team in another exciting shootout.
Chargers 35-31 Colts. (Chargers and the over)
1/04 1:00 PM ET
Baltimore 37 (over)
Miami +3
The Ravens have been deteriorating over the last few years. Billick finally got run out of town when McNair showed he just couldn't do it any more. That offense got so bad that their stellar D just couldn't hold down the fort and that lead to dissension and finger-pointing. But the Raven running game is back on track and they, too, feature a surprising rookie QB. I don't think Flacco is the natural that Ryan is but he's a fine game-manager and has the talent to make a play or two with the game on the line.
The Dolphins resurrection is to some the story of the year. But I would suggest that 1-15 teams are never as bad as they look (0-16 teams on the other hand are exactly as bad as they look!). You need a lot of bad luck to do that badly with an NFL roster, there were injuries and a clueless head coach and those are hard to overcome. Parcells cleaned out the dead wood, upgraded the QB and the head coach and the Dolphins avoided the injury bug that cripples even the finest squads. With Brady going down and the Bills and the Jets being mere mirages in the AFC East, I'm actually not that surprised by Miami's success. They won 8 out of their last 9 though the schedule was pretty soft (damn, they were 6-2 on the road!).
The exciting shootouts that Saturday offers up come to a thudding halt first thing Sunday afternoon. Ravens-Dolphins will be all about defense and grinding 3rd down conversions. The Dolphins play hard and will keep it close but I like the Ravens to be good enough down the stretch. If B-more gets a defensive TD that should just about cap it.
Ravens 17-12. (Ravens and the under)
1/04 4:30 PM ET
Philadelphia 42.5 (over)
Minnesota +2
Philly was up and down like…the stock market? (No that was just down this year) Well anyway, at times they looked like contenders and at others they just looked inept in every way. McNabb is probably on his way out regardless of how they do in the playoffs and Reid is not likely to get another contract extension next time around. So this is probably the end of an era in Philly. They've got the talent to make it all the way or they could get waxed in Minneapolis and never be the same again. They're that kind of team. 4-2 against playoff teams.
Minnesota started the year with unrealistic expectations. Peterson is a badass (dude, I knew he would be) but one good RB doesn't put you in the playoffs just like that. The D is shakey, the QB is not a strong suit and they're turnover-prone, which adds up to no good. They gutted it out, took advantage of Green Bay and Chicago bungling through the season and here they are with a home playoff game against a beatable Eagles squad. Vindication or luck? Isn't this exactly how the season was supposed to go? They're 7-2 since the bye week with the two losses being a close one at Tampa Bay and at home to the surging Falcons. Not bad, they're playing pretty good ball right now.
I'd like to say the Eagles will rise up like veterans and pull this one out, but I don't think so. I think the Vikings are quietly putting together a nice run and as long as they avoid turnovers, I think they can force the Eagles into making mistakes.
Vikings 24-20 Eagles. (Vikings and the over)
All right, we'll see.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
New Year's Resolutions
1. Get chummy with Tila Tequila
2. Bigger head, I need a bigger head.
3. New job. Oh, make that 3 new jobs.
4. Finish selling off all possessions.
5. Embrace the chaos.
6. Drink more, smoke less.
7. Stay closer to people (by using the internet).
8. Listen to even more music.
9. Stay cool.
10. Don't go crazy in August this year!
11. Learn to love again.
In 2009, I'm gonna do it for the shorties. Peace out and love the future--you're gonna be spending all your time there.
2. Bigger head, I need a bigger head.
3. New job. Oh, make that 3 new jobs.
4. Finish selling off all possessions.
5. Embrace the chaos.
6. Drink more, smoke less.
7. Stay closer to people (by using the internet).
8. Listen to even more music.
9. Stay cool.
10. Don't go crazy in August this year!
11. Learn to love again.
In 2009, I'm gonna do it for the shorties. Peace out and love the future--you're gonna be spending all your time there.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Heisman Prediction
My pre-season prediction for the Heisman Trophy was that Tim Tebow would dominate the SEC and win a second trophy. Right now I think the Trophy belongs to Colt McCoy, a guy on no one's radar early on, he willed Texas to a fine season and barely missed a shot at the championship. Sam Bradford put up ridiculously impressive numbers and he did get his shot at the championship where he'll meet Tebow and he'll have plenty of voter support. But on the eve of the presentation, I'm sticking with Tebow. Though I think he was realistically 3rd place out of these three, I think Bradford and McCoy will split the vote and Tebow rides his base support to a 2nd Heisman. (Another stray prediction: if Tebow stays at Florida for 1 more year, he'll win another Heisman, another championship and go down as one of the greatest college players ever. On the other hand, with the Wildcat offense taking over the pros, his game may be more Sunday-worthy than anyone yet gives him credit for) I'm looking forward to Oklahoma-Florida but I gotta say, the rest of the bowls don't really excite me this year. Oh well, I'll watch them anyway.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The Films of 1949 (part four)
I certainly didn't see all the films from 1949 but after this survey I'm ready to compile not a top 10 but a top 8. Good enough.
The Third Man -- A classic, one of my favorite movies of all time. I haven't seen it in a while but I'm never disappointed. There's humor, police procedural, melancholy romance, murder and intrigue, post-war corruption, the privileged yet always broke American, a classic score--this film has so much cool stuff going on its hard to know where to start. Plus, I always love Joseph Cotton.
Thirst -- This is my kind of movie: endless sexual angst with hardly any sex at all. Talking, talking, talking with amazingly little action--I love it! When Bergman is at his best his investigations of human weirdness can be utterly fascinating (see Persona, Scenes from a Marriage); at his worst it's hopelessly dull and frustrating (see Sarabande, Autumn Sonata). This is the story of women and men doing what it is they do: fucking and feeling guilty about it or fucking and feeling superior only to be brought low in some other manner. You may find it depressing, I find it inspiring. Bergman is in the flower of his youth here, fine performances, complicated relationships that glide along and train--I love trains, too.
The Heiress -- This is the film that probably should've won Best Picture and I'm surprised it didn't. It is a woman's tale, a costume drama, a frustrating soap opera and a wildly popular film in its day, those are pretty much all the things the Academy is looking for. I can only assume that All the King's Men touched some chord in the post-war years, when President Truman's approval ratings were struggling, social roles were quickly changing and USA's overwhelming dominance looked like a burden more than a boon. Olivia de Havilland is a plain girl living on the fringes of upper crust society in New York around 1850. Her father is a wealthy and respected doctor who dotes on his lonely daughter but mostly loves her through a series of back-handed compliments that are as distressing as comforting. When dashing young Montgomery Clift shows up and sweeps Olivia off her feet, dad is skeptical. It just doesn't seem possible that this young man could love anything other than her money which sets off a rift within the family. The way it all works out is frankly just fucking marvelous and the push and pull between love and cynicism is just so… real. This is a really great post-war American film. Well-made and powerful.
Kind Hearts and Coronets -- This is another one of those post-war British comedies that film nerds typically go so ga-ga for and I gotta say, this one sucked me in more than the rest. A young heiress marries outside of her class and is banished by her austere family to live a life outside their social influence. Her son grows up with revenge in his heart and longs to obtain the position that is his birthright. The only way to do it, though, is to kill several dozen people who have been moved ahead of him in line. So kill he does. Some of the killings are clever, some are funny, some are just necessary to the plot. But the dialogue all the way through is top notch, the performances (most of which are Alec Guiness) are all on time and the twist at the end is just about perfect. Big thumbs up, very funny flick, very worthy of its classic status.
A Letter to Three Wives -- I gotta be honest I never quite understood the ending. The attention that goes to the bickering couple doesn't complete the story to my mind so I wonder why they take over at the close. Otherwise, this is a clever and funny melodrama about three women trying to figure out which one just lost her husband to the neighborhood jezebel. Three wives bound together by social connections--all the sexual confusion of social connections in those days, thank God that's all changed!--have always been a little jealous of the one girl their husbands all endlessly romanticize. We never see her but we hear an awful lot about her and today is the day she finally snagged one of those husbands for herself. But which one? The puzzle is a good one. This won Best Screenplay and Best Director for Joseph L. Manckiewicz, who may be the most underrated figure in all of American cinema. He made many, many badass films and yet he's very rarely put along side Welles, Ford, Capra, Cukor, Chaplin, etc. and I'm not sure why.
Stray Dog -- Akira Kurosawa is my favorite filmmaker. This is one of his earliest films, a thriller about a cop whose gun is pickpocketed by a ruthless killer. The cop must end the killing spree all the while measuring his own culpability in the crime. Are we guilty of the sins of others? The detective obsessing over the bullets in his gun is one of Kurosawa's finer moments. This is a youthful effort from a guy well on his way to becoming a total badass and just like Bergman's Thirst, it gives a hint at the effortless intensity he's able to put on film. (The DVD features a fine commentary from a film historian who never misses a chance to gush over the occasional wide-angle shots that would dominate Kurosawa's visual palate in later years)
Champion -- I totally dug this flick. I saw it years ago at the Castro Theater in San Francisco and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. I haven't seen it in a while but it is a gripping tale of a ne'er-do-well (Kirk Douglas) who finds himself prize fighting for money just to make ends meet. It turns out to be his secret talent and a fine world for the kind of bullying money grubbing social climbing that takes him all the way to the top…but only briefly. This is the fisticuffs version of Madame Bovary: the people he encounters along the way are merely tools for getting what he wants out of life.
The Small Back Room -- This is the story of secret British analysts during the war, sequestered away from the world so they may be undisturbed while obsessing over the most disturbing parts of the war. The main character is alcoholic, lonely and full of self-pity and he can only hold himself together by holding the operation together. The woman who loves him is prey to his mood swings but possesses such an admiration for him that she endures--similarly the co-workers, the friends, the bar keep, the landlord, etc. This guy is an alienation machine but he does what needs to be done and maintains a civil air. In many ways this film is way ahead of its time, it hardly seems representative of the glorious Technicolor years that were right around the corner. Indeed, this film is dour, stark, gloomy and pessimistic. Not easy to watch honestly but a fine production. Powell and Pressburger were just getting their groove on in these days and this (like Thirst and Stray Dog) just a taste of what was to come.
My favorite performances I've seen from 1949:
Actor
Broderick Crawford (All the King's Men)
Joseph Cotton (The Third Man)
Birger Malmsten (Thirst)
Edward G. Robinson (House of Strangers)
John Wayne (She Wore a Yellow Ribbon)
Actress
Linda Darnell (A Letter to Three Wives)
Olivia De Haviland (The Heiress)
Mercedes McCambridge (All the King's Men)
Eva Henning (Thirst)
Supporting Actor
Van Heflin (Madame Bovary)
Howard de Silva (Border Incident)
Supporting Actress
Ethel Barrymore (Pinky)
Joan Greenwood (Kind Hearts and Coronets)
Thelma Ritter (A Letter to Three Wives)
Patricia Neal (The Fountainhead)
Ethel Waters (Pinky)
The Third Man -- A classic, one of my favorite movies of all time. I haven't seen it in a while but I'm never disappointed. There's humor, police procedural, melancholy romance, murder and intrigue, post-war corruption, the privileged yet always broke American, a classic score--this film has so much cool stuff going on its hard to know where to start. Plus, I always love Joseph Cotton.
Thirst -- This is my kind of movie: endless sexual angst with hardly any sex at all. Talking, talking, talking with amazingly little action--I love it! When Bergman is at his best his investigations of human weirdness can be utterly fascinating (see Persona, Scenes from a Marriage); at his worst it's hopelessly dull and frustrating (see Sarabande, Autumn Sonata). This is the story of women and men doing what it is they do: fucking and feeling guilty about it or fucking and feeling superior only to be brought low in some other manner. You may find it depressing, I find it inspiring. Bergman is in the flower of his youth here, fine performances, complicated relationships that glide along and train--I love trains, too.
The Heiress -- This is the film that probably should've won Best Picture and I'm surprised it didn't. It is a woman's tale, a costume drama, a frustrating soap opera and a wildly popular film in its day, those are pretty much all the things the Academy is looking for. I can only assume that All the King's Men touched some chord in the post-war years, when President Truman's approval ratings were struggling, social roles were quickly changing and USA's overwhelming dominance looked like a burden more than a boon. Olivia de Havilland is a plain girl living on the fringes of upper crust society in New York around 1850. Her father is a wealthy and respected doctor who dotes on his lonely daughter but mostly loves her through a series of back-handed compliments that are as distressing as comforting. When dashing young Montgomery Clift shows up and sweeps Olivia off her feet, dad is skeptical. It just doesn't seem possible that this young man could love anything other than her money which sets off a rift within the family. The way it all works out is frankly just fucking marvelous and the push and pull between love and cynicism is just so… real. This is a really great post-war American film. Well-made and powerful.
Kind Hearts and Coronets -- This is another one of those post-war British comedies that film nerds typically go so ga-ga for and I gotta say, this one sucked me in more than the rest. A young heiress marries outside of her class and is banished by her austere family to live a life outside their social influence. Her son grows up with revenge in his heart and longs to obtain the position that is his birthright. The only way to do it, though, is to kill several dozen people who have been moved ahead of him in line. So kill he does. Some of the killings are clever, some are funny, some are just necessary to the plot. But the dialogue all the way through is top notch, the performances (most of which are Alec Guiness) are all on time and the twist at the end is just about perfect. Big thumbs up, very funny flick, very worthy of its classic status.
A Letter to Three Wives -- I gotta be honest I never quite understood the ending. The attention that goes to the bickering couple doesn't complete the story to my mind so I wonder why they take over at the close. Otherwise, this is a clever and funny melodrama about three women trying to figure out which one just lost her husband to the neighborhood jezebel. Three wives bound together by social connections--all the sexual confusion of social connections in those days, thank God that's all changed!--have always been a little jealous of the one girl their husbands all endlessly romanticize. We never see her but we hear an awful lot about her and today is the day she finally snagged one of those husbands for herself. But which one? The puzzle is a good one. This won Best Screenplay and Best Director for Joseph L. Manckiewicz, who may be the most underrated figure in all of American cinema. He made many, many badass films and yet he's very rarely put along side Welles, Ford, Capra, Cukor, Chaplin, etc. and I'm not sure why.
Stray Dog -- Akira Kurosawa is my favorite filmmaker. This is one of his earliest films, a thriller about a cop whose gun is pickpocketed by a ruthless killer. The cop must end the killing spree all the while measuring his own culpability in the crime. Are we guilty of the sins of others? The detective obsessing over the bullets in his gun is one of Kurosawa's finer moments. This is a youthful effort from a guy well on his way to becoming a total badass and just like Bergman's Thirst, it gives a hint at the effortless intensity he's able to put on film. (The DVD features a fine commentary from a film historian who never misses a chance to gush over the occasional wide-angle shots that would dominate Kurosawa's visual palate in later years)
Champion -- I totally dug this flick. I saw it years ago at the Castro Theater in San Francisco and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. I haven't seen it in a while but it is a gripping tale of a ne'er-do-well (Kirk Douglas) who finds himself prize fighting for money just to make ends meet. It turns out to be his secret talent and a fine world for the kind of bullying money grubbing social climbing that takes him all the way to the top…but only briefly. This is the fisticuffs version of Madame Bovary: the people he encounters along the way are merely tools for getting what he wants out of life.
The Small Back Room -- This is the story of secret British analysts during the war, sequestered away from the world so they may be undisturbed while obsessing over the most disturbing parts of the war. The main character is alcoholic, lonely and full of self-pity and he can only hold himself together by holding the operation together. The woman who loves him is prey to his mood swings but possesses such an admiration for him that she endures--similarly the co-workers, the friends, the bar keep, the landlord, etc. This guy is an alienation machine but he does what needs to be done and maintains a civil air. In many ways this film is way ahead of its time, it hardly seems representative of the glorious Technicolor years that were right around the corner. Indeed, this film is dour, stark, gloomy and pessimistic. Not easy to watch honestly but a fine production. Powell and Pressburger were just getting their groove on in these days and this (like Thirst and Stray Dog) just a taste of what was to come.
My favorite performances I've seen from 1949:
Actor
Broderick Crawford (All the King's Men)
Joseph Cotton (The Third Man)
Birger Malmsten (Thirst)
Edward G. Robinson (House of Strangers)
John Wayne (She Wore a Yellow Ribbon)
Actress
Linda Darnell (A Letter to Three Wives)
Olivia De Haviland (The Heiress)
Mercedes McCambridge (All the King's Men)
Eva Henning (Thirst)
Supporting Actor
Van Heflin (Madame Bovary)
Howard de Silva (Border Incident)
Supporting Actress
Ethel Barrymore (Pinky)
Joan Greenwood (Kind Hearts and Coronets)
Thelma Ritter (A Letter to Three Wives)
Patricia Neal (The Fountainhead)
Ethel Waters (Pinky)
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Film Trivia
Kooky film trivia: Only 2 directors have won the Director's Guild Award and then failed to even be nominated for an Oscar. Can you name them?
Monday, December 1, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
The Films of 1949 (part three)
The films that I liked but didn't love are an interesting bunch:
I had originally included She Wore a Yellow Ribbon at the bottom of my top ten but while I liked this film I didn't love it, so I chose to go with a top 8 instead. I hate to dis a fine performance by John Wayne, one of his few efforts where he's really stepping outside of his typical bravado pose. Here he is an aging, struggling outpost commander who's being retired and cast off and doesn't really quite know what to do with himself. He fears the uselessness that awaits and he doesn't have the sensibility necessary to embrace it the way his character in The Searchers does, so it all just plays like a downer here. Even the wild attempts at humor seem melancholy. A fine film but I found the romantic relationships confusing and a little intrusive.
All the King's Men is a good film, won the Best Picture that year but its driven by its captivating performances more than its grandiose political commentary. Watch for Broderick Crawford and then go read the novel.
House of Strangers veers back and forth between gripping drama and laughable melodrama--and it works both ways! Edward G. Robinson is a tough-minded Italian immigrant who does what it takes to survive and over the years builds a respected community bank. But when the depression comes, its tough times for everyone and the regulators start working over time to place blame on someone other than themselves. Though Robinson is a beacon of hope and goodness in his hardscrabble neighborhood, the symbol of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and becoming a success, it turns out maybe there was some double-dealing at work behind the scenes. And the double-dealing continues when the patriarch's sons squabble over who will take the blame and who will protect the family name. A very watch-able film, entertaining and Robinson is pretty solid with his broad Brooklyn Italian accent--won Best Actor at Cannes, if I'm not mistaken. (And I can't deny these people reminded me of my family, in good and bad ways)
White Heat is one of James Cagney's classic roles and it is a pretty cool flick. Cagney is a career criminal with an ingenious plan: avoid taking the rap for the big score but pleading guilty to a piddly score he had nothing do with. But the cops get wise to his scheme and send in an undercover to keep an eye on him. It all makes for a good gritty crime drama from back in the day. (Though I'll probably always remember this for Cagney's cameo in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. Martin: 'Say something like uh…no no ma look listen to me.' Cagney: 'No, no, ma. Look, listen to me--' Martin: 'That's good, good.')
Adam's Rib is not one of the films I watched recently, rather I watched this one a few years back when I was a kick of watching films adapted from plays. As I recall I liked it a lot and anything with Judy Holliday in her prime is fine with me. George Cukor directing a Garsin Kanin script will always be worth watching--Tracy and Hepburn are just a bonus!
On the Town, too, is one I watched years ago and I can't say as I remember it so well. Gene Kelly was just becoming a big star at this time and this was one of his first big showcases. From here it was on to American in Paris, Singin' in the Rain and then exile in France (eluding Senator McCarthy), which pretty much crippled his career.
Battleground was a solid war film for its time and a Best Picture nominee (perhaps it split the war movie vote with 12 O'Clock High allowing the politically cynical All the King's Men to take the top prize). It boasts a handful of intricate set piece battle scenes with a fine mix of the camaraderie moments that the great war films handle so well. A fine flick, producer Dore Schary followed this with Red Badge of Courage directed by John Huston.
The Set Up is the story of a washed-up fighter who wants to fight just one more time though his wife begs him to give up the whole dirty business. The fighter is feeling pretty good that night but little does he realize that his manager has assured the local mobster that he will take a dive. Since the manager has no faith in the boxer to win anyway, he sees no need to cut the fighter in on the deal. When the fighter comes out blazing, the mobster is pissed, the manager is in trouble and we see quickly that this is not going to end well. The characters are fine, the gritty realism works well and the story is compelling but unfortunately its all rather slight. There's not a heck of a lot going on and while the parts are satisfying, the totality leaves you hungering for more. Not bad, in fact I wanted to like it more than I did, but this movie is like half a lunch. (Also, I couldn't help but think that The Set-Up was Tarantino's inspiration for the early scenes of the Bruce Willis portion of Pulp Fiction)
Ah, Border Incident. This is the film that inspired this season's Netflix queue and it lands firmly in the middle of the pack. Howard de Silva gives a marvelous supporting performance and John Alton's command of light is in full effect. As a film its fine, perhaps a little risqué, even exploitative for its day. But it's got heart and a lot of talent oozing around the edges.
I've seen a few Elia Kazan films in the last few years (Gentleman's Agreement, Viva Zapata, Sea of Grass, Panic in the Streets), and while I haven't exactly gone loopy over any of the films, its easy to see what an up-and-coming force he was at this time. Still considered the finest theater director of the 20th century (along with Orson Welles, of course), Kazan came to Hollywood with a lot of muscle. It's hard to imagine anyone else making a film like Pinky in 1949. I didn't think it was an overwhelming film but the cultural taboos it sets its sights on are penetrating. Pinky is a light skinned black girl passing for white who has just returned to her backwoods Louisiana ghetto after a failed romance. She is goaded into caring for the ailing local matriarch (Ethel Barrymore) by her beloved granny (Ethel Waters) and finds herself at the center of a brewing controversy when the matriarch leaves Pinky all her money. The relationship between the two is always contentious but the lady respects Pinky and sees her as a capable human being and hopes that she will do good things with the fortune. (The film doesn't wonder aloud whether this is because of her abilities or her light skin but the question begs to be asked) In the end Pinky triumphs over petty cultural norms and claims her prize which she turns into a paradise for children. Rampant racism as shown in contemporary films always seems a little myopic and hackneyed to me, an easy target rather than worthwhile commentary. But to see its portrayal from 60 years ago, a time when Jackie Robinson was just becoming an accepted member of the American landscape, gives it a raw power--even when it looks exactly the same! This one was also imbued with recent events. Not even two weeks after the elevation of Barak Hussein Obama to Pennsylvania Avenue, it's hard to ignore the significance when Pinky asks her WASP boyfriend: 'Don't you know what kind of people live in that house?'
Sands of Iwo Jima was fine. It all seemed like a genre war movie, by the book, nothing spectacular but it did what it set out to do so its hard to give it a thumbs down. I liked John Wayne's excursion to the single mother's lonely home (and the by-gone morality of leaving without giving her the deep-dicking she truly desired). After Eastwood's recent Iwo Jima double feature this felt like an old-timey curio and that's all it was, wasn't it? Still, it was okay. Sunday afternoon with a hangover kind of movie.
Whiskey Galore! is one of those charming comedies that the British cranked out with regularity in the post-war years. I was never as huge a fan of them as most cinephiles but I don't dislike them and I can't deny their impact. This one is about a tiny village suffering through a wartime booze ration when a tanker filled with whiskey runs aground on their beach. The machinations the townspeople undertake to make the most of this gift from heaven is all pretty funny. But strangely none of the characters really stand out and that's a little bit disappointing. It all becomes a farce rather than something sweeter. That said, it is a harmless piece with plenty of laughs.
I was not an English major so I never read Madame Bovary. Also, somehow I'd never even seen an adaptation though there have been dozens, so my knowledge of the story wasn't as strong as I thought it would be. This version undertakes a curious bookend element: it begins and ends with the trial of Gustav Flaubert, the novel's author, trying to cast a light on the humanity of Madame Bovary (and keep himself out of prison). I don't think I needed that element but perhaps in 1949 the censors would've vetoed such a brazen display of romantic desire from a housewife. I wasn't so offended by her sexual needs as her incorrigible social-climbing which I found unnecessary and a little depressing, to be honest. She is a remote farm girl lucky to be loved by a successful, if only marginally talented, doctor. But when she discovers a whole new social scene as his wife, she is soon bored by her limited oafish husband. She craves more. But its not that she craves a new man (she quickly takes a lover at any rate), it is that she wants a whole new life. Now I understand that in the 1850s women weren't as free to have their own professional lives but when will we get the story of the woman who tries that route instead of simply trying to fuck ever-wealthier men? Madame Bovary is dissed by one lover and hounded by another, all the while devaluing the one man who believed in her and gave her a life she otherwise could never have had. I'm not suggesting she has to worship the husband or even stay married to him, but why can't she see him as a valuable piece of her life instead of an impediment? Oh well. This film was fine but the bookend elements didn't do anything for me and none of the performances were as noteworthy as this type of film probably requires. A fine adaptation but nothing superlative.
The Fountainhead is a tough one. I grew up on a steady diet of Ayn Rand and her precepts are well-known to me and in some sense still revered by me. While I want to like this adaptation of her magnum opus--she did write the screenplay herself--it really comes off as a parody of Rand more than an embrace. Everything is clipped and melodramatic so the rousing character of John Galt and his iron will seems cartoonish rather than admirable. There are still many fine moments (and it is a lot shorter than the book!) and Patricia Neal is particularly good so I still gotta give it a reluctant thumbs up.
I had originally included She Wore a Yellow Ribbon at the bottom of my top ten but while I liked this film I didn't love it, so I chose to go with a top 8 instead. I hate to dis a fine performance by John Wayne, one of his few efforts where he's really stepping outside of his typical bravado pose. Here he is an aging, struggling outpost commander who's being retired and cast off and doesn't really quite know what to do with himself. He fears the uselessness that awaits and he doesn't have the sensibility necessary to embrace it the way his character in The Searchers does, so it all just plays like a downer here. Even the wild attempts at humor seem melancholy. A fine film but I found the romantic relationships confusing and a little intrusive.
All the King's Men is a good film, won the Best Picture that year but its driven by its captivating performances more than its grandiose political commentary. Watch for Broderick Crawford and then go read the novel.
House of Strangers veers back and forth between gripping drama and laughable melodrama--and it works both ways! Edward G. Robinson is a tough-minded Italian immigrant who does what it takes to survive and over the years builds a respected community bank. But when the depression comes, its tough times for everyone and the regulators start working over time to place blame on someone other than themselves. Though Robinson is a beacon of hope and goodness in his hardscrabble neighborhood, the symbol of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and becoming a success, it turns out maybe there was some double-dealing at work behind the scenes. And the double-dealing continues when the patriarch's sons squabble over who will take the blame and who will protect the family name. A very watch-able film, entertaining and Robinson is pretty solid with his broad Brooklyn Italian accent--won Best Actor at Cannes, if I'm not mistaken. (And I can't deny these people reminded me of my family, in good and bad ways)
White Heat is one of James Cagney's classic roles and it is a pretty cool flick. Cagney is a career criminal with an ingenious plan: avoid taking the rap for the big score but pleading guilty to a piddly score he had nothing do with. But the cops get wise to his scheme and send in an undercover to keep an eye on him. It all makes for a good gritty crime drama from back in the day. (Though I'll probably always remember this for Cagney's cameo in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. Martin: 'Say something like uh…no no ma look listen to me.' Cagney: 'No, no, ma. Look, listen to me--' Martin: 'That's good, good.')
Adam's Rib is not one of the films I watched recently, rather I watched this one a few years back when I was a kick of watching films adapted from plays. As I recall I liked it a lot and anything with Judy Holliday in her prime is fine with me. George Cukor directing a Garsin Kanin script will always be worth watching--Tracy and Hepburn are just a bonus!
On the Town, too, is one I watched years ago and I can't say as I remember it so well. Gene Kelly was just becoming a big star at this time and this was one of his first big showcases. From here it was on to American in Paris, Singin' in the Rain and then exile in France (eluding Senator McCarthy), which pretty much crippled his career.
Battleground was a solid war film for its time and a Best Picture nominee (perhaps it split the war movie vote with 12 O'Clock High allowing the politically cynical All the King's Men to take the top prize). It boasts a handful of intricate set piece battle scenes with a fine mix of the camaraderie moments that the great war films handle so well. A fine flick, producer Dore Schary followed this with Red Badge of Courage directed by John Huston.
The Set Up is the story of a washed-up fighter who wants to fight just one more time though his wife begs him to give up the whole dirty business. The fighter is feeling pretty good that night but little does he realize that his manager has assured the local mobster that he will take a dive. Since the manager has no faith in the boxer to win anyway, he sees no need to cut the fighter in on the deal. When the fighter comes out blazing, the mobster is pissed, the manager is in trouble and we see quickly that this is not going to end well. The characters are fine, the gritty realism works well and the story is compelling but unfortunately its all rather slight. There's not a heck of a lot going on and while the parts are satisfying, the totality leaves you hungering for more. Not bad, in fact I wanted to like it more than I did, but this movie is like half a lunch. (Also, I couldn't help but think that The Set-Up was Tarantino's inspiration for the early scenes of the Bruce Willis portion of Pulp Fiction)
Ah, Border Incident. This is the film that inspired this season's Netflix queue and it lands firmly in the middle of the pack. Howard de Silva gives a marvelous supporting performance and John Alton's command of light is in full effect. As a film its fine, perhaps a little risqué, even exploitative for its day. But it's got heart and a lot of talent oozing around the edges.
I've seen a few Elia Kazan films in the last few years (Gentleman's Agreement, Viva Zapata, Sea of Grass, Panic in the Streets), and while I haven't exactly gone loopy over any of the films, its easy to see what an up-and-coming force he was at this time. Still considered the finest theater director of the 20th century (along with Orson Welles, of course), Kazan came to Hollywood with a lot of muscle. It's hard to imagine anyone else making a film like Pinky in 1949. I didn't think it was an overwhelming film but the cultural taboos it sets its sights on are penetrating. Pinky is a light skinned black girl passing for white who has just returned to her backwoods Louisiana ghetto after a failed romance. She is goaded into caring for the ailing local matriarch (Ethel Barrymore) by her beloved granny (Ethel Waters) and finds herself at the center of a brewing controversy when the matriarch leaves Pinky all her money. The relationship between the two is always contentious but the lady respects Pinky and sees her as a capable human being and hopes that she will do good things with the fortune. (The film doesn't wonder aloud whether this is because of her abilities or her light skin but the question begs to be asked) In the end Pinky triumphs over petty cultural norms and claims her prize which she turns into a paradise for children. Rampant racism as shown in contemporary films always seems a little myopic and hackneyed to me, an easy target rather than worthwhile commentary. But to see its portrayal from 60 years ago, a time when Jackie Robinson was just becoming an accepted member of the American landscape, gives it a raw power--even when it looks exactly the same! This one was also imbued with recent events. Not even two weeks after the elevation of Barak Hussein Obama to Pennsylvania Avenue, it's hard to ignore the significance when Pinky asks her WASP boyfriend: 'Don't you know what kind of people live in that house?'
Sands of Iwo Jima was fine. It all seemed like a genre war movie, by the book, nothing spectacular but it did what it set out to do so its hard to give it a thumbs down. I liked John Wayne's excursion to the single mother's lonely home (and the by-gone morality of leaving without giving her the deep-dicking she truly desired). After Eastwood's recent Iwo Jima double feature this felt like an old-timey curio and that's all it was, wasn't it? Still, it was okay. Sunday afternoon with a hangover kind of movie.
Whiskey Galore! is one of those charming comedies that the British cranked out with regularity in the post-war years. I was never as huge a fan of them as most cinephiles but I don't dislike them and I can't deny their impact. This one is about a tiny village suffering through a wartime booze ration when a tanker filled with whiskey runs aground on their beach. The machinations the townspeople undertake to make the most of this gift from heaven is all pretty funny. But strangely none of the characters really stand out and that's a little bit disappointing. It all becomes a farce rather than something sweeter. That said, it is a harmless piece with plenty of laughs.
I was not an English major so I never read Madame Bovary. Also, somehow I'd never even seen an adaptation though there have been dozens, so my knowledge of the story wasn't as strong as I thought it would be. This version undertakes a curious bookend element: it begins and ends with the trial of Gustav Flaubert, the novel's author, trying to cast a light on the humanity of Madame Bovary (and keep himself out of prison). I don't think I needed that element but perhaps in 1949 the censors would've vetoed such a brazen display of romantic desire from a housewife. I wasn't so offended by her sexual needs as her incorrigible social-climbing which I found unnecessary and a little depressing, to be honest. She is a remote farm girl lucky to be loved by a successful, if only marginally talented, doctor. But when she discovers a whole new social scene as his wife, she is soon bored by her limited oafish husband. She craves more. But its not that she craves a new man (she quickly takes a lover at any rate), it is that she wants a whole new life. Now I understand that in the 1850s women weren't as free to have their own professional lives but when will we get the story of the woman who tries that route instead of simply trying to fuck ever-wealthier men? Madame Bovary is dissed by one lover and hounded by another, all the while devaluing the one man who believed in her and gave her a life she otherwise could never have had. I'm not suggesting she has to worship the husband or even stay married to him, but why can't she see him as a valuable piece of her life instead of an impediment? Oh well. This film was fine but the bookend elements didn't do anything for me and none of the performances were as noteworthy as this type of film probably requires. A fine adaptation but nothing superlative.
The Fountainhead is a tough one. I grew up on a steady diet of Ayn Rand and her precepts are well-known to me and in some sense still revered by me. While I want to like this adaptation of her magnum opus--she did write the screenplay herself--it really comes off as a parody of Rand more than an embrace. Everything is clipped and melodramatic so the rousing character of John Galt and his iron will seems cartoonish rather than admirable. There are still many fine moments (and it is a lot shorter than the book!) and Patricia Neal is particularly good so I still gotta give it a reluctant thumbs up.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
The Films of 1949 (part two)
Of the 17 films I watched only 3 did I really dislike.
Man on the Eiffel Tower is an attempt (directed by Burgess Meredith) at a Hitchock-ian thriller that just never develops the zest needed. Though it does pre-date Strangers on a Train (never one of my favorite Hitchcock films anyway), the story of a stranger willing to kill another man's nemesis (in this case his wealthy aunt) never gets off the ground. Its twisty-turny police procedural elements just get confusing and the humor never comes off the page. Also, it is one of the ugliest looking films I've seen in ages! It looks like it was shot through a dirty fishbowl. (This is where Michael Bay draws his aesthetic inspiration, I presume)
I Shot Jesse James, the directorial debut of the great Samuel Fuller, does earn points for being an off-kilter western but visually and structurally it never gets ambitious enough to be interesting. Westerns about gunslingers would've been standard in those days and this one goes for a more soulful element of the trepidation of killing the killer. But it is such a lackluster production with little energy that there's not much to get excited about. It hints at what Fuller the mad genius would become but it isn't in and of itself terribly noteworthy (no matter what Criterion Collection wants you to believe!).
12 O'clock High was a popular film in its day, won a Best Picture nomination, starred Gregory Peck in his prime and has survived to the present day as a bonafide classic. But for my money this movie sucks. It is the true story of an under-performing bomber unit during WWII that gets the personal attention of their commanding general, who shows up to inspire the unit. Peck's character, though, is really just capricious and strange, there's little inspiration to him at all. And the final 10 minutes are just maddening! The general gets mental at the end and sits back at headquarters while the unit performs their most dangerous mission. Didn't see how that was supposed to be inspirational at all! And then it ends on that note. Mystifying. The movie does boast a fine opening sequence: a B-52 without landing gear comes in for a dangerous touchdown and there's no special effects, folks, its all fo' r-izzle. The first few minutes are cool but it quickly goes down hill from there. Unless you're just on a Gregory Peck mission (which for some reason I have been recently), I think you can safely skip this one.
Man on the Eiffel Tower is an attempt (directed by Burgess Meredith) at a Hitchock-ian thriller that just never develops the zest needed. Though it does pre-date Strangers on a Train (never one of my favorite Hitchcock films anyway), the story of a stranger willing to kill another man's nemesis (in this case his wealthy aunt) never gets off the ground. Its twisty-turny police procedural elements just get confusing and the humor never comes off the page. Also, it is one of the ugliest looking films I've seen in ages! It looks like it was shot through a dirty fishbowl. (This is where Michael Bay draws his aesthetic inspiration, I presume)
I Shot Jesse James, the directorial debut of the great Samuel Fuller, does earn points for being an off-kilter western but visually and structurally it never gets ambitious enough to be interesting. Westerns about gunslingers would've been standard in those days and this one goes for a more soulful element of the trepidation of killing the killer. But it is such a lackluster production with little energy that there's not much to get excited about. It hints at what Fuller the mad genius would become but it isn't in and of itself terribly noteworthy (no matter what Criterion Collection wants you to believe!).
12 O'clock High was a popular film in its day, won a Best Picture nomination, starred Gregory Peck in his prime and has survived to the present day as a bonafide classic. But for my money this movie sucks. It is the true story of an under-performing bomber unit during WWII that gets the personal attention of their commanding general, who shows up to inspire the unit. Peck's character, though, is really just capricious and strange, there's little inspiration to him at all. And the final 10 minutes are just maddening! The general gets mental at the end and sits back at headquarters while the unit performs their most dangerous mission. Didn't see how that was supposed to be inspirational at all! And then it ends on that note. Mystifying. The movie does boast a fine opening sequence: a B-52 without landing gear comes in for a dangerous touchdown and there's no special effects, folks, its all fo' r-izzle. The first few minutes are cool but it quickly goes down hill from there. Unless you're just on a Gregory Peck mission (which for some reason I have been recently), I think you can safely skip this one.
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