I’m kicking off 2023 by trying to watch and review one movie every day for the first 90 days, all of which will be 90 minutes or less.
Title: The Firemen’s Ball Release Date: 15 December 1967 Director: Miloš Forman Production Company: Summary/Review:
The Firemen’s Ball is reputed as key film in the Czechoslovak New Wave and the last film directed by Miloš Forman before he left for the United States and directed films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The film is set in a function hall where a group of firefighters who resemble the Keystone Kops are holding a fundraising dance and raffle. The main plot involves the horny old firefighters selecting young women for a beauty pageant while guests steal all the raffle prizes. The movie is supposed to satirize the Communist government but honestly it just felt like a long Benny Hill sketch. I guess this style of humor doesn’t hit my funnybone but your mileage may vary.
Title: The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special Release Date: November 25, 2022 Director: James Gunn Production Company: Marvel Studios Summary/Review:
In this goofy special, The Guardians learn about the Earth tradition of Christmas and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and Drax (Dave Bautista) decide that they need to cheer up Peter Quill (Chris Pratt). Their plan involves going to Earth and abducting Quill’s favorite person, Kevin Bacon (Kevin Bacon). Hijinks ensue.
Centering the special on two of the secondary characters is an interesting opportunity to give them some development (Klementieff succeeds more than Bautista), and Bacon looks like he’s having a blast playing himself. And less Chris Pratt is an advantage. While I doubt this will become an annual holiday tradition, it was a fun bit of whimsy to watch this year.
Happy New Year! I’m kicking off 2022 by watching and reviewing a bunch of movies from 2021.
Title: Together Together Release Date: April 23, 2021 Director: Nikole Beckwith Production Company: Wild Idea | Stay Gold Features | Haven Entertainment | Kindred Spirit Summary/Review:
Matt (Ed Helms) is single and in his mid-40s and very much wants to be a father. He chooses Anna (Patti Harrison) to the be the surrogate to carry his baby to term. The movie explores the 9 months of pregnancy for these two characters as they go to doctor’s checkups, therapy sessions, and getting to know one another better. They form a friendship but also learn where to set boundaries in their relationship.
A lot of the humor in this movie relies on the awkwardness of their situation and moments that make you just cringe. At times I hated this movie, and found Helms’ character particularly insufferable. But I ultimately also found it insightful and rather touching. It’s a strange movie that feels honest and human beneath a layer of artifice. So I guess I’m right in the middle on how I feel about this movie.
Title: Lady Bird Release Date: November 3, 2017 Director: Greta Gerwig Production Company: IAC Films | Scott Rudin Productions | Management 360 Summary/Review:
This coming-of-age story focuses on a year-in-the-life of a high school senior, Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan), who chooses to call herself Lady Bird. Like many teenagers, she wants to get out of her hometown of Sacramento, and go to college on the East Coast which she thinks is more cultured. (NOTE: I’ve never been to Sacramento but this movie makes it look like a beautiful place). The main conflict in this film is the tension between Lady Bird and her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf), who tends toward passive-aggressive criticism and worries about the family’s financial struggles.
This conflict though is subtle as plays on through various slice-of-life vignettes in Lady Bird’s life. Over the course of the year she dates two different boys, performs in a musical, turns on her best friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein, playing a character completely opposite of who she plays in Booksmart) in order to hang out with a more popular girl, and conspires with her father Larry (Tracy Letts) to apply to a college in New York City. Ronan’s acting and Gerwig’s directing do a great job of showing Lady Bird growing and maturing, but in a more nuanced way than the typical Hollywood moment of epiphany.
The movie reminds me a bit of Donnie Darko (without the supernatural elements) with parts of Pretty in Pink, and a strong similarity in the protagonist’s character growth with Frances Ha, a movie Gerwig wrote and starred in. Nevertheless, it is an original and honest portrayal of teenage experience.
I’m participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge by watching and reviewing some of my favorite movies of all time that I haven’t watched in a long time. This post contains SPOILERS!
Title: Some Like it Hot Release Date: March 29, 1959 Director: Billy Wilder Production Company: Mirisch Company Synopsis:
Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) are struggling musicians who play sax and double bass in a speakeasy jazz orchestra in 1929 Chicago. When they witness mobsters gunning down their rivals in a garage, they decide to disguise themselves as women and join an all-female jazz band that will be playing at a resort in Miami.
On the train with Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators, Joe (now Josephine) and Jerry (now Daphne) both become enamored with the band’s vocalist and ukulele player Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe). During an impromptu party on the train, they individually make connections with Sugar.
In Florida, Jerry attracts the eye of an aging millionaire playboy, Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown). Joe creates another disguise as an heir to the Shell Oil company to attract Sugar. One night, Jerry agrees to go dancing with Osgood so that Joe can take Sugar to Osgood’s yacht and pretend it’s his own.
Their hotel hosts a “Friends of Italian Opera” convention which is actually a cover for a national organized crime gathering. Chicago mobster “Spats” Colombo (George Raft) recognizes Joe and Jerry through their disguises. While hiding at the convention, Joe and Jerry witness another mob hit. On the run again, they flee with Osgood to his yacht with Sugar joining them. Joe and Jerry reveal their true identities in one of the most hilarious film finales ever.
When Did I First See This Movie?:
One of many movies I watched with my family on tv as a kid in the mid-80s. I remember liking it but for some reason never got around to watching it again until now.
What Did I Remember?:
I remember the train party, Tony Curtis dressing up as a millionaire and impersonating Cary Grant, and some of the basic plot.
What Did I Forget?:
Pretty much all of the mobster subplot. I was actually impressed by the car chase that opens the movie and all the gags about the speakeasy in a funeral home are funny. There’s about 10 minutes of this before we even meet Jerry and Joe. I also forgot about Osgood and how the movie ends, believe it or not.
What Makes This Movie Great?:
This movie is a cornball comedy that goes from merely good to great on the backs of four individuals at the height of their game: director Billy Wilder and actors Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon. I find Lemmon in particular to be hilarious in every scene he is in. Monroe’s performance is a brilliant balance of sweet and simple with pure sexuality. It’s surprising that she was so troubled in the making of this movie (arriving late, forgetting lines, etc.) because her performance seems so effortless.
What Doesn’t Hold Up?:
I was expecting a movie in which men dress as women and are horny for Marilyn Monroe to have aged poorly. And there’s definitely some sexual/gender politics that don’t stand up. But the amazing thing is that this movie avoids some of the cheap sexist jokes that later comedies that follow the similar plot tropes would revel in. I’m not going to say that Some Like it Hot is progressive, but it is a movie that seems okay with things about sexuality and gender that you wouldn’t expect from 1959.
Is It a Classic?:
I’d argue that Some Like it Hot is both a great movie, a definite classic, but also overrated. When I see ranked as the greatest comedy of all-time I think it sets expectations too high.
Rating: ****
Seventeen-ish More All-Time Favorite Movies Starting With S:
Title: Earthrise Release Date: April 20, 2018 Director: Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee Production Company: American Documentaries Inc. Summary/Review:
This short documentary focuses on the Apollo 8 mission of December 1968. The goal of this mission was to successfully orbit the moon and return to Earth in preparation for the moon landings that would begin the following year. With NASA’s plan and rigid schedule for getting the spacecraft into lunar orbit and documenting the moon up close, there was no intention of looking back at Earth.
And yet as the astronauts – Bill Anders, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell – became the first people to ever leave low Earth orbit, they began to notice the beauty of the Earth visible in full. While circling the moon and documenting the surface with photographs, Anders noticed the Earth rising over the moon. The photograph he took became the most famous part of the mission.
The movie features archival footage of the mission and contemporary news events with the only narration coming from present-day interviews with Anders, Borman, and Lovell. They talk about the significance to them of seeing the Earth from afar.
Title: The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! Release Date: December 2, 1988 Director: David Zucker Production Company: Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker Summary/Review:
After watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, my son chose to watch this 80s spoof of police dramas next. As the opening credits popped on the screen he said “Wait! What’s O.J. Simpson doing in this?” It struck me that he’s never lived in a world where Simpson was just a popular retired athlete turned actor. I had to wonder if a 12 y.o. would “get” parodies of 80s police shows and current events he has never seen. He seemed to enjoy the part where Frank Drebin urinates while wearing a live mic, as well as a part I totally forgotten about where Drebin is on a ledge and inadvertently fondles some nude sculptures.
And then, when the movie was approaching it’s final act, he declared that he was bored and turned it off. I tried to convince him to turn it on again for the baseball scenes to no avail, so I had to watch those on my own. The sequence of gags about baseball seem to hold up the best, perhaps because baseball is so timeless. Reggie Jackson, not Simpson, is the real MVP when it comes to retired athletes acting. I also love a scene where Drebin commandeers a car to chase a villain and it ends up being a student driver. John Houseman is hilarious as the instructor calmly teaching the student how to conduct a car chase and to flip the bird at sexist truck driver.
I didn’t remember this movie as well as I thought I did. I think most of the jokes hold up or are stupid enough to at least get a chuckle. I have to confess that I never realized that the Angels game is filmed at Dodgers Stadium until now which was a result of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker having to agree to the demands of Major League Baseball and the Los Angeles Dodgers not wanting to participate rather than just another gag.
The Naked Gun is no masterpiece, but it still has some good laughs and a startling collection of 1980s actors and cameos. It’s still worth a watch, especially if you like baseball, but maybe not if your 12 years old.
Title: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Release Date: June 11, 1986 Director: John Hughes Production Company: Paramount Pictures Summary/Review:
My 12 y.o. wanted to watch this movie which was a surprise since he rarely wants to watch movies at all, much less teen classics from the 80s. Some things you notice when you’re watching a movie for the first time in decades with your children: 1. there’s a lot more profanity than I remembered, and 2. Ferris is really a jerk and deserves to suffer SOME consequences for his misbehavior. Maybe not so much for skipping school, but for how he mistreats his friends and family. At least Cameron calls him out on it.
The story, should you not be aware of it or have forgotten, is that Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) pretends to be sick in order to skip school for the 9th time in his senior year in high school (we need 8 prequels to learn what he did on those days!). He picks up his chronically-depressed and hypochondriac friend Cameron (Alan Ruck), who is also absent from school. Ferris basically steals Cameron’s father’s antique sportscar (Cameron has some good suggestions of renting a car or hiring a limo, something these kids had the means to do). They pick up Ferris’ girlfriend, Sloane (Mia Sara), from school on the excuse that her grandmother died.
The trio drive to Chicago for the geekiest day of truancy ever. Impossibly, they are able to to visit Sears Tower and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, dine at a fancy restaurant, attend a Cubs game, visit the Art Institute of Chicago, and then see the Von Steuben Parade, which Ferris famously crashes to lead a sing-a-long and dance of joyous Chicagoans (and since I visited Chicago in 2018, I recognized exactly where those parade scenes were shot). Meanwhile, the school principal Ed Rooney (played by real-life sex offender Jeffrey Jones), creepily tries to track down Ferris, going so far as to break into the Bueller’s home. Simultaneously, Ferris’ younger sister, Jeanie (Jennifer Grey), angered at her parents’ favoritism toward Ferris, also tries to bust him for faking illness.
The movie works because of the generally wholesome activities the lead trio engage in on their trip to Chicago, a steady series of gags, and all-around great performances from the cast and great chemistry among the leads. But as I noted above, Ferris is not a hero, but more of an agent of chaos. The real protagonists of this movie, or at least the ones who change the most, are Cameron and Jeanie. Cameron finally reaches a breaking point where he’s able to stand up for himself to Ferris, which leads him to gain the confidence to stand up to his neglectful father. And by the way, watching is this as a parent makes me wonder just how monstrous this father is. Meanwhile, Jeanie is able to exorcise her jealousy and righteous rage at Ferris and attempt to just take control of her own destiny. This, of course, means that everything works out just perfectly for Ferris, the little twerp.
Almost 35 years after its release, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is still very funny and doesn’t feel dated. Sure, there are boxy cars and big hair, but it doesn’t scream “EIGHTIES!” as much as John Hughes’ other movies. I do wonder what this movie would be like if Ferris had a cell phone, though, considering his ability to use technology to his advantage. More importantly, it doesn’t have the inappropriate moments that make one cringe at the sexual misconduct and racism that you find in 16 Candles and The Breakfast Club. I also appreciate the directorial style, such as viewing Cameron debating himself about joining Ferris through his car window, or how Ferris running home at the end is directed like a Chuck Jones/Tex Avery cartoon, complete with zany sound effects and music cues.
If you liked it when you’re young, watch it with your (older) kids. They may just enjoy it as well.
Title: Lady Eve Release Date: February 25, 1941 Director: Preston Sturges Production Company: Paramount Pictures Summary/Review:
Another day, another screwball comedy. And this may be the screwiest one yet, because a lot of the plot is simply not at all logical. But put aside logic and enjoy that gags and you have a good film.
Charles Pike (Henry Fonda) is a shy young man (Fonda is good at playing reserved, but morally-centered characters) and reluctant heir to a brewery fortune. Returning to the U.S. on an ocean liner from the Amazon after studying snakes for a year, Jean Harrington (Barbara Stanwyck) and her stunning cheekbones come into his life. He falls for her quickly and they’re discussing marriage before the ship even docks.
But there’s a twist! Jean and her father, “Colonel” Harrington (Charles Coburn), are card sharps, and Charles is their mark. In another twist, Jean legitimately loves him in return, and protects him from being taken by her father. Nevertheless, when Charles discovers the truth about Jean, he breaks off their relationship.
Learning of a con to swindle wealthy Connecticut families, including the Pikes, Jean jumps at the chance to join in, putatively to get revenge for Charles dumping her. She pretends to be a British aristocrat named Lady Eve Sidwich, and Stanwyck is absolutely hilarious putting on her posh English accent and mannerisms. Charles is stunned by Eve’s resemblance to Jean, but rationalizes that Jean would disguise herself better, and thus accepts she’s a different woman. They fall in love, and humorously,Charles uses the same lines to propose to “Eve” that he used on Jean.
After they marry, things get really weird. I mean it’s still funny, but also left me saying “huh?” All in all a good comic film with great performances by Stanwyck and Fonda.
Welcome to Harry Potter Week! My daughter became a huge fan of the Wizarding World this year so I’ve spent the past several months revisiting the books and watching the movies (some for the first time). I’ll be sharing my thoughts on the books and movies over the course of seven days.
Title: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Release Date: November 16, 2001 Director: Chris Columbus Production Company: Warner Bros. Pictures Summary/Review:
I revisited this movie for the first time in around 17 years. I was reminded that the movie series (as does the book) starts off with a fairly simple plot compared with the intricate world-building it would acquire later. It was also a reminder that Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint were oh-so-little when this all started, and it was an impressive job of casting at that age to get actors who’d do so well over 8 movies and into their adult careers. Chris Columbus takes a safe-but-boring approach to directing, I think some other directors are more creative and adventurous later in the series, but nevertheless the movie has its charms in bringing the books to life for the first time.
Panorama of the Mountains 