An American in Paris (1951): Shira's Take

79 Best Pictures, Portland, ME edition:

The plot was lacking. While the plot and characters are usually the most important elements in a movie to me, somehow, it didn't matter. Clearly, I did not appreciate the film's condoning stalking as a way to a woman's heart, nor did I appreciate Milo Roberts (played by Nina Foch) "helping" Jerry Mulligan (played by Gene Kelly) with his art as a backhanded way to get into his pants. It seemed to me that all the characters that were developed well were creeps. Still, with fantastic scenes like Henri Baurel (played by Georges Guetary) singing and doing the Billie Jean--lighting up stairs as he stepped on them--or Adam Cook (played by Oscar Levant) daydreaming about conducting an orchestra composed of himself playing the piano, multiple violins, and various percussion instrument...I just couldn't mind the overlying plot. With supporting characters like these, who needs anything else? Clearly, the ending that gets happy just in the nick of time before "THE END" appears was completely cheap, but, honestly, I really liked the ballet sequence at the end. Yes, it could have been shortened by about 15 minutes, but it was totally pretty. And who doesn't love the members of classic paintings getting up and dancing? An American in Paris had much more in common with its predecessors (The Great Ziegfeld, Going My Way) than its progeny (My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music). Still, though I know I'm going to be defending myself on this for the rest of my life, I give it an 8/10.

Note: I'm glad we're watching these all in a row, because I noticed that the opening for An American in Paris is similar to the opening for All About Eve--someone narrating, switching to someone else narrating, switching to someone else, but with little to no narration for the rest of the movie.

An American in Paris (1951): Eitan's Take

Well, it's clearly been a long time since we've watched a film and written about it, but it's no use lamenting our malfeasance... on with the good stuff!

If there is a movie that was worth all this wait, it is certainly Gene Kelly's tremendously entertaining An American in Paris, which comes after a long tradition of big-budget musical Best Picture winners, and comes before the musical explosion of the 1960's. It goes without say that Kelly is a complete and utter genius. Funny, charming, talented as a singer, and possibly the single best dancer to ever be captured on celluloid, he completely owns this movie from the very minute we hear his opening monologue. As a starving painter in Paris, he's not entirely convincing -- he's too well-kept and cheerful to be living in poverty -- but for two hours he has us completely in his grip. The grip tightens during some incredible early musical numbers, including "I've Got Rhythm," which features a wonderfully irreverent tap dance done in a colorful alley in Paris and an adorable chorus of Kelly's grade school admirers. During his duets with his starving pianist friend Adam Cook (the funny and strange Oscar Levant), you can positively shut out everything in the outside world and just be completely and utterly entertained. Many of our Best Pictures so far have been impressive or admirable, but this is the first one in a long time (yes, including All About Eve, which I thought was more fascinating than fun) that just had me smiling the whole time. It's a long way from the bleak, dull Going My Way.

Gene Kelly's color and cheer is supplemented (though not matched) by the performances of his two female admirers. Nina Foch is a nice mix of seductive wit and pathetic adulation as Milo, Gene Kelly's rich benefactor. And Leslie Caron is charming if not entirely charismatic as Lisa, Kelly's perfume-shoppe love interest. The love stories are not what makes this film great, though. It's the color, the motion, the unflappable earnestness, and the richly textured and utterly innovative dance sequences that dive deep into what makes life and love tick and transform those ideas and feelings into beautiful, inventive, and bold splashes of choreographed movement. The climactic ballet sequence -- an 18 minute dream in which Kelly inhabits and dances through inconceivably brilliant three-dimensional landscapes of his paintings brought to life -- is among the greatest sequences I have ever, ever, ever seen in a movie. It is a dazzling and bewildering feat of filmmaking that alone could have won the Oscar. The fact that it's preceded by such a delightful story -- on par with Amelie for beautifully shot Parisian romance -- and the beautiful songs of the Gershwin brothers only adds to that.

Not quite as epic, or broad, or "magical" as the definitive 1952 masterpiece, Singin' in the Rain, but still, solid, well-earned 9/10.

Added Note: The scene in which Oscar Levant conducts an orchestra of multiple Oscar Levants is one of the most unique musical scenes I have ever watched. It's not supposed to be wondrous or enchanting so much as it is indicative of the deep and unceasing pain of not being able to bring to life the music -- or any art -- that is tucked away in your head.

All About Eve (1950): Eitan's Take

A huge fan of Sunset Boulevard -- and its deep plunge into a pool of disturbing narcissism -- as well as one of the few peons who had never seen All About Eve, I wondered how a tale of Broadway could have trumped a tale of Hollywood for Hollywood's biggest prize. I wonder no more. Filled with moments of delicious evil, astounding wit, and some of the greatest charisma ever exuded on screen, All About Eve is, simply, an ingenious film and one well-deserving of its endless, timeless accolades. Not since Casablanca have we watched a winner so sumptuously fleshed out, with characters so nuanced and situations so masterfully controlled for tone and substance. It's rare that I'm so captivated by a small cast of characters; though it's difficult to love most of them (except for the warm and wonderful Karen), they are so fascinating that it's impossible to ignore a single affect or a single word out of their mouths.

Margo Channing is one of cinema's finest characters. A scene early on when she is tricked into collect calling her boyfriend shows her range; she lies in bed, smoking, caught up in thoughts that are never revealed to us. She moans and mumbles to him, forgetting and then remembering to wish him a happy birthday. It's a tragedy in a teapot; ebullient and magnificent on stage, Bette Davis plays Margo reduced to a shriveled wreck in bed, yearning for the man in her life to return, and fretting about things that Margo Channing would think about in silence. It's a well-drawn role that Davis happens to fill better than it was written. Alternating between dreadfulness and sly sexiness, she is the definition of a great actress, revealing everything and nothing. The way she matches wits with Lloyd ("All playwrights should be dead for three hundred years!"), the way she gallops down the stairs at her party before realizing what a sad wreck she's galloping into, the way she stands next to a giant caricature of herself in the lobby of a theatre, the way she spits in her tantrums and marches through life like a tornado in a trailer park... it's magnificence personified.

Anne Baxter is also wondrous as Eve Harrington, a devilish, calculating wretch wrapped in the body of a pixie. I was thinking during the film that it was strange to call it "All About Eve," when the plot mainly revolves around Ms. Channing, but by the end I realized that it's less about the manifestations of Margo's unstoppable ego than it is about the way the machinations of a single cold, spiteful human being set into play a brilliant drama. The villain's greatest trick, to paraphrase Verbal Kint, is tricking us into thinking it's not about her. But it is. It's all about her statue and her cape and her moments of false helplessness and her web of lies and her too-perfectly coiffed hair. The moment where she bows in front of an empty theatre, with Margo's dress clutched to her chest says everything we need to know about this film: the cruel drama of the theatre world is not about the facades that are celebrated, but about the facades that lie buried underneath layers of malice and hate and costly ambition. And, of course it is all about Eve.

Although I feel it could have been darker and more brooding, I now consider myself a complete devotee of this utterly remarkable film and thoroughly deserving Best Picture winner. 10/10.

All About Eve (1950): Shira's Take

Gotta love a good sociopathic bitch movie. I love how the narration reads like fiction. Bette Davis's Margo Channing is the ultimate in actress with a good heart obscured by her jaded sense of modern Theatre. George Sanders's Addison DeWitt is a perfectly sadistic scandal-seeking tabloid-style critic. Aside from Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), these were the two fully developed characters, and they really made the movie. What's interesting about Eve, though, is that while I was never fooled by her sweet and innocent act, I was also never fooled by Anne Baxter's evil and malicious act. Anne Baxter is just not convincing as evil. Still, apart from some bad bluescreening (why couldn't they film Addison and Eve walking down a real city street instead of putting them in previously filmed footage of a city street?), All About Eve had everything that movie nerds love about filmmaking--awesome shots and such. In general, it was an imperfect movie, but its flaws were few and far between. The last 15 minutes or so were like Return of the King (is it ending now? How about now? Now?).

I have to note Marilyn Monroe's cameo as Miss Caswell, a very blonde (and all the things that go along with being blonde) wannabe-actress and arm candy to Addison DeWitt. She plays the same role she always plays, essentially, but she brings a silly light to the movie, reminding the viewer to be entertained by it.

Notes to myself: Is it just me or does Anne Baxter kind of look like young Stockard Channing? While watching All About Eve, I refused to let myself acknowledge that it beat Sunset Boulevard for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Now, though, I can reflect on how it was a great movie, but it was no Sunset Boulevard. 9/10

All the King's Men (1949): Shira's Take

Blah blah blah. This was one of those, "Is it over yet?" movies. Unlike Eitan, I actually didn't know the story at all, which I consider a benefit; if I had, I would have been expecting the ending to come throughout the movie and been even more antsy about it all.

Basically, the movie started out kind of like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington but not as good, and it ended up kind of like Citizen Kane but not as good. I cared so little about every character including the protagonist, Jack Burden (John Ireland), and the at-times-empathetic villain Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford). Willie Stark is a small-town man in the south who just wants the government to become corruption-free (James Stewart in Mr. Smith played the role much more charmingly). Eventually, through a way-too-long turn of events, he gets elected governor. Then, in about ten minutes that are extremely hard to follow (note: what is this Pillsbury thing?), he suddenly becomes the corrupt government official he claimed to hate. This downward spiral continues as his family grows to hate him, his advisors become too scared to quit, and he becomes very dictator-like (Orson Welles is more complex an actor, and Charles Foster Kane is more epic a role). Plot-wise, the frustrating part was how suddenly Stark went from this nice guy from the rural south to a governor at times reminiscent of Joseph Stalin (and with the cult of personality to boot). I just found it extremely hard to believe that corruption and power-hunger happen this quickly.

In the climactic act (probably halfway through the movie), Stark's son Tom (John Derek) drives drunk and kills a girl. Tom is completely willing to deal with the repercussions of this matter, but his father just won't let him. And when the dead girl's father won't accept a bribe, he suddenly goes missing (and is found dead later, a turn of events we assume to be executed by Stark). I am completely serious when I say that this was the only portion of the movie I found remotely interesting. Note to myself: Joanne Dru looked like Ingrid Bergman! 5/10

All The King's Men (1949): Eitan's Take

All The King's Men holds the dubious honor of being the only Best Picture winner to ever be remade (excepting Hamlet, which doesn't count for obvious reasons, and Around the World in 80 Days, which also doesn't count because the worthless Jackie Chan version was merely based off the same, oft-produced source material). Now, having seen it, I feel bad for Steve Zaillian, the director of the 2006 update; first of all, how did the talented writer of Schindler's List get suckered into recreating one of the worst Best Picture winners we've seen so far, and second, how did he (apparently) manage to make a film that was even worse than the original? I ask because there's a disturbing and frustrating artlessness to rookie director Robert Rossen's take on corrupt politics in the anonymous state (which everyone watching knows to be Louisiana, since Willie Stark is a carbon copy of the Kingfish, Huey P. Long). A film like Gentleman's Agreement shows how one can take a simple political parable and make it both accessible and gracefully crafted; All the King's Men proves that one can take a potentially interesting story about how politics transforms the lives of those swept up by its epic allure and present it as no more than a step by step story sloppily tossed onto celluloid and passed off as something "important," or, as claimed by its ad, "vital."

It's not just the film's bloated third act -- in which we discover that, wow, politics sure does make people do crazy things for money and votes and sex -- or its ham-fisted political message or its dumbed-down Machiavellian philosophy that make it a miserable watch. It's the film's relentless belief in itself as the most essential message film of its time that really bothered me, and its predictable plot turns hurtling toward painfully obvious and inevitable conclusions (hick gains populist support?! hick sells his soul to special interests?! hick becomes involved with corrupt backhanded dealings?! hick's onetime journalist confidante becomes jaded?! the film ends with a slow-mo assassination?! ya don't say!) don't do much to help its case. Maybe the story has just been told too many times, or maybe I just don't care enough about Southern politics, but I just couldn't bring myself to identify with the story one bit. Even the convincing acting of Broderick Crawford as Willie Stark fails to overcome weak, poorly-fleshed out dialogue -- which is often interrupted by bizarrely quick scene fade-outs -- and weaker direction and cinematography. I would've traded in my delicious movie snack (dark chocolate peanut M&Ms) for a hint that the movie yearned to be artwork and not just a recounting of the facts (an act Willie Stark undertakes early in the film, when he is inexperienced and struggling to be noticed), but I'm disappointed. Oh well, I guess the Academy can't score three years in a row -- Hamlet came before, and All About Eve is the next film on the docket. With respect to the efforts of Mr. Crawford and John Ireland, who strongly resembles Jude Law -- his replacement in the remake -- I give this absent-minded Academy choice a 4/10. It was spared a lower score by a fault of my own: I seem to have irreversably set the miserable low-standards bar at 3 (for Cavalcade), and this film, while rather awful, was not a shocking piece of pure cinematic trash.

By the way, Willie Stark really reminded me of Fred Thompson: a bloated sleazeball, high off ambition but low on ideas, fattened by the deliciously greasy taste of pork barrel politics. I fear for our country if this guy takes off in the polls.

Hamlet (1948): Eitan's Take

The four adaptations of Hamlet from the 90’s – Kenneth Branagh’s, Mel Gibson’s, Ethan Hawkes’, and The Lion King – cannot hold a candle to Laurence Olivier’s, which is forever enshrined as the sovereign version of Shakespeare’s (and, probably, humanity’s) greatest tragedy. Among the chief reasons are the cinematography, the color (or the lack thereof), and the beyond belief performance of Olivier in the title role. Swathed in deep blacks, the print is a wonder to behold; each inky frame carries with it the pall of existential dread that a color version, and even a great stage version, could not capture. Scenes such as Hamlet’s first encounter with his father’s ghost and Ophelia’s elegantly twisted death are shot with such an attention to detail and the complexity of human emotion that they are almost surreal. The whole film is rather ethereal, and several of Olivier’s directorial decisions, such as his excision of most of the supporting cast (even beloved stalwarts like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who are shockingly nowhere to be found) and the elimination of redundant or obvious soliloquies, do incredible justice to the overall mood and theme of the play by simplifying the whole proceeding. This serves to make it more accessible to new audiences of Hamlet, and also to make it tauter, more macabre, and more twisted and shocking. While it’s easy to watch it and, at some points, to shout out “Hey, he just edited out the ENTIRE monologue about how he will ensnare the conscience of the king,” it’s equally easy to watch it and admire the way Olivier pares down the familiar story to its most essential plot elements and move a four-hour story along at a speed fast enough to enjoy, but slow enough to allow reflection; I can even see how its camerawork, thematic explorations, and composition inspired the work of filmmakers like Bergman and Resnais.

And then, of course, there’s Olivier’s performance, which might be one of the best in cinema’s history. Having seen him in the throes of bizarre obsession just a few Oscar seasons earlier in Rebecca, it was interesting to see him assume a younger and more naïve role. He takes on Hamlet with incredible skill, and never slips into the comically-overdoing-it pit that so many Shakespearean actors fall prey to. He is simultaneously morbid, thoughtful, angered, heavy-hearted, and light on his feet. Olivier is definitely not reinventing this character from scratch; he merely plays it so true to the source material, and so thoroughly and emotionally, that you feel as though new life has been breathed into tired and overused lines (“To be or not to be,” “Alas, poor Yorick,” etc.). Modern actors revere Brando and Hepburn for their camera-ready simmer, but they should probably look further back to Olivier for a lesson in approaching complex and overwhelming roles with subtlety and ingenuity. I had seen this film once before, in an English class, but seeing it again in this more unique context has lent me an even more sincere appreciation for the dark and powerful form of this almost perfect Best Picture winner. 9/10.

Hamlet (1948): Shira's Take

What an empty interpretation of Hamlet. The castle had very little furniture, and the only thing visible onscreen aside from people throughout the movie was mist. It felt like its emptiness was intended to make the audience fully understand how rotten the state really was in Denmark. Also, Laurence Olivier played Hamlet so numbly. His performance was completely different from any other Hamlet I've seen. Most people play him angry and crazy, but Olivier's subtleties were really the best thing about the movie. My serious problem about it was Olivier's editing job of the play. I'm sorry, but it is NOT acceptable to cut ANY portion of the "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy, and Hamlet just yelling, "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king!" was totally pathetic. And instead, they gave us 15 straight minutes of insane Ophelia, and the "Speak the speech I pray you" scene in entirety. I didn't like Polonius. Beyond just being an annoying character, I think of him as a pompous jerk, but in this he was more clueless and bumbling.

Two memorable shots: 1. The gravedigger casts aside Yorick's skull, and Hamlet's shadow approaches to engulf it. 2. The camera slowly revolves around the room during the play within the play, showing the audience members' reactions, finally ending on Claudius freaking out.

Notes to myself: THE FOP MESSENGER WAS SO GOOD. 9/10

Gentleman's Agreement (1947): Shira's Take

Disclaimer: I'm sick and very tired, so this is probably all jumbly and nonsensical:

Meh. I'm sure this was much more relevant 60 years ago. But now, though I'm sure anti-Semitism exists in New York in one way or another, New York is SUCH a Jewish city. Everyone loves bagels and speaks Americanized Yiddish, and there are kosher delis on every block in Manhattan. To modernize it, instead of thinking about it in terms of anti-Semitism, I instead thought about it in terms of homophobia (probably inspired by the LOGO Presidential Forum we watched earlier this evening). Homophobia is still very relevant, especially in the way anti-Semitism was portrayed in this movie. The classic Seinfeld bit, "Not that there's anything wrong with that," defines the democratic homophobia of today just as, "Some of my best friends are Jewish," was the democratic anti-Semitism of 1947. These people have no problem with Jews. Beyond that, they have a problem with people who DO have a problem with Jews. It's just, they will never express that. And they will still have completely different expectations of Jews than Christians. Hell, I'm Jewish, and I stereotype Jews just the same. It seems silly to get into my political viewpoints on here, so I won't.

It's interesting how Elia Kazan made this progressive movie with a message about how everyone should be treated equally, but he sold out his friends during the Red Scare. It's also interesting how at one point the concept of homosexuality was danced around (I don't remember exactly what was said, but it was something subtle about how all the good men are either married or don't like women). This is the second Kazan movie I've seen that dances around it, the other being A Streetcar Named Desire, which famously ignored Blanche's husband's homosexuality. On another Kazan-related note, I am seriously looking forward to On the Waterfront, which is totally better than Gentleman's Agreement was.

Anyway, Gregory Peck pwned this movie, which gave it extra points in my book. I liked the character of his son, mainly because he showed the juxtaposition of educated adults (who end up prejudiced) against innocent kids (who have no reason to be prejudiced yet). In short, the movie was boring, but fine. Notes to myself: Nobody should ever start a sentence with the word darling. 7/10 (would have been 6, but I just love Gregory Peck so much)

Gentleman's Agreement (1947): Eitan's Take

Looking back on the two decades of films we have watched so far, a clear trend is emerging. About half of them are about characters too laid back to get caught up in the affairs of the world -- the empty souls in Grand Hotel, the lame assholes in Cavalcade, Gable's smarmy and aimless huckster in It Happened One Night, the play-it-cool grandaddy in You Can't Take it With You, the low-key priest in Going My Way, and the domesticated folks of Mrs. Miniver and Best Years. The other half, the more important half, are about frustratingly obsessed, nearly egomaniacal people, driven to madness and extreme behavior by the stirring of a strange part of their souls -- Yancey in Cimarron, Christian and Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty, Flo Ziegfeld, Emile Zola, Scarlett O'Hara, Laurence Olivier and the maid in Rebecca, Don Birman in The Lost Weekend, and now Phil Green in Elia Kazan's simplistic but ultimately rewarding Gentleman's Agreement. 1947 was the height of Jewish involvement in Hollywood, and it's no surprise that they picked a scathing and insightful film about anti-Semitism for the big prize. If the film came out today, I have no doubt it would still win. The obsession of Phil Green, played marvelously and with real craftmanship by Gregory Peck (swoon), is in cracking the hidden code of anti-Semitism and driving it out by exposing it not as a bigotry founded on false premises, but as a bigotry perpetuated by false and hypocritical enablers.

The film is too simplistic in its expectation that Mr. Green would automatically become the victim of endless acts and implications of hatred toward Judaism just because he mentions it ever so slightly in front of questionable company, and as a Jew and a longtime scholar of anti-Semitism, I think that the film fails to earn a total suspension of disbelief on my part. For one thing, Green never even comes to terms with potential rationale for anti-Semitism -- even though there really is none, and anti-Semitism is almost 100% irrational, he should have at least questioned this once in the film -- he merely decries it as the hobby of publicly decent/privately despicable white Christians, too comfortable with their own sense of superiority. The film also never mentions the Holocaust, which is just ridiculous. 6 million Jews mass murdered in the name of anti-Semitism just five years earlier, and nary a peep from the lips of any one of the characters (especially the wacky Jewish scientist and Phil's pragmatic Jewish friend David)? Please. Not to mention the fact that this film, which purports to be and often succeeds at being a beacon of hope for a renewal of freedom and equality in America, was directed by a thuggish scumbag who sold out his own friends and colleagues by offering up names by the dozens during Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist witch hunt. Kudos to him for crafting a smart and worthwhile script into a classy, humanistic, and insightful film about a religion he didn't even belong to; shame on him for earning an Oscar for it and squandering its noble message for his own self-interest.

This worthwhile film, which mostly hits the mark, earns an 8/10

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946): Eitan's Take

The Best Years of Our Lives blows the lid off of "The Greatest Generation" in two profound and contradictory ways: first, it shows us that the generation -- long known to be obsessed with its own stature and role in history -- was filled with mundane and shortsighted little folks just like you and me, lost in the world, dealing with typical challenges like finding jobs, falling in love with the right and wrong people, and approaching the future with both caution and excitement. And, secondly, it shows us that these people were not like my generation at all; tortured by the global inhumanity of war, they focused inwards, too caught up in their own selfish interests to engage with the world in a progressive or intellectual way. The film, following intertwining lives of three men -- one from the Air Force, one from the Navy, and one from the Army -- in the months after their return from the not-so-front-lines of WWII is an ambitious project, in that it tries to capture the entire essence of a certain place and time (the foreplay leading up to the reproductive madness of the Baby Boom), but it's crippled by how dated its ideas, characterizations, and central issues have become.

Of course, there are wars in every generation, and I understand the plethora of great Vietnam films more than I understand The Best Years of Our Lives because our country is still fighting demons dating back to that war (see: 2004 Election), and we still see its aftershocks in film, art, literature, politics, and war. I went into this film with a great load of hype surrounding it, and on an artistic level, I was truly not disappointed -- the performance of Harold Russell as amputee Homer Parrish is particularly great, with its dark subtlety and deep pathos, the cinematography and writing is uniformly excellent, and scenes like the assault in the ice cream shop and Al's drunken speech to his banking partners were laden with both curiosity and frustration about the new role of Americans in the global community -- but I felt oddly unmoved by the whole exercise, as though all of these events were just too far back for me to even grasp, let alone appreciate. It's great art, no doubt, and as an icon of its generation (it is to the 40's what The Graduate and Easy Rider are to the 60's, Coming Home and Nashville are the the 70's, American Beauty is to the 90's) it is a towering representative of all that the Academy must have wanted to reward in the crucial rebuilding years following WWII. Because I admire its rich characterization and powerful exploration of the psyches of new and unwilling veterans, I feel compelled to like it. Nevertheless, I have to admit that it just didn't click with me the way I expected it to. I will leave this film to a bygone generation and award it a respectable 7/10.

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946): Shira's Take

Another William Wyler WWII movie. Unlike Mrs. Miniver, though, Best Years followed the intertwining stories of three men who fought in the war (one by sea, one by land, and one by air) coming home to their very different lives. Homer Parrish (played by Howard Russell, who truly was a double-amputee and who Wyler recruited after seeing him in an army training film) has lost his hands, and with them, he assumes, any possibility at a normal life. Frederic March won an Oscar for best actor as Al Stephenson, and my only complaint about that fact is that he was such an underdeveloped character. Aside from telling the viewer he is a drunk and doesn't want his daughter to be a homewrecker, the film really doesn't allow us inside Al's head. The only really great Al-related scene was one in which he is being honored at work (a bank) for being a veteran soon after being criticized for having given a loan to a man with no collateral. He has (according to a tally taken by his wife, Milly, played by Myrna Loy) five drinks under his belt when he gives a speech, saying that a Major during the war told his platoon to take a hill, and Al said in response that the risk is too sufficient to take without the proper collateral. "So we didn't take the hill and we lost the war." Seeing the change in Milly from disappointment at his public drunkenness to pride at his strong morals is really great.

Now we acknowledge the most prevalent, and, in many ways, most annoying plot within the movie. Teresa Wright (also in Mrs. Miniver and still very cute with a smart-beyond-her-years charm) plays Al's daughter, Peggy. She falls in love with the third man coming home from the war, the married Fred Derry. Fortunately, he's married to satan in blonde hair, so we get to see their marriage unravel and Fred and Peggy end up together. But the real problem is, though in the war Fred truly earned everything adorning his air force jacket, he comes home and is still just a soda jerk or construction worker at best. I don't mind, of course, that the nice girl with the rich father marries the guy who got fired from his job at the local pharmacy. I do mind that their interest in each other seems completely fabricated and lame. Still, this was an all-around good movie. Very entertaining throughout, with good acting all around. 8/10

The Lost Weekend (1945): Shira's Take

What an unpleasant film. Not bad, of course, but very unpleasant. Do people really have such vivid hallucinations when they've been binge-drinking?

Okay, so my only real complaint is that it seems that his girlfriend and brother have tried EVERYTHING, but in the end, it only takes a few compliments and a nudge in the right direction to fix Don Birnam's (Ray Milland) alcohol problem. Somehow I doubt that it's that easy after three straight years (at least) of on-the-wagon, off-the-wagon. In general, it was a very well-written and well-acted movie. Unsettling, sure, but I really got a sense of each character (even the bartender). I think that's Billy Wilder's gift. I could understand Don's need to drink, because he got so much chattier and more verbose when he was drunk. And sometimes in a good way. He really could express himself after twelve shots through three hours more than I've ever seen anyone do. I don't have much more to say. It's not really my kind of movie, but I can appreciate it for what it is. Notes to myself: Ray Milland IS Chris Noth. Jane Wyman (Helen St. James, girlfriend to Don) was married to Ronald Reagan when this movie came out. "Somebody Stole a Purse" is one of my favorite bits in any movie so far. 8/10

The Lost Weekend (1945): Eitan's Take

Watching Billy Wilder's uncompromising, grim, and deeply unsettling The Lost Weekend, I was reminded of great episodes of the Twilight Zone. It wasn't just the eerie theremin music wafting through the background; it was the entire mood -- a mournful dirge on a member of humanity lost forever to a hidden and psychotic demon. In the case of Don Birnam (Ray Milland), this demon is alcohol, but for all intents and purposes it could have been anything. The genius of The Lost Weekend lies in its shocking honesty and its deep concern for its protagonist, who cycles painfully through self-deprecation, violence, hallucination, utter self-hatred, bizarre confidence, brutal honesty, and back again as he slips into bottle after bottle of rye, whiskey, and gin. Wilder the director is concerned with Birnam the sad and angry alcoholic not because he's the most fascinating character in the world, or because he's wholly redeemable (in most ways, he's completely unredeemable as a human being), but because he's so frighteningly real. At times, I forgot I was watching a film, and instead felt like I was looking through a muddy glass window into any bar on any street in any city in the country.

In bringing Birnam face to face with reality (including one night in a stark sanitarium filled with shrieking withdrawal sufferers and a planned rendezvous between his face and a pistol), we're reminded not of the grisly effects of alcoholism -- mind you, this is not a morality play or an expose as much as it is, simply, a pull-no-punches exploration of madness -- but of the power of film to convey the utter sadness and depravity of human beings when pushed to the edge. Wilder is so effective at conveying this dark truth that he is able to direct the audience's reaction with absolute precision (a talent he shared with Hitchcock, who directed the similarly dark but much more whimsical Rebecca); we are never allowed to feel schadenfreude for Birnam, nor are we ever allowed to truly identify with him. The Lost Weekend leaves us paralyzed, wishing we could do something to stop his pain and the pain of all who surround him, but watching with an unstoppable and sick fascination nevertheless. It is one of the great early Best Picture winners, and one of cinema's sickest and most compulsively watchable masterpieces about a train wreck of a human being. 9/10.

Going My Way (1944): Shira's Take

I have a feeling Eitan is writing right now about how this movie isn't worthy enough or good enough to win best picture. The way I see it, I'm watching these movies as movies and not as winners. As a movie, Going My Way was pretty good. Bing Crosby (as Father O'Malley) is always charming, and this was no exception. I had some problems with the plot of the movie. Take a gang of teenage boys, for instance, and discover that all they need is direction. So all you have to do is teach them to sing, and of course they'll be your church choir. Except, actually, they'd probably just go off and do drugs and take advantage of girls (and not hijack poultry trucks to steal turkeys). Also, take an 18-year-old girl who has run away from home because her parents just won't let her stay out late with boys. Just find her a nice rich man to be her sugar daddy, right? Except in real life, instead of marrying her, he'd probably be her pimp. Still, I never have any problem with plots revolving around old fuddy duddies meeting progressive charmers and rediscovering themselves. It's a pretty consistently fun idea for a movie.

I thought some of the singing was overkill. Do we have to hear "Going My Way" and "Day After Forever" so many times each? I wouldn't have minded hearing "Swinging on a Star" (aka "The Mule Song") multiple times, having loved it as a child when I knew it as the theme song for the tv show Out of this World. And honestly, Jenny/Genevieve Linden (Rise Stevens) DID have weird rhythm for Carmen. I thought she sang it beautifully, but kind of awkwardly. And she was way too skinny to be an opera singer. Notes to myself: THE PUPPIES IN THE BEGINNING. 7/10

Going My Way (1944): Eitan's Take

1944 was the last year that the Academy used painted plaster Oscars (instead of gold-plated ones), and I can't remember a film more deserving of a plaster Oscar than Bing Crosby's flat, clumsy 1944 "classic" Going My Way. Sure, I admire its warm heart and its ambition of telling a neat little story about a talented young priest and the people whose lives he influences, but not even Jesus Christ himself could save this dull film. Shifting clumsily from weird and uninvited musical scenes (including a wholly unnecessary rendition of "Habanera" from Carmen and the utterly lifeless title song) to scenes depicting the quaint (read: DULL) goings-on of a charmingly strapped-for-cash Catholic church in a sort of fantasy New York City where the only bad things happening are turkey theft and baseballs sailing through windows, Going My Way never really finds its soul. If it had shot for the moon and explored the way Crosby's Father O'Malley reconciled his love for music, art, and secular happiness with his religious life, the film could have been a hugely successful meditation on modern religion, as well as a charming musical backed by serious plot points that truly invited song into the story.

Instead, what we have here is a lifeless bowl of cinematic oatmeal: watery, loose, and begging for some spice. Yes, Crosby is charming. Yes, his chemistry with ornery old Barry Fitzgerald is commendable. And yes, "Swinging on a Star" is lovable and appropriately syrupy. But these elements do not a great movie make. I was thinking the entire time that Going My Way would have fit in better during the self-important run of Best Picture winners in the 1930's; it clearly wants to be a classic musical, but its notes fail to resonate and its feet fail to leave the ground. For Bing Crosby alone, I award this movie a 4/10.

Casablanca (1943): Shira's Take

Firstly, I must write here my favorite bit in the movie: "I came to Casablanca for the waters." "The waters? What waters? We're in the desert." (pause) "I was misinformed." I think it epitomizes one of the multiple things I love about this movie: how shamelessly funny it is. It's amazing how it can be so melodramatic and soap-opera-ish in all the scenes with Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), and then go on to be so funny in scenes with Rick and Renault (Claude Rains). That is the beauty of Casablanca. Noir, comedy, romance, adventure, and the list goes on. This movie really has something for everyone. Namely, some of the best, most famous and quotable movie lines of all time. And that's about it. I don't think there's anything original to be said about it. Notes to myself: I must have a knockoff of Ilsa's white coat. You know, the one she wears when she comes to Rick's alone the first night? With the cinched waist and the puffy shoulders? 10/10

Casablanca (1943): Eitan's Take

Nothing can be said about Casablanca that hasn't already been said. One's first time seeing the movie feels like the hundredth; everything has a strange and beautiful familiarity. No romance has ever been better, no wartime picture has ever been more spectacular and complex, no drama has ever been more personal or more perfectly constructed. The whole film plays out like a "greatest quotes of all time" list, and each scene bears with it a special resonance, different from and counterpart to all the rest. At the same time, everyone feels about Casablanca the way they want to feel -- everyone loves it differently but equally. Every viewer owns their own chord of "As Time Goes By," their own self-deprecating Rick witticism, and their own piece of Ilsa and Victor's suffering. Thirty years from now, sixty years from now, one hundred years from now, every frame will still ring true. This is a film that no one can take away from you.

The perfect Best Picture winner, the perfect film. I would be insane to give this anything but the most heartfelt 10/10.

P.S. I would LOVE to see the remake with Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck! OMG YES!

Mrs. Miniver (1942): Eitan's Take

Anyone who has ever seen Kubrick's masterpiece Paths of Glory knows just how immersive and moving a war movie can be, without drifting off into either histrionics or gratuitous sentimentality. Mrs. Miniver is undoubtedly the film that set the trend for explorations of the new kind of war that WWII was. All Quiet on the Western Front beautifully and hauntingly depicted the utter insanity of WWI, which is too frustrating a war to even wrap your mind around; WWII, however, needs to be depicted not only as a war on the battlefield, but a war within the home, and a war within the hearts and minds of those who fall victim to it. With scenes of unparalleled civility, subtetly, and common kindness, Mrs. Miniver was the first Best Picture winner of the lot that truly moved me to tears.

Throughout the film, I remained impressed by the strength of the screenplay -- be it Vincent and Carol's playful intellectual banter or the echoes of battle-won heartbreak drifting through the conversation of Clem Miniver (the wonderful Walter Pidgeon) and his friends as they gather in bars and on boats to sail off to Dunkirk and hold off the Nazis -- and the uniform loveliness of the acting. But it was three truly great scenes in the film that stuck with me the most: Mrs. Miniver watching a fallen Nazi airman gulp down a bottle of milk and tear through a slice of ham in her kitchen, the priggish Mrs. Beldon's transformation into a graceful and kind host as she rewards the humble and shocked station-master Mr. Ballard with the Silver Cup in the town's annual flower competition, and the final scene in the local church -- which we suddenly and heartbreakingly discover has been ripped apart by Nazi shells. The power of these scenes lies in how effectively they convey the complex themes at play: love, honor, duty, and faith.

With a name like Mrs. Miniver, I stupidly expected a dainty tale of the bored upper class in London, replete with doilies, tea parties, and gossip. I am surprised and delighted that the film turned out to be at turns heartbreaking, lovely, and filled with hope coming from the most unlikely sources. I know very few people who have seen this movie, and it is one of the first of these films that I really strongly encourage you to check out. A solid, well-deserved 9/10

Mrs. Miniver (1942): Shira's Take

So finally we have the first movie (and I promise you it will not be the last) to make me all teary. The greatest thing about Mrs. Miniver is how the first 45 minutes or so feel exactly like an episode of Bewitched--funny, quirky, and all about love and friendship. Even after the war starts, it doesn't seem to get too serious until a scene in the Miniver family shelter when an air raid interrupts the nighttime reading of Alice in Wonderland, blowing the door open and furiously shaking the whole shelter with the family trapped inside. Vin Miniver (Richard Ney), son of Clem Miniver (Walter Pidgeon) and Mrs. Miniver (Greer Garson), comes home from the University of Oxford early on a changed man. He is now a self-described "socially conscious" person and wants nothing more than to change the world. He meets Carol Beldon (Teresa Wright), a confident teen, and in an incredibly funny and entertaining scene (humor mostly at the expense of college students who think they know everything about the world), they fall sweetly in love. They rush into marriage, because Vin has joined the Royal Air Force and they want to savor every moment together. In a powerful scene, Carol tells Mrs. Miniver that being with Vin, she is experiencing a lifetime of happiness, because she is afraid Vin will die in the war. Nothing ends quite like the audience expects, but the viewer is left feeling strongly about family ties and contemplating a "people's war". The most amazing part of the movie, though, comes at the end. At Church, the reverend gives a compelling speech about the nature of the war and whether it is okay that it claims civillian lives. All I could say when I turned to Eitan at the end was, "Remember when there were wars worth fighting?" Notes to myself: "Is he still a vegetinarian?" Must never forget the first encounter between Carol and Vin. 8/10

How Green Was My Valley (1941): Eitan's Take

It's a shame that John Ford's How Green Was My Valley has come to be known as "the film that beat Citizen Kane for Best Picture" when it should have already rightfully earned its place among the most well-regarded films of all time. Kane is a distinctly American film, with the labored intellectualism of Orson Welles driving a plot about business, ego, and the "American Dream." Meanwhile, How Green Was My Valley is a different kind of story, built upon foreign family ideals and the traditions of a far-off land few people seem to care about (Wales). However, I feel as though the values set forth in this wonderful -- though utterly depressing -- film are universal: family, faith, hard work, and preserving even the most painful memories of childhood as a way to stake out a vision for the future.

Although Kane was truly a masterpiece of cinematography, it's unbelievable that few look to this film as a perfectly shot specimen of celluloid. Every frame could be a photo; the bleak Welsh coal-mining landscape is rendered beautifully in a gritty black and white, and the angelic face of Roddy McDowall is photographed in such a remarkable way that you feel his optimism break through the dark clouds of grief that permeate the rest of the movie. I've always been a big fan of the look and feel of Ford's similarly depressing/uplifting The Grapes of Wrath (even though it doesn't hold a candle to the book), and it's clear that he knew he had hit the right note with that film one year prior and wanted to stay on a roll. My favorite John Ford movies are still Stagecoach and The Quiet Man, but this one is definitely up there -- maybe even better than The Searchers if I'm even allowed to say that publicly.

I said last night that I was impressed with the unpreachy, totally creepy and awesome Rebecca and how its win broke the trend of "important message movies," and How Green Was My Valley is definitely a sort of return to that mold. Nevertheless, I don't fault it, and I definitely don't fault it for beating out Kane. Orson Welles' masterpiece seems to have won in the end, so I'll tip my hat to Ford's film and award it a solid 8/10.

How Green Was My Valley (1941): Shira's Take

When I haven't gotten enough sleep and a movie can't keep me awake, I of course don't blame the movie. But when I got exactly the amount of sleep I needed and didn't have a very stressful day, and still a movie can't keep me awake, I think the movie is at fault. How Green Was My Valley opened with dreamy narration, beautiful shots of a small Welsch village, and emotion-invoking music. And throughout the movie, those aspects of it never faltered. It was just the interchangable characters and lack of interesting plot that made my eyes droop for parts of it. As is often the case so far with best picture winners, this was a very lovely-made movie, but I just couldn't care too much about the story.

One notable thing about How Green Was My Valley is that almost all of the movie had background music. I think this was very effective in making the viewers feel attached to the valley. It almost felt like home to me by the end--especially in scenes where Huw Morgan, played by Roddy McDowall, goes off to school outside the valley and the viewer gets to compare the atmosphere of the city to that of the valley. 6/10, though it scores higher for prettiness.

Rebecca (1940): Shira's Take

Ahh, yes. Finally a best picture winner that I really, really loved. Rebecca was very slow, almost unnervingly so. Its gradually unveiling twists, characteristic of any great Hitchcock film, were matched by its subtle, skilled actors. What else can be expected with Laurence Olivier (Maxim de Winter) and Joan Fontaine (the second Mrs. de Winter) as the stars? And with an incredible supporting cast as well, featuring Judith Anderson as the creepy-as-hell Mrs. Danvers, this film left absolutely nothing to be desired. The most amazing thing, I think, that the film accomplished was to make Rebecca's essence the most powerful force in the film. In the scene in the cottage, where Maxim reveals his secrets to his wife for the first time, it seems as though Rebecca is more a concept to him than just his former wife. I think this was Hitchcock's greatest power--to make something small and unimportant seem the most terrifying thing in the world (note: I still can't ever look at birds the same way). Truly a remarkable movie. 10/10

Rebecca (1940): Eitan's Take

I can't tell you how completely pleased I am -- if you could see the wide smirk across my face, you'd know -- that Alfred Hitchcock's utterly perverse, demented, and sickeningly awesome Rebecca won Best Picture. As impressed as I was by the sweep and perfectly executed drama of Gone With the Wind, it was a pretty obvious shoo-in for the award. Rebecca is the anti-GWTW, romantic in all the wrong ways, disquieting and raw, maddening, and suspenseful. It's far from a perfect film, and at some points I was waiting for Hitchcock to go all-out-Hitchcock on the sordid plot, but I realize he was slightly limited by the source material. Du Maurier's story is wonderful and chilling, and definitely worthy of his adaptation (as was her similarly creepy story "The Birds"), but I've always thought that Hitchcock did better with his own story ideas than with the ideas of others.

Either way, this movie confirms why Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most beloved directors of all time. In every scene, we feel his confident hand guide moment after moment of dread and queasiness. Every closeup of Laurence Olivier's tortured face, every shot of clandestinely lesbian Mrs. Danvers sullenly insist on the world's eternal love for the recently dead Rebecca, every moment we watch Joan Fontaine live a terrifying lie for her strange and wayward husband we are reminded of Hitchcock's total mastery of the camera. He mixes in elements of voyeurism (the creepy old man by the docks), murder (Rebecca's mysterious disappearance that goes unexplained until the very end), and the twists and turns we expect from him. While Rebecca doesn't quite measure up to the director's absolute masterpieces (Psycho, North by Northwest, Vertigo, Strangers on a Train), it shows the same penchant for smart, dark weirdness and the complete ugliness of humanity; after nearly a decade of middlebrow "important message films," I'm utterly pleased that the Academy took such a left turn and picked something rather unconventional for their award. I have no doubt that this choice set the precedent for many other winners in the same demented vein: Midnight Cowboy, Silence of the Lambs, and American Beauty. I give it an 8/10.

Gone With the Wind (1939): Shira's Take

I resent this movie. I resent that it is so well-made. If it wasn’t, I could hate it as much as I want to. Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) is quite possibly the most obnoxious leading lady of all time. Now, I could get past an obnoxious leading lady if the movie had an interesting plot. Or if there weren’t any other annoying characters. Clark Gable as Rhett Butler is his usual forceful arrogant jerk, but in It Happened One Night, it was charming. In Gone With the Wind, it’s just kind of depressing. Also, Prissy (Butterfly McQueen) has the voice and usefulness of Harry Potter’s Moaning Myrtle. Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) is in theory a chivalrous, lovely man–but I can’t help but hate him for being so intrigued by Scarlett when he has such a good thing with Melanie (Olivia de Havilland, sister to Joan Fontaine, who is the star of Rebecca, our next movie). And Melanie, this film’s sole asset, is just endlessly kind. The fact that she not only puts up with Scarlett, but loves her all those years, is so incredible. I’d like to make a note that Vivien Leigh won best actress for this, but somehow, I feel like she probably wasn’t so much acting. Another note that bothers me about her is SHE WASN’T EVEN FROM THE SOUTH. She was born in British India. Why didn’t they cast my grandmother, the beautiful Kathryn Barlett (though I’m not sure she was a Bartlett yet then), who was ACTUALLY from Georgia? Still, no matter how much Gone With the Wind drags on and makes my brain melt, it is very fun to look at. I have a theory that the amazing dresses in cool technicolor, elaborate sets, and fantastic camera work (and not Scarlett O’Hara) are what made this movie legendary. Oh, and if they had ended the movie at Rhett walking away after delivering his famous line, it would have been 100 times better. 6/10

Gone With the Wind (1939): Eitan's Take

Our last film of the 1930’s is also the best. I entered Gone With the Wind a rueful skeptic, and I feel utterly transformed and thoroughly impressed after having basked in its glory. Granted, I hadn’t seen it in a very long time (and I doubt that I have ever seen it in full), but I am just in complete awe at how much I was missing out on by denying myself the chance to see it all these years. If there was ever a movie that deserved to be nearly four hours long, it’s this one. Directed by Victor Fleming, who just so happened to direct this film back to back with, uh, none other than The Wizard of Oz, the film is magnificent and transfixing. The first half, swathed in red skies and silhouettes, is a great war tragedy, and the second half, adorned with ribbons and bows and an underlying sense of grief, is a magnificent (if not really that accurate) exploration of Reconstruction. Of course, I would appreciate a film that focused on the politics of the Civil War (and hopefully there will be one soon), but GWTW hits all the right notes with its completely engrossing depiction of the bland chivalry, outdated attitudes, and self-obsession of the Confederate South. Scene after scene of drumbeating, rushed pre-war romance, and the casualties of battle suck you in completely and refuse to let go. Elegant, swooping camera shots, pained closeups, and technically perfect wide shots of train-stations-turned-hospitals rival anything revolutionary in Citizen Kane, which most people view as the all-powerful origin of modern filmmaking techniques. Show me a great modern movie that didn’t cop a shot or a delivery from Gone With the Wind and I’ll show you a movie lacking heart and reverence toward cinema history.

Much has been said in the past 70 years about the masterful elements of this movie, and I won’t rehash them all here. I won’t even go into the sordid details of the love quadrangle of Rhett, Scarlett, Ashley, and Melanie. All I can touch on here is my utter fascination with how extravagant and successful the sweep of the story is, on a larger socio-historical level, and on a personal level. Gable and Leigh are simply phenomenal, bringing to their roles experience, big egos, and a hint of both inner anguish and sexual one-upmanship. Hattie McDaniel deservedly won an Oscar for a role that could have gone thankless and unnoticed; every time she appeared on screen, I was bowled over by the vigor and consistency of her performance. She doesn’t bring anything particularly exciting to the role. She just does it really, really well.

Most of all, though, I’m impressed by Fleming (as well as some stand-in directors who did some work when he collapsed from exhaustion), who surprisingly remains pretty obscure to this day. His eye for detail amidst extravagance is intimidating, and unmatched by any modern director. Shots of Atlanta burning, of Rhett carrying Scarlett up the giant red staircase, of Scarlett standing against a blood-red sky proclaiming her vow to never go hungry again… these truly stand the test of time, and completely earn the movie its license to immortality. I stubbornly expected a soap-opera, but I got a masterpiece instead. I will be re-examining this film — a four hour film I could easily see myself delving into again — in the years to come. 10/10

You Can't Take it With You (1938): Eitan's Take

You gotta hand it to a film that ends with a rousing hoedown of "Polly Wolly Doodle" on two harmonicas and a xylophone... no one does it quite like Capra. The great sentimentalist director was known for his iconic scenes of suburban whimsy -- the title of his late movie "Pocketful of Miracles" pretty much sums up his approach to filmmaking -- and "You Can't Take it With You" is no different. However, I was surprised and pleased by the subtlety of these scenes. I still knew exactly what they were, and I could still sense the hand of Capra moving these scenes along (such as when reliably aw-shucks Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur learn how to dance the Big Apple and when old Grandpa Vanderhof's countless friends unite in a courtroom near the end of the film to pay a $100 fine he receives for the illegal manufacturing of fireworks), but they were strangely charming and uplifting, rather than being cloying and pseudo-religious. Regardless, people who hate Capra will still hate this film, but I think it has some unique elements that relieve it from possibly pandering and being obnoxiously over the top.

Lionel Barrymore was one of the best parts of Grand Hotel, and he is absolutely wonderful here as Vanderhof, the patriarch of a predictably wacky family, populated by goofy black maids, Russian wrestlers/ballet teachers, typesetters for the coming Communist revolution, and a frustratingly bland younger daughter. Seriously, how in the world did mopey, boring Alice Sycamore end up in such a nutty family? Regardless, Barrymore's performance is one of the most captivating I have ever seen in a Capra film, and every scene he is in is truly joyous. When he tells the stuffy, fat, Baldwin-esque Anthony P. Kirby that no one can "take it with him," I felt in awe of both the important lesson at hand (see, there's Capra, yanking at my heartstrings again) and the naturalistic eloquence with which Barrymore delivered the line.

Magic, whimsy, and solid screenwriting aside, I'm actually quite surprised that this movie won Best Picture. It doesn't appear that 1938 was a particularly strong year for movies -- it was definitely the calm before the storm of 1939, still considered the greatest year in cinema history -- but You Can't Take it With You doesn't seem to fit the arc of winners so far. It isn't epic, important, beautifully shot, or all that consequential in the scheme of things. It's just a character-driven story, well acted, nicely developed and modestly fleshed out from a nice little stage play (which we did at my school in 9th grade, when I was really into technical theater) with a neat little "everyone learned their lesson" ending. As movies go, it's watchable, charming, and fun. As Best Picture winners go, it's not exactly a natural part of the club. 8/10.

You Can't Take It With You (1938): Shira's Take

This is our second Frank Capra movie (after It Happened One Night), and it just doesn't compare. Don't get me wrong. I love the Capra/Jimmy Stewart team (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life are both amazing). But I just can't care too much about the characters. Firstly, the chemistry between Stewart (Anthony Kirby Jr.) and Jean Arthur (Alice Sycamore) was really sub-par. Aside from an adorable scene in which they are taught how to do the big apple by a bunch of kids and end up running from the cops, Tony and Alice are really a boring couple. Lionel Barrymore as Grandpa really carried the movie (as he did with earlier best picture winner Grand Hotel). I believe also that this story makes for a much better stage play than movie. I think eccentric characters feel less overdone in stage plays.

Despite everything I said above, I clearly still enjoyed the movie. It was VERY Capra; there was a scene in a court room filled with Grandpa's neighborhood friends all sticking up for him that ended in chaos as news reporters flooded in trying to get pictures. Meanwhile, Alice rebuked Tony's family and ran out, and the mass of people somehow cleared enough for her to get through, but not enough for anyone to follow her. You gotta love these charming classics. I also sort of like the message. Clearly, the Sycamore/Vanderhof family is completely insane, but I admire their dismissal of the opinions of others. In general, it could have been better, but it still had most of what I like in a movie. Note to myself: Two words: kitten paperweight. 7/10

The Life of Emile Zola (1937): Shira's Take

First I have to state my jaded 21st century opinion: this film is to the modern biopic what the Broadway Melody (1929) is to the modern musical. By today's standards, it's just not really a biopic. Emile Zola is followed more consistently than Alfred Dreyfus, but hardly so. They could have just as easily taken out the first and last five minutes (Emile Zola getting published through to Emile Zola dying) and called it The Dreyfus Affair. And there was not one second in the movie in which I cared for the character of Emile Zola. Still, it was a good movie. The acting was really great (I absolutely loved Joseph Schildkraut as Dreyfus).

Another note--where was the anti-semitism? We were made aware that Dreyfus was Jewish by a quick glance at his military record. Then it was slightly referenced again when effigies of Zola and Dreyfus were burned, with Dreyfus portrayed in religious Jewish clothing. Still, this film basically ignored the prejudices of the military and treated the Affair as though it was nothing more than the military saving face. Notes to myself: I enjoyed the Nana bit so much. This movie was "fictionized" in such a cheesy way. 6/10

The Life of Emile Zola (1937): Eitan's Take

The Life of Emile Zola, a film too long even at its running time of under 2 hours, is a rather flaccid and disappointing entry in our Best Picture lineup, especially after the innovative, impressive fun of the last three. While I feel it was appropriate to create a cinematic memorial to one of the great journalists, authors, and truth-seekers of all time, it's unfortunate that the memorial was crafted so clumsily and without purpose. An eloquent fifteen minute coda does not a movie make, and I found myself frustrated with how long it took for the film to get its footing. The first hour and a half might as well have been called "Various Unimportant, Hammy Montages of Emile Zola 'Struggling' to Become an Artist, Interspersed With The Blandly Evil Machinations of Some Indistinguishable and Stuffy Men With Capes." It's no wonder Joseph Schildkraut (Alfred Dreyfus) won an Academy Award for this film -- he's pretty much the only compelling, truly sympathetic character we meet, subtly and heartbreakingly portrayed.

Paul Muni, star of other biopics such as "The Story of Louis Pasteur," "Dr. Socrates," and "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," does an admirable job, but overall, his performance is just a bit too hammy. Zola is an interesting figure, and we really don't get to see him composing his thoughts and truly struggling to achieve what he did. Instead, we get longwinded speeches that give us an impression of what he stood for, but nothing about his motivations and mental process. For a movie supposedly about his "LIFE," it gives us much better scenes after his death, when his greatest admirers gather at his funeral, than when he was alive and working.

Also, after the crisp extravagance of The Great Ziegfeld, I was mildly put off by the rather poor print quality and the shortsightedness of the director's vision. This muddled, mostly ineffective, albeit relevant film gets a 6/10.

Also, seriously, the guy on the poster looks NOTHING LIKE EMILE ZOLA.

The Great Ziegfeld (1936): Shira's Take

Soon before we started the movie (which feels like years ago, because the movie was over 3 hours long), I said to Eitan, "I hope this movie is all that Broadway Melody wished it was." My hopes, good friends, were beyond met. Through its three hours, there were maybe five minutes that dragged. It was constant entertainment, either with great dramatic plot, silly comedic bits, or amazing musical revue numbers, all of which were completely visually stunning. From the very start, The Great Ziegfeld was entirely enjoyable. I loved the friendly rivalry between Flo Ziegfeld (William Powell) and Billings (Frank Morgan). It was sort of reminiscent of the dogs with the hats in Go, Dog. Go! (every time Billings was interested in a woman, Ziegfeld would charm her into working for him instead). Anna Held (Luise Rainer, Ziegfeld's wife #1) was a classic drama-queenish French girl in the style of Greta Garbo. Billie Burke (Myrna Loy, Ziegfeld's wife #2) touchingly gave up the diamonds Flo bought her so that he could afford to finance four new shows. One slightly cheesy bit was when Ziegfeld said he invested all his money in the stock market. His valet said something along the lines of, "The market's been a bit unstable lately," which was of course followed by a phone call to Ziegfeld letting him know the stock market crashed and he lost all his money. Still, really great movie. Notes to myself: 20 gallons of milk song! Sandow the strongest man's muscle jiggles will live in my mind forever. 8/10

The Great Ziegfeld (1936): Eitan's Take

I'm not sure how much of The Great Ziegfeld is true, but I'm sure much of it is; regardless, it is entirely accurate to call Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. a truly Great man. I was seriously not looking forward to diving into this 3 hour epic mess of a biopic, but I leave it thoroughly impressed by the care and sophistication with which director Robert Z. Leonard examined the life of one of America's greatest showmen. Unlike The Aviator and Citizen Kane, which are truly meditations on fame, fortune, success, ego, and the American Dream, The Great Ziegfeld never really rises above the level of outsider examination, but slowly and patiently we really begin to understand the man -- "Ziggy" to some, "Flo" to others, and all in all one of the most ambitious guys to ever slap his name on a Broadway revue.

From his early days pimping out a by-today's-standards-not-too-muscular but-perfectly-beefy-for-1893 Sandow ("The World's Strongest Man") to his final moments -- broke, withered, alone, and pathetically but not tragically plotting out his next big hit -- we are given a huge window through which we see Ziegfeld in his glory and his misfortune. Adoring of many women and adored back by some of them, Ziegfeld, portrayed with great vigor and charm by William Powell, is an interesting figure, because his success in both romance and show business depended much less on his actual talent than it did on his simple charm and his almost superhuman ability to manipulate, cajole, charm, and buy his way into excellence. Which is not to say that he was a horrible person. His loyalty to his friends, his love for his wives, and his utter stamina shine through his weaker moments.

As a film, the 3 hour production is simply phenomenal. Although it drags a bit in the third act, I was absolutely hooked for the entire film. I was thinking that the brilliant, lavish, and probably expensive as all hell setpieces and recreations of the trademark spiral staircases and multilayered sets were Busby Berkeley-esque, but then I realized that there would be no Busby Berkeley without Florenz Ziegfeld. This man pretty much invented stage spectacle, and the constant onslaught of eye candy was breathtaking at times. At several points in the movie, Shira and I both had our mouths completely agape.

The film is definitely intelligent, exciting, emotionally powerful, and visually eye-popping. I dreaded watching it, and now I realize that this is probably one of the great underrated and little-watched gems of the 1930's. I give it a 7/10.

P.S. TWENTY GALLONS OF MIIIILKKKK
P.P.S. How could you NOT flip out while watching this:

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935): Eitan's Take

Oh, Clark Gable, how you continue to woo me. At this pace, I am almost not dreading Gone With the Wind! Mutiny on the Bounty has absolutely secured my love for this actor, if it wasn't already there before. I went into the film with high expectations. I hoped for a badass mutiny scene; lots of epic shots of ships, sails, and storms; killer performances by Gable, Laughton, and Tone; and an overall picture quality that lived up to the utterly fantastic story it was based on. I have always been a sucker for naval stories -- growing up, I was fascinated with the Titanic, the Bismarck, the Andrea Doria, and the vast and exciting history of navies and sea captains. Never been a big fan of pirates, though, which is why the Pirates of the Caribbean movies have rarely captured my full imagination. Mutiny on the Bounty is exactly the type of seafaring story I have come to love, and I can see how many parts of my most recent favorite anchors-aweigh film (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) were influenced by the utterly great 1935 original. I know that MOTB has been remade several times since, but I doubt that they have done it as faithfully, cohesively, and excitingly as Frank Lloyd's version.

The film takes a bit of time to get started, and I found myself checking the clock every minute or so during the boring, drawn out scene where the Bounty prepares to set sail. But the second act, with its riveting storm scenes, rising tension, and totally un-hammy acting by the three fine leading men, assured my total admiration for the film. I was especially impressed with the details: the fantastic rear-projection during the scenes in which Bligh is set asea with his loyal men aboard a dinghy, the subtle chemistry between Gable and Tone, and the realistic character development when Bligh starts to become a genuine leader for his men adrift in the sad little boat. It is no wonder that all three men were nominated for Best Actor (a distinction that only this film holds, to this day).

Although the romance stuff on Tahiti was a little silly, the film still kept my rapt attention for over two hours. No swashbuckling, no violence (except for copious flogging... was this directed by Mel Gibson?), no adventuring on the high seas... just a terrific seafaring story, awesomely well-told. All around great acting, great production values, and an admirable (haha, no pun intended) reluctance to succumb to awkward moralizing earn this film a solid score. If the bloated love scenes had been taken out, it would earn an 8, but as it stands, I give it a very respectable 7/10.

Note to myself: tighty whities = awesome.

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935): Shira's Take

Okay, I feel like a typical stupid American movie viewer when I say this, but it took an hour and a half to get to the effing mutiny. The movie should be called "(Really Hard-to-Watch Flogging Scenes Resulting Eventually in a) Mutiny on the Bounty". Basically, I'm inclined to like movies with people as charming as Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable) and as villainous as Captain Bligh (Charles Laughton). The only problem is the part of this movie that showed Bligh for the sadistic creep he was lasted so so long and was truly painful. Now, I know we needed to understand why a good guy like Christian would want to take over the ship, but I think about a half an hour in we understood. I loved Franchot Tone as Roger Byam, the future admiral with conflicting feelings of loyalty to the crown and camaraderie to Christian. I'm really glad I watched this movie, because now I appreciate Frank Lloyd for the visionary director I think he truly was, instead of the oh-so-sad director of Cavalcade (a.k.a. worst movie ever). Basically, I think it was a very good movie, if a little drawn out and depressing. Notes to myself: Clark Gable became a sexy pirate at the end! Ellison (Eddie Quillan) looks just like River Phoenix. Charles Laughton is totally a charicature of himself. Herbert Mundin played a small role in this movie, and I recognized him from Cavalcade. It was very exciting, and I'm sure I will be recognizing more and more actors from previous best picture winners. 7/10

It Happened One Night (1934): Eitan's Take

Every once in a while, a romantic comedy comes around that completely restores my faith in the genre. Interestingly enough, that once in a while happened in 1934... Oh, Frank Capra, how you tug at my heartstrings, how you pull chuckles from my tummy like grass from a soft lawn. I was very, very much looking forward to this highly popular, eternally revered film, and wow -- I was NOT disappointed. Brimming with silly sex appeal, a sweet sense of humor, a rather edgy disposition, and truly unforgettable chemistry between Claudette Colbert as a freewheeling young socialite and Clark Gable as a smarmy, clever, and thoroughly adorable newspaper reporter sharing a seat with her on a bus, It Happened One Night truly earned every single one of its five major (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay) Oscars. Coming off of the wretched banality of Grand Hotel and Cavalcade, this movie was just such a charming relief. I don’t think the smile left my face for a single moment (though the film did begin to drag a bit near the end).

I am really surprised that I had never taken the time to watch this movie before. It has the zing of all my favorite screwball comedies -- Some Like it Hot, His Girl Friday, and Arsenic and Old Lace -- but it also has remarkable depth and believable character development. Many of the scenes in the movie are indelible parts of cinema history. I loved the donut-dunking scene and the tender night in the hay and the tremendously effective hitchhiking sequence, as well as the uproarious scene where Gable teaches Colbert how he undresses himself (“Now here’s where I mix it up a bit!”). It’s rare that I watch a film so completely lovable and so convincingly romantic, and these perfectly-executed scenes add up to a charming, silly, and near-perfect whole. I love the fact that although we never see the lovers -- brought together by madcap romantic desire and a set of incredibly adventurous circumstances -- engage in a kiss, the film ends with the suggestion of very kinky sex, with the killer combination of a roadside auto camp and a trumpet...

Clark Gable’s utter charm almost makes me look forward to Gone With the Wind. ALMOST. It Happened One Night earns a 9/10.

It Happened One Night (1934): Shira's Take

Watching It Happened One Night, I realized I have very little to say about it in this blog. I think that's because most of what I usually have to say about movies is complaints. For this movie, I just don't have any (though it would have been nice to see Gable and Colbert as Peter and Ellen kiss at least once). It clearly wasn't the best movie I've ever seen, but it was just so entirely enjoyable and cute. I don't so much see it as a best picture winner--if it came out today, I think it would just be seen as a romantic comedy without too much merit. Still, Frank Capra made it work in his classic, lovely way. Claudette Colbert was completely adorable, despite her at-times-spoiled-brattiness. Clark Gable was silly and goofy and still managed to make me (and probably ever other straight woman who has seen this movie) fall completely in love with him. I understand completely why this movie is still so loved. It's just a perfect feel-good movie that completely made up for my hatred of Cavalcade. Notes to myself: when a guy's first name is King, his last name shouldn't be able to double as a first name, because I just assume that King is his title. Also, I'm getting a little tired of the eyebrows on women of the 1930s. Sculpt from whatcha got instead of removing it all and drawing new brows an inch above where they naturally lie. 8/10

Cavalcade (1933): Eitan's Take

Nearly every review you can find of Cavalcade is quick to mention that this film -- this abysmal, miserable, death march of a film -- has fallen into complete obscurity and watching it, it is completely obvious why. The film is a rather gloomy affair, a sort of Forrest Gump-style epic sweep through the changing times surrounding two families on supposedly different sides of the class spectrum as they grow old, get married, die, and in general act like boring, prissy thugs for 30-odd years. Oh look! There's the Boer War! And the Titanic! Oh, how about that, the first solo flight across the English Channel! And World War I, complete with lame montages, preachy speeches about the meaning of war, and woozy victory parades! Well, gosh, I feel like I've just gotten a complete history lesson!

The absolute lack of grace, subtlety, wit, and style doom this film from the very beginning. Characters are hard to sort out; there is almost no plot development other than the changes forced upon these cardboard characters by placards indicating that -- snoooooze -- three or four years have passed and now it's time to be dragged along for another obligatory moment of early 20th century history. While we're at it, how about a few more montages. Oh, hey, another montage? And another? Thanks. I really feel like I'm being swept up by the currents of history... Honestly, I would have much rather read a dry British history textbook than slog through this movie again. There is clearly no accounting for taste; incredible that the same Academy that picked the subtle, evocative, and harrowing All Quiet on the Western Front (a truly moving epic of WWI) and Cimarron (a smart and bittersweet meditation on the sweep of American history) could just a few years later think highly of themselves for picking this terrible movie. I'm sure they thought they were picking something "important," but 70 years later, it's clear they were just picking a real piece of shit. 3/10

Cavalcade (1933): Shira's Take

There is nothing worse than this movie. Seriously. Far beyond just boring or hard to watch, this movie was completely abhorrent in every possible way. Firstly, every single actor in the movie had a whiny, yuppie voice that made me want to stick sharpened pencils in my ears. Secondly, the main character, Jane Marryot (played by Diana Wynyard) bore a striking resemblance to Odo (from Star Trek: Deep Space 9). These complaints could be looked past if only it was a remotely bearable movie. Unfortunately, it was not. April 14, 1912: A couple (Edward Marryot and childhood friend Edith) decide to honeymoon on a ship for the romance of it all. They conveniently have a discussion about how if they die that night, it would be okay, because they're just so happy right now. Then, of course, they walk away, and the camera pans in to show you a life preserver that reads "TITANIC". Gah. I hate to think that back in 1933 people were actually surprised by that. A five-minute long repetitive WWI montage did not help the movie's case, nor did the sudden news that, though the war has ended, Jane and Robert Marryot's (played by Clive Brook) son has died, after which, OF COURSE, Jane faints in the most cliched way possible. Jesus. I can't even connect my thoughts on how utterly stupid this movie was. Notes to myself: No. There is nothing to remember about this atrocious movie. 1/10

GRAND HOTEL - WINNER in 1933

Grand Hotel (MGM - 112min)
Directed by Edmund Goulding
Starring John Barrymore, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, and Lionel Barrymore
Genre: Drama, Romance

Berlin's plushest, most expensive hotel is the setting where in the words of Dr. Otternschlag "People come, people go. Nothing ever happens." Baron von Geigern is broke and trying to steal eccentric dancer Grusinskaya's pearls. He ends up stealing her heart instead. Powerful German businessman Preysing brow beats Kringelein, one of his company's lowly bookkeepers but it is the terminally ill Kringelein who holds all the cards in the end. Meanwhile, the Baron also steals the heart of Preysing's stenographer, Flaemmchen, but she doesn't end up with either one of them in the end.

Trivia: It was the only Best Picture Oscar winner not to be nominated for any other Academy Awards.

SEE OUR TAKES BELOW!

Grand Hotel (1932): Shira's Take

I think my feelings about Grand Hotel can be summed up in four simple words: I just don’t care. Between Greta Garbo’s flighty-Tennessee-Williams-leading-lady-esque performance as ballerina Grusinskaya and the doctor’s Phantom of the Opera face (played by Lewis Stone), I yawned and yawned and tried not to fall asleep. Don’t get me wrong—performances were great. John Barrymore as the Baron Von Geigern played the part of an ambivalent thief charmingly and wonderfully. At times, watching Joan Crawford (the stenographer Flaemmchen), I felt like I was watching a movie from the 1940s or 1950s with highly superior acting. And of course the fumbling, adorable Lionel Barrymore (Kringelein) was delightful. Everything about Grand Hotel was technically fantastic. I just couldn’t stay interested in the story. In theory, I do like this type of movie (see: Chinatown). Some crazy stuff happens, we get wrapped up in it, and it ends with someone settling the audience down. The Grand Hotel, “where nothing ever happens”, has a perfect ending speech by the (Phantom) doctor. In retrospect, I like it all a lot more than when I was suffering through it. Notes to myself: OMG DACHSHUND. SO KYOOT. 6/10

Grand Hotel (1932): Eitan's Take

Not much to say about Grand Hotel. The tagline of the movie pretty much sums it up -- "Grand Hotel. People coming, people going, nothing ever happens." This was a truly painful movie to sit through. It was bloated, dull, and a waste of time for its astonishingly talented actors. You would think that if they got Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, John and Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery in a film together, they would give them more to work with than a bunch of tawdry and uninteresting affairs, arguments about alcohol, business mergers, and a woe-is-me ballerina. Seriously. This film bumbled along from one lame set piece to the next, with occasional respites during which Lionel Barrymore's pathetic drunk of a character ruminated on life, death, and Louisiana Flips (a cocktail of some sort that he rattles on about for 5 minutes). Considering the sharp, intelligent screenplays of many of the other movies I've seen from this era, the Academy should have been ashamed to reward this bland snapshot of elitist German jerks whose pithy life concerns are more of a dull embarrassment than a genuine commentary on humanity or society.

I know that the Academy picked this movie because it was a "multi-faceted" experience with several intertwining storylines (a la Robert Altman and P.T. Anderson films, and in the dreary and vapid Crash) inhabited by gorgeous rising stars and the reverently-viewed veterans of the silent era -- the toast of Hollywood, to be sure. It's a shame that the movie is about as tasteless and undesirable as burnt toast. I am happy that the bloated egos of this era were lampooned so marvelously in Sunset Blvd., a truly great and dark movie about the stupid life of the rich and famous. If this movie had had any darkness, or any twinge of irony, or any sort of joking self-awareness, it might have been redeemable. Its skull-crushing banality and self-seriousness earn it my contempt. Those points were earned by a loving conversation between John Barrymore and a dachshund, as well as a late-in-the-game murder twist (that wasn't even explored very well.)

"You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave." 4/10

CIMARRON - WINNER in 1932

Cimarron (RKO Pictures - 131min)
Directed by Wesley Ruggles
Starring Richard Dix, Irene Dunne, and Estelle Taylor
Genre: Western, History, Drama

When the government opens up the Oklahoma territory for settlement, restless Yancey Cravat claims a plot of the free land for himself and moves his family there from Wichita. A newspaperman, lawyer, and just about everything else, Cravat soon becomes a leading citizen of the boom town of Osage. Once the town is established, however, he begins to feel confined once again, and heads for the Cherokee Strip, leaving his family behind. During this and other absences, his wife Sabra must learn to take care of herself and soon becomes prominent in her own right. It was adapted from the Edna Ferber novel of the same name.

Trivia: Released during one of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, it was initially a financial failure.

Also won: Best Art Direction (Max Rée), Best Writing in an Adaptation (Howard Estabrook)

SEE OUR TAKES BELOW!

Cimarron (1931): Shira's Take

To start with an oxymoron: for such a boring movie, Cimarron was interesting. Interesting enough that I could get past the fact that I couldn't stand the two main characters (Richard Dix's Yancey Cravat and Irene Dunne's Sabra Cravat). Sabra is a whiny, ignorant, waspy, reactionary twit who only comes to her senses politically and occupationally because she is forced to. Forced to, of course, by her obnoxiously self-absorbed husband Yancey. See, Yancey is "progressive"--he believes that the Indians have the same rights that the white folk do (though this is inconsistent with his not wanting the family's black attendant to join them in the church meeting). Still, he gets a thrill out of Manifesting Destiny. President signs a paper saying white folk can take the Cherokee panhandle of Oklahoma? See ya, wifey! Gotta go have an adventure with my buddies and not come back for five years! Honestly, though, Sabra's change throughout the forty years from when they move to Osage, Oklahoma until the end of the movie is really phenomenal. Because her jerk of a husband leaves her with two kids to support, she becomes the anonymous editor of her husband's newspaper and eventually even a congresswoman. The last twenty minutes of the movie really saved it for me in this way, though it did feel sort of cheap to have them bring the movie to modern times (1930) to show Sabra as an old, accomplished woman. Notes to myself: must.never.forget.Yancey's.neighing. Did Sabra actually have a full taxidermied bird on her hat? 6/10

Cimarron (1931): Eitan's Take

"That's the way the whole durned human comedy keeps perpetuatin' itself down through the generations, westward the wagons, across the sands a time..." - The Stranger, The Big Lebowski

After falling asleep during the first attempt to watch Cimarron, I was incredibly surprised to watch the whole film and discover a truly beautiful, epic tale of American ego, discovery, fortitude, and development. Starting with a quest into the empty dustpan of Oklahoma, this absolutely great movie delves into the lives of two pioneers -- one restless and the other reluctant -- who settle in Osage, Oklahoma just as it is beginning to boom into a real town. Without any of the goofy "ain't Oklahoma great" theatrics of, well, you know the musical, Cimarron shows how rough it really was to be a part of the fledgling society. Rampant racism, cold-hearted bandits, failed businesses, greedy politicians and sycophants, harlotry, an unjust social system... the list goes on and on. The inner bravado of protagonist Yancey Cravat -- a newspaper editor, marshall, attorney, and all around town badass -- acts as the motor for the story, which lacks the epic vistas of later John Ford westerns, but more than makes up for it with its epic sweep across forty years.

I was truly surprised at how affecting the movie was. It had the beautiful pacing of more modern epic historical dramas; over the span of just two hours, we watch Yancey and his wife transform from rascally adventurers to souls crushed by the wheels of time. Years pass by in instants, but the audience is given clues to understand what exactly those years had in store for these people. It is also one of the best depictions of the transformation from Westward Ho! ambition in the late 1800s to the mechanized ennui of the early 1900s. It's amazing what our country left behind when we annexed the whole west and decided that pioneers -- once the go-get-em soul of our young country -- were obsolete old fools, deserving to die in a ditch in an oil field.

Overall, very impressive acting by the leads, especially in the courtroom scene and the church inauguration scene. It's amazing how many messages about American identity and ambition they were able to cram into just two hours. I started out as a skeptic, but now I know why this won Best Picture; many, many historical/western films like it have won the award since, but this appears to be the first of its class. I give it an 8.

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT - WINNER in 1931

All Quiet on the Western Front (Universal - 130min)
Directed by Lewis Milestone
Starring Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, and John Wray
Genre: War, Drama, History

This is an English language film (made in America) adapted from a novel by German author Erich Maria Remarque. The film follows a group of German schoolboys, talked into enlisting at the beginning of World War 1 by their jingoistic teacher. The story is told entirely through the experiences of the young German recruits and highlights the tragedy of war through the eyes of individuals. As the boys witness death and mutilation all around them, any preconceptions about "the enemy" and the "rights and wrongs" of the conflict disappear, leaving them angry and bewildered. This is highlighted in the scene where Paul mortally wounds a French soldier and then weeps bitterly as he fights to save his life while trapped in a shell crater with the body. The film is not about heroism but about drudgery and futility and the gulf between the concept of war and the actuality.

Trivia: During the film's German release, the Nazis (not yet in power) interrupted screenings by shouting martial slogans and releasing rats into the theaters.

Also won: Best Director (Lewis Milestone)

SEE OUR TAKES BELOW!

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930): Shira's Take

Wow. Okay. First thing that I think must be said is that this movie is clearly not only still relevant, but also still haunting. A good example: a shot in the first big front-line battle scene has an enemy fighter (Frenchman? Englishman?) grasping the fence, about to get into the German trenches, when a bomb goes off, and all that remains when the smoke clears is his hands, still grasping the fence. This movie is about half made up of incredible, powerful, gut-wrenching scenes. Still, I found the scenes in between long and at times boring. I also had trouble following characters, which didn't seem so important in the end when they all ended up either dead or back home with amputated legs. One very noteworthy detail about this movie is that the protagonists are the Germans. The German efforts seemed so much more fruitless because I knew all the while that they would lose, and many of those not killed in the war would end up starving to death in impoverished post-war Germany. Eitan pointed out that all the actors were very American and their dialogues were written very American as well. This was brilliant; the only times I remembered that the boys I was rooting for were German was when I saw their Pickelhaubes. For a movie in which I didn't know most of the characters' names, All Quiet on the Western Front had some of the most incredible ensemble character development I've seen. Notes to myself: Maybe I saw this movie when I was significantly younger, and it is why I have such a strange fear of butterflies. 9/10

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930): Eitan's Take

This is undoubtedly one of the best anti-war movies ever made, as well as one of the superlative war stories ever committed to film. I would contend that it is also one of the best films ever made. Tracing the lives of half a dozen German teenage boys from their bloodthirsty school days to their deaths (most of them) and their utter disillusionment in the face of horror, All Quiet on the Western Front is unflinching, brutal, disturbing, somber, and very, very powerful. Certain scenes will come back to me for a long time to come: a patient and mournful interlude where a German soldier spends the night in a muddy pit with a French soldier he has just stabbed and killed, a horrifying shot of two blown-off arms still clutching onto a barbed-wire fence, and main character Paul's weary wanderings through a life back home where he clearly does not fit.

All Quiet on the Western Front is directed with a sort of angry grace. With no attention to formal plot structure, we lose track of the time our protagonists have spent in the war -- then, we are thrown out of the trenches and pummeled with a merciless, shocking battle sequence with ambitious cinematography and an aura of true sadness that you just can't feel outside of the context of watching such a wasteful and worthless war. The movie is not hopeful, but it is thoughtful and perceptive about how to portray the gradual extermination -- both physical and emotional -- of the young men we follow. By the time Paul shows up in his old classroom, with his old warmongering teacher, the bright-eyed students he sees in the classroom look like infants... and then we remember that he was no younger when he wandered into the war. Additionally, it was interesting to note that all the actors portraying German soldiers speak with the aw-shucks affect of 20th century American boys; this was no doubt on purpose, to remind us that the Germans were human too, and no different from the Americans and Brits they fought against.

A beautiful, powerful, sobering -- and absurdly well made -- film with an anti-war message to last through the ages. It isn't perfect, but it's essential watching for anyone who wants to see war cinema at its finest. 9/10

P.S. The mastery and potency of this film makes last year's winner (The Broadway Melody) look like phony kid stuff.

THE BROADWAY MELODY - WINNER in 1930

The Broadway Melody (MGM - 100min)
Directed by Harry Beaumont
Starring Anita Page, Bessie Love, and Charles King
Genre: Musical, Romance

Hank (nee Harriet) and Queenie Mahoney, a sister vaudeville act, come to Broadway, where their friend Eddie Kerns needs them for his number in one of Francis Zanfield's shows. Eddie was in love with Hank, but when he meets Queenie, he falls in love to her, but she is courted by Jacques Warriner, a member of the New Yorker high society. It takes a while till Queenie recognizes, that she is for Jacques nothing more than a toy, and it also takes a while till Harriet recognizes, that Eddie is in love with Queenie.

Trivia: First "talkie" to win Best Picture. It did not win any other Oscars that year.

SEE OUR TAKES BELOW!

The Broadway Melody (1929): Shira's Take

I like to think that this movie just has not withstood the test of time. The optimist in me believes that if I had seen this movie in 1929, I may have liked it. As is, seen in 2007, it was boring, depressing, and lacking any purpose. The acting was bad, but that can be explained by the fact that the actors were the singing-and-dancing (and not acting) types. The plot was bad, but it had some good bits with Gift of the Magi-esque sacrifices on the parts of the Mahoney sisters (Queenie and Hank, played by Anita Page and Bessie Love). Basically, it had some entertaining revue numbers and snippets of interesting dramatic character development. Unfortunately, though, those factors do not add up to a good movie. Additional notes to myself: I don't understand how women in the 20s and 30s were not grossed out by wearing entire animals as shawls. Anita Page was adorable. The clothes were fantastic. 4/10

The Broadway Melody (1929): Eitan's Take

Sigh. Apparently this is "the grandfather of all movie musicals." In which case, it reminded me of a) why I pretty much disdain all movie musicals and b) why the ones that ARE good are so incredible at overcoming their lame musical identity that they pretty much have to win Best Picture (see West Side Story, My Fair Lady, and Chicago). This was a decent movie about a pair of whip-smart, button-cute Broadway revue performers who share a tiny apartment in Manhattan and take small roles, sleep with songwriters and financiers, and wear a lot of one-pieces and peacock hats on their way to the top. I guess by now we've heard it all before -- ambitious upstarts start at the bottom and Make It Big In New York -- but I'm content with judging this by the standards of the time. This was undoubtedly a fun Hollywood extravaganza, featuring razzle-dazzle stage productions and some slam-bang Ain't-Showbiz-Great writing, so I'm not surprised they went ahead and gave it the Oscar. Some aspects of it really gave me the creeps, though... especially the love triangle that was supposed to be funny but seems out of place here in its awkwardness and tragic implications.

Also, the songs are pretty much terrible. Considering the fact that I watched this film 10 minutes ago and can't for the life of me remember the tune of the title song reflects pretty poorly on this movie's claim to fame as the first great musical. Oh well. Anita Page and Bessie Love play their sister act singing team with a nice mix of sweetness and toughness, and they're blessed with spunk and that gorgeous flapper look, so I can't complain too much.

A decent film that highlights the awkwardness of Hollywood's transition into sound. I give it a 6/10.