It was a fine movie, but it was a bad best picture winner. I remember associating this movie with It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World as a kid (similarities being that both movies include a crazy race and both feature about a thousand familiar faces), but, as far as I remember, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World is Way Way Way Way Better than Around the World in Eighty Days. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the guy at the piano turning around and being Frank Sinatra, or the conductor on the train that is getting attacked by Indians being a really old Buster Keaton, or Passepartout (played by Cantinflas) waking up on a ship to a particularly rotund Peter Lorre playing a ship steward. Even better were the ones I didn't notice and saw in the ending credits. That woman in the saloon was Marlene Dietrich? The "Indian" princess was a young Shirley MacLaine? Awesome!
Basically, I guess this movie was pretty entertaining, and it was big in a way I often like movies to be, but it had no place winning BP. 1956 was a weak year, and I don't really care too much about ANY of the movies that were nominated (Wyler's Friendly Persuasion, Giant, The King and I, and The Ten Commandments).
My final comment has to be that as Eitan and I were watching this movie, I got the corresponding songs from the Chipmunk Adventure in my head for each scene. When they were in Spain, I got the Mexico song in my head ("I yi yi yi yi yi like you verrrry much...") Then, when they were in India, and we saw snake charmers, I started singing, "Tell me what I need to do to get lucky with you." Anyway, it's a very basic 6/10.
Showing posts with label Frank Sinatra. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frank Sinatra. Show all posts
Monday, March 17, 2008
Around the World in Eighty Days (1956): Eitan's Take
Around the World in 80 Days is the first Best Picture winner, to my recollection, to be filmed in both Technicolor and beautiful panoramic widescreen and boy does it earn that distinction. Though it's an imperfect film, it's so abundantly imaginative and exciting that, like the Greatest Show on Earth, it's hard to hate it. However, with its charming British wit and its adventurous cinematography, it clearly goes places -- both tangibly and narratively -- that the Greatest Show on Earth could never even dream of doing. By the end, I'd concluded that it's not quite a deserving Best Picture winner, but it's a classic that should have a place among the world's great global capers (It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, etc.).
David Niven has the perfect gravitas to play Phileas Fogg, who is a rather one-dimensional character, and Cantinflas is positively delightful as right-hand man Passepartout. The situations they get into are, of course, absurd -- floating over the Alps (and grabbing snow to cool their champagne), bullfighting in Spain, rescuing a princess from the horrific practice of Sati in India, evading Scotland Yard detectives, riding steamboats to Hong Kong and Yokohama and San Francisco, getting into a ridiculous 30 minute steampunk train fight with a gang of wild Sioux, etc. But it all makes for a rather wondrous journey, at times quaint, riveting, mysterious, and genuinely pulse-quickening. Some of the sequences are so dense and so epic, that you can forget that you're not just watching a full-length movie about the Wild West or a steamboat journey or an elephant adventure through the forests of India.
But two things must be said: first, this is merely a VERY LARGE BUDGET adaptation of the work of one of the world's greatest science fiction novelists, so it's not as though story credit can truly go to the people who made the book a reality. And second, you might as well watch it on mute, as it must be one of the most visually sumptuous films to come out of the 50's. The cinematography is done by Lionel Lindon, who also photographed episodes of the richly textured television seriesAlfred Hitchcock Presents... as well as Rod Serling's dark noir Night Gallery. Watching this movie using the digital projector in my bedroom was a great treat. The colors leap off of the screen, and many of the great vistas could have just gone on forever. A truly beautiful color film, with unique and exciting international scenes, that provides an easy counterpoint to the dark (and also brilliant) B&W cinematography of On the Waterfront. You could easily mistake this movie with films from the 60's that were shot with much better technology.
This delightful, if a little empty-headed, G-rated romp earns a 7/10. As a movie. As a Best Picture winner, I think most would agree it falls short of greatness. But if you don't have a place in your heart for a movie this FUN, I don't know what to say.
Great cameos, by the way.
David Niven has the perfect gravitas to play Phileas Fogg, who is a rather one-dimensional character, and Cantinflas is positively delightful as right-hand man Passepartout. The situations they get into are, of course, absurd -- floating over the Alps (and grabbing snow to cool their champagne), bullfighting in Spain, rescuing a princess from the horrific practice of Sati in India, evading Scotland Yard detectives, riding steamboats to Hong Kong and Yokohama and San Francisco, getting into a ridiculous 30 minute steampunk train fight with a gang of wild Sioux, etc. But it all makes for a rather wondrous journey, at times quaint, riveting, mysterious, and genuinely pulse-quickening. Some of the sequences are so dense and so epic, that you can forget that you're not just watching a full-length movie about the Wild West or a steamboat journey or an elephant adventure through the forests of India.
But two things must be said: first, this is merely a VERY LARGE BUDGET adaptation of the work of one of the world's greatest science fiction novelists, so it's not as though story credit can truly go to the people who made the book a reality. And second, you might as well watch it on mute, as it must be one of the most visually sumptuous films to come out of the 50's. The cinematography is done by Lionel Lindon, who also photographed episodes of the richly textured television seriesAlfred Hitchcock Presents... as well as Rod Serling's dark noir Night Gallery. Watching this movie using the digital projector in my bedroom was a great treat. The colors leap off of the screen, and many of the great vistas could have just gone on forever. A truly beautiful color film, with unique and exciting international scenes, that provides an easy counterpoint to the dark (and also brilliant) B&W cinematography of On the Waterfront. You could easily mistake this movie with films from the 60's that were shot with much better technology.
This delightful, if a little empty-headed, G-rated romp earns a 7/10. As a movie. As a Best Picture winner, I think most would agree it falls short of greatness. But if you don't have a place in your heart for a movie this FUN, I don't know what to say.
Great cameos, by the way.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
From Here to Eternity (1953): Shira's Take
Apparently From Here to Eternity was under two hours long. I could not have told you that, though. It felt very long--not necessarily in a bad way. Elements of the story were incredible (Quitting boxing because you've blinded your best friend? Miscarrying your baby because your husband is too drunk to take you to the hospital? Tragic and beautiful!), and the screenplay was really enjoyable. In general, the movie got sappy really easily, but it was intense and powerful (and painful to watch) a fair amount of the time.
Oahu is beautiful (and I'm sure it was much more beautiful in 1941, when the movie takes place, and even in 1952, when I assume the movie was actually filmed). I don't know why they didn't utilize their picturesque surroundings. For a while, I didn't even believe it was filmed in Hawaii. IMDB.com set me straight on that.
Another problem is that the infamous beach making out scene was very, very short. They made out for like a second while water washed over them, then they made out Clark Gable-style (passionate face-eating), and then they got in a fight. Yawn. A plus, though, was that every major character (except, of course, Ernest Borgnine) was played by someone pretty. Montgomery Clift is total eye-candy. Note to myself: Remember the final line of the movie and how odd it was. "Robert E. Lee Prewitt. Isn't that a silly old name?" 7/10
Oahu is beautiful (and I'm sure it was much more beautiful in 1941, when the movie takes place, and even in 1952, when I assume the movie was actually filmed). I don't know why they didn't utilize their picturesque surroundings. For a while, I didn't even believe it was filmed in Hawaii. IMDB.com set me straight on that.
Another problem is that the infamous beach making out scene was very, very short. They made out for like a second while water washed over them, then they made out Clark Gable-style (passionate face-eating), and then they got in a fight. Yawn. A plus, though, was that every major character (except, of course, Ernest Borgnine) was played by someone pretty. Montgomery Clift is total eye-candy. Note to myself: Remember the final line of the movie and how odd it was. "Robert E. Lee Prewitt. Isn't that a silly old name?" 7/10
From Here to Eternity (1953): Eitan's Take
After hearing nothing but scorn for The Greatest Show on Earth and enjoying it wholeheartedly, I should have expected that the critics would be wrong again, and I would find little to like in the universally-acclaimed classic From Here to Eternity. Aside from the smoldering, virile sexuality of lost-puppy Montgomery Clift and a few scenes here and there that reminded me I wasn't watching a C-SPAN documentary on life in the barracks, I think this film is full of highly overrated performances and an aimless plot the likes of which I haven't seen since All the King's Men.
So prettyboy Prewitt is a boxer who is transferred to a fight-loving unit eight miles from Pearl Harbor. For about 90 minutes, the big question is exhaustingly asked over and over again: will he fight? Will he NOT FIGHT? Will some boring people make out on a beach for all of five seconds? Will banal army guys chortle over who's going to become an officer, and what their lives were like back in the States? Will Prewitt's life be made "miserable" by some dude kicking a pail of spit out of a boxing ring? At some points, I would have rather watched these mundane losers do push-ups than participate in their utterly empty pre-war lives.
And the beach scene. The beach scene. Having seen it recreated on posters, on DVD cases, in parodies, in countless "Great Movie Montages," and even in a haunting scene in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, I will never forget the utter disappointment I felt when I witnessed this Great Moment and realized that it was over in a manner of seconds. If the movie wanted to be a bland army procedural, it could have done that just fine -- I've enjoyed plenty of those over the years, including A Few Good Men and the first half of Full Metal Jacket and, hey, why not Striped while we're at it. Or, if the movie wanted to be a romance, it could have gone a little further and shown us some real passion between hunky Burt Lancaster and the ravishing Deborah Kerr. This is supposed to be legendary. Instead, it's little more than one hundred measly frames. I know that during this time, Lucy and Ricky had separate beds and chasteness ruled the day. But this is a plotline about a (supposedly) torrid extramarital affair. Give it some juice or don't show it at all.
One scene, though, completely gripped me, and is responsible for many of the points I gave this film. After Prewitt watches his best friend die in a ditch by the side of the road, he wakes up the next morning to perform Taps on his bugle, in an empty field in the middle of the compound. For a minute, the film stops. We watch a tear stream down his face, soldiers emerge and stand quietly in their doorways and on stairs. We watch the faces of men we know will be going to war in just a few days. There is no doubt in my mind that Frank Darabont was heavily influenced by this scene when he filmed the famous "Marriage of Figaro" scene, when Dufresne plays the opera over the loudspeaker and "for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free." Prewitt's bugle revery is beautiful scene, deserving of a much better movie.
"From Here to Eternity" -- a better description of my boredom than of this film's less-than-lofty ambitions. 5/10.
P.S. You gotta hand it to Fred Zinnemann (whose previous year's nominee, High Noon, is SO much better) for combining the two things the Academy loves best -- war and boxing -- into one movie.
So prettyboy Prewitt is a boxer who is transferred to a fight-loving unit eight miles from Pearl Harbor. For about 90 minutes, the big question is exhaustingly asked over and over again: will he fight? Will he NOT FIGHT? Will some boring people make out on a beach for all of five seconds? Will banal army guys chortle over who's going to become an officer, and what their lives were like back in the States? Will Prewitt's life be made "miserable" by some dude kicking a pail of spit out of a boxing ring? At some points, I would have rather watched these mundane losers do push-ups than participate in their utterly empty pre-war lives.
And the beach scene. The beach scene. Having seen it recreated on posters, on DVD cases, in parodies, in countless "Great Movie Montages," and even in a haunting scene in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, I will never forget the utter disappointment I felt when I witnessed this Great Moment and realized that it was over in a manner of seconds. If the movie wanted to be a bland army procedural, it could have done that just fine -- I've enjoyed plenty of those over the years, including A Few Good Men and the first half of Full Metal Jacket and, hey, why not Striped while we're at it. Or, if the movie wanted to be a romance, it could have gone a little further and shown us some real passion between hunky Burt Lancaster and the ravishing Deborah Kerr. This is supposed to be legendary. Instead, it's little more than one hundred measly frames. I know that during this time, Lucy and Ricky had separate beds and chasteness ruled the day. But this is a plotline about a (supposedly) torrid extramarital affair. Give it some juice or don't show it at all.
One scene, though, completely gripped me, and is responsible for many of the points I gave this film. After Prewitt watches his best friend die in a ditch by the side of the road, he wakes up the next morning to perform Taps on his bugle, in an empty field in the middle of the compound. For a minute, the film stops. We watch a tear stream down his face, soldiers emerge and stand quietly in their doorways and on stairs. We watch the faces of men we know will be going to war in just a few days. There is no doubt in my mind that Frank Darabont was heavily influenced by this scene when he filmed the famous "Marriage of Figaro" scene, when Dufresne plays the opera over the loudspeaker and "for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free." Prewitt's bugle revery is beautiful scene, deserving of a much better movie.
"From Here to Eternity" -- a better description of my boredom than of this film's less-than-lofty ambitions. 5/10.
P.S. You gotta hand it to Fred Zinnemann (whose previous year's nominee, High Noon, is SO much better) for combining the two things the Academy loves best -- war and boxing -- into one movie.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
