The Godfather Part II (1974): Shira's Take

I don't get it. How can anyone possibly think that this movie is better than the Godfather? I honestly think that this movie is worse in every way. No, scratch that. Talia Shire is slightly less annoying in this movie. But Marlon Brando's Vito is way better than Robert DeNiro's (though all that background was definitely interesting), and I'd rather sympathize with Michael than see him as this ice king. In the first movie, you see his amazing transformation, and it's so sad and powerful. Where is the equivalent in the Godfather Part II? Maybe it's like the people whose genetic code makes cilantro taste like soap to them...it's just not in me to understand what's so great about this movie.

In addition to judging it as part of this Godfather saga, I also made sure to keep an open mind and watch it as a movie, separate from the first. As a movie, not as a sequel, it was definitely good. There was a lot of great drama--Robert Duvall's Tom Hagen and Talia Shire's Connie Corleone started to actually feel like substantial characters. And, of course, John Cazale's Fredo. Fredo is really the star of this movie. He is the only character we genuinely feel for. The whole Hyman Roth and Frank Pentangeli business was a little bit hard to follow, and I think I'm gonna have to watch it again to fully grasp it all. I think my favorite scene was when Tom Hagen went to Senator Geary, who had been with a prostitute when she was murdered. It's implied that Michael orchestrated this to get Geary on his side as an ally, and it is just so totally messed up (in a way that I love movies to be).

I think the biggest problem about this movie is that 1958-1959 Nevada is just not as pretty as 1945-early 50s in New York. The colors of the first movie are so much eerier and prettier. Everything about this movie felt very much like my least favorite part of the first movie--when Michael goes to talk to Moe Greene in Vegas. Trashy, bright t-shirts do not mesh well with elegant Sicilian mafia families. The only shots I remember loving in this movie took place in the prequel portion with Robert DeNiro. Anyway, it's an 8/10.

Midnight Cowboy (1969): Shira's Take

This movie won Best Picture? Even for 1969, that's hard to believe. There is just absolutely nothing remotely glamorous or enjoyable to watch. It's painful throughout. From the first moment we know Joe Buck is going to ask a woman to pay him for sex through Rico "Ratso" Rizzo's illness, we the viewers are uncomfortable. But it's really good at that. This movie has the causing pain to its viewers thing down. And honestly, I'm glad I watched it. Though it was made immediately after Dustin Hoffman stopped being adorable (he was deliciously disgusting in this movie), it was also made before Jon Voight's skin began to melt off his face, and he was cute in his naive way. Of course, the ideas about loneliness and friendship were really interesting. And Hoffman really did give an unbelievable performance. I mean, I've seen the majority of his Oscar-nominated performances (all but 1974's Lenny) and this one blew the others away.

Various thoughts on things about the movie: The music was...well, I hate "Everybody's Talkin" so I suppose you know how I felt about the music. There were a number of rather obvious but still enjoyable symbolic camera shots--Rizzo's dead face with the reflection of the palm trees he wanted so desperately to experience comes to mind. The drug-induced hallucination scene was cheesy, but every movie to come out in 1968-1969 was obligated to have one scene that would be more enjoyable on LSD. A better/more depressing movie to come out in 1969 that wasn't even nominated for Best Picture is They Shoot Horses, Don't They? I'm still wondering whether the gay thing was an intended subtext or not. Anyway, it's an 8/10.

West Side Story (1961): Shira's Take

A disclaimer: I absolutely hate Romeo and Juliet. Now, I can appreciate the passion in Zeffirelli's version and the artistry in Luhrman's, but I will never, ever, ever like the story. I hate the two leads, with their doe-eyed teenage idiocy, and I almost always hate anything in which characters fall in "love" at first sight. I am more of a Benedick and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing girl myself (two characters who have known and teased each other forever, and fall in love despite themselves). Keep in mind that any plot based on misunderstandings and poor decisions will frustrate me, and I will therefore only like it to some extent.

Aside from my obvious problems with the plot, I actually have some problems with the songs. Now, don't get me wrong. The memorable songs in this movie are BRILLIANT. "Gee, Officer Krupke", "Tonight", and "I Feel Pretty" are all appropriate, fun, and they all get in your head and stay there for days. This is what songs in musicals should do. Unfortunately, those are about all of them. I had forgotten how many songs are in West Side Story, and how little I care for almost all of them.

Finally, now I can get to the good stuff. I have seen this movie about ten times before, but I tried to get more out of it this time. I paid more attention to the visuals. Clearly, the choreography is phenomenal. One thing I've never paid too much attention to is the use of colors. Good examples include Maria's colorful glass door, which casts warm, bright, multicolored glows on her room, and the amazing cinammon-red underbelly of the overpass below which the rumble occurs (it juxtaposes the grey, dirty walls and ground so perfectly). Also notable is the hip, daddy-o-style camera angles and lighting. Lots of slightly askew shots and dark silhouettes near shadowy fences. Visually, I have one pet peeve. I absolutely hate the blurring of the surrounding areas in the scene where Tony (Richard Beymer) and Maria (Natalie Wood) meet and later, in (I believe) the "Tonight" scene.

The only acting Oscars for which anyone in this movie was nominated were supporting, and they both won: Rita Moreno (who played Anita) and George Chakiris (who played Bernardo). They are seriously the only good performances in the movie. I mean, Russ Tamblyn is entertaining, but not in an Oscar-worthy way, and both Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood are so lame that their performances are just too sappy. Interestingly enough, Natalie Wood WAS nominated for Best Actress that year, except it was for Splendor in the Grass. So, if you ignore the main characters, and if you change the plot completely, but you leave everything else the same, it is a perfect movie. As is, it is less-than-perfect, but still an 8/10

Marty (1955): Shira's Take

To get my one problem with the movie out of the way: If the screenplay has multiple references to the character of Carla (played by Betsy Blair) being a "dog" and looking 35, 40, or even 50 years old, why did the casting department not find someone who would be believable in that role? Betsy Blair looked younger than Ernest Borgnine (who played Marty), which she was supposed to be. She also was significantly better looking than he was, because Ernest Borgnine is a weird-lookin' dude. She was adorable.

Now, on to the good stuff. Very little to say. I liked the screenplay (which, halfway through the movie, when I remembered that Paddy Chayefsky wrote it, made a lot of sense). The movie in general was very cute. That's about it. I smiled a lot, but I don't feel like I'm going to remember this movie so well. This is the second romantic comedy we've watched, after It Happened One Night, and I feel like it has less to it, but it's about as good. A pretty solid 8/10

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.

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

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

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

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

Wings (1927): Shira's Take

I haven't seen very many silent movies (my greatest exposure to them has been the mini-movies in Three Amigos), so I had very little idea what to expect. All I knew going into this movie was that Clara Bow was going to be adorable and that there was supposedly going to be a homoerotic scene. Now, I wasn't blown away, as many techniques (e.g. the shooting star at the end) and plot points in the movie are considered cheesy and old-fashioned nowadays, but I found quite a lot of what I like in modern classics--good acting, interesting characters with deep motivations and passions, and some cool camera shots. Notes to myself: Charles "Buddy" Rodgers (who played fighting ace Jack Powell) looked so much like Robert Downey Jr., only foxier. Richard Arlen (who played richer fighting ace David Armstrong) looked a little bit like Crispin Glover in his well-groomed but creepy phases. Also, Clara Bow looked so hott in her military uniform. All in all, 8/10.