My Movie Challenge

Having trouble motivating the wife to conquer more of the movie list lately. I’m trying to sparse out the “really good” movies that I know are good so that there is always a flick on the horizon that I know will pull her back in. But I’m starting to think I need to go on a run of kick-ass classics that way she’ll perk her interest up to stick through the ones that are obviously supposed to be good (they made the top 100 after all) but that she’s not exactly preening to see.

Our recent viewing was of the surprisingly not-so-great “Rebel Without a Cause” starring James Dean. I know this movie has been used as a cliche and also as a standard-bearer for disillusioned youth (still to this day) but I just couldn’t get my head wrapped around it.

In my mind, I can’t help pointing out all the massively glaring errors in dialogue and plot structure that exist in this movie. It was released in 1955, just a month after Dean’s death, so I can see how his performance and the role became larger than life based on his looks and personality and the circumstances around his death. But there are plenty of other movies released in the 50s that weren’t littered with “what the hell?” moments.

Put simply, the plot is that Dean’s family has moved to a new city and he’s having trouble adjusting. Where it goes off the rails is that he gets involved in no fewer than three shootouts, a visit to the drunk tank, a stabbing and falling in love with a complete stranger all in the span of 24 hours. I’m not kidding. How this range of events take place without someone saying, “Hey, let’s throw in a sunset and sunrise just to give the audience a break or make sure they don’t think California is just a place governed by one long alcohol/drug bender.” Just saying.

There is also a massive plot error that takes place during the final act that I just couldn’t accept and decided “oh why not, everything else makes so little sense in this movie, way to throw magic telepathy powers into the mix as well.” Natalie Wood does her best wet blanket routine, and the other actors are serviceable but this movie was always about Dean, and he’s center frame at all times, and rightfully so. He carries what little common sense the movie has, but he does it well. I just don’t think I’m gonna queue this one up again anytime soon.

My Movie Challenge

The Graduate (1967): For a woman who loves Simon & Garfunkel as much as the wife does, it was stunning to hear her tell me she hadn't seen this movie all the way through. "yeah, there is the great music, the guy gets hit on by the mom and it's kinda creepy and depressing" was her basic summary. I'd like to think she could come up with something stronger for this coming-of-age classic, but at least she had the main themes down pat. Obviously most everyone knows the deal: Dustin Hoffman is a college graduate who has no idea what to do with his life. A family friend (Anne Bancroft) decides to mack on him in every way possible, taking advantage of him and teasing him until he finally buckles and schtoops her. It's weird watching this in 2012 and thinking how weirdly unrealistic this plays out in the movie. Alas, their relationship is destined for drama, and soon enters Bancroft's daughter and Hoffman falls for her in about one day, but not after an epic first date where he originally tries to get the daughter to hate him. It's epic, I tell ya, as far as wickedly cruel first dates go. In the end, a guy and a girl make a crazy decision and you are left never knowing how things ended. After watching it, the wife had two reflections: 1) How crazy it is that the Wayne's World movie recreated nearly every damn scene from this movie without missing a beat and people took that seriously; and 2) Her original summation of the movie was still to the point, only with it being even more depressing than she thought.

My Movie Challenge

Duck Soup (1933): This is up there with All About Eve as an early contender for Most Pleasant Surprise movie in the challenge list. Not sure how this one escaped me, but I didn't know it was a Marx Brothers film, so just seeing the name Duck Soup on the list was a little eye-rolling. We recently only had a short amount of time so we figured this would be a quick hour-long jaunt into something bizarre, but little did we know it would be a journey into sheer nonstop hilarity. This movie was one joke or sight gag crammed into each and every second of the movie. The only time a joke wasn't being cracked was when a line was being uttered by surprise guest appearer Martin Landau, who looks amazingly young in the film and yet the same age as in The X-Files flick at the same time. The film's premise is that Groucho gets made president of a nation on the brink of war. He spends the whole of the film insulting every man, woman and child he comes in contact with, and no one is spared and the jokes cut a wide swath of personal and physical. If you have an hour, this is a tremendous entry into the slapstick comedy genre and one of the gems of this list so far.

My Movie Challenge

Part of the wife and I's movie challenge involves a pretty good number of westerns, something we aren't super big on. Sure, we like Unforgiven and the like, but we're going to have to bang through some desert chatter and John Ford cinematography if we expect to get through the list.

Stagecoach (1939): Our first foray into the western genre wasn't nearly as bad as we'd hoped. In fact, we enjoyed this one a good deal. It has a lot of interesting "Hey!" moments. Like the fact that it is John Wayne's first film appearance ever, and a better story exists in this film than I would have thought. A rag tag group pile into a stagecoach and make their way across Cheyenne-dominant land. Among the crew are a drunken doctor, a corrupt banker, a couple hifalutin socialite types and a prostitute. Oh, and John Wayne. The greatness of the movie is in its simplicity. The story is uncomplicated and while the characters are thinly written, it's got plenty of moments of humor and drama, including a thrilling stagecoach chase that climaxes the film. What I realize in watching this movie is that it has a lot of traits other, probably greater films possess. But it was made in 1939, decades before some of those other films. Orson Welles says Stagecoach was the most perfect piece of filmmaking he'd seen, and this was a movie he watched constantly before making a little film called Citizen Kane. High praise, I'd say.

My Movie Challenge

After a strong start, we haven't kept up a torrid pace to knocking movies off the AFI 100 list. But we did manage to take two off.

It's a Wonderful Life (1942): I could not believe it when the wife told me she hadn't seen this movie from start to finish. We've probably watched A Christmas Story 11,000 times over the years during the Christmas season, but she'd never seen this Jimmy Stewart classic. It's always amazing to watch this and remember how hot Donna Reed was. Stunning lady. If there is someone else besides the wife who hasn't seen this movie yet, just know it's a holiday classic that is must-watch status. Even though it has some cheese ball moments (including some of the hammiest "we're drunk" scenes from guys who are not even remotely intoxicated), there is still some great stuff to think about in this movie. Themes of appreciating what you have, knowing what's important versus what isn't, and don't ever wander across a bridge during a snowstorm are all touched upon. I'm not saying you have to watch this movie instead of seeing Ralphie shoot his eye out, but you could do much, much worse.

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1946): This was a rare one on the list that neither of us had seen. Which is only shocking because it has a lot of singing and dancing, something that I think was drilled into my wife from the moment she exited the birth canal. Ok, maybe that was a little strong. But in any case, it was weird to see that she hadn't at least seen it. I thought it was fiction at first, but learned it's actually the true biographical story of George Cohan, a vaudeville actor who ends up being the biggest badass in Broadway history. This movie charts his life beginning with his family and then making a name for himself. There are about 18 musical numbers in this movie, many of which are war songs that the wife's grandfather absolutely loves and has on CDs that he plays in the house when people are around. Good stuff. I'm not sure if they play this movie during 4th of July or Memorial Day weekends, but they should; it's very patriotic stuff. I'm honestly not sure if I'll ever watch this again because it wasn't the greatest movie I've ever seen (probably why it was the last movie to make the cut on the list), but hey, it did make the list so it means it had to be watched.

My Movie Challenge

It's been a crazy week at work, so we didn't make much progress on the AFI movie challenge this week. Early in the week when my eyes felt like they would burst into flames and my hands were blazing with early onset arthritis, we did take a break to knock one movie off the list.

The first week of the challenge we watched three movies the wife had never seen that I had already viewed before, so this time we reversed it and went with a classic she knew well.

All About Eve: I cannot tell you how surprised I was by how much I liked this movie. It's a great movie starring Bette Davis (the one from the song), some other people I don't know, and features a brief cameo by Marilyn Monroe in her first film (and is sadly a portend of things to come for her). Better Davis plays a popular Broadway star who meets a young woman who is fascinated with the theatre and a huge fan of Davis' character. They become good friends, but as the movie progresses you find that not is all what it seems. I'd tell more, but I was so pleasantly surprised by how the plot evolved and the excellent dialogue that I don't want to give anything away to those who haven't seen it. I'm not stupid, I know they made good movies by in 1950, but I had not heard much of this movie which is what made it such the great surprise thus far of the movie challenge.