GODS
MUST BE CRAZY, THE (1 hr & 49 min, color, 1980)
A low budget masterpiece that mixes side-splitting
farce, romance, outdoor adventure and pungent social satire into a most
delectable and well-balanced combination!
The central character is an African Bushman who in his travels across
the country to exorcise a curse, gets involved in white society’s alien system
of justice, in the terrors of assassins on the run, in the work of scientists
studying wild life and in the lives of two Caucasians who may be falling in
love. These disparate elements are
handled at an enlivening pace and with aplomb by a genius of a director named
Jamie Uys.
GONE
WITH THE WIND (3 hrs & 40 min, color, 1939)
Margaret Mitchell’s romance is set in Georgia during
and after the American Civil War, her chief character Scarlett O’Hara (Vivian
Leigh), the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner, reduced by the war to
poverty and a fight for survival. Clark
Gable is the devil-may-care war profiteer who fights what seems a losing battle
for her affections, and Leslie Howard is the brooding aristocrat over whom
Scarlett obsesses. Olivia de Havilland
and Hattie McDaniel also provide great supporting substance. Director Victor Fleming comes forth with a
rich, luscious, thoroughly entertaining narrative.
GRADUATE,
THE (1 hr & 45 min, color, 1967)
Mike Nichols turns Charles Webb’s book about a
college grad (Dustin Hoffman) befuddled about his future into an unforgettable
movie experience. Smothered by family
expectation, he is driven into an unlikely affair with a devious older woman (Anne
Bancroft), and soon falls for her daughter (Katherine Ross). Out of this dilemma a superb dead pan
comedy/drama is constructed, ranging from hilarious to savagely serious to
dolefully sad without ever losing its balance.
And contributing immensely to the poignancy of it is the vocal score by
Simon and Garfunkel. Wow!
GREAT
ESCAPE, THE (2 hrs & 53 min, color, 1963)
Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, James Garner,
and Charles Bronson are all at their best in what is probably the most exciting
escapade about prisoners of war to come out of the movie world. A mass escape from a German stalag during
World War II and its frenzied aftermath fill up almost three hours of viewing
time – and justifiably. Not a frame of
celluloid is superfluous. The film,
keenly directed by John Sturges, is a model of pacing, editing, tone perfection
and photography, and the writing deftly alternates between lightweight
cat-and-mouse shenanigans and tense, chilling reminders of war’s high stakes. And does it deliver!!!
GROUNDHOG
DAY (1 hr & 43 min, color, 1993)
A bored and burned out weatherman (Bill Murray)
finds himself reliving the same day of his life over and over again, as he
covers an annual groundhog ceremony in a Pennsylvania town. His deadpan, cheeky and oddball reactions to
the experience comprise great comedy, with Andie MacDowell providing a nice
soft spot in the role of the TV station assistant who falls for him. How the repetition of events and the turns he
takes change him and others around him forever is worth all of one’s emotional
investment. A prize from every angle!
HELP,
THE (2 hrs & 15 min, color, 2011)
Kathryn Stockett’s novel, set in
Mississippi early in the Civil Rights movement, focuses upon a black domestic
and nanny named Abileen (a magnificent Viola Davis) who with some reluctance
shares the story of her drab life with a white woman journalist (Emma Stone)
and shakes things up for three white households. Her willingness to be interviewed inspires other
black women to step forth. It turns out
to be a tale of exploitation, injustice and extraordinary courage, at once
heart-wrenching but ultimately heart-warming.
Sharp direction and adaptation by Tate Taylor!
HIGH
NOON (1 hr & 25 min, b&w, 1952)
A retiring U.S. marshal (Gary Cooper) is deserted on
his wedding day by everyone in town including his new Quaker bride (Grace
Kelly), when he decides to face off with, instead of run from, old adversaries
seeking revenge. Left without deputies,
he makes out his last will and testament and goes to meet his enemies
alone. Before this we are focused upon a
passel of vivid characters, all revealing volumes about themselves in a
life-or-death crisis. The script is ever
so lucid, sounding out ideas about justice, social priorities and the essence
of honor. Admittedly my favorite
western!
HOURS,
THE (1 hr & 54 min, color, 2002)
Michael Cunningham’s novel combines fact and
fiction, challenging old notions about emotional extremities and how to
confront them. In three separate stories
we meet three women: the author Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) embattled with
chronic depression; a 1950s housewife and mother (Julianne Moore) too
emotionally crippled to fulfill either role; and a 21st century gay
woman (Meryl Streep) trying to rejuvenate the defeated spirit of a former male
lover (Ed Harris) dying of AIDS. The
screenplay interweaves these narrative threads most ingeniously and with
lyrical loveliness.
HUD
(1 hr & 52 min, b&w, 1963)
An orphan kid (Brandon de Wilde) must choose between
the respectable values of his Texas rancher grandfather (Melvyn Douglas) and
those of his dissolute Uncle Hud (Paul Newman).
A tough, muscular drama, based upon a Larry McMurtry novel, and
concerned with a deep-seated father-son rivalry! A hoof and mouth epidemic brings the domestic
sore to a head. Newman and Douglas are
tremendous, and Patricia Neal is quite infectious as an emotionally victimized
housekeeper. We are led gently into
this den of distress by the deft touch of Director Martin Ritt.
HUSTLER,
THE (2 hrs & 15 min, b&w, 1961)
The Faust legend is brought into the pool hall in
Director Robert Rossen’s masterful drama of a soul in turmoil. Our lead character is Fast Eddie (Paul
Newman, never better), king of the pool table in his own back alley, until he
takes on reigning champion Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason), not knowing that in
so doing he also takes on a scurrilous racketeer (George C. Scott) who owns
Fats and demands the Devil’s due. Piper
Laurie is super-terrific as Eddie’s souse-y but wise and tragic girlfriend. The total script is inspired and everything
about the production clicks.
THE
IMITATION GAME (1 hr & 54 min, color, 2014)
Alan Turing was a mathematician who
broke a vital Nazi code called Enigma to enable the Allies to win World War II,
his story suppressed for decades for security reasons. Bernard Cumberbatch gives an ingenious
probing portrayal of him as a socially awkward and standoffish but persistent
man in the face of his critics. Triumph
gave way to tragedy after the war when the discovery of his homosexuality led
to his disgrace and eventual suicide at 41.
Graham Moore won an Oscar for the pithy and potent screenplay. An affair of the heart as well as the
scientific mind!
IN
AMERICA (1 hr & 43 min, color, 2002)
We have here the most deeply moving tale of
immigrants to our shores ever filmed, for my money. The Irish family – husband, wife and
daughters 10 and 7 – must face life in a substandard, drug infested tenement in
NYC. The crosspollination of their
struggle with that of an African American man dying of AIDS leads to some small
miracles. Every scene, every setup,
artistically and cinematically, is itself a miracle at the hands of
Director/Writer Jim Sheridan. The story
makes me cherish everything that is dear to me.
A very special, sensitively conceived human drama!
IN
THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1 hr & 50 min, color, 1967)
Sidney Poitier is a proud, professionally competent
northern police detective who shows bigoted Mississippi town sheriff Rod
Steiger how to solve a murder and throws Jim Crow racism back into the redneck
teeth with a flourish. Director Norman
Jewison and Screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, working from a John Ball novel,
are our benefactors. The film is full of
high tension face-offs, and almost every scene is memorable. The African American male image in movies has
never been the same since this one was released in 1967. It grabs and just will not let go.
INSIDER,
THE (2 hrs & 37 min, color, 1999)
Russell Crowe plays Jeff Wigand, the man who blew
the whistle on Philip Morris for 60 Minutes after the company fired him. Al Pacino plays Lowell Bergman, a CBS
official who enrolls Wigand into telling all and gets entangled in a dilemma of
his own. Christopher Plummer plays the
much involved Mike Wallace with uncanny accuracy. Questions are raised in this superior
docudrama that defy easy answers – about free speech and privileged
communication. And it is handled with good
pacing and well-balanced, coherent scripting under Michael Mann’s firm direction.
INHERIT
THE WIND (2 hrs & 7 min, b&w, 1960)
Stanley Kramer’s excellent adaptation of the hit
play, a fictional enlargement upon a factual event – the famous Scopes trial of
the 1920s in a Tennessee town! A public
school teacher (Dick York) is arrested for introducing his class to Darwin’s
theory of Evolution. Spencer Tracy fills
the shoes of the Darrow-like defense and Fredric March is the Bryan-like
prosecutor. Both men are
tremendous. Gene Kelly is the cynical
Mencken-like journalist covering the big story.
Thought-provoking, ironically humorous, eloquent, explosive and
uplifting! What a feast!
To
read other entries in my blog, please consult its website: enspiritus.blogspot.com. To learn about me consult on the website the
blog entry for August 9, 2013.
No comments:
Post a Comment