Wednesday, March 31, 2010

An American in Paris (1951)


So it was bound to happen. I didn't think it would happen so early on, but that's life. I saw a movie I did not like.

I sat down to watch An American in Paris with a half-paying attention Rachel. The NetFlix sleeves said this film won 7 Academy Awards, so I'm under the pretense that I'm in for a fun night.

Yes, the scenery is gorgeous (I mean it's Paris, so you can't really go wrong). Yes, Gene Kelly is very charming (my wiki of him didn't turn up any dirt about alcoholism or child abuse so points there), but OH MY GOD what a silly movie. The last 'dance/daydream' scene literally felt like it lasted for an hour. I mean who daydreams in DANCE??? Especially what STRAIGHT MAN daydreams in DANCE???

Also who falls in love in like 4 seconds?? The whole thing just made me pissy. There are basically 2 story lines going on, Gene's love for this annoying french girl and this rich skanks love of Gene's stupid art. In the last scene (which lasts for about 2 seconds) Gene gets the girl (BIG SURPRISE THERE). And the semi-interesting story line of the art skank never follows through. The movie just ends. Thank god though because I don't think I could have handled any more tap dancing or day dream dancing.

UGH!

Monday, March 29, 2010

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)


Wow, okay so I can't really be cute with this one.

The movie does a superb job of taking the book and illustrating the horrors of war for this group of young Germans. I read the book in high school and remembered really liking it even though sadly I do know know many details about WWI. I regret taking World History courses by correspondence because I really have little knowledge on the subject (Alex's wisdom for kids: History is worth taking with a real live teacher!!)

I remember from reading the book that any character you became attached to would be killed in the next few pages. Same goes for the movie. It by no means paints a pretty picture of what war is like.

I think the hardest part of the movie is seeing these men realize what they've gotten themselves into. It's just heart breaking to watch the soldiers lose their minds, limbs, lives, etc. because they were convinced to fight in a war they really didn't know anything about.

Of the few Top 100 movies I've seen I will definitely reccommend this one to everyone. If you don't have a lot of knowledge about war and you want to catch a glimpse of just how truly awful it is definitely check this one out.

Friday, March 26, 2010

The African Queen (1951)


Update: I finally got the DVD player to work! I think a wire was loose?? No, not in my head but an actual electric wire. Well most likely my head too...


I was very happy to have some other stupid person to watch the movie with this time around. Not just any stupid person, but my partner in crime in stupidity: my wife, Rachel. She's a good person to watch a movie with because most of the time we have no idea what's going on and we are comfortable enough with each other to ask really dumb questions.


First dumb question "Is that Humphrey Bogart? I swear he was hotter." Things then went from silly to downright idiotic when literally towards the very end of the movie I finally realized that it was the name of the ship that was "The African Queen" and not just some hot African cross-dresser they would meet later.


GREAT, GREAT MOVIE! It's a love story on one hand, but it's also got like a 'Heart of Darkness' theme going on. The dialogue is between two characters for almost the entire film and oddly it doesn't grow tiring (and I swear half of the dialgogue is Katharine Hepburn saying "MR. ALLNUT".)


The two characters transform into awesome people that even I would want to hang out with by the end of the film.Rosie teaches Charlie that sobriety won't kill him, he teaches her that being more adventurous won't kill her. By the end of the movie, there is so much love you just want to hug someone.


My favorite part is the very very last scene where Rosie and Charlie have just escaped their deaths after being wed by a German officer. Being completely romanticly jaded I figure Charlie would just make a swim towards land forgetting ol' Rosie in the sea but in the corniness of the times they actually are excited to spend the rest of their days together and swim back together.


Oh Sigh...

Sunday, March 21, 2010

All About Eve (1950)


It took me a while to get around to watching #2 movie, All About Eve. I ended up seeing the movie at approximately 3:30 in the morning while eating half-cooked tortellini. This combination I do not recommend.

Bette. Davis.

Sigh. I see that name and I immediately hear "She's got Bette Davis eyes" and I think of one of the scariest movies I saw growing up: Whatever happened to Baby Jane? This combination I do not recommend. Eek!

Basically Bette Davis scares the crap out of me. She plays the part of an aging alcoholic a little too well. On the other hand I heart Bette Davis. She's so real and shrill. She gets you excited for becoming a nut job.

The story line is a woman's nightmare. The insecurity of getting older and the paranoia that hot thangs can easily replace you. The young hot thang, Miss Eve Harrington, is played by Anne Baxter. She is pretty annoying and talks really slow. Blahhh Blahhh Blahhh. Turns out she's a bit of a psycho too. You pretty much have to be to get in Bette Davis's way.

Best part of movie, Margo's (Bette) birthday party for her man, her utter drunkeness and bossing people around. I can't say I haven't been there. "Play the song another time" "But you're putting everyone to sleep and we've already played it 3 times" "Well we can hear it a fourth time."

Brillant.


Tuesday, March 16, 2010

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

I am watching my first top 100 film. I am loving life. I've seen the Disney version of Robin Hood many times, so I've pretty much already memorized the story. Basically a bunch of forest animals are helping a fox steal some gold coins so he can run away with this foxey fox and save the rain forest, right?

Huh?

I am immediately turned on to the scenery of the movie. Very medieval Sleeping Beauty-esque (maybe I watch too many Disney movies??) I am caught off guard when I see that there are no foxes or bears but actual human actors! Did the producers do their research right?

So out comes a strapping young man in green tights, our hero, SIR ROBIN HOOD! Woah, I'm temporarily distracted because that Robin Hood is hawtttt, dayumm. My mind races and I have to pull out my iphone to do some wikiing. Perhaps Robin Hood aka Errol Flynn is still alive, happens to live in NY, and needs a new Maid Marion (I could SO be her!!)

Errol Flynn: Errol Leslie Flynn (20 June 1909[1] – 14 October 1959) DAMNIT, all the good ones are dead. That's okay though because I can still pretend like he was my soul mate from another life. I read on "At the age of 20 he moved to New Guinea where he bought a tobacco plantation, a business which failed. A copper mining venture in the hills near the Laloki Valley, behind the present national capital, Port Moresby, also failed." Well you have to admire a man for trying! I mean he eventually became an actor, a LEADING actor. His failures are probably what made him succeed in the end, right? "Flynn had a reputation for his womanizing, consumption of alcohol and brawling. His freewheeling, hedonistic lifestyle caught up with him in November 1942 when two under-age girls, Betty Hansen and Peggy Satterlee, accused him of statutory rape." Did not see that coming...wow I have really bad taste in actors apparently. I mean he looked so sweet, I know he wasn't acting!...

So now I have to watch this movie with swirling thoughts of alcoholism, womanizing and such. I guess he's probably no different than any other actor. Frowny face.

I'm pleasantly surprised that I do know one actress in the film. The very pretty Olivia de Havilland who was in 'Gone with the Wind' and a bunch of other movies that I can't think of now, or ever...awkward silence. I do a little wiki on her and find out she was 22 in this movie. Great, I feel so unaccomplished now.

The movie is wonderful in every way. The costumes are beautiful. The battles are awesome! Seriously did they have stunt doubles back then? I mean ol' alkie Robin is doing all sort of crazy tricks and it's quite amazing. Marion just kind of hangs out but she's so pretty that I don't really blame her. Robin and Marion fall in love after like 5 seconds. It's fantastic.

My favorite scene is when King Richard finally makes an appearance disguised as a priest, rips off his cloak, and declares he's going to kick his baby bro's Norman ass. If you don't know what a Norman is...well don't ask me any details, but I do know they don't like the Saxons... I think it all has to do with English history or that Dungeons and Dragons game. You decide.

Well I don't think a review for Robin Hood has ever been delivered so eloquently.

Now onto..."All About Eve"...who I actually know nothing about...(second on list is really The African Queen but NetFlix says I have to wait until 3/23 for it to come out.)

Half the battle is getting there...

I was so excited to watch the first of the Top 100 movies, The Adventures of Robin Hood (trumpets trumpetting). I rushed home, cooked dinner, and stuck in the DVD.

Okay let’s actually rewind back…

So I spent the past weekend seething at the TV because I couldn’t find which inputs the DVD and Cable are on (there are freaking 9 inputs…by the way I have no idea what input means…that’s just what the button says.)

I’ve figured out the sacred ‘input code’ in the past and then repeated the input name 3 times in my head, but it never stuck. I mean what is ‘Component 1’ or ‘AV2’ supposed to mean to me?? They should be named after famous Celebrities or something that I might remember. Tom Cruise for DVD, Bill Cosby for TV, etc.

After playing around with the controller I finally found the right inputs and in a moment of sheer genius/frenzied anger I wrote down the inputs I needed to know on a post-it and placed it by my TV. I had a system! I was making progress!

Back to the movie…

I turn on the TV and search for ‘AV2’ (that’s what was written on the post-it for DVD). It takes forever for the inputs to change and then I see that there is ‘No Signal.’ What the? I press play for DVD, nothing happens. I take out the disc, clean disc, insert disc, press play, nothing happens. I go through each input AGAIN and there is no DVD player to be found. Really? No, really?

I sometimes regret buying my DVD player at the dollar store down stairs, but it was really convenient and I feel like a total baller when I can roll up into the dollar store and buy whateva I wantt.

Well for now TV is out of the question. Rachel’s computer doesn’t have a DVD player...no I've never used her computer. My computer does but the only DVD that ever works on it is ‘Wedding Crashers.’ (No complaints there.)

I half-jokingly put the movie in my computer. Miraculously the DVD works! Thanks a lot Steve Jobs!

And so begins my adventure with Robin Hood…

Saturday, March 13, 2010

The Desicion

Having run out of new How I Met Your Mother dvd's to add to my NetFlix queue, I thought to myself maybe I'll give a movie a shot. I don't know why, but for some reason I really do not like to watch new movies. I get ADD just thinking about sitting for 2 hours to watch a movie.

I've seen a lot A LOT of stupid movies. I think seeing 'Summer Catch'**in theatres made me start disliking movies. 'Just my luck'** made me cringe at the movie industry. 'Cheaper by the Dozen'** made me lose all hope in Hollywood.

There are good movies out there. My mom has talked about them. My mom is right about everything.

I make a decision. I'm going to find a list of the top 100 films, and I'm going to watch every film, and it's going to be awesome, and I'm going to write about the films, and in the process I will become a movie asshole because it's funny and completely obnoxious, and I love to hate completely pompous artsy fartsies.


First movie: The Adventures of Robin Hood


**Now that I think about it I saw all these movies with my roommate Rachel. Note to self: don't see movies with Rachel, unless Meryl Streep is in it.