Category Archives: Lockdown Edition

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969)

Posted on April 5, 2020 | 7 comments

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
Directed by Sydney Pollock
Written by James Poe and Robert E. Thompson from a novel by Horace McCoy
1969/US
IMDb link
First viewing/Netflix rental

 

[box] Gloria Beatty: Maybe it’s just the whole world is like central casting. They got it all rigged before you ever show up.[/box]

A grueling and inhumane dance marathon stands in for all the misery of the Great Depression.  Not ideal for Lockdown viewing but an excellent film with some great performances.

The film takes place at the height of the Great Depression.  The story is told in flashback though I wasn’t really sure of this until the end.  Desperate people crowd a dance hall to be contestants in a dance marathon in order to win the $1,500 prize, awarded to the last couple standing.  There is a 10 minute break every two hours.  The proceedings are orchestrated by heartless capitalist emcee Rocky (Gig Young).

We meet Gloria Beatty (Jane Fonda) a cynical, disillusioned young woman who is about at the end of her rope.  When her own partner is ruled too sick to participate she pairs up with Robert (Michael Sarrazin). Glamorous Alice (Susannah York) and her partner dream of being scouted for Hollywood during the contest.  The aging “Sailor” (Red Buttons) tries for the prize with his partner.  Farmer James (Bruce Dern) struggles along with his young pregnant wife Ruby (Bonnie Bedalia).

The dance goes on for weeks.  It is interrupted by cruel “Derbies” in which the exhausted contestants are forced to engage in a foot race to keep their spot.  As the story goes on partners change several times.  Sleep depravation drives several people mad.

There is not a ray of hope in this depressing film.  Corruption, greed, exploitation, despair, misery, illness, and death combine in a kind of bad luck soup.  Nonetheless, it was possible to admire the film’s several outstanding performances and its superb production values.

Gig Young won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.  The film was nominated in the categories of Best Director; Best Actress (Fonda); Best Supporting Actress (York); Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration; Best Costume Design; Best Film Editing; and Best Music, Score of a Musical Picture (Original or Adaptation).

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Posted in 1969, Lockdown Edition

Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

Posted on April 5, 2020 | 2 comments

Gold Diggers of 1933
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Written by Erwin Gelsey, James Seymour et al from a play by Avery Hopwood
1933/US
Warner Bros.
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

Trixie Lorraine: Isn’t there going to be any comedy in the show?

Barney Hopkins: Oh, plenty! The gay side, the hard-boiled side, the cynical and funny side of the depression! I’ll make ’em laugh at you starving to death, honey. It’ll be the funniest thing you ever did.

This movie captured my heart the first time I heard Ginger Rogers singing “We’re in the Money” in Pig Latin and I’m still loopy for it decades later. Memo to Hollywood: We need some feel-good escapist fare now as much as we did in the Great Depression. Pitch in!

When a Broadway show runs out of cash during the Great Depression, three chorus-girl roommates are left penniless.  Polly Parker (Ruby Keeler) has fallen in love with songwriter Brad Roberts (Dick Powell) who lives across the way.  Their luck turns when producer Barney Hopkins (Ned Sparks) comes to them with a show about the Depression. Unfortunately he does not have the funds to put it on.  But it turns out that Brad is the heir to a fortune and he becomes Barney’s “angel”, songwriter, and eventually leading man.

Brad’s brother J. Lawrence (Warren William) strongly objects to his involvement in show business and tries to prevent Brad’s marriage to Polly.  Friend Fanuel H. Peabody (Guy Kibbee) believes all show girls are parasites and gold diggers.  The other two roommates, Carol King (Joan Blondell) and Trixie Lorraine (Aline MacMahon), set about proving them wrong about Polly and snagging some wealthy men in the process.  Fay Fortune (Ginger Rogers) tries to attract the men as well.  With Billy Barty as a mischievous baby.

You don’t watch these things for the plot but for the extravagant Busby Berkley numbers and the snappy, naughty banter.  I find this movie to be pure pre-Code bliss.  This was my favorite film of 1933 back at the beginning of this blog.

Gold Diggers of 1933 was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound, Recording.

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 1933, Lockdown Edition, Pre-Code Reviews

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Posted on April 4, 2020 | 8 comments

A Fish Called Wanda
Directed by Charles Chrichton and John Cleese
Written by Charles Chrichton and John Cleese
1988/UK
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

 

[box] Otto West: Apes don’t read philosophy.

Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don’t understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not “Every man for himself.” And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.[/box]

I have a special fondness for this wickedly hilarious movie since I saw it on original release when I worked in London 1988-90.  It made excellent comfort viewing for Lockdown.

As the movie begins, a gang of criminals is planning a jewel heist.  These are mastermind George Thomason; his girlfriend the buxom, seductive, and distracting Wanda (Jamie Leigh Curtis); her assassin “brother” Otto (Kevin Kline) and the stuttering, animal-loving driver Ken (Michael Palen).  The actual robbery goes off pretty well until George is identified by a little-old-lady witness and arrested.  George is the only person who knows the location of the loot.  George’s defense attorney is Archie Leach (John Cleese).

Ken is assigned to kill the eye witness.  Unfortunately, she is only to be found while walking several very unlucky dogs.  Wanda sets about seducing the very married Archie believing that George must have given him the location.  Every attempt is thwarted by the insanely jealous Otto, Wanda’s outrageously stupid and impulsive lover.  Who, if anyone, will end up with the loot?

I had forgotten how much I love this movie.  The fantastic jokes and situations do not deserve to be spoiled.  I absolutely cannot imaging a more perfect cast.  Kline’s performance is one for the ages and certainly merited his Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Most highly recommended if you are in the mood for a good laugh.

The film was also nominated in the categories of Best Director and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.

The trailer made me laugh out loud all over again even though I just saw it yesterday

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, Lockdown Edition

Fargo (1996)

Posted on April 3, 2020 | 4 comments

Fargo
Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
Written by Joel and Ethan Coen
1996/US
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

 

[box] Marge Gunderson: [to Gaear] So, that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there. And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? For a little bit of money? There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Don’tcha know that? And here ya are, and it’s a beautiful day. Well. I just don’t understand it.[/box]

This outrageous, warm, wintry, black comedy/thriller has held up well through the years and made perfect Lockdown viewing.

The film takes place in Minnesota and North Dakota.  Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) is an inept used car salesman and an even more inept crook.  He is in a deep financial hole and his father-in-law (Harve Presnell), who owns the used car lot, hates him.  As near as I can figure out Jerry has taken a big loan using non-existent cars as collateral and is about to face the music.  So Jerry has the brilliant idea of having his wife kidnapped and getting himself out of his mess with a ransom to be paid by his father-in-law.  He hires two unhinged and volatile kidnappers, the non-stop weirdo Carl Showalter (Steve Buschemi) and the silent but extremely violent Gaear Grimsrud).

The kidnapping takes place as per the plan but everything quickly goes to hell.  And pregnant detective Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) is on the case.

I love this movie despite its sometimes gruesome violence.  For me, it is the perfect blend of the amusing and bizarre wrapped up in an engaging police procedureal.  Love those Minnesotan accents!  And the relationship between Marge and her husband.  And the two horrible kidnappers.  And of course Macy and McDormand’s brilliant, hilarious performances.  Highly recommended.

Frances McDormand won a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar and the Coen brothers won for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.  The film was nominated in the categories of Best Picture; Best Supporting Actor (Macy); Best Director; Best Cinematography; and Best Film Editing.

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, Lockdown Edition

Z (1969)

Posted on March 29, 2020 | 2 comments

Z
Directed by Costa-Gavras
Written by Jorge Semprún from of Vasilis Vasilikos
1969/France/Algeria
IMDb link
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

[box] Françoise Bonnot, Voiceover Narration: [final lines] The military regime banned: long hair, miniskirts, Sophocles, Tolstoy, Euripides, Russian-style toasts, strikes, Aristophanes, Ionesco, Sartre, Albee, Pinter, freedom of the press, sociology, Beckett, Dostoyevsky, modern music, pop music, new math, and the letter Z, which means HE LIVES in Ancient Greek.[/box]

Not a comfort watch for Lockdown but a a masterpiece of political cinema.

In an unnamed country (clearly Greece), political feeling is high with a repressive military junta in almost full control.  There is also a leftist opposition party with a peace platform, branded as communist by the junta.  As the film begins, the opposition is attempting to hold a political rally but is denied permission to gather anywhere.  Eventually, “Z” (Yves Montand), an opposition Deputy and respected ex-Olympic athlete, gives a speech over loudspeaker to a crowd made up of military police, rabble rousers, and supporters.  He is struck brutally in the head by hired thugs and eventually dies of his injuries.

Jean-Louis Trintignant plays the prosecutor who tries to find the truth for the remainder of the film.  The violence does not stop.  Several witnesses are murdered.  The prosecutor is subjected to enormous pressure to find the killing an accident.  With Irene Papas, in a nearly wordless but moving performance, as Montand’s wife and Renato Salvatori and Marcel Bozuffi as hired thugs Vago and Yago.

This film beautifully combines ideology with a story that also works superbly as a tense thriller.  Costa-Gavras did a beautiful job here. I think the only movie that equals this one for the realism of its crowd scenes is Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966).  The acting, down to the smallest supporting part, is phenomenal.  The score intensifies the high drama of the thing.  Highly recommended.

Z won Academy Awards for Best Foreign-Language Film and Best Film Editing.  It was nominated for Best Picture (the first time a film was nominated in both the Foreign-Language and Best Picture categories); Best Director; and Best Writing, Best Screenplay Based on Material from another medium.

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 1969, Lockdown Edition

Divine Madness (1980)

Posted on March 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

Divine Madness
Directed by Michael Ritchie
Written by Jerry Blatt, Bette Midler, and Bruce Vilanch
1980/USA
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] I wouldn’t say I invented tack, but I definitely brought it to its present high popularity. — Bette Midler[/box]

Nothing like a Bette Midler concert to get the old blood circulating in the midst of Lockdown.

This is classic Midler from the period not so far away from the days she drew crowds at New York’s gay bathhouses.  She takes raunch and camp to extreme levels, then follows these funny bits with some awesome powerhouse singing.

I enjoyed this so much.  Recommended to fans.

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Posted in Lockdown Edition

Ruthless People (1986)

Posted on March 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

Ruthless People
Directed by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker
Written by Dale Launer, based loosely on a story by O. Henry
1986/US
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

 

[box] Barbara: [seeing the Donald and Daisy Duck masks Ken and Sandy are wearing] Oh my God! I’ve been kidnapped by Huey and Dewey![/box]

I have seen this hilarious comedy several times over the years so I knew it was a perfect candidate for the Lockdown.

Sam Stone (Danny Devito) is a philandering, ruthless, vile fashion tycoon.  He hates his loud, obnoxious wife Barbara (Bette Midler).  He is planning her murder with great relish, revealing all the gruesome details to mistress Carol.  She in turn confides in her moronic lover Earl and they plan to blackmail Sam.  But before Sam can take action, Ken (Judge Reinhold) and Sandy Kessler (Helen Slater), perhaps the nicest and most wholesome couple in America, kidnap Barbara.  Sam had defrauded Sandy of the money she should have made from designing the spandex mini-skirt.

Ken calls Sam and demands $500,000 ransom, threatening to kill Barbara if his instructions are not followed to the letter.  Sam refuses to pay and orchestrates a huge media circus.  He is overcome with glee at this turn of events.  But Barbara is more than a match for Ken and Sandy and they continue to reduce the price.  Then the tables turn in a couple of very interesting and outrageously funny ways.

I love this movie so much.  It’s mean, it’s raunchy, it’s outrageous and it has one hell of a satisfying ending.  Danny De Vito and Bette Midler are just splendid.  If you are looking for a good belly laugh or five, check this one out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVnQlphhuqQ

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Posted in Lockdown Edition

My Night at Maud’s (1969)

Posted on March 26, 2020 | Leave a comment

My Night at Maud’s (Ma nuit chez Maud)
Directed by Eric Rohmer
Written by Eric Rohmer
1969/France
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

 

[box] Maud: You’re the most outrageous person I’ve met. Religion has always left me cold. I’m neither for nor against it. But people like you prevent me from taking it seriously. All that really concerns you is your respectability. Staying in a woman’s room after midnight is dreadful. It would never occur to you to stay because I’m lonely. To establish a slightly less conventional relationship even if we should never meet again. This I find stupid – very stupid and not very Christian.[/box]

Perfect fare if you feel like thinking deep thoughts or exploring the human condition during Lockdown.

Jean-Louis (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is a thirty-something engineer with a penchant for philosophy and mathematics.  He has just moved to a new town. He’s a practicing Catholic and becomes smitten with a beautiful blonde, Christine, who he sees every Sunday at mass.  It takes him awhile to build up to introducing himself.

One night, he meets an old friend, Vidal, who invites him to come with him to see his ex-girlfriend Maud (Francoise Fabian).  Jean-Louis agrees.  Maud is a free-thinking, sensual, agnostic divorcee.  Vidal, a Marxist, and Jean-Louis, a Christian, get involved in a long talk about Pascal’s Wager.  Pascal’s wager is a decision whether to “bet” on the existence of God and believe and live as if God exists or to “bet” that God does not exist and live accordingly.  Pascal argues that all rational people should bet that God exists, even if the odds are slim, because the rewards and risks are infinite (eternity in Heaven vs. eternity in Hell).  The belief that God does not exist carries only finite benefits and inconveniences.  Maud seems to be highly amused by the conversation. Eventually, Vidal leaves and Maud invites Jean-Louis to spend the night.  It is a very awkward and chaste evening.

Immediately after this encounter, Jean-Louis tracks down Christine and introduces himself. He finds she is not the innocent virgin he thought but that does not stand in the way of their courtship.  Maud moves away.

Years pass.  Jean-Louis and Christine are now married with a small child.  They go to the beach and run into Vidal and Maud.  It is an awkward encounter but all the participants respond to it with grace.

Someday I will figure out how Pascal’s wager informs the plot of this film.  There’s a lot of decision making going on here and I just know Pascal gets involved somehow.  This is not the day for that.  I love this movie for its thought-provoking story, beautiful actors, beautiful France, and beautiful ideas.  Highly recommended.

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 1969, Lockdown Edition

A New Leaf (1971)

Posted on March 25, 2020 | 10 comments

A New Leaf
Directed by Elaine May
Written by Elaine May from a story by Jack Ritchie
1971/US
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

 

Henry Graham: You dare call me a son of a bitch? Madam, I have seen many examples of perversion in my time, but your erotic obsession with your carpet is probably the most grotesque and certainly the most boring I have ever encountered. You’re more to be scorned than pitied. Good day, Mrs. Cunliffe.

Combine Elaine May’s wit and Walter Matthau playing totally against type and you get a hilarious and heartwarming comedy for the Lockdown.

Henry Graham was a trust-fund baby and employs “gentleman’s gentleman”, Harold.  He has blown through both the income and principal of the fund and is now pennyless. Harold suggests he solve his financial problems by marrying wealth.  Henry seizes on this, secretly harboring the idea of staging an accidental death after the ceremony.  He is reduced to begging a loan from his former trustee on a bet that he can find and marry a suitable woman within six weeks.  His search does not start well.

Finally, with less than a week to go, he spots wallflower Henrietta Lowell at a tea party. She is plain, gauche, friendless, and is a walking disaster area.  In a word – perfect.  Henry throws on the charm and sweeps her off her feet.  She clearly adores him.  He tries to disguise his contempt for her.  Wedding bells are ringing before the week is over,

A proposal over Mogen-David Extra-Heavy Malaga Wine with lime and soda. LOL

Never ceasing his research on how to get away with murder, Henry takes over Henrietta’s household, rapidly firing the servants that have been robbing her blind. He can’t quite find the opportunity he seeks.

Henrietta is a noted professor of botany.  Her dream is to discover a new species of fern. The two take a field trip to an isolated spot to look at plants.  What better place to have an accident?  With a hilarious Jack Weston as Henrietta’s frantic lawyer.

This movie is one truly funny moment after another.   May was responsible for the witty dialogue, the solid camera work, and an absolutely hilarious performance.  It might be hard to imagine Walter Mattau as the effete, arrogant snob type but he carries it off with aplomb.  My favorite scene is during the wedding night when Henrietta puts her head through the armhole of a toga nightgown and Henry tries to unravel her.  Highly recommended, including to those putting together a 1971 films list.

Clip – Henry’s search for a spouse

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Posted in Lockdown Edition

Groundhog Day (1993)

Posted on March 24, 2020 | 4 comments

Groundhog Day
Directed by Harold Ramis
Written by Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis
1993/US
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

 

[box] Phil: There is no way that this winter is *ever* going to end as long as this groundhog keeps seeing his shadow. I don’t see any other way out. He’s got to be stopped. And I have to stop him.[/box]

This movie’s clever premise and strong screenplay have aged beautifully.

Phil (Bill Murray) is a cynical, conceited TV weatherman who detests his job.  The worst part is going to Punxsutawney, PA every February 2 to report on the emergence of groundhog Punxsutawney Phil.  According to legend if Phil sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. This year he is accompanied by cameraman Larry (Chris Elliot) and beautiful, wholesome producer Rita (Andie MacDowell).  Both of them are fed up with Phil. A blizzard forces the trio to stay the night.

Then the movie proper begins.  Every day becomes Groundhog Day.  Phil awakens to exactly the same song and announcer each morning and meets the same people over and over.  He tries everything he can think of, including attempted self-destruction, but nothing works.  No, Phil must live the same day until he gets it right.

I love this movie.  The acting, particularly Murray’s, is excellent and the dialogue is perfection.  It combines romance and silliness in a totally original way and leaves the viewer with hope for the human race.  Highly recommended in these times of trial.

Inexplicably, this film was nominated for zero Academy Awards.

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, Lockdown Edition