carbonel

These were a double feature in the DVD, so they might as well go in the same post.

Our Hospitality
Director: Buster Keaton and John G. Blystone
1923

This is a silent movie starring Buster Keaton. Which means there's lots of physical comedy (though not necessarily fight scenes), and a romantic subplot. In this case, it's the story of a young man whose mother moved away from a long-running family feud, but who is drawn back in when he receives a letter telling him to claim his inheritance. It turns out that the inheritance is apparently a worthless shack, but in the meantime he falls in love with a girl on the wrong side. The members of her family want to kill him, but the rules of hospitality say they can't do so while he's still in their house. Eventually he leaves, and there's a scene where it appears the girl is going to save his life. (Yay -- female agency!) But this is the 1920s, so she gets herself in trouble and has to be rescued. It all ends happily, with lives saved all around.

Sherlock Jr.
Director: Buster Keaton and Fatty Arbuckle (uncredited)
1924

This movie contains an early example of a film within a film. It's the story of a projectionist/janitor with a Mitty-esque fantasy life, except that he fancies himself as the Great Detective. Through a series of coincidences of the sort that only occur in movies, he ends up solving a real-life crime and (of course) getting the girl.

In both of these, Buster Keaton is what makes the watching worthwhile. He did his own stunts which were beautifully choreographed, and the timing of the acting is impeccable. About the plots, the less said, the better.

Othello
Director: Stuart Burge
1965

I am unable to watch this movie without thinking of the scene (related by another character) where people watching this version of Othello have to be dragged out of the theater because of their hysterics at viewing Laurence Olivier in blackface. Having seen it last week for the first time, I have a certain sympathy with this reaction. I didn't giggle, but I don't think Olivier quite carries it off. He apparently developed his own accent (which sounds like nothing else I've ever heard) and a manner of walking unlike his usual style as well.

Maggie Smith is luminous in the role of Desdemona, and Frank Finlay (whose work I was unfamiliar with) was believably vile in the role of Iago.

Any further gripes I have with the movie go back to William Shakespeare. The racism and sexism fairies are alive and very well in this production, and there's really not much to be done about it without rewriting the source material.

Ordet
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
1955

This is very much the sort of movie I never would have watched if it weren't for the four-star movie project -- black and white, foreign language, primarily about religion, and mostly grimdark.

The cinematography is stark and beautiful and I could appreciate it on that level. But the religious aspects are the sort that bother me the most. The essential message is that if you believe enough, miracles can happen, even though (as everyone in the movie except the madman who believes himself to be Jesus Christ) the age of miracles is past. The converse, of course, is that if you don't get the miracle, it was because you didn't believe enough, so it's all your own fault.

In this movie, the little girl believes enough, and the miracle happens. Grump.

On the Town
Director: Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen
1949

This is complete and total fluff. It takes place in the sort of movie-plot universe where one can find one particular girl (there are no women these sorts of movies) in New York by visiting all the museums, because she likes culture. And where police officers will search all day and night for (and eventually find) three sailors because one of them caused a dinosaur skeleton to fall apart by bumping it in the kneecap.

It also contains one of my major squicks -- the clueless obnoxious roommate who doesn't understand that she's unwanted. Here, she's alternatively played as obnoxious and pathetically grateful when she gets any attention.

I enjoyed the production numbers (which do not generally advance the plot), and I'm glad none of the sailors pledged eternal love to any of the girls they connected with. Mostly this was a cotton candy movie, and I tried to watch it in the spirit it was intended and ignore the almost total gender fail (though all the girls are career girls of sorts, and portrayed as competent).

One, Two, Three
Director: Billy Wilder
1961

This was James Cagney's last major role, and he was great in it. He's onstage about 90% of the time. That said, this was a stupid and obnoxious movie unless you're able to put yourself in the comic book mindset this movie is set in. It's set in the Berlin of 1960, just before the Berlin Wall went up.

All the Americans are greedy and materialistic, and all the Communists are sneaky and either evil or greedy. People change their allegiances at the drop of a hat, and all the main German characters are secret ex-Nazis -- but not very good ones, they quickly assure you.

The timing was unfortunate on this, since once the Berlin Wall was in place, the whole premise didn't seem so funny, and in fact it was initially a box-office flop. However, it was re-released 1985 in France and Germany and became a box office success, especially in West Berlin. Go figure.

(I've been watching a lot of movies over the past week or two, and am trying to catch up on posts about them, so there will be several coming up. Once the new TV season starts, things will slacken up considerably.)

Oliver!
Director: Carol Reed
1968

It's hard to believe that this movie was directed by the same man who directed The Third Man and Odd Man Out. But he did, and he won an Oscar for it.

I love this movie. I saw it when it came out, at the golden age of science fiction 12, so I can't be entirely objective about it. It takes place in in unrealistic movie musical world, even though there are occasional nods to the dark sides Victorian London. I hadn't realized, until I did my homework for this watching, that Mark Lester didn't sing his own songs -- they were dubbed by Kathe Green. That may explain the small singing voice that never seemed to quite fit his spoken voice. But that's a small quibble compared to the color and music and spectacle of this movie.

The Overcoat ("Shinel")
Director: Aleksey Batalov
1959

This is the story of a Russian clerk who, at the end of his career, scrimps and saves to buy a warm overcoat, only to have it stolen from him shortly after he acquires it. It's apparently a faithful adaptation of the Gogol story it's based on. I had to go back and watch the last section of the movie, because what I thought was a dying hallucination turned out to be a genuine haunting.

I'm thankful to the interlibrary loan system for finding me a copy of this movie on VHS. I had to go outside the MNLink system to the national system.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Director: Milos Forman
1975

This film is one of three to have won all five of the top Academy Awards, so you know it was highly regarded from the start. Interestingly, Roger Ebert gave it three stars in his original review, then upgraded it to four stars in a later "Great Movies" review. I can see his point of view at both reviews. From a realistic story point of view, OFOTCN falls down in several places. And yet, it doesn't exactly work as an allegory about the free spirit against the establishment, either.

In fact, I enjoyed the movie most when I viewed it as a classic tragedy. R.P. McMurphy's tragic flaw was also his best characteristic at time: he was impulsive and generous, and lived for the moment. If he'd thought ahead at several places in the movie, he wouldn't have ended up how he did. While the movie has undeniable comic moments, I would never call it a comedy, even a black one.

A Night at the Opera
Director: Sam Wood
1935

This was supposedly the first Marx Brothers movie to actually have a plot, with a male and female romantic lead. There was indeed a plot, as long as you didn't squint at it too closely, but mostly it was an excuse for the Marx Brothers shenanigans. This is the one with the classic stateroom scene, and lots of other set pieces. It doesn't completely jive with my sense of humor, but I'm not enough of a churl to say I didn't enjoy it. It was also a nice break from all the grimdark 4-star movies that came before and after it on my list.

North by Northwest
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
1959

This is a classic idiot plot. It's not the protagonist who's an idiot (mostly), it's everyone around him -- the evil mastermind's henchmen, who fix upon the wrong person as a spy; the evil mastermind, who takes over someone's house and gaslights everyone into believing he owns the place; Eva Marie Saint, who's playing a double agent and nearly kills the protagonist; and the CIA (or some other TLA) guy who cares more about the McGuffin than any of the people involved. All idiots.

Listening to the commentary track by Ernest Lehman (the scriptwriter), it all becomes clear. Both Lehman and Hitchcock were more interested in including a number of set scenes (chase on Mt. Rushmore, attack by cropduster) and having an exciting plot than worrying about any coherence. The theory was that if it moved quickly enough, no one would examine it too closely. Given the popularity, and the fact that it's on my 4-star list in the first place, I guess it worked.