AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2 - Page 14

Lew Crippen · 06-09-2008, 11:08 AM

Shocking! Four hundred bottles of vintage port in the cellar and barely five months to go.

I think it needs another year actually.

I blame the wine committee very much. Very much indeed! Should have had more foresight. How can the members be expected to get through four hundred bottles in five months?

A discourse between two members of the stuffiest club in Melbourne as they (and everyone) wait for the winds and currents to bring the radiation and fallout (and subsequent sickness and certain death) from WWIII to the earth’s last survivors. Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner star as star-crossed lovers (but then again, who is not star-crossed in this plot) who come together briefly and must part even sooner than death would take them.

On the Beach made from Nevil Shute’s novel of the same name caused a lot of controversy and discussion when it was released in 1959, but as the possibility of nuclear war and the destruction off all mankind has had many, more satisfactory treatments, the only reason to watch it now is of historical interest, as everything is trite and predictable.

Adam_S · 06-09-2008, 11:17 AM

The Sea Wolf - 5 of 10
stars list - Edward G Robinson

Edward G Robinson is very good, but for being the titular role he's more of a supporting character, and the rest of the story is haphazard and uneven. Curtiz's direction is nice, I especially liked the bit where the ships boat heads out to the Ghost and as it disappears into the background mist and the steamboat cuts through the foreground and the camera cuts into the steamboat passengers. The script's plotting is really weak, and the horning in of a 'gotta-have-a-girl' subplot is thematically stupid and causes all sorts of awkward issues, likewise for the plotting of the ships doctor. Tremendously uneven but with a fair ear for dialogue that allows supporting players like Ida Lupino, John Garfield and Barry Fitzgerald to do fairly well. There is a secondary lead with an upper-crust accent who is extremely boring. But mainly this is interesting for Robinson. and the opening bit where a couple guys are pressganged onto his ship.

The Ghost is a seal ship no one wants to work on. Edward G Robinson is it's skipper a half-mad, very intelligent hard scrabble man. He's on the run from his brother (the script is very vague on this point despite it being relatively important to the plot). Meanwhile a couple people from a shipwrecked steamboat get picked up by the Ghost. Will the men mutiny against a tyrannical master? hmm...

done with the men's stars list.

Lew Crippen · 06-10-2008, 09:04 AM

Out of the cradle, endlessly rocking

Having seen all of the AFI 100 movies and our revote, I have not commented on the movies added to the list in 2007. Most of these of course are already included in other AFI lists, but not all, Intolerance being but one.

Once you get past the limitations of the day (1916) the complexity of this work emerges as a seamless whole. By the time we get to the last 15–20 minutes, the artifice of the various story lines disappears and the increased tempo of the cross-cutting just sweeps the viewer along to the conclusion.

I do feel that the coda could have been discarded.

Lew Crippen · 06-10-2008, 09:20 AM

He was sweeping!

Although this refers to the town simpleton (accidentally run over by a car)in The Last Picture Show. It also sums up life in Larry McMurty’s dwindling, small Texas town of the 1950s. There is high school football (and the team is not much good), feeble attempts at teen-age sex and real desultory affairs and not much else.

Peter Bogdanovich has perfectly captured the author’s vision of Anarene, Texas and Cybil Shepard brings frustrated Jacy to life in her first role (the rest of the cast is also perfect, Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cloris Leachman and Ellen Burstyn). A coming of age story, where there is nowhere to go when one grows up—except perhaps to Korea.

I’ll see you in a year or so, if I don’t get shot.

Lew Crippen · 06-10-2008, 09:48 AM

I will take the Ring to Mordor—though I do not know the way.

I love all the books and all of the movies—but The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is, by itself, not so finely realized, nor as great as all of the Ring movies taken as a whole. Director Peter Jackson has done an outstanding job of bringing J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic trilogy to life, but in the end this is a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The Academy was right to withhold the Oscar until the trilogy was complete—and right to award it when it was.

Lew Crippen · 06-10-2008, 10:12 AM

Don't you see, Sophie? We're dying.

Meryl Streep’s is at her best as Sophie in Sophie’s Choice based on William Styron’s novel of the same name. A concentration camp survivor, Sophie finds a new life in America, a new love and rekindled compassion for one who loves her, but in the end, none of this is enough to make up for the horrors of the past.

While for me, the novel is unsurpassed, the Pakula’s version comes close enough to Styron that I was content.

Lew Crippen · 06-10-2008, 10:43 AM

You are a child’s plaything

And so is everything in Toy Story, surprisingly fine, computer-animated Walt Disney movie that is nearly as excellent as anything the studio produced in its golden era. Joss Whedon (among others) wrote the ‘buddy’ story set in a playroom.

Lew Crippen · 06-10-2008, 10:53 AM

Here are my ratings for the I 2007 Top 100 Movies, based on a 4 star scale (4=masterpiece; 3=’must-see’; 2=worth seeing; 1=has redeeming feature(s):

Ben-Hur

Deer Hunter, The
In the Heat of the Night
Sixth Sense, The
Sound of Music, The
Swing Time
Titanic
Tootsie

12 Angry Men
African Queen, The
All About Eve
All the President's Men
Annie Hall
Best Years of our Lives, The
Blade Runner
Bonnie & Clyde
Bridge on the River Kwai, The
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Cabaret
Clockwork Orange, A
Double Indemnity
E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
Easy Rider
French Connection, The
Godfather, The
Gone with the Wind
Graduate, The
Grapes of Wrath, The
High Noon
It Happened One Night
King Kong
M*A*S*H
Maltese Falcon, The
Midnight Cowboy
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Night at the Opera, A
Philadelphia Story, The
Psycho
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Rocky
Saving Private Ryan
Shane
Silence of the Lambs, The
Spartacus
Star Wars
Streetcar Named Desire, A
Taxi Driver
To Kill a Mockingbird
Toy Story
Unforgiven
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Yankee Doodle Dandy

2001: A Space Odyssey
American Graffiti
Apartment, The
Apocalypse Now
Bringing Up Baby
Casablanca
Chinatown
Citizen Kane
City Lights
Do the Right Thing
Dr. Strangelove
Duck Soup
Forrest Gump
General, The
Godfather Part II, The
Gold Rush, The
Goodfellas
Intolerance
It's a Wonderful Life
Jaws
Last Picture Show, The
Lawrence of Arabia
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The
Modern Times
Nashville
Network
North by Northwest
On the Waterfront
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Platoon
Pulp Fiction
Raging Bull
Rear Window
Schindler's List
Searchers, The
Shawshank Redemption, The
Singin' in the Rain
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Some Like it Hot
Sophie's Choice
Sullivan's Travels
Sunrise
Sunset Boulevard
Treasure of Sierra Madre, The
Vertigo
West Side Story
Wild Bunch, The
Wizard of Oz, The

Adam_S · 06-10-2008, 11:01 AM

Tales of Manhattan - 10 of 10
Stars list - Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth, Charles Boyer, Henry Fonda, Ginger Rogers, Charles Laughton, Edward G Robinson, WC Fields, Paul Robeson and more. This film has a hell of a cast and is beautifully directed by Julien Duvivier. It's also an anthology film that works both as short films and as a cohesive feature. The script(s) are absolutely fabulous and the whole film is a constantly charming delight.

A coat-with-tails arrives for a gentleman's important evening out, but the tailor nervously reveals to the valet that one of his tailors cursed the coat as he quit his job. the valet brushes this off. Cut to the gentleman getting shot. Then the curtain falls and Charles Boyer pops right up to take his curtain call. But he's not taking another curtain call he's off to an important party--he simply must brag to his former costar and lost love that he opened a hit without her. and He secretly hopes that this triumph will bring her back into his good graces, despite the annoyance of her being married now. Married to a gun collector and big game hunter who is somewhat drunk tonight. Rita Hayworth plays his old co-star and she is outstanding as she handles numerous transitions the script requires her to undergo. She's standoffish and icy, she melts, she's passionate, torn, foolish, panicy, conniving, sly and stunned. It's a pretty nice role for about fifteen minutes of screen time, and she's excellent in it.

From here the jacket is quickly passed on to another fellow. it becomes a very important spare coat to a philandering fool on the day of his wedding. Ginger Rogers is his affianced and Henry Fonda is the best buddy he calls in to save him when she discovers a love note from his paramour, 'Squirrel', in his pocket. Fonda uses the spare coat to pretend that he accidently grabbed the wrong coat the previous night at the wild bachelor party. And Rogers is a bit hot and bothered by the racy note and what it implies about Fonda who she thought to be very staid and nerdy. they start trading barbs, evolve into flirting then nudge themselves into suddenly falling in love with the other. Sparks fly and the dialogue is superb and then miss Squirrel shows up and the furniture and fur starts to fly. The coat gets pawned and then bought by the wife of an up and coming