Home Theater Forum › Home Theater Forum › Entertainment › Movies (Theatrical) › AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2 - Page 16

post #451 of 501
7/23/08 at 1:23pm

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

Don't know why,
There's no sun up in the sky;
Stormy weather.
Since my man and I ain't together,
Keeps raining all the time…
The Time.

Life is bare,
Gloom and misery everywhere;
Stormy weather.
Just can't get my poor self together,
It's Rainin’ all the time…
The time.


The title song in the 1943 movie Stormy Weather, sung this time by Lena Horne, originally by Ethel Waters and subsequently by everyone from Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holliday to Frank Sinatra, the song has its rightful place in the movie. A movie filled with (what are now) standards such as Ain’t Misbehavin’ and I Can’t Give You Anything But Love. Besides headliners Lena Horne and Bill Robinson this all black movie has luminaries like Cab Calloway and Fats Waller, but the highlight is the show-stopping finale featuring Calloway’s music and band and the jaw-dropping dancing of the Nicholas Brothers.

Otherwise the plot, screenplay and production are about par for a musical of the era, but one that should be seen by those unfamiliar with such movies from that time.
Reply
post #452 of 501
7/24/08 at 6:53pm

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

Because it struck me, um, how neatly 'three' went into this figure: 210,000. That means I would keep seventy.


Frank Gavin (Paul Newman) can keep the $70K or his integrity. As one would suspect of the down and out, alcoholic lawyer he portrays in The Verdict, he keeps his integrity and brings the case to trial.

Newman is first rate in his role, as are Jack Warden as his sidekick and James Mason as his opponent. Special mention for Charlotte Rampling who is both the love interest and the betrayer—and kudos to the script that lets her final phone call ring and ring and ring.
Reply
post #453 of 501
7/26/08 at 8:39pm

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

I hope that every boy and girl in the whole world is as happy as me.


Proclaims Heidi at the end of the movie that brings icon child star Shirley Temple and the iconic children’s book together. Much better than similar efforts, there is almost enough substance to cut through Heidi’s (and Temple’s) indefatigable pluck to make a real story—but not quite. Arthur Treacher has no trouble stealing every scene—and one supposes that the writers in a bit of protest give him all the best lines.
Reply
post #454 of 501
7/30/08 at 4:54pm

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

Marriages may come and go, but the game must go on.


Felix Unger (Jack Lemmon) promises to be back next Friday night as he moves in (along with his new-found confidence) with the Pigeon sisters in The Odd Couple, taken from the Neil Simon play of the same name. Walter Matthau is predictably grumpy as Oscar Madison, the other half of the mismatched couple and both deliver very fine performances—but not so good as the material suggests. A funny and sometimes very funny movie that somehow never hits the homerun the material provides.
Reply
post #455 of 501
8/5/08 at 1:36pm

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

Dick: I had you figured for a natural born killer.
…
So why did you kill him?

Perry: No special reason—I just felt like it.

Dick: That’s the best reason there is.


So goes the discussion as Perry Smith (Robert Blake) and Dick Hickock (Scott Wilson) plan a home invasion, robbery and the killings of an entire family in In Cold Blood, a movie taken from Truman Capote’s non-fictional novel of the same name. Certainty not a perfect movie, it makes me think of German Expressionism meeting New Journalism. Nonetheless, the plain, flat landscapes matches well the dull existence of the protagonists and the movie’s power remains today.
Reply
post #456 of 501
8/5/08 at 2:09pm

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

Galloway: Are you planning on doing any investigating, or are you just going to take the guided tour?

Kaffee: I'm pacing myself.


Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) has been pacing himself apparently for his entire life and is ready to plea-bargain his clients without having met them or read the case. And this is fitting in a movie that also takes an easy path. A Few Good Men is the very definition of a big, studio movie with a cast of stars: Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Pollak, directed by Rob Reiner and with a script by Aaron Sorkin (who wrote the play of the same name).

But even with this assemblage of high powered creativity, the movie often loses focus, never seeming to be sure what story it is trying to tell: it might be a (late) coming of age, it might be a philosophical investigation of competing ethics, it might be a courtroom drama combined with a mystery, or it might even be a love story—but wait that never quite gets off the ground. What it is, is Perry Mason in uniform, dragging the truth out of a tough Marine officer at the last minute.

Sorkin’s screenplay seems to be the main culprit—so much so that even William Goldman (credited as a consultant) could not reconcile all of the elements.

Still the cinematography is mostly very good and most of the acting is above par, leaving us a movie that can be enjoyed so long as one does not think about it very much.
Reply
post #457 of 501
8/6/08 at 8:30am

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

I’ve given you the finest education in Europe. You’re not able to do anything.


Houseboat is a reasonably typical ‘boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl’ comedy of the 50s. Cary Grant is his usual charming and urbane self as the boy (although he is not so good when in uncomprehending father mode) and Sophia Loren is the girl for whom any boy would fall. Martha Hyer provides the third side of the triangle and Harry Guardino steals most of his scenes as the second banana.

Pretty routine, but the cast and the ending where Grant and Loren have more to overcome than is usual make this one worth watching.
Reply
post #458 of 501
8/7/08 at 10:03am

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

…when the devil cannot reach us through the spirit—he creates a woman beautiful enough to reach us though the flesh.


In this case the woman in Flesh and the Devil is Greta Garbo (Felicitas), the very essence of a temptress, and although she gets second billing to John Gilbert (Leo von Harden) in this movie, it is most probably the last time her name was not at the top of the marquee.

True enough the movie is melodrama, but for me, melodrama of a high order. While some of Clarence Brown’s direction seems a bit stiff (especially in comparison to the later Anna Christie), the cinematography could serve as a class for today’s students. For example, during the first part of the movie we only see standard (of the era) shots with no camera movement, the only changes in the editing. But when the lovers meet for the first time, the camera follows them waltzing gracefully.

A movie that manages to overcome its faults and that today also needs to overcome its premise—but what an opportunity for Garbo to personify the point. And as an aside, it is interesting to note that the moviemakers of that era must have thought that much of their audience appreciated the irony of the lady’s name.
Reply
post #459 of 501
8/25/08 at 10:44am

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

Don’t you just find books so terribly decorative?


Inquires the superficial intended of the grown-up ward of Auntie Mame in the movie, book and play of the same name. At the time this won a ton of awards, but this movie has neither the charm nor the bite of Patrick Dennis’ semi-autobiography. Worth watching for Rosalind Russell and Peggy Cass and her over-the-top performance.
Reply
post #460 of 501
8/25/08 at 6:41pm
Thread Starter 

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

I thought Auntie Mame was pretty over the top, but I didn't think the whole film was as good as the initial bit with the young boy. I would say Mame gets a bit tiresome by the end of the film, as fun as the performance is, it is a bit too much.
Reply
post #461 of 501
9/6/08 at 11:57am

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

Who was the best test pilot I ever knew? There was one who had the right stuff…


Astronaut Gordon Cooper tries to answer a query from the press, but is cut off as they are not really interested in the real answer. Unfortunately, director Philip Kaufman never really lets us know what the elite test pilots think is The Right Stuff either in his movie of the same name. But this is otherwise a very fine movie, filled with very fine performances.

And one of the finest is screenwriter Sam Shepard as legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager, who was not chosen (so the screenplay states) as an astronaut because he was not a college graduate, but more likely (as the script implies) because he was more the lone wolf and not so much in the sparkling John Glenn mode. Yeager is of course the pilot that Cooper had in mind, but even though the movie begins and ends with Yeager flying alone, his mantle has been truly passed to those who have the right stuff for the press as well as the requisite skill and courage.
Reply
post #462 of 501
9/8/08 at 4:31pm
Thread Starter 

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

I thought Shepherd was the best performance in the Right Stuff. An excellent film I thought was done a disservice (for me) by having to watch it on dvd rather than the big screen. I'd love to watch it again at one of the big repertory theatres in LA.
Reply
post #463 of 501
10/11/08 at 8:38am

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

There she lies now, and it is our patriotic duty to destroy that ship. We will send her adrift in the fog tonight before the new crew goes aboard. The wind, the tide, and the rocks will do the rest.


The setup for The Navigator a Buster Keaton film that pits him against everything from cannibals to cans of spam. A silent masterpiece.
Reply
post #464 of 501
10/26/08 at 12:54pm

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

Aubrey, I've known the fear of losing but now I am almost too frightened to win.


Says Harold Abrahams in Chariots of Fire, a well-made and well-received movie that seems more self-important today than it did on first viewing in the 80s. The movie concentrates perhaps on Abrahams than the other protagonist, Eric Liddell even though Liddell was the more historically interesting and rich character.

Even so the deficiencies of the chronicle of British runners as they prepare for and triumph in the 1924 Olympics is well worth watching—though it helps to not know too much about some of the factual background.
Reply
post #465 of 501
10/26/08 at 1:32pm

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

Sometimes you gotta’ say "What the Fuck!"


And Joel Goodson in Risky Business is a college-bound, high school student who wants to, is talked into and does not only say “what the fuck”, but in so doing generates so much activity turning his out-of-town parents home into a brothel that he makes and loses a ton of money during their absence.

Predictably, chaos ensues—though not so predictably this is a far better and funnier movie than most coming of age, sexually oriented, teen-focused films. Much funnier than many a movie on the AFI 100 Laughs list.
Reply
post #466 of 501
10/29/08 at 5:24pm

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

It's not that they're stupid, it's just they don't know anything.


I knew about Jaime Escalante of course—the East LA, high school math teacher who proved that students from the barrio could master calculus to the point of passing the AP test. Stand and Deliver, which I had not seen, tells the story of his first 18 students who made the grade—and does it surprisingly well. Edward James Olmos deservedly was nominated for an Oscar as Escalante, but his performance is often matched by many of his students, especially Ingrid Oliu as Lupe and Lou Diamond Phillips as Angel Guzman.

Even with the screenplay being somewhat uneven, this movie is an absolute must-watch.
Reply
post #467 of 501
10/29/08 at 9:25pm
Thread Starter 

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

Agreed, Lew. it's an excellent film, very memorable, especially the performances.

and Risky Business is another film I need to give another chance to.
Reply
post #468 of 501
11/14/08 at 5:50am

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

I mean we're not stuck in the goddamn middle ages here. I mean we've got TV. We've got Family Feud. We're not stuck in Leave It To Beaver land here.


Referring to the obscure, small Midwest town that is the setting of Footloose, placed on an AFI list because of the title song, along with Let’s Hear It for the Boy. Neither is actually a reason to watch the movie, as the writing is so bad that even John Lithgow as the uptight preacher in the small town and Dianne Wiest as his wife have a hard time making their characters three-dimensional (although both should receive awards for doing the most with the least).

There may be a cliché that was missed in the movie, but it was not for lack of trying. If the music interests you, save your time just watch the dance sequences.
Reply
post #469 of 501
11/15/08 at 5:41am

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lew Crippen
I mean we're not stuck in the goddamn middle ages here. I mean we've got TV. We've got Family Feud. We're not stuck in Leave It To Beaver land here.


Referring to the obscure, small Midwest town that is the setting of Footloose, placed on an AFI list because of the title song, along with Let’s Hear It for the Boy. Neither is actually a reason to watch the movie, as the writing is so bad that even John Lithgow as the uptight preacher in the small town and Dianne Wiest as his wife have a hard time making their characters three-dimensional (although both should receive awards for doing the most with the least).

There may be a cliché that was missed in the movie, but it was not for lack of trying. If the music interests you, save your time just watch the dance sequences.
I know that that most descriptions of this movie talks about being in a small Midwest town. But when did Idaho become part of the Midwest. I live in Illinois and that is Midwest. We think of Idaho as being part of the Western part of the USA.
Reply
post #470 of 501
11/16/08 at 1:07pm

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

You have no repentance! You're bad! Through and through, bad!


The family patriarch labels Cal (James Dean) in East of Eden an Elia Kazan movie taken from the John Steinbeck novel of the same name. Both Steinbeck and Kazan transport the Biblical tale of Cain (Cal) and Abel (Aron in the screenplay) to Steinbeck’s beloved Monterey (and nearby Salinas). This was Dean’s first movie and with a role tailor-made for him, he set 1950s Hollywood ablaze.

There is plenty besides Dean to like in the movie: some of the cinematography, a few of the set pieces, Burl Ives as the local Sheriff, Jo Ann Fleet who won an Oscar as the runaway wife and mother turned madam and Richard Davalos as the good brother (Aron).

But in the end the updated tale sometimes seems a bit too forced to make the grade as a classic. Nonetheless this movie is a must-see—even if only to understand the Dean legend.
Reply
post #471 of 501
11/17/08 at 6:43am
Thread Starter 

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

Footloose is by far the worst of all those dance movies of the seventies and eighties, Dirty Dancing, Flashdance, Saturday Night Fever are all decent to great and worth watching, Footloose is not.

East of Eden is terrific, I agree.

I rewatched All the President's Men for the first time since I last saw it many years ago when I initially started out on this challenge. I wasn't crazy about it then, but this time it blew my socks off. An absolutely perfect film that is as breathtaking in it's dialogue and performances as it is energetic, I don't recall the film moving so quickly that first viewing. I was also especially impressed by Dustin Hoffman's performance here, less so by Redford but especially by Jason Robards. I was even more impressed by the incredible cinematography, impeccable montage and superb art direction (the main set of the washington post, wow! or the picture of Kennedy looking over the shoulder of the Watergate 'burglars'). Simply outstanding in every way, and one of the greats. this has gone from a 6 or a 7 for me to a 10.
Reply
post #472 of 501
11/18/08 at 9:02am

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

Dingo took my baby!


This is the famous cry of the baby’s mother, Lindy Chamberlain in A Cry in the Dark, titled Evil Angels in Australia and based on the book of the same name. Even twenty years after the fact, the topic of Lindy’s guilt or innocence is still a part of Australian dinner party conversations and hotel arguments. But what sets the film apart from popular discourse is its dead-accurate portrayal of Australia and Australians. Meryl Streep as the accused mother is perfect as Lindy and the restraint shown in the cinematography in not painting Ayer’s Rock in glowing beauty is admirable.

Even with some of the expected changes from real life to the screen, the movie is a must-see.
Reply
post #473 of 501
11/18/08 at 9:07am

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

My ratings for the AFI 10 Courtroom movies.

12 Angry Men
Anatomy of a Murder
Cry in the Dark, A
Few Good Men, A
In Cold Blood
Judgement at Nuremberg
Kramer vs. Kramer
To Kill a Mockingbird
Verdict, The
Witness for the Prosecution
Reply
post #474 of 501
11/23/08 at 2:23pm

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

Go Ahead—make my day!


Again we meet Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) aka, ‘Dirty Harry’, this time in a movie directed by Eastwood, Sudden Impact. All action (mostly due to payback) and no plot or character development, but in the case of Dirty Harry, this may be a good thing. After all the audience doesn’t go to one of these movies for motivation (we only need to know enough as to why he lets the killer go free in the end), but to feel justified in cheering as yet another bad guy bites the dust.
Reply
post #475 of 501
11/27/08 at 5:49am

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

You know I love listening to you talk. I hate living with you but your conversation is first rate.


Neil Simon dialogue to be sure, this time in The Goodbye Girl, a typical (and better than his average) Simon script, this one with Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason as reluctant roommates (and even more reluctant lovers).

If you like Simon, you will love this one, and if you don’t—you won’t.
Reply
post #476 of 501
12/3/08 at 3:11pm

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

He could never have seduced me, Charlie.


Roxanne (Daryl Hannah) tells off CD (Steve Martin) in Martin’s take on Cyrano de Bergerac wherein Martin gets to play the soulful loner with all his typical sight gag bells and whistles. Much is pretty amusing, but the end seems to me to be both rushed and unsatisfying.
Reply
post #477 of 501
12/3/08 at 11:39pm
Thread Starter 

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

I don't remember the ending to Roxanne so well, but I remember how effortlessly charming the majority of the film is.

And the scene where Steve Martin subtly twists an insult game that is quite funny but as it goes on also reveals what he's gone through despite his positive demeanor and outlook on life. That scene is a remarkable piece of writing and performance.
Reply
post #478 of 501
12/4/08 at 4:51am

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

I agree with the set piece where CD comes up with 20 different insults abut his nose, each one funnier than the last.
Reply
post #479 of 501
12/19/08 at 7:34pm

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

…just like Easy Rider.


Therein lies the joke as David Howard (Albert Brooks) compares driving a new Winnebago after dropping out of the ad game in a fit of pique to his supposed favorite movie. But David and his wife Linda (Julie Hagerty) in Lost in America can’t handle life without their creature comforts for more than a few days—both decide to “eat shit” and return to the rat race and yuppiedom. Brooks has written and directed a cynical (and hilarious) satirical view on life in America in the 80s (and probably more so today).

The ending seems to drift a bit, but Brooks clearly has no more use for either of the Howards or their ilk and just lets them slide back into their former lives, now diminished.
Reply
post #480 of 501
12/20/08 at 6:32am

Re: AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2

Houston, we have a problem


The understated quote of James Lovell (Tom Hanks) that has come into the lexicon summarizes Apollo 13 as the Ron Howard movie manages to tell the story of that mission without too much schmaltz. Watching this made me break out my copy of For All Mankind and wonder (as Lovell wonders at movie’s end) when we ever go back. A must-watch movie for detailed telling of the story of how so many worked so well in such a short time to rescue the Apollo 13 astronauts.
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Movies (Theatrical)
Home Theater Forum › Home Theater Forum › Entertainment › Movies (Theatrical) › AFI 100 Years Series Discussion & Challenges, vol. 2