Hitchcock Retrospective

For those of you in the Salt Lake City area, don't forget to check out this month's Hitchcock Retrospective, taking place at The Broadway, and presented by the Salt Lake Film Society.  I went last weekend to see "The 39 Steps", and it was absolutely fantastic to see on the big screen, and with an enthusiastic crowd.

Much Ado About Nothing

From Sci-Fi writer and Director Joss Whedon comes this modern-day interpretation of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing".  In this telling, Leonato is a wealthy Los Angeleno, who has invited brothers Don Pedro and Claudio to stay at his upscale home for an extended weekend house party.  In this atmosphere, our host, his family, and his guests party and scheme against and play matchmaker for each other.

Whedon has plenty of street-cred among the Comic-Con crowd, but this has apparently been a long-time dream project for him, and you can tell he's having a lot of fun with it.  His cast is a terrific mix of actors he's previously worked with on shows such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Angel", "Firefly", and "Dollhouse", and they are all obviously having a blast.  There has to be a certain comfort factor when doing something new and interesting with people you're comfortable with, and in your own upscale home. 

My girlfriends and I of course have fond memories of a previous movie version with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, and so it could be tough to let go of the sumptuousness of the scenery and the British accents of that version.  Especially when this one is in black and white and the actors speak American English. But I loved it.

I'd also like to point out some terrific performances, especially from Amy Acker as Beatrice (check her out in the "O that I were a man..." scene. She's fabulous!) and Alexis Denisof as Benedict.  And of course who can forget Nathan Filion as Constable Dogberry.  He was awesome.

So - keep your fond memories of Ken and Em, but save some room for Joss and Company.  You'll be glad you did.

Keep your ears tuned: Joss also wrote all the music, and among other things, came up with a great contemporary version of "Sigh No More Lady", turning it into a sexy, piano-driven, Norah Jones-esque party song.  A lot of fun. 

The Bride Wore Black

In Francois Truffaut's homage to Hitchcock movies, Jeanne Moreau is a cool, calculating and vengeful murderess, systematically tracking down the men responsible for the death of her husband on their wedding day.  And an homage it is - even to the point of setting scenes in similar locations and using familiar plot points from "Vertigo", "The Man Who Knew Too Much", "Dial M For Murder", "Northwest by Northwest", and "Marnie", to name a few.  Even choosing frequent Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann to compose the score (which sounds eerily reminiscent to the score of "North by Northwest").

Jeanne Moreau is fantastic - there's a remoteness to her that makes all the victims fall in love with her just before she coolly "offs" them. And for a murderess, she has her principles, as she demonstrates when she won't let another woman be charged with her crime, and when she confesses to a priest.  It's her picture from start to finish and she's brilliant.  I highly recommend it.

If you've never seen many foreign films, don't be intimidated by the subtitles.  A few minutes in and you'll forget they're there. Enjoy!

Word to the Wise: If you watch this, be prepared that there are a couple of unexpected scenes of nude female anatomy. They are brief, but noticeable.

Moonrise Kingdom

Happened to catch this most recent offering from Wes Anderson a few weeks ago on HBO. Admittedly I've not seen his others (too much Owen Wilson for my taste), but this one caught my eye and was just quirky enough and clean enough for me to stick with it.  It's the story of two misfit 12-year-olds, who happen to make a connection with the one other person in the world as odd as themselves.  They make a plan to run away together from all the dysfunction in each of their lives. 

The film boasts a terrific cast, headlined by Bruce Willis, Ed Norton, Bill Murray and Frances McDormand, as the quartet of adults searching for the two young lovers, who unwittingly are the cause of the dysfuntion. But the real stars are the two youngsters, Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward. They give breakout performances, and have promising careers ahead.

If you're a fan of quirky, mixed with a lot of dysfunction and a lot of sweet, then this movie's for you.  It's a terrific picture, and reminds us that the things that make us crazy when we're 12 are often the things that in the long run work out better than we expected.

The High and the Mighty

The 70's were the era of the Disaster Epic.  Movies like "Earthquake", or "The Towering Inferno", or "The Poseidon Adventure", or the endless incarnations of "Airport" would showcase a natural or man-made disaster, an All-Star cast, and heroic efforts to make it out of the rubble, or the burning building, or the sinking ocean liner, or the endangered airliner alive.

But today I'd like to focus on a precursor to all those, a big-budget disaster epic 20 years ahead of the others, "The High and the Mighty".  Released in 1954, the storyline is that of an airliner, in the days before jet travel, taking off from Honolulu and headed to San Francisco. Flight time in those days was 12 hours, and over the course of those 12 hours we get to know the stories of the various passengers and crew.  Just past the halfway point of their journey, an engine fire causes a hole in one of the wings, and the loss of some of their fuel. We're then faced with the suspense of whether or not our heroes will make it to San Francisco safely.

"The High and the Mighty" had a most impressive pedigree.  Produced by John Wayne, directed by William "Wild Bill" Wellman (who directed the first Best Picture winner, "Wings"), and featuring a classic cast of stars - John Wayne and Robert Stack as the pilots, an array of recognizable character actors of the golden age (Laraine Day, Claire Trevor, Julie Bishop, John Qualen, and Paul Fix among them), and music composed by Dmitri Tiomkin (who provides one of the great romantic movie melodies of all time).

The acting is definitely hokie and overwrought in places, but they were for the most part actors who The Duke had worked with previously, and it's fun to see them all together in the same space. And you know that with himself at the controls, all will work out right in the end.

"42"

Being a big baseball fan, I'm a sucker for baseball movies.  So I couldn't wait to see this movie, celebrating the years when Jackie Robinson integrated Triple-A and later Major League Baseball.  And being a fan of the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers, I particularly am proud of my club, and their role in making it happen and changing history. 

Starring Harrison Ford as Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey, and newcomer Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson, the movie tells the story of Rickey's motives (both moral and financial) in signing an African-American with the organization, and what he and Jackie and the rest of the team went through during those years. Starting with his season in Triple-A with the Montreal Royals, and on into his rookie season with the parent club we see Jackie submitted to various episodes of bigotry and discrimination, and how, as part of his agreement with Rickey to not fight back, he rises above them.  Harrison Ford is incredible as Branch Rickey, and I hope he gets an Oscar nomination out of it.  And Chadwick Boseman is terrific - earnest, fiery, and dignified.  It's an outstanding movie, and I loved it. I would even consider it required viewing. 

Word to the wise: While I would call this a family film, there are several scenes of racial prejudice, and one particularly hate-filled scene where Phillies Manager Ben Chapman, played by Allan Tudyk (one of my favorite actors), goes on an epithet-laced rant that is extremely difficult to listen to, and may be offensive to young, and even grown-up, ears.

So Proudly We Hail

I love movies from the World War II era.  Truth be told, I love movies from just about any era.  But I have a particular fondness for movies made during and shortly after the War.  For one thing, many of them revolve around the experiences of women during the war.  And for another, they're sentimental and tug at your heart strings. Sure, it's all propaganda, but it's also highly effective.  And in today's day and age, with living in our own era of war and uncertainty, it's also highly relatable.

Case in point - "So Proudly We Hail", from 1943.  Here we have the story of a unit of army nurses, sent to the Philippines shortly after Pearl Harbor.  Starring Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard and Veronica Lake, it shows the hazards the nurses face as they try to assist in treating the wounded, and boosting morale, all in a heroic, but ultimately doomed effort (as is well-known historically, the Philippines fell to the enemy, and many soldiers and nurses were either killed, or left to languish in horrific prison camps until the war ended in 1945).

For it's time, this picture was pretty realistic - it shows the frequent enemy bombing campaigns, the battle injuries, the lack of food and hygiene, and the emotional and psychological toll of war.  Apparently it was so realistic that at least one of the actresses involved needed to go through trauma counseling after completing the film.  Some scenes are difficult to watch, even today.

The film was a major success- receiving several Oscar nominations, and a big chunk of the box office. And it's a definite weeper.  It's a perfect example of why I love pictures from the War era. Four hankies out of four.