Variety is the Spice of Life

My movie selections for this past weekend did not yield the results I expected, which is another indication that I should stop trying to plan anything and just watch the movies. Of course, I do intentionally try to watch different genres and eras so the movies don't overlap too much, otherwise I'm afraid everything will blend together. Well, I had another weekend filled with great variety and diversity, and a couple of surprises. I hope some of these reviews or streams of consciousness prompt you to check out some of these movies, especially some of the ones that may be less familiar to you.
Shine, 1/19/13 Best Actor, 1996Geoffrey Rush won the Best Actor this year, and he did a great job as David Helfgott, an Australian pianist who suffered at the hands of his domineering and controlling father, eventually succumbing to a mental breakdown and being diagnosed as having schizoaffective disorder. I wanted to love this movie and have chills watching it. I had chills because it was -4 outside, but not because of the movie. I don’t know why, it’s a true story (always a plus for me); the actor who played the younger Helfgott (Noah Taylor) was as good as Rush and should have been nominated for an Oscar; Armin Mueller-Stahl, who played the abusive father; and it had great music. So, what’s the problem? I connected much more to the younger Helfgott, but just didn’t connect with the older man. I didn’t like the ending either, although perhaps it seemed like a good place to stop, with the death of Helfgott’s father. His father was his teacher, his tormentor and in many ways, his jailer. He exhibits typical abusive behavior, building David up, then tearing him down, saying he’s not good enough, and even beating him on occasion. David, and his father, are obsessed with Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Concerto, which is known for being a very complex and challenging piece (disclosure: I did not know this, I had to look it up) and after one successful performance in London where he is studying, David collapses and has a nervous breakdown. The story follows him back to Australia as he makes his way in a time where little is really known or understood about mental illness. People try to befriend him, but sometimes his behaviors and quirks are off-putting and push people away. He eventually meets his future wife, Gillian, and begins to revive his music career. Billy Bob Thornton was also nominated this year for his role in Slingblade, and in my opinion, he should have won, or at least I liked that movie a lot more, which had wonderfully rich supporting characters.


7th Heaven, Best Actress, 1927/1928

This is the second movie from this Academy Awards presentation that I have watched (Wings being the first), and while it is also set in Paris during the First World War, it is very different. Janet Gaynor plays Diane and Charles Farrell plays her initially reluctant rescuer, Chico. Gaynor won the Best Actress for this year (she also won it for two other movies because the award was originally awarded for the work of the artist for that year), and I think she was wonderful in the role of Diane. Her character evolves from a meek, frightened girl who is treated as a servant by her drunk sister into a strong, tough and determined young woman who refuses to believe that her husband was killed in the war. Chico starts his life as a sewer worker, but gets a job above-ground as a street sweeper, and in the hierarchy of municipal jobs, it’s a huge step up for him. He is a really optimistic guy, always looking up. He often refers to himself as ‘a very remarkable fellow’, and he is. After Diane’s sister, Nana, beats her in the street, Chico steps in to protect Diane, but attracts attention from the police, telling the police that Diane is his wife and so begins their unconventional relationship. Chico asks Diane to stay at his flat because if the police stop by and find that he doesn’t have a wife, he will be in trouble. So, she stays (Chico gallantly sleeps out on the balcony) and, sprinkle some magical movie fairy dust, and they eventually fall in love, although Chico refuses to actually say those words. Religion is a theme that runs throughout the movie, because Chico says several times that he does not believe in God (I think there is an indication that Chico and his fellow street sweeper are Communists with the Russian Revolution a few years off, if my timetable estimate is correct), but Diane does and her belief seems to carry her through the movie, and to Chico’s heart. I think they have one of the most romantic cinematic relationships. They don’t have time to get married before Chico goes off to war, so they get married in his apartment, exchanging their own vows, and religious medals as tokens of their love. Chico cannot say ‘I love you’, so he makes his own saying ‘Chico.Diane.Heaven’; the two of them repeat this several times before he leaves, but they promise each other that every day at 11:00 am they will say these words. They do this religiously (pun sort of intended) and it is how they ‘know’ the other is alive. I would never have watched this movie if it wasn’t for this task I set for myself, but it falls into the category of ‘happy accident’; I know a lot of people won’t watch it because it’s 85 years old has no spoken dialogue, may seem a little melodramatic, and doesn’t have any great CGI or animatronic special effects, but if you want to see something different, give this a try. After a while you forget that you can’t hear them talk because you get caught up in the story and the characters.

Pan’s Labyrinth, 1/21/13, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Makeup 2006

I really don’t know where to start with this movie, it took me a little while to get sucked in, but by the end of it, I was marking it down as a movie I would watch again (once I get through the next 770+ movies on my list). It’s described as a ‘dark fantasy’, and that is pretty accurate. It was directed by Guillermo del Toro, and after watching this, I would have liked to see his take on The Hobbit, which he was supposed to direct. It is set in 1940s Spain, with the fight between the right-wing Francoists and the left-wing guerrillas as the setting. Ofelia and her pregnant mother go out to the country where her step-father, Vidal, is a captain in the military and in charge of tracking down the guerrillas/Maquis. Right away you just know this is not going to go well, he is one of the meanest, vile characters I’ve seen in a while and there is nothing to like about him. Her mother is very sick from the pregnancy, and Vidal is more concerned about his legacy than his wife. Mercedes is a local from the village who serves as a housekeeper/cook for the captain and grows very fond of Ofelia and her mother. Ofelia loves her books and stories and ‘discovers’ a hidden world ‘guarded’ by a magical faun. The faun believes Ofelia to be the lost princess of the magical kingdom and sets before her three tasks to complete. The relationship between Ofelia and the faun is fraught with complexity, the faun as a loyal subject, but also an instructor, a bully, a disciplinarian, and Ofelia a frightened little girl, with a sense of adventure and eventually, incredible courage. The actress who played Ofelia, Ivana Baquero, was wonderful in such an intense role; Mercedes, Maribel Verdu, was really strong and proved she was not a woman to be messed with, as Vidal found out. I liked that there was very little that was predictable about the story, you really have to hang in there until the end, and even at that point, you still may not be sure what happened. The movie won for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Makeup and I found it to be one of the most visually interesting movies I have seen in a while. The use of shadows and color is very captivating, kind of what I would expect from the winner of Best Cinematography; it captured the mood and the different environments in which the characters live. The sets of the Otherworld were rich in detail and imagination. For the makeup, they had me at the faun (played by Doug Jones who was also the Silver Surfer) and the creature with eyes in his hands (yes, you read that right), which was very creepy, and also played by Doug Jones. The movie was nominated for three other awards, including Best Foreign Film, but lost out to The Lives of Others, which was a very intense movie based on real events, and perhaps that’s why it won (which isn’t to say it’s a bad thing, it was an excellent movie, just very different from Pan’s Labyrinth). There were certain times in the movie where I thought this would be a great movie for teenagers and a nice introduction to foreign films, since the main character is a young teenager, perhaps even 10 or 11, but then there were some very intense scenes, so I am on the fence about that. I would recommend it for anyone who enjoys the fantasy genre; don’t let the fact that it’s in Spanish turn you off, once you get into the movie, you might not even notice it’s in Spanish.