Still Alice and Mr. Turner from 2015 and Finally - Dirty Dancing

Again I find myself apologizing to my faithful readers (and you know who you are) for my tardiness in posting my insightful and amusing reviews. I do hope you can forgive me. As you can see, I have been busy, and I think you'll agree, this is an eclectic collection of cinematic viewing, and for once every movie is a winner or nominee.

5/30/15 Pillow Talk, Best Original Screenplay, 1959 National Film Registry

Pillow Talk is a light comedy starring Rock Hudson, Doris Day and Tony Randall. Brad Allen (Rock Hudson) is a composer and Jan Morrow (Doris Day) is an interior decorator who share a party line. Party lines are unfamiliar to most of us in the 21st century and the age of mobile phones, but sixty years ago, not everyone had a private phone line. The party line is used in Pillow Talk as a device to introduce the main characters to one another and create a source of friction. Jan needs the phone line for business and frequently, when she tries to make calls, Brad is talking to his different girlfriends. Needless to say, this frustrates Jan and they have an argument (back in 'old days' you could not just get a private phone line).
Of course this spat intrigues Brad who sets out to meet Jan and he pretends to be Rex Stetson, a rancher from Texas. The rest of the movie is taken up with Brad/Rex fighting/wooing Jan, Jan falling for Rex and then falling for Brad. I have to say this didn't jump to my favorite movie list, but it was okay. It's considered worthy of being on the National Film Registry, so perhaps I am missing something. I think I preferred Doris Day in Calamity Jane.

5/30/15 Mr. Turner, nominated Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Original Score, Best Production Design, 2015

I was really excited to see Mr. Turner a movie about the English painter J.M.W. Turner, not necessarily because I am a Turner expert or devotee but because I really like Timothy Spall who played Turner and I always find writer/director Mike Leigh's movies interesting glimpses into the human condition (yes, that's very dramatic). I don't want to say I was disappointed, but I kind of felt let down after watching it. I think there is an inherent problem/issue with doing films with historical characters that we don't recognize, for example the cast of characters in Mr. Turner included John Ruskin (art critic), John Constable, George Jones and other painters of the period. Physically it was hard for me to tell them apart and artistically I was not familiar enough with their work to understand the competition and conflicts among them; as for Turner himself, I knew a little about his landscapes, but it seemed that there was a lot about his life that was implied and if I didn't have my handy Wikipedia I would have been even more lost. So, for the story, it frustrated me more than anything. The best parts of the film were when there were shots of all his different paintings, then you could get an idea of his scope and talent. However, the movie was beautiful, most appropriately nominated for Best Cinematography. There were several scenes that were filmed in such a way I felt I was looking at a Turner painting, they were gorgeous. The Grand Budapest Hotel won for Best Production Design and Birdman won Best Cinematography; I agree with the Production Design award, that was an amazing set, but I would disagree with the Cinematography award emphatically. If you are interested in the art of filming, I recommend this movie, as well as if you are an art historian or fan of Turner, otherwise, I'm not sure you will be interested.

5/30/15 Million Dollar Baby Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, 2004

Sometimes I wonder what goes through my head when I choose to see a movie or not to see a movie; before I started writing this blog, I was probably a little more susceptible to what other people thought, and now I'm primarily driven by the list or what might be on the list (the Oscar list, if you're wondering). Million Dollar Baby was a movie that I avoided because someone told me it would be too emotional. As dumb as that may sound to you, that's the reason I didn't watch it for so long. I finally got it from the library, and even though it is over two hours (some days that seems like an eternity), I was excited to watch it. I was not disappointed and was a little upset I had not watched it years ago. Clint Eastwood directed and starred as Frankie, a boxing trainer who reluctantly begins to train Maggie (Hilary Swank); Maggie is a determined, hard-working young woman from the Ozarks who wants to fight, with or without Frankie. Eddie "Scrap-Iron", played by Morgan Freeman, is a former fighter, once trained by Frankie and he is a little less reluctant to help Maggie. Maggie and Frankie build a successful partnership as she easily defeats her opponents and starts making some money. One of the interesting plot points was with Maggie's family (featuring Margo Martindale as her mother); her family is totally unappreciative of what Maggie has done (bought her mother a house) and prove themselves to be one of the most hateful families on film. Eventually Frankie gets Maggie fights overseas and a fight with a boxer who is known to fight dirty; it looks like Maggie has "The Blue Bear" on the ropes when Maggie is blindsided and breaks her neck, becoming a quadriplegic. The remainder of the movie shows Frankie's devotion to Maggie, reading her poetry, interacting with the hospital staff and trying to keep her leech-like family away (the whole family scene was really powerful and made me mad as hell). Unfortunately, Maggie's health declines and she asks Frankie to make a very difficult decision. I'm not going to lie, the last 30 minutes or so of the film are incredibly intense and emotional, but Eastwood tells the story so well and Swank does a great job of transforming from an individual whose existence is based on physicality to someone who has to communicate with her face and voice. The Best Picture nominees for 2004 were kind of an eclectic bunch, including Ray (great film),  The Aviator (good, but long), Sideways (a surprise small picture, 2004's Birdman), and Finding Neverland (good, but not Best Picture in my mind). Hilary Swank won Best Actress over Annette Bening (Being Julia, which I cannot remember if I saw), Kate Winslet (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I saw part of it and hated it) and Imelda Staunton as Vera Drake which was the only nominee I saw at the time of release, and I would say that was a powerful role and performance, and could have won. What can you say about Morgan Freeman? I haven't really mentioned him, but he is one of those actors you can put in almost any role, any time period and he just works; and he is great as Frankie and Maggie's friend, "Jiminy Cricket" and the narrator. If you haven't seen it, I totally recommend it.

5/31/15 Dirty Dancing, Best Original Song, 1987

I have gotten so much grief from friends because I have never seen Dirty Dancing, ever. Apparently, in some cultures, this is enough to have you exiled to Elba along with Napoleon. I'm sorry to have disappointed you, and now, I have to disappoint you even more (and it's not to tell you that there is no tooth fairy), but I really didn't care and I certainly didn't love it. I've been told it's because I didn't see it when it first came out twenty-five years ago; well, let me tell you, my twenty year old self didn't care enough to go see it either. BUT, I didn't hate it, like I hated Flashdance (my penance for something I did, I'm sure), it just didn't capture my imagination. Everyone probably knows the story by now, but here's a quick recap: set in the 1960s, Baby (Jennifer Grey) and her family (dad is played by Jerry Orbach of Law and Order) head to the Catskill Mountains, a well-known resort town; Baby meets Johnny (Patrick Swayze) who is a dance professional at the resort. Baby wants to dance, and not the formal, stiff, un-cool dances that the resort hosts, but the dirty dancing that Johnny and his friends do after hours. Cynthia Rhodes is Penny Johnson, Johnny's dance partner and childhood friend (Cynthia Rhodes was also in Flashdance), who starts out disliking Baby, but eventually is won over by her spunk and honest determination. I did like the music, but I love the music from that period anyway, and the movie won for Best Original Song "I've had the time of my life". So, the movie is off "The List", I didn't hate and we can all move on.

6/7/15 Funny Girl, Best Actress (co-winner with Katharine Hepburn for The Lion in Winter), 1968

Funny Girl is the film version of the stage musical of the same name, also starring Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice, a Jewish comedian of the early 20th century. Brice was Streisand's first film role. Omar Sharif plays Nicky Arnstein, Brice's eventual husband and William Wyler directed.  Brice was a comedian who performed with the Ziegfield Follies which were very popular before the widespread availability of films, television and the internet.  This is another movie that didn't really do anything for me, I was bored. I feel un-American considering it's been rated as one of the great movie musicals and it stars Barbra Streisand and it was directed by one of the great directors, etc. etc. I'm sorry. I actually fell asleep and missed about twenty minutes and I don't think I missed anything, I didn't even go back to what I missed. Maybe I don't have a soul?

6/10/15 Sister Rose's Passion, nominated Best Documentary Short, 2004

Okay, I'm pretty sure I have a soul, it's just not a musical one. Out of all of the movies reviewed in this entry, I want to tell you to get this from NetFlix and watch it, it will be the best 39 minutes you have spent in a long while, I promise. Sister Rose Thering was a nun, originally from Wisconsin, who actively worked to have official anti-Semitism removed from Church teaching and her work was included in the Second Vatican Council. Maybe this sounds tame or not that big of a deal, but considering that anti-Semitism had been institutionalized for almost 2000 years, and a woman was leading the charge, it's a big deal. And she is so matter of fact in the documentary, as if this should be obvious to everyone. At the time of the documentary, Sister Rose was 84 and on an oxygen tank and in a wheelchair, but her spirit is boundless. She continued to review text books for obvious and subtle references to anti-Semitism and request that they be removed and informed the publishers that this was not in accordance with Church teachings. Sister Rose's Passion should be required watching.

6/11/15 Still Alice, Best Actress, 2014

I remember when Still Alice came out in the theaters and I heard people who were very eager to see it and other people were nervous and leery of seeing it. Alzheimer's disease has become a reality for more and more families and a weight hanging over the heads of others. There is still so much that we don't know about the disease, no vaccine, no guaranteed preventative measures and it scares us, so to watch it be put out there on film can be very frightening. Still Alice brings us one version of the Alzheimer's story, how it affects one family. Julianne Moore is Alice Howland, a PhD in linguistics who starts to experience some weird lapses in memory and confusion; she feels something is not right and sees her doctor who believes she may have Alzheimer's and wants to conduct additional tests. Alice tells her husband, John (Alec Baldwin) who is a medical doctor, and eventually they tell their adult children who react in different ways. John tries to be supportive and patient with her, reminding her of things they have done in the past; in fact, I thought, under the circumstances, he was quite marvelous, he wasn't perfect, but he wasn't an ass, either. Alice's eldest daughter, Anna (Kate Bosworth) seemed to have a very difficult time with the diagnosis and the effect it had on her mother, sometimes getting frustrated with Alice and fighting with her younger sister, Lydia (Kristen Stewart), although to be honest, the sisters had a combative relationship before Alice was diagnosed. Lydia is an aspiring actress, living across the country in Los Angeles (something that ticks off Anna). Anna and her brother Tom (who is kind of a footnote) get tested because this type of Alzheimer's can be identified genetically; Lydia decides not to get tested. Of the family members, Lydia seems almost fearless in her desire to be with her mom, talk to her, understand what's happening. Alice tries to develop little tricks to help her remember things, she keeps track of things in a calendar, she has also created a video that is to be watched only at a certain point in her illness, she knows this from her notes. Moore as Alice transforms from a vibrant middle aged woman, teaching linguistics at Columbia University to a year later as someone who looks worn and tired and has trouble finding the right words. I think the only other nominee who might have had a realistic chance at the Oscar was Reese Witherspoon, because I feel like her performance was almost as transformative (my spellcheck is telling this isn't a word, but I don't care). Alec Baldwin was very good in his role as Alice's husband and I was slightly surprised by Kristen Stewart's performance which was very strong and moving, kind of reminiscent of her role in Welcome to the Rileys with James Gandolfini. Still Alice may be tough to watch on occasion, but it's worth watching for the performances as well as the content.

It seems from the reviews here, I only like movies or documentaries that are serious, some may say depressing. I'll have to ponder that for next time.