Shortly after watching Memento, directed by Christopher Nolan (Batman), I discussed it with a friend, and we both agreed that it's been a while since either of us have seen a movie that original. Having said that, I don't want to tell you too much about it, although to be honest, I'm not sure I could if I tried. Guy Pearce is Leonard Shelby, an insurance investigator, who is trying to figure out who killed is wife (Jorja Fox) and gave him anterograde amnesia (he cannot form short term memories) in the process. Leonard uses some interesting ways to write notes to himself. He is befriended or tormented by John Edward Gammell (Joe Pantoliano), and forges a relationship of some kind with Natalie (Carrie-Ann Moss). The use of flashbacks is clever and mildly mind-boggling, you really have to pay attention. Nolan uses color and black and white sequences to separate time lines. He knows how to get a particular mood, which he later did on the Batman series. If you haven't seen it, watch it with a friend or two to help keep track of everything, and if I have time, I may watch it again.
11/2/18 Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser, 1988 National Film Registry
I was so disappointed trying to watch this documentary on someone I didn't know very much about. Sometimes I watch documentaries to fill out and reinforce things I already, but a lot of times, I watch to learn about an event, art or person I know nothing or very little about. Those are the best. I remember watching What Happened, Miss Simone? and feeling like someone opened a door into music and cultural history. I didn't feel that way at all watching Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser. I felt very frustrated at the lack of strong narration, and clips of Monk playing live (which was apparently lost footage) and interviews with contemporaries and his son strung together in a patchwork sort of way. There were very few scenes where Monk actually spoke, and those were impossible to understand. I definitely picked up on a very strong personality and an immense talent, but I was hoping for more. In my opinion, this isn't on the National Film Registry because it's a great documentary, but more because of the rare footage and the subject. If you're a bebop fan or student, you have probably seen it, and perhaps got a lot more out of it than I did.
11/3/18 The Return of the Secaucus 7, 1980 National Film Registry
In the sources I reviewed, The Return of the Secaucus 7, written and directed by John Sayles, was the precursor to The Big Chill (nope, haven't seen that either, but I had the soundtrack on LP). It's a look at a group of college friends who get together for a weekend in New Hampshire and discuss life and love. You may recognize a couple of actors who got their early start here, even if you don't know the names: David Strathairn and Gordon Clapp, and possibly Adam LeFevre. Long term relationships break up, new ones get started. It was a movie about baby boomers by a baby boomer, and was about the people, no big event happening within the context of the film (no war, no murder, no heist, no natural disaster). It may be hard to believe that was different, but it was. Even though it is set in the 1980s, wondering what you're going to do with your life is a pretty universal feeling: do you head out to LA to pursue your music, have kids, change careers for something less stressful and more fiscally rewarding? I didn't love the movie, but I didn't hate it either.
11/4/18 Suddenly, Last Summer, 1959
With all of the lists I have to work from, you may wonder why I went off script, so to speak, to watch a not great movie that's not on any of the lists. I recently finished a biography of Montgomery Clift and was really interested to watch Suddenly, Last Summer. Sigh. It was taken from the Tennessee Williams play and starred Katherine Hepburn as the deep in mourning and denial Viola, mother of the frequently referenced, but never seen and deceased, Sebastian; Elizabeth Taylor as the tortured Catherine, cousin of Sebastian; Clift as Dr. Cukrowicz, a surgeon who specializes in lobotomies (maybe I should have quite while I was ahead). Joseph Mankiewicz directed (All About Eve, Guys and Dolls, Cleopatra) and Williams and Gore Vidal wrote the screenplay. On the face of it, this should have been a great film, but it was a little creepy. I'm going to skip over the barbaric conditions under which the opening surgery is performed, that's too obvious. The unnaturally intense grief that is displayed by Viola for Sebastian is unnerving. I was really proud of myself for noticing the connection between the names Viola and Sebastian and the play Twelfth Night by Shakespeare; the thing is, they were twins. The description of Sebastian's death at the hands of some local boys in a Spanish beach town is disturbing. If you watch the movie with no understanding of the background, some things may not make sense, but there are veiled hints at Sebastian's homosexuality, which Viola denies, but Catherine confirms in a very emotional speech. Catherine's knowledge of Sebastian's secret is why Viola is trying to get Cukrowicz to perform a lobotomy on Catherine. Yeah, did you just make a face? I will say I had to watch Hepburn, she was so commanding. She and Taylor were both nominated for the Best Actress Oscar, but lost to Simone Signoret. Clift was not at his best, this film came only a few years after a devastating car accident. I don't care if it wasn't on a list, I'm crossing it off.
