From a stroll in Chicago this past May, Siskel and Ebert. Two thumbs up.
6/9/19 Driving Miss Daisy, Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Makeup, Best Adapted Screenplay, 1989
One of the fun things about re-watching movies I watched 5, 10 or 20 years ago is seeing if I still feel the same way as when I first watched them. There have been some movies where I feel incredibly different, either in a good or bad way; sometimes it's been a more subtle change, like maybe I still enjoy the movie or a performance, but I don't love it. I think that's how I feel about Driving Miss Daisy. I think it's a good movie, with some terrific performances by Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman and Dan Ackroyd, and a sense of melancholy. Driving Miss Daisy was adapted from Alfred Uhry's play, and if it wasn't a play, the tight dialog and banter between the two main characters would make you think it would be a great play. Tandy plays Daisy Werthan, an elderly, Jewish widow in Georgia in the 1940s whose son (Dan Ackroyd) decides it's best if she stop driving and they find someone drive her around. That someone is Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman), a black man who has the patience of a saint because Miss Daisy is not always the most appreciative person in the world. The pair spend over 20 years together, occasionally getting glimpses into the other's universe, anti-Semitism directed at Miss Daisy, racism towards Hoke and just aging in an ever-changing world. Call me sentimental or simple or both, but part of what I do really like about the story is the development of relationship between Miss Daisy and Hoke, from a reluctant acceptance of a driver in her life to a true appreciation of one another and caring about each other's well being. Tandy, Freeman and Ackroyd were all nominated for Oscars, with Tandy winning for Best Actress. Was it the Best Picture of the year? I don't know, possibly not. Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, which came out the same year, was not even nominated for Best Picture, but that may be one of the movies that still has an impact thirty years later. The Dead Poets Society, which was nominated, is also one that gets referenced today, whether for Robin Williams' performance or the coming of age story; Field of Dreams is a favorite among baseball fans, and has some quotable lines, but I've only seen it once, and I don't think it was Best Picture (maybe I'll feel differently if I watch it again).
6/22/19 The Red Shoes, Best Original Score, Best Art Direction, 1948
The Red Shoes is one of those films that gets mentioned by directors, photographers and film historians. Of course, that usually means it's pretentious and overwrought and overhyped, or maybe just not very good. I'm happy to say that 'usually' doesn't mean always and the hype about how beautiful the film looks is totally spot on. It was made by the same team that made Black Narcissus, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, which was a beautifully filmed movie that also used the Technicolor technology (that movie was overwrought). Moira Shearer who stars as the main character, Victoria Page, was originally a ballet dancer; selecting a dancer for the lead roles was intentional as opposed to actors who learned to dance. The story is a story within a story, based on the fairy tale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen. Of course there is a love story or two, battles of egos, men who know what's best for the young ingenue and tragedy. I'm not a ballet expert, and I don't usually seek it out, but this was gorgeous to watch, and the acting was a little melodramatic at times, but I think that's pretty much what you get for that time period. If you are a film buff/fan and have not seen The Red Shoes, I recommend watching it over the upcoming autumn/winter weekends.
8/17/19 Never Look Away, nominated Best Foreign Film, Best Cinematography, 2018
Never Look Away starts in the Nazi era in Germany and goes through the Cold War and the division of Germany in to east and west. The movie is fiction but has its basis in some facts from the life of artist Gerhard Richter. The film was written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck who also wrote and directed Oscar winner The Lives of Others, a very intense look at the East German secret police during the Cold War. The movie is three hours long and there were definitely moments where it felt like it was dragging. Kurt Barnert (Tom Schilling) is a young man when the movie starts; he loves his aunt Elisabeth who is fun and artistic and very much against Hitler. What befell her at the hands of doctors sympathetic to Hitler affected Kurt for the rest of his life. Kurt tries to pursue his art, but he can't find his voice, although he finds his muse in Ellie Seeband (Paula Beer), a fashion student whose family has a room to rent. Kurt and Ellie have a furtive romance because they fear that her very strict and controlling (and creepy) father (Sebastian Koch) will forbid it. Their romance grows and Kurt begins to find his artistic voice and they escape to West Germany. Kurt also discovers a link between his past and his young aunt and Ellie's father, although it is more clear to the viewer than it is to him. It is probably very difficult for anyone who was not alive during the Cold War, the Iron Curtain and the time of the Berlin Wall and East and West Germany (do people remember what the GDR or FDR stood for?), but it impacted art, sport and the geopolitical climate for decades. It is a long movie and in German, so you have to read it, but it covers a period of history that a lot of Americans are not familiar with, and it's interesting and has some good plot twists and worth the time.
