Movie – Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner features three screen legends – Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, and Sidney Poitier.  As a result, the fourth main member of the cast – Katherine Houghton – ends up getting overshadowed.  This film earned 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and won for Best Actress (Hepburn) and Best Original Screenplay.  This was Spencer Tracy’s very last movie and he received a nomination for Best Actor.  He died just 17 days after filming was complete.  He does a great job in the movie of playing a man who has just come face to face with his own hypocrisy.

Movie Pet Peeves

Note: this post is inspired by Alex Withrow’s April 5, 2013 post Top 10 Movie Pet Peeves and his April 1, 2014 post Top 10 Movie Clichés (that I’ve never experienced in real life) – both at his site And So It Begins…  Check out his site when you get a chance.  Don’t think from these two posts that all he does is poke fun at movies.  Far from it.  There are a number of types of analysis he does that you will probably find interesting.

In my comment on his first post I tossed out a bunch of other things that are laughingly ridiculous and Alex responded that it was obvious that we could make a whole other list just on Movie Sex Scene Pet Peeves.  I made a mental note to someday write out in a little more detail some of the things I included in that comment.  Don’t worry, this post is about more than just sex; there’s also discussions of nudity in it.  (Kidding…not about the nudity, but there will be more than just sexually related topics.)  And I’m not going to just jump right into the sex.  First, a little foreplay.

Throwing Away/Leaving Behind Something Very Valuable – note: there is a spoiler in this section for Titanic (1997) if you’ve somehow managed to never see this film.

April Movie Status

I saw 13 new movies in the month of April.  I didn’t start or complete any new lists.

I am semi-actively working on the following lists: Oscar Best Picture Nominees, the six 101 [Genre] Films You Must See Before You Die lists, and They Shoot Pictures Don’t They.  All of these different lists can be seen by clicking on the names of them.  They link to my Lists from Chip posts on them.

Here are the 13 new movies I saw in April.  Highlighted films are ones to which I would give at least three stars out of five.

Oscar Nominees (0):

101 Genre (0):

TSPDT (3): A Short Film About Killing (1988), A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923), Port of Shadows (1938)

Other Movies (10): Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), An Amish Murder (2013), Escape Plan (2013), 30 for 30: You Don’t Know Bo (2012), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013), The Cheat (1915), 30 for 30: The Price of Gold (2014), A Case of You (2013), Admission (2013), Cloud Atlas (2012)

I saw so few films this month that I will just write a bit about each.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) – Shakycam invades the Marvel Universe.  Not as good a film as the first one, but this will be an important bridge to the movies that follow.  3 stars

An Amish Murder (2013) – This was a TV movie I happened upon just as it was starting.  It did a decent job with the story.  Overall, it was okay.  2.5 stars

Escape Plan (2013) – Schwarzenegger and Stallone finally do their own film together.  There were some good memories for a guy like me who saw just about every 80s action movie when they came to video.  Ultimately, the spark just wasn’t there.  This was an okay film.  2.5 stars

30 for 30: You Don’t Know Bo (2012) – Anyone not old enough to remember Bo Jackson should see this documentary.  He was the best natural athlete of the last several decades and this shows you why.  3 stars

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013) – The first one was entertaining enough, but this one falls a little flat.  Almost all the same characters are back, so if you have a favorite you’ll probably see them.  It was okay.  2.5 stars

A Short Film About Killing (1988) – More a “director’s cut” of the fifth Decalog episode than a real movie.  It has about 20 minutes extra, mostly spent with the lawyer, added to the TV episode.  While it adds more depth to that character I’m not sure that’s enough to recommend that anyone who has already seen the Decalog episode seek this movie out.  3 stars

The Cheat (1915) – D.W. Griffith film that plays on the stereotype of the Asian man out to prey on white women.  It’s daring for it’s time, though.  2.5 stars

30 for 30: The Price of Gold (2014) – I was sick of hearing about the whole Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding thing not long after it happened, so I hadn’t intended to watch this 20 year retrospective documentary.  I ended up being surprised that it kept my interest.  Much like people have forgotten that Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the murders of her parents, so too do people forget that the only thing Harding was ever found guilty of was finding out after the fact that her husband planned the attack and then not telling the police immediately.  3 stars

A Case of You (2013) – Independent film that treads much of the same familiar territory as big movie studio romantic comedies.  It was okay.  2.5 stars

Admission (2013) – This turned out to be a lot more serious than I expected.  The trailer had made it look like a rom-com.  It was okay.  2.5 stars

Cloud Atlas (2012) – A film that transcends space, time, race, and even gender.  Six stories that on the surface are unconnected in fact turn out to be intimately intertwined in many different ways.  Making it even better is that each of the six stories is presented in the style of other films in similar settings, from Moby Dick, to Merchant/Ivory films, to 70s political thrillers (with a dash of Shaft), to comedic old folks, to Logan's Run, to The Road Warrior.  It would have made my Top 10 of 2012 had I seen it before posting the list.  4.5 stars

A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923) – When is a Charlie Chaplin film not a Charlie Chaplin film?  When he puts a disclaimer at the front that he will not appear and that he instead wants to do a serious drama.  This is more melodrama than drama, but still effective enough.  3 stars

Port of Shadows (1938) – I was perhaps expecting too much from the team up of Marcel Carne (Children of Paradise) and Jean Gabin (Grand Illusion, La Bete Humaine), but this was still a decent movie.  3 stars

Movie – Sayonara (1957)

Sayonara is the oldest mainstream film I can think of that is openly supportive of interracial marriage.  It garnered a lot of notice from having big star Marlon Brando as its lead and from the 10 Academy Award nominations and 4 wins it received, including Best Supporting Actor for Red Buttons and Best Supporting Actress for Miyoshi Umeki.  The latter is the first Asian performer to ever win an Oscar (not counting 1956 winner Yul Brynner who was born in the Asian part of Russia and was ¼ Russian Mongol).  This film, along with a few with similar themes that followed, is credited with loosening up Americans’ attitudes towards the concept of marrying outside your own race.

Movie – Show Boat (1936)

There have been several movie versions of the musical Show Boat, based on the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein stage musical, which was itself based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber.  The most well known movie version is the 1951 color one.  The one that is considered the best, though, is the very hard to find 1936 one.  It is on AFI’s list of the 25 Best Musicals of all time.  The 1936 version has been suppressed for several decades, partially due to controversy over the later blacklisted Paul Robeson, who performs in it, and partially due to the studio not wanting their 1951 version being outshined.  Supposedly, the 1936 version has finally been issued on DVD in the U.S. in 2014, but when I click on the IMDB link to buy it all it shows me is copies of the 1951 version.  Regardless, it is well worth your time to track down the 1936 version.

Movie – The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)

Unlike my prior review – Broken Blossoms – The Bitter Tea of General Yen shows actual passion between an Asian man and a white woman.  It’s still pretty tame compared to today’s standards, but next to the very chaste relationship in Broken Blossoms it’s quite something.  In fact, it was negative reaction to the interracial relationship that was blamed for the failure of this movie.  While it was conservative zealousness that caused people to damn the film then, it’s liberal zealousness that sometimes causes people to damn it now.  Just like with Broken Blossoms the male lead in this film is played by a white man.  There is also a nightmare/sex dream where a heavy caricature of an Asian man is first seen before becoming normal (more on that in a bit).

Movie – Broken Blossoms (1919)

Director D.W. Griffith is nothing if not schizophrenic.  Just four years after making the epic The Birth of a Nation (about how the Ku Klux Klan supposedly saved America from uppity black people) he comes back with the small character study Broken Blossoms which features a very sympathetic portrayal of an Asian man and his relationship with a white girl.  Even more surprising is that this film was made right in the middle of the “Yellow Peril” scare in the U.S.  The studio wanted nothing to do with this movie.  Griffith bought the rights to it from them and Broken Blossoms became the very first film ever released by United Artists, the company Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks founded to give artists a way to get their movies released without having to bow to the powers at the big studios.  Despite what the studio thought would happen Broken Blossoms became a huge hit.

Movies with Interracial Relationships

Young Boy with Coffee – “Excuse me, I happened to be passing, and I thought you might like some coffee.”

Little Girl – “Oh, that's very nice of you, thank you.”

Young Boy with Coffee – “Cream?”

Little Girl – “No, thank you, I take it black, like my men.”

                                                – Airplane! (1980)                   

If there’s one subject in most of movie history that pretty much guaranteed controversy it was having an interracial relationship in it, especially if it was black/white.  This category won’t be restricted just to those two races, though.  There will be various combinations among the films.

And by “relationships” I don’t mean buddy movies such as Lethal Weapon, Shanghai Noon, or the like.  No, I mean relationships where two people are romantically or sexually connected to each other (at least as far as it was allowed to go for the time period the film was made.)

Because there have been so many films like this in recent years, I am going to limit this category to those movies where the relationship is a sizable or key component to the film.  This means I will be excluding movies like The Royal Tenenbaums where it is an ensemble and there just happens to be an interracial couple among the characters.

In the interest of showing how things have changed over the years I will be posting reviews of my recommended films in chronological order – oldest to newest.  I've placed the years there to give you an idea of what the range will be.  As I review the films I will come back and add the links for them here. 

Broken Blossoms (1919)

The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)

Show Boat (1936)

Sayonara (1957)

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)

Purple Rain (1984)

Mississippi Masala (1991)

The Crying Game (1992)

Zebrahead (1992)

The Lover (1992)

When Night Is Falling (1995)

Monster's Ball (2001)
O (2001) - (posted July 28, 2012)

Far from Heaven (2002)

Live and Become (2005)

Avatar (2009)

On to the reviews…

Movie – Mud (2013)

Matthew McConaughey had a celebrated year in 2013 with a memorable cameo in The Wolf of Wall Street and an Oscar-winning turn in Dallas Buyers Club.  For my money, though, his best film of 2013 was Mud.  (Wolf was better, but it wasn’t his movie.)  In fact, Mud is one of my Top 10 films of 2013.  It’s from writer/director Jeff Nichols, who had previously done 2011’s Take Shelter, which garnered a number of good reviews.  I consider Mud to be a good step up from Take Shelter and I look forward to what Nichols may do in the future. 

TV and Book – Game of Thrones Season 3

The third season of Game of Thrones is based on the first two thirds of the novel A Storm of Swords – the third book in the ongoing series titled A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin.  Please note that this review of the third TV season and book contains spoilers for the first two TV seasons and books.  If you have never seen this show and would like a spoiler-free overview of what it is about and why you might want to watch it, please read my review of the first season and book here.  If you've seen that, my review of the second season and book can be found here.

March Movie Status

I saw 17 new movies in the month of March, I had 1 re-watch, and I rewatched a TV season.  I finished off the last of the movies that appeared for the first time on the 2013 year end IMDB Top 250 list, so I am once again complete on the 16 year consolidated list.

I am semi-actively working on the following lists: Oscar Best Picture Nominees, the six 101 [Genre] Films You Must See Before You Die lists, and They Shoot Pictures Don’t They.  Some of these overlap, but I am showing films under only one list’s count in the details below. 

All of these different lists can be seen by clicking on the names of them.  They link to my Lists from Chip posts on them.

Here are the 17 new movies, 1 old one, and the TV season I saw in March.  Highlighted movies are ones to which I would give at least three stars out of five.

IMDB (3): Before Midnight (2013), Rush (2013), Prisoners (2013)

Oscar Nominees (0):

101 Genre (0):

TSPDT (2): Claire’s Knee (1970), They Live By Night (1948)

Other Movies (12): The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), Stoker (2013), Reaching for the Moon (2013), The Lego Movie (2014), Turbo (2013), 20 Feet from Stardom (2013), Austenland (2013), In a World… (2013), Blue Jasmine (2013), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), The Spectacular Now (2013), The Great Beauty (2013)

Re-watches (1): Thor 2: The Dark World (2013), TV – Game of Thrones Season 3

I saw so few films this month that I will just write a bit about each.

Before Midnight (2013) – Worthy third film in what has now become a series.  What happens when you’ve ended up with your destined love?  Real life intrudes.  3.5 stars

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) – Better than the first film in one important area: you can actually see what is happening onscreen.  There’s very little shakycam on display.  Movie watchers rejoice!  4 stars

Rush (2013) – Better than I expected.  Does a good job of recreating the 1970s Formula 1 racing circuit.  3.5 stars

Stoker (2013) – Highly recommended.  You can read my four star review by clicking on the movie name.

Reaching for the Moon (2013) – Period lesbian tragic romance.  Some great architecture (one is an architect), but I don’t have much else good to say about it.  2 stars

Claire’s Knee (1970) – Really slow, talky movie where unfortunately the subjects being discussed were all so banal that they were completely uninteresting.  I’m probably being generous with this rating.  2 stars

The Lego Movie (2014) – A fun movie, although never having played with Legos I’m sure I missed some of the jokes.  3.5 stars

Turbo (2013) – Nowhere near as horrible as I heard it was.  My low expectations helped me like this.  3 stars

20 Feet from Stardom (2013) – Not a brilliant documentary for an Oscar winner.  It does a great job revisiting a lot of old music from a different perspective, but unfortunately takes a wrong turn into racial politics and loses its way.  3.5 stars

Austenland (2013) – Even Jane Austen fans will probably be let down by this.  2 stars

In a World… (2013) – I really wanted to like this more than I did.  It had a great trailer, which unfortunately showed most of the best parts of the movie.  3 stars

Blue Jasmine (2013) – A thoroughly dislikable main character sinks the movie.  All I wanted was for the film to end so I didn’t have to put up with her anymore.  2 stars

Prisoners (2013) – I was expecting a gripping thriller and instead the movie reveals what is going on about 45 minutes into its 2.5 hour runtime (if you’re paying attention).  It then felt like it took forever to get to where I already knew it was going to go.  2 stars

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) – a lesser Coen Brothers movie.  They tried to recapture the magic of O Brother Where Art Thou – this time with folk music instead of bluegrass – but it’s just missing that special something that would make it memorable.  2.5 stars

The Spectacular Now (2013) – interesting teen romance film in that it is mostly realistic.  Shailene Woodley does another good job.  3 stars

The Great Beauty (2013) – a lot of pretty images in search of a plot.  Style triumphs over substance (The Hunt) at the Oscars for Best Foreign Language film.  2 stars

They Live By Night (1948) – Good film that everyone seems to place into the Noir genre, but which has little to do with it other than a crime gets committed.  The movie is actually about a young, doomed romance.  It has some great camera shots in it.  3 stars

Movie – Stoker (2013)

Stoker was one of my most pleasant surprises when I was working my way through a bunch of 2013 films I had heard good things about.  It’s the most recent movie I saw that made my Top 10 for the year.  It features a mess with your head plotline, a couple of mysteries, and some truly outstanding visuals.  Best of all for me, though, was that part way through the film I realized I had no idea whatsoever what direction the film was going to take.  Would it stay a drama?  Would it turn into a thriller?  Would it go places that it seemed to be hinting?  Would an element of the supernatural creep in?  Is what we are seeing 100% real, or is some of it only in the head of a character?  It did end in a way that I thought it might, but that was only one possibility out of several that came to my mind while I was watching it.

The Ten Best Films of 2013

Here is my list of the ten best 2013 movies.  I believe I’ve seen all the big mainstream movies and critically acclaimed films of the year that I felt I might like, including all four Oscar winning films (Picture, Animated Film, Foreign Language Film, and Documentary).  If you are curious, a complete list of the 77 2013 films that I saw can be found at the bottom of this post.  That’s down from 101 films for 2012 when I did last year’s Top 10, so this year’s may be missing a great one I just haven’t seen yet.

In case you think it’s a little strange to be doing a top 10 for a year that ended more than two months ago, I’d rather take the time to see as many movies as possible before compiling my list.  This means waiting for some of them to become available on DVD.  In fact, I was waiting for the Foreign Language Film winner The Great Beauty to become available so I could see it before making this list.  It came out yesterday.

Movie – Rang De Basanti (2006)

Among the handful of films that appeared for the first time on IMDB’s 2013 year end Top 250 list was Rang De Basanti.  Along with Incendies (2010) and Departures (2008) this year brought to my attention three fantastic foreign films.  While Incendies is a heavy drama wrapped in a mystery and Departures is a comedy/drama, Rang De Basanti starts out as almost a pure comedy, but at a certain point it not only transitions into a drama, but a deadly serious drama.  The comedy is hit or miss, but the drama is very effective.

Movie – Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

Sullivan’s Travels was written and directed by Preston Sturges, a man known for his comedy (The Lady Eve, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek.)  In the case of Sullivan’s Travels, the comedy it contains is more satire than slapstick.  A Hollywood director known for his light comedies wants to make a “real” film about the downtrodden in order to be socially relevant.  He learns a lot more about real life than he ever bargained for.  Sullivan’s Travels turns serious in the last act when he gets into big trouble.  The combination of the satire and drama worked for me.

Movie – The Big Parade (1925)

The Big Parade may be the oldest film I’ve seen that shows the horrors of war rather than the “glories” of it.  It was released only seven years after the end of World War I, which many people consider to be the worst war ever fought because of the chemical weapons, especially mustard gas, which foot soldiers had to deal with.  Add in the trench warfare and the introduction of attacks from the sky because of the airplane and combatants were faced with a host of horrible things that their ancestors had not had to endure.  The film itself doesn’t start out showing wartime, though.  In fact, it starts out as a light hearted comedy.

Movie – The Blue Angel (1930)

After the triumph that was 1928’s The Last Command, which helped garner Emil Jannings the first Best Actor Oscar in history, he and director Josef von Sternberg re-teamed for The Blue Angel.  Joining them this time around was an actress in her first major role who would go on to great fame in the 1930s – Marlene Dietrich.  Because this was the early days of sound the film was shot simultaneously in both German and English.  Because of the heavy accents of most of the performers the English version is considered the lesser of the two.  I watched the German version and that’s what I am reviewing and rating.

Comedies That Become Dramas

“And if I laugh at any mortal thing,

‘Tis that I may not weep.” – Don Juan, Lord Byron

“Some things are of that nature as to make

One’s fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache.” – Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan

I still have some key 2013 films to see before I can post my Top 10 Films of 2013, so I will do a new category in the meantime.

When I say “comedies that become dramas” I don’t mean the films that mix comedy and drama together (i.e. “dramadies” or “comedy/dramas”.)  No, I mean films that start out pretty much as straight comedies with lot of laughs then take a turn somewhere in the middle and become dramas with little, if any, humor.  This can be a difficult transition to make without losing the audience.  The films that do manage to achieve this are well worth recommending.

And I am not referring to films that simply tack a sad ending onto a comedy.  I can’t think of any film off the top of my head that was able to make that work without feeling manipulative.  No, this category is for films that spend extensive parts of their run time as first a comedy, then as a drama, with little mixing of the two.

As I review the films I will come back and add the links for them here.

Defendor (2009) – posted February 23, 2011

Pleasantville (1998) – posted September 17, 2012

Something Wild (1986) – posted July 5, 2013

The Blue Angel (1930)
The Big Parade (1925)
Sullivan's Travels (1941)
Rang De Basanti (2006)

On to the reviews…

Some Observations on the Oscar Results and How I Did With My Picks

I mentioned in my Picks post that I hadn’t had the time this year to really dig into the nominees, but that the prior two years when I had done my homework my total number correct had actually gone down.  I wondered if my number would go up this year having not seen many of them.  It did.  I got 17 out of 24 correct – the best I’ve done in the four years I’ve been making picks.  More on this below.

First, some observations:

The big winner was Gravity with seven wins out of ten nominations.  It didn’t win Best Picture, though.  Gravity almost tied the record for most Oscar wins without winning the top award.  Cabaret holds the record with eight.

On the other end of the spectrum, American Hustle had ten nominations, but did not win a single Oscar.  This almost tied the record for most nominations without a single win.  The Turning Point and The Color Purple hold the record with eleven.  Three years ago True Grit also had ten nominations and no wins.

My (Last Minute) 2014 Oscar Predictions

The Academy Awards ceremony is tonight on ABC.  Check your local listings. 

I first tried to pick the Oscar winners three years ago.  I got a respectable 16 out of 24 correct.  The last two years I’ve tried to really do my homework and see as many nominees as possible.  The result?  I dropped to 14 out of 24 then 12 out of 24.

This year I simply haven’t had the time to do the same amount of homework.  I’m making these picks with about a much overall knowledge of them as I did the first year.  I’m curious to see if my number goes up again.  Good or bad I will do a follow-up post on how I did.

Here is the complete list of nominations in all twenty-four categories.  What I would pick is highlighted in yellow.  No highlight means I have not seen any of the choices.  What I think will win is in bold.  I will also say if I think my choice is a lock, likely, educated guess, or wild-ass guess.