Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join us, leave your field to flower - just pick three movies that fit the week's theme and write a bit about them! All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts
-William Shakespeare, As You Like It, II.vii
It's true, and in my time I have played many parts. Ever since I was an infant, I loved putting on a show for people. I would climb up on top of chairs or stools and perform, even before I could speak intelligibly, if my mother is to be believed. I didn't REALLY get into theater until middle school, right around the time I first saw Singin' in the Rain and told my Mom that I wanted to be Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor, prompting her to sign me up for tap dancing lessons. Suddenly, I was a triple threat - good singer, good dancer, good actor - and got cast in shows I auditioned for outside of school plays. My love affair with the stage continues to this day, even though my last stage performance (playing Professor Bhaer in the musical version of Little Women, and making my mother cry) was in February of 2014. Living in NYC means an abundance of professional theater but a scarcity of truly amateur opportunities - everyone's trying to make it here - so I haven't tried. But once you're bitten by the bug, the itch to perform on stage in front of an audience never really goes away, and I'll be back performing soon. Just you wait.
These are three of my favorite movies about life on the stage (minus Shakespeare in Love, which I've picked for these things WAY too many times, and Birdman, which I expect will be picked a lot today).
To Be Or Not To Be (Ernst Lubitsch, 1942/Alan Johnson, 1983) Pick your flavor, the elegant Lubitsch touch or the Brooks-ian Borscht Belt. To my mind, they're both great. The story in both versions is the same: A husband and wife team are stars of the Warsaw theater scene of 1939 (Jack Benny/Mel Brooks and Carole Lombard/Anne Bancroft). Every night while the husband is performing Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be..." speech, a young Lieutenant pilot (Robert Stack/Tim Matheson) leaves the audience... to go backstage to romance the wife! She keeps seeing him because she likes the attention, but has no intention of actually leaving her husband. Eventually, the Nazis invade and our intrepid young Lieutenant becomes aware of a spy in the ranks. Mistaken identities, cross purposes, and lots and LOTS of hilarious scenes ensue as the theater troupe works together to fight the Nazis in whatever way they can. The plot is WAY too complicated to attempt to explain here, but in both versions it provides for ample comedy of all kinds, and tremendous performances from the stars. Since each version is essentially the same story tailored to the talents of its stars, they're just different enough to be good in their own way. I honestly can't choose which one I prefer. All I can say is they're both hilarious and worth a watch, especially in the current moment.
The Last Metro (Francois Truffaut, 1980) During the Nazi occupation of Paris, a Gentile actress (Catherine Deneuve) struggles to keep her Jewish husband (Heinz Bennent) hidden in the theater's basement, while both acting and directing (for him) a new play. Gerard Depardieu plays the leading actor in the play, who is also a member of the resistance. The title refers to the last train of the evening, which all Parisians had to catch because of a Nazi curfew. Like many of Truffaut's films, there's a lot here that's a bit dull, but the moments when it comes alive are truly thrilling, and the combined star power of French Cinema Gods Deneuve and Depardieu is just amazing to watch. As with all of Truffaut's best films, this feels personal, and it was: Both his father and uncle were members of the French resistance, and were once caught passing messages (a scene he recreated in this film - one of its best sequences).
Being Julia (Istvan Szabo, 2004) Julia Lambert is the greatest stage actress of her day. But being a woman of a certain age, she is starting to be pushed out for younger, prettier actresses. An affair with a young American reinvigorates her lust for life, but when she realizes he is using her to advance his career and social standing AND ALSO sleeping with a rival ingenue, Julia begins to plot her revenge. Annette Bening is delicious as Julia, tearing into the juicy part with the energy of a hungry lioness, and she receives great support from Jeremy Irons, Michael Gambon, Juliet Stevenson, and especially Lucy Punch as her rival. I could watch the scene where Julia hijacks the play to get revenge on Avice on a loop forever and be perfectly satisfied.
Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them. It's fun... promise!
Well, we all know 2016 was a bit of a downer on the whole "celebrities dying" front. So let's start celebrating them!
I'll be honest, I kind of want to make this just a celebration of mother-daughter duo Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher, but that would be somewhat unfair to everyone else who passed away last year. And there were some great talents among them.
The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, 2006) I ask you: Is there an actor better suited to play Nikola Tesla than David Bowie? He has the perfect presence for the enigmatic mad scientist, and he perks up Nolan's dour tale of dueling magicians something fierce. This is probably my favorite Christopher Nolan film, a perfectly realized vision of the male psyche and the way jealousy can consume your life and fester into something ugly. Top of the line performances from Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, and Michael Caine in addition to absolutely gorgeous cinematography make this one of the best, most memorable films of the '00s, with one of the most brilliant endings.
Dogma (Kevin Smith, 1999) Honest to God, this may be my favorite Alan Rickman performance. As the sardonic, exasperated, perpetually soused angel Metatron, he is an absolute riot in Smith's assault against all things holy. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are perfectly cast "against type" as bad-boy fallen angels trying to get back into heaven, Chris Rock is a hoot as the forgotten thirteenth apostle, and honestly, Alanis Morissettte gives what is perhaps my favorite portrayal of God ever put on screen. Dogma is a sick dirty joke of a film, but it's one that makes me laugh EVERY TIME.
The Producers (Mel Brooks, 1967) One of my All-Time Favorite movies, with one of my favorite performances. That performance being, of course, Gene Wilder's as the unbelievably neurotic accountant Leo Bloom, who offhandedly comes up with the perfect idea to make money on a flop Broadway show, which faded producer Max Bialystock (a brilliant Zero Mostel) takes completely seriously. The problem? Well, in their effort to make all the wrong choices, they inadvertently make all the right choices to create a camp classic: Springtime for Hitler. I just CAN'T with how funny this movie is.
Part of the weekly blogathon hosted by the lovely blog Wandering Through the Shelves. To participate, just pick three movies based around the week's given theme. Come join us!
This week's theme is pretty self-explanatory. Black & White can be extremely effective when used well, and indeed is usually used to make a point. Arguably all of my picks this week are throwbacks to an older style of filmmaking, which is why they went for B&W instead of color. I love them all for very different reasons.
Young Frankenstein (Mel Brooks, 1974) "It's FRAHNK-un-shteen!" "Roll, roll, roll in ze hay!" "What hump?" "Put. Ze candle. BACK." "It's pronounced eye-gore." "SAY IT! He... vas... my... BOYFRIEND!" "Could be worse. Could be raining." I could quote this film from here to eternity. Mel Brooks's delightful horror spoof is utter perfection from first frame to last, with Gene Wilder as Frederick, the grandson of the famous Dr. Victor Frankenstein, lured back to his family castle in Transylvania, which he has inherited after the death of his great-grandfather. Despite trying to distance himself from his family name and history, he finds his grandfather's lab - along with a book helpfully titled "How I Did It" - and decides to recreate his grandfather's experiment. Wilder is at his crazed. manic best here, and ultimate Mel Brooks sidekick Marty Feldman is priceless as his assistant Igor. The rest of the cast (Teri Garr, Cloris Leachman, Peter Boyle, and of course Madeline Kahn) are also their usual brilliant selves. As with any Brooks film, the gags are fast, furious, and flawlessly funny.
The Artist (Michel Hazanavicious, 2011) The first movie about movies to win the Oscar for Best Picture, and a most deserving winner. Yes, it looks and feels just like a silent film, and that's a great enough feat in this day and age, but it's also very sly in the way it uses its soundtrack, first noticeable in one early scene where film star George Valentin (the effortlessly charming and charismatic Jean Dujardin) and up-and-coming extra Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo, the most interesting new face in movies) are shooting a scene for a film where they bump into each other on the dance floor, and they keep making mistakes or breaking character, and as they reshoot and reshoot the scene, the score ever so slowly drops out, until we're just watching them dance together, falling in love at first sight. Hazanavicious has made a film that condenses virtually all of film history into one delightful package. The Artist is why I love movies.
Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2013) Greta
Gerwig's performance here is one of the greatest female lead
performances of the last ten years. But, as with my other two picks, the entire ensemble is
just perfection (although special shout-out to Mickey Summer, who is just as brilliant as Gerwig in the role of Frances's best friend). And even though the film revolves around Gerwig's
awkward Frances, each ensemble member gets a chance to shine, even if
it's just one quick reaction shot. Blisteringly funny, beautifully painful, and
acutely observed, this is the finest film about... whatever this
generation that just graduated from college is called. I can't praise it enough. BONUS PICK
Sin City (Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, 2005) One of the most distinctive and visually stunning films of the new millennium, I didn't feel I could in good conscience pick Sin City because it technically does have color. But goddamn do I love this movie. The images, largely pulled almost directly from Frank Miller's singular graphic novels, sear themselves into your brain after just one viewing. It may be almost too hard-boiled for its own good, but what a vision it is to behold.
