Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You can play, too - just pick three movies that fit the week's theme and write a bit about them!
This week on Thursday Movie Picks, we're going back to our childhood days. I had a LOT of favorite movies as a kid - my sister and I wore out so many VHS tapes (yes, I'm that old) that I STILL have some movies memorized (most of them Disney animated classics). And while a lot of them were kids movies (anything and everything involving the Muppets), some of them were... well... a bit odd. And those are the ones I'm sharing with you today.
The Addams Family (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1991) One of the best films to be based on a comic strip, partly because its punctuated with little scenes that play out just like reading a Sunday morning comic, and partly because it so deftly brings Charles Addams's signature morbid sensibility to the modern world. Yes, the Addamses become even more anachronistic, but the actors involved have such a perfect understanding of the proper tone that it works like gangbusters. Anjelica Huston and Raùl Julia are utter perfection as Morticia and Gomez, and Christopher Lloyd is a delightful Uncle Fester, but it's young Christina Ricci who steals the show and beyond-morbid daughter Wednesday. When I was a kid, I was most fond of the various Rube Goldbergian contraptions in the Addams mansion as well as Wednesday and Pugsley's bloody performance at the school play.
Father of the Bride (Charles Shyer, 1991) I was only seven years old at the time, so I had no clue that this was a remake of the wonderful Spencer Tracy film, but even so, I still enjoy this one. Steve Martin is a wonderfully affable lead, easily sympathetic even when he's being idiotic or mean, and his chemistry with Diane Keaton is just wonderful. And the story is timeless and pretty much foolproof. Even despite Martin Short's best attempts (I loved him when I was a kid, but good GOD he is OVER THE TOP here), this is an easy, breezy delight.
The Birdcage (Mike Nichols, 1996) Okay, so I was twelve when this came out, so maybe this is stretching the "childhood" definition a bit, but... my sister and I loved this movie so much that despite both of us owning it on DVD, we met up at Metrograph in NYC to see it on the big screen last year. And the fact that we were twelve and ten when we saw it probably tells you all you need to know about how we were raised. It's still amazing to me that this movie was as huge a hit as it was, since despite coming from a major director and starring major stars it was a remake of a French farce about a gay couple, one of whom is a drag queen. Would this even get made today? I almost doubt it would be as big of a hit if it was, and that's saying something about film distribution and marketing today. I'm not even entirely sure how much I really understood everything going on in this the first time I saw it, but credit to Elaine May's screenplay: Funny is funny, and The Birdcage is FUNNY. And also heartfelt where it needs to be.
Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join us by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them - it's fun, promise!
I am sitting in my warm apartment watching the snow blow around outside, and I must admit that I feel very content. This is my favorite thing in the world, especially with a mug of hot cocoa (check) and a fire in the fireplace (not happening in a one bedroom in Manhattan, unfortunately). Next to movies, of course, which is why I haven't moved from the couch all day.
But it's Thursday, which means I have some picking to do! This week's TMP theme is geniuses. I'm not one, although I do have my moments! The point being, I should be so lucky to do something so brilliant as these people that I get a movie made about me.
Amadeus (Milos Forman, 1984) One of the greats. A movie about the rivalry between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a bona fide genius, and Antonio Salieri, an almost genius. The Best Picture Oscar winner of 1984 (which made it my favorite film sight unseen for a long time - I was born in 1984) is deliriously entertaining, one of the best films to win Best Picture. And F. Murray Abraham's performance as Salieri is one of the all-time great performances.
Searching For Bobby Fischer (Steven Zaillian, 1993) An ordinary man discovers that his seven year old son is a chess prodigy. He and his wife find a coach for the boy as he goes and plays in the park against random men. Except that in the hands of writer/director Zaillian, this is so much better and more complex than that plot sounds. This is easily one of the best films of the '90s.
Good Will Hunting (Gus Van Sant, 1997) Will Hunting is a math genius, wasting his days as a janitor at MIT and his nights hanging out with his buddies on the south side of Boston. One day, a professor posts an impossibly difficult math problem in the hall, and Will solves it. Naturally, the professor wants to work with his brilliant mind, but Will has a lot of issues, so he must go to see a therapist (played by Robin Williams in an Oscar-winning performance). I love this movie so much. Written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, and it's kind of amazing that they haven't written anything since, although it's clear from their performances here that they were always movie stars.
Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You can participate, too! All you have to do is pick three movies that fit the week's themes and say a little something about them!
Is it really Thursday again, you guys?
Sorry, it's now been six days since seeing La La Land, and I'm still not over it. I don't know what time it is or what day it is anymore.
Which makes it even harder for this week's Thursday Movie Picks, because we are picking game movies. Whether this means movies based on a pre-existing game, or movies centered around a game, it is unclear, so I will cover as many bases as I can this week! Ready? Let's go!
Clue (Jonathan Lynn, 1985) One of the most delicious comic ensembles of all time gets to take on the iconic board game characters in a cleverly twisted murder mystery. Which is complicated by the fact that the film was released with the gimmick of having three different endings.... just like the game, right? No, not really. So, of course it was a flop in theaters that got resurrected on home video, mostly because of that downright brilliant cast. It's nearly impossible to pick an MVP between Lesley Ann Warren's vampy Miss Scarlett, Eileen Brennan's kooky Mrs. Peacock, and Madeline Kahn's deadpan Mrs. White (just to name the women), but I have to go with Tim Curry's all-out performance as an invented character, the butler Wadsworth, which finds a perfect balance between madcap physical comedy and dry British wit.
Jumanji (Joe Johnston, 1995) This one centers around an invented board game that has some serious juju issues. You see, once you start playing, you MUST finish, and the silly things that would normally move you back a square or lose a turn or whatever become all too real. When young Alan Parrish finds the game buried near a construction site and begins to play with his friend Sarah, after a turn or two, the mysterious crystal ball in the center of the board reads: "In the jungle you must wait, until the dice read five or eight," and thus gets sucked into the board game. Sarah, understandably, freaks out, and the game gets buried for twenty-five years... until young siblings Judy and Peter play the game and release Alan from his jungle prison. Which is a good thing, because they're going to need his know-how to survive as the game starts taking over their idyllic New Hampshire town. This is a fun family adventure from a time when such films were taken seriously as entertainment for the WHOLE family - it doesn't try to be hip or cool or snarky, just to provide everyone with a good thrill ride. Which it succeeds at wonderfully. The visual effects have held up pretty well, too.
Silent Hill (Christophe Gans, 2006) And lastly, one based on a video game. Rose is worried about her young daughter, Sharon, who has problems with sleepwalking. She decides to take her to the town of Silent Hill, WV, which Sharon keeps repeating the name of over and over. But upon reaching the town, they get into a car accident and Sharon disappears. Rose has to find her, and in so doing, unlock the mystery of what the town of Silent Hill is and why Sharon feels such a connection to it. Let me make one thing clear: This is NOT a good movie. Not by a longshot. Approximately nothing in it makes any sense, it's insanely overblown, and none of the performing styles ever really meld. BUT, it does boast an absolutely tremendous performance from the terminally underappreciated Radha Mitchell, as well as some of the most sublime surreal imagery I've ever seen in a mainstream movie. Plus, a deliciously campy scene-stealing turn from Alice Krige as the leader of the town cult. Silent Hill may be a failure, but it is at the very least an incredibly interesting one - one that I'm quite fascinated by. Just.... enter at your own risk.
