Written as part of the weekly blogathon series hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Come along for the ride by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!
I have always loved museums. There's so much to see and so much to learn, and I love learning. Trying to pick movies for this week, though, proved to be a bit harder than I expected. Despite the fact that museums are GREAT settings for a movie (so much to see, and such pretty, interesting settings!), there aren't a lot of movies about, or at least set largely in, museums. That said, there are some with very memorable scenes set in museums, so that's what I based my picking around.
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) Poor John "Scottie" Ferguson. After a terrible accident on the job left him with horrible acrophobia and vertigo, he's let go from the police force, and he's having trouble getting over his fear. But an acquaintance, Gavin Elster, hires him to do some private investigating work: Trail his wife, Madeleine, who has been increasingly moody and obsessed with death (mostly her own). This leads to some memorable, mostly silent trips around San Francisco, including to the Legion of Honor Art Museum. A bit of a flop on release, it has since been named the greatest film ever made (in the 2012 Sight & Sound poll), and it's kinda hard to argue with that. This is one of Hitchcock's most beguiling films, with gorgeous cinematography and a hypnotic score by Bernard Herrmann (my pick for his best work). Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak give performances for the ages as the leads - particularly Novak, whose part is extraordinarily difficult and whose performance is hugely underrated. I got to see this on a 35mm print a couple of years ago and GOOD LORD is it gorgeous on the big screen. A haunting masterwork of obsession and PTSD, and a great mystery. I love everything about this movie, perhaps especially Barbara Bel Geddes's devoted Midge.
Dressed to Kill (Brian De Palma, 1980) In the opening sequence of this, perhaps De Palma's most overt Hitchcock homage in a career full of them, the great Angie Dickinson goes to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and follows/is followed by a mysterious stranger. Being a sexually frustrated housewife, she ends up in a cab with him and they have sex. But on her way home, while in the elevator, her throat gets slashed by a mysterious blonde woman, who is seen by high class escort Nancy Allen, who then becomes the killer's next target as well as the police's prime suspect. This sequence, largely without dialogue, is utterly mesmerizing and absolutely fantastic. If nothing else in the film quite lives up to it, at least it is a very well-done thriller, with some great cinematography and a winning performance by Nancy Allen. But it's Angie Dickinson's performance that you'll come away remembering. GOD she's good.
Ocean's 8 (Gary Ross, 2018) Debbie Ocean has just gotten out of jail, and has spent her entire sentence coming up with the perfect job: Stealing a priceless diamond off the neck of an attendee at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's annual gala. It's a film of modest pleasures, which is something of a disappointment after the starpowered fireworks of the George Clooney and Brad Pitt-led, Steven Soderbergh-directed Ocean's trilogy. But it is pleasurable all the same, mostly thanks to the chemistry of the ensemble cast, led by Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett, and with standout supporting performances by Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, and Awkwafina.
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.
I'm a little late posting this week, but it is Thursday, and thus, time for Thursday Movie Picks...
... IN SPACE!!!!!!!
I have always been fascinated by astronauts, and wanted to be one for quite a long time in my youth. I remember begging my parents to let me go to space camp but it never happened. Ah, what could have been!
But at any rate, my love affair with outer space took a serious hit upon seeing one of my picks for this week. I decided that it was far too dangerous a profession for me, and another one of my picks this week confirmed that not only was it dangerous, but that it mostly involved work on the ground on Earth. WTF?! Here are my picks, going from Earth to outer space.
Contact (Robert Zemeckis, 1997) I'm maybe cheating a little with this one because Jodie Foster's character isn't technically an astronaut, but she does go into space. Maybe. It depends on your interpretation of what actually happens in the film's last act journey. But what I love most about Contact - besides Jodie Foster, of course - is how it focuses on the daily drudgery of work related to outer space. It's comparable to archeology: Most of it is slow and procedural, but once in a blue moon something truly exciting and magical happens. Consider this the "thinking person's outer space movie," and a damn good one.
Apollo 13 (Ron Howard, 1995) This film looks at both what happens on the ground at Mission Control and what happens in space during an actual mission. Of course, this is one of those "based on a true story" movies, so most people going in already know what's going to happen (NASA has a bad case of Murphy's Law on the Apollo 13 mission to the moon, but through genius, outside-the-box thinking, manages to get their boys home), but that doesn't make any of Ron Howard's film any less suspenseful, surprising, or heartbreaking. The cast and filmmaking are rock-solid, and the special effects remain convincing to this day. The whole story did a number on me as an 11 year-old, though: After seeing it, I abandoned all desires to ever go into outer space. I'm still a huge astronomy nut, though.
Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, 2013) ...that said, I don't think I've ever seen a single image in all cinema that has inspired such fear deep in the pit of my gut as the one that ends Gravity's bravura opening seventeen-minute continuous shot - showing Sandra Bullock's Dr. Ryan Stone tumbling away into the black vastness of space. That Alfonso Cuarón's masterpiece somehow only gets more intense and thrilling from there seems impossible, but it is gloriously true. I was so impressed with this when I first saw it in IMAX 3D that I went back not a week later to see it in regular 2D just to see if it held up, and boy did it EVER. This is the most thrilling film of the '00s, an explosion of pure cinema that restored my faith in the art's ability to inspire awe, and Exhibit A for why you should see movies on the biggest screen possible, not on your freaking phone.
Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three films that relate to the week's theme and telling us about them!
To all my fellow Jews out there, Happy New Year, and I hope your fast was easy. That's the short reason why this posting is a bit late and a bit short today. To everyone else, HAPPY FALL! My favorite season.
Anyway, let's get right down to it, shall we?
This month's All in the Family Edition of Thursday Movie Picks focuses on Adoptive/Foster Families. This is the long reason why this posting is a bit late and short today. This is one of those times where I have to page through all the movies I've seen (thank you, Letterboxd!) and see which ones fit the theme. I just couldn't think of any off the top of my head. And then of course, when I see one that fits, I smack myself and say, "DUH! How could I forget?!"
Animal Kingdom (David Michod, 2010) J's mother has died from a self-inflicted overdose. So he gets taken in by his grandmother, formerly estranged. There's a reason for that: Her sons Darren, Craig, and Pope are a bit of a criminal element. And the police are after them. This Australian family crime drama is a stunning exercise in tension, compelling from first frame to last.
Despicable Me (Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, 2010) Gru is just your average supervillain trying to put a dastardly plot into motion. His plot? To steal the moon. But after the Chinese shrink ray (an integral part of his plan, as you can guess) he stole gets stolen from him, he adopts three adorable orphan girls to enlist their help to get it back. But the little brats start to grow on him, and he ends up (SPOILER ALERT) adopting them for real. Adorable, hilarious animated film with great voice performances all around (especially from Julie Andrews, doing an impeccable German accent as Gru's impossible-to-please mother).
The Blind Side (John Lee Hancock, 2009) The heartwarming story of a good family of White Christian Saviours who adopt a big black boy not because his mother is a no-good drug addict who barely takes care of him, not solely out of the goodness of their hearts, but because he MIGHT be good at football. And, whaddya know, they just happen to be important people at a Southern private school with a good football team! Aw, I don't mean to be mean, really I don't. The Blind Side is a perfectly nice Lifetime movie that has born the brunt of some pretty harsh, although not entirely undeserved, criticism because it managed a Best Picture nomination. It may be sickly sweet and only competently made, but the performances of Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw as the heads of the family in question are just complex enough to make it not entirely cringe-worthy. Not at all Oscar-worthy, least of all in 2009, but still.
