Thursday Movie Picks - Cold War

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 about them!

I've been not feeling well and waited too long to do this this week, so let's dispense with the formalities and get down to business, shall we?

North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) One of the most enjoyable of all Hitchcock's films, with a winning leading performance by Cary Grant, a sultry, never-more-beautiful Eva Marie Saint, and a deliciously evil James Mason and Martin Landau. With special appearances by Mt. Rushmore and one PERSISTENT plane. I've probably seen this more times than any other Hitchcock film, because it's seemingly always showing on TV and I can't stop watching no matter when I start.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964) Kubrick's funniest, most enjoyable film, with indelible performances from Peter Sellers, Sterling Hayden, Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Peter Sellers, and Slim Pickens - not to mention BABY JAMES EARL JONES! The satire is black as pitch and absolutely hysterical, and like the best satires, only seems more prescient as the years go by.

White Nights (Taylor Hackford, 1985) It's been many years since I've seen this movie, about two dancers played by Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines, one who has defected from the Soviet Union and one who has defected TO the Soviet Union (unthinkable, right?), but I still remember how incredible the dancing is. It's also remembered as the film where director Hackford first met his wife, one Dame Helen Mirren.

Thursday Movie Picks - Museum

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.

Thursday Movie Picks - Gangsters

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!

WELL, I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! I know I sure did. Maybe even a bit too much of one, but WHO CARES! IT'S THURSDAY! And it's time for another episode of everyone's favorite web movie series! This week: GANGSTERS. Those dapper men of crime who the movies have never stopped loving to glorify...

...and sometimes make fun of.

Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959) Poor, underemployed musicians Joe and Jerry (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) unintentionally witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. So they escape and go undercover the only way they know how: As female musicians in an all-girl band! Hilarity ensues as they both fall for lead singer Sugar Cane (Marilyn Monroe at her absolute peak) and have to escape mobster Spats Colombo (George Raft) and millionaire wannabe-playboy Osgood Fielding III (comic treasure Joe E. Brown). One of the funniest films ever made, Some Like it Hot is perfection on every level, with so many classic moments it's impossible to keep track.

Bullets Over Broadway (Woody Allen, 1994) Poor playwright David Shayne (John Cusack, one of Woody's best avatars) is not having any luck getting his latest play produced on Broadway. So when mobster Nick Valenti bankrolls the whole thing on the condition that his girlfriend Olive (Jennifer Tilly, genius) be cast as the ingenue, he reluctantly agrees. He then manages to get diva star Helen Sinclair (Dianne Wiest, GENIUS) as the lead. But then Olive's bodyguard Cheech (Chazz Palminteri) turns out to be a secret genius, constantly making suggestions for the play that actually improve it. How will this all end for David? It's a hilarious route to get there, one of Woody's most purely funny movies. Palminteri, Tilly, and Wiest all deservedly got Oscar nominations for their hilarious performances, with Wiest winning her second Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her inimitable turn as Helen Sinclair. "DON'T SPEAK!"

Analyze This (Harold Ramis, 1999) Poor mob boss Paul Vitti (Robert DeNiro, deftly parodying himself) is having a problem: After so many years worrying about his standing in the mob and fearing for his life - and after his consiglieri gets shot right in front of him - he's started having panic attacks. So his henchman Jelly takes him to see psychiatrist Ben Sobel (Billy Crystal, perfectly cast), whose car Jelly hit in an accident. Shenanigans, as you can imagine, ensue. It's hard to believe that this perfect mafia parody came out only two months after the premiere of television series The Sporanos, which took a dramatic look at the same subject. But it did, and it was the perfect cultural moment for it. Crystal and DeNiro are clearly having a blast playing off each other, and the script by Ramis, Kenneth Lonergan, and Peter Tolan is clever and chock full of one-liner gems.

Thursday Movie Picks - Good Remakes

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.

Look, as much as I hate to admit it, every once in a while Hollywood remakes one of its own movies and it's... not... bad. And on rare occasions, it even improves on the original.

Shocking, I know. But true! Granted, it doesn't happen very much these days, but by the sound of it, A Star Is Born, of all things, is at the very least as good as the 30s and 50s versions, and better than the 70s version. I remain skeptical, but perhaps it will indeed join the ranks of these great remakes!

The Man Who Knew Too Much (Alfred Hitchcock, 1956) As Hitch himself said, the original 1934 version with Peter Lorre is "the work of a talented amateur," while this remake "was made by a professional." Granted, the original is very good. But this one has Jimmy Stewart, Doris Day, "Que Sera, Sera", and of course the Albert Hall sequence, one of the best, most thrilling scenes in all of Hitchcock's filmography. Accuse it of being overwrought all you want, but this is one of my favorite Hitchcock films, often because its too much-ness is truly exciting.

The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956) And as long as we're talking about too much-ness, this film pretty much defines it. But in the best possible way. They don't make movies like this anymore, truly epic in every way. Every performance (Charlton Heston! Anne Baxter! Yul Brynner! Yvonne de Carlo! Judith Anderson! John Derek! DeMille himself!) is iconic, and the special effects sequences capture the kind of grandeur that you wouldn't have thought possible in 1956. It may be over three and a half hours long, but it's so entertaining that you don't even notice. DeMille's own silent version of this story is still worth seeing, but it's got nothing on this, one of the biggest spectacles the cinema has ever seen.

Ocean's Eleven (Steven Soderbergh, 2001) Yeah, sure, The Rat Pack, and all that, but even that classic brand of cool ain't got nothin' on what Soderbergh, Clooney, and Pitt cooked up here. Everything about this remake of Ocean's Eleven feels effortless, from the easy charisma and chemistry of the stars, to the slick cinematography, the playful editing, and most importantly, that iconic jazzy score. This is Hollywood product at its slickest, providing one hell of a good time that you can't replicate anywhere else. It's pure movie magic, with a twist that more than holds up to multiple viewings. Neat trick, that.

Thursday Movie Picks - Juvenile Delinquents

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the shenanigans by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

I'll admit, I was the farthest thing from a juvenile delinquent when I was a kid. I was such a rule-follower that I would often call out anyone who wasn't following the rules... until I realized that there was a social "rule" that kids just didn't do that to other kids unless you wanted your ass beat. I have always, however, enjoyed watching movies (and TV shows) about kids acting badly. Call it living vicariously through them, I guess. Here are some of my favorites.

Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) The ultimate in teen angst, although it's easy to see a version of this that goes completely differently, because Jim Stark doesn't WANT to be a juvenile delinquent. But everyone around him sees him as one, so he becomes one. And that's not even the real tragedy of this, because poor Plato gets dragged down along with him. James Dean, Sal Mineo, and Natalie Wood couldn't possibly be better in this (there's a reason this remains Dean's most iconic performance), and Ray's near-operatic register for the thing perfectly captures the feeling of being a teenager, at the point in your life when no one seems to care about you, or even remember what it was like when they lived through it.

Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978) Yes, I know it's silly as all get-out, but Grease IS the word, even after all these years, and you simply will not find more charming juvenile delinquents than the T-Birds and the Pink Ladies. Yes, the ending is... not a great message for young girls, but the whole thing reads as such a fantasy that I don't think anyone watching could take it seriously. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John are unimprovable as star-crossed lovebirds Danny and Sandy, but the true stars are Didi Conn as beauty school drop-out Frenchie and the one and only Stockard Channing as ultimate "bad girl" Rizzo.

Bully (Larry Clark, 2001) And now, a much darker vision of juvenile delinquency. Based on the true story of the murder of Bobby Kent, Bully is unflinching in its depiction of teens doing terrible things, from drugs to sexual assault to emotional abuse to murder. Bobby is terribly abusive to his best friend Marty and girlfriend Ali. And not to mention Marty's girlfriend Lisa, who Bobby raped one time after beating Marty unconscious. So the three abuse victims decide to take matters into their own hands (and the hands of a few others, too) and kill him. As with all of Larry Clark's films, Bully walks the thin line between realism and exploitation, but for me this was a very powerful viewing, with tremendous performances, especially from Nick Stahl and Brad Renfro.

Thursday Movie Picks - Cannes Favorites

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!

Ah, France! I've never been, but my Dad was a French teacher for many years, so I grew up learning the language. Somewhere along the way, the country kind of took on a mythic quality for me. And when I started becoming a cinephile, well, it became very near the center of the universe! The Cannes Film Festival, held every year in May in the south of France, is the most prestigious film festival in the world, and the Golden Palm (or Palme d'or) the most prestigious prize. Not that the various festival juries are completely infallible, but looking at a list of Palme d'or winners is to look at a list of some of the greatest films of all time. Hell, even looking at a list of films that have played in competition for the Palme is pretty damn impressive! So it's REALLY HARD to pick only three favorites out of the bunch. But that is the assignment, and complete it I shall!

Marty (Delbert Mann, 1955) Yes, the very first film to win the Palme d'Or (prior to this the festival's top prize was the far more unwieldy Grand Prix du Festival International du Film) is also one of my favorites. Marty is a wonderfully humanist portrait of a middle-aged single man who falls in love with a mousy schoolteacher one night. That's it. That's the whole thing. But Paddy Chayefsky's beautiful script gets at that feeling we've all had when you've resigned yourself to never being truly happy for a hundred different reasons, and puts it into the persons of Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair, looking decidedly far from the movie star glamour we're used to seeing on screen. It's a touching tale of two lost souls improbably finding each other, even when they thought they would never find anyone, small-scale and quiet, but all the more impactful for that. Marty is also one of only two films to win the top prize at both Cannes and the Oscars, and the only one to win the Palme and the Best Picture Oscar (The Lost Weekend won before Cannes changed its top prize to the Palme).

All That Jazz (Bob Fosse, 1979) Three musicals have won the Palme d'Or, and they couldn't possibly be more different from each other (the other two are the candy-colored melodrama The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and the realist tragedy Dancer in the Dark). They're all visionary works, but for my money this is the most visionary of them all. The crowning achievement of the legendary Bob Fosse's career, All That Jazz takes a kaleidoscopic look at what it's like to be a super-talented, egotistical, drug-addicted artist. Roy Scheider gives a searing performance as the Fosse character (named Joe Gideon), and Fosse surrounds him with some of the most brilliant dance numbers ever set on film. All That Jazz is, simply put, a marvel - it should be too much, but that turns out to be just the right amount.

Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012) Love. What does that word mean? At what point does love go from being selfless to selfish? These are the questions at the heart of Haneke's unsparing Amour, one of the most grueling films I've ever seen. But there is so much truth in this film. Hard, brutal truth, to be sure, but truth. You can only feel for Georges and Anne as she suffers one stroke, and then another, and then basically starts dying in painfully slow motion in front of him. Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva are so in touch with their characters that it never feels as though we are watching actors playing parts, but instead watching these people actually go through these horrible things. I've never been so emotionally wrecked by a movie as this, and that's why I love it so. We need films like this, to see humanity in all its beauty and pain, to understand every horrible decision that we may eventually have to make, to prepare ourselves for the end, because it comes for all of us.

Thursday Movie Picks - Meltdowns

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Participation is easy: Just pick three movies that fit the week's theme and write a bit about them. It's fun - promise!

This week on Thursday Movie Picks: Meltdowns. These can be lots of fun or very scary to watch, depending. But the greatest ones are the ones we watch happen in slow motion, not necessarily knowing what we're watching until it's too late. Ones like...

Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950) The fall of Norma Desmond, Greatest Film Star Of Them All (TM) is a true horror story, and Gloria Swanson's tremendous portrayal is a thing to behold. That famous final scene has become iconic for a reason - the direct address to the camera implicating all of us, the little people in the dark, in creating the monster she became and the pitiful thing she's become. One of the most brilliant films Hollywood has ever produced.

American Beauty (Sam Mendes, 1999) "I'm just an ordinary guy with nothing to lose," says Kevin Spacey's Lester Burnham. And, well, he actually does have something to lose: his life. This takedown of the seemingly perfect suburbia of America at the turn of the millennium is pitched VERY high, but the moments that work are all-timers: Mena Suvari doing the cheer routine, Lester serving his wife and her lover at the drive-thru window, Annette Bening singing "Don't Rain on My Parade", and that KILLER dinner table scene, a perfect meltdown from both husband and wife. And of course, there's also the video of that damned plastic bag, which you either love or hate.

Bridesmaids (Paul Feig, 2011) Annie is having a rough go of it. In the downturn of the economy she had to close her bakery, and now she has no money and is working at a job she hates. Oh, and her best friend is marrying an apparently pretty wealthy guy. AND wants Annie to be her maid of honor. And the pressure, well... let's just say it gets to her. Kristen Wiig's performance brilliantly toes the line between making us laugh with Annie and laugh at her, often at the same time. The entire cast is phenomenal, but none more so than Rose Byrne's delicious take on the wealthy, effortlessly likable (and effortlessly bitchy) Helen, and scene-stealer Melissa McCarthy, in the role that won her a well-deserved Oscar nomination.

Thursday Movie Picks - Underground

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You can play along by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing about them!

This week on Thursday Movie Picks, we're going underground! Which either means literally below ground OR "under the radar". I'm going with the more direct interpretation this time, but only so I can include...

Journey to the Center of the Earth (Henry Levin, 1959) This Jules Verne adaptation is tons of fun, especially if you can deal with the slightly cheesy 1950s special effects... although, honestly, they're a large part of the fun! James Mason is a delight as he leads a team of intrepid explorers into a volcano and to the center of the earth, encountering all manner of prehistoric goodies along the way. Remade in 2008 with Brendan Fraser, and that version isn't too bad either, but I prefer this one.

The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005) Exploring caves can be fun. But not after you see this movie. After you see this movie, you'll never want to go underground ever again. The Descent is horror at its finest, using the screen to trap us right alongside our poor heroines as they find themselves in a cave they can't get out of.

Buried (Rodrigo Cortés, 2010) Another movie you shouldn't watch if you get at all claustrophobic, even if it does a lot with the restrictions of having your entire movie take place in a coffin. And even if it does feature a terrific performance from Ryan Reynolds. This is a one man show, and Reynolds is pretty damn great in it.

Thursday Movie Picks - Romance

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You can join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's topic and writing a bit about them. That's it! Couldn't be easier!

Oh dear. A big topic this week. Romance. I'm not even sure I know where to begin with this one. There have been so many wonderful romances of every possible stripe captured on film, how can I possibly pick just three?

I don't know.

But, I'm in a bit of a mood right now, so I'll just pick the first three that come to mind and feel right and pick those, I guess. Sound good? GOOD. Here we go!

Summertime (David Lean, 1955) A "spinster" secretary from Akron, OH finally gets the courage to take her dream summer vacation to Venice. But Venice is a city of lovers, and she is alone. But one day, she meets a swoon-worthy local who confesses his attraction to her, and convinces her to not give up on the possibility of happiness. So she gives in. But how will their romance turn out? I will not say, but for the fact that Summertime has one of my favorite endings of any film, thanks in large part to the power of Katharine Hepburn, giving one of her best performances. David Lean's shooting of Venice is like a dream, and Rossano Brazzi IS a dream as the Italian lover. Summertime is one of the most undersung movies in Lean's filmography (which also includes the tremendous Brief Encounter). Do yourself a favor and watch it.

Letters to Juliet (Gary Winick, 2010) In 1957, Claire Smith couldn't work up the courage to defy her parents and stay with her love in Italy. In desperation, and finding herself in Verona, she wrote a letter to the Shakespearean heroine Juliet, leaving it stuffed into the brick wall at the Casa di Giulietta, where Italian women serving as "Juliet's secretaries" take it upon themselves to write back to every letter left behind. But Claire's letter remains unseen for 50 years, until an enterprising young New Yorker magazine fact checker named Sophie, on "vacation" in Italy with her distracted chef boyfriend, finds it, and answers. Claire then comes to Italy - with her handsome grandson in tow - and Sophie uses her fact-checking skills to help her find the Lorenzo she left behind half a century ago. I'll be upfront: This is not anything more than an utterly average (if gorgeous-looking) movie, and even if the trailer didn't spoil it, you'd still know exactly what happens at every moment. BUT. Vanessa Redgrave plays Claire, and she is sheer perfection, creating a truly indelible, memorable woman out of a plot device. She's a wonder, and when she's onscreen, Letters to Juliet shines.

La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2015) Mia, a struggling actress, meets Sebastian, a struggling jazz pianist, on one of the worst days of both of their lives. Then they meet again at a party, where they discover that they have incredible chemistry. But can two artists make it together in a world defined not just by dreams, but by settling for less than your dreams? Damien Chazelle's thoroughly modern yet utterly classic musical is a wonder in its best moments, when it completely embraces the medium of film and the possibilities of the musical genre. From the moment I realized the opening number was going to be done in a single take tracking shot, La La Land owned my heart and soul, and after seeing it three times in theaters, I still wasn't over it. It's a total sensory experience, and even if I can concede that it might get a little wonky there in the middle I wouldn't give up that dance among the stars, "Audition", or that gorgeous, dazzling, perfect epilogue/finale for anything.

Thursday Movie Picks - Summer Vacation

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join us on our adventures through the world of cinema - all you have to do is pick three movies that fit the week's theme and write a bit about them!

Happy Summer, everyone!

I don't know about where you are, but here in NYC, Mother Nature has definitely made it clear that we are in Summer - it's been hot and sticky and altogether uncomfortable most days recently. Remind me again why so many people LOVE Summer?

Oh right. Summer means Summer Vacation. Even for those of us who are no longer in school and don't have kids in school (or work in a school ourselves), vacation really is synonymous with the Summer season. Me, I stopped taking a vacation in Summer as soon as I graduated from college - partly because I couldn't really afford it and partly to avoid all the crowds (seriously, wait until a couple of weeks into September and it's SO much nicer). Thankfully, this week we're just picking movies with a Summer Vacation theme, not actually fighting the hordes of people also on their vacation. Staycation, anyone? These will keep you very good company.

Dirty Dancing (Emile Ardolino, 1987) It is the summer of 1963, and Baby (real name: Florence - you decide which is worse) cannot wait to get out of this luxurious Catskills resort her parents have brought her and her sister to, and instead be at Mount Holyoke College so she can prepare to join the Peace Corps. But all that changes when she gets snuck into one of the staff parties and meets Johnny Castle, the resort's dance instructor and resident hot piece. Many dance lessons (and "dance lessons") later, Baby becomes pretty good at it, but forces conspire against our age-inappropriate lovers - until the climactic moment, which is by now so ingrained in the cultural consciousness that you probably know it even if you haven't seen the movie. As for the movie itself? It's perfectly charming, and totally predictable... and it WORKS, thanks in no small part to the undeniable chemistry between Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze as the leads. It  may be cheese, but sometimes that's exactly what you need.

The Way Way Back (Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, 2013) 14 year-old Duncan is terminally shy, and not at all interested in spending a summer with his mom and her new boyfriend at his beach house. But one day, he ends up at the Water Wizz water park and meets the owner Owen, who sees a kid in desperate need of a confidence boost. So he hires him to do odd jobs around the park (and I do mean "odd"), where the staff love him like the kid brother some of them may never have had. And, slowly but surely, Duncan matures and gains confidence in himself. Another charmer, this one has a terrific supporting cast (Sam Rockwell is great as Owen, Toni Collette is still the best movie mom even if she deserves MUCH better parts, and Allison Janney steals the show as always as the drunk next door) that elevates the movie from cute nostalgia exercise to a funny, moving portrait of adolescence.

Les vacances de M. Hulot (Jacques Tati, 1953) I save the best for last, because this is just the best. Jacques Tati is the master of the sight gag, and all of his films are chock full of them. But this is his sweetest, a love letter to the seaside summer vacationers that flocked to the southern coast of France - and those who waited on them hand and foot. It's sometimes very subtle comedy, but always worthy of a chuckle, and more often worthy of guffaws. It is one of my first All-Time Favorites, and it still fills me with the same warm feeling every time I watch it.

Thursday Movie Picks - Ancient World

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You can be a part of it, too! Just pick three movies that fit the week's theme and write a bit about them - couldn't be easier!

We've been under siege by snow here in NYC recently, to the point where I had Tuesday off from work, which has thrown my whole sense of time off. Yes, that's a somewhat long-winded way of saying that I forgot today was Thursday so I'm doing this at work now (SHHHH - don't tell!). But that's okay, because we're time-travelling this week, back to the Ancient World. Now, this leaves a bit of leeway, but I'm taking it as a B.C. sort of thing. Biblical epics and dinosaurs, y'all!

The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1954) If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times: This is the most entertaining biblical epic ever devised, and there is simply no topping it. You've got Heston at his staunchest, Yul Brenner at his most intense, Vincent Price and Edward G. Robinson being themselves for some reason, and, above all, MISS Anne Baxter, wrapping her moist red lips around every juicy line like watermelon in a desert, making a meal out of the single word "Moses". Add to that the truly biblical narration by the Voice of God, Mr. DeMille himself, and of course, the greatest special effect in movie history, the parting of the red sea. It may be four hours long, but damn if it doesn't keep me involved for every single second, no matter how many times I've seen it.

Cleopatra (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1963) From the sublime to the ridiculous, we have one of history's most notorious flops, but not because it wasn't a bit of a box office sensation. No, audiences flocked to see Elizabeth Taylor as the famous Egyptian ruler, but the film was so expensive that it never recouped its costs. Every bit of its massive budget shows onscreen, but unfortunately the film is kind of a snooze, despite its beauty. Oh, it's always entertaining to watch Taylor and Richard Burton, but when they're not sharing the screen, Cleopatra is a bore, not engrossing enough to be a Serious Historical Drama, not camp enough to be an Entertaining Biblical Epic.

Life of Brian (Terry Jones, 1979) "He's NOT the Messiah; he's a VERY NAUGHTY boy!" Every film Monty Python ever made is hilarious, but for me it's a close race between this and Holy Grail as their funniest. Taking the biblical epic and giving it an even more satirical twist than Mel Brooks's very funny History of the World, Part I, Life of Brian imagines the story of Jesus Christ through the life of a boy born next door on the same night, culminating in a famous scene of the crucified singing their advice to "Always Look On the Bright Side of Life". The film has been accused of blasphemy ever since it was released, but in my opinion, you can make fun of ANYTHING as long as it's funny. And dear God, Life of Brian is FUNNY.

Thursday Movie Picks - On The Run

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join us each week as we pick three movies that fit the week's theme and tell each other about them. It's fun!

Uh oh.

You've just done something bad. Something wrong. Something you weren't supposed to. And the wrong person found out.

What do you do?

You go on the run.

Just like the people in this week's Thursday Movie Picks!

No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007) Poor Llewelyn Moss. He happens across the aftermath of a violent shootout with no apparent survivors and a briefcase full of money. He thinks it's his lucky day. Unfortunately for him, there's a tracking device in the briefcase, and both sides want it back. As do the police, naturally. And even more unfortunately, one of the men after the briefcase is one Anton Chigurh, a quiet, possibly insane, deadly force. The Coen Brothers' thriller won the Best Picture Oscar and it's a tense, brutal film with killer performances and beautifully bleak cinematography. It's too bleak for me to enjoy, but I do respect the hell out of it.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969) Butch Cassidy runs the Hole in the Wall Gang of outlaws. The Sundance Kid is his right hand man. After a train robbery goes awry, the two of them find themselves on the run without the gang and with Sundance's lady. I probably don't need to tell you what happens from there in this American classic with two devastatingly handsome star turns from Paul Newman and Robert Redford, but if you don't know, you should see this. The final standoff may feel a little tame after Bonnie & Clyde, but the film builds it up into a pretty emotional climax.

North By Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) Roger Thornhill is having a VERY bad time of things. First he gets kidnapped by some nattily-dressed thugs thinking he's someone named George Kaplan, then they drug him and send him home behind the wheel of a car after he fails to convince them of his true identity. Then his mother has to get him from prison, no one at the house the kidnappers took him to admits to recognizing him, and when he finds the man who owns the house, that man is stabbed in the back while in Roger's arms. Yeah, you'd run in that situation, too! Writer Ernest Lehman wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures," and by George, he just might have done it. I've probably seen this more times than any other Hitchcock film, and it's just as entertaining every time - probably the most purely entertaining film he ever made. Cary Grant is perfect as Thornhill, James Mason a deliciously suave villain, Eva Marie Saint the perfect Hitchcock blonde, and the entire supporting cast is chock full of great turns. An All-Time Favorite of mine, for sure!

Thursday Movie Picks - Fashion World

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three films that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!

Lights, camera.... FASHION!

Yes, darlings, this week on Thursday Movie Picks we are going to that place where everyone is beautiful on the outside and usually ugly on the inside: The World of Fashion.

Fashion has always played a part in the movies - in the early days, there would often be a fashion show just inserted into the middle of the film for no reason at all other than to offer the audience something beautiful to look at. Since then, there have been many films that have taken place in the world of clothing designers, models, and photographers (and their long-suffering assistants). These are three of my favorites.

Funny Face (Stanley Donen, 1957) Think Pink! Say what you will, but Kay Thompson is the REAL star of the show here, despite my love for headliners Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire. Thompson is the publisher and editor of a fashion magazine, and Astaire a famous photographer. Wanting new models who can "think as well as they look", they go downtown to Greenwich Village and coerce intellectual Hepburn to model for them, with a trip to Paris as bait. Well, I mean, who WOULDN'T take them up on that offer?!? Audrey's go-go dance in the club is maybe my favorite thing she's ever done, and really all the musical numbers here are superb.

The First Monday in May (Andrew Rossi, 2016) Every year, on the first Monday in May, there is a Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for the new Costume Institute exhibition. The Met Ball, as it has become known, is one of the biggest events of the fashion world, and this is your insider's view into what goes into making it all happen. I'll admit: I had flashes of PTSD watching this, because a large part of my job for five years was planning the Gala for the theater company where I worked. That was stressful enough. THIS is on a WHOLE other level. That the film also sparks conversations on what is "art" and what is controversial, and what is beautiful, is just icing on the cake.

The Dressmaker (Jocelyn Moorhouse, 2016) The Fashion World Meets The Backwoods. Myrtle "Tilly" Dunnage was ran out of her backwoods Australian town years ago for something unspeakable. Somehow, she ended up becoming one of the world's foremost designers, and she has finally returned home, ready to win over the townsfolk who drove her out and cast her mother aside... WITH FASHION! So much of The Dressmaker is ridiculous, but it is one of my favorite movies of the year for how purely enjoyable it is. Kate Winslet is just fabulous beyond words as Tilly, Judy Davis is a hoot as her aging crone of a mother, and Liam Hemsworth has never been more swoon-worthy as the town hunk. And, of course, the fashions are just BEYOND.

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And, just in case you wondering, my picks for last week's Legal Thrillers theme would have been: The tense, forgotten Fracture, starring Ryan Gosling and Anthony Hopkins; and the Laura Linney double feature Primal Fear (with a never-better Richard Gere and tremendous debut from Ed Norton) and The Exorcism of Emily Rose (which is FAR smarter and better than it has any right to be).

Thursday Movie Picks - Addiction

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 gonna be honest, guys. Tuesday night wrecked me. Wednesday has been a haze; even my office, usually abuzz with activity and chatter, was dead silent. My voice is horse from all the screaming. My eyes are dried out from all the crying. My feet are sore from all the marching in protest. And my spirit is somewhat defeated from not knowing what to do. I don't have it in me to write a whole lot about this right now, so please, forgive me.

Let's just dive right in, shall we? The subject is addiction. The movies are:

Shame (Steve McQueen, 2011) Pretentious, only occasionally involving twaddle about sex addiction. Fassbender and Mulligan are the only reasons to see it and even then, I'm not sure they're worth the slog through every single goddamn well-trodden trope about addiction.

The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder, 1945) Perhaps a bit over the top, but still powerful look at alcoholism. Ray Milland gives one of the best Best Actor Oscar-winning performances.

Bigger Than Life (Nicholas Ray, 1956) The best of these three, with the best lead performance, this time from James Mason as a schoolteacher who becomes addicted to cortisone. Nick Ray was a genius filmmaker, and this is well within his typical florid wheelhouse, which he turned into a sort of house of mirrors to critique the male-dominated American society of the 50s. Mason is nothing short of brilliant in the lead.

Thursday Movie Picks - Science Fiction Horror

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join the fun (and scares!) by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them.

Full disclosure: I was so caught up in the Presidential Debate last night that I completely forgot that today was Thursday. It was appropriate, though, since last night really was its own kind of horror movie, and we are devoted to things that go bump in the night this month on Thursday Movie Picks! Unfortunately, it's not science fiction, it's all too real... UNLIKE MY PICKS FOR THIS WEEK! #SeamlessTransition

My picks for this week all have something in common. Can you guess what it is?

The Invisible Man (James Whale, 1933) It's a bit of a risk casting a huge star as the lead of your movie and then keeping their face off the screen for the entire running time, but when you have a voice like that of Claude Rains, who needs a face? (And besides, this was Rains's American film debut, anyway) Rains is terrific in this, fully capturing the tension and the mania of someone being slowly driven insane by his own genius, which as resulted in a procedure that has rendered him invisible to the naked eye. The film also does a great job of capturing the feeling of HG Wells's book, equal parts funny, smart, and scary.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956) When a number of his patients appear to be suffering from Capgras delusion (the belief that their loved ones have been replaced with identical impostors), Dr. Miles Bennell at first thinks it's probably just a small case of mass hysteria. But then he and a former flame find two giant pods with exact copies of themselves growing inside. And then they start to notice that the denizens of their small California town are increasingly losing all human emotion. What is going on? Are aliens behind this? Or is it.... even worse.... COMMUNISTS?!?!? One of the foundational texts of American cinema and pop culture, Invasion of the Body Snatchers still retains all of its icky paranoid power today, despite being remade - both directly and indirectly - countless times since.

The Fly (Kurt Neumann, 1958) A brilliant scientist has perfected a transportation machine. Or so he thinks. Well, I mean, it works. It works really well, actually. But the thing is, it can really only transport one thing at a time, in one direction. "Fine," you say. "What's the problem?" Well, the problem is, a fly happened to buzz its way into one of the transportation chambers when the scientist was testing it, and... well... I think you know what happens from there. Nowhere near as visceral as David Cronenberg's '80s remake, the original is very much a product of its time, meaning it's pretty scary, a little dated, and equal parts intentionally and unintentionally funny. Oh yeah, and it stars Vincent Price.

Thursday Movie Picks - Creature/Monster Features

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves, in which participants pick three films that fit the week's theme and share a bit about them. Join us! It's fun!

Halloween Month continues on Thursday Movie Picks, and this week, we're talking Creature Features. Now, for purposes of this assignment, said "creatures" may NOT include: werewolves, vampires, zombies, or aliens. So, in other words, no extraterrestrial or supernatural creepy-crawlies. OK. Let's see if we can do this....

Them! (Gordon Douglas, 1954) Probably my favorite classic '50s creature feature, Them! is the one with the giant ants. During the height of the fears of nuclear fallout following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many B-movies exploited the mood, crossing people's ordinary everyday fears with the timely fears of science. I think Them! pulls it off the best, especially since the giant ants don't look too fake. I mean, don't get me wrong, they don't look REAL, but they don't look as far away from it as you might expect. It's just a corny, cheesy, campy, good time all around!

Creature From the Black Lagoon (Jack Arnold, 1954) A fossil has been discovered in the Amazon - a possible link between man and fish. When a team goes to find the rest of the creature's skeleton, they discover that one of the creature's descendants is still alive and well - and it's coming for them! This definitely isn't the best of the classic Universal Monster Movies, but it's still fun in its way - that way that old pictures had of going "over the top" in exactly the right ways to be fun. It's a movie meant to be enjoyed with the lights off, sitting next to your date, with a big bucket of popcorn between the two of you, as you both laugh, jump, and gasp at the exact same moments.

Gremlins (Joe Dante, 1984) Aw, look at that sweet little furball! Cute isn't he? He'd make a great pet, wouldn't he? There's just one slight problem.... if you get him wet, he'll multiply, and if you feed him or his offspring after midnight... well... let's just say all hell could break loose. Gremlins is hilarious fun, sending up American consumerism, dependence on technology, and old-school creature features (like my two other picks this week), and countless other things with gleeful abandon. Slightly scary and plenty funny, this is a near-perfect horror comedy, and one of my all-time favorite Christmas movies.

Thursday Movie Picks - Teen Angst

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 posting something about them.

Teen angst, this week's topic for Thursday Movie Picks, may look different for everyone, but it pretty much feels the same. Feelings so big that you can barely express them to anyone, let alone yourself. And that's the common thread with my picks - they are all deeply, DEEPLY felt in all aspects of their production.

Rebel Without A Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) Has there been a better-filmed vision of teen angst than this one? James Dean's Jim Stark is what everyone remembers the film for (pretty tough to remember anything else in the movie when it practically opens with him drunkenly blaring "Ride of the Valkyries" and later slaying the line "YOU'RE TEARING ME APART!"), but Sal Mineo's Plato and especially Natalie Wood's Judy are even better visions of what it was like to be a misunderstood teenager in the 1950s, where suburban conformity and outward appearances meant everything. Nicholas Ray's florid direction sets the tone, and the entire cast responds in kind, performing on a near-operatic level that is totally appropriate given the emotions on display. There's a reason this one still resonates with teens now, 60 years(!!) later.

Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson, 1994) Based on the true story of two 1950s New Zealand girls who killed one of their mothers, Heavenly Creatures is a knockout of a film, one that came early in the careers of director Jackson and stars Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey, and that is very nearly the best work any of them have ever done. Like Rebel, this one puts its homosexual subtext only just barely beneath the surface, as it explores the close, nearly obsessive bond that forms between Pauline and Juliet, including the fantasy world they create... and what happens when their parents decide they are becoming too close. It's a stunning vision, with a completely unique tone that Jackson, along with his fantastic cast, perfectly balances on a knife's edge.

Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001) Has there ever been a character that looks more like contemporary teen angst than Jake Gyllenhaal's Donnie? Dark hair combed forward, with a haunted, far-away look in his eyes, this is turn-of-the-millennium teen angst incarnate. Kelly's film incorporates aspects of sci-fi and horror to give teen angst a physical presence in the form of Donnie's visions of an apocalyptic event and a man in a bunny suit. Donnie Darko is a weird, strange, unforgettable trip of a film.

Thursday Movie Picks - World War II

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and saying a bit about them! 
A rather big topic for this week's Thursday Movie Picks: Oscar's favorite war, World War II.

I'm generally not a huge fan of war movies, to be honest. But there are some really good ones made with WWII as backdrop, so here we go!

Forbidden Games (René Clément, 1950) The horrors of war, as seen through a child's perspective. This uniquely moving film tells the story of a young girl (Brigitte Fossey, in an incredible performance) whose parents are killed in a air raid while she saves the family dog. When the dog dies as well, she meets a young boy in the countryside, and the two of them start a cemetery for animals, and steal crosses from church cemeteries. Alternately darkly funny and poignant, Forbidden Games is a classic that everyone should see.

The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick, 1998) The most beautiful war film ever made. Taking the Battle of Guadalcanal and refracting it through a diverse (ridiculously starry) cast of men of different backgrounds and beliefs, Malick confronts the terrible psychological cost of war in a way that only he can. The result is the best war film of 1998 (I SAID IT), and possibly ever.

Inglorious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009) World War II as only Quentin Tarantino could film it, Inglorious Basterds is ridiculously entertaining, and not just in a revenge fantasy way. Each scene is so marvelously constructed (the bar! the movie theater!), and each one is better than the next. Fantastic performances from Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger, and Mélanie Laurent anchor the film, it's Christoph Waltz, as renowned "Jew Hunter" Col. Hans Landa that steals the show, in a flat-out brilliant Oscar-winning performance. It may be too violent for some, but I love every second of this, and agree with the famous last line: "This may just be my [read: Tarantino's] masterpiece."

Thursday Movie Picks - Scandinavian Language Movies

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun and games by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and telling everyone a bit about them!
Well, here we go: This week for Thursday Movie Picks we are leaving the hot hot heat of summer in the city to go off to the lands of Scandinavia, where it is much cooler/more bearable. For those of you who may not be entirely sure what "Scandinavia" refers to (I wasn't entirely sure myself), it is the northern region of Europe comprising three countries: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (and sometimes also Finland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands). For most film buffs, this means two things: Bergman and the Dogme 95 movement.

For me, it means one other thing:

You, the Living (Roy Andersson, 2007) Roy Andersson. One of the most unique voices in modern cinema. His films are all very similar: There's not really a plot so much as a series of vignettes with a static camera that have only the vaguest connection to each other. In You, the Living, the connection is the foibles of humanity, and my lord if it isn't the drollest thing I've ever seen! That isn't a word you can use to describe too many movies, much less movies today. I loved every single second of this. The humor - often but not always dark, and almost always played straight - is just right up my alley. If you haven't seen it, I urge you to seek it out and watch. At the very least, it is a unique experience you won't soon forget.

Okay. Now that we've gotten my great love out of the way...

The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1958) This is the one. The one that made Ingmar Bergman an international cause célèbre, ushered in the foreign art house era, and launched a thousand spoofs. The thing is, as much as The Seventh Seal has a reputation for being seriously dour and pretentious (a knight of the Crusades does play a chess game with Death, after all), it's actually not. Well, I mean, it IS, but it's also REALLY entertaining and surprisingly funny in large enough doses to counteract the seriousness. The film totally lives up to its reputation, but in surprising ways, which for me meant it not only lived up to its reputation, but surpassed it. One of the greatest films ever made, no doubt about it.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Niels Arden Oplev, 2009) AKA the BETTER Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. You've heard of this one, right? An investigative journalist gets hired by a rich old man to investigate the forty year-old murder of his favorite family member, and he in turn asks a reclusive hacker girl named Lisbeth Salander for help? If you haven't read the book, read it - if you can get through the first hundred pages it totally sinks its teeth into you and won't let you go until you've finished the whole trilogy. If you have, then you know the story is pretty irresistible, and that Noomi Rapace simply IS Lisbeth Salander. If there is nothing else to take away from this film (a perfectly serviceable thriller that doesn't skimp on the character study lurking underneath), it's that Rapace is a tremendous actress and deserves to be a much bigger star than she is. And that sometimes, it's best to leave films in their native language ALONE.

Thursday Movie Picks - Crime Gone Wrong

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 telling us a bit about them!

Well, what a week to forget what day it was last night! "Crime Gone Wrong" is the theme for this week, and my first thought this morning as I logged into my email and sat and stared in shock horror at the day of the week and proceeded to Wanderer's sight to get the theme was "....doesn't that describe MOST crime movies?" I'm sure it doesn't, but having to think quickly before the work day technically starts and I have to jump on a conference call it certainly felt that way! Because where's the drama if the crime doesn't go wrong? AH, but there are OH SO MANY WAYS a crime can go wrong that each film feels so different. Let's start with...

Four Lions (Christopher Morris, 2010) ...incompetency. You wouldn't think it would be possible to make a comedy about terrorism in the post-9/11 world, but leave it to Brit genius Chris Morris to prove you wrong. Four Lions is about a group of British jihadists who probably couldn't find their way out of a paper bag if they had to, let alone carry off a massive-scale bombing. The film is deeply, DEEPLY funny despite being about such a nauseating subject, but doesn't completely shy away from that nauseating aspect either, and therein lies its genius. It also features Riz Ahmed, so if you're really enjoying The Night Of, you definitely owe it to yourself to check this out.

Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992) Well, what doesn't go wrong with this crime? Although it probably all starts with the undercover cop right in the middle of the merry band of pop-culturally savvy robbers. Tarantino's first film features nearly all the stylistic flourishes he would return to and refine over the years: a gleefully anarchic pop soundtrack, chapter divisions, deliriously smart and quotable dialogue, tension-building long takes, and of course, bursts of hard-to-stomach violence. It almost feels like he arrived fully formed as a filmmaker, except we know he only got better and better from here on out.

Les Diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955) Moving on now to that other old chestnut, "the dead body that may not be so dead after all." Christine and Nicole are the wife and mistress, respectively, of the headmaster of a second-rate boarding school. He treats both women awfully, in addition to the children, so the women conspire to murder him. Except when the body doesn't stay where they left it to be found by the police. And what follows is a film so perfectly taut and thrilling that no less a personage than Alfred Hitchcock was jealous of it. So jealous of it, in fact, that he pre-bought the movie rights to the next book by the authors of the book that inspired this movie, before it was even written. Which turned out to be a pretty good thing, because that movie turned out to be his masterpiece: Vertigo.