Thursday Movie Picks - Legend/Mythology

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

I've always been obsessed with the legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood. These twin obsessions come from different places - the first from the Broadway Cast Recording of Camelot, which I had a strange love for even at an early age (I would put on my parents' record of it, get up on a chair, and sing King Arthur's opening song to a non-existent audience... A LOT), and the second I think from a movie I saw when I was young... although that last bit could apply to the first, as well. Which is perfect, because this week on Thursday Movie Picks, we're talking about Legends and Mythology!

The Sword in the Stone (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1963) For my money, one of the most underrated of Disney Animated Classics, although I can understand why. The episodic nature of this telling of King Arthur's young adventures under the tutelage of Merlin the Wizard (based on T.H. White's The Once and Future King, EXTREMELY loosely) means that it's mostly plotless and meandering, and there isn't a true antagonist until three-quarters of the way through, when Mad Madam Mim shows up out of nowhere. But Merlin and his owl Archimedes are such delightful comic creations (as is Mim, honestly) that I can't help but love it, and the songs by the Sherman Brothers are similarly delightful. I've always loved it.

Robin Hood (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1973) I've heard that this one doesn't hold up very well as an adult, but nostalgia goes a long way, and the idea of telling this story using land animals of all sorts is kind of brilliant in and of itself. And then the animals chosen for each specific character are just perfect - OF COURSE Robin would be a fox, and Little John a bear, and the Sheriff of Nottingham a wolf, and of course the king's guard would be crocodiles... and of course Prince John would be a somewhat cowardly lion with a snake for an advisor. The voice casting is similarly inspired, although none are better than Peter Ustinov as the crybaby Prince John and Terry-Thomas as the simpering serpent Sir Hiss, as great a villainous comic duo as there ever was in a Disney film.

Both of these stories have also been adapted as live action films too, numerous times over. The following are my favorite of those.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones, 1975) Inspired, divine silliness. This comic telling of the quest for the Holy Grail by King Arthur and his legendary Knights of the Round Table skewers no less than... well, pretty much everything about British history. It is an historical epic as only the Pythons could do it, and I love it something fierce, despite the fact that it's been quoted so much over the years that it should have stopped being funny decades ago.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz & William Keighley, 1939) Errol Flynn's signature role, and with good reason. His swashbuckler charisma was built for this, one of the most endlessly entertaining films Hollywood has ever produced, and for my money the crown jewel of 1938 (You Can't Take It With You, Academy? REALLY?!?). The casting is flawless (Claude Rains and Basil Rathbone as Prince John and Sir Guy of Gisbourne, Olivia de Havilland and Una O'Connor as Maid Marian and her trusted lady-in-waiting Bess, Eugene Pallette as Friar Tuck...), the Technicolor cinematography is gorgeous, the costumes are to die for, the score is alternately thrilling and romantic... This is Old Hollywood at the absolute peak of its powers. This story has never been told better.

Thursday Movie Picks - A Fresh Start

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, we've all been there. Those days when everything is falling apart, or has grown stale beyond belief, or when a chapter of your life has just... ended. So you move on, you move out, and you hopefully move up in the world. It's not always easy, but sometimes you just have to do it. Just like characters do in these movies.

Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945) Mildred's husband is a louse - she provides more financial support for the family by baking pies and cakes, and he has a woman on the side. So she kicks him out, but has to find a way to support her two daughters on her own. In order to do that, she takes a job as a waitress, with the goal of one day opening up her own restaurant. Which she finally does... while failing to realize that she's unwittingly raised her daughter Veda into a snobbish bitch who doesn't appreciate any of her mother's hard work. One of the key works of the Old Hollywood Studio System, and the role that famously won Joan Crawford her Oscar.

Bridget Jones's Diary (Sharon Maguire, 2001) Bridget Jones is a 32 year-old "singleton" living and working in London, and has decided that she's heard one too many behind-her-back remarks about her appearance and personality. So she decides to make an active change in her life, and starts keeping a diary. She vows to quit smoking, lose weight... and stop fantasizing about her boss, the handsome womanizer Daniel Cleaver. Some of those things actually work out. This endearing adaptation of the popular novel earned Renée Zellweger a well-deserved Oscar nomination for her leading performance as the singularly British Bridget, and Hugh Grant and Colin Firth are well-matched as her love interests.

Wild (Jean-Marc Vallée, 2014) Cheryl Strayed has lost her mother and ended her marriage. She's lived recklessly and self-destructively for too long. Finally, she makes a somewhat rash decision: She's going to hike over a thousand miles on the Pacific Crest Trail. Alone. One of the most powerful films about spiritual reawakening and the power of memory I've ever seen, anchored by a never-better (and Oscar-nominated) Reese Witherspoon. All the better for the fact that it's based on a true story.

Thursday Movie Picks - All in the Family Edition: Mother-Daughter Relationships

Written for the blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You can play, too: Just pick three films that match the week's theme!

This month's All in the Family Edition of Thursday Movie Picks focuses on that trickiest of familial relationships: Mothers and Daughters. These can be either the most loving or the most toxic relationships in a family. I've chosen to focus this week on the latter type, since they're usually more fun. I've included some spoilers for these films, and on the off-chance you haven't seen them (and really, you should, since these are all GREAT films), I've put them in white text. Just highlight and you'll be able to read.

Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010) Poor Erica Sayers. She got knocked up while in the corps of one of the most prestigious ballet companies in America, and it ended her career. Thankfully, she had a daughter that she could raise in her image. All she wanted for her daughter, Nina, was for her to grow up into the prima ballerina Erica herself never got the chance to be. But then her daughter went and got herself some psychological problems, and poor Erica had to work even harder to keep her daughter safe. And then, Nina finally gets noticed by the smarmy Artistic Director of the ballet company and gets the lead in Swan Lake, playing both Odile and Odette! Erica is so excited for her daughter, but this honor goes straight to Nina's head - she starts going out late at night, and locking herself in her bedroom, and stealing things from the company's former lead dancer. What happened to Erica's sweet little girl? And then Nina's crazy starts to manifest again, and despite all Erica does to keep her out of the spotlight that is clearly driving her insane, what does her ungrateful little daughter do? She FUCKING STABS HERSELF IN THE STOMACH WITH A PIECE OF BROKEN MIRROR AND DANCES UNTIL SHE FUCKING DIES. Poor Erica.

Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959) Annie Johnson is a sweetheart, beloved by all who come into contact with her. Except, that is, for her daughter Sarah Jane. You see, it is the late 40s and early 50s, and Sarah Jane is light-skinned enough (thanks to her father) that she can pass for white. This is something Annie cannot do and is not interested in doing. But as girls grow up, parents have less and less control over them, and soon enough Sarah Jane has graduated from high school and is working at the local library and dating a nice boy from the church. Or so she told her mother. In reality, she was dating a white boy who beat her when he found out she was black, and working as a performer in a seedy nightclub. When Annie finds out about this job, she rushes off to save her daughter, as any mother would. But the girl won't leave, and the commotion causes her to get fired. So she runs away, breaking her poor mother's heart. And what happens next between them will break your heart, too, unless you're a robot, because the final scenes of this version of Imitation of Life make it the single most effective tear-jerker in Hollywood history.

Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945) Veda Pierce is the biggest little shit of them all. How exactly she got that way is admittedly a bit of a mystery, since her mother is a hard worker who had to scrape and save and work her ass off to get what little she has. But Veda is an aspiring classical musician, and only has eyes for the finer things in life, which her mother who loves her dearly continues to provide - despite it forcing her to live beyond her means. And how does Veda thank her mother for her wonderful life? She puts the moves on her mother's husband (in James M. Cain's novel and Todd Haynes's miniseries with Kate Winslet and Evan Rachel Wood, she has a full-blown affair with him), and after he rebuffs her, she FUCKING SHOOTS HIM. And what does our dear Mildred do? She LIES TO SAVE THE LITTLE SHIT. Or at least, she tries to, but can't quite bring herself to go through with it. Which is fine, because no one should be able to slap Joan Crawford and get away with it.

Thursday Movie Picks - Oscar Winning Movies

Written for the blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You should join us by picking three movies that meet the weekly topic and telling us about them!

Everyone's favorite awards show is just around the corner, so of course this week's topic is Oscar Winning Movies - from the pool of winners of Best Picture/Best Animated Film/Best Foreign Film. Obviously, this is a treasure trove of great movies (and a handful of not-so-good ones), so I decided to go with my favorite winners in each category. Completely by accident, I noticed a running theme. These all happen to be films with a perfect final scene.

Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1945) For my money, still far and away the greatest film to ever win Best Picture. Casablanca is top-notch filmmaking on every level, and I don't think every element of a film has ever worked so well together to create a whole. The script is full to bursting with instant classic lines, the cinematography creates immediate atmosphere in each scene, the editing is perfectly timed, the score is moving and essential. And the performances. It is cast perfectly, from the top all the way down. The last scene, at the airport, is so perfect that nothing will ever top it. This is pure Old Hollywood craft at its finest. Which is pretty damn fine, to say the least.

Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, 2010) The last fifteen minutes. Holy crap, the last fifteen minutes. I liked the first two Toy Story films just fine, but I never had a Woody doll or a Buzz Lightyear action figure or anything. I never felt emotionally attached to them in any way. But I was a blubbering mess for the last fifteen minutes of this. Even now, I get choked up thinking about it. And in that last scene, as perfect an image of leaving childish things behind and moving on to adulthood as has ever been put on screen, the entire trilogy came full-circle in the most beautiful way. Possibly the greatest ending to a film trilogy ever.

Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini, 1957) - Can we please just talk about Giulietta Masina for a minute? Because she is glorious, and I feel like no one talks about her anymore - if they ever really did. She has one of the great movie faces - all eyes and mouth, and all so expressive. Her body, too, is incredibly expressive. She may be a tiny thing, but she has an awareness and control over her body that few actresses have ever had. You can see all this in any of her collaborations with husband Federico Fellini, but it is Nights of Cabiria, particularly its final scene, where she shines brightest. The ultimate hooker with a heart of gold, Cabiria has suffered more indignities by this point than any person should ever have to bear, but a passing group of young people, riding on scooters and playing music, surround her, and she lets their joy take over, smiling through her tears in one of the most indelible images in all cinema. If that scene sounds familiar, it's because Nights of Cabiria was later turned into a little musical called Sweet Charity, which was then filmed by Bob Fosse starring Shirley MacLaine. MacLaine is a reasonable facsimile of Masina, but nothing can touch the real thing.

BONUS PICKS: My shortlist for my favorite Best Foreign Language Film was five long, and I was worried I was going to have to do a coin toss or something to choose. When my sub-theme became apparent, I realized I had to go with Cabiria, but I feel like I need to give a shout-out to two recent winners, both of which are absolutely perfect films: Asghar Farhadi's astonishingly precise A Separation and Michael Haneke's devastating Amour.