Beatlemania 2012!

I'm not one of those people who automatically put John Lennon way above the other Beatles. I like them all just fine, thank you very much. But I have to say that John really stands out in A Hard Day's Night, which we just watched in Cinema Criticism. His humor, some of which was apparently ad-libbed, has an absurdist flavor that seems just right for these inescapably absurd times. The other Beatles are great, too: Paul with his sunny smile, George with his amusingly elevated diction and Ringo with those soulful eyes of his. But on this viewing, John stole the show, at least for me.

Loving Strangelove

There's so much to like in Dr. Strangelove, which we watched this week in my Film Comedy class. But I think my favorite part is near the end, when Peter Sellers, as the good doctor himself, starts getting excited about the possibility of a post-apocalyptic future and his Nazi spirit starts to emerge, first taking over his gloved hand and then his entire being, while he tries to keep it at bay. Was anyone ever funnier than Sellers? His final line, "Mine Fuhrer! I can walk!," gets me every time.

Oscar Night

For years, if not decades, movie critics (me included) have been complaining about the Oscars, saying they're irrelevant. So now that the public is starting to ignore the awards, some of the critics seem to be panicking. I've been reading laments about the general falloff in public interest in the Big Night, as well as suggestions by some critics about how to goose up the Oscars and make them more popular. Maybe the Academy Awards are like Miss America, a relic of an era that has ended or is ending. Maybe it's time to hang up the sash -- or at least move it to cable.

Sweet Smell Reaction

I was fascinated by the reaction of my Writing About the Movies class to Sweet Smell of Success, which we saw this week. There's this scene where Tony Curtis' character, Sidney Falco, tries to pressure a cigarette girl, who's in a jam, to sleep with a sleazy newspaper columnist as a way of getting out of that jam. The students were  audibly offended, or even revolted, by Sidney's tactics. The reaction had an astonishing, real-world vibe to it, as if some of the students were aware of similar situations. In any case, that sequence really struck a nerve. I'll never see the film in quite the same way again.

Addison Added

We watched All About Eve in my Film Adaptation class this week. There's a lot to like in that movie, but my favorite thing is the character of Addison DeWitt, the heartless, witty critic played by George Sanders. He should probably offend real critics, but I've never known one (including myself) who didn't love him. I find it interesting that the character doesn't appear at all in the story that the movie is based on. A student in a previous class said she thought his first name, "Addison," was a reference to his having been "added" to the story. That never occurred to me, although I've always thought his last name refers to his wittiness. 

Marilyn Lives?

So this was kind of surprising: I showed Some Like It Hot to my Film Comedy class last week and they loved it. That's not the surprising part. The surprising part is that, even so, they're not so crazy about Marilyn Monroe. One student even said he found her annoying. Maybe her charm doesn't transfer to the millennial generation or something. This week, we watched another Marilyn film, The Seven Year Itch. Will they like her better in color? Guess I'll see next week.

We'll Always Have Casablanca

In my Cinema Criticism class, we watched Casablanca this week. I hadn't seen it in a while and it blew me away again. We're concentrating, in class, on the great dialogue. I think this movie has more quotable lines than any other. But I have to say that the characters and the performances are at least as important here. Of course, Bogart and Bergman are amazing, but I got a special kick this time out of Claude Rains' performance as the lovably "corrupt" French official, Capt. Louis Renault. Louis is part of the system, while Bogart's Rick is an outsider, but otherwise they're just the same: In some sense, they're both on the right side, even if they don't always know it. Anyway, Rains' performance is impeccably wry. As Louis, he keeps insisting how corrupt he is, but we never quite believe him. When he finally says, "Round up the usual suspects," thus cementing his bond with Rick and asserting his opposition to fascism, I wanted to cry. Of course, I couldn't do that in front of my students...

Oscar Buzz 2

With just about a week until the Oscars, it seems like The Artist is the frontrunner for best picture. I wouldn't exactly call it a masterpiece, but it's a strong film: entertaining and, in its own way, kind of daring. I mean, a SILENT film, right? At a time when all the emphasis is on IMAX, 3-D and every other technical innovation, it would be quite a statement for the motion-picture academy to give its top prize to a movie that could pretty much have been made in, say, 1917. And in any case, Jean Dujardin, who plays the male lead, deserves some kind of recognition.  He's got that great Maurice Chevalier/Charles Boyer (no relation) charm, plus he can dance!

His Girl Friday Meets The New Girl

Last week in my Comedy class I showed His Girl Friday, the fast-talking newspaper comedy starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. So wouldn't you know? Last weekend on Saturday Night Live, there was a sketch parodying the film! Zooey Deschanel, the guest host, played a new star reporter in a 1940s newsroom who couldn't understand a word anyone was saying because they all talked so fast. Pretty funny. A few of my students had seen the sketch and were clearly amused by it and by the coincidental timing. Wish I could have showed it to the whole class but time was really limited this week and there were technical issues. But I told them where to find it on Hulu.

The Duke

John Wayne is a special case. In the Adaptation class this week, we saw Stagecoach, the movie that made Wayne a star after a considerable early career in which he had already appeared in something like 70 movies. Stagecoach, directed by the unassailable John Ford, is one of my very favorite westerns, along with The Wild Bunch and High Noon (but not Ford's influential The Searchers), and it contains one of Wayne's best, most sensitive performances. But it's hard for people who remember "the Duke's" heyday to really see his work for what it is. Wayne's legend was too large and his politics too conspicuous. Is he underrated, overrated or, somehow, both? Someday, someone will sort it all out. In the meantime, pilgrim, I'll be interested to hear what my students have to say next week.

Great Diner Insight!

A student in my Film Criticism class said that he thought Diner resembles the Judd Apatow movies (Knocked Up, Superbad) in some ways. I never made that connection, but there certainly are several scenes that qualify, including Mickey Rourke's infamous popcorn-container scene. Ingenious!

The Marilyns

Somebody once said that for Elvis, dying was a good career move. Same with Marilyn Monroe. Has she ever been bigger? In my Film Comedy class, we'll be seeing two Marilyn films over the next two weeks: Some Like It Hot and The Seven Year Itch. This week, I told the class that there's a new NBC show called Smash about creating a Broadway musical about Marilyn. The class, of course, already knew about it. Plus there's also the film My Week With Marilyn in theaters now. On Smash last night, a character was watching Some Like It Hot on a computer. Next week, I'll ask if the class noticed that.

Reactions to Body Heat

My "Writing About the Movies" class saw Body Heat last week and this week we talked about it. There was a spirited (to say the least) discussion about why Kathleen Turner's character did what she did, and why William Hurt's character did what he did. (In Hurt's case the most popular options were love, lust, money and some combination of those). These students all come from different backgrounds and have very different perspectives, which is one reason the discussion was so interesting. Also, the subject matter, in this case, seemed to bring out the differences in male and female perspectives.

Viewing "A Room With a View"

A Room With a View is one of my favorite period pictures based on a classic text. We watched it in my Adaptation class and I think the class got a kick out of seeing some Harry Potter actors (Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter) in earlier roles, as well as seeing Daniel Day Lewis playing the ultimate upper-class British twit. I warned them about the bathing scene with the full-frontal male nudity. Even so, there was quite a reaction: groans that turned to laughter as it went on. Maybe I'll start next week by asking them about that.

Back to the Diner

We watched Diner in my Criticism Writing class this week. I hadn't seen the movie since it opened in 1982 (30 years ago! Yikes!), but I remembered it really well and, I think, it holds up. Plus it's one of those movies that introduces or showcases a lot of young actors who then go on to substantial careers: Kevin Bacon, Ellen Barkin, Mickey Rourke, Paul Reiser, Daniel Stern, Tim Daly and Steve Guttenberg all became famous in one way or another. The very last scene, at the wedding, kills me. Glad I didn't cry in front of the class.