Best Picture Review: “Gigi” (1958) April 1, 2009
Posted by glanzerr in Best Picture Winners.Tags: 1958, academy awards, best picture, classic movies, gigi, movies, oscars
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Gigi (1958)
The results of yesterday’s poll shows that less than half of the blog viewers are uninterested in my Best Picture project. I think over the weekend I will spin off a new blog for the Best Picture reviews and leave this blog for everything else. I know there are some new fans out there reading only for the movie reviews and not for my personal day-to-day stories as well. Perhaps just one last review on this blog, though.
Tuesday night, after another stimulating workout, Lauren and I returned home to watch our DVR’d American Idol while eating stir fry. At 9pm, we felt we still had ample time left in the evening to watch the 1958 Best Picture winner, Gigi.
Here are some key plot words used to describe Gigi. French. Turn-of-the-century. Musical. Romance. Based on that, I went into Gigi very hesitant. Didn’t sound like my type of movie. We already had one lavish romantic French musical in the 1950s with An American in Paris, after all.
Gigi started out with a fairly bizarre musical number, quickly gaining my attention. It opens with an older man named Honorè singing a song about how he loves little girls, aged six to seven. “Thank heaven for little girls!” he cries. That probably wouldn’t have come off so pedophile-like in 1958, but in today’s movies a grown man dancing in a park singing that song may come off differently.
We soon meet Gigi, a young woman in her twenties, who is being taught how to be a proper lady by her aunt Alicia. Gigi doesn’t seem terribly interested in learning proper etiquette and just wants to spend time with her grandmother’s much younger friend Gaston, the richest chap in all the land.
A musical number here and there and, you get the idea, Gaston falls for Gigi. Gaston initially only wants Gigi to be his mistress, to take her to parties and give her lavish gifts. But he soon discovers Gigi deserves better and asks for her hand in marriage.
The movie then ends with Honorè singing in the park once more, this time about how he loves watching little girls grow up into women. Oh, okay, that seems less creepy.
In comparison to the other musicals of this time (An American in Paris, Going My Way), I thought the songs were catchier and more memorable and the acting was comparable, but the story was a little weaker. The woman who played the role of Gigi, Leslie Caron, was excellent—very attractive and likable.
I think overall I liked Gigi more than expected, but it still wasn’t great. Vincente Minelli was the master of these screen musicals. At the same time, it was rather predictable and a little drawn out. I originally thought it was an hour, 47 minutes long. But when I realized I was wrong and it was actually nine more minutes, I was very disappointed. I just wanted it to end so I could go to bed! I would describe this movie as “charming but boring.” Gigi is almost certainly in the bottom half of the list.
Next up, 1959’s Ben-Hur.
Best Picture Review: “From Here to Eternity” (1953) March 19, 2009
Posted by glanzerr in Best Picture Winners.Tags: 1953, academy awards, best picture, classic movie, frank sinatra, from here to eternity, movies, oscars, pearl harbor
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From Here to Eternity (1953)
Lauren and I have really been plowing through the Best Picture winners lately. March has been our busiest month yet, and it’s only the 19th. This of course is mostly because we have nothing else to watch as we wait for Comcast to come install our cable. We also know our movie project is going to drop off considerably as soon as the baseball season starts and the Twins are playing.
So, as soon as we finished The Greatest Show on Earth Wednesday night, we immediately popped in 1953’s From Here to Eternity.
From Here to Eternity takes place in the days leading up to December 7, 1941 when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, and centers around Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift), who has just transferred to Pearl Harbor after being booted from first chair bugle at wherever he was before. He is renown for his boxing skills, but outright refuses to box for the dastardly Captain Dana Holmes. Thus, Holmes and his henchmen make life a living hell for Prewitt, whose only friend is Private Angelo Maggio (Frank Sinatra).
Throughout the movie we watch as Prewitt and Maggio endure hardships one after the other. Prewitt is severely punished for virtually any little thing he does wrong, and Maggio winds up being detained in solitary confinement after a drunken night on the town. Also in the spotlight is an affair between Capt. Holmes’ wife Karen and 1st Sergeant Milton Warden. You may remember this famous scene of the two getting down and dirty on the beach.
Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr
Time for spoilers! Maggio escapes from the stockade and dies after being thrown from a truck in the process, but before he dies, he tells Prewitt of the bastard guard who repeatedly beats him. So Robert E. Lee Prewitt tracks down the guard named Fatso and kills him. Meanwhile, Prewitt has fallen in love with a woman named Lorraine. When the Japanese attack, Prewitt leaves Lorraine to rush back to camp to fight, but is gunned down by one of his own men before he even arrives.
I liked From Here to Eternity quite a bit. For some reason that I can’t pinpoint, it reminds me of the movie Pearl Harbor, only the attack scenes don’t even start until there’s ten minutes left. The attacks were a very small part of the movie. This was a movie with a lot of different characters and several different storylines, some of which intertwined, as the days before the attack numbered.
I thought the acting and script were strong. The fighting scenes were pretty realistic and the war scenes were as good as any up to this point. The love scenes were a little PG, but then again, it was 1952. And the characters loved to drink a lot… not like the guy from The Lost Weekend, but they got drunk as often as possible.
There weren’t many negatives, other than going back to black-and-white after two straight colored films. The ending was kinda abrupt, and it seemed like some loose ends were left hanging.
Here are my updated Top 10, which keep changing slightly.
- The Best Years of Our Lives (1947)
- Mrs. Miniver (1942)
- All About Eve (1950)
- Grand Hotel (1932)
- Gone With the Wind (1939)
- Casablanca (1943)
- Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
- It Happened One Night (1934)
- From Here to Eternity (1953)
- All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Best Picture Review: “Going My Way” (1944) February 24, 2009
Posted by glanzerr in Best Picture Winners.Tags: academy awards, best picture, bing crosby, going my way, movies, oscars, rankings
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Going My Way (1944)
On Tuesday night, amidst our packing for the big weekend move, Lauren and I took two hours to watch 1944’s Best Picture winner, “Going My Way,” a light-hearted comedy/drama starring a young Bing Crosby as father-in-training Father O’Malley at the parish under the tutilage of old, cantankerous Father Fitzgibbon.
We actually started watching this Saturday night but both quickly fell asleep. Going My Way is fairly slow-paced and centers around the singing talents of Bing Crosby, though in this movie most of the songs were lullabyes putting us to sleep.
Father O’Malley is the too-cool-for-school priest at St. Dominick’s. He shows up on his first day wearing his St. Louis Browns sweatsuit, instantly causing some unrest between Father Fitzgibbon and his staff. O’Malley somehow has this troupe of 30 neighborhood boys who instantly start following him around and become amazing singers overnight. They practice ’round the clock in the church basement, and are even known to take in a Yankees game afterwards.
Father O’Malley is quite the musician himself, and one day attemps to have a song published. He and his boy troupe team up with some professional singers and do his big title song “Going My Way,” but the record producers hate it and politely tell O’Malley the song’s not their cup of tea. Dejected, the gang decides to sing another song just for kicks, “Swing on a Star,” which catches the ears of the record execs who pay big money for the rights.
Yada yada yada, the church burns down, and it’s his big song that helps pay to have it resurrected, and then old Father Fitzgibbon meets up with his 90-year old mother from the old country.
Overall, a bit of a snoozer, but it was not without its charm. Bing rocked the house with a few tunes, and the storyline was pleasant but quite loose. In some ways it reminded me of The Great Ziegfeld in that they just threw in some songs just for the hell of it, but it was a much better movie than that.
Here are my revised, updated rankings of the Best Picture winners we’ve seen to this point, 1929-1944.
- Mrs. Miniver, 1942
- Grand Hotel, 1932
- Gone With the Wind, 1939
- Mutiny on the Bounty, 1935
- Casablanca, 1943
- All Quiet on the Western Front, 1930
- It Happened One Night, 1934
- The Life of Emile Zola, 1937
- You Can’t Take It with You, 1938
- How Green Was My Valley, 1941
- Going My Way, 1944
- Cimmaron, 1931
- The Broadway Melody, 1929
- The Great Ziegfeld, 1936
And again, we have skipped Wings (1929), Cavalcade (1933), and Rebecca (1940).
Best Picture Review: “Mrs. Miniver” (1942) February 21, 2009
Posted by glanzerr in Best Picture Winners.Tags: 1942, academy awards, best picture, classic movies, garson greer, movies, mrs. miniver, oscars
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Mrs. Miniver, 1942
Saturday afternoon, Lauren and I concluded our viewing of 1942’s Mrs. Miniver, which we started a week ago, but the DVD stopped working after 41 minutes and we had to send it back to Netflix and get a new copy to finish up.
Well, was the week-long wait worth it? I say yes. I actually rather enjoyed Mrs. Miniver. Lauren also liked it and thought it was “very well done.”
Mrs. Miniver was a propoganda film, created to end American isolationism in World War II, and based on the novel from 1937. The movie revolves around English housewife Mrs. Miniver (Greer Garson) who stands tall despite many war hardships that hit home, quite literally!
Mrs. Miniver is also the name of the prize-winning rose in the village flower competition, named by the friendly station agent who admires Mrs. Miniver the woman. The flower show seemed to serve as a backdrop of the innocent day-to-day activities that were going on while doom loomed overhead.
A romantic subplot featured the Miniver son, Vin, who fell in love with longtime neighbor Carol. The two marry after just a couple weeks, partially out of fear that Vin will die in the war as a pilot. Well, as fate would have it, Carol is the one who is killed when she’s struck by a bullet from a German war plane during a massive air raid.
There was quite a bit more to the movie than that, but that’s the quick rundown.
So yeah, in the end, I have nothing bad to say about Mrs. Miniver. In fact, I may rank it as the best to this point… I’ll have to think about that before making such a bold claim. I thought it displayed some great acting from both Greer and Teresa Wright, who each collected Oscars for their roles. It was a solid story, and kept me on the edge of my seat, especially during the big bombing scenes.
One great part of this movie was a bedroom scene. Mr. and Mrs. Miniver slept in the same room, but different beds. In a span of one minute, the two shared a cool, smooth cigarette; Mr. Miniver awkwardly spanked Mrs. Miniver’s ass when she bent over; and Mr. Miniver commented candidly on how it’s the woman’s role to stay at home and look after the house while the man goes out and “does things.” Funny 1940’s stereotypes!
And here’s another odd fact I uncovered after watching the movie: in real life, Greer married her on-screen son, who was 11 years younger than her.
I will soon do an overall ranking of the movies we’ve seen so far. Perhaps after we watch the next movie on the list, 1944’s “Going My Way,” a musical starring Bing Crosby. As you remember, we already saw 1943’s “Casablanca.”
Best Picture Review: Grand Hotel (1932) November 25, 2008
Posted by glanzerr in Best Picture Winners.Tags: 1932, academy awards, best picture, grand hotel, movies, oscars
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Grand Hotel
Next up in the all-time Best Picture viewings was 1932’s Grand Hotel, a movie that took me two tries to successfully watch. The first time we started watching on Saturday night, I fell fast asleep on the couch and missed the last hour. So, tonight, Lauren and I sat down see it in its entirety. We weren’t disappointed!
Grand Hotel was the first of our Best Pictures I’ve seen that was both good and entertaining. (I said earlier All Quiet on the Western Front was good, but good in a haunting sort of way, not entertaining!) The acting was good, the storyline had very few holes, and most importantly, there were no random groups of children that broke out into song.
The story takes place at a very grand hotel, Grand Hotel, in Berlin. A lonely doctor who resides at the hospital opens the movie by telling us that people come and people go, but nothing really ever happens at he Grand Hotel. Or does it?
We’re introduced to our main characters right away, each on the phone with someone, telling them why they’re at the hotel, yet it’s still very confusing how these characters tie together. Much like the other winning movies so far, it again took me a while to figure out what the story was going to be about. I think today’s movies let us in on the plot within the first fifteen minutes. These old movies really dance around the plot for a long time and seem to work on character development before anything actually happens.
There’s the penniless baron, trying to rob everyone. There’s the man on his deathbed who’s cashed in his savings to have one last hurrah. There’s a dancer who falls in love with the baron after he robs her. There’s a burly businessman and a stenographer he hires. No one knows each other when they check into the hotel, but soon their stories all intertwine and by the end of the movie, it’s all one big story. This popular formula of combining stories together to form one became known as the Grand Hotel Formula!
Again, if you didn’t check out Grand Hotel in the first 76 years, stop reading now! The movie ends with the baron in love with the dancer, the dancer in love with the baron, the stenographer in love with the baron, and the man on his death bed with a bit of a man crush on the baron. And then the baron has to ruin it all by robbing the stern businessman, who in turn murders him.
So, old doc, you were wrong! Things do happen at that hotel!
It took me quite a while to get into the movie, but by the time it was over, I decided it was a pretty damn good movie. Like Broadway Melody in 1929, they hired a couple lookers to play the lead female roles. They, and all the other main characters, died long before I was born. I also discovered the grandfather and great uncle of Drew Barrymore were two of the main characters.
So far, this was the best of the Best Picture winners. Unfortunately, 1933’s winner, Cavalcade, is not available from Netflix, so next up on our list is It Happened One Night.
Team BBQ; High School Movies July 30, 2008
Posted by glanzerr in dj, random.Tags: dark knight, dj, high school, judd apatow, lauren, movies, napoleon dynamite
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Thursday Early Morning Update July 10, 2008
Posted by glanzerr in random.Tags: jason laplant, movies
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Apparently the city of Minneapolis has been upset with the state of our house. As I was leaving for work this morning, some workers hired by our landlord stopped by to start on the lawn. They mentioned that our landlord has received four notices from the city.
1) Lawn is over two feet high.
2) Random boat lying in back yard.
3) Big pile of siding lying in back yard.
4) Porch steps and railing are falling apart.
The only one of these that is our fault is #1, but I think it’s safe to say we’d be mowing if someone hadn’t stolen our mower! The boat belongs to the former tenants who keep promising to pick it up. Boy will they be disappointed when it’s gone! So anyway, the house will be under repairs for a day or two. If only they could come inside the house and do our mountain of dishes…
Last night Jason was over to hang out. There was an uncomfortable moment when I got caught signing Nick up for junk e-mail from many MLB teams. There were also some uncomfortable moments when I tried making jokes that didn’t go over well. Overall, it was just a tough crowd to please last night. Lauren was going through dizzy spells all day yesterday and had to go to bed early. I think she’s okay though!
Tonight there won’t be much going on. I would like to tackle Dish Mountain so I can use a fork again. I had considered going to a movie with Lauren. We haven’t seen a movie in the theater since “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” Some recommendations from friends include “Wall-E” and “Hancock.”
Also, after years of putting punctuation inside quotation marks only to be recently told I was doing it wrong, I have proven I was right all along.
