Movie Tab II

First time viewings + Re-watches September, October, November

Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby, 1971)


Harold and Maude certainly isn't meant to be some political diatribe. It's not about economics or conservatiism vs. liberalism, although it wouldn't be hard to pull that out if you want to discuss where its heart lies. Do I look up to Maude? Of course I do. She's not like anybody else. Is she wacky and a wacko? Of course; that's why I love her. Harold and Maude is just much simpler in its basics than people seem to think it is, although its details can be complex. Harold represents Death and Maude represents Life. That's not anything too tough to grasp. If you find this a simplistic look at life, especially for a draft-age kid who could go to Vietnam at anytime (it was made in 1971) somehow personally insulting, then I think you're taking it much too seriously. Yes, and that includes the fact that Maude is a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp (remember the tattooed number on her arm?)

First and foremost, Harry and Maude is a comedy, and one I've been laughing at out loud at for almost 27 years now. It's definitely one of the blackest comedies ever made, but it probably does have the funniest sets of "deaths" of any black comedy I've seen. I do not find anything reasonable about any of the characters that the film seems to make fun of, nor do I find the concept of being drafted to go and fight in a war which seems to have no meaning something to be proud about doing. Harold was probably supposed to be about seven years older than I am, but I was in the last group that actually had their birth dates numbered in the draft, so even if it happened to me after I saw Harold and Maude, I definitely can relate to something about why Harold sees death as the way to live and "fake death" as preferable to real death.

Secondly, Harold and Maude is very romantic. Yes, the Priest's verbalization of what it would be like for Harold and Maude to make love makes him sick, but I find it hilarious. Harold and Maude is one of those films where you can see why opposites attract or maybe even why people who are actually similar at heart seem to be opposites; they were born at different times and went through similar things at different times. You just need to sit down and talk with someone about why they seem different. I mean, even Harold is a bit taken aback at how brazen Maude's antics seem to be, but whatever you say, Maude never really hurts anybody. At least not compared to what she must have lived through in the camps. Besides, Maude knows what we do not know. Maude knows how everything will turn out, and she lets Harold make his own choice on how to live and whether to die. If you ask me, if Maude wasn't good for Harold, then the ending would have been a much bigger downer than it is.

My fave scenes in the flick, besides Harold's suicides, are the ending, the awesome scene where they're having a picnic, pick flowers and then the camera pulls back to show you where they are, and the scene with the motorcycle cop. If you don't know, the cop is played by Tom Skerritt (Alien), and he's hilarious. Now, if I had some reason to be worried about any of the characters running around loose on the street who might actually endanger people, it would be this cop. If his pistol didn't misfire, he probably would have shot a pedestrian stone dead.

The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960) +


You know that scene near the beginning of The Apartment where Jack Lemmon comes home after a long day's work and then waits for some executive and his escort to vacate his apartment? He eats a TV dinner and drinks a bottle of Coke (a sly preview of Wilder's next film, One, Two, Three) while he's watching late-night TV. The channel is going to show the classic Grand Hotel, but instead they list all the cast and just when Jack's excited, they go to those late-night TV commercials they had during all-night movies back in the day. That scene really reminded me of how I'd stay up all night at the neighbors' house babysitting and watch tons of old movies with those lousy, ridiculous commercials. Another anecdote I can tell you about The Apartment was that when I bought my first VCR, it was one of the movies I bought along with it. I used to watch it every time it was on TV, but I hadn't seen the film for a few years, and it was the best film I could buy at a reasonable price.

It is really an acerbic drama masquerading as a "light romantic comedy". It's about a bunch of wealthy, misogynistic creeps taking advantage of women and Jack Lemmon's poor schmuck. But Jack gets blamed for the poor behavior, and Shirley MacLaine is demeaned so much, she tries to commit suicide! Light entertainment? It does have Billy Wilder and writing partner I.A.L. Diamond's usual quota of wit and dark satire, but it's one of Wilder's most dramatic films, at least since Some Like It Hot. But it's also a very good movie and obviously one of his most beloved.

Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1994)



In my original 100, I placed it at 49. It's very entertaining, an impressive technical achievement and well acted by Hanks and Sinise. As far as some other themes it touches (women's lib, AIDS), it's not particularly successful but at least it addresses them. I prefer it as an offbeat comedy more than a serious drama or a weepie. I've said before that it's basically a Cliffs Notes version of the second half of 20th century American history. You should study the real thing rather than take it from Forrest Gump.

Forrest certainly does experience many things which are important to our life, but he's not responsible for them. They would have all happened and been discovered without him. In other words, Hunt and Liddy would still have been discovered without Forrest, and honest to God, they were! The point of Forrest Gump and what makes it an important stepping stone for many people who have no concept or desire to learn about the history of the United States during the last 50 years is that movies can actually teach them something about reality which is totally separate from vampire love, torture, wizards, werewolves, paranormal bull****e, bogus witches, etc. When I used to teach at my school, more teenagers probably learn about the concepts of the reality of rock and roll, civil rights, modern U.S. political assassinations, the Vietnam War, AIDs, etc., from Forrest Gump. However, the key is that it makes most of them want to learn the OTHER truth about all those subjects after watching it.

On the other hand, if they had a woebegone teacher such as I, they also learned about cinematic history as well as that of other important concepts which hopefully lasted them the rest of their lives, but Forrest Gump can only be considered something hellacious if you think that it's specifically responsible for the [Current] Downfall of Western Civilization. It's so ancient at this point that I find that difficult to believe. Besides, Forrest Gump probably has more reality in it than most films do because there are just so many films made nowadays which have NO reality whatsoever.

Come and See (Elem Klimov, 1985) + Art House Rating



Come and See basically tells the story of a boy who is thrust into the unknown horror of World War II. His country, and more specifically, his village, needs him to help combat the Nazis. The central character, probably no more than 15, feels pride in being allowed to fight with what amounts to a Resistance movement, since there is really no organized military involved. Director Klimov is a master of sight and sound, and although the film is accessible to everyone, there are periods where it almost seems like an experimental film. After a particular loud nearby explosion, a hum stays on the soundtrack for maybe 20+ minutes because the characters are unable to actually hear each other. One thing about Come and See is that even if you can sense the feeling that you should expect the worst, when it shows up, you are not prepared for how visceral and spontaneous it truly is. I don't really want to reveal anymore, but the boy, despite spending an idyllic couple of days with a girl he meets along the way, looks at the end like he's literally aged from 15 to about 30 in the span of weeks.

Here's an interview with director Klimov who discusses how he tried to make the movie for years but was blocked by Soviet censors. He and his co-writer lived through the war and says, "That subject was too sacred for us to be false" and he says, "I think the film is rather reserved... we could have shown such things there, but no one would have beren able to watch it, and our work would've been in vain." I've also included an obituary which highlights the fact that he had problems with the government before and after all the films he made. His wife's death and the whole experience left him incapable of making another film the remaining 18 years of his life.

Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)



Chinatown begins with almost a perfect recreation of the best opening credits which a classic mystery NEVER actually began with. The Sepiatone, the fast scroll, Jerry Goldsmith's sexy, jazzy score, the mistaken-identity opening, Gittes' obsession with sex... they're all perfect.

And the film does build and build... My fave mystery (both as book and novel) has always been The Maltese Falcon, but Sam Spade never lets anybody get his number. Scripter Robert Towne lets Nicholson's Gittes fall for Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), and their chemistry is terrific, so by the time we reach the most-Noirish ending of any Noir, our guts are just as busted up as Gittes. The ending is not rushed at all. After all, what do you want to see? Gittes cry and then go blow away Noah Cross like the ending of Taxi Driver? I don't think so, I hope.

You know, I've seen this movie so many damn times and the first time I saw it was one of the first drive-ins I went to in 1974, but for some strange reason, I never realized that Nicholson's Jake Gittes acted almost completely like an amateur at the beginning of Chinatown. I mean, Sam Spade seems like a pro in The Maltese Falcon, but when one of Gittes' "operatives" takes photos and shows them to him, Gittes blows him off ("Is that all you got?") and shows no signs of realizing who Noah Cross (John Huston) is.

Then, later on when Gittes is doing his own photographic essays, he knocks down some tiles a la Ben-Hur to try to announce his presence!

The scene where the "real" Evelyn Mulwray shows up is a classic where Gittes talks about "contemplating the moon", but it introduces many of the concepts of Film Noir into modern film usage. "Noir" literally means "Black" in French, but since most film noirs were made and shot in America before the French defined the term, I think that we are allowed to adapt the definition to mean anything which seems to involve a man, a woman, a mystery and something "Pitch Black". I cannot think of a plot more "black" or "noir" than Chinatown, so you will never convince me that it's not a perfect example of film noir. Even though the cinematography by John Alonzo of Chinatown is often crisp and bright, the plotting is dark and murky, but that doesn't mean that Alonzo doesn't go out of his way to use plenty of shadows throughout the film.

An homage to The Maltese Falcon is apparently the character named Ida Sessions. Well, Iva was the name of Sam Spade's partner Miles Archer's wife, and Spade was having an affair with her before Miles got "lead poisoning" and died. Let's see. It's also about halfway through Chinatown that one of the great reveals occurs and I'm talking about the line, "It's bad for the glass."

Gittes may be an amateur as a private dick, but he does go out of his way to sing about what he thinks of the real Evelyn Mulwray - "I love you and just the way you look tonight... "

What do you think of the scene in the bathroom where Gittes finds the flaw in Evelyn's iris? Wasn't that just about the sexiest scene in screen history?

As Chinatown inexorably moves on to its finale, who else is haunted by Gittes' comment that in Chinatown he was trying to keep somebody from being hurt? Chinatown is crammed with scenes which no other film contains. Do any others contain chases through orange fields? How about people getting knifed in the nose and spending 40% of the film with a huge bandage on the nose? Then again, many films refer to something which happened to a character before the movie started, but very few do not reveal what it was that happened [in Chinatown].

How about all the fun clues and foreshadowing spread throughout the movie which lead you to the identity of the murderer and the chief baddie in the flick? In the very first scene where Curly [who rules] (Burt Young) looks at the photos which Gittes got of his wife cheating, Curly says, "They don't pay you as much for skipjack as they do for albacore." Later when Gittes looks at the photos of Mulwray arguing with who turns out to be Noah Cross, Walsh says he could only make out one phrase due to all the noisy traffic, "apple core". In Yelbertson's office, there are several photographs of big fish on the walls. Later on, in Yelberton's secretary's room, Gittes sees lots of photos of Mulwray and Cross and learns who Cross is.

Just for fun, the "midget" (Polanski) who slices up Gittes' nose tells him that next time he'll cut the rest of it off and feed it to his goldfish. Later on, Gittes speaks the line, "What do you think of them apples?" just in case you forgot about "apple core". Gittes finally meets Cross and has lunch with him on Catalina Island at the Albacore Club. His lunch is a fish served with the head on. Cross says he prefers them that way and Gittes says that it's fine "as long as you don't serve the chicken that way." Of course, later on we learn that the Old Age Home is "sponsored" and does some work for the Albacore Club. Then we also learn that Mrs. Mulwray is Noah Cross's daughter.

As a side note, in the restaurant where the pianist plays "The Way You Look Tonight" the arrangement seems to highlight how much the melody resembles that of "As Time Goes By" (Casablanca).

12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)

The other jurors want Juror #3 to convince them...

I'm trying to think back to when I first watched the film and how I may have reacted. I was a teenager, but that would have been the early '70s. It was probably my introduction to how a jury might work, especially one where almost everybody sees the case as cut-and-dried. Of course, I understood it was a melodrama where everyone slightly exaggerates their words and acting for dramatic effect. It's still filmed "realistically", so it gets to have it both ways as a realistic drama and a highly-theatrical experience.

The real key to 12 Angry Men's success is Reginald Rose's tightly-wound script, which provides all the jurors [who seem to be heading, shall we say, due west] with flaws and personalities and then as it slowly reveals all of the people we've never seen in the film (those mentioned or testifying during the trial), the semblance of doubt begins to take root in more than just one juror's mind. The path seems to shift ever so subtly until near the end, the jury appears to be heading due west. It's all left to the viewer to decide how they would vote and how they may change their opinion based on the pieces of evidence being examined throughout the film. As far as I'm concerned, the strongest scene in the film the first time I watched it remains the most memorable one to me still: the scene where Juror #8 produces the knife. Besides being the centerpiece of the script, it's also Sidney Lumet's best-directed scene.

A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)


The first time I watched A Clockwork Orange was on a double bill with Deliverance at a very large screen theatre when I was 18. I watched it by myself. Both movies pretty much blew my mind. The music in A Clockwork Orange was really overpowering, perhaps even moreso than the potent imagery. It was really quite shocking to see it considering that Kubrick's last film was the G-rated 2001: A Space Odyssey.

A Clockwork Orange sucks the viewer in with a weird, otherworldly atmosphere by using high-contrast photography and a Beethoven soundtrack. It isn't science fiction. It's closer to some kind of alternate universe. Almost immediately it pummels you with sex and ultraviolence in an attempt to either turn you on or turn you off (or perhaps more significantly, both at the same time). The subject matter is rather repulsive but the cinematics are spectacular. We follow Alex and his "little droogies" around while they "shag and fag" and vicariously see things which seem beyond the pale, but Beethoven is just oh so beautiful.

Then, the flick turns a bit more serious and substantial when Alex ends up in prison and is enticed to undergo some kind of miracle therapy. I know many people who love the first part of the film but say that the next section (the point of the film) is "boring". They wanted more in-out and ultra violence. Well, we do get to that and that's the film's coup. The authorities basically use A Clockwork Orange itself as the miracle cure for Alex to become a "normal member of society". Alex is forced to watch a facsimile of A Clockwork Orange to get repulsed by rape and violence, and since Beethoven is on the soundtrack, it deeply disturbs and affects him. The whole thing is really just a political scam though with Alex as the guinea pig in the middle of a political war. However, even the "peace and freedom" types want their revenge on Alex so the whole movie comes full circle.

Now, I realize that what I'm saying here is nothing new or enlightening. It's always been there right in the film. But as time goes by, and I get more and more students who started watching ultra-violent films and pornos when they were five-years-old, and they mostly have a kid or two by the time they're 15 and they belong to gangs and want to do things like Alex does in the first part of the movie, A Clockwork Orange takes on a kind of prescience which makes it seem better now than when it was first released. But I've always been deeply disturbed because I loved the film the first time.