The Graduate, Part II

Films: Goodbye, Columbus
Format: Movies! Channel on rockin’ flatscreen.

I did not go into Goodbye, Columbus with very high expectations. It’s a story that has been compared with The Graduate in a lot of ways and for obvious reasons. It’s also based on a novella by Philip Roth, an author I haven’t much enjoyed in the past despite giving him several chances. However, it was the last film left on the DVR before we swapped it out for a new one, and since I can’t locate the film any other way, there was nothing to do but watch.

This is where I’m happy to report that Goodbye, Columbus was a hell of a lot better than I was expecting. In fact, it’s a small wonder to me that this hasn’t eclipsed The Graduate for the genre of aimless post-college student looking for some sense of meaning (and a lot of sex) while he figures out what to do with his life. Since that is essentially the plot, the connection to The Graduate is pretty clear.

Guess Who's Coming to Marriage

Film: One Potato, Two Potato
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

There are some movies that age well and play pretty much the same way now as they did when they were created. Other movies, particularly social issue movies, don’t always age that well. We look at something like Brokeback Mountain that was really special in 2005 would be a lot less so now. It wouldn’t be less of a movie, but the story itself would be much less of a conversation in a world where marriage equality has become much more normal in many places around the world. This is also the case with a film like One Potato, Two Potato, made almost hand-in-hand with the passage of the Civil Rights Act in the United States. Since this is a film about the way races are treated in the U.S., that’s a nice little bit of history.

It’s worth noting that the virtually forgotten One Potato, Two Potato came out a solid three years before In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, two films that are regularly trotted out as moving the conversation forward. Why this film is forgotten may simply be a case of having less photogenic and personable stars. Specifically I mean that those two films feature Sidney Poitier and One Potato, Two Potato does not.