And a Little Bit of Soul

Film: Music of the Heart
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

There were a number of surreal moments when I compiled the various lists I use for this Oscar project. There were moments of “That got a nomination?” all through the lists. None was so surprising or more interesting to me than discovering that horror icon Wes Craven had directed Meryl Streep to an Oscar-nominated performance in a movie about as far away from Craven’s roots as possible. I’ve said in the past that I think Craven is underrated and underappreciated as a director before. If nothing else, the man birthed four horror classics (Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream). That he also directed Music of the Heart, a film about a violin teacher working with inner city kids, only adds to my thesis.

But, we take the good with the bad in this film. Meryl Streep is an obvious positive, as are the presences of Aiden Quinn, Cloris Leachman, and Angela Bassett. The downside is that it also contains Gloria Estefan, which means there will almost certainly be Gloria Estefan (with or without her Miami Sound Machine) providing the title track and more. I should probably try to look positively on this as well. At least it’s not Maria Carey. Evidently, getting Elizabeth Pena was too much to ask for.

24 Carrot Gold

Film: Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Format: DVD from personal collection on laptop.

I’ve loved Wallace & Gromit for years. More than a decade and a half ago, a friend gave my wife and me a copy of The Wrong Trousers for Christmas. There’s a lot to love with most of the Aardman films. First, the Claymation is fantastically good, using everything from the stop-motion catalog created by Ray Harryhausen and adding a number of impressive tricks of their own. Second, and just as important, Aardman films tend to be astonishingly clever, filled with jokes for the entire audience as well as references that only the adults will get. I’d seen Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit before tonight, but I was in a mood for it. My sister and I get together and watch horror movies every few months. Today, I had her watch Dog Soldiers, so I guess I’m in a lycanthropic mood.

Our heroes are Wallace (Peter Sallis), a cheese-loving inventor and in this film pest-control specialist and his dog Gromit, who never makes a noise. As with the Wallace & Gromit shorts, it’s soon evident that Wallace’s inventions are (pardon the pun) hare-brained and that Gromit is both the real brains of the operation and the only one with any common sense. In this film, our heroes are running a pest control business (called Anti-Pesto) that specializes in the humane control and capture of vegetable stealing rabbits. This is important, as the town’s main yearly event, a vegetable growing competition, is in danger due to a surge in the rabbit population.

Mazel Tov!

Film: Hester Street
Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on laptop.

Hester Street starts life as a silent film with people dancing. One of those people is Yankl (Steven Keats), who goes by the name Jake. Jake is a Jewish immigrant to New York. He works essentially in a sweatshop making clothing, and frequently carrying on with a woman named Mamie (Dorrie Kavanaugh). The film has gone on for some time when we discover that in fact Jake is a married man, with a wife and child still in the old country.

It’s not until the film is a good 20 minutes in that we discover Jake’s wife Gitl (Carol Kane), who arrives at Ellis Island with their son (Paul Freedman). It slowly comes to light that there are two major conflicts here. The first is that Jake has lived a life as something like a playboy for a long time and with Gitl, he finds his extracurricular activities greatly reduced. The other, and far more significant problem according to Jake is that Gitl seems unable to assimilate into American society. Part of that comes from Gitl, who is unable to let go of many of the traditions of the old country and her difficulty in learning English. A bigger problem is that he doesn’t let her leave the apartment.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1976

The Contenders:
All the President’s Men
Bound for Glory
Network
Rocky (winner)
Taxi Driver

Jesus Wept

Film: The Bells of St. Mary’s
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

I had hopes for The Bells of St. Mary’s. I really did. I enjoyed Going My Way a lot more than I thought I would and more than I remembered from my childhood. A big part of that was the likable presence of Bing Crosby in a role that suited his personality and cinematic presence. I guess a sequel wasn’t completely out of bounds. The problem is that with any sequel, there’s a need to capture the magic of the first film, and The Bells of St. Mary’s tries, but fails.

The only constant from the first film is Father Chuck O’Malley (Crosby), who has evidently maintained his role in the church as a priest sent to problem areas to set churches and parishes aright. In this case, the parish belongs to St. Mary’s and comes with a school. Of course, the parish is in trouble. In this case the school is old and starting to fall down a bit. The sisters, led by their unaccountably young and gorgeous Mother Superior Sister Mary Benedict (Ingrid Bergman) were forced to sell off a nearby plot of land to pay for some of the repairs. The buyer, a businessman named Horace P. Bogardus (Henry Travers) has put up a massive office building on the spot. His dream is to have the school condemned so that he can put in a parking lot. The sisters, and they are legion, are spending their time in prayer that Bogardus will donate his finished building to St. Mary’s to use as a new school.

Mermaid Avenue

Film: Bound for Glory
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

When you think of innovation in film, particularly technical innovations, movies like The Matrix spring to mind. The 1976 biopic Bound for Glory about the life of Woody Guthrie isn’t necessarily one that comes trippingly off the tongue. Be that as it man, Bound for Glory is the first film to use a steadicam. So, like it or not, this is a film that changed the way films are made, and it’s no mistake that it won an Oscar for cinematography.

It’s also an interesting film for its star, David Carradine, who hadn’t had any parts of note outside of Kung Fu and Death Race 2000 before this film. I’m guessing it would have been extremely easy to write off Carradine as someone incapable of a serious film in 1976. And yet here he is, playing Woody Guthrie and doing a far more than serviceable job of it.

Ides of March

Film: Julius Caesar
Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on laptop.

Shakespeare on film is always interesting to me. When it’s done well, there are few things I like watching more, depending on my mood. When it’s not done well, though, it’s terrible. There are multiple versions of Shakespeare that I genuinely like on film, and a few that are bad enough to appear on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (and at least one that has, matter of fact). So when I put in the 1953 version of Julius Caesar, I admit to a little bit of nerves. The cast helps, though. I had faith in most of the cast. The most interesting casting here is Marlon Brando as Mark Antony.

And it is interesting casting. Brando had become someone to watch two years before with A Streetcar Named Desire, but there were doubts that he could actually pull off a truly great role that didn’t require him to basically mumble a lot and be a brute. As a role, Marc Antony is a man of true nobility and a gifted orator, which would be ridiculous in the wrong hands. So while Streetcar made the man a star, it could well be said that Julius Caesar made him an actor. That’s not hyperbole when you consider that this was the third of four consecutive nominations for Marlon Brando.