The Queen of MGM

Films: The Divorcee; A Free Soul
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

I’m always a little nervous when I dip really far back into Oscar history. Silent dramas and early talkies are especially difficult; they tend to pile on the melodrama and present us with characters that couldn’t exist outside of a farce even in a serious drama. There are exceptions, movies that manage to avoid the feeling of actors on a stage playing to the back row. There are other issues as well. No matter what the film or the genre, there apparently has to be a love story wrapped up in the proceedings. There also seems to always need to be a comic character, as if the film wouldn’t be complete without someone playing the fool. With The Divorcee we get kind of a mixed bag on all of these fronts; the film is clearly a product of its time, but it transcends that at times as well.

The Divorcee is a surprise because despite being pretty straightforward in where it’s going and melodramatic in its set-up, it’s actually entertaining. A gang of the idle rich are gathered together and Jerry (Norma Shearer) and Ted (Chester Morris) are off canoodling. They come back to the group and announce their engagement. Everyone seems to be pleased except for Paul (Conrad Nagel), who has carried a torch for Jerry for years. Upset and drunk and the party over, Paul goes speeding away with a few passengers and rolls the car over on a winding road. Everyone is unscathed except for Dorothy (Helen Johnson), who is badly scarred. Jerry and Ted get married. Paul marries Dot out of feelings of responsibility.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 1988

The Contenders:

Big
Bull Durham
A Fish Called Wanda
Rain Man (winner)
Running on Empty

Starstruck

Film: My Week with Marilyn
Format: Streaming video from Hoopla Digital on The Nook.

I can imagine that for Michelle Williams, stepping literally into the shoes of Marilyn Monroe was a daunting idea. Monroe still has an iconic cachet, the sort that is enjoyed by anyone who was that staggeringly famous and who died that tragically young. It’s the same worship afforded people like Jimi Hendrix and James Dean, but for Marilyn, it always seems like a much bigger stage, more like Elvis. Being Marilyn had to be a bit scary, especially as the title character of My Week with Marilyn. Maybe it was a little easier since, while the film is very much about her, it’s just as much about Colin Clark.

So who the hell is Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne)? Eventually, he was a director and writer, and My Week with Marilyn is based on his memoir of the creation of the film The Prince and the Showgirl. As the film starts, Colin has graduated from college and has decided to attempt a career in the movie business, much to the consternation of his family. He once met Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh), so he shows up at Olivier’s studios and asks for a job. When one isn’t forthcoming, he waits until he is hired as a third assistant director, which is an uncredited position and little more than a not-even-glorified gofer.

Got the Death Row Blues

Film: Monster’s Ball
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

One of the truths of pursuing these Oscar lists is that I tend to watch a lot of dramas. If I’d been thinking when I started this, I’d have put special effects in as one of the categories of choice. At least then I’d get to watch some science fiction and action now and then. Instead, it’s a pretty steady diet of dramas, many of which are good but also lean toward the depressing. Monster’s Ball is one I’ve avoided until now because of that reason. There are a few others I haven’t gotten to specifically because I’m not always in the mood to watch something that makes me want to sit in a rainstorm until I die.

The high concept/elevator pitch for Monster’s Ball is that a man who works in the state penitentiary and assists in executions falls in love with the widow of one of the men he helps execute. Sounds fun, right? Oh, the reality of it has so much more misery and pain in it. Honestly, that as a plot should be enough, but we’ll get a couple more deaths along the way and we’ll be spending a good amount of the film wallowing in the misery of people who are the cinematic equivalent of red-headed stepchildren.

Cherce

Film: Pat and Mike
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

I’m evidently on a short sports kick. Yesterday’s movie involved sports and so did today’s. It’s also a Tracy/Hepburn collaboration, and that bodes pretty well. Even better, Pat and Mike is said to be Katharine Hepburn’s favorite of her nine movies with Spencer Tracy. Pat and Mike is a light comedy with a few fun surprise appearances in minor roles. It’s the sort of movie to watch when you’re not in the mood to be challenged by anything, and that’s more or less the mood I was in this evening.

Pat Pemberton (Katharine Hepburn) works in physical education and is an accomplished athlete. In fact, she has only one significant problem: whenever she’s being observed by her fiancé Collier Weld (William Ching, who looks sort of like a budget Peter Graves) she falls to pieces and can’t do anything right. We’re shown this in a golf match as the film opens. Pat loses a match embarrassingly to another woman who keeps up a constant litany of advice on how to play golf better. The match over and Pat at the end of her rope, she sees a set of golf balls teed up and drives them all perfectly down the fairway. A bartender at the country club notices and decides that Pat has some real talent and should play for an upcoming title. Pat quickly quits her job and decides to go for it.

Wrestle with this

Film: Foxcatcher
Format: DVD from personal collection on laptop.

I find sport movies hit or miss. There was a time when I was into sports. I could talk football and basketball with a decent amount of knowledge and knew something about baseball, too. That time has passed and it’s no longer something that I give any time to on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. A film like Foxcatcher, then, needs to be interesting beyond the sport for me to care much about it. I’ve never had an interest in wrestling, either the showy, entertainment-based professional sort or the Olympic style. The only hope this film has is to be compelling beyond what happens on the mat.

I vaguely remember the news story when it happened. I don’t remember every part of it—it was one of those oddball tragedies that crop up now and again in the news. Terrible events happen all of the time, of course, but sometimes one aspect of the story is so strange that it becomes a thing for a couple of days, like the astronaut who attempted to kill the woman who was having an affair with the man with whom she had been having an affair. The female astronaut driving around in a space diaper was a brief media sensation and then something that disappeared. The events concerning the characters in Foxcatcher was like that. I remember something happening, but not the details.

Princes of Maine

Film: The Cider House Rules
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on the Nook.

I am still dealing with the loss of Chip Lary; I’m sure I’m sure I’m not alone in this. Every time I’ve posted something over the past few days, I’ve wondered what Chip would have to say about it. In the last week, no film has made me wonder this more than The Cider House Rules. The entire film takes place in Maine, after all. I can’t be sure, of course, but I imagine that Chip probably liked the film and that it taking place in Maine was just another reason for him to appreciate it.

I remember when the film was new, but didn’t hear much about it other than that people liked it and that it was controversial because it dealt at least in part with abortion. I went into it pretty cold, knowing only that Tobey Maguire and Michael Caine were in it. Finding that Charlize Theron, Paul Rudd, Delroy Lindo, J.K. Simmons, and Erykah Badu were in it as well was just a bonus.