As I sit down to write another post for the Movie Morlocks, I often think about the reaction, what it will be, and how it will affect me. Sometimes, in my everyday life, I avoid talking about movies in specific situations because I don’t want to get into a heated debate over something I love or hate and I know the person I’m with feels the other way. Other times, I can’t wait to get into it because it’s a movie I feel so passionate about I can’t hold my tongue. Personally, and I’m not just saying this to make anyone feel better, I think this blog has the best commenters of any blog for which I’ve had the pleasure to write. The commenters here are engaging, knowledgeable, and quick to assert their opinion without being distasteful or rude. We won’t agree all of the time but when we disagree, I know it won’t be an awkward situation. In other words, I’ve never noticed any scorched earth reactions like, “Well if you don’t like this movie, you must not know movies!” That said, I’m now going to list several of the things that often get the most disagreement from fellow movie lovers, spurred by a movie on the TCM schedule tonight. I expect disagreement but, please, go easy on me.
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Tonight, one of the movies on the schedule is Reds, the 1981 epic that garnered Warren Beatty an Oscar for Best Director. It’s a movie I like but certainly don’t love. I have trouble returning to it because… I can’t stand Warren Beatty as an actor. I like several of his movies and some, like his seventies work with Shampoo, The Parallax View and Heaven Can Wait, are personal favorites. It’s just that I’d like them a lot better if he weren’t in them. I find his acting style strange and mannered as if every character he plays is a flighty stoner. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I don’t care for the guy.
Also…
I think the best version of A Star is Born is the 1937 version with Fredric March and Janet Gaynor. I think it’s excellent in every way. I think the much praised 1954 version is very good but takes a beautifully intimate and personal tale and stretches it out to epic length unnecessarily.
I think Charlton Heston was a very good actor. No, he wasn’t Brando, but he was damn good and people don’t appreciate that kind of stoic performing anymore. Well, let me tell you, he did it better than anyone.
I think Citizen Kane is amazing. Truly. However, I think The Magnificent Ambersons and Touch of Evil are both better.
I think Timothy Dalton was the Bond ever. His two movies weren’t very good, but having read many of the books, I don’t think anyone ever fit the role more perfectly. Also, I thought Casino Royale was only okay. Sorry, Daniel Craig fans.
Make Way for Tomorrow is a beloved movie. It has fans across the movie loving spectrum. I am well aware of this but… okay… here goes: It doesn’t work for me because I find the premise ridiculous. I know personally that I would live in an alley with my wife rather than separate from her because I truly and passionately love her so deeply. The fact that the married couple in the movie not only separate but at the climax just pretty much throw in the towel and say, “Welp, I guess we’ll never be together again,” feels wrong if they’re truly that much in love. I understand temporarily staying in the homes of different children and such – it was the depression after all – but that ending feels wrong to me in every way, unless they’re not really that connected to each other. There, I said it.
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I’ve said it before so why not say it again: I think The Godfather, Part II is extremely well made and acted. It’s also pointless. I get nothing from it that I didn’t get from the first movie. Michael’s transformation is complete at the end of the first movie and Vito’s humanity over his colder son is well displayed. The second movie shows us more of this but nothing new.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is Wes Anderson’s best movie. Period. Critics… sorry, I mean movie reviewers who thought differently at the time didn’t know what they were talking about.
1941 has tons of dead pacing but the intricate model work and full scale special effects at the end makes up for it in my book.
Speaking of Steven Spielberg, I think Jurassic Park is one of his best movies. I think E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is one of his worst. I can’t stand that movie. I starting watching it again a few months ago to see if my perception had changed. It had not. It is insufferable. I do not, honestly, understand why it received and still receives so much praise.
I think George Lucas pretty much stinks as a director but American Graffiti is better than anything Steven Spielberg ever did, in a walk.
And to quickly finish with another actor I can’t stand watching, since I started this out with an actor: Gary Cooper. I don’t care what the movie is, his delivery drives me nuts. His Best Actor win for Sergeant York is still a sore point for me. I don’t like the movie and I hate the performance. Sorry, Gary, but I’d rather watch paint dry, or even Paint My Wagon, than watch a performance of yours.
Well, that’s it. Have at it or come up with your own. You know where I stand and I know you know your movies. I trust you. Just go easy on me, okay? Thanks.