Throne of Blood - Akira Kurosawa - 1957

★★★★★-Over the course of three decades, Japanese director Akira Kurosawa masterfully crafted three Shakespeare-inspired films: Throne of Blood, an adaptation of Macbeth, set in feudal Japan, The Bad Sleep Well a crime noir thriller based on Hamlet, and Ran, an epic samurai tale inspired by King Lear. Each of these films showcases Kurosawa's exceptional talent for blending Shakespearean themes with the rich cultural tapestry of Japan.

Watched all of these Shakespeare inspired films for a Shakespeare Tragedies seminar I took in college. It was one of my favorite classes. We also read a lot of Samual Beckett along with the six Shakespeare plays we focused on: Hamlet, Julius Caesar, King Lear (my favorite), Macbeth, Othello, and Richard III. There were some others, of course, Merchant of Venice and The Tempest, for example, which are technically comedies, but are both as dark as they come. Anyway, this was my favorite adaptation, at the time. We'll see how I feel now. The class really opened up my eyes to Kurosawa. I love his films. 

(Side note, for this class we all had to present on something Shakespeare related. I did pop culture Shakespeare, really going into detail about the film Scotland, PA, which is also based on Macbeth. It is incredible and hilarious. I also talked about pornography based on the Barb. The one title I remember was A Midsummer's Night Cream, which sounds like something that would make me vomit. I got an A+ in that class and would kill for that professor, by the by.)

Throne of Blood was Kurosawa's first reimagining of Shakespeare's work, transporting the plot from Medieval Scotland to feudal Japan, cleverly infusing elements from Noh drama. Noh is a classical Japanese dance-drama that dates back to the 14th century and remains a major theater art in Japan today. It is the oldest theater form still regularly performed. Noh integrates masks, costumes, and props in dance-based performances, relying on highly skilled actors and musicians to convey emotions through stylized gestures. The plays often draw from traditional literature, with supernatural beings transforming into human heroes who narrate captivating stories. Iconic masks represent various roles, from ghosts to deities. Pretty cool shit. 

The film stars the iconic Toshiro Mifune and Isuzu Yamada, in the Macbeth and Lady Macbeth roles, respectively. Mifune's portrayal of a man unraveling is something to behold. Imagine this is a dude's first day ruling shit and he goes insane and starts fighting ghosts that aren't there. I imagine this wouldn't go over well. When he has his freakout moment in the forest and receiving prophecy, it truly is masterful filmmaking. Ghostly, strange, full of rage and madness. This is Macbeth at its finest. A raving lunatic with the enemy literally at the gate, taking arrows from his own army like he's Scarface. 

Remember the last circle of hell in Dante devoted to this type of shit. Chewed on by Satan with Brutus, Cassius, and Judas shit. The scene where the guards getting blamed get shot with arrows and chased off is messed up. 

The Lady Macbeth role isn't as strong as the Shakespearean version. In this, she shows up suddenly and is immediately like, “kill your lord, yo.” Feel like maybe he is relying on everyone to know the story or something. Plus, she is constantly swishing around in her little Geisha getup. Hearing that 24/7 would make me want to murder, too. 

Classic Shakespeare meets feudal Japan. The film more or less retains the essence of the play. Gist is a warrior who, upon hearing a prophecy from a witch in the wood and with the prodding of his ambitious wife, kills his lord to consolidate his power. Despite the changes in setting, language, and creative liberties taken, the film is widely regarded as one of the most exceptional film adaptations of the play. Universal story shown in a uniquely Kurosawa way with a uniquely remarkable ending.

Overall, the scale of the film is staggering for a production outside of Hollywood in the 1950s. I still love nearly every second of this film. Could have been shot yesterday for all I know. It looks incredible. Samurai look is a good one. I might dress and do my hair like that. The prophet dance is a really tense and great scene. Think there could have been some more character development overall. Less than the Shakespeare plays, for sure. But that is a minor complaint. Highly recommend. 

Bad Day at Black Rock is the greatest movie of all time

Bad Day at Black Rock. "This town's wrecked, just as though it was bombed out. Maybe it can come back..." "Some towns do and some towns don't. It depends on the people." Directed by John Sturges in 1955, I loved this proto-neo-western. On my western Mount Rushmore. 

Stars Spencer Tracy as a guy who goes to this tiny desert town of seven or eight buildings and a bunch of assholes. He pulls in on the train which hasn’t stopped there in four years. Shows the whole town buzzing as it travels down the line. It’s a phenomenal opening. As he gets off the train, he tells the conductor “I won’t be here but for a couple of hours.” Guy replies “in a place like this, that can be a lifetime.” 

Gist is Spencer Tracy is looking for a Japanese man whose son saved his life during the war. Wants to give him his purple heart. Takes place in 1945. The townsfolk tell him he went to an internment camp after Pearl Harbor. But they obviously murdered him. No big mystery there, but Tracy is stuck there for a day and it doesn’t look like he’s going to make it. Immediately people are threatening his life and so forth. 

Big bad is played by Robert Ryan. The only female in the movie is Anne Francis. Ryan’s goons include Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin. Quite an all star duo there. 

Favorite line is when Spencer Tracy is talking to the sheriff. Sheriff is basically like, “I don’t care what you have going on, you made a mistake coming here.” Tracy replies, coming out hot, “The thing I like about Black Rock is everyone is so polite, which really makes for gracious living.” Amazing flick.

The Asphalt Jungle is the greatest movie of all time

The Asphalt Jungle. "One way or another, we all work for our vice." Might be the darkest Hayes Code era flicks I've seen, the movie was released in 1950. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth, even for a John Huston movie, but is an undeniable masterpiece. Not my favorite Huston flick, but damn good. 

Based on the 1949 book of the same name by W. R. Burnett. The gist of the movie is a group of guys pull off a major jewel heist in the Midwest only for things to go to shit when the men start double-crossing each other. 

Though you probably won't recognize many of the actors, the performances are flawless. The film stars Sterling Hayden (his performance is stellar) who is the guy who breaks Michael's jaw in The Godfather, Louis Calhern (also phenomenal) who I only recognize from Duck Soup, the talented Jean Hagen (another breakout performance) who played Lina Lamont in Singin' in the Rain, the guy who played Brooks in The Shawshank Redemption, and, most notably, Marilyn Monroe, in one of her earliest roles. 

A lot of cringe with Marilyn's character. Young and Marilyn Monroe at her peak hot, her creepy uncle has some sexual predatory stuff going on with her. That's pretty unpleasant to watch, for sure. But damn, Monroe makes quite an impact on the screen. 

Doing some half-assed internet research, supposedly Huston's first choice for the role played by Monroe was Lola Albright, who was quite a looker herself. When she wasn't available, Huston brought in Monroe for a screen test. He wasn't sure she was right for the part and dismissed her. However, he changed his mind when he watched her walking out the door. According to one Eddie Muller's intro to the Turner Classic Movies Noir Alley presentation of the film, Huston later said Monroe was "one of the few actresses who could make an entrance by leaving the room." I find this claim dubious but somewhat on brand. 

In his autobiography, also a dubious source, Huston claims he felt protective of her and when it seemed some unnamed studio executive was trying to "set her up for the casting couch," screen-tested her for another role, as to get that far in the process at that studio meant boning this asshole. But he didn't cast her and she disappeared. A year later, now with agent Johnny Hyde, she was back to screen-test for Asphalt Jungle. When she came around, Huston recognized her as the girl he'd saved from the casting couch. "She was Angela to a T. "I later discovered that Johnny Hyde was in love with her," Huston wrote. "Johnny was a very fine, very reliable agent, and we were friends, but Marilyn didn't get the part because of Johnny. She got it because she was damn good." I choose to believe that story over the one where he was kind of a creep.

Huston gets my vote for MVP for more or less discovering Monroe and getting insane performances out of this cast of no-names. Plus he maybe saved Monroe from having to bone some skeezy dude. 

The African Queen - John Huston - 1952

★★-The African Queen. "I never dreamed that any mere physical experience could be so stimulating!" Oh calm down Katharine. Saw this in 1999. Fucking hated it. Was hoping this time I'd see something different and appreciate it more. That didn't fucking happen. Love director John Huston. A personal hero. Hated this fucking movie. 

Considered an all-time classic, this is the only movie that Humphrey Bogart (Bogey) won an Academy Award for. Stars him and Katharine Hepburn. He is a gin-guzzling dipshit riverboat captain. She is missionary who really thinks highly of herself. After her brother dies when the Germans come to town and tool on him, she goes with the nearest white man she kind find. Together, the two of them pal around and presumably do some fuckin on the "African Queen" whilst heading down the Nile to blow up a German military vessel in Africa during WWI. Yeah, it's insanely historically accurate, I'm sure. There are other people in this movie, I think, but none of them fucking matter. 

Based on the novel by C. S. Forester, the film was released in 1951. It is listed as the No. 65 American movie of all time according to the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) list. It was No. 17 on the 1998 list. 

From the stills from this film, you'd expect this to be Driving Miss Daisy with these two old farts plodding around on a boat. Turns out they are supposed to be like five years younger than me. 

Much more interesting than the film itself are the stories that came out of the production. Like Apocalypse Now except more interesting but on a shittier movie. Bogey drank his fucking ass off (he and Huston were the only two people on set that didn't get dysentery which both attributed to only drinking water that was mostly Scotch [he also only ate canned food, which was not the case with Huston, as you'll see), Kathatharine was almost killed in about seven different ways, and Huston ate human. It sounds fucking wild. 

Learned most of this from reading John Huston's autobiography. When dealing with this film he talks all about how he ate some mystery meat stew while in Africa that turned out to be human. Yum!

Gist of this story is that while location scouting, the village he was in had this shitty hunter that made food for everyone. Some pot that consisted of "monkey, forest pig, deer, and you-name-it." Eventually someone did. Native Africans could only carry a muzzleloader and this dude was a shit shot. Huston remarks that he didn't know how this guy could sustain a village when he was so unskilled. But villagers were mysteriously vanishing from nearby areas. When this guy couldn't get game for the pot, he got the meat "the simplest way possible." Barf. But Huston I think got the hunger, saying "I must say I couldn't tell the difference in the taste." Luckily this was before Bogey and Hepburn arrived. "Only a few of us were so privileged as to dine so exclusively." Alright. Can't have the talent munching on long pig. That'd be quite the craft table. 

Anyway. All of this is highly dubious. I've heard that this bio is complete bullshit. But here is something else he talks about in the book. When it came time to use some locals as extras, no one came to the shoot. Turned out that word had gotten out that if you go to the set, John Huston is probably going to eat you. The hunger and all. 

Not sure anyone really earned the MVP for this flick. Bogart and Hepburn couldn't have had less chemistry. He is a drunk, dirty man who has a tight five of mocking animals and has a face like a catcher's mit. Hepburn goes from thinking he is a drunk low-life to being head-over-heels after she sees him jump around like a baboon. Hepburn, on the other hand, is either 30 or 70 here. She basically always looks exactly like this. Could have been filmed the same year as On Golden Pond by the looks of her. 

This movie is nonsense. I feel it was John Huston wanting to go on safari and have the studio fit the bill. The ending involves improptuing a torpedo for god's sake. The movie starts as action, goes hard romance for like 2/3 of the movie, then comes back to action. Nonsense. 

Rear Window - Alfred Hitchcock - 1954

★★★★★-Rear Window. We've become a race of Peeping Toms. What people ought to do is get outside their house and look in for a change. Alfred Hitchcock. Jimmy Stewart. Grace Kelly. Doesn't get much better than that threesome. Among the legendary director's best. Got to see it on the big screen for the third time. This time at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater in Bloomington, IN. I love this film in an old historic theater. Also identify more with the character than my last watch as I spent that decade as a sports photographer and what have you.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Hitchcock exerted full potential of suspense in this masterpiece.

For those who are unfamiliar, the gist is that a guy with a broken leg, too much time on his hands, and excellent photography equipment gets his nightly entertainment by spying on his neighbors in maybe the most interesting courtyard in all of New York. Eventually, the behavior he sees from one of the tenants causes to suspect him of murdering his wife. Against the advise of a policeman and with the help of his beautiful girlfriendish person whom he treats like shit (played by the lovely Grace Kelly) and his nurse Stella, he investigates, almost getting everyone killed in the process. Luckily he is a photographer with million watt flash bulbs that roughly have the effect of a punch to the face.

Some bullet points. Hate that the murdering fuck killed someone's dog. Someone can kill a person on screen and can be redeemed. But a dog killer can go fuck himself. Also, love the set of this movie. Was not a real courtyard. Was built on the backlot and filmed at Paramount Studios. Used to like the idea of looking out and seeing your neighbors do cool and sometimes shady shit but now that I am older see Stewart's character as sort of a sick fuck. This guy definitely has something going on. No wonder he can't commit to Grace fucking Kelly. One more thing, I dug how she ordered food from that fancy restaurant and they brought it to them in that crazy food case. This is at the beginningish of the movie. Shit was noticeably cool.

So many ripoffs of this movie it is insane. These are the ones I thought of in like one minute off the top of my head Disturbia (RW on house arrest), Fright Night (RW with vampires), Manhattan Murder Mystery (RW with Woody Allen and in a hallway), Men at Work (RW with the Estevez/Sheen bros), and The 'Burbs (RW on stay-cation plus Tom Hanks). Plus there was a really terrible remake from 1998 staring Christopher Reeve after his horse riding accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. Bummer.

Stewart is pretty solid but yucks it up like he always does. Gotta give Kelly MVP status on this one. She so pretty and compelling in the part that she steals the show. Plus the actress that plays Stella, Thelma Ritter, is incredible. She really does a good job of jumping back and forth between being incredulous and extremely involved in the spying and what have you. 

North by Northwest is the great movie of all time

North by Northwest. Fantastic. Depending on the day, fave Alfred Hitchcock movie. Watch it every year. Cary Grant in this movie is the fucking coolest. 99% Fresh on Rotten Tomato, some fucking dipshit didn't like this movie. Again, what more do you fucking expect. If you haven't seen this flick, it is fucking awesome. It is what would happen if some hilarious guy was mistaken for James Bond and keeps idioting his way out of almost getting killed.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Gripping, suspenseful, and visually iconic, this late-period Hitchcock classic laid the groundwork for countless action thrillers to follow.

Gist of this movie is that Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill is out to lunch at a fancy restaurant. A waiter goes around with a phone calling for George Kaplan. Thornhill calls the guy over to order or something. Some goons are the lookout for the guy who answers the calls for Kaplan. Seeing this exchange, they decide that fucking guy is Kaplan and make his life hell for the next two and a half hours of run time. Trying to kill him and what not by filling up with booze and putting him behind the wheel and trying to buzz him with an aeroplane. You know, normal stuff.

In addition to Grant, cast includes Martin Landau who actually won an Academy Award for Best Supporting for 1994's Ed Wood plays the right hand man to Phillip Vandamm whose the guy trying to have Kaplan killed (basically his henchman), James Mason who starred in all kinds of shit (A Star Is Born [the 1954 encarnation], 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Lolita, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, so forth) plays Phillip Vandamm, and Eva Marie Saint as love interest and bad ass spy Eve Kendall. Les Tremayne of Creature of Destruction which I did a video on couple of years ago makes an appearance as the auctioneer. Bernard Herrmann notably does the musical score. This one of his most recognizable.

If nothing else, it is definitely the funnest Hitchcock movie. First, Grant's character is hilarious, sort of a dumb guy but means well. He also has a habit of thanking people when they insult him. No universe where he doesn't win the movie. Love the scene where after he gets pegged as Kaplan and they take him to Mason's home and force all the booze down his throat and he wakes up whilst they are trying to drive him off a cliff. He manages to steady the car and then drive until finally getting pulled over for being all over the road. When he tells everyone what happened, everyone, including his mother, laughs at him hysterically. He is also asked how much he drank and responds with drunken hand gestures. You would think this would be a sobering experience for the guy but he drinks his fucking ass off for the entirety of the movie. At one point he orders a Gibson on a train. I was going to make one of these, read what it was (gin, dry vermouth, and a pickled onion), and started to dry heave. Then there is a the scene when the bad guys have him cornered in an auction house. To get out of the situation, he acts like an asshole. When the bidding for a painting is in the thousands, he starts putting in bids dollar and goes down when Les Tremayne rebukes him.  A woman then calls him a "genuine idiot." "Thank you," he says. Again, he is rebuked. Bidding is started at $800. "Eight," Thornhill says. He is thanked for getting into the spirit of things. "Eleven," he says later. "Thirteen," and when he is about to win, "thirteen dollars." Everyone laughs. He then says that is more than the painting is worth. Then he jumps up to $2000. "Excuse me?" "$2100... $2500." They ignore him and he keeps upping the bid. Finally they go to kick him out and the cops show up. At this point he punches a guy in the face. He is an all out wild man by this point. THe cops then let him go even though he is an international fugitive, long story. He finds out the chick he was into, Eva Marie Saint, whom I adore in pretty much everything, is the real Kaplan and her cover was blown, he takes off to go save her then we go have a brawl in a fictional Frank Lloyd Wright on top of Mount Rushmore. It is insane and fantastical and amazing. Best movie of all time, indeed.

Some Like It Hot is the greatest movie of all time

Some Like It Hot. Indeed. Another Billy Wilder movie. Sincerely great. Weird, though. First we have other worldly icon Marilyn Monroe jumping and running around and doing stuff. She is such an icon that my brain won't allow me to see her as like a real human who once lived. It's almost like Rosie the Riveter, Uncle Sam, or the Marlboro Man suddenly being a real person and doing movies. Kind of how it happened in real life, too, more on that later. But, yeah, she isn't ugly, that Marilyn. And she is awfully active in this movie.

Then there is the whole dudes in drag to escape the mafia to travel with an all-female band whilst still trying to score with ladies in said band. It continues to get weirder once they all get to the resort in Florida with Jack Lemmon's character going out with this rich guy and getting him off his massive boat so that Tony Curtis's character can hop on with Marilyn so that she thinks he is rich. Lemmon doesn't let the guy like make out with him or anything but he sort of gets into it in a total mid-century heterosexual way, which is insane, ultimately getting engaged to the guy. Finally, at the end, Lemmon comes clean, saying he's a dude and what not. "Nobody's perfect," the guy says. Meh. But, big but, I love the shit of the rest of this movie.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Some Like It Hot: A spry, quick-witted farce that never drags.

So, this is definitely my favorite Marilyn movie of the five I've seen (though I haven't seen The Asphalt Jungle yet which is near the top of my list to watch) and probably in my top 15 to 20. Marilyn is what she is, light and bubbly and super attractive. Plus you can pretty much see her nipples the entire movie.

A bit about the Tony Curtis character here. That guy's character, one Joe, is a fucking asshole. He uses info he acquires whilst posing as Josephine to try to score with Marilyn by pretending to be someone he is not. This is really fucked up and rapey. Not fucking cool man and possibly a sex crime. Also, the whole, you know, turning a movie about witnessing the most notorious mob hit of them all, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, into a comedy is a bold choice. Totally works though.

Yeah. Want to reiterate how much I loved this movie and what a true treasure Jack Lemmon was. In a  movie with Marilyn and TC, Lemmon wins the movie, easily. He fucking brings it and is hilarious. Wins it indeed.

Sunset Boulevard is the greatest film of all time

Sunset Boulevard. Loved it when I first saw it. Soured on it in college. Back to loving it. As has been established, I love self-referential cinema. Back to thinking that this is one of the best. I mean, not quite Singing' in the Rain, but it is unfair to compare it to that wonderful, upbeat film. It also predates that flick by a couple of years making it the first, that I could see, movie that looks back at the old silent era. Old Hollywood looking at an older Hollywood. Not the first meta Hollywood flick, Sherlock, Jr. staring Buster Keaton who makes a cameo in this movie was made in 1924 and 1941's Sullivan's Travels which starred Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake are both movies about the film industry, this is the first of a subgenre that depicts has-beens that time forgot.

About a down-on-his-luck (and dumb as fuck) screenwriter played by William Holden who gets romantically involved with a forgotten starlet, Norma Desmond played by the silent film star Gloria Swanson, in her 50s who believes she is on the verge of a comeback due to a script that she threw together and dude is molding into something coherent. In the first scene we see the screenwriter, our protagonist, floating facedown in the bloody swimming pool. This is, indeed, a fucked up and dark movie.

Still makes the film look like a hilarious comedy, which it is

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Arguably the greatest movie about Hollywood, Billy Wilder's masterpiece Sunset Boulevard is a tremendously entertaining combination of noir, black comedy, and character study.

Probably a somewhat unpopular opinion here. I fucking hate the main character, Joe Gillis, played by William Holden, and sort of think he had bad shit coming to him karmically. Maybe not murder, but bad shit. He thinks he is playing Norma, ha, but is playing fucking checkers. Thinks he is stringing her along as a meal ticket of sorts. She buys him shit but doesn't pay him and won't let him leave. Yeah, really getting one over on her. So his motivations are fucked, obviously, and he is in a prison of his own making that is so fucking obvious but he barely sees it or doesn't care until the end, when he suddenly does. His leaving prompts Norma to pull out her gun and start waving it around, threatening to shoot herself. He is like, don't care. Obviously should have as we see in the first scene that he is dead from getting shot. Like someone who isn't a fucking idiot, he should have got the fuck out of there when she broke out the gun, instead he is like, "na, I'mma push her over the edge," which he does by talking shit and calling her crazy and what not. Making a bitch shoot him.

Get some solid cameos with director Cecil B. DeMille and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper both playing themselves, said to be somewhat recognizable by Gillis and presumably playing themselves, Buster Keaton (the one who says "pass", Buster was a silent film star who was supposedly famously not allowed to open his mouth in a talkie where everyone else sang, heard this on a podcast but can't remember the film), Anna Q. Nilsson, and H. B. Warner are all seen in the "living waxworks" scene playing bridge with Norma, and Erich von Stroheim, a "groundbreaking" silent era director, who is fucking great, seems to sort of play a version of himself as a forgot, avant garde director who now works as Norma's butler after the two divorced.

Hebba hebba

Gloria Swanson totally wins the movie. First, don't buy the myth that this is in any way autobiographical for her. While she wasn't the star she was during the silent era, Swanson's transition to sound was fine(ish), continuing to get work and even getting nominated for a Oscar for The Trespasser in 1929, though there were a handful of flops in there. When her career began slowing down in the late 1930s, she started a patent company in New York that was she created to help get Jewish inventors out of Nazi occupied Europe. This kept her busy through the war years. Then in 1948 she began hosting one of the first live television programs, The Gloria Swanson Hour. So yeah, she was doing alright when this part came along though she wasn't exactly the first choice. Director Billy Wilder offered the role to silent stars Greta Garbo, Pola Negri, and Mary Pickford (who was one of the inspirations for the composite character). Also Mae West was Wilder's original choice but was never asked to star in the film. Rumor has it that she was all, "of course a younger man would want to date me! I wouldn't be believable!" which is something I imagine all of these ladies saying and it being pretty true. Swanson, for her part, looks great for 50, though the craziness is pretty off-putting. Also, as a young woman, hubba hubba. And she is still, I think, more attractive in this film than the younger chick that William Holden as Joe Gillis wants to shtoop, Betty Schaefer played Nancy Olson who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress and is still alive, that's engaged to his buddy. SB marked her first film in a nine period after Father Takes a Wife, she was that wife, bombed. For the role, Swanson was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, her third nomination.

Didn't remember how funny she is, Swanson. Like the way intensely stares at him as he reads her script which he hates. When he goes through the motions like he is really trying to make her script better, taking stuff out and what not, she is like, "why did you take that out?" He says something like, "you can't be in every scene." She leers at him and barks, "put it back," in a way that is like "of course I'll be in every scene." Some more humor comes when the two walk through the giant, creepy-ass house and we hear a sinister music playing in the background. Norma then says "yeah, wind gets in the organ pipe, happens all the time." Love that shit. Also, she is so physical and deliberate with all her movements, sometimes to great comedic effect. Those silent film skills. Really like her. But she is fucking insane. Guys, if a woman has all of your things removed from your apartment, is keeping you from leaving, and claims to be your employer but doesn't pay you, don't fuck her.

Singin' in the Rain is the greatest movie of all time

Singin' in the Rain. "I'm laughin' at clouds, so dark up above, the sun's in my heart, and I'm ready for love." Holy shit, this movie. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer producer Arthur Freed takes all of the best show tunes he wrote with Nacio Herb Brown from MGM best musicals and builds a plot around them. Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds choreograph and sing the shit out of them. MGM, the studio, then scales them to infinity. It's genius. If you don't fucking love the shit out of this movie, there is something really wrong with you. If I'm having a shitty time, this is the movie I put on to break me out of it. "I'm happy again!" This film is light, vividly colorful, a feast in every way a film can be. It is perfect. I will fight anyone who says otherwise. I really believe, like for real real, maybe, I don't know, that this is the best film ever made.

Rotten Tomatoes Consensus: Clever, incisive, and funny, Singin' in the Rain is a masterpiece of the classical Hollywood musical.

Love a self-referential flick, as has long been established. I've been especially into these older Hollywood movies that focus on an even older Hollywood. This flick, Sunset Boulevard, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, so forth. In this one we get a 1950s history of the transition from silent pictures to sound. We even see how it was done in those early days, which is cool. Here we have an actress, Lina Lamont, played by Jean Hagen who is best remembered for her role in John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle, who was a star in the silents but sounds like shit and has to have her voice dubbed. Megastar and Lamont's fake, studio boyfriend, Don Lockwood, played by the Gene Kelly who wins the movie, falls in love with the girl dubbing her lines and providing her singing voice, Kathy Selden played by the lovely Debbie Reynolds. The only real conflict in the movie is that Lamont is a bitch who steals all the credit away from Selden which keeps her from becoming a star. But that shit doesn't work out because this is lighthearted picture.

But here's some weird and interesting shit, Hagen, the actress playing Lamont, when she has her voice budded in the acting parts, Reynolds does sing, of course, is actually using her own voice. So she is using her own voice, but we are lead to believe that the voice we hear is Selden's. Definitely a mind fuck.

So much iconic shit in this movie. First, there is Kelly's "Singin' in the Rain". OMG. Then there is the "Moses Supposes" scene, one of two original songs in the film, where Donald O'Connor as Cosmo Brown, Lockwood's vaudeville partner and sort of his boss as the head of Monumental Pictures' music department, work with a speech coach in preparation for the transition to sound when they just ham it the fuck up and sing and dance all over the goddamned place while this coach guy stands there like an idiot. Love it. The three of them, Kelly, O'Connor, and Reynolds, in character, of course, performing the shit out of "Good Morning," one of my faves from the Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney movie Babes In Arms, worth a watch as well.

But the best has to be O'Connor doing the original, though very similar to Cole Porter's "Be a Clown" from another MGM flick, song "Make 'Em Laugh." The song is awesome and O'Connor's dancing is incredible. His athleticism is amazing. He dances up walls, running up them and flipping back to the ground, and does impressive physical comedy with a mannequin. These are all long shots. No cuts. We see all the moves and the actors have to be spent after their number. This one ends with O'Connor throwing himself through a wall after what can only be truly maximum effort. This movie and this number are the shit.