Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark - Steven Spielberg - 1980

★★★★★-In contention for my favorite movie of all time. Probably is. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Story by George Lucas. Staring Harrison Ford and Karen Allen. John Williams score. What is not to love?

I've watched it around once a year every year that I can remember. I fantasized I was Indiana Jones as a child. I've seen it twice on the big screen and will go anytime a local theater plays it. This is the most important movie to both at young and now middle-aged AB. It's perfect. Also, seeing Nazis get theirs is my kink. 

Here are my observations over the years... I've been super conscious of exposition over the last few months. Since watching Aliens, basically. When it is done well, it is a thing of beauty. A recent film that comes to mind is Attachment. This film, however, is pure mastery. The scene where they explain to the government guys the Ark of the Covenant, which extends to the scene in Jones's home with Brody telling him “this is the Ark of the Covenant, not something to be taken lightly.” 

Maybe my favorite line of the movie is when Indiana Jones says, “It's not the years; it's the mileage.” Also love Marion Ravenwood's “You can't do this to me! I'm an American!” while she is being kidnapped just before one of the times she is almost blown up. 

Random notes: The big Nazi. Such a professional. Wakes up. Sees there is a fight going down. Pops his shirt off and is ready to go. The monkey reminds me of my cat, Richard Parker. Mischievous little shit. Some shit that makes me feel old. Paul Freeman, the guy that plays Belloq, is like five years younger than me in the movie. 

Snakes are definitely one of those things we are evolutionarily terrified of. Not many animals terrify me, just the usual. Bears and wasps. Bats, though I find them cute, I have an irrational fear of rabies. And of course snakes. I didn't think I was afraid of them, but running I've seen them in the wild and I jumped as high as I ever have in my life. So I feel Indy here. 

Soooo, while Indiana Jones is like the coolest, and Harrison Ford is the best looking man ever in this role, Marion Ravenwood is also so damn cool and Karen Allen so beautiful. I love the combo.

A lot of really interesting casting what-ifs. Jeff Bridges, Bill Murray, Nick Nolte, Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Jack Nicholson, among others were considered for the title role. Tom Selleck more or less had it but did Magnum,P.I. Instead.There is a pretty famous and shitty screen test with him and Sean Young. That seemed to work out for everybody. Lucas wanted Debra Winger for Ravenwood, but she turned it down. Spielberg wanted his girlfriend Amy Irving (she was one of the mean girls in Carrie), but she left him for Willie Nelson. Some actress named Stephanie Zimbalist and Barbara Hershey were also considered. 

The two most interesting what-ifs, for me, are Danny DeVito in the role of Sallah (played by John Rhys-Davies), and Klaus Kinski for the leather clad Nazi (maybe take off the leather duster in the desert, ya know?) Toht (played by Ronald Lacey because he reminded Spielberg of Peter Lorre). They wanted DeVito as someone like the title character from Gunga Din. Both were offered the roles, but had prior engagements. 

This movie is perfect, but there are two things I'll address. First, I used to read a lot of movie novelizations as a kid. This included most of Spielberg's movies through Hook. Raiders was one that cleared a major issue up that friends in the fourth grade complained about. Namely that Jones survives the submarine ride across the Mediterranean. In the novelization (and a deleted scene), it is explained that the sub stays on the surface. U-boats rarely submerged during peacetime. Submerging was primarily for combat situations due to the limitations of battery power and electric motors, with a maximum of two hours submerged. Plus the water would have been pretty warm. 

Minor nitpick that survives. Belloq should have known that Ark would kill everyone. In an undergrad religion class I learned this. Both 2 Samuel 6:3-8 and 1 Chronicles 13:7-11 tell of the tragic fate of Uzzah at the hands of the Ark. Gist of this tale is he accompanied the cart carrying the Ark as David brought it to Jerusalem. However, when the oxen stumbled, causing the Ark to tilt, Uzzah instinctively reached out to steady it, unknowingly transgressing divine law. As a consequence, the Lord promptly smote him. So, yeah, don't fuck with that shit. 

Raiders of the Lost Ark stands as the extraordinary American adventure film. It is brimming with humor, ingenuity, and style. It masterfully combines heroic escapades, thrilling cliffhangers, and exhilarating chases, all infused with a delightful blend of nostalgia and cleverness drawn from the golden age of World War II pulp thrillers, comic books, and serials. From its very first frame, this cinematic gem seizes your attention, propelling you on a relentless journey of awe-inspiring exploits. As the credits roll, you find yourself transported back to reality utterly spent and grinning. Wouldn't have gotten that with Selleck, just saying. This is the reason I go to the movies. 

The French Connection - William Friedkin - 1971

★★-Love a grimy, New York in the 70s movie, but I found this one to be astronomically overrated. At some point I realized I saw this when I was around 10 years old. Didn't blow me away then, either. Even back then, neo-noir like this was kind of my jam. Didn't appreciate it anymore this time around. Actually less. 

Stars Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider as the detectives trying to get drugs off the street. These are two of the most normal looking movie stars of all time. They look like friends of mine's dads. 

Gist is NYPD detectives Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo pursue the elusive French heroin smuggler Alain Charnier, played by Fernando Rey whom I only recognize from Luis Buñuel's film Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Known as one of the great car chase movies with Hackman chasing a train. It's pretty good, but I feel it's more of a chasing people on foot and then shooting them when they run movie. Anyway, Hackman gives a guy on the street ye old “Police emergency! I need your car.” “How am I going to get it back?” This guy is not going to be happy when he sees the damage after they tow his car to the impound lot for being illegally parked. Probably . Oh, I looked it up. Apparently this cop commandeering a civilian's car in an emergency is legit. This could happen to you. 

Directed by William Friedkin. He did two other films I love, The Exorcist and To Live and Die in L.A. Dig Blue Chips as well. Heavily influenced several movies I hold extremely near and dear, notably Se7en and Munich, two of my all-time faves. David Fincher said that it “had a profound impact” on his life and was why Brad Pitt chose to star in the film. 

Nominated for eight Academy Awards. Won five, for Best Picture, Best Actor (Hackman), Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, made the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movies list, sitting at No. 93 on the 10^th Anniversary Edition. 

I don't really get all the hype. It's perfectly fine, but not the earth-shattering film I've been led to believe. It ends on some real bullshit, too. Basically one long flick glorifying reckless police work which comes to a whole lot of nothing. Was that supposed to be the point?

In the Heat of the Night - Norman Jewison - 1967

★★★★★-First ever viewing of this profoundly outstanding film. Skilled direction and compelling performances. Deserves its stop on the AFI Top 100. 

Set in a racially tense small town where a black detective, Virgil Tibbs, from Philadelphia helps solve a murder. That's the gist, but it's deeper than that, going into racial inequity in the deep South while telling a compelling story and not getting preachy. It refrains from contrived inspirational moments, thank fuck, and instead presents complex, flawed characters. Truly masterful filmmaking. 

Stars the Sidney Poitier as the black detective opposite Rod Steiger (On the Waterfront) as the racist sheriff. Commanding performances from both of them indeed. I got more impressed with Poitier as the movie went along. He drips poise and dignity. Sort of hard to believe he didn't even get nominated for an Academy Award for this performance. Feels like a glaring omission that he wasn't for a timely film about Southern racism. Though Steiger's performance also really blew me away as well and he definitely earned his Oscar. 

Others you might recognize include Lee Grant (Damien: Omen II, Mulholland Drive) who is a real beauty who holds her own, Warren Oats (Badlands, Stripes, The Wild Bunch), and a young Scott Wilson (he was Herschel in The Walking Dead,one of the killers in In Cold Blood, and had a small but memorable part in one of my favorite horror comedies of all-time in Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon).

As much as any movie I can think of, the setting is also a character in the film. Feels like an authentic, hot and grimy small Southern town. Every scene is vivid, gritty, and real. 

The racist stuff can be pretty hard to watch. People in this town just lose their minds seeing a black guy. Pretty disturbing that this is how it was and probably still is in some parts. Multiple attempts are made on Virgil's life. The most powerful scene, for me, was when he goes with the sheriff to question the richest guy in town. Out front there is a racist statue and he employees black people in menial jobs that he obviously doesn't think highly of. He tells Virgil, while in his greenhouse, “Of all the orchids in this place, you should prefer the epiphytics. I wonder if you know why.”

“Maybe it would be helpful if you'd tell me,” Virgil says.

“Because, like the Negro, they need care and feedin' and cultivatin'.”

Uh, yeah, thanks for that insight, bra.

When Virgil questions him about the murder, the guy slaps him. Virgil, without missing a beat, slaps him back. Incredulous, the guy asks the sheriff what he is going to do about it. When it's clear he isn't going to do anything, he says he could have had him shot for that not long ago before crying like a punk. We then get one of the many attempts on Virgil's life, this seemingly unconnected to the slap. 

So, yeah, great film. All this said, however, the end was sort of a letdown. Builds and builds and then it's over. Also, for a hot shot detective, Virgil's police work and theories seem pretty suspect. Still though. Best movie about the South I can think of. Available on the Criterion Channel.

Bringing Up Baby - Howard Hawks - 1938

★★-Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant screwball romcom. It's where the term “screwball comedy” originated, actually. Oof. Has not aged well. 

Gist of it is a paleontologist (Grant) gets himself into predicaments involving a scatterbrained heiress (Hepburn) and a leopard named Baby. Shenanigans ensue. 

Personally, I can't really get over how that poor leopard probably had a pretty terrible life. Really ruins the comedy of it if you give a shit about animals. It's like that Eddie Murphy/Martin Lawrence movie Life. How can people possibly think a movie about two wrongly convicted men who spend their entire lives in prison could in any way be funny? Some things I just can't get past. 

Hepburn and Grant are both a couple of bitches in this flick. Hepburn is exactly like the unflattering Cate Blanchett portrayal in The Aviator. Her character is what film critic Nathan Rabin coined as the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” (MPDG) archetype in reference to Kirsten Dunst's character in Elizabethtown. Writing for the AV Club, he says the MPDG “exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” 

The MPDG, along with other stock characters like the Magical Negro, pretty much has the sole function of offering mystical guidance to the protagonist (almost always a man). As in the case here, the MPDG lacks a distinctive inner life, as her primary role revolves around imparting crucial life lessons to the protagonist.

Grant, for his part, is the biggest weenie I've ever seen in my life. Grant based his performance on the forgotten Charlie Chaplin rival Harold Lloyd—a physical comedian of the silent era that was sadly ambitious and famous for his glasses. In turn, Grant's character here is what Christopher Reeve based his performance as Clark Kent in Superman on. So when Superman wanted to be a wimp, he acted like this idiot. 

I pretty much hated this movie. The speed and noise in this were terrible for two people with head trauma, so it was more or less unwatchable. The characters are horrible and remarkably unlikeable. Plus, the movie is not funny. Example. At one point Grant is wearing a woman's robe. A lady asks him why he is wearing that. He says, “I suddenly turned gay!” Hilarious!. I can't believe this is considered a classic. Fuck this movie. 

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. 

The Apartment - Billy Wilder - 1960

★★★★★-The Apartment. When you're in love with a married man, you shouldn't wear mascara... That's how it crumbles... you know, cookie-wise. Jesus. I adored this movie. Jack Lemmon is seriously phenomenal in everything I've ever seen him in. Also, Billy Wilder is three-for-three in the movies I've blogged about, also loved Some Like It Hot and Sunset Boulevard, and half a dozen others I've seen at some point in life are also dope. Don't see this ever listed among the greatest movies of all time but it should be. Hands down the best and most rewatchable romantic comedy, IMO.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Director Billy Wilder's customary cynicism is leavened here by tender humor, romance, and genuine pathos.

Directed by Wilder, he and one I. A. L. Diamond co-wrote the screenplay. Nominated for 10 Academy Awards, winning five including Best Picture, Best Director, and Beast Screenplay. Gist of the movie is that insurance agent Bud Baxter (Lemmon) allows his higher ups to use his Upper West Side apartment to take their mistresses for affairs with the promise of moving up the corporate ladder. When Bud's prick of a boss, Sheldrake played by Fred MacMurray (whom I recognize from Double Indemnity and as the dad in My Three Sons) brings elevator operator Fran Kubelik, played by the lovely Shirley MacLaine, a woman that Bud is secretly in love with, shit gets real.

This movie is way darker of a romantic comedy than we are used to today featuring attempted suicide and married men promising to leave their wives, we know how that is, right ladies? Behind the concept was even darker shit as Diamond incorporated a life experience of one of his friends who came home after breaking up with his girlfriend and finding her dead, having committed suicide in his bed into Wilder's original comedy about adultery. Yeesh. Also included elements of another true story where Hollywood agent Jennings Lang was shot by producer Walter Wanger for having an affair with his wife, actress Joan Bennett, having used the apartment of one his low-level employees to conduct the affair.

A few bullet points... Shirley MacLaine is adorably cute. Pixie hair, quick wit, cosmopolitan. She is a cool chick. Easy to see how Bud genuinely falls for her. You feel protective of her as Sheldrake does what he does to her. It's really heartbreaking when she almost kills herself which everyone assumes was Bud's fault as his neighbors think he is just constantly bringing chicks home. The physician down the hall, one Dr. Dreyfuss played wonderfully by Jack Kruschen who was nominated for Best Supporting, who saves Fran's life, along with the landlady, give Bud hell for breaking the girl's heart when in reality it was Sheldrake (though it did look bad for him since he was drunk and brought back this other woman). Then, after she spends a couple of days at his apartment, her brother in-law, she is living with him and her sister, shows up and kicks his ass. Good stuff. Also, Lemmon easily wins the movie. Dude is funny and genuinely good. Kevin Spacey dedicated his Best Actor Oscar for American Beauty (maybe the movie from the last 20 years to age the worst that was once considered good) to Lemmon.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - Frank Capra - 1939

★★★★★-Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Let me go! I'm not fit to be a senator! I'm not fit to live! Expel me, not him! Willet Dam is a fraud! It's a crime against the people who sent me here - and I committed it! Ah, wouldn't it be great if real life were a Frank Capra movie and guilt got the better of the corrupted in power? Don't expect Mitch McConnell or Trump to give a movie like this any mind. No political party is ever mentioned... But we fucking know. No way Trump has seen it and McConnell sees Paine as a punk and Smith is a chump. Hell, he probably took the stuff about the dam they were using to get rich on stuff as inspiration for his whole funneling government grant money to his wife scheme. Lot of "I'm doing this on principle" bullshit from Claude Rains's character, Senator Joseph Harrison "Joe" Paine (who wears glasses that constantly flash when the light hits to the point of distraction which I can't remember happening in any other movie I've ever watched), that is more the style of a few other fucking pricks. Every senator claims to be Smith. Fucking Rand Paul or Ted Cruz, for example. Most of them are Paine. Definitely that fuck Paul (and most Republicans).

Anyway, great movie, though unrealistic. Fifth 1939 film from my Greatest Years in Cinema Project. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards though it was Gone with the Wind that cleaned up that year. Considered one of the greatest films of all time, ranked No. 26 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies: 10th Anniversary Edition.

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With movies that are light(ish) and humble, I'm beginning to see how someone could be a Capra fan. The idealistic grandmothers among us, for example, that are shocked by whats going on in Washington today. I too feel this way though Capra is 50/50 so far for me, I strongly disliked Arsenic and Old Lace. Jimmy Stewart is perfect though in his bumpkin sort of way. As is the lovely Jean Arthur. If Stewart weren't so over the top, I'd say she won the movie. One could argue that she did but women like her didn't get to carry many political movies in 1939. The two of them are really super though and really what endeared me to the film.

Originally supposed to be a sequel in the Mr. Deeds Goes to Town universe but Gary Cooper was unavailable. Instead we get Mr. Smith going to Washington in this light political drama about a seemingly naive politician appointed to the United States Senate by a group of corrupt politicians/business leaders who want to game the system in what amounts to a get rich quick scheme. I've been told this is a plot hole but see my bit about McConnell above. Though I do concede that everything gets pretty murky when it comes to what these guys are doing/trying to get away with. It sort of like another Stewart movie from that year in Destry Rides Again where the corrupt politicians/business leaders appoint someone they think is an idiot to "represent the people" but whom they really want to just walk all over. That was actually my favorite Stewart movie of that year but this was the one that made him a star, apparently. Only other actor of note is Thomas Mitchell as "Diz" Moore. Mitchell actually wins the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor that year for the role of Doc Josiah Boone in Stagecoach, which is coming up on my list for 1939. That was a big year for Mitchell. Played significant roles in five movies, all considered classics--the other three were Gone with the Wind (he played Scarlet's father), Only Angels Have Wings, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Was the second actor to win the so called Triple Crown of Acting, winning an Emmy, an Oscar, and a Tony just a month after Helen Hayes became the first in 1953.

In the first half of the movie we are hammered with how idealist Smith is as he goes to DC and sees a bunch of DC shit. We watch as he gets inspired by the Lincoln Memorial, learns that he has Daniel Webster's old seat, calls the city "Worshington", and yucks it up for journalists. But this last bit gets him into trouble as papers take advantage of his good nature to make him look like an idiot. He then goes on a punching journalists tour, delivering hay makers to no less than four people in a deranged montage. He then goes and revisits all the same DC places, only this time he is sad.

But dude has a plan. For kids! Get them Boy Scouts some land. But Paine and the PA Governor, Smith's state, and some big business guy have a whole conspiracy against Smith. Fuck this guy, basically all of his buddies say after he doesn't play ball with their bullshit money making scheme that didn't really make a whole lot of sense to me. Like, if they were going to buy the land for the kids, they also would have bought it for the dam and they would have still made money, if I understand it right. So, in-ee-way, Smith, about to get kicked out of the Senate goes on a long ass filibuster session where he pleads his case. No one cares and the political machine, which controls the papers, fucks with public opinion. But the kids and Jean Arthur, his very knowledgeable aid, and who ever the fuck this Biz guy is have his back.  They go to the papers and print their own Boy Rangers paper that tells the truth though political goons take them from the kids. This shit is out of fucking control. These punch one kid in the face and later run him off the road, probably killing all the kids in the car. 

But it is a happy ending with Smith's speech and such winning Paine over to the point where he confesses. This is after Paine fucking wins by pushing Smith over the edge, bringing in all of the hate mail people in PA have sent to Washington since his whole rambling talk started. IRL, the political machine chews you up and spits you out. Those with power and the most corrupt always win. Look at Al Franken vs. Trump. Paine just freaks out and that is the end of the movie. Seemingly he has been doing this shit for years. He can't just tune out Smith's hoarse ramblings for a few hours without losing his mind? I'd bet he'd be there eating a doughnut when Smith passed out, stepping over him on his way to spin it to the press. Couldn't make that shit today. No fucking way anyone buys any of that shit.

Also, this movie is featured in one of my favorite The Simpsons episodes. In it Mel Gibson is making a remake of the flick. Somehow Homer gets in Gibson's ear as a sort of everyman and what the average man wants. Not a bunch of preachy talking, that is for fucking sure, and Gibson turns it into an action movie where he kills members of the press and the corrupt senators, stalking them on the floor of the Senate. Hilarious. 

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. 

Chinatown is the greatest movie ever made

Chinatown. Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown. She's my sister AND my daughter! Fuu-uuuck this movie. I mean, solid hard-boiled detective movie. That little freak Roman Polanski did alright. His first movie after Charles Manson's crew killed his preggo wife, Sharon Tate. Couldn't really imagine a darker ending to a movie. Obvious that Polanski, who is a fucked up little man, will get into a bit, I'm sure, was going through some shit when making this, the movie with the most off topic title of all time.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: As bruised and cynical as the decade that produced it, this noir classic benefits from Robert Towne's brilliant screenplay, director Roman Polanski's steady hand, and wonderful performances from Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.

Gist of the movie. Classic neo-noir mystery where Jack Nicholson's character, J. J. "Jake" Gittes, is paid by one Evelyn Mulwray to spy on her husband, Hollis, whom she believes is cheating on her. Hollis, it turns out, is the chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and is publicly feuding with his former business partner and father in-law, Noah Cross, for Hollis's assertion that the creating a new reservoir would be unsafe. Gittes then photographs Hollis with a young woman who it is assumed he is having an affair with. After the pictures turn up on the front page of the paper, Hollis Mulwray ends up dead by apparent suicide. But all this turns out to be bullshit when the real Mrs. Mulwray, played by Faye Dunaway, shows up and Gittes starts investigating the whole thing as a murder.

Second Robert Evans/Paramount Pictures movie directed by Polanski. Written by Robert Towne, he based the screenplay on the California Water Wars which is some real interesting shit. Stars include Nicholson and Dunaway. Also John Hillerman who was Higgins in Magnum P.I., James Hong who was the standard Asian guy in movies for a while (you may remember him as Lo Pan from Big Trouble in Little China or the "so cold" guy in Blade Runner), Polanski as the guy who cuts Gittes's nose, and Burt Young who was Paulie in the Rocky movies.

Some bullet points... Burt Young's character is a wife beating asshole that really didn't age well coming from a director like Polanski who bragged about cheating on his beautiful, preggers wife before she was murdered by the Manson Family, said no woman was his intellectual equal, and had sex with multiple children which ultimately forced him to flee the country. In this we see Young getting pictures from Gittes of his wife boning some other guy. At the end, Gittes goes to Young's and the wife answers the door with black eyes. It is treated like a joke. Can just imagine Polanski being like, "ah, she'll have black eyes and be cooking dinner, it'll be funny!" But, yeah, that chick is a really shitty place with no way out. Instead of this guy she was at least physically into, maybe emotionally or whatever, now she just gets beat at home, forced to cook this prick's dinner and what not. Not hard to imagine why she went outside the marriage with him treating her as such. 

Nice little Seabiscuit Easter egg at the beginning of the movie. Gittes is reading the LA Times and on the cover of the newspaper it talks about the famed horse written about by Kenyon alum Laura Hillenbrand. 

Director John Huston is solid and creepy as shit as Cross. I may like him as much as an actor as I like him as a director. Currently reading his autobiography, An Open Book. Him and Brad Pitt are my current man crushes. Though his part in this is truly fucked and disturbing. Doesn't get any better than when Nicholson and him have their little talk when we first see the Cross character. There Cross and Gittes talk thus:

Cross: You've got a nasty reputation, Mr. Gits. I like that.
Gittes: Thanks.
Cross: If you were a bank president, that would be one thing. But in your business it's admirable and it's good advertising.
Gittes: It doesn't hurt.
Cross: It's, um, why you attracted a client like my daughter.
Gittes: Probably.
Cross: But I'm surprised you're still working for her - unless she's suddenly come up with another husband.
Gittes: No. She happens to think the last one was murdered.
Cross: Umm, how'd she get that idea?
Gittes: I think I gave it to her.
...
Cross: Gittes. You're dealing with a disturbed woman who's just lost her husband. I don't want her taken advantage of. Sit down.
Gittes: What for?
Cross: You may think you know what you're dealing with, but believe me, you don't

That is some player shit from Huston. Have to think he got some enjoyment out of saying all of this to Nicholson who was, at the time, dating his daughter, the lovely Angelica Huston. It's probably my favorite scene in the movie. Plus he is onto something there as Gittes, in my opinion, is sort of a shitty detective. Throughout the movie there are like five times where Gittes more or less proclaims he has figured it all out and was wrong as fuck. Dude thinks he knows everything. He doesn't know shit. Also, full of shit. Says some shit about him drawing the line at extortion. Bullshit. He bones a client for fuck's sake. And the weird I think racist joke he tells that is not funny and I'm not sure I really get, is fucking stupid and ill timed. But there is no universe where Nicholson's portrayal of the character doesn't win this movie.

Was inspired to watch this flick again after 20 years after watching Once Upon a Time In... Hollywood. Tried watching it imagining the Rick Dalton character in the Gittes role as I assume in that universe, Dalton is staring in Polanski flicks instead of Nicholson. Maybe with him instead, so like one of the other detectives or something. But I could totes see DiCaprio as Dalton as Gittes. Lot going on there mentally but I see it.

So, now, that ending, spoiler, is fucking dark. Fuck that shit. Female watching companion did not like. Dunaway gets shot in the eye by the cops when trying to flee her rapist father who is trying to take back his daughter/granddaughter. Once the car stops and the girl is screaming and Huston shields her eyes in about as creepy of a way as possible, it looks as though the girl is going to live with her rich daddy-granddaddy. This disgusting, gross murdering perv. I'm sure that is going to be fucking great. Must have blocked that shit. Left a horrible taste in my mouth. Had to start a Pixar movie as a pick me up.

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.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is the greatest movie of all time

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I know what gold does to men's souls... Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges! John Huston movie from 1948. Amazing film. Winner of three Academy Awards. One for the father of Huston, Walter, for Best Supporting. Two for John, one for Best Director and one for Best Adapted Screenplay. When daughter Anjelica Huston won for Best Supporting in 1985 for Prizzi's Honor, haven't seen it and looks terrible, they became the first three generation family to win Academy Awards. The Coppollas have since done this as well. Filmed on location just because Huston was an adventurer and wanted to go to Mexico. Also get away from the studio. Humphrey Bogart is completely fucking deranged in this extremely dark flick. Huston's old man, Walter, becomes what we collectively think of when we think olde timey prospector. A first time watch, this instantly became one of my favorite films. Been on a John Huston kick since watching the documentary They'll Love Me When I'm Dead about the until recently unreleased film The Other Side of the Wind by one Orson Welles. Huston is like the Dos XX guy except not irritating and real. His look and his voice. Cool shit. Fathered the lovely Angelica Huston, hands down my female companion's favorite. Also, you may have heard, he's a pretty solid filmmaker. This film is considered one of his best though this is one of four he directed with a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes (along with Fat City, The Maltese Falcon, and The Misfits).

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Remade but never duplicated, this darkly humorous morality tale represents John Huston at his finest.

Gist of the movie is two dirt poor Americans living in Mexico, Bob Curtin played by Tim Holt and wild man Fred C. Dobbs played by Humphrey Bogart, desperate for money, decide to join a old prospector, Howard who is played by the director's father, Walter Huston, in the Sierra Madre Mountains to mine for gold. The three make a fortune but bandits and greed brings it all crashing down.

While Huston the elder won the Academy Award for Best Supporting, it is Bogie's deranged performance that is most memorable. First off, dude looks like complete shit. It is rumored that he was taking fertility drugs, he and wife Lauren Bacall were trying to conceive, but that may or may not be bullshit. What is known is that he showed up bald and aged which doctors blamed on heavy drinking and a vitamin B deficiency. Huston rolled with it though as it just made the character that much crazier. He goes from being a shortsighted bum asking an American, played by the director, multiple times for money for food, never bothering to look the guy in the eye, to a completely uncontrollable Gollum type figure, completely obsessing over his newfound wealth.

I mean, at first he was a guy who couldn't pick the guy giving him handouts out of a lineup, begrudged the guy keeping him alive rather than being thankful. Then he and partner Bob get a gig that involves a lot of work from an American contractor with a huge payday at the end which never comes. The guy completely suckers them. Next thing you know, they run into the guy at a bar where he tries to sucker them again. An extremely clumsy and realistic fight breaks out when the labor boss knows he's fucked and goes on the offensive, attacking them with a bottle. They eventually kick the shit out of the guy with Bogart's character reaching into the guy's wallet and taking only the money they were owed. Later in the movie, after they have found enough gold to support the men for a lifetime, not long after buddy Bob saves Dobbs's life when he gets trapped in a mine, the unhinged Bogart character comes completely undone, obsessively fixed on Bob and Howard cutting him out and taking his share for themselves. Late in the movie, when Howard is living it up in a Mexican village after saving a child's life, it is just Dobbs and Curtin making their way to town. But Dobbs is already gone by that point, his mind clawed out, he tells Curtin, whom he has attacked and has him at gunpoint, that once he falls asleep, he is going to kill him. The wild look in his eye after staying up for days is fucking chilling. You sure as shit don't want him in your party, you outlasting him in an endurance contest for your life. Yeah, he totally wins the movie.

A young Robert Blake, passing as Mexican

All of that stuff with the three guys finding all that gold and it destroying at least one of them and them ending up with nothing in the end reminds me of "The Pardoner's Tale" from the Canterbury Tales, my favorite among them. In that three men search for Death whereupon they encounter an old man who says he saw Death behind a tree. When they go to that tree they find gold and guard it overnight. At first all is good but when they draw straws, sending the youngest one to town for food and wine, the two left behind plot to kill him, which they do. But they soon discover that the younger man has poisoned their provisions and die a painful, grueling death. The difference between this tale and the movie, however, is that only Dobbs had murder on his mind. The other two, though they lose everything, literally laugh it off in the end at the absurdity of the situation.

Huston, looking fly

This is also one of those films with lots of great stories coming out of the production. Like how John Huston adopted an orphan child. Or how Italian American Our Gang child star Robert Blake, who would later go on to star in such films as In Cold Blood/play a minor but pivotal part in Lost Highway and eventually murder his future wife, played the little Mexican boy selling lottery numbers, which Bogart's character wins. But the weirdest of this has to be the story of one Hal Croves's presence on set and the theory surrounding his identity.

The gist of this is that the author of the novel that the movie is based on, B. Traven, was extremely reclusive with all the details about him, including his name or real identity, subject to dispute. As I read about this guy, I became certain that this is who Roberto Bolaño based his novelist character Benno von Archimboldi in the book 2666, one of my three favorite books of all-time. (A quick Google search showed I wasn't alone in this theory). Anyway, the author was supposed to show up on set and work as a technical advisor for $1000 a week but instead a guy claiming the name Hal Croves, said to be a close friend of the author, showed up in his stead. Pretty much everyone was like, uh, this is obviously Traven, though he denied it, but Huston didn't want to make a big deal about it. He was getting a knowledgeable adviser and translator for $150 a week instead of a grand and respected the guy's privacy. He later even wrote in his autobiography that he ultimately didn't think they were the same person because of the way he spoke and acted IRL was so different than their correspondence via letters and such. Huston further explained that a lot of this theorizing was the result of people on set asking Croves if he was Traven and him denying it in this bullshitty way that made people think he was indeed full of shit. However, Huston's wife at the time, actress Evelyn Keyes, who was apparently cool with Huston's impromptu adoption of a Mexican child, by the by, was sure they were the goddamn person. According to her, Croves said "I" instead of "he" and basically sounded exactly like the guy in the letters he had written to Huston. Fascinating shit you can read about along with who Traven may or may not have really been in "The Mystery of B. Traven," a nice piece of journalism, at Vice.

Gone With the Wind is the greatest movie of all time

Gone With the Wind. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. Starting 1939 in my Greatest Years in Cinema Project with the behemoth. Seen cherry picked scenes all my life but never sat down from start to finish. That four hour runtime has always been a bit intimidating. After my first true watch, oh, it's dope. Groundbreaking and epic. Clark Gable (sort of reminds me of a George Clooney, who also reminds me of Cary Grant) as Rhett Butler is really fucking good. So are Olivia de Havilland as Melanie Wilkes nee Hamilton, Leslie Howard (sort of a 1930s Michael Fassbender) as Ashley Wilkes, Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara, and Hattie McDaniel as Mammy. But I'm not sure it really says anything. Slavery. Meh. Rape. Eh. The South. Take it or leave it. The overwhelming thing I walked away with is that Scarlett is a bitch who will apparently never go hungry again.

Rotten Tomatoes Consensus: Filmed and presented on a scale not seen in modern productions, Gone with the Wind is, if not the definitive Hollywood film, then certainly near the top of the list.

Unsure of how to describe the movie. The first half is a Civil War flick while the second is one dealing with Reconstruction. All the while plantation heiress and Kim Kardashian prototype Scarlett O'Hara, whom I'm pretty sure was called a "whorlet"which I am totally going to use, pursues one Ashley Wilkes who marries his cousin Melanie but marries a couple of fucking losers who can't even stay alive and rich badass Rhett Butler who rapes her and she eventually comes to love only to have him leave, telling her he doesn't give a shit about her no mo.

Now for some of the bullet points...

Some of the most impressive feats of the film come in the first half of the flick, before the intermission. First we get this scene right after the war breaks out where everyone gathers in town to hear which of their sons and husbands have died. It is super heavy with old folks sort of losing their shit and little kids crying. After it is over, the band, mostly children, standing with their instruments at attention, play "Dixie", most of them crying. By the by, based on this one scene I am convinced the movie is supposed to be ironic. Then we have the big dance that was a fundraiser for the war efforts that is decadent and awesome. The truly moving scene where Scarlett goes to find the doctor to help Melanie who is in labor and she crosses a street with thousands of wounded soldiers lying there dying and hopeless. Then the burning of Atlanta which is incredible by any standard. The second part, the sequel, I guess, sort of drug and was mostly a bunch of preachy talking. Like the Old vs. New Testament. There's some sacrilege for ya.

Early in the movie, after Ashley tells Scarlett he is into incest at this big Confederacy pro-war meeting of the minds (of note, while the dudes have wargasms all over the place down stairs, the ladies nap with slaves fanning them, of course not batting an eye at having human air conditioners), she goes off and marries some dipshit who practically creams his pants at the prospect of war (and he basically calls Butler a pussy), and breaks up his relationship, I think,  just to make the dude she really likes jealous. He immediately dies in the war of pneumonia, which he was fucking really into, and she doesn't give a shit and is more upset that she is too young to be a widow than anything else and decides to try to break up that other guy's marriage. When she is "in morning" it is sort of like in Seinfeld when Susan dies from glue poisoning from licking their wedding invitations and the doctor tells him and he realizes that he doesn't have to marry her, because, you know, she's dead, and he has a look that the guy later describes on the stand during "The Finale" as "restrained jubilation." That is what we get in Atlanta. She is pissed and sad but she is only pissed that she has to pretend to be upset and sad that she is too young to be a widow. And that is the first half hour of the movie. She only becomes more of a bitch as the movie goes on and she becomes wealthier (going from the use of one type of slave labor to another first having the traditional black slaves and then hiring the prison for the newer kind of slave labor that we still have today) and more "independent" which is bullshit. Rhett dodged a fucking bullet. I'll tell ya.

But Rhett, he fucking sucks, too. Early I thought he might be alright as he is (toxically) manly and dashing and what not. It doesn't seem like he has slaves but I may have missed something. And he and Ashley (want to reiterate that he is marrying his cousin, Melanie, who is lovely and the only main white character who isn't terrible, but yeah, your marrying your cousin is fucking gross by today's standards but was socially acceptable then, I guess) are the only two Southerners who are fucking stoked about the War of Northern Aggression. Says "All we've got is cotton, slaves, and arrogance." Pretty cool. And he says "damn". But there towards the end, dude loses us. First he helps cover up what sort of sounds like a lynching that Ashley and Scarlett's second husband, who died there, partake in. This was in retaliation for a deranged attempted rape from a pair of morons in a shanty town. Rhett says Ashley, the doctor, and him were all hanging out at the brothel (also, I feel a Civil War era prostitute would be really disgusting which this one that keeps showing up is not). It is an obvious lie but he is so convincing, I guess, that the local doctor's wife thought they were really at the whore house even though she knew they were going to kill the folks in this shanty town. Supposed to think he is just that smooth but really it just makes the doctor's wife look like an idiot. Once he and Scarlett finally get married and she gets caught throwing herself at Ashley by the sister whose dude she keeps stealing, he gets drunk and rapes her. Not cool, man. I already hate him at that point but then he goes a step further to lose me when after his and Scarlett's idiot child rides off on a pony that she forces to try to jump a fence but instead throws her into it and dies, he fucking shoots the pony. What the hell, dude?

The real Gable, whom was the MVP of the movie, was sort of an enigma like this as well. Like how he was really cool and progressive when it came to the treatment of African Americans, but not so much with homosexuals. Like whilst shooting the movie, legendary producer David O. Selznick’s set had segregated bathrooms which pissed Gable off. He went to friend and director Victor Fleming, who was chosen by Selznick to direct in part to appease Gable, and threatened to walk if that shit didn't stop which it did. Then when Hattie McDaniel, whom he was friends with prior to working with her on the film, wasn't allowed to attend the premier in Atlanta, GA, he flipped and shit and threatened to boycott. Same with the Academy Awards, where McDaniel fucking won (the first black actor to win an Oscar) for Best Supporting, when she had to sit in the back of the audience. So, yeah, as cool as you could be, racially speaking, when you are most known for starring in a deeply racist movie.

Politically he was extremely conservative though he voted for FDR when he was married to Carol Lombard, a liberal democrat. Like how with Gary Cooper, the future president who prior to Trump fucked up the country more than any other in the modern era Ronald Reagan, and draft dodging "man's man" John Wayne he formed the pro-McCarthy bullshit Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. I guess you could be a winger and a Republican and not be a racist back then. Meanwhile, according to David Bret in his book Clark Gable: Tormented Star, dude spent his early years in Hollywood as a sort of gigolo among the homosexuals in Hollywood's elite, "gay for pay," if you will. All of this was probably horseshit but he was known to go on a homophobic rant in his day, t'were the times, I guess. Also, hearsay rumors to this day, the professor of this "1939: The Greatest Year in Hollywood" class I audited earlier this year said this was most likely true, persist that Gable wasn't comfortable with original Gone with the Wind director George Cukor who was openly gay and had him fired. This was likely because of his whole machismo bullshit. How much of this was because of Gable and how much because Selznick and Cukor constantly argued about details, Selznick was famously hard to work for and saw this as his baby. Some had it that Cukor knew of Gable's homosexual hustling, he probably did sort of hustle single older rich woman though, and that is part of why Gable didn't want to work with him. You can read about the book in this review in the New York Times Sunday Book Review since it doesn't appear the book is really worth your time.

Overall, Gable was a pretty interesting guy. Was married to Academy Award nominated actress Carole Lombard who dead in a plane crash in 1941. She was selling war bonds in her and my home state of Indiana. Traveling with her were Lombard's mother and Gable's press agent who were both afraid of flying. Lombard, however, wanted to get back to Los Angeles as quickly as possible because, it is rumored, he was going to be working with supposed sexpot Lana Turner in the movie Somewhere I'll Find You. The mother and publicist left the decision up to chance whether they would would head back by train or fly, flipping a coin at Lombard's suggestion. She won and the group, along with 19 others, mostly soldiers, died when the plane crashed into a mountain outside of Las Vegas due to visibility issues caused by the fact that it was practice at the time for turn off safety beacons at night so that Japanese bomber couldn't navigate the terrain. Fucked. A month later, after a legendary bender, he enlisted in the US Army Air Corp and made propaganda films for the war effort even though he was 41 when America joined the war, put him past the age where he would have been drafted or indeed been able to enlist in today's military. He worked his way up from private to major and even "won his wings" as an aerial gunner flying in five real war missions one in which his plane was damaged in combat. You read more about it at this seemingly nonpartisan military information site Defense Media Network.

Finally, there is Melanie, played by Olivia de Havilland who as of this post is still alive and kicking at 103. Poor, sweet, dumb Melanie. From her perspective Scarlett is the kindest most generous friend anyone could ever have. Everyone else except the dudes she marries minus Butler fucking knows Scarlett is the fucking worst, but to Melanie, Scarlett is the woman who looked after her while Ashley was away at war, delivered her child, supported her financially for a time, and saved her life by shooting a Union soldier in the face in one of the movie's most shocking scenes. But in the end she dies of bullshit as she has been exposed to it all her life.

So that was Gone with the Wind. Great and epic, for sure. Racist and irritating as well. Don't think I'll be watching again anytime soon but I'm glad I finally sat down and watched it from start to finish. Totally deserves being high on the American Film Institute Top 100 list and is a huge part of why 1939 is maybe the greatest year in film of all-time. 

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.