Day #48 - High Noon

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High Noon is a Fred Zinnermann directed Western starring Gary Cooper - according to John Lithgow (yay TCM!), this movie came about at a time, in the early 50's, when bravery and courage were much valued at the box office. Gary Cooper won a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Marshal Will Cane. The movie opens with Will's wedding to Amy, played by Grace Kelly. It seems like all is well until 3 shady looking men stride into town. This immediately puts the town into uproar, and we find out that these three men are waiting on their leader, Frank Miller, to arrive on the noon train. Frank threatened to come back and kill Will after being sentenced to hang for murder - little did Will know that he would be pardoned and come back looking for him. The rest of the movie basically consists of Will going around to the men of the town asking for deputies to help him take down Frank. When no one will step up to help, Will must fight on his own. At the beginning of the movie, Amy decided to leave town, disgusted with Will's desire to stay and fight. At the very end though, she comes back and helps him kill Frank and his men. The movie ends with Will throwing his deputy badge down at the townspeople who wouldn't help him and leaving with Amy.

When the movie was over, Chris said, "well, that's the most concise movie I've ever seen" - which is true, haha - it was only 85 minutes long, not much time for froo froo. Overall, I thought it was a fine movie - not great or bad, just fine. The Mexican woman who played Mrs. Ramirez drove me CRAZY. I didn't care for the acting much and am surprised Gary Cooper was called out for an Oscar. I find that I'm often times not impressed with acting in Westerns - is it like watching action movies today, knowing they aren't made for their great acting?

Throughout the movie, clocks are shown often as the movie is shot in real time. This reminds me a lot of 3:10 To Yuma, a Western remake from a couple of years ago with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe - that movie also was centered around the arrival or departure of a train and relied a lot on time.

Though I didn't care for his acting, I really like the look of Gary Cooper - he looks like a real man :) I would pick him for my side on a fight :)

According to IMDB:

"This film was intended as an allegory in Hollywood for the failure of Hollywood people to stand up to the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Sen. Joseph McCarthy Red-baiting era."

Day #47 - La Vie en Rose

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Wow. I knew that Marion Cotillard was going to be good in this movie, but she truly blew me away. I'm trying to think of when I have seen a better performance by a woman in ANY movie, and I am coming up with very little - perhaps Charlize Theron in Monster. Cotillard really impressed me, I had no idea how talented she was/is. She won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal.

La Vie en Rose follows the life and career of Edith Piaf, a French singer and cultural icon - abandoned many times as a young child, she grew up in poverty and started her career by singing on the streets as a teenager - which is essentially where she was discovered. Her career and life had many ups and downs and Cotillard portrayed the emotions of these ups and downs beautifully. Edith Piaf's voice is really unlike anything I've ever heard - not only because she sings in French but her voice is unique. I found it interesting that when Piaf came to America she felt like the people here didn't understand her and vice versa. She always missed Paris and felt most at home there. As far as the way the movie was made, my only complaint really is that I was confused about her illness - I read online that she died of lung cancer but how well was that explained? I didn't pick up on it at all - she seemed to take injections for serious (perhaps debilitating) arthritis? I understood also that she was into hard drugs at least for a small period of time - but I'm not 100% sure of any of this. In fact, Ebert's review said she was addicted to morphine - how was I to know this? Oh well.

Roger Ebert had this to say...

"This mosaic storytelling style has been criticized in some quarters as obscuring facts (quick: how many times was she married?). But think of it this way: Since there are, in fact, no wedding scenes in the movie, isn't it more accurate to see husbands, lovers, friends, admirers, employees and everyone else as whirling around her small, still center? Nothing in her early life taught her to count on permanence or loyalty. What she counted on was singing, champagne, infatuation and morphine."

I couldn't find a good video from the film, but here are a couple of clips of the real Edith Piaf singing...La Vie en Rose and Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.

Day #46 - Rear Window

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So right off the bat I'm thinking, I dunnoooo, I'm just not a big Hitchcock fan ....I don't think I'm gonna liiiiike this....but I looooove Jimmy Stewart, right? So I HAVE to give it a whirl, right? Right.

...and voila! I loved it :) Honestly I did not know how this movie was going to end until the very last minutes and I was really surprised! It's so exciting when that happens because movies tend to be fairly predictable and formulaic - I found Rear Window to be unlike any movie I've seen. I loved that the movie never left the set of the apartments - and that everything you saw was through the eyes of Jimmy Stewart. As the documentary helped me to see, Hitchcock set up the movie so that as a viewer, you saw something happen in another apartment, then you cut to Jimmy Stewart's reaction and you can't help but react as he does. So you actually follow the mystery of the movie right along with him....except for that little tidbit of info that the viewer gets that he does not! I won't ruin it :)

Rear Window is about L.B. Jeffries (Stewart), a photographer who is bound to his wheelchair after suffering a broken leg. Because he isn't able to get out and about on his own, he spends most of his time staring out his apartment window, spying on his neighbors' activities. One night, he sees some suspicious activity at the apartment across the way, where a man has been caring for his invalid wife. He starts to suspect that the man murdered his wife, and as the next couple of days go on, he sees more and more to lead him to believe his theory is true. His girlfriend Lisa, played by the beautiful Grace Kelly, at first thinks that his imagination has run wild - that is, until she sees some of the suspicious behavior for herself. By the end of the movie, Jeffries, Lisa, and Jeffries' nurse Stella are all working together to solve the mystery. As this story moves along, we also get a glimpse into the lives of some of Jeffries' other neighbors, adding some depth the the movie.

As usual, I adored Jimmy Stewart....he's just a man after my heart, I love him so much :) I love that every line he delivers feels like he's doing an impression of himself. This is the first movie I have seen of his in color so that was nice - he has blue eyes!

Day #45 - Woman of the Year

I am going to write my review tomorrow but I just wanted to say....I LOVE SPENCER TRACY!!!

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OK I'm back :) So yes, first of all, let's talk about Spencer Tracy. As I said after I watched Adam's Rib, I really expected Tracy to be gruff and cranky - and as in Adam's Rib, I could not have been more wrong. Charming is the best word to describe him - he is just wonderful! He is so natural in his roles and also very funny! Out of all of the movies I've seen so far, I would definitely put him up there with Jimmy Stewart as far as favorites - and I NEVER would have guessed that. I knew so little about him before this challenge - all I knew was about his love affair with Kate, but nothing about HIM. Love, love, love him.

So I read on IMDB that this was the FIRST movie he and Kate Hepburn made together (1942) - and boy can you tell! Their chemistry is AMAZING! They are so into each other - not for ONE second do you think they are acting. It's actually really fun to watch, knowing their story and what they would mean to each other. I had to smile at the screen at times, I was so thoroughly enjoying their interactions.

What I would like to know is this - and I'm posing this question to anyone who might know. I've noticed that Kate Hepburn's roles are typically that of really strong females who don't believe they should play second fiddle to men - and as I know that was the same of her in real life, I wonder.....were these movies written with her in mind? Because people knew she was like this and would therefore play the part well? I would be more inclined to think that female roles were just simply written this way anyway - but in the late 30's/40's/50's, how many writers were telling the story of women like this? I would have thought it were rare....

Woman of the Year won an Oscar for Best Screenplay and Kate Hepburn was nominated for Best Actress but did not win. I also wanted to share this piece of trivia from IMDB:

"As Katharine Hepburn's close friend and frequent director, George Cukor was a natural choice to direct, but for her first film with Spencer Tracy, Hepburn wanted Tracy to be as comfortable as possible, so as a quasi-producer, she hired George Stevens, who had directed her in Alice Adams (1935). As Hepburn said, "I just thought he (Tracy) should have a big, manly man on his team--someone who could talk about baseball." Cukor (who was openly gay and known for his friendships with actresses) would later become a good friend of Tracy and would direct both actors inKeeper of the Flame (1942), Adam's Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952)."

I also wanted to share a FANTASTIC quote that I first heard from my Hollywood Encyclopedia/Mother-in-Law :) and also found when researching this movie....(this quote is from Wikipedia) :)

"This is the first of nine films Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy were to make together. They met for the first time on this shoot. In the 1993 documentary Katharine Hepburn: All About Me, Hepburn herself says she was wearing high heels at the first meeting with Tracy and producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and said "I'm afraid I'm a bit tall for you, Mr. Tracy". Mankiewicz then responded, "Don't worry, Kate, he'll cut you down to size."

My favorite scene of the movie is the very last one when she is trying to make breakfast for him - not because of her actions but because of his reactions - what great faces! Lemme see if I can find it on YouTube. Yay! For a quick background, let's just say that Kate is trying to prove that she can be a good housewife - and she's not exactly comfortable in the kitchen :)

Day #44 - The Longest Day

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I liked this movie even more than I thought I was going to! Being such a history buff, you give me a D-Day movie and I'm a happy camper :) What I enjoyed the most about The Longest Day is that they didn't just give you the Allied point of view. You also got to follow the Germans, which is rare in war movies. Not only that - but you didn't just follow one company or one military branch for the Allies - we got to see Air Force, Navy, Army, Airborne..we saw gliders at work as well as engineers. They really made accuracy a priority so I found it to be a really interesting story. It's unbelievable to see how the Germans handled the days before and of the invasion of Normandy - I had read before about how they expected the invasion to come at a different location but I didn't know how much they relied on weather to make strategy assumptions. Not only that, but once the invasion did start, it was as though Hitler didn't take it seriously. He wouldn't release the Panzer divisions and I found it interesting that his high ranking officers didn't have the guts to wake him up to even tell him what was happening!

I digress. The Longest Day was released in 1962 and was directed by Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton and Bernhard Wicki. It starred a great many actors of that era, including Richard Burton, Red Buttons, a young Sean Connery, John Wayne, Henry Fonda and Robert Mitchum. The nice thing was that none of these actors, in my opinion, really stuck out as a lead. It was more of an ensemble which I always feel is best for war movies. A bit of trivia - apparently this was one of the first war movies ever made where everyone spoke their native languages - the Germans spoke German, the French spoke French, and the British and Americans spoke English. Also, at $10 millioin, The Longest Day was the most expensive black and white movie ever made until Schindlers List came along in 1993. It won 2 Oscars - Best Cinematography and Best Special Effects.

One of the scenes that really blew me away was the invasion of Omaha Beach at Point-Du-Hoc. The men who were assigned this part of the beach had to scale hundred foot cliffs with ropes and ladders, taking heavy fire the whole time from Germans above. Amazing.

Day #43 - Some Like it Hot

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This movie was HYSTERICAL! I knew going in it was going to be funny because of recommendations but really nothing can prepare you for Jack Lemmon as a woman - he is so fabulous. Some Like it Hot was my fifth Billy Wilder movie and my second Jack Lemmon movie :) It was my first time seeing a movie with Tony Curtis or Marilyn Monroe, and that being said, let's hope it's the last Marilyn Monroe movie I see - she is terrible! Billy Wilder once said, "Hollywood isn't ruining Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe is ruining Hollywood." Wilder had a lot of difficulty working with Monroe - she came to set late every day or not at all, and when she did show up, she often required dozens of takes to complete even the simplest lines. Wilder didn't even invite her to the wrap party, haha. Monroe aside, I LOVED this movie - it was definitely hilarious and I thought Jack Lemmon especially just rocked it. I would love to have a poster of Jack Lemmon in the scene on the train when all the women came into his bunk for a party...love it.

Some Like it Hot is essentially about two musicians who witness a mob murder - in order to get away from the mob, they dress as women and join an all woman band on their way to Florida. They are both immediately drawn to Sugar, a singer and ukelele (sp?) player - not knowing they are men, she confides in them as if they were female friends. When she tells Josephine (Tony Curtis) that she wants a millionaire to take care of her, he seizes the chance to play the part of Shell Oil, and of course she doesn't know that he is the same woman she has been spending time with! Daphne (Jack Lemmon) meanwhile, draws the attention of an older man who is staying at the hotel - he eventually proposes to her, now knowing she is a man! When the mob shows up at the hotel, Daphne and Josephine have to make a run for it - with the old man and Sugar in tow!

AFI named Some Like it Hot as the #1 Funniest Movie of all Time! Jack Lemmon was nominated for an Oscar but unfortunately lost - the movie did win, however, for Best Costume Design. Here's a great clip from the movie:

Day #42 - The African Queen

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The African Queen was a 1951 John Huston-directed movie starring Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. It was filmed on location in Africa, which was extremely rare for that time period. It was also a dangerous time to be in the Congo, but John Huston felt it would add needed authenticity to the film. During filming, most of the cast and crew were sick - Katharine Hepburn dealt with a severe case of dysentery - what I think is hilarious about that is that she was so disgusted by how much John Huston and Humphrey Bogart were drinking that she protested by having water only - thus the reason she was so sick. Neither Huston nor Bogie were sick during the shoot - in fact, Bogie said they drank so much scotch that if a fly landed on one of them it would have died instantly :) Apparently Bogie was not too keen on being in the jungle but Kate viewed it as quite the adventure - why am I not surprised? :)

The movie opens with Rose (Hepburn) and her brother holding a church service in German East Africa - they are British and I assume missionaries. We are also introduced to Charlie, a British man who drives a steam ship on the river, delivering supplies to the area. This is where our TV signal went out (I was watching on TCM) - so I missed the next 15 minutes or so - ah! Apparently after learning that the Germans were at war, Rose's brother protested and was killed - Rose then left with Charlie on his steamboat. Rose seemed much more refined and sophisticated than Charlie who was fairly dirty and drank a lot. The rest of the movie is about the adventures they face as they head down the river. Rose feels that they can turn the African Queen into a torpedo boat and if they head down river they can attach a German ship that is keeping a British counter-attack at bay. Charlie is scared, feeling that it would be a suicide mission and far too dangerous. Rose convinced him otherwise and so off they went. They face many obstacles such as rapids and German gunfire but along the way fall in love. Eventually they get stuck in a channel with very little water and too much mud - convinced they are going to die, they go to sleep only to wake up in the lake they have been trying to reach, having been rescued by a storm which raised their boat from the mud. I won't ruin the end - so if you want to know what happens you'll have to see it for yourself!

I really liked the second half of this movie but not the first. It took me a LONG time to get into the story - at first I really just didn't care much about the characters. That being said, once they started to hit the obstacle of the mud, I felt like the added layer I needed was there and I began to really enjoy it. I LOVED Kate and Bogie together, I thought they were fantastic - I was especially impressed with Bogie - I always thought of him as such a serious person and although I liked his charm in Sabrina, I didn't think he could play a character like this. In fact, Bogie won his only Oscar for The African Queen, beating out the favorite Marlon Brando for A Streetcar Named Desire. There is just something about Kate Hepburn - I've seen a few of her movies now and I crave more - I can't put my finger on what it is, I just really love her audacity.

Day #41 - Stalag 17

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Stalag 17 was recommended to us and neither Chris nor myself had ever heard of it. Stalag is German for prisoner camp so Stalag 17 is about a group of men who share a barracks as American POW's during WWII. The movie came out in 1953 and starred William Holden, who won an Academy Award for it. It was also written and directed by Billy Wilder! This is my FOURTH Billy Wilder movie and I think my.....3rd William Holden movie :) Go me.

I felt so-so about Stalag 17 - first of all, we didn't know it was a comedy. I thought it was going to be a serious war movie. Apparently Billy Wilder liked to make comedies surrounded by a morose or dark context. So that threw me off a little bit. When the movie started I realized it was going to focus a lot on these two "barracks clowns" who provided a lot of slapsticky type comedy throughout which was fine I suppose, but I didn't expect it. Early on in the movie we are told that there is a "traitor" in the barracks who is feeding information to the Germans - information on escape attempts and equipment the men shouldn't have like radios. I really had no idea who it was until it was shown to me so I appreciated the surprise. Overall, like, I said, it was so-so for me. After the movie we watched the "making of" featurette which helped us to understand the movie more and I feel like when we watch older movies we should always know a bit about the context ahead of time. Chris was offended that they said Stalag 17 was the best POW camp/escape movie because we both liked The Great Escape much better :)

With all of that said, William Holden is HOT and I am MORE than happy to watch more of his movies :)

Day #40 - The French Connection

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Strikes and gutters - for as many good movies as I've been watching, I'm bound to run across one from time to time that I don't care for. I had high hopes for this movie because I, like every sane person in the world, love Gene Hackman. He has the voice, ya know - it lends itself perfectly to being raised, so I love it when he yells and gets mad. The French Connection came out in 1971 and won 5 Oscars - Best Picture, Best Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Director (William Friedkin), Best Film Editing and Best Screenplay. Perhaps this was a movie that was really significant for its time and that's the risk you take in watching older movies - without the context sometimes you miss the point. ...which I did.

Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider play NYC cops who are assigned to a special investigation involving a group of drug dealers. Gene plays Jimmy Doyle, a man who seems to work off of impulses and gut feelings, which doesn't always instill confidence in his plans. He discovers that the men he is following are actually working a deal with a French group who is smuggling drugs overseas to help with the "drought" in NYC. Thus, the French connection. Beyond that, I don't really care to even get into the story. If I were to look at the screenplay for this movie, I imagine it's about 10 pages along. There was SO little dialogue and I felt like the movie was Gene Hackman following the bad guys around for a long time, then a few lines of dialogue, then more following, then a car chase scene, more following....it just go really old. I know, I know, the chase scene is one of the best in film history, no? I'm not a car chase kind of person so I was just glad when the movie was over. I know it's harsh, but it just wasn't my thing.

Day #39 - The Apartment

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I believe this is my 3rd Billy Wilder movie! The Apartment is a comedy written, directed and produced by Billy Wilder and starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. Young Jack Lemmon is so cute!! The Apartment won 5 Oscars - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Art Direction, Best Film Editing and Best Screenplay. Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Jack Krushen were nominated in the acting categories but did not win.

I watched the Special Feature, "Inside the Apartment" which was really good because they talked about the context of the movie which is always really helpful. Billy Wilder first conceived of this story in the mid 40's but felt like the subject matter would not be accepted - adultery was not really shown and spoke of outright and it was basically a "rule" in Hollywood that the sanctity of marriage always be upheld. By the time the late 50's rolled around, there was a scandal in the press about a woman who was cheating on her husband with another man, always going to a secret apartment to meet. It so happened that this guy was the superior at work to the apartment owner who was just looking to advance his career......well, voila! Not only did Billy have the rest of his story put together, he also felt like maybe now he could get away with it.

I should probably go ahead and say...The Apartment is about an insurance worker, CC Baxter (Lemmon) in the late 50's who rents an apartment a half block from Central Park - unfortunately he can't use the apartment in the evenings as much as he would like because the key to his place is passed around the office amongst men looking for a place to take their mistresses. CC agrees to it even though it's inconvenient because it has allowed him to move ahead in the company. Shirley MacLaine plays Fran, the elevator attendant - which I think is funny - I can't imagine having that kind of job. Anyhoo, CC really likes Fran and asks her out only to be stood up. Later he finds out that Fran has actually been seeing Mr. Sheldrake, his boss, who is married and using the key to his place! One night when Fran is at CC's with Mr. Sheldrake, she realizes that he really does not love her and is afraid she is just another woman to him...so after he leaves she takes sleeping pills and passes out. CC of course comes home and finds her, solicits the help of his doctor neighbor, and nurses her back to health.....in the end, even though Mr. Sheldrake leaves his wife, Fran realizes it's really CC that she loves - they have a fantastic When-Harry-Met-Sally-esque New Years eve ending :)

I loooooooooved Jack Lemmon so so much! He was super cute - I've never seen him in a movie where he was young. This is one of the reasons I am loving this challenge - I mean, I know who so many of the legends ARE but I don't know firsthand about their work and it's been really fun to learn. I should be getting Some Like it Hot soon....yay!

I'm not sure how to classify this movie...comedy? drama? romance? It's funny, but I wouldn't say all out comedy....let's go with Drama.

Day #38 - The Civil War

For the past week and a half or so, Chris and I have been watching Ken Burns' Civil War documentary - it is 11 hours long so I've put that in place of a few movies along the way. I have to admit, I don't know that I had heard of Ken Burns before Chris told me about him, but apparently I'm the only one. He has done many critically acclaimed documentaries including ones on D-Day, baseball, jazz and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Being a huge history buff, I am really loving the documentary. I was excited when it first started because the narrator, David McCollough, also narrated Seabiscuit, one of my favorite movies. I love the level of detail that you get in a documentary, and with Ken Burns I know everything I am getting is accurate and backed by first hand accounts. It took 6 years to make so you know that a ridiculous ton of research went into it.

The Civil war aired over 5 nights on PBS and 40 MILLION people tuned in, can you believe that?! It was the highest number of viewers for any show on PBS up to that point. According to Wiki, this documentary was considered Ken Burns' magnum opus. 16,000 archival photographs, paintings and newspaper images were used for the show.

Day #37 - The Philadelphia Story

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I looove this movie - it's such a classic. I saw it many years ago and didn't remember much about it, other than that I loved Jimmy Stewart. It was on TCM the other night so I DVR'd it and I've actually watched it twice now :)

Katharine Hepburn played the role of Tracy Lord in The Philadelphia Story on Broadway, and she wanted the rights to the script for a movie version, so her boyfriend at the time, Howard Hughes, bought it for her. Cause we all have billionaire boyfriends right?? MGM agreed to do the movie, even giving Hepburn the opportunity to choose her costars and director. As her director, of course she chose no other than her favorite, George Cukor. She originally wanted Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy as Macauley Connor and CK Dexter Haven, but they were not available, so Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart were cast. Fantastic :)

The Philadelphia Story was nominated for 4 Oscars in 1940 and won 2 - Best Screenplay and Best Actor in a Leading Role for Jimmy Stewart (yay!). It was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress in a Leading Role for Katharine Hepburn and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Ruth Hussey (really? what a strange nomination....). Kate Hepburn lost to Ginger Rogers in Kitty Foyle, which I have never heard of - but I imagine that after Kate put so much into this movie, she was none too happy not to win an Oscar for it. The Best Picture winner that year was Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca.

I think that the best scene in this movie BY FAR is the scene where Jimmy Stewart is drunk and goes in to talk to Cary Grant and keeps yelling "CK Dexter Haaaaven!" and he hiccups all the time. He is so freakkin' fantastic. A couple years ago I read his biography and loved it because I was so happy for the story of his life not to ruin my opinion of him :) Here is a great video....from 1:20-1:30, tell me Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant are not trying desperately not to laugh after Jimmy hiccups and Grant says "excuse me":) It makes me hysterical when he says "CK Dexter Haven you have unsuspected depth!" This has to be one of my favorite scenes of all time!

Day #36 - Public Enemies

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There is no other way to start this review than to say...whoever decided that Christian Bale needed to walk around the big screen in 1930's suits and hats should be arrested. How am I supposed to concentrate on the story with THAT?! Come ON. Christian Bale is one of the few actors who I can honestly say I have been following since I was a kid - and it's so rewarding to see him become an A-list actor. There is a lot to be said for him not selling out long ago when the options were presented to him - I'm sure a lot of people think he is new to the scene but he's been making movies since he was a kid, and it's just really nice to see more choices open to him. People really respect him as an actor and that will only continue to grow.

OK, enough about Christian Bale. Is it ever enough? No, it isn't...but we shall move on nonetheless. I loved Public Enemies - I thought it was put together really well, it was easy to follow and it made me feel like I was really back in the 30's. Johnny Depp was fantastic and I was glad that Dillinger was not written to have any real sympathy. He briefly mentions his upbringing but so much of the time writers write in some kind of flashback or something that makes you feel sorry for the bad guy. Well, John Dillinger robbed banks - he wasn't a good guy and he made no excuses for it. It was interesting that the media responded so favorably to him - he was really quite popular. Actually, maybe the most interesting part of the story to me was the backstory of the founding of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover. Who were these guys going to be and what would they stand for? What kind of methods would they use and how would they be trained? Hoover wanted results, and was perhaps too eager to use severe tactics - Melvin Purvis seemed a bit more sympathetic and knew that for the FBI to really get results, they needed trained lawmen. I found it odd that they were holding a shootout complete in suits and hats - was that part of their initial image?

Chris and I both liked the style of the movie, especially in the gunfight scenes because they appeared really smoky and dirty. I assume that is a Michael Mann decision - and he makes suuuuch fantastic movies! Last of the Mohicans anyone?

Day #35 - Chinatown

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Okay, so I know I was supposed to love this movie - I mean, it's a classic, right? Either I missed something entirely or it just wasn't my type of thing, but I didn't care for this movie at all. In fact, about 2 hours in, I asked Chris when the torture was going to end and checked the timer.

Here's the thing about mysteries. I like a good mystery, I really do - but I have to feel confident that as the movie goes along I am getting enough clues to understand the solution once it's revealed to me. I have to feel like, okay, I have all the pieces except for a couple....but what I really hate are mysteries where I feel like I'm not getting any of the information and so when the solution comes it will mean nothing to me. Chinatown was in the middle of these two dilemmas. The Usual Suspects is a perfect example of the first type of mystery whereas Mulholland Drive is a perfect example of the second. With Chinatown, I was pretty confused for most of the movie and when the end came, it was really interesting, but the journey was frustrating for me. I really just didn't care at all by the time the movie ended.

Chinatown was a 1974 Roman Polanski directed movie starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, neither of which I liked. I know, shoot me. What was the big deal? Roger Ebert just raaaaved about Nicholson but it escapes me. IMDB calls it "neo-noir" while little peon me just thinks it's film-noir...what is the difference? I don't know. I actually liked the story behind the movie more after reading about it on Wikipedia after - Jack Nicholson's character is based on William Mulholland and the story in Chinatown is based on the real life water wars that came about as water from the fields/farms outside of LA were piped in to provide water to the valley. Maybe I should have read this BEFORE the movie but alas....I did not. Let me know your thoughts, if you have seen it. The poster is pretty awesome though :)