The Producers (1968)

A sneaky producer and continuously nervous accountant team up to make a huge profit on creating the worst play on Broadway.

    Old school comedy! The movie that spawned the play that birthed the movie! This was truly a classic comedy - super quotable lines, imitable characters, and the time-tried combination of an aggressive anti-hero and his twitchy sidekick. Who couldn't love it.

     This movie redeemed Gene Wilder for me. I have seen him as Willy Wonka and vowed I would despise him for the rest of my life. I saw him as young Frankenstein and it was affirmed that I would never get that screaming, shouting, frantic voice out of my ears. Then, I saw him as a producer/accountant. He was adorable. I think it was because he only shouted twice in the movie and for a very short time. Zero was the funniest, though, of course, I just love him in an early scene where he tries to calm down a hysterical Gene Wilder by tossing water at him and grinning. They had chemistry most actors only dream of sharing. 

     It was a great length at a clipped hour and a half, so the style of humor had not gotten stale. It isn't everyone's cup of tea, I guess, there's a story-line woven throughout where Zero's character romances elderly ladies for cash so he can produce his plays. That might disturb some. It's a kind of bawdy humor, not "sexual," per say, like today's comedies (Knocked Up, The Ugly Truth), but it uses the idea of sex for humor. Regardless, it's very Mel Brooks, a very well-done comedy, and those lines will be in your brain forever, just waiting for the opportunity to be spouted off. 

Vier Minuten (2006)

An elderly piano teacher at a women's prison trains an extremely talented but violent young prodigy for a contest. 

     The music really makes this film. It expresses the emotional life of the characters when words can't and it binds two very different women together. This was a very interesting film, it didn't exactly feel like a foreign film, but the use of subtlety and homo-eroticism was definitely very European. 

     The acting was very good. I loved how Bleibtreu's stern agony contrasted so brilliantly with her young costar's, who is all grinding teeth, blood on the piano keys, and sweat-drenched rage. The supporting characters blended in the background nicely, it's not really about anyone else besides these two women, but they have their place. There's the prison warden, the childishly-selfish guard, the young nemesis...it all fits.

     The one thing about this movie I felt was unnecessary was that homosexual element. Ok, so this elderly woman never loved anyone except for a summer love who happened to be female. We get it, being lesbian makes it interesting. I felt that was a rather blunt attempt to be different. Maybe she should have lost a daughter or a husband, I dunno, there are lots of options besides a lesbian lover.

    The story is predictable, but that makes it satisfying. There's no unnecessary moments of clarity and rapid healing, you don't assume these characters are all going to be "all right" from now on, they just have been touched. It all unfolds slowly, there's no pre-story jammed down the viewer's throat, we have to watch and gradually get to understand the characters and why they do what they do. It's great.

The Jane Austen Book Club (2007)

A group of women and one man form a book club devoted to Jane Austen novels only to find their own love lives taking on the shape of those classic romances.

     As someone familiar with Jane Austen, this movie definitely falls into the category of smart chick-flicks. It's got heartbreak, male-female dynamics, sex, and a certain sweetness to it that I found positive. However, it wasn't perfect.

     Because the movie focuses on so many characters, there's bound to one that slips into the cracks. In this movie, it was the lesbian daughter of one of the main women. It made her seem like a childish bed-hopper who finds random women on the sets of her numerous injuries. A certain montage of the relationships shows her and her current girlfriend as if we were just as invested in her love life as we were in the other character's, when really we feel like it's just another doomed one-night stand. It made lesbian relationships seem shallow. 

     I loved Hugh Dancy. He had the perfect balance of being physically attractive and yet non-threatening, creating an adorable sci-fi geek who is eager to experience everything and totally comfortable to sit around on a patio with older women. Alas, men like him do not really exist. Emily Blunt was another of my favorite's as well, though she did struggle with her character's writing, it was very hard to make her character likeable, but with a face like Blunt's, who could see her crying and not jump up to comfort her? Seriously. 

   This movie was like a shooting star - it was quick, its star trail quickly fades, but while it lasted, it was completely charming and hopeful. It wasn't bogged down by crudity or sex jokes, it was about romance and the pursuit of love in all its missteps and victories. It was a movie that makes me smile.

The White Ribbon (2009)

Strange things start happening in a tiny German village in the year 1913. It seems that the children seem to be at the heart of the mystery.

     This is one of those foreign films that is so far superior to American films, it's shocking. The subtlety, the symbols, the characters...it's all done so well, so delicately, it's like looking at a classical painting brought to life. 

    As with most foreign films, it's very long and slow-moving. Lots of interesting things happen though, it could have been a lot worse. The movie also has one of the most beautiful love stories I've ever seen, which was a tiny glimmer in an otherwise very dark story. Another beautiful scene involves a small child and his father, it gives hope to the viewer that purity and love can survive even in the most parched of environments.

    I read that the movie is a symbol of the birth of the Nazi mindset. I believe that, but I think there are many layers to a film this complex and well-done; it explores issues with class, family, sexuality, but the repression that is key to the movie definitely supports the mental ripening of Germany for Hitler, even though it takes place just before WWI when Germany was utterly decimated. This is a terrific movie to study and- for those interested in the German language - the dialogue is relatively simple so it's easy to follow. 
    Foreign films FTW!

Shutter Island (2010)

 

In 1954, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels is sent to investigate the disappearance of a murderess on Shutter Island, a hospital for the criminally insane.

     I waited so long for this movie to come out. I counted down the days, realized it wasn't released in October, and then counted more days till it finally came out this month. It was indeed a fascinating film.

    It's hard to describe it without spoilers, but I will say it is an excellent example of a true thriller- heavy on psychological thrills, a fair dash of blood and guts, insane people, all set during a wild rainstorm on a tiny island ringed in rock. 

    One of the reasons for its success in my mind is the acting. No one plays furrowed brow and blood-shoot eyes better than Leo, and his transformation from hard-business cop to wounded man shocked at the horror around him is beautiful. Kudos to you. The supporting characters are all excellent, too, Ben Kingsley is deliciously unnerving as the head doctor of the hospital, almost unnerving as all the mental patients who twitch and mutter or shriek. 

   I hated the soundtrack. It was awful. It was all blasting strings, foghorns, and no melody. I honestly wanted to cover my ears. The movie was best when it was silent and all you could hear was the drip of water from the flickering lights of a cell-like building. 

    It's a relatively long film, so get comfortable and pay attention. Luckily there are no boring moments. This is definitely a movie to savor.

The Others (2001)

A woman who lives in a darkened old house with her two photosensitive children becomes convinced that her family home is haunted.

    This is a masterpiece of thriller. Nearly everything about this movie is perfect in its subtle detail and ambiance. You doubt everything and everyone. Every dark corner is suspicious and every ray of light may reveal some mystery. Love it, love it.

    The first standout is the acting. Kidman is magnificent. It's incredible to watch her icy, uptight visage gradually crumble and melt with terror as everything she believes in crashes around her. Of the two child actors, my favorite was the little dark-haired boy with his pouting lips and mother-worship. The daughter is a stark contrast and I found her nasty tendencies hard to swallow. She serves her purpose well though, and her acting improves as the movie goes on. Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan with her bird-like eyes was perfect as Kidman's new servant. I've seen her in other movies. I wish she was in more, she's underrated. 

    The setting of the ancient family house occupied by children and a slowly unraveling woman reminded me of The Innocents and I loved the old-school thriller opening credits with the pencil illustrations and haunting violin score. The set-up of the rooms reminded me a play, with each old table or music box carefully set in its place to create the perfect scene. 

    There were only two things I disliked about this movie: 1) A rather random appearance of a character, though I do understand its purpose, it still seemed weird and 2) the gardener's acting, I thought he was terrible. Everything else...thriller perfection. 

Couples Retreat (2009)

At the urging of their friends, four couples go to a couples' retreat to experience all the fun and beauty of the tropics. However, when they arrive, they discover that the expectations of the island are a little different from what they all anticipated. 

    This was a very cute movie. It had a good balance of innuendo and heartfelt moments, and the antics weren't so unbelievable that it became a slapstick sex comedy. I liked that it was about couples and their marriages and not about finding love or something else cheesy; it was based on real life and real problems. 

    The island was too beautiful, the water too blue, the sun too bright, and the actor too sweat-free. It didn't look real at all, it looked like a green-screen projection. That bothered me. There weren't really any bugs or sand fleas or anything. 

   The acting was generally nicely subtle. Jason Bateman was my favorite.

   It was a fun movie. Lots of pretty women, Vince Vaughn-style humor, all that. Not bad.