A Movie Saturday

One of the things that suffered when we committed to our move this summer was out attendance at movies. So, yesterday we saddled up and headed to the beautiful Robinson Cinemark and finally got around to seeing "Toy Story 3."

Now if you had seen and enjoyed the first two movies in this series, or even if you have not, this is a movie you really, really ought to see. In this one, Andy, the kid who owned and played with Woody, Buzz, and the other toys, has grown up and about to leave for college. His mother needs him to clean out his room and earmark things that need to either be taken with him to college, donated to charity, or just thrown in the trash. Among these items are his beloved toys. What happens to them is what makes up the plot of this absolutely wonderful movie. If you can see this movie and NOT shed a tear or two or even flat out bawl, then I would suggest that you are missing something in your soul.

This a terrific movie!

Then, on Saturday night, I noted that Turner Classic Movies was showing Mike Nichols' 1967 classic, and one of my personal all-time favorites, "The Graduate" on its Essentials series. I tuned in to see the opening comments about the movie from the hosts, Robert Osborne and Alec Baldwin, but once the movie began with Benjamin Braddock's descent into Los Angeles, I was hooked and watched the entire thing.

If you don't know the story, rent and watch the movie. If you do know it, but haven't seen it in a long time, it's worth watching again. It was very much a movie of its time with it's theme of youth-alienation-in-the-1960's. Lots of movies with that theme were made during that period and are dated when you watch them now, but "The Graduate" holds up very well 43 years (43 years!!!!) after it was made.

In watching last night, I was particularly impressed with Anne Bancroft's performance. I have always maintained that the best actors can say volumes without opening their mouths, but through their facial expressions and their eyes (no one does this better than Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, by the way), and Bancroft's eyes and her predatory facial expressions were fantastic throughout the movie. A tremendous performance.

This, of course, was the movie that introduced to the general public and made a star of Dustin Hoffman. He is now pretty much confined to character roles, but he has had a career that has more than fulfilled the promise first seen in "The Graduate."

Some Graduate trivia:

• While Mrs. Robinson was twice the age of Benjamin Braddock in the movie, Anne Bancroft was only seven years older than Dustin Hoffman.



• Before Bancroft got the part, one of the actresses in serious consideration to play Mrs. Robinson was Doris Day. Can you imagine that? It would have been a different movie, I think, if that had happened.



• If you look fast, there are bit parts by two future stars: Mike Farrell (B.J. from M*A*S*H) as a hotel bellhop, and Richard Dreyfuss as rooming house resident.