Movie Time - Kong, Jackie, and Bette

Watched three movies in recent days.....

I was there for the first performance on Friday of the new biggie, "Kong: Skull Island".  Yet another adventure featuring the most lovable movie monster ever, King Kong.  As the title suggests, this one takes place on Kong's home turf, Skull Island. Yes, adventurers come to the small uncharted island in hopes of finding, well, I'm not sure what, but who cares?  There are prehistoric beasts, a giant ape, and, yes, a pretty girl.  

Kudos to this movie for the amazing technological processes that produces these amazing creatures, and it is fun seeing these Creature vs. Creature, Man vs. Beast contests.  As for the intricacies of the plot, well, forget about it.   About a quarter of the way through the movie, I began preparing a mental check list that went something like..."this guy is going to die, this guy is going to die in a really grisly manner, this guy will make it...", and I was pretty much on target.

As for the acting, lots of scenery chewing.  John Goodman chews scenery in the Carl Denham-type role, Brie Larson (she won't win an Oscar for this one) looks good in a tank top, and Samuel L. Jackson plays, well, Samuel L. Jackson.

Two and one-half stars from The Grandstander.

Last night we watched "Jackie", a biopic of sorts about the former First Lady, Jackie Kennedy.  Natalie Portman is excellent in her portrayal of Mrs. Kennedy in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of her husband.  The movie centers around an interview that she gave within a week of her husband's death and how she used that interview to control and establish her husband's legacy and, to a lesser extent, her own.

If you are old enough to remember the Kennedy assassination, it is no doubt one of the seminal memories of your life.  You probably also have a warm memory of the First Lady, and this movie may make you a bit uncomfortable and maybe even resentful of how it portrays Mrs. Kennedy.

It is also a movie, not a documentary, and the fine print in the credits makes the requisite statement that some of the events depicted have been altered for "dramatic purposes". So for me, anyway, I wasn't real crazy about some of the things portrayed in this one.

Two stars from The Grandstander for the movie, but four stars all the way for Natalie Portman in her terrific performance as Jacqueline Kennedy.

And speaking of terrific performances, they don't come any better (five acting Oscar nominations) than the multiple Oscar winner "All About Eve" (1950), which we saw on the big screen earlier in the week as a part of the TCM/Fathom Events series.  I first wrote about this movie two years ago, and I will refer you to that write-up for a fuller commentary:

http://grandstander.blogspot.com/2015/03/classic-movie-all-about-eve-1950.html

I will say once again, however, what an absolutely knock out performance Bette Davis delivers in the role of Margo Channing.  She was completely and totally mesmerizing in the role.  Just a great performance and a terrific movie.

Four stars from The Grandstander on this one.

By the way, the month of April will bring us two more TCM/Fathom Events movies on the local big screens - Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" and one of my all time personal favorites, Mike Nichols' "The Graduate", and, by the way, can you believe that "The Graduate" is now a FIFTY YEAR OLD MOVIE????

Be there!

Sunday Morning Ramblings

Some thoughts on a lazy Sunday morning.....

Last night we watched this movie, which was an Oscar nominee for Best Picture of 2016.

With all due respect, the best thing that I can say about this movie was that it was an affirmation of why I am not, with few exceptions, a fan of the science fiction genre.  Why didn't I like this movie? Let me count the ways....

• I love Amy Adams, but she was so obviously and painfully acting in this one, that it got tiresome to watch.
• You could only understand about every fourth word spoken by Forest Whitaker, a past Oscar winner.  I was wishing that they had subtitles whenever he spoke.
• The movie was so relentlessly dark that I was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with my TV set.

When I went to Google this morning to get the picture you see above, the first thing you see are references to article after article that "explains" Arrival and the movie's ending.  I got it, for the most part, but if a movie needs article after article to tell you what it was about, then that's not entertainment, that's work.

Only one star from The Grandstander for this one.

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I got to watch the last four innings of the Pirates exhibition game against the Red Sox on TV yesterday afternoon.  Nice watching the Bucs again after a five month absence.  Didn't see any scoring but I did see Tony Watson, Daniel Hudson, and Jared Hughes each pitch a three-up-three-down inning, and Pat Light also facing three batters (one hit, but guy was then caught stealing) to wrap it up.  So that was good stuff. 

Also got to see hot shot prospects Austin Meadows and Kevin Newman bat for the first time.  Meadows struck out looking, Newman swung at first pitch and popped up.  (Bums!)  And while I consider myself an avid fan who keeps pretty close tabs on the team, there were guys playing at the end of that game of whom I had never, and I mean NEVER heard.  And we may never hear of them again.

You gotta love the Grapefruit League.

I also made the promise that I make every spring:  Gotta get down to Bradenton to see some of these games myself....next year!

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An eight part series called "Feud" begins on the FX network tonight.  It is about the legendary feud between actresses Joan Crawford and Bette Davis and it stars Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon.

I am not sure how long I will stick with this series, but I am going to give it a shot for at least a week or two, if for no other reason than to see what will surely be some major Chewing of the Scenery by Lange and Sarandon.  

It could be great fun.

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Speaking of Bette Davis, the next TCM/Fathom Events classic movie that will be showing in movie theaters will be the 1950 multiple Oscar winning, "All About Eve".  In Pittsburgh, it will be showing at the Cinemark theaters today, Sunday, and Wednesday, March 8.  I am planning on taking in one of the showings on Wednesday.

Be there, and fasten your seat belts.  It's gonna be a bumpy night.

Classic Movie - "All About Eve" (1950)

Until yesterday, I had never seen what everyone considers a classic, "All About Eve".

The movie won six Oscars in 1950, including Best Picture, and starred Bette Davis as Broadway star Margo Channing and Anne Baxter as the title character, the scheming Eve Harrington.  Eve presents herself to Margo as her biggest fan, ingratiates herself to Margo and her entourage and becomes a kind of personal assistant to her.  Eve then plots and schemes to undermine Margo at every turn in order to become a star herself.

"All About Eve" was nominated for fourteen Academy Awards, winning six of them, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (George Sanders) and Best Director and Best Screenplay (Joseph L. Mankiewicz).  Among it's nominations were both Bette Davis and Anne Baxter for Best Actress and Celeste Holm and Thelma Ritter for Best Supporting Actress.  Also featured was a young Marilyn Monroe, who appeared briefly as an aspiring actress.

1950 was quite a year for movies.  Going up against "All About Eve" for Best Picture that year was the Billy Wilder's classic "Sunset Boulevard".  Talk about a heavyweight championship bout!  Gloria Swanson was nominated for Best Actress that year as well, and it has been long thought that the classic portrayals of Margo Channing and Norma Desmond by Davis and Swanson cancelled each other put and allowed Judy Holliday to win the Oscar for her performance in "Born Yesterday".   The Best Actor award was won by Jose Ferrer for "Cyrano de Bergerac" against a field that also included William Holden, James Stewart, and Spencer Tracy.

Perhaps the best part of this movie was the script.  Lots of great quotes and long pieces of dialog for each of the characters, especially Bette Davis, who was really terrific playing the Broadway grande dame who was fearing that her star was in its descent and that she might be pushed out by someone younger.  In that regard, Margo Channing had much in common with Norma Desmond (although Margo wasn't flat out nuts).

One of the thrusts of this movie was comparing the milieu of Broadway to Hollywood, and in that regard, it has something in common with this past year's Oscar winner, "Birdman".  I suspect, however, that people will continue to watch "All About Eve" long after they have stopped watching "Birdman".

As I said, there is lots and lots of terrific dialog in this movie, but its most famous line is this quote from Davis/Channing:



"All About Eve" is a movie you definitely want to see.