"On The Waterfront"

Last night, courtesy for he folks at  Turner Classic Movies and Fathom Events, we attended a screening of the 1954 classic movie, "On The Waterfront" at the Cinemark North Hills in McCandless.  This movie is truly a "classic" and, trust me, there is nothing like seeing such movies in an honest-to-God movie theater on a big screen.

The movie is a tale of corruption in the longshoreman's union on the Hoboken, NJ docks.  It was filmed on location in Hoboken and it certainly capture the grittiness of the subject matter.  The movie was nominated for twelve Academy Awards and won eight Oscars:

• Best Picture
• Best Actor - Marlon Brando
• Best Supporting Actress - Eva Marie Saint
• Best Director - Elia Kazan
• Best Screenplay - Budd Shulberg
• Best Cinematography
• Best Art Direction
• Best Film Editing

One of the Oscars it did not received was for Best Music Score, which was composed by some guy you may have heard of - Leonard Bernstein!

In addition, three of the actors - Karl Malden, Rod Steiger, and Lee J. Cobb all received nominations for Best Supporting Actor, and each was excellent.

The undeniable Star with a capital S of this movie, though, was the then twenty-nine year old Brando.  He was absolutely mesmerizing as Terry Malloy.  When he was on screen, you absolutely could not take your eyes off of him.  If you only know Brando as Vito Corleone of "The Godfather", please make it a point to see him in "On The Waterfront".

As you can see from the picture at the top of this post, Fathom Events will also be showing "On the Waterfront" on Wednesday night this week at "Select Cinemas".  If you take the time to go and see it on Wednesday, I guarantee that you will not be disappointed.

I will close with a clip form this scene from the movie.  It is perhaps its most famous scene, the one that is always shown on TV specials about great movies.  It is even greater when seen within the context of the entire movie.

A Bizarre Story, NCAA Picks, and a DVR Alert: "On the Waterfront"

That was a very bizarre story generated by the Arena Football League's Pittsburgh Power ("generated by the...Power"- get it?) this past weekend. In case you missed it, and considering the coverage the Power gets, it would have been easy to do so, here it is in a nutshell.

It seems that the AFL Players went on strike last week (somehow this story did not generate the news coverage that the NFL non-strike did last summer). At that point, the owner of the Power, some guy named Shaner, released every player on the roster a few hours before the team was to open it's season in Orlando on Friday night. Shaner then said he would resign any player who agreed NOT to go on strike. Those players who did not agree to do so, then had their airplane tickets taken from them, and were told that they were on their own in getting back to Pittsburgh. All the while, even as the game on Friday was being played, somehow, Shaner and his staff were trying to sign more scab players.

Thus, the Arena Football League now becomes the very epitome of a Bush League.

Two good lines have emerged from this. The first came from buddy Dan Bonk on Facebook last night when he proclaimed this to be "the biggest local non-story of the year."

The second came from Dejan Kovacevic who said that Lynn Swann (a Power team owner) doesn't deserve to have his name associated with something like this, unless, of course, he agreed to it with his partner, Shaner.

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For anyone who cares, I have completed my NCAA Tournament Bracket - for amusement purposes only - and have Ohio State, Kansas, Kentucky, and Michigan State reaching the Final Four with the Wildcats defeating the Jayhawks for the title. Such a scenario would do wonders for me in the year long MOASP competition.

I did need to amend my original selections with the news today of Fab Melo's DQ from Syracuse. Tough break for the Orange. I had Syracuse in my original Final Four.

On a more wistful note, the fact that Opening Round sub-regionals are being held in Pittsburgh this year makes me think of attending those games back in 1997 at the Civic Arena. Seeing those three double-headers in one weekend with a bunch of my work buddies is one of my fondest sporting memories.

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Finally, a DVR Alert for tomorrow night, Wednesday, at 10:15 PM on Turner Classic Movies, one of the All-Time GREAT movies, from 1954, "On the Waterfront." This movie won eight Academy Awards that year, including Best Picture, Marlon Brando for Best Actor, Eva Marie Saint for Best Supporting Actress, Elia Kazan for Best Director, and Budd Schulberg for Best Screenplay. In addition, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, and Rod Steiger were all nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

This is a young Marlon Brando, and if you only know Brando as Vito Corleone of "The Godfather" in 1972, you really need to see him in this movie. He is absolutely fabulous in this.

The picture below is from the "I coulda been a contender" scene between Brando and Steiger. It is the scene that is always shown when this movie is discussed, and even if you've never seen the movie, you have probably seen this clip, but watch the movie, see this scene within the context of the entire movie, and it is really, really powerful.

Don't miss it!