Critical Commentary - Four Movies

In the past five days,  I have busied myself with watching four separate movies, two new, two old.  Here we go, in order of viewing.

Yes, a long term aversion to Adam Sandler didn't stop me from being among the millions of people who set Netflix records by streaming this one.

I think, but cannot absolutely swear to it, that I saw the original "Happy Gilmore", and if I did, I put much of it out of my mind, except for Sandler punching out Bob Barker. Still, we were in the mood for some mindless entertainment, and this one sure qualified as that.

It did have its comedic moments, and I did enjoy all of the cameos that were done by various professional golfers.  Like Jack Nicklaus ordering a half iced tea, half lemonade.  "Arnold Palmer?" the waiter asks.  "No" he replies "I'm Jack Nicklaus, but I get that a lot."  And of the current golfers featured, Xander Schauffele, in my opinion, steals the show in his bit while at the tournament banquet.

You don't grade a movie like this using the same curve that you would say, "Citizen Kane" or the latest Scorsese masterpiece, but considering what it is, The Grandstander gives it Two Stars.

Listening to Ben Mankiewicz on the latest season of The Plot Thickens podcast prompted me to watch this one from 1949.  Ben's uncle Joe Mankiewicz won Oscars for this one for Screenplay and Directing, so it is a classic of sorts.  Three ladies, Jeanne Crain, Ann Southern, and Linda Darnell, are about to embark on a river cruise to a day camp for underprivileged kids when they receive a note from a mutual friend of theirs, Addie Ross, telling them that that evening, she will be running off with one of their husbands.  Unable to communicate with anyone - there were no cell phones in 1949 - they spend the rest of the day wondering if their husband is the one who will be leaving with the hussy Addie.  We then see flashback scenes from each of them that would make them think that they are the one about to be abandoned.

Lots of dated ideas in this one, like "Only the husband should be the breadwinner in a family", but still a pretty good movie, and some of the notions, like marrying for money instead of love, can still prompt debate here in good ol' 2025.

Oh, and Thelma Ritter is in this one.  It is only her second credited movie appearance, and in it she displays the persona that she did in just about every movie she ever made thereafter, and did you know that she was nominated for SIX Academy Awards over the course other career?  I didn't.

The only quibble that Linda and I had with it was that we thought the wrap up to the story seemed rushed and also confusing.  Still, we liked it, and I give it Three Grandstander Stars.

I have written many times on this blog of my fondness for this classic movie from 1950 that was written and directed by Billy Wilder, and starred Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Erich Von Stroheim, and Nancy Olsen.  Just last month I pulled out my DVD copy of this movie and introduced it to Linda who had never seen it. As fate and good fortune would have it, just this weekend, theaters across the country were honoring the 75th anniversary of this movie by showing it on a big screen. 

I am not going to recount the plot line of the movie here, but it is a terrific story of Hollywood, past glories, and cynicism, and seeing it on the big screen for the first time with all those other "wonderful people out there in the dark" made for a whole new and terrific experience.

As always, "Sunset Boulevard" rates a full Four Stars from The Grandstander.

And then there is "The Naked Gun", and I will tell you right off the bat that I just loved this one.  It is a retelling of all of those Naked Gun/Police Squad movies that Leslie Nielsen and George Kennedy made back in the eighties and nineties.  In this one, Liam Neeson abandons his action hero persona, or maybe he just embraces it, as Frank Drebin Jr., Nielsen's son, and he is terrific.  He's great as he deadpans through all of his bits in this one, even as he and the producers make fun of his own reputed physical gifts, if you get my drift.  It's hard to think that this is the same guy who was nominated for an Oscar for "Schindlers List".

I went to a 10:00 AM showing of this one this morning and I was the only person in the theater, which was good, because then I didn't have to stifle myself during all of the time I laughed out loud at throughout this one.  There are some great running gags in this one and one that I liked was Drebin and his partner constantly being handed cardboard cups of coffee.  Sophisticated it's not, like what the bad guy thinks he is seeing through the curtains of Frank's apartment while using infrared binoculars, and the body cam sequences of Drebin in his squad car after eating several chili dogs, but let's face it, going to see a Naked Gun movie isn't like going to a Noel Coward play.

I also give great props to Pamela Anderson in this one.  She plays it for all of its slapstick worth, but there is one scene of her doing some scat singing in a jazz club where she is just terrific.  Oh, and stay for the credits.  All of the credits.  There is a funny scene at the very end, and the movie makers drop some pretty funny fake credits throughout that will make you laugh, and I probably missed a bunch of them.

Like I said earlier, you don't judge a movie like this the same way you would a Spielberg of Scorsese movie, but for what it is, this one is terrific.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

Catching Up on My Reading

In recent weeks, I have read some old books.  

"The Johnstown Flood" by David McCullough (1968).  This was McCullough's first book and it won him justifiable acclaim.  Now, being a native of Western Pennsylvania, I always knew that there was a famous "Johnstown flood", but I couldn't have told you for sure when it happened (1889) or why and how it happened, but this book sure filled in those gaps.  Living in an age where news is instantaneous (remember how we all actually watched the second plane crash into the World Trade Center?), I was fascinated by the fact that news was NOT instantaneous in 1889, not that I didn't already know that, of course.  For example, from the time the damn gave way, it actually took about 45 minutes for the wall of water to actually reach Johnstown itself.  Plus, with the water taking out many telegraph lines, it was difficult to communicate the complete nature of the disaster.  In Pittsburgh, people were aware that something bad had happened, but they didn't know exactly what it was.  That said, once the news people did arrive, the word did get out relatively quickly, and what happened afterward, in terms of rescue and relief efforts, as well as trying to pin the blame on someone for the disaster, makes for terrific reading.  McCullough's research and writing equals a great book.

"Close-Up on Sunset Boulevard" by Sam Staggs (2002).  The subtitle on this book also tells a lot of what it was about: "Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the Dark Hollywood Dream".  As you can no doubt guess, the book is all about everything surrounding the making of and the history of the classic 1950 Billy Wilder movie, "Sunset Boulevard".  If you love that movie, you really should read this book.  Lots of great inside Hollywood stuff about Gloria  Swanson, Bill Holden, Billy Wilder, and others associated with the movie.  It also gives a lot of details about the development and production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.  In the end, though, the book went on a little too long, and author Staggs slipped into a lot of "film buff" pretentiousness.  He also seems to have an axe to grind with Billy Wilder, and that gets a little tiring as well.  Still, a worthwhile read.

"The Devil and the White City" by Erik Larson (2003).  This is the story of the staging of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and it follows the parallel story of a serial killer that was operating in Chicago at the same time.  It also tells the story of the City of Pittsburgh's big contribution to that World's Fair - the first Ferris Wheel. 

All of these books make for good reading.

"Sunset Boulevard", the Musical

You always worry when one of your favorite books/movies/plays is transferred to another art form:  book to movie, play to movie, or, in this case, Classic Movie to Andrew Lloyd Webber Musical Extravaganza.  


The 1950 Billy Wilder movie, "Sunset Boulevard", is by almost any source you care to sight, considered one of the Top Ten movies ever made in America.  It is the story of an aging silent screen movie star, Norma Desmond, who has been pushed to the Hollywood scrap heap with the advent of talking motion pictures, who meets up with down-on-his-luck cynical screenwriter Joe Gillis.  How the two meet, interact, and use each other makes for one of the most compelling movies you'll ever see.  The movie starred Gloria Swanson and the incomparable William Holden, and the thought of someone tampering with such a classic could seem almost sacrilegious.


However, Andrew Lloyd Webber provided the music and brought his story to the London and Broadway stages back in the early 1990's.  The musical was highly acclaimed and even Billy Wilder was pleased with it ("I think it would make a pretty good movie", he said), so seeing it has long been on my bucket list.


Anyway, the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera brought "Sunset Boulevard" to town this week at the Benedum, and we took it in yesterday.  We both liked it.  The show starred a Broadway actress named Liz Callaway as Norma, and  Matthew Scott (who looks a lot like Pirate Neil Walker) as Joe.  Joe is the character who holds the play together, he is in almost every scene, but it is Norma who draws all the attention, and the numerous dazzling costume changes almost every time she is on stage is just the least of the attraction.  Norma also has the two show stopping musical numbers, "As If We Never Said Good-bye" and "With One Look".


The show is true to the movie, and while there is very little spoken dialog, what there is taken almost directly from the movie, including it's two most famous lines:

• "I am big.  It's the pictures that got small."
• "are you ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille?"

Very good show, well staged by the CLO, and all of the actors.  It made for a great day at the theater.

However, one should never forget the source material, the great 1950 movie by the great Billy Wilder.  If you've never seen it, and you love movies, then make it a point to see it very soon.