Movies part II

I'm back. More commentary on the trip later (plus a rant on people who are rude to waiters)

But I'm gonna quick identify the movies that I posted the keywords for. Joel got a few of them.

1. is Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. One of my favorite movies ever. You would think, with a "caper" movie of its type, that once you knew the ultimate outcome, it would no longer be entertaining. But I still find it entertaining upon rewatching, partly, I think, because it's so beautifully plotted - there is such an unbelievable series of coincidences that have to mesh together for the action to happen, and yet they seem plausible, at least in the context of the movie.

Plus, I just like Michael Caine and his character in this one.

Plus, I can't help but laugh at Steve Martin doing "Ruprecht" (OKLA-homa! OKLA-homa! OKLA-homa!)

2. is Babe, also sometimes known as Babe, the Sheep Pig. Yes, it's a kid's movie. Yes, I tend to like kid's movies. I like Babe because it's kind of set in a never-never land - you can't quite tell if it's part of Britain, or Ireland, or Australia, or somewhere on the Southeast coast of the U.S. There's little intrusion of up-to-the-minute modern life (yes, there is a television and there are cars, but somehow they seem more DOMESTICATED than televisions and cars in some other movies).

I also have to say that I like it because what I see as the fundamental message is something I believe strongly in, and I wish were promoted more:

You can generally get farther in life more easily by being polite and respectful to those you are working with than you will by bullying them.

"That'll do, pig."

3. is A Night to Remember. (And I honestly don't remember the love story, unless you mean the young married couple, Joel). It's a pretty suspenseful movie, and seems to be pretty true to history - or at least what was known about the Titanic at the time it was made. I also like the fact - and I suppose this shows that I'm perhaps a bit of an anachronistic person - that a lot of the characters tended to behave with what would maybe be called "old-fashioned honor" - men allowing women with children to get into the lifeboats ahead of them, while they stand by and reassure the ladies that they will be "all right, really." And the bit with the string quintet (? don't remember the number of players but it's definitely not an orchestra) always kills me a little.

4. is the 1955 version of The Ladykillers. The Ealing Studios version, the one with Alec Guinness and a very young Peter Sellers. (There was a remake in 2004 with Tom Hanks but honestly it's not much good, at least not compared to the original). Part of the interest of the movie for me is the just-post-war (WWII) London setting, the fact that "Mrs. Lopsided" has this house that's partly damaged by bombs, just the whole "it's not here" feeling of the movie.

(I tend to prefer movies set in a time or place other than the one I inhabit. I do not care for movies that consist mainly of people far prettier than anyone I know going about lives that are somewhat like, but yet more glamorous than, the lives of people I know. And I loathe "meet cute" movies.)

The movie is VERY dark humor. (Suffice it to say, without spoiling things too much - there's one person "left standing" at the end, and it's not the one you might expect). But the interactions of the bumbling would-be armored-car robbers with their landlady is wonderfully comic...there's a tea party scene where you're alternately squirming with empathetic discomfort for the "boys" and laughing out loud at the incongruity.

5. (which a couple people guessed, incorrectly) is actually The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Yes, it's a rather sappy love story and the ending is, if you overthink it, perhaps a bit gruesome. But I really rather enjoy Rex Harrison as the blustery Sea Captain and I like the clever way that Mrs. Muir gets out of her financial difficulties.

(Incidentally, there was a short-lived comedy tv show in the early-mid 70s by the same name. This is not it. This is a black and white romance movie from 1947).

6. is Trading Places, which Joel got. ("Breaking the fourth wall" is when a character addresses the audience directly - it is as if they are in a room, okay, and they are breaking through the fourth wall - the one that would ostensibly separate them from the audience? Actually that seems to happen more in Ferris Bueller, but whatever).

I like the movie because, again, like #1 above, it's a caper move. Again, there's a series of unlikely events that have to come together for the plot to come off. But they do, and it does, and it never fails to amuse me when I see it.

I also guess I sort of like it for the idea that the two a-hole uncles of Dan Ackroyd's character - the ones who made the $1 bet that involved screwing up their nephew's life and taking a stranger and injecting him into a strange and unfamiliar world - wound up getting their comeuppance in the end.

7. is Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I chose it partly because it's pretty much a movie of "my era" - it came out when I was in high school and I remember going to see it with a group of friends. It's also just goofy. (I like Wayne's World for similar reasons - it's just silly and goofy and doesn't really have a lot of deep meaning).

I always kinda preferred Cameron to Ferris, though; I thought Ferris was a bit too much of a show-off.

8. is Cats Don't Dance. A not-very-well-known cartoon film from - I think it was like 1997 or so? Maybe earlier. It's one of those animal-world-talking-animal movies - a cat decides to seek his fortune in Hollywood, he joins up with a troupe of other animal would-be actors. But they wind up hitting up against anti-animal prejudice in Hollywood. (And no, I didn't spend a lot of time trying to figure out what group the animals were supposed to be an allegory for, if they were one at all; I just enjoy the movie). Again, it's one where hard work, politeness and civility, are rewarded in the end, and characters who act like a-holes or who are out for revenge wind up getting their comeuppance. (There does seem to be a certain theme to movies that I like).

9. is It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. (Which I, in my geekiness, wrote out on the pad of paper when I was looking these things up, as "It's a Mad^4 World")

It's not the GREATEST movie, ever, in terms of plot - there are some pretty big holes there - but it's a great deal of fun to pick out the various actors in cameo roles, or to see actors (like Peter Falk) that I knew better from later roles.

And again - it's just a silly funny movie. I like movies that are silly and funny and don't really have a lot of deep meaning. I like to be entertained sometimes.

(I also like the various "race-around-the-world" movies that came out at roughly the same time - like "The Great Race" with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. Also very silly movies but also rather entertaining.)

10. is another one Joel got, "It's a Wonderful Life." This is one of the few movies that reliably makes me cry at the end of it. And it makes me wish I could crawl into the frame at the very end and go and live in Bedford Falls where there are people like George Bailey and Guiseppi Martini, who gave up his earnings from the restaurant to help George, and Bert the cop and Ernie the cabbie (which is supposedly where Jim Henson got the ideas for names of the characters on Sesame Street...)