List: NPR on Movies about Politics

Posted on August 27, 2008 at 8:00 am

Just in time for the political conventions, NPR lists the best political movies. Bob Mondello divides them into three categories: manipulating the media, manipulating the candidate, and manipulating the process. Well, if someone isn’t manipulating something, there’s no need for a hero. I was glad to see one of my favorites like The Best Man, based on a play by Gore Vidal and starring Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson. Today’s viewers might be confused by the idea that the candidate was not actually selected until the convention but the strategies and moral conflicts will seem very contemporary.

Another one of my favorites is All the President’s Men, based on the true story of the young reporters who investigated the Watergate break-in and found layers of deception and cover-up that led to the only Presidential resignation in US history. And I was glad to see the only Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn movie directed by Frank Capra on the list, State of the Union. He plays an industrialist encouraged to run for office by a manipulative political operator and she is his estranged wife, brought into the campaign because — in those days — a candidate had to have an intact family. I’d also recommend another of their lesser-known collaborations, “Keeper of the Flame.” He is a reporter writing about her late husband, a revered statesman with what turns out to be a very ugly secret. A Congressman once told me the movie that seemed most authentic to his experience in politics was The Seduction of Joe Tynan, with a sensational early performance by Meryl Streep. And I would also add Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and the musical about the political meeting that started it all for the United States, 1776.

List: Movies About Making Movies

Posted on August 23, 2008 at 8:00 am

Inspired by “Tropic Thunder,” Keith Demko of Reel Fanatic created a superb list from one of my favorite categories: movies about making movies. On his list: critic-turned-director Francois Truffaut’s bittersweet Day for Night, the trenchant satire Living in Oblivion, the documentary about Terry Gilliam’s failed attempt to make a Don Quixote movie, Lost in La Mancha, Tim Burton’s black and white tribute to the man often named as the worst director ever with Johnny Depp as Ed Wood. Demko also includes some movies about television like the story of the Letterman/Leno battle, The Late Shift.

I’d add to his list a few more great films like the classic Hollywood movie about classic Hollywood, The Bad and the Beautiful, the hilarious saga of a Revolutionary War movie taking over a small college town, Sweet Liberty, David Mamet’s witty satire State and Main, and of course the all-time favorite about the beginning of the sound era, Singin’ in the Rain. Here Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor turn an elocution lesson into a dance number:

List: the Hendricks’ Top Relationship Movies

Posted on August 13, 2008 at 8:00 am

Authors and consultants Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks (Conscious Loving, Attracting Genuine Love, Five Wishes, and The Corporate Mystic) teach seminars in conscious relationships and “bodymind vibrance.” They have complied a list of their top relationship movies, movies that combine “artistic merit with the ability of the movie to shed light on the inner workings of relationships and how to maximize their potential. In addition, all the movies we selected share that elusive quality known as heart.”
All of the films on their list are worth watching and discussing. Here’s their list, with my comments. Their discussion appears in two parts on their Huffington Post column. Here are the first five:
1. Moonstruck This is one of the most romantic movies ever made. The Henricks picked it for Nicolas Cage’s speech about victimhood and responsibility, but I’d pick it for its acknowledgment that true love does not always make you happy but it always makes you feel alive.
2. The Holiday I like this movie in spite of myself. It is not very clever or witty but I love the love stories, not just Kate Winslet and Jack Black and Cameron Diaz and Jude Law but also Kate Winslet and Eli Wallach as her neighbor, a screenwriter from Hollywood’s golden era.
3. The January Man This was a surprising choice because it is a little-known thriller. The Hendricks picked it for just one scene at the beginning and they are right that it is a good model about how to talk honestly about relationships.
4. Truly, Madly, Deeply One of the wisest and most touching love stories ever made, this is about loving and letting go as a young widow (Juliet Stevenson, utterly luminous) must choose life for herself after a great loss. It has a rare romantic lead performance by the magnificent Alan Rickman and there is a magical scene when the two of them are reunited.
5. Monsoon Wedding Every possible variation of family relationships is lovingly explored in this wonderful story of the importance of honesty and loyalty.

Related Tags:

For Your Netflix Queue Lists Romance

Adventures in Faith, Honesty, and Courage

Posted on August 12, 2008 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	NR
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Some peril
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to DVD:	August 12, 2008

The great “Adventures from the Book of Virtues” animated series has three new releases today: Adventures in Faith, Adventures in Honesty and Adventures in Courage.

These are classic stories that have thrilled audiences through the ages because they are about fascinating characters and exciting adventures from history, fables, myths, literature, and the Bible. Harriet Tubman helps people escape from the cruelty of slavery. Daniel enters the lion’s den, knowing that his faith will protect him. Androcles removes a thorn from a lion’s paw and finds his kindness repaid. The good Samaritan helps a stranger who has been injured. George Washington answers truthfully when asked who cut down the cherry tree. A child is the only one who will answer honestly that the Emperor has no clothes.

Wired’s 25th Anniversary Tribute to ‘Wargames’

Posted on August 2, 2008 at 8:00 am

I recently included War Games in my list of great movie computers. Wired Magazine has a fascinating salute to the movie’s 25th anniversary and the way it influenced a generation of proto-geeks in the current issue, featuring interviews with the screenwriters (and the legendary hackers they consulted) about developing a script centering on this still-exotic technology. And they actually considered casting John Lennon as the designer of the computer program! Even more astonishing was the impact the film had on one very powerful viewer, the President of the United States.

Days after the screening, wrote Washington Post reporter Lou Cannon, Reagan held a closed-door briefing with some moderate members of Congress, wherein he sidetracked discussion of the MX ballistic missile program by bringing up “WarGames.” Had any of them seen the film? he asked, then launched into an animated account of the plot. “Don’t tell the ending,” cautioned one of the lawmakers.

The Defense Department was so taken with the display system created for the movie that they designed one like it. But if the movie raised the consciousness of those creating defense systems, it also made them warier of those who might try to hack into them. Kevin Mitnick, who served five years in prison for hacking says,

That movie had a significant effect on my treatment by the federal government. I was held in solitary confinement for nearly a year because a prosecutor told a judge that if I got near a phone, I could dial up Norad and launch a nuclear missile. I never hacked into Norad. And when the prosecutor said that, I laughed — in open court. I thought, “This guy just burned all his credibility.” But the court believed it. I think the movie convinced people that this stuff was real. They tried to make me into a fictional character.

There’s a new 25th Anniversary Edition DVD with some excellent features and interviews.