List of lists — metaphors, bad dates, movies about movies, writers, and insurance adjusters

Posted on February 16, 2008 at 8:00 am

Mental Floss has a very intriguing list of 8 movie metaphors worth puzzling over. Yes, there’s the knight playing chess with Death in “The Seventh Seal” in the intro, but the list also has some unexpected and thought-provoking items, including the dying fish in Badlands and the pudding in Punch-Drunk Love. The list is rich and rewarding, with some marvelous clips, some thoughtful comments, and a wonderfully insightful quote from Roger Ebert about a dancing chicken.

And from the sublime to the (intentionally) ridiculous: Cinematical’s list of the worst first dates on film, from the funny (“License to Drive”) to the horrifying (“Hard Candy” and “Taxi Driver”). I’d add Ben and Elaine’s first date in “The Graduate,” the awkward but heart-warming date in “Marty,” and, of course, “Sixteen Candles.”

Entertainment Weekly has a great list in honor of next week’s “Be Kind Rewind” — movies about making movies. You can’t do better than Singin’ in the Rain and Sullivan’s Travels, two of the greatest films ever made. I was glad to see the list include neglected gems Living in Oblivion and The Big Picture. Movie fans have spent hours speculating on the inspirations for some of the characters and situations satirized in those films. Francois Truffaut’s lovely film Day for Night is another great choice. I would add to EW’s list the David Mamet film State and Main and the movie about the making of “Citizen Kane,” RKO 281 – The Battle Over Citizen Kane.

They also salute the end of the writer’s strike with a list of movies about writers. It’s hard to make a compelling film about someone staring at a blank page and pounding on a typewriter, but movies are, after all, written by writers, and writers love to write about what they know best. So, there are a lot of movies about writing movies and the people who write them. The list includes In a Lonely Place with Humphrey Bogart, “The Muse” with Albert Brooks and Sharon Stone, and Nicolas Cage as twin brothers with very different approaches to writing in Adaptation.

The Insurance Information Institute has issued its list of the best movies featuring insurance agents and adjusters. They’ve got classics like Double Indemnity and Memento, but what about The Incredibles? Who can forget Mr. Incredible’s ignoring the rules to help a client get her claim paid?

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Q&A with The Movie Mom

Posted on February 2, 2008 at 8:00 am

More recent questions and answers. Thanks to all who wrote!
I am looking for the title to a movie from late 70s or 80s about a group of US teenagers on field trip to Europe (I think a French class to Paris) that get embroiled in a spy plot where the male protagonist/classmate gets mistaken for an agent and plays the hero’s role– a comedy action film.
Angelinonsf was right on this one — it is “If Looks Could Kill” with Richard Grieco.
The 1985 movie <a href="Gotcha! with Anthony Edwards had him involved with a spy but not mistaken for one. Thanks, Angelinonsf!
I can’t find the name of the TV show or name of the judge that had court cases on tv in the 80’s or early 90’s. He was an older male, bald, and was once a referee in an Evander Holyfield championship boxing match. He himself was once a boxer.
That is Judge Mills Lane. (Thanks to my son the boxing expert for the assist on that one.)
What is the name of the movie with the little boy who writes letters to “his father” who is on a “ship.” His mom answers his letters and mails them back to him. When the ship “his dad is on” is scheduled to dock in their town, the boy gets really excited about meeting his dad. So she puts an ad in the paper to hire someone to pretend to be the boy’s dad for the duration of the ship’s stay. I saw the trailer once and forgot the name. I think it is a couple of years old. Anyhow, she ends up really liking the guy. I don’t know what happens next because I have not seen the movie. Can you help me find out the name of the movie so I can finally rent it?
dear%20frankie.jpg That lovely movie is <a href="Dear Frankie” with Emily Mortimer and Gerard Butler. Enjoy!
What is the name of the family movie from the 80’s (I think) where a little boy kept seeing bubbles in an old flooded quarry and the “monster” turned out to be an old piece of machinery?
That is a 1986 movie called <a href="The Quest” with Henry Thomas, who was the star of “E.T.”
There was a movie in which some kids attempt to teach a bully a lessen. He drowns by accident and they panic and cover it up he drowns in a river on a boat trip after playing truth or dare, I think.
That movie is Mean Creek (2004). Very sensitively done, with beautiful performances.
What is the name of the movie where a little boy is chasing someone saying “where’s my $2?”
That movie is 1985’s Better Off Dead with John Cusack.

(more…)

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Beliefnet salutes 2008 movies and the all-time top Westerns

Posted on January 31, 2008 at 8:34 am

This is my third year as one of the nominators for Beliefnet’s annual awards that pay tribute to the most spiritually nourishing and inspiring films of the year. Each of the candidates is presented with pro and con statements (mine is the pro for Emile Hirsch’s performance in “Into the Wild”), with the awards to be decided by Beliefnet voters. Please visit the site and let us know what you thought about the nominated films and performances.
And I enjoyed Idol Chatter’s list of the 10 Most Inspiring Westerns. Westerns are epic and mythic. They present stark contrasts — cowboys and Indians, outlaws and sheriffs, ranchers and herders, railroads and farmers, gamblers and solid citizens, dancehall girls and prim schoolteachers. I do not agree with all of the choices (especially “Maverick” and “Tombstone”), but endorse with enthusiasm the selection of Silverado as the top choice. This year’s 3:10 to Yuma is worth including. But why limit the list to recent films? Classics like The Searchers, High Noon, My Darling Clementine, How the West Was Won, How the West Was Won, and Red River should be seen by everyone.

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Remembering Heath Ledger

Posted on January 23, 2008 at 9:47 am

Heath Ledger’s death is a terrible loss. He was an actor of great sensitivity and commitment. Most of the appreciations and obituaries focus on his Oscar-nominated performance in Brokeback Mountaintribute that emphasizes Ledger’s willingness to take risks in character roles. In the best of his performances, he played young men who were struggling with their feelings and struggling even more with their inability to express them. His brief appearance in Monster’s Ball was the foundation of everything that followed. Not many people saw his superb performance in the Australian film Candy, as a drug addict.

Today, though, I want to think of him in his lighter films. He made the silly but irresistible rock-jousting movie A Knight’s Tale a delight. He was proud that the director used his suggestion of David Bowie’s “Golden Years” song for the dance number. And he was a spirited modern-day Petruccio in 10 Things I Hate About You, strutting the tiers of the school’s football stadium as he sang “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You.” Cat (Julie Stiles) realized she could not resist him at that moment and audiences felt the same way.

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Chariots of Fire

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

A+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for adult situations and language
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Social drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense moments of competition
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	1981
Date Released to DVD:	July 9, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00284AVN

In honor of the 2012 Olympics in London, this 1981 classic and winner of the Oscar for Best Picture has been reissued.

This is the true story of two athletes who raced in the 1924 Olympics, one a privileged Jewish student at Cambridge (Ben Cross as Harold Abrahams), the other a missionary from Scotland (Ian Charleson as Eric Liddell). Wonderfully evocative of the time and place, with superb performances, the movie shows us the source of the runners’ determination, for one a need to prove his worth to himself and the society that discriminates against him, for the other, a way of connecting to God.

The movie begins with the memorial service for Harold Abrahams, and then goes back to his first day at Cambridge, just after World War I. A speaker reminds the entering class that they must achieve for themselves and for those who were lost in the war. Abrahams is a bit arrogant, but finds friends and impresses the whole university by being the first to meet a long-term challenge and race all the way around the quad within the twelve strokes of the clock at noon.

Liddell is deeply committed to missionary work. But when his sister asks him to give up running so that he can go with her, he explains that “I believe God made me for a purpose. He also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.”

Abrahams is devastated when he loses to Liddell, saying he won’t race unless he can win. But his girlfriend reminds him that he can’t win unless he races. Both Abrahams and Liddell make the Olympic team. There is a crisis when Liddell’s event is scheduled for a Sunday, because he will not run on the Sabbath. But Lord Lindsay (Nigel Havers) graciously allows Liddell his place in a different event, “just for the pleasure of seeing you run,” and both Liddell and Abrahams win.

Both of the athletes must make difficult choices with a great deal of opposition. One uses a coach (who isn’t even English), in defiance of tradition and expectations. The other resists the urging of his sister, the person he loves most, who wants him to quit racing and defies the Prince of Wales, who wants him to race on the Sabbath.

One of the themes of the movie is the problems that the Jewish athlete has dealing with the prejudice of society. The other athlete has to confront the conflict between the dictates of his religion and the requirements of the sport (including the entreaties of the heir to the throne) when he is asked to compete on the Sabbath.

Families who watch this movie should talk about these questions: Why was running so important to these men? Was it different for different athletes? Why does Harold Abrahams think of quitting when he loses to Liddell? Have you ever felt that way? What did you do? Why doesn’t Eric’s sister want him to race? Why does he race despite her objections? Why don’t the teachers at Harold Abraham’s school think it is appropriate to have a coach? Would anyone think that today?

This movie deservedly won the Oscars for best picture, screenplay, costume design, and music.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy a two-part made for television miniseries called “The First Olympics — Athens 1896,” about the American team entering the first modern Olympics in 1896. It features Louis Jourdan (of “Gigi”), David Caruso (of the original cast of television’s “NYPD Blue”) and David Ogden Stiers (of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”). While it does not have the resonance and meaning (or the production values) of “Chariots of Fire,” it is heartwarming, funny, exciting, and a lovely period piece. Not currently available on video, it usually shows up on television around the time of Olympic competitions. An extremely silly movie about the first modern Olympics is “It Happened in Athens,” with Jayne Mansfield and real-life Olympic athlete Bob Mathias.

“Miracle on Ice,” another made for television movie, is the true story of the 1980 U.S. hockey team, which astonished the world at the Olympics in Lake Placid. Yet another Olympic made for television movie, “The Golden Moment,” is the story of a romance between a Soviet gymnast and an American athlete. Its primary charm is the fact that it takes place at an Olympics in which, in real life, the U.S. never competed — that was the year the U.S. protested the Soviet invasion of Afganistan by boycotting the Moscow Olympics.

See also “Cool Runnings” about the 1988 Jamaican bobsled team, “The Bob Mathias Story,” with the real-life decathalon champion playing himself, “The Jesse Owens Story,” with Dorian Harewood as the legendary athlete, and “Babe” with Susan Clark as Babe Deidrickson Zaharias.

On the silly side, try “Animalympics,” an animated spoof of the Olympics with some comical moments, and the very funny “Million Dollar Legs,” with W.C. Fields as the President of Klopstockia, a country entering the Olympics.

And of course Bud Greenspan’s documentaries about the Olympics are always worth watching, for the stories and the personalities as much as for the athletic achievements.