List: My Favorite Ghost Movies

Posted on August 3, 2010 at 3:39 pm

Last week’s release of Charlie St. Cloud, with Zac Efron as a young man who visits every day with the ghost of his younger brother, made me think of some of my favorite movie ghosts. What are yours?

1. “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” A young widow (the exquisite Gene Tierney) finds her new home haunted by the ghost of a handsome sea captain (Rex Harrison) in this bittersweet romance that inspired a 1960’s television series.

2. “Ghost” The late Patrick Swayze played a ghost trying to help his girlfriend (Demi Moore) identify the man responsible for his murder with the help of a medium surprised to find out she is not a fake (an Oscar-winning performance from Whoopi Goldberg).

3. “Portrait of Jennie” A young artist (Joseph Cotten) has a series of mysterious encounters with Jennie, who inspires him to create the title work of art. When he first sees her, she is a child, wearing the clothes and remembering incidents of a generation before. But over a period of months he sees her again, each time several years older than the last until she is a beautiful young woman (Jennifer Jones) and he finds himself falling in love with her.

4. “Truly Madly Deeply” Juliet Stevenson gives a radiant performance in this story of a woman devastated by loss who is overjoyed at first to be haunted by the ghost of the man she loved (Alan Rickman).

5. “The Sixth Sense” Bruce Willis is a therapist trying to help a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) who “sees dead people” in this haunting drama with a legendary twist.

6. “Heart and Souls” Four souls with unfinished business become guardians of a baby born as their bus crashed. When he grows up (played by Robert Downey, Jr.) they enlist his help in resolving the issues that have kept them from entering heaven.

7. “The Unforgiven” A brother and sister (Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey) move into a mysterious abandoned house by the sea, even though their dog refuses to cross the property line. It turns out the place is haunted and a tangled story has to be revealed to prevent another murder. This was one of the first non-comedy ghost stories produced by Hollywood and it introduced the lovely song “Stella by Starlight,” later recorded by many jazz musicians and singers.

8. “A Guy Named Joe”/”Always” “A Guy Named Joe” was Spencer Tracy, a WWII bomber pilot known for taking great risks, despite the pleading of the woman he loves (Irene Dunne). When he is killed in action, he comes back to help her find love again. Steven Spielberg did an updated version with Richard Dreyfuss and Holly Hunter called “Always,” featuring the luminous Audrey Hepburn as an angel.

9. “Topper” Cary Grant’s star-making role was as screen history’s most debonair ghost, half of a glamorous young couple who try to teach a milquetoast banker (Oscar-winner Roland Young) how to have some fun. Watch for Billie Burke (best known as Glinda the Good Witch in “The Wizard of Oz”) as the banker’s wife. This film led to two sequels and a 1950’s television series.

10. “The Canterville Ghost” This delightful family treasure based on a book by Oscar Wilde and updated to WWII has Robert Young and Margaret O’Brien as the descendants of a 17th century nobleman (Charles Laughton) cursed to haunt the family castle until his cowardice is redeemed by a member of the family. It has been remade a couple of times and there is even an opera version, but this one is the best and available for viewing online.

Other favorites: the ghosts of “A Christmas Carol,” “The Others,” “Ghostbusters,” “The Haunting” (the original version), “Poltergeist,” and “The Eclipse”

Star of the Day Month on TCM

Posted on August 1, 2010 at 8:39 am

I love Turner Classic Movies. When I was invited, with a small group of film critics, to meet with Martin Scorsese, I was delighted to hear that he keeps it on a lot of the time and frequently calls out to everyone in his office to stop what they are doing and come watch some special moment. This month, a different star gets the spotlight every day, giving us a chance to enjoy some classics and neglected gems and see some of our favorites in a variety of roles over the course of their careers. Some to look out for:
Aug 2: Julie Christie (“Darling,” “Petulia,” “Shampoo,” “Dr. Zhivago”)
Aug 3: Steve McQueen (“The Great Escape,” “The Magnificent Seven,” “The Reivers”)
Aug 6: Ingrid Bergman (“Spellbound,” “Notorious,” “Casablanca,” “Gaslight”)
Aug 7: Errol Flynn (“The Adventures of Robin Hood,” “The Prince and the Pauper,” “The Sea Hawk,” “Gentleman Jim”)
Aug 10: Kathryn Grayson (“Kiss Me Kate,” “Show Boat”)
Aug 15: Margaret O’Brien (“Meet Me in St. Louis,” “The Secret Garden,” “Little Women,’ “Our Vines Have Tender Grapes”)
Aug 20: Katharine Hepburn (“Woman of the Year,” “Without Love,” “Bringing Up Baby,” “The Philadelphia Story,” “Summertime”)
Aug 21: Paul Newman (“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Harper,” “The Sting,” “Cool Hand Luke”)
Aug 23: Elizabeth Taylor (“National Velvet,” “Father of the Bride,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” “The VIPs”)
Aug 25: Lauren Bacall (“To Have and Have Not,” “Designing Woman,” “Key Largo”)
Aug 26: Lee Remick (“A Face in the Crowd,” “The Wheeler Dealers,” “Anatomy of a Murder,” “The Days of Wine and Roses”)
Aug 28: Peter O’Toole (“Lawrence of Arabia,” “The Stunt Man,” “My Favorite Year”)
Every single day has something special. And don’t forget The Essentials Jr., the outstanding Sunday night series of family classics. Enjoy!

Beliefnet Gallery: The Best Movie Weddings

Posted on July 17, 2010 at 3:31 pm

Dena Ross has put together a gorgeous gallery from my list of great movie weddings. It makes me want to throw some rice!

Summer Camp Movies

Posted on July 14, 2010 at 8:00 am

Nametapes ironed on? Bugspray and sunscreen packed? As kids depart for camp, it is fun to watch some classic movies about the joys and terrors of life among the bunk beds and color wars.

1. Meatballs Bill Murray was the counselor who teaches his campers to embrace their loserdom in this classic anti-hero comedy. (some mature material)

2. Camp Nowhere A bunch of kids with high-pressure parents invent a fake achievement-oriented camps (theater, fat camp, paramilitary, computer camp) and head off to enjoy themselves…until the parents all show up.

3. The Adventures of Spin & Marty Boomer parents will recall this Mickey Mouse club serial about the Triple R camp and the camper who arrived with his butler and learned a few things about roughing it. Watch for Mouseketeer Annette as a guest star.

4. Indian Summer A group of adults return to the camp that they loved as kids in this bittersweet midlife drama filmed on the site of the real-life camp attended by the film’s director.

5. Little Darlings There is some mature material in this very uneven story about two girls who make a bet at camp about which one will be the first to have sex, but it gets some credit for a more honest portrayal than most of the consequences of some of these choices. Watch for future “Sex and the City” co-star Cynthia Nixon as one of the campers. For a more family-friendly film, try The Baby Sitters Club, a sweet story about friendship and loyalty with our heroines creating a day-camp for younger children.

6. The Parent Trap Both the Haley Mills and Lindsay Lohan versions of this story of campers who discover they are identical twins are delightful family classics.

7. Space Camp The kids at space camp find themselves launched into space for real in this exciting family adventure.

8. Camp Based on a real-life camp attended by the film-makers, this is the story of an intense theater camp attended by talented, high-strung, insecure, and very ambitious teenagers. (Some mature material.) Stagedoor is a documentary about the real-life campers.

9. Summercamp Summercamp! is a documentary following the day-to-day drama of 90 kids let loose in the woods at Swift Nature Camp in northern Wisconsin. They go through the highs and lows of adolescent rituals: sing-alongs, talent shows, homesickness, counselor mutiny–and first love.

10. Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown Charles Schultz’s everyman comic strip hero goes to camp with all of his friends. Watch for Linus standing up to bullies and some nice lessons about teamwork.

Happy Birthday ‘Airplane!’ and ‘Back to the Future’

Posted on July 6, 2010 at 3:57 pm

Two movie classics celebrate big birthdays this week. “Back to the Future” turns 25 and “Airplane!” turns 30. Both helped to define their eras and stood the test of time as enduring favorites.

One of my favorite critics, Ali Arikan, has a superb tribute to “Back to the Future.”

Marty McFly has more in common with George Bailey than the film’s slightly cynical conclusion suggests. His adventure in the ’50s is literally based on self-preservation, but this is only derivative of his true goal. Recall the aforementioned scene at the dinner table, as Marty looks longingly, sadly, but lovingly at his parents, wondering where it all went wrong. The same look adorns his face just before he says goodbye to Doc, and the frequent times he runs into the younger selves of the townsfolk. Ostensibly selfish, his quest is, nonetheless, for the good of the community: personal success is just a welcome by-product. Back to the Future has a joyously optimistic view of the human race: it believes that, given the means, we would stand up to the physical laws that govern the universe (which Carl Sagan famously called “god”) just to make our loved ones happy. No wonder the film’s signature tune is called The Power of Love.

Hard to believe, but we’re only five years away from the time Marty McFly visits in part 2, the one with the flying skateboards.

“Airplane!” was in some ways a throwback to some of the wilder comedy of the vaudeville era like “Hellzapoppin'” and its joke-a-minute structure was in part influenced by the television show “Rowen and Martin’s Laugh-In.” Coming just ten years after the Oscar-winning “Airport,” it seemed a brash, subversive, iconoclastic upending of just about everything ever taken seriously. It was a surprise success. Made for just $3.5 million, it earned 83 million in North America alone and is 10th on the American Film Institute’s list of the funniest movies of all time.