Valentine’s Day Movies to Share With Someone You Love

Posted on February 14, 2013 at 8:00 am

Some of my favorite movie romances are just right for Valentine’s Day. Cuddle up with your valentine and a bowl of popcorn and enjoy these movies about how love makes us crazy and immeasurably happy at the same time.

1. Moonstruck Cher won an Oscar as the bookkeeper who has given up on love until she meets the brother of her fiance, who tells her:

Love don’t make things nice – it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren’t here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and *die*.

2. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet find that they really don’t want to forget each other, no matter how painful love can be.

3. You’ve Got Mail This third version of the story of a couple who are at war in person, not realizing that they are tender lovers through the mail, updates the story to the computer age. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan have so much chemistry on screen that we know from the first moment what it will take them the whole movie to discover — they are meant to be together. Be sure to watch the earlier versions, The Shop Around the Corner with James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan and the musical In the Good Old Summertime with Judy Garland and Van Johnson.

4. The Philadelphia Story On the eve of her wedding, socialite Tracy Lord’s ex-husband shows up with a couple of journalists and we get to watch three of the greatest stars in Hollywood history sort out their affections. This movie has everything: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart (who won an Oscar), George Cukor as director, wit, heart, and romance and an important lesson about how sometimes it is not about falling in love but recognizing that we have already fallen.

5. To Have and Have Not As tough guy Humphrey Bogart meets the even-tougher Lauren Bacall (only 19 years old when this was filmed), we get to see the real-life romantic sparks that gave the on-screen love story some extra sizzle. Watch her teach him how to whistle.

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Celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday!

Posted on February 12, 2013 at 8:00 am

Celebrate the birthday of our 16th President with some of the classic movies about his life. Reportedly, he has been portrayed more on screen than any other real-life character.

Coming soon to theaters: Saving Lincoln.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-J3LhG46ZY

Still in theaters, you can see the Oscar-nominated Steven Spielberg epic, based on Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin, with Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field.

And on the National Geographic Channel, based on Bill O’Reilly’s book:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxiu2JtnZBw

On DVD:

Young Mr. Lincoln Directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda, this is an appealing look at Lincoln’s early law practice and his tragic romance with Ann Rutledge. Particularly exciting and moving are the scenes in the courtroom as Lincoln defends two brothers charged with murder. Both have refused to talk about what happened, each thinking he is protecting the other, and Lincoln has to find a way to prove their innocence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcuUvtenx6w&feature=related

Abe Lincoln in Illinois Raymond Massey in his signature role plays Lincoln from his days as a rail-splitter to his law practice and his debates with Stephen Douglas. Ruth Gordon plays his wife, Mary.

Gore Vidal’s Lincoln Sam Waterston and Mary Tyler Moore star in this miniseries that focuses on Lincoln’s political strategies and personal struggles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxrbIcXBYyY

Sandburg’s Lincoln Hal Holbrook plays Lincoln in this miniseries based on the biography by poet Carl Sandberg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_669ER2Gt34

The Best (And Worst) Movies of 2012 — Plus Best Docs, Best for Families, Most Fun, and More

Posted on December 28, 2012 at 8:00 am

My list of the best movies of 2012:

Zero Dark Thirty

Argo

Lincoln

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Brave

Silver Linings Playbook

Middle of Nowhere

The Avengers

ParaNorman

Runners-up: Life of Pi, Moonrise Kingdom, Arbitrage, The Sessions, Looper, Skyfall, Wreck-It Ralph

Best documentaries (any could be included in the top ten of the year): The Queen of Versailles, Searching for Sugar Man, Chasing Ice, The Waiting Room, Escape Fire, Brooklyn Castle, How to Survive a Plague

The top 10 for families:

Brave

ParaNorman

Wreck-It Ralph

Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted

Mirror, Mirror

Pirates: Band of Misfits

The Secret World of Arietty

Hotel Translyvania

Frankenweenie

Ice Age: Continental Drift

(more…)

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My Favorite Versions of “A Christmas Carol”

Posted on December 19, 2012 at 8:00 am

My favorite Christmas story is “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens and I enjoy as many versions as possible every year. I love it in just about any of its movie incarnations. “Bah, humbugs” have been muttered by Scrooges played by top-notch dramatic actors like George C. Scott and Albert Finney, former Miss America Vanessa Williams, former Fonzie Henry Winkler, former Ace Ventura Jim Carrey, and former “Saturday Night Live” star Bill Murray. I love them all. I’ve already listened to the Tim Curry and Jim Dale audio versions available on Audible.com, both delightful. And I have the book, of course, with wonderful illustrations by Ronald Searle.

Here are my very favorite versions on film and I try to watch each of them every year.

5. “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” Who better to play Scrooge than his namesake Scrooge McDuck? And who better for the part of the unquenchable Bob Cratchit than Mickey Mouse? This compilation DVD includes other Christmas goodies “The Small One” and “Pluto’s Christmas Tree.”

4. “The Muppet Christmas Carol” has the distinguished actor Michael Caine as Scrooge and the equally distinguished Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit. Special mention of A Sesame Street Christmas Carol as well.

3. “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol” The voice talent is outstanding, with Broadway star Jack Cassidy (father of teen idols David and Shaun) as Bob Cratchit and of course Jim Backus as Mr. Magoo, in this version an actor playing the part of Scrooge. The tuneful songs were written by Bob Merrill and Jule Styne, who later went on to write “Funny Girl.” (The legend is that their song “People” was originally written for this movie.)

2. “A Christmas Carol” This MGM classic features the top stars of the 1930’s. Watch for future “Lassie” star June Lockhart as one of the Cratchit children — her real-life father Gene Lockhart played Bob. (He also appears in another Christmas classic, as the judge inMiracle on 34th Street.) Reginald Owen plays Scrooge and this one has my favorite Fred, Barry MacKay. I love Dickens’ description of Fred’s laugh: “If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge’s nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I’ll cultivate his acquaintance.”

1. “A Christmas Carol” This is the all-time best, with the inimitable Alistair Sim as Scrooge. There has never been a more embittered miser or a more jubilent Christmas morning rebirth. When he orders that turkey for the Cratchits and walks into his nephew’s celebration at the end, everything Dickens hoped for from his story is brought to life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWdJ1EXf5zo

The Best of Bond: The Women! The Theme Songs! The Cars! The Chases! The Villains!

Posted on November 8, 2012 at 3:39 pm

As “Skyfall” opens, we look back on 50 years of James Bond on screen, and that means some great assessments of the best of Bond. My favorite Bonds are Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan, but “Skyfall” may be my favorite Bond movie and I love Adele’s theme song. My favorite Bond villain is Goldfinger and my favorite Bond car is the Aston-Martin with the ejector seat.

What about you?

Fandango has a delectable gallery of the best of the Bond girls. My three favorites are:

Michel Dunaway’s definitive ranking of all the Bond themes is a pleasure to read.

1. It’s not about the best song. No list worth anything will merely rank the best songs that happen to have been Bond themes. Otherwise, the producers could just stick “Stairway to Heaven” or “Satisfaction” or “Try a Little Tenderness” into the next installment of the series and assure themselves the new No. 1 spot. No, the songs shouldn’t only (or even primarily) appeal as songs per se, but as icons of Bond. They should exude Bondness. When you hear one of them, you shouldn’t first think “What a great song!” Instead, you should immediately be plunged into visions of a Bond film, preferably with yourself as either the titular hero or as his love interest.

2. What is Bondness? Entire books have been written on the appeal of Bond, but two of the most important aspects of that appeal need to be expressed in the song. First is a sense of momentousness, of earth-shattering urgency. It can be expressed through the arrangement, through the vocal performance, or the lyrics, but we’d better get a sense that big things are at stake. Second, and seemingly paradoxically, there must be an element of offhand elegance, almost a casual air. James Bond makes it look easy. So the song should make it sound easy.

3. Bondness is forever. In the original, instrumental James Bond theme, John Barry gave the franchise a gift of inestimable worth: so many signature moments. Go on the street and ask four people to hum the James Bond theme, and you’re likely to hear four different parts of the same composition. There’s the menacing four-note opening, the wildly discordant second portion, and the full-out orchestral jazzy vamp, all of which lead to the orgasmic “BAH-BAH-bummmmm, BAH-BAH-bummmmm, BAH-BAH!” ending, which then returns to the original sequence. The best Bond songs recognize Barry’s genius by incorporating the iconic instrumental theme into themselves, however subtly.

I’m grateful to Dunaway for reminding me of Tom Jones and “Thunderball.” (And even for reminding me that A-Ha did a Bond theme.)