Your Week with Marilyn — Monroe’s Best Films

Posted on November 27, 2011 at 9:37 pm

“My Week With Marilyn” is a new film based on the memoirs by Colin Clark about his time as a third assistant director (basically a gofer) on the set of a movie she made in England with Sir Laurence Olivier. You can have your own week with Marilyn Monroe, the most popular sex symbol in movie history, by watching some of her films. I recommend:

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Monroe plays a gold-digging showgirl in this colorful and energetic musical. Her signature song “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” inspired Madonna’s “Material Girl” video.

Some Like It Hot The American Film Institute’s pick for the funniest American movie of all time is Billy Wilder’s gender-bending masterpiece about two male musicians (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) who disguise themselves as women and join an all-female band so they can hide from mobsters. Monroe plays the band’s lead singer who has a weakness for saxophone players. It gets better and funnier every time you see it.

Let’s Make Love Yves Montand plays one of the wealthiest and most successful men in the world. When he hears that a small off-Broadway musical satiric revue makes fun of him, he goes to the theater to complain. But the director thinks he has shown up to audition and when he sees Monroe (in sheer practice tights and leotard) is in the cast, he pretends to be an actor. She sings a sizzling version of “My Heart Belongs to Daddy.”

Bus Stop Many people think Monroe’s best performance as an actress is in this poignant story of a cowboy in love with a bar girl. She sings a heartbreakingly (intentionally) trashy “That Old Black Magic.”

The Seven Year Itch Monroe’s most iconic pose comes from this film about an innocent flirtation between a man who stays in New York while his family is on vacation and his free-spirited upstairs neighbor.

The Prince and the Showgirl When Monroe wanted to be taken more seriously as an actress she formed a production company to finance this film, co-starring and directed by Sir Laurence Olivier. It is more interesting to watch to compare their incompatible acting styles than it is to try to care about the slight story, but definitely worth seeing if you plan to watch “My Week With Marilyn.”

How to Marry a Millionaire Monroe co-stars with Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable in this romantic comedy about three blonde models with a plan to find wealthy husbands.

James Garner

Posted on November 9, 2011 at 8:00 am

James Garner is one of my all-time favorite actors and I am delighted that he has published a new book about his life, The Garner Files: A Memoir. Garner got his start in the theater playing a juror in “The Caine Mutiny” on Broadway, which gave him an invaluable lesson in focus and the best seat in the house to observe brilliant acting every night. He specialized in playing laconic but honorable men and is best remembered for his television work: The Rockford Files and Maverick. But I am a big fan of his movies, especially the two he did with Julie Andrews: Victor/Victoria and The Americanization of Emily and two he made with Doris Day: The Thrill of it All! and Move Over Darling (a remake of Cary Grant’s “My Favorite Wife”). His pair of comic westerns, Support Your Local Gunfighter and Support Your Local Sheriff are a lot of fun. He is an adept dramatic actor as well, in films like The Great Escape and The Notebook. This new book is a great opportunity to revisit his performances.

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Blog Action Day: Food

Posted on October 16, 2011 at 7:00 am

This year’s Blog Action Day theme is food in recognition of World Food Day.

Some top documentaries about food sustainability and wholesomeness:

1. The End of the Line The rise of industrialized fishing, the current demand for fish and the methods used to fulfill it are taking an irreparable toll on the world’s oceans.

2. Food, Inc. Corporations and the regulators they control through lobbying put profit ahead of consumer health, the American farmer, worker safety, and even the environment. Chicken breasts get bigger and produce is genetically engineered not to go bad while obesity, diabetes, and other dire consequences of bad food make more people sick every year.

3. Super Size Me Mordantly funny and trenchantly sobering, this is a Big Mac attack you can sink your teeth into. And then it will bite you back. Film-maker Morgan Spurlock takes on American fast food culture in general and McDonald’s in particular in this prize-winning documentary.

4. The Future of Food Food growing and production, once the primary occupation of Americans, is now controlled by a few enormous corporations. This film explores what that means for the quality and health of what we consume.

5. King Corn Two friends grow an acre of corn to see what becomes of their crop in a documentary from director Aaron Woolf. Corn is America’s most productive and subsidized grain and following an ear of corn from seed to the dinner table has some disturbing surprises.

10 Great Movie Robots

Posted on October 6, 2011 at 3:56 pm

In honor of this week’s “Real Steel,” here are 10 movie robots worth watching. The term “robot,” by the way, was invented by playwright Karl Capek in his 1920 play, “R.U.R.”

1. Transformers The first in the series was a great summer action film and I admit to tearing up when it looked like Bumblebee had been destroyed.

2. Robots An underrated gem, this charming film about a world of robots has imaginative visuals based on the work of illustrator William Joyce and a heartwarming story featuring the voices of Ewan McGregor and Halle Berry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57kshAyVrec

3. Bicentennial Man Think of it as Pinocchio played by C3PO from “Star Wars.” Robin Williams plays “Andrew Martin,” a robot who wants to be human, in this adaptation of a story and book by Isaac Asimov.

4. Forbidden Planet The first big-budget sci-fi film was inspired by Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” Leslie Neilsen stars as a spaceship captain to comes to a planet where a mysterious scientist, his daughter, and Robby the robot are the only survivors of an Earth colony.

5. Robot Jox In the future, wars are conducted by gladiator-style battles between giant robots in this film starring Gary Graham, Anne-Marie Johnson, and Paul Koslo.

6. I, Robot Will Smith stars in this film based on one of Isaac Asimov’s best-known books, the story of an investigation into a possible murder of a human by a robot.

7. A.I.: Artificial Intelligence Steven Spielberg completed the film begun by Stanley Kubrick, an uneven but ambitious and visually stunning story about a robot child. The scene in the robot junkyard is heart-wrenching.

8. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World 4D Ricky Gervais provided the voice for the robot dog, which writer/director Robert Rodriguez said had so many functions he was like a Swiss army knife.

9. Return to Oz This is a much darker story than “The Wizard of Oz,” so it is not for younger kids, but it is an imaginative adventure and Tik-Tok the mechanical man is a delight.

10. Metropolis This brilliant German expressionist film from Fritz Lang was made in 1927, about a dystopian future with managers in luxurious surroundings and workers condemned to live in dungeons. A beautiful robot modeled after a kind-hearted woman from the managers group plays a crucial role.

And the one I am most looking forward to is the upcoming film based on Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel, directed by J.J. Abrams.

Five Better Movies With Paul Rudd

Posted on August 26, 2011 at 12:18 pm

Our Idiot Brother is a disappointment, but Paul Rudd is always a pleasure. Here are some better choices for those who miss that Rudd-alicious feeling:

1. How Do You Know This was a massive box office flop, but it is now on cable and definitely worth a look for some very choice moments, especially Rudd’s performance as a good guy caught up in securities fraud and an even deeper moral dilemma. Watch him as he recognizes the baseball player he shared an awful date with on an elevator, a social smile on his mouth and anguish in his eyes.

2. I Could Never Be Your Woman This is a terrific movie that got caught in the unrelated vortex of a financial collapse and never got the attention it deserves. Michelle Pfeiffer is a single mom who produces a silly but popular sitcom and Rudd is the young actor who makes her fall in love in spite of herself.

3. The Object Of My Affection Rudd plays Paul, a gay teacher who moves in with a single woman he has just met (Jennifer Aniston) after a bad break-up. The two of them quickly become close friends and then realize that they cannot hide out with each other forever. Both Rudd and Aniston deliver their best in this bittersweet love story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_lNnxTPB9A

4. Clueless This bubbly delight, inspired by Jane Austen’s “Emma,” has Rudd as the (brief) former step-brother and love interest for Alicia Silverstone’s Cher.

5. I Love You, Man In the midst of a raunchy bro-mance, Rudd is sensational as a guy who is a wonderful, devoted boyfriend but hasn’t quite figured out the trick of guy friendships until he meets Sydney (Jason Segal). Just watch Rudd try to come up with some guy-talk and end up stumbling with “totes magotes.”

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