List: Movie Judges

Posted on May 6, 2009 at 3:58 pm

As President Obama thinks about his selection to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter, it is a good time to take a look at some memorable movie judges.
1. Anatomy of a Murder Real-life lawyer — and real-life American hero — Joseph Welch plays the judge in this spell-binding story of a murder trial, based on a real-life case in a novel written by Robert Traver (pen name of John Donaldson Voelker, a Michigan Supreme Court justice). You can see Welch’s stand against Joseph McCarthy in Point of Order!
2. The Supreme Court A superb documentary about our government’s smallest and least transparent branch.
3. The Talk of the Town Ronald Coleman plays a law professor whose appointment to the Supreme Court is jeopardized when his landlady hides an anarchist (Cary Grant) from the authorities in the farmhouse where he is staying. The two men engage in a spirited debate about the law and a competition for the heart of the lovely landlady.
4. Separate But Equal Sidney Poitier plays Thurgood Marshall in the story of Brown v. the Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that may have had the most significant impact on the lives of all Americans. It is as gripping as any thriller, especially for those who find it hard to imagine a time when segregation in schools was legal. The way this case was assembled and presented is at time shocking, all the more reason that it is a must-see. Marshall, who argued the case, later became the first black Supreme Court justice. Thurgood Marshall: Justice for All is his story.
5. Stranger in Town Frank Morgan, who played the title character in The Wizard of Oz plays a Supreme Court justice on a hunting trip who gets caught up in a small town’s political dispute.

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List: Rainy Movies

Posted on April 29, 2009 at 8:00 am

Douglas Howe has a great list of rain scenes in movies over on Idol Chatter, including two of my favorites, “Singin’ in the Rain” with Gene Kelly and “Say Anything” with John Cusack.

Cusack for some reason is always getting drenched in movies. You could fill a whole list of great rain scenes just with Cusack performances.

A guilty pleasure of mine is the last dance number — in the rain — in “Step Up 2 the Streets.”

I love the rain scene in “Garden State.” And one of the best dance numbers ever is “Isn’t it a Lovely Day to be Caught in the Rain” with Astaire and Rogers in “Top Hat.” Oh, it is a very lovely day indeed.

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Happy Birthday William Shakespeare!

Posted on April 23, 2009 at 12:00 pm

It’s Shakespeare’s birthday! Try to talk like Shakespeare. Or check out Turner Classic Movie Channel’s list of their favorite Shakespeare adaptations. Can you name three movies inspired by Shakespeare set in high school? Two that became Broadway musicals? Or one set in outer space?

All of Shakespeare’s plays have been filmed, many more than once. Some of my favorites are:

1. Twelfth Night A shipwreck survivor disguises herself as a man and gets involved in many mix-ups as she finds herself falling for her boss and being fallen for by the woman he has asked her to woo on his behalf.

2. A Midsummer Night’s Dream An all-star cast appears in Shakespeare’s merriest romantic comedy, with the entanglements of three romantic couples and a little fairy dust.

3. The Taming of the Shrew Famously bombastic couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor play famously bombastic couple Petruchio and Kate in this raucous battle of the sexes. It is not only the shrew who is tamed.

4. Henry V Kenneth Branaugh’s fierce version of one of Shakespeare’s most thrillingly heroic stories is brilliantly done — and a lot of fun to compare with Laurence Olivier’s very different WWII-era version.

4. Hamlet Mel Gibson stars in one of several great versions of the play about the conflicted Danish prince.

5. Romeo & Juliet and Romeo + Juliet are two sensational takes on Shakespeare’s most famous love story.

6. The Merchant of Venice Al Pacino plays Shylock in the story of a money-lender driven to revenge by the defection of his daughter. Lynn Collins is luminous as the heroine Portia.

7. As You Like It Another woman-disguised-as-a-man story and another lovers-in-the-forest story — but this time transplanted by the film-makers to Japan in a very colorful production with a radiant Bryce Dallas Howard as Rosalind.

8. Macbeth Orson Welles’ version of the Scottish play is arresting and provocative.

9. The Tempest I’m still waiting for a worthy version of my favorite Shakespeare play, but until that happens, this version of the story of the shipwreck survivors on an island with a sorcerer and his daughter is worth seeing.

10. Shakespeare in Love This multi-award winner makes no pretense of historical accuracy but it is wise, exciting, and ravishingly romantic.

Warner Brothers Shares Classic Treasures

Posted on April 20, 2009 at 10:00 am

One of the things I find most thrilling about movies is that they are timeless. Watch a movie and you can see the same performance your grandparents watched when it was first released. We will never know what it was like to hear Jenny Lind sing or see Sarah Bernhardt on stage, but we can watch Cary Grant, the Marx Brothers, Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, James Dean, and John Wayne at their very best. That is why I am so happy about Warner Brothers opening up its archive to make available for the first time some of their treasured releases.
Take a look at the listings and you are sure to find some favorites you have not seen in years and some very worthwhile surprises. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s only screen credit was for “Three Comrades,” a heartbreaking drama set in pre-WWII Germany with an incandescent appearance by Margaret Sullavan. There are biographies of Thomas Edison (with Spencer Tracy), Abraham Lincoln (with Raymond Massey), and “An Affair to Remember” co-stars Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr re-team in “Dream Wife,” about a diplomatic advisor assigned to assist on the upcoming wedding of her former beau to an Asian princess. One of Warren Beatty’s most arresting early performances is in a little-known film called “All Fall Down,” co-starring Eva Marie Saint, Karl Malden, Angela Lansbury, and “Shane’s” Brandon de Wilde. And Burt Reynolds appears in “Angel Baby’ with Salome Jens, who is mesmerizing as an evangelical preacher. Some are available for on demand download as well as on DVD and many have clips available online. Desson Thomson talked to NPR’s Scott Simon about some of the highlights of the collection. I will be highlighting some of my other favorites in upcoming posts.
Turner Classic Movies’ Robert Osborne likes to quote Lauren Bacall about old movies: “If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you.” These films are not all classics, but there is something there for everyone.

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Anita Renfroe: Mother’s Day Special

Posted on April 16, 2009 at 8:00 am

The wise and hilarious Anita Renfroe is making some of her books available for just $5 until May 10, so it is a great time to grab a couple for Mother’s Day. You can also buy any DVD or CD and get a free copy of her book, If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mother.

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