Singin’ in the Rain

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

A+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	G
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	1952
Date Released to DVD:	July 16, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B0087YYHZU

The 60th anniversary of one of the best-loved movies of all time is being celebrated with gorgeous new DVD and Blu-Ray releases.

Silent movie star Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) is paired on screen with Lina Lamont (Jean Hagan), who would like to be paired with him offscreen as well. But Lina’s personality is as grating as her squeaky, nasal voice. She is mean, selfish, arrogant, and stupid. Chased by fans following the opening of their latest movie, Don jumps into the car of Kathy Seldon (Debbie Reynolds), who tells him she is a serious actress, and not at all interested in the movies. But later, at a party celebrating the new movie, Kathy appears again, jumping out of a cake. Don teases her about her “art” and she throws a pie at him, getting Lina right in the face by mistake. Lina, furious, has Kathy fired.

At the party, the guests are treated to an exhibition of the latest technology, “talking pictures.” Everyone present dismisses it as a novelty. But when “The Jazz Singer” becomes a hit, everyone in Hollywood begins to make talkies. Production is halted on the latest Lockwood/Lamont movie, “The Dueling Cavalier,” while the stars are coached in vocal technique (with a delightful song mocking the exercises, “Moses Supposes”). But the movie is a disaster. Test audiences jeer and laugh.

Meanwhile, Don and Kathy have fallen in love. After an all-night session, Don, Kathy, and Don’s best friend, Cosmo (Donald O’Connor), come up with an idea. They can make it into a musical, “The Dancing Cavalier,” dubbing Kathy’s voice for Lina’s. Don resists at first, because it is unfair to Kathy. But they persuade him that it will just be this one time, and he goes along.

With Kathy’s voice and some musical numbers, the movie is a success. Lina insists that Kathy continue to dub all her movies, and, when the audience insists on hearing her sing, Lina forces Kathy to stand back stage so she can perform. But Don, Cosmo, and the beleagered studio head reveal the secret, and Don introduces Kathy to the audience as the real star of the movie.

Discussion: This is often considered the finest musical of all time. Certainly it has it all, classic musical numbers and a witty script, unusually sharp and satiric for a musical comedy, especially one making fun of the industry that produced it. Asked to name the top ten moments in the history of movies, most people would include the title number from this movie, in which Gene Kelly splashes and sings the rain with what Roger Ebert called “saturated ecstasy.” When he swings the umbrella around and around and dances on and off the curb, his “glorious feeling” is contagious. Only in a movie containing that sequence would Donald O’Connor’s sensational “Make ‘Em Laugh” number be mentioned second. It is a wildly funny pastiche of every possible slapstick gag, done with energy and skill so meticulous that it appears it is entirely spontaneous.

Screenwriters Betty Comden and Adoph Green, asked to use some of the classic songs by Arthur Freed (later producer of most of the great MGM musicals) and Nacio Herb Brown, decided to set the movie in the era in which they first appeared, the early talkies. This gave them a chance to use some of the Hollywood folklore of that era, when careers like John Gilbert’s were destroyed overnight, as audiences found out that their voices didn’t match their faces. One especially funny scene has the technicians trying to find a way to record Lina’s dialogue. When they put the microphone on her dress, all you hear is the sound of her pearls as she rubs them. When they put it lower down, you hear her heartbeat. When they put it near her, her voice fades in and out as she tosses her head. Note that the cameras are put inside huge boxes — that is authentic, as the cameras of that era were so loud that they had to be encased to prevent their own whirring from being recorded.

Don and Cosmo are consummate adaptors. As we see in flashback, they have already switched from vaudeville to movies, and then Cosmo from performer to accompanist (to musical director) and Don from stunt man to leading man. Lina resists change and tries to bully her way out of it, but Don, Cosmo, and Kathy all demonstrate resilience and openness to new ideas, and a willingness to be creative in solving problems.

Questions for Kids:

· Why does Kathy at first lie about liking the movies?

· Why does Don lie about his background? How is that different from the way that Lina behaves?

· Have there been any new inventions that you have seen that have changed people’s jobs a lot?

· What inventions do you use that your parents didn’t have when they were children? Your grandparents?

Connections: The transition from silent movies to talkies was also lampooned in the first play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, “Once in a Lifetime.” A silent star who has become deranged is the centerpiece of “Sunset Boulevard.” When told “You used to be big in pictures,” she says, “I’m still big — it’s the pictures that got small.” She also says, memorably, that in her day stars didn’t need to talk: “We had faces then!”

Activities: Children might like to see some of the early silent movies to get an idea of what Hollywood was like in the days depicted in this movie. The films of Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd are still wonderful, and kids will enjoy learning that a story can be told without words.

Awakenings

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Malcolm Sayer, a shy neurologist (Robin Williams), is assigned to work with patients for the first time after his research funding is cut off. His patients, all but catatonic, are in a ward called “the garden,” because their only treatment consists of “watering and feeding.” Ever since an epidemic of encephalitis (“sleeping sickness”) decades before, they have not spoken or appeared to understand anything that was going on around them. Everyone else has given up hope, but Sayer, approaching them as a researcher, notices that they are capable of reflex reactions, and believes that new medication used for patients with Parkinson’s disease may help these patients, too. Over the objections of the doctors in charge, he gets permission to try it on one patient, Leonard Lowe (Robert De Niro).

At first, there is no reaction, but soon Leonard “awakens.” His transformation is so thrilling that Malcolm is easily able to get permission and funding to treat the other patients. They, too, awaken, some more fully than others. A one-time musician does not speak, but plays the piano. Some of them are horrified at the time they have lost. But most are giddy with the pleasures of being alive. Malcolm takes Leonard outside, and Leonard’s embrace of everything around him contrasts sharply with the inhibitions of Malcolm, who hesitates to try anything but his work, and cannot even bring himself to have a cup of coffee with a friendly nurse (Julie Kavner).

Leonard becomes impatient to experience more. He develops a warm friendship with the daughter of another patient in the hospital (Penelope Ann Miller). He asks for permission to leave the hospital on his own. But he becomes hyperactive, angry, and ridden with tics. The medication’s side effects begin to overwhelm him. Malcolm sees that he is losing Leonard, and the other patients know that it must soon happen to them, too.

Soon, all of them are returned to their previous state of catatonia, the only evidence of their brief awakening the greater respect and affection they receive from the staff, and their impact on Malcolm, who heeds Leonard’s call to life by reaching out to the nurse.

Discussion: This movie is based on the book of the same name by neurologist Oliver Sacks, who was the basis for the character Malcolm Sayer. It is a powerful and moving story, brilliantly acted and directed. Like Malcolm, we can all use a reminder to appreciate the pleasures of being alive, including the pleasures that require us to take risks.

Families who see this movie should talk about what the neurologist means when he says, “because the implications of that would be unthinkable?” Why would he prefer to believe that the patients are not aware of what is going on? Were you surprised by the way any of the patients reacted to being “awakened?” Which reaction was most like the way you think you might feel? Why is it hard for Malcolm to interact with other people? How does Leonard change the way Malcolm behaves? Why does the staff treat the patients differently after the awakening, even when they go back the way they were?

Compare this movie to Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town,” especially Emily’s speech after her death, about what she misses and what she wants the living to be aware of.

Scriptwriter Steven Zaillian also wrote the screenplay for Schindler’s List and wrote and directed Searching for Bobby Fischer. Teens will enjoy reading the Sacks book, and some of his others, especially The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars, with astonishing and compassionate descriptions of some of his neurology patients.

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Frailty

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Many great horror movies deal with families; that is where we are all most sensitive. This uneven film exploits that vulnerability but is ultimately unsatisfying.

The film opens on a dark and stormy night; Fenton Meiks, (Matthew McConaughey) a troubled-looking young man, has walked into the Texas offices of the FBI. He claims to know the identity of a serial killer, known as “God’s Hands” and he wants to tell his story.

As the story unfolds in flashback, Fenton describes growing up with his widower father (Bill Paxton) and younger brother Adam. It’s a generally happy household; Fenton and Adam are close, and kind to one another, and their father clearly cares for them both. Bill Paxton’s Dad character is convincing as a working-class guy with enough love and discipline to bring up his two boys alone, which makes his subsequent transformation very disturbing.

One night, he gets the boys out of bed to declare that an angel has brought him a vision. They’re living in the End Times, and God has selected the family for a special mission, to seek out and destroy demons, who are moving among humans in the last days. The demons look like ordinary humans, but Dad knows the difference — he says that he receives their names from heaven, and can see their sins at the moment he dispatches them by touching them with his hands. He uses a divinely selected ax and a lead pipe to perform the actual “destruction” of the demons.

Adam, the younger and more pious of the brothers, believes what his father tells him and immediately throws himself into the role of divinely appointed avenger. Fenton, older, keeps his doubts secret until his father actually drags home a bound woman and then executes her in front of his children.

Fenton is horrified, but forced to take an increasingly active role in the “demon” hunting. His initial rebellion against the new family business is handled by his father firmly, but lovingly. His dad has no doubts but realizes how difficult it is for his son to accept his new role in the universe. Nevertheless, as Fenton resists more and more, his father takes increasingly stern action, eventually locking his son in the cellar, to pray for a vision.

The genuinely horrifying premise of this film is undercut by its ham-handed writing, which makes the plot even less plausible. The dialogue is full of wooden homilies like “The truth is pretty unbelievable sometimes,” which Matthew McConaughey’s character drawls just before spilling the beans to the FBI. The dialogue is unintentionally funny at a number of points, especially when Bill Paxton is carefully delivering exposition on his insane plot. What is supposed to be a chilling matter-of-fact tone sounds more like a cold reading of the script.

This is not to say that the film is not frightening. The “destructions” are horrifying. The fact that we do not see the worst leaves the graphic details up to our imaginations. The scenes of Fenton locked in the cellar are extremely harrowing. But the most disturbing aspect of the plot is that the murders take place in front of the young sons, and committed by a beloved father. As Alfred Hitchcock said of the death of a child in an early film of his, “It was an abuse of cinematic power.” For a film as empty as “Frailty,” there is simply no excuse.

Many children will be disturbed by the spectacle of a loving father going crazy and becoming a homicidal maniac, and the consequences for the family. There are a number of shocking and tense moments among all the schlock.

Families seeing this film will want to discuss both Adam and Fenton’s reaction to their father’s revelations. What would you do if your father or mother told you they were commanded by God to kill the guilty? An especially troubling aspect of the movie implies that the father’s visions are real, and that God has actually selected a number of people to kill specific evildoers with an ax. Families of any faith will want to discuss the difference between the movie’s depiction and real-world religion.

Families who enjoyed this film will want to see “Psycho”, “The Brood,” “Carrie” and “Unbreakable”, four excellent films with similar themes.

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Horror

Love and Basketball

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

About eighty percent love and twenty percent basketball, this is a romance about two basketball-loving kids who go one-on-one in both games for almost twenty years before they get it right.

The movie is divided into quarters, like a basketball game. Monica moves next door to Quincy when they are both 11. He is so affronted by her skill at making baskets that he knocks her to the ground — and so impressed that he asks her to be his girl. They kiss for an agreed-upon five seconds, and then break up when they argue over whether he gets to be the boss.

Seven years later, they are seniors in high school, and both star players. Monica (Sanaa Lathan) and Quincy (Omar Epps) are friends, very aware of each other, but awkward at expressing their feelings. He is heavily recruited, but opportunities for girl players are more limited. At the last minute, she gets recruited, too. On the night of the prom, they acknowledge how they feel about each other and become intimate.

At USC, they each face challenges. Quincy learns that the father he respects has not been honest. Monica must deal with a demanding coach and with competition from teammates. They part, and Quincy drops out of school to play professional basketball. In the last quarter, they meet again, for one last chance at love and basketball.

Writer/director Gina Prince-Blythewood has crafted a nice, old-fashioned story. There are a few modern touches, like Monica’s independence in addressing the conflicts between her love for Quincy and her love for basketball, but it is surprisingly traditional in structure and outcome. For example, Quincy is permitted to have had many romantic encounters, but Monica, our heroine, is as hopelessly devoted to her one love as Olivia Newton-John was in “Grease.” And when she sees Quincy again, years after their college break-up, she apologizes to him for leaving him when he was upset so that she could get back to the dorm before her curfew. She says, “I should have been there for you. But I didn’t know how to do that and be all about ball.” There is also a “Star is Born” element as Monica becomes successful as Quincy is having difficulty.

Monica and Quincy must also resolve standard-issue family conflicts. Monica feels unappreciated by her mother (a criminally underused Alfre Woodard), who is happy to be a very traditional housewife and subordinate her life to her family. It turns out that Monica’s mother feels unappreciated too. Quincy’s father, a professional basketball player, turns out to be less than the hero Quincy thought he was. Quincy says to him, “How come you couldn’t be the man you kept trying to make me?” Both must learn to forgive their parents for not being perfect before they can truly become adults.

It is especially nice to see a movie with a primarily black cast that has a genuine feel for the culture but avoids the usual clichés. Monica and Quincy live in an upper middle class neighborhood and each has two loving parents.

Parents should know that the movie has strong sexuality for a PG-13, including descriptions of some sexually aggressive women, a strip basketball game and a scene of Monica and Quincy having sex that has no nudity but is fairly explicit. (It also includes the use of a condom.) A character is accused of fathering a child out of wedlock. Quincy’s father admits that he married Quincy’s mother because she was pregnant. A character gets drunk when she finds out that her husband has been unfaithful. A mother slaps a grown child.

Families who see this movie should talk about how people reconcile the demands of love, family, and career, and why it is that Monica and Quincy had so much trouble telling each other how they felt. Teenagers may also want to talk about the different views Monica and Quincy had of their relationship at different ages, and how the key element linking them through all of them was not basketball but friendship.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy a very different basketball movie, “Hoosiers,” about a 1950’s championship high school team, and a very different romantic movie, “Claudine.”

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Romance Sports

Spartacus

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Plot: Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) is a slave in the Roman empire, about 70 years before the birth of Christ. A rebellious and proud man, he is sentenced to death for biting a guard but rescued by Biatius (Peter Ustinov), who buys him and takes him to his school for training and selling gladiators. Slave women are provided to the men as rewards. Varinia (Jean Simmons), a British slave, is given to Spartacus. He is awestruck by her grace and beauty, but when he sees that Biatius is watching them, he screams, “I am not an animal!” and will not touch her.

Crassus (Laurence Olivier), a Roman dignitary, visits Biatius’ home with two spoiled and decadent women, who insist on seeing a fight to the death. Spartacus is paired with Draba (Woody Strode), an Ethiopian, who fights with net and trident. Draba corners Spartacus but refuses to kill him, and intstead rushes toward Crassus, who slits his throat. Crassus buys Varinia, and when a guard taunts Spartacus about her, Spartacus kills him, and leads the other slaves in a revolt.

They escape to the countryside, and other slaves join them as they make progress toward the sea, where they hope to escape. Varinia and Antoninus (Tony Curtis), a slave singer and magician, escape from Crassus, and join the slaves. The Romans send troops to capture them, but the slaves defeat them, sending back the message that all they want is the freedom to return to their homes. Crassus uses the slave revolt to gain political power, by promising “order” if he is given complete control. When he is successful, triumphing over his political rival, Gracchus (Charles Laughton), he cuts off the slaves’ access to ships, and surrounds them with troops. Many are killed on both sides, and the slaves are recaptured. Crassus promises them their lives if they will just give him Spartacus. As Spartacus is about to step forward, each of the slaves cries out, “I am Spartacus!” The Romans crucify them all except for Spartacus and Antoninus, lining the Appian Way with 6000 crucifixes.

Crassus takes Varinia and her new baby back to his home. He wants her affection, as the ultimate triumph over Spartacus. Spartacus and Antoninus are ordered to fight to the death, with the survivor to be crucified. Each tries to kill the other, to save him from the slow death of crucifixion. Spartacus is successful, killing Antoninus out of love and mercy, and then he is crucified. Before he dies, he is able to see Varinia and his son, now both free, thanks to Gracchus.

Discussion: This epic saga of the price of freedom is thrilling to watch, the struggles of conscience as gripping as the brilliantly staged battle scenes. When we first see Spartacus, he strikes out at an oppressor almost reflexively. He does not care that the consequence is death; as he later says, for a slave death is only a release from pain.

His life is spared when he is purchased by Biatius. His training as a gladiator gives him his first chance to form bonds with fellow slaves. His exposure to the guards and to the degenerate women from Rome, who insist on watching muscular men kill each other, shows him that power is not based on worth. When he shouts, “I am not an animal!” he is saying it to himself as much as to Biatius. When he strikes out again, he is armed not only with the fighting skills he has learned, but also with an ability to lead, founded in a new sense of entitlement to freedom.

The characters in this movie are especially vivid and interesting. Varinia has a wonderful grace and a rare humor, which adds warmth to her character. She is able to shield her emotional self from the abuse she is forced to endure without deadening her feelings. Gracchus conveys the essential decency of a man who has made many compromises, political and spiritual.

Both the author of the book and the screenwriter were blacklisted during the McCarthy era, and families should discuss how that influenced their approach to the story. Kids may also be interested to know that this was among the most popular movies show in the former Soviet Union, and should consider what it was that appealed to the communists.

Questions for Kids:

· Why was it important for the Romans to spread the rumor that Spartacus was of noble birth?

· What did Biatius mean when he said he had found his dignity? How was he changed?

· What did it mean when Gracchus responded that “dignity shortens life even more quickly than disease?”

· Why did Crassus say he was more concerned about killing the legend than killing the man?

· Why did each of the slaves claim to be Spartacus?

Connections: The movie cuts back and forth between the speeches given by Crassus and Spartacus to inspire their followers. Compare the speeches to each other, and to the most famous such speech in literature, Henry V’s “we few, we happy few” speech, delivered by Olivier (who also played Crassus) in the 1945 version of “Henry V,” and delivered with a very different interpretation by Kenneth Branagh in the 1989 version. The sense of community and loyalty of the slaves is reminiscient of similar scenes in “The Adventures of Robin Hood.”

This was the first screen credit for scriptwriter Dalton Trumbo after he was jailed for refusing to cooperate with Senater Joseph McCarthy’s House Committee on Un-American Activities, though he wrote under other names during that period, and even won two Oscars for best screenplay under other names.

Peter Ustinov won an Oscar for his performance as the slave dealer who runs the gladiator school. He is a rare actor who is able to keep his character as interesting after becoming (at least comparatively) virtuous as he was before.

All of the performances are outstanding. Jean Simmons can also be seein in “Guys and Dolls” and “Great Expectations.” Charles Laughton can be seen in “Witness for the Prosecution,” and “Advise and Consent.” The movie also won Oscars for art direction, costume design, and cinematography.

In 1991, an expanded version of the film was released, restoring scenes that had been cut for the original release, including a bathing scene with Cassus and Antoninus with an implication of sexual interest. Because the original soundtrack was not available and Olivier was dead, his voice was dubbed by Anthony Hopkins.

Activities: Kids who like this movie might enjoy the novel by Howard Fast, also the author of a novel about the American revolution, April Morning.

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Classic Drama Epic/Historical Tragedy