AFI #99.5 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)

#99 on 1998 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time

So this movie was on the original list, but removed from the list in 2007.  But we are watching them all (well, there will be a few exceptions, but that is down the road a bit).  Anyway, neither of us had seen this movie before. Mike was excited about Sidney Poitier, who he has only ever seen before in Sneakers and one other movie, neither of which are the movies Sidney Poitier is famous for.  I would like to take this moment to point out that Sidney Poitier was in The Jackal, and my friend Jared and I used to watch that movie all the time.  The only bad thing about The Jackal is Richard Gere’s Irish accent, but the rest of that movie is kickass.  But, back to this movie…

As I said, Mike was excited about Poitier, but not so excited about Katharine Hepburn.  Mike is not a fan of Ms. Hepburn.  He used to not be a fan of Lawrence Olivier, but then we watched Rebecca, and he started to get over it.  Since then, I’ve been trying to find a Katharine Hepburn movie that will help him like her more, but so far it’s been a no go.  Although, she is in a number of movies on the AFI list, so maybe one of them will change his mind.  Spencer Tracy is also in this movie, and about halfway through the movie, Mike sat up and went “oh, that’s Spencer Tracy!” 

So, most of you know what this movie is about because it’s pretty famous and because they did a terrible remake a number of years ago with Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher.  But this movie was a pretty big deal.  The plot, basically, is that a rich white girl brings her fiancé home to meet her parents, and he is an African-american.  Of course, he is also a well-respected medical doctor who went to Yale and is famous for being great.  I understand that they needed to make the character easier for white audiences to accept, but the one thing that really bothered me about it, and maybe this is a sign of changing times, is that he was 37 and she was 23.  That’s a pretty sizable age gap.  What can a 37 year old respected doctor possible have in common with a 23 year old girl fresh out of college?  It seriously bothers me.

So, they come home and are going to get married, and both sets of parents have to come to grips with how the world is changing, and how difficult the young couple’s life will be and how hard it will be for their children.  But, seriously, no one thinks about the 14 year age difference, because apparently that was no big deal.  I will say that Sidney Poitier gives a wonderful performance showing his discomfort with the situation.  However, he and Katharine Houghton have absolutely no chemistry whatsoever.  I found it very hard to believe that they were in love.  The most believable relationship in the movie is between Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, but that shouldn’t be a surprise.  The mother-daughter relationship is also very believable, but Katharine Houghton is Katharine Hepburn’s niece, so that’s not all that surprising either.  I wish they had found someone Katharine Houghton could have actually been in love with, and maybe that chemistry would have been better. 

Rock of Ages (2012)

I have been looking forward to Rock of Ages.  I saw the musical when it was on tour, with Constantine Maroulis, of course. I'm not ashamed to say that I loved him on American Idol and was very excited to see him on stage.  I was also looking forward to the movie because it was directed by the beautiful and wonderful Adam Shankman.  And choreographed by Mia Michaels!  How can that not be great.  Mike, however, was not super excited, he was just kind of there because he'll go see anything in the theater with me.  And there was nothing else coming out today. 

It started out a little slow for me, and it was clear pretty early on that they were throwing half the musical out the window, which is fine, but they did cut my favorite subplot.  Anyway, Tom Cruise was pretty great as Stacee Jaxx.  He really gave the character depth and made him interesting and sympathetic.  They should have just thrown the rest of the musical out the window, based the movie on it and made the whole thing about Stacee Jaxx.  Because Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta were okay, but Tom Cruise is the reason I would watch the movie again.  There was also a great scene towards the end with a bunch of 80s hair band rockers (and Debbie Gibson, of course) singing "We Built This City", which was clever.  There was also a Constantine Maroulis cameo, which was nice.  But the real magic was brought by Tom Cruise. 

Now, I make it no secret that I love Tom Cruise.  I don't care if he's a scientologist, or if he's secretly gay, or whatever it is that is going around.  He's good at acting.  He's also incredibly good looking and he keeps his body in fantastic shape.  So, I always enjoy watching him in movies.  And this was no different.  I hope he gets nominated for something.  He won't get an Oscar nod for it, it wasn't that great.  But maybe a golden globe nod in the comedy category.  I could see that.  Definitely some sort of MVP award, because without him, this movie would have been terrible.  Also, Malin Ackerman was pretty special.  She definitely pulled her weight. 

This has been an incredibly terrible post.  And I would love to write something more coherent and readable, but the pizza's here, I'm hungry, and nobody reads my blog anyway, so whatever.  If you didn't see the musical, or you hate 80s hair bands, or you can't stand Tom Cruise, don't see this movie. 

John Mayer: Born and Raised

I have never really listened to John Mayer before.  Not because of any opinions about what he may be like as a person.  I do have opinions about that, but I try not to let those opinions get in the way of making objective decisions about the music. Really, I had just never heard a John Mayer song that made me want to run out and buy an album.  Now, I love music.  I listen to a lot of music. I buy a lot of music. 

Earlier this year fun. released their album "Some Nights."  It's amazing.  When I hear a great song, it feels almost like the music is filling a piece of me that I didn't know was missing.  Every song on fun.'s album (except one) was spectacular.  I listened to it every day, sometimes multiple times.  Then I started listening to some others, like Bruno Mars's Doowops and Hooligans, I listened to the Script, some All-American Rejects, a little Gotye.  Then I heard "Shadow Days" on the radio.  It was good.  I've never owned a John Mayer album, but just from this one song, I ran home and pre-ordered the cd.  Then I listened to the whole album... and it was amazing.  Maybe more amazing than "Some Nights", certainly very different.  Definitely filled up that piece of me that only a great song can fill.  Now I listen to this album every day.  Every day a new song strikes me.  Today it was "Something Like Olivia".  I just can't get enough of this thing. 

From what I understand, this is somewhat of a new sound for John Mayer.  I'm still not all that interested in his other music.  But this is beautiful stuff.  Now, I know that in a week or two, I'll be listening to something else.  Maybe I'll go back to the Gotye, or I'll spend some more time with the Script. But for now, it's the only thing I want to listen to.

AFI #100: Ben-Hur (1959)

#100 on 2007 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time
#72 on 1998 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time
#2 on AFI's Top 10 Epics

This is a really long movie.  Which, I suppose, is why it's considered an epic.  We had to watch it over the course of two days, because we just ran out of time on the first day.  But don't think that it was because we weren't enjoying the movie.  I'm not going to recap it, because I'm sure you  have either seen it or can go read the plot summaries on other websites.  I am, however, going to talk about it as though you have seen it.  So, if you don't like spoilers, you might not want to continue...

For the record, I had never seen Ben-Hur before; Mike had seen parts of it, but isn't sure if he had seen the whole thing.  So, we sat down to watch and were immediately confronted with... the six and a half minute overture.  Which led to a conversation about why we don't see overtures in movies anymore.  Maybe it's because they were being more theatrical at a time when people saw movies in movie theaters and didn't have blu-ray players, or even VCRs or cable tv.  Or maybe it was just a time when people would be running to the restroom or getting popcorn, or talking amongst themselves.  Except, people were supposedly much better behaved back then.  After having sat through overtures at various performances at the Kennedy Center, I am convinced that people today would all be checking their phones during an overture at a movie theater.  Anyway, the overture was lovely.  We listened to the music and stared at Adam and God's hands, and then we were told that this was "A Tale of the Christ". 

I have to admit that, even though this is a super famous movie, and I've heard of it and knew certain things about it, I had no idea it was about Christ.  I thought it was about a guy named Ben-Hur.  Which it is, of course, but it is also occasionally about Jesus.  I have nothing against Jesus, and I must say that I probably like this the best of all the religious movies I have seen to date.  But I am an atheist and I tend to steer clear of religious movies.  On a semi-related note, this movie was directed by William Wyler, of whom I am a big fan.  William Wyler, of course, was Jewish.  According to imdb, he often joked that it took a Jew to make the ultimate film about Jesus.  Add this to the reasons William Wyler is on my list of dead people I would invite to dinner.

After the overtures and title cards, Jesus is born and there are wise men and lowing cows, etc.  At this point, I was a little worried.  But then we movied on to Jerusalem and the arrival of Messala, and things started looking up.  I was very impressed by Charlton Heston, which I don't think I could even name another movie I've seen him in.  Until Mike said Planet of the Apes, I didn't even think of that, and to be honest, it's been so long since I've seen the original Planet of the Apes that I'm not sure it should count.  Heston had a great voice.  And he wasn't bad looking.  I know that people get on his acting a bit, but it doesn't bother me.  I also really enjoyed the gentleman playing Messala, who we looked up on imdb and we couldn't find a single other movie we'd seen him in.  Which led to the conversation about how every actor probably wants to be in just one movie like this, that will survive.  Otherwise, you're only in stuff that will be forgotten in fifty years.  Like, for example, Katherine Heigl.  Do you think we'll still be watching 27 Dresses or One For the Money in 50 years?  Doubtful.  So, Stephen Boyd, who played Messala, will live on forever in this movie.  Which I think is really cool.

There is a point in the movie where Judah Ben-Hur returns home and is looking for his mother and sister, and then it turns out that they are lepers.  Coincidentally, I had just read a short story about a leper colony (in Lysley Tenorio's Monstress, which I highly recommend) and so we looked up leprosy.  What a fascinating subject.  It is not nearly as infectious as people believe, 95% of people are naturally immune, and it can be spread by armadillos.  That was a very interesting tangent, but then we were back to the movie, except that it was intermission and we had to stop for the day, because Mike had to get ready for his hockey game and I had excel spreadsheets to play with.  And a graded practice essay to write for my barbri class that I'm taking.

After a good night's sleep and a very long day of work, we put in disc two.  Which started with an entre-acte that was prettty similar to, but slightly shorter than, the overture.  So, we got back to Ben-Hur and its famous chariot race.  Which I'm not so sure why people think it's so great.  It is certainly impressive considering that they didn't have CGI back then, but I'm not a huge car chase fan, so maybe that's why I'm not that in to this.  Of course, I also knew that Messala was going to get trampled, so it may have just been anticlimactic.  What I should really be saying here is that we both enjoyed the first part a great deal more than the second part.  After Messala died, it just got kind of boring.  They spent all that time in the Valley of the Lepers, but we had already discussed leprosy, so it was just kind of hokey.  Especially when they got healed by .... well, whatever it is that healed them.  Mike thinks it was baptism that healed them.  I think it was magical rainwater with Jesus's blood in it.  Either way, it was the first part of the movie that somewhat offended my atheist sensibilities.  And then it was over.  Oh, but not until after we learned that the voice of Jesus took the proverbial sword from Judah's hand.  Sigh.  It was really a great movie until it got all religious at the end there. 

So, there it was.  The famous Ben-Hur.  For now, it is the only movie on the list, so it is clearly our Number One!  But I doubt it will stay there for long.

AFI 100 Years, 100 Movies Project

As mentioned in my last post, Mike and I are going to embark on the AFI's Top 100 Greatest Movies of all time, and I imagine I will talk about many of those movies on this blog. But, first I thought I would give some background. In case anyone is interested. So, here's what happened...

We were in the living room and we had just finished watching an episode of something on the DVR. As we switched to live TV, the beginning of Close Encounters of the Third Kind came on.

Me: I haven't seen this movie in years.

Mike: Me neither.

Me: It's really good. Who is that guy?

Mike: I don't remember. (Pulls out his phone to look him up on IMDB. Mike's phone exists solely to look people up on IMDB. I'm pretty sure he looks something up on IMDB about fifty times a day)

Me: We should put this on our netflix queue.

At which point I got up to go mess around with the netflix queue and we turned off the television. So, I'm looking at Close Encounters, and I think, how many other old movies have we not seen in a while that we really like. At the same time, the netflix queue is looking a bit low, and we haven't come up with a new theme for movies to watch since we finished all the James Bond, and then worked our way through a couple tv shows, which we are now almost finished with. So I google Close Encounters, which just so happens to be one the AFI's 100 Years, 100 Movies list of the greatest American movies of all times. That's where the light bulb went off and I yelled into the other room and said "we should do this!" and Mike agreed and plans were made.

But then this happened. I am what is known as an excel spreadsheet junkie. My life is ruled by a series of excel spreadsheets. I use them for everything. Budget, book lists, logic puzzle solutions, to-do lists, preparations for vacation, football stats. Anything that can be done with an excel spreadsheet, I will do it that way. So, of course, I needed one for the AFI movies. So,I pulled up the actual list of 100 movies on the AFI website, but that didn't want to copy/paste into an excel spreadsheet. So I try wikipedia, because wikipedia always goes nicely into excel. And what did I find, but two! different lists. Why? Well, the AFI first released their list of 100 years, 100 movies in 1998. But then, in 2007, they decided to do a 10th Anniversary Edition, with the order rearranged and some new movies added. So I called Mike into the room and we looked at the lists. And we had a problem. Because there were movies on each list that we wanted to see, that weren't on the other list. So, what to do? Combine them, of course! So I put both lists in excel, and then I combined them. We are going to watch the movies based on their 2007 rank. But, if a movie was ranked in 1998, but then left off the list in 2007, we are going to watch it with the similarly ranked 2007 movie. I know, it's dorky. And then we decided to start at 100 and move up to 1.  We ended up with a list of 123 movies. 

Now, I'm not going to get into the criticism of the list, because I don't really care about that. We're not watching these movies as film students. I don't care if they are in the correct order or if there are other greater movies out there or if some of them are technically british movies instead of american ones. I just want to watch the movies because a bunch of people who know about movies agreed that they are all really good. I have seen a number of them. Mike has seen a number of them. We have both not seen a number of them. What makes it fun is watching them together and then talking about whether we liked them or if they should be ranked so high and all that blah-de-blah. I think it's going to be awesome. It's also, probably, going to take over 2 years. Because we don't have time to watch more than one a week. Will we finish this project? I guess it will depend on whether we are enjoying the movies. I think we will enjoy the movies.  Now, I'm not going to list them here... if you really want to know, you can go look at the wikipedia list above.  And I'll keep a list as we go through of our ranking of the movies... I bet you can't wait!  So, there it is.  The AFI 100 (+23) starts now.

The Inevitable "First Post"

I like to blog, but I don't really have the time to create something fancy or update it all the time.  And frankly, no one but me really cares about what I have to say.  But the internet is big, and there is certainly room for one more person to store thoughts and ideas, mostly about the tv shows, movies, and books that I consume.  I don't plan to talk a lot about my personal life, and I won't talk about my professional life at all, because that always feels a little unethical, what with lawyer-client confidentiality and this being the internet.  But I am hoping that it will appease my human need to scream my ideas out into the world and see what bounces back.  Probably very little.  Except for my friend Trish, who will probably be my first, and most loyal reader.

So, a little about what's going on, just to place us in the scene. I am in my mid-thirties, and I work as an attorney in Northern Virginia, aka NOVA, aka Washington DC metro area.  I am in the midst of studying for my third bar exam, so that I can add another jurisdiction to the three I am already licensed in.  This takes up a lot of my free time.  My boyfriend is also an attorney.  Feel free to sing that horrible "Lawyers in Love" song if the mood strikes you...

We like to watch movies, and have Netflix, but we go to see so many movies in the theater, and so many tv shows when they are actually on tv, that we never know what to watch.  So we end up doing themes.  Our last theme was James Bond, which was both enjoyable and educational.  We are about to embark on our latest theme, which is the AFI Top 100.  Which lots of people have done, and even blogged about.  And the idea of doing that even inspired me to create this blog.  But this blog is not going to be just about our watching the AFI Top 100.  It's also going to be about the other things that we do and watch and read.  An exercise in navel-gazing to be sure, but isn't that what most blogs are?  It's really just a place for me to write about these things.  And it will serve 2 purposes.  First, it will give me a place to exercise my writing, which I never get enough time to do.  I do plenty of legal writing, but not that is very different.  Second, it will give me a place for my friends to leave me comments, since facebook is clearly not working enough on that score.  So here we are.  The beginning of the blog.  Maybe I'll stop posting in three weeks.  Or maybe it will go on for three years.  Such anticipation!