AFI # 90.5 The Jazz Singer (1927)

#90 on 1998 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time

I am sad to report that The Jazz Singer has not stood the test of time.  At least not for me.  I was so bored 30 minutes in that we had to turn it off.  Which means we didn't even get to the controversial parts.  Because we didn't watch the whole movie, we aren't going to rate it.  So, it will be added to the list as "unrated". 

Mike keeps asking me why I think that this movie hasn't stood the test of time, but that I want to watch Swing Time, which is next on the list.  And the answer is: I don't know, I haven't seen Swing Time yet.  So we'll watch it and then decide if Swing Time is also too boring.  Stay tuned...

AFI # 91: Sophie's Choice (1982)

#91 on 2007 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time

We actually watched this movie over a year ago.  And this post isn't going to be super long.  But it is no accident that this movie was the last thing we watched before taking a year long hiatus.  And it's no accident that I never added it to the blog before.  I had seen Sophie's Choice before, a couple of times.  I also had read the book in college.  Mike had not seen this movie before, but he kind of knew what the choice was going to be, because it's hard not to know just from living in our society.  But the movie is just so moving and beautiful and sad.  Kevin Kline and Meryl Streep are both so amazing.  So, we watched it, but then we didn't know how to talk about it on the internet or where to rate it on our list.  So we just never did. And all we really have to say is:

If you have never seen this movie, you need to see this movie.  

AFI # 91.5: My Fair Lady (1964)

#91 on 1998 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time

I saw this movie for the first time when I was a kid and I liked it.  There are some really great songs in this musical and wonderful set pieces.  But that's about it.  The movie as a whole makes very little sense and has no real ending.  It's not surprising that it didn't make it back on to the Top 100 list in 2007, because it really has not held up well over time.  If you think you like this movie, I challenge you to go back and watch it again, then make a list of what was good and what was bad and see what you come up with.  Because I thought I liked this movie, and then we watched it and it turns out, it was kind of terrible.  So here is my list:

Good:
The scene at Ascot
Eliza's father and his friends (especially their first song)
The costumes, mostly

Bad:
The lip synch, especially in "Get Me To The Church on Time"
Rex Harrison sing-talks all his songs
Eliza's response to everything for the first half of the movie is "EEEEAAAAAOOOOOWWWW"
All of a sudden, at 3:00am, Eliza magically learns how to speak perfectly and never falters again
They skip a few months during the course of a conversation, between Ascot and the ball
Freddie apparently stalks Eliza by hanging out on her street all the time, and then at the end of the movie, he's probably still just waiting for her in the cab; what is up with that?
There is no problem to solve and no resolution of the plot; which means there isn't an ending


So there it is.  We both put this at the bottom of our respectful lists and I have a feeling it's going to stay there.

AFI # 92: Goodfellas (1990)

#92 on 2007 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time
#94 on 1998 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time
#2 on AFI's Top 10 Gangster Films

What can I say about Goodfellas that you don't all already know.  It's a fantastic movie.  It has fantastic acting: Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta.  It has fantastic writing: "I'm funny how, like I'm a clown? I amuse you?" It has a fantastic soundtrack: Cream, The Rolling Stones, The Who.
It is completely entertaining from beginning to end.  The only complaint I have is that the real-life Henry Hill was an asshole and this movie makes you kind of like him.  But that's not a very big complaint.

Mike is also a fan of the soundtrack.  And he likes the longshot through the kitchen. 

But what else is there to say? We didn't really have any discussions beyond talking about how awesome it was... for example:

[Tommy shoots Billy Batts]
Me: He's crazy.
Mike: Yeah.
Me: This movie is awesome.

Or:

[Instead of getting made, Tommy gets dead]
Me: That was crazy.
Mike: Yeah.
Me: This movie is awesome.

Actually, now that I think about it, I think that Joe Pesci is the reason that this movie is so awesome.  He did win an Oscar for this performance, and I think it was completely deserved.  Because everytime I try to think of why this movie is awesome, it always comes back to Tommy... not Henry Hill.  Although I must say that Ray Liotta is very good looking and this is probably his best ever role.  But it's really all about Tommy, isn't it?  Anyway, it's also a great performance from Robert DeNiro, although I think there are a couple better ones further up the list.

So, since this movie is so awesome, we both put it at #1 on our lists.  Which makes it #1 overall.  For the time being.  I should mention that it is #1, not just for being ambiguously awesome, but for being a well directed, well acted movie with a fantastic soundtrack that happens to be wildly entertaining.  So that's the standard...

AFI # 92.5: A Place in the Sun (1951)

#92 on 1998 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time

I thought this movie was really boring.  I have never seen anything with Montgomery Clift, I thought he was fantastic.  Wasn't overly impressed with Elizabeth Taylor, I'm more looking forward to some of her other movies. I thought the trivia on IMDB was more interesting than the movie.  And I definitely want to see more Montgomery Clift movies.  But since I didn't love the movie, I will let Mike tell you what he thought...

Me: Mike, what did you think of  A Place in the Sun?
Mike: Which one was that?
Me: Where he maybe killed his girlfriend.  In the boat.
Mike: Right. Pleasantly surprising direction.  Impressed with whatshername... Elizabeth Taylor [heh].  She was better than I expected.  I liked the boat parallels to Godfather 2, twenty years later [what a guy thing to say]. 
Me: Anything else.
Mike: No.

Also, Mike looked up Montgomery Clift and regrets it.  Apparently his life was incredibly sad, so Mike has decided he does not want to see any more Montgomery Clift movies.  Mike is now telling me about Montgomery Clift's life... and it is really depressing.  But I still want to see more Montgomery Clift movies. 

Anyway, the current rankings, if you care to see them.  First, the overall, then the individuals...

	1. Do the Right Thing
	2. Pulp Fiction
	3. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
	4. Blade Runner
	5. The Last Picture Show
	6. The French Connection
	7. A Place in the Sun
	8. Toy Story
	9. Yankee Doodle Dandy
	10. Ben-Hur

	Mike			Sara
1	Do the Right Thing		1	Pulp Fiction
2	Guess Who's Coming to Dinner		2	Do the Right Thing
3	Pulp Fiction		3	Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
4	Blade Runner		4	The Last Picture Show
5	A Place in the Sun		5	Blade Runner
6	The French Connection		6	The French Connection
7	The Last Picture Show		7	Yankee Doodle Dandy
8	Toy Story		8	A  Place in the Sun
9	Ben-Hur		9	Toy Story
10	Yankee Doodle Dandy		10	Ben-Hur

AFI #93: The French Connection (1971)

#93 on 2007 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time
#70 on 1998 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time

So... The French Connection.  It's not a movie that I would have chosen to watch, which, as I think I've said before, is part of why we are watching the AFI list... but having watched it, I can't say that I would choose to watch it again.  It's not that it was a bad movie, because it's not bad... it's just that I don't know that it really stands the test of time.  I think the first clue of that is that in 1998, this was #70, and ten years later, it had fallen to #93.  I'm interested to see what happens when they do another version of this list a few years from now. 

What about The French Connection seems so dated?  The music, mostly.  But the other thing that makes it so dated, is exactly the reason that it is so important.  And that is because it created the gritty cop drama.  Which is now on television 7 days a week.  There were many moments in the film that felt like a Law and Order episode, especially the end, where they tell you what happened to all the characters.  It also occasionally felt like other procedurals or buddy cop movies.  But this was really one of the first.  And it won some major awards, and probably deserved them.  But now, after seeing this same thing so many times, and often done better (since techniques have certainly improved since 1971), it just wasn't that interesting.  And that's kind of all we talked about while watching this movie... Except for this:

[Credits are rolling at the beginning of the film]
Mike: Hey, Roy Scheider.  This must be his other film.
Me: You  mean besides All That Jazz?
Mike: Oh... no.  I meant besides Jaws.
Me: I'm sure that there are many more.
Mike: I'm going to check IMDB....
[Watching the movie]
Mike: 92.
Me: 92 what?
Mike: That's how many things Roy Scheider was in.

So, not that exciting.  But it's all I've got.  This movie just wasn't that thought-provoking or exciting to us.  I will add that it was apparently based on a true story.  We each put it below Blade Runner on our lists, leading to a discussion of the similarities between this movie and Blade Runner.  But, ultimately, Blade Runner is a more interesting movie. Man, I hope the next movie is more interesting...

AFI # 94: Pulp Fiction (1994)

#94 on 2007 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time
#95 on 1998 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time
#7 on AFI's Top 10 Gangster Films

There's a hurricane outside and we are home from work, so we figured it was a good enough time to watch the next movie on the list.  Which is Pulp Fiction.  This is the first movie on the list that both of us had seen before, which shouldn't be too surprising.  We were definitely looking forward to watching it again, since neither of us had seen it in quite some time.  Which means we had forgotten a number of things about the movie.  When I think of Pulp Fiction, I think of the Royale with Cheese conversation, and the robbery at the diner.  But it's been a long time and I had definitely forgotten many things.  So, here are the things we (mostly I) had forgotten about Pulp Fiction.

1. This is a really long movie.

We got the netflix envelope and opened it up.  "Great, it's Pulp Fiction... oh my God, did you realize that this is a two and a half hour movie?  Wow."

2. The $5 milkshake.

When Vincent Vega takes Mia Wallace to Jackrabbit Slim's (the restaurant where the waitstaff dress like Marilyn Monroe, etc. and they have the twist contest), Mia orders a milkshake.  More specifically, a $5 milkshake.  They then proceed to have this whole conversation about the milkshake and how Vincent Vega can't believe she ordered such an expensive milkshake.  Now, I'm assuming that my reaction is because twenty years have passed since this movie was made, but I just didn't think $5 sounded like it was that much for a milkshake.  For the record, I also had forgotten that Steve Buscemi played the waiter dressed as Buddy Holly.

3. Eric Stoltz is in this movie.

I had forgotten about a lot of people in this movie, like Amanda Plummer and Rosanna Arquette.  I definitely forgot about Eric Stoltz as Lance, the heroin dealer who explains how to stab Mia with the needle after she ODs. 

4. The watch up the ass.

How do you forget Christopher Walken talking about having a watch up his ass?  I didn't really forget about it, I just forgot that it was in this particular movie. 

5. The briefcase.

What is in the briefcase?  There are so many answers to this question and it spawned so many pseudo-philosophical questions when I was in high school and then in college.  A lot of people think it was Marcellus Wallace's soul, and there are lots of reasons for that.  Some people think it's the loot from Reservoir Dogs.  For the record, Quentin Tarantino has said that there is no actual official explanation, that it was written in so that people would come to their own conclusions.  However, I have to share that when we started watching the movie today, I asked Mike, what do you think is in the briefcase and he said "Keyser Soze's files from the Usual Suspects".  HA!

6. Marcellus Wallace is going to get "medieval on your ass".

I forgot about that line.  I did not forget about bringing out the gimp or the wonderful scene where Bruce Willis keeps picking up larger, more dangerous weapons.  But I forgot about how Marcellus is going to get medieval on Zed's ass.  And I remember how people would often spell it "midevil", as though he was going to do something in the middle range of evil things...

Overall, we enjoyed it a great deal.  We had a lot of difficulty figuring out where to put this on our list.  So we had to come up with a new method, whereby we each keep a separate list and then average it out.  So the combined list will still appear on the side, but I am going to put each individual list here in the post.  And here they are:

	Mike			Sara
1	Do the Right Thing		1	Pulp Fiction
2	Guess Who's Coming to Dinner		2	Do the Right Thing
3	Pulp Fiction		3	Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
4	Blade Runner		4	The Last Picture Show
5	The Last Picture Show		5	Blade Runner
6	Toy Story		6	Yankee Doodle Dandy
7	Ben-Hur		7	Toy Story
8	Yankee Doodle Dandy		8	Ben-Hur

AFI #95: The Last Picture Show (1971)

#95 on 2007 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time

So, first I will say, we took a bit of a break there in between movies.  Which is inevitable this time of year with all the fall TV starting and catching up on our TV on DVD.  Plus this is an election year, and I am an active member of my political party, which means even less time for movie watching.  So, we finally got through our backlog of TV shows and the election is almost here, so I only have  a few days of campaign volunteering left, which means it's time to get back to our list.  But let's not pretend that we are going to get through these movies quickly.  I'll be happy if we can get through all 100+ movies by the end of 2017.  By which point, there will probably be a new list to add in, and we will have to add some movies to the list.  This is not a short term project...

But, enough babble, let's talk about the movie at hand.  When we saw this movie on the list, neither of us had any idea what it was, since it was made before we were both born.  If I had to guess, I would maybe have said it was probably about Hollywood or the entertainment industry.  I also had never heard of the book it is based on, by Larry McMurtry.  Which shouldn't surprise anyone since, even though I'm pretty well read, I don't like westerns and my primary experience with Larry McMurtry is Lonesome Dove. This particular story is not a western, though.  It is instead a story about a small Texas town during the 1950s.  It was shot entirely in black and white, apparently on the advice of Orson Welles (fascinating, right!).  And it involves a surprising amount of full frontal nudity.  But there's a reason for that.  The movie industry had recently decided to abandon the Hayes Code and move to a ratings system (which we still have).  Which meant that there was a lot of nudity going on in the movies around that time.

This is also the movie that launched the careers of Cybill Shepherd and Randy Quaid.  It also resulted in acting Oscars for Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman and a bunch of other Oscar nominations.  So, cleary, the film industry loved this movie.  Did we love this movie?  Not really.  We didn't hate it either.  But I just wonder if it has really stood the test of time.  I didn't really identify with any of the characters and I thought that the plot was sort of boring.  But the movie was watchable and the acting was good.  So, other than the nudity and the Wow! look how young Jeff Bridges is! moments, it was just kind of okay.  So, we decided to place this at the current #4 on our list, which currently looks like this:

1. Do The Right Thing (1989)
2. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
3. Blade Runner (1982)
4. The Last Picture Show (1971)
5. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
6. Toy Story (1995)
7. Ben-Hur (1959)

AFI #96: Do The Right Thing (1989)

#96 on 2007 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time

This movie came out when I was 11 and Mike was 9.  Therefore, we had each seen various portions of the movie, but couldn't actually remember the whole thing.  I wasn't particularly looking forward to it, because I often find Spike Lee movies boring (except Inside Man, which was awesome).  Mike was looking forward to it, because he likes Spike Lee more than I do.  We were both pleasantly surprised.  This was a great movie.  I'm sure that is why it is on the list, but it was really a lot better than I thought it was. 

If you don't know, Do The Right Thing is about a really hot day in Bed-Stuy, focusing on racial tensions.  What did I love about it?  Mostly that it wasn't trying to talk about a solution or about how things should be, but instead was just showing things as they are (or at least how they were in 1989).  What makes this movie great is that it throws it in your face. Here's some racism. It's ugly and uncomfortable racism.  The movie doesn't try to tell us that it's wrong, it relies on our ability to understand that calling people these words and acting this way is wrong.  It doesn't tell us what we should do, it relies on us to know what we should do.  I guess I just like that it isn't trying to preach, it's trying to illuminate.  That's what makes it successful.  Are things better today?  I have no idea.  I'm sure that there are plenty of people that would say they are not, and they may not be.  We certainly still have racism in the U.S., and with all the mass shootings lately, we have plenty of violence to go with it.  Which means that this movie is still very relevant, even though it's over 20 years old.

I would also like to point out that when we saw "a Spike Lee joint" come up on the screen, we both went "wow, this was before people knew who Spike Lee was." Which is an interesting conversation on its own, and thinking about the 80s and what we didn't know then is always fun. I will also say that there is a conversation in the film about whether Dwight Gooden or Roger Clemens is better, which I found enjoyable, considering we have the benefit of knowing what happened for each ballplayer since the movie was released. Also, there is a lot of Public Enemy going on here. When is the last time you heard Public Enemy?

And speaking of it being over 20 years old and things that have changed, this movie had some young actors, before their careers took off.  It has Samuel L. Jackson (as Sam Jackson), it was Martin Lawrence's first movie, it introduced Rosie Perez.  There's John Savage (who I love), Danny Aeillo, and Giancarlo Esposito.  Our favorite performance was certainly John Turturro.  I think we can all agree that he's one of the top 5 character actors out there, and his performance in this movie is brilliant, especially when you look at which scenes were improvised.  Now we need to watch some more movies with John Turturro.  This movie is a great example of why we are watching the movies on this list.  Because this is not something we would have chosen on our own, but we enjoyed it immensely and it was definitely worth seeing.  For now, it will be taking over the top spot on our list. 

AFI #97: Blade Runner (1982)

#97 on 2007 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time
#6 on AFI's Top 10 Science Fiction  Films

Can you believe that neither of us had ever seen this movie?  I know that we seem like we've seen a lot of cult scifi movies from the 80s, and we have, but for whatever reason, this is not one of them.  And now, having seen it, I can't say that's such a bad thing.  Now, don't get me wrong, I didn't dislike the movie.  But I also didn't love it enough to want to watch it over and over again the way I would with, say, Highlander.  So, let's talk about watching the movie (and a good example of why we like watching movies together, but why a lot of you who don't like people talking would hate watching a movie with us).

[Opening credits roll.  Stage is set in Los Angeles, 2019.]

Me: Wow, that is only seven years from now.  So, we should have already created replicants by now...  I guess, it's not going to happen then.
Mike: I bet Apple creates the cybernetic organisms that kill us all.  Apple is Skynet.
Me: So true.

[Conversation ensues about how awesome Terminator 3 was for finally just letting judgment day happen instead of pushing it back again.  Harrison Ford's voiceover starts, distracting us from our unrelated conversation.]

Me: Is one of the complaints about this movie about that voiceover?  It's terrible.
Mike: [looks at IMDB on his phone] Dustin Hoffman was originally supposed to play Deckard.
Me: Really? Weird.
Mike: Apparently he didn't get the macho character.
Me: I am enjoying this vision of the future where the Japanese have taken over.
Mike: Yeah, we did used to think that.
Me: But it didn't actually happen.  I was reading an article the other day about a Japanese company asking its employees to work in English so that they could compete in a global marketplace and how many Japanese people think that English is too hard.  It's interesting that they think our language is hard and we think theirs is hard. They're just really different.  Oh, weird. [attention goes back to the movie where we see the creepy owls for the first time]

[Continues for next two hours]

So, now that we have enjoyed our little taste of movie watching in our house, let's just say that we enjoyed Blade Runner, but mostly we enjoyed talking about science in fiction in general while watching Blade Runner.  We liked the film noir aspects of the movie and Rutger Hauer was pretty awesome.  Especially at the end when he was running around in his underwear making strange noises.  The voiceover was pretty bad, but it made it more noir.  Harrison Ford seemed really stiff to me, but I can see it if we are supposed to wonder whether he is a replicant.  I didn't care for the ending, but I will add, because Mike was so proud of this, that he totally recognized the shots at the end as being the same as the Shining.  As soon as he said it, he went to IMDB, and sure enough, the ending title sequence had unused shots from the Shining. 

Would I watch Blade Runner again?  Sure.  If it were on Saturday afternoon TV, I would certainly leave it on.  Would I rent it again?  Probably not.  Here's the thing... we didn't see this movie in the 80s, so we don't have any nostalgia related to it.  And it's vision of the future was interesting, but obviously not correct, and it is so close, that it just really seems very make believe.  This is why Star Trek is so far in the future.  And why Star Wars is in the past.  So that people can't say, wait, that should have happened by now.  I think the only reason Terminator was successful with their dates being closer is that they kept pushing Judgment Day back and didn't have it actually happen until the third movie, when we were all comfortable with the world in the movies.  They also didn't have everyone speaking some weird mix of English/Japanese/Spanish in a wasteland Los Angeles later this decade.  Of course, it was 35-40 years in the future when they were making it, but that's why some SciFi movies just don't stand the test of time.  I would posit that this movie does not stand the test of time.  But it was fun, I can see why people like it so much, I'm sure that I would have if I had seen it in the 80s.  We have put it into the #2 spot for now, just below Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

AFI #98: Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

#98 on 2007 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time
#100 on 1998 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time

We didn't know much about this movie before we watched it.  Turns out it is a musical biopic about the life of George M. Cohan.  I have heard his songs, but I can't say that I knew a whole lot about George M. Cohan. Here is his wikipedia page.  The movie made a few changes to his life, most notably, cutting out his first wife and all four of his children.  Instead, it focused on him and his patriotic achievements, especially his congressional medal of honor. 

Did we enjoy it?  Well, I enjoyed it.  I love old movie musicals and these are some of the greatest songs ever written.  Of course, I didn't love some of the singing, because the talk-singing style that was popular at that time has always kind of annoyed me.  But it was fun.  I especially enjoyed the "Give My Regards to Broadway" scene, which was from Little Johnny Jones.  And also the song "Off the Record" from I'd Rather Be Right, which is a musical about FDR.  I had never heard of that musical, but how exciting is that?  There is a musical where FDR is a singing, dancing president.  Of course, it's a Rogers and Hart musical, and those can be pretty bad.  But it looks fun.

Mike, didn't enjoy the movie as much as I did.  He thought it was okay, and he agreed with where we should put it on our overall list; above Ben Hur and Toy Story, but below Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.  I imagine that most of the coming movies will go above this one, though.  And speaking of rankings, I have no idea how the AFI people ranked all of these movies.  How do you compare a movie musical from 1942 against an animated movie from 1995?  And there will be mysteries and comedies and dramas and tearjerkers and thrillers and epics.  How exactly is this going to work?  Not only that, but we are ranking them together, so we have to agree on where everything goes.  I think we're just trying to put it in order based on how enjoyable each movie is and whether we would want to watch it again. But I guarantee you that somewhere along the way we are going to come up against some movie that we can't agree on where to put it...  and then we'll probably have to average it or something.  Anyway, if you like old movie musicals and you've never seen this movie, check it out!

AFI #99: Toy Story (1995)

#99 on 2007 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time
#6 on AFI's Top 10 Animated Films

The next movie on the AFI list: Toy Story.  I wasn't really looking forward to this one all that much, because I'm not really into animated movies anymore.  Mike, on the other hand, had never seen it.  I have no idea how he never saw Toy Story, but it was in the theaters when he was a freshman in high school, so I could see how it wouldn't have been a cool movie to go to.  Anyway, he had never seen it, which I didn't figure out until almost the end of the movie, when he said "oh, that's interesting" and I realized that he didn't know what was going to happen. 

I don't have a whole lot to say about it.  It's a pretty great children's movie.  It's very clever.  I'm pretty sure it changed animated movies as we know them.  But I'm just not that into animated movies anymore, so, while it was entertaining, it just didn't cause much conversation.

We then had to decide where this should go on our list.  I, personally, would have put it at the end, but Mike wanted to put it  ahead of Ben-Hur, just based on entertainment value.  And I can go for that, so that's what we did.  But I don't think this movie is going to be moving very far up our list.

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. 

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.