It's Always Fair Weather

It's Always Fair Weather doesn't have many memorable songs, but it has several memorable numbers. Dolores Gray has a great number, Cyd Charisse, of course, has an exquisite boxing number, and Gene Kelly tap-dances on roller skates. This one, especially, is just inspired. Oh! And the opening number, with Kelly, Dan Dailey, and Michael Kidd, is also just so excellent. This is filled with action-comic choreography and great dancing. I enjoyed this immensely.

The Little Prince (1974)

The Little Prince is actually quite a charming movie musical. I loved the Lerner and Loewe songs. This is in spite of the fact that the Bob Fosse number is super weird and I've never really liked Gene Wilder. But all of the stuff with Richard Kiley and the boy is pretty great, and I liked the Donna McKechnie stuff, as well. And this film was orchestrated by Angela Morley, which is fun, even if Loewe, apparently, refused to go oversee the orchestration because he was unhappy with the studio at the moment. Drama.

Charade (1963)

So... this is weird. I watched Stanley Donen's 1963 film Charade late last night, and I was delighted by the whole thing. The screenplay by Peter Stone, especially, is very, very good. It is witty and very clever, and there are a great many twists and turns. But the whole thing is played for laughs, even though it is a Hitchcockian-style thriller.

Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn are an absolute delight, and Walter Matthau and Jacques Marin round out the hilarity.

The strange part is that I've seen this movie before. In May of 2011, to be precise. But I didn't remember having seen it last night (or I wouldn't have (re)watched it), and there were several parts that I feel certain I hadn't seen before.

Either way, my pleasure at seeing it (apparently) again was undiminished, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself once again. 

Two for the Road (1967)

Two for the Road is a very cleverly told tale about a relationship and three (or four?) different trips through the south of France taken by a couple at different times. The editing is smart, and the script keeps all of these balls in the air in smart ways.

The central question of the film, however, is this romantic relationship: will they divorce? Will they stay together? Will they murder each other? To be honest, by the film's second act, I had already started, rather, to dislike the two of them, and didn't care if they stayed together or not.

Silence and the Artist

The Artist is a gimmick. And I think it's going to win Best Picture, or rather, I should say that I hope it wins Best Picture, because if it is a gimmick (and it is) it is the most clever gimmick I've seen in years.

See, The Artist is a silent film. It's made in black and white and also in the old 1:37 aspect ratio. There is a gorgeous Old Hollywood score undergirding the whole thing (just like silent pictures of old) but we don't actually get to hear the actors (Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell) actually speak.

And it works. It works like gangbusters. Of course, silent movies worked too, and many of them still work, a fact to which anyone who has seen Sunrise or 7th Heaven or The Gold Rush can attest. The Artist is delightful: movie magic from start to finish, drawing particular attention to an aspect of the cinema that is not given a lot of attention on its own (think of how very much we always comment on camerawork, or editing, or acting, and how little on the audio in a movie!).

Ludovic Bource, who scored the film, has, as far as I can tell, never scored anything this enormous, but his music is great: instantly hummable, was nominated for a Golden Globe, and seems destined to be nominated for Best Original Score come January.

The acting in this movie is also wonderful. It is impossible not to fall in love with Dujardin and Bejo. They're simply the most lovable pair I can think of. Dujardin in particular has such a charismatic way about him that it is hard for me to imagine anyone else achieving anything anywhere near what he does in this role. I was in love with him within the film's first ten minutes. He's simply astounding.

The film is indebted, of course, to Singin' in the Rain – any film about the transition from silents to talkies is bound to be – and the plot is heavily dependent on the iconic plot of A Star Is Born, but none of that matters in The Artist. If it's derivative, it puts such an original twist on its source material that I didn't mind one bit. Instead, I went along for the ride, mesmerized by the audacious filmmaking, the sheer cleverness, and the sheer magic up on that screen.

(Just as a sidenote, I can't help but think of last year's silent film, The Illusionist, and how much I absolutely loved it. And, as you can probably tell, The Artist is also (as people are so fond of saying) a love letter to the movies, but Michel Hazanavicius's love letter is so much more interesting than Scorsese's. (I know, I know. I should leave Marty alone. I'll stop now.))

Holiday

I haven't been to work in what seems like forever. I haven't been sleeping in my own bed, either, though all will go back to normal tomorrow morning when I wake up for work. I was in Monument, Colorado for Christmas where it didn't snow at all--though it was fucking freezing cold, and I was in Big Bear Lake, California for New Year's Eve where it snowed on the way out of town (luckily). I had never seen it snow before.

The sun is out here, now, after days of gloom and rain. I might even go visit my friend up in Valencia this afternoon. (A cloud just covered the sun.)

Back from Colorado, I have been watching movies like mad... making up for lost time. I'm behind in my viewing now: this is what I get for missing a week of movie-watching. I watched only one movie in Colorado, and that one was from 1951. (If you haven't seen Royal Wedding, Astaire dances on the ceiling, Jane Powell performs brilliantly in a New York-style dance number, and Peter Lawford looks extremely cute, but it doesn't have much else going for it.)

Capsule reviews of the movies I've seen since my return from CO:
The White Countess I found kind of disappointing. Like all Merchant-Ivory pictures, I suppose it will improve with more viewings, but this film has a few troubles: mostly script problems. It looks gorgeous and is quietly moving, like most of Ivory's films, but it isn't quite as subtle as it ought to be. Madeleine Potter gives a superior performance.
Crash is all about racism. Racism, racism, racism. Everyone, in case you were unaware, is racist, and justice, in case you were confused, is impossible to achieve. The best scene in the film is a scene between good cop Ryan Philippe and hopelessly corrupt cop Keith David, where the older, black officer and the young idealist white officer conspire to keep bigoted officer Matt Dillon in a position of power. This film is irresponsible and silly, not to mention unapologetically sympathetic to a whole cadre of odious, unsympathetic characters.
Casanova is unabashedly silly and totally fun. It loses its initial cleverness about halfway through, but remains somewhat witty. The whole thing is ridiculous, but I thought it was fun. Plus I'm in love with Heath Ledger now. (There isn't anywhere near the amount of nudity there ought to have been in the picture, unfortunately.)
Transamerica sucked. It could've been a good road picture and it could have been a poignant father-son saga. It's neither. Felicity Huffman is occasionally believable as a transgender woman, but this film is terrible. The script is a total mess. None of the characters' motives make the least bit of sense and the non-resolution is utterly ludicrous. Fionnula Flanagan is terrible beyond words as Bree's scenery-chewing mother.
The Ballad of Jack and Rose is an exquisite little gem of a film about late-sixties idealism and the legacy this movement passed on to its children. Camilla Belle is extraordinary, Catherine Keener does her usual superb and dependable supporting work and Daniel Day-Lewis gives a raw, heartbreaking performance. The photography is breathtaking. It's a wonderful portrait of an idyll in turmoil and (perhaps) the end of an era. I liked it enormously.

Still in the Netflix queue from 2005:
The Beautiful Country, Tropical Malady, Yes, Kings and Queen, Hustle & Flow, My Summer of Love, Saraband, Happy Endings, The Girl from Monday, 5X2, Head-on, Fear and Trembling, War of the Worlds

Still to see in theatres from 2005 (i.e. call me if you want to catch a flick one night this week, as I will be going to see one every night):
Munich, Match Point, Caché, The New World, The Producers, The Libertine

XO

Happy New Year
Aaron