1972: Movies Sorted By Tier
Submitted by jim on Wed, 10/06/2004 - 11:20
Tags:
Loved
Deliverance
What's Up, Doc?
Really Liked
Cabaret
... Great music! I particularly liked that "Money money money" number. I always find it interesting to see how musicals work the music in. Do you just have seemingly ordinary folks inexplicably burst into song, or is there some kind of mechanic to make such outbursts reasonable? I used to need such a mechanic, but I find it matters less to me as I get older (although I'm sure I'd find somebody just bursting into song in real life quite unnerving (especially if the rest of the crowd joined in singing chorus)). Anyway, I wasn't really expecting a straight separation in Cabaret, where the music is confined to the stage, but that's what I got and it worked very well, especially as Liza Minelli's character's showy stage personality seemed to bleed into her everyday life. A very interesting movie that I'm guessing would grow on me with subsequent viewings. Oh, Vicky saw it years ago and is still apparently creeped out by the emcee. When I told her what was in the return Netflix envelope she shuddered and said, "ooo, Joel Grey..."The Godfather
Sleuth
... I saw this as a teenager, and it's still relatively fresh in my mind as one of the more interesting twisty movies I've seen. Caine and Olivier were terrific. I've always thought of Olivier as too stagey for me, but he was great here and in Marathon Man, so I probably need to dispel that prejudice from my mind.Glad I Saw
The Getaway
... While it's always fun to watch Steve McQueen, this was a bit of a letdown after watching The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs fairly recently. I'm sure a million exceptions will come to me after I've posted this, but at this moment it feels like it's pretty rare that a pre-1980 "action" movie cuts it for me. For some reason The French Connection leaps to mind, another 70s movie I should have liked more than I did. But excepting possibly the performances, I preferred The Getaway. Ah well, yet another blow to my critical credibility.The Heartbreak Kid
... What to do, what to do? I didn't care for it, but I suspect it was excellent. First of all, this is a horror movie wearing a comedic veil, and the comedy is what makes it horrific. It's not that Grodin realizes on his honeymoon that he's married the wrong woman that makes him ugly, it's the utterly selfish way he conducts himself upon making the realization, and it is that selfishness that gives rise to the comedy. It creates this circle of ugliness giving rise to humor, giving rise to more ugliness that I found provocative, and at the same time unenjoyable. Although I suppose if I'd found it funnier the movie would have failed. Grodin's fellow restaurant patrons weren't the only ones looking on in disgust.Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades
... A few IMDB nuggets for you: first, one alternate (and better!) title for this movie is Lone Wolf and Cub: Perambulator Against the Winds of Death. Second, it's got a great tagline: "Then they threw an army at him, and he threw it back... a piece at a time!" This is one of a series of movies about the Shogun's Executioner, widowed and forced by circumstance to assume the life of a "demon", roaming the land with his young (four, perhaps?) son as the paid assassin known as "Lone Wolf and Cub." Definitely a "blood and honor" flick, with lots of the former and, umm, interesting takes on the latter. Y'know how in some samurai movies the fight consists of two guys lengthily facing each other down, then running past each other, then both stand still with their backs to each other, and then a few beats later one falls over dead? This is not one of those movies.Guilty Pleasures
- None Yet
Could Have Missed
The Hot Rock
... As a fan of Donald Westlake's Dortmunder series, I've been looking forward to this, supposedly the best film adaptation, for quite awhile. It leapt to the top of my Netflix queue when I learned it was available (fearing it would become unavailable again if I blinked). It was okay, but if this was the best of the lot I really don't feel compelled to see any of the others, although my knowing the plot in advance probably really worked against my enjoyment of this movie. Having found very few heist movies that I like, I've come to assume it's a very tough genre to do right, but I'm beginning to consider the possibility that it's just a genre that I *think* I like, but really don't. Anyway, watching this movie did kick off a fun "Dream Cast" conversation with my wife. We'd cast Ed Norton as Dortmunder, Katherine Keener as May, Sam Rockwell as Kelp, Michael Clarke Duncan as Tiny, and Joe Pantoliano as Murch. We wanted Kathy Bates as Murch's mom, but I don't think she's old enough if we cast Joey Pants. How 'bout Judi Densh? That'd be a different role for her! The book they should adapt is Drowned Hopes and that way they could get Clint Eastwood to play the villian, Tom Jimson. I'd pay $20 to see such a movie.Should Have Missed
- None Yet
El Sucko Grande
- None Yet
Unranked
The Chinese Connection
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask
The Poseidon Adventure
Slaughterhouse-Five
Cloned From:
The Godfather is only 'very good'? Blasphemy!!! What kept it from being 'Great'?
I liked the sequel quite a bit better.
You finally got to it. The Heartbreak Kid was the film on your queue I found overrated. I didn't care for it and I found very few hints of excellence, myself.
Did you watch it as part of your AFI quest? As a comedy, I found it too discomfiting to enjoy. But it might be the only screwball tragedy I've seen, and I think viewed though that lens it has something to offer.
I did, and it's one of the choices I most adamantly disagree with. I like the term "screwball tragedy", but most tragedies have interesting endings instead of lame anticlimaxes.
Actually, I thought the ending was quite reminiscent of The Graduate. The path ahead is very unclear, even if we suspect the worse of Grodin based on him shrugging off Shepherd while he hobknobs (a small thing, but significant, I think). Still, we'd like to think she's a match for him, as she has apparently been able to jerk him around at will over the course of the movie. But I think the ending belies that.
Well, maybe I didn't like the unclearness because I didn't care what happened to this despicable character. [warning: spoiler tags include spoilers about The Graduate too] And then they try to make him seem thoughtful with that hokey "I was twelve once." Gimme a break. The Graduate had Dustin Hoffman banging on the church, saving his girl from her wedding, and escaping in a bus. The Heartbreak Kid has... Grodin doing what we knew he was going to do for a while, with a lame moment of introspection awkwardly tacked on.
But The Graduate closed with them on the bus, looking possibly tired, possibly like "oh, shit, what have I done?" Very unclear to us (and to them) where they would go from there. Same with The Heartbreak Kid, in my book, although we're pretty confident Grodin will continue being dispicable (which is why I had a hard time finding the movie funny, which is different from finding it good (but the same, perhaps, as not finding it enjoyable). I also didn't think the moment was a lame bit of introspection to make us feel better about him; I thought it betrayed his shallowness. He can't even find anything to say to these kids, as they drift away from him. Perhaps because he can't bullshit them the way he can most grown-ups.
After all your juggling of parentheses, I finally found a set you forgot to close. :-)
I don't really remember how Grodin acts in the very last moments of the film, besides the "I was twelve once" line. Maybe I was too young to read that subtlety when I first saw it, and perhaps your comparison The Graduate is more apt than I realize. I will have to disagree with you about the kid thing though. Plenty of people don't know what to say to kids, so I don't think that says anything about Grodin. I definitely think it was a lame attempt at nostalgia, Grodin remembering how simple his life once was before his balls dropped.
Ha! Pretty funny about the parens. It's true that I close those pretty compulsively. Must be the (fallible) programmer in me.
I still think there's something to the kid thing though, as Grodin BS's everybody else through the whole movie, and they are the only ones to walk away from him in boredom. So if it is lame nostalgia, I think it's a comment on its very emptiness that rather than an attempt to make us feel less antipathy for him.
I just re-watched Godfather I and II. You're right, Godfather II is quite superior, and Godfather I is not as good as I remember it being - probably about the lowest '9' I'll give. :-)
BTW, another one of those you read my mind and said it better moments: "I've always thought of Olivier as too stagey for me, but he was great here and in Marathon Man, so I probably need to dispel that prejudice from my mind."
Cool. Godfather II has to be one of the best sequels ever. Tangentially, I remember enjoying that "best sequels" scene in Scream II.