The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)

The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) is one of my favorite films, and a DVD I purchased. I never saw the original 1968 film starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, and from the looks of the trailer, I haven’t missed anything. The Windmills of Your Mind was introduced for the film of 1968, and won an Academy Award for Best Original Song. It is featured in the remake. The film is rated R for some sexuality and language.

This smart, sexy movie has it all as far as I’m concerned. Thomas Crown (Pierce Brosnan) is a wealthy businessman who has a penchant for fine art. He frequents the Metropolitan Museum of Art where he seems to prefer the impressionist paintings. Faye Dunaway appears in a cameo as his shrink, and these brief scenes together clue us in to his psyche and motivations.

When a Monet is stolen from the museum, the insurance company hires Catherine Banning (Rene Russo) to investigate and recover the missing piece of art. Detective Michael McCann (Denis Leary) from the NYPD is assigned to the case along with his partner Detective Paretti (Frankie Faison). McCann is none too happy about Catherine’s arrival as she digs around employing unusual techniques to figure out who stole the painting and how.

Thomas is a suspect, and Catherine begins her pursuit of him, much to his pleasure and delight. Finally, a worthy woman who matches him in cunning and confidence. The two of them play a game of, “Can I trust you?” You won’t know until the end if they can. In the meantime, there are some sexy scenes between the two of them, great adventures, and some beautiful scenery near the ocean in Martinique. The luxury is fun to behold, and their snappy repartee most entertaining.

The music fits the action well, particularly the distinctive voice of Nina Simone singing Sinnerman. The film is visually appealing, as are the actors, and I can’t think of a better pairing than Brosnan and Russo for the roles. The music is by Bill Conti, Academy Award winner for original score in The Right Stuff.

Pierce Brosnan would have been 46 years old at the time of this film, and Rene Russo about 45. They are both in their prime, and are two of my favorite actors. I loved all four of Brosnan’s James Bond films, among others. He was in a recent film called Love Is All You Need that I reviewed on this blog. Enter the name of the film on the upper left of the blog, and the search engine will take you right to it. Rene played well opposite Kevin Costner in Tin Cup.

After you watch the film, and you are confused by Catherine’s final words, come back to my blog and ask me about it. I solved the mystery, but don’t want to say anything until you watch it for yourself. The Thomas Crown Affair is one I like to revisit every so often. It’s a keeper.

Chicago

The DVD Chicago came to me from my husband’s mother, Dolores. After I watched this flashy musical at home the other night (I’d already seen it in the theater when it came out in 2002), my husband commented that his mother used to practically beg him to watch it with her, and told him he didn’t know what he was missing. She really enjoyed Chicago and wanted everyone else to enjoy it with her.

I loved seeing this again. My husband commented that he likes South Pacific better, as the songs are more musical, tunes you’d like to whistle or lyrics you’d like to sing aloud. Chicago I admit is a bit louder and a bit raunchy. After all, it’s about women who murder their husbands and lovers. It’s also about show business, how fleeting fame can be, and the fickleness of the public who latch onto anyone involved in a scandal for entertainment, no matter how gruesome.

The film is rated PG-13 for sexual content and dialogue, violence and thematic elements. It won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress for Catherine Zeta-Jones, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound.

For me, one of the biggest pleasures are the dance numbers. Originally choreographed by Bob Fosse, they are exciting and memorable. My favorite is the Cell Block Tango, “he had it comin’ …” Any woman who’s been wronged by her man can get a little vicarious enjoyment out of these women telling their stories. Exaggerated scenarios yes, but true to human nature where jealousy and anger aren’t let go of so easily.

Chicago was based on two women accused of killing their lovers in 1924. As is typical of Hollywood, there are no other resemblances aside from this inspiration for the characters.

Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger) is a wannabee entertainer who shoots her low-down lying lover when he doesn’t deliver on the promise he made to get her on that stage. Her husband Amos (John C. Reilly) is a long-suffering simple man, very well cast. Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is successful on the stage until she ends up in the women’s prison for killing her sister and husband.

When Roxie ends up in the cellblock too, they start to compete for attention from the press, enlisting the assistance of Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), an attorney who sets out to gain the public’s sympathy for Roxie. Who knew Richard Gere could actually tap dance? He does a great job. Queen Latifah is wonderful as Mama Morton, the not so honest matron of the women’s cellblock. Other notable actors are Taye Diggs as the bandleader, and Christine Baranski as the reporter Mary Sunshine.

It would be dynamic seeing Chicago on stage; I don’t know if it tours anymore. Live theater and dance are like nothing else, but if you can’t see it at your performing arts center, second best is on your screen at home. I’m keeping this DVD. Thanks, Dolores.

That’s Chicago.

Like Water for Chocolate

Like Water for Chocolate (Como agua para chocolate) is a delightful film from 1992. Watching it is a wonderful way to spend an evening. The screenplay is based on a novel by Laura Esquivel. I was given the DVD by someone from work and had never gotten around to watching it until a couple days ago. The film is rated R for sexuality.

It is the tale of a Mexican family living near the Texas border in the early 1900’s. Tita (Lumi Cavazos) is the youngest of three daughters. Her mother, Mamá Elena (Regina Torné) tells her that she will never marry and must care for her as long as she lives. Her mother is a domineering woman and not likable at all. They live on a farm and appear to be well off, although Tita is kept busy in the kitchen and in meeting her mother’s unreasonable demands.

Tita and Pedro Muzquiz (Marco Leonardi) have fallen in love, but when Pedro is denied her hand in marriage, he agrees to marry her sister Rosaura (Yareli Arizmendi) just so he can be close to Tita. This is a setup for all sorts of troubles, and Tita takes out her sadness in the kitchen. She is a fantastic cook and baker having been trained by her beloved Nacha (Ada Carrasco). Tita also expresses her joy and love for Pedro through her cooking, just one of many exquisite moments in the film, and a fine example of magical realism in a story. The quail in rose petal sauce she prepares looks incredibly delectable, especially from the reactions the diners give while savoring it.

The film is subtitled in English, but since some of the action takes place in Texas, most notably with a physician, Dr. John Brown (Mario Iván Martínez), who is in love with Tita, some dialogue is in English. The film is noted for being erotic, and it is erotic in some places early on, but in scenes where they are eating, not ones involving sexuality. I am surprised this film wasn’t nominated for any Academy Awards, but it did receive a nomination for Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes that year.

Laura Esquivel was married to the director of the film, Alfonso Arau. It must have been a wonderful experience for them making this film together. Laura wrote the screenplay. The actors are all suited to their roles, and the themes of love and obligation to family, and the failings of many of the family members in faithfulness to their chosen ones in marriage, is a familiar one. The third sister, Gertrudis (Claudette Maillé) is a beautiful and vibrant young woman who has an interesting life unfold for her. I won’t say more as I don’t want to spoil the surprises for you.

This is a movie I may just keep and not discard. It’s very rich in metaphor, and the magical realism that is just right in depicting the mysticism of the folk culture of that era.

A Farewell to Arms

I opened the drawer that has some games and DVDs stored in it, and wondered how we collected all of them. I am acquainted with people who buy DVDs frequently, and on the other side of the spectrum, a friend who only owns three.

We are somewhere in the middle. I noticed a couple we had inherited from my husband’s mother, and some that were gifts. Still others were an impulse buy at the bookstore or wherever DVDs are typically sold.

I decided to watch some I had never seen, review some favorites and then sell them to my local rental store. Decluttering always feels good! And in the age of streaming services, and DVDs on Netflix, I don’t need to own these at all.

The first one I pulled out was a gift from my sister of A Farewell to Arms, a 1932 black and white feature based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway. Frederic (Gary Cooper) is an American ambulance driver in Italy during World War I when he meets Catherine (Helen Hayes), a British nurse, and falls in love. They secretly marry, and due to the nefarious scheming of Rinaldi (Adolphe Menjou), who is also in love with Catherine, the newlyweds are separated.

The screenplay is not that well written, but it is after all fairly early in the history of filmmaking, and writers had a lot to learn. The cinematography however, is brilliant, and I was pleased to discover after I had watched the movie that A Farewell to Arms won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for Charles Lang. I can see where the award was a good choice. The camera angles, use of shadows, and choice of subjects during certain scenes was inspired. Charles Lang had a long, illustrious career in filmmaking, and I think you’d be surprised if you look up his other feature films. A Farewell to Arms also won an Academy award for Best Sound Recording.

Gary Cooper is very tall, six foot three inches of handsomeness, and with little petite Helen Hayes at just five feet, they make an unusual pair walking along the streets of Italy. Both actors had long filmmaking careers; this is an early one for both of them.

I have not read Hemingway’s highly regarded novel of A Farewell to Arms, but I have read several of his short stories, and his storytelling abilities and writing is impressive. I think that his novel just didn’t translate to the screen very well, and that his story on the page was likely much more detailed and significant than this film.

The ending, for both my husband and I, left us wanting. He said it was “maudlin” and I just found it cloying and unrealistic. But like I said, it was 1932 after all.

If you are a student of film, you may enjoy watching it for the groundbreaking cinematography by Lang. Otherwise I wouldn’t recommend you take 90 minutes out of your cinema viewing time to watch it.

The Brainwashing of My Dad

Jen Senko is a documentary filmmaker who watched her tolerant and loving father turn into a bigoted, angry person beginning in the 1980’s when he began watching Fox News and listening to Rush Limbaugh. Alarmed, along with her mother, at the change in their father/husband, she set out to try to understand what had happened to him.

The Brainwashing of My Dad is her documentary feature film about her journey to discover what happened to her father to create such an angry man. The film features interviews with psychologists, media specialists, scholars, and historians, and is presented along with tons of information about the media and how laws being repealed made it easier to report false and inaccurate information on the airwaves. We see how the media was manipulated in order to effectively blast right wing propaganda to the masses of America. The history of how exactly the Republican agenda came to be broadcast to those gullible citizens lacking in critical thinking skills is what this film is about. And for Jen to find her father again.

Jen’s father was a World War II veteran and a long time Democrat, not particularly political during her childhood, which occurred during the volatile 1960’s and the Vietnam era. Her father is shown in home movies as a man happily raising his children, being an all-around stellar, likable, fun-loving father and husband. The turning point for him occurred when he encountered a long daily commute alone in his car, listening to radio talk shows, including the voice of the pompous Rush Limbaugh, and he began to change.

Particularly interesting to me in the film were the interviews with other people, recovering talk show addicts if you will, who were younger, even significantly younger than her father and who were also brainwashed by the propaganda machine. My husband and I know people in our family who have succumbed to this brainwashing too. It is well known to us that simply presenting the facts to them will not get them to change their belief system, so we don’t even bother to talk to them about those touchy subjects. The film shows what parameters are in place by those in power in order to manipulate the masses, and how the brainwashing works on a psychological level.

Jen researched this film very well, and my husband and I watched it on Hulu. It is also available through other video on demand sources: http://www.thebrainwashingofmydad.com/vod-platforms/

In these times that are growing more volatile, I think it is important to watch a documentary such as this one because it may be someone you know who is being brainwashed along with Jen’s dad. Education is vital to understanding what is happening in America.

Is there a happy ending for Jen’s father? I’m not going to say, because I think you should watch the film, and I hope not just “liberals” will do so. Challenge yourself to get educated, because you need to know what you’re up against and how to respond.

The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

The very funny Swedish adventure/comedy film, The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, is well worth your time. The film is partially narrated in English with subtitles for the dialogue. It is rated R for language and some violence. The screenplay was based on a novel by Jonas Jonasson.

It was the third highest grossing film in Sweden, and I can see why. (First and second highest grossing films are the Swedish films The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and The Girl Who Played with Fire.) The format of the film reminded me a bit of Forrest Gump, the Tom Hanks movie where the unlikely character of Forrest meets famous people throughout his life as he traverses some very volatile times in America.

This film follows the life of Allan Karlsson (Robert Gustafsson) in flashbacks and in the present. He also has met famous people through the years, but in this case, they are dangerous world leaders during the World War II years and Cold War times. Like Forrest Gump, he is a bit of a simpleton too, but one who skates through his life untouched and unharmed even when others are falling like leaves around him.

We see him first as he is soon celebrating his 100^th birthday while living in a nursing home/retirement home, and who’s to know why he suddenly decides to climb out of the window of his small room and take off walking down the road. Adventures follow, as his 100-year old mind is not the brightest or clearest these days, especially when we see later that he’s been a bit daft his whole life.

The people he gets mixed up with are badass gang members who pursue him until the end for a suitcase of theirs with some valuable contents that Allan has unwittingly walked off with. He also has police trying to find him, as it doesn’t look so good for the retirement home to simply lose a resident. Allan essentially ends up being on a road trip, hooking up with other willing travelers who assist him in various ways. Julius (Iwar Wiklander) is the first to join him, and eventually includes Gunilla (Mia Skäringer) with her pet elephant. It is all very comical, and I smiled or laughed throughout the entire film. My husband enjoyed it too.

The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared  was nominated for an Academy Award in 2016 for Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling. Robert Gustafsson was born in 1964, so is clearly not 100 years old, not even close. Most of that expert makeup and hairstyling was for him, as he depicts several different decades of Allan’s life during the movie. There is a sequel that came out recently, The 101-Year-Old Man Who Skipped Out on the Bill and Disappeared. More silliness I’m sure, and I hope it doesn’t suffer the fate of many sequels that all too often come up short, not living up to the original.