Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Laughs (#89)

Look up this movie and you'll find it repeated ad nauseum that writer Cameron Crowe went undercover at a high school to find out what teenagers were really like.  How Josie Grossie of him.  He was like 25 years old.  Did he really not know what teenagers are like?  And while I know I wasn't your typical high school student, it seemed to me that there was more to high school life than just drugs and sex.  Whatever.  I think John Hughes' movies were better.

Sean Penn created a highly (pun intended) memorable character.  His scenes with Ray Walston are the best in the movie.  Too bad Penn got all political, because I really think he's a talented actor.  Underrated actors Anthony Edwards and Eric Stoltz also put in appearances, as well as a then-rising star named Nick Coppola.

While I think Fast Times deserves its spot on the list of great teen films, it certainly isn't the best one out there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlRvE9dKWQc

Days of Wine and Roses

Song - Days of Wine and Roses (#39)

This is the story of a couple's decent from social drinking into alcoholism.  It's probably fairly realistic and was well-acted, but got a bit preachy at times (which was probably the point, because I don't know why else you'd make a movie like this).  These days, it probably would end up on Lifetime instead of the big screen.  Then again, When a Man Loves a Woman was very similar, and that was released theatrically.

As for the song - Henry Mancini had some notable tunes that are worthy of this list (Pink Panther, M*A*S*H...maybe Moon River, although I don't get the appeal of that song).  This, however, is just 1960s cheesiness.  There are other songs that should have had this spot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGA6b-DoX4c

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Passions (#98)

Not having read the book, I can't tell you how much this differs.  But I still think it's an odd choice for a Disney movie.

Nevertheless, this version was good.  Charles Laughton, whom I don't usually like, did an especially good job.  Sir Cedric Hardwicke also was notable as Frollo.  He reminded me of Alan Rickman, and I kept thinking how wonderful Rickman would be in that role.  Maybe they should remake it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEEpavnk7Uw

Places in the Heart

Cheers (#95)

A widow tries to hold on to her husband's land, with the help of a blind renter and a black drifter. 

It was good, and could have been a great family movie were it not for the unnecessary subplot about her brother-in-law's extramarital affair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_4eoSPYL_M

Touch of Evil

Thrills (#64); Stars - Orson Welles (#16)

A scandalous thriller involving murder, drugs, and kidnapping.  It had so much going on it was hard to follow.  And Charlton Heston's mustache was definitely not a good look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dhHJ2yCgQY (you can skip the first 26 seconds)

AFI 100 Years...100 Stars

We've completed our list of 100 Stars.  Well, almost.  Sophia Loren (#21), Mary Pickford (#24), and Ava Gardner (#25) were not in any of the movies on any of the lists, so none of their movies were reviewed here.  All the others are. 

What have I learned?  I've discovered I adore Gary Cooper, prefer Buster Keaton to Charlie Chaplin, am afraid of Robert Mitchum, can't stand Judy Garland (ok, I knew that, but it was confirmed), think Barbara Stanwyck's bangs are ridiculous, and don't get Lauren Bacall's appeal.  I think Audrey Hepburn is fine but overrated, and Marilyn Monroe's acting skills are overlooked because people think of her as a sex symbol.  I really, really like Sidney Poitier, and I don't know why William Holden is on the list, because he shouldn't be in the company of greats like Gable, Grant, and Stewart.

I also think it bears repeating that I love Jimmy Stewart.  Clark Gable is king.  Cary Grant is suave, and Gene Kelly is so fine (doo lang, doo lang, doo lang).

And while the purpose of the second set of 50 was merely to introduce the original 50, and so they picked whomever was available, I think they should have made an effort to make it a real list.  It's a shame that because they came later people like Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Jack Lemmon, and the like weren't recognized.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=theg-vnwevg

Stormy Weather

Songs - Stormy Weather (#30)

Not a very strong plot, but plenty of good singing and dancing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0TyUOJfpQo

Red River

Stars - John Wayne (#13); Top Ten - Western (#5)

Personally I wouldn't rank this above Butch Cassidy or Stagecoach, but it was good.  Wayne is a ruthless rancher who leads his men on a cattle drive to Missouri. 

Montgomery Clift, as Wayne's adopted son, is so doggone good looking he dominates every shot he's in (much like Ben Affleck in Shakespeare in Love).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB90b8xXYIk

Judgment at Nuremberg

Stars - Judy Garland (#8), Spencer Tracy (#9), Marlene Dietrich (#9), Burt Lancaster (#19); Top Ten - Courtroom Drama (#10)

Excellent, excellent movie!  Well-written, perfectly paced, and superbly acted.  Maximillian Schell gave an incredible performance, and both Burt Lancaster and Marlene Dietrich were wonderfully understated.  Spencer Tracy and Montgomery Clift were terrific as well.

As I get towards the end of the lists, I feel like I've seen all the good ones already and the ones that are left are ones I didn't really want to see to begin with.  It's nice to still come across truly great movies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFJ65Sr-Sho

MT Salutes - Twelve Angry Men

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjRYwa-hrPY

Flashdance

Songs - Flashdance...What a Feeling (#55)

Highly predictable story with so-so acting.  But it has a great '80s soundtrack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH9q1iYN8mo

MT Salutes - The King and I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pudBqiTKA7U

The China Syndrome

Thrills (#94)

Yawn - overly political anti-nuclear energy movie.  Jack Lemmon was good.  Michael Douglas was alright.  Yeah, that's about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFWFtzOpTi0

MT Salutes - Fiddler on the Roof

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKxH4fiA5-A

Body Heat

Thrills (#92); Passions (#94)

Erotic thrillers were big in the '80s (think Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, etc).  This is one from that genre. 

As far as a mystery goes, it's pretty good.  As for the rest, yeah, I skipped a whole bunch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARUM0-jtjIg

MT Salutes - Guys and Dolls

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2YY3Ba6Js0

The Pink Panther

Scores (#20)

So not my type of humor.  It just didn't keep my interest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhHwnrlZRus

MT Salutes - The Postman Always Rings Twice

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWLgdI8UBjc 

Stagecoach

Top 100 (#63); Stars - John Wayne (#13); Top Ten - Western (#9)

This movie takes everything you need to make a good western - a gunslinger, a preacher, the town drunk, and a saloon girl with a heart of gold - and puts them together on a stagecoach.  It's John Ford's answer to movies like Dinner at Eight and Grand Hotel - take a mixed bag of characters and put them in a situation where their paths cross.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6v-auTctSo

MT Salutes - Gone With the Wind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQNmq3jxL3c

Two for the Road

Stars - Audrey Hepburn (#3); Passions (#57)

While recounting past vacations and road trips, a couple tells the story of their tumultous marriage. 

Their relationship isn't as volatile as the one in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but I still don't understand why a movie about a couple who does nothing but bicker is considered romantic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMR5JVo21wQ

MT Salutes - Dr. No

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--BKHgF4NuQ

Strangers on a Train

Thrills (#32)

Very well written murder story.  Two men meet on a train and discuss how to commit the perfect murder.  One doesn't take the other too seriously, but when the second man actually follows through, the first has to figure out how to tell the police without implicating himself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AVQJ_3A5rA

MT Salutes - Dances with Wolves

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR4AaJxduek

Coming Home

Passions (#78)

It should come as no surprise that a movie about Viet Nam vets starring Jane Fonda isn't exactly honoring to those who served.  What a waste of time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIUw4ZS1J_A

MT Salutes - Roxanne

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u_GoRsuEQ8

Born Yesterday

Laughs (#24); Stars - William Holden (#25)

A mobster wants his dumb blonde moll to be able to hold a semi-intelligent conversation so that she can play along with his cons.  He hires William Holden to tutor her. 

Well, aside from the obvious (the two end up falling in love), the educated Holliday realizes that she has rights and doesn't have to be pushed around by Crawford anymore. 

It's a swell romantic comedy, with a few Capra-esque moments thrown in as Holden teaches Holliday about the self-evident truths that make our country great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JmA2ClUvUY&feature=relmfu

MT Salutes - The Sound of Music

Welcome to our new feature post, in which one of the greatest classical theaters of all time, Monsterpiece Theatre, salutes some of AFI's best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrKoU_gO2aE

Fargo

Top 100 (#84); Laughs (#93); Heroes - Marge Gunderson (#33)

Fargo is a dark comedy about an extortion/kidnapping gone terribly wrong.  It's ok, but gruesome.  Frances McDormand is good, and all the references to Steve Buscemi being funny looking are humorous ("Funny looking?  In what way?" "I don't know.  Just funny looking.")

I'm not sure why it's called Fargo, since it takes place in Brainerd and the Twin Cities.  However, Minnesota boys Joel and Ethan Coen aren't too up on their Minnesota geography anyways.  It apparently takes four hours to drive from Brainerd to Minneapolis, and if you're driving to the Twin Cities from Fargo, Brainerd is right on the way.  And seriously, except for old people up on the Range, Minnesotans don't talk like that!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJUFTm6cJXM

Pillow Talk

Passions (#99)

Sweet and sexy, and pushing the proprietary limits, this is a great romantic comedy.  Rock Hudson and Doris Day are wonderful together.  This should have been ranked higher on the list.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTXVXcquINw

The Spy Who Loved Me

Songs - Nobody Does It Better (#67)

Somebody does it better, and that somebody would be Sean Connery.  I don't think Roger Moore was the best choice for James Bond.  Other than that, this movie was pretty much the same as the other 007 ones that I've seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX4pN7GPQhw&feature=relmfu 

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Top 100 (#30/38); Thrills (#67); Stars - Humphrey Bogart (#1); Quotes - "Badges?  We ain't got no badges!  We don't need no badges!  I don't have to show you any stinking badges!" (#36)

Humphrey Bogart is very good as a miner driven crazy by his greed.  He sets out with two other men to find a legendary lode of gold, but is overcome with paranoia and gold fever.

A bit long, but very well done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgITBzujCS0

Swing Time

Top 100 (#90 Revised); Stars - Fred Astaire (#5), Ginger Rogers (#14); Songs - The Way You Look Tonight (#43); Passions (#30)

I have to give people like Lerner & Loewe and Rogers & Hammerstein credit, because before they came along, plots of movie musicals were rather thing. 

However, these movies weren't so much about the plot as they were about song and dance, and that's where we get wonderful songs like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs2nH9gSXOE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaVLbk_3UeU

The Searchers

Top 100 (#96/12); Stars - John Wayne (#13); Top Ten - Western (#1)

When John Wayne's niece is captured by Indians, he and his adopted nephew set off on an impossible quest to find and retrieve her.  The search takes years, but he doesn't give up.

I'm not big on westerns, but I liked this movie.  And I'm thinking it has the biggest jump between the original Top 100 list and the revised one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcpuHzllobQ

Cat Ballou

Laughs (#50); Top Ten - Western (#10)

My husband and my father both like this movie, about a schoolmarm turned bandit to save her pa's farm.  It was okay - it had its funny moments.  But I saw it, and now I can cross it off the list, and that's fine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm3dm5J5r0A

Blue Velvet

Thrills (#96); Stars - Laura Dern (Current - Not Rated); Villains - Frank Booth (#36); Top Ten - Mystery (#8)

I debated watching this one, decided to go ahead, then shut it off after about half an hour. 

It starts off innocent enough.  All-American boy MacLachlan teams up with small town girl Dern to investigate some mysterious goings-on.  Then it gets creepy and yucky.  I think Lynch purposely started things all sweet and innocent to make the contrast between that and the twisted underworld the teenagers discover that much greater.

Yeah, um, not what I want to be watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSeceN11Dm4

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Thrills (#82); Cheers (#67); Top Ten - Science Fiction (#5)

Aliens come to earth to warn earthlings that they'd better start getting along and be friends, or else the aliens will kill them. 

Inspiring world peace message.

What I don't get, though, is why the woman carried by the alien robot in the poster doesn't look remotely like Patricia Neal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IPAOxrH7Ro 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Thrills (#47); Top Ten - Science Fiction (#9)

Pod-like aliens invade earth, possessing the bodies of humans.  Only one man and one woman dare to resist. 

Much too cheesy to be even remotely scary - but at least it has the classic horror movie scream (I can't find the clip, but you know the one - where the woman holds her hand up to her cheek as she screams).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OacAgQO9vvo

Monkey Business

Laughs (#73); Stars - The Marx Brothers (#20)

This time the Brothers are stowaways on a cruise ship.  It has its moments, but it's not my favorite.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_sfnQDr1-o&noredirect=1

Random Harvest

Passions (#36)

An amnesiac war veteran falls in love with a dance hall girl and they get married.  Some time later, he remembers who he was, but forgets his wife.  She desperately tries to get him to remember her.

Sappy, but it fits in with the romantic dime store novel movies of the day, like Now, Voyager and Dark Victory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWbjqpmYKrw 

Splendor in the Grass

Passions (#47)

To every rule there is an exception.  The Rule of 38 has exceptions who are older (like Sean Connery) and exceptions who are younger (if Zac Efron is not one of these, make sure you pay attention in 2025).  Warren Beatty is a younger exception.  Because if You're So Vain had been written in 1961, it would be no wonder that he'd think that song was about him.

The movie itself, about a teenage couple that has everything stacked against them, is okay.  But Beatty is definitely worth watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWDkdsZQq_c&feature=related

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Top 100 (#67 - Revised); Stars - Elizabeth Taylor (#7); Passions (#89)

I don't get the appeal of this movie.  Two hours of people yelling at each other.  Seriously, that's all it is.  Well acted?  I suppose.  And some argue that the beauty of this story is that Taylor's and Burton's characters love each other and stick together despite the volatility of their relationship.  I don't call that love.  I call that co-dependence.

Truth is, I found the movie grating and annoying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDucj50eQYs

Sunrise

Top 100 (#82 - Revised); Passions (#63)

A man decides to kill his wife so he can run off with his mistress.  My, these old movies were scandalous!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLLEBAQLZ3Q 

Ninotchka

Laughs (#52); Stars - Greta Garbo (#5); Passions (#40)

Greta Garbo's first comedy is about a Soviet agent who is assigned to retrieve the Grand Duchess's jewels.

Her cohorts are funny, Melvyn Douglas is cheesy (I would have picked someone else for her love interest, because I don't think he's all that), and Garbo does a good job as the stern agent who learns to lighten up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pEOw8XLCSc

The Bridges of Madison County

Passions (#90)

I hate movies that glorify extra-marital affairs, so I think this is better viewed as a cautionary tale.  Streep is a bored, unfulfilled housewife.  Eastwood comes along and sweeps her off her feet.

The truth is, he's swoony.  He says all the right things (when she complains that she's stuck in the middle of nowhere, he says, "This isn't nowhere.  It's your home.").  He notices her and listens to her.  Of course she's going to fall for him.  So the lesson here is for spouses to pay attention to each other and not let the routine become too routine.

Oh, and I don't buy Streep as an Italian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm9LgDf8Ibk

Blood Simple

Thrills (#98)

This early Coen brothers movie is about a man who hires a private detective to kill his cheating wife.  Things don't go quite as he planned.

It's dark and intricate, and not nearly as good as Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fVDGu82FeQ

Horse Feathers

Laughs (#65); Stars - The Marx Brothers (#20)

A comedy about a college football team, this movie had a bit more of a plot than other Marx Brothers films.  Some funny moments, but I still like Laurel & Hardy better.

Oh, and you can't tell by this picture, but Zeppo is definitely the good looking brother.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4Qlk7sfZfQ

The Mark of Zorro

Heroes - Zorro (#45)

I like Tyrone Power oh so much better than Antonio Banderas.  His Zorro was carefree and charming, not cheesy.

Not the greatest film ever, but would make for a fun Saturday afternoon movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgLSEILAW7k

The Poseidon Adventure

Thrills (#90); Stars - Ernest Borgnine (Current)

Disaster movies were big in the 1970s, and this was one of the biggest.  This movie wasn't bad - the pace was good and I liked the cast.  I do wonder though, why skinny Stella Stevens and Pamela Sue Martin were told they couldn't climb up the Christmas tree in their long dresses, so they had to lose their skirts, yet not-as-skinny Shelly Winters wasn't told that, and made it up the tree just fine in her skirt.  Men.  Hmph.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd03qev59Jo

The Spirit of St. Louis

Stars - James Stewart (#3); Cheers (#69)

I guess I hadn't really thought about the fact that Lindbergh was a nobody before he crossed the Atlantic.  He was trying to get funding for his flight and no one wanted to sponsor him.

Anyways, I love Jimmy Stewart, and the movie was fine.  It just isn't one of my favorite Stewart films.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d19eSW3p_MY