#83- West Side Story

Quick recap: Romeo and Juliet, but with more dancing

We’re fierce!

Fun (?) fact: Natalie Wood, who played Maria, was led to believe her voice would be used for at least some of the songs in the film. Instead, the producers went with Marnie Nixon and kept the truth from Wood. Nixon was not paid any direct royalties from the film or credited.

poor Marnie Nixon 😦

My thoughts: My non-existent attorney has requested that, in an effort to retain what little integrity I have left since watching The Tin Drum, disclose my disdain for Romeo and Juliet. Sure, I could blame it on my cynical nature of love or the fact that I find Shakespeare overrated or because it’s the one play everyone names as a favorite because they know no others. But mostly, I just think two 13 year olds getting married and then killing themselves is kind of crazy.

Plot aside, I really enjoyed the dancing and orchestral arrangement. It was kind of hard to buy into rival gangs dancing it out, but I eventually got into it. Everyone was flawless in their moves, of course. My favorite number was probably the Quintet and my least favorite was ‘I Feel Pretty’. In general, the lyrics left a lot to be desired, but that’s not something I can fault the movie. Or actually, the lyrics are very insightful and romantic, until I remembered that Maria and Tony had only met a few hours ago. Maybe it is my cynical nature after all.

The scenes where the gangs were together talking about the rumble and the rumble itself were exciting and made me desperately want to see a live show. The scenes between Tony and Maria bored me to tears and I felt like the pacing was entirely too slow for much of the film. They seemed genuinely in love though, so I’ll give them that. The death scene (Come on, do I really need a spoiler alert for this?) was moving and gave me pause as to whether I hated Romeo and Juliet as much as I thought I did.

I think that, as a musical, West Side Story holds up rather well. The depiction of Puerto Ricans, though…….that was a little embarrassing. The accents were awful, like, in doing research for this movie, the actors were required to sit through hours of I Love Lucy reruns and try to imitate Desi Arnez (who was Cuban, but still).

Final review: 3/5, almost a 4. I’m very curious about the live show and how it stacks up against the film. Or, the other way around, since the Broadway musical came first.

Up next: I had a last minute idea to only watch Oscar winners this month, but seeing as how there are only 4 on Netflix Instant, I’ll supplement with my regular list. Terms of Endearment is next.

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#82- The Tin Drum

Quick recap: A little boy, growing up during World War II, receives a tin drum for his 3rd birthday. After seeing how the adults around him are incredibly stupid, he decides to throw himself down the stairs in order to stop growing. That was a completely true recap by the way, and not at ALL what the movie is about.

The birth scene that gives me nightmares all on its own

Fun (?) fact: Oklahoma County……in Oklahoma, banned this movie in 1997 based off of one controversial scene. All copies were confiscated and one person was even threatened with prosecution for being in possession of the film. The ruling was overturned later on.

disturbing image #2

My thoughts: So. I’m not really sure what Germany has against me, but The Tin Drum is now the second film from that country to traumatize me and make me rethink why I am even doing this project. For starters:

1. The opening scene features a man running away from police. He spies a woman in a potato field and begs her to let him hide underneath her skirts so he won’t get caught. She obliges and ends up sitting on him and they have sex.

2. The child conceived from that encounter grows up and falls for two men. She sleeps with both of them on a continuous basis so it’s not really known who Oskar’s father is.

3. Oskar, 3 years old at the time , makes himself fall down the cellar stairs so that he may never have to grow up. Throughout the whole movie he carries around a tin drum and beats on it when he is unhappy or angry.

4. There is a scene where a horse head washes up on shore and one of the men takes the eels from the head and cooks them. He is then hurt when his wife refuses to eat Rotted Horse Head Eels.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Now you are probably thinking to yourself 1) Those crazy Germans and their movies! and 2) This won’t stop me from celebrating Oktoberfest and 3) why is Oklahoma so uptight?

Bear with me here: The boy who plays Oskar was 11 years old at the time of the film. During the film, Oskar has the body of a 3 year old but chronologically he gets older. So that means that when he becomes a teenager, he has sexual desires. Even though he looks like a 3 year old. See where I’m going with this? So, there are a few scenes where Oskar falls in love with a 15 year old who comes to live with his father after his mother dies (she became obsessed with eating raw fish after the eel incident and got food poisoning). Although nothing is shown explicitly, it is insinuated he (the 11 year old playing a chronological 16 year old but looking like a 3 year old) performs oral sex on the girl and he can be seen under the covers having sex with her a little later on. They conceive a child together through this.

I’m still not sure what the meaning of the movie is. I read that it had something to do with the infantilism of adults and the Nazi party, but I felt like I would be smited (smote?) if I thought about this film too long so I stopped analyzing it.

Final review: 1/5. There is probably some watch list out there for people who enjoyed this movie. Not falling for that one!

Up next: Breakfast at Tiffany’s

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#81- Little Caesar

Quick recap: Rico Bandello is in the mob but dreams of becoming the top guy. He and his best friend Joe Massara head to Chicago to stir things up. Rico gets in with a gang and works his way up while his friend Joe decides he would rather just dance. Seriously. Just think of Rico as the Little Engine that Could, only with more guns and wisecracks.

nothing wrong with a little dancing

Fun (?) fact: Little Caesar was made in the Pre-Code era, which meant that audiences were subjected to lots of violence but still not much sex. When the Hayes code went into effect, movies become ok with the moral crowd but more bland for the rest of us. This is why we can’t have nice things.

My thoughts: Although I had never seen Little Caesar before last night, I already knew who Rico was. When I think of the mob (which I do often), I either think of A) Tony Soprano or B) some 30’s mobster who wears flashy clothing, talks out of the corner of his mouth because of a fat cigar and adds the word ‘see?’ at the end of every sentence. Turns out, that caricature comes from this movie! Yet another pop culture hole filled.

I forgot the pointing at oneself with the thumb! I’m totally going to start doing that more.

Typically, the mobster stories I have seen ( just The Sopranos) have been extremely complicated and at times morally ambiguous. Little Caesar is none of that. Rico is a small time gangster who quickly rises to the top with his quick anger and ability to plan successful hold ups. I always thought joining a gang would be more difficult than just, ‘hey, I’m new in town and now I’m going to join up with you guys, see?’ But that’s seemingly what happens. And, unlike The Sopranos, there was never a point in the movie where I felt any emotion or sympathy towards Rico. To an audience member in the 30’s, I can see why that would be a preferable thing. The 20’s were about long, drawn out, epic silent films and once ‘talkies’ were introduced, it must have been nice to sit back for an hour and just watch people shoot each other. There isn’t much analyzing to do here and there are no real surprises.

Mob stories have a reputation for romanticizing crime, but I’m not sure that applies to this movie. Little Caesar was made at the start of the Depression, a time when the rich weren’t seen in the most favorable light. In a way, Rico’s story is more of a moral lesson than anything else: greed will get you nowhere. The mob may be seen as cool now, but I bet that for the average American in 1931, there was something deeply satisfying watching Rico get caught and subsequently gunned down by the police.

Is this the untimely end of Milhouse?

Final review: 2/5. I’m sad to say that although there were several newspapers shown, none of them were spinning.

Up next: The Tin Drum

#80- Shane

Quick recap: A tired gunslinger,Shane, comes across a farm owned by Joe Starrett, in need of serious help. He starts working for him and his family and also gets involved in a dispute with Rufus Ryker, a cattle baron, out to take the Starretts’ land.

Shane could shoot, but he was best when posing and looking heroic

Fun fact: During the scene when Shane and Joe fight, the horses were supposed to act frightened. In order to really build up some hysteria, a couple of guys in bear suits went out and spooked them. That’ll do it.

My thoughts: When it comes down to it, I don’t really have an opinion on Westerns. I haven’t seen many, but, being from Texas, I feel like it is something I should enjoy. The thought of sitting down to watch a Western just seems sort of comforting, like I would imagine old men enjoy doing on a Saturday afternoon.

I don’t know if this is a positive aspect or not, but Shane was exactly what I expected it to be. The scenery was beautiful and there were more than enough grizzled cowboy characters to keep my attention. Before the movie even began, I knew that Shane would be involved in a fight somehow and eventually come out on top. So I guess the lack of surprise made watching the movie all the more comforting. The fight scenes were about as over the top as I expected, including the final showdown. If you want to imagine what the movie looked like, imagine the most stereotypical Western town, complete with the good guy wearing white and the bad guy wearing black. That’s Shane.

I was quite impressed with the menacing grin on Jack Palance’s face

Now, I could easily write the movie off as nothing special and be done with it. But you see, I can’t do that because of the kid in the film. I think the director was going for ‘cute’ and ‘precocious’ when casting Joey, but instead I saw ‘annoying’ and ‘will probably grow up to stalk others’. I don’t know why, but that kid annoyed the hell out of me. His voice was so whiny and he looked like he would’ve fit in with the Children of the Corn. It’s not really his fault, though, because his parents are really to blame. Who lets their child hang out with a random guy that just shows up in your yard one day? Case in point, the final scene when Shane fights Joe to keep him from getting killed by Ryker. Shane eventually wins, but only because he took his gun out and knocked Joe out cold. Joey, the little boy, screams out ‘ I hate you!’ to Shane, which was probably the smartest thing he had said thus far. But then Shane took off to fight Ryker himself and the parents were totally cool with their kid running after him and possibly getting hurt. Then again, maybe they were as tired of him as I was. The iconic final moment where Joey chases after Shane (he does that A LOT) and yells, ‘ Come back, Shane! I love you, Shane,’ made me root for the hero even more. Shane probably rode out into the sunset thinking, ‘thank god I escaped that hot mess’.

He can stare into your soul

Final review: 2/5. Apparently, there is a debate whether Shane dies at the end and left the family so that they wouldn’t see him suffer. Dying would’ve made the movie more interesting, although I still stand by my opinion that he just wanted to escape the clingy kid.

Up next: Little Ceasar

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