Tag Archives: drama

#247- Rio Bravo

Quick recap: John Wayne plays Sheriff Chance, in charge of a small town that has been taken over by the Burdette brothers. The only people who can help him are a disabled guy, a recovering alcoholic and worst of all- a woman.

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Fun (?) fact: The set was built 7/8 scale so the characters could seem ‘larger than life’

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To celebrate his 18th birthday, John Wayne bought Ricky Nelson a pile of manure and then threw him into it, because that’s his thing?

My thoughts: I’m still not a huge fan of John Wayne, but boy was this a lot of fun to watch. It’s a Western that you don’t really have to think through. They even made the good guys wear white hats and the bad ones black ones! How much easier can you get? I guess maybe naming John Wayne’s character Goody McGood but that’s really unnecessary. Hilarious, but unnecessary.

There isn’t anything that stands out about Rio Bravo, which is maybe why I liked it so much. It’s not boring at all, which is saying something since the run time is almost 2 1/2 hours.It’s also not just an action movie from beginning to end. There was plenty of time to get to know the characters, of whom I especially liked Dude, played by Dean Martin. None of them were overly complicated or anything, because as mentioned before, all you need to know is who is bad and who is good. John Wayne was the star, but I think I liked his character the least. He was more good natured than Red River and definitely less murdery, so that was nice, but he was just some older guy doing his job. He seemed to genuinely care about Dude and Stumpy, but in a fatherly way, not like friendship.

Which is what makes the love story REALLY not work for me. At the time of filming, John Wayne was 51 while his love interest, played by Angie Dickinson was 26. It’s not that she looks all that young, but that John Wayne looked so old. If there is ever a time in your life that you need to think of something unsexy, might I suggest John Wayne making out? That’ll do that trick, guaranteed. The couple of songs also seemed out of place but considering Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson were cast, I guess they had to throw a bone to the audience.

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That’s one way to flirt? I guess?

Final review: 4/5. A badass female lead would’ve been nice but this was still a great movie

Up next: Possibly The Jerk

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#246- Foolish Wives

Quick recap: A con artist, Count Wladislaw Sergius Karamzin, seduces many people and swindles them out of a lot of money.

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Look at those ankles, though. Who could resist that??

Fun (?) fact: Director Erich von Stroheim (who also played the Count) insisted on everything on set being of the highest quality: the champagne, the caviar, the underwear. Not surprisingly, he went way over budget.

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there were also these weirdly poetic cards thrown in

My thoughts: My 1001 Movies book added Foolish Wives, based on the 85 minute version. As is my life, though, the only version I could find online was the two and half hour one. The movie was originally 6 hours so I guess it could’ve been worse. Still. I appreciate von Stroheim’s attention to detail, but this movie dragged on and on and on.

The Count had a pretty successful operation going on until he took it too far. At one point in the film, he had promised marriage to the maid and also had his scheme going on with Mrs. Hughes, the rich American wife. As if that wasn’t enough, he was probably sleeping with ‘Princess’ Olga and her ‘Cousin’, Vera. And then, for some reason, the Count also went after a guy’s intellectually disabled daughter. Now, I’m not an authority on schemes by any means, but that just seems like a lot to keep up with. I’ll give to him, though- he would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for that meddling maid who burned down the castle with him inside. He lived, of course, but was disgraced when he jumped for safety without trying to save Mrs. Hughes first. That’s actually really funny, now that I think about it: this dude was sleeping with all these girls, running a counterfeit money ring and who knows what else, but it was manners, or lack thereof, that did him in.

People in 1922 went nuts over all the fancy things in the film and specifically the sets, which were built exclusively for Foolish Wives. It didn’t impress me all that much because that’s the age I live in, but I can see how exciting that would’ve been back in the day. I watched a version of the film that was very blurry so had I watched something more high quality, I would’ve appreciated it a little more. I was impressed, however, with the camera angles. I’m not going to attempt to describe them but it wasn’t just a camera set on the actors. The focus was much more advanced than I have seen in a silent film before and it kept me from going insane from the dragging plot.

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The Count looked like Macklemore in some angles, which kept me entertained more than it should’ve.

Final review: 3/5. Would I watch this again? No. But it was more interesting than I thought it would be.

Up next: Rio Bravo

 

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#244- The Last Wave

Quick recap: A lawyer, David Burton, defends 5 Aborigines accused of murdering a man. During the trial, Burton starts to have nightmares and premonitions that make him go insane.

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When the guy who can supposedly turn into an owl looks at you like you are crazy, it’s time to reevaluate things

Fun (?) fact: Much of the movie is about crazy weather in Sydney, and there were actual freak storms happening during production. The crew decided to film in Adelaide, though, and had to recreate all of the heavy rain when they could’ve just stayed in Sydney.

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Also, it’s apparently normal to walk around in Australia with a cowboy hat on and no shirt.

My thoughts: I don’t lean one way or the other when it comes to procedural dramas. I’ve watched my fair share, but I’ve never read a John Grisham novel or seen a full episode of Law and Order. I thought The Last Wave would be similar to what I’m familiar with- a feel good story about wronged individuals, where we all learn a bit about ourselves in the process. I also don’t know much about the Aboriginal people, so I figured at the very least I would be educated a bit. A big fat NOPE this movie was. It was way more creepy than I thought it would be and took many dark turns I would never have imagined.

The movie starts with a really creepy sequence where it starts hailing in the middle of nowhere. There are children at a school and one of them gets hit in the head by the falling ice and the whole thing really unnerved me. It rains throughout the movie, but also frogs and petroleum fall out of the sky too. There were several scenes that freaked me out but for some reason, it was the weather I couldn’t stop thinking about. The premonitions were pretty creepy as well, especially one where one of the men is just standing in the house holding a rock dripping with blood.

I’m not really sure where the trial of the men fit into the story and I’m even more unsure of what happened at the end of the movie. Burton tries to prove that these Aborigines are ‘tribal’, meaning they follow ancient rituals and customs. His whole theory is that the man who died, died from a curse rather than being beaten to death. Yeah, the jury didn’t buy that either. But then it turns out that these men ARE actually tribal and have a sacred place in the sewage system, which is a little weird, tbh. Burton finds the place and then meets up with Charlie, who can turn into an owl. Charlie scares him and he kills Charlie with the same rock as in his dream! After murdering the guy, Burton wanders around the sewer for awhile, dropping tribal relics he stole in poop water. Dude is cursed upon cursed upon cursed at this point. He manages to find his way out and it takes him to the ocean where he either imagines a huge wave wiping out Sydney or there is an actual wave about to wipe out Sydney. A LAST WAVE, if you will.

Final review: 4/5. Much weirder than I expected but a bit ambiguous.

Up next: Foolish Wives

 

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#241-Good Bye Lenin!

Quick recap: After his mother emerges from a coma, a young man tries to keep her from learning that her beloved country of East Germany has collapsed, out of fear that the news will kill her.

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Fun (?) fact: The story is loosely based on the last couple of years of VI Lenin’s life. Josef Stalin was afraid that excitement could caused serious health problems so he censored all media about the political issues of the time.

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My thoughts: Good Bye Lenin was all over the place for me: I laughed, I cried, I drank Coke. Seriously though, the Coke advertising was ridiculous. Was there some Coca-Cola invasion I missed learning about in History? I know that Texas can be sort of hit and miss about important facts children should know, but you would think this would be the sort of thing I would’ve paid attention to.

All joking aside, watching Good Bye Lenin made me realize how little I knew about the fall of East Germany and how complicated the whole thing was. I know about the wall and I could probably name some important figures, but what I never thought about were the people. Not just the fact that families could finally be reunited but how hard it must have been to transition to a democracy after having little to no choice before. These kinds of governments are awful, of course, but they provide a sense of familiarity and calmness, whereas a Westernized country is overwhelming. It made sense why the son, Alex,would try to shield his mother from all of it because he was having a hard time on his own.

Alex’s love for his mother was to me the most important part of the film. There were several funny scenes about the lengths he took to keep his mother from knowing about the fall of her country- from paying boys to sing Socialist songs, to creating fake news reports so his mother could watch tv. It was all done out of a fierce protection, but it was also done as protection from his own feelings. His mother was everything to him, but she also represented safety. In turn, I think Alex’s mother knew the country had changed long before he told her (which he never actually did. He created a fake story about East Germany letting West Germans in because they hated capitalism) but she too loved him so much that she let him continue the charade. The ending, which I won’t give away, was also beautiful and really tied the whole film together.

Final review: 5/5

Up next: One Upon a Time in China

 

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