Gigi

Gigi
1958

Once upon at time, not too long ago, there lived this very sad, young, and might I say attractive, girl. Why was she sad, you may wonder? Because it seemed like lately all she had been watching were movies that made her want to poke out her own eyeballs with a blunt stick, just so she would never have to suffer through an excruciating film again. I can assure you; these movies were really that bad. But this girl seemed to find a glimmer of hope. A light at the end of the tunnel you could call it. She was very excited to watch this movie, and be so entranced with it that she would soon forget all the horrid movies she had seen in her past. As she sat down to watch Gigi, her dreams and hopes for a good piece of cinema came crashing down at an alarming rate.

First of all, she thought this movie was extremely hard to understand. As it was set in Paris, understandably everyone had a French accent. This is not always a bad thing, but when it makes a film so that you can’t hear what the characters are saying unless you have subtitles on, these accents become something of the devil, or so the young and attractive but sad girl thought.

Besides the speech, the story made little sense as well. Gigi, the main character (dur) is being raised by her grandmother because her mother is off her rocker. She is an opera singer, and a very bad one at that. So poor Gigi is forced to live with her grandma, whose ideas are bizarre. She doesn’t seem to like the idea of marriage and would rather train Gigi, with the help of her equally odd sister, to be a courtesan. But once a guy nearly twice Gigi’s age starts showing interest in her and asks to marry her they suddenly change their minds and marriage is alright by them. This made the girl sadly watching this movie’s brain hurt quite a bit! Why would they change so suddenly? Why didn’t they like the idea of marriage in the first place? Why are they all so hard to understand? These must be added to the many unanswered questions the girl had about life, such as why cats always land on their feet or why there is only one shoe out of a pair on the side of the highway. These questions are enough to keep people up all night.

Finally, the two hours of torture were done. The young and attractive but sad girl sighed a great sigh of relief as she remembered she would never have to watch such a strange and uninteresting movie again. But as she realized the next film on her list was likely going to be just as terrible, she collapsed on the ground and cried for three days straight. Thus ends this tragic tale I have told you today.

Going My Way

Going My Way
1944

You want to know a super cool but super secrety secret?

CHRISTMAS IS IN THREE DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, I guess that isn't much of a secret, but still. It's flippin' awesome.

Now that I have that out of my system, we can continue.

You know what is not as cool as Christmas? Well, like everything, but I was thinking in this particular case Going My Way. It doesn’t even come close to being as extremely awesome. In fact it’s rather lame. Boring even. Dreadfully so.

This is a story about a Father. Father O’Malley. He sings. He loves to sing, and play baseball, and all sorts of other things that drive his head father man guy thing crazy. This grumpy old father is named Father Fitzgibbon, which is like the most ridiculous name in the entire world. But he’s Irish so I will forgive him.

At the church they work in, a rather horrible thing is about to happen. The bank man, who looks exactly like the mean bank man from It’s a Wonderful Life, but isn’t which is completely weird and non related (Maybe all evil bank guys look the same. Maybe they are all clones! It’s a conspiracy), is trying to foreclose on them because they have been not paying their mortgage. But Father O’Malley has a plan! He decides to write a song and get the neighborhood gang in on it as a boy choir. It’s destined to be an amazing hit called, “Going My Way.”

But, the studio didn’t like it. Not one bit. Oh well I suppose that’s life. To mourn, or just get over their rejection, the choir and father sing a song about not wanting to be a donkey, or something like that. The studio man heard it and loved it! They have the money now!

And then the church burns down. Teehee. Oh I am sorry, that is totally not funny at all. I meant to say it’s terribly tragic.

It’s okay because eventually they start construction on a new church after Father O’Malley’s old girlfriend sends in a ton of money on their Christmas Eve service. She is an opera star and took the gang choir on tour with her. Everyone is happy, including grumpy father, who got to see his mommy finally after 45 years. Oh and Father O’Malley is randomly transferred to a new church. The End.

This movie made me sleepy. One reason it did that was because there was not a single attractive person in this movie. It was so depressing. Why would you want to watch a two hour movie if there is no one pretty to stare at? It’s seems like a waste of time if you ask me. Also, the movie had too many ridiculous subplots. I only mentioned about half of them above. The others were just not all that important to the total plot I suppose. That all said this movie had its moments. Like when the two gang guys were slapping each other. Or the basket of puppies. Oh my gosh. You haven’t seen cute puppies since you have seen these ones. So it wasn’t all a complete waste of time

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas, and I hope very much it is much more entertaining than this movie!

Patton

Patton
1970

I’m going to let you in on a secret from me
It’s rather odd, soon you will see.
I have this addiction to rhyme,
I could even do it on a lime!
“Oh lime, of the shade green,
You really are pretty keen.”
See look at that! Wasn’t it grand?
Now let’s get on to this movie about a man.

Patton was this dude’s name,
Being annoying was his game.
He was a general in the army,
And he really wasn’t charmy.
Yes I made up that word.
It’s pretty much the coolest thing I have ever heard.

Anywho let’s continue with this jerk.
He really was a piece of work.
He slapped a soldier right in the face!
He thought he deserved it, he was wrong in this case.
This got him in trouble, oh quite a lot
But even so he still fought.
Eventually people got fed up with him.
They made him stay back it was really dim.
Then they got over it, and asked for him back.
And then he was allowed to attack.

BAM! ZAM! POW!
The war was over now!
But Patton our man
Who didn’t need a tan
Was still ever mean
And called a Russian, who was not lean,
A name which I shall not repeat here,
For it is not something you would endear.
But he realized he was the same as that name,
And he took a drink with the Russian, all the same.

He nearly was run over by a cart,
Which really should have happened right from the start.
But I had no luck, he walked away for a mile,
And then went to live on for a while.

That is the jist of it.
The man Patton was not much of a hit.
He was ugly and rude, and way too strict
And really, he made me quite ticked.
Therefore, even though funny it could be
This is a movie I would never re-see.

The Godfather

The Godfather
1972

I am perpetually afraid of oranges now. Obviously when one is seen it means impending doom, something I’d rather avoid.

Before I start, I would like to apologize in advance for the fact I do not know anyone’s names except Sonny and Michael’s. It’s just so hard to remember Italian names for me!

Marlon Brando is the head of a mob family. His real name is obviously not Marlon Brando. He has four children, Sonny, Connie, Michael and Son I Do Not Know.

Connie is getting married. To a really big jerk but that’s beside the point for now. At this wedding is a singer named Johnny. I think. We’ll just call him Johnny. He asks Brando for help getting another movie job because his career is lacking. So Brando sends Robert Duvall, his own private lawyer and basic son, off to Hollywood to talk to the producer and make him an offer he can’t refuse.

Apparently he could refuse it. So as the producer is refusing it, he shows Duvall his prize race horse and we see some oranges on the table. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS? DUN DUN DUUUUUN!!!!

The next morning the producer wakes up to see his horses head at the foot of his bed. Fun fact! It was a real horse head used in the movie that they got from a dog food company. Now that I think of it, maybe that fact isn’t so fun after all. Oh well. The producer quickly signs Johnny.

When Duvall comes back, the whole gang meets up with the big nosed ugly man. BNUM wants them to protect some kind of drug thingy, but Brando doesn’t like this idea and says no. He later sends his enforcer to go learn more about it, but BNUM stabs him in the hand then garrotes him to death.

Isn’t that like, the coolest thing ever? He was garroted to death! That is right up there with awesome ways to kill someone, along with drawn and quartered. Please excuse my morbidness as we return to the plot now.

Brando is out buying, wait for it…. ORANGES. And then he gets shot in the back five times. That must have hurt. When Michael, the one son who isn’t involved in the family business, goes to visit his father, and saves his father from another murder attempt. This one little scrawny dude was supposed to be watching Brando, but he was sick. So of course he gets shot in the head.

Everyone is still mad at the attempt on Brando’s life. So they send Michael to shoot the people, including BNUM, in the head. Lots of head shots in this movie. He does it and then rushes off to be safe in Italy. There he marries this girl, but she soon gets BLOWN UP in a fiery explosion meant for Michael.

Remember how Connie’s husband is a jerk? Well, he beat her up and she told Sonny about it. Sonny chases down jerk husband and beats him to a pulp. WHILE JERK HUSBAND WAS WEARING ORANGE! But alas, he doesn’t learn and beats Connie again. Sonny runs down to beat him up again, when he passes a sign for ORANGE JUICE. Oh no Sonny! Don’t go! He drives up to a toll booth and is shot at least 47 times. This causes him to die.

Brando has a meeting with the head of the five families. There are ORANGES on the table, but, the achieve peace. It makes no sense!

Next, Brando has a heart attack with an orange in his mouth, Michael takes over as the head of the business, he has the other heads of the five families killed (ah NOW the oranges on the table make sense) as he is being named godfather of Connie’s baby, and then has jerk husband garroted for helping in the “Let’s kill Sonny!” plot. Connie gets sad, his new wife gets mad, but Michael lies and says he didn’t do it and then everyone is happy. The end.

So how was this? Well. The acting was brilliant. The story was brilliant. The orange thing was brilliant. The movie was brilliant.

Out of Africa

Out of Africa
1985

Alright. I know I have said I am in complete love with many actors before, but every time I was lying. I do not really wish to marry Marlon Brando, or Gregory Peck, or anyone else. Because, my true love, is Robert Redford.

He has starred in two of my favorite movies of all time, The Sting, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In both he was absolutely spectacular. But just recently, a tragedy occurred in my relationship with Mr. Redford.

HE LET ME DOWN. The little jerk betrayed my trust in him and made an awful movie! At first, I was in shock. How could Robert Redford fail?! But alas, I do suppose everyone is human and is allowed to fail once in their life, so my complete adoration of him has not really changed. But this does not change the fact I completely abhor with great passion the movie that is Out of Africa.

First, we do not begin in Africa. We start in Denmark, where our main lady Karen has decided to go into a marriage of convenience with one of her buddies. She should have known how stupid of an idea this was. She is now semi-happy with her little (really, he’s short) baron husband, and off they go to use her money to buy a dairy farm in Africa.

But oops! Little Baron forgot to mention he used her money to buy a coffee plantation, and then goes off hunting all the time, leaving her to do all the work. He’s really not a nice guy now is he?

He also sleeps around and gives poor Karen syphilis. What a jerk. She has to go back to Denmark to get better, which she does eventually do, but the disease has left her unable to have children. I repeat. Little Baron is a jerk.

But that’s okay! Because Karen has found a lover in Denys (I spelled it right, I promise), a free spirited person who is played by a very very OLD Robert Redford. Little did I know he actually had to ability to age. This was quite dramatizing as I am sure you can tell.

After a few years, Little Baron asks for a divorce. Karen says, hmm, okay! She is free to marry Denys. Except for the fact he doesn’t like the idea of marriage. Karen is rather annoyed at this and the break up. But only for about ten minutes, film time. She understands she cannot tame him and everyone is happy.

THEN. HE. DIES.

I couldn’t believe it. What a terrible way to end a movie! Oh her plantation burns down too. So she really is having bad luck and must return to Denmark to live. The end.

I am at a loss for words, in the worst possible way. Have I mentioned yet that this movie was three hours long? Have I mentioned Meryl Streep’s hair looked like a lion attacked it throughout the length of the movie? Have I mentioned yet how horrid her accent was and how I was secretly hoping the whole film her vocal chords would just die? Have I mentioned that Robert Redford DIED? Well, now I have. These reasons are just some in a long list of why this movie failed extremely epically. I hope, for as long as I live, I will never have to watch something like this again, it was that atrocious. Any film that makes Robert Redford terrible does not deserve to have the title of Best Picture.

Maybe it’s time to go back to loving Marlon Brando.

The French Connection

The French Connection
1971
“If I were a rich man!”
“Tradition!”
“Matchmaker matchmaker find me a find catch me a catch.” Does anyone know what movie these are from? If you guessed Fiddler on the Roof, you would be correct! Isn’t that a fabulous movie? Oh how I would love to talk about that movie! It was nominated in 1971 for Best Picture even, that’s how great it is!

But guess what. It lost. To stupid The French Connection. So I have to talk about that movie instead. This makes me angry. But because I am a wonderful person, I’ll do it anyway.

Bad guys have drugs. Good guys want to put them away for this. Good guys fail in the end. The end.

What’s that you say? I am getting lazy in my old age and should do a longer summary? Well I take personal offense to that! I am not getting lazy! So maybe I only made my bed twice this week. Maybe I only put on makeup three times. Maybe I only wrote a three sentence summary. I don’t think this is the definition of lazy! I call it conservation of energy, which everyone should be for.

In truth, this was all I understood of this, to put it bluntly, terrible movie. It was confusing. And boring. The most exciting scene was a car chasing a train, but even though that had the potential to be fabulous and spectacular, it was just dull and flat. The blood that was spilling out all over the place throughout the movie was bright red and obviously fake. The dialogue was difficult to understand. They spoke in too much French. I could go on.

And I will. Because I particularly hated the ending immensely. I mean a good guy gets shot by another good guy and none of the bad guys except one actually get punished. It’s terrible! How is this supposed to be a lovely tale worth watching?

I truly do not understand why this won Best Picture. It did not exemplify any qualities a Best Picture movie should have. Now, maybe I am being too harsh. Maybe I just really wanted Fiddler on the Roof to win. Maybe I am extra sensitive because it’s past midnight and I am cranky. Or maybe this was just a lousy movie.

Kramer Vs. Kramer

Kramer Vs. Kramer

1979

Tonight, the unexpected happened. My dishwasher began to melt.

I know you are laughing at this statement. But it is not funny. I have never been more worried about anything before in my life. Smoke and steam were pouring out of my dish cleaning device at an alarming rate, making some sort of black plastic slowly ooze out the front. I was convinced for a few seconds that it was going to eat me. Had you seen the site that I had beheld tonight, I am sure my dear friends that you would believe the same thing.

While all this was going on, I happened to be watching Kramer Vs. Kramer. Of course I would have to take breaks occasionally to make sure my large kitchen appliance hadn’t totally wasted away into a heap of useless plastic. That would indeed be a tragedy.

Ted Kramer likes to work. He likes it a lot. However, his wife hates the fact he is always working, and never paying any attention to her feelings, and in general being a fail of a husband. So of course, she leaves him, and their five year old son.

At first, Ted doesn’t do so well having a child to take full care of. He makes him French toast with the egg shells mixed in, things like that. But eventually after about a year or so, they finally begin to make it all work and become genuinely happy.

Of course, in a movie, when things are going splendidly you know everything is about to turn rotten.

This movie is no exception. First Ted is hit with the news his ex has returned to New York City and is wanting custody of Billy, their now seven year old boy. Of course Ted is rather attached to Billy and says no. So off to a courtroom they must go! Oh look that rhymed! Maybe I should do that more of the time.

But not before Ted loses his job due to missing some stuff because of being a single parent. This makes his case to win Billy nearly impossible. Scratch that. It is impossible. So Ted races off, three days before Christmas, to find a job, any job.

Luckily, he does! It is below him and he takes a pay cut, but it is still a job. He doesn’t care. He would have probably worked at McDonald’s if he had to. Everything is secure to head off to the courtroom.

Now, I could write this long, dramatic paragraph about how they argue back and forth and have to wait for the news an agonizing amount of days, or I could just tell you bluntly that Ted looses Billy. Its heart wrenching. Honestly, if you don’t feel even a tinge of sadness when this happens, it is apparent you are cruel AND heartless AND have no soul.

Things were looking pretty down, and with only four minutes left it looked like this movie could win the award for saddest movie ever. But Meryl Streep saves the day! She is the wife, and she says she will not take the boy home because he already is home. She is giving up custody and everyone is happy. Except probably her. The End.

Oh. My. Goodness. Can I just go on and on for like, about twenty minutes about the acting in this film? It was wonderful! Some of the best I have seen. All the main characters were nominated for either Best Acting or Best Supporting Acting. Dustin Hoffman, who played Ted, was able to portray a man who was at first deeply hurt but then grew and fiercely loved his son. Meryl Streep won an award too but she was in the movie for only fifteen minutes tops so I don’t have anything to say except that it is amazing that her nose doesn’t get red when she cries. This is a skill I must ask her to teach me one day. Even the little boy was able to act much better than I am able to and he was only six! He was an actor who was far better at his craft than many people four times his age.

I wouldn’t say this was a joy to watch, because honestly it was hard to watch all the pain every character was going through. But it was still an excellently made movie. Now if you excuse me, I have a dishwasher to save.