Dances with Wolves

Dances with Wolves
1990

There are only two good things about this movie. Kevin Costner’s mustache and the wolf. Neither survives at the end of the movie. What does that tell you?

Also, in order to entertain myself during this four hour film, I did math. For FUN. What does that tell you?

This movie starts with chopping someone’s leg off. What does that tell you?

These three things should tell you that this movie is absolutely horrid and tedious and Avatar, but I will get to the latter later.

An unwise move on my part was to drink both a Mountain Dew, a Monster and eat a box of Mike and Ike’s before watching this long, drawn out, icky movie. Not my best idea ever as now I want to go run around in circles and had this desire for the whole film. This probably added to my distain for the thing.

But I think even if I had been normal this movie would still have felt seventy two thousand hours long. For real. I nearly cried when the intermission came because I thought the movie was nearly done. Little did I know it was really just half way through. I am not being over dramatic I really came close to sobbing out of sheer boredom.

Absolutely nothing of interest happens throughout the whole film. Nothing. I can’t remember a time I hated a movie so much. It made me so depressed because all that they did was kill off the best character in the whole movie; the wolf! I did cry when he died. I will admit it. I haven’t cried in a movie since I was four during Charlotte’s Web when Charlotte dies, which for the record is so utterly depressing. But this movie is worse. You are emotionally attached to the wolf, Two Socks. He is calm, good natured, and sweet. John the main character even dances with him! Hence the title. Why would they kill him? The evil good for nothing jerks in the army just shoot him for sport. Stupid evil idiots. I liked the wolf. He was the only great thing in the movie. And now he is dead. The dramatized me severally. I mean I which is saying something cried. Me! Stupid movie.

So you know Avatar right? Well change animals for Unubtaniam, add the west instead of a pretty planet and exchange Indians instead of the blue people and you have Dances with Wolves. No joke.

John, Kevin Costner, is going to get his leg chopped of so he tries to commit suicide so they don’t take it. Um, why not just kill the doctor dimwit? It backfires on him anyway and he winds up a hero and heads out West! Woohoo!

But no one is at his post. Maybe not so woohoo. So he just chills with his horsey and Two Socks the whole time and journals EVERYTHING. It’s so boring. Have I mentioned how boring it is yet?

Eventually he hooks up with the Indians. After realizing, “Hey! These people aren’t too bad! They haven’t scalped me yet so that’s a good sign!” he becomes pretty good friends with them. I do more math. Math gets boring so I start to clean. Yeah. It’s that tedious. That’s a good word. Tedious. I am getting sidetracked.

So he’s all buddy buddy with the Sioux now. Yay him! He ends up marrying one named Stands With Fist. Oh he gets his name changed to Dances with Wolves. I forgot that part. So he’s married now. Everyone is all happy but people keep randomly attacking them. I am sure it wasn’t that random but to be perfectly honest the movie was mostly in subtitles because they just had to talk in Souixian and I was not paying attention the whole four hours…

Anyway so after a few hours the army comes back and thinks John is a traitor which I guess he technically is. But he Sioux buddies come and kill everyone and bust him out, after the stupid idiot jerks in the army kill the wolf (*sniff). He goes back to his wife and everyone lives happily ever after.

EXCEPT ME. I am still devastated by having to waste an entire afternoon on a movie that only won Best Picture because it was politically correct. Honestly I would have rather watched paint dry. Really. It would have saved me the emotional trauma of Two Socks dying. But I am over that now. I really am. I promise. It’s just a wolf in a movie that was adorable and was cute and fluffy…

Stupid movie.

Chicago

Chicago

2002

Woozah.

If I had to describe Chicago in one word, that would be it. On a completely shallow note, this movie is spectacular. The shiny sparkly (I am not ADD I swear) costumes draw help draw you into the 1920’s setting. It’s a movie that the female actresses carry, which is a pleasant change. The musical numbers are flawless, drawing you into the imagination of whoever is singing. They are so cool! The actors even sing the songs themselves. The actual pieces get stuck in your head forever and you can’t help but tap your toes to them. I just love musicals.

But on a deeper level this movie so epically fails. It tells us as long as you have a good lawyer and are a good liar, you can get away with murder! Literally!

At yet, I loved it! Call me a horrible person. Go ahead. See if I care! This movie is so well made I don’t care if its morals are ridiculously horrid.

The movie starts out with Velma, a singer and dancer in the great city of, go figure, Chicago. She just murdered her sister and husband because they were cheating with each other. Always a good reason to murder someone. She is caught and thrown in jail.

Now we go to Roxie. She is cheating on her husband with a furniture salesman because he told her he could get her in with some really good manager. See, she wants to be a singer and a dancer. But OMG GUESS WHAT? The furniture guy doesn’t know a manager. He just wants sex. So she shoots him! That seems to be the answer to everything in Chicago.

Now she is in jail. Poor Roxie. Not really. She is in jail with Velma not so coincidentally.

After being in jail for awhile waiting for her trial she overhears Velma and the matron of the prison “Mama” talking about Velma’s amazing brilliant lawyer who has never lost a female case. His name is Billy. This makes me think of a bullfrog.

Anywho Roxie decides to get this lawyer but she has no money. Her poor-dumb-still-madly-in-love-for some-reason-husband somehow gets five grand and she has the best lawyer money can buy. Yay!

They work on completely changing the story to make it self defense and a bunch of stuff happens, including pretending to be pregnant and learning killing people is the only way to make people interested in you, and her trial comes. A lot of fancy tongue tricks are performed by Billy and Roxie gets off scot free. And so does Velma somehow. They go into business together doing a song and dance act and the movie ends.

So what does Chicago tell us? LEARN TO LIE! It is a most valuable skill to have! You can get away with even murder, as long as you can lie! In fact, the only person who actually was punished for a crime in this movie was the innocent Hungarian! Oh the irony!

But besides an extremely faulty moral story, this movie is terrific! Okay you can argue that it’s not faulty it really is a satire of the media and how it can twist everything to make it look wonderful. Which is true, it definitely had that, but people do still get away with murder, so it’s still real screwy. But that doesn’t matter at all because it’s very creative, both my movie watching partner for this film Rose, and I thought. What really carried this movie were the spectacular songs and dance parts. They are just too hard to explain here. Go watch the movie and see them for yourself even though you now know how it all ends. It’s the best part.

In the end I would highly recommend this movie as long as you don’t mind being morally corrupted for one hundred and thirteen minutes. You may take this as sarcasm but it’s actually not! Watch it! Be a little bad! It’s okay.

Gentleman's Agreement

Gentleman’s Agreement

1947


I am so sorry in advance, but unfortunately this entry is going to have a more serious tone. Minus this. Can someone build me a time machine? I have to travel back in time and meet Gregory Peck. Because I have to marry him. I know this may mess up some space time continuum, but who cares? I love him!

Gentleman’s Agreement is a story about a reporter, Skylar, or Phil, Green (Gregory Peck) who goes undercover as a Jew to write an article on anti-Semitism. As we go on his eight week journey with him, we see what Jews had to put up with due to prejudice. He was denied jobs, kicked out of hotels, even his own son was beaten up, all because he simply was a Jew, not a Gentile. He learned from other Jews they were told that jobs were already full when they really weren’t. Jewish doctors who were perfectly fine physicians were not given recommendations. This is all of the prejudice and bigotry that the “mixed up” people who can’t see past someone’s religion threw into the world.

But really, that’s not what the movie was about. The movie is about standing up for a cause you believe in, and how you stand up for said cause. Phil completely threw himself into his search for justice in anti-Semitism filled New York City. He explained it all to his young son, he never gave up on his article even after it got difficult, and he even correct his own friends when they were showing a prejudice attitude. In contrast to this, we have Kathy, his girlfriend lover fiancée type person thing. She is very against anti-Semitism. She is. She swears. But Phil does not believe her because she does nothing to stop it. She even goes as far to say she is glad she is born Christian.

But honestly she really isn’t. She is just your typical nice person who doesn’t really want to stir up trouble more than there is to fight something she does believe is wrong. Phil tells her if you aren’t fighting something you are just helping it along.

As I watched this, I wondered, how many of us are Kathy? Are we content to just not laugh at a racist joke, just like Kathy did not do? Why don’t we stand up for what we believe in, be it racisms or whatever? This principle doesn’t just apply to this particular subject. If we don’t learn to be bold and fight out loud for what we believe in then we really are fighting for the other side. Do we want that? Are we Kathys, or are we Phils?

Okay, I hopped off my soapbox now. As for the quality of this movie it was pretty good. Gregory Peck is my newest love. He handled this role well and pulled it off with a grace and reality that still seems fresh today, even though it is over sixty years old. He was nominated for Best Actor, but LOST! I don’t understand how this is even possible! Ugh. Now I am angry. The writing in this movie was very well done and was nominated for Best Screenplay. More nominations and no wins. But it won Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Picture so take that! Ha!

As for the supporting cast, they were just fine. Kathy (Dorothy McGuire) I didn’t like only because I didn’t like her character at all. The little boy who plays Tommy, his son, was adorable. But my favorite actor in this movie was Celeste Holm who played Anne, the fashion writer in the same magazine where Phil works. Anne is simply amazing, as she completely speaks her mind and delivers a great Kathy vs Phil speech in the end. For her wonderful splendid amazing efforts Celeste won Best Supporting Actress. It was well earned too.

In all, I really loved this movie. I think everyone can learn something from it. Remember, are you a Kathy, or are you going to strive to be a Phil even though it’s hard?

Casablanca

Casablanca
1942

Casablanca is a classic. Everyone knows that. But here is what I am wondering. How is this possible? Yes. I will admit I did not particularly like Casablanca, supposedly one of the best movies of all times. Occasionally it had its moments, the films strong points for sure being its script and lines, but other than that… it was just any other over dramatic forties film.
The whole story is set in Casablanca, not a white house, which is what I thought, but a place right outside of Morocco. The setting is around the time of World War II. Rick, the main man, played by Humphrey Bogart, owns a nightclub there that is oh so cleverly called Rick’s Café Americian. Side note. Why was Humphrey Bogart famous and a heart throb and all that jazz? He was oh so unattractive. Ugh. I am shivering just by thinking of him now. Anyway so Rick owns this club where a bunch of Italians, Nazis, and French officers all hang out together, because apparently they are all on the same side. The movie really made my brain hurt after awhile trying to keep all of the war stuff straight.
As we become better acquainted with the club I realized it’s rather spiffy. It has a bunch of ways to dwindle your money away, be it on roulette or various assorted alcoholic beverages. It has Sam, the lovely piano player. It has pretty no named guitar player who sings in an ungodly high pitched awful voice. It seems like a cool place to hang out. It has so many shiny objects too. Now that I have rabbit trailed a lot I can go back to the story.
Ugly Rick one night has one of his frequent customers, one who gets in trouble with the law a lot bring him papers of transit to keep for him just for an hour. Rick seems all nervous. I have no clue why because I don’t know what these papers even are. So I googled it! Basically these papers would let whoever had them go wherever they wanted to inside Germany, like to neutral Portugal then to America (Information courtesy of Wikipedia). So to someone the Nazis wanted to keep in Casablanca, these papers are pretty tight.
The guy who has these papers originally gets arrested and then dies without telling anyone who has the papers. Oh well. He was a jerk anyway. So the Captain Louis, by far the best character in the movie as he is so corrupt it’s funny, lets Rick have them. Because even though he despises him he still trusts him… Yeah that makes sense. Captain Louis is so amazing. I love him. He also is allowed to cheat at roulette. Lucky.
While this is all going on, the main reason all these generals and captains and whatnots are chilling at Rick’s is because they want to catch this guy who is very big, powerful, and motivating on the other side of the war. He’s stranded in Casablanca with some random lady and they know he is going to be going to Rick’s that night. He is trying to get to America. Rick bets Louis 20,000 franks he will escape. Louis accepts but lowers it to 10,000 because he is only a poor corrupt official. His words not mine. I love Louis.
The guy, Laszlo, does come in that night. And all the officers, including really bad guy Major Strasser, are there to make sure he never leaves Casablanca. Why don’t they just arrest him? I don’t get it! Urgh. This makes no sense. We see the lady he is with and see is indeed very pretty. She also recognizes Sam. Weird. She asks him to come over and says, “Play it Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By.” So they know each other. Obviously. She finds out Rick is the owner and tries not to see him but fails miserably and they eventually run into each other. Ugh. Where is Louis? This dramatic obvious ex lover thing is so over done.
That night Rick is drinking his brains out waiting for Isla to come. Sam yells at him telling him she’s basically no good. He won’t listen. Flashback time! They were lovers! Dur. They were going to run away together from Paris when the German were invading because Rick did something back in America I don’t get that would make him instantly sent to a concentration camp. But at the train station Sam gives him a note that says Isla can’t come and never will see him ever again. It’s so dramatic.
The end of flashback. Why is Rick waiting for Isla to come? Did she say she was going to? No. Idiot. But she does! I don’t understand how this worked out. But because he’s drunk and mean she leaves. Poor Rick.
The next day Laszlo and Isla work on getting exit visas but are denied by the government. Duh. So they go to the kingpin down there and he says he can get one for Isla but not for Laszlo. They say no. Aww. So they are stranded out in Casablanca until futher notice. This is particularly sucky for Isla as she has ex Rick she dumped rather harshly do deal with.
Rick is out strolling around when he runs into Isla looking at some lace tablecloths. He demands and explanation. She refuses for awhile, then strolls of after telling her she is actually married to Laszlo and was when they hung out in Paris all the time.
Wait what?
You can’t just be like I was married while I was dating you then leave! That is so and totally rude! Isla! I can’t believe you! No one in real life would actually do that. Ugh. This movie makes so little sense.
Rick, understandably, is kind of confused and bitter and crushed at all of this. I would be too. It’s okay Rick. I am here for you. Isla is a big mean jerk and you can do better. Well, maybe not with that face. Laszlo somehow figures out Rick has the papers. I have no clue how. How the events in this movie fall out are rather unclear. It’s so confusing. Anyway, Laszlo asks for the papers, and Rick says no. When asked why, he tells Laszlo to ask his wife why. Ouch.
What happened next I had to google too. Major Strasser has the club sing the national anthem of Germany. In response to that, Laszlo has the band sing the French anthem. They all start singing it with such passion Strasser closes the club until further notice. Jerk. The club empties out and Rick goes upstairs to his room. Where Isla is. She begs for him to give them the papers. He says no. She threatens him with a gun. He still says no, and says shooting him would be doing a favor. She can’t do it in the end. She admits she still loves him. Well duh. They talk about what happened back in Paris. This part is rather boring for me. See, Laszlo was supposedly dead in some concentration camp when they were together. But then she got word he was alive and went to him the same day she and Rick were supposed to leave. She is so confused with what do because she loves Rick still but Laszlo loves her. She asks Rick to do all the thinking for her because she doesn’t know what’s right anymore. Stupid girl. She has no brain is and is willing to let others think for her. I hate her.
So Rick hatches this plan to use the papers to get him and Isla out to America and in return for ease of passage he turns Laszlo into Louis. He sells Rick’s to that kingpin guy and makes sure Sam still has his job and is paid the same. Everyone is all jazzed up about the plan the night of it when they get to the airport but wait! Rick has a different idea in mind! He pulls a gun on Louis so he doesn’t call anyone and makes sure Laszlo and Isla get on the plane together. He tells Isla she would regret it not going with him and Laszlo needs her to keep going as he does truly love her. Isla balks, but eventually gets on the plane.
Louis tells Rick he’s going to have to arrest him. He says okay. Major Stresser comes and asks what happened. When Rick is about the shoot him Louis does instead. He puts in a call saying the major has been shot, “Round up the usual suspects.” I love Louis. Louis and Rick stroll of into the fog, and decide to go on a trip together to France with the 10,000 franks Louis owes Rick.
“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Rick says, right as the credits begin to roll.
Again, I was not that fond of this film. I happened to like the ending, and I am probably the only teenage girl who did. But sheesh this movie was so hard to follow sometimes. And there really was nothing spectacular about it that warrants winning best picture. Sure, there are some pretty clever lines here and there and Louis is amazing in every single way, but other than that, it was kind of just boring. The acting was acceptable. Humphrey Bogart I feel sorry for because of his poor face. Isla I hate with an undying burning passion. I almost feel bad for hating a classic but you know what?
I don’t.

My Fair Lady

My Fair Lady
1964

Musical musical MUUUUUUUSSSIIIICAAAAAAAAAAAAL!

Guess what My Fair Lady is? A musical! If you didn't know this by now, you are an idiot my friend. I love musicals. After seeing a musical just once, their songs are forever drilled into your head and you go around humming them for the next week or so like a crazy person, gathering rather odd looks. It's just lovely!

I have seen My Fair lady at least forty thousand and seven times. It's my mother's favorite movie. And with this movie I have a complex relationship. I always am so excited to watch it because it's a musical and it's songs are just fabulous. But, then I remember the fact it's three hours long and my attention span is that of a squirrel. After two hours I eventually start drawing on people and they don't like that (So sorry Bethy dear).

The main story is rather simple. A girl who talks poorly is taken in by a phonetics expert and he teaches her to speak and act like a lady. He, Professor Higgins, played by Rex Harris, takes on a bet with Colonel Pickering (Wilfred Hyde-White) that he can pass her off as a duchess in six months. No Pickering is not a type of fish for those of you who are wondering. I already checked...

Anyway he is able to pass her, Eliza Doolittle, Audrey Hepburn, off as a duchess and everyone is happy except Eliza because Higgins is a real jerk to her. She leaves, he says sorry, she comes, back the end. THIS TAKES THREE HOURS TO DO!!!! Why? I don't know. They drag the plot out forever and add subplots with romance and blah and it's not very interesting. Songs also add lots of time, but they are the redeeming factor of this far too long movie.

Besides length, the rest of this movie's quality is pretty good. All of the actors play out their roles excellently, Rex Harris even winning Best Actor for his efforts. The songs are spectacular. Have I mentioned them yet? Especially "I'm Getting Married in the Morning." It's song by a Alfred Doolittle, Eliza's father, a man who cannot afford morals. You must love a man who cannot afford morals. I love this man dearly. And I love the songs.

But even my love for the songs, and my love for a morally corrupt old dude can not make up for the fact this movie drags on forever and feels seven hours long. It just doesn't. And after reading the original book Pygmalion the ending of the movie is so entirely wrong it's not funny. A good movie shouldn't make you bored at any point. Therefor even though this movie is "technically" good, I "technically" dislike it. And I will remember it this time.

Annie Hall

Annie Hall
1977

“There’s this old joke about these two old ladies eating at a Catskill mountain resort. One says to the other, ‘The food here is so terrible!’ The other one responds, ‘I know, and such small portions!’ That’s essentially how I feel about life. It’s full of misery and loneliness and unhappiness and it’s all over too quickly.” This is Alvie Singer’s, the balding forty year old protagonist of Annie Hall, mantra for life. He swears he’s not depressed. And he never has been. It’s not like when he was eight he quit functioning because he found out the universe was expanding and was convinced that meant it was soon going to break apart. It’s not like he gives his new girlfriend Annie of only a week or so two books on dying. It’s not like he’s been seeing an analyst for fifteen years. Noooooooo. He’s not depressed. Poor Alvie.

Side note. Is there a difference between analyst and therapy? If so can someone explain it to me? I think you would get like mega bonus points.

Anyway, as Alvie is assuring us he is not depressed he also tells us he broke up with Annie and hasn’t gotten used to it yet. I don’t feel bad about telling you this as this happens within the first minute of the movie. Sadly. He decides to look back and pinpoint that one moment when things went totally wrong, and from that journey, we receive the beautifully crafted gift of Annie Hall.

As I try to explain what I loved about this movie, I am finding it increasingly harder to not be a cliché ridden twelve year old who has never taken a writing course in her life. I could say “Oh I liked it.” But that doesn’t really say much and that just makes me sound like a yoyo. Heehee. That’s a phrase from Annie Hall. Annie says it, along with la de da. Annie, of the title, is a grown up loveable dork. I have lost count of how many times in the movie she went, “Yeah… Yeah? Yeah!” She constantly has her hands on her hips in a Superman pose as is she is ready to go off flying and is the worst driver you will ever see in reel or real life (Oh just look how clever I am!) I drive better than her, and that my friends is saying something. And yet, all that dorkyness, played perfectly quirkily by Diane Keaton, who won Best Actress for this role, is charming. We along with Alvie fall in love with Annie. “George had that thing, where you fall asleep in the middle of a sentence, Narcolepsy! So anyway, George went to the union to get his free turkey because the union always gave him a free turkey at Christmastime because he was shell-shocked during the first world war. So he was standing in line getting his free turkey but then he falls asleep and never wakes up! So he’s dead. He’s dead. Yeah.” These are some of the first words she says to Alvie and because she’s the wonderful Annie, she gets away with it.

Creativity oozed out of this movie like pus out of an infected wound. That may be a gross simile but hey it’s late at night and I spend too much time with my little brothers. Alvie laments his various woes and complaints to either random strangers he stops on the street or the invisible cameras that apparently follow him. Just imagine that. Imagine if you could stop for a minute and ask a random question to any person on the road and they would have the answer to what you should do!
“Should I buy this yellow car here or this blue truck here oh wise stranger?”
“Neither Kelsey. Go buy the monkey you’ve always dreamed about.”
If only real life were like that.
The genius Woody Allen, who not only directed this movie, but also wrote it, winning an Oscar, and starred in it as Alvy (casting yourself as a lead seems a bit narcissistic to me), used a literal split screen many times during the movie. Two things would be happening to show the two very different sides of view leading to often hysterical events. He wrote this to perfection. It was witty and clever, and often laugh out loud funny. Like the cocaine sneezing (yes, sneezing) scene. I could go on, but I would ruin the movie, and that would be a terrible thing to do and I would be very sad indeed to do that.
I sorta fell in love with this movie. As I wrote this, I debated just laying down what happens and adding my opinion here and there. And believe me there will be times as I blog movies that that’s going to happen. But A) this movie was filmed non linear so that would be SO irritating to do and B) it would completely ruin it for people. As I sorta love this movie I would never want to ruin it for others. It would get mad at me and I just can’t have that. So did this movie deserve to win Best Picture in my humble always right opinion? I think so. And I am glad for once a movie that was funny and was just looking at relationships, not trying to fix humanity or make a bold statement with its message won. I highly enjoyed this movie. And for the record, Woody Allen is terribly terrific.

For Starters

Ever since I was seven or eight, the night the Academy Awards are on TV is always the most wonderful night of television of the year for me. Everyone is dressed up all fancy in beautiful dresses or suits. The reporters busily ask who people think are going to win the big awards. And then it starts. We have the little awards, such as Best Makeup, Best Score, Best Art Direction. As we draw towards the end though, we all lean forward as we wait for the envelope to be opened and the Best Picture for that year to be announced.

And sometimes we are shocked. Flabbergasted. How could such and such win? Obviously this movie was so much better! I am sure if you have ever seen an Oscar ceremony you have had this reaction. I have many a time. But, then I realized, how can we know this movie wasn’t better if we haven’t ever seen it? This year, at the eighty third Oscars, when Up lost to The Hurt Locker I had the reaction described above but realized it wasn’t fair and then an idea was born.

I was going to watch every single Best Picture winner and see if I thought it deserved to win.

You may be thinking this is a waste of my precious time. “Oh Kelsey, go do something useful. Don’t blog and watch movies all day long.” First off, it’s totally cool to watch a movie occasionally. It helps one chill from their insane life. And second, I don’t think this is a waste of time. I am going back through the last eighty three years of our heritage to see what was deemed the best in film art. I am culturizing (yes, I made that word up) myself.

Also, in the eighty three movies, there may be movies that are rated R or that someone else may think are “inappropriate.” However, that is not for you to decide and to judge me for, so if I get any comments on how I am corrupting myself or anything like that, my head will explode, more than likely taking yours with me. Are we clear on that? Dandy. Moving on.

I am inviting you on a journey with me as I watch movies, so sometimes there will be spoilers. If I feel a movie is very well known, i.e. My Fair Lady, or I just hated it, I will feel no shame in spoiling it. Others like The Sting or Annie Hall, that I absolutely love love love, I will not. There will be a warning atop any that do contain major spoilers so don’t worry.

So, I think I must be crazy to be excited about watching 83 movies! No I don’t think, I know. Oh well, craziness just produces better writing. Are you ready? Let us begin then!