October 6, 2000
My Favourite Movies, Volume 3 - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- A little less than a year ago, I did two columns, each containing 25 of my favourite movies. Both lists included such films as: All About Eve, California Suite, Funny Girl, Network, Secrets and Lies, The Apostle, The French Connection and Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?.
Today in this space lemme rattle off volume 3 of My Favourite Movies (again, in no particular order)...
One of the last big musicals Hollywood ever made was MAME. Starring Lucille Ball as the Jerry Herman version of Patrick Dennis’ Auntie Mame (which was on the previous list), Lucy plays a grand dame who mothers her nephew and introduces him to the world of glamour and schlitz. It boasts a pretty good score and it truly is an overlooked piece of work. Bob Preston and Lucy dancing in a garden to ‘Loving You’ is as charming as hell.
12 ANGRY MEN is a terrific insight to the human psychology of decision making. It parlays the struggle of coming to terms with your conscience. The cast is full of names that are Gods in the world of acting.
Don Knotts isn’t really known as a film actor, but his supporting turn opposite the enchanting Joan Allen, William H. Macy and Tobey Maguire, as a lowly repairman in PLEASANTVILLE is nothing short of touching. The exquisite cinematography and story are also not to be missed.
Al Pacino is a damned good actor. In THE INSIDER, while turning in a superb performance, he knocks clear for Russell Crowe’s turn as cigarette industry whistle blower, Dr. Jeffery Wigand. Christopher Plummer is also good as 60 Minutes’ crusty curmudgeon, Mike Wallace. With a script co-written by Eric Roth, Forrest Gump’s scribe and direction by Michael Mann, Insider was one of the best of 1999.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, is the only animated picture ever nominated for Best Picture. It looks it too. The timeless tale of a beast transformed into a prince, along with the Disney score of Disney scores and Angela Landsbury as a teapot, it’s a grand MGM musical told in genuine Disney fashion - big, bold and brilliant.
Susan Sarandon is the actress of the ‘90s. In the span of 5 years she amassed 4 nominations for Best Actress, copping the Oscar for Dead Man Walking. Her schmaltzy turn in STEPMOM, alongside Julia Roberts and Ed Harris brought the slightest tear to my hardened and cynical eye.
Jim Carrey reminds me of Robin Williams. Not only being versatile in terms of comedy, but in acting. These boys can act. Carrey’s touching performance in THE TRUMAN SHOW, brought him to prominence as not just another rubbery face. Ed Harris gives a sympathetic performance, that even I buy.
Carrey’s MAN ON THE MOON was such a dead-on capture of Andy Kaufman, that I think that’s why it got shut out of an Oscar nod for Jim. Directed by the brilliant two-time Oscar winner, Milos Forman (One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus), he did the same for his last bio, Larry Flynt. He made the main character earn our sympathy. Earn is such a harsh word, however in his case.
WAG THE DOG is a brilliant and biting satire on show business and the marriage thereof with politics. Robert De Niro gives a superb performance as does Oscar nominee Dustin Hoffman. Anne Heche has a role and does well, as does comedian Dennis Leary, who round out a terrific cast that does well with a David Mamet, co-written script.
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon came to prominence in GOOD WILL HUNTING. The boys of Beantown tell the tale of an unassuming janitor/genius with such dignity and enough class that you hardly believe these actor guys actually wrote it. I wrote above of Jim Carrey’s talent to actually act and it’s clear that Robin Williams is better for his drama sometimes. He copped an Oscar - and well deserved too.
In film we’ve been blessed with timeless teams like Laurel and Hardy, Bogie and Bacall, Tracy and Hepburn and Gable and Lombard. Add to it the remarkable talents of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Like oil and vinegar, two substances that don’t look like a tandem on the surface - the result is a partnership that put out some of the best movies of the last 40 years. From The Fortune Cookie to The Odd Couple, they were wonderful in GRUMPY OLD MEN and it’s sequel GRUMPIER OLD MEN. Throw in Ann-Margaret, Burgess Meredith and Sophia Loren in the sequel, it’s a pity they didn’t make more.
ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN is right up there with The Insider and all the other reality based drama’s that have hit the big screen. The tale of Nixon’s downfall thanks to Woodward and Bernstein, played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, Men is a terrific and intriguing picture. Jason Robards won his second Oscar portraying Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee.
Sidney Poitier is always good. However in A PATCH OF BLUE his performance is slightly overshadowed by Elizabeth Hartman’s turn as a blind woman who finds black Poitier as her trusted companion. Cue the wildly terrifying Shelly Winters as her prejudice mom, and Poitier is relegated to integral and superbly stable springboard for these different characters. It’s a heart-warming tale that fails to bring together the ending you’d expect, but the result is soberingly correct.
Zero Mostel is remembered for his colourful portrayal of Teyve in Fiddler on the Roof, but he submits a terrifically colourful tour de force opposite Gene Wilder in THE PRODUCERS. This is funny stuff.
Dame Maggie Smith won her first Oscar for THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE. Brodie is a teacher in a private school who displays such a remarkable ability to teach students. When that ability is finally tested, Smith is equally remarkable.
Gene Hackman gives a wonderfully tender performance as a son having to reconcile the constraints of estrangement and time with a crusty father played with such grace by Melvin Douglas in I NEVER SANG FOR MY FATHER. It breaks your heart, but lifts your spirits at the same time.
Diana Ross is brilliant as Billie Holiday, the tragic jazz singer whose rise in show business is coupled with a horrific addiction to drugs. LADY SINGS THE BLUES is wonderfully seasoned by Holliday’s music, which makes her life a lot more tragic in this telling.
Warren Beatty produces, stars, directs and co-writes a terrific look at politics and the absurdities thereof in BULWORTH. Hallie Berry is good, but it’s Beatty’s baby and it’s a delight.
Robert Downey Jr. sets to film the life of a real film giant and innovator, Charlie Chaplin. CHAPLIN is engrossing and a pretty good picture. Downey gives the performance of his career.
While Downey plays the non-fictional Chaplin, Billy Crystal is MR. SATURDAY NIGHT, an old vaudevillian comedian who has to make peace with David Paymer. Paymer won an Oscar nod for his supporting turn in a picture that also boasted a role, played to her brilliance, by Helen Hunt.
Starring Diane Keaton (Oscar nominee), Meryl Streep, Gwen Verdon, Robert De Niro, Leo DiCaprio and Hume Cronyn, MARVIN’S ROOM is a wonderfully touching tale of coming together, when the thought thereof is inconceivable. Acting brilliance brings forth a brilliantly acted film.
Judy Garland’s last film performance is a tale that closely resembles her own life as a concert performer in I COULD GO ON SINGING. Co-starring Dirk Bogarde, Garland gives a terrific performance, that enforces show business’ collective lament for the late Garland’s unmistakable talent.
J.F.K., Oliver Stone’s conspiracy theory of the 35th President’s assassination is an addictive film that is nothing short of thought-provoking.
Woody Allen’s EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU is a testament to his own ability as a director and artist. People like Ed Norton, Goldie Hawn, Julia Roberts, Drew Barrymore and others give touching and superbly funny performances, peppered with songs that evoke Hollywood’s weakness for the standards.
Shirley MacLaine is wonderfully loopy as Meryl Streep’s mom in POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE. Thinly mirroring scribe Carrie Fisher’s own relationship with mom Debbie Reynolds, Postcards is a wonderful insight to show business and drug addiction. It tells the tale comically, but it has some great high drama moments. MacLaine belting out I’m Still Here in true diva form is not to miss. Plus Meryl sings!
Questions and comments may be sent to: editor@thecommentary.ca
An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .