01/04/24
1/4/2024More and more, the holiday season has morphed into a movie season as well. That probably results from a combination of viewers’ free time with family, high-profile studio marketing at this time of year, the multiplication of movie channels on television and electronic devices, and who knows what else?
Whatever the reasons, I find myself watching more movies over the holidays. Our community’s Sierra Theatre does an admirable job of snaring a number of new productions shortly after they’re released, and I enjoy the combination of a comfortable theater seat, a giant screen, wrap-around sound, and a sizable box of well-buttered popcorn.
I started attending the Sierra back in the 1940s, when the name on its marquee was the Iowa Theatre. Kudos to the local film enthusiasts who have brought it up to speed and kept it that way.
Kathy and I also watch movies on TV. This week I tried to take stock of my favorites in various genres. It’s tough to narrow the field with so many outstanding productions, made over so many past decades. It’s very unlikely that my list of faves matches up with yours, although you’ve probably seen most of mine. Here goes:
COMEDY
Our family, myself included, has always guffawed together at Mel Brooks’s productions, in particular Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, both released in 1974. As a history buff, I also like Brooks’s History of the World, Part I.
If memory serves, on a canoe trip to the Boundary Waters on the Minnesota-Ontario border years ago, our sons and I sat out on a flat rock by the lake one evening and accurately recited most of the dialogue of Young Frankenstein.
Another major favorite for me is The In-Laws (1979), starring Alan Arkin and Peter Falk, featuring clever dialogue and hilarious misadventures of Arkin and Falk – the future fathers-in-law of their engaged respective son and daughter. Arkin is a dentist and Falk a CIA agent – you can imagine the possibilities. Both characters are played by veteran actors whose timing is impeccable. The original 1979 version is superior to the 2003 remake with a different cast.
And a third favorite is The Jerk (1979), starring Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters. Martin as the clueless Navin Johnson is unforgettable.
DRAMA
I have a weakness for epics, and two of my all-time favorites are Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Dr. Zhivago (1965). Both require comfortable seating: Zhivago is over three hours long, and Lawrence takes more than 3 1/2 hours. Both are historical dramas: Lawrence is set in the Middle East in World War One, and Zhivago takes place in revolutionary Russia about the same time. Dr. Zhivago is the movie version of Boris Pasternak’s novel of the same name.
Lawrence of Arabia won seven Academy Awards, and Dr. Zhivago won five. Both films were nominated for several other awards as well. Peter O’Toole is superb as British Army officer T.E. Lawrence, and Omar Sharif excels as Russian doctor Yuri Zhivago. (Sharif also played an Arab chieftain in Lawrence and was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor in that film.) The settings of both movies are magnificent.
FANTASY/SCIENCE FICTION
I can still remember the awe I felt watching the opening scene of the original Star Wars (1977), as the underside of the immense space ship slid by, overprinted by “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . .”. It gave birth to a film fantasy series that’s now embedded in the world’s culture – not many movies can make that boast.
My other favorite collection in this category is the movie trilogy (2001-03) of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings fantasy novels, directed by New Zealand’s Peter Jackson and filmed in that beautiful country. While the movie series can’t measure up to Tolkien’s Middle Earth saga, which creates whole new languages and a worldwide canvas, it is still a great escapist delight.
OTHERS
I have too many favorites to cite them all in a single column. But I can highlight some of the best (in no particular order):
Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, A Christmas Carol (1951, with Alistair Sim as Scrooge), Apocalypse Now, National Lampoon’s Animal House, The Blues Brothers, To Kill a Mockingbird, Schindler’s List, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Dances with Wolves.
AND THE WINNER IS . . .
Ta-da! My Number One movie of all time is Casablanca (1942), starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. The film is set in the Moroccan city of that name, with Bogart as an American night club proprietor and Bergman as his former lover in Paris. Their tryst took place at a time when she thought her husband was dead.
Her husband is a Czechoslovak hero of the anti-Nazi underground (played by Paul Henreid) whom the Germans are pursuing. Bergman and Henreid show up in Bogart’s club hoping to obtain documents that would let them escape from the Nazis.
Casablanca was filmed in May of 1942 in California, just weeks after the Allies launched an invasion of German-occupied North Africa. It won five Academy Awards and was nominated for seven more.
When a movie’s lines are still universally recognized years afterward, it’s a sign of the film’s greatness. Here are a few from Casablanca:
“Play it, Sam.”
“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”
“Here’s looking at you, kid.”
“We’ll always have Paris.”
“Round up the usual suspects.”
All these films are among my most usual suspects. You have your own list. I hope you derive as much pleasure from yours as I do from mine. ♦
