West Side Story

Feels like I am finally getting to movies people have actually heard of. And this one is still pretty popular. West Side Story was the first of 4 musicals to win Best Picture in the 60’s and won a total of 10 awards making it the most honored musical in Oscar history. Another interesting fact I did not know was that originally the play was going to be called East Side Story and be about a Jewish girl and a Catholic boy. Either way it still is a good movie.

The movie is a modern take on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. It is about two gangs the Sharks and the Jets. The Sharks are a Puerto Rican gang that the Jets feel are taking over their territory. At the same time Tony (Richard Beymer) a member of The Jets falls in love with Maria (Natalie Wood) the sister The Sharks leader. Both gangs are not happy about this new found love and they do what they can to try to break it up. All around Tony and Maria people are fighting and there is mistrust and they think they can find a way to make everything better. Yet all their optimism can’t stop the tragedy that is coming.

This movie still feels fresh today. It is hard to believe that it is 50 years old. The music by Leonard Bernstein lyrics by Stephen Sondheim still hold up. The dancing does feel a little silly and corny but that might have to do with the fact that it has been often imitated and spoofed. Still it does seem odd that there will be that many spinning pirouettes in a movie about fighting gangs. The movie started with two directors, Jerome Robbins who directed and choreographed the Broadway production and Robert Wise who had directed some horror movies. These two directors seemed to come from different worlds but Robbins was hired to direct all the musical parts and Wise was to direct the dramatic elements. Robbins who wanted everything to be perfect took so long directing his parts that the film ran over budget and the actors were exhausted and injured from all the dancing. He was eventually fired and yet the two became the first team to win the best directing Oscar. The only other duo to win is the Coen Brothers for No Country for Old Men in 2007. The movie also won best supporting actor and actress for George Chakiris as the leader of the Sharks and Rita Moreno as his girlfriend Anita. They beat out favorites in two great movies Judgment at Nuremberg and The Hustler. While neither of the two lead got nominated for this film Natalie Wood was nominated for Splendor in the Grass.
It was ranked 41 on AFI’s Top 100 in 1997 and 51 in 2007.

The night after I saw the movie I was watching the Colbert Report and Stephen Sondheim who wrote the famous lyrics for the movie was on. So, I included the link if you would like to see the fun interview.
Colbert Report-Stephen Sondheim Interview

Rating System

Recently there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the rating of Blue Valentine which opens this week. The controversy is that it was originally rated NC-17 for one sex scene. On appeal it was re-rated R without having to make any changes. This is not the first time the rating of a movie has caused controversy; one of the most notorious is Midnight Cowboy which was rated X in 1969 and went on to win best picture. The questions raises are what is the point of the ratings and what does it mean to get one rating over the other?

First lets look at the history of the ratings. The ratings are issued by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The MPAA was started in 1922 by the major motion picture studios as a way of self regulation to avoid government censorship. The first head of the MPAA was former Postmaster General Will Hays. He developed what is called the Hay’s Code which had a list of things that could not be in a movie if it was going to be released in the United States. According to the Hays code there could be no immoral behavior in the movie or the movie would not get released. Then in the late 60’s filmmakers started pushing the envelope with what they were showing. This led new head of the MPAA Jack Valenti to try and come up with a different way of reviewing movies without making the filmmaker edit the movie to be released. So with the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) he developed the modern ratings system.

The new rating system was started on November 1, 1968. Originally the ratings for a movie were G, M, R, and X. M was changed to PG in 1972, and in the 1980’s they added PG-13 to kind of bridge the gap between PG and R. This was mostly due to parents uproar over the violence in the Indiana Jones movies and Gremlins. This led Steven Spielberg to suggest another rating would be useful. In 1990 the X rating was changed to NC-17 to get away from the notion that an X rating made it a pornographic film. Basically G is General Admittance, PG is Parental Guidance, PG-13 is Parental Guidance for those under 13. The difference between R and NC-17 is one that many people get confused. An R rating means that 17 and under need to be accompanied by and adult and a NC-17 rating means no one 17 and under can see the movie even if with a parent.

So why are filmmakers upset over the ratings? In theory it seems to make sense. Give parents a guide so they can make informed decisions about what their kids watch. I am all for that. There are certain movies should not be allowed to see and it is up to the parents to decide what is appropriate. But there are a number of problems with the system.

One of the biggest problems is the MPAA close association with NATO. National theatre chains are all members of NATO and there is an agreement between NATO and MPAA that any movie rated NC-17 will not be shown in their theatres. Therefore any movie that gets an NC-17 rating will not make any money even if it is good because no one will be able to see it. Also, it makes it harder to advertise since most TV and print media wont show advertisements for NC-17 movies. That is not as much a problem any more with the Internet and low profile movies can still generate a lot of buzz and you can see “red band” trailers online. “Red Band” trailers are trailers for rated R or NC-17 movies that were not approved by the MPAA as suitable for all ages. Also, movie retail stores like Blockbuster and Walmart will not sell or rent any movie with an NC-17 rating. Blockbuster will also not rent any movie that is not rated by the MPAA. So, while the stated purpose of the MPAA ratings is to avoid censorship and while it does not directly censor if a movies gets the dreaded NC-17 rating it sets it up to lose a lot of money. An example is what happened earlier this year with Hatchet 2. A horror movie that came out around Halloween got a NC-17 rating. Every theatre refused to release it unedited. There was one AMC theatre that said they would show it. After showing it on one screen for two days they pulled it off the screen. Their story was that it wasn’t doing well but it appeared to be due to pressure from other theatre chains for showing it.

The other problem with the system is that I feel the ratings are too vague and there is not clear distinction when a movie crosses the line from PG-13 to R to NC-17. Unlike the Hays Code there is no specific criterion for what each rating means. The biggest difference in NC-17 and R is usually sex. Very rarely does a movie get a NC-17 rating strictly for violence or language. Exceptions are as noted above Hatchet 2 for violence and Clerks originally had NC-17 for language. According to the movie This Film is Not Yet Rated the MPAA’s own website says that 4 times as many films receive NC-17 ratings for sex then for violence. So while a movie like Hostel can get an R rating even though it has graphic violence a movie like Blue Valentine gets an NC-17 for one scene of sex. And that sex scene is between a married couple in love. It is not gratuitous in anyway it is just a very raw and passionate scene. Also they do not have to tell the filmmakers why the movie is rated what it is. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. The MPAA appears to favor studio movies over independent movies. A perfect example of that was in 1999 when American Pie and But I’m a Cheerleader came out. Both movies had a masturbation and a sex scene but American Pie got an R rating and But I’m a Cheerleader got an NC-17 rating.

There is an appeals process for movies. And it usually takes a famous star, director, or major studio to get a rating overturned. In the past you were not able to cite precedent. Therefore if you feel that you were not given an appropriate rating you could not reference any other movies to show how your film compares to a scene in that movie. They now allow you to mention other movies but the appeals board can ignore it.

This Film Not Yet Rated is a great movie that really shows a lot of the hypocrisy in the ratings system as it stands today. The movie is sort a tale about censorship and a spy drama. Because the identities of the people on the board are kept private no one knows anything about the members. So to try and find out who are these people giving the ratings Kirby Dick the director of  hires a private investigator to find out who they are and hold them accountable. The board is supposed to be made of parents of kids aged 5-17 but during his investigation he found out that is not true of all of them. Also he found out that during the appeals process there is always clergy present. It is not real clear why that is. The best quote form the movie is by Darren Aronofsky. “It seems backwards that to show human sexuality in pretty much any form is getting to R territory while you can shoot as many bodies as long as there is no blood and its PG-13…It should be flipped where if there is violence without blood its fantasy and should be for adults… but if you show violence with blood it should be PG-13 because you can see the consequences.”

Not a parent I am just curious how others choose what movies to let their kids see. I think that the current ratings system is helpful to a point. I think it helps parents to see which movies might be age appropriate but I don’t think it really helps parents see what kind of content is in a movie. R ratings can be for any number of things and for some reason things that can be R in one movie will be NC-17 in another or PG-13 in a different one. I am glad they don’t try to censor the movie’s but all the financial implications from a NC-17 rating is a form of censorship. The website I find very helpful and recommend to my friends that are parents is Kids in Mind . They rate movies based on 3 different categories violence, sexuality and language. So a movie that has 1-1-6 you know has very little violence, very little sex but some cursing. That website also goes into very detailed descriptions of why each movie is rated what it is (Almost too detailed for me as it can give away some spoilers). But if I had kids I think that is the kind of rating system I would like. I would love to hear any parent’s thoughts on this topic.

The Apartment

This small movie seems a little misplaced between epics and big extravagant movies like Ben-Hur, West Side Story, and Lawrence of Arabia. At just over 2 hours it is the shortest  but its the writing and Jack Lemmon's performance that elevates the movie to greatness.The movie zips along and doesn't feel that long at all. Its one of those rare movies that can combine comedy and tragedy to capture the everyday life of an ordinary man. Jack Lemmon portrays the everyman as only he could do. With a sense of humor and a sense of sadness.

The Apartment is about this guy Bud played by Jack Lemmon who is trying to move up in the corporate world. So, he decided to lend out his apartment to the executives so they can have flings with their mistresses. He falls in love with this women Fran(Shirley Maclaine) who unbeknownst to Bud is one of the girls his boss Jeff Sheldrake(Fred MacMurray) is having an affair with. One night after Fran and Jeff have a fight in the apartment she attempts suicide and Bud comes home to find her passed out from an overdose. After getting the doctor from next door to help her Bud realized that she might not be as sweet and innocent as he thought. But he doesn't want to do anything to make the executives mad because he just got a big promotion.

All the actors are amazing. Jack Lemmon really makes this movie work. He pulls off the goofiness of the character but also the sadness when he realizes the girl of his dreams isn't what she appears to be. Shirley Maclaine starts off the movie as a perky girl who has a reputation as a good girl, but ends up just being as lost as everyone else. Billy Wilder wrote and directed another great movie. He wrote this one after Some Like it Hot which was named funniest movie of all time by AFI. Here he combines humor with some ugly situations. It is not very often you find a suicide in the middle of a comedy, but he some how makes it all work. It has the feel of everyday life both funny and tragic. The movie was kind of a sign of the times. Moving from more modest films of the 50's to the more sexual provocative movies of the 60's,  where adultery and divorce are treated as the norm and no consequence's are shown.

How this movie didn't win any Oscars for the main actors is beyond me. Billy Wilder did win Best Director, Best Writing, and as a producer got an award for Best Picture making him one of the only men to win all three awards in the same year. The one movie in my opinion that came out in 1960 that got overlooked by the academy was Psycho. It was was nominated for 4 awards including Best Director for Hitchcock, and lost all. But it was not nominated for Best Picture, or Best Actor for Anthony Perkins great performance as Norman Bates or the now famous score.  A few other things about the 1960 awards. Shirley Jones best known for playing the mother on the Partridge Family won the Best Actress award for Elmer Gantry, and The Apartment was the last all black and white movie to win best picture(Schindler's List which was mostly black and white won in 1993 had a few shots in color).

By the Numbers
Number 93 on AFI's 100 Greatest Movies in 1997 and number 80 in 2007
Number 20 on AFI's 100 Greatest Comedies and Number 62 on AFI's 100 Greatest Passions
Currently number 91 on IMDB Top 250

Off Screen Behavior

I recently read an article  Do the Politics and Behavior of Actors Affect How You See Them on Screen? and that thought came to mind again after watching Ben-Hur because growing up all I knew about Charlton Heston was his pro gun activism with the NRA. I know a few people who refuse to watch movies if certain actors are in it. For example one of my friends is very conservative and if Sean Penn or Tim Robbins are in a movie they won’t watch it (sad for them they won’t see Mystic River because it is a great movie and they both give amazing performances in them). On the other hand I understand not watching a movie that has an agenda. Movies like Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 turn me off because of its propaganda style.

While politics is one thing what if an actor does something illegal? For example should we support people who are accused of abusing women (Mel Gibson) or rape (Roman Polanski)? Mel Gibson has been in the spotlight lately due to his being cut from a cameo appearance in The Hangover 2. While the exact reasons for him being cut from the movie aren't real clear it is speculated to be because Zach Galifianakis objected to Mel on a moral grounds. It would be interesting to know if an audience would feel the same way. Would people not see the movie because Mel Gibson was in it for a few minutes? I actually think it would have been funny to see. As some have pointed out it is odd that Mel has caused a big ruckus for the cast of The Hangover 2 but no one seemed to complain about Mike Tyson in the first movie, and he was convicted of rape. That movie went on to gross a huge amount of money and I never heard anyone say they wouldn't see it because a convicted rapist was in it.

The fact that Mike Tyson was convicted brings up an interesting point. Does it make him less evil of a person since he went to jail and served his debt to society?  Are people more willing to forgive him then Mel Gibson because Mel has not been convicted of anything? I had a conversation similar to this with a co-worker of mine not about a movie star but about an athlete. We were talking about Michael Vick and how he is having a great comeback this year. She said she could not forgive him for abusing animals.  She feels that Vick did not get the amount of punishment he deserved and should not be playing football.  Personally the only person I have a moral issue watching their movies is Roman Polanski. Here is a guy charged with raping an underage girl and before he could be arrested he fled the country and is living as a free man. While it appears that Hollywood has already forgave him (they awarded him Best Director for the Pianist in 2002) I can not do it so quick. He committed a crime and has not had any punishment for it.  Should we reward him for getting away with it by watching his movies and making him richer? I don’t think so. And while his last movie The Ghost Writer got a lot of critical praise I could not bring myself to watching it. Maybe one day I will but I am torn about it.

Now everybody likes a good comeback story especially in Hollywood. The big question is when will the public forgive them and let them move on from their past. Take for instance Drew Barrymore and Robert Downey Jr. Both have overcome substance abuse and scandal to become headliners again. But to me that is different. They overcame personal demons and the only people they were hurting were themselves. Unlike Mel Gibson, Mike Tyson, Michael Vick and especially Roman Polanski who purposefully hurt others. I think that this should warrant a second look at them and maybe we should not support their careers especially if they appear unremorseful.

Another thought occurred to me while I was watching a gossip morning show while at the gym. They were talking about Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. It got me thinking if people care so much about the politics of stars do they care about their personal beliefs? The answer to this question is obviously no. Hollywood gossip has been around as long as Hollywood. The gossip columns only make stars even bigger. But why is that? Should we not watch an Angelina Jolie movie because she is an adulteress and stole Brad Pitt away from Jennifer Aniston? It hasn't hurt any of their careers. In fact it might have helped Jennifer Aniston's because now everyone feels sorry for her. Stars can do what many people consider immoral behavior and no one seems to care and in fact they get celebrated for it. It makes me wonder if people care so much about what they say politically why they don’t care what they do in their personal life. Should we only support movie stars that live by a strict moral code? It’s an interesting question for my conservative pals who feel they can't watch a movie with a liberal in it but no problem with someone who has a shady personal life.

I agree sometimes actors off screen behavior takes away from their movies. I do have trouble watching a Tom Cruise movie since he went crazy and was jumping on Oprah's coach. I don't think it is fair to boycott movies just because their actors are outspoken on an issue or issues. I think a movie should be judged on the merit of its content not the off screen antics of its stars, as long as those antics doesn't hurt anybody. The line starts to get a little blurry when it goes from talking about issues to criminal acts.  I know this is not something I have thought a lot about in the past. I have always just judged the movie based on its creative and entertainment value. But all this talk recently has given me pause and got me thinking and maybe I will be more carful who I give my money too in the future. It will be interesting to see how people greet the return of Mel Gibson in the upcoming movie The Beaver. I am still not sure if I will be seeing the movie.
What are your thoughts? Leave a comment would love to know what others think.

Ben-Hur 1959

Wasn't sure if I was going to be able to find 4 hours to sit down and watch this movie. But then is snowed any my plans changed and I had a whole night to watch it. At almost 3 and half hours it is the 4th longest movie to win best picture. But I will never understand why a movie that is long to begin with needs to have entrance music, and exit music. It starts with a long musical introduction then goes into a musical opening sequence. I can understand having an intermission but maybe if it didn't have such long musical introduction it wouldn't need the intermission.

Ben-Hur is about a prominent Jew in Judea in the time of Christ named Judah Ben-Hur played by Charlton Heston. He is falsely accused then betrayed by his friend and sentenced to a life of slavery in the Roman navy. He vows revenge for himself and family and manages to stay alive and win the the affection of a Roman commander and finally wins his freedom. When he returns home he seeks to find out what has happened to his family and the guy that betrayed him. Along the way he crosses path with Biblical characters including Jesus.

What is amazing about this movie is how well it stands up over time. The story of betrayal and revenge is not an original story but Charlton Heston really shows many levels of pain. As a peace loving man by nature the hate that he feels after being betrayed brings lots of inner conflict and you can see this in Heston's performance. Probably one of Heston's greatest performances. For a man who to me growing up was just the head of the NRA and active in politics it is kind of cool to see he was a great actor. I also like the integration of Biblical figures into the movie. Its an interesting perspective to see how people went about their normal lives around the time of Jesus. Its something that we don't think about much.  Along with the acting and story the movie also has some cool action scenes. The chariot race scene is probably the most known and before I had seen the movie for the first time that is all I knew about it. At 11 minutes long it is one of the coolest action scenes and doesn't feel old. I always figured that it would just be one of those scenes that was cool for its time but it does hold up and really keeps the suspense during the scene. The other action scene is a big sea battle which is also pretty cool.

The movie won 11 Oscars the most of all time. It still holds the record but is now tied with two other movies Titanic and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The only Oscar it lost was Best Screenplay which was won by Room at the Top. It also had a surprise win for  Best Supporting Actor for Hugh Griffith for his role as Sheik Ilderim one of the more colorful supporting characters. The favorites to win were one of the supporting actors from Anatomy of a Murder either George C. Scott or Arthur O'Connell.  William Wyler won his third Oscar for his record 11th Best Director Nomination(he would go on and be nominated one more time for a record total of 12 nominations). He beat one of the other great directors of the time Billy Wilder who had a total of 8 Best Director nominations and only two wins. Wilder directed another classic movie Some Like it Hot which topped  AFI's List of 100 Greatest Comedies. Another classic movie that didn't get nominated for any of the top Oscars is one of my favorite Hitchcock movies North by Northwest.

Ben-Hur by the Numbers
At 3 hours and 20 minutes it is the 4th longest movie to win.
With 11 Academy Award wins tied for the most wins.
Ranked #72 on AFI list of Greatest Movies of All Time in 1997 and #100 in 2007
Currently ranked #156 on IMDB Greatest 250 Movies.
A remake of Ben-Hur from 1925 makes it is the only remake to win Best Picture.

Gigi

This is one of those years when you wish a movie from the previous year cam out this year. Apparently 1958 was not a good year for movies. After 1957 when so many good movies were nominated that lost like "12 Angry Men" this year there were not very many great movies nominated. Besides for "Cat on the Hot Tin Roof" and "The Defiant Ones" I have not heard of the other movies nominated for Best Picture and I have not seen any of them. I would think one of them would be better then Gigi.

Gigi is a musical about a girl growing up in Paris in the early 1900's.  Her Grandmother and Aunt are raising her to be a mistress to a wealthy man figuring that's all she could hope for coming from a poor background. Meanwhile this rich man Gaston who hangs out at the poor family's home to be with some regular folk and get away from the banal lifestyle of his upper class existence takes a liking to little Gigi. Gigi's grandmother and aunt try to work out a deal where Gigi would become Gaston's lover and she will have a lovely existence but that is not what Gigi wants. She realizes that she is in love with Gaston and wants to be his wife not just his mistress.

One of the problems I have with the movie is not just the bad acting, the bad songs, the silly dancing it is the disturbing nature of the plot. From the first songs "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" the movie seem like a pedophiles dream. Here is this girl that they are grooming to be someones sex partner. They never say how old Gigi is but she is still in school and not yet old enough for boys. I guess my biggest issue is who they make it seem like everything is ok like it's fine for old men like Gaston's uncle to go around lusting after young girls and singing songs about it. Just a little disturbing to me. I am not sure how this movie won so many awards. I won all 9 of the awards it was nominated for. Making it at the time the most any movie had won(it would lose that record the following year when Ben-Hur would win 11) and also only the third movie at the time to win every award it was nominated for(Grand Hotel and It Happened One Night were the two previous films to get a clean sweep The Last Emperor and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King are the only two that has done it since Gigi). Also Gigi has the honor of the shortest title to ever win best picture.

The Bridge on the River Kwai

I watched this right after I watched Around the World in 80 Days. TCM was nice of enough to show them both on TV and I got to DVR them both. It made for a long day since Around the World in 80 Days is 3 hours and The Bridge on the River Kwai is 2 hours and 45 minutes. It also showed the contrast between a great movie and an ok movie. While Around the World in 80 Days is considered one of the least deserving movies to win The Bridge on the River Kwai is one of the best.

The movie is about British soldiers in a Japanese POW camp on a jungle island during WWII.  It starts out as a battle of wills between the British and Japanese Colonels. The British Colonel Nicholson played by Alec Guinness is brought to the camp with his men and instantly clashes with Colonel Saito the commander of the POW camp. Nicholson is very strong minded and by the book. He clashes with Saito over the Saito's plan to have his entire troops build a bridge. Nicholson refuses to have himself and his officers help in the manual labor saying it is against the Geneva Convention(he actually hands Saito his copy of the convention rules.) This leads Nicholson to be put in isolation for a while. When Saito realizes he can not finish the bridge on schedule he gives in to Nicholson and lets Nicholson take control over the bridge construction.  Nicholson sets out to prove how superior English workmanship is and plans to build the best bridge they can.  This becomes an obsession for Nicholson and he makes sure every little detail is perfect in his words "
One day the war will be over. And I hope that the people that use this bridge in years to come will remember how it was built and who built it. Not a gang of slaves, but soldiers, British soldiers" But unbeknownst to him the allied have a plot to blow up the bridge with the help of an American who escaped the camp.

All the acting in this movie is great. The battle of wills in the beginning of the movie is some of my favorite parts. I love to see two great actors just play off each other like that. Its great watching each men slowly go mad, especially Alec Guinness' Nicholson. Slowly watching him become more and more obsessed with this bridge and how it will be a lasting testament to the British men and himself.  William Holden as the American who escapes is also great in the movie and brings some of the comic relief to the movie. Overall it is a great movie. David Lean directed his first of many great epic movies.

The movie won 7 Academy Awards, besides best picture it won Best Actor for Alec Guinness, Best Director for David Lean, Best Music, and Best Editing. The Best Screenplay Oscar had gone through some changes over time. For a while there were three categories Best Original Story, Best Screenplay Adapted, and Best Original Screenplay. In 1957 it merged into the modern day categories of just Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay. The Bridge on the River Kwai won Best Adapted Screenplay that year but not without some controversy. While Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson helped Pierre Boulle write the screenplay only Pierre Boulle was given on screen credit and therefore the only one that got the award. This was due to Carl Foreman and Michael Wislon being black-listed for appearing in front of the House of Un-American Committee. Foreman and Wilson were both posthumously given the award in 1984. 

Losing to the The Bridge on the River Kwai was another great movie 12 Angry Men. Which if it had been nominated any other year hopefully would have won. Also not nominated but one of the only Stanley Kubrick movie I like was Paths of Glory.  Another good movie that was nominated for Best Picture was Witness for the Prosecution a twisty murder mystery.