Gone With The WInd

Well finally made to a movie almost everyone has heard of. This movie is the first truely classic movie to win Best Picture. It broke alot of records and when adjusted for inflation still is the highest grossing movie of all time even beating Titanic and Avatar. 1939 was a year filled with classic movies. Gone With The Wind beat The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Wuthering Heights, and Stagecoach. All of which were on AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time. But Gone With the Wind is still considered one of the best movies of all time.

I have been somewhat dreading watching this movie because it is 4 hours and I thought it was just a long chick flick love story. I had seen it a while ago but never watched the whole thing all the way through. It turns out that I was wrong about the movie. The movie is very good and not entirely a love story. It really about a stubborn, selfish girl(Scarlett O'Hara) who will do anything to get what she wants. Even marry her sisters fiance to get his money. We watch her as she goes from a little girl in the South pre Civil War to a mother post reconstruction. We get to see the South change through her eyes and how she changes(and doesnt change) in response to it. She grows up to become a strong determined women, but never changes from that selfish little girl. The one man who see through her Southern Charm to who she really is is Rhett Butler. A man who doesnt follow the rules for being a Southern Gentleman he falls for Scarlet's independant and determined streak. The have this chemistry between them but Scarlet has no use for him much of the movie. Olivia de Havilland plays Melanie the wife of the man who Scarlet secretly wants to herself. Melanie is the opposite of Scarlet, very caring, forgiving, and considerate. She goes through the same things that Scarlet goes through but instead of coming out selfish and bitter she comes out caring. It is interesting to see the contrast of the two ways people deal with difficult situations.

All the acting was great. Vivien Leigh as Scarlet was amazing. Clark Gable as Rhett good as always. He has a presence with him on screen that you just dont see much in movies today. This confident almost cocky guy but still likable. I havent seen him in too many movies but this is the third movie that won best picture with him in it and he pretty much plays the same character but he does it so well it doesnt feel overused. You always hear about those two but for me the big surprise was Olivia de Havilland's performance. She always takes a back seat to Scarlet but her presence is always there. And of course Hattie Mcdaniel's Mammy was great. Her looks were priceless and she supplied the comedy for the movie, and won Best Supporting Actress. I was loving the movie for the first 3 hours but the last hour was kind of a let down. I don't want to give too much away but it turns too much into a weepy love story at the end and gets kind of boring. But for the majority of the movie was amazing. It really is one of the best movies of all time.

Some of its acheivements.
When adjusted for inflation it made $1.6 Billion most of all time.
First color movie to win Best Picture
Victor Fleming directed two movies that were nominated for Best Picture Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz.
Hattie McDaniel was the first black actress or actor to win an acting award.
At 238 minutes it is the longest movie to date to win best picture.
Won Oscar for Best Editing, which brings up my a famous question from my dad. "How can a movie that long have good editing?"
The line "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" was voted number 1 movie quote on AFI's 100 Greatest Movie Quotes. Also, "after all tomorrow is another day" and "As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again" were at 31 and 59.
Voted number 4 on AFI's 100 Greatest movie's of all time and number 2 Greatest Passions of all Time, and Number 4 on Greatest Epics of all Time.

Mutiny on the Bounty 1936

This week has gone pretty fast. Got the movie in last week but didn't get around to watching it till Friday, but I did clear most of my shows off the DVR and now that most shows have ended either for the summer or for good (RIP Lost and Flashforward) I have more time to watch movies. When I finally did get around to watching Mutiny on the Bounty I found out that the disc had some scratches on it so it skipped some parts. But I don't think I missed that much.

I was talking to someone earlier in the week and told them I was going to watch Mutiny on the Bounty and they asked me what it is about. I was like its right in the title theres a mutiny on the Bounty. Sums up the whole movie, what else needs to be said. But, just in case you haven't read the book, or seen any of the movies (I think there have been at least 3 versions)here is a quick plot synopsis. Basically the Bounty leaves from England to go to Tahiti to get breadfruit trees. The captain of the ship is William Bligh who is very harsh to his men and believes strict discipline is the only thing to keep them line. Fletcher Christian is the 1st Lieutenant and after witnessing one too many beating he organizes a mutiny and takes the ship back to Tahiti. Back on Tahiti the men live in relative peace with the natives and many men marry Tahitian women. When they see another British ship coming they know they are going to be hung for their mutiny so they take the Bounty and find a deserted island to live and burn the Bounty so no one will find it.

The movie was pretty good. The acting was excellent and the three main characters Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian, Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh, and Franchot Tone as Byam all got nominated for Best Actor. The only time 3 actors all got nominated for the same movie oddly enough none of them won the winner was Victor McLaglen in The Informer. It was soon after this that the Academy added the Best Supporting Actor and Actress categories to prevent it from happening again. It was also the last movie to win Best Picture without winning any other awards and the second Best Picture winner in a row to star Clark Gable. Along with the acting everything else in the movie was well done too. The action sequences were pretty good. The love story was quick but just enough. Although I might have missed some of the love story because that is where the DVD skipped the most, but it worked for me.

What I didn't know till after watching it that the movie is based on true events. While a lot of liberties were taken the basic plot is true. The fact that Captain Bligh managed to sail his life boat through open waters using only a sextant and a pocket is pretty amazing. And then I was reading about the mutineers who lived on Picairn Island. There were 9 Britons, six Tahitians and 11 women who landed there. And at first it seemed like a tropical paradise but there were a lot of fighting and dislike between the Tahitians and Britons. Eventually after most of the original men had died there was peace on the island. Obviously with lots of inbreeding there were some health problems but today there are about 50 people that live on Pitcairn Island which oddly enough is now a British Overseas Territory.

It Happened One Night

Well my goal was to try and have a new post every Monday. I know I haven't really had a schedule but was going to try. Well didn't make it this week. The Lost Series finale took up four and a half hours of my time on Monday. That used up all my thinking for the day. So here it is a day late.

I decided to try something new this week. For the first time I watched a movie from netflix.com. I didn't realize that I could watch movies on the Internet and it didn't affect how many DVDs I would get a month. And it worked pretty well. I watched most of it at once but towards the end my dog was making a lot of noise and wanted to eat. I was hoping she would let me finish the last 15 minutes but she wouldn't wait. So I paused till the next day when I watched the last 15 minutes.

The movie is about a rich heiress(Claudette Colbert) who runs away from her father to meet up with a man she secretly married. She leaves her father in Florida and takes a bus up to New York. On the bus she meets up with a reporter(Clark Gable) looking for his next story. He promises to help her as long as he can have exclusive rights to the story. Of course as they travel together they fall in love and by the time she gets to New York she needs to make a decision as to stay married to her husband or have that marriage annulled and marry the man she just fell in love with.

This was the first romantic comedy to win Best Picture, and it was funny and entertaining. The playful banter between the two stars is great, and they get into some funny situations.
The end when she finally admits she loves him is a little over the top for my tastes but not horribly bad. The best line in the movie is at the end when the father asks Clark Gables character if he loves his daughter and Clark Gable says "YES! But don't hold that against me, I'm a little screwy myself!" Although one of the most famous scenes is probably the hitchhiking scene where Clark Gable is trying to show her how to hitchhike using his thumb and it isn't working. And she goes out there and shows a little leg and gets a car on the first try. He says "Why didn't you take off all your clothes? You could have stopped forty cars." Then she replies "Well, ooo, I'll remember that when we need forty cars."

It was one of the first movies to go on to become a real classic. The American Film Institute had it listed as 35 on their Top 100 movies and 8 on the Top 100 Comedies and 38 on their Top 100 Romantic movies. And not only was it the first romantic comedy to win best picture but it was the first of only 3 movies all time to win all 5 of the top Academy Awards. Those are Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay. That wouldn't happen again for over 40 years. It was also the first of three wins in five years for Frank Capra for Best Director.

While the movie was good and went on to become a classic and probably deserved to win. I am personally liked The Thin Man better. The Thin Man is another comedy (ranked #32 on AFI List of Comedies) about at Nick and Nora Charles a private detective and his rich wife and cant forget their dog Asta who help the police solve a murder while on vacation in New York. This movie is very funny with a lot of good one liners. After watching It Happened One Night I decided to rewatch this one to compare the two. And while The Thin Man had some slow moments I still find it funnier. All Nick cares about is getting his next drink but he still solves the case. The dinner party at the end is hilarious when he invites all the suspects to dinner to reveal who the killer is. They ended up making 5 more Thin Man movies. Definitely one of my favorite movies of the 30's.

Its interesting that both movies were up for best picture. These days you hardly ever find any comedies nominated for best picture and here you had two really funny movies nominated. And they both have to do with rich heiress'. I think its because of when they were made. It was in the middle of the depression and people just needed an escape. And what is better then seeing rich people just enjoying themselves and getting into hilarious situations. And after saying that we will see how Sex and the City 2 does this weekend. Another movie about rich women in funny situations. Funny how history repeats itself. I just don't think Sex and the City 2 will be nominated for best picture. But you never know now that there are 10 movies nominated.