The Frame

Challenge Week 35: Rocky

On September 22, 2016

In 2016 Movie Challenge

Rocky has been one of my most notable blind spots for a long time – one of the few Best Picture winners I hadn’t seen, and also the last holdout in the Flickchart Global Top 100. I’m not a big fan of boxing movies (even ones that people tell me are not really about boxing), so I avoided it for a long time. I knew someone would assign it to me in this challenge, and sure enough!

Unlike Gordon’s other film Animal House, which confirmed my unenthusiastic preconceptions, I actually ended up enjoying Rocky much more than I anticipated. I still didn’t really care for the boxing scenes very much, but there are really only two of them, one at the very beginning and one at the very end. And I can appreciate sports movies in general if they’re more about the indomitable human spirit than if they’re about the sport itself, or about ego.

Challenge Week 35: Animal House

By Jandy

On September 22, 2016

In 2016 Movie Challenge

There have been several movies in this challenge that I didn’t expect to like and surprised me quite a bit. This was not one of them. After I loved The Blues Brothers so much, I thought maybe my pre-conceptions of Animal House might be way off, and the team of Landis and Belushi might hit again, but I’m sorry, this kind of juvenile frat humor is not remotely my thing.

The Dean is intent on getting the troublesome Delta Tau Chi fraternity expelled wholesale, but they retaliate with even more bad behavior and pranks against upstanding frat man Neidermeyer and eventually the whole homecoming parade.

Challenge Week 34: Woman in the Dunes

By Jandy

On September 21, 2016

In 2016 Movie Challenge

What a strange movie.

An entomologist studying insects in the desert finds that he’s missed the last bus home and asks if there’s a place to stay in a nearby village. There is: with a woman who lives in a hole in a sand dune. She feeds him and gives him a bed in her small house, but he discovers her working all night digging sand and sending it up to the surface with pulleys. Soon he also discovers that the villagers have no intention of ever pulling him up again either, and in fact intend him to become husband to this woman and help her dig sand for them to sell.

Challenge Week 34: The Long Memory

By Jandy

On September 21, 2016

In 2016 Movie Challenge

This is one of the few films I hadn’t heard of at all going into this challenge, even more surprising as it’s an older film, and a noir to boot! The trick is it’s British noir, and I’m not as familiar with that as I should be, so thank you for pointing me in this direction, Grant.

A rather complicated plot setup lands bright young Phillip Davidson in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, and when he gets out twelve years later, he’s no longer bright and young, but bitter and seeking revenge. A lot of the film is quieter than you’d expect, with Phillip spending time alone on a beached boat in a remote part of England and forming a tentative relationship with an abused barmaid in between trying to find the men responsible for his unjust imprisonment.

Challenge Week 33: The Blues Brothers

By Jandy

On September 10, 2016

In 2016 Movie Challenge

WHERE HAS THIS MOVIE BEEN ALL MY LIFE.

I didn’t know which way this one would go, frankly – comedies from the ’80s are pretty hit or miss with me. I knew it was a musical of some sort, which is a bonus, but I didn’t know really what kind of music or how it was integrated into the film. I must admit, I was worried for the first few minutes, which didn’t start off anything like I expected – instead we’re in a prison as Jake Blues (John Belushi) is released into his brother Elwood’s (Dan Ackroyd) custody.

The moment I knew I was going to love this movie was when they go to their childhood home, a Catholic boarding school, and see “The Penguin”, one of the nuns who raised them. She tells them the school needs money, which sets them off on their “mission from God,” but the main point is SHE FLOATS EVERYWHERE LIKE A BANSHEE. That bit of random absurdity was all I needed to be invested, and thankfully, as the boys get the band back together to try to raise the money for the school, the absurdity never quits.