Category: Film Page 60 of 101

50DMC #5: Favorite Documentary

On July 3, 2011

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions.

Today’s prompt: What is your favorite documentary?

This is kind of a tough one – I’m not that big a documentary fan. On the other hand, that means I shouldn’t have too many to choose from. On the other other hand, I tend to only see ones that have really good reputations, so most of the ones I’ve seen are excellent. I turned to my Flickchart to see what input it had – it shows I rank Woodstock highest, and I do really love Woodstock. But I’m going to go off-chart and choose the entire Up series as my favorite documentary.

The thing is, each of the seven entries (so far) in the series doesn’t rank that highly, but all of them added together make an incredibly amazing experience that’s much greater than any of the individual films. The series was begun in 1964, when Paul Almond and Michael Apted made Seven Up, a program for British television that brought together fourteen seven-year-olds from diverse British backgrounds and interviewed them on various topics – social, political, personal, etc, with the thesis “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” The assumption was that UK’s social system was set to the point that whatever a child was socially and economically at seven would determine the rest of their life.

Every seven years after that, Michael Apted has returned to these fourteen people (though some have chosen not to participate in later entries) and interviewed them again, seeing what has happened in their lives in between. They’ve done up to 49 Up now, and though simple in idea, it’s a pretty incredible thing to watch, just to see how some people have thwarted their backgrounds, others have taken totally different directions than expected, and still others have remained very close to what the original program would’ve predicted. But more than a social experiment, you really get to see these people as people, and see their struggle not just with their lives, but with the fact that their lives are captured in this documentary series – it becomes to some extent a comment on the documentary process itself, as people will comment back on how they were portrayed or the reaction they got to previous entries in the series. It’s pretty riveting stuff.

50DMC #4: Favorite Animated Film

By Jandy

On July 2, 2011

In Film

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions.

Today’s prompt: What is your favorite animated film?

The original thought behind this question was probably to choose an animated feature, but it doesn’t actually specify. If you include shorts in the question, my favorite animated film is by far Chuck Jones’ Duck Amuck. By this time Jones had refined Daffy Duck from a loony sidekick to Porky Pig and others characters into one of Looney Tunes’ most interesting characters – neurotic and self-centered, whose tendency toward misplaced self-confidence lands him in trouble every time.

With Duck Amuck, Jones gives Daffy center stage and spends the whole time basically screwing with his head, meanwhile breaking the fourth wall and highlighting the constructedness of the animation art form. It’s among the most postmodern of any film, not something you expect from an animated comedy short, but Jones consistently pushed the envelope on what kinds of things the animated short could do, and this is one his most experimental and most brilliant.

50DMC #3: Movie Seen Most Often

By Jandy

On July 1, 2011

In Film

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions.

Today’s prompt: What movie have you seen most often?

I was about to say the movie I’ve seen most often would likely be Rear Window, which I already used as my favorite, but it’s actually far more likely to be Oklahoma! Yes, the exclamation point is part of the title. These Oklahomans are serious about their state. Anyway, there was a time in my life, probably around ages 11-13 or so, when I watched Oklahoma! over and over and over. I had my dad hook up an audio tape recorder to the VCR so I could record the whole movie on tapes and listen to them when I couldn’t watch the movie, like in the car. Obsessive? Why, yes. Yes, I was.

I could recite the entire movie for memory at one point, and I was so into it, I had a couple of my friends doing it to. Apparently I was more of a leader as a child than I ever thought I was. I still have most of the songs memorized, and the dialogue comes back pretty quickly if I have a bit of a push. I have absolutely no idea how many total times I’ve seen the movie, but it has to measure well into double-digits, and if you include how many times I listened to those audio rips? Dozens. It’s been a while, though. Might be time to dust it off again. Or I could just go through it in my head. :)

The clip I would use is Ado Annie singing “I Cain’t Say No,” since she’s my favorite part of the movie (and my first introduction to Gloria Grahame, who’s now one of my favorite actresses), but the only high-quality clip of it on YouTube isn’t embeddable. Click on the image to go watch it on YouTube.

50DMC #2: First Movie in Theatres

By Jandy

On June 30, 2011

In Film

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions.

Today’s prompt: What was the first movie you saw in theatres?

We didn’t go out to theatres a lot when I was growing up; we mostly stayed home and watched old movies, for which I am now very grateful. I don’t remember missing it at the time or anything, either. I’m not sure which re-release it was, but the first thing I remember seeing in theatres was a re-release of Disney’s Pinocchio that my older cousin took me to see when he was in town. So, yeah, it was still an old movie. :) I’m pretty sure my first new release movie in theatres was Hot to Trot, which I thought was vastly inferior to Mr. Ed, as talking horses go. But back to Pinocchio.

Not sure I can remember much about it from that particular viewing, though I have, of course, seen it since then. I am pretty sure I have memories of the kids getting turned into donkeys, and that I found that much more terrifying than the giant whale. Rewatching it now, I can see why. I also remember seeing at a young age some show where people got turned into dinosaurs, and an SNL sketch where people got turned into giants. And I do remember going through a phase of being afraid that I was going to turn into something other than what I was. Huh. I never connected that before (though I really remember my fear being far more based on those other two shows than on Pinocchio).

50DMC #1 – My Favorite Movie

By Jandy

On June 29, 2011

In Film

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions.

Today’s prompt: What is your favorite movie?

When you first meet someone and they find out you’re in to movies, it’s not long before “so what’s your favorite movie” gets asked. Nice of this challenge to just jump right into to the point and get it over with. I probably speak for a lot of film buffs in saying that in one way, you pretty much end up just choosing something to call your favorite when people ask, because really, once you’ve seen several hundred or thousand widely varied films, it’s difficult to be sure. Services like Flickchart help a lot, though, building a ranked list by asking you to simply choose between two movies over and over. In this case, my rote chosen answer and my Flickchart agree: my favorite film of all time is Hitchcock’s Rear Window.

It’s a film I’ve seen probably fifteen times, and yet if I ever happen to flip by it on TV, I’m going to watch it to the end, no question. There are just so many layers to it that even now, I’m seeing and focusing on different things every time I watch it. It’s a great mystery film as Jeff tries to figure out whether his neighbor across the courtyard has killed his wife. It’s a great suspense film as the murder gets a little too close to home. It’s a great experimental film as Hitchcock confines his camera in the room with Jeff, binding our perspective to his.

It’s a great romance as Jeff and Lisa muddle their way through their comfortable yet troubled relationship. It’s a great ethical think piece as we consider the implications, both negative and positive, of Jeff’s observing his neighbors. It’s a great character study as we explore Jeff’s personality and how it affects everyone around him. It’s a great meta-film as we notice how similar Jeff watching his neighbors from afar is to us watching the movie itself (and what a shock it is when Jeff’s “entertainment” threatens his loved ones and then himself). It’s a great comedy thanks to Thelma Ritter’s impeccable support and Hitch’s own sly wit. And it’s great because it pulls all these disparate elements together in such a way that they complement, comment on, and build on each other to create what I think is honestly a pretty much flawless film.