AFI 100: #78 - Modern Times

I admit I was pretty trepidatious about watching Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times."  In my AFI 100 journey, I had yet to watch a old silent film.  The natural worries about 2013 attention spans and differences in humor were definitely creeping up.  I was concerned that the movie might appear boring and very alien to my tastes.

All those fears were allayed when I started the movie.  In my first viewing of Chaplin and his classic Little Tramp character, I was immediately entertained and charmed.  It turns out that Chaplin is a comedic genius whose work absolutely stands the test of time.  I found his brand of frenetic physical comedy hilarious.  The action and the jokes were enough to make up for the lack of dialogue.

This 1936 release is an interesting movie.  It's the last appearance of Chaplin's famous Little Tramp character and the last of his silent films.  By the time this film was made, "Talking" movies had been the norm for almost a decade starting with "The Jazz Singer."  So Chaplin was going against the grain by releasing a "mostly" silent film.  Although this movie contains songs, sound effects, and some sparse spoken dialogue, Chaplin was adamant that the Little Tramp did not speak.  He didn't want to destroy the mystique of the character by having him suddenly talk.  He only cheats a little when the Tramp sings a funny song of foreign worded gibberish toward the conclusion of the film.

The movie is also notable for its content.  Inspired by the setting of economic depression and struggle, Chaplin made a movie about the common man's plight during this time.  He showed how hard it was to find work, a decent home, and something to eat.  He showed a restless people who couldn't comprehend why they didn't have much while successful business people seemed unaffected.  In this regard, the film takes a very populist theme which borders on support of socialist/communist themes.  Later Chaplin himself would be targeted as a communist supporter just as his Little Tramp was mistaken as a communist labor leader in the film.

The other theme in the movie refers back to the title.  The tramp opens the movie working in a steel factory.  He works furiously on an assembly line which no doubt inspired the famous "I Love Lucy" chocolate factory episode.  He rides along and plays with artifacts of that accelerating industry age such as massive gears, switches, and levers.  A laughable moment occurs when the president of the company demonstrates an automated lunch feeder on the Tramp for efficiency sake.  Times are definitely changing, especially the advent of technology.  In a way, the film parallels the Tramp's decline with the arrival of "Talking" film technology.  There is a sad nostalgia for those glory days and an understanding that the old must ultimately give way to the new.

Ultimately, the charm, humor, and feeling carry this movie.  It's these core components that make it surprisingly fresh and timeless.  Chaplin would have been proud of his movie today because it showed those things he held very dear still matter, even in the face of the endless march of "modern" advances.


Rating: **** - Good

Highly recommended viewing.
Note: This movie is better than 2011's "The Artist", a throwback to the silent era.  "The Artist" was a good movie, but it can't capture the spirit of the originals.

AFI 100: #65 - The African Queen

Katherine Hepburn plays an English Missionary in the middle of Africa.  She is stationed there spreading the word of Christianity to a village of natives.  When her village is decimated by World War I German soldiers looking for conscripts and supplies, she joins up with Humphrey Bogart's disheveled steamboat captain, Mr. Allnut.  Bogart just wants to hide and stay out of sight until the war blows over.  The war is no concern of his and the smart money is on steering clear of trouble.  Hepburn has other ideas.  She clings to an improbable scheme meant to hit the Germans where it hurts for jolly England.  She drags a reluctant Bogart into a perilous river journey whose trials and tribulations neither could have imagined.

This movie is beautifully filmed.  Some of it was filmed on location in Africa.  The story moves along at a brisk pace.  I don't feel there are a lot of wasted scenes.  It's always nice to have a movie at or under the standard two hour running time.  Bogart and Katherine Hepburn are fantastic actors.  They have good chemistry in the adversarial relationship that later blossoms into love (think Han Solo and Princess Leia).  I also liked the pace at which their relationship developed.  I didn't feel like it was forced or rushed.

The bad thing about the movie is that it can be a bit dull at times.  It moves along like a play in one setting (the steamboat) just like Hitchcock's famous experiments with "Rear Window" and "Rope."  Also I am not sure I buy Bogart's motivation to take the river journey to blow up the German warship.  I understand that at first he just wants to humor Hepburn's character and show her how hard it will be to embark on the trip, but I am not sure his character would truly be convinced to carry on.

Overall, a good movie with two great acting legends and a good director in John Huston.  However, among the other greats in the AFI 100, I find it pretty ordinary.

Rating: *** - Average

AFI 100: #80 - The Apartment

Jack Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, a low level corporate shrill in NYC.  Baxter works as an insurance clerk for a large company headquartered in downtown.  He's just a young kid trying to climb the corporate ladder through long hours and dedication, or so we think.  We find out Baxter has a fairly nice apartment across the street from Central Park, but he often doesn't go directly home after work.  It's not because of his dedication, but because of a strange arrangement he has made with his office superiors.  Baxter has agreed to lend out his apartment on various weekday nights as a secret home base to four different executives in the company so they can have secret liaisons with their young mistresses.

We see how much trouble this causes Baxter.  In one scene, he gets sick from sleeping out in the winter air of NYC when one of the bosses is using the apartment a little later than usual.  Then the next day when Baxter just wants to go home and recover from sickness the rest of the night, he has to work like crazy to rearrange the bosses' scheduled visits.  We see that the bosses themselves don't seem to care that Baxter's health, but rather only about their own affairs.

Besides work, Baxter also has a crush on a cute and sharp tongued elevator girl within his building.  The girl, Miss Kubelik, is played by Shirley MacLaine.

Eventually Baxter's generosity to his bosses pays off with four great recommendations from them to the director of HR.  There, the HR director, Mr. Sheldrake, played by Fred MacMurray, promotes Baxter to an office position.  However, he clever deducts why Baxter is so popular and asks to borrow the apartment himself.  The rub comes when we ironically discover that Sheldrake is using Baxter's apartment to romance Miss Kubelik.

Hijinks ensue as we see the true nature of adulterous relationships and when Baxter is ambushed by a tough situation.  Eventually Baxter has to make a decision.  What does he want more? Advancing his career or the girl of his dreams.

"The Apartment" is a good movie.  It's an interesting look into 1950s/1960s life in NYC a la AMC's "Mad Men."  Jack Lemmon does a great job portraying Baxter who is a nice, enthusiastic guy trying to find his way in the world.  Unfortunately, Baxter is too eager to please and often finds people taking advantage of his generosity and convenience.  It's gratifying to watch the film as he realizes high company positions may not be worth the price of being a pushover and losing out on what he really wants.  The movie can sometimes be sad and serious with its subject matter.  One example of this is seeing Baxter as an isolated bachelor engrossed in his work.  However, I never felt the movie's lighter mood was ever compromised.

I think ultimately people are drawn to the movie because they relate to Jack Lemmon's character.  Most of us have been in his shoes as a young professional sometimes feeling lonely and bored.

Movie Rating: *** - Average

AFI 100: #93 - The French Connection

To be honest, I have wanted to view this film for a very long time.  I was always attracted to the mystery and the thrill it seemed to promise.  It's definitely a movie people such as my dad remember and note as a good movie.

The movie stars Gene Hackman (Hoosiers, numerous other movies) and Roy Scheider (most notably Jaws) as two cops in NYC working the narcotics beat in the 1970s.  Hackman is tough guy cop Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, a reckless man who doesn't care much for doing things by the book and is relentless in his quest to bust more junkies.  Schneider plays his more reasonable partner Buddy "Cloudy" Russo.  Together they shake down low level junkies in bars hoping to get the glory of the big bust.

As the cops are cleaning up the city, they happen upon a low level criminal who seems to be involved in a large international drug deal with a French heroin magnate.  The rest of the movie chronicles the cat and mouse game as the cops shadow, stake out, wire tap the involved parties as the "bad guys" try to close the lucrative deal in NYC.

The movie shows 1970's NYC as a gritty, dirty place with subdued colors.  Along the course of the film, we begin to discover that the character of the cops matches that setting.  Doyle is relentless in his quest to bust more criminals through any means possible.  He is shown senselessly beating perpetrators during arrests and interrogations, pushing for wiretaps, shooting adversaries in the back, and being utterly destructive in the famous car chase scene.  The things he does makes civil liberties attorneys drool with anticipation.  Even his colleagues seem to think his results lack true impact and cause all kinds of collateral damage.  He is a despicable character to say the least.  In contrast, the French drug lord is suave, urbane, and sophisticated.  He is very well dressed, cultured, and surprisingly well behaved.  Therein lies the rub of the movie: Who are the good guys?  Who the bad guys? And more importantly who do you want to win in this battle of wits?

The question presented to us as viewers is that old Machiavellian one of "Do the ends justify the means?"  Can we do immoral things to punish and eliminate immoral people and activities (think US Patriot Act)?  Perhaps the most shocking question posed is "How do you feel when you pull out all the stops (thus comprising yourself), but you still come up short?"

The French Connection is a sometimes thrilling look at the world of cops and criminals.  The setting and characters are done well.  However, I was really disappointed overall with the movie.  The movie was sometimes very slow with all the stake outs and shadowing going on.  Also I was not pleased with the ending because I felt it was very abrupt and incomplete.  I don't think it's worthy of being on the AFI 100 list.

Movie Rating: ** -Bad

Movie Review Ratings

Before beginning to write out my thoughts about various movies, I will outline my rating system.  Personally, I like the five star system for rating a movie's quality.  It is as follows:

One Star * - One of the worst movies I have seen.  Don't waste precious time on this.
Example: Adam Sandler's "Just Go With It", an awful movie that made my skin crawl just watching it.

Two Stars ** - Disappointing movie.  Not good.
Example: "Public Enemies."  Just didn't click as I had hoped.

Three Stars *** - Average.  An OK movie.  Most movies fall into this range
Example: Too many to count.  I thought "The Blind Side" definitely falls into this range.

Four Stars **** - A good movie.  Well made and worth seeing in theaters
Example: "Marvel's Avengers."  Very well put together, entertaining, funny, and took super hero movies to the next level.

Five Stars ***** - Spectacular movie.  One of the best I have ever seen.  Highly recommended.  A true and often timeless classic.
Example: "Citizen Kane."  Lauded by most as the best of all time.  Watch it and you will see why.  It changed the game.

For AFI 100 movies, I will add an additional rating.  This rating is in relation to the movie being ranked on the list and follows stock analysis ratings.

Overrated - Movie is ranked too high by AFI.  Didn't live up to expectation.

Neutral - Ranked about right on the AFI list.

Underrated - Should be ranked higher.  Undervalued.

For purposes of reference, I will be using the revised 10th year anniversary AFI 100 (2007) ratings to refer to movies and their rankings.

With all that said, let's starting writing some posts.

Classic Movie Kick: AFI 100

Time to dust off this blog.  It's been a long time, but I am back and motivated to write a bit more.

Movies are a big part of our culture.  Some people are movie buffs and always see the latest flicks in the theater, while others have never seen "Star Wars" well into adulthood.

I have seen my fair share of movies, but I could never claim to be an expert on classic movies.  In years past, I was always filled with curiosity when I watched the AFI TV specials about their top 100 movies of all time.  Obviously, I had seen some of them, but many of the greatest ones were a complete mystery to me.  It had always been a goal to see more of these classics at some point in my life.

I am finally gearing up for that goal now.  After watching movies from a list off another website, I realized that many of the movies overlapped with the AFI 100.  Since I was watching a decent amount of them anyway, I figured I just start knocking off the ones I hadn't seen yet.

So in the next few weeks, I will be posting some thoughts and reviews about AFI 100 and other movies that I come across.  Hopefully it will mark a triumphant return to blogging.

The Jeremy Tyler Decision Part 1

Jeremy Tyler is not your typical high school junior. Instead of daydreaming about Prom, Graduation, and moving on to college, Jeremy is thinking about adjusting to professional adult life. Tyler is a 6-11 basketball star from San Diego who has decided to forgo his senior year of high school and become a professional basketball player internationally.

This trend began last season. Brandon Jennings, a McDonald's All American high school phenom decided to skip his freshman year of college at Arizona and play professional basketball in Italy for one year (It was said he was academically ineligible for college). Thus he could comfortably be paid while waiting out the NBA/NCAA rule of having high school seniors delay one year before declaring for the NBA draft. This year, Jennings returned to the US and was drafted 10th overall by the Milwaukee Bucks.

Now Tyler has taken the trend a step further. He is skipping his last year of high school to become a professional basketball player. Recently, Tyler signed a one year contract worth $140,000 to play for the Israeli team, Maccabi Haifa of the Israeli Premier League. Not bad for a kid without a high school diploma.

Jeremy, who initially committed to Louisville, claimed it was time to go professional. He was tired of being hacked and triple teamed on the high school courts. The level of competition wasn't challenging, and he wanted to showcase his all around game skills rather than be planted permanently in the paint.

His bold decision tells me two things. First of all, people are willing to make daring moves just to bypass and protest the NBA/NCAA's rule of having to wait one year out of high school before entering the draft. Secondly, more than ever, American basketball is moving more and more toward a youth professional development model used in other parts of the world and in other sports.

The cause of this commotion is the fabled "One and Done" rule issued by the NCAA (College Presidents) and the NBA (David Stern). This rule is unnecessary and absurd. They claim they want to protect the kids from making mistakes. They point out that for every Kevin Garnett, there is a Korleone Young. In reality, the motivations for this rule are quite contrary. NBA veterans didn't like the flood of younger players pushing them out of the league. Also the NCAA and its College Presidents loved the fact that the "one and done" superstars would generate excitement and revenue for college basketball. This is the same NCAA who makes millions of dollars from these players and yet denies them a dime in a show of exploitation. The fact of the matter is that high school players have proven ready and able to play in the NBA. Look no further than LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard, and Rashard Lewis. These players have thrived in the NBA and didn't need college basketball. If people are capable of making it at this age, then why dictate that they can't try. Last time I checked, people took responsibility for themselves and their own risks. Without this rule, we wouldn't be talking about Brandon Jennings and Jeremy Tyler. Do we really want our next generation of stars to showcase themselves while playing in Europe and Asia?

As an avid basketball fan, my answer to this question is a resounding no.