Crime and Jazz and Justice and Guns and 1970s Trench Coats; These are a Few of My Favorite Things

These are a few of my favorite things...in Movies. I honestly don't know how I would react if faced with crime and violence in real life. I'm a sheltered gal who lives off fictional crime. Also I really don't go in for modern day (or modern films set in modern day) crime films/tv shows as often. Drive was an interesting film because I appreciated the noir vibe, but I also really detested the harsh violent scenes. There was no outsmarting a bad guy, there was no humor, there wasn't ever anything silly or lovable amidst the darkness. Modern crime movies I do enjoy include Reservoir Dogs (which does its share of harkening to films past) and The Departed. I'm sure there are others but I can't think of them.

But down to business....let's talk about crime movies I love/recently watched for the first/semi-first time.

SERPICO 1973 I confess I knew about this movie as a pop culture reference from Wes Anderson's Rushmore for over a decade before I finally watched it. I just kind of love 1970s movies sometimes. The clothes, the attitude. I feel like all movies in this era have a sort of hippie revolutionary feeling. No woman is ever in a bra. She's often working at a newspaper or law firm and very strong, and for the first time there are a lot more African American characters with legitimate speaking roles that are more central to the story. In Serpico, Al Pacino plays the only determinedly just cop on the NY police force, while he is also the least well-kept and most left wing. Al Pacino is wonderful. Go watch it.


THE CONVERSATION 1974 My mother and I watched this movie together when I was probably around ten years old. We used to go to the video store and just walk around until we found something. If she said a movie was really good, sometimes she'd need to talk me into it, but I usually trusted her. The music is perfect as is Gene Hackman's portrayal of a sound recording expert who fears his work may lead to murder.


THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE 1974 The music at the beginning of this classic heist movie said everything I needed to know. CRIME JAZZ. What can be better than crime jazz? Yes, I will watch this. And yes I will enjoy it. Walter Matthau. Men in moustache driven disguises. Did I mention CRIME JAZZ? For people my age, this movie is Speed.....but way better. And CRIME JAZZ. Sorry, I'll stop saying it.
I could also talk about Dog Day Afternoon and Goodfellas and The Godfather and then talk about film noir and the fact that I've only seen one or two James Cagney movies despite my unyielding adoration for that man but I feel I've rambled enough for now. Perhaps I shall post again and perhaps it won't take seven months next time....

Let's Do This...Let's Talk Jane Austen

Jane Austen is timeless because her stories are about women struggling with friendships, family, and of course, men. Every year somewhere some woman writes an article on Jane Austen for some lady mag like Vanity Fair or Cosmo and every year it's true: Jane Austen understands us. She tells it like it is. No we're not all still obsessed with marriage and we live in a different world in terms of law and career and we don't need men to SURVIVE. But most of us still like to dream about romance...to dream about someone who will be a gentleman. Also she simply writes about real people that we all know. The fact that these novels were written two hundred years ago is so beautiful to me. So much has changed in terms of technology and the way we court each other and live our lives. However, the human being is much the same, and the way we feel and interact person-to-person remains unaltered.

Sometimes I nerd out because some of these stories feel like looking in a mirror. Do you ever feel like Elizabeth Bennet and you're surrounded by Mr. Collinses? I do. Or you're Emma and he is Definitely an Elton and she is Definitely a Mrs. Elton? Me too. Or you are crying over some son of %^& bastard and you realize you really are being ridiculous....you're being a Marianne Dashwood, and you know deep down you'll get over this. Even though that Willoughby was terribly entertaining for a while. Yes, yes, yes.

I'm probably the billionth lady to ever think and say all this. It's nothing new, but sometimes you have to celebrate something, even when it's old.

Reasons you want to go see Captain America: The First Avenger

Stanley Tucci, making movies better since 1985

If you're like me, you love movies and you REALLY love movies with a big budget that are set in an attractive period of the past. If you're a lot a LOT like me, you love the 1940s, and your boyfriend loves Marvel. This movie has pretty much everything. It's not the Best movie I've ever seen, but it's a great movie to go see in the theatre. Action, adventure, a little romance, girls dancing in a can-can line in WWII patriotic costumes, and beautiful, inspiring vintage hairstyles worn by Hayley Atwell. Oh, also STANLEY TUCCI. Oh yes, Chris Evans is also a rather lovely specimen. He is no RDJ but, you know, he's cute and all.

Pretty hair!

Cuteness.

WWII Era Girl Power.

Le printemps et le nouveau vague!

Soon...soon...soon.....the snow will be gone. I will put away my giant faux fur and no longer appear to strangers like a burglar in a bear suit. The coming on of spring means many things....one of which: time to return to my private study of the French New Wave. Today I woke up early (before 9 on a Saturday!) and did dishes and drank a pot of tea while watching the Godard film, Pierrot Le Fou (1965) starring my favorite, Anna Karina. I want to have a pet and call her Anna Karina but you see I would want to pronounce the name with a French accent and would then feel excessively pretentious....it's a fine line I walk in my silly little life, reader(s).

Man meets girl he's met before, leaves his wife for her...

She's involved in some sort of crime ring through her brother (maybe? it feels irrelevant....the movie is like Bonnie and Clyde....if Bonnie and Clyde was a Godard....so......an escape movie...without any chase scenes that didn't also involve skipping along the sea and reciting love poems to the camera and some singing at odd moments).

Ferdinand and Marianne run away to the seashore where he becomes obsessed with reading and writing and she...gets bored and sings. Parrot?

This is what I LOVE:

-They erupt out of the sand and kiss.

-Her brother's (?) crime ring also goes around incognito as a dance troupe?!

-Everything she wears is PERFECT. I want to get bangs again and wear blue eyeshadow. She convinces me every time.

-Really Non-intimidating Bad Guy with ENORMOUS portable phone.

This was....dissatisfying.

They act out the Vietnam War for tourists because they have no money...and Anna covers her gorgeous Dutch face in yellow make up and makes Vietnamese-ish(?) noises like an idiot. And the American tourists (played very badly, but not as badly as Jean Paul Belmondo butchers English) clap and say "That's very good." It was weird in a really unamusing way.... Perhaps I was missing a point....

The Blue Man Group probably loves Godard.

Anyway, I liked the movie but it wasn't my favorite. The style, the colors, the French-mod-strange-funny-pretty of everything on the screen met with the random half-musical numbers and Anna Karina just being pretty and cute and entrancing the entire time. I think I have more crushes on women than I ever ever do on men...and I say this as a (full disclosure) pretty Definite heterosexual being. This post is more of a picture-spasm/Anna Karina explosion than anything.... Just look how fabulous she is, don't you just wanna be her a little?

May or may not have sort of done my hair like this today...the messy undone beehive.

The adorable swinging sixties

When you get right down to it, I romanticize the past. Basically this means, anything that's a little bit forgotten, I find fantastic. The past never REALLY leaves because everything that is happening now is a result of it, but I love looking back at a moment in time and delving into it. I love old movies and thinking about what a department store in 1964 or 1969 (or any given year) would feel like. Even ten years ago would be fascinating to time travel to when you think about it. Time. Change. The moving back and forth. Endlessly intriguing. But blah blah blah to get to my point, I was sick and watched lots of movies including the silly and charming Cactus Flower (1969) starring Goldie Hawn, Ingrid Bergman and Walter Matthau. It's a fluffy romantic comedy (but it still beats a lot of stuff they keep re-doing in the genre today) in which Goldie Hawn struts around in mod make up, hair, clothes, looking perfectly adorable-oh-my-goodness-too-cute-let's go shopping right now. Meanwhile, Bergman is her usual wonderful (her meaty acting chops shine through even in a light film like this). She seems out of place in 1969. She's so womanly and classic and sort of....sexy in a subtle, shadowy way. The complete yin to Goldie's yang. Or the yang to her yin. Whatever, you understand. Let's look at pictures of young Goldie Hawn and be inspired.

Life, Love and Old Hollywood

Hepburn and Tracy in their first film together, Woman of the Year (1942)

I've been reading Katharine Hepburn's autobiography, Me: Stories of My Life and what makes it such a fun read isn't just that it's about this huge celebrity, but that it's about a woman who really knew what she wanted and went for it, and also had some very lovely relationships with people. The book is aptly titled, apparently, because she says that she was always a "'me me me' person"....except when it came to Spencer Tracy. How charming is that? She talks about her big family, growing up in Connecticut, her parents fighting for suffrage, birth control and public health, her father teaching the kids how to do acrobatic tricks, her tomboy childhood, her ability to do a headstand at eighty-something, her friends, her first husband who loved her so well and was always there for her even after the marriage ended. Reading it, I realize what's most fun is that people loved her and she loved them. At the end of the day, that is the best life lived, isn't it? It's such a sweet realization. I can't wait to hear what she'll say about people like Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant.

Another semi-related thought is about Jeanette MacDonald, an amazing actress and singer primarily famous in the thirties and forties, featured in early musicals with Maurice Chevalier.

I bought a record of her singing mostly opera and it got me wondering about her career and life. I looked online a bit and her life was really quite interesting, too. She was in love with Nelson Eddy, another great singer/movie actor and nearly married him, but (according to wikipedia) there was a load of drama: when MacDonald became pregnant, Louis B. Mayer ordered an abortion and she supposedly miscarried but Eddy didn't believe her. When Eddy later tried to reconcile, MGM once more pushed him away as MacDonald had already gone and married Gene Raymond and the studio thought divorce would be bad for business. So then Eddy married somebody else, too. He was at her side both times she was in the hospital close to death, and when she did die in 1965, Eddy broke down on The Tonight Show. Man, am I a sucker for romance. On that note, here's MacDonald and Eddy singing.

The Girl Can't Help It

The Girl Can't Help It (1956)

Oh Womanhood. Jayne Mansfield was actually a very intelligent woman and I think it shows. Something about her demeanor in this ridiculous movie comes across. Her body may look like huge Marilyn pin-up competition but you can tell she's more than just a body. It's an entertaining film, if slightly creepy. It's dripping with 1950s stereotypes (men drooling over five million shots of her perfectly cinched in, curvaceous, bodacious bod), but the music is fantastic (performances by Little Richard and Abbey Lincoln, shown below, as well as others) and like I said, Mansfield adds a pinch of something human. I don't mean to bash Marilyn Monroe. I think she was beautiful and not at all untalented but she played such a dumb blonde sometimes, and as a woman, it's easy to feel sorry for her trapped in that character, and wish that she could have dropped that silly high-pitched voice and just acted normal for once.

Suggestive.....? I say so.

Suggestive? ......I say so.

Good Lord.

I read somewhere that this movie influenced John Lennon because of all the music.

Gorgeous lighting. Gorgeous lady. Gorgeous singing.

Also, terribly of note: you know how all your favorite new hip hop songs involve great little tunes/beats? Remember how you loved Kanye West's Golddigger and then realized it was kind of because of Ray Charles. This movie made me realize that Fergie ripped off Little Richard and THAT is why I love that one song she sings sort of kind of. No offense to modern musicians. Let's face it, oldies music kicks some majorly considerable arse.

And Scene!

What do I do with my spare time? Well, I go antiquing. Or I sleep. Or I watch movies. Sometimes I go see plays and go out with friends and things like that. Other times....I just watch movies. Now, for your enjoyment: a tour through my viewing schedule!

This past week or two I watched Damn Yankees (1958) for the first time. It's a ridiculous 1950s musical but as we all know, ridiculous things can be fun. Also, when a musical tries (even very vaguely) to delve into ideas of making deals with the devil, etc and so on, you have to give it a little credit for at least digging even an inch deeper than the average musical comedy fare. Also, I've gone into another slightly Woody Allen mood. I watched Play it Again, Sam (1972) for the first time, and re-watched The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985). What draws me to these films, personally, aside from Woody's natural woodiness, is the love affair it shows between people and old movies. I, too, am a fantasist and I sometimes talk to my framed Humphrey Bogart picture. Don't worry. I only Pretend he talks back...


BOB FOSSE!!!! He was married to Gwen Verdon and they make a great team as is seen in both of these clips.

Man tries to pick up woman. Woman needs serious help.

I kind of want this to happen to me...but not....but a little bit...yes.

23 favorite female film stars

Because the list of 21 male film stars was fun, but I needed two more slots for women (they're worth it). Honorary mention goes to Maggie Gyllenhaal, Zooey Deschanel, Helen Mirren and a bunch of others I'll think of later.

Whoopi Goldberg

Carole Lombard

Ingrid Bergman

Jean Arthur

Mae West

Grace Kelly

Barbra Streisand

Marion Cotillard

Diane Keaton

Mary Louise Parker

Dianne Wiest

Penelope Cruz

Kristin Scott Thomas

Kate Winslet

Kelly MacDonald

Emma Thompson, Maggie Smith

Cate Blanchett

Audrey Hepburn

Myrna Loy

Barbara Stanwyck

Katharine Hepburn

Meryl Streep