It would be facile to draw some kind of straight line directly from Charles Foster Kane to Donald John Trump. It’s probably been done in countless other essays after Trump ascended to the presidency as 2017 was getting under way. Beyond being facile, it’s almost certainly not true. That’s because the lesson at the heart of Citizen Kane, the kernel which blossoms into a mighty oak as the film unfolds, is that, as a character says of Kane during the movie, “No one word can describe a man’s life.” You can extrapolate that out into the idea that no person, famous or not, scoundrel or not, is one single thing.
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Alcohol plays a crucial role in the plot of The Philadelphia Story. I mention that because the film was released in 1940, a mere seven years after the end of prohibition. The Broadway play that served as the source material premièred the year before. As screwball comedies go, this one is about a five on the zany scale, with the full-blast Bringing Up Baby peaking that scale at a ten. It’s an amiable enough picture, relying mostly on the charms of its stellar cast, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart.
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With this entry in my 100 Essential Films series, I’m now a tenth of the way through the list. (If you missed the first one, you can find the explanation for what I’m doing here.) At this rate, I should be finishing the project up sometime around 2039… As Jack Nicholson once said, “So much to do, and so little time.”
Film number ten is a movie about the Great Depression made while it was still very much happening. Although FDR’s New Deal policies had started to turn things around in America, the country had not yet entered World War II in 1940, and the economic precarity of a huge swath of the American people (as I note in the review, the more things change, the more they stay the same) was the main concern of the country.
The novel The Grapes of Wrath is one of my favorite books of all time. I was introduced to it by one of the best teachers I had in high school, Terry Taylor, who taught American History. I’m happy to say that the movie mostly does the book justice. For this screening, I rented Wrath through Amazon Prime. The transfer looks great; Gregg Toland’s beautiful black-and-white cinematography is stunning. He shot the movie a year before his seminal work on Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane.
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Film number nine in my 100 Essential Films Series (if you missed the first one, you can find the explanation for what I’m doing here) has been staring me in the face for awhile now. The four-hour run time alone was a little daunting. But, with the current political, social, and cultural climate, I decided it was time to tackle Gone with the Wind. It’s the last movie in a trio of them from 1939, one of the greatest years in movie history. This was a first viewing for me, aside from feeling like I knew almost everything about it via cultural osmosis. I watched it through the streaming service Vudu, and the digital transfer looked gorgeous. Too bad the film’s actual content doesn’t match the visuals.
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The theater closures and new release postponements caused by the coronavirus pandemic have affected my review release schedule. Because the local release of the movie I was going to write about this week has been indefinitely pushed back, I’ve been asked to hold onto my review of it until it opens here in Dallas. So, I’ve decided to take a look at the next film in my ongoing 100 Essential Films series. If you missed the first one, you can find the explanation for what I’m doing here.
Film number eight is the second in a trio of films from 1939, a banner year for movies. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is the second entry in the series from director Frank Capra (the first was It Happened One Night).
This one was a first viewing for me. While I didn’t respond to it quite as positively as I would have guessed based on its reputation, I did admire the cast, Capra’s direction, and some of the plot elements. Like every other film in the series so far, I borrowed a Blu-ray through intra-library loan (thankfully I got it before our library shut down due to a city ordinance to combat coronavirus).
I suspect this might be the first movie to showcase the proverbial “smoke-filled back room,” where political deals are hashed out among power brokers. I’m not sure, though. I haven’t had much time to do research, as I’m focusing on my social distancing. Stay safe out there!
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This is the next entry in my ongoing 100 Essential Films series. If you missed the first one, you can find the explanation for what I’m doing here. Film number seven needs no introduction, really. It’s a movie that most of us know by heart and have seen dozens of times. It’s The Wizard of Oz. I’ve probably seen it a dozen or more times, but this viewing was certainly the closest attention I’ve ever paid in terms of theme and production detail. I tried my hardest not to simply be swept away to the magical land of Oz; that’s no easy feat, which you know if you love the movie as much as I do. Like every other film in the series so far, I borrowed a Blu-ray through intra-library loan. It was the 2013 release in commemoration of the film’s 75th anniversary. The transfer is gorgeous.
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This is the next entry in my ongoing 100 Essential Films series. If you missed the first one, you can find the explanation for what I’m doing here. Film number six is the first feature-length animated film ever produced: Walt Disney’s (with the help of dozens of artists) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I had the experience that probably most people would have upon sitting down to watch it: I know the basic story, the songs, and the characters (including all of the dwarfs), but I don’t know that I had ever actually watched the whole thing from beginning to end, aside from maybe when I was three years old. The movie is just so ingrained in our cultural memory, it’s easy to assume you’ve actually seen it, even if you haven’t. Just like the other films in the series, I borrowed a Blu-ray through intralibrary loan. It was the 2016 Disney Blu-ray release, and the film looks fantastic.
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This is the next entry in my ongoing 100 Essential Films series. If you missed the first one, you can find the explanation for what I’m doing here. Film number five is the romantic comedy It Happened One Night from 1934. Many hail the picture as the first screwball comedy ever made – although 1933’s Bombshell might have a little something to say about that. Class commentary and romance are the chief preoccupations of both the genre and It Happened One Night. I first saw the movie in college, about 800 years ago, so it’s technically a revisit, but this go-round was almost like seeing it for the first time. In fact, I might have slept through part of it in college; those 8 am classes were a killer… Just like the other films in the series, I borrowed a Blu-ray through intralibrary loan. The disc was produced in 2014 by the Criterion Collection, and although the majority of the film looks sparkling, there are a few shots that show how challenging the 4K restoration must have been.
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This is the next entry in my ongoing 100 Essential Films series. If you missed the first one, you can find the explanation for what I’m doing here. Film number four is 1933’s King Kong. This is the first talkie of the series, as well as the first straight genre picture. The stop-motion animation in King Kong forever changed the industry. It was a watershed film for special effects. Just like the first two films in the series, I borrowed a Blu-ray through intralibrary loan. It’s a lovingly produced transfer from 2010 by Warner Bros. which features a two+ hour documentary. Director Peter Jackson, who made his own mega-budget remake of King Kong in 2005, played a role in the making of the documentary.
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Here’s the third entry in my 100 Essential Films series. If you missed the first one, you can find the explanation for what I’m doing here. Film number three is Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights. This is what many consider to be his best film, which means a lot considering Chaplin was a masterpiece machine. Just like the first two films in the series, I borrowed a Blu-ray through intralibrary loan. This edition was produced by Criterion Collection in 2013, and it looks and sounds great.
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Here’s the second entry in my 100 Essential Films series. If you missed the first one, you can find the explanation for what I’m doing here. Film number two is The General from 1926. Directed by Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, and starring Keaton in arguably his most iconic role, The General is based on an actual train heist that took place during the Civil War. Just like Intolerance, I borrowed a Blu-ray edition from my local library. The disc is a 2009 edition produced by Kino. Just like with Intolerance, the restoration work here is gorgeous.
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This is a new series I’m dubbing 100 Essential Films. Last year a friend gave me a really cool gift. It’s a scratch-off poster featuring 100 movies that someone (whoever put the poster together) considers essential viewing. We all know how these kinds of lists work: they’re extremely subjective. But, I have the poster, and it’s a good set of films. I figured, why not write a little about each one as I watch them and (literally) scratch them off the list? There are a lot I’ve never seen, and a fair amount that I have. This will be a great way to catch up with the former, as well as a good way to revisit and get on record with the latter.
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