M

He’s concerned it’ll set before he gets it in the wash.

M is really boring.  The movie was released in 1930’s Germany, and it’s pretty common for movies made before the discovery of ADD to have scenes that run so long an innocent viewer might assume the camera operator snuck out for a quick schnitzel break leaving the actors to yell at each other in German for a few extra minutes while the subtitles give up and start rolling quotes from Mein Kampf.  So little happens that if it was written down, it’d be more of a pamphletization, not a novelization.

Other than the 70% of the movie where nothing happens, M’s a great movie!  It manages to convincingly portray a man trying to elude a town full of Germans angry at him. He’s a serial killer of children, so he probably deserves whatever’s coming his way.  Still, watching 1930’s Germans hunting a man through the streets, marking him so he can be clearly identified…I’m probably reading too much into it.  Then again, the killer is played by Peter Lorre, a Jewish man who had to flee Germany after this movie was made for fear of his life.  I guess I’m reading exactly the right amount into it. The whole thing has a creepy Holocaust training video vibe to it.

Nobody other than the killer, has much of a personality aside from “Angry German”, making it difficult to care as they s-l-o-w-l-y hunt for the criminal.  I suppose it didn’t take a lot to make Germans angry in the 30’s.  There are numerous scenes where angry citizens take up arms, and criminal syndicates have more success than the police at tracking down the killer.  I think that’s supposed to be a pointed social commentary, but if I was to make a “Top Problems with Germany in the 1930’s” list, “Too Inefficient at Hunting Down Jews” wouldn’t exactly bubble to the top.

Rating: Musty

Did I fast forward: Yes

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

The Capitol is visible through every window. Waiting. Watching.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is the most American movie ever made.  Halfway through, I was overcome.  I turned to the nearest flag (Go Mets!), saluted, and began to sing “God Bless America.”  I don’t really know the words to the song, so it degenerated into embarrassed mumbling and they kicked me off the bus.  Even if your movie involved a bald eagle making out with the Statue of Liberty, it would be less patriotic than this one.

It’s easy to be cynical about a movie where a nice man gets surprised elected to Congress and defeats corruption through nothing but pluck, but this movie gets away with it.  It has such a strong sense of purpose and place that you really want justice to come against the ambiguously evil and corrupt political machine in Washington.  Nothing in this movie could ever actually happen, no matter how many times Jimmy Stewart says, “Aw shucks.”  You couldn’t get away with making this movie today, and not just because it would be awkward to watch Jimmy Stewart’s corpse for two hours.

It’s not until after post-coital with the American Dream that you realize the movie is actually poorly constructed.  There’s a lot of plot threads that don’t really go anywhere, and the ending somehow lacks the punch it should.  Really, the movie should have been longer.  Wait, who’s typing this?  It must be my evil doppelganger.  I never want a movie to be three hours.  No, don’t steal my identity, doppleganger!  Oh, great, now there are goatee hairs in my keyboard.

Rating: Must-see

Did I fast-forward: No.

The Bicycle Thief

This kid is almost kidnapped like eight times. Dude cannot keep track of his stuff.

If you have suicidal tendencies, I would not recommend watching The Bicycle Thief.  This isn’t to imply that if you are full of a zest for life that you should watch The Bicycle Thief, just that you should be ready for a depressing ride.  It’s tough to get excited about a movie where everything is sad.  I already know that people are poor and downtrodden around the world.  Why do I need to be reminded of this while reclining on my green leather couch, spilling M&Ms all over myself as I shovel them in my mouth?

From the limited knowledge of Italian history I gleaned from reading Olive Garden menus, everyone in Italy was poor and destitute after World War II.   Having a bicycle to tool around Rome looking for work can make all the difference in being able to afford the Tour of Italy and scraping the last bit of fettuccini alfredo from the dumpster out back.  It’s hardly a spoiler to say that a man has his bicycle stolen early on in the movie.  A larger spoiler is to inform you that nothing else happens for the rest of it. The majority of the run time is just the main character trudging through Rome looking for his stolen bicycle. 

He’s dependent on this bicycle so he can stop being so damn poor, and there’s a larger point about cycles of poverty, but there’s seriously like fifteen minutes spent watching Italian men look over racks of bikes and tires trying to find the stolen bike.  Then there’s ten minutes arguing in a church.  Another dozen at a restaurant where they can only afford the bottomless breadsticks.  Does he find his bicycle?  By the end, you will not care.  A movie can be boring or depressing, but being both is like having your cake and eating it too, except, like, the opposite because somebody stole your cake.

Rating: Musty

Did I fast-forward: Yes

Dances With Wolves

"Help! She fell asleep during the second hour!"

Most of the fun in watching with Dances with Wolves is using the scenes where nothing is happening (most of the film) to think of Indian names for all your friends.  The alternative is to watch Kevin Costner blunder his way through another 3+ hour movie that moves with all the alacrity of an empty tortoise shell glued to an empty snail shell.  Speaking of which, next time you criticize a turtle or snail for being slow, you see how fast you move while carrying your house, or even just box of books, around with you, He-Man.

In Dances with the Wolves, a sequence of poorly explained and homelessly justified events leads Kevin Costner to end up in the middle of the prairie in the middle of the Civil War.  There, he meets a batch of Native Americans that are like, totally cool, and way better than any white person ever.  That’s the first hour and a half of the movie.  The second half of the movie I don’t want to spoil for you.  Also, I didn’t watch most of it.

Aside from Kevin Costner being his usual Kevin Costner-y self (a plank of wood), the movie’s nothing but glamorizing Native Americans, demonizing Whitey, and some pets with more personality than anyone in the movie.  There is literally nothing here that you haven’t seen a million times before, except some photography that makes the Great Plains look way more exciting than they actually are.

Rating: Musty

Did I fast forward: Yes, and my only regret is not fast forwarding more.

American Beauty

I want to touch...your forehead.

American Beauty is a pretty ridiculous movie.  None of the situations are particularly plausible and most plot developments rely on Three’s Company style misunderstandings.  Kevin Spacey is a suburban loser who one day realizes that he’s a suburban loser.  In response to this revelation he stops caring what anyone thinks about him, speaks his mind, and smokes a lot of pot.

This is, more or less, the plot of Office Space.  I was prepared to call American Beauty a rip-off, but they came out in the same year, so I guess it’s just one of those Armaggedon/Deep Impact things.  To call the characters stereotypes is an insult to the hard work of Mickey Rooney’s Mr. Yunioshi character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  It’s less of a commentary on life in the suburbs and more of a look into what Hollywood thinks suburbs are like.  Despite all of this, it’s a fun watch that’s nicely shot with great performances from Gay Scott Bakula and Mena Suvari’s forehead.

Rating: Must-See

Did I fast forward: No.

Gaslight

Oh, you're right, I'm not sure where I left the car keys. OH GOD I'M INSANE!

Gaslight is essentially the same movie as Rosemary’s Baby, but with less Satanic children.  Here, Ingrid Bergman married badly, as her new husband tries to convince her she is insane.  We know this because around 100 minutes of the 113 minute runtime is spent with the husband manipulating her with such clever ruses as giving her a brooch, taking it back, and being all, “Ooooo, where did it go?  You must be INSANE!!!”  He is assisted in his efforts by Ingrid Bergman having the intellectual capacity of a two year old, and Angela Lansbury.  This is all done for some overly-complicated reason that is revealed in the last three minutes of the movie.

Seriously, if a few games of peek-a-boo and some parlor tricks is all it takes to keep Ingrid Bergman locked in your attic for months at a time, well, frankly, I’m kind of sad I missed the 40’s.  The plot pretty much relies on men running women’s lives to such a degree that they need to compose a note and leave it under their husband’s separate bedroom door in order to get permission to take a crap.  She got an Oscar for this, which is weird, given how misogynistic the 40’s were.  You’d think “women be crazy” wouldn’t garner much notice from the Academy. 

Rating: Musty

Did I fast forward: Only for the 18^th scene of her slowly being driven insane, this time by a letter that she read OR DID SHE?  (She did.)