Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Invictus

New Year's Eve started off with a great movie--the best way to celebrate. In 1972 I saw a little film in college directed by Alan J. Pakula (who a few years later would direct The Parallax View, Klute, Sophie's Choice and All the President's Men) and starring one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE actresses, Maggie Smith, and a great young newcomer Timothy Bottoms in what at the time I felt was one of the year's best films. It was fresh, funny, had great scenery of Spain, and best of all, I remembered the wonderful music score(by Michael Small, what's happened to him?), so reminiscent of Christopher Parkening's Spanish guitar classics, but not quite the same. For years I've searched for the soundtrack of that film, LOVE AND PAIN AND THE WHOLE DAMN THING, and as far as I know, there is not one around. To bad, because the music is still great. The film has FINALLY been released for the first time on dvd just this past year, and it is still a great little movie. Maggie Smith had won her Oscar a few years earlier for one of my ALL TIME FAVORITES--The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie--and continues to amaze me with scene stealing characters in films like California Suite (another Oscar win), Travels with My Aunt (Oscar nominee), A Room With a View (Oscar nominee), Gosford Park (Oscar nominee), The V.I.P's, the Harry Potter movies, and many many more. I think she is an International Treasure, and in Great Britain where she's won many acting awards for her stage work (I saw her several years ago on a London stage in Edward Albee's Three Tall Women and she stole the show--my in-laws kept asking me who was this incredible actress) she is Dame Maggie Smith. You won't watch a more moving, funny, romantic, beautiful little movie all year than LOVE AND PAIN AND THE WHOLE DAMN THING.
This week I finally caught up with INVICTUS, a film I didn't think I really wanted to see--like eating a spinach salad--good for you but sort of yuck. Happily, this is a great Caesars Salad--a very compelling film that fires on all cylinders--it works as a political drama with a spot on performance by Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, who struggles to gain the trust of all people, white and black in South Africa after he is released from prison and wins election as President. It also works as a tense sports drama, with the underdogs transformed into a winning team by the energy and inspiration and support that Mandela gives them. And it works as an interesting character study with intimate portrayals of every day people confronting racism, change, political awareness, loyalty, and hope. It is the feel good movie of the year, and director Clint Eastwood, who is pushing 80, has out done himself again. I foresee Oscar nominations for Picture, Director, script, actor and perhaps Support Actor, a convincing Matt Damon among others.
Top of the dvd list this week, a second viewing of last summers classic Pixar film, UP, which holds up delightfully well on a TV screen, and will be included in my top 10 films list, TBA.
Very few films, much less animated ones, can get my tears ducts flowing.
I received a twin pack of TRANSFORMERS (2007) and TRANSFORMERS II: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, so Toni and I sat and watched them both on back to back nights. I enjoyed the original TRANSFORMERS several years ago in the theatre--a wild eye-popping popcorn film, and recieved many nods and nudges from my 12 year old nephew who thought it was fantastic. It still is, but it does get rather tiresome, too--the first hour set up is the best--the last 30 minutes of fighting and explosions in the Big city is annoying. So I was surprised when Toni wanted to see TRANSFORMERS II the next night. It was pretty much the same, with long scenes of non-stop mayhem and fighting that is edited so quickly that you don't have time to focus your eyes, but --hey, bring out the popcorn for this one too. As sequels go, it wasn't the worst I've seen, and we kept our expectations low and sort of liked it (!).
I also recieved as a gift a dvd set of two Marx Bros. films, and watched THE BIG STORE (1941)this last week. It wasn't the greatest Marx Bros. film I've seen, but it was mildly entertaining, kept me awake (when they weren't stopping the plot for a musical piano playing number, harp number, singing number, etc) and there's a great 20 minute chase through a large department store on skates, bikes, ropes, chutes, etc that is a masterpiece of silly choreography, if not completely hilarious.
And last but not least, also this week watched a film from new boxed set called Pre-Code Hollywood Collection, which features films from the early 30's in beautifully restored black and white which were all made before the THE CODE forced film-makers to censor their films of sex and violence and nudity and "inappropriate" themes. Buster Crabbe and Ida Lupino portray Olympic swimming champions who are tricked into being editors of a new health and fitness magazine, but the owners really want it to be a racy "skin" magazine with lots of healthy young men and women wearing almost nothing, and suggestive stories to go along with that. Of course it wasn't as shocking to me now as what you see today, but it really did have a rather lurid undertone, and the camera did seem to love to pan over young flesh as they worked out, and sang and danced in skimpy attire. The film is called SEARCH FOR BEAUTY (1934) and even though it was heavily censored at the time, one character states "It's so hot you could fry an egg on it."