It seems we don’t get to see movies very much any more. Usually when I’m home with Kitten during the day, I’m too busy working to throw something into the VCR (or Kitten’s awake and wants to watch something else). During the week, we don’t always get to movies in our collection. And new releases are a huge hit-or-miss.
So it’s kind of keen I got to see three movies this weekend.
Friday afternoon, while Kitten was napping, I watched The Shadow. I find the fun in this movie outweighs the occasional plot clumsiness. Alec Baldwin does a fine Lamont Cranston, struggling with his own inner darkness while redeeming himself as the Shadow. John Lone is a fabulous Shiwan Khan, and the supporting cast (including the always-entertaining Tim Curry, not to mention a remarkably short Ian McKellan) does a fine job. Good musical score, good production values. The movie suffers a bit for needing about 30 minutes more to caulk over the seams in the plot, but after watching it probably about a dozen times since its 1994 debut, it’s clearly on my list of Comfort Movies.
Saturday morning, Doyce arranged an outing to see Road to Perdition, the newest Tom Hanks run at the Oscars. I’d read the graphic novel when it first came out, so when I head it was coming to the big screen with Hanks and Paul Newman, I knew it would be something classy and special. And so it is. The violence — for a Depression-era gangster flick — is both omnipresent and subdued, almost poetic. Indeed, that sense of poetry contributes to feeling like this is some sort of classic Japanese tale, full of blood, honor, family, duty — a morality play without morals, where people do what they must, not what they’d like, and the worst sin of all is to be disloyal.
(That Japanese feeling is not entirely coincidence, since Kazuo Koike and Kojima’s manga “Kozure Okami” (Lone Wolf & Cub) was one of the insipirations for this tale.)
It’s a really good movie, if not for everyone. Definitely worth seeing, and expect to see a dozen or so Oscar nominations when that time of year rolls around, both for the production and for Hanks and Newman.
Then, last night, Margie and I watched 1776. This 1972 film, adapted from the Broadway musical by Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards (with many of the show’s actors moving into the film), has languished in pan-n-scan hell for years, but now is finally out on DVD. I first caught this flick on a Fourth of July afternoon, and fell in love with it on the spot — which, for someone like me who doesn’t care for movie musicals, is probably saying something.
The biggest flaw this film has is that the adaptation from stage production to film is rocky. In some places, conventional film making and shots are used, while in some of the musical numbers and in the moving from day to day in Congress, it looks like a (mediocre) film of the stage show. The result is sometimes a bit jarring, moving from avant garde to just clumsy.
The second flaw is that the sound quality moving from dialog to music is just awful. This has sometimes been a problem with prerecorded movie musicals, and so it is here.
Nonetheless, both these flaws pale before the story of the Second Continental Congress and how it finally voted to pass the Declaration of Independence. By looking at the individuals behind the signatures, this humanizing of “demi-gods” brings a life to American History that most textbooks completely miss. Principle and pettiness show up on both sides of the debate, and the question of how far to compromise on principle — in particular on the question of condemning the slave trade — in order to get the Declaration passed, still resonates today.
The music is delightful here, even if a few of the tunes (“Mama Look Sharp”) feel a bit dated. The love tunes between John and Abigail Adams, John’s “Commitment,” and the passing-the-buck “But, Mr. Adams” are all gems. One major number that was cut out at President Nixon’s (!) request (to Jack Warner), “Cool, Considerate Men,” is now back in the film, along with quite a bit of other trimmed footage, all to the good.
The acting is quite fine as well, with my fave, William Daniels, as the egotistical, fiery, “obnoxious and disliked” John Adams, Howard da Silva as the jocular but equally-commited Ben Franklin, Donald Madden as the “cool conservative” Edward Rutledge, and many others. Ken Howard’s laconic Tom Jefferson borders on soporific, but the action keeps moving so quickly that you almost don’t notice (that Jefferson’s young wife died not long after the events here lends a special poignancy to their scenes together). The movie’s focus on Adams benefits from extensive use of his letters to his wife, Abigail, and if poetic license occasionally intrudes on history, it’s still better than mish-moshes like The Patriot.
If you like movie musicals, American History, William Daniels, or just want a little patriotic boost some Fourth of July, this is the film to watch.