Happy Friday Film Fans! Here’s a short list of the films recommended to record coming up in the next week on Turner Classics. Each film is reviewed in 6 Degrees magazine, so click the title to go to the reviews for each. The list includes:
• Cat Ballou: Starring Jane Fonda; the film’s highlights include the title song sung by Nat King Cole, as a strolling banjo player singing the ballad of Cat Ballou. Lee Marvin won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in his comic turn as the drunker hero who deflates the stereotype of the stalwart gunslinger of legend that actors like John Wayne loved to portray.
• The Search: Stars Montgomery Clift and is a unique look at the refugees of World War II who were comprised mainly of children. The story centers around a soldier, played by Clift, who is suddenly swept up in the refugee crisis when he becomes attached to one of the orphaned boys, and is torn between his strong bond with the child and his continued search to help reunite him with his parents. Although the film has its weaker moments when it dips into sentimentality, the overarching theme of loss and redemption, and the brilliant acting of a young Montgomery Clift in his prime, combine to make this a film worth watching.
• The Lion in Winter: It’s embarrassing to admit there are some films that are so well known to me I can recite the lines. This is one of those films. Adapted from a stage play, with the brilliant idea borne from the kernels of truth, the writer imagines what it would be like to spend the Christmas holidays with the powerful King Henry II and his wife Eleanor. The kicker is that she has been imprisoned by Henry after raising an insurrection to overthrow him from the throne, although she’s out of confinement just for the holidays.. This is not the stuff of myth, but is part of the historical record.The truth is stranger than fiction, by all accounts, and Peter O’Toole and Katherine Hepburn really do eat up the scenery with over the top performances as Henry and Eleanor, along with a young Anthony Hopkins playing son Richard. The film is a fanciful flight of the writers’ imagination, wondering what it would be like to be ‘a fly on the wall’ as we hear the two powerful monarchs fight and manipulate each other and those around them in this tragi-comic tale.
• The Year of Living Dangerously is one of director Peter Weir’s best films. Linda Hunt is magnificent, cast as a man in a role in which she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and her performance has to be seen to be appreciated. Sigourney Weaver and Mel Gibson are both superbly cast, with Weaver as the journalist with conviction and Gibson as the flawed hero.
• All the President’s Men is shown this week. I have never felt this was a masterpiece, however, the film deals with the search for the truth. The writing is superb, done by one of Hollywood’s great screenwriters, William Goldman, and it seems to rise to the occasion as we learn the phrase never uttered by Deep Throat: Follow the Money. This film is worth a second look, particularly in the current climate we live in that involves political intrigue and Russian meddling with our election system.
• Rebel without a Cause is another b-movie that has been raised to mythic proportions. James Dean was the promising young heir apparent in Hollywood whose life was so tragically cut short, when he was killed in a car accident after completing only three major films. But this film elevates the notion of teenage angst at a time when young people were not given the same deep seated psychological examinations they are afforded in this new age. And the two leads, James Dean and Natalie Wood, rise to the occasion and turn in notable performances in this surprisingly enduring story directed by Nicholas Ray.
At the Movies: The long-awaited Black Panther has arrived at the movies, and the reviews have been favorable for the most part. Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs is also out, and it seems to be a hit with most of Anderson’s fans. Both films are reviewed in 6 Degrees.
6 Degrees Magazine also features articles on the upcoming Oscars, as well as other current releases. So stay tuned as we will soon feature the annual Oscar News Newsletter from 6 Degrees.
It’s been a busy week, and there’s plenty of better than average films to see during the film festival season in Hollywood! Till next week, enjoy the films from TCM and see you at the movies!
Six Degrees of Film 