Weekend Project: Some Like It Hot

This weekend project could be considered a FAIL…not quite to epic proportions, because the movie DID make it out of it’s Netflix sleeve and into my computer. And I DID manage to watch the first half of the movie. But here comes the fail part: I stopped the movie. I just couldn’t take it anymore.

I decided to check out Some Like It Hot because I had never actually seen Marilyn Monroe in action (horrible confession right there coming from a film major…yes, it’s true) and according to Roger Ebert, this one makes it on to the list of Great Movies. And I figured, since I was actually a film major, maybe I should start watching some of these films and actors that I learned about over and over in college. What a concept!

Now I am sure Mr. Ebert is to be trusted, right, he has made quite a living giving his opinion on things. However, I just have to say I was unimpressed by it all.

Of course, Marilyn herself was absolutely stunning…it is no coincidence that she was popularly considered the pinnacle of all that is woman for so long. Though, she really can’t dance. At all. Oh well, this fault is really minor. Point 1 for Some Like It Hot.

Also, I enjoyed immensely the fact that the movie begins in a comical 1920’s prohibition/mobster-era Chicago. It was ridiculous. But Chicago is amazing, in my incredibly biased opinion. Point 2 for Some Like It Hot.

This is where the tide changes however. Especially upsetting, I find little reason to be attached to the characters, or really care at all about them.  Hence why I didn’t even feel compelled at the moment to figure out how the movie ended. Not to mention, the comedy was sparse and forced. Perhaps it let me down more so because I had such high expectations. Kind of reminds me of when I finally got around to watching Napoleon Dynamite, way after the hype had passed. Or perhaps I just wasn’t in the right mood. Somehow my inner film critic escaped me today.

All this being said, chances are curiousity will get the better of me and I will watch the rest, just because I need to know what happens.  And because film majors watch films, even ones we don’t like.  We can’t help it.

Weekend Project: Lawrence of Arabia

I was a film major in college, yet I must say that the number of films I have actually seen is quite limited in scope and variety…mostly obscure randomness and international flicks.  So this weekend my project was a classic: Lawrence of Arabia.  An epic and a tragedy.  (I’ll try not to include any spoilers, though I must admit that the plot itself doesn’t really seen to be the point of the movie.)  I read the excerpt about the movie from Roger Ebert’s The Great Movies, where he said that there’s really no plot, no love interest, no point, but that is a beautiful film.  Well, I do agree that it is a strikingly beautiful film.  However, I do think there is a plot and more importantly there is a love interest, though it is not a woman.

via greatamericanmovies.com

I think Lawrence’s love interest is the Arab people, and perhaps the desert.  Both of which are very difficult lovers.  The desert, it never loves back.  And the Arab people, they can, but in a way that is different from English customs and ideas.  Just look at the crisis Lawrence experiences when he is faced with the fact that he isn’t really Arab: he says he is invisible, that he can pass…but when a Turkish soldier points out his pale skin, he lashes out.  Because he realizes his love is an outsider’s love.  And I think the tragedy is, because he is an Englishman, he knows he’s fighting for a cause that is basically hopeless.  There will be no Arab nation if the British and French can help it, yet he almost goes mad trying to make it happen, trying to bring “freedom,” thinking that making the nation will make him belong.

Well, it’s much more complicated than all of that, really.  If you haven’t seen the movie, you should.  It’s fabulous.