Tag Archives: movie review

[Film: Duck Soup, Leo McCarey, 1933]
Jokes that Hit their Marx:

On Duck Soup, One of the Greatest Comedies of One of the All-time Greatest Comedy Troupes

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Groucho Marx Sketch by Dusty - Duck Soup - Marx Brothers - Harpo, Chico, Zeppo

Sketch by Dusty

Introduction:

Comedians and entertainers in motion pictures took at least 50 years after movies entered the mainstream before shaking loose of their direct vaudeville influences. One of the consequences of this fact is that we have a lasting record of the talents of some—though, as far as I can tell, not even close to all—of the greatest vaudeville acts.

One such great was an act consisting of a family of comedians and musicians operating a variety-show-style performance under the heading of ‘the Marx Brothers.’ Their antics found a natural match in the narrative format of the movie industry, and they became hugely successful, producing 13 feature films in a career spanning decades.

Perhaps their greatest success (though not financially, in its time) is a film called Duck Soup, which today stands on the American Film Institute’s list of the greatest 100 American films of the past century (in addition to being in the top 10 of their list of the 100 greatest comedy films of the past century). Duck Soup is a comedy classic from some of the all-time masters of early (anarchic) movie comedy, and no one with an interest in classic cinema, movie comedy, or theatrical comedy should miss out on watching it.

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[Film: Duck Soup, Leo McCarey, 1933]
Jokes that Hit their Marx:

On Duck Soup, One of the Greatest Comedies of One of the All-time Greatest Comedy Troupes

 was last modified: April 29th, 2021 by Daniel Podgorski

[Film: Planes, Trains and Automobiles, John Hughes, 1987]
A Thanksgiving Given:

Planes, Trains and Automobiles as the Only Thanksgiving Classic

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Introduction:

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles movie poster - John Hughes - Thanskgiving, sincerity, restraintI very nearly turned this Thursday Theater article into a list of 10 Thanksgiving movies for you to check out, but after some deliberation I realized that I could only cobble together 3 movies that were both actually relevant to the holiday and passable enough to recommend (if you’re curious, the other 2 movies are the movie version of Alice’s Restaurant and By the Light of the Silvery Moon).

In truth, I probably should have seen this coming, since there are fewer than 10 Christmas movies which meet both criteria for me. So, instead, I’m cutting out the passable or kitsch options and focusing on recommending the one movie which I feel deserves to be associated with the holiday in perpetuity: John Hughes’ Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

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[Film: Planes, Trains and Automobiles, John Hughes, 1987]
A Thanksgiving Given:

Planes, Trains and Automobiles as the Only Thanksgiving Classic

 was last modified: March 26th, 2020 by Daniel Podgorski

[Film: My Dinner with Andre, Louis Malle, 1981]
Glorious Disagreement:

The Energetic, Artistic Tension that Lends Meaning to Louis Malle’s My Dinner with Andre

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Wallace Shawn by M.R.P. - Louis Malle, Wallace Shawn, Andre Gregory - conversation, analysis

Caricature Sketch by M.R.P.

Introduction:

It is an odd fact that one of the most daring and excellent films of the early 80s was a movie about two characters sitting down to dinner and having a full conversation with each other in real-time. The daring nature of My Dinner with Andre, of course, comes from the unabashed simplicity of its premise (as well as the far-ranging content of its writing), but that leaves the source of its excellence still to be accounted for.

Folks who have not seen it may hold the understandable-yet-mistaken notion that perhaps the film succeeds in the same way as other acclaimed single-location dialogue-driven movies, like The Man from Earth and 12 Angry Men—by having the characters slowly uncover or reveal shocking details over time. But the conversation in My Dinner with Andre is just not a traditional narrative; its conversation is rather more similar to, well, a conversation. One of the men, the eponymous Andre (played by André Gregory), shares some recent biography and some philosophical notions, and the other man, Wally (played by Wallace Shawn), responds to Andre’s ideas. That’s it. So, what is it then that makes this movie work so well? That makes it have consistently high ratings from critics and audiences alike? That made Siskel and Ebert each separately rank it as one of their top five films of the entire 1980s?

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[Film: My Dinner with Andre, Louis Malle, 1981]
Glorious Disagreement:

The Energetic, Artistic Tension that Lends Meaning to Louis Malle’s My Dinner with Andre

 was last modified: April 20th, 2023 by Daniel Podgorski

[Film: The Crying Game, Neil Jordan, 1992]
Identity, National and Gendered:

How Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game Talks About Tradition and Modernity, as Compared to the Fiction of Patrick McCabe

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Introduction:

Neil Jordan Sketch by M.R.P. - The Crying Game - gender identity, nationalism

Caricature Sketch by M.R.P.

Well, I know that I said in this week’s Tuesday Tome article that I would wait for a later week to consider the thematic overlap between Patrick McCabe’s novel Breakfast on Pluto and Neil Jordan’s movie The Crying Game, but when I noticed that Terry Cavanagh, the developer behind this week’s Mid-week Mission, was also Irish, I just decided to keep the Irish motif going. (This will probably be a short-lived pattern; if only I had saved some of my primary comments about C.S. Lewis for this week’s Friday Phil!)

As I also alleged in the McCabe article, the conflicted relationship in contemporary Irish art between ‘the traditional’ and ‘the modern’ is emblematic of an Ireland struggling to maintain a sense of its heritage while embracing an intellectual skepticism toward that heritage’s violence and anti-modern sensibilities. In particular, just like Breakfast on Pluto, The Crying Game expresses that relationship with the complexities of gender identity standing in for the modern and forms of Irish nationalism standing in for the traditional.

The nature of this article is such that it requires spoiling basic plot details of The Crying Game, so you should only continue reading after this paragraph if you either do not mind spoilers or have already seen the film. I also recommend, although it is not strictly necessary for understanding my case, reading my article on Breakfast on Pluto before diving into this one.

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[Film: The Crying Game, Neil Jordan, 1992]
Identity, National and Gendered:

How Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game Talks About Tradition and Modernity, as Compared to the Fiction of Patrick McCabe

 was last modified: April 26th, 2023 by Daniel Podgorski

[Film: The Merchant of Venice, Michael Radford, 2004]
Remakes are Not your Enemy:

Analyzing a Scene from Michael Radford’s Film Version of The Merchant of Venice

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Introduction:

Antonio Reproaching Shylock - The Merchant of Venice - Michael Radford, William Shakespeare - 2004 court scene analysisIn an era when we lament the fact that the remake, the sequel, and the reboot have come to dominate the media landscape, it can be easy to forget that older forms of art (in particular, theatre) used to survive exclusively through their continual reinterpretation and re-presentation. Since his death, William Shakespeare has arguably garnered more of such ‘remakes’ and ‘reboots’ than any other artist, yet there are still great, interesting, and even somehow new versions of his works every year, on the stage and on the screen.

It is worth pointing out, then, that a remake or reboot is only bad if it adds nothing new to the original work and does not present an interesting version of the original work. And if that seems like a tired point to you, then I would like to make that case in a new way (a remake of my own, as it were) by zeroing in on one of Al Pacino’s scenes from Michael Radford’s film version of The Merchant of Venice, and discussing why it works so well as a new presentation of older material.

The nature of this article is such that it requires spoiling basic plot details of The Merchant of Venice, so you should only continue reading after this paragraph if you either do not mind spoilers or have already seen the film (or read the play, or seen a staging, etc.).

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[Film: The Merchant of Venice, Michael Radford, 2004]
Remakes are Not your Enemy:

Analyzing a Scene from Michael Radford’s Film Version of The Merchant of Venice

 was last modified: September 9th, 2024 by Daniel Podgorski