Dear Jodie - H is for The Hours

Dear Jodie,

I saw The Hours in its initial release and was blown away.  I watched it three times in the movie theater.  Why was I so attracted to a movie about three women and how their experiences revolved around a novel?  One written by the one who could not get the voices out of her head, and who committed suicide so that her husband of nearly 29 years could live his life?  It had to be, I thought, the poor fly unable to avoid the web of the spider.

The novel was Mrs. Dalloway.  The author, Virginia Woolf.

It was more than that.  The performances were more than amazing, and if you would have told me that Nicole Kidman had this kind of performance in her BEFORE this movie, I would not have believed it.  She was brilliant as Virginia Woolf.

Her performance reminded me of my father.

Before my sister was born in 1961, my father spend time in a mental hospital . . . unaffectionately known at the time as an "insane asylum."  As a three year-old I could barely pronounce the name of our car, a Chevrolet, but I damn sure could pronounce the words, "insane asylum." My father's family and neighbors taught me how to pronounce it very well, every day as a matter of fact.  

He later told me of how they used electric shock therapy on him, jolting him with massive amounts of electricity so that he would give them an appropriate response.

At times at two or three in the morning, he would tell me why that was wrong and how it made him feel.  And as a child, I couldn't relate!  I tried, but couldn't grasp it!

Years later, one doctor, a brain surgeon from Houston Texas, found the cause of my father's mental illness, a hereditary brain tumor passed from male to male, that could be seen by looking through the eyes.

My father was always conservative . . . at times, reactionary . . . but he always had compassion for people with mental challenges.  He was the one who taught me that "disease," meant dis … ease, and that mental illness was completely misunderstood.  He was right, way-back-when.

I wonder what might have happened with Virginia Woolf, if we knew then what we know now.

Just some thoughts, and a confession of sorts.  I've never mentioned to you that my father spent time in a mental hospital before, because the phrase "insane asylum" just pops into my mind every time I think about it.  And I don't like that phrase.  Not at all!  It is a cruel term, I think.

I did love the movie, though.  9 out of 10.

Check out Jodie's take here! 

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Dear Jodie - G is for Gone With the Wind

Dear Jodie,

How should I feel about Gone With the Wind?  On the one hand it is one of Hollywood’s greatest movies.  On the other, the very making of the movie highlights racial and gender stereotypes, and turns a blind eye to marital rape.

All of that and my parents said that the movie was banned in Memphis for years for using the word “damn.” I haven’t been able to substantiate that.

My favorite movie critic, the late Roger Ebert said that Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) was not a produce of the Civil War, but a product of post flapper America, the precursor to Rosie the Riveter of World War II.

I understand his point.

The most attractive quality of a, sometimes, unsavory character is her indomitable will and determination. Others may give into fear and apathy, but oh, no!  Not Scarlett.

I love that the most rational, clear-thinking character in the whole movie was Mammy beautifully portrayed by Hattie McDaniel. My father had a special place in his heart for both Hattie McDaniel and Mammy. He often said that Mammy was "the only character in the whole damn movie with a lick of sense." 

As Mammy, Ms. McDaniel became the first African American to win an Academy Award.  It took another twenty-four years before Sidney Poitier became the second, winning for Lilies of the Field.

My parents risked taking me to Gone With the Wind in 1961 when I was four.  All I remember from that viewing was the music, which can still move me to emotion, and the burning of Atlanta.

A spectacular sequence, even to this day.

A saying you still hear in the American South from time to time is "Through hell and half of Georgia."

I wonder if . . . never mind.

Vivien Leigh?  Clark Gable?  WOW!

I’ve seen the movie a number of times since 1961, and through several periods of US history.  The farther we move into the future, the more Gone With the Wind is gone with the wind.

It is definitely one of the greatest movies Hollywood ever made.  I think I will remember it that way, chalk it up to an unsavory part of our past, both the Civil War and the era that made the movie and keep looking forward.

I still give it 10 out of 10!

What do you think, Jodie?

Read Jodie's review here!

Dear Jodie - F is for Fried Green Tomatoes

Dear Jodie,

I love Fried Green Tomatoes.  So did my grandmother, though when she realized what finally happened to Frank Bennett, high-tailed it to the bathroom.

For me, it was a movie about relationships in two different time periods. The “modern day” relationships (and since this movie came out in 1991 … well) make the flashback sequences so fascinating for me, particularly how Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates) draws strength from those stories to help her own life.

How cool is that?

The relationship between her and Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy) is so real it could have been a middle-aged niece meeting a lost aunt for the first time and loving the experience.

The relationships from the older sequences were just as compelling, especially those between Idgie and the rest of her world, her brother Buddy, Grady, Big George, Sipsy, and, especially Ruth.

The movie was criticized at the time for not emphasizing the lesbian relationship between Idgie and Ruth. I had read the book so I got it, but in the movie like the book, only the love mattered to me. Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary-Louise Parker made it work so beautifully.

The older sequences are a small taste of the rural South before the 1960s. I recently watched Fried Green Tomatoes back to back with The Help.  Fascinating.

Funny the similarities and contrast between this movie and the next one we’re going to take on.  More on that later.

I'm cheating here, Jodie. I'm ready to post and I just read your take, particularly how listening to Kathy Bates changed your life and made you feel understood for the first time in your own journey.  How you keep her words in mind each day.

That is so wonderful!

Jessica Tandy had just begun her battle with ovarian cancer when she shot Fried Green Tomatoes. I wonder if she discussed it at all with Kathy Bates.

I give Fried Green Tomatoes a solid 8 out of 10.

Check out Jodie's inspiring take here!

Dear Jodie - E is for Elizabeth

 

Dear Jodie,

I watched Elizabeth  the other day for the first time since its 1998 release, and again was taken by the amazing Cate Blanchett!

Yes, the sets and costumes were spectacular but shined as the stars to the sun when compared with Cate Blanchett’s performance.

She began as a smiling, happy girl living in the fair countryside taken by the charms of Lord Robert Dudley (Joseph Fiennes).

Over the course of the movie she grows in confidence and stature and daring, declaring to her all male cast of advisors, “I will have one mistress here! And no master!”

She clumsily, then skillfully avoids assassination attempts and plots from France, Spain, and, notoriously, the Catholic Church to overthrow her, and begins the process of molding an England that produced Shakespeare.

To get there though, she had to shake those who tried to make her into their image, several like the elderly Sir William Cecil (Richard Attenborough) with the best of intentions.

Her circumstances forged her into The Virgin Queen, but she, herself, was the blacksmith saying herself, “I have become a virgin.”

The stark change in her look showed the end result of the forging.

One of the most touching reactions in the movie was when Elizabeth effective retired Cecil, creating Lord Burleigh.  Richard Attenborough’s reaction went right to my heart.  She recognized that he meant well, but England had passed him by . . . carried by Queen Elizabeth.

I give this 8 out of 10.

Check out Jodie's review here!

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Dear Jodie - D is for Dead Poet's Society

Jodie and I are doing tandem movie reviews, as we do for our Facebook page Dear Rocky Dear Jodie: The Actor and the Psychologist At the Movies.  We hope you enjoy them, find them provocative.  Whether you agree with us, or disagree please comment!  We welcome them all.  Thank you, Arlee Bird and everyone who does such a magnificent job with this challenge!!!

__________________

Dear Jodie,

The late Sir Winston Churchill once said, 'Personally, I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.”

 

In Dead Poets Society John Keating (Robin Williams) does not teach. He creates a beautiful atmosphere for the boys in Welton Academy to learn through the world of poetry.  They learn well, far more than the stodgy, antiquated administration represented by the misguided and cruel headmaster Mr. Nolan (Norman Lloyd) could tolerate.

 

I watch this movie every few years, and fondly remember the very few teachers (and they were rare) I ever had who created such an atmosphere. One of those teachers I am FB friends with to this day.  She recently retired.

 

I love, love, love this movie. I love, love, love Robin Williams’ performance despite occasional bouts of his usual shtick. I love to hate the abominable Mr. Nolan for believing that such cruelty is an effective educational tool.  That kind of “discipline” is designed to keep people under control not to teach.

 

I, too, was beaten like that in grade school, with wooden boards and sawed-off baseball bats, with the occasional belt thrown in for good measure.

 

It didn't teach. 

 

Two other outstanding performances come to mind: Robert Sean Leonard as Neil, and Ethan Hawke as Todd.  Both ended up being breakthrough performances, and deservedly so.  Both had amazing emotional ranges for actors so young, and a firm control of their respective instruments.

 

No wonder they’ve worked consistently since.

 

Hard to believe that both Ethan Hawke and Matthew McConaughey are Texas boys, they are so different.

 

Just as an oh-by-the-way, Norman Lloyd, the actor who portrayed the vile Mr. Nolan, will turn 100 years old on November 8, the fates willing. He was one half of the longest standing Hollywood marriage.  When his wife Peggy passed away in 2011, they had been married 75 years.

 

I love stories like that, too.

 

That the poets studied in the movie were all dead white guys, unfortunately, was a product of the times.  Still, I give this a solid 8 out of 10.

Read Jodie's review here!

 

Dear Jodie - C is for Casablanca

For everyone, Jodie and I are doing tandem movie reviews, as we do for our Facebook page Dear Rocky Dear Jodie: The Actor and the Psychologist At the Movies.  We hope you enjoy them, find them provocative.  Whether you agree with us, or disagree please comment!  We welcome all comments.  Thank you, Arlee Bird and everyone who does such a magnificent job with this challenge!!!
________________

Dear Jodie,

I came from the age of black and white.  My parents bought the first television set either had ever known a month before I was born.

Remind me to tell you one of these days how I actually remember them buying it!  I freaked the ever-loving sh*t out of them when I told them all about it . . . from my memory!

One of the first movies I remember seeing on this old black and white television set (it was quite used when my parents bought it) was Casablanca.

What an amazing introduction to the legendary Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.  More than once, my father proclaimed Ingrid Bergman the most beautiful woman in the world. Considering that my father picked Miss America nine times out of ten from the 50 finalists, I never presumed to argue with him.

I still wouldn't.

Roger Ebert proclaimed "It is about a man and a woman who are in love, and who sacrifice love for a higher purpose."

Gotta love it!

I'm not going to presume to offer a review of Casablanca.  I'm going to quote from memory a couple of the lines the 1942 movie made famous.

"We'll always have Paris."

"Play it again, Sam." Actually this is a misquote.  The line to Sam (played by Dooley Wilson) was, "You played it for her, you can play it for me.  Play it."  The immortal song was, "As Time Goes By."

"Round up the usual suspects."

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."

"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Honestly, Rick Blaine (Bogart) was not an attractive character at the beginning of the movie.  But love loosened him up.  And obligation to truth, and goodness.

Wow!  Sounds like a novel I'm trying to write, though my novel pales in comparison to this classic!

Oh, my gosh!  I forgot the biggie, "Here's looking at you, kid."

And, yes, my father was a lady's man.

Check out Jodie's take here! 

Dear Jodie - B is for The Bridges of Madison County

Dear Jodie,

The Bridges of Madison County is one of those rare examples of a movie that, in my view, far exceeded the quality of the book from whence it came. By miles!

I read the book.  All of it.  Had it not been ridiculously short, I would not have finished, because the writing did not do it for me.  But I’m curious as to your take on the movie.

Despite some issues, I loved it, loved it, loved it!  Clint Eastwood directed and starred with Meryl Streep in this amazing love story.

What is it, Jodie, about the charms of the “Big Secret?” Because for me that’s what made this movie so special.  Here is a woman who kept the best four days of her life from all she loved, because to reveal it at the time would have hurt them unspeakably.

And what about those days?  Sensual, erotic, connecting more closely to a stranger than she could connect with her own family.  I completely melted into all of it!

Oh, if I could have something like that happen to me!

The wild card here is that the husband was a good man, decent, caring, though stoic and unexciting.  Her kids were great kids.  She had no external reason to fall into this scene except . . .

The farm was not for her. She knew it, yet allowed herself to be trapped in a life that sapped strength from her every day she stayed in it.

I have been critical of Meryl Streep, but I think she shined in this one.  I bought the loneliness, and the eroticism.  The accent was lovely!  I completely bought the internal conflict that led us to wonder whether she would open that car door and run to Robert in the rain.

Cudos to Clint Eastwood both as a director and as an actor, although when he was taking pictures of the bridges he did not stand in any way like the photographers I know.  He looked like a tourist trying to look like a pro.

But what of that?

I also didn’t buy the adult kids. I didn’t see the underlying grief from having lost their mother. What I came away with was “Mom’s gone.  We’ve got the loot.  Whoa, lookee here what Mom did.  Let’s get drunk.”  I get that deaths don’t have to be gloom and doom.  I get that we can have wonderful, even gut-laughing funny rememberances in times of death and this helps with the grieving process, but did you see the underlying grief.

If it was there, I sure as hell missed it.

Still, because of Clint and Meryl, I give this a solid 9 out of 10.  The book gets 1 out of 10.

Read Jodie's review here!