Dear Jodie - The 2015 Oscars

Dear Jodie,

The 2015 Oscars have come and gone and have left me with a number of impressions.  First, Lady Gaga can sing! Truly sing! She even impressed the great Julie Andrews.

And what about Julie Andrews?  She still looks wonderful, and always full of class and grace.

On the other hand, John Travolta seems to be returning to his John Revolta phase of decades past. Has he stopped touching Idina Menzel's (aka Adele Dazeem's) face yet?  What about blind-side smooching Scarlett Johansson? I'd be saying yuck, yuck, double yuck.

Hell, I am saying it.

A great line from Neil Patrick Harris: "Benedict Cumberbatch is what you get when you ask John Travolta to pronounce Ben Affleck."

The winners won. The losers didn't.  My predictions weren't even in the ballpark.  But a couple of acceptance speeches stood out.

I liked J. K. Simmons thanking his wife and kids and encouraging folks to call their mom and dad.

I loved Common's and John Legend's acceptance speech for the Best Song Oscar.  Really moving!

I wasn't so thrilled with Patricia Arquette's acceptance speech. I happen to agree with her, women still aren't compensated as well as men, but feel that the Oscars … an award/entertainment show…isn't the right place to make that point, or any other point not directly related to the movie she won for. "Boyhood" was not about the inequality of the pay scale between men and women.

There's an old saying that you catch flies with sugar, not vinegar. I felt her rant sprayed too much vinegar over an unsuspecting audience.

"Still Alice" on the other hand was about dealing with Alzheimer's disease (please, my fellow Texans, can we not call it "Oldtimer's disease" anymore), and I loved Julianne Moore's acceptance speech.

http://oscar.go.com/video/2015-awards-ceremony-highlights/_m_VDKA0_jcuivrt3

She, very deftly and kindly, mentioned shining the light on Alzheimer's disease. Completely appropriate.  She brilliantly laced her observation with sugar and a touch of cinnamon.

I'm also glad that she won. Julianne Moore is hit or miss with me, but she hit big in "Still Alice."

Oh, and Eddie Redmayne. I rooted for him, not because any of the other nominees sucked, they didn't, but his, I felt, was the more difficult role to play. Physically demanding, and limited in the scope of his expression, Mr. Redmayne truly brought Stephen Hawking onto the screen.

This is just me, Jodie, but I only felt like three of the performances were worthy of the Oscar.  Eddie Redmayne, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Bradley Cooper.  The other two were good performances, but not particularly memorable to my mind.

Am I the only one who noticed that Joan Rivers was not in the "In Memorium" presentation? Was this an oversight? Or was Hollywood really sick of her acerbic jokes at their expense?  Either way, the Academy should address the omission, I think.

And then Sean Penn strikes again.  While presenting the Academy Award for Best Picture ("Birdman") to the Mexican-born Alejandro González Iñárritu, Penn said, “Who gave this son of a bitch his green card?”

Iñárritu later graciously said, "I thought it was hilarious," but … it sure didn't have the ring of hilarity.  Between really good friends in private, fine. But not in public. Not at the Oscars.  Not good, Sean!

Overall, I thought Neil Patrick Harris did an excellent job of hosting the Oscars. Ah, but Jodie, I have nothing to say about his appearing in his briefs onstage a la "Birdman." It reminded me of an old Eddie Murphy routine, "If I ain't got no bulge, I ain't modeling no underwear."

I rooted for people to win who didn't, like Kiera Knightley for Best Female Actress in a Supporting Role. Others I rooted for won, like Eddie Redmayne and Julianne Moore. I didn't particularly like Birdman winning. The movie, it seemed, was more about the camera technique than a story.

Oh, well.

Overall, I loved the 2015 Oscars, even with all of the hiccoughs.  It is my Super Bowl every year. It is an event.

I'm already looking forward to next year.

I can't wait to find out what you thought, Jodie!

Read Jodie's review here.

Dear Jodie - The Imitation Game

Dear Jodie,

I LOVE Sherlock Holmes, but not the series with Benedict Cumberbatch.  Basil Rathbone will always be Holmes for me.

That being said, I thought Cumberbatch was marvelous in "The Imitation Game."  Wow! What a performance!

Alan Turing didn't have a chance, really. My father once told me, "Son, it's hard as hell to like what you can't understand." People of Turing's day couldn't understand his genius or his sexuality so they took from him what they could and made him an outcast.  What a damn shame!

Mr. Cumberbatch brought this onto the screen beautifully, I think. The best part for me was bringing his youthful love to life again in the computer that essentially wins the war for the allies. In the end, he could love only Christopher of the past and present … the boy and the machine.

And, of course, I loved his confused tears when Joan Clarke explains the enormity of his contribution.

Keira Knightly as Joan Clarke shined as I have yet to see her. Just marvelous! I loved watching her, especially toward the end when she returns the words that Turing had once said to her.

"Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine."

Many in my father's generation complained about "changing history" or "revising history."

When I studied World War II in history class up until I minored in history in college, I never heard of the Enigma code or Alan Turing.  Even then, it barely drew mention. It has only been in my lifetime that Turing's contribution to the war effort has become publicaly known, and then well known.

Not only were his accomplishments wartime secrets, but issues of homosexuality and chemical castration would have grown like weeds in the yard of a vacant house.

No, not changing history, or revising history, but shining lights onto the past to see those facts and events long lurking in the shadows and adding them into the canon or replacing inaccuracies.

Though I have never believed in watching movies to gain a history lesson, I think this one shined brightly and vividly.

8 out of 10

I'm curious to know what you think!

Read Jodie's review here.

Dear Jodie - To Kill a Mockingbird

Dear Jodie,

Gregory Peck won the Oscar playing Atticus Finch for his address to the jury in "To Kill a Mockingbird," and rightly so.  He was marvelous.

But those who come to this wonderful movie seeking a courtroom drama will find the movie out of balance.

Certainly the trial of Tom Robinson for a crime he didn't commit was a major part of the plot, but this is a coming of age story.

Scout, Jem, and Dill's story, of how they learn the ways of the world in which they lived.

I loved it.  Still do. I found much recognition in it.

Growing up, I, too, had a "haunted" house with a boogieman inside six or seven houses away that we sneaked up on from time to time.

I, too, had to stay in the house a few hours while the authorities took care of a rabid dog.

I, too, had to run like hell to get away, leaving behind articles of clothing (shoes in my case ... britches in Jem's).

The essence of this story, to me, lies in Atticus's comment to Jem.  "There are a lot of ugly things in this world, son."

Then there is the Mockingbird ... Boo Radley, wonderfully portrayed by Robert Duval in his first screen role, and all of other human beings in the movie shunned by their fellow humans.

Ah, but I'm supposed to be commenting on the acting, not my own feelings on the movie, so I will.  Mary Badham was amazing as Scout and justly nominated for Best Supporting Actress.  Brock Peters was just brilliant as Tom Robinson.

 

That Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, and Brock Peters remained friends until Peck's and Peter's respective deaths is telling.  Badham always called Peck "Atticus."

Harper Lee (author of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel) remarked of Gregory Peck's performance, "The years told me his secret. When he played Atticus Finch, he had played himself, and time has told all of us something more: when he played himself, he touched the world."

10 out of 10

What did you think, Jodie?

Read Jodie's review here.

Dear Jodie - Calvary

Dear Jodie,

I'm so glad to be back in the saddle as we say in Texas, and what a saddle!

It would be so easy to make a movie about a pedophile priest. Wouldn't take anything at all. As an old Catholic myself a priest once told me in confession that I was going to hell for masturbating while he, it was later discovered, provided private lessons to the alter boys on the ways of the sexual world. I had trouble reconciling that.

Still do.

Then again, a friend of mine told me of her very first confession, oh-so-worried how she was going to confess her biggest, most baddest, most horribleist transgression. She decided to go for it.

"Bless me father for I have sinned, I hit Sister Gabriel in the butt with spitwad."

She smiled telling me of the near uncontrollable laughter behind the screen, letting her know for good and all that priests were human beings too.

She still attends mass with her family with a healthy attitude toward priests and nuns.

Ah, all of this as preface to my impressions of "Calvary," a movie, not about a sexual predator, but a good, decent priest who endures the confession of a man threatening to kill him because he is good, and because the priests who abused him in his youth are either dead already or long gone. Vengance on the innocent. What a splash that would make with the Church! We walk the road of Calvary with Father James through his daily, mostly unsuccessful, rounds with this threat hovering over him like storm clouds.

Writer and director John Michael McDonagh put the movie in the hands of the actors, and they came through brilliantly. Brendon Gleeson shined bright as Father James with Chris O'Dowd as the perfect foil. I also enjoyed Kelly Reilly's performance as Father James's adult daughter, a living symbol of the good Father's troubled past.

Their conversation on forgiveness stays with me even as I drink my morning tea.

That the end is determined because Father James is honest regarding his personal feeling for a personal tragedy versus his detachment regarding the huge wrongs of the Church just tears at me ... and makes me think.

The final scene is perfect. Can we can tell a little about ourselves by what we think is said behind the silence?

Maybe.

Hard to watch, but a haunting, amazing movie nevertheless.

10 out of 10

I can't wait to read your view, Jodie!  Read Jodie's review HERE.

Dear Jodie - The Lion King

Dear Jodie,

I wanted to LOVE The Lion King, both when I saw it in 1994 and again just a few days ago.  I wanted to LOVE it, but only REALLY LIKED IT.

There was nothing wrong with The Lion King.  The animation was amazing, the story was classic (Hamlet-esque), the actors were . . .

Ah, therein lies the rub.  You said it wonderfully in your review, Jodie.  James Earl . . . Mufasa.  I'll extend that to Jeremy (Klaus Van Bulow) . . . Scar.  I had real trouble getting past that beautiful bass voice of James Earl Jones being that of James Earl Jones, and the reprise of Jeremy Irons' most famous line of his Oscar winning performance in Reversal of Fortune "You have no idea."  Add Ferris Bueller --- Simba -- and it pulled me completely out of the movie (both in 1994 and 2004), except for those amazing scenes you mentioned.

Back in the Golden Age of Disney, the producers rarely used name actors in the roles, much less stars.  They used solid actors whose names wouldn't take away from the characters.  A more modern example is Frozen.  The only actor who I was familiar with was Kristen Bell, and her only vaguely.

As a result, I stayed with the story.

But that's by the way.

I know that I'm being unfair here, but a movie about the circle of life invites comparison with other movies with the same theme.  The movie I'm thinking of (also Disney) is Bambi, a movie I grew up with, a movie that saved the life of a couple of deer the times my father took me deer hunting, a movie that would be on my top 10 movies of all time.

I will say that the opening was brilliant, far and away the best musical number in the movie.

All of this aside, it is not fair that I do not have the same emotional history with The Lion King that I do with Bambi, but that's the way it is.

I have no doubt that I will watch The Lion King again, Jodie.  I have friends with kids who LOVE it.  Hell, I have friends who LOVE it.  I have no doubt I will really like it.

Since my view of the movie has less to do with the movie itself than my own whims and caprices, I'm giving it a solid 8 out of 10.

It really is an excellent movie!  Wonderful opening!  I really liked it!

What did you give it, Jodie?

Read Jodie's review here.

Dear Jodie - Schindler's List

Dear Jodie,

Schindler's List was a difficult movie for me to watch which is why last night was the first time I'd seen it in twenty-one years.  As bad as things looked on film, they were logarithmically worse in real life.

I obviously don't know that first hand, but . . . well, let's say that I began my education on the Holocaust with a substitute teacher in Junior High School back in 1970.  She had escaped from Auschwitz as a young girl along with her brother and told us of her escape. She even showed us the tattoo on her left forearm.

About the atrocities inside the camp, she remained silent, but told us of how she and her brother took refuge in a convent until the nuns could arrange for transportation out of the country and eventually to the U. S. where an aunt and uncle took them in.

An older priest retired from Poland to our parish in 1970. Fr. Francis J. Gabryl (pictured above) had survived both the Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps.  He became a leader in the Dallas Polish-American community until he returned to Poland in 1985.  And, was acquainted with a younger Polish priest named Karol Wojtyla who later became the first Polish Pope, more recently known as Saint John Paul II.

I'll tell you an amusing story about when I went to confession to him one of these days.

I digress!

If someone had told me that the man who directed the Indiana Jones Movies, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and ET would direct a movie like this, I would not have believed it.

But Steven Spielberg showed great depth, and a more-than-amazing ability to get out of the way of the story he wanted to tell, and THAT is the brilliance of his directing in this film.  Never once does he comment on the horrors of the Holocaust.  He shows them and allows them to speak for themselves.

I love (and hate) this story of how profiteer Oskar Schindler (beautifully portrayed by Liam Neeson), a member of the Nazi Party, slowly changes into a man who spends the entire fortune he made to save nearly 1,100 Jews . . .  known after WWII as Schindlerjuden (Schindler Jews).  I love that it happened, but hate that it needed to happen.

To his credit, Spielberg doesn't try to answer the question of the change.  He shows that the change happened, but not the why.  Though the movies shows the line Schindler had to cross in the form of the little girl in the red jacket . . . a red jacket in a black and white movie. You can better answer the why, Jodie, but I see Oskar Schindler as a complex man who, himself, cannot see the change.

In terms of acting I would be remiss if I didn't mention the wonderful performance of Ralph Fiennes as the despicable Commandant Amon Goeth. He played it straight without unnecessary histrionics. He let the actions of the character define the character.  Here, too, Spielberg demonstrates that he profoundly understands the difference between cartoon evil (Raiders of the Lost Ark) and true evil.

I shed tears a number of times during this movie, had to turn my head at others because the many shootings looked all-too-real, and literally spent the last bit of the film weeping.  When Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley in a GREAT performance) presents Schindler with a the letter proclaiming his deeds in saving the lives of so many, and with the gold ring engraved with the Talmudic quotation, "Whoever saves one life save the world entire" I wept!

I also wept at the end as the actors playing the roles of the survivors walk with their real-life counterparts to place stones on the grave of Oskar Schinder, culminating with Liam Neeson placing two roses on the grave.

Oh, Jodie, this movie is a solid 9 out of 10, and one I can't imagine watching again.  Of course, I won't have to.  I'll never forget it!

What did you think?  Please tell me this was not an easy movie to watch!

Read Jodie's review here.

Dear Jodie - As Good As It Gets

Dear Jodie:

Like you I just saw As Good As It Gets once in 1997 and not again until the other night.

Like you there were things I did not get the first time that tolled loudly the second time.

Unlike you, I was 40 when I saw it the first time.

In 1997 the performances, particularly Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, and Greg Kinnear, rang loud and strong. I was not surprised in the least that Jack and Helen won Oscars for their wonderful portrayals, and wondered why Greg Kinnear didn't win anything.

I was surprised that it won Best Picture because the movie, at the time, didn't work for me as a whole. As a Romantic Comedy it didn't completely work for me because I didn't get the Happily-Ever-After feel at the end of the movie. Though Melvin is greatly improved, even, as you mentioned, forgetting to lock the door 5 times, and even deliberately stepping on the crack, I didn't see him "cured."  Even though Carol is more accepting of his fewer and fewer misanthropic slip-ups, I didn't get the feeling that she would be completely accepting of him as an obsessive-compulsive misanthrope.

I didn't get the happy ending in 1997, and that disappointed me.

That was the point I didn't catch until the other night. It wasn't a happy ending.  It was a happy beginning.

The movie, then, is not a Romantic Comedy. It's a movie of the redemption of four people:  Melvin, Carol, Simon, and ... yes, Spencer too.

All four get another chance thanks to . . . Verdell?  Yes, Verdell is the catalyst of the story.

This movie has as much in common with A Christmas Carol as with any Romantic Comedy you can mention.  That was what I missed in 1997.

That is where I caught it just the other night, and was delighted that I did.

If I had any criticism, I would love to have had just one thing (other than the hitting the hands when he missed the notes playing piano) of what made Melvin a misanthrope who wrote 62 romance novels?

I get that it happens.  In the history of music, Johannes Brahms was known in his own time as a "grouch," yet he wrote amazingly romantic music.  Stravinski described Sergei Rachmaninoff as "a six and a half foot scowl," yet Rachmaninoff's music is heartbreakingly romantic.

It's the why I wanted.

I won't ding it much for that, though.

My favorite line of all of the great lines was in the psychiatrist's office. "How can you diagnose someone as having obsessive-compulsive disorder and yet criticize him for not making an appointment?"

Like you, I give it a 9 out of 10.

Thanks, Graham!

Read Jodie's wonderfully insightful review here!