Shaun Berk's 10 Movie Recommendations- 216th Edition

Welcome to the 216th Edition of my series. This is my first installment on the new year. This week I pay tribute to the late Alaina Reed Hall and Arnold Stang. I also have a selection from the Random Myspace Profile selection process and next week will have none. In this new year I have decided to introduce the DVD review where I will pick one movie featured here and check out the special features and give my analysis on each thing. I will try to do this every week but no guarantees.

You Can't Get Away With Murder (1939): I start the year out with some pretty unknown Bogart where he was pretty famous, he just was not real big as of yet. Here, he plays Frank Wilson who is a veteran criminal. DEAD END KID Billy Halop plays Johnny Stone who is an impressionistic youth and learns the crime business from Wilson. Gale Page plays Johnny's older and concerned sister Madge and John Litel plays her fiance who is a prosecutor. Things become complicated when Wilson commits a murder with the gun of Madge's fiance and in turn frames him to be sent on death row. Meanwhile, Frank and Johnny are sent to Sing-Sing for other things and Frank puts all kinds of pressure on Johnny to not speak about what happened. Henry Travers, most known as Clarence in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, plays a veteran prisoner who runs the library and becomes a much better mentor for Johnny than Frank where he tries to get Johnny to give up Frank. There is quite a bit of suspense and I thought this carried pretty well. It does not rank with others in this golden year for film but we could see that Bogey was meant for big things.

A Countess From Hong Kong (1967): This is Charlie Chaplin's last film and an attempt at a romantic comedy that failed in many ways. Marlon Brando stars as millionaire diplomat Ogden Mears who is on an ocean liner going to Hawaii. Sophia Loren stars as Natascha who is a Russian countess from Hong Kong who is a stowaway trying to seek a new life and seeks refuge in Ogden's cabin leading to many misunderstandings and I'm sure you can guess the next part. Ogden is married however and joins the trip where she begins to suspect things as well. Tippi Hedren plays his wife and Charlie's son Sydney Chaplin plays Ogden's friend who tries to help him hide Natascha. Brando may have been a bit miscast but Loren was very good as well as Sydney Chaplin. Charlie makes a cameo as an old steward. It's unfortunate that Chaplin did not go out with the bang he should have. It was a good effort in his older age where he still did about everything including the music score which was pretty good. Chaplin and Brando apparently did not get along very well during shooting. While this is flawed, I do feel it deserves an appearance here for historical purposes of Chaplin's career and even Brando's career. This is not to be watched in a quest to find the best work of these two film legends because this just is not it.

John Adams (2008): I have possessed this DVD for quite some time and finally got around to seeing it. This is an HBO mini-series of our second President of the United States along with his wife and children. This movie takes a look at a moment of his law career, his joining of the Continental Congress, the signing of the Declaration, his Vice Presidency under George Washington, his presidency, and the last days of his life. It is a great 8 hour series with Paul Giamatti as the title character who is a very out-spoken man looking at the conflict he had with people like Jefferson and even Alexander Hamilton. Laura Linney was very good as his wife Abigail who was at times like an adviser to John. A performance that really stood out to me was David Morse who played George Washington. I really believed him as George, a modest man who did not want to be any kind of king, he just wanted a free country. In research I have done on Washington, he was perfect for what they wanted in the president and it is unfortunate that we don't really have any George Washington's left in this world but I'm willing to be proven wrong. Tom Wilkinson was also very good as Benjamin Franklin. Stephen Dillane plays Thomas Jefferson who was a good writer but did not like to speak very well and had some known issues with John Adams in office. It was interesting to hear him refer to Alexander Hamilton as a con man. Giamatti was great as Adams who at times had a hard time fitting in and feeling left out. My favorite part of it was the last episode where he is proud his son is now president and living his last days out while reconciling his differences with Thomas Jefferson through letter writing. I also liked how they really flawed the teeth in John Adams with age. Even Abigail's teeth looked really bad but a nice touch of realism. This is a great look at how our country came to be and a man that played a big part. I could fill this whole thing with each actor and character but I don't think anyone really wants that so just take a look at it.

Follow That Bird (1985): This is my tribute to the late Alaina Reed Hall who for years played Olivia on SESEME STREET so after a few features of the MUPPETS, I decided to introduce SESEME STREET to my blog. While Big Bird is leading a great life out on Seseme Street, the Feathered Friends Society decide that Big Bird really belongs with his own kind which are birds. He then joins a family of Dodo birds and finds he fits in more with his friends even if they are not birds. Big Bird then runs away and sets out on a trip back to Seseme Street but must avoid a ruthless duo wanting to make a circus act out of him and the head of the Feathered Friends Society. Also in pursuit of Big Bird are all his friends trying to get to him before someone else does. I suppose it stereotypes the Dodo birds some which have been extinct since the 17th century but is a great movie showing that family does not always have to be blood. It also features Kermit the Frog who is the reporter on the story and did not know until then that he voiced both Kermit and Ernie which had some pretty comical moments with Bert and Ernie. There is also some amusing and even moving musical numbers from both the humans and puppets. We also have cameos from John Candy, Sandra Bernhard, even Waylon Jennings who had a cool song. This is a great family-friendly film which I had no problem sitting in my room by myself to watch.

Tribute to a Bad Man (1956): I found this one when I was at my dad's house and looked for some things on his On-Demand and with my little Cagney phase lately decided this is the one. This is a much later and unknown Cagney film which happens to be a western. He plays the man the title describes and his name is Jeremy Rodock. He is a tough horse rancher who is known to be a rather ruthless but complex person. Don Dubbins co-stars as Steve Miller, a passive man who happens to be at the right place at the right time to save Rodock who then takes him in at his ranch. Steve takes an immediate liking to Rodock's greek girl Jocasta which obviously Rodock does not like. Steve then starts to question Jeremy's ways of the west. It's really more of a character study that has some action and a good performance out of Cagney showing he was one of the best of that era if not all time.

Naughty But Mice (1947): This is my short film of this week as I pay tribute to Arnold Stang who voiced the city-slicker mouse Herman and did so in many shorts. He goes to visit his barn-mice friends who are having trouble with the cat which sent a couple of the mice to "mice heaven". Herman does not fear the cat and makes a pretty entertaining 7 minutes. It is interesting to see some of the mice died in this kind of cartoon, but not on-screen. You can probably find this on Youtube.

The Celebration (1998): This is my Danish film for the week I got off Netflix. This movie centers around a family whose father's 60th birthday is being celebrated. It becomes a little more than a celebration when the son Christian, played by Ulrich Thomsen, says some pretty revealing remarks about his father and some horrible things he supposedly did when they were children. The film carries pretty well showing quite a dysfunctional family dealing with some pretty dark secrets. Thomsen is pretty good as the son with a lot of demons. Thomas Vinterberg directed this Dogme-styled film which is a style started by him to save budget and to look real. It was a pretty good effort and deserves a view if you like or tolerate foreign language film.

The Shaggy Dog (1959): This is my live-action Disney film for the week. Tommy Kirk stars as Wilby Daniels, who is a teen trying to become a scientist where things tend to go wrong. He inadvertently becomes a shape-shifter after putting on a ring that he accidentally got from a museum where he goes from his human self into a sheepdog. In order to break this spell, he must commit an act of bravery and as a dog stumbles upon a spy ring that he tries to stop. Fred MacMurray plays Wilby's father who hates dogs which makes things for Wilby even more complicated. Annette Funicello also co-stars. This is the first live-action comedy from Walt Disney which was not the greatest but a good start and something for the family.

Bride and Prejudice (2004): I now give you my Bollywood musical which was made for western audience and for Bollywood lovers. This is the Bollywood version of the Jane Austen novel which I'm sure you can guess which one. This movie centers around an Indian family which has a traditional mother but the father seems to want to break tradition some. There are many subplots but the main story is where a single gentlemen Balraj, played by LOST star Naveen Andrews, and Darcy, played by Martin Henderson, who is an American hotel owner seeing if India is fit to put any of his hotels. Darcy takes a liking to the oldest daughter Lalita but her mother is trying to arrange a marriage. This movie is not for everyone. Like just about any Bollywood film, it has many lavish song and dance numbers, a cliched love story, very colorful, etc. I laughed quite a bit but had a lot of fun with this one I must say. GILMORE GIRLS alum Alexis Bledel and Ahanti both have cameos. It was interesting to see Naveen Andrews dance and play a more light character than his tough character on LOST. I also really liked the fight scene within the movie theater as well. I admit I have a hard time with Jane Austen films but I am a sucker for musicals and jumped right at the chance when finding this on the IFC network.

DVD REVIEW

PREVIEW

Roger and Me: This was Michael Moore's little preview of the film and he gives his own commentary to this preview where he leads into what he is about to talk about.

FILM

Roger and Me (1989): This is a selection from the Random Myspace Profile selection process and for this one I chose Fred. Michael Moore wrote and directed this documentary which was the first of his many controversial documentaries. Here, he went looking for an interview with former head of General Motors Roger Smith. Smith put many people out of a job at General Motors and many were people from his hometown of Flint, Michigan. He wanted to interview Smith about why he did what he did but finds that getting an interview with Mr. Smith was not easy. Michael Moore has garnered many followers and haters through the years with his unbiased style of documentary film making. If you want someone that takes a neutral look at both sides, Moore is not who you want to watch. He has a very strong opinion of what he is making in film and even manipulates some things to get his point across. In my opinion, Moore wants to get his point across by any means necessary but I always find valid points in his movie. The celebrity he targeted in this movie was former Flint resident Bob Eubanks and made him look pretty bad. I have seen Eubanks in an interview discussing this and he seems to laugh it off. It is a pretty comical look on someone trying to get an interview with the man who put many out of a job. He also takes a look at other Flint residents who are being evicted and resorting to unusual things to get by.

COMMENTARY

This is the commentary done by Michael Moore on the making of the documentary and the significance of today. He also talked about his background like when he worked for a local paper. He also talked about what it took to get this film made and his gratitude towards Warner Brothers. It was pretty informative where he ironically commentates what he is already commentating on but explains some things.

FINAL ANALYSIS

This was not some feature-loaded film. All we get is his commentary so it is a rather one-man film. I felt this was enough and it is something that you might watch if you like Moore but if you hate him I doubt you will even check this out.

Well, that is it for this week. Tell me what you like and what you hate and get ready for next week.