So I just should have kept moving ahead.
I'll admit, I'm not quite an hour into the film version of the musical Oliver!, and I've sat through some pretty awful films for this blog but the excessive overacting that I'm watching is just too much. I realize that for a Broadway stage the actors need to be powerful to broadcast their emotions, but this seems extreme even for a live performance. For example, when Bill tells Fagin that he killed Nancy, Fagin bits his finger and turns away. It's just to over the top. The only believable acting is done by the young Oliver (played by Mark Lester, whose filmography shows that he was a child star), but I wonder if that's due more to being young and the role requiring him to look scared most of the time, which isn't difficult to do given the situations he's in.
Immediately what bugged me was how off the lip-syncing seemed to be. I understand that the actors cannot sing while being filmed, but a couple of the songs early on (one performed by Nancy who was singing about how she simply cannot leave Bill even though he's a jerk) seemed so off I was distracted and couldn't follow the song.
Good news, though, the disc wasn't clearly labeled, and apparently instead of watching the first half, I was watching the second half of the movie. That clearly explains why there wasn't a menu when I started the disc. I'm counting this viewing...I'm not watching any of this film, unseen or seen, again.
Monday, July 18, 2016
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Midnight Cowboy: 1969
While waiting for a copy of 1968's winner Oliver! (a movie that I'm not sure about), I decided to skip ahead and watch Midnight Cowboy, a drama starring Jon Voight as Joe Buck and Dustin Hoffman as Ratso (an unfortunate nickname the character constantly tries to throw off for his given name Rico). I knew the movie was about a guy from Texas who moves to New York City with hopes of becoming a hustler and instead makes friends with an unlikely guy. Joe is the Texan; Ratso is the new friend. I also knew the movie was the only X-rated movie to earn an Oscar for Best Picture (it has since been rated R, which I can assure you seems right given what we see in R-rate movies today).
Knowing that little about a movie like this was probably best. Midnight Cowboy is dark, dreary, miserable, and frustrating. The story includes flashbacks from Joe's life to help us understand why this "cowboy" as he calls himself while admitting he isn't an actual cowboy would want to sell himself for a living. What's frustrating, though, is the flashbacks are jumbled, just as they would be from a person who is tormented by his past. The effect as far as the film is powerful as we better understand how Joe is not only lonely but haunted by his childhood and teen years. I gathered that Joe experienced abandonment as a child, living with his grandmother after his mother (I'm guessing this...there was no dialogue and not much of a clip of this in the montage) dropped him off. At times, Joe seems deserving of our sympathy, but then again, he seems despicable in how he assumes that women are going to fall all over themselves in order to pay him to sleep with him. His arrogance is disgusting. It's Joe in the present day that makes the film so miserable.
Ratso, though crippled and homeless, is even less deserving of sympathy. He operates his life by stealing and conning. All of it is small (we are introduced to him when he cons the incredibly gullible Joe), but that doesn't make what he does right. To make matters worse, Ratso acts like his stealing is perfectly fine. I guess the point is to prove that New York eats people alive, and the cycle of poverty causes Ratso to do this, but Ratso makes a point to say that he will not work in the subway shining shoes like his dad, which suggests that there are jobs out there for someone like Ratso; he's choosing not to take them. I pity Ratso for his increasing illness, but that doesn't mean I like him.
Besides the interesting use of montages to present Joe's flashbacks and to draw connections between his current situation and his past, this movie was a waste of my time. I considered not finishing it, but then my husband said I only had half an hour left, so I might as well. I won't spoil the ending, but I will say that it doesn't redeem Joe even as he comes to some realizations about life. This is a film where I'm just unclear on the point of the story. Perhaps the point is to show how being lonely forces us to find companionship; people are social creatures and need to make connections in order to survive. That would explain Joe and Ratso's friendship, but if that's the case, then large portions of this movie seem unnecessary to me. And if that was the case, I don't think the movie would focus as much as it does on Joe's life. So that leaves me wondering, what was the point? And then that leaves me wondering why did this get an Oscar?
Knowing that little about a movie like this was probably best. Midnight Cowboy is dark, dreary, miserable, and frustrating. The story includes flashbacks from Joe's life to help us understand why this "cowboy" as he calls himself while admitting he isn't an actual cowboy would want to sell himself for a living. What's frustrating, though, is the flashbacks are jumbled, just as they would be from a person who is tormented by his past. The effect as far as the film is powerful as we better understand how Joe is not only lonely but haunted by his childhood and teen years. I gathered that Joe experienced abandonment as a child, living with his grandmother after his mother (I'm guessing this...there was no dialogue and not much of a clip of this in the montage) dropped him off. At times, Joe seems deserving of our sympathy, but then again, he seems despicable in how he assumes that women are going to fall all over themselves in order to pay him to sleep with him. His arrogance is disgusting. It's Joe in the present day that makes the film so miserable.
Ratso, though crippled and homeless, is even less deserving of sympathy. He operates his life by stealing and conning. All of it is small (we are introduced to him when he cons the incredibly gullible Joe), but that doesn't make what he does right. To make matters worse, Ratso acts like his stealing is perfectly fine. I guess the point is to prove that New York eats people alive, and the cycle of poverty causes Ratso to do this, but Ratso makes a point to say that he will not work in the subway shining shoes like his dad, which suggests that there are jobs out there for someone like Ratso; he's choosing not to take them. I pity Ratso for his increasing illness, but that doesn't mean I like him.
Besides the interesting use of montages to present Joe's flashbacks and to draw connections between his current situation and his past, this movie was a waste of my time. I considered not finishing it, but then my husband said I only had half an hour left, so I might as well. I won't spoil the ending, but I will say that it doesn't redeem Joe even as he comes to some realizations about life. This is a film where I'm just unclear on the point of the story. Perhaps the point is to show how being lonely forces us to find companionship; people are social creatures and need to make connections in order to survive. That would explain Joe and Ratso's friendship, but if that's the case, then large portions of this movie seem unnecessary to me. And if that was the case, I don't think the movie would focus as much as it does on Joe's life. So that leaves me wondering, what was the point? And then that leaves me wondering why did this get an Oscar?
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