The Producers

Today's movie is another famous comedy that I have never seen before, somehow - Mel Brooks' The Producers, which he wrote and directed in 1968. I knew what it was about, but I just never watched it before. I was glad that I did! I found my first week of work to be really exhausting - so much stuff to learn, people to meet, and things to do! I really like my job so far, but it's been a hard adjustment! I was glad that Ebert put two great comedies back to back, since it was energizing and fun to have some hilarious movies to watch in the evening. I'm not sure I could have mustered up focus for something more serious.

The acting and writing are totally over the top in this movie, but it was so funny. Mel Brooks is not really known for his subtly. I had a lot of fun and laughed a lot during this movie - it was ridiculous but also awesome. Plus it had Gene Wilder, who I love out of some strange version of Stockholm syndrome, after being so traumatized as a child by his role as Willy Wonka. Who would cast him for that part, seriously?

Mon Oncle

Today's movie is Mon Oncle, directed by and starring Jacques Tati. He made the film in 1958, and it was his first movie in color. The main character, Mr. Hulot, returns from a previous film that I watched earlier in the project, Mr. Hulot's Holiday. The films both have the same gentle and quiet style of comedy, and are both basically silent movies. I really like the character of Mr. Hulot. He bumbles around and causes mayhem, but he usually means well. I always find this sort of endearing.

I love this movie because it's filled with so many little moments that made me smile, and a few moments that made me laugh unnaturally loudly. As I said in my review of Holiday, I like that it's not a really high-strung screwball comedy. It's all small moments and little sight gags. It barely has any dialogue, and just relies on the visuals for humor. I like this style a lot, so I really enjoyed the film, but I could see fans of less-subtle comedy not really liking it as much as I did.

Kind Hearts and Coronets

I usually really like black comedy but I just feel really meh about today's movie, directed in 1949 by Robert Hamer. I guess I don't usually watch older black comedies, so I'm probably used to a level of disturbing that isn't quite present here. Maybe I expected it? I don't really know why I didn't feel anything for this movie. It just fell sort of flat for me, and that's really all I can say to explain myself.

The movie is about Louis, a distant relative of the Duke of D'Ascoyne. To inherit the title, he plans to kill off the other members of the family. I like the premise of this movie a lot, but to be honest, it didn't live up to my black comedy expectations. A word about my black comedy expectations - I really like horrible, horrible dark, black comedy. Todd Solondz black comedy.  Or at least up to say, the standards of the original Death at a Funeral. Not that this movie wasn't funny. There were parts that were! I just emerged very meh, but I also went into the movie feeling very meh, so take that as you will.

The Bank Dick

It was a bit of an odd day in Chicago today - I went to sleep with my window open and woke up to snow on the ground as I shivered in my bed. It's all pretty much melted now, though, so hopefully spring and nice weather and continue on. Although the rest of the week is supposed to be cloudy and rainy, which means I can't partake in my favorite hobby of sitting outside and reading, with Nikita. :)

Today I watched another movie that I knew nothing about, but fell in love with. I watch The Bank Dick, directed by Edward F. Cline in 1940. It was written by W.C. Fields (who stars in it, obviously), but under an alias - Mahatma Kane Jeeves (as in "My hat, my cane, Jeeves!"). I know that W.C. Fields is famous, but I have never seen any of his movies today. I was really blown away by how funny it was! It was a short little film, but everything in it was hilarious and witty, and I loved the climatic car chase at the end.

Annie Hall

Today's movie is Annie Hall, directed by Woody Allen in 1977. I was really looking forward to watching this - I've really enjoyed watching his movies, and since I have seen so few of his movies, I've been really excited to watch them as they come up for my project. Annie Hall was really, really great. The dialogue was really fresh and funny, there are tons of dorky, intellectual references that I was laughing disgustingly at, the acting is great, and the style of the whole movie is so cool! Unfortunately, I didn't see the last 8 minutes of this movie - the DVD that Netflix sent me was actually cracked and bubbling. I'm shocked that it played at all, but it somehow limped along until it gave up right before the end. I read a summary of the end on Wikipedia, but it's pretty frustrating, since that's not anywhere near a good as really watching it.

Some Like It Hot

I never saw this film before, although the title is so familiar. Billy Wilder directed Some Like It Hot in 1959. I actually bought the film at Target over Christmas when I noticed that Netflix no longer rented the film for no apparent reason. It sounded like something I would like, since it involved both the mob and cross-dressing. Could I go wrong? No, I learned today. It's such a funny movie. It's sort of long for a comedy, but it works really well in this film. I liked that it, as Ebert said perfectly, is not really about crime and greed but it pretends to be. It's really just about sex, of course. It was pretty blatant in so many parts, but it was perfect. Everything that is fun about raunchy comedy without ever veering into gross-out territory. It had scenes that were pretty risque and scenes that were actually heartwarming and cute. It was so much fun, and Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon were pretty hilarious to watch. They were so awkward but I totally bought into their story and relationship. Ebert spends most of his essay writing about Marilyn Monroe. She's pure sex, for sure, but please excuse me if I don't spend my blog post describing the slope of her breasts in great detail. He's right that it's hard to focus on anything but her when she is on screen, but uh, I don't need to really re-create in text how sexy her dresses are on her. Watch it yourself. :)

Mr. Hulot's Holiday

Today I watched Mr. Hulot's Holiday, a french comedy directed by and starring Jacques Tati in 1953. It's a cute movie, almost a silent film. It's about Mr. Hulot, a tall, angular fellow with an overstuffed pipe that he smokes. He is one of those characters who bumbles about and causes mayhem, although he doesn't realize it. Here, he invades a small seaside hotel, upsetting grumpy patrons.

It's not an insane, screwball comedy, or one with a ton of laughs. It's a lot of small moments, some that made me smile more than they made me laugh. I like that, though - not being a huge fan of comedy, I'm ok with them being small and more subtle. It was charming, and I like characters like Hulot. There were a lot of great moments, one of my favorites being the lazy dog he tries to wake in the middle of the road, or when he is out canoeing - the canoe flips over him and snaps, and he marches onto shore looking like a shark while people on the beach panic and flee.

Manhattan

Embarrassing film confession - I have seen only one Woody Allen movie. I never watched his films, and I don't really have an explanation for why. I guess I always felt that a lot of people I knew had a sense of disapproval about him. Like, when we would walk by his movies in Blockbuster or hear about him, someone would always be like, "Didn't he marry his 16-year-old stepdaughter?" and everyone would nod solemnly to express their distaste. I had some sort of artificial perception that he was just some weird pervert guy who made weird movies that were not good to watch. How stupid, really. In my Chinatown post, I wrote about how I separate Polanski from his work. I do that for all directors. I don't think Woody Allen's movies are bad because he's weird, just like I don't think that Stanley Kubrick is a horrible raging pervert for directing weird movies. I'm not blaming anyone for my strange aversion of this director - it was just something weird I experienced growing up and I sort of never knew better because for a long time I didn't watch movies or TV, really. so I never had a chance to just see these movies for myself.