Top Hat

I am so ready for the weekend. I have a lot of stuff to take care of, but mostly fun stuff and hopefully it will be full of awesome. I'm excited to sleep in a tiny bit!

I always feel sort of bad when I don't really enjoy a movie, especially one that's funny and sweet. Do I hate fun? It is a real possibility. Today I watched Top Hat, directed by Mark Sandrich in 1935. His name is almost sandwich! Pretty sweet. It's not a bad movie by any means, which is how every post about Fred Astaire movies that I write goes. It's actually really good in every respect, except that I personally don't really like it. I don't know why dance movies don't really work for me. Too happy? Too flimsy of a plot? I don't really like musicals either, so there's just something about this sort of...idea...that doesn't really work for me. Don't get me wrong - I see all the things that make this movie good. The dancing is great and looks impossible, and it does wow me, but it just doesn't really do anything for me.

The Band Wagon

Today I watched The Band Wagon, directed by Vincente Minnelli in 1953. It wasn't really a bad movie, but I really didn't enjoy it. I was feeling like I was in a mood (not a bad mood - just a mood. You know, the kind where you just pick at jalapeno poppers for dinner instead of feeding yourself) and maybe that made me more cynical during the film. I also just didn't enjoy it. I like Fred Astaire, and he's a great dancer. I wish I could just have watched those scenes (as in, only the scenes of him dancing. So not even entire musical scenes, just the parts with Fred Astaire). The filler between them was meh, and a some of the songs were meh as well.

I feel like I sometimes just dislike musicals, but I do like some of them. I watched a few for this project that I ended up enjoying, because I could see why they were awesome, and they had enough awesome to outweigh the bits I didn't like. This felt like it was mostly bits I didn't like, and didn't have enough things to counter-act the blah parts. I don't know, it just didn't work for me.

Swing Time

I've actually never seen a Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers movie until now, despite how crazy that might sound. I was sort of excited to watch tonight's movie, Swing Time, directed by George Stevens in 1936. In his essay on the film. Ebert asserts that this is the best of their movies, so I'm glad I was able to start with this one. I really liked the movie. It felt a lot less stupid than some Broadway style musicals, and the talent of Astaire and Rogers was incredible. I couldn't believe what great dancers that they were, and how engrossing it was to watch it.

The plot of the movie is about as hokey as you would imagine for a musical, romantic comedy. John "Lucky" misses his own wedding, and promises his bride, Margaret, and her father, that he'll come with a token of $25,000 for them. He leaves for New York to gamble, where he meets Penny Carol, a beautiful dancer who he is taken with at first sight. He pretends to be a horrible dancer so she will teach him, and his antics get her fired. He quickly launches into an astounding dance number to win her job back. They become dance partners and perform, and of course, a romance blossoms. But what of the weird orchestra leader who lusts after Penny? And what about Lucky's fiance? Drama! Comedy!