The Godfather

Francis Ford Coppola's epic masterpiece about an Italian-American crime family led by an aging patriarch

Grade: A+ (99/100)

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Year Released: 1972

I don't say this lightly, but The Godfather is probably as damn close to a perfect film as I will ever see. In many of the movies I've watched for the purpose of having seen them I've wondered to myself, why is this movie recognized as one of the greatest of all time? Not so with The Godfather. I didn't have to wonder. It was just magnificent, from the superb cast to the beautiful direction, from the elegant screenplay to the eery score. There were times in this film wherein I had to choose between crying and laughing, between disgust and delight, but through most of it I allowed myself to feel both. After all, the theatrical methods in which Italian crime families such as the Corleones work is both horrifyingly and darkly entertaining. There is real cinematic magic in this film, the kind that makes you want to quit your job and just watch movies all day. It demands to be thought about and considered even days after your first viewing.

The Godfather is a very tricky concept, one that includes the broad themes of loyalty, revenge, anger, family, ethics, human personality, and a patriarchal hierarchy. It's my understanding that Coppola's transformation of the script, from the novel by Mario Puzo to the film, is greatly tilted so that the main focus is on the transformation of Michael Corleone, the youngest of the family who is thoughtfully played by a young, excellent Al Pacino, from a distant and disillusioned son to the ruthless mob boss he never wanted to become. Marlon Brando's work as Michael's father, the Godfather Don Vito Corleone, is cleverly lazy, drawn out and slowed down to evoke the feeling of a once-powerful man whose influence is immense but whose life is ultimately waning. He understands that his powerful grip on political and economic affairs within his family, community, and city must be passed down to the worthy son; it's through a process of elimination that plays off of children's storybooks that leads Michael, the black sheep, to become the heir of his father's throne. Although I understand where critics are coming from when they call Brando's performance overdone, I would disagree. The family dynamics of the Corleone dynasty are flamboyant- the downright theatrics of their crimes, such as the infamous horse head scene, demand an actor who is both melodramatic and quietly powerful. Brando's turn as the tired, all-knowing Vito Corleone, to me, worked in the way that he played up a character whose antics demand a dramatic flair.

I can't stress enough how impressed I was by the work of the collective cast. There are movies, I've noticed, that are easily carried by two or three (or one) really important, talented characters. The background characters work but might not be talented whatsoever, and the absorption into the film's reality breaks with these characters. You are reminded, simply, that what you're watching is a movie. The ensemble of The Godfather is excellent to the point in which every character fits into place like pieces in a giant puzzle. Even if not every character is developed, it doesn't matter. We can never know the intricacy of all of the people we know, but we can recognize that everyone is there for a reason, and speculate about the possibilities of their existences, which is a treat. The characters we do meet are so layered, so perfectly set, that the impeccably natural acting only adds to the effect of reality.

Brando, about to make an offer one "can't refuse"

Only one character really changes, and that's Michael. It's obviously an intentional move dependent on the fact that Michael is the only character, at least the only brother, who does not have a fatal flaw preventing him from surviving and taking the throne. Sonny, played by James Caan, an actor I grew up knowing as Walter Hobbes from Elf, falls victim to his own hotheaded rage. Fredo's nervousness and inability to see reason quickly eliminate him as an option to replace Vito Corleone. It's through the ultimate goal of avenging his father's attack and preserving the pride and honor of his family that Michael undergoes his transformation. Revenge is able to ground him to his true purpose: as the heir he never wanted to be.

Anyway, I'm sure everything I've mentioned has been said before, and so I'd like to just mention a few things about The Godfather that really impressed, delighted, surprised, and moved me as a young budding cinephile. Firstly, I loved the subtle humanity that the actors brought out in their characters. The Corleone family does some pretty sketchy stuff- although its refusal to buy into the narcotics business supported its deeper, more noble values- but never do you feel like you're watching a group of monsters. The gentleness of Vito Corleone in the garden with his grandson picking tomatoes; the sweetness of his refusal to take a family picture without his youngest son; the towering Tessio dancing with a little girl whose shoes are on his feet at the wedding; Sonny yelling at Michael before taking his face tenderly in his hands and kissing his cheeks; there is real humanity in these scenes, and juxtaposed with the horrors of the mafia business itself, the viewer is left with real questions about ethics and human nature.

Aside from that, I just want to make a shoutout to the horse head scene, in which I laughed in horror for probably five solid minutes. "Why are you laughing?" One of my parents asked, worried. I don't know. Just see it for yourself and think about it.

Though the film is three hours long, it never lags, and even during Michael's foray into Sicily there is not a boring moment. Everything Coppola does in The Godfather works- it's a timeless, beautiful film that will surely endure as a great classic for years to come.

I rented The Godfather on Apple TV for $3.99 before purchasing the 3-disc Godfather collection on Amazon for an outrageously inexpensive price of only $12. Seriously!  You can also purchase The Godfather on Amazon and, I'm sure, at your local video store.

Casablanca

An angsty Humphrey Bogart is tasked with helping an ex-lover and her new beau escape the Nazis

Grade: B+ (86/100)

Director: Michael Curtiz
Year Released: 1942

So, this is a movie that nearly everybody has heard of. Along with Citizen Kane it's a movie from Hollywood's Golden Age that apparently transformed cinema and is widely considered one of the greatest films of all time. It's definitely iconic. I found it pretty entertaining that most of the film's famous lines occur one after another after another in the last five minutes of the film; I also appreciated that one minor character's entire role was centered around proclaiming the title over and over again. A character in the restaurant run by Bogey's Rick Blaine will offhandedly mention the weather to the response, "Ahh, it's always hot in- CASABLANCA!" This bit was probably not explicitly humorous but I found it very entertaining.

What I really liked about Casablanca was its dialogue. I thought the script was smart and each line was biting and tough. I appreciated that nobody was a good guy, that everyone had a complicated backstory, that there were no easy distinctions between right and wrong- the gray area that the plot and characters of Casablanca exist in emphasize the confusion I imagine dictated the emotions of so many people during the Nazi regime. While Rick's own personal struggle seems to pale in comparison to the struggles of those around him, including Victor Laszlo, the new husband of Rick's ex-girlfriend, who is fleeing Nazi persecution and has spent time in a concentration camp. Rick's personal dilemma is selfish and insensitive compared to the events surrounding him, but I feel as though that's the point- the fact that even during times in which we know we shouldn't be selfish and recognize the insignificance of our own emotions, it's still possible- nay, unavoidable- to get involved with petty conflicts of love and friendship.

Rick's one weakness

I felt little chemistry between Bogart and Ingrid Bergman; the age difference and paternalistic attitude of Rick to her character of Ilsa did little to suggest a real, powerful romantic connection. I fear that Bogart, while excellent, makes the John Wayne mistake of playing his character too apathetically, not giving enough genuine emotion to the role, even as someone who's supposed to have been hardened by heartbreak. As Ilsa, Bergman is indeed lovely and snarky; I often found myself wondering what her motivation was, if she really loved Rick, if she really loved anyone. Her character is an enigma to me, but that's not a bad thing. In fact, it's her complicated relationship with survival that makes the film so gripping, makes Rick's ethical decision so pressing. It's clear momentarily, in the scene in which Ilsa threatens Rick with a gun, that her primary motivation is to live and to escape, both in the context of the confines of Nazi Europe and in her relationships with older men. She wants desperately to be in charge of her own fate but knows it belongs in the control of a man she let down, and she suffers for it. Rick suffers for it. Laszlo suffers for it.

Of course, Rick is just one of those heroes who can do no wrong. It's clear that he's been significantly damaged by Ilsa's treatment of him- the Paris flashback serves to suggest a time in which he was more carefree, a time in which he believed in good. But he remains true to his values even throughout the heartbreak, doing what is right even when he has the opportunity to be happy with the woman that he loves. Classically altruistic and smart, Casablanca hits the cinematic nail on the head in telling a story about personal sacrifice and the lengths we go for love, about the gray area of good and evil, and about the emotional consequences of the right decision.

I rented Casblanca on Amazon for $3.99. It's also available, I'm sure, at your local video store.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

A handsome pair of famous real-life bandits make crime look fun before fleeing for South America

Grade: B+ (86/100)

Director: George Roy Hill
Year Released: 1969

There are things that Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid does right, and there are things that it does wrong. What I can say with full certainty about the film is that what it does wrong it does blatantly wrong, like someone who has a misspelled tattoo on a visible part of his body for the whole world to gawk at.

With a script by William Goldman there was no possibility of the film lacking charm; indeed Paul Newman is so sweet, charismatic, and heroic as the historical bad guy Butch Cassidy and the dialogue is so campy that the movie immediately loses all credibility as a historically relevant film. But that's not really the point of it, obviously. I felt a little uncomfortable allowing myself to accept these infamous villains as they were portrayed by Newman and a stoic Robert Redford; I tend to not trust movies that glamorize bad people for the sake of the cinema. But I definitely fell under the spell of the film, allowing myself to be immersed in the silly and fun parody of the old American west, in which the good guys are the bad guys, and vise versa. From the perspective of the pair of bandits, crime is a game, but they both know that at their core they have hearts of gold; why else would they still be tagging along with each other after so long? There's a real emotional connection between Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid that is supported by the chemistry between Newman and Redford. What's confusing is Katherine Ross's turn as the submissive and kind accomplice Etta Place, the Sundance Kid's real-life girlfriend. What is her motivation to hang around with the criminals? If she is the stereotype of a good girl attracted to bad men it doesn't play out- she seems to have no emotional problem with robbery and other crime, but yet her character is supposed to be the kind of beautiful, just woman that would never condone such actions. It's not exactly Ross's fault that she's stuck playing a character with no emotional backstory or visible motivation- she does what she can- but it's certainly her misfortune.

The film's misspelled tattoo moment comes in the downright bizarre, out of style, anachronistic bicycle montage to "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head", a moment that, while sweet, is unforgivably misplaced. Personally, the montage served as my favorite moment of the film only because of Newman and Ross's sweet chemistry as good friends sharing a tender moment, but the song only serves to make it absurd and diminish its value to the film. It genuinely upsets me. It is enough for the viewer to have to force the barriers of reality to believe in the duo's humanity and comic appeal; the bicycle scene is just ridiculous and did not need to happen.

The film's visibly misspelled tattoo moment

Otherwise I felt the movie went on a little too long, telling a story not really interesting enough. The plot point that Butch and Sundance had never previously killed anyone was just obviously fake and highlighted the film's steep removal from any sort of grounded reality; though sweet, I couldn't shake the feeling that to cast Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid as heroic goofballs isn't outside the realm of casting Abraham Lincoln as a vampire slayer or Romeo and Juliet as two 90s-styled gang teenagers. It might be a fun idea, but it didn't work for me, and I couldn't shake the feeling throughout the moment that it just wasn't appropriate.

However, the film was an overall win, being supported by a script full of charm and wit enough to make anyone smile and admire the work done by Newman and Redford, who just ooze appeal. Because you've heard the true story and seen the warning at the beginning claiming that all the old western bandits are "dead now", you know that something bad is going to happen to these criminals- the shootout at the end is a real bummer after having spent so long cozying up to the two lovable crooks. Goldman really emphasizes the adventurous spirit in Butch Cassidy's character, which paired with the dramatic irony of the end scene, in which only the viewer knows that they are surrounded by the Bolivian army and about to be killed, is genuinely heartbreaking.

I'm not sure if I'd want to watch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid again, but if I did it would be to try to cut back on the discomfort I felt with the anachronisms so present throughout the film and really try to appreciate it as what I think it is under my discomfort: A sweet, perhaps cheesy but smart film about two outcasts who are, for the purpose of movies, allowed to be the opposite of what they most likely were.

I saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on Netflix. It is also available on Amazon Prime and, I'm sure, at your local video store.

The Exorcist

A young girl experiences demonic possession as her frantic mother convinces the world's most apathetic priest to perform an exorcism in glamorous Washington, D.C.

Grade: B (85/100)

Director: William Friedkin
Year Released: 1973

I have often wondered to myself, have horror movies ever been good? Actually frightening, I mean. Personally I have seen several films that have scared me, freaked me out, or otherwise made me uncomfortably affected; however, more often the case is that the horror movies I enjoy are either meant to be funny, so bad they are funny, or just an entertaining bloodbath. Keep in mind that I am from the era of generally bad scary movies- the Paranormal Activity-level garbage that typically revolves around some sort of conjuring or ghost. These films, I can tell, were directly influenced by The Exorcist, a movie I watched because I was promised time and time again that it was "the scariest film ever made". While I firmly disagree with that judgment, I will say that The Exorcist is probably one of the best horror movies I've seen just from a production standpoint. The acting was pleasantly pretty good, and the special effects were, even from today's standard, decent. While I was never actually scared during the movie, I was often impressed and moved, and for the purpose of this review, I'll be discussing what I thought the movie did well and did not do so well.

I would like to start with what I found confusing, ineffective, and generally not great about The Exorcist. The backstory of a demon or a spirit needs to be not only interesting (it's half the fun of the plot) but also fairly explicit. Through the opening montage of a confused, possibly sick man on an archaeological dig in Iraq, the viewer is supposed to understand that this man is a veteran Catholic priest who comes across an ancient demon and realizes that it's out to get revenge. What the viewer actually draws from the opening is an old man in the desert staring painfully at statues. I wanted to understand what was happening, and could pick up enough of the idea based on the fact that this was not my first horror movie rodeo, but I was disappointed that the film did not make it clearer what the deal with the demon was. For instance, in my recollection at least, nowhere in the film is the demon's name (Pazuzu) mentioned. Never does the priest, who later aids in the exorcism, explain that the demon is out for revenge, or really show how it is brought to Georgetown and why it chooses to inhabit the daughter of an actress. The backstory is exceptionally weak and uninteresting, and even in the more exciting moments of the film, the viewer is still left with the thought, why is this happening?

Other weak points include the character of the police Lieutenant who insists that there may be something paranormal at stake- not only is it not super evident that he's an investigator at all, but his involvement in the movie is a superfluous addition with a purpose I cannot make out. The descent of the film into a discussion of the paranormal is almost ridiculous, but, I suppose, necessary, due to the fact that the child at the center of the film, Reagan MacNeil, is indeed possessed by the demon Pazuzu (for whatever reason). The best performances in the film come from Linda Blair, the young actress playing Reagan, and from Ellen Burstyn, who plays Reagan's mother Chris. Burstyn is exceptional, though her job isn't necessarily a difficult one to conceive of given the circumstance- the disgust, horror, and terror of her daughter's transformation is displayed well and beautifully countered by her devotion to finding a fix for her daughter's problem, no matter the cost.

My instinct is to interpret The Exorcist as a thinly-veiled metaphor for female puberty. What an oft-repeated tale: a girl on the verge of womanhood encountering personal demons (figuratively or, in this case, literally) to the despair of her worried, protective mother, who enlists the help of patriarchal figures to solicit a resolution to the problem. The demon that possesses Reagan turns her into everything a girl is told she cannot be in our society: grotesque, vulgar, unattractive, sexual, cold, demanding, rude, physically strong, defiant, stubborn. What's scary for Chris and the team of doctors and priests who attempt to cure her, and really what's scary about the movie as a whole, is the idea of a sweet, innocent girl child being corrupted and perverted by an outside force. Is that not a story we are told constantly, the horror story that doesn't need the facade of a ghost to be effective? What's even more interesting is that, by The Exorcist's logic, demonic possession (corruption) is contagious. In fact, to cure Reagan of her possession, Damien Karras willingly sacrifices himself by letting the demon take over his own body shortly before he commits suicide. Karras has been targeted by the demon before- the possessed Reagan often mocks him with depictions of his dead, demented mother in an attempt to break his spirit. This seems to say that the demon Pazuzu is unique in its capabilities to harm people, suggesting the inner, self-conscious demon that lives within every human, controlling him and prying on his insecurities. Pazuzu might as well be the cutesy nickname for a woman's period, the devil on someone's shoulder, the little voice in the back of someone's head that constantly tells him he's not good enough.

The mysteries of a teenage girl examined by frightened old white guys

That is what I found smart about The Exorcist. It is a ghost story reminiscent of the kind of sociological messages told through allegorical sci-fi scenarios on The Twilight Zone. It's a well-written, well-acted attempt to demonstrate the melodramatic scenario of a girl's journey into womanhood through the facade of a horror movie. And I just have to appreciate that- I have to recognize the equally fascinating, humorous, and insulting implications of that idea, even despite the film's sometimes crippling flaws. The Exorcist may not be the most frightening film ever made like I was promised it would be, but it is definitely one of the most interesting horror movies of the modern age, and for that it is worth critically examining.

I saw The Exorcist on Netflix, but it is also available on Amazon Prime and can be purchased, I'm sure, at your local video store.

Full Metal Jacket

A platoon of dehumanized soldiers experiences Vietnam... if they can make it out of boot camp first

Grade: A+ (96/100)

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Year Released: 1987

The only non-documentary film about Vietnam I had seen before watching Full Metal Jacket was John Wayne's infamous 1968 war propaganda film The Green Berets. There have been countless dramas about the Vietnam War in the 41 years since its conclusion, and though I have seen a very small number of these films (including, as I previously mentioned, Wayne's hopelessly long and cringeworthy attempt to justify the racism, paternalism, and devastation of the USA's involvement in the war), I doubt that any of the films made about Vietnam portray the training camp before the war as more frightening and shocking than the actual war than Full Metal Jacket does. 

Most of the reviews I've read of the film partition it into two rather different movies combined into one: the first movie of the boot camp on Parris Island, South Carolina, and the second movie of the actual Vietnam War. I would generally agree with the partition, but unlike critics such as Roger Ebert and Rita Kempley, I didn't find that problematic or necessarily diminishing of the film as a whole. Instead, I thought the juxtaposition between the boot camp story and the Vietnam story emphasized what I found to be the film's major theme: the dehumanization of soldiers. 

Full Metal Jacket is not an easy movie to watch. What's worse, it's harder to stomach the torturous treatment of young Marine Corps recruits than it is to watch the graduated Marines pillage and kill once they've arrived in Vietnam. I think, for me, this sickening distinction was because I had already heard the war stories, both within Vietnam and elsewhere. The discussion of war is a topic that runs rampant through a vast array of media, plenty of which is taught in public schools. I had to read The Things They Carried and A Farewell to Arms and learn about the Revolutionary War every year, as though the school system was worried I'd forget the route to American independence after a summer off. I had to watch many documentaries about war's effects, took several AP history classes, and watched movies and TV shows and read articles for classes about the very subject matter often jam-packed into our culture's obsession with war. And throughout that exposure to the story of war I found myself wondering what countless others wonder about war: how could someone do it? How could regular people bring themselves to kill and destroy, even if told they have to?

It was really only through seeing Full Metal Jacket that I realized the process of making humans capable of the sort of horrific acts that warfare demands. I felt sick watching R. Lee Ermy as Sergeant Hartman destroy all levels of conscious humanity in the recruits, but I understood. I could not decide, perhaps I cannot currently decide, if I think Ermy's character is evil. It's my instinct to say that he is not, but trying to decide certainly evokes a discussion about what evil really is- whether it's something born within you and fostered, or if it's something that needs to be taught. 

Kubrick's message regarding the training and hardening of US soldiers seems to be that to commit horrific acts, they must be stripped of their humanity, trained to be dehumanized in what The Simpsons parodied as "kill bot factories". Kubrick shows us that the psychological torture has varying effects on each soldier, ultimately depending on how intellectually hardy he is. For the ill-fated and genuinely terrifying Private Pyle, the process of dehumanization comes with the onset of a severe mental breakdown. What's truly scary, especially in today's age of "lone wolf terrorism", is how Private Pyle's descent into madness is truly reminiscent of the dark and twisted journeys of men who have committed heinous acts of terror on American soil; the killers whose environments abused them to the point of seeking a general revenge against a life and society that wronged them. What Full Metal Jacket really made me recognize is the failure of so many American institutions to help its citizens, the failure to provide a better life and to foster the humanity of of its people. More gruesomely, I realized during the scene in which Private Joker, Pyle's only ally, turns against him with the entire group of recruits and beats him while he screams helplessly in his own bed, that Kubrick's film is also a narration on the failure of people to help each other. 

Private Joker's character very much intrigued me. I understand him as a character with a very high emotional threshold and capability for a great deal of pressure. He voluntarily joins the Marine Corps to experience war, telling Sergeant Hartman that he "wants to kill". But it's made clear throughout the movie, particularly in his initial gentleness to Private Pyle and his personality in Vietnam, that he is no natural born killer; instead, he's joined the army to test himself, to see if his intellectual stamina could withstand the military, an institution he recognizes as existing for the purpose of dehumanizing young soldiers. In some ways he succeeds: his miraculous preservation of personality shows that he is by and far the most mentally tough Marine, an obvious foil to Private Pyle, who succumbs to the pressure in what is easily one of the greatest and most frightening film scenes I've ever witnessed. In other ways, Private Joker fails. In Vietnam he's quietly confused by the ability of other soldiers to kill without asking questions. Taking a job on the frontline as a war journalist, it's evident that his intellectual pursuit of warfare is more sophisticated, more romantically Ernest Hemingway, than it is simply "to kill". Famously, Private Joker recognizes "the duality of man" by wearing a helmet branded with the words "BORN TO KILL" while also adorning his uniform with a peace symbol. Again, another test. Unsurprisingly, the war takes its toll on Joker, but even through the deaths of some of his closest buddies, he remains critical of war's power to truly transform an individual's personality and perception of the world. It's not until he is faced with killing a young Vietnamese girl, the assassin of several of his closest friends, a mercy killing done to save her the pain of her other injuries, that he truly realizes the psychological consequences of war. By donning the thousand-yard stare, the viewer can see that the effects of his experience have finally seeped under his thick skin. As the film draws to a close, Private Joker tells the audience that he is no longer scared of war, and that is perhaps the most devastating part of the film: the absolute mark of his loss of feeling, the man whose heroic pursuit of emotional stamina was finally crushed by an act he was "born" to do.

I own the DVD of Full Metal Jacket, but it is also currently available for streaming on Netflix and on Amazon Prime. You can also purchase it, I'm sure, at your local video store.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Kubrick's epic space drama following the dawn of man, a team of emotionless astronauts, and one particularly frightening robot in a journey through space and time

Grade: B+ (89/100) 

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Year Released: 1968

How can one begin a conversation about a film that has been unapologetically talked about since its release? It's no wonder to me that since Kubrick released 2001 it's been widely regarded as one of the most breathtaking works of cinema ever created. Truly the film's power lies in its sheer existential magnitude- before Star Wars, before contemporary CGI, before space movies were mainstream- what's staggering to me about this film is that someone actually had to make it. It boggles the mind to imagine how 2001's production took place, and fascinating to read about (I firmly believe that learning about a film's production is half the fun of the total experience). The production paid off, obviously; 2001 is not only widely recognized as one of the greatest films ever made, but it's also surely one of the most aesthetically delicious viewing experiences one can have. Watching this movie is an organized person's delight, but that's classic symmetrical Kubrick at work. Honestly though, and I do promise to give my honest opinions here, I had a lot of trouble making it through 2001 because I thought it was fairly boring.

Hear me out: there's a deeper message behind what I have to say here. Watching 2001: A Space Odyssey from the viewing screen of my Macbook on a hot summer afternoon, already fairly tired, was probably not the way Kubrick intended his film to be shown. I imagine that viewing 2001 would be significantly more powerful and stimulating in a theatre. But regardless, I found myself zoning out frequently during the long, quiet shots of landscapes and rooms and emotionless faces. Suddenly I was thinking about things that did not pertain to the movie necessarily- just thinking and watching and not really connecting the pieces. Then I felt guilty. Oh, god, I thought, I'm biased. Talking to my parents about the film I came to recognize my initial guilty feeling again; they spoke of the unprecedented technology and outlandish future gadgets depicted. When I watched the film I was not phased by the scene of Floyd talking to his daughter on a video phone- to me, that was just Skype. And my boredom- what caused it? Was it just the fact that I was tired and watching a long, quiet film? Or was is that I was raised on movies that succeed by overstimulating the senses of children with low-attention spans, two hours of content gags and visual stimulation? 

 I recognized while watching the film that today's audience of young people cannot possibly react to 2001: A Space Odyssey in the way that the generation before them could, both because we are underwhelmed due to lack of stimulation and because, having grown up in an age of technology, we aren't shocked and amazed by the production in the ways we might have been had we grown up fifty years earlier. It's a tragedy to me, but I also have to acknowledge the benefits of being a contemporary viewer of Kubrick's masterpiece, and I will point out three major benefits here: firstly, that 2001 has had an incredible influence on popular culture and is constantly parodied and evoked in media even 48 years after its release; secondly, that for the time of its conception and production it was immense and the story of its creation and subsequent development are worth exploring and admiring; and thirdly, that we now live in a time where some of the film's messages are more appropriate than ever.

Before I elaborate on the third point, I'd like to make the disclaimer that I've heard very frequently the warning not to overthink Kubrick movies. I understand these warnings and will return to them. I believe, from my own experience, that Kubrick can be seen as the Shakespeare of modern film in that his movies are so emotionally driven and subjective, open to multiple interpretations, meaty with substance, and uniquely beautiful and distinctive. My interpretation of 2001 is seasoned with my own experience growing up in a time of technology. Though I do remember a time before smartphones, I was around 12 when they become immensely crucial to society's functioning, and in the almost six years since then I have witnessed society progress to the point in which it probably couldn't function without the advancements made with smart technology. 2001 raises a lot of poignant questions about technology's place in humanity, and I felt a strong connection to the parts of the film that attempted to untangle some of those concerns.

It's not a new analysis to point out that the character of HAL 9000, the robot connected to the spaceship, is more human than the steely, cold astronauts aboard the mission; however, I believe that contemporary audiences can relate to this on a more developed level than people of the mid-20th century could. In many ways contemporary humans are more frequently being compared to mindless zombies and non-sentient robots due to our vast consumption of social media and technology. We can no longer do and act in ways that we once could in a scenario that would make Rousseau roll in his grave. When I witnessed HAL become more of a developed character than the astronaut Dave I was genuinely frightened, not necessarily for Dave's safety and the course of the film, but for the idea that plagues the minds of contemporary citizens of the world: that someday we may go so far as to be less human than the machines we create.

I'm sure there's more to be said about that, but I didn't want to dig deeper. I know we are supposed to take Kubrick films in the gut, feel them through our hearts and not our heads, let ourselves be immersed in the emotion they evoke from us. But every time we allow ourselves to evoke emotion at a film we learn a little about ourselves, and then we think: why do I feel this way? Society is best evaluated, in my mind, by untangling the emotions we feel after being provoked. 2001 is stunningly provocative in this manner. So sure. Take it for face value. Enjoy the stunning landscapes and visual effects. Feel fulfilled as the music swells and stirs you. But allow yourself to think about your own connection to it as well, especially during the year 2016, 15 years after the film is set. After all, this is the future.

I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey on Netflix. It is also available on Amazon Prime and for sale, I'm sure, at your local video store. 

Saturday Night Fever

John Travolta escapes a mundane, impoverished existence by embracing disco

Grade: A (90/100)

Director: John Badham
Year Released: 1977

I knew from the first few minutes of Saturday Night Fever that it was going to be a movie I enjoyed. And I was right! It's hard not to appreciate the work put in by the star, John Travolta, who positively shines as a very believable Tony Manero, a nineteen-year-old from the wrong side of the tracks whose sole reason for existing is his dedication to disco dancing. It's clear that Travolta has much in common with his character; indeed, the subtle effects of certain directorial decisions, such as casting members of Travolta's own family in minor roles, pays off, creating a very whole picture of a young man who is, at the same time, likable and despicable. Tony Manero is not an antihero because he's not really a hero- he's just a kid whose talent for dancing and occasional bouts of childlike innocence make him sympathetic in the eyes of the audience. His faults can be seen as byproducts of the environment he's been brought up in- his attitude towards women, his involvement with petty thugs (including a slight side plot involving racial tensions between teenage gangs), and his often frustrating decisions don't serve to vilify him, but instead show him as a dynamic character, one who is both imperfect and conscious, struggling to find his place in the world.

As someone who has grown up in the aftershock of influential movies, I have seen the waves of inspiration rippled off of Saturday Night Fever. The classic, often-repeated tale of a gifted but troubled teenager who has no family support and struggles to find his way is not limited to dance movies, but anyone under 30 can name several that have come out in the past fifteen years that emulate Tony Manero's story. In a way I felt prepared for Saturday Night Fever, having already experienced the aftershocks of its influence, as though I would be able to make calls and sit through an enjoyable but predictable film. In some ways I was right; foreshadowing scenes such as the one in which Tony and his inebriated friends mess around on the high-wires on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge paired with the backstory of Bobby's unwanted pregnancy dilemma led me to expect the accident that would later rock the movie. However, just expecting the scene did not make it any less dramatic; in fact, the predictability of the film put me particularly on-edge, a delicious side-effect of dramatic irony. I knew that something bad was going to happen, and it made my senses rather sensitive to the film's effects. Director John Badham teases the viewer with the shots of Tony and his buddies swinging around on the wires, even putting in an early scene in which they fake-fall in front of the devastated onlooker Annette, whom the viewer identifies with greatly during moments of tension. In other ways I was wrong about its predictability, particularly in the character of Stephanie, who is in no way the kind of sweet and serious dancer with a heart of gold that she would be in a contemporary film, but rather an obnoxious and equally unsure young woman who is, in essence, the female version of Tony. More importantly, I was wrong in assuming that because Saturday Night Fever is about disco that it would be a happy film all around. 

Most disturbing about Saturday Night Fever, in many ways, is its seriousness. This is a movie about a boy who loves to dance, and we're not talking ballet or jazz or even hip hop- he's a disco dancer, perhaps the most ridiculously goofy and parodied form of dance. As a contemporary viewer I found myself delighted and sometimes embarrassed by certain cheesy aspects of the film's style, such as Tony's priceless wardrobe, hair, and ~groovy~ manner of speaking. The scene in which Tony busts out of his bedroom in a black speedo-style brief and a gold chain and frightens his old Italian grandmother is a perfect scene in the way that it explicitly demonstrates the 70s disco counterculture juxtaposed with the traditional values of Tony's devoutly Catholic, Italian family. Saturday Night Fever is not Easy Rider, meant to expose the way the kids are in the face of traditional opposition, but it very subtly shows the significance of disco to kids like Tony and his obnoxious friends, who have no other option to escape their mundane, often challenging lives as the children of struggling, working class Italian-Americans in New York City. 

But what I mean when I say that its seriousness is its most disturbing aspect is that with all the silliness in the contemporary perception of disco, a modern-day viewer does not expect many of the dark turns of the film. Like West Side Story before it, the dancing and music (and by the way, the music is one of the best parts of the movie as a whole), are only facades for the deeper problems of the characters. Particularly upsetting is the character of Annette, played by Donna Pescow. A pretty, chubby dancer, she is hopelessly in love with Tony, and throughout the film sacrifices so much of herself for him that she turns into a much darker, layered character than one might expect. In certain ways, Annette represents Tony's struggle to find himself, but not in a manic-pixie-dreamgirl kind of way. Instead, her descent into drugs and sex in response to desertion is reminiscent of the struggles most likely felt by many women of the time and circumstance, and also serves to show Tony clearly that the world he exists in has the capability of ruining a person's life, happiness, and future. Both Annette's fall from grace, marked by a particularly upsetting gang rape scene, and the suicide of Bobby serve to pressure Tony into seeking a better life for himself. When he does, he realizes that the best possible solution to his problem of not knowing what to do is to just be kinder to himself and others. Maybe that's not explicitly stated, but it's what I saw come from the last scene, in which he and Stephanie hug and agree to be friends after he moves to Manhattan in search of a better life for himself. There is new opportunity, the film tells us, when you allow yourself and your potential to grow in a bigger pot with healthier soil. 

I thoroughly enjoyed Saturday Night Fever, even despite the cringeworthy counterculture the characters exist in. To put it simply, the dancing is divine and unbelievable, the music is wonderfully addictive and catchy, and the story is smarter than one would think. If you have not seen it and would like to, I watched it on Netflix. It's also available on Amazon Prime and can be purchased, I'm sure, at your local video store.