Category: Movies

While channel-surfing (do they still call it that?) yesterday, I landed on a favorite movie, Mr. Holland’s Opus, starring Richard Dreyfuss.

Glenn Holland is a musician, primarily a composer, who decides to take a position as a music teacher in a local high school.  The plan is to teach for a few years, save his money and compose in his free time.  Anyone who’s been a teacher knows there not that much money to save and there’s no free time. In fact, he realizes almost immediately, “it’s a harder gig than I thought.”

A baby comes along – not part of the plan, but okay. Then it happens that the child, Cole, is deaf. Not only does this suck up any extra money but Glenn feels like he is unable to communicate with his child, can’t share with him the thing he loves most, music.

Ultimately, Mr. Holland spends 30 years at that high school and becomes a real teacher, finding enjoyment and reward working with  young musicians.  He and Cole learn to understand and appreciate each other.  A sweet story.

Kudos to the make-up department for making 48-year-old Dreyfuss look 30-40-50-60 so naturally.

The first movie I saw Richard Dreyfuss in was Goodbye Girl with Marcia Mason. (He played a musician)  I also loved him in The Education of Max Bickford, a television series in 2002 where he played a history professor in a small college.  It lasted 22 episodes – that’s not quite an entire season, I’m thinking – and a pox on the TV executive who canceled this excellent show.

About two weeks ago, on September 26, 2010, Gloria Stuart died.  She was 100 years old.  To those of you who are thinking ‘Who?’ – she played Old Rose in the 1997 film Titanic.  Now, if you have not seen this film, one might wonder where you have been.  After its debut it enjoyed an unusually long theater run and now is shown at least once a month, sometimes back to back, on TNT. Word has it now that James Cameron is converting Titanic to 3-D for release in April 2012, the 100th anniversary of the ship’s sinking.

Today I was talking to a couple of friends who boasted that they had not seen Titanic, indeed had made a conscious and concerted effort to not see it, since they already knew how it ended.  So, to those and any others in that category, I will say that the story of the ship’s first and last voyage was played through the eyes of Old Rose, a 101 year old survivor of the tragedy.  A mega flashback told of the ill-fated romance between Young Rose (Kate Winslet) and a young man of lower station (Leonardo DiCaprio).

When Gloria came out of semi-retirement to play Old Rose, she was 87 years old, but looked so good she had to endure hours in the make-up chair in order to appear as 101, as the script called for.  For her work in Titanic, she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, the only nomination of her life, making her the oldest nominee ever. She lost to Kim Basinger (for L.A. Confidential), but was honored with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame in 2000.

Gloria Stuart began her career in movies in the 1930’s starring in many of the lightweight dramedies that the studios were making as fast as they could.  Her most noted early credits include Claude Rains’ love interest in the original version of The Invisible Man and the obligatory beautiful young girl in the Shirley Temple movie Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Randolph Scott played the hero.

During her long career, Gloria Stuart appeared on stage, in film and on television. In 2001, at the age of 91, she was featured in episodes of Murder She Wrote and Touched by an Angel, with a recurring roll in the soap opera General Hospital.  Her last film credit was in 2004 in Land of Plenty, where she played ‘an old lady.’

Acting was but a part of the excitement that enriched Gloria Stuart’s time on earth. Go to Wikepedia or ontheredcarpet.com or simply Google her name to read about the artists’ books she wrote and published that can be found in museums and private collections. Or her trip to France when Europe was on the brink of World War II.

Rest in Peace, Gloria Stuart. Yours was a long and beautiful life.

This was Paul Newman Marathon weekend on Turner Classic Movies Channel – twenty four hours of sparkling blue eyes and rebellious anti-hero types.  I was present for much of it, though I did miss The Rack, a 1956 offering that showed at 6:00 a.m. while I was pushing serious zzzz’s.  I remember the general plot of that movie, but if I saw it at all, it was 50 years ago.  Maybe I’ll catch it some other time.

I did see some favorites, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Somebody Up There Likes Me, and The Sting. Another favorite, Absence of Malice, didn’t make the line up and Cool Hand Luke falls in the category of excellent movies I don’t need to see again (see previous post).

Despite a splendid body of work, it was years before Paul Newman received an Academy Award as a leading actor in a role.  After he was nominated 9 times and went home empty-handed, the Academy was embarrassed into giving him an honorary Oscar for “Lifetime Achievement.” This was in 1985, about twenty years before his lifetime ended.  Many more credits had been added to his resume by then.  By the way, when he did finally win an Oscar for The Color of Money, he wasn’t present at the ceremony.

Why did he go so long without winning? Who knows. When Newman was nominated for Hud, Sidney Poitier won for Lilies of the Field. Instead of Newman winning for Cool Hand Luke,  Rod Steiger took home the Oscar for In the Heat of the Night.  He did some of his finest work in The Verdict, but lost to Ben Kingsley in Gandhi.

Paul Newman was a great actor and generous man, known in his later life for his philanthropic efforts.

The video store in my little town has gone out of business. I must admit that they had lost me to Netflix some time ago, but I still hate to see any small business close. They were the middle store in a strip of three units. The tenant on one end, a discount grocery, left a couple of years ago. Now there is only one store left to keep the strip alive. Empty buildings are so depressing but unfortunately a sign of our times.

All that being said: small business closing, empty storefronts, sign of our times, yada, yada – I  couldn’t wait to take advantage of their “10 movies for $20” sale.  Here’s a recap of what I bought.

I purchased four movies I had already seen.  I’ve said here before that if I like a movie I’ll watch it more than once.  First, I chose “Hope Springs” with Colin Firth.  Because I have a thing for Colin Firth.  I watched it and then mailed it off to my BFF because she has a thing for Colin Firth, too.  Bless his heart, he just never smiles!

I also picked up “Station Agent” which I reviewed here last winter.  Now I can watch it again whenever I want to. When I rented “Two Weeks” with Sally Field a few months ago, it really touched me. It’s the story of four adult children dealing with their mother’s terminal illness. After I watch it again, I will share my thoughts with you.  The last choice of a movie already seen was “Six Degrees of Separation” starring a very young Will Smith. This movie was made in 1993 and that was probably the last time I saw it.  I’m eager to see if my memory of an entertaining story is correct.

These are the movies still to be viewed: “The Secret Life of Bees” – in my Netflix queue to rent and in my stack of borrowed books to read soon, we’ll see what happens first.  “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers”, I chose this for the beautiful title. “Shop Girl” starring Steve Martin, from a novel by Steve Martin. As a fan, how can I go wrong?  “Touched” – chosen purely for the synopsis on the back of the DVD case. It stars Randall Batinkoff (you’d know him if you saw him). “Warm Springs” –  Franklin Roosevelt is my favorite president; this is the account of his bout with polio.  “Vera Drake” – again, chosen from the synopsis. It is a foreign film which sounds like it’s very serious with perhaps controversial subject matter.

I’ll keep you posted.