And finally there is color! I cannot believe I had never seen this classic musical before now! When I was watching the movie, I was surprised how many songs I knew that they sang in the film!
It was a classic story that practically anyone knows. A modern day Romeo and Juliet. Yet another love story in my list of movies (I know how to pick 'em!) that made my heart twist and turn.
Here's the basic storyline--
The two gangs of New York, the Jets (the white immigrants) and the Sharks (the Puerto Rican immigrants), have been in a huge feud since both of them moved into the west side of the city. It just didn't seem big enough for both of them to live in together. The only solution the two gangs can come up with is a fight to settle the problem once and for all. Before the fight happens however, Tony, a former member of the Jets gang and a best friend of one of the head guys, meets Maria, the younger sister of the leader of the Sharks. It's love immediately. They quickly move forward in their relationship by making plans for their future. They talk of things like marriage and how they will make it work dispute their differences.
Then, it happens. The fight. Maria sent Tony to stop the fight and he went with every intention of doing just that. However when he arrived, things escalate and get more heated than anyone could have anticipated. Maria's brother stabs Tony's best friend, resulting in his death. Tony, who just watched his best friend be stabbed to his death, took revenge in the heat of the moment, stabbing Maria's brother right back, ending his life.
What to do now? Maria is informed what happened by one of her brother's friends. But then Tony shows up and their love is enough to help them fight past this tragedy. She forgives him and they plan to run away and spend their lives together. Tony leaves her and tells her to meet him at the place where he worked and they would leave from there. Maria is held up by a police man asking her questions, so she sends her friend to tell Tony that she will be late. However, when her friend gets there to tell Tony, the members of the Jets stop her and abuse her and mistreat her in awful ways. After being treated in such mortifying and degrading ways, she leaves and tells the Jets that they can tell Tony he will never see Maria again, because she was killed by a member of the Sharks after he found out she was planning to leave with Tony.
When Tony hears this, he finds himself with no choice but to go out into the night and look for the man he believed murdered Maria so he can take his life too. Eventually, Maria finds him and he sees that she is alive. They are together-- it looks like the perfect ending until the man who Tony went to find in the first place spots them, shooting Tony down to his death.
Tony is taking his last breaths in Maria's arms. They are surrounded by all the members of the Jets and all the members of the Sharks. She tells them all that is all of their fault that Tony was killed. Because of their prejudices and inability to live among each other peacefully like humans, she lost her love of her life. At the end of the film, all the members of the Jets and Sharks slowly wander out of the scenes together. They walk out as individuals at the end of the film, no longer as two entirely separate entities. They come together to carry Tony's lifeless body from the screen and the movie comes to an end.
Not only was this story beautiful and heart wrenching, but the acting, singing, and dancing throughout the entire film were all phenomenal. Musicals are not something that I normally watch, but I found that I really enjoyed this one. Everyone was very talented and that is obviously one of the main reasons that this movie received such praise and was nominated for so many awards.
Maybe musicals are your thing-- maybe they are not. Either way, I think that anyone would enjoy and appreciate this film and it definitely is a must see!
Now enough of these love films! Get ready for next week because I am going to make you "an offer you can't refuse"-- read this next post or you will seriously regret it!
Get ready for... The Godfather (1972)
For now,
Kirk
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
From Here to Eternity
Ahh, another black and white, wartime romance filled my screen this week and in turn filled my heart. This 1954 Academy Award winner is a classic for anyone who loves the romantic films. I really had no idea that this film and my film from last week would both be romances. I was delightfully surprised. After all, there is nothing better in my mind than getting to watch romance and tragedy unfold in the islands of Hawaii.
Before I dive into the plot and characters of the movie, I just have some other aspects of the film to address. First of all, I love how once again there was no R-Rated material in the film, yet it was still so heart-wrenching and captured me so deeply from beginning to end. Secondly, I love how the romance is not cheesy like it can end up being in a lot of present day's romantic movies. It was actually good acting and the actors looked sincere and really made me believe in the lines of the script.
Now, you may be wondering, what is this movie all about? Well, the setting is Hawaii, 1941, right before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor occurs. Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt, who is the main character, transfers to the military company stationed on a Hawaiian island. He is given harsh treatments at this new station because he would not comply with the Captain's request to join their boxing team, despite the fact that he has so much talent in the boxing ring. They make him do the most difficult tasks and constantly pick on him throughout his time in Hawaii. He eventually meets a girl named Lorene/Alma and falls into love with her. Their story of love develops but is crushed at the end because of a tragedy that happens in the last minutes of the movie. December 7, 1941. A quiet morning suddenly disturbed by the droppings of bombs, by gunshots, by explosions. The attack on Pearl Harbor is set off, and Private Prewitt meets his end during the chaos that ensued. At the end, the audience sees his love sailing back to the mainland, which had forever been her plan to live out the "proper life" as she referred to it.
That is not the only love that develops in the movie. There is also the scandalous love between the Captain's wife, Karen, and his First Sergeant Milton Warden. This love is more secretive but also very captivating. The Captain had cheated on his wife and left her alone for years and she had developed the habit of cheating on him as well. They develop an actual real love relationship throughout the film and he tests her love for him by questioning her about her prior relations. Their love eventually is also broken because the Captain resigns from his position in Hawaii and she is forced to move back to the mainland states with him. She realizes she will never see her love, Warden, again.
In the end of the film, the two women, who have lost the loves of their lives, meet on the boat back to the mainland. They speak of the troubles that have bereft them of their loves and one realizes that she knows about the others relations. It ends with a sadness that neither of the two women got what they truly wanted and the men never got to have what they cherished in their lives either.
Overall, I thought this film was very enjoyable. I never saw myself as being really interested in films from this era but I do find that they are entertaining with great plots and dialogue. They capture the audience and I can totally see how this would be one of the prime time entertainments during the era it was produced. It was a great film-- a little bit long finishing just two minutes under two hours, but definitely worth the time.
I really hope you guys will check it out!
Stay tuned for next week. We are jumping straight into the sixties with West Side Story (1962)!
Before I dive into the plot and characters of the movie, I just have some other aspects of the film to address. First of all, I love how once again there was no R-Rated material in the film, yet it was still so heart-wrenching and captured me so deeply from beginning to end. Secondly, I love how the romance is not cheesy like it can end up being in a lot of present day's romantic movies. It was actually good acting and the actors looked sincere and really made me believe in the lines of the script.
Now, you may be wondering, what is this movie all about? Well, the setting is Hawaii, 1941, right before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor occurs. Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt, who is the main character, transfers to the military company stationed on a Hawaiian island. He is given harsh treatments at this new station because he would not comply with the Captain's request to join their boxing team, despite the fact that he has so much talent in the boxing ring. They make him do the most difficult tasks and constantly pick on him throughout his time in Hawaii. He eventually meets a girl named Lorene/Alma and falls into love with her. Their story of love develops but is crushed at the end because of a tragedy that happens in the last minutes of the movie. December 7, 1941. A quiet morning suddenly disturbed by the droppings of bombs, by gunshots, by explosions. The attack on Pearl Harbor is set off, and Private Prewitt meets his end during the chaos that ensued. At the end, the audience sees his love sailing back to the mainland, which had forever been her plan to live out the "proper life" as she referred to it.
That is not the only love that develops in the movie. There is also the scandalous love between the Captain's wife, Karen, and his First Sergeant Milton Warden. This love is more secretive but also very captivating. The Captain had cheated on his wife and left her alone for years and she had developed the habit of cheating on him as well. They develop an actual real love relationship throughout the film and he tests her love for him by questioning her about her prior relations. Their love eventually is also broken because the Captain resigns from his position in Hawaii and she is forced to move back to the mainland states with him. She realizes she will never see her love, Warden, again.
In the end of the film, the two women, who have lost the loves of their lives, meet on the boat back to the mainland. They speak of the troubles that have bereft them of their loves and one realizes that she knows about the others relations. It ends with a sadness that neither of the two women got what they truly wanted and the men never got to have what they cherished in their lives either.
Overall, I thought this film was very enjoyable. I never saw myself as being really interested in films from this era but I do find that they are entertaining with great plots and dialogue. They capture the audience and I can totally see how this would be one of the prime time entertainments during the era it was produced. It was a great film-- a little bit long finishing just two minutes under two hours, but definitely worth the time.
I really hope you guys will check it out!
Stay tuned for next week. We are jumping straight into the sixties with West Side Story (1962)!
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Casablanca
Well, this romantic war drama really had me captured beginning to end. The 1942 movie, Casablanca, is set during World War II and is set in the town of Casablanca. One of the man characters, Rick, owns a popular nightclub in the town. At the time, people needed letters of transit to travel around freely in Nazi occupied territories-- such as Lisbon, from which it was easier than other places to travel from to the United States. A man, Ugarte, enters the saloon one night with two letters that he obtained after killing two German couriers. Ugarte intended to sell the tickets to the highest bidders, but ends up being arrested by Captain Renault, an officer who coordinated with the Nazis at the time. Before being placed under arrest, Ugarte left the two letters with Rick for safe keeping. When the two highest bidders show up at the bar to get their letters, Rick is taken back when he sees the one and only love of his life, Ilsa, at the table accompanied by her husband, Victor. Here is where the love story that everyone awaits for comes in. Victor and Ilsa need the letters to get to America in order to continue Victors work for the Czech Resistance. Both assume that Rick has the letters and attempt separately to retrieve the letters from Rick. The story of how Rick and Ilsa met is recounted as well. The two met in Paris, while Ilsa was under the impression that Victor had been killed in war. They plan on leaving on a train together, but Ilsa leaves Rick on the platform of the train station. The reasoning, the movie reveals later on, is because Ilsa found out that her husband was actually still alive. When they run into each other at the bar Rick owns, the old flame still is evident between the two. When trying to obtain the letters from Rick, Ilsa confronts him at gun point. When he denies her the letters, instead of shooting, she confesses she never stopped loving him and wants to be with him. Rick tricks Renault into getting Victor to a plane that can take them to where he needs to go. When this all happened, Ilsa was under the impression that she would remain in Casablanca with Rick. However, when they get to the plane Rick tells her that the right thing to do is go. In exact words, he says that she will regret it if she stays, "Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life." She leaves with her husband and Rick and officer Renault decide that after all this, the best thing for them both might be to leave Casablanca. The movie ends with them walking off together with intentions of joining the Resistance.
I hope you could follow that... this movie had a lot going on in it! It is very hard to capture the right picture without giving an exact script! It was a beautiful movie. It had all the action and romance you could ever want mixed in to make the perfect combination of the two. I never really get a chance to watch too many old films like this. It is all in black and white and has an instrumental soundtrack. After watching this, it really got me thinking about how much the film industry has changed in such a short amount of time. In this film, there is no cursing, there is no nudity, there is nothing with any sort of profanity at all basically. In today's day and age, that is almost unheard of unless you are watching something similar to a Disney film! This film still captured the beauty and passion of the love between the characters without having to display them in an R-rated way. It really shows how the media has changed their tactics on getting peoples attention. It was a great film and could be watched by all ages. There is some action scenes, with a little bit of violence such as shooting guns (but this IS a wartime movie afterall!). The acting was wonderful and I really felt a connection to the characters. It is no wonder that this film has earned a soft spot in the hearts of thousands and won the Academy Award in 1942. It was definitely a good watch and I recommend it to anyone! It is nice to travel back to this age. I assure you that you will not regret making this your next movie night blockbuster!
In the words of Rick, "We'll always have Paris",
--Kirk
Sneak peak at next week's film-- get excited!
From Here to Eternity
I hope you could follow that... this movie had a lot going on in it! It is very hard to capture the right picture without giving an exact script! It was a beautiful movie. It had all the action and romance you could ever want mixed in to make the perfect combination of the two. I never really get a chance to watch too many old films like this. It is all in black and white and has an instrumental soundtrack. After watching this, it really got me thinking about how much the film industry has changed in such a short amount of time. In this film, there is no cursing, there is no nudity, there is nothing with any sort of profanity at all basically. In today's day and age, that is almost unheard of unless you are watching something similar to a Disney film! This film still captured the beauty and passion of the love between the characters without having to display them in an R-rated way. It really shows how the media has changed their tactics on getting peoples attention. It was a great film and could be watched by all ages. There is some action scenes, with a little bit of violence such as shooting guns (but this IS a wartime movie afterall!). The acting was wonderful and I really felt a connection to the characters. It is no wonder that this film has earned a soft spot in the hearts of thousands and won the Academy Award in 1942. It was definitely a good watch and I recommend it to anyone! It is nice to travel back to this age. I assure you that you will not regret making this your next movie night blockbuster!
In the words of Rick, "We'll always have Paris",
--Kirk
Sneak peak at next week's film-- get excited!
From Here to Eternity
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