How bout this weather we’re having huh? Having heard that inane question 9,938,732 times in my lifetime, thinking about the weather just got seared into my brain. And movies are also seared into my brain, so let’s double sear this sh*t!
This week’s forecast…great movies, as well as weather patterns that fit them!
A retiring sheriff has to rally the town to help him defend against a criminal coming to attack the town
Why It’s Good
Most Westerns are built around these larger than life heroes and big bad guys in gun battles to the death. And while this movie has one, it’s approach to its hero especially is really fresh and original. Garry Cooper certainly fits the part: tall handsome, recently married to the gorgeous wonderful Grace Kelly. However, instead of rallying the town to his cause, this Western town is too scared, and poor Cooper gets rejection after rejection while on a basically doomsday clock, which really amps up the tension and makes Cooper seems much more fallible than say a John Wayne type movie. By the end, director Fred Zinnemann makes Cooper’s fate up in the air, making that big showdown electric and riveting.
The Movie Forecast
Beware Gary Cooper. Hadleyville, New Mexico is about to be hit by a deep freeze, specifically emotionally, for all your townspeople, who are going to hunker down and stay inside for the foreseeable future.
A movie about the making of a Broadway musical, conception to opening night
Why It’s Good
This is one of Hollywood’s early movies about a show within a show. By building the story around the mechanics of crafting a Broadway play, the movie crackles because Hollywood writers devote their lives to making movies/plays. From casting, to dealing with divas, to infighting with producers/actors, 42nd Street gives us a glimpse at the highs/lows, and overall joy of making art and entertainment for the world to see, as well as introducing us to character types like a put upon director (Warner Baxter), a small town wide eyed innocent (Ruby Keeler), and a Hollywood diva (Bebe Daniels). As you can see here, there were legitimately good parts for women in this film, a rarity of the time. But all this culminates in Busby Berkeley’s musical numbers, beautifully shot and put together, as wonderful today as they were in 1933.
The Movie Forecast
Busby Berkeley will have a sun shower ready by opening night, complete with a gorgeous rainbow and everything!
The life of Ron Kovic, a teenager who joins the army, goes to Vietnam, comes back, and becomes a crusader for veterans’ rights.
Why It’s Good
To play a part like Ron Kovic requires an actor willing to go through a real emotional journey/transformation. Before Scientology got him, Tom Cruise was capable of performing these types of acting feats. Kovic is Cruise’s best work of his career. He dives deep into the Kovic, selling the wide eyed innocence, which quickly turns to horror, then, anger/fear, then eventually, courage and clarity of purpose. And who better to help Cruise with this journey than the Vietnam movie whisperer, Oliver Stone? Stone also has a crusade to show the trauma war can inflict, especially those deep, emotional traumas that take years to work through, and never really go away.
The Movie Forecast
Poor Ron Kovic should have been warned: war is a tornado, wreaking maximum havoc in a few short minutes, leaving behind a trail of damage that has to be cleaned up.
A corporate fixer becomes enmeshed in their latest, enigmatic fix
Why It’s Good
This movie made popular the trend of starting in the middle of the movie, flashing back to show how we got here, and then driving to the conclusion. After the terrifying opening scene, George Clooney’s Michael Clayton oozes competence and stability as we get a glimpse into the corporate fixing world. But Tony Gilroy’s incredible script puts Clayton into a tantalizing emotional conflict of interest, and takes us into those rich people conversations behind the scenes filled with terrifying threats built around power and money. Explosions are few, but tension and suspense is off the charts.
The Movie Forecast
Tread lightly Michael: all of these corporate board meetings are drenched in fog, making visibility near impossible at times.
Life in the army barracks at Pearl Harbor days before the fateful December 7, 1941 attack
Why It’s Good
The movie is most famous for Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr making out on a beach, which, for the 50s, was pretty hot & heavy. However, the best parts of the movie are simply the day to day living of life in an army town. Lancaster, the most underappreciated movie star of his generation, turns in another great performance as the First Sergeant trapped in the army’s middle management. Montgomery Clift, Kerr, and Frank Sinatra turn in great performances here as well, showing the highs and lows of being a soldier in the army, and all the politics and power grabs you have to navigate to keep out of trouble. The attack on Pearl Harbor is terrifying brilliant Hollywood filmmaking, but it also colors and provides resonance to all these characters in the lead up to the bombing, and the tough, life changing aftermath.
The Movie Forecast
A Japanese and military tsunami is about to hit all these soldiers, who should prepare to emotionally batten up the hatches and barricade themselves in and hang on for dear life.
The latest adventures of Bruce Campbell’s Ash, who takes a vacation in a remote cabin, and unknowingly unleashes demonic forces on him and his girlfriend
Why It’s Good
Up until Sam Raimi’s masterpiece, horror movies and comedies fusing together would have been either impossible or stupidly unintentional. But Raimi and Bruce Campbell had other ideas, finding this amazing darkly funny tone that only the truly special talents could find. Using those low budget gross horror effects as punchlines to a joke you don’t see coming, Raimi and Campbell deliver laughs and scares in an equal potent measure, escalating and ingeniously plot twisting its way into our hearts, so they can possess our bodies and make us fight our own hands. Groovy!
The Movie Forecast
Ash had mostly sunny skies until he read the Necronomicon, which brought in a flurry of bizarre weather, like the 1947 Louisiana Fish Shower!
