Top Film List 2018

Lists of top films will often appear in newspapers and online at this time of the year. My wife and I are avid film fans but rarely go to the movies anymore. We prefer to stay home and watch DVDs from Netflix or my own collection. I prefer to use a DVD rather than scanning because the DVD often comes with commentary and special features that can be interesting. Below find a list of films that we have enjoyed in the past year. I begin with eight foreign films.

Marcello Mastroianni, Divorce Italian style

Divorce Italian Style: Director Pietro Germi’s hilarious and cutting 1962 satire of Sicilian mores and culture is one of the great Italian comedies. Marcello Mastroianni plays a Sicilian aristocrat who longs to marry his nubile young cousin Angela. One obstacle stands in his way: his fatuous and fawning wife. His solution? Since divorce is illegal, he hatches a plot to lure his spouse into the arms of another and then murder her in a justifiable effort to save his honor. 

Italian for Beginners: A warm and playful story from Denmark about six perfect strangers and the shared journey of discovery that changes each of their lives. In a small Danish city, a mismatched collection of opposites have signed up for an Italian class in hope of spicing up their lives. The film was shot in “cinema verite” style without any special effects or overbearing sound track. 2002.

Arranged: An American film from 2007 about the clash of seemingly foreign cultures in contemporary Brooklyn. “Arranged” centers on two young women-- one an Orthodox Jew, the other a devout Muslim-- who learn that they share much in common, especially since both their families are arranging marriages for them.

Rabbit Proof Fence: A powerful true story of hope and determination from Australia. At a time when it was Australian government policy to train aboriginal girls as domestic workers, young Molly Craig leads her little sister and cousin in an escape from an internment camp. To get home they must travel on foot along the 1500 mile rabbit-proof fence that bisects the continent.

The Band‘s Visit: In this charming 2007 film from Israel, an Egyptian police band arrives in Israel to play at the Arab Cultural Center. When they take the wrong bus, the band members find themselves in a desolate Israeli village. With no other option than to spend the night with the local townspeople, the two distinctly different cultures realize the universal bonds of love, music, and life. This film has currently been adapted as a hit Broadway musical.

Se Dio Vuole ( God Willing): A 2015 Italian comedy about a dysfunctional modern Italian family. The father is an arrogant cardiac surgeon who has literally driven his wife to drink. The family is shocked and dismayed when their son announces that he wants to quit medical school to become a priest. The father, a virulent atheist, sets out to prove that the young man’s charismatic mentor is a fake.

Early Summer: A charming film about ordinary life in post war Japan. The Mamiya family is seeking a husband for their daughter Noriko. This seemingly simple story is one of famed director, Yasujiro Ozu’s most complex films.—a nuanced examination of life’s changes over three generations. Shot beautifully in black and white, this 1951 classic stars Setsuko Hara, one of filmdoms greatest actresses.

Umbrellas of Cherbourg: This French musical is one of the most beloved romantic movies of all time. Every word of dialogue is sung in director Jacques Demy’s masterpiece starring the beautiful Catherine Deneuve as a shop assistant madly in love with a gas station mechanic. Their ill-fated love story unfolds to Academy Award winner Michel Legrand’s enchanting score. Restored to its original pristine glory, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg won the grand prize at the 1964 Cannes film festival, and was nominated for five Oscars.

Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuove

This year, in addition to the foreign films, I include some American “film noir” classics from the 1940s and 50s. These black and white thrillers have stood the test of time and can be viewed over and over again. Sometimes they were "B" movies on a double bill but now many are regarded as true works of art. Moreover, for seniors like myself they provide a glimpse of the world when we were young.

High Sierra: A ground-breaking 1941 film starring Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino. Bogart plays a prohibition era gangster released from prison only to find himself out of place in a new world. Written by John Huston, and directed with gritty intensity by Raoul Walsh, High Sierra signaled a new era in film.

The Set-up: A 1949 boxing drama starring Robert Ryan and Audrey Totter. Ryan is at his best as an aging fighter at the end of his career, and Totter plays his steadfast wife. Famed director Robert Wise presents a real-time look at the stale-air boxing venue, the bloodthirsty fans, the ring savagery, and the delusional dreams of the boxing world.

The Narrow Margin: A classic train thriller with Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor, the dark lady of film noir. McGraw plays a cop guarding a gangster’s moll (Windsor) as they travel to L.A. to testify before a grand jury. Also on the train are determined hitmen who know the moll is on the train but don’t know what she looks like.

The Killing: Sterling Hayden stars with Marie Windsor in this 1956 heist drama directed by young Stanley Kubrick. “The Killing” is tough, taut, tense, and one of the greatest crime thrillers ever made.

Roadhouse. In this 1948 film a sultry singer upsets the friendship of two men with tragic results. Starring Ida Lupino, Cornell Wilde, and Richard Widmark, one of the premier noir villains.

Too Late for Tears: Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea star in this 1949 tale of a beautiful, scheming housewife who will let nothing stand in her way after a fortune drops into her lap.

Dark Passage: This 1947 film about a man who changes his identify is perhaps the least well-known of the films that starred Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. It ranks with their best. My favorite scene is the one where an underworld doctor performs plastic surgery on a fugitive in a shabby office in the middle of the night, and makes him look just like Humphrey Bogart.

Impact: Brian Donlevy and Ella Raines star in this 1949 film about a successful San Francisco businessman whose wife and her lover scheme to bump off. The film also features famed Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong.

Boomerang: Director Elia Kazan won critical acclaim for this vividly portrayed true-crime drama set in Stamford CT in 1947. Dana Andrews stars as a District Attorney out to bring the suspected murderer of a beloved priest to justice.

In a Lonely Place. In this 1950 film Humphrey Bogart gives one of his best performances as a veteran screenwriter whose career is at a dead end. Unfortunately, after a chance meeting with a young hat-check girl he becomes a prime suspect when the girl is found murdered. Film Noir favorite Gloria Grahame co-stars.

Witness to Murder: Barbara Stanwyck stars in this 1954 film noir as a woman fighting to convince police that one sleepless night she saw a young woman being strangled in an apartment across the street. When a body cannot be found, the police suspect that she has either been dreaming or out of her mind. George Sanders and Gary Merrill co-star.

The Burglar: This little known 1957 crime thriller with typical noir twists and turns stars Dan Duryea as a cunning jewel thief hoping to pull off his final heist. Jayne Mansfield plays one of the accomplices in a surprisingly good early role.

I Wake Up Screaming: In a rare dramatic role Betty Grable plays the sister of a beautiful murdered model in this tense 1941 thriller. While police search for the murderer, Grable is falling in love with the prime suspect played by Victor Mature. The many plot twists and turns leave viewers guessing right to the end.

Lady from Shanghai: Orson Welles directed and starred in this spellbinding 1948 film that also stars beautiful femme fatale Rita Hayworth. Hired to work on a yacht belonging to Hayworth's crippled and sinister lawyer husband, Welles is drawn into a web of intrigue and murder. The climax is one of the greatest scenes in film history.

Nightfall. Aldo Ray and a young Anne Bancroft star in this little known 1957 film noir about a young man innocently trapped in a web of crime and murder. The film features some of the best work of two film noir masters: director Jacques Tourneur, and Burnett Guffey, the cinematographer whose dark city scenes and winter landscapes are classic noir.

The Asphalt Jungle: John Huston directed this 1950 classic noir heist drama that has often been copied but never equaled. Sterling Hayden, Sam Jaffe, and Louis Calhern star as the principals in a plot to steal a fortune in jewels. The film also features Marilyn Monroe in the role that launched her into stardom.

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Marilyn Monroe in The Asphalt Jungle

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The Christmas Tree

For the first time since my wife and I were married over 55 years ago, we are thinking of not having a real Christmas tree this year. We do consider ourselves blest to have each other and still be in relatively good health after all these years. But our six children have left the house and have their own families, and I'm not sure how many of our 16 grandchildren will visit us this Christmas season. One of them will even be in Tahiti with his mom and dad on a destination holiday. I'm not sure we will even be able to see our first great-grandchild who will only be three months old.

As we have gotten older, our trees have gotten smaller and smaller, and the gifts around its base sparser and sparser. But I've been reading some of my past Christmas posts and found this one from 2015 that might make us change our minds. Best wishes to all for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The Christmas tree remains one of the most popular symbols of the Christmas season. Whether a simple tree in our home or the most magnificently decorated tree in a public place like Rockefeller Center the tree bears the same meaning.

In a wonderful book on so-called children's stories entitled "The Owl, the Raven, and the Dove",  G. Ronald Murphy S.J. explained the origins and meaning of the tree and its decorations. 

The evergreen tree has found its most lasting and most emotional place in our culture, without a doubt, in the Christmas tree, an amalgam of Germanic legend and the Cross. In December of every year the tree comes into the house. A tree inside the home after all the centuries that have passed is quite miracle enough. To glorify and celebrate its ancient, compassionate magic power, it is decorated with lights (with burning candles in Germany!) and with tinsel, to make sure it looks radiantly stolid and happy despite the cold and ice. Then a star is placed at its peak, since Wise Men must surely find their way to this tree. Below the tree, as if he had just emerged from its trunk, the true source of the warmth of the Tree of the Universe and its power to renew life, encouragement, and protection against all the kinds of cold, is lying in a manger: the newborn child. 

                         O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
                        how faithful are your leaves.
                        you are ever green, not only during the summer,
                        but even during the winter when the snow falls.
                        O Tannenbaum, O tannenbaum,
                        how faithful are your leaves.

Click here for a brief video of the song that contains a clip from Joyeux Noel, a French film about the well-known Christmas battlefield truce in the first year of WWI. Or view the video below.

The Greatest Gift

Frank Capra, the legendary pioneer Hollywood film director, claimed that his best film was "It's a Wonderful Life," now a perennial Christmas classic 72 years after its debut at Christmas time in 1946. The film was based on a short story, entitled "The Greatest Gift" written by Philip Van Doren Stern. It is a charming and moving story that can be read in less than an hour. It is still available in a little book that includes an afterword by Stern's daughter as well as beautiful specially commissioned artwork.

Capra claimed that the story was the one he had been looking for all of his life. After reading the story it is amazing to see how Capra used the core of the story to create a great masterpiece. Credit must go to Capra, his production crew and the marvelous cast he assembled to fill out and complete the story. It should be required study in any film course.

Although “It’s a Wonderful Life” has become one of the most popular films of all time, film critics seem obligated to dismiss it as an exercise in sentimentality. They overlook the fact that most “sentimental” films of that or any era are almost impossible to watch today. Critics rarely discuss the film on its merits as a film and tend to overlook Capra’s mastery of the film medium.

Even the most hard hearted critic will be hard pressed to keep the tears from flowing especially at the finale. Why can’t critics recognize that it’s not just sentimentality? It takes a real craftsman to elicit such a universal response? Not only did Capra regard this film as the greatest work of his illustrious career, but so too did its famous star, Jimmy Stewart.

Both Capra and Stewart had returned to Hollywood right after the end of World War II after distinguished service in the military. Stewart had piloted many bombing missions, and Capra had been responsible for making the famous “Why We Fight “ documentaries for the Army. “It’s a Wonderful Life” was the first film venture for each of them on their return to civilian life.

It is well known that before the war Frank Capra had become Hollywood’s most famous and acclaimed director despite the fact that he had come to America as a young Sicilian boy who could not speak a word of English. His family migrated to California to provide for themselves by farming. The young Frank worked to help the family but somehow managed to become the only one in the family to get a college degree. 

After a brief and uneventful stint in the Army in the waning days of World War I, he found himself out of work and with no prospects. In his autobiography he described how quite by accident he stumbled into a fledgling movie studio and began his career. He was in Hollywood almost at the inception and proceeded to learn the craft of filmmaking from the ground up.

All the things he learned during this apprenticeship are evident in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” In the first place, he learned to make pictures that were really moving. His characters never just stand around just talking. Either they are moving or the camera is moving. Unlike many other films, Capra’s never grind to a standstill.

Just visualize the scene right after the marriage of George and Mary.  Ernie, the cab driver, is driving them to the train station as they embark on their honeymoon. They are joking with Ernie but  through the back window the camera shows men running in the street. We jump immediately into the scene of the run on the banks without any pause or introduction.

Speaking of George and Mary their earlier love scene where they both talk on the same telephone is perhaps the best and most famous in all of film history. No love scene in Casablanca, an equally sentimental film but a favorite of critics, can compare to this one for realism and emotion.

Capra was a pioneer practitioner of many of the techniques that we take for granted in films today. He began the film with a flashback and narrator. He used stop action to introduce the adult George Bailey. No film noir director ever used light and dark to greater effect than Capra. At the film’s finale the entire cast is  artfully brought back as if to take their bows. The camera goes from face to face in one of the most moving scenes ever shot.

“The Best Years of Our Lives,” a saga of returning war veterans, swept the Academy Awards in 1946 but it was a real travesty when Frederic March won the Best Actor award for his relatively wooden portrayal of a hard drinking banker. He wasn’t even the best actor in “Best Years.” In addition to the classic telephone love scene, I remember especially Stewart’s reaction to the news that his college-hero brother will not be returning to take over the running of the Bailey Building and Loan. In that brief scene his face goes through a whole gamut of emotions. That scene prepared us for the angry Stewart who berates his own children on Christmas Eve. Jimmy Stewart really grew up in this film.

The rest of the cast could have won an award for best ensemble. Capra had a knack of bringing out the best in his reservoir of great character actors. Was Donna Reed ever better? Capra introduced a young Gloria Grahame into this film and she was a stunning success. Who can ever forget her reaction to Stewart’s compliment on her dress? “Oh, this old thing. I only wear this when I don’t care how I look!" Of the others it will just be sufficient to notice Beulah Bondi’s transformation from a loving mother to a haggard old landlady.

Every scene in this great film was planned and directed by Frank Capra. It is a true work of art. Who can bear to watch any of the remakes? It takes great skill to make a “sentimental” film watchable and believable. 

Years ago I remember an episode of “Cheers” where the regulars were standing around the bar on Christmas Eve watching “It’s a Wonderful Life.” At that time no one owned the rights to the film and so it could be seen on practically every local channel all during the day and night. Characteristically, they were casting sarcastic jokes. At the end of the film they were all crying uncontrollably.

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Life Expectancy: Hope and Despair

                                         

Last week the Wall Street Journal headlined a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that claimed a slight decline in life expectancy in the USA in 2017 from the previous year. On average someone like my first great-grandchild, who was born about two months ago, can expect to live for 78 years and six months, a loss of about a month from the previous year. 

For most of my 79 years the average life expectancy has been gradually trending upwards, a result primarily of the tremendous developments in medicine that have taken place since the end of the Second World War. Average Life Expectancy is just an average, and does not indicate how long any individual will live. In times and places where the average life expectancy was very low, it was usually because of high infant mortality rates. Historians guess that in the Middle Ages average life expectancy was only about 35 years. Many would live well beyond 35, but the average was kept down by the heavy death toll among new-borns and other infants. 

The CDC did not attribute the slight drop in the trend of rising mortality rates to problems in the USA’s health care system. The report claimed that rising suicide rates, “the sharpest annual increase in suicides in nearly a decade,” and “a continued rise in deaths from powerful opioid drugs like fentanyl” were the main drivers of premature deaths especially among the young and middle-aged.

The Wall Street Journal also included a chart that showed that the death rate among black men was substantially higher than that for white men. Suicide and opioids might have been a factor but other studies have shown that the high murder rate of young black men involved in urban drug gangs is also a contributing factor. Chicago, for example, is notorious for an extremely high black on black murder rate.

Surprisingly, the death rate among Hispanic men was substantially lower than that for white men. Even more surprising was the fact that Hispanic women had an even lower death rate than white or black women. I say surprisingly because Hispanics obviously do not have greater access to health care than whites or blacks. Moreover, their economic status is certainly not better than whites or blacks.

Although it was not apparently mentioned in the CDC report, I suspect that the traditional family structure and religious background of the average American of Hispanic descent is a major factor in their life expectancy. These traditions will probably change as Hispanic children and grandchildren become assimilated into modern American society, but for the time being, they seem to be working to prevent the anxiety, worry, and loneliness that lead to suicide and drug use.

Last weekend my wife and I took the commuter train to New York city for the day. We had lunch at a nice restaurant near Grand Central station and then walked up to St. Patrick’s cathedral on New York’s famous Fifth Avenue. The streets were crowded with holiday tourists and shoppers, especially in front of the decorated windows of Saks Fifth Avenue. As usual the Cathedral itself was packed with tourists walking up and down the aisles.

 As so often happens in NYC, we came upon an unexpected surprise. Standing around the main altar was a large chorus of Filipino young men and women singing songs associated with their country’s traditional celebration of the upcoming season of Advent, the four weeks preceding Christmas in the Catholic church calendar. The girls and women wore colorful gowns of white and red and the boys and men were also in white. The colors matched the joy of the expressions on their faces and the songs they sang.

I know that this observation is based on anecdotal evidence but I believe that as more and more of our young people turn their backs on traditional morality and beliefs, we will continue to see an increasing rate of suicides and drug abuse in this country. Someone once said that when people cease to believe in God, they will believe in anything. That is true, but it is also true that many wind up believing in nothing. 

Isn't it odd that the word "advent" is contained in the word, "adventure"? Advent is not just a time of preparation for Christmas, it is a time for Christians to consider how far they have progressed on the great adventure of life. The Catholic Church did not invent the great virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. Christians believe that these virtues are gifts of God. When people have nothing to believe in or hope for, why go on living?

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