Gosford Park (2001)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

In the 1930s, numerous rich people gather at a castle for a weekend of fancy festivities, accompanied by a flock of footmen and cooks and servers and maids. Written by Julian Fellowes in the spirit of Agatha Christie, much snoot is amusingly snooted, and then there’s a murder.It’s an hour and twenty minutes before the killing, though, full of intricate politics between the guests and members of the staff.

NEVERENDING FILM FESTIVAL #301  [archive] JUNE 15, 2024

Which is fun for a while, but I was past ready for the murder, primarily due to Ryan Phillippe, who insufferably plays an insufferable valet. Also, one of the rich guys insists on singing and tinkling the piano, which could be snipped and the film would lose nothing.
Other than that, Gosford Park is a premium slice of class truce, and things get better when Stephen Fry arrives, as the bumbling inspector sent to investigate the murder of a man almost everyone wanted dead, including me.Directed by Robert Altman, and featuring every famous British actor and actress who was alive in 2001, plus Bob Balaban.Verdict: YES.♦ ♦ ♦ The Graduate (1967)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

Dustin Hoffman plays Benjamin Braddock, a young man fresh from college and adrift in this world. He has a degree, but no notion what to do with his life, so when Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft) — the most attractive of all his parents’ friends — offers an affair, they begin regular rendezvouses at a local hotel. As you probably know because you’ve probably seen it (and even if you haven’t, everyone knows the plot), things get more complicated when Benjamin falls for Mrs Robinson’s daughter (Katharine Ross).This is a quietly counterculture film. Made in the heart of the 1960s, it’s hippie-free and features no protests, but everything going on in Benjamin’s immature head is about resisting what’s expecting of him, and finding his own way. Then comes a would-be fairy tale finish, that’s actually a drop off the cliff to complete cynicism.The Graduate is a classic, everyone agrees, and I agree with everyone. I’ve seen it several times, and always found it excellent, but it’s been 30+ years and I was afraid it might not have aged well?No worries, it’s still very good, plus on tonight’s viewing I finally noticed that everyone in the movie is kinda dumb, except Mrs Robinson. She’s the only character who knows what she wants and takes it. Everyone else is lost in the American maze of getting ahead and/or doing what we’re told.Surprisingly, my only complaint is about all the Simon & Garfunkel on the soundtrack. It’s surprising because I love Simon & Garfunkel. The music is great and fits the film, but some of the same songs play more than once, which seems weird — song, then a scene, then the same song again?Written by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham, directed by Mike Nichols.And I’d forgotten that some of the film is set in Berkeley. About
fifteen seconds of it was actually filmed there. Look, it’s Moe’s Books,
where I bought my copy of Treasure of the Sierra Madre!
Verdict: BIG YES. ♦ ♦ ♦ Grammar Revolution (2014)
Streaming free at YouTube

This is a documentary about grammar, full of teachers and writers and grammarians talking about good grammar and the written and unwritten rules of the English language.
The film has an all-star team of experts, maybe too many. 32 interviewees are listed in the closing credits. Most only get to say a few sentences at a time, and they we’re on to the next expert. But none of them said anything stupid or anything I’d disagree with. There be grammar wisdom here.My favorite among them is newspaper columnist Richard Lederer, just because he’s by far the most animated on screen, his hands wandering and his mouth adding sound effects (pttth!) as he makes his points. For me, the kick of writing is trying to get that kind of enthusiasm onto the paper or screen.The coolest thing I learned here is “code-switching,” a term new to me. That’s when your talk one way around your friends, but structure your sentences differently when talking to your boss, your priest, a police officer, etc.The most obvious example is switching from Ebonics to ‘standard English’, but it’s something everyone needs to be able to do. People who’ve never learned how to code-switch are at a disadvantage in life, because dumb or smart, people think you’re dumb if you’re talking wrong for your audience.Everyone in the film agrees that grammar isn’t taught well in public schools, which made me try to remember what grammar I was taught, but I came up blank. I still don’t know the rules or even the terms of grammar used in this movie. Barely know the difference between grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. All I know, usually but instinctively, is when something’s wrong with a sentence.As Lederer says, “Good writing and communication is throwing up the fewest barriers to the reader,” but I’d try to avoid the term “throwing up” unless I could parlay it into a joke. Verdict: YES.♦ ♦ ♦ Gran Torino (2008)
Streaming free at Internet Archive
“There’s nothing anyone can do that won’t disappoint the old man. It’s inevitable.”

Clint Eastwood directs, and stars as Walt Kowalski, the world’s angriest white man. He’s a mean old bastard, and the last Caucasian holdout in a neighborhood that’s now mostly Hmong immigrants. Kowalski’s wife has died, and the movie begins at her funeral. Whispering in the church, Eastwood’s adult sons badmouth their father, while his granddaughter fiddles with her phone and pays no attention to the service, and a priest who looks about 17 delivers a painfully bland eulogy (“What is death? Is it the end, or is it the beginning? And what is life?”)Kowalski hates the funeral, hates the gathering at his house afterward, seems to hate everyone in his family, and he certainly hates his Hmong neighbors. He calls them ‘gooks’ and ‘chinks’ to their faces, continually refers to one of them as ‘Toad’ instead of his name, Thao. And of course, the neighbors are none too wild about Kowalski.But one day he spots some Hmong-on-Hmong violence at the house next door, and comes out carrying his gun to break it up. After that, the neighbors love him, even feed him, and he slowly, grudgingly warms to them.Kowalski gets into a long series of awkward, racially-tense situations, which are only awkward because racist comments are constantly coming from his wrinkly face. It’s a little funny at first, gets funnier as it goes, and pretty soon it lands Gran Torino among the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. I laughed so hard it hurt, no exaggeration. Eastwood might be the only one who could make this material work. He delivers what’s basically a parody of Clint Eastwood characters, like John Wayne parodied John Wayne in True Grit. Eastwood has made dozens of movies playing squinting, seething men a lot like Kowalski, but here he’s over the top, older, crotchetier, angrier, and funnier. That’s the key to why the movie works so well, and for anyone who hasn’t seen other Eastwood movies, the laughs might not be there.The movie gets going good, and you hope the story’s not going to make a stupid misstep. It doesn’t, and it builds to an unexpected ending that seems true to Kowalski.After Million Dollar Baby, I could quibble about another Eastwood movie with another strong, smart female character who’s punished for being strong and smart, but it serves the story and seems plausible, so I’ll say nothing about that.And Kowalski coming to the rescue of his Asian neighbors is White Savior 101, which I gotta guess led to complaints among the Hmong, but me and Eastwood both being old white dudes, what the hell, I’ll forgive it.The only real mistake here is a philosophical one, presumably because Eastwood has the ordinary conservative’s mindset about racism. In a few scenes, Kowalski and a white friend throw playful insults at each other (‘guinea’ and ‘mick’ and ‘Polack’, etc), and in one scene Kowalski even tries to teach ‘Toad’ to use such slurs as comradery.But c’mon, rascally racial wisecracks between white guys simply ain’t the equivalent of a white man calling Asians ‘slopes’, blacks ‘spooks’, and Mexicans ‘beaners’. The Irish, Italians, and Polish face next-to-no discrimination in America; Asians, blacks, and Mexicans face it perpetually. Sorry, Eastwood and all the Republicans, but that’s the movie’s political point — it’s all the same, so lighten up and take a joke — and it’s bullshit.But after that I gotta say again that despite it all, Eastwood makes this flick screamingly funny, it builds to a strong, emotional finish, and it’s a damned fine movie.Verdict: BIG YES.♦ ♦ ♦ Grand Central Murder (1942)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

‘Rocky’ Custer is a private eye who finds himself under suspicion after an actress is murdered in Grand Central Station, with the culprit sprinting off into the shadowy catacombs under the tracks.The film is a busy, fast-paced, satisfying whodunit with a lot of eccentric characters and a crackerjack script, featuring tough dames, dastardly hoods, and a cop who’s constantly drinking another bottle of soda.It unfolds almost like a screwball comedy, and there’s even some clever camerawork. It’s a dandy old movie that moves faster than a locomotive.Van Heflin, Virginia Grey, Sam Levene, and Millard Mitchell star. “Gowns by Shoup.” Verdict: YES.♦ ♦ ♦ Current issues with The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on home video —Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3
Of course, the actors who improvised The Blair Witch Project got financially screwed.6/15/2024   • • • Coming attractions • • •     The Grand Illusion (1937)
Grand Tour (1992)
Grandma (2015)
Grandma’s Boy (1922)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
… plus schlock, shorts, and surprises