To Kill a Mockingbird

   And this week's Friday night movie has been... To Kill a Mockingbird!

Original image located here. Accessed 24th November 2023

It's one of the most famous movies of it's era, having come out during the civil rights movement of the 1960s and therefore becoming a representation of a time and place. 

Unfortunately it also means that this film comes across as dated. It seems to me that this film's reputation lies heavily on the courtroom drama that takes place in it. And whilst those scenes are great, they do however only take up a quarter of the movie. Other times, the movie is more focused on what the kids are doing - often to the movie's detriment. I mean, am I convinced a child can manage to change the minds of an angry mob? I don't think so.

Still, I do not doubt Gregory Peck's efforts and his Oscar for Best Actor was nothing less than well deserved.

Reign Over Me

   And this week's Friday night movie has been... Reign Over Me!

Original image located here. Accessed 17th November 2023

And here we have another stab at Adam Sandler's oeuvre. As mentioned previously, he may have a reputation for playing childish idiots but it's a reputation that's made him into a punchline. As a result, it can be one that would be difficult to shake off. 
Therefore, to see him playing a serious role would surely be the most ill-advised career move ever. I mean, the concept sounds awful on paper: Adam Sandler playing a widower who's struggling to overcome his losses and is stuck in some form of PTSD? That sounds utterly ludicrous.

So it is therefore a monumental surprise that it actually works. Sure Charlie is the same jerkass character Sandler has played before but here his behaviour is given some vital context. Sandler makes Charlie, the character he's portraying, sympathetic and, most crucially of all, he finally gets to show what he can truly do with his acting prowess - notably the scene when Charlie reveals the depth of his loss. 
Okay sure the script seems kind of all over the place, but when it works, it knocks it out of the park.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

  And this week's Friday night movie has been... Snow White and the Seven Dwarves!

Original image located here. Accessed 10th November 2023

I've been meaning to get this on DVD for the longest time and Disney's recent announcement that they will no longer distribute physical media in Australia is a good enough reason to grab it.
So why on earth would I get the physical release in this age of streaming? Well there was a special feature on the DVD that caught my attention: An audio commentary by Walt himself. Granted buying a DVD for a special feature, let alone buying a DVD, would look downright archaic now but keep in mind: once upon a time, special features were once a major selling point for DVDs.
Furthermore, the audio commentary got my attention just to see/hear how they did it (turns out, gathering all these sound clips of Walt, stitching them together and boom: there it is).

So about the movie: It's the big one. The one that proved feature length animation could work and the one that built an empire from the ground up. 
Of course, it may be easy to dismiss this movie for it's age but I don't think so. The animation and art direction still stand up really well. There is a lot of creativity and expressiveness on play here. Sure one might think that Disney and his animators are showing off what they can do but the animation still works some eighty six years later. 
And for a studio noted for formula, it is interesting to see it being put into play first up. And just how it works: Proof that the formula so well the first time that it has been reused many times since. 

So yeah, an important movie to the history of film that, remarkably, still holds up

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

 And this week's Friday night movie has been... The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance!

Original image located here. Accessed 3rd November 2023

"He was the bravest of them allllllll......."

Once again, I tackle one of the westerns forged from the partnership between director John Ford and actor John Wayne. By all accounts, this was an unbeatable team, making some of the finest westerns ever committed to celluloid.

So it is indeed a surprise to see that this movie does things differently: it is shot in black and white and the location shooting is non-existent. These two elements are pretty much defined Ford's westerns so their absence is indeed striking. 
And one gets the impression that this is exactly the point: This movie is pretty much built around the notion of how the mythology of the wild west is built up and thrives. And it is therefore fitting that Ford is casting a critical eye to the westerns he crafted and the legend he, and Wayne, built up.

Keep in mind that this was made in the 1960s, where the western genre was on shaky ground: On one hand, the genre itself was falling fast out of favour and, on the other, in doing so it was perfectly positioned to be reinvented by the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone and the nihilism of Sam Peckinpah. And in that sense, the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance seems to be the endpoint of the classic western that defined the decades prior. But that doesn't mean it is without merit. 
So yeah: An excellent western all around