Catching Up with Quelle (9)

Happy Birthday to Me! - I share my birthday with the following actors and actresses:

Kathryn Grant
Charles Emmett Mack
Ricardo Montalban

Nostalgia and Comfort - 2012 has been a year of major change for me and sometimes I want things to just slow down. I find some comfort in thinking about the past, looking at old pictures and watching movies that I know well and love. As I said in my previous Catching Up post, I have been having a difficult time with new-to-me movies. There is too much new in my life I need some more familiar.  I have found that if I watch one or two old favorites that I am more open to watching a new movie. For example, after watching Tony Rome (1967) and Ocean's 11 (1960), two of my favorite 60s standbys, I was more than ready to watch the new-to-me movie Walk Don't Run (1966). Too bad I didn't watch that during the Olympics! What a perfect tie-in.

Here are the films I have stacked by our DVD/Blu-Ray player so I have them ready to go whenever I need some comfort movie viewing.

From top to bottom:

The Original Nancy Drew Movie Mystery Collection (4 films)

Bachelor Mother (1939)

Holiday Affair (1949)

Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

Young Ideas (1943)

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)

Tony Rome (1967) 

Ocean's 11 (1960) (looks so much better on Blu-Ray!)

I have also been reaching far back into my childhood and have been thinking about some of my favorite childhood cartoons. One of them in particular is Adventures of the Gummi Bears, a Disney cartoon from the late 1980s. I have been singing the song around the house (much to Carlos' dismay, he dislikes my random bouts of Gangnam Style dancing too). I even added the Gummi Bears DVDs to my Netflix queue so I can watch them again. Just yesterday, my friend Lisa forwarded me a link to none other than Alicia Keys performing her version of the Gummi Bears theme on Jimmy Fallon's late night show. What a strange coincidence. To have been thinking of this show and relishing the memory AND to have one of my favorite singers perform the song on TV. Weird how the universe works like that sometimes.

What's your favorite comfort movie? Which cartoon did you love as a child?

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

To Kill a Mockingbird is one of those stories that has eluded me for years. It was taught at my high school but I had taken certain English classes with certain teachers in a particular arrangement that skirted around having to read To Kill a Mockingbird. I didn't avoid it, it was avoiding me. I had never seen the movie either. I was grateful for an opportunity to read the book and watch the movie on the big screen.

Since I had read the book very recently, I had it fresh in my mind and because I hadn't seen the movie before I came to it not knowing what to expect.

The movie stays true to the book but it is very different. There are lots of characters missing and lots of scenes that were left behind. In the book, Atticus is very much a secondary character. The main focus is Scout and her brother Jem. It's really their world and point of view that we are experiencing.

When you read a book, the characters come to you with a blank state. The author builds the characters the way he or she wants and we as the reader visualize them in our mind. It's a very different experience with a movie. We are provided with visuals and with actors playing the parts that we would have otherwise created in our minds. Gregory Peck is Atticus Finch when we watch the movie but when we read the book Atticus Finch is our visualization of Atticus Finch.

Having read the book so recently, I was waiting for certain scenes and characters to appear and felt a bit worried when they didn't. But I realized that the book could provide me with more information while the movie only had a couple of hours to deliver the story. While the book focuses mostly on the child characters, the movie HAS to focus on Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch because Peck is the star. He's the draw, the anchor to the story and what keeps the plot going. In the book it's very much about Scout and Jem. Not to say that the two unknowns who played the children didn't get their screen time or were neglected in the film. I thought the film beautifully portrayed the importance of both Scout and Jem's roles in the story. There are two very touching scenes that effectively portray the innocence of children and the injustice adults sometimes do to each other. One is when Atticus is in front of the jail protecting his client and local men come to kill the accused. Scout, Jem and Dill, particular Scout, confront the local men and they ashamedly walk away. In another scene, Scout shows affection to Boo Radley (played by a very young very blonde Robert Duvall in his first role) who is incredibly shy and mostly ignored by the other townsfolk but came out of his shell to help Scout and Jem. While the film really focuses more on Atticus than the book does, I felt like the movie honored the importance of the children as well!

While I liked the book better than the movie, I think the film is quite a masterpiece. Gregory Peck did an amazing job portraying Atticus Finch. It's really a marvelous performance and I'm sure a lot of folks with knowledge of Peck's career will say it's one of his best roles.

Did you watch To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) on the big screen last Thursday? What did you think?

Thank you to Harper Perennial and Fathom Events for the book and a chance to see the movie! Much appreciated.

Catching Up with Quelle (8)

Anna Karenina (2012) -  While I love classic movies, what you may not know about me is that I also have a deep love for period films, especially adaptations of classic novels. Anna Karenina is one of my favorite books and I was excited to see that a new adaptation was being released into theaters. For some reason I became absolutely determined to win advance screening tickets to this film and I entered every online contest I could. I ended up winning a couple tickets from a local Whole Foods for an advance screening last Wednesday.  (They ended up being two tickets for four instead of two tickets for two, oops!). I got a gorgeous pass and when we left the movie they handed out these great tri-fold double-sided posters (see above).

It was a really good film despite Keira Knightley being in it. One of the reasons I don't watch as many period films as I used to is that she seems to be in a lot of them. If Zooey Deschanel ever decides to do Period Films I will have to give up the genre entirely.

It's good to note that Anna Karenina (2012) is partly choreographed and a lot of the sets are on stages that change and open up into other sets. If you don't know this up front or if you are not okay with this, the movie might not be as enjoyable. This reminded me of an adaptation of Shakespeare's As You Like it from 2006 in which you got glimpses of a real contemporary audience which reminded you that this is a performance. I loved the blending of reality with fantasy. With Anna Karenina, the stages remind you that this is a production and it also gave the filmmakers more liberty to be visually expressive with history and fantasy.

It's a beautiful film and I thought it was well-executed. I don't understand why they didn't just put Jude Law in the role of Vronsky instead of an unknown. Besides Keira Knightley, Jude Law and I'll make the case also for Emma Watson because I love her, everyone else in the film are minor actors or up-and-coming ones. I think the two major roles should have gone to the two major actors. Downton Abbey fans will recognize the familiar faces of Michelle Dockery (who looks just like my friend Haze who went to the movie with me!) and Thomas Howes who have minor roles in the movie.

One thing I have to say is that there is a gory scene in the beginning of the film which I thought they could have done away with. When I left the film, it's the one scene that stuck in my head. And that should not have been the case.

Will you see Anna Karenina (2012)?

Period Films - Do you like period films? If so, which ones? I have to say that I do not enjoy historical classic films as I do contemporary ones. I feel like todays film makers have a lot more pressure on them to be historically accurate whereas using Victorian style clothing in Pride & Prejudice (1940) (it's Regency not Victorian!). Also because of Hays Code and heavy-handed movie studios, film makers often had to change major plot points or characters in order to please the big bosses. Personally, I would like to know more about the decision behind making Lady Catherine de Bourgh a nice character at the end of the P&P 1940 adaptation (sorry for the spoiler!).

Advance Screenings - I have only been to one other advance screening and that was in 2004. A lot has changed since that time and I noticed while watching Anna Karenina that there were several guards at the theater waving some sort of laser thing over the audience. Also, they checked our bags for recording devices. Someone told me that at some advance screenings they'll take your cell phone and only give it back when the movie is over!

2013 Turner Classic Movies Festival - For those of you who have gone to this festival in the past, what advice do you have for those of us who are going or who are contemplating going in 2013? Cinematically Insane has a nice post detailing the differences between passes from 2012 and 2013 and offers some advice on what to invest your money in and Laura from Laura's Miscellaneous Musings gave me a good tip about standby lines for evening shows ($20 to get in if there are open spots). Any other advice?

Have a good week!