Catching Up with Quelle (10)

Skyfall (2012) on the IMAX – The internet has been buzzing with great reviews of Skyfall (2012) and I was particularly excited about this new addition to the James Bond film legacy. My husband Carlos took me out on my birthday to see this film at an IMAX theater. Let me confess to you dear reader that I have never been to an IMAX theater to see a movie. I have been to the Mugar-Omni Theater at the Boston Science Museum where I had seen several wildlife documentaries. The Mugar Omni Theater has a five story tall IMAX dome screen which wraps around you. The seats are slanted and you feel like you are floating and falling at the same time. I always had to take Dramamine as the experience kicked in my motion sickness.

I came prepared to see the Skyfall movie the same way, I even took my medication in advance, but this IMAX was much different. It’s not a dome so I came to it expecting something very different and was quite relieved that the regular IMAX experience is not quite so intense as the IMAX Dome one. The visuals were wonderful and the experience was very enjoyable. I felt very immersed in the action and the settings. Skyfall (2012) was a wonderful entry into the James Bond repertoire. It had a solid plot, lots of twists and turns, a great cast and good quality action. I am a sucker for a good chase scene and the one in the beginning of the movie did not disappoint. My only complaint about the film was the lack-luster femme fatale Severine who was just plain boring.

Everything else about the movie was spectacular. Daniel Craig  as James Bond works for me. I like him as Bond just as much as I like Sean Connery’s Bond. One theme I noticed in the film was the importance of doing things the old-fashioned way. Bond and Agent M are continuously put down by various people in the story for being too old or to old-fashioned in their actions. At one point someone says “sometimes the old ways are the best”. Even the new Agent Q with all his new technology can’t compete with the fundamental and classic tactics employed by Bond and Agent M. While the film is not anti-technology, it still demonstrates that sometimes the old ways truly are the best. This theme made me so incredibly happy. It felt like some sort of vindication for my nostalgia for the past and appreciation for history and the old ways. Thank you Skyfall! I thought the experience had some nice irony. A story reinforcing old-fashioned methods while being shown on a screen that is made of new(ish) technology. The IMAX was great but I don’t think I need to see all films that way. Sometimes the old ways are the best!

Shameless family plug - Check out my cousin-in-law Nick's article about Bond's Aston Martin on AskMen.com.

The Stecher men love their cars! Here they are (Nick and my husband are in the middle) on our wedding day in front of a sweet Bentley.

10 top films I have never seen - The blog Shadows and Satin had a post of the top films Karen had never seen. It was pretty cool so I thought I'd do my own. I limited mine to just 10 as I saw a lot of new-to-me classics this year including To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Birds (1962), Frankenstein (1931) and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

Cape Fear (1962)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
West Side Story (1961)
Indiana Jones (any)
Star Wars (any)
Psycho (1960)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
City Lights (1931)
Ben Hur (1959)
My Fair Lady (1964)

I have seen bits and pieces of Psycho and I have been avoiding West Side Story, Indiana Jones and Star Wars for year. It's kind of "my thing". The others I plan to watch eventually!


Picture of the week - From Classic Montgomery - Film thoughts from a modern Robert Montgomery fangirl. James Cagney and Robert  Montgomery with their sons James Cagney Jr. and Robert Montgomery Jr.

Out of the Past - 2012 Classic Movie Gift Guide

It's that time of year again! If you have a classic movie fanatic in your life, you know the know who has everything and is impossible to shop for, here are some cool gift ideas. I have not included DVDs or Blu-Rays because we are all familiar with that trepidation that precedes gift buying, when you wonder whether the recipient has the gift already or not. I have listed below some really unique gift ideas that your loved one will probably not already have.

 Enjoy and happy holidays!

Custom iPhone Case - Cafe Press

$25.00

Make sure your image is at least 234 X 490 and that your design has a blank space at the top left (the above image is inverted).

Buster Keaton iPhone Case by Kate Gabrielle

$35.00

Hollywood and The Ivy Look Coffee Table Book
$75.00

This book is pure eye candy!

The Entertainer: Movies, Magic, and My Father's Twentieth Century by Margaret Talbot
$28.95 Retail Price

Read my review of this book here. And my interview with the author here.

Passes to the TCM Classic Film Festival 2013

Now for some goofy/fun ideas!

J.T.S. Brown Bourbon
$20.99

For the fan of The Hustler (1961)

NARS Nail polish in Jungle Red

$18.00

For that fan of The Women (1939) . Just make sure it doesn't come with a one-way ticket to Reno, Nevada!

The Maltese Falcon (1941) Replica Statue

$99.00

Because everyone needs one of these in their homes.

Green Velvet Curtains

$21.76

They can double as a dress. Just watch Gone with the Wind (1939) for inspiration.

Allen Edmonds Spectator Shoes

$335.00

That gentleman in your life will look as good as Robert Walker in The Strangers on a Train (1951)

Bodum Santos Stovetop Vacuum Coffee Maker

Williams-Sonoma - $89.95

I'm sure they'll do a much better job at making coffee with this gadget than Tess Harding (Katharine Hepburn) did in Woman of the Year (1942)

Yellow Raincoat
$84.95

For that special person who gets that glorious feeling to sing in the rain. Make them happy again!

Ray-Ban RB4164 Sunglasses

$94.98 (sale price)

For that conniving person who needs to hide the evil behind their eyes with a pair of sunglasses.

I wish Kate Gabrielle's print of Leave Her to Heaven (1945) was still available!

UPDATE: The above print is available at Kate's society6 store. 

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.