After all the westerns and older classics I've been watching lately, I decided it was time to catch a film told from a woman's point of view. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore seemed to fit the bill pretty well.

Starring Ellen Burstyn and directed by Martin Scorsese, the film follows Alice Hyatt as she learns to fend for herself after her husband's death. Great pains were taken to show Alice's transformation from a spiritless, cowed housewife with an annoying son and an abusive husband to a firm, compassionate, in-control woman. With an annoying son. A really, really annoying son.

You can't have everything, I guess.

It's an interesting metamorphosis. In the beginning, we meet an Alice afraid of her husband, yet defending him to her best friend and mourning him when he dies suddenly. After the funeral Alice makes the drastic decision to move away and try to restart her singing career, with her son Tommy in tow.

Before long Alice starts a relationship with a young Harvey Keitel. Ellen Burstyn's scenes with Keitel were simply amazing. You know how good he is at the "scary dude" thing? Well, she's just as good at the "Oh God don't kill me please don't kill me" thing. I read somewhere that she had to go cry for an hour when they got done shooting the scene, and I don't doubt it for a minute. It's one of the standout scenes in the film.

Before long, Alice moves again and takes a job at a local diner, meeting and falling in love with local rancher David, played by Kris Kristofferson. After about twenty minutes of scenes in and around the diner, I finally realized why it seemed so familiar. The Linda Lavin show Alice was based on Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. I never knew that.

The rest of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore deals with her budding independence, how it works with her relationship with David, and how Tommy's acting out (and his friendship with Jodie Foster) leads to near disaster.

Another good film, worthy of the praise given it. I'm not surprised; the fact that Martin Scorsese directed Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is a big tipoff to its quality. The framing of the above shot of Alice and Flo (played by Diane Ladd) on a break and sunning themselves is a perfect example of his artistry.

It's damn brave to do such an extreme closeup with such inconsequential dialogue. It easily could have come off ho-hum, but Scorsese made a potentially throw-away scene into one of the more important of the film. Here he showed not just the easy friendship between the two ladies, but also Alice's comfort in her own skin.

It's a good image. One that people need to see, both then and now. Ellen Burstyn has long been a reliable player, and her ability is evident here. Her Alice, by the end of the film, finally becomes someone we hope to recognize from within our own selves. Never a bad message, but rarely is it told with such elegance.

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Remember the other day when I linked to xkcd and said how funny he is? Yeah, I thought he was awesome before, but today…

Today he moved to awesome raised to the BILLIONTH DEGREE.

My name is Matt. I'm an ex-Marching Band Kid. And that up there? That's happened to me.

Recently.

You know, The Sting is one of those films that I've never given much thought to watching. I always assumed it was a good film, but didn't feel any motivation to watch it. It came out at an awkward time; when VCRs became popular a decade after the film was released, it was too recent to be considered a classic but too old to be rushed out to the video store shelves.

When I realized that seven months into this thing I still haven't taken a look at any films from the 1970s, I decided to pull this one out first. Boy am I glad I did. It really is a great movie.

First of all, take a look at the picture above. But for the generation gap, I'd swear Robert Redford and Brad Pitt were brothers. Redford plays the part of Johnny Hooker, a young grifter in the depression-era seedier side of Joliet, Illinois. When his partner leaves, Hooker heads for Chicago where he's taken under the wing of Henry Gondorff, an older con-artist who hasn't had a good sting in a long time. Amid crosses, double crosses, and triple crosses, Gondorff manages to lead a band of swindlers in conning mob boss Doyle Lonnegan.

The art direction on The Sting leaves no doubt that we're in 1936. From the title cards between acts to the drab interior sets and streets lined with winos to the old piano rags of Scott Joplin on the brilliantly sparse soundtrack, we know we're seeing the underbelly of a world that's seen better days. And that helps dispel any moral questions before they're asked and allows us to watch as our heroes make a living by stealing from others. There's never any doubt that what they're doing is reasonable and just, especially since they tend to take from other crooks.

Paul Newman's Gondorff has a couple things going for him. First of all, he's got those piercing blue eyes and a confidence in his swagger that fits him just so. He also gets all the good lines. Gondorff's been around the block a few times, and it's clear that while he may have fallen on hard times, he's still got what it takes to pull this off. Surrounding himself with a veritable legion of associates in a complex plan, he plays his mark like a fiddle.

The poker game is an amazing showcase of close-quarters comedy. Newman's just stellar, making the whole situation so deliciously uncomfortable. Then as the stakes get higher and higher, the comedy slowly fades while the drama is turned up to eleven. George Roy Hill won an Academy Award for directing The Sting, and quite deservedly. I'm leaving out buckets and buckets of plot because I don't have room for all of it, but the film never felt too weighed down by the number of plotlines or players.

Speaking of the number of players, this film is a prime example of pitch-perfect casting. There are so many recognizable faces, but there's no stunt casting. Each actor suits his part perfectly. Ray Walston is the only choice for a race announcer. No one else (nevermind The Sting II) could play Lonnegan the way Robert Shaw did. Eileen Brennan was a fabulous choice for the sultry vixen, bringing a guarded femininity to this otherwise masculine cast.

The Sting is definitely a film I'll be watching again. I do wish I'd been able to rent a better print. The one I got was a messy full-screen DVD from 1998. I'm seeing reports that the film may have been shown in 4:3 in a conscious decision to make it look like old movie, but then I see that newer restored HD versions of the film are made in 1.85:1.

Hrm. I'll have to find out which one's true before I watch it again.

Season 3, Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington

Season 9, The City Of New York Vs. Homer Simpson

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