The Godfather (1972)
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
The Godfather: Part II (1974)
His Girl Friday (1940)
I was shocked when I was seeing His Girl Friday.
It was so uplifting and joyful that I thought it had to stop somewhere. Because that's what usually happens, right? You start watching a movie, it is generally bad, but when it isn't, you keep praying (even if you're atheist like me) so it doesn't go bad, but it generally doesn't work. The movie goes bad. And there is nothing you can do about it. It is not an inter-active event, after all. It isn't like watching a Twitch broadcast and commanding the broadcaster. It isn't like playing a game and doing the best role-playing you can in order to un-see the bad stuff. No, with movies we 'generally!' have to see what we see and there is no escaping it. So when a movie goes bad, it goes bad. There is nothing to do but to say 'oh well, next time then'.
But that wasn't the case with His Girl Friday. No sir/madam.
By the way is it my poor English or does His Girl Friday sound like a gender-bender title? Well if you haven't seen this movie let me assure you it is not such one.
His Girl Friday is one damn movie. Quoting from IMDb, A newspaper editor uses every trick in the book to keep his ace reporter ex-wife from remarrying. It features Cary Grant and Rosaling Russell who are perfect match for both their roles and each other. They have great chemistry. It is such a movie that it uses sweet edges of relationships and human interaction, it does get a lil' extreme with what happens and that's what makes it so beautiful. It's like Hitchcock's Rope, or silent features featuring Charles Chaplin or Buster Keaton where our hero tries to hide something. The chemistry is not limited to our main characters but extended to the Black and White picture, to environment, to side-roles, music, pacing and everything in it. I probably imagined hoping to see such a perfectly balanced movie in my subconscious, but I never actually realized even the possibility of seeing one before I started watching it. It was in first few minutes I had realized this fact. Then all the pieces of puzzles were aligned together. I probably imagined a similar, but a modern-era movie, but I don't recall seeing such one. I probably have seen TV shows, TV episodes worst case scenario. And anime (Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai is probably the most resembling thing to His Girl Friday). And did I mention His Girl Friday is THE ONLY comedy movie I have rated with a 10/10?
You know what? When I think about it His Girl Friday is actually the only comedy thing I have rated with a 10/10. Sure I have rated some "episodes" of Coupling, IT Crowd and all, but not a single TV show's general rating have I rated with a 10, a movie, a video game (which is very rare to have comedy as genre), or an anime. Isn't it such a superb accomplishment? I am very glad to know 'His Girl Friday' exists.
I do tend to exhaust myself with one movie and then have nothing to write about the others. Well that's not true, I can write about rest, probably as long as I want, but it does make me a bit tired.
The Godfather is a movie everyone knows very well and talks a lot. It is often described the best movie of all-time by both critics and audience. And I can't argue that. I too love The Godfather, a lot. It's a breakthrough in cinema history in many ways. It is also possibly the best mafia movie ever made, by a long shot.
When I was seeing The Godfather I had felt an excitement, a true sense of time around me slowing down to a degree that it almost stops. Cinema is many things, and one of those things is the harmony of the picture and the sound. The two senses of human body it serves. And the way the harmony established in The Godfather is what makes it stop time itself.
But there was an event, the wedding. It adds to the feeling that something will happen. It is a suspense, a state of consciousness that transcends the mind above space-time. What will happen next is not important. It is the feeling that there is this space in 2D screen we are watching and it will be filled with masses of objects, live things that when they take action, move in that space. Don Vito Corleone moves in a room? It is transcendental. He waves his hand? Transcendental. We see some conversations take place and scene changes? It's only after a while we start to adjust to that feeling. But the movie's greatness is what makes this feeling come back. We are into half or more of the movie, Don Vito Corleone picks fruits in market place, we still have that feeling. And The Godfather is probably one of the fewest, probably only, movie I have seen do that in my first watch. I did see it in TV bits and pieces but the time I watched it could easily be counted as my first time because I remembered almost nothing (which isn't a surprise as I have terrible memory). But the film still gave me such an effect. Before I clicked play, I remember that day thinking to myself, 'Okay, I am sure it is great but could it really be that great?' If I had seen it first time today I would have thought the same thing probably, and a lot more, because most of the things I see are remotely near their praise. But The Godfather was and still is every bit of the praise. Even more. Yes, I actually think people don't praise The Godfather enough.
I wasn't going to talk about Part II or divide my article to two, and I still won't, I see them as whole, and rate them as equal, but let me just say that part one made the most impact on me.
Judgment at Nuremberg is the star of the article which I deliberately left to the last. Or is it? I don't know it just like you, and I won't know it until I hit 'Publish' and you reached the last sentence I wrote.
Alright, In terms of power of impact Judgment at Nuremberg is a similar effect to His Girl Friday, but with different tones. Judgment at Nuremberg starts out rather slowly, but it has this confidence and strong standing. I am not a fan of overly-dramatized tragic stories, sure I do feel for them especially for the historical meaning, but I think a story needs something more than just unfolding tragic events. Otherwise we would just watch documentaries of terrible events of all kind.
Judgment at Nuremberg is the difference in-between. Hitler's Germany has been mother to hundreds, if not thousands, of movies and video games. And there are some great stories among them. I have seen Judgment at Nuremberg after I have seen most of those, despite it is one of the earliest works made. Judgment at Nuremberg was made only 16 years after Hitler's death. So it could be thought as "raw" as we probably didn't have as much info as we have right now and certainly not as much as imagination about the events as we have right now. But Judgment at Nuremberg eludes all the others and it takes advantage of being one of the early works to such a degree that it becomes THE best movie about Nazi Germany. Most movies take place in courts either take advantage of the thrill, or drama. Most court movies aren't a big deal. But Judgment at Nuremberg is a big deal. It doesn't take advantage of anything, it doesn't misinterpret facts, it doesn't over-dramatize. It is a true humanistic movie that would make every human being think and feel without lying or cheating them. It is simplified yet perfectly and masterfully scripted motion picture. I don't normally like simplified scripts but the way Judgment at Nuremberg is made is the extreme beauty of simple. I honestly don't know a single similar movie, with any plot that's similar or not.
2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the beacons of Sci-Fi genre that lights the vast void of space. 2001 is first and foremost an epic journey. It inspired movies like Interstellar (2014), but it still hasn't been surpassed except the video game series Mass Effect.
2001 is a story of humankind, it tells us to us. Then how good of a movie can you make out of this? Sky is the limit. We don't know our story. That is the starting point of this film. We have forgotton our story. This is the way of telling of this film. Classical music wasn't just used in 2001 because of it sounded nice, or space didn't have sound. It was used because what else could be used on a movie about us than pieces that held a foundation to the creation of music by us? A movie about us had to have something from us. And it was Strauss.
2001 is a story feels so natural. It almost feels real. I'm not just talking about the realism of the movie itself. I'm talking about after seeing it remembering it as something part of the history. Like as if it happened some time ago and then it lead to something else. I guess if I went to space I would feel like I was Dave. And if there was an AI I would freak out just by the fact that I remember HAL. I don't normally have a phobia against machinery or AI's, this is all caused by the realism of 2001's story and its misrememberance of being part of the history. I guess this obviously has to something to do with its "retro" use of technological environment, unlike today, just like Alien movies, despite I am not a fan of those. But still, I think I wouldn't have felt the same if I worshipped Alien movies, because 2001 connects itself to us by starting from the very beginning to the far into the future. It is a whole story in every possible manner.
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