12 Movies Meme

Okay, Vance from Tapeworthy has tagged me to program a movie theatre for 6 nights, with two movies a night. Here are the rules:

1) Choose 12 films to be featured. They could be random selections or part of a greater theme. Whatever you want.
2) Explain why you chose the films.
3) Link back to Lazy Eye Theatre so I can have hundreds of links and I can take those links and spread them all out on the bed and then roll around in them. (I'm not sure what that last part means but a rule's a rule.)

These aren't my 12 all-time favorite films, although a couple of them do make an appearance. And some of my favorite genres, like documentaries, aren't represented at all. But since I always did pretty well on term papers, I decided to go with a theme of compare and contrast. I picked movies that I thought would be interesting to see back to back.

I'm tagging:
The Singleman Party
Theatre Aficionado at Large
Stage Left, House Right
I Can't, I Have Rehearsal
And anyone else who'd like to play along!

Day 1: A cinematic feast - What's Cooking and Alice's Restaurant
Sure, "Thanksgiving movie" doesn't have quite the same ring as "Christmas movie" but it can still serve up a filling cinematic feast. In 2000's What's Cooking, director Gurinder Chadha follows four Los Angeles families - Jewish, Latino, African-American and Vietnamese - as they make preparations for the big holiday meal. They cook, they eat, they squabble. It's a sweet little movie about the foods we love and the ties that bind. I'll admit that Arthur Penn's 1969 film Alice's Restaurant is dated, with its focus on the draft and the counterculture. But Arlo Guthrie is terrific in this adaptation of his song about a Thanksgiving with friends that goes awry.

Day 2: The sincerest form of flattery - The Pursuit of Happyness and The Bicycle Thief
Not every director would have been handed the script of The Pursuit of Happyness and thought, The Bicycle Thief. But Gabriele Muccino clearly and lovingly constructed this 2006 movie starring Will Smith as an homage to Vittorio De Sica's classic 1948 Italian neorealist drama. Some of the scenes are identical, with Smith and his son trudging around the streets of San Francisco in a way that evokes the journey of the Italian father and son in postwar Rome. Both movies are about the struggles of a man in very meager circumstances to provide a better life for his family. Both will tug at your heartstrings as they poignantly and powerfully demonstrate the bond between parent and child.

Day 3: From screen to stage and back - Hairspray and Hairspray
I always liked John Waters' 1988 cult classic Hairspray, about attempts to integrate a Baltimore teen dance show in the early 1960s but I loved it once the story became a musical. For me, this is a screen to stage adaptation that works. Maybe it's not quite as quirky and subversive, maybe it's a little more mainstream, but on stage, with some songs and dance numbers, Hairspray becomes a joyous, energetic celebration. It's still about being true to yourself, a testament to the power of individuals to affect change. I'm very happy that in 2007, Hairspray made the transition back to the movies, this time as a musical.

Day 4: The joy of movement - Billy Elliot and Swan Lake
I love those small British movies about a community banding together in the face of adversity. Billy Elliot, released in 2000 and directed by Stephen Daldry, is set against the backdrop of a miners' strike, so it fits the bill perfectly. And since it's the story of a boy, played by Jamie Bell, who realizes that he loves to dance, what better to pair it with than a ballet? I'm not sure Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake ever made it to movie screens but since you can watch it on a 1996 dvd, that's close enough. I know that traditionally, the swans are portrayed by ballerinas. I'll take Bourne's handsome and agile male swans any day.

Day 5: Leading men - Casablanca and Annie Hall
I would have to say that Annie Hall from 1977, and Casablanca, from 1942, are my two all-time favorite movies. So many memorable scenes, so much quotable dialogue. Sure, it doesn't seem as though Humphrey Bogart's smooth and confident cafe owner Rick Blaine, in World War II Morocco, has much in common with Woody Allen's fumbling and insecure late 20th-century New Yorker Alvy Singer. But both movies are about a man and a woman from very different backgrounds coming together, and the difficulties that arise from those relationships. And in their own way, Bogie and Woody are the perfect leading men for their times.

Day 6: New York, New York - On the Town and Midnight Cowboy
Could there be two more diametrically opposite views of New York City than the ones presented in these two films? On the Town, from 1949, is a lighthearted musical about a trio of sailors (Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin) who do some sightseeing and search for romance during a 24-hour shore leave in Manhattan. John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy, on the other hand, from 1969, is a New York City filled with danger and squalor and places where no tourists venture. We've got Jon Voight and an amazing Dustin Hoffman as two hustlers who become unlikely buddies. Where does the truth lie? Probably someplace in between.

On the Town

Wow, - Federal Hall, Trinity Church, Chinatown, the Lower East Side - watching the first few minutes of the 1949 musical On the Town is like revisiting my tour of Lower Manhattan. It was so cool to see all of those familiar sites I'd just visited. What a wonderful surprise!
The movie, based on the 1944 Broadway show, features Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly and Jules Munshin as three sailors on a 24-hour shore leave in wartime Manhattan. It's so great to see the city through their wide-eyed enthusiasm. I can relate! They're hoping to do a little sightseeing and meet "a real New York glamour girl." Awww, good luck, guys!

If On the Town were remade today, who knows what filmmakers would have in store for these innocent swabbies on the streets of Manhattan. But never fear, in no time at all they're paired off with three lovely ladies - an anthropologist (Ann Miller), a cab driver (Betty Garrett), and Miss Turnstiles, the queen of the subway (Vera-Ellen). Soon, the six of them are out for a night on the town. What fun!

Sinatra, Kelly and Munshin are so sweet and funny and lovable as the sailors. I especially enjoyed the big production numbers that feature the six of them, like "You Can Count on Me" and "On the Town." I mean, anytime you get to watch Gene Kelly dance it's pretty terrific.

On the Town is noteworthy as the first musical feature film to be shot on location, at the insistence of co-directors Kelly and Stanley Donen. This was at the height of Sinatra-mania and special precautions, such as cameras hidden in station wagons, were used to avoid problems with crowds during the filming.

But I think it was worth the effort. Seeing all of those landmarks - the Brooklyn Bridge, Rockefeller Center, the Statue of Liberty, as the sailors sing "New York, New York" was great. It really becomes a love letter to the city. On the Town definitely would have lost something if it had been shot entirely on a sound stage and back lot in Hollywood.

Watching the movie makes me wish I'd seen the semi-staged production put on last month as part of the City Center Encores! series. Now I have a better idea why my fellow bloggers were praising it so highly.

Although I know there are differences between the film and stage versions. A lot of Leonard Bernstein's music was jettisoned for the movie. But I assume the story, by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and based on a Jerome Robbins ballet, is pretty much the same.

While the original Broadway production of On the Town played for 14 months, the two revivals didn't fare nearly as well, closing after only a couple of months. So it's not likely I'll get to see On the Town on stage anytime soon.

Sadly, while a new dvd of On the Town was released in May as part of a Sinatra collection, it's still a bare-bones version, with only the original theatrical trailer included. Couldn't Warner Bros. have come up with a few extras? A two-disc 60th anniversary edition would be terrific.