Lots of crime in the movies in this post. Yep.
Now, this is a fun one. Admittedly, a lot of that has to do with the acting. Paul Newman and Robert Redford are at the height of their movie-starishness, and they have a great dynamic as the titular Butch and Kid (Harry Longabaugh, if you're curious—no, his mother did not name him "Sundance"). Despite being stuck in a quasi-tragic Bonnie-and-Clyde-esque plot, the two look like they're having the times of their lives, and the movie lets them have it. That's the other aspect of this movie's fun: it's playful to the end. I compared its story to Bonnie and Clyde, mainly because of the date of this movie's release and the western-antihero protagonists who, yes, rob banks and get all blow'd up at the end, but that's about where the comparisons end because this film's tone is entirely different than anything Bonnie and Clyde ever does. Well, I should say tones because really, there are more than one. This is a movie that jumps from goofy to serious to ironic to tense with complete disregard of historical accuracy and tonal continuity, which makes it a plucky, energetic film to experience, especially for the first time. If I'm being completely honest, I'm not sure all that pluck ends up justifying some of the film's more dead-end moments, making the movie more uneven than its placement on this list would indicate, and the whole thing often feels more fun than meaningful. But, hey, given that I just praised The Shawshank Redemption for lacking just such Importance, I should have room in my heart for this one, too. And I do. I like it.
Okay, so here's another fun one. Yes, I am using that word loosely. The Silence of the Lambs is one of those movies that's kind of weird to call "fun" (I mean, it features not just a cannibal but also a dude who wants to wear women's skins), and that's probably not the right term, but there's no question in my mind that the film's primary MO is to entertain. That's the contradictory thing about so many movies, especially horror movies: they aim to entertain you with emotions that would not normally be entertaining to experience, such as fear (see also: tragedies and their invocation of sorrow). One of the things I love about The Silence of the Lambs is how deftly it navigates that contradiction. Whereas other films, including many of the horror thrillers inspired by Silence's success, are often sadistic, punishing affairs for not just their characters but also their audiences, this movie is often funny and humane in its treatment of the story. Silence also manages to avoid the other major pitfall of the crime genre in that, in spite of having a spirit of fun, it gives the criminal acts the weight they deserve. CSI this is not, and every death in the film have a gravity to it lacking in so many other cinematic criminal acts. It manages to pull off both the fun and the gravity because, like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Silence of the Lambs has an excellent command of tone. In fact, it's pretty much a masterpiece of sustaining a singular tone throughout, which makes this film a remarkably cohesive, mesmerizing one in spite of its perhaps contradictory goals. That gives it an edge over Butch Cassidy in my book, if we're going to compare the films I'm (maybe misguidedly) calling "fun" in this post.
This is definitely a monumental film. Monumental in the sense that this movie came out in '67 not only starring a black actor (no less than top billing, too!) but also featuring a plot and screenplay that depict with uncompromising condemnation the vicious racism of the then-contemporary American South. Heck, a movie like this would be monumental in 2014, too, which, sorry folks, is just disgraceful. Think about it: how many recent movies have seriously taken to task the racial strife in modern-day America and more specifically, the modern South? We've got plenty of films like The Help and 12 Years a Slave that loudly (and in The Help's case, perhaps arrogantly) proclaim that golly, our society sure used to be racist, but films that examine contemporary racism? Those are few and far between, and hotly contested when they do come around (just look at the embarrassing attacks that greeted Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing upon its release). All that is to say that yes, I acknowledge the historical importance of In the Heat of the Night. Now, in addition to being historically significant, is In the Heat of the Night a "good" movie? I'd say it is, though if I may split hairs, I'd have to say that is isn't a "very good" movie (and certainly not a "great" one). First, the good: Sydney Poitier and Rod Steiger are both fantastic, and they have a cool buddy-cop chemistry, the texture of which also does a lot to "show don't tell" the racial politics of the town. It's also a fairly spritely, exciting movie, with consistent action beats and that boring character development thingy mostly relegated to small moments that don't detract from the overall momentum. The bad: the character development, for one. Poitier and Steiger's characters are still good (if a bit broadly drawn), but hoo wee, the rest of the cast is stuck with the paper-thinnest of stock characters solely in service of the plot. And speaking of the plot, the mystery (the, ahem, "murder on their hands they don't know what to do with") isn't all that great. Not to give anything away, but it's way too dependent on some pieces of information that we get a scant half hour from the movie's end, so much so that I feel like it's jerking me around, and it's not even that cool of a reveal anyway. The film is also mostly rote, visually, though I suppose it could have looked a lot more interesting back in the late '60s. Who knows? Anyway, not a waste of time, but not, I think, an all-time classic either.
And I'm now officially seventy-five percent done with this list! Woo hoo! Let me know what you think of these movies. Until next time!
You can read the previous post, #s 70-72, here.
Update: You can read ahead to the next post, #s 76-78, here.
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