Counting the movies in this post, I have exactly four movies left on the AFI list, which means that I can't continue at my normal clip of three movies per post. So instead, you'll notice that I'll cover these last four movies over two posts of two movies each. Cool? Cool. Also, this post includes the very last movie I have to watch for the first time for this series. Woot woot! The excitement! The bittersweetness!
Okay, so I'll be honest here: I think it's a royal pain in the hindquarters when movies have more than one version. I realize that all sorts of reasons go into the existence of multiple cuts/editions, including studio interference, directorial hubris, and MPAA ratings-board compliance. But you know what? It's still a major inconvenience that there are two different versions of, say, Apocalypse Now out there because it inevitably leads to the feeling that I haven't really seen this movie until you've seen x cut, and dang it, I shouldn't have to see two versions of the same movie to have really seen the movie. Most of that is just laziness on my part combined with my sometimes unhealthy prioritization of breadth over depth (e.g. I'd almost always rather see a movie I've never seen before than rewatch something), and I do feel a little bad about that. But seriously, seven[1] different versions of Blade Runner? All this tiresome rant is to say that no, I haven't seen every cut of Blade Runner, and yes, it does sort of bug me that I haven't, but no, I'm not making any real attempt to seek out the versions I haven't seen. I couldn't even really tell you which versions I've seen besides The Final Cut. So maybe this means that I haven't really seen Blade Runner. I don't know. What I do know is that in the end, it doesn't really matter, because the versions of the movie I have seen are amazing. The film is one of the best intersections of hard sci-fi, philosophic artistry, and special effects ever. The acting is uniformly phenomenal, too, and it's a real treat seeing Harrison Ford give a career highlight in one of the only roles ever to allow him to explore real existential depth in a character. Oh, and then there's the cinematography's unparalleled eye for catching incredible imagery out of the already evocative setting. It's great stuff, and one of my personal favorites, multiple versions be darned.
So, here's the last movie I'm watching for the first time for this series. It's... ehhh... Well, okay, I'll put it this way: on a technical level, it's fine—nothing too fancy, but also nothing totally embarrassing, either. Yankee Doodle Dandy is a mostly well-made movie, which is not a surprise if you remember that Michael Curtiz also directed none other than Casablanca[2], though I could quibble with the use of flashback and voiceover to build the film's story and with the cuts during the musical segments. The acting, too, is fine, with James "Made It, Ma" Cagney throwing himself into his role as famed Broadway mogul George M. Cohan with admirable enthusiasm. That level of technical proficiency in the production is nothing to sneeze at, so don't hear me calling this movie a complete failure or anything. But good night, folks, there's also the content of the film. Just how much unironic nationalism can one movie cram into a two-hour runtime? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Look, I realize that Cohan is a real-life figure and that these songs would have to be included in a film adaptation of his life. I also realize that this movie was made in the middle of World War II, which would have made any sort of critique of America's blind patriotism difficult to pull off. But man, the U.S.A!-U.S.A.!-ness of the movie really does rub my 21st-century perspective the wrong way, especially when it comes to the rah-rah-hang-'em-high nature of the movie's treatment of war. I'll give the movie this much: songs like "Over There" are way more fun, musically at least, than modern equivalents like "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" (legitimate question: is mainstream country the only genre that still writes patriotic anthems?), and as such, the lavish spectacle of the musical segments do have an engaging gaudiness to them. Still, that's not enough to rescue the film from the sort of unselfconscious grossness of its unexamined Americanism. All this would definitely be forgivable, though, if the movie were at least dramatically interesting, but alas, that's not the case. I'm sure Cohan, like all human beings, was a complicated individual with all sorts of interesting facets to explore. Watching this movie, though, you would be forgiven for thinking that his life was an inert series of successes, punctuated by only the most fleeting conflicts with those around him. So yeah, I'm not exactly thrilled with this one. It's a bummer that the last new movie on this list ended up being one I'm so unenthused with. But oh well. There have been plenty of other great ones I've seen along the way.
One more post, folks. This is getting real. If you want to add something, go ahead and jump right into the conversation. I love hearing from you dedicated readers, especially you lovely people who stuck it out this whole project. Until next time!
Feel free to read the previous post in the series, #s 93-96, here.
Update: You can read the final(!) post in the series, #s 99-100, here.
1] Admittedly, there are only four versions that ever saw significant releases on home media, but still. That's a lot of Blade Runners.
2] There's a cool symmetry to this list in that both the third and third-from-the-last movies were directed by Curtiz. Well, I think it's cool. Easily amused, I guess.
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