Next, I have an Italian movie. It's subtitled, and it's really an awesome movie. It's 1948's Ladri di Biciclette (The Bicycle Thieves). It has 8.4 stars and is ranked #83 on IMDb's Top 250 List.

It's about an unemployed man, Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani) who manages to get a job hanging posters, if he has a bicycle. He sold his bike to a pawn shop in order to get money for food, so he and his wife sell their bedsheets in order to get his bike out of hock so he can have this job. On the first day of work, his bike gets stolen. Reporting his stolen bike to the cops do nothing. The next day, he and his son, Bruno (Enzo Staiola) wander around Rome, looking for his stolen bike. The leads they get quickly fall apart. He thinks he found the guy that stolen his bike, but the neighborhood the young man lives in comes to the man's defense. At one point, Antonio is so desperate that he also steals a bike, but is quickly caught.

At the end of the movie, Antonio still hasn't found his bike.

This really is an incredible movie. And it feels real because it is real. It's depicting life in post-World War II Italy where poverty and unemployment was rampant. People would do anything to survive. None of the actors in this movie were professional actors. Lamberto Maggiorani was a factory worker that director Vittorio De Sica liked the look of. Enzo Staiola was 7 years old and plucked off the streets to play Bruno because De Sica liked his walk, and he's also incredible in this movie. Both actors made a few more Italian movies, but they remained pretty much amateurs.

And I think the amateur-ness works with this film. You're watching a real man and a real child deal with this horrendous crime. It may not seem like much to us, but the character is absolutely dependent on that bike to support his family. Since this man isn't a professional actor, there really is no willing suspension of disbelief. It's raw, stunning. You absolutely feel his sorrow, because this isn't a professional actor projecting these feelings. It's that of a real person.

Robert Osborne, the host of TCM Essentials, where I recorded this movie from, said that when he first saw this movie, he was dreading the ending. He knew he would have hated the ending if it had a Hollywood happy ending—Antonio found his bike, and all is well. And he was dreading the unhappy ending—Antonio doesn't find his bike. Obviously, at the end, Antonio hasn't found his bike. But, I agree with Osborne: this really is a perfect ending to the movie. It reflects life. Life in Italy at this time was tough, due to WWII. If it was actually real life, with a cameraman following a real guy, we wouldn't necessarily expect the guy to find his bike, although we would like it. Since this is almost a documentary shot with a very movie feel, the fact that he doesn't find his bike is kind of the perfect conclusion.

Life will go on somehow. Bike or no bike. We don't know how it will go on, and neither do the filmmakers. But it has to.

This film is part of the Italian neorealist movement. The movement was sprung up in the post-WWII era as retaliation against the idea that people need to use their imaginations in order to be happy in life—that real life is dull and boring. This movie is anything but dull and boring. It's actually kind of beautiful, how it's shot, and I can't praise the acting enough. The movement, like this film, attempts to bridge the beauty of imaginations with the beauty of real, everyday life and doing what people do—surviving in spite of the odds stacked against them.

In the end, I'd love to think Antonio found his bike. We just don't see it.

All right. Until next time.

Kat

Continuing with my all-time favorite movie. I freakin' LOVE this movie and will recommend it to anyone with half a brain (although I do admit, it's not everybody's ideal movie. It's mine. But as long as you can disagree with me intelligently and can be more than a half-wit even if you don't like my favorite movie, I have no problems with you. I'll get to this.)

Obviously, this is 1942's Casablanca (8.7 stars, #19 on IMDb's Top 250 List). In case you've been living in a hole in the ground, not exposed to any movies at all, this movie stars Humphrey Bogart (in his first romantic leading-man role), Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre. It's set in Casablanca, Morocco during the early days of World War II, where people from occupied Europe (particularly France) fled to try to get "letters of transit" to the United States. The movie kicks off when stolen letters of transit wind up at Rick Blaine's (Bogart) nightclub Café American (informally known as "Rick's").

Soon afterwards, a couple arrives in Casablanca: Victor Laszlo (Henreid) and his wife, Ilsa Lund (Bergman). Laszlo is a known underground Czech resistance leader, so the Nazis staying in the town, led by Major Strausser (Veidt) would love to arrest Laszlo, and the Captain of the Police, Renault (Rains) would like to help Strausser out, just because helping out the Nazis might keep Renault in power. But, Casablanca isn't under Nazi control, so Laszlo and his wife can remain relatively safe in the town.

But, both Laszlo and Ilsa know they need to get out of town and to America.

But, here's some more complications: Rick and Ilsa were lovers in Paris just before the Nazis invaded it. Since Rick is a former freedom fighter and an American ex-patriot, he had to flee Paris. Ilsa was supposed to go with him, but she stood him up (according to Rick's perspective.) However, Ilsa had discovered that her husband, Laszlo, who she thought had died in a German concentration camp, was actually alive. So, she left Rick to go to her husband.

Now, a couple years later, the former lovers meet, and both are torn with their feelings for each other.

At the end, Rick tells Ilsa that she has to go with Victor and not stay with him (Rick). Rick kills Strausser, and Renault leaves Casablanca with Rick to fight the Nazis somewhere. It's actually a perfect ending to what I consider a perfect movie.

(Letters of transit never existed. They exist in this movie, but in real life, they never existed.)

I had a chance to see Casablanca in theaters on May 21. Celebration of its 70th anniversary. However, I was still under the weather with a viral infection, and tickets were a little too expensive anyways. (With an emergency room bill and a car repair to pay for, I can't spend a lot of money on a ticket.) As much as I would have LOVED to see it on the big screen, surrounded by other Casablanca lovers. That bums me out, though.

I actually can't quite put my finger on why I love this movie so much. It seems to be a perfect storm of excellent actors (Bogie was known primarily as an actor who could only play thugs and gangsters. After this movie, he got to diversify his roles, and Bergman was always an incredible, underrated actress. And I personally adore Conrad Veidt—I'll get to him more). The chemistry between Bogie and Bergman is so tangible it jumps off the screen and practically slaps you in the face. The film's writing—I wish I were that talented and that witty.

The movie itself is a wonderful blend of romance (which I normally don't go for, but for Bergman and Bogie, I'll make an exception!), war (World War II—my favorite time period), suspense, and film noir—which is my favorite genre. If you watch it now and think that the movie is very familiar, that's because it has been copied so many times.

It won the Best Picture, Best Writing, Screenplay, and Best Director Oscars for 1942, which I think is one of the few movies that actually deserves the title of "Best Picture." It has been honored by the American Film Institute numerous times: #3 on AFI's 100 Years 100 movies; #37 on AFI's 100 Years 100 Thrills; #1 on AFI's 100 Years 100 Passions; #4 on AFI's 100 Years 100 Heroes and Villains (Rick Blaine, hero); #2 on AFI's 100 Years 100 songs ("As Time Goes By"); #32 on AFI's 100 Years 100 cheers; and it has 6 lines from AFI's 100 Years 100 Movie Quotes (#5, #20, #28, #32, #43, and #67). Incidentally, this is AFI's most quoted movie on that last list.

The lines are (check to see how many lines you've heard of before) :

#5: "Here's looking at you, kid."

#20: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

#28: "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'." (Incidentally, the most famous line Casablanca has isn't in the movie! Everyone thinks Humphrey Bogart says "Play it again, Sam." That line is NOT from Casablanca. This above quote is what Ingrid Bergman says, and it comes the closest to that non-existent line. Bogie says "If you played it for her, you can play it for me." Play It Again, Sam is actually the title of a 1972 Woody Allen movie.)

#32: "Round up the usual suspects."

#43: "We'll always have Paris."

#67: "In all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."

And those are only some of my favorite lines! Seriously, I wish I had the screenwriters' talent for dialogue.

Rick: "Your cash is good at the bar."
Banker: "What? Do you know who I am?"
Rick: "I do. You're lucky the bar's open to you."

Ugarte: "You know, Rick, I have many a friend in Casablanca. But somehow, just because you despise me, you're the only one I trust."

Renault: "I am shocked, shocked, to find gambling in here!"
Croupier: "Here are your winnings, sir."
Renault: "Oh, thank you very much."

Strausser: "What is your nationality?"
Rick: "I'm a drunkard."
Renault: "That makes Rick a citizen of the world."

Renault: "What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?"
Rick: "My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters."
Renault: "The waters? What waters? We're in a desert."
Rick: "I was misinformed."

Casablanca started its life as an unproduced play called Everybody Comes to Rick's. There are a lot of rumors circulating the production of the movie. The biggest known one is that Ronald Reagan was supposed to play Rick Blaine. That's simply not true. The confusion begins due to a press release that his press agent probably released to keep his name in the papers while Reagan went to work for the Army.

Another rumor is that the ending kept changing. It didn't. The ending of the play (which is only set within the bar) has Rick sending Ilsa off to be with Laszlo. That ending is retained, more or less. Plus, the Production Code wouldn't have liked a movie that ended with a woman ditching her husband and running off with another guy. The rumor was started by Bergman herself because she said in an interview that she didn't know which man she was going to end up with. While there were rewrites going on during the filming, and it was shot more-or-less in order, enough key scenes between Bergman and Bogart were shot after the ending was filmed. I don't think Bergman was lying or anything. I think she was addressing the emotional confusion of the character—Ilsa—rather than the script changing. Ilsa didn't know which man she was going to end up with.

OK, now I'm picking up a couple threads I glossed over earlier:

I adore Conrad Veidt. Love him. One reason is that he's a good actor. He was a German actor who got his start in silent movies. He was in the first horror movie: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and he was also the inspiration for the look of The Joker (particularly in his movie The Man Who Laughs.) When movies turned to sound, Veidt was turned away, because his German accent was so thick. He went to London where he learned English better. But, he still lived in Germany.

Another reason I love him: In 1933, when the Nazis rose to power, Veidt was one of those people absolutely opposed to the Nazi Party. He ended up having to flee Germany (the Gestapo wanted to assassinate him!), and he became a British citizen. He's best known in America for Casablanca and other films where he plays a Nazi. However, Veidt figured that this was the best way he could to help the British and the American war effort. He also gave up most of his estate to the British War Effort, and he donated large percentages of his film salaries (until his death in 1943) to the War Effort.

Now, to my rant at the beginning:

I had a friend who would call me on weekends and we'd talk on the phone for hours. She liked classic movies and liked Humphrey Bogart. So, as I said, I'll suggest this movie to anyone, because it's my favorite movie. So, I suggested it to her.

She didn't like it. Now, I don't have a problem if you don't like this movie, if you can intelligently debate me about it. Say that you don't like the romantic aspect and you don't see the same chemistry. Say that the dialogue isn't as great as I'm making it out to be. Say that the movie is overhyped.

However, when she told me that she saw it, and I asked her what she thought of it, she said, "I hate you." She then started absolutely bashing the movie, punctuating her criticisms with personal attacks on me, as in why would I ever like or suggest this piece of crap and she hates me for it.

Then she turned her attention back to horror movies, which I'm not a fan of. And I told her that I didn't like horror movies (notice that I didn't say "I hate you"?) She said, "Well, at least we both don't like Citizen Kane."

I said, "Yeah, but when I meet someone who likes Citizen Kane, I don't say 'I hate you'."

She said that I took it the wrong way. I asked what the right way to take "I hate you" would be. Because she didn't only say that she hated my favorite movie (and "hate" is such a strong word to use against anything, especially a movie. For example, I don't hate Titanic. As I said in an earlier review, there are some good parts of the movie, but I very strongly dislike it. And I wouldn't hate anyone who was a fan of Titanic. I just don't agree with them), but she hated me for the movie.

We actually haven't talked since. I'll leave her to her horror movies, and she can leave me to my Casablanca.

All right. Until next time.

Kat

My best friend had free passes to see this movie. I know it came out in 2011. But, it came out in very few places.

I'm not entirely sure why. I think the title hurts it.

Before I get to the movie itself, let me set up why I hate going to this movie chain (it's AMC).

AMC gives out the "free" passes. I put it in quotations because when all is said and done, getting into see the movie is free. But...

OK, the movie started at 7:00, which means that you have to get into line by at least 5:30 if you want in. The company that works with AMC to give these free passes print more than we have seats (this movie didn't have any problems with that, but I've been to some, like "The Smurfs," that people were turned away. So, since I get off work at 5:00, and it's a 45-minute drive in rush hour traffic to where the theater was, I didn't stop for anything (well, lights, obviously).

I got there at 5:45, and got my place at the end of the line. My best friend got there about 6:05 (which is EARLY for her!). We had spoken on the phone while driving and agreed that we'd eat at the movie theater.

MISTAKE!!!!!! But, that's a spoiler alert.

We finally got into the theater at about 6:15-6:20, and I went to the concession stand. And I didn't see prices. Wandering around, looking at the signs, there were prices for the big stuff. Sandwiches, the like. So, I ended up grabbing nachos and a "small" drink. I was thinking "Overpriced stuff. This is going to be $8, I know it." Yeah, try $11. After impersonating a Tex Avery cartoon briefly, I thanked my lucky stars that I was going to have a direct deposit paycheck in my checking account last night and paid. After all, I really can't wait until the movie gets over to pay.

That's actually not as bad as the AMC downtown. I had to pay for parking and a bite to eat at the theater. My "free" movie ended up costing me $22 that night. What a ripoff.

(I was hoping that the nacho cheese was actually gold. That helped a little bit.)

So, the movie itself...

It stars Ewan McGregor, who I love. I've followed his career since he first starred in "Shallow Grave," which is an awesome horror movie. Highly recommend it. In this one, based on the novel by the same name, he plays a scientist and an expert in fish who gets assigned to help a Sheik from Yemen who wants to introduce salmon to Yemen. The Sheik's goal is a good one: he damns the river during the wet season, and in the dry season, he releases the water (and the fish upstream) to help irrigate the land. The fish provide food, the water provides irrigation. Although this scientist thinks this project is absolutely ridiculous (you're introducing a cold water fish into the desert?) he's helped by consultant to the Sheik, and the two fall in love, although he's already married to a frigid workaholic, and she has a boyfriend--a British soldier sent to Afghanistan.

It's pretty formulaic. I bet you can pretty much finish all the plot points I didn't mention, if you know anything about romantic comedies.

The movie is pleasant. Kristin Scott Thomas plays the press secretary to the British Prime Minister, and she's absolutely a hoot. She's having a good time chewing the scenery, and it shows. But, she's fun to watch.

As I said, I love Ewan McGregor. Although some of his recent movies have been, well, questionable, he's still a good actor. But, actually, the chemistry between him and the Sheik is better than him and his leading lady, Emily Blunt.

There is a lot of humor in this movie. The dry British humor that I just absolutely go nuts about. The deadpan, snarky humor--love it, love it, love it. The audience I was with liked it. A lot of laughter in the theater. At the end, there was applause.

But, here's the thing: it's pretty forgettable. It's a very pleasant movie to watch and to laugh at while you're in the theater. But, 5 minutes later, you will forget a lot of things about it.

I don't think its title helps it. "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen." It's exactly what's written on the tin. But, it makes it sound like you're going to watch a documentary about, well, salmon fishing in Yemen (and if you know anything at all about salmon, you would know that this is impossible). It should be called something else, although I do realize that this is the title of the novel it's based on. I don't know what it should be called other than that, but something... different.

I was also struck with the idea that, as Americans, we're impressed with anything that says "BBC" on it. This film was jointly produced by Lionsgate and BBC. Normally, I don't notice who produces movies, but I did notice the BBC logo. A murmur ran through my audience "Ooh! The BBC!" Are British viewers as impressed with the BBC as Americans are? I think the BBC imports to America tend to be their best of the best (going back even to "Monty Python" and "Doctor Who." There's now "Downton Abbey," "Sherlock." But other than the shows that Americans know, are all British shows awesome? Or, is it like American shows: some are awesome, some are absolute crap, but most of them are mediocre or average?) Anyway, the audience was impressed with the fact that BBC co-produced it.

All in all, good, pleasant movie, but forgettable. Probably worth a ticket (not the concession prices, though.) It's not even two hours long. Pleasant evening, for the most part.

Kat

I found out last night I have a chance to see my favorite movie of all-time on the big screen! (For those of you not paying attention, my favorite movie is Casablanca.)

However, I found out ticket prices. Although it's relatively reasonable, it still more than I'd want to pay and be able to justify it to myself. Especially to be able to justify it to my parents who will remind me of it if I ask for any money in the future.

So, I'm so disappointed, but I'm not going to see it on the big screen.

Maybe I'll comfort myself that evening by popping in my DVD and watching it from the comfort of my own home. It's not on the big screen, which would be totally awesome, but it can be an OK substitute.

Kat

Hey all.

I've been working on updating my movie list. Right now, it's as complete as possible. I know I recorded a couple movies, but I didn't get them marked down, so I don't know which DVD they're on. And, I need to double-check a movie. I think I may have recorded something that I didn't.

But, for all intents and purposes:

I have 796 movies, which is actually a little less than I thought I had.

I can watch at least one movie every year from 1919 to 2011.

My oldest movie is from 1915, and it's The Birth of a Nation. My newest movie is 2011's Hugo.

The decade from when I have the most movies is the 1940s, for whatever reason. I have 143 movies from the 1940s.

The year I have the most movies from is 1939 with 21 movies.

563 movies I have are older than I am. That's 71% of my movie collection.

My decades (in order from most to least) :

1940s--143 movies

1950s--112 movies

2000s--111 movies

1930s--107 movies

1960s--98 movies

1920s--71 movies

1990s--55 movies

1980s--54 movies

1970s--34 movies

2010s--7 movies

1910s--4 movies

Assuming that everything from 1929 on is sound, I have 68 silent movies (I count "City Lights" as silent, which is 1931, but I don't count "Modern Times" as silent). I will get "The Artist" on DVD, which I count as a silent movie. Or "mostly silent" movie.

Interestingly, there are 4 years with only one movie in them: 1915, 1917, 1972 (for some reason), and 1996 (for some reason).

Kat

This isn't going to be a review. It's just speculation that has risen from this episode. Or at least, speculation for me.

-I know John Goodman will be making an appearance again, thanks to the 2-minute trailer that was shown on "The Soup" last week. The end of this episode, with the appearance of Annie's Boobs (and then the subsequent disappearance down the air vents), I think Troy might actually start considering going into air conditioner repair. I think Troy might take the monkey's appearance to be a sign.

-I could be misremembering early season 3, but it seems like the fact that Jeff's father left his family when Jeff was a young boy is being hit hard this season. The first time it really came up that Jeff's father left (and not just Jeff was from a broken, divorced home) seems to be in late season 2 "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking." Prior to that, it was just random comments that Jeff would make that indicated that he may have come from an abusive background. (I'm thinking of a throwaway line in season 1's "Home Economics" where Jeff mentions that TV makes a better family because it doesn't mistreat you.)

But, just random lines here and there just mean background usually.

But, Pierce's dad showed up after Pierce showed real signs of having a horrible relationship with his father. He's still struggling with the scars his father left him, even after his father's death. Since Pierce and Jeff are actually a lot alike (more than Jeff would ever dare to admit or to even think of), I think the idea of Jeff's dad will be coming up even more. And I'm thinking this season.

I can think of some events in particular that happened this season that is making me think that Jeff's dad will make some sort of reappearance in his son's life:

1. "Advanced Gay" where Pierce's dad showed up, and Jeff inadvertently killed him. I really wish I had that episode, because I don't remember what Jeff said to Pierce's dad that ended up killing him. But, it had something to do with fathers and sons and acceptance.

2. "Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism." In Jeff's memory of bully!Young!Shirley, Shirley taunts him about not having a father. That's what causes Little!Jeff to wet his pants and cry even more than losing the foosball game.

3. "Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps" Kind of subtle, but Jeff's story involves warm family feelings. It even ended with a group hug--that included Chang! Since it sounds like Jeff really didn't get a lot of that warm, family, fuzzy-feeling growing up, he seems to crave it.

4. "Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts" Obviously. Jeff's breakdown and his hatred of marriage stemmed from his parents divorcing and his father walking out.

I think William Winger will be making an appearance soon. If only to get Jeff to be able to move past his father's abandonment.

Kat

I"m so excited!

I do have church tonight, but I just checked to make sure that my DVD recorder is ready to record it. I'm on NBC, which is where it will stay. As soon as I get home tonight, I'm watching it!

Can't wait!

Kat

Continuing my blog with this one, simply because I was going through some of my DVDs last night, and pulling the ones that I'll probably never watch again.

This is one of them. It's probably going to hit the trash.

It's 2005's Devour, and it is my lowest rated movie on IMDb with a whopping 4.8 stars. I bought it for $5 when I was quite the Supernatural fangirl. It stars Jensen Ackles.

The movie sucks. Jensen is nice to look at (he filmed this movie before he started on Smallville. And his father, Alan Ackles, who is a well-known Dallas actor, is also in this movie. So, that's interesting. And, since it was filmed in Vancouver, it's kind of fun to see various places that are later used in Supernatural. A major setting in this movie turns out to be the setting of "Dead in the Water."

Let's see if I can even attempt a synopsis for this movie.

Jake (Jensen) is a college student who has been plagued with violent visions and hallucinations. On his 21st birthday, his friends register him for an online game. However, the game starts spiraling out of control, and his two friends commit murder and then kill themselves. Jake suspects the game and he teams up with a woman who is interested in the Occult to get to the bottom of the events happening. They fall in love. However, she turns out to be the devil, and he turns out to be her son.

And he may or may not have been committing the murders that's been going on. It's incredibly confusing.

It's been a while since I've seen it, and as I said, I doubt whether I'll ever watch it again. Because I didn't like it.

See, what happened, the first time I watched it, I had no clue what was going on. And I'm relatively smart. I can follow movies and predict (usually) what will happen. This movie left me in the dust, and not in a good way. I like when there are twists in movies that I didn't see coming.

There are no twists in this. It's just such a jumbled mess that there aren't any twists.

Supposedly, the script kept being rewritten, so the finished product wasn't at all what the actors had signed up for.

When I was living with my best friend, we would gather in my room to watch Supernatural. We were watching the episode where Sam and Dean go to the horror movie site, Dean becomes a P.A--remember that one? I don't remember the name of it, and I don't want to look it up right now. But, in this episode, a producer gets dragged into an industrial fan. There's a spurt of blood. It's hilarious.

I burst out laughing, while Annie went crawling under the blankets I had on the floor.

So, I started teasing her about being a scaredy cat and telling her if she thinks this is bad, she ought to see Devour. "Jensen cuts out his tongue!" (remember what I said about the character's hallucinations?) She finally agreed to watch it. So, we rented it, which was the second time I've seen it. And things kind of fell into place. I could make connections about what was happening.

And I figured that maybe the third time I watched it, it might actually become pretty good. So, I found it for all of $5 and bought it.

I've seen it a couple more times, but it's probably been three years since I last watched it. It never became "pretty good." It's gory and violent and has horrible language. Which could be overcame, if the story was good. The acting is, but acting can only do so much.

(Although I think Jensen needs to get away from doing horror movies. He'll be typecast, and he's too good of an actor for that. Soon, I'll be reviewing Ten Inch Hero, which he needs to do more of these types of movies. Also, he's already got his foot in the door of being a voice actor with Batman: Beneath the Red Hood.)

One problem I see with this movie is that it can't decide what type of horror movie it wants to be, so it combines all of them into a weird blend. If it would have stuck with being a sort of rip-off of The Game where a guy gets involved with an online game that turns out to be more real than anyone suspects and horrible things start happening, I think it would have been pretty decent.

But then, it got away from them. Instead of focusing on the main character's connection to the game, they throw in the occult from left field. And that the main character is the son of the devil. Fine. If you want to rip-off or update Rosemary's Baby, then do it. Don't drag in The Game. Stick with one.

Oh, wait, now they want to do a slasher movie, like My Bloody Valentine (to give a shout-out to another movie of Jensen's, but it's a remake.) Because of all the gore (and the fact that, at the end of the movie, there's a chance that the main character did all these murders.)

Stick with one horror genre. Don't put The Game, Rosemary's Baby, and every single slasher film that you can come up with into a blender and hit frappe. It tends to leave a mess that leaves viewers going "Huh?" And leave out even implying incest. It tends to squick people out.

Horrible movie. It will be hitting the trash.

Till next time.

Kat

I love these. It's a type of verbal blunder that involves switching the initial sounds of a pair of words. The term "Spoonerism" is named for the late Reverend William Archibald Spooner, who had a notorious penchant for this kind of error.

These are all attributed to him. If you have questions about what he probably meant, let me know.

1. "Three cheers for our queer old dean!"
2. "It is kisstomary to cuss the bride"
3. "Those girls are sin twisters"
4. "Is the bean dizzy?"
5. "The Lord is a shoving leopard"
6. "When the boys come back from France, we'll have the hags flung out"
7. "Let me sew you to your sheet"
8. "The enemy fled quickly from the ears and sparrows"
9. "She joins this club over my bed doddy"
10. "The old revival hymn, 'Shall We Rather At the Giver?'"
11. "There is no peace in a home where a dinner swells"
12. "I see before me tons of soil" (a greeting to a group of farmers; he meant to say "sons of toil")
13. "We all know what it is to have a half-warmed fish inside us" (a statement made when he meant to say "half-formed wish")
14. "You have hissed my mystery lectures and were caught fighting a liar in the quad. Having tasted the whole worm, you will leave by the next town drain."

Till next time.

Kat

Continuing with one of my favorite movies. In fact, it is on my own personal top ten list, and it is one of two movies on the list that came out during my lifetime. It won the Best Picture Oscar for 1984. It's 1984's Amadeus (8.4 stars, #82 on the IMDb Top 250 List, #53 on AFI's 100 Greatest Movies), starring Tom Hulce, F. Murray Abraham (who won the Best Actor Oscar), and directed by Milos Foreman (who also won Best Director). It's based on a play by Peter Shaffer, who adapted his screenplay and won the Oscar. It won 8 Oscars in all.

I first saw this movie in high school band. We came into the band room to see the TV and VCR set up. Yay! We were expecting to be watching another round of something like Blazing Saddles, because that was what we watched last time (only because the Count Basie Orchestra is in that comedy). We were disappointed to learn that we weren't going to watch anything by Mel Brooks. Instead, we were going to watch a biopic about Mozart? How boring does that sound?

But, Mr. Orth told us this was actually a wonderful movie. He started the tape, and I pretty much fell in love with the movie in the first five minutes. It's a gorgeous piece of work, every bit as artistic as the music playing in it. Great acting. All around terrific movie.

The movie is about the supposed rivalry between composers Antonio Salieri (Abraham) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Hulce). The story is told in flashbacks—in 1823 Vienna, aged Salieri tried to commit suicide while screaming apologies to Mozart, who died in 1791. At the insane asylum, he confesses his story and relationship to Mozart to a priest. In the 1780s, Salieri was the Court Composer of Emperor Joseph II. Mozart comes to Vienna with his benefactor and decides to stay. After seeing Mozart in person, Salieri decides that he is vulgar, uncouth, and juvenile. Yet, Mozart's music was (and is) spectacular. Salieri, a formerly devout, religious man, makes a vow to himself that if he can't be the best, then he will do everything in his power to destroy Mozart. After Mozart's father dies, Salieri sees a way to get Mozart to write one last piece and give him (Salieri) the credit for it.

Salieri is the main character, although the movie is named after Mozart. Tom Hulce was also nominated for the Best Actor Oscar. But, the movie really is F. Murray Abraham's. He's amazing in it.

The title comes from Mozart's middle name, and it speaks to Salieri's point of view. "Amadeus" is Latin for "Beloved of God." (Amo=love, deus=God). Due to the contrast between Mozart's vulgarity and his immense talent that Salieri believed was given to him by God, Salieri declares war on God.

However, what really happened isn't quite as spectacular.

By all accounts, Salieri and Mozart were on friendly terms with each other. They composed a cantata for piano and voice together (Per la ricuperata salute di Ophelia). When Salieri was appointed Kapellmeister in 1788, he revived Figaro and not one of his own operas.

There are several reasons for this prevailing idea that Salieri and Mozart were rivals, though. The first is through Salieri himself. He suffered from dementia for a couple years before he died and was heard on several occasions to confess to Mozart's death (it's not known how Mozart died. The theory that seems to be the most accepted is that Mozart died of acute rheumatic fever.) Another reason is through letters written by Mozart to his father, complaining that there's a cabal of Italian composers, lead by Salieri, determined to make it difficult for him (Mozart) to settle in Vienna. Mozart also wrote to his father that no one else matters in Emperor Joseph II's eyes but Salieri. However, the animosity between the two composers seems to be merely professional, not personal.

However, within a few years of Salieri's death, authors started coming up with plays, operas, dramas depicting the supposed rivalry between Salieri and Mozart. The first was in 1831.

So, the relationship between Mozart and Salieri is played for artistic license. Here are some more licenses:

1. Mozart did not dictate Requiem to Salieri. Mozart's Requiem is unfinished by him. A student of his probably put the finishing touches on it. (During the filming of the dictation scene, Tom Hulce deliberately skipped lines to confuse F. Murray Abraham.)

2. The scene where Mozart improvises on Salieri's "March of Welcome" to be Non piu andrai. Never happened. The filmmakers chose a piece of Salieri's and a piece of Mozart's that sounded alike. The two pieces were composed several years apart.

3. The idea that Mozart never made copies and he never made corrections on his scores is false. He didn't just "write down music already composed in his head" as the movie states. Instead, his scores have many corrections in them.

4. Mozart wasn't opposed to taking students.

Don't get me wrong. The filmmakers do show their work researching this movie and the setting. Here are some things they did get right:

1. By all accounts, Mozart's laugh was really that annoying.

2. Mozart really was pretty vulgar, childish and lewd in real life. Composer Joseph Haydn reported seeing Mozart make hundreds of enemies at a single party due to behavior.

3. Salieri may not have been in the same genius composer league as Mozart, but he wasn't a slouch either. In fact, one of his very rare talents was his ability to look at a score and hear its music in his head. It is a very rare ability. Although it isn't exactly specified in the movie, it is shown on a couple of occasions.

The film is absolutely gorgeous. The costumes are also beautiful. They are also accurate to the time period.

All right. Until next time.

Kat