A Trio of Must-See Flicks with Character Names in the Title
If you choose to travel down the rabbit hole of Googling lists of movies named after a character in them, it gets pretty intense. The best method then becomes...to hell with it...let's just pick the first three that pop in the ole noggin, starting right now...
...as part of
Wandering through the Shelves'
Thursday Movie Picks, the first one of 2018...
...right now...
"Happy Gilmore"
dir. Dennis Dugan, 1996
Hockey goon becomes PGA Tour Pro. It will never cease to be hilarious, given to my generation at a time when we needed it most.
"Dick"
dir. Andrew Fleming, 1999
Two ditzy 15-year-olds break the Watergate scandal and one of them falls in love with Dick Nixon, who eats pot cookies. My love for Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams is every bit as strong now and satirical political hi-jinks have never been better.
"Jackie"
dir. Pablo Larraín, 2016
Jackie Kennedy deals with Jack's assassination in the most artfully beautiful way possible. Micachu's score is unbelievable. Barely a day has passed in the year since I first saw this that I haven't thought about how absolutely astounding it is on all levels.
I love all three of these. Nice picks!
ReplyDeleteHi Kevin happy to see you back in the game of TMP's! Marvelous choices!!
ReplyDeleteSandler's films have fallen so far in quality since Happy Gilmore, not that its art but it is a crowd pleaser without being purposefully dumb.
I put off watching Dick for years because the preview made it look moronic but I was happy to discover it was slyly amusing and the lead pair work beautifully together.
Natalie Portman received her share of knocks because of her interpretation of Jackie but I thought it was beautifully spot on if you've ever seen any footage of her during this time. A very fine film indeed.
I decided to do a bit of a theme within the theme thanks to my first movie, a big fave of mine and one I was given the DVD of for Christmas, I figured if saying the name once is good twice must be better!!
Mary, Mary (1963)-Struggling New York book publisher Bob McKellaway (Barry Nelson-who is fine but his role has Jack Lemmon’s name all over it) is getting ready to marry his socialite fiancée Tiffany (a knockout Diane McBain) as soon as his divorce from first wife Mary (Debbie Reynolds) comes though. However his accountant Oscar (a delightful Hiram Sherman) requests Mary come up from Philadelphia for the day to straighten out some tax issues before the decree becomes final. Once together Bob and Mary start to jab wittily at each other and before you know it their attraction starts to resurface aided by the attentions to Mary of movie star and prospective author Dirk Winsten (Michael Rennie) and an inconvenient snowstorm. Betrays its stage origins (the play ran for over 1500 performances) but is often clever and witty. Both Rennie and Nelson repeat their Broadway roles.
Rachel, Rachel (1968)-Rachel Cameron (Joanne Woodward) is a lonely middle-aged schoolteacher. Never married and still a virgin she lives a life of quiet desperation with her widowed mother over the funeral home left to them by her father. Over summer vacation she goes to a revival meeting with her best friend fellow teacher Calla (Estelle Parsons) during which she has an epiphany and begins to emerge from her shell taking her life in unexpected directions. Directed by Paul Newman as a vehicle for his wife this received four Oscar nominations including ones for Woodward, Parsons and Best Picture.
Corrina, Corrina (1994)-Widower Manny Singer (Ray Liotta) is frustrated in his search for a nanny for his young daughter who has withdrawn into herself since her mother’s death and stopped speaking. When Corrina Washington (Whoopi Goldberg) applies she is able to break through the child’s reserve and is hired. As time passes she and Manny discover an attraction and grow closer but all does not go smoothly.
And to show this is not strictly a female happenstance:
Buddy Buddy (1981)-Trabucco (Walter Matthau) a hitman on a job to rub out a Mob informant before he testifies is waylaid by Victor Clooney (Jack Lemmon), the suicidal guy in the hotel room next door. Once he talks him off the ledge he plans to jump from their lives become intertwined and nothing goes as planned. Billy Wilder’s final film as director would seem to have everything needed to succeed, a reteaming of Lemmon and Matthau, a quality supporting cast and the great man himself behind the camera but even he admitted that it was more or less a miss.
Thanks! Glad to be back! And glad you dug these movies. Portman is unreal in that movie. Her best work in my opinion. The other two are simply comedies I was obsessed with in my teen years.
DeleteAs for yours, I have certainly seen Corrina, Corrina, and it is a wonderful movie. It's been years, but I was highly impressed by it. As for the others, I'm down for any and all of them. Sweet take on the theme this week!
I have seen a bit of Happy Gilmore which some parts are funny but I haven’t seen the other 2 but Jackie is on my list to see for this year
ReplyDeleteJackie is great.
Delete"It's your home, your home!" Adam Sandler when he was funny.
ReplyDeleteI love the other 2 picks. Dick is the film Nixon should've been plus Dan Hedaya was the perfect Nixon. My favorite scene is Brezhnev and Henry Kissinger getting high and sing "Hello Dolly". If a moment like that can bring world peace then there is hope in the world.
Sandler was he best!
DeleteAnd "Hello Dolly" haha! Love that. You are no doubt correct, sir.
LOVE all three of these. Happy Gilmore is maybe the only Adam Sandler movie I actually like, Dick is one of the absolute best teen flicks of the 90s, and Jackie is just perfection on every single level.
ReplyDeleteHell yes! Glad to hear it.
DeleteI still haven't seen Happy Gilmore. Actually, the only one of these I have seen is Jackie. Natalie Portman was outstanding. Very nice pick.
ReplyDeleteThanks! And I really suggest you watch Happy Gilmore. It's superb 90s comedy.
DeleteLoved Jackie. Liked Happy Gilmore (but loved it when I was younger). Haven't seen Dick.
ReplyDeleteI have three picks for this: Annie Hall, Jackie Brown, & Lady Bird.
Oh, I love Happy Gilmore and always will. You will love Dick because young Michelle Williams and young Kirsten Dunst are straight magic together.
DeleteGood picks!