American Graffiti
I wrote that The Sting was my favorite of the old movies I watched, but I had completely forgotten American Graffiti when I wrote that. Gun to my head, I think that still holds true, but it's pretty close. This film follows recent high school graduates Curt Henderson (Richard Dreyfuss) and Steve Bolander (Ron Howard) on the last day before they have to leave for college, along with their friends John Milner (Paul Le Mat) and Terry "The Toad" Fields (Charles Martin Smith). The four each get mixed up in their own adventures over the course of the film, and the stories only occasionally intersect.
The film was made in 1973 and set in 1962; accordingly, it has basically every early-60's and late-50's song you're familiar with in its soundtrack. Most of the storylines are entertaining (I particularly enjoyed Toad's surprising success at picking up a girl and Milner's racing rivalry with Bob Falfa, played by a very young Harrison Ford) and gave me a good feeling of what life must have been like for young people back then. All four of the primary characters are given compelling, life-changing arcs, and their development is just as much of a focus as packing the plot with amusing teenage hijinks.
Grade: B+
Fargo
Weird film. But also a really good one.
Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) needs cash quick, and hires a couple of hit men (Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife so that ransom money can be extorted from her rich father. Predictably, the scheme goes wrong, but in unpredictable ways, as a few homicides creep into the mix, which gets the attention of the Brainerd police department, led by Marge Gunderson (an Oscar-winning Frances McDormand).
Jerry's scheme continues to spiral out of control as he gets more and more desperate to both get his hands on the money and keep Marge and the police off of his trail. It's part thriller and part comedy, as the characters (particularly the kidnappers) are ridiculous enough to create humor amidst serious material. The dialogue makes it pretty goofy as well, as many of the characters are just so gosh-darn polite and speak in a Canadian-sounding accent. Fargo is gruesome, violent, and occasionally hysterical, with some excellent acting performances.
Grade: A-
Ralph Breaks the Internet
I'm kind of on record saying that a sequel to the nearly flawless Wreck-It-Ralph was probably unnecessary, and many Disney attempts to build a franchise out of a successful film don't do so at a Toy Story level. Ralph and cutesy racer girl Vanellope von Schweetz had a natural conclusion to their story, but now they take their adventure out of video games and into the world wide web, for some reason.
Well, okay, there is a reason, and it all stems from Vanellope's boredom with her repetitive daily life, which leads to a series of events that threaten the unplugging of her game, Sugar Rush. The pair go on a quest to get enough money on the internet to order a replacement part so that her game will work again, and en route, we get plenty of amusing jokes about how the internet works, which few kids will likely understand. Visually, the internet world is stunning and rates on par with the Sugar Rush world from the first film, if not better.
The best part of the film, both for myself and my daughter, were the cameos from past Disney princesses in which they hang a lampshade on the ridiculousness of the plots, family structure, and gender roles from their older films. I was laughing out loud during quite a bit of this.
Wreck-It-Ralph had a natural antagonist that was present through most of the movie, but this film has a moment with about a half hour left where it realizes that woah, everything is resolved already, so it sort of manufactures a villainous figure to create some suspense down the stretch. I didn't care for it, but it fit the theme of the film, which is that friendship involves supporting others with their dreams and aspirations, even if it's not what we might selfishly want.
Grade: B
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