The Chris Moeller Archives

The 50 Great American Films 36-40

The next five films of the Chris Moeller Top 50, alphabetically from R to S...


ROGER AND ME directed by Michael Moore (1989)

Michael Moore's first film is a triumph on behalf of America's small-D democrats. The kamikaze director takes his camera in search of General Motors chairman Roger Smith, hoping to make him explain the latest plant closing during a period of record corporate earnings. In so doing, he exposes the cleavage between the optimistic platitudes of GM press releases and the reality on the streets of his hometown, Flint, Michigan. An assembly-line worker describes the day he was fired. Driving home, he gets emotional when the Beach Boys,' "Wouldn't It Be Nice?," comes on the radio. The opening riff of the song comes up behind-- cut to a montage of gutted-out homes and boarded-up storefronts. Along the way, we meet a law enforcement officer evicting people on Christmas Eve, the Miss America finalist from Michigan, a woman who skins and sells rabbits for "pets or meat," and GM spokesman/"Newlywed Game" host Bob Eubanks, who shares a Jewish AIDS joke. Moore, the son of an autoworker, is neither objective nor fair in his approach. It's a hatchet job directed at the automaker's corporate structure, and at the end, when Roger Smith is quoting Dickens in a dull Christmas speech to GM stockholders and their children, you don't know whether to laugh or cry.


THE ST. LOUIS CARDINALS, THE MOVIE directed by Lawrence Miller (1985)

I know what you're thinking. And you are wrong. Many critics have honored Ken Burns' "Baseball" epic or HBO Sports documentaries, but I can assure you Lawrence Miller's labor of love puts them all to shame. Released only on video, it stands out from these other features in one revolutionary way-- there is no narrator. Instead, it is a rapid-fire collection of highlights from the first 109 years of Cardinals baseball-- archival film, newsreels, and stills- occasionally with subtitles, interviews with players and fans, rare file tape from St. Louis television and radio stations (Dizzy Dean and Casey Stengel in Cooperstown, a boyish Bob Costas interviewing Cool Papa Bell,) displaced film clips ("Little Big Man,") mid-century TV ads starring Humphrey Bogart and Fred Mertz, even an animated short.
The game highlights, particularly those of the 1960s and the 1982 championship run, are stirring. Licensed music is almost always missing from sports documentaries because of the prohibitive cost, but Miller uses it to spike the energy, and he cuts the action to match the music, We hear everything from Louis Armstrong to Glenn Miller to Spike Jonze to Sergeant Pepper to a novelty song recorded about slugger Stan Musial.
The Cardinals organization, owned by Anheuser-Busch at the time, commissioned the production of the film, and I think it's fair to say it has never recognized the masterpiece it has on its hands. It has already been lost to time since it now excludes two new decades of highlights. It's a shame. Miller's film has more originality and flair than was probably ever expected of such a commercial project. It's an Everest in the sea of sports documentaries.
The video is out of print, and currently unavailable on Amazon.com, but I have a sturdy copy when you get the chance to stop by.


SHERLOCK, JR. directed by Buster Keaton (1924)

If you get to see just one Buster Keaton movie, make it this one to get the best feeling of what the medium meant to the filmmaker. In "Sherlock, Jr.," the Great Stoneface plays a projectionist who dreams his way into the film he's watching. It's one of the earliest meditations on why we watch movies. As usual, Keaton's stunts are jaw-dropping. In the billiards scene, rather than faking the game where he pockets all the balls, he studied the table and set the balls up so he could make all the shots. The most priceless scene comes at the end when Keaton goes to kiss the girl. He peers toward the screen through the window of the projection booth for tips on how best to do it.
"Sherlock Jr." demonstrates all that was great about Keaton-- his dry wit, his breathtaking acrobatic ability, and his smooth touch for black comedy and fantasy. The movie also resulted in his most serious injury in a career of pratfalls and stunts. He broke his neck in the scene where he's chasing the train and grabs a waterspout. On film, he's obscured for a moment by the gush of water and would hit his neck landing on the tracks. He suffered headaches for years to follow. "Sherlock, Jr. is the oldest film on the CM Top 50 list, and at just 45 minutes, the shortest.


SIDEWAYS directed by Alexander Payne (2004)

On my second viewing of "Sideways" in Cedar Rapids last month, I detected a hidden joke for all you Payne-ophiles. When Miles and Jack (Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church) are walking across the hotel patio, a man seated at breakfast with his young son, yells "Hey" in disgust after he overhears profane language from the lead characters. In the closing credits, that man (played by Payne regular Phil Reeves) is identified as "Dr. Hendricks on vacation," a reference to his high school principal character in "Election." Wonderful!
Miles and Jack were college roommates and have each settled into middle-age mediocrity. Jack is getting married in a week and has been invited by his friend on a road trip to the wine country of central California. Through the course of Miles and Jack's Excellent Bachelor Adventure, the depth of their human weakness is revealed. Jack's weakness is his need to be idolized by women. For Miles, it's a deep-seeded insecurity and an increasingly overt alcohol addiction.
The performances in "Sideways" are spectacular. The female foils, played by Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh, are on screen to service the pathologies of the leading men, but thanks to deft direction by Payne, they become fully-formed human beings. I didn't think anyone would ever match what Vince Vaughn did in "Made" to transform party-boy shallowness into high art, but Church piles on even more layers. Giamatti is simply transcendent. A quirky and remarkably-assured blend of self-pity and arrogance makes his the performance of the decade.
Payne and collaborator Jim Taylor adapted the screenplay from a novel by Rex Pickett, but the scene that will establish "Sideways" for the ages was written by the screenwriters. In it, Miles explains to Madsen's character, Maya, why his wine of choice is pinot noir. She realizes he's actually describing himself, and responds with dialogue that makes it clear she could cope with this complicated yet potentially-rewarding relationship. Miles is awestruck, and so are the rest of the sorry bachelors seated in the theater.


SINGIN' IN THE RAIN directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen (1952)

Oh, those skies above. A timeless metaphor. When Sinatra was in a good mood, He could make the rain go/Anytime he moved his finger. On the bad days, though, look out. Even when he wanted rain/he got sunny weather/He was just as blue as the sky.
In film's all-time greatest scene, Gene Kelly can't control the weather, but it doesn't control him, either. He has just said a tender good night to his new sweetheart and is experiencing unadulterated joy. Through a torrential downpour, he whistles and sings, twirls his umbrella, and dances through the street, stomping in puddles and bounding his way halfway up a streetlight to give us one of Hollywood's most enduring images. As the camera closes in from above, he throws aside the shackles of collapsible canvas and lifts his head to the heavens. "Let the stormy clouds chase/Everyone from the place," he sings, "Come on with the rain/I've a smile on my face."
Musicals were the shooting stars of Hollywood. They were great escape for Depression and World War II-era audiences. By the Eisenhower era, they were still often financially successful, but had become wooden, stagy, and incurably hokey (think West Side Story and a whole slew of Rodgers and Hammerstein productions.) Yet, for one moment in 1952, everything clicked-- songs, story, choreography, and casting. 19-year-old Debbie Reynolds is light and appealing, Donald O'Connor is funny and gravity-defying, and Kelly combines the grace of Fred Astaire with the power of a fullback. A shooting star always burns its brightest just before it disappears. Too hokey?


Previous CM Top 50 reviews have been posted on 12/18, 12/23, 12/30, 1/9, 1/16, 1/23, and 2/1.

posted by CM @ 4:13 AM