August 2017

I spent August assembling the September issue of Speedboat. I was pleased by how it came out. Part of the content was based on a trip I took at the beginning of the month to Indiana to report on a boat race. After the race, I visited my friend Merf in Wisconsin. This was the month I started to feel a pain in my left hand, which is still there—I am concerned that it might be arthritis or tendonitis. I also listed a bunch of stuff on eBay and sold some of it. Meanwhile, Cindy and I saw Baby Driver (her first time, my second) at Century City, while Emma and her friend saw Annabelle. BOOKS: I listened to the audio CD of Behind Closed Doors by Kathryn Croft and started the short-story collection Don’t Read Alone by Paul Finch. TV: I have been enjoying reruns of 30 Rock and The Andy Griffith Show during meal times; I also saw a couple of episodes of Room 104.  MUSIC: I drilled several Broadway show-tune albums, including Little Me, Something Rotten and Dear Evan Hansen; the latter score was particularly memorable.

Here are the movies I saw in August:

CIMARRON (1960)—I settled on this Western (it’s one year older than I am) because of Austrian co-star Maria Schell, who was so charming in a great Western I screened last month called The Hanging Tree (from 1959). In this adaptation of Edna Ferber’s 1929 novel, she is paired with Glenn Ford, whom she has recently wed. He plucks her from her well-to-do Kansas City home during the late 1800s to settle in the Oklahoma Territory. It’s a long trip, and once they get there, it’s quite rugged. They make friends, experience various hazards, encounter some truly mean people and are generally challenged by a number of life-altering events. They have a son, Cimarron, who grows up and disappoints his mom by falling in love with a Native American woman. It’s a fun flick, satisfactory soapy and exciting, with some uncanny special effects. Well acted. (9)

THE CAT AND THE CANARY (1939)—Like the previous movie, this is a remake of an earlier screen effort. This one stars Bob Hope in what has become a very cliched story about a group of people who gather in an old house for the reading of a will…and then murder and frightful things start happening. But with Bob Hope in the lead, it’s really more of a comedy than a chiller, although there are tense moments throughout. Paulette Goddard is the love interest. Mildly entertaining; Hope has a fair amount of good one-liners. (7)

TEN LITTLE INDIANS (1965)—Yet another remake, this time of Agatha Christie’s 1939 novel And Then There Were None. Like the previous movie, it’s another story about a group of people who come together in a mysterious house where people start getting murdered. I’d always been curious about it, as it’s been filmed numerous times, and it’s supposed to be one of Christie’s best stories. Well…I can’t say I disliked it, but I doubt I will remember much about it in the foreseeable future. (7)

MY FAVORITE WIFE (1940)—Merf selected this screwball comedy for screening during my visit to Madison, WI. The only problem is that I’m not a fan of screwball comedies. Cary Grant is a guy whose first wife has been declared legally dead, so he marries another woman. Then the first wife reappears on the scene. The movie’s big joke is that Grant is too nervous to tell the news to his new bride, so he makes up 10 million excuses to avoid the subject. Forgettable fluff. (6)

DESK SET (1957)—Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, arguably the most reliable screen couple in all history, are paired up as an efficiency expert and a reference librarian. He’s gathering information that may lead to the replacement of Hepburn’s team by a huge computer. The movie is based on a stage play, and looks every bit of it. The story is merely passable, but Tracy and Hepburn are always fun to watch, no matter what they’re in. (8)

WIND RIVER (2017)—This was the revelation of the month, by a mile. It’s a chilly murder mystery that recalls Fargo, only without the dark humor of that film. Director Taylor Sheridan (writer of last year’s Hell or High Water) pairs wolf tracker Jeremy Renner with FBI operative Elizabeth Olsen, who are trying to solve the murder of a local Wyoming woman. Intense, chilling and quite suspenseful! (10)

LOGAN LUCKY (2017)—Great reviews brought me to this heist caper, which mostly served to remind me that I’m not crazy about heist capers. This one gets by completely on the charm of stars Channing Tatum and (especially) Daniel Craig as hillbillies trying to steal concession money from a race car event. Hilary Swank is outstanding in a small role, but Seth MacFarlane turns in an embarrassing performance as a race car driver with a phony-baloney Cockney accent. The entire heist plot is beyond implausible, and the main story gets bogged down by too many characters and subplots. (7)

SO BIG (1953)—Inspired by Cimarron, another movie based on an Edna Ferber novel, I approached this one hoping to be seduced by a similar story about a strong woman making her way in the late 1800s. (It, too, is a remake of an earlier film.) Jane Wyman is at a boarding school when her father dies, leaving her penniless. She gets a job as a schoolteacher, gets married to a farmer, and they have a son (nicknamed So Big). Then her husband dies, leaving her to bring in the crops by herself. There are some strong thematic similarities to Cimarron—Mom gets let down by her son’s choices—and I enjoyed it almost as much. (8)