The Year in Movies: 1937

 

 1937

Number of Movies I've Seen: 2

Number of Movies from my original top 365:  0

Oscar Winner:
The Life of Emile Zola -  Another one that I fully intend on watching when it is on TCM.

Box Office Winner:
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - (PICTURED ABOVE) It's the first animated feature. Every frame is a work of art (both literally and figuratively). It gave birth to an entire industry and one of the most dominant corporate entities in modern society. It's pretty hard to say something that hasn't already been said about Walt Disney's brilliant leap of faith. That being said......

My Top Ten:
1. A Day at the Races - I simply couldn't bring myself to put another Marx brother's masterpiece in 2nd place. For every reason Snow White is the groundbreaking masterpiece that it is, I can think of three reasons I'd rather watch a Marx brothers movie. This one doesn't get as much love as Duck Soup or A Night at the Opera, but I really think it shows the brother's "maturity" (in filmmaking at least). This movie is so much fun, and, as I've said before, represents a peak of comedic cinema that has never been matched.

2. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 

Best of the Year: 1927 - Metropolis

 

This was the only silent film that made the cut for my original 365. Since I wrote that list chronologically it was also my first ever blog post. I admit that this post took me a while, because I wanted to revisit the epic. Since my 2010 blog, it has been remastered and missing scenes have been added that make the film as close as it has ever been to Fritz Lang's vision from nearly 100 years ago. You too can watch it for free on youtube, and I strongly urge you to do so. I know we have lost many movies of this generation, but of the ones I have seen, Metropolis is simply head and shoulders above the rest. It is beautiful, well-acted, ground-breaking, and includes a timely moral that still hits hard today. I can't imagine how it must have felt to see this movie in a crowded pre-depression theater. Metropolis isn't great because it was the prototype science fiction epic (which it was), it isn't great because the filmmakers soared beyond their technological limitations (which they did), and it isn't great because Lang used the medium to try to warn the world of the coming dangers of fascism (which he did). Metropolis is great because it is a masterpiece. Full stop. It holds up against movies from every generation and deserves to be in the conversation for greatest movie of all time.

The Year in Movies: 1927

  1927

Number of Movies I've Seen: 3

Number of Movies from my original top 365:  1

Oscar Winner:
Wings -  I really intend on watching this, and I patiently await my notification that it has been added to the TCM app.

Box Office Winner:
The Jazz Singer - This is another I'm gonna have to skip. I know it's important (the first movie with synced audio and, arguably, the first movie musical), but I've seen enough blackface to realize the detriment that it did to culture for decades to come.

My Top Ten:
1. NEXT POST!

2. Sunrise - This is one of the most underseen, brilliant movies of all time. It's also a very good one to start with if you have never been able to "get into" silent movies or your experience ends with Chaplin and Keaton. The imdb description says it better than I can: An allegorical tale about a man fighting the good and evil within him. Both sides are made flesh - one a sophisticated woman he is attracted to and the other his wife.

3. College - Buster Keaton lite. Fun set pieces but pretty short on story.

Best of the Year: 2016 - La La Land

 

Soooo.... Damien Chazelle made a little movie called Whiplash. It was pretty cool, featured an Oscar-winning performance from J.K. Simmons and a gave a unique take on the journey to make art. It was so well received that studio execs gave then 29-year-old Chazelle the golden ticket of making whatever movie he liked. Somehow he crawled into my brain and decided to make the perfect movie for Will. From the time I saw the opening shot of the trailer (Emma Stone pondering her reflection in a bathroom mirror while the audio track beckons: "Here's to the ones who dreeeaaaammmm..."), I was hooked. My favorite movie genre is romance with a sprinkle of fantasy and this is the model film. 

My first viewing was at a late showing in an Atlanta shopping mall theater with only one other person in attendance. I had to fight back the urge to skip down the steps and dance with that stranger during the end credits. This movie is pure magic. I would go on to see it two more times in the theater and have listened to the soundtrack on a loop for the past four years. I know it has its detractors, but La La Land is a movie made for me and it is probably well in the conversation for my top ten of all time, let alone 2016.