When It comes to placing content on this blog I continually am reminded of the Peanuts comic strip. Lucy would hold the football for Charlie Brown to kick it and then pull it away from him at the last second . He would fly through the air and land on his back. Lucy always seems to be able to convince Charlie Brown that this time it will be different and each time it ends exactly the same.
In my blog I have these ideas for recurring posts and quite often I start them but then never get to finishing them. One of these actually predates my blogs and that is the idea of watching 12 movies I have not seen before in a year. Of course I complicate this simple plan by stating that the films must be from different eras. Each year by April or May I have forgotten which new movies I've seen and I don't meet my goal. I thought blogging about them might help me keep track, but it only ends up documenting my failure . In some ways I am both like Lucy luring me to try again each year and like Charlie Brown convincing myself that this time I'll be different falling flat on my back when the football is metaphorically pulled from my path.
My wife likes to say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting different results. But that same wife once co wrote a song with me entitled I'm insane, you're insane, who's gonna win. So since I already am (I won) sanity challenged, trying again this year isn't that bad of an idea. Maybe this time I'll at least make it to AAUGHust.
As I said I try to split the films up so they are not all from the same era. I try to choose 4 films that are older than me and 8 that have come out in my life time
This year I plan to see 2 new to me films from each of these 6 eras
I. 2009 to 2023
II. 1994 to 2008
III. 1979 to 1993
IV. 1964 to 1978
V. 1949 to 1963
VI. before and including 1934 to 1948
I have already watched 2 new movies this year.
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I would give this movie a rating between 2 1/2 and 3 stars out of 5. The film takes place in the early years of 20th century Chicago featuring Judy Garland and Van Johnson as two music music store workers who are also engaging in a mail correspondence not realizing that they know each other in what will be called " IRL" more than a century later. This musical is based on the 1936 Hungarian play Parfumerie by Miklos Laszlo which has spawned 2 other movies and one Broadway musical. One theme from the film is that circumstances can effect the way we view the world especially how we evaluate people. I really enjoyed the performances by Buster Keaton (Sherlock Holmes, Jr.) , and S.Z. Sakall (Casablanca) as the shopkeepers nephew and the shopkeeper, respectively. Their presence helps bring out much of the films comedic elements. One aspect of the film I did not enjoy was that many of the musical numbers, although entertaining on their own merit, did not really go with the story that was being told. This led to kind of an uneven feel to the film, which led to my mediocre rating. I would definitely recommend this film to fans of Garland and to those who like to watch different adaptations of the same source material.
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