Butterfly

aka La Lengua de las Mariposas (Butterfly's Tongue)
Jose Luis Cuerda, 1999, Spain (8.5*)
A very warm coming-of-age film, in which a young Spanish boy, naturally played by Manuel Lozano, in a small rural village in Northern Spain is tutored in more than school by his teacher, veteran actor Fernando Fernán Gómez. A naturalist, and a leftist, he teaches the boy about the beauty of nature (and freedom), and together they spend spare time in the wild, looking at plants and catching butterflies.

Meanwhile, the Spanish society is being torn apart by politicians (so remote that only the radio brings the trouble home), as fascists are determined to make the new republic fail. This film deftly shows how the innocence of childhood, the beginning of romance, and the wonder and awe about life can be twisted by the times one lives in and the bigotry of adults, even before the advent of the next world war.

The acting is so natural that you soon forget that you are watching a movie; it seems as if the director used all local amateurs and simply put their lives on film. Gómez will win your respect and admiration, and young Lozano your heart. One of the best Spanish films I've seen, and one of the best about the positive influence of education.

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An Education

Lone Scherfig, 2009 (9.0*)

Sundance Audience Award
Carey Mulligan gives a star-making and Oscar®-nominated performance in this brilliant coming-of-age British romance from Danish director Lone Scherfig. She plays Jenny, a 16-yr old, middle-class honor student, at a prep school for Oxford in 1961 who begins a romance when a thirty-ish man, Peter Sarsgaard (as David), gives her a ride home from school in the rain to 'protect her cello'.

What follows is a very gentle, slowly-paced romance during which David is able to charm his way into her life and show her how 'the other half' lives, attending art auctions, expensive dinners, and real estate sales.

Her best teacher, superbly played as usual by unheralded Olivia Williams, (star of many BBC classics, and the hilarious comedy In The Loop) and her principal, in this case former Oscar®-winner Emma Thompson, are both convinced she is throwing her education and her future away. Meanwhile, her parents, with Alfred Molina terrific as her dad, showing a previously unseen vulnerable (yet still humorous) side, are a little more accepting while becoming friends with David themselves.

For me, this is art at its finest - we see the gradual character growth in Mulligan's face, and don't need dialogue or events to hammer home the point that she is transforming from girl to woman in a few weeks. Lone Scherfig has done a typically understated and brilliant piece of Danish film directing (fellow director Susanne Bier is one of the world's best) that shows romance in a romantic, non-prurient and positive setting, letting the story and character development evolve seemingly on their own. This is all too rare in the last half century.

As proof, An Education was nominated for the best picture Oscar®, as well as screenplay (Nick Hornby brilliantly adapted his own novel), and best actress for Carey Mulligan. She won the BAFTA, the only award it won there out of 8 nominations (including film and British film), and 11 other best actress awards worldwide, many from critics. Overall, it won 15 awards out of 63 nominations, including the Sundance Audience Award.

Director Lone Scherig has 25 wins overall out of 39 nominations, most for Italian For Beginners (2000). Not bad for any director, and she's a Danish woman! I keep telling you, they're way ahead of us..

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The Paper Chase

James Bridges, 1973 (8.2*)
From the novel by John Jay Osborn, Jr., this is a realistic look at the competitive and stressful nature of the first year of law school for a group of freshmen at Harvard. Led by Timothy Bottoms, he and his friends learn they must survive Prof. Kingsfield, an autocratic and tyrannical professor of contract law, who bases his evaluations on the daily browbeating of students using the 'Socratic method'.

While wondering if he's in the right career, Bottoms meets and gets a crush on Lindsay Wagner, without knowing her true identity, which I won't spoil here. The stress of academic life is relieved occasionally with this romance, which some may find unnecessarily distracting, and some light humor, yet the overall tone of the film maintains the stressful nature of law school. Students get summer jobs as apprentices at law firms which could hire them after graduation, so the pressure is on from year one.

Former producer John Houseman (Julius Caesar) is the perfect overbearing yet respectable professor (the epitome of aristocratic haughtiness), earning an Oscar® for this former producer who's rarely seen in front of the camera (Three Days of the Condor), and who certainly steals this movie. Houseman repeated his role for a successful cable tv series based on this film that ran for four years, but it lacked the bite of the original film. The first film directed by James Bridges, who would follow this with The China Syndrome and Urban Cowboy.

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Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Sam Wood, 1939, bw (8.6*)
Based on the novel by James Hilton (Lost Horizon), this is perhaps the quintessential Hollywood film about a teacher, in this case a Mr. Chipping, wonderfully played by Robert Donat in a career defining role, an uptight professor at a private boys school. Over time, he opens up and gains the affection of literally thousands of students in a heartwarming story of transformation. On a vacation (and around age 50), he meets the enchanting Greer Garson (half his age, in the supporting role that made her a star) hiding out from a storm, and she changes his life, as well as giving him his nickname, Mr. Chips.

Perhaps the one flaw in the film is that we get a lot of detail in the beginning and end of his teaching career, but the central portion that forms the core of his adult life is shown as a montage of calendars and images of time passing in just a minute or so. I felt cheated of the stories that would have made the students revere and honor him. We're visually led to believe that simply time moving by is responsible.

Mr. Chips was nominated for 7 Oscars®, including picture, director, screenplay, actress, actor - and many today feel that it was a better picture than winner Gone With the Wind. Robert Donat did receive a well-deserved best actor award, upsetting the more popular Clark Gable. Don't bother with the musical remake starring Peter O'Toole; it's one of those that lends argument to prohibiting remakes at all.

I suppose were I to rank the top films of 1939: (1) Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (2) Goodbye, Mr. Chips (3) The Rains Came (4) The Wizard of Oz (5) The Women
The Rains Came actually won the special effects Oscar® over favorites Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind, for it's incredible depiction of an earthquake, dam collapse, and flood in India in 1916 - it's an underrated and under-viewed classic, featuring perhaps Myrna Loy's finest dramatic performance.

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The Chorus

Christophe Barratier, France, 2004 (8.8*)
One of the few really good films about teachers, a worthy successor to 1939's classic school drama Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Clément Mathieu, a new teacher, played by Gérard Jugnot, volunteers for a remote music teaching post. He thinks it's maybe a small private school, but it turns out to be a near prison for juvenile delinquents, and he's basically a warden as well as a teacher.

This story is about how he gains the affection of his students, as well as shaping their dormant musical talents. This simple story never overreaches nor preaches, but remains perfectly within itself. This heartwarming film was nominated for two Oscars, foreign language film and music, and won 11 international awards (Awards Page at IMDB), 3 for music, 7 for director Barratier. On a short list with Mr. Chips and The Paper Chase (James Bridges, 1973) as great films about influential teachers.

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Together

aka He Ni Zai Yi Qi
Chen Kaige, 2002, China (9.5*)
Perhaps the greatest father-son story yet captured on film. Chen Kaige abandons his customary huge-scale epic costume drama to make a small intimate film about the intensely personal affection of a father and son. A poor worker from a small Chinese city (touchingly played by Peigi Liu) has a talented musician son who wins all the local violin competitions. He decides to take his son to Beijing to find a world-class music professor for his son at his own expense in order to elevate him to the level of professional international musicians.

This is a very engrossing and touching film with just five characters: the son, his father, two different music teachers, and a pretty young woman who befriends the teenage boy, in effect becoming a surrogate mother, and pays him to play privately for her. For me, this is Kaige's most successful story, and also his most innovative direction, which seems to have a very European cinematic style. A must for fans of classical music, especially violin music. Director Chen himself plays the more noted professor.

Note: Kaige is best known for large-scale costume epics such as Farewell, My Concubine and The Emperor and the Assassin

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The 400 Blows

François Truffaut, 1959, France, bw (9.0*)
Excellent first film of François Truffaut that deservedly put him on the map, where he caused quite a stir at Cannes, winning best director. The film was shot in a documentary style about a troubled youth, Antoine, played very naturally and realistically by Jean-Pierre Léaud at only age thirteen; the film succeeds because of his performance, and much of that was improvised by Trauffaut, a former film critic making his debut film at age 25. This is a realistic story about being an alienated teenager in a big city, and it still rings true today, five decades later.

The story is actually partially autobiographical, and Antoine and his best friend Rene would cut school to go to the cinema, just as Trauffaut himself did, then would get in trouble with the school authorities, who would of course notify the parents. Antoine senses that his parents don’t really want him around, so he spends as much time running away as he does in their cramped apartment. This film has some of the more memorable scenes in movies: kids spinning around in a roundabout amusement ride, shot from their vantage point and that of the spectators watching them from above, glued by centrifugal force to the ride's walls; another of kids faces while watching a puppet show, some with open-mouth astonishment, the same looks you’d see from a cinema audience as well, especially in a children’s film. Perhaps my favorite: Antoine's face staring out from the back of a police bus, at the city lights of Paris rolling by.

I just watched this for the third time, and it actually gets better each time, as I notice new things on each viewing. This is a bona fide cinema masterpiece (ranked #60 on our survey, the 5th French film, just after his own Jules and Jim), with terrific camerawork, a very natural style, with a total lack of pretension or self-awareness. Winner of several international awards, with one Oscar nomination for screenplay. The awards page at IMDB

[Note: don't be deterred by the title, he's not a victim of abuse, he only gets slapped a couple of times, once by the police. Be sure to watch the interviews on the Criterion dvd if possible. Most will recognize Truffaut as the actor playing the scientist in Close Encounters who invented the musical method of communication with the aliens.]

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Election

Alexander Payne, 1999 (9.0*)
This was the surprise comedic hit for me in 1999. Reese Witherspoon hit her stride as an agressive high schooler who will do just about anything to get elected class president. She's ambitious and knows how to use her femininity to get what she wants. Matthew Broderick is well-cast as a jealous young teacher who puts up a dim-witted opponent but a popular athlete (Chris Klein) against her. Rather than just another sophmoric high school film however, director Alexander Payne (Sideways) gives this film enough bite to make a dark statement about American politics at the same time that he also makes incisive points about the state of relationships and sexuality. One of the best and most overlooked films of that year.

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Born Yesterday

George Cukor, 1950, bw (8.1*)
You’d have to look hard to find a comedic performance as funny as Judy Holliday in this film, which won her a well-deserved Oscar®. She has a perfect delivery, just the right lilt in her voice to show bored disdain. Wealthy junkman Broderick Crawford is in DC to “get the government he paid for”, renting in an expensive suite with girlfriend Holliday, his lawyer and a bodyguard-gofer. He thinks his slightly daffy escort could use an upgrade in manners and education for the DC elite, and hires William Holden, a local freelance writer hanging around for an interview, to tutor Holliday in proper conversational English, with hilarious results. Of course, with time together the pair develop a chemistry and develop some plot twists you won’t see coming. Holliday’s is one of the great performances in comedy history, one of the few to win an Oscar®.

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The Absent-Minded Professor

Robert Stevenson, 1961, bw (7.3*)
One of the better live-action Disney films, with very good special effects for the time, this is actually a science fiction story disguised as a fantasy. Fred McMurray, a forgetful Professor Brainard, invents a gravity repellent rubber substance, which he calls “flubber” for flying rubber. He first bounces around on his shoes, jumping about 20 feet high, then realized it can power his car and he gets the old Model T flying - here’s your lasting image of the film and the dvd cover. Finally he applies it practically to the basketball team; suddenly the government takes notice. Fun for kids and adults as everyone wants to fly.

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Ferris Bueller's Day Off

John Hughes, 1986 (7.6*)
This sophmoric high school comedy was a Hughes' (16 Candles, Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink) specialty in the 80's, and this was the most successful of the batch, and still the most watchable years later. Matthew Broderick plays high schooler Bueller who fakes feeling ill in order to skip a day of school, but what starts a just another slacker day eventually turns into a local cause as nearly the entire town seems to get involved eventually. Jeffrey Jones (Amadeus, Beetlejuice) has a hissable part as the fascist school principal who becomes obsessed with busting Bueller; Jennifer Grey, in her original recognizable face, is the angel/devil sister that you both love and hate; Mia Sara is the eye candy; Cindy Pickett is the gullible mom. Don't look for much intelligence, just an entertaining ride down juvenile boulevard.

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Searching for Bobby Fisher

Steve Zallian, 1993 (8.5*)
Engrossing story of a kid, Josh Waitzkin, played by Max Pomeranc, who loves to play chess, and who is enthralled by playing speed chess in a local park, where his talent is spotted and he is befriended by Larry Fishburne, who tutors him and provides comraderie. His father, in another excellent performance by Joseph Mantegna, wants to help his son achieve his goals, and hires conservative chess master F. Murray Abraham to take his son to the next level, serious tournament competition. The film's title alludes to U.S. chess sensation (and eccentric) Bobby Fisher, who broke the Russian's hold on the world chess championship in the late 60's (and then became a recluse), but has yet to see a successor emerge from the U.S. This is an excellent story about learning about something you love and showing determination toward your goals, even if you're only 7 years old. Based on a book by Josh's father Fred Waitzkin.

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The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby

Jim Goddard, 1982, 8 hrs. (8.8*)
Brilliantly conceived and executed, this filming of the eight-hour stage production by the Royal Shakespeare Company covers four DVD's, and remains one of the greatest theatrical productions in history, accurately adapting a Charles Dickens novel for perhaps the first time in the history of dramatic arts. Only 39 actors portray over 250 roles in this massive production, which gave theatre-goers two ways to see the play: over four weekday nights, two hours per night, or in an all-day Saturday performance with a one hour lunch break! Roger Rees has the title role in a star-making breakthrough - I can't imagine the hundreds of pages of dialogue he had to memorize in order to give this performance in a day. All the actors are superb, and director Jim Goddard involves the audience by having some characters appear from within the audience, and some actors leave the stage to run or walk through the audience.

This is the British stage at its best. Forget all the other versions of Nickleby, if you only see one Dickens novel adapted in your lifetime, this is the one!

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Not One Less

Dir: Zhang Yimou, China, 2000 (7.8*)

This is one of the slower Yimou films, but still worth seeing, as are they all. The story involves a 13-yr old girl who must substitute in a rural mountain school when the teacher has to go on personal leave for one month. He offers her an extra 50 yuan if there is "not one less student" when he returns (due to kids dropping out), so it becomes the girls guiding principle in running the school, full of students not much younger than her. When one student goes to a nearby city to work to pay his family's debt, the girl, brilliantly portrayed by Wei Minzhi, is determined to bring him back. This is a more touching story for the fact that Yimou used not professional actors but actual real life people to portray their own "fictional" roles in the movie; that is, the head of a tv station was played by a real tv station manager, the teacher was a real elementary school teacher. The performances he elicits from children and the message of this almost propogandist statement make this film a must-see.

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Peggy Sue Got Married

Dir: Francis Ford Coppola, 1986 (8.5*)

One of Coppola’s best, an underrated comedic fantasy. Kathleen Turner (Oscar nominated) has the title part, about an unhappily married woman, whose husband Nicholas Cage, her high school sweetheart, has turned out to be a less-than-stellar mate. At their 20-yr h.s. reunion, she falls and hits her head and apparently time travels back to high school, where she can make her important decisions again, like going out with that weird poet biker dude. Of course, all her friends now think she’s mental, as does Cage, because she has her memory of being "all grown up", so she’s pretty sarcastic and world-weary for a teenage girl. Cage is pretty funny in his part as well, kind of perpetually adolescent, and definitely goofy. It’s been compared to Capra for its homey virtures and simplicity. You’ll see Helen Hunt, Joan Allen, and Jim Carrey in small parts.

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The King and I

Dir: Walter Lang, 1956 (8.1*)
Yul Brynner was born to play this part, and got his only Oscar. Deborah Kerr as schoolteacher Anna Leonowens would have been perfect except she couldn’t sing, so they dubbed Marni Nixon over her (she also did My Fair Lady and West Side Story). Otherwise this musical based on a true story of a British teacher hired to educate the offspring of the King of Siam – hence the remake with Jody Foster and Chow Yun-Fat called Anna and the King. One of the better "stagey" musicals (all shot on a sound stage), because of the performances and Rodgers & Hammerstein songs like "The Flower Drum Song" and "Getting to Know You". The King’s arrogant front is slowly worn down by Kerr’s gentility and common humanity, not a bad story. 9 Oscar noms, 5 Oscars
Quote: Is a puzzlement! (Brynner)

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Animal House

a.k.a. National Lampoon’s Animal House
Dir: John Landis, 1978 (8.1*)

This film had its moments, but was really pretty inconsistent overall. Noted for John Belushi’s extravagence ("food fight!") as Bluto, but the story really centers on freshman pledges Tom Hulce ("Pinto", which, in the screenplay, came b/c he had a speckled 'willie'!) and roomie Ken Dorfman (Stephen Furst) joining Belushi’s low-rent fraternity of animals (run by Tim Matheson), who are in so much trouble that Dean Wormer says of them "they’re on double-secret probation", and about to be booted from campus if there are any more infractions found, ie, underaged drinking or girls sleeping over. Look for Donald Sutherland as a professor who has an eye for Peter Riegert’s girlfriend Karen Allen, and a rival right-wing military fraternity specializing in sado-masochistic fun and games, as in spanking pledges, who respond with "please sir, can I have another?"
Quote: Can we dance with yo dates?

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Clueless

Amy Heckerling, 1995 (8.7*)
Heckerling’s retelling of Austen’s Emma is updated to a Beverly Hills high school, and works due to a terrific debut performance from 16-yr old Alicia Silverstone ("As if!"). The story involves a makeover of a new nerdy transfer student ("Project!"), played by the late Brittany Murphy in her film debut, and Alicia’s own interest in a suave new boy who thinks he’s a Tony Curtis clone (hint hint..) Stacy Dash (as Dionne) is her best gf, who "gets snaps for fashion bravery".

Dan Hedaya steals his scenes as her overprotective father, telling her date: "Look kid, I’ve got a .44 and a shovel and I doubt anyone would report you missing." Terrific stuff, great dialogue, a star is born; what were you doing at 16? There's some hilarious stuff here, most from a girl's perspective, and you don't see that every day in movies. Perhaps the best of all the high school comedies.

Quote: Hey kid, just because Sammy Davis, Jr. died doesn’t mean there’s an opening in the rat pack.

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A Christmas Story

Dir: Bob Clark, 1983 (8.8*)

This touching and nostalgic story is as much about growing up in middle America as it is about a kid's Christmas, beautifully adapted from Jean Shepherd's book of humorous stories "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash". An adult Shepherd (as Ralph "grown up" and looking back) narrates the tale and co-wrote the screenplay. The film actually merges several stories, but is primarily concerned with Ralphie's (played by Peter Billingsley, where did he go?) desperation to get the "Red Ryder range model 100-shot carbine action air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time", and everyone he mentions that to says "You'll shoot your eye out, kid!"

Melinda Dillon and Darren McGavin are perfect as his jaded and lifeworn parents ("mom hadn't had a hot meal in eight years"), the entire cast is perfect, and the film is now a bona-fide Christmas classic. PBS filmed two others of his: "The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Coznowski" and "Ollie Hoopnoodle's Haven of Bliss". This should inspire everyone to read Shepherd's award-winning stories, they're terrific, the best of their type and better even than this adaptation.
Some Shepherd characters: Grover Dill, Scut Farkas, Leopold Doppler, Delbert Bumpass, Ludlow Kissel, Flick and Schwartz

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Brideshead Revisited

Michael Lindsay-Hogg, 1982, 10 hrs (9.3*)
Charles Ryder (Jeremy Irons), a painter, meets Sebastian Flyte (Harry Andrews) at college, and they become best friends, Irons eventually becoming a regular guest at the Brideshead Revisited estate where Andrews grew up; there we meet the rest of the family, and complex romance ensues. From the Evelyn Waugh novel, this is how books should be filmed: in several hours (the reading time?), leaving nothing out. The locations are lush and authentic, the story a bit slow for some, but lyrical and elegant overall.

This major PBS miniseries made Jeremy Irons a star, and won an Emmy for Laurence Olivier with Claire Bloom, Harry Andrews and Irons all also nominated (1 win but 11 nominations overall).Winner of 11 awards, 28 nominations overall, seven BAFTAs, a much more accurate assessment of this film's merit than the Emmys.

A rare treat for those who love literary romanticism. If you like epic romances from novels, be sure to watch the BBC Masterpiece Theater production of A Town Like Alice, set in WW2 and the Australian outback.

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