10 Film Collection // Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers {Movie}

I had at least two, maybe three pages written out for all of this... and then hit Ctrl+Z, which apparently on Blogger means "delete everything and don't let me retrieve it."

Yeah, I write everything in Google Drive first, now.

Flying Down to Rio 
The first appearance of Fred and Ginger together... as supporting actors! They're friends with the leading man and lady, and have their own little romance in the background. Flying Down to Rio features a ton of elaborate group numbers, and not too much plot: band-leader guy and hot rich girl fall for each other, girl has to go back home to a quasi-arranged marriage, they all work together to save the hotel, and everything works out in the end.

I hate to spoil a decades-old movie, but the quasi-arranged fiancé is my favorite part of this story, for being a total bro. 

Also notable: a crazy elaborate dance number that involves strapping dancing girls to airplanes.

Gay Divorce 
It’s… not what you’re thinking; it’s not even a pun. This was way back when “gay” actually just meant happy. Guy (Astaire) falls in love with Mimi (Rogers), who is having none of it. Mimi is conveniently trying to get a divorce, and her lawyer -- also Guy’s good friend -- tells her to fake an affair with a paid co-respondent. She mistakes Guy for the co-respondent, and shenanigans ensue.

Don’t ask me what exactly a co-respondent is, but the character is pretty hilarious.

This is one of those movies that hinges on mistaken identities and people not using their words. It’s also one of those movies where Fred is super crazy stalkerish. Dude does not take no for an answer; we’re talking car chase stalker. I think they intended it to be goofy and romantic, but it’s actually pretty terrifying.

Roberta 
Haven’t gotten to this one yet!

Top Hat 
Another series of mistaken identities: guy falls for girl, girl mistakes guy for his married friend, guy stalks girl all over the place until they finally figure it out.

Also featuring the co-respondent from Gay Divorce, this time as a fashion designer.

Follow the Fleet 
Haven’t gotten to this one yet!

Swing Time 
Haven’t gotten to this one yet!

Shall We Dance 
Haven’t gotten to this one yet!

Carefree 
This was both cute and crazypants. Fred’s a (hilariously outdated) psychiatrist who, as a favor to a friend, treats his friend’s fiancée for… being wishy-washy about their engagement? Like, that’s a thing they could do back then?

Anyway, hypnotism happens, she falls in love with him, he sets her back on the fiancé with hypnotism -- but, oh no! He’s fallen in love with her. Clearly it’s time for more hypnotism.

Vernon and Irene Castle 

The actual Vernon and Irene

This was surprisingly good. It’s the movie that made me pick up this collection, since the Castles were some of the earliest promoters of ballroom dancing. As far as I could tell (with my vast Wikipedia powers) it’s fairly factual, and it doesn’t pull any punches.

It also has a much more complicated plot than any of the other movies, following the Castles from first meeting, through their dance career and Vernon’s military service, to the end of their marriage.



The Barkelys of Broadway 
The last of Fred and Ginger’s movies, reuniting them after ten years apart. It’s also a lot less ditzy than their earlier movies. It follows a husband and wife musical comedy duo who are trying to break out of comedy and into more serious dancing/entertainment. With their marriage on the rocks, Dinah (Ginger) tries her hand at acting, while Josh (Astaire) secretly helps her out.

Blade Runner // Ridley Scott {Movie}

Why I'm reading
It’s a scifi classic! I actually borrowed it a little while ago and never got around to watching it, until it was mentioned in Ready Player One.

Where I got the movie
Greenwich Library.

Expectations
Action-adventure, with a dose of existential confusion over what it means to be human. The movie is old enough that I’ve acquired a vague idea of the ending scene, albeit with zero context. Other than that, any expectations have been obscured by my long-standing confusion between this and Blade. Like, Wesley Snipes hunting vampires Blade. ……… ಠ_ಠ

So how was it?

The plot itself is fairly skeletal: Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a blade runner, responsible for hunting down and “retiring” Replicants -- lab-grown (or built?) creatures that are nearly indistinguishable from humans, used as slave labor off-world and banned on Earth itself. A small group of Replicants makes it back to Earth, and Rick agrees to take the assignment.

The movie was very loosely based on Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, so I’ll probably pick that up sometime soon. It also clearly influenced Fifth Element and the later scenes of Cloud Atlas, just off the top of my head.

Recommendation
Sci-fi fans (of course). Fans of film noir might get a kick out of it, too.

Feels
Our media center gave this movie genres like existentialism and neo-noir... More accurate words could not have been chosen. It has themes of mortality, identity, and what it means to be human… but it never gets preachy or concrete on anything. The filmography and special effects were characters in their own right, with sweeping sci-fi matte painting backgrounds, elaborate noir lighting, and grungy dieselpunk Chinese street scenes.

Favorites
The movie has lots of little details that it doesn’t feel the need to shove down your throat, adding a lot of depth to the characters. Of course, the downside of that is a lot of random shit that doesn’t make sense -- like, say, the unicorn hallucination.

I also like the ending. We know what happened (this isn’t Inception) … but… was it a victory? or a tragedy?

Least favorites
Ummm how about the date rape scene? I'll go with the date rape scene. I can’t call it anything else. I don’t know if it was supposed to be romantic or what, but when you kiss someone and they run for the door, and you follow them, grab their wrist to physically prevent them from leaving, push them up against a wall, and demand that they say ‘kiss me’, and ‘I want you’ multiple times… that’s not romantic. That’s pretty much a script for date rape. Literally the only thing that keeps this from ruining the movie for me is that I’m not sure if they even meant for it to be romantic.

Aside from that, I really wish we got some glimpse into Pris (Daryl Hannah). Her character was just as interesting as the two other (male) Replicants, but we got zero insight into what made her tick. Leon got about the same amount of screen time, but had several lines that made you think about his motivations and see him in an almost-human light. She just seemed arbitrarily evil and manic.

Cinematography
...was gorgeous. Old school matte paintings and real physical models, and filmed with this great noir feeling. With that said, it got a little clunky ; very often the camera (and the action) just ground to a halt so we could appreciate the scene’s setup, lighting, costuming, etc. Not that I don’t appreciate those scenes -- they were beautiful -- but it felt a little forced.

So what did I really think?

Click "read more"... massive spoilers ahead!