comcast free movie: some like it hot
To become more film-literate, Curtis and I decided to start whittling away at the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest Movies.
Billy Wilder's 1959 hit "Some Like It Hot" is our most recently checked-off item. It's number 14 on the list, just behind "Sunset Boulevard" and "The Bridge on the River Kwai." It's also numero uno on AFI's list of funniest movies.
Set in 1929, I think it's famous for the minute-or-so-long car chase that marks its beginning. Perhaps the chase was the first of its kind. But don't quote me on that.
"Some Like It Hot" won one academy award for Best Costume Design for a black-and-white film, and was nominated for Best Actor, Best Art Director, Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Writing, and more in 1960. I actually enjoyed the writing the most. There are plenty of good one-liners, though they might be dated a little. Obviously.
Big confession: I don't think I've ever actually seen Marilyn Monroe in action outside all of the frozen movie-still posters that forever seal her sex goddess stature. This time, thee blonde bombshell of blonde bombshells plays "Sugar Kane Kowalczyk," a midwestern songstress trying to make it big, or at least find a big sugardaddy. Though she's no great dramatic talent (I wasn't expecting much), she is quite pretty, I found. I learned on Wikipedia that Wilder had to post her lines on chalkboards and posters all over the set so she would stop forgetting them and filming could be finished, already. I was also surprised by how truly realistic her curvaceous figure is/was. You don't see them like that anymore, but I wish you did.
Long story short sans spoiler: Two struggling musicians, Joe and Jerry, decide to pose as women and join a women's band on their way to Florida in order to escape Chicago after witnessing a gang bust. One falls in love with Sugar (who sings for the band: she's a real-life Betty Boop), the other is proposed to by a yacht-owning millionaire---all the while trying to escape the grasp of the Mafia and keep up their female front.
The rules of the gender game are all mixed up. Oddly enough, one of the other AFI 100 movies that's currently being offered free of cost by Comcast is number 62, "Tootsie." Maybe it'll be next.
5 comments:
What a great idea. I was telling Paul tonight that we should watch more old movies. I'm stealing this idea.
That is a fun idea. So would you recommend??
Ohhhh.. I like the plot, we'll have to watch it. Did you fall asleep in it at all?
Tootsie's a great movie... sheesh, by the time you are done watching that...sounds like you will be very used to the idea of men posing as women.
I'll have to add this to my movie list. All the news about Anna Nicole somehow makes a Marilyn Monroe flick all the more intriguing right now...
So I have never been enamored with the Marilyn but I just looked her up on Wikipedia. Her name is Norma Jeane- you don't any more country bumpkin than that and she had a crazy childhood. In truth the #1 female American icon of all time had a pretty sad existance.
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