Alphabetical Movie Marathon - A

So, I started the movie marathon to watch every movie in my collection in alphabetical order and see what commonalities I might discover about my choices and basically fill some really boring days. Let's begin with . . .

About A Boy - lovely movie with Toni Collette and Hugh Grant. There's something about this movie that I really like, despite it being so different plot-wise from the book. I'm sure it has something to do with the stars and the very calm, British way of . . . I don't know. . . just being. I really relate to the young boy, Marcus, who is basically watching his mother lose her shit. While I never really had the worry that M would go crazy, it would have been nice if there was another being around who actually cared what happened to me and wouldn't always be busy with something or someone else. I especially relate when he says "Some people have an easy time in life. I was beginning to realize, I wasn't one of those people." But also, Hugh Grant's line "I'll tell you one thing; men are bastards" is always good for a laugh. The basic tenant of the film is about not being alone. People need backup. I agree. Suicide, depression, father figure, backup, help, admittance, search for connection.

All About Eve - classic with a badass woman in the lead. And I mean Betty Davis, of course. She's fantastic in this. Wry, witty, sarcastic, knowing. Anne Baxter's Eve is a menace but you have to respect her for her ability to manipulate the situation into her favor and go after what she wants. "Eve would ask Abbot to give her Costello." To have two such strong women in a film from 1950 is really cool. Where are those women's parts in films now? Despite the pages of exposition, it has a way of not making this a treatise on woman-kind, just a story about these particular women. Jealousy, envy, strength, aging, youth.

All That Jazz - great film about Bob Fosse's physical and emotional breakdown and the character's death, although Fosse did not actually die after this incident. What's interesting is how much of a womanizer he is but how important the three particular women in the story are to him. Even death is personified as a woman. You also see how much he loved choreographing for women and the female form. Not hard to figure out where Michael Jackson got so many of his great moves. The dancing is as contemporary and lively today as it was in 1979 showing that true talent and class never gets dated. An interesting connection to All About Eve, though. Both concern an older woman playing a younger part in a production. And in both, the character being playing by the older woman is 24 years old. A lack of good mature women's parts in film and stage is not exactly a new thing I guess. Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance - the five stages of death, grieving and pretty much any emotional event in life makes a very interesting story through. Death, talent, dance, love, regret.

Amadeus - Ah jealousy. Mediocrity. "I speak for the mediocrities in the world. I am their champion. I am their patron saint." A constant feeling of not being good enough - can definitely relate to that. "Why implant the desire, like a lust in my body, and then deny me the talent?" Why does God do that to people? Is it just that they don't have a realistic idea about how their life is going to turn out? And of course, getting to listen to Mozart's music for three hours. Such an amazingly made film. I tend to really like films in which you get to see where the art came from. What in the artist's life inspired them to produce that particular piece at that particular time. Jealousy, Mediocrity, Revenge, God, Talent.