The Apartment

Data
Title: The Apartment
Year: 1960
Length: 125 minutes
Director: Billy Wilder
Writers: Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond
Starring: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray
Music: Adolph Deutsch
Distinctions: Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay (original), Best Art Direction/Set Decoration (black-and-white), and Best Editing; currently #99 on IMDb’s Top 250

My reaction
Synopsis: a suck-up lets his married bosses use his apartment to entertain women
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), yesterday
Concept: Bad.
Story: Good.
Characters: Bad. Even an extremely charismatic cast could do nothing to make me sympathize with these people.
Dialog: Great.
Pacing: Bad. Much of the movie is amusing, but I was still pretty bored.
Cinematography: Good.
Special effects/design: Great.
Acting: Great.
Music: Good.
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay). Not a bad movie, but all the awards it got are baffling to me. Maybe it has more depth and craftsmanship than your typical romantic comedy of the time, but best picture? Inherit the Wind, Psycho and Spartacus weren’t even nominated.
Objective Rating: 7/10 (Pretty good).

Spartacus

Title: Spartacus
Year: 1960
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writer: Dalton Trumbo, based on the novel by Howard Fast
Starring: Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov
Music: Alex North
Distinctions: Oscars for best supporting actor (Ustinov), cinematography (color), art direction/set decoration (color) and costume design (color); currently #238 on IMDb’s Top 250
Synopsis: ancient Roman slave revolt
How I saw it: on video (rented from the library, I think), September 2008
Subjective Rating: 4/10
Objective Rating: 5/10 (gets points for characters, dialog, special effects/design, acting and music)

Boring. Trumbo’s adaptation is poorly crafted. There are a lot of potentially great ideas (like the “I am Spartacus” bit) ruined by clunky writing. The cinematography isn’t bad, but it’s bad for Kubrick. I don’t like the music for the most part, but the bit leading up to the battle wins me over.

Inherit the Wind

Title: Inherit the Wind
Year: 1960
Director: Stanley Kramer
Writers: Nedrick Young & Harold Jacob Smith, based on the play by Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. Lee
Starring: Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly, Dick York
Music: Ernest Gold
Distinctions: formerly on IMDb’s Top 250
Synopsis: a science teacher is put on trial for teaching evolution
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), May 2008; also in high school
Subjective Rating: 7/10
Objective Rating: 7/10 (points off for concept, cinematography and special effects/design)

Based-on-a-true-story courtroom drama around a touchy political issue sounds like a train wreck waiting to happen. Somehow, the train wreck never happens. They manage to keep things charged without ever being offensive, PC or preachy. Presumably this means the characters are real enough that they never come across as the writers’ mouthpiece. The characters didn’t strike me as interesting while watching it, but I’m sure they must be to blame for the movie working. The quality of the acting is mixed, but Tracy is good, and he’s the one that matters. The music in the opening credits is fantastic. I certainly did not appreciate this movie when we watched it in 9th grade.

The Sweet Life

Title: La Dolce vita
Year: 1960
Director: Federico Fellini
Writers: Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano & Tullio Pinelli, with Brunello Rondi
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimée, Yvonne Furneaux
Music: Nino Rota
Distinctions: Oscar for best costume design (black-and-white); currently #239 on IMDb’s Top 250
Synopsis: jackass + 3 hours = movie!
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), May 2008
Subjective Rating: 3/10
Objective Rating: 4/10 (gets points for cinematography, special effects/design, acting and music)

The sort of movie that gets heavily analyzed because the audience has Nothing Else To Do for 3 hours. No story. No dramatic tension of any kind. The characters are well developed, but I don’t have any reason to give a crap about any of them; they’re not remotely sympathetic, and they’re not doing anything. Given my (modern-day, American) taste, I think I’ve been remarkably tollerant of Fellini so far, but this one takes the self-indulgence way too far.