A-Z movie project: B

Quick note about “B”: each of these movies was based on a novel. Just a wonderful coincidence I discovered as I did postmortem research. The movies are reviewed in the order I watched them.

Brideshead Revisited (2008)

I don’t hold the original version, a 1981 TV series, as sacred so the newer film with Emma Thompson as Lady Marchmain was very satisfying to me. The movie is a much condensed interpretation of Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel of forbidden love and the burdens of peerage. With Castle Howard and Oxford University as backdrops, I developed a strong homesickness for England. The non-action-driven plot and uncomplicated storyline made this movie easy to “watch” while in the final 27-hours push of final projects. Putting out requests for the TV series. 

Blade Runner: the director’s cut (1982)

I’ve seen this movie so many times, but as with this past time, I’ve only seen a little bit each time. Admittedly, I had Blade Runner on for background noise while working through the night. As always, Harrison Ford is pitch-perfect as a Deckard, Blade Runner, a cop that specializes in hunting replicants, human clones who serve Earth’s colonies.  In particular Deckard has a mission to kill four replicants who have stolen a ship and headed to Earth to find their maker. The cast, which includes Darryl Hannah, Edward James Olmos, Joanna Cassidy, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young, among others, is a trip to watch 30 years later. 2019 seemed so far away in 1982, but it must have seemed even further yet when Philip K. Dick wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,  the 1968 novel on which this movie is based. I am so grateful that we’re not (yet) cloning humans, but I do (still) want a flying car.

Big Sleep (1946)

Based on the Dashiell Hammett novel of the same name, the Big Sleep is a gritty mystery starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Becall, and it is a classic of both film and the mystery novel genre. Reviews of the movie refer to director Howard Hawks’ straightforward treatment of the novel and praised Bogart for bringing Philip Marlowe to life in the same way the Clark Gable enlivened Rhett Butler in the movie version of Gone with the Wind. Marlowe solves a series of mysteries, which Bogart delivers in a deadpan, nonchalant manner. Worth watching many times over.

Black Narcissus (1947)

I didn't like Black Narcissus quite as I had hoped, especially since it was based on a novel by Rumer Godden, which intrigued me. Plus, the Himalayan setting promised to be exotic. I think if I had watched the movie more closely instead of having it on to keep me company, I may have witnessed the subtleties. Deborah Kerr, who starred in An Affair to Remember, plays Sister Clodagha, the Sister Superior of a convent in the Himalayas. Here she faces challenges to the order and to her faith as she remembers an affair she conducted prior to taking up the religious life. Treatment of the “natives” struck me as racist though was probably in context for 1947. Roles played with intensity struck me as bordering on hysteria. Doubtful I will watch again.