The Best Movie I Saw "Last Week": Now, Voyager

Between a weekend trip and a serious case of Friends addiction, this has been a very light week and a half. Still, we managed to watch a few Best Actress Nominees and it is one of these films the one that has the honor of being film of the week. Now, Voyager (Irving Rapper, 1942) is a wonderful Bette Davis melodrama.

Davis plays Charlotte Vale, the black sheep in a very important family. She is meek and ugly and is therefore single and without prospects of marriage. Thanks to her sister-in-law she leaves her mother to go to a resting house and there she blooms. She begins to be social, to dress amazingly and to be generally not ugly. I find Bette Davis to be a beautiful woman but the make up and wardrobe people might not have been that sure because the really piled on her frumping her up. It's one of those makeovers where it is impossible not to improve. Really, when the movie begins, she looks like this:

I guess the transformation is all the more striking because of Davis' acting. She, the actress that had been Leslie Crosbie, the actress who would be Margo Channing, is completely believable as a woman suffocating under her mother and once Charlotte is out of her shell, she plays her with a warmth and empathy that never quite lets you forget how she began the story. What I really like about the script is how it manages to handle both the triumphs and the disappointments. I would say the film has an optimistic outlook but still, by the time Davis delivers the last line in the film ("We have the stars, let's don't ask for the moon") I was crying my eyes out.

In the technical aspects, it is a very elegant film in which the camera is as in love with Charlotte as we are. The costumes are amazing and the music is so beautiful. The score was nominated but not the costumes (I'm sure that this is only because the award did not exist yet) and it managed a Supporting Actress nod for Gladys Cooper (playing Charlotte's tyranical mother) apart from Davis' nomination.

Other films I wacthed this week:

The Member of the Wedding (Fred Zinnemann, 1952)

The Song of Bernadette (Henry King, 1943)

The Yearling (Clarence Brown, 1946)

The Two Faces of January (Hossein Amini, 2014)

Gentleman's Agreement (Elia Kazan, 1947)

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Francis Lawrence, 2013) [Rewatch]

Byzantium (Neil Jordan, 2013)

My week in movies

These are the movies I watched this past week. As you can see, it was Best Actress Nominee heavy.

Noah (Darren Aronofsky, 2014)

I am a huge Aronofsky fan, I would count Black Swan (2010) and The Fountain (2006) as two of my favorite movies ever. I really loved Noah but I did not find it as flawless as those other two films. The geeky parts, like the angels, are amazing and, in general, the actors are really good. The only things I disliked a bit were Ray Winstone's character and performance but it is a breathtaking movie that mixes art and spectacle very deftly. 4 and a half stars.

 Alice Adams (George Stevens, 1935)

My boyfriend David and I are trying to have seen every performance nominated for an Oscar in the lead actress category. He is well ahead of me but I have already seen over half of them. Katharine Hepburn was nominated for playing the title character in Alice Adams and she is really astounding, conveying hope, sadness and disappointment in the most beautiful ways possible. The film is a smart look at class complexes as she tries to pass her working family for an upper class one. The plot may sound like a silly comedy but it is actually a heartbreaking story. 4 and a half stars.

Hud (Martin Ritt, 1963)

Patricia Neal was not only nominated for Hud, she won the Oscar in 1963. Even though I think she should have gone supporting, it is undeniable that her performance is gold worthy. With her husky voice she perfectly shows how strong Alma is but how tired she is too. Her scenes with Newman, who is also excellent, are electric and when we last see her, getting on the bus, we know she'll keep fighting. It must have helped that the movie around her is as good as Hud is. It is so modern that in 1963 it had to be felt as a gamechanger. 5 stars.

Sugar & Spice (Francine McDougall, 2001)

This movie was not nominated for Best Actress but Marley Shelton would have been a worthier choice than the eventual winner of 2001, Halle Berry. This really short comedy is extremely funny not only because it is a very smart film but also because it is a very silly one. The moment where Shelton's Diane has to count how many guns they would need is already forever imprinted in my brain as is Melissa George's Cleo and her obsession with Conan O'Brien. 5 stars.

Baby Doll (Elia Kazan, 1956)

And finally, Carroll Baker's nomination for Baby Doll. The film is a Tennessee Williams adaptation (is there another writer who has lead so many actresses to Oscar nominations?) and it shows. It is steamy and sexy in that restricted and sweaty way that Williams does so well. Baker is really good too. She plays us as an audience as well as she plays the men in her life to do her bidding. If only she knew what she wanted, it might actually work for her. 4 stars.

And that's it! I'll try to be back on Sunday to post about my week on TV. See you!