Taxi Driver (1976)

About two years back, when I was going through the AFI list for 100 movies, I watched De Nero’s Taxi Driver and fell in love with it. As I checked out its trivia on IMDB, I came across the “theory” behind the movie. When Paul Schrader, the writer, was first writing the script, he believed that he was just writing about "loneliness," but as the process went on he realized he was writing about "the pathology of loneliness." His theory being that, for some reason, some "young men" (such as Schrader himself) subconsciously push others away to maintain their isolation, even though the main source of their torment is this very isolation. For reason, the theory stuck.

Taxi Driver (1976) is the story of Travis Bickle (De Nero), an ex-Marine and Vietnam War veteran living in New York City. Suffering from insomnia, he spent his time working as a cab-driver at night, and watching seedy porn and thinking about how the world had deteriorated into a cesspool by day. He was a loner and had strong opinions about what’s right and wrong with mankind. Spying on Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a worker on the presidential nomination campaign of Senator Charles Palatine, became the highlight of his day, until he asked her out and took her to watch to a sex education film. Not surprisingly, she broke it off with him. After that, Travis slipped more into his delusional world, becoming obsessed with guns and believing he has to do whatever he can to make the world a better place. A chance encounter with a 12-year old child prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster), trying to escape from her pimp Matthew (Harvey Keital) and his inability to act forced him further into his schizophrenia. Then, he became obsessed with saving her.

The climax of the movie is considered to be one of the bloodiest and most terrifying of all times. The movie was nominated for 4 Oscars, including Best Picture but lost to Stallone’s, Rocky. Merely a year after winning an Oscar, for the Best Supporting Actor, for the Godfather – Part II in 1975, De Nero received a nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role but lost to Peter Finch for the Network, the first person to receive a posthumous Oscar.

The Art of Being a Woman: Hollywood style

Understanding a woman is hard; ask any man. Being a one is harder; ask any Woman. But there is no question that being a woman has a lot of perks. As Gilda Radner put it, “I’d rather be a woman than a man. Women can cry, they can wear cute clothes and they are first to be rescued off the sinking ships.” As we come to the International Women’s’ Day, a day specially reserved for celebrating the womanhood, and joys of being a woman, it can be observed that quite a few of Hollywood’s leading gentlemen echo Radner’s thoughts. Here is looking at those men, who kept aside their “machoism” and embraced their feminine sides.

Shawn and Marlon Wayans in White Chicks

White Chicks: Two bumbling FBI agents – men, black – infiltrate a high society fashion scene to bust a kidnapping racket as “White Chicks”.
Best Line: “It not ‘just’ a hand bag, it’s Prada.”





John Travolta in Hairspray




Hairspray: Although the movie has nothing to do with it, it still is rather funny to watch John Travolta, in a fat suit, as a regular woman Edna Turnblad, mother to a pleasantly plump daughter Tracy. The movie is about racial integration in 1962 television and accepting yourself the way you are. Way to go, John!





Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire


Mrs. Doubtfire: After a bitter divorce and failed custody battle, Robin Williams disguises himself as a female housekeeper to secretly spend time with his children.
Best Line: “My first day as a woman, and I’m getting hot flashes!”

Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon

with Marilyn Monroe in

Some Like It Hot

Some Like It Hot: Joe and Jerry are two musicians who, after witnessing a mob hit, flee the state in an all female band disguised as women. Here Joe aka Josephine falls in love with Sugar while a millionaire Osgood falls head-over-heels for Daphne aka Jerry.
Best Line: “What are you afraid of? No-one's asking you to have a baby!”

Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie

Tootsie: Micheal Dorsey is an out-of-work actor who teaches an acting school. When his student-cum-lover cannot get selected at an audition for not being sassy enough, Micheal becomes Dorothy Micheals, a sassy loud mouthed woman who not only gets the role, but somehow manages to woo the lead actor and his the lead actress’ father, a girl who *he* is in love with.
Best Line: [after revealing himself as a man on live network show] “And I'm not mentally ill, but proud, and lucky, and strong enough to be the woman that was the best part of my manhood. The best part of myself.”



Alistair Sim in
Belles of St. Trinians


Belles of St. Trinians: Alaistair Sim plays the role of headmistress Milicent Fritton of St. Trinians, an all-girls school for social misfits. The girls here are more interested in learning about “handling” the big, bad world than learning to make their place in it. He also reprised this role for its 1957 sequel Blue Murder at St. Trinians.
Best Line: [after an explosion has occured in the Chemistry room] “Oh dear. I told Bessie to be careful with that nitro-glycerine!”



 

Rupert Everett in
St. Trinians


St. Trinians: Rupert Everett takes on the role of Principal of St. Trinians Camilla Fritton, in the 2007 movie and its sequel St. Trinians – The Search for Fritton’s Gold in 2009. Movie is about a school of social misfits or as they call themselves “Defenders of Anarchy”, who have to protect their school from closure by the Ministry of Schools, headed by Colin Firth.
Best Line: “Don't you think I make a remarkable queen?”




Nathan Lane in
The Birdcage

 Finally, one of my favorites, The Birdcage: This is a great movie all-together. But Nathan Lane as “Ms.” Albert, the drag queen married to a gay drag club owner Armand (Robin Williams), playing a “regular” housewife for their son’s future in-laws is just precious.
Best Line: “Maybe, I’m just an old-fashioned girl, but I pity the woman who’s too busy to take care of her man.”

“Psych” (2006 - ) is a TV series that follows escapades of a “psychic” detective hired by the Santa Barbara Police Department as an external consultant. Shawn, the consultant and Gus, his best friend-cum-partner are actually extremely observant detectives whose friendly rivalry forms the core of most funny moments on the show.

Most notable among these are insults Shawn uses on Gus, so as not to hurt him but to get his point across, lovingly referred to as Shawn-isms by the "Psych" fans. Here are a few Shawn-isms from “Psych”.

Shawn Spencer:

1. Gus, don't be a silly goose.
2. Gus, don't be a crazy hooligan.
3. Gus, don't be a rabid porcupine.
4. Gus, don't be a giant snapping turtle.
5. Gus, don't be an incorrigible Eskimo pie with a caramel ribbon.
6. Gus, don't be a myopic chihuahua.
7. Gus, don't be William Zabka from "Back To School".
8. Gus, don't be this crevice in my arm.
9. Gus, don't be a traveling wilberry.
10. Gus, don't be a paranoid schizophrenic.
11. Gus, don't be a Topher Grace running on the beach at the end of 'In Good Company'.
12. Gus, don't be a gooey chocolate chip cookie.
13. Don't be American adaptation of British, Gus.
14. Gus, don't be the third Thompson twin with a dress.
15. Gus, don't be a loony Shark Taylor.
16. Gus, don't be an old sponge with hair hanging on it.
17. Gus, don't be 'iiiiiiit' in Wait...for...Iiiiit.
18. Gus, don't be the last of famous international playboys.
19. Gus, don't be Nick Cage's accent from Con Air.
20. Gus, don't be Harry Potter from 'The Prisoner of Marzipan'. Gus: Azkaban. Shawn: I've heard it both ways.

The Majestic : The story of how Peter Appleton lost his Memory and found Himself

If Truman Show proved his mettle as an actor, The Majestic (2001) proves Jim Carrey not only as a serious actor but also a great one.  The movie is set during the Golden Era of Hollywood, the 1950s, when the US was in throes of Cold War with Russia and communism was considered a federal crime. It was during this time at many a-list screenwriters of Hollywood were blacklisted by the studios, because they were suspected of having communist ties by the FBI.

As the movie begins, Peter Appleton is a worldly a-list Hollywood screenwriter with an actress girlfriend, two movies in the pipeline and a major career in Hollywood ahead of him. Then he is informed that his movies are cancelled and he is blacklisted by Hollywood, on FBI’s suspicion of communist-ties, an accusation based on the fact that he attended a communist meeting, while in college. Suddenly, he is out on the street with no one to help or even support him. Disillusioned and in despair, he gets drunk and “goes on a drive” only to crash into a river.

The town of Lawson, CA, is a small town that has lost more than 30 of its “sons” in WWII. When Peter washes up on the shores bloodied and bruised with absolutely no idea of who he is or what happened, the entire town is in uproar. Not because a stranger has landed but because a lost son has come back. Peter, incidentally, happens to look exactly like Luke Trimble, the son of the Town-theater owner Albert Trimble who has been MiA since the war. Here, surrounded by Luke’s family and friends, Peter slowly and unconsciously takes on Luke’s life – falling in love his fiancée Adele and re-opening the theatre ‘The Majestic’ – and starts changing his own ideas about life and courage.

Several names in the movie are connected to real-life persons involved in Senator Joseph McCarthy's "witch hunt" investigations. The town of Lawson is named for screenwriter John Howard Lawson who stood up to HUAC and ended the Red Scare. Another writer, Lester Cole, gives his surname to the mayor. Luke Trimble is named for blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Appleton is named for Senator McCarthy's Wisconsin home town.

Some movies make a splash, you can see them once or even a dozen times at-one-go, and then you tend to forget or outgrow them; like one-night stands or a fashion fad. But some movies are like your first love or trusted blue jeans that, no matter how many outgrow them, you go back again and again, if only in lingering memories. This is one such movie.