“Forgotten Hollywood”- 21st Century 50 Fav Films (#4, #3)…
Manny P. here… 
“`It is time for the presentation of the understudy… the opening act… two can’t miss celluloid beauties. Both films provide poignant stories that make me shed tears each time I sit down to watch. These are two wonderful examinations on my Top Fifty favorite movies of the last two decades.
====================
~ #4 – STAN AND OLLIE (2018)
“`Two journeyman charactor actors take on the opportunity to portray the finest comedy team in cinematic history and they knock it out of the park. Such is the story of Stan & Ollie. Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly capture the mannerisms and the iconic routines that made the team famous. The movie focuses Laurel and Hardy’s personal relationship while they embarked on a gruelling music hall tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland during 1953.
“`The production was ignored by the Oscars, but Reilly received a Golden Globes nomination for Best Actor in a Comedy. Ironically, Laurel and Hardy earned an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Subject for their work on The Music Box in 1931; extremely rare for film comedians.
“`Stan was the creator of their comedy bits, Ollie (also known as Babe) could also sing. Hal Roach paired the duo in 1927 in Putting Pants on Phillip. Some of their best remembered movies include Tit for Tat, Big Business, Sons of the Desert and Way Out West. In the latter flick, they performed one of their best moments on screen when they crooned Trail of the Lonesome Pine. This is beautifully recreated in Stan & Ollie. Other famous personalities featured include actors Jimmy Finlayson, Harry Langdon, and producer Bernard Delfont.
“`After Hardy suffered a heart attack in 1954, the remainder of the tour was cancelled. They never performed together on stage again. After Babe’s passing in 1957, Stanley kept working on bits for the team. Curiously, his home phone number was listed in the Santa Monica phone book. He was called by a fellow who wanted to pay a visit to the iconic comedian. That person was Dick Van Dyke and it became the reason he entered show business. And so it goes…
~ #3 – LION (2016)
“`Lion tells the tale of a young man’s twenty-five year odyssey to find his birth family. An episodic motion picture that begins as a subtitled masterpiece and ends with tour-de-force performances by Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, and Rooney Mara. It is based on the 2013 non-fiction book A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley. This is a production that has the feel of a Dickens novel with unsparing realism of its Indian first half, and a modern angle due to its reliance on Google Earth as part of the plot line.
“`Lion received six Oscar nods: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, and love for Patel and Kidman. Remarkably, Sunny Pawar (who plays the young Saroo) was snubbed during awards season. He is the heart of the movie and his emotional strings tug at the most hardened of hearts. I was sorry to see him grow up.
“`The finale has a heartfelt punch. As a child, the protagonist mispronounces his name as Saroo. When reunited with his mother, she calls him Sheru; the English translation… LION! Hence the title of the film…
Until next time> “never forget”
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 13th, 2021 at 9:11 pm and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
You must be logged in to post a comment.