Spring 2015 #2: The French Connection (1971) - William Friedkin

Okay so I don’t know why but Netflix seems to have more Best Picture Winners than IMDb Top 250 films so that’s just how this list is going to go. Which I don’t have a problem with because they’re all on my Watchlist anyway.

The French Connection! I feel like I had vaguely heard of this film, but it’s more or less on the list simply because it’s #93 on the AFI Top 100 as well as being on Netflix.

The film follows two detectives, Doyle and Russo, trying to stop a major drug deal between a giant French heroine syndicate and the mob. They have smuggled $32 million of heroine into New York by hiding it in a French television star’s car and have to outsmart the detectives before making the deal.

It’s kind of exciting? I don’t know, the plot is kind of predictable: detectives have one tiny lead to go off of, lots of stakeouts, reach a dead end when the villains are overly careful, detectives get thrown off the case for not following the rules, villains slip up, detectives win. Just hearing the title, The French Connection, made me sad that that connection wasn’t Alain Delon.

Oh my god I can’t even.

Anyway the inspiration for the film came when William Friedkin was living with Howard Hawks’ daughter, and he asked her if she liked his movies, and she said they were lousy. She said, “Make a good chase. Make one better than anyone’s done.”

And thus one of the coolest chases in film history is born.

Doyle avoids an assassination attempt by the French drug dealer’s hitman, who then boards a subway train and literally commandeers the train while Doyle chases it underneath in his car. It’s actually 15 minutes of pure intensity and it was the one time in the film I didn’t look like this.

And this is the director who directed The Exorcist two years later! Crazy. I’m sorry, cop movies are not my thing.

The film went on to win Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Editing at the 44th Academy Awards. Fun Fact, this Oscars included a 12 minute long standing ovation for Charlie Chaplin receiving an Honorary Award, the longest applause in Academy history.

Spring 2014 #1: Good Will Hunting (1997) - Gus Van Sant

So I decided that I had so much fun doing my Winter Movie Bucketlist of 15 critically acclaimed films in 15 days, that I would do it again with my Spring Break. Because of some traveling I decided to cut it down to a simple 5 films, and that instead of the theme being “Those culturally significant films that always come up in conversation that I’ve never seen,” it would be “Directors who always come up in conversation whose films I’ve never seen.” This first film doesn’t fit that as well, but last night I saw Matt and Ben’s (Oops, I mean… Gus Van Sant’s) Good Will Hunting.

So I’ve been trying to read up on this, and as far as I can tell, Matt and Ben were neighbors in Boston, Ben being a child actor and Matt being a Harvard student, and they were just two best friends who decided in their early 20s to write an OSCAR WINNING SCREENPLAY. Well damn. Okay. When Ben Affleck won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 1998, he became the youngest winner ever for the category at the age of 25. Matt was 27.

Okay well as jealous as all of this research makes me, I have to say that I actually loved the movie. The critique on higher education is so rewarding to watch as a college student, the intersection of opinions on genius versus privilege is powerful and entertaining, and the incredible performance of Matt Damon as a janitor working at MIT as a court-mandated probation who is actually a mathematical genius is very moving. 

So Matt’s character, Will Hunting, is an orphan who suffered from several broken homes and multiple physical and emotional abuses is discovered by MIT math professor after Will solves a theorem that puts him on a genius level above all of the staff at MIT. He is taken on as an assistant, but must also go to therapy with Dr. Sean Maguire, played by Robin Williams.

What I think makes the film so great is that the individual scenes all feel genuine and authentic, in both the writing and the acting. The internet tells me that Robin Williams ad-libbed some of his best lines, and Matt Damon just had to sit there and try to stay in character.

Also, I want to point out that it was a very odd experience for me to watch this movie after having seen the almost season-long plotline of Community that works as an homage to Good Will Hunting, where Troy Barnes is a college student who is a janitorial genius, as opposed to a janitor who is an academic genius.

Another reason I knew so much about this movie was because Mindy Kaling owes her rise to fame to Matt and Ben, since she wrote a off-Broadway parody play about their friendship that caused her to get her job as a staff writer for The Office. She played Ben.

Anyway, I loved the movie for its very thought-provoking take on how intelligence is different from life experience which is different from book smarts. Will Hunting’s girlfriend helps to combat Will’s underprivileged, innate genius with her hard-working but privileged upbringing. She is played by Minnie Driver.

Anyway. The film was nominated for 9 Oscars, but was unfortunately up against Titanic, which as we all know took home 11 Oscars in one night. Good Will Hunting did, however, get the Best Original Screenplay for Matt and Ben, as well as Best Supporting Actor for Robin Williams.

Oh wait. Wrong movie.

There we go!