Around The World In 80 Days (1956)

Lately it seems as though Team Movie Meats be ‘bout that three-hour-plus movie, and Around The World In 80 Days was no exception. The film was based on the 1873 novel by the same name, and for moviegoers in that era, it was a great way to get a feel for other cultures and their people. Of course, if you were basing the world on this film, you would think Latinos, Asians and Native Americans were all white, but that’s beside the point.

Phileas Fogg (David Niven) is an English gentleman in every sense of the word – and we do mean every sense of the word – who makes a friendly wager with his Reform Club buddies that he can circumnavigate the world in 80 days. Well, OK, it wasn’t a “friendly wager,” it was actually for 20,000 pounds, which would be more than $2 million U.S. in today’s currency. So yeah, there was definitely some serious cheddar on the line – so much so that Phileas brought help in the form of his valet Passepartout (Mario Moreno Catinflas), a Spanish French guy. Or something.

Tracy asked a great question: “How will they account for the shenanigans?” We soon found out. After the duo leaves Paris, they take every mode of transportation imaginable: hot air balloon, ship, train, rickshaw, elephant, ostrich, foot, you name it. Phileas clearly is the brains of the operation, as he has everything planned out to perfection; he even plans for hiccups along the way. Ha, what kind of dude does that? But Passepartout more than holds his own as a partner, engaging in bullfighting, entertaining crowds as a dancer, and rescuing an “Indian” (not even close) princess. Speaking of which, this cannot be ignored: take a look at this picture and think of the balls the filmmakers had when casting her for an Indian princess.

Look familiar? Yeah, that’s because it’s F-ing Shirley MacLaine. How ridiculous is that?! She’s Indian? Oh, and by the way, she was also “educated in England,” so she also conveniently didn’t have the slightest trace of an Indian accent. Wow.

Moving on. Though Phileas makes incredible timing throughout his journey, a little rumor spreads claiming he has stolen 55,000 pounds, so now he’s got the authorities after him as well. Add a kidnapped princess to the mix, and to say Phileas and Passepartout face adversity is an understatement. And right now you’re probably wondering if Phileas makes good on the bet. Hey – it’s only been 55 years since the film came out, so we cannot play spoiler yet. But in the interest of fairness, the ending seemed a little rushed – we had a hypothesis that the cameramen only had 3 hours of film and didn’t realize they were running out until it was almost too late. That, of course, is only a hypothesis.

Around The World In 80 Days won five Oscars: Best Cinematography (Color), Best Film Editing, Best Music, Best Writing and lastly, Best Picture, beating out other classics including The King and I and The Ten Commandments. Though none of the actors stood out at the award shows, Catinflas received a lot of recognition for his role as Passepartout. The film made a revenue of $33 million, which in today’s numbers would be somewhere around $900 million.

Were the Meatheads entertained and intrigued for the full three hours? Not exactly. Tracy fell asleep more than once, Nick had a little gigglefest pouring his second glass of wine, and Jimi started a Werther’s fight. No really, he yelled “Werther’s fight!” and started throwing them at everyone. But that didn’t mean the Meatheads weren’t captivated at times – Nick even shouted that he had a mancrush on the mariachi dancer. So what were the final scores? Take a look!

JIMI: (1.11 Acting + 1.77 Visuals + 1.55 Wow + 0.77 Story + 1.0 Enjoyability) = 6.2

TRACY: (1.2 Acting + 1.56 Visuals + 1.38 Wow + 1.12 Story + 0.68 Enjoyability) = 5.94

RACHEL: (1.0 Acting + 1.5 Visuals + 1.4 Wow + 0.5 Story + 0.7 Enjoyability) = 5.1

TAD: (1.4 Acting + 1.6 Visuals + 0.8 Wow + 1.4 Story + 1.2 Enjoyability) = 6.4

NICK: (1.37 Acting + 1.61 Visuals + 1.3 Wow + 1.1234 Wow + 0.9222 Enjoyability) = 6.3256

FINAL: 5.99312

Interesting score notes: Ugh, only 0.00688 away from a 6! … Tracy’s score was the closest to the average score, separated by just 0.05. But it was argued that her Enjoyability may have suffered slightly due to her being asleep for several moments. Just an argument, not necessarily a fact. … For only the second time, Tad had the highest score. The other time was for Dancing With Wolves, so perhaps Tad likes the way-too-damn-long movies more than anyone else. Still, Tad and Nick agreed that points had to be taken away for non-white roles being played by white people. … Jimi was very satisfied with the gentleman wager. And that’s just fine! … And finally, Rachel had the lowest score and was the only person who didn’t give it at least a 5.9, but she did say she “loved the animals and the fact that WE traveled the world in just three hours!”

FAVORITE LINE: “There will be no further fiddle faddle.” (Niven) Honorable mention: “No! Not the Henrietta!” (Ship captain as they burned the Henrietta statue)

RANDOM VISUAL: Definitely them riding the ostrich. Yes, definitely them riding the ostrich.

MOVIE MEAT: Beef, because that is enjoyed in just about every culture except Indian, and since there were no legitimate Indians in the movie, we say it works.

TIME OF DEATH: 10:56 PM on April 4, 2011

NEXT UP: The Lost Weekend (1945), selected by Jimi

It Happened One Night (1934)

Monday marked Team Movie Meats’ sixth Best Picture viewing and yet It Happened One Night was actually the SECOND movie from the 1930s chosen! All the other decades were like, “Are you joking me right now?” and the Meatheads were like “Aw hell naw!” We’re paraphrasing, of course.

It Happened One Night stars Clark Gable as Peter and Claudette Colbert as Ellie, arguably the fiiiinest on-screen duo you will ever see and nowhere near as off-putting as they look in the movie poster above. But while this can certainly be classified as a romantic comedy, the film can just as easily be considered a screwball comedy as well. For starters, Ellie throws a tray of food on the floor of a ship, gets slapped in the face by her father, and jumps overboard fully clothed … all within the first 2 minutes. The plot follows Ellie’s escape from her wealthy father and her fortune-hunter fiancé as she travels across the East Coast to figure out what she wants in life. On a bus, she meets Peter, a journalist looking for a great story. As was the case with every news reporter in the 30s, Peter has a snappy comeback or threat for everything, like, “Hey, monkey face,” and “Look your head off but don’t come busting in here. This isn’t a public park – I could near as take a sock at you!”

Eventually, the two start to take a liking to one another. (As much as we try not to give anything away here, it’s two sexy people stuck on a bus and in a couple motel rooms together for days – what do you expect?) The two have several hilarious experiences together, which include a fake marriage fight in front of the police, a debate over what a legitimate piggyback ride is, and using different hitchhiking techniques in hopes of getting picked up (watch the clip below this paragraph). The funniest moments from their travels come when good ol’ Oscar Shapely starts hitting on Ellie, telling her, “I could go for you in a big way. ‘Fun-on-the-side’ Shapeley they call me, with accent on the fun, believe you me.” But when Ellie finally gives in and professes her love for Peter, he shoots her down, knowing she will eventually have to return to her fiancé.

By the time she returns to her father, he can tell Ellie has fallen in love with someone else. And even though Peter tells him, “What she needs is a guy that’d take a sock at her once a day, whether it’s coming to her or not,” her dad knows the truth: Peter is in love with her and is a really great guy! (Apparently.) Do they end up together in the end? Since you have only had 77 years to see it, we won’t spoil it. Besides, as we all know, romantic movies in the 30s rarely had happy endings. The honest truth is after watching two consecutive movies that averaged 3.5 hours, the team was just happy to catch a comedy that was under two hours.

There are a lot of craaaaazy facts about It Happened One Night. For starters, the film was only in theaters for five days before winning Best Picture. It was also the first film in history (and one of only three to date) to sweep the five major awards: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Writing. The movie marked the first two Academy Awards for Frank Capra, of which he’d later win four more. And rumor has it that the movie helped influence the character of Bugs Bunny, as Gable mentions an imaginary character called “Bugs Dooley” and later speaks quickly while eating a carrot and talking with his mouth full.

Fun, huh? But did TMM agree?

JIMI: (1.9 Acting + 1.83 Visuals + 2.0 Wow + 1.7 Story + 1.9 Enjoyability) = 9.33

TRACY: (1.82 Acting + 1.699 Visuals + 2.0 Wow + 1.0 Story + 2.0 Enjoyability) = 8.519

RACHEL: (2.0 Acting + 1.58 Visuals + 1.879 Wow + 1.67 Story + 1.91 Enjoyability) = 9.039

TAD: (1.85 Acting + 1.4 Visuals + 2.0 Wow + 1.3 Story + 1.81 Enjoyability) = 8.36

NICK: (1.911 Acting + 1.7 Visuals + 1.88 Wow + 1.7 Story + 1.9111 Enjoyability) = 9.1021

FINAL: 8.87

Interesting score notes: The previous high score in TMM history was 8.26. For this movie, every single person’s score beat that mark, making Jimi’s 9.33 the new high score. … Tad, Tracy and Jimi all awarded their first 2.0s, leaving Nick as the sole member left who has not given a category a perfect score yet. … Rachel expressed her love for the movie with a near-perfect Enjoyability score, stating, “This movie had me from hello!” … While Nick now has the second-highest score in TMM history, slight points were still docked because he was scared of Gable’s thin mustache, while Tad docked points in the Acting category for the bus driver’s incessant “Oh yeah?” … And though Tracy gave two perfect scores, she mentioned the Visuals were still nothing like other Best Picture winners such as Lord of the Rings, and the story concept seemed beaten into the ground by now, even if it was the original one of its kind. So Tracy became the first Meathead to dock points for the movie being old as shit.

FAVORITE LINE: “Say, where’d you learn to dunk? Finishing school?” (Gable to Colbert as she dunked a donut) Honorable mention: “This isn’t a piggyback, you’re crazy … your dad didn’t know beans about piggyback riding.” (Gable while carrying Colbert)

RANDOM VISUAL: Maybe this counts more as “Random audio,” but the driver picking up the hitchhiking duo broke out into this ridiculous nonsensical singing that never ended and it … was … amazing.

MOVIE MEAT: Fine smelling, juicy steak sandwich with eggs and donut. (Our first breakfast!)

TIME OF DEATH: 10:37 PM on March 21, 2011

NEXT UP: Around The World In 80 Days (1956), selected by Tad

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Due to some crazy scheduling conflicts, it took almost five weeks for the Meatheads to get together to watch The Best Years of Our Lives, the 1946 Best Picture winner. Just think about all the wacky events that have taken place in between:

*Charlie Sheen went CRAZY!

*Mike Bibby was traded to the Washington Wizards!

*Valentine’s Day happened!!

After the debacle that was Dances With Wolves, nothing could revive Team Movie Meats’ spirits more than a three-hour film from the 40s, right? Best Years tells the stories of three American veterans trying to adjust to civilian life post-World War II. First, there’s Al (Frederic March), a fun drunk whose daughter Peggy (Teresa Wright) falls in love with Fred (Dana Andrews), the second serviceman. But there’s a problem: Fred is married to a nightclub performer, who sucks as a person but is smoking hot, so he knows all his buddies would mock him if he left her. (That’s never mentioned in the film, but ... really, come on. That’s what would have happened. You know it.) Once Peggy makes her feelings known to Daddy Al, he’s not sure what to think. Sure he is friends with Fred, but the guy is still married.

Along with Al and Fred, we also follow the story of Homer (Harold Russell), a sailor who loses both hands in the war, leaving him with hooks. When he returns home, Homer feels insecure around his longtime girlfriend and family, struggling to believe they still accept him after losing his hands. What makes this story even more fascinating is Russell actually did lose his hands in World War II, and his hooks in the movie were real. Director William Wyler saw a documentary on Russell (and other rehabilitating soldiers) and immediately cast him for the role. Russell’s inspiring performance earned him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor; he was the first non-actor to ever win an Oscar, and only one non-actor has won one since.

The Best Years has many enjoyable scenes, with the most intense coming at Fred’s drug store. Working as a soda jerk – no really, that’s what the profession was called – and with Homer at the counter, a patron insults each of them for fighting on “the wrong side” in the war. Homer rips an American flag button off the patron’s jacket, and Fred totally punches the commie in the face, destroying a glass display case in the process. Who doesn’t like to watch traitors take a shot in the jaw? Additionally, Al gives a drunk speech at a banquet that goes from inspiring to embarrassing back to inspiring just in time; Homer gives glimpses of how he functions without hands; and Fred’s wife does the arbitrary “I have to let people know how the title of the movie came about by saying it in the middle of a speech” move they always did pre-1950. So that was fun.

Since you have only had 65 years to see the ending, we will not spoil it for you. All we will say is it is a happy ending (which is important to know ahead of time if you’re going to watch a three-hour movie). Wanna know what else is awesome? Uncle Butch’s name in real life is Hoagy Carmichael. Classic 40s, right?

A near-crisis occurred halfway through the movie when the DVD stopped. After already watching 1 ½ hours, you can imagine how scared we were about the possibility of a scratched disc derailing the experience. To fix it, Rachel suggested we flush the DVD. When everyone else responded in a puzzled fashion, Rachel jumped up and yelled, “No one here has ever heard of flushing a DVD to fix a scratch?!” Turns out she first heard about it a whole week ago, so her shock was warranted. Luckily, a simple restart put everything back in control without a hitch, and we even learned one of the scenes is titled “Sweet Hangover” in the process. But would Rachel’s suggestion of a flushed DVD actually work? This question was asked on Yahoo! Answers in the past, and here are the community’s responses: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071230120818AAgFymU.

The Best Years of Our Lives won eight Academy Awards, including Best Actor (March), Best Supporting Actor (Russell), Best Director (Wyler) and, obviously, Best Picture. And it’s not like it defeated a bunch of crap films: other nominations for Best Picture included Henry V, The Razor’s Edge, and It’s a Wonderful Life. It was a huge commercial success at the time, making $20.4 million which in today’s figures would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 billion.

But just ‘cause the Academy loved it doesn’t mean the Meatheads did! So how did they rate it?

JIMI: (1.0 Acting + 1.21 Visuals + 1.45 Wow + 1.7 Story + 1.2 Enjoyability) = 6.56

TRACY: (1.45 Acting + 1.292 Visuals + 1.56 Wow + 1.89 Story + 1.67 Enjoyability) = 7.862

RACHEL: (1.45 Acting + 1.5 Visuals + 1.321 Wow + 1.29 Story + 1.4 Enjoyability) = 6.961

TAD: (1.45 Acting + 1.1 Visuals + 1.321 Wow + 1.78 Story + 1.48 Enjoyability) = 7.131

NICK: (1.321 Acting + 1.321 Visuals + 1.321 Wow + 1.5 Story + 1.4321 Enjoyability) = 6.8951

FINAL: 7.081

Interesting score notes: Tracy enjoyed the story saying it “didn’t feel contrived”, and her overall score of 7.862 is her highest score yet, proving this very well may be the best year of HER life. … Nick was a little “1.321-happy” with his first three scores, but perhaps he helped hypnotize Tad and Rachel, who followed suit in the Wow Factor category. Nick also finished with the first four-decimal score thus far. … For the second time in three films, Jimi had the lowest overall score. Still, his 6.56 is significantly higher than his TMM record-low score of 3.55 for An American in Paris.

FAVORITE LINE: “It is peculiarly appropriate that we meet here tonight to honor one who has valiantly fought for that freedom.” (Milton) Apparently it was so appropriate, it was peculiar. Try to say “peculiarly appropriate” three times fast. See, you can’t!

Honorable mention: “Just a few years of normal growth – don’t you approve?” (Peggy, in response to Al barely recognizing her years later.)

RANDOM VISUAL: The dance party where everyone was crammed so tightly between the tables there was no room to dance. This was a friggin’ Best Picture winner – you couldn’t cough up a couple bucks for a bigger room? Or, let’s see, get rid of 80 extras?

MOVIE MEAT: Post-World War II bomb shelter moon food and spam. Obviously.

TIME OF DEATH: 12:03 AM on March 15, 2011

NEXT MOVIE: It Happened One Night (1934), selected by Rachel

(That’s Nick’s belly poking in from the right – he’s gaining weight for a new puppetry role!)

Dances With Wolves (1990)

Finally – it’s the 90’s, yo! Dances With Wolves stars a little actor named Kevin Costner. Ever heard of him? ;) It took five years of development to complete the movie based mostly in the Civil War era, and as director, producer, narrator and lead actor, Costner was all over this thing. We even get to see his butt, which would be awesome had he not scratched it and neglected to edit that part out.

Costner stars as John Dunbar, a Civil War lieutenant who is transferred to an abandoned Western frontier and sticks around in the event his fellow soldiers reappear. Other than his horse Cisco and wolf Two Socks, Dunbar is all alone – or so he thinks. A Sioux tribe is nearby and while they at first see him as threat, once they get to know him they realize he is actually pretty nice. Or at least it seemed that way; it was hard to tell through Costner’s awful acting and much more awful narrating.

After being befriended by the Sioux, Dunbar is renamed Dances With Wolves (ah!) after his new companions see him rolling around in the grass with Two Socks. It would have made a lot more sense for Dunbar’s love interest to be a female Sioux, but for some inexplicable reason it’s Mary McDonnell, a white chick who was kidnapped by a different Native American tribe as a child. (Plus everyone we thought was a hot girl in the Sioux tribe ended up actually being a guy anyway.) McDonnell’s character’s name is Stands With a Fist; she explains how she got her name but unfortunately Kicking Bird, her adoptive father, does not explain how he got his. Seems like it would have been fun. All the non-English dialogue was spoken in the true Lakota language. And another fun fact: McDonnell, in real life, is two months older than Kicking Bird, and less than two years younger than her adoptive mother Tantoo Cardinal.

In the interest of full disclosure, you have to know something. This movie is the 11th longest movie of all the Best Picture winners at 175 minutes. Unfortunately, we accidentally watched the extended cut, which was 236 minutes; there are only two Best Picture winners that are longer than that. So needless to say, it was a lot of movie and by the time it ended after 1 a.m., there were some unhappy faces. We won’t spoil the ending since you’ve only had 21 years to see it and plus we fell asleep before it happened, so we don’t even know how it ended. (OK, that’s a lie.)

Dances With Wolves won seven Academy Awards. Shockingly, it beat Goodfellas for Best Picture which is inexcusable, and it also beat Godfather III, which is more inexcusable that Godfather III was nominated for Best Picture. Costner also won Best Director over Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. The American Film Institute later named it the 75th best movie of all time.

So what did the Team Movie Meats quintet think?

JIMI: (0.75 Acting + 1.78 Visuals + 1.0 Wow + 0.8 Story + 1.0 Enjoyability) = 5.33

TRACY: (0.58 Acting + 1.8 Visuals + 0.4 Wow + 0.85 Story + 0.6 Enjoyability) = 4.23

RACHEL: (0.9 Acting + 2.0 Visuals + 0.5 Wow + 0.4 Story + 0.2 Enjoyability) = 4.00

TAD: (1.4 Acting + 1.8 Visuals + 1.1 Wow + 1.4 Story + 1.2 Enjoyability) = 6.90

NICK: (1.0 Acting + 1.8 Visuals + 1.0 Wow + 1.15 Story + 0.7 Enjoyability) = 5.45

FINAL:  5.18

Interesting score notes: Rachel dished out TMM’s first-ever perfect category score with a 2.0 in Visuals. Yet not only did she have the lowest score, she walked out with about 13 minutes left stating it was one of her least favorite movies ever. … The final score would have been 4.75 had Tad’s score not been included. Though he was frustrated at the length, he thought the non-Costner acting was good and the story was solid. … Jimi’s score was the closest to the overall average, and he provided one of the odder moments: after intermission ended, he was telling us he was bored, and seconds later Costner narrated, “I am bored.” So they shared that in common. … Nick was so tired and annoyed when the movie ended he forgot to organize the group picture. … And just because Rachel’s score was lower than Tracy’s, don’t think Tracy didn’t hate this movie. Hours after it ended, she posted on Facebook, “I am so mad at Kevin Costner. I really really hate that guy right mow.” This was crazy because (1) only four people would get the reference and (2) she was so angry she wrote ‘mow’ instead of ‘now’. Reader, we pray you never get that angry.

FAVORITE LINE: “I just pissed my pants and there’s nothing anyone can do about it!” (Grits guy from My Cousin Vinny). Honorable mention: “Postscript – the man I encountered was a magnificent looking person” (Costner) and “I am in mourning” (McDonnell, a tenth of a second before having sex with Costner).

RANDOM VISUAL: Costner’s butt scratch. One of the awards this film won was Best Film Editing; it should have lost just for allowing that to stay in the movie.

MOVIE MEAT: Buffalo. After you watch the characters take out a dozen buffaloes with bows and arrows, it’s hard not to head over to Ted’s Montana Grill.

TIME OF DEATH: 1:07 AM on February 6, 2011.

NEXT UP: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), selected by Tracy. Luckily, this one is only 172 minutes.

Damn it, Tracy.

An American In Paris (1951)

Team Movie Meats history was made on Monday for two reasons: one, the group watched its first musical Best Picture winner, An American In Paris, and two, the group included Special Guest Christian!!! The film stars Gene Kelly as Jerry Mulligan, an American World War II veteran who is now a struggling painter in France. Jerry and his artwork are sponsored by a proper blonde named Milo, but Jerry only has eyes for French dancer Lise, who is dating Hank. In other words, all four of them would have to make their Facebook relationship status read, “It’s complicated.”

When Jerry narrates the start of the movie and says, “This is Paris, and I’m an American who lives here,” that really helped us understand the meaning behind the title, so that was much appreciated. As things progress, Lise is at first disgusted by Jerry and his refusal to accept her distaste for him. All that changes, however, when he makes the hilarious gesture of pretending to drink perfume in front of her, and from then on she is love-struck. No really, it was that easy. So Lise and Jerry see each other a few times behind Milo and Hank’s backs, putting the viewer in a very awkward position. After all, Milo is a genuine person who offers her services to help Jerry’s career, and Hank is a sweet and very talented singer who saved Lise’s life during WWII. Meanwhile, Lise is cheating on her fiancée and Jerry is using Milo to make Lise jealous. So naturally, we’re supposed to root for Lise and Jerry to end up together.

Luckily we get distracted by plenty of singing and dancing. You may recognize some of the classic songs such as, “I Got Rhythm” and “S’Wonderful,” which appear in movies that pre-date An American In Paris. Still, Hank is a wonderful singer, Kelly’s entire performance is flawless and Lise is an excellent dancer, though TMM’s Nick and Jimi found her so unappealing they had to dock points from their final scores. Do you agree?

OK, so that’s what she looked like last December at age 79, but she still has the same sass! Girrrrrrrrl!

                                                                                                                          

Anyway, there are plenty of entertaining scenes in the movie. Most of them involve Gene Kelly dancing, but his piano playing buddy Adam also has his moments, especially when he learns Jerry is dating Hank’s fiancée. But Milo’s obsession with Jerry gets a bit scary at times, specifically when she weeps about Jerry leaving her when they had met a whopping eight hours earlier. When he agrees to participate in an exhibition she sets up, Milo exclaims, “I would have died if you said no,” prompting TMM’s Nick to add, “I would have eaten your children!”

Since you have only had 50 years to see the ending we will not spoil it, but be aware that you will have to sit through a 16-minute ballet with no singing/dialogue (yes, 16 godforsaken minutes) before reaching arguably the most rushed and unexplained resolution of all-time. Other than that, they nailed it. The ballet scene cost $500,000 to create, which nowadays would be in the upwards of $40 billion, and while TMM’s Tracy enjoyed it, she also stated it was “as if someone thought of a 16-minute dance and thought they had to bullshit a movie around it.” So there’s that.

An American In Paris was nominated for seven Oscars and took home five, beating out A Streetcar Named Desire for Best Picture. Kelly received an Honorary Academy Award “in appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film.” Well deserved. A very weird honor, but well deserved.

So the Academy done felt it, but how did Team Movie Meats feel about An American In Paris?

JIMI: (0.34 Acting + 1.41 Visuals + 1.0 Wow + 0.28 Story + 0.52 Enjoyability) = 3.55

TRACY: (0.51 Acting + 1.82 Visuals + 1.67 Wow + 0.38 Story + 1.78 Enjoyability) = 6.16

RACHEL: (0.65 Acting + 1.79 Visuals + 1.75 Wow + 0.4 Story + 0.5 Enjoyability) = 5.09

TAD: (1.0 Acting + 1.45 Visuals + 1.75 Wow + 0.15 Story + 1.0 Enjoyability) = 5.35

NICK: (0.633 Acting + 1.63 Visuals + 1.75 Wow + 0.1 Story + 0.4 Enjoyability) = 4.513

CHRISTIAN: (0.6 Acting + 1.7 Visuals + 1.7 Wow + 0.11 Story + 0.51 Enjoyability) = 4.62*

FINAL: 4.78

*As our special guest, Christian’s score accounts for 5% of the final score.

Interesting score notes: For the first time, Tad did not have the lowest score – in fact, he had the second-highest … Special Guest Christian’s final score was the closest to the Final average, off by just 0.16 … Jimi, who currently has TMM’s record-high score of 8.26, has now broken the record of the lowest score with a 3.55. When asked to elaborate, he paused and said, “I really didn’t like this movie.” … Five of the six members gave a high Wow factor, including Rachel, who was most wowed by Kelly’s “tornadoes, hello!” … Special Guest Christian’s high Visuals score was summed up when he said “some of it looked goodish.” … And why did Nick, a man who likes almost all movies, give it a 0.4 Enjoyability? “I felt like I’ve been had by the ending, and I don’t appreciate it.”

FAVORITE LINE: “You need radar to get through all this smoke!” (Kelly … or someone in the club, anyway. This was an odd line because, really, there was not much cigarette smoke at all.)

RANDOM VISUAL: The really old woman dancing with Gene Kelly in the first musical number. Very talented, but what the hell was she doing there in the first place?

MOVIE MEAT: Escargot with melted American cheese.

TIME OF DEATH: 11:06 PM on January 17, 2011

NEXT UP: Dances With Wolves (1990), selected by Nick

You Can't Take It With You (1938)

You Can’t Take It With You stars a bunch of no-names like Lionel Barrymore and Jimmy Stewart, but the entertaining script and outrageous physical comedy make up for the lack of star power. Adapted from the successful play of the same name, the plot introduces a familiar “rich, proper family has dinner with wild, wacky outsiders” theme and hilarity ensues. No doubt movies like The Jerk and Meet The Fockers were influenced by this concept but there is one major difference: this film was not in color.

Alice (played by Jean Arthur) is the only “normal” member of the Sycamore family, which includes her always-dancing sister, her xylophone-playing brother-in-law, her non-taxpaying father (Barrymore) and her spacey mother, who steals the show almost every time she speaks. Alice falls in love with Tony (Stewart), whose parents are of the stereotypical wealthy, snobby type, and fears she’ll never be accepted. Alice and Tony agree to have their families get together for dinner; Team Movie Meats’ Nick wondered aloud, “I wonder what will happen when they meet for dinner,” to which Jimi responded, “All I know is that they can’t take anything with them.” And he was absolutely right.

Tony knows Alice’s family will act differently around them so he purposely gives his parents the wrong date so they will see Alice’s REAL family. As you can imagine, they were none too pleased, especially Alice. In fact, the chaos ends up landing both families in jail. Don’t worry; we won’t give away the ending because you have only had 73 years to see it, so it is still in the spoiler alert range. Just know Tony’s parents have a lot to learn about love and friendship, which they have sacrificed over the years for financial and societal status. And yes, hilarity does indeed ensue.

There are lots of great scenes in this movie. As expected, the funnier moments come when the families meet each other for the first time, especially when dance instructor Boris Kolenkhov bodyslams Tony’s dad after hearing he was a former wrestler. Also, Tony gets Alice to scream in the middle of a restaurant when she becomes scared that he will be the one to cause a scene, and her dad confuses the hell out of an IRS agent at one point, explaining why it makes no sense for him to pay taxes. But Alice’s mother, played by Spring Byington, delivers TMM’s favorite line of the movie in the courtroom: when it is said the whole family must be guilty, Byington gasps to her daughter Essie, “I don’t feel guilty, do you?” (Byington was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for the role but did not win.)

You Can’t Take It With You was the highest grossing movie of 1938, bringing in almost $5.3 million worldwide, which in today’s numbers is somewhere in the neighborhood of $700 billion. The film earned seven Academy Award nominations and won Best Picture (obviously) and Best Director (Frank Capra). The competition was nowhere near as fierce as it would be the following year, but there was one glaring omission: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was not nominated for Best Picture, as the Academy felt including an animated feature would set a “bad precedent.”

And now for the moment ya’lls beens seriously waiting for: Team Movie Meats scoring!

JIMI: (1.8 Acting + 1.65 Visuals + 1.9 Wow + 1.23 Story + 1.68 Enjoyability) = 8.26

TRACY: (1.82 Acting + 0.87 Visuals + 1.79 Wow + 1.32 Story + 1.8 Enjoyability) = 7.60

RACHEL: (1.75 Acting + 1.7 Visuals + 1.5 Wow + 1.5 Story + 1.43 Enjoyability) = 7.88

TAD: (1.71 Acting + 1.44 Visuals + 1.69 Wow + 1.0 Story + 1.5 Enjoyability) = 7.34

NICK: (1.8 Acting + 1.611 Visuals + 1.68 Wow + 1.2 Story + 1.7 Enjoyability) = 7.991

FINAL: 7.81

Interesting score notes: Rachel’s score was almost identical to the final average score, off by just 0.07 … Once again, sourpuss-ass Tad had the lowest score. He made a point to say YCTIWY was a lot of fun but it might be a mistake to put Enjoyability very high since we’re only 2 films in and will probably see ones much more exciting than this, leading the others to say, “Oh shut up, just give it what you think it should get.” … The only person to score less than a 1.44 in Visuals was Tracy, who gave them a 0.87; she was not as impressed by the impromptu basement fireworks as the rest of the group … With Jimi giving a 1.9 for Wow Factor, it marked his second consecutive movie he gave a 1.9 score in one category. No one else has given higher than a 1.82 in any category yet. Jimi is also the first to give an 8+ for an overall score … Though the scores indicate Nick enjoyed the movie the most, his overall score just missed an 8 by nine-thousandths of a point … Points appear to have been docked due to Ramsey being the same damn character as Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol, even down to the dead part.

FAVORITE LINE: “I don’t feel guilty.” (Byington) Honorable mention: “What do you think I am, a goop?” (Arthur)

RANDOM VISUAL: A bunch of random kids dancing for Tony and Alice during their date in the park. These kids were like 8 years old and all of a sudden it’s friggin’ Stomp The Yard over here? Come on.

MOVIE MEAT: Plump, juicy turkey with a side of franks. (Random pairing, no?)

TIME OF DEATH: 11:30 PM on January 6, 2011

NEXT UP: An American in Paris (1951), selected by Jimi

In the Heat of the Night (1967)

In The Heat Of The Night, starring Rod Steiger as Southern police chief Bill Gillespie and Sidney Poitier as Northern officer Virgil Tibbs, was, if nothing else, one of the most important films of its era. With the Civil Rights Act of 1964 being enacted three years earlier, many white people believed racism issues were officially over, while black people responded, “Uh, no.” At that time, few films dared to take on the dramatic conflicts between blacks and whites, especially while portraying the South in an angry, edgy fashion rather than morally confused. The success of the film also spawned two sequels and a television series.

After a prominent Mississippi figure is murdered, the police departments spots Tibbs, an African American they are unfamiliar with, waiting at the train station late at night. For no other real reason than the color of his skin, he is immediately considered a suspect. Once he is taken to the station, however, the officers discover Tibbs himself is a police officer from Philadelphia, in town visiting family. The Philadelphia police department requests that Tibbs help Mississippi’s officers through the murder case, which Tibbs reluctantly does. We won’t spoil the ending since you’ve only had 44 years to see this movie, so it is still too soon. But as you would expect, both the Caucasian officers and the African American Tibbs struggle with believing in one another.

Many iconic cinematic moments take place in this movie. The most famous example comes when Gillespie sarcastically asks what the Philadelphia officers call Virgil, and he answers, “They call me MISTER TIBBS!” The line was named the 16th greatest movie quote by the American Film Institute. Also, another scene features a white character named Eric Endicott slapping Tibbs in the face, which prompts Tibbs to slap him back. This was one of the first times a major motion picture depicted a black character reacting to being provoked by a white character with violence. It is said Poitier would only be a part of the movie if he was allowed to slap Endicott back – and the scene could not be edited out in any showing.

The 1968 Academy Awards were postponed for two days. Originally the show was scheduled to take place on April 8, but Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination earlier that week forced a postponement. When the awards were held on April 10 and In The Heat Of The Night was selected as the winner, a large portion of the crowd was audibly angry, questioning if it had won perhaps due to the aforementioned tragedy. It certainly did face stiff competition with other great films such as The Graduate, Bonnie & Clyde, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, and Dr. Doolittle, though the last of which most people agree was significantly better when Eddie Murphy remade it 31 years later.

So that’s the history. But what was the consensus of Team Movie Meats?

JIMI: (1.37 Acting + 1.9 Visuals + 0.40 Wow + 1.53 Story + 1.67 Enjoyability) = 6.87

TRACY: (1.71 Acting + 1.37 Visuals + 0.72 Wow + 1.00 Story + 1.72 Enjoyability) = 6.52

RACHEL: (1.63 Acting + 0.93 Visuals + 1.72 Wow + 1.38 Story +1.55 Enjoyability) = 7.21

TAD: (1.51 Acting + 0.78 Visuals + 0.40 Wow + 1.662 Story + 1.75 Enjoyability) = 6.102

NICK: (1.52 Acting + 1.48 Visuals + 1.38 Wow + 1.44 Story + 1.634 Enjoyability) = 7.434

FINAL: 6.83

Interesting score notes: Jimi’s overall score was almost the exact score as TMM’s average … Tad posted the highest Enjoyability rating, yet had the lowest overall score by a landslide … Rachel and Nick’s Wow Factor was more than a full point ahead of Jimi and Tad. The former duo was stunned with much of the racist commentary, while the latter stated they were not as shocked only because it was expected for this movie (though the “slap scene” certainly earned Wows from everyone) … Tracy had the highest Acting score and second-highest Enjoyability score, but her low Story score had her finish with the second-lowest overall score.

FAVORITE LINE: (tie) “They call me MISTER TIBBS!” (Poitier) and “There’s white time in jail and there’s colored time in jail. The worst kind of time you can do is colored time.” (Poitier)

RANDOM VISUAL: Gillespie’s yellow-tinted sunglasses. A bigot Southern police officer rocking yellow-tinted sunglasses in the late 60s? What is he, J-Lo?

MOVIE MEAT: Southern BBQ'd chicken and country fried steak.

TIME OF DEATH: 10:54 PM on January 5, 2011

NEXT UP: You Can’t Take It With You (1938), selected by Tad. *Note: Tad shockingly used his mulligan on his very first pick after originally selecting Terms of Endearment.