The second great movie I saw this weekend (and the second-best movie I’ve seen so far this year) is Ron Howard’s adaptation of the celebrated stage play Frost/Nixon. Howard has a knack for dramatizing historic events — this is easily his best film since Apollo 13 and for my money rivals that great movie.
I suppose it would be hard to go wrong starting with such excellent source material, especially with playwright Peter Morgan on board to adapt his own work. But Howard has avoided any of the traps inherent in filming a piece intended for the stage and crafted a compelling work of cinema that works as both an underdog tale and an intimate tragedy.
This is the first tune that really hit me as a bona fide, lay it all on the line, love song love song. I heard it for the first time back in high school and was struck by how completely earnest it is. That’s actually a quality Cat Stevens brings to most of his work, but this song in particular.
OK, now we’re talking. After a long dry spell and a lot of good-not-great movies, I’ve seen a batch of films in the past few weeks that boost 2008’s quality level substantially. And my favorite of all these movies — indeed my favorite of the year so far — is Slumdog Millionaire.
OK, I’m throwing caution to the wind and going with my third theme week in a row. And the unsentimental among you might want to skip the next seven days.
I’ve always been fascinated by the writing arrangement between Elton John and Bernie Taupin, wherein John writes all the music and Taupin all the lyrics. It’s hard to imagine the lyrics of ‘Your Song’ or ‘Daniel’ being written completely unaware of the melodies that would one day support them. And it’s equally hard to imagine the music of ‘Levon’ or Tiny Dancer’ being written with no clue what words would fill their spaces.
