New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

No, Terry Malloy doesn't have a good job, and On The Waterfront, while a celebration of how the human spirit can triumph over evils of any kind, is not going to tell you any differently. Directed by Elia Kazan, the film is a direct attack against those who criticized Kazan for naming names at the House Un-American Activities Committee, which was the infamous Communist witch hunt of the 1940s and 1950s. As Malloy, Marlon Brando is great here, managing to balance his sometimes over-the-top Method style of acting with the harsh realities represented by Malloy's struggle. On The Waterfront may pale a bit, depending on your ethical or moral viewpoint on what Kazan did, but it is a finely acted film whose message never seems too pointed or obvious. Oh, and it's no advertisement for being a longshoreman.

The Apartment

On the one hand, you work at a job with beautiful women. Even more, some of those beautiful women are in your apartment a lot more than you could have ever dreamed. On the other hand, the only reason those women show up are because you have loaned out your apartment to every boss at your job, so they can have their affairs without their wives knowing about it. Such is the world of C.C. Baxter, played brilliantly by Jack Lemmon. Baxter does this so he can get in good with the higher-ups, but none of them take Baxter too seriously. It's not until Baxter, who works as a typical office drone at an insurance company, meets Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), who also works at the office as a secretary, that things change. Baxter falls in love, but in this perverse romantic comedy, it's not as simple as just riding into the sunset.

That plot could have been nothing more than fodder for a cheap ‘60s comedy, but with Billy Wilder co-writing and directing, The Apartment is nothing short of a classic. Lemmon and MacLaine have amazing chemistry as friends who obviously would like to be something much more intimate. As personnel director Mr. Sheldrake, Fred MacMurray plays far against type, for those of us who may remember him more as the absent-minded professor as opposed to the lead of Double Indemnity. What's more, The Apartment is a film that fully embraces how awful most jobs have been as far back as 50 years for most people. What fun can there be for a somewhat unsocial person at an office Christmas party, especially if the girl you just fell in love with is fooling around with one of your superiors? Bad job or not, The Apartment is a great, great film.

Brazil

Sure, this 1985 cult classic is more well-known because it began the long and illustrious career Terry Gilliam has had at annoying Hollywood executives and fighting against the establishment to make his films get movie screens, but Brazil is, at its heart, an apocalyptic tale about a man who so hates his job that he reverts into his imagination whenever things become too difficult, too sad, too imperfect; in other words, at all waking hours, Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is daydreaming. Sam has always dreamed of flying away with his gorgeous dream girl, but is shocked when he sees her in the flesh as Jill, a young woman whose pressuring of bureaucrats has made her a targeted terrorist. Sam gets further involved in a suspected terrorist plot against the totalitarian government that rules the world when he befriends a shrewd air conditioning specialist named Harry.

Continued:       1       2       3