Most people have seen Clint Eastwood in his movies as a classic western fighter or the famous Dirty Harry character, then you would be surprised to see this movie. The Bridges of Madison County is a sentimental movie, released in 1995 (and produced and directed by Clint Eastwood as well) - essentially being a movie all about emotions, yearning, and sacrifice. It presented a new side of Clint Eastwood, and when combined with the Oscar Nominated performance by Meryl Streep (her 10th Oscar Nomination), became a phenomenal success. The movie cost approximately $22 million dollars to make, and cleaned up more than $180 million worldwide.

Given that the movie is sentimental (some would say mushy), there are wide ranging reactions to the movie - some people can’t stand the movie (and by association, the novel on which it is based), while for others, it is a good movie that shows a wide range of human emotions; especially how life changes for 2 people who meet and click together even in unfavorable circumstances. The movie was based on the (best-selling) novel of the same name by Robert James Waller.
The movie starts out with the children of Francesca (Meryl Streep), looking through their deceased mother’s things when they discover a diary. Lo and behold, it reveals a secret that the family did not know till then; in the summer of 1965, their mother had a secret 4 day affair with a photographer for National Geographic (Robert Kincaid played by Clint Eastwood). Her family has gone to a fair along with their steer and will be there for a few days, leaving her alone at home.
Francesca is an Italian-American lady who came to the US in 1945 along with her American soldier husband; she is reconciled with her status, but there is a yearning that has not yet died down even after 20 years of marriage (she feels stifled in her marriage). So, when a photographer turns up lost at her door and they are not able to easily find the place (wandering around), they quickly fall for each in a very deep relationship. However, when it is time for her family to come back, she has to take a decision - go with her heart or with her responsibilities ?

Great Expectations is a great book, an all-time classic. The book is set in a period from 1812 to the winter of 1840, in the England of that time. The book was actually a series in the ‘All the Year Round’. Charles Dickens has always been considered a writer who can write about a whole gamut of human relations, but there has always been a strong element of pathos, of pain, of despair, and totally shies away from portraying life as rosy. Charles Dickens has also been known to write elements from the story of his life in his novels, weaving his life and experiences through the medium of the story. When he wrote this magnificent novel in the form of a series, he had to ensure that each episode was gripping enough that people would wait for the next part of the series to arrive.

The book is divided into 3 stages of the life of the orphan Pip, his young life when she stays with his sister and her husband. He is comfortable with his life, and has no great expectations from it, until the time he meets a very bitter elderly woman Mrs. Havisham (who was jilted on marriage and becomes very bitter towards men) and her adopted daughter Estella. Mrs. Havisham hates men, and has accordingly inculcated a strong feeling of coldness in Estella, something which is to stay with her in life. Pip continues his life, then becomes an apprentice to Joe (his sister’s husband). However, his life is turned upside down when he is informed that he has been bequeathed a large sum of money by an unknown benefactor. Pip’s expectations are now increasing, and his earlier contact with Mrs. Havisham had made him want to be a gentleman when he grows up, and this wealth will help him a lot.
In the second stage, Pip is now living the fine life in London. He is rich, and adopts the customs of the rich and the cultured, very different from his earlier life. In this life, he pursues Estella, who is now a very beautiful, but very cold person (not caring much about his feelings); he has a rival in the form of Bentley Drummle, whom Pip despises and cannot understand why Estella sees him. Pip has assumed that his provider is in fact Mrs. Havisham, and this also creates a lot of jealousy in her other relatives who are looking forward to her property. However, this Pip has now developed a class attitude, and is ashamed of the lower status of Joe, and is embarrassed when Joe visits. And then he learns that his benefactor is in fact a former convict (who Pip had helped many years back), Abel Magwitch.
In the third stage, this is when things start going downhill. Estella does not acknowledge his advances, and Pip is repulsed by the knowledge that his benefactor was a former convict, and he starts to acknowledge that the allowances will now stop coming. He plans a way to get Magwitch to leave the country, since if he is caught, he will be sentenced to a harsh term. He creates a great plan, but the plan eventually fails and Magwitch is caught and sent to jail, where he dies (but not before Pip visits him and has already warmed to him). In the end, all of Pip’s Great Expectations come to naught, and he learns to live a life without such high expectations.

Bette Davis was a major Hollywood star, however, by 1950, her career was faltering. Her previous film, “Beyond the Forest” was not exactly a thumping movie. And then came this movie, released in 1950. It was hailed as the greatest role of Bette Davis career, and many call ‘All About Eve’ as one of the great movies of the 20th century. Its profile of a younger Broadway actress whose desire is to supplant the current queen (aging, but still the queen) of the industry has been splendidly made; and makes this an engrossing movie to watch. The movie had an incredible run at the Academy Awards, being nominated for a record 14 Oscars, and going onto win 6 of them. The movie was written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, based on a short story by Mary Orr called ‘The Wisdom of Eve’.

The movie and script have some basis in reality (and this is not that difficult, given that a lot of people would have had occasion to encourage somebody, only to find that the person whom you have helped could eventually upstage you). In real life, the author Mary Orr was told a story in which an actress did encourage a fan, but eventually found that the fan was trying to take away her roles. Mary Orr used this story, made the character more ruthless, and then wrote the story which in turn impressed the director Joseph L. Mankiewicz. By this time, Bette Davis had ended a long contract with Warner Brothers (not being impressed by many of the recent movies that had done no good to her reputation). She was impressed by the script of the movie. Coincidentally, the later superstar, Marilyn Monroe also had a small scene in the movie.
The movie is about this superstar of Broadway, Margo Channing (Bette Davis), who is starting to show her age. She encounters a young fan, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter); Eve impresses Margo by claiming to be a big fan and an aspiring actress from San Francisco. So far so good. However, as the movie progresses, you realize that Eve is actually pretty ruthless and calculating; her aim is to take the position currently enjoyed by Margo, and even break Margo’s bonds with her director boyfriend (Gary Merrill), and with her friends, her playwright (Hugh Marlowe) and his wife (Celeste Holm). Towards this end, she attempts to take over the roles that Margo is doing (even though it seems that Margo is not doing those roles). However, the end is ironical when Eve meets a young fan (does the same cycle start again ?)

Academy Awards for which the movie was nominated and won:

* Best Picture - 20th Century-Fox (Darryl F. Zanuck, producer)
* Best Supporting Actor - George Sanders
* Best Costume Design for a Black-and-White film - Edith Head and Charles Le Maire
* Best Director - Joseph L. Mankiewicz
* Best Writing, Screenplay - Joseph L. Mankiewicz
* Best Sound Recording - Thomas T. Moulton
* Nominated: Best Leading Actress - Anne Baxter
* Nominated: Best Leading Actress - Bette Davis
* Nominated: Best Supporting Actress - Celeste Holm
* Nominated: Best Supporting Actress - Thelma Ritter
* Nominated: Best Set Direction for a Black-and-White film - George W. Davis, Thomas Little, Walter M. Scott, and Lyle R. Wheeler
* Nominated: Best Cinematography for a Black-and-White film - Milton R. Krassner
* Nominated: Best Film Editing - Barbara McLean
* Nominated: Best Music Score - Alfred Newman

Frank Capra directed a number of movies, and one of his movies that has been marked as a great movie, one that has been remembered for quite some time is ‘Meet John Doe’, released in 1941. Frank Capra had a certain style to his movies, and a lot of his movies showcased qualities such as the basic element of human goodness, hard work and being good to others (also translated as being unselfish); such a concept is very rarely seen in modern age movies that tend to show a large portion of life as having all human emotions including the negative ones, and fewer roles tend to be fully white, more like everybody having shades of grey. Some of the other famous movies by Frank Capra include ‘It’s a wonderful life’ (1946), ‘It happened one night’ (1934), and many others. The movie did not do well at the Academy Awards, being nominated for Best Original Story.

This movie is slotted as a comedy, but it actually takes a hard and cynical look at both the newspaper business and at politics. The movie principally stars Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward Arnold. Barbara is a newspaper columnist, Ann Mitchell, who has just been fired, and angry, prints a fake letter from a ‘John Doe’, who claims that he is unemployed and threatens to commit suicide against the various ills of society. This letter catches the emotional thread of many many citizens, and becomes very popular. As a result, Mitchell is forced to continue the tale (in the process having got her job back), and to make sure that the story has some legs to stand on, they hire a vagabond and former baseball player, John Willoughby (Gary Cooper), to tour the country.
This movement becomes popular, drawing in support from all over, and is financially supported by the newspaper’s publisher, D.B. Norton (Edward Arnold), who recognizes that such a movement could be a potent political weapon and aims to use it for his own fledging political aspirations. John soon discovers that he is being used, but before he can expose this whole scam, he is in turn exposed by Norton who claims that he was unaware of the scam.
Driven by frustration, John plans to commit suicide by jumping off City Hall (as claimed in the original letter); but what happens ? Does he commit out the actual suicide, or do the John Doe clubs manage to get him to back off ?

‘Bonefire of the Vanities’, published in 1987, a biting portrayal of the New York of the 1980’s was a major commercial success. It was not author Tom Wolfe’s first work (he had written journalistic articles and non-fiction books before this work), but the success of this book must have left him spell-bound. The book was eventually made into a motion picture of the same name, with some great credentials (movie ‘Bonefire of the Vanities’, released in 1990, was directed by Brian DePalma, and starred such name as Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Melanie Griffith). Part of the reason why the novel struck such a resounding chord could because the characters could be been as representing many of the character flaws of important public figures.

The characters themselves represent the worst of the sins of greed, adultery, ambition, the preoccupation with status and wealth, the arrogance of the wealthy and the insurrection type violence of the deprived, the way in which you can actually depend on no one, and the special talents of wannabe and existing politicians. Imagine what happens when a highly arrogant and wealthy banker gets hit by about everything that he can be hit with and becomes the target for people wanting to use him to advance their own career. In addition, New York city seems like a perfect spot for such a novel to be set - it is probably the most melting point type of city in the world (with unprecedented riches and the most poor and deprived).
The book is about the powerful and WASP banker Sherman McCoy, arrogant in his status and wealth (he is atop the banking circles of New York). He is already distant from his wife, and is in the car with his mistress, Maria Ruskin - this is when his troubles start. He accidentally enters the Bronx, and in a confrontation with some muggers, his mistress takes over the wheel and hits one of them, young Henry Lamb.
This accident becomes the Saviour for a number of people, all of whom will use this incident and the powerful symbol of a white powerful man hitting a poor and powerless young black man. So, Peter Fallow, a drunk washed out reporter, gets a chance to take on this assignment, and uses this to powerful advantage, writing a series of articles based on this incident, and against McCoy when it becomes clear that it was his car that was involved. McCoy is also ditched by his mistress who soon makes it clear that she was not involved in the accident.
What makes matter worse is the involvement of a local religious leader with political aspirations, Reverend Bacon (seemingly styled on the real life Rev Al Sharpton), who wants to utilize this accident to further his career as the one who really cares for the African-American community. And to increase the forces against McCoy, he is also targeted by the district attorney, Abe Weiss, who is up for re-election and sees this trial as a way to consolidate votes behind him (and will do anything to get a conviction). With all these factors against him, McCoy is in for it, and is soon up for trial. What happens next ?