Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I watched movies again this year for Comfy, Cozy Cinema
For our last movie we watched The Storied Life of AJ Fikry (2022).
The movie is based on the book of the same name by Gabrielle Zevin.
The story follows AJ Fikry (Kunal Nayyar), the owner of a small bookstore who lost his wife years earlier. He now lives a lonely existence and drinks himself into a stupor at least once a week. He’s also quite grumpy to everyone around him.
A book seller named Amelia and played by Lucy Hale, stops to sell him books and he brushes her off, overcome with depression.
Later that night he drinks himself into a stupor while looking at a collectible Edgar Allan Poe pamphlet/book that he hopes to one day sell to keep himself afloat.
When he wakes up in the morning the book is gone so he runs to the police station where he meets Chief Lambaisse (David Arquette). He has a panic attack in the police station and is sent to the hospital where the doctor suggests he exercise more. He does start running again, which he used to do before.
After awhile it is determined that the book cannot be found and AJ is distraught but moves on with his life. One day he comes home from a run and finds a toddler in his shop with a note pinned to her shirt, asking for him to take care of her.
Later the child’s mother is found dead, so AJ adopts her and his life begins to change.
The movie will eventually come full circle in many ways and the mystery of where the little girl, Maya, came from weaves in and out of the plot.
The movie also starts Scott Foley and Christina Hendricks.
I didn’t find this movie comfy or cozy in some parts, but in others it was those things because it showed friendships being formed, romantic love blooming, and new love coming alive for a man who felt his life had ended and he had no future.
The acting was outstanding and there was a ton of deep thinking produced by almost every scene.
Disclaimer: there were a few difficult subjects in this movie and I am only sharing this just to give a heads up to anyone who is uncomfortable with subjects like infidelity, miscarriages, suicide and cancer deaths (none of these are focused on extensively or in great detail). This movie was much less cozy to me than other movies we’ve watched in the past and I share that just so my blog readers are not totally blindsided.
I found a few facts and trivia I enjoyed reading about the movie, but did not find as many as I did for other movies. Maybe because this was a quieter movie that wasn’t a huge “blockbuster”? I’m not sure.
Kunal Nayyar also played Raj Koothrappali in The Big Bang Theory where he and Howard Wolowitz discuss the correct pronunciation of “Halley’s comet”, which is talked about in this movie. (Source IMdb)
This was David Arquette and Scott Foley’s second time working with each other. They previously worked together on Scream 3 (2000).(Source IMdb)
This story is called by some a modern retelling of the classic “Silas Marner” by George Eliot.
Erin expresses the message and feel of this movie in a much better way than I am able to so please check out her post here:.
This brings us to the end of our Comfy, Cozy Cinema. I hope you all had fun following us along!
Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are hosting the Comfy, Cozy Cinema again this year.
Our movie this week was The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain.
There are three things to know about this movie: It is based on a Welsh legend (but not actually true), it a romantic comedy, and it has the longest title of any movie I have ever watched.
First, let’s have a little description from online:
During the days of World War I, a small Welsh town relies on its local mountain as a source of pride. When two English cartographers, Reginald Anson (Hugh Grant) and George Garrad (Ian McNeice), arrive to measure the mountain, they discover the landmark is 16 feet short of achieving the official mountain classification. Disheartened that their mountain has been deemed a hill, the townsfolk devise a plan to make up those 16 feet. Meanwhile, Anson falls for a local woman (Tara Fitzgerald).
This movie has all the things I like — Quirky characters and story, beautiful views, dry British humor, and a bit of romance.
Hugh Grant is adorable in it and Colm Meany ads a bit of humor (even if he is a dirty scoundrel).
It is free of bad language, sex, or violence.
Well, let’s talk about the sex a bit. There are suggestions of it being engaged in, but none is shown.
The movie starts with the narrator explaining that a lot of people in Wales, where the movie takes place, have the same last name so people began to attach their occupation to their name. This is why a little boy wants to know why one man had a very long occupation attached to his name. He asks his grandfather and the grandfather begins to tell the story.
We then switch to Hugh Grant’s character, Reginald Anson (there is no way to say that name without using a British accent by the way. Try it. I dare you. It doesn’t sound right in an American accent) riding into a small village with another man, George Garrad, portrayed by Ian McNeice.
They pull up to a barn and inn, looking for a place to stay. The bar is owned by Colm Meany’s character.
Colm Meany is called Morgan the Goat. Why is he called this? Well, Morgan is taking advantage of the fact that man of the men of this village are in France fighting in the war. He’s keeping the wives of these men company, shall we say. This is why the church is full of babies that look a lot like Morgan, which absolutely infuriates the minister, Rev. Jones, portrayed by Kenneth Griffith.
So, Reginald and George explain to Morgan that they are there to conduct some surveys to record the topography of the area for the war effort because it is important to know the lay of the land in case the enemy invades.
If they are going to be checking out the local topography, Morgan suggests they check out the only mountain in Wales — Ffynnon Garw.
George a bit of a laugh but eventually they agree they will check the “mountain” out as part of their effort. The only problem is that they don’t really think it is a mountain. See, to be considered a mountain in the UK, the elevation has to be at least 1,000 feet. The cartagrophes don’t think that will be the case when they measure. This upsets the people of the town who have pride in the fact they have the only mountain in their country.
The reverend is especially riled up at the prospect of the mountain being classified as a hill.
When it is discovered that Ffynnon Garw isn’t a mountain, well, all hell breaks loose and many touching, ridiculous, and heartbreaking moments unfold as Morgan decides to delay Reginald and George from leaving while the town’s people find a way to make the hill a mountain.
The reverend and Morgan don’t get along at all but the reverend agrees that it is important to make the hill a mountain to boost morale of the village during the war.
Some of the fun or interesting characters in this movie are the twins with the same name, Johnny Shellshocked (who suffered PTSD in the war), William the Petroleum Man, and Davies the School.
One con of this movie, for me, though, I loved it, was the romance. It was late in the movie, no time for development and I felt like it was just thrown in as a last-minute idea. The posters for this movie with the actress and Hugh Grant on the front are baffling to me because she really wasn’t that important of a part of the movie for me.
Some trivia/facts about the movie:
This movie was written by Ifor David Monger, the grandfather of the director Christopher Monger who told his son about the real village of Taff’s Well, in the old county of Glamorgan, and its neighboring Garth Hill.
The narrator begins by remarking that “For some odd reason, lost in the mists of time, there’s an extraordinary shortage of last names in Wales.” Actually there is a known reason: as part of their increased domination of Wales in the 16th century, the English abolished the Welsh system of patronymics and introduced surnames arbitrarily. (source IMbd)
“Despite the implication in the film, and the real-life local legend, the story is fiction. Historians have determined that the mound at the summit of Garth Mountain (the inspiration for the movie) is a Bronze Age burial mound. In 1999, local officials and the History Society placed a sign on the mountain, telling the many climbers who’ve been coming there because of the movie’s popularity of the site’s real significance – and warning that they face two years in prison if they disturb the burial mound.” (source IMbd)
When Williams the Petroleum breaks a piece of the Englishmen’s car and pretends to discover it, he says he doesn’t know the English name for it, but in Welsh it’s called a “beth-yn-galw.” “Beth-yn-galw” translates more or less to “whatchamacallit”. (source IMbd)
To read what Erin thought about the movie, visit her blog:
Have you ever seen this one? What did you think of it?
You can see the rest of the list of movies in this cool graphic that Erin made:
Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are hosting Comfy, Cozy Cinema again this year and up this week was The Mummy!
The Mummy (1999) was a perfect watch for Halloween, though maybe not super comfy or cozy? I don’t know but we slip some creepier ones in for Halloweeeen too so it all evens out! This one isn’t super creepy all the way through, though, and oneee thing you should know is that The Mummy does not take itself too seriously.
Even though it isn’t really a horror film, it deals with the dead and ancient curses, gross bugs, the undead, and bringing people back from the dead and…., etc., etc.
And we also get to see when Brendan Frasier had a career. Ha! I kid. I kid. I know his career has been resurrected like some of the characters in this movie. I just thought it was a funny line.
This movie has become a cult classic after performing well in the theaters, but even better for video/DVD sales which raked in $1 billion for Universal in 2000. The movie’s success even led to a sequel, The Mummy Returns, which was must less successful and then yet another sequel, which was not a huge success either, if I remember right..
Even though I have seen this movie a couple of times, it’s been a long time since the last rewatch, so I rewatched it with my kids to remind myself of specific scenes, plot, etc.
Etc. is the word for today, by the way. I’m going to keep using it throughout this post just to be annoying, obnoxious, belligerent, etc. etc.
(I’m kidding about that too. I can’t keep that up for an entire post…..or can I?)
This movie starts with the affair between Imhotep and Anck-su-namun, the mistress of the Pharoah. No one was to touch Anck-su-namun other than the Pharaoh but I guess Imhotep missed that memo because he started an affair with her.
The two are caught by the Pharaoh, the Pharaoh is killed, the Pharaoh’s men come in, Imhotep escapes while Anck-su-namun reminds him that only he can resurrect her later so she kills herself before the Pharaoh’s men can.
Imhotep then steals Anck-su-namun body and tries to resurrect her but is interrupted by the pharaoh’s guard and is intombed with a bunch of creepy beetle things and buried alive “for all eternity.”
Ha. As if that line is going to stick. Of course, we know something is going to happen to disturb this dude’s resting place.
The Medjai, by the way, are sworn to prevent Imhotep’s return, as his resurrection would grant him immense power. They are guarding over him when Rick O’Connell (Brenden Frasier) is in the French Foreign Legion, fighting against an Arab Army, and finds the tomb, but runs away when the sand begins trying to attack him.
The Medjai decide not to kill him, but instead to “let the desert kill him instead.”
Bad idea because Rick lives and discovers an intricate box, which he takes home with him and has stolen by Jonathan Carnahan (John Hannah) who gives it to his sister, Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) a librarian and very green Egyptologist.
Evelyn finds a map inside the box that will lead them to buried Egyptian treasure but it is in the city of the dead. She takes it to her boss at the ancient library but he — oops — sets in it on fire. Was that an accident? Hmm…not so sure there.
Now Evelyn wants to know where Jonathan got it so they set off to find the man who Jonathan stole the box from.
Rick is in jail and actually looks way too clean to have been in jail and he agrees to help Evelyn get to the lost city of death if she will get him out of jail. She figures out a way, but the jailer says he is going to come along to keep an eye on his prisoner.
From there, hijinks ensue, especially when the group runs into a rival team also looking for the city and treasure and Rick runs into an old “friend” who always abandoned him at the most inopportune moments. That friend is Benji and he provides a lot of humor throughout the film, including an iconic scene where he uses symbols from several different religions to keep the mummy from attacking him.
This movie is a fun ride. My husband and I had seen this years ago in the theater when we were first dating — we think anyhow. Our memories are so fuzzy because we are so old.
The Boy said during this movie, “This movie is so fun. I’m really liking this.”
I could have sworn he’d seen this movie before, but he had not, and wanted to, so the timing was perfect, great, impeccable, etc. etc.
The movie is full of eye-candy for all with Rachel Weisz being pretty and Brenden and Oded Fehr and even Arnold Vosloo for those who like bald men.
As I mentioned above, The Mummy is not necessarily a “horror” film but there is a lot of grotesque scenes and moments involving — a bit of a spoiler here — the mummy trying to piece himself back together, which involves pulling other pieces off living humans.
The film was shot in Morocco and The United Kingdom. I found it interesting when I read that Universal took out kidnapping insurance on the crew and cast but didn’t tell them until filming was over. Yikes.
This is the movie where we almost lost Brendan Fraser to by the way
According to an interview with Brendan on The Kelly Clarkson Show, in the scene where Brendan is being hung, the director told him it wasn’t looking believable. Brendan pushed up on his tiptoes while the man who was holding the rope lifted up and Brendan had nowhere to go but try to push down.
“So he was pulling up and I was going down. And then the next thing I knew, my elbow was in my ear, the world was sideways and there was gravel in my teeth.”
He said the stunt coordinator was leaning over him clapping his hands and calling, “Brendan. Come on, Brendan.”
When he did, the coordinator told the actor, “‘Congratulations, you’re in the club — same thing happened to Mel Gibson on ‘Braveheart.’”
The Mummy became such a hit that there were two sequels and a spinoff. Yes, I saw the spinoff with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, The Scorpion King. No, I do not recommend it.
I never saw The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor but I probably wouldn’t recommend it either.
This movie did get positive reviews when it came out, with most calling it lot of fun.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a positive review, writing, “There is hardly a thing I can say in its favor, except that I was cheered by nearly every minute of it. I cannot argue for the script, the direction, the acting or even the mummy, but I can say that I was not bored and sometimes I was unreasonably pleased.”[
Trivia and facts:
*Disclaimer: always make sure to double check these as what I report is only as good as the sites I pull it from and they are not always accurate.
The library disaster in the beginning of the film was done in one take. It would have taken an entire day to re-shoot if a mistake had been made. (source IMdb)
The effects team was told “no gore” when designing the look of the Mummy. They actually did tests for “grossness threshold.” (source IMdb)
Erick Avari who portrayed Dr. Terence Bey now portrays Nicodemus on The Chosen. (source: me!)
With the exception of a loin cloth, a few pieces of jewelry, and pasties, Patricia Velasquez as Anck-su-namun, was nude except for body paint, which took four hours to apply. (source IMdb)
This movie is a remake of the 1932 film of the same name. (various sources, including my husband.)
The white nightgown Evelyn wore when the ship was attacked became transparent when it got wet and had to be digitally painted white during post production so the film could keep its PG-13 rating. (source IMdb)
The Medjai were originally supposed to be tattooed from head to toe, but Stephen Sommers vetoed it because he thought Oded Fehr was “too good-looking” to be covered up. (source IMdb)
The crew could not shoot in Egypt because of the unstable political conditions. (source IMdb)
To avoid dehydration in the scorching heat of the Sahara, the production’s medical team created a drink that the cast and crew had to consume every two hours. (source IMdb)
Sandstorms were daily inconveniences. Snakes, spiders and scorpions were a major problem, with many crew members having to be airlifted out after being bitten. (source IMdb)
When Evelyn reads the inscription “He who shall not be named” on Imhotep’s sarcophagus, the hieroglyphs used are accurate. The inscription actually translates literally as “the one without a name.” (source IMdb)
The film is called The Mummy everywhere except Japan where it is called Hamunaptra: The Capital City of the Lost Desert. (source, TVTrops.org)
“John Hannah claimed in interviews that he didn’t have the best time shooting the film because he felt the character of Jonathan was pretty redundant: he had been hired as a comedic actor but Beni was far more prevalent as the comedy relief and he didn’t work as a sidekick either since Evy fulfilled that role as well. Whenever Hannah tried bringing this up to Stephen Sommers, the latter would just tell him to make something up. Luckily, later films in the series would give Jonathan a more focused role as the comic relief and give him more stuff to do.” (source, TVTrops.org)
“The original script’s opening had a number of edits. Imhotep was originally supposed to narrate, and following Seti’s murder Imhotep was supposed to lead the ritual to curse Anak-su-namun’s mummified body for her crime of regicide, only for Imhotep and his priests to dug up the body as soon as all the other witnesses were either dead or had left; in a scene mirroring Imhotep’s origin story in the original film, the diggers were to be killed by the soldiers after burying Anak-su-namun, and for the Med-jai to kill the soldiers afterwards in order to keep her grave a secret. During the ritual at Hamunaptra, Imhotep explains the ritual didn’t require a human sacrifice since Anak-su-namun’s organs were still fresh. When the Med-jai arrive to stop Imhotep, one of them smashes the jar containing Anak-su-namun’s heart, explaining why it it’s intact in one shot, and broken in the shot where her soul flees back to the underworld. Lastly, Imhotep explains how part of the Hom Dai works: the sacred scarabs would be able to enter his now tongue-free mouth and he’d be forced to consume them, cursing him, while the scarabs would become cursed as well upon consuming his flesh, creating a perversion of the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Yes, the scarab swarms that plague our heroes later are all undead insects.” (source, TVTrops.org)
If you want to read Erin’s impressions of the movie, you can find it here
So, have you ever seen this one? What did you think of it?
Up next in our Comfy, Cozy Cinema will be The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down a Mountain.
Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are hosting Comfy, Cozy Cinema again this year and up this week was The Young In Heart.
And, yes, that title is the actual title: The Young IN Heart.
I feel like I cheated a little bit this week because not only have I watched this movie, but I also wrote about it when I watched it for the Winter of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. That means I had an advantage to Erin when it came to writing this week’s post because I am going to quote a lot of my original post.
This is part of what I wrote in that post: “I absolutely loved Douglas in this one. He played a more prominent role than in Gunga Din and was simply … shall I sound completely cheesy? Yes, I shall. He was completely delightful.
At one point, I texted my friend Erin that a drunk Douglas is adorable.”
Yes, I did text Erin this past January to tell her he was adorable. Yes, I am weird.
Before I forget, I found this one for free on YouTube.
So, let’s get to the movie.
The Carlton family, of which Douglas is a part of in this movie, are not a family you would want to know in real life. They are swindlers and grifters. They mooch off and manipulate people to scrape by in life.
We open the movie in the French Riviera with Douglas’s character (Rick) ready to marry a young woman whose father is rich.
Everything falls apart, though, when the police find out about the family and reveal their conniving ways to the family of Rick’s future wife. The family is told to get out of France and end up on a train where they meet a ridiculously sweet woman (Minnie Dupree) who has only recently come into a great sum of money.
Ironically, her last name is Fortune. George-Anne sets out to swindle the woman out of paying for their lunch, but the plan expands as the woman explains she lives alone in a big mansion left to her by a former suitor. She is saying how lovely it would be if all of them came to stay with her when there is a train derailment. Their car tips and at first Rick and George-Anne believe the old woman has died. She’s still breathing so the siblings carry her from the car and George-Anne covers her with her own coat.
We begin to wonder if the family is rotten through and through and are still playing things up as the woman later recovers and invites the family to come live with her.
George-Anne suggests to the family that if Miss Fortune believes they are a respectable family she will be more willing to let them live there and maybe even leave them money when she leaves. To play up this ruse she suggests the men get actual jobs and she and her mother act like caretakers and women who don’t swindle people out of money.
This is all very baffling to the family who has always cheated and stole for a living. When the men decide George-Anne’s plan might work and go to look for jobs, the scenes that follow are some of the most hilarious tongue-in-cheek moments I’ve seen in a movie.
Spinning around in the background of the family’s drama is the romance between George-Anne and Duncan Macrae (Richard Carlson), who she originally considered marrying when she thought he was rich. Duncan learned she was a con-artist along with everyone else and was shattered but still ends up chasing her down on the train back to London to tell her he still loves her.
The rest of Rick’s family — father, Col. Anthony “Sahib” Carleton (Roland Young), mother Marmey Carlton (Billie Burke), and daughter George-Anne (Janet Gaynor) — are thrilled with this plan because they know it will also set them all up for a rich life. George Anne might be even more thrilled because then she can marry a poor Scottish man who she’s fallen in love with, and the rest of her family will support her financially.
She tells him to get lost, believing he’s much too good for her and . . . well, you’ll have to see where all that ends up.
Rick is also having his own romance with Leslie Saunders (Paulette Goddard), a secretary and the engineering business he applies at for a job.
This is the second – or shall I say third – movie I’ve watched in recent months with Billie Burke and there is no mistaking that voice if you have seen The Wizard of Oz.
Yes, she is Glenda the Good Witch.
The screenplay for this movie was written by Paul Osborn and adapted by Charles Bennett from the serialized novel, The Gay Banditti by I. A. R. Wylie. That title certainly would have had a different connotation in the modern day, eh?
Anyhow, the novel appeared in parts in The Saturday Evening Post from February 26 to March 26, 1938.
The movie was released in November of the same year. They certainly worked fast back then.
I found it interesting when I read that Broadway actresses Maude Adams and Laurette Taylor screen-tested for the role of Miss Fortune and that the footage is the only audio-visual samples that existed of both of them.
The movie was produced by – can you guess? Because it feels like every movie I write about lately is produced by him.
Yes. David Selznick. The man who produced what is considered one of the biggest movie triumphs in the world — Gone with the Wind.
This movie was one of many he produced leading up to Gone With The Wind. The Prisoner of Zenda, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, was another. Goddard was actually rumored to be being considered to play Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With The Wind, which later, of course, went to Vivien Leigh.
While I was watching the part of the movie where Mr. Carleton goes to apply for a job, I was fascinated by the fancy car they showed. It was spinning like a pig on a spit at the front of the building and it was a very modern looking car and a very modern looking set up altogether.
The six-passenger 2-door sedan Flying Wombat featured in that scene was actually the one-of-a-kind prototype Phantom Corsair. The Phantom Corsair concept car was built in 1938 and designed by Rust Heinz of the H. J. Heinz family and Maurice Schwartz of the Bohman & Schwartz coachbuilding company in Pasadena, California.”
I also found it interesting that this was Gaynor’s last movie before retiring while she was at the top of her career. She made one last movie in 1957 called Bernardine.
Like I said above, I loved this movie. It was just what I needed to watch this week with so much sadness going on in the world. There was a lot of humor from all the cast, but Douglas really had me smiling throughout. Not only because he is my latest old Hollywood star crush (watch out Paul Newman!).
Have you seen this one? What did you think of it?
You can read Erin’s impression of the movie on her blog.
Next week we will move into a bit of spooky with Coraline.
The rest of our movie list can be found on this graphic:
Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are hosting Comfy, Cozy Cinema again this year and up this week was The Five-Year Engagement.
I am going to share right off the bat that this was not the movie for me. Erin enjoys it (though she had not watched in a long time and forgot some of the aspects of it) and you can find a more positive view of it on her blog.
Disclaimer: The fact I did not enjoy it is NOT an attack on anyone who did enjoy it. All views expressed here are my own opinions on the movie only. I don’t think anyone is awful for enjoying it. It simply was not my cup of tea.Everyone has different tastes.
I probably should have researched this one a little more when I agreed to watch it because it really wasn’t a movie I’d normally watch. It also was not cozy at all to me personally, but it probably has some sentimental value to others.
For my regular readers who know I usually recommend books and shows without a ton of swearing and crude “jokes” or references, you can know I don’t recommend this one because that’s the majority it.
When I did finally look up the movie this morning, I learned that it featured “more than 205 obscenities and profanities and lots of verbal sexual humor.”
Yeah. I really need to look this stuff up before I go into a movie. *wince*
I am not going to sit here and say that I do not swear. I certainly do. I wish I didn’t, but I do. I’m in a deep depression this week and have sworn about ten times already today (and asked God to forgive me).
Despite that personal flaw confessional moment, movies that throw swear words in for no reason aren’t my thing.
Here is a bit of a description of the movie from online:
“On their one-year anniversary, sous chef Tom Solomon (Jason Segel) plans to surprise his girlfriend, Violet Barnes (Emily Blunt), with an engagement ring. The lovers do end up engaged, but the fact that the proposal does not go exactly as planned proves to be a harbinger of things to come. Each time they try to set a date, various obstacles stand in their way. As more and more time passes, Tom and Violet begin to wonder if perhaps their marriage is not meant to be.”
The movie is rated R, so a lot of it the languag and sex scenes are to be expected but I just wasn’t comfortable with the level of crudeness or how many times I had to see Jason Segel having sex. Eek.
Also, Jason Segel plays pretty much the same character in every movie or TV show he has ever been in so if you like him in other movies or TV shows you should like this – just add a few more penis jokes, f-words, and views of his naked butt.
Again, Erin has more positive reasons she enjoyed the film (and I totally get her reasons!) so you can check out her views and more information on her blog here:
Next week we are writing about The Young In Heart (1938), starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
The other movies we will be watching are on this list:
Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are hosting Comfy, Cozy Cinema again this year and up this week is A Knight’s Tale.
I remember watching this one shortly after it came out but not in the theater. It’s a fun one that I’ve watched more than once over the years.
I was not in the group of girls who fawned all over Heath Ledger when he was popular (and alive..his death was so sad) because I wasn’t into popular culture at the time. I was a nerd, I don’t know what to say.
I really didn’t discover Heath until he passed away.
Regardless, I enjoyed watching Heath when I finally watched this movie.
It should be noted, too, that Heath was actually not well-known when this movie was made. His breakout role was The Patriot and that had not yet been released when he was hired for A Knight’s Tale. Lucky for the director of A Knight’s Tale, Brian Hedgeland, and everyone else involved, The Patriot was hugely successful and made A Knight’s Tale more marketable once the movie when to DVD sales. It was through DVD sales that the movie made more money.
Okay, but let’s go back a bit and talk a bit about the plot of the movie for those who aren’t familiar with it.
Here is a Google description: Peasant-born William Thatcher (Heath Ledger) begins a quest to change his stars, win the heart of an exceedingly fair maiden (Shanynn Sossamon) and rock his medieval world. With the help of friends (Mark Addy, Paul Bettany, Alan Tudyk), he faces the ultimate test of medieval gallantry — tournament jousting — and tries to discover if he has the mettle to become a legend.
I read a review that called this movie whimsical and I think that is a good description.
It is full of adventure and fun and is just a perfect escape. The movie blends modern music with a story set in the medieval times.
We start with William being an assistant to a knight who, tragically, dies. William decides to become him so he can finish the tournament and he and the other serfs can get the money.
From there they decide to continue the ruse, training hard to make Will an actual jousting knight. Along the way they meet a young Geoffrey Chaucer (the writer) who is destitute and agrees to forge a patent of nobility so Wil can enter under the name Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein from Gelderland. Chaucer has a lot of problems, though, the main one being his gambling problem, which leads William to be brought before Simon the Summoner and Peter the Pardoner who demands payment from Chaucer. Will then demands Chaucer be released and promises payment.
Will’s armor is damaged and he must go to Kate, a female blacksmith, to repair it and she agrees to do so without payment. She is pulled into their circle of friends.
Will is also delighted to find that Jocelyn, a local noblewoman, is watching. He is infatuated with her and will spend most of the movie trying to get her attention.
There will be more jousting as William travels to the World Championships and those scenes are quite fun and exciting. There is, of course, a “bad guy” — Count Adhemar of Anjou portrayed by Rufus Sewell.
I love the mix of modern or semi-modern music with the medieval time period in this movie. Bettany is fantastic as Chaucer and Alan Tudyk is just always awesome and hilarious. If you want to know more about what he’s been in you can check him out on IMdb. You won’t even believe all the voices he’s done and movies he’s been in.
One of the more famous lines from this movie is “You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting.” You may have heard this before over the years since this movie, while it didn’t make a ton of money at the box office compared to some, became a cult classic of sorts. The movie did make $117 million after being made for $65 million so I don’t think that is too bad.
Trivia:
“The movie was filmed in the Czech Republic, mainly in Prague. When Chaucer first introduces “Sir Ulrich” in his speech, the crowd doesn’t react at first because the Czech extras didn’t understand it. Mark Addy‘s loud prompt tipped them off to start cheering. The awkward moment was left in because it made the scene funnier.”
“Plenty of effort was expended creating lances that would splinter convincingly without taking out the stunt riders as well. The body of each lance was scored so it would break easily, and the tips were made of balsa wood. Each was also hollowed out, and the hole filled with balsa chips and uncooked linguine to make convincing splinters.”
Paul Bettany’s nude scene was shot on his very first day in front of a crowd of extras.
There was a period of about a year in Geoffrey Chaucer’s life when historians have no records of what happened to him. This film is supposed to be set in that year.
The first scene of two knights jousting is actually footage of an accident involving Heath Ledger’s stunt double. While filming a later scene, the opponent’s lance moved off target. The stunt double was hit in the head, and fell to the ground unconscious. The entire scene was used for the introduction.
“Heath Ledger knocked out one of director Brian Helgeland’s front teeth with a broomstick when the two were demonstrating a jousting move. It was several months before Helgeland’s mouth had healed enough to repair the damage. He says it was the only jousting injury during filming.”
“Several of the named knights were, in fact, real, though many of them are from different time periods. Ulrich von Lichtenstein was a knight and author who was said to have invented the concept of chivalry and courtly love. He boasted that he would give a golden ring to any knight who could break a lance on his armour, giving away 271 in total, but remaining undefeated. Piers Courtenay was a descendant of Edward I, born in the 15th Century. Sir Thomas Colville was a knight from the 13th Century. Roger Mortimer was the name of several related noblemen in 13th- and 14-century England. One was the lover of King Edward II’s wife – Isabella of France – and was hanged, drawn, and quartered by the Black Prince’s father, King Edward III, for his complicity in Edward II’s death.”
Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are hosting Comfy, Cozy Cinema again this year and first up on our movie-watching list was Benny & Joon.
Benny & Joon (1993)is a quirky film I watched in 1990s and really enjoyed. It was when I first saw Johnny Depp because I never watched 21 Jump Street or anything else he was in back then.
I already knew Mary Stuart Masterson from Fried Green Tomatoes.
For the most part, the movie is funny, comfy, and sweet, but there are a couple of hard moments. In the end, though, (small spoiler ahead —–à) things actually turn out okay.
Let’s start with an online description of the movie:
Benny (Aidan Quinn), who cares for his mentally disturbed sister, Joon (Mary Stuart Masterson), also welcomes the eccentric Sam (Johnny Depp) into his home at Joon’s request. Sam entertains Joon while he dreams of a job at the video store. Once Benny realizes Joon and Sam have started a relationship, he kicks Sam out of the house. This leads to an altercation between brother and sister. Joon runs away with Sam, who soon realizes that she may need more support than he alone can provide.
This movie starts with someone painting and a train rolling across the tracks to the soundtrack of The Proclaimers singing I’m Gonna Be (500 miles). Yes, that very annoying song that is an earworm and was overplayed in 1993. Okay, it’s not actually annoying. I like it! But it won’t get out of my head once I’ve heard it. And I mean for more than a week!
Anyhow, back to the movie.
After we see a woman painting we are at Benny’s Car Clinic where we see Benny (Aiden Quinn) fixing a car and chatting with his friends when a call is made from his home. His sister Joon wants him to know that they are out of peanut butter Crunch cereal.
Later at Benny’s home we meet Joon who seem a little different but otherwise fairly sane and smart.
She’s clearly very intelligent with the way she uses large phrases and big words. Still, she also seems somewhat childlike.
As the movie goes on we will lean that Joon has mental issues and sometimes likes to light things on fire.
She rarely leaves the house alone, instead staying in the house and painting. Housekeepers take care of her during the day but on this day one of them, apparently one of many, is calling it quits.
Joon is out of control she tells Benny. That means Benny is without someone to sit with Joon during the day and he’ll have to miss his card game with his friends that night because Joon can’t be left home alone very much.
His friend, Eric (Oliver Platt), tells him just to bring Joon, but Benny hesitates.
“What’s the big deal?”Eric says. “She paints and she reads.”
“Yeah, she paints. She reads. She lights things on fire,” Benny responds.
As my Mom would say, “Oh. Oh. My.”
Once at the game, though, Joon does fairly well, even if she does like holding her hand over the flame of a candle a bit too much..
We learn that Benny’s friends place real items in the pot for their poker game and this will come into play later in the movie when Joon decides to play a round while Benny is outside and Benny’s friend Mike says if she loses the hand she has to take his eccentric cousin off his hands.
That cousin is a 26-year-old name Sam (Johnny Depp) who can’t read or write and doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life. He likes Buster Keaton and has been studying him, though, dressing like him and taking on his persona while being generally …. Weird.
At first Benny says he won’t take Sam but then he agrees and over time Sam becomes the housekeeper and a whole lot more to Joon who falls hard for him.
Before all of this, though, Joon’s doctor suggests that Benny have Joon placed in a group home where she will be among her peers.
Benny laughs. “She has a home.” Not only that but, “She hates her peers.”
The doctor sighs. “You might want to consider there are people more capable of handling these outbursts than you.”
Benny rejects this idea over and over again even though his whole life is put on hold so he can care for Joon. He doesn’t have a love life or any life outside of work.
There will come a time, though, when it does have to be seriously considered. I won’t give away anymore than all of this because this movie is worth a watch. It is actually sweet and when you think it is going some place you don’t want it to, it will change directions and pleasantly surprise you.
Don’t let the dark music that sometimes pops up scare you.
Mixed in with all the drama with Joon, by the way, is a potential romance between Benny and Ruthie, a local waitress who used to be in B-movies.
This movie has always charmed me. It’s made me laugh, smile, and enchanted me. I’m a big sucker for quirky movies with quirky characters.
As I watched the movie this time around (maybe my fifth time watching it), I realized that I think I am attracted to this movie because my great-aunt was schizophrenic and an artist. Maybe I saw some of her in Joon, even though I never met her. Mental illness has always frightened me. My great-aunt was sent to a mental hospital when she was in her 40s after years of acting odd. From what I understand she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and I always wondered if it might happen to me too. I liked art and I was even a little odd at times. Ha! So far I’m just depressed and have anxiety. No schizophrenia.
I should clarify that this movie never defines what Joon has but many viewers suspect a combination of conditions, including schizophrenia.
There are several classic scenes in this movie for me.
One is when Sam uses forks to make buns dance:
The other is when Sam reenacts Ruthie’s horrible acting in the B-movie (which can also be seen at the above clip)
Another is the absolute look of delight Sam gets when Benny says Joon sometimes hears voices in her head. That makes me crack up every time. It’s like he thinks the idea of her hearing voices is absolutely delightful.
Then there is Sam making grilled cheese sandwiches with an iron.
Then there is also a scene toward the end of the movie that you will have to see — you’ll know what it is when you see it.
There are also so many good quotes that come from either Joon or Sam too
When Sam is staring at Joon at one point she says, “Having a Boo Radley moment are we?”
As a huge fan of To Kill A Mockingbird, that one always cracks me up.
Later when she and Benny watch Sam make the grilled cheese sandwiches she says, “Some cultures are defined by their relationship to cheese.”
In the restaurant one day Joon picks the raisins out of her tapioca pudding and Sam asks her why she doesn’t like raisins.
“They used to be fat and juicy and now they’re twisted,” she says. “They had their lives stolen. Well, they taste sweet, but really they’re just humiliated grapes. I can’t say I am a big supporter of the raisin council.”
He then asks her if she saw those dancing raisins on TV and she says they scare her. That always cracks me up because they used to scare me too!
Some Trivia and Facts
I always wondered this so I looked it up and Johnny does do his own stunts and tricks when imitating Buster Keaton. This does not surprise me in the least.
Apparently, Wynonna Ryder was going to play Joon but she had Johnny had been dating at the time and broke up so she dropped out. I think I could actually see her playing Joon, even though Mary Stuart Masterson did great.
Johnny improvised a scene where he tasted the paint of one of Joon’s paintings. This also doesn’t surprise me.
From IMdb: “During the filming of the scene where Benny rushes to Joon’s aid after she is put into an ambulance, a house party was happening less than a block away from the shooting in Spokane’s Peaceful Valley area (it was a day scene actually filmed at night). After hours of re-takes, Jeremiah S. Chechik bribed the local revelers with a cornucopia of food from the crew’s food tent, which kept them pacified long enough to finish the scene (at around midnight).”
Though released in the UK and Australia in 1988, the song I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) was not well-known in the United States until this movie. Once it was in the movie it reached number three on the Billboard Charts in the U.S. and was played ad nauseum until many people, such as me, were sick of hearing it. (Again, I do like the song. It was just overplayed that year.)
Another tidbit directly quoted from IMbD: “In the restaurant scene between Sam and Joon, as they are discussing raisins, Sam says, “It’s a shame about raisins.” This is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the video for the Lemonhead’s hit, “It’s a Shame about Ray,” which was released the year before and in which Johnny Depp starred. (At the end of the video, Johnny can be seen carrying a curved cane almost identical to Sam’s.)”
Of the film, Rogert Ebert (a famous movie critic back in the day) said, “Benny and Joon” is a film that approaches its subjects so gingerly it almost seems afraid to touch them. The story wants to be about love, but is also about madness, and somehow it weaves the two together with a charm that would probably not be quite so easy in real life.”
For once, he actually liked a film I liked and ended his review with this: ““Benny and Joon” is a tough sell. Younger moviegoers these days seem to shy away from complexities, which is why the movie and its advertising all shy away from any implication of mental illness. The film is being sold as an offbeat romance between a couple of lovable kooks. I was relieved to discover it was about so much more than that.”
Have you ever seen this one? What did you think if you did?
You can read Erin’s impressions of the movie here.
Up next in our Comfy, Cozy Cinema is: A Knight’s Tale.
You can see the rest of the list of movies in this cool graphic that Erin made:
