by Chris Marshall:
Maybe I was just tired of all the musicals I’d seen, or
maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood to watch it at the time, but Oliver! didn’t do anything for me. I can’t
pinpoint exactly what it was I didn’t like, but I felt like I was suffering my
way through it. Luckily that’s been rare so far, but it happens.
Perhaps it has something to do with my apathy toward Charles
Dickens. I thought Great Expectations
was wonderful, but that’s about the extent of my love for his work. Everything
seems so bleak and hopeless, even when it’s not supposed to. I admit that this
problem exists almost completely in my head, but there you have it.
But on the bright side, I could cross something else off my
list. As with Hamlet, I had somehow
gone my entire life without hearing/seeing/reading Oliver Twist, and while this film isn’t completely faithful to the
original work, at least now I have the basic idea. Sure, I knew about Fagin,
and the Artful Dodger, and “Please sir, may I have some more?” but that was it.
I mean, I even thought he spent most of his time in the orphanage, but hey, he
got out about five minutes into the movie!
It’s always hard to know which films history will hold in
highest regard. Still, I can’t help but wonder how the Academy passed over 2001: A Space Odyssey, which would go on
to be considered as one of the greatest films of all time. I completely
understand how it didn’t win the
award; these kinds of mistakes have happened time and again in Oscar history.
But it wasn’t even nominated! The only award it won was visual effects. At
least that was deserved, I guess.
But about Oliver!.
I didn’t watch it that long ago, so why can’t I remember anything about it? I
mean, the basic outline I’ve got, but none of the songs stuck with me. No
particular scenes stand out. It’s like it was passing in front of my eyes and
completely sidestepping my brain on the way by.
 |
| Zombie Fagin lusts for brains. |
There weren’t even any really big stars to hold my
attention. I mean, Oliver Reed[1]
was in it, but he was hardly a superstar. Ron Moody was nominated for Best
Actor for his role as Fagin, though he ended up losing out to Cliff Robertson,
who won for Charly, which is a movie
I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of.
Ok, so I have a confession to make. For the second time in
three days, I’m hammering out this blog post immediately after writing a huge
paper for school. Last time, I wrote for a mere eight hours in a row, but today
I went for the gusto and had a marathon 11 hour session. At this point, I’m
just throwing a bunch of garbage up on the screen to meet my daily post quota.
It had to happen sometime.
I’m just glad that Oliver!
is the film I’m writing about today, because I think the filmmakers used my
strategy and threw some garbage up on the screen. Or maybe I’m just grumpy and
sleepy and tired. Yeah, that’s probably what it is.
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