High Society (1956)

Star Rating: 3
Length of Film: 107 minutes
Director: Charles Walters
Cast: Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Celeste Holm, John Lund, Louis Calher, Sidney Blackmer, Louis Armstrong, & Margalo Gillmore
Oscar Nominations: Edward Bernds & Elwood Ullman (screenplay)*, Johnny Green & Saul Chaplin (music), and Cole Porter (song)
*Nomination declined when the Academy realized it had confused Bernds and ullman's High Society with Sol Siegel's production







My process for movie choices, is looking through my book, typing the titles into netflix, and be surprised when I get the movie in the mail. I never would have thought that I would watch the original movie, "The Philadelphia Story" then the remake, "High Society" in a 3 month time period.

The characters are still the same. C.K. Dexter-Haven (Bing Crosby) and Miss Tracy Lord (Gene Kelly) were once married, they are no longer together. This movie is about Tracy's second marriage to George Kittredge (John Lund). Mike Connor, a tabloid writer (Frank Sinatra) and Liz Imbrie, a photographer (Celeste Holm) from Spy Magazine came to wedding, to write a story about the happy couple.


Mike Connor, spent time with Tracy, getting to know her for the story, and he fell for her! Mike (Frank Sinatra) sang a total of 3 songs in the movie. 

1. "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" - Mike, Liz
2. "You're Sensational" - Mike
3. "Well, Did You Evah!" - C.K., Mike

One of my favorite songs from the movie was C.K. Dexter-Haven's (Bing Crosby)"Now You Has Jazz" where he performed with Louis Armstrong and his band.



Read my synopsis of The Philadelphia Story, to know what happens in the movie. I'm not going to waste my time repeating exactly what I typed in the blog post of The Philadelphia Story. Gene Kelly is so pretty! High Societ was her last film she ever did, and the first and only movie she sang in.

Here's a list of the songs from this musical.

1. "Overture"
2. "High Society Calypso" - Armstrong & his band
3. "True Love" - C.K., Tracy
4. "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" - Mike, Liz
5. "I Love You, Samantha" - C.K.
6. "You're Sensational" - Mike
7. "Well, Did You Evah!" - C.K., Mike
8. "Little One" - C.K.
9. "Now You Has Jazz" - C.K., Armstrong & his band, individually introduced by name
10. "Mind if I Make Love to You?" (Sinatra)

Let The Right One In (2008)

Star Rating: 4
Length of Film: 115 minutes
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Cast: Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl, Karin Bergquist, Peter Carlber, Ika Nord, & Mikael Rahm
BAFTA Nomination: Carl Molinder, John Nordling, &Tomas Alfredson (best film not in the English language)
Language: Swedish

Be prepared...this movie is in a foreign language, you will have to watch this movie in subtitles.

This movie is set in the 1980's in Blackberg, a suburb of Stockholm, Sweden. The movie is set around Oskar, a 12 year old only child, living with his mom, and visits dad on the weekends. Oskar is bullied at school, and doesn't really have any friends. With a pocket knife, Oskar practiced stabbing his "bullies" on a tree. That's when he met his new neighbor, Eli (she's a girl).

Eli is a vampire. Their eyes glow green when they're around blood, cats hate them, they can't eat human food, they burst into flames in the sun.

This movie is so interesting, and there's so many good parts in it, that this review is going to be super short! I don't want to ruin it, it's that good! It's a memorable movie!

Eli and Oskar first bond was over a rubik's cube. Oskar insisted that Eli borrow it, and in a day, she successfully solved the puzzle. Their relationship starts out friendly, learning morse code, through their shared wall, but then it escalates to inappropriate behavior for 12 years old. After a kill, Eli knocks on Oskars window, asks to come in, takes off all her clothes, and lays in bed with Oskar.

The horror isn't too graphic, or gross, it's done tastefully well. There is slight nudity of Eli's va-jay-jay. Eli was changing out of her bloody clothes, and Oskar sneaked a peek.The ending reminded me a lot of Nosferatu: A Symphony of Terror (1922), That vampire traveled by a wooden box, and in the end, when Eli left the town of Blackberg, she too, traveled by a wooden box.

I will tell you...the scene where find out that cats don't like vampires, is it shocking! And when Oskar's in the pool, and the bully's big brother stepped in, there was a moment of panic on my part. Curious? Rent the movie!

The Untouchables (1987)

Star Rating: 3
Length of Film: 119 minutes
Director: Brian De Palma
Cast: Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Charles Martin Smith, Andy Garcia, Robert De Niro, Richard Bardford, Jack Kehoe, Brad Sullivan, Billy Grago, Patricia Clarkson, Vito D'Ambrosio, Steven Goldstein, Peter Aylward, Don Harvey, & Robert Swan
Oscar: Sean Connery (Actor in Supporting Role)
Oscar Nomination: Patricia von Brandenstein, William A. Elliott, Hal Gausman (Art Direction), Marilyn Van (Costume), & Ennio morricon (music)

From Left to Right: Agent George Stone, Jim Malone, Eliot Ness, & Agent Oscar Wallace

The Untouchables is a movie re-telling the story of the famous mob boss, Al Capone (Robert De Niro). Knowing this is based off of American history, I knew that it wouldn't be 100% correct to what really happened, so I just watched the movie, with no judgment that all the facts in the movie, is false.

Eliot Ness(Kevin Costner), an Agent of the Bureau of Prohibition, was called to Chicago to help eliminate Al Capone's grasp on the state of Chicago by selling low-quality liquor at high prices. Eliot was in the park, where he was approached by police officer Jim Malone (Sean Connery) and Eliot become fast friends, especially since Jim knows whats been going on in the Chicago area. Together, Eliot and Jim go to the police academy and pick up George Stone, who has the best shot in his class. They later joined the 4th member of their team; Agent Oscar Wallace, an accountant.

They successfully joined a team, and they had a mission to bring Al Capone down, by showing that he has not turned in his taxes, and turn him in for tax evasion. On horses, the police ride after the mafia in cars, and have this huge gun fight. The music in this scene is very odd. It's heroic and positive, letting the audience know that the good guys are going to win. This was a HUGE fight scene and the music didn't portray that it was a big deal, it gave away that the winning side was already decided. During this battle scene, the team captured the bookkeeper. To get him to talk, Malone picked up a dead guy, put a gun in his mess, and "pretended" to interrogate him, and gave him a choice to talk, when the dead guy didn't say anything, he shot him. Through the window, the bookkeeper saw it, agreed to talk, and they took him into custody.

My 2nd favorite scene was with Al Capone with his men, he got mad at one of his men, and beat him with a baseball bat. Yikes!!!! Robert De Niro is such an amazing actor. When commits to a role, he REALLY commits. Robert De Niro insisted on wearing the same style of silk underwear that Al Capone wore, even though it would never be seen on camera. He also didn't have much time to gain the extra weight needed for this role, so he had to wear pads and pillows for the desired effect of looking like the chunky Capone.

The Real al Capone



Robert De Niro as Al Capone

My third and favorite scene is the death of Jim Malone. Jim was alone in his apartment, and a mafia man, with a knife, came in through his window to kill him. With a shotgun, Jim chased him out of his apartment, at the front door, he yelled very confidently that they can't outsmart him, then a mafia man on the roof, shot and killed him. :o(

This movie is based on building the personal relationships with the characters, and we don't see the mafia side, only the cop side. They could've done a lot more with the movie, but they didn't. They also could've used more facts on what actually happened. The screenwriters, should've done more research, because after watching the movie, I looked into what really happned, and they left out A LOT of details. Watch the movie, and make an opinion for yourself.