#80: Bringing Up Baby

Bringing Up Baby (Hawks, 1938)

This one I had trouble even getting through. I don't know what it is about comedies of the 40s and 50s, but other than Singin In The Rain (Which I'm in the middle of watching right now and will write about soon), all of them seem completely inane. They're like sitcoms from the 80s and 90s, only with better actors. They're filled with farse situations where characters are incapable of questioning even the most ridiculous lies. All the gags are predictable, all the women are loveable airheads (Is that how people saw women in the 40s and 50s?) and they don't even have the slapstick that make the stupid comedies from the earlier 30s enjoyable.

Even the acting in this one isn't very good. Cary Grant is good at playing one character, and this isn't it. He's trying to do this weird nerd-voice for the whole film and he just can't do it. And at the end it feels like there's no reason the main characters should get together except "They're the main characters, therefore…".

Other than a few amusing moments involving a leopard, the film did absolutely nothing for me.

Rating: * 1/2 / 5

Others:

Paris, Texas: **** 1/2 / 5

Four years ago, the main character disappeared, and his son showed up on his brother's doorstep. Now, he suddenly appears, barely willing to talk. His brother brings him home, and he decides he wants to reconnect with his son and bring his family back together, but what happened four years ago to make him just leave and his mother just leave her son? The revelation of that question is one of the greatest scenes I've ever seen, and the ending is one of the most emotional. All around it's just a beautiful movie.