My Grading System

A+ = Masterpiece (I hold back on this one.) / A = Great. / A- = Really Good. / B+ = Good. / B = Decent (Serviceable). / B- = Flawed but okay (For those times there's something redeeming about the work). / C+ = Not very good (Skip it). C = Bad. / C- = Awful. / F = Complete Disaster (I hold back on this one too).

Note on Spoilers: I will try to avoid ruining a story by going into too much detail. But if I wish to include some revealing points to my analysis I will try to remember to add a separate spoiler paragraph.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Smile (1975)

This film completely surprised me. What a pleasurable experience that satires beauty pageants and small town simplicity. It's easy to forget at times that this is a fictional story because of how director Michael Ritchie (known for The Bad News Bears) shot this film with natural light and a cast of regular looking people. I love this un-stylized look especially when most films today seem so artificial and color-corrected to the point of invention.  What interests me is that this film came out the same year that Robert Altman’s Nashville did.  Yet Altman’s film is more revered, why is that?  Because politics is more sensational?  For me this multi-character story is better told with characters way more entertaining and hilarious.  Bruce Dern’s Big Bob, main judge of California's Young American Miss Pageant, alone is more amusing then all the characters in Nashville.  I can only hope that more people discover this little gem from the 1970s.  Grade: A
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