Real-life divorced couple William Powell and Carole Lombard flirt with a possible romance in depression-eara screwball comedy MY MAN GODFREY
MY MAN GODFREY (Gregory La Cava, 1936)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Thursday, August 9, 6:50 & 9:15
Series runs August 8 – September 17
212-415-5500
www.bam.org
After more than three quarters of a century, Gregory La Cava’s screwball comedy My Man Godfrey is still fresh and funny and surprisingly relevant as it takes on the one percent during tough economic times. William Powell stars as the title character, a down-on-his-luck aristocrat living with a group of lost souls in a city dump under a bridge when a pair of ritzy sisters, Cornelia (Gail Patrick) and Irene (Carole Lombard) Bullock, suddenly show up, looking for a “forgotten man” as part of a scavenger hunt. Godfrey soon finds himself working as a butler for the fabulously wealthy Bullocks, where he makes snide comments under his breath while serving Cornelia and Irene and their parents, successful businessman Alexander (Eugene Pallette) and his free-spending wife, Angelica (Alice Brady), who flits about with young plaything Carlo (Mischa Auer). The Oscar-nominated script by Eric Hatch and Morrie Ryskind is as sharp as a knife, skewering high society in myriad ways without getting heavy-handed. “All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people,” Alexander points out. But Godfrey sums it all up when he explains, “The only difference between a derelict and a man is a job.” Powell and Lombard, who divorced three years earlier after two years of marriage, are magical, lighting up the screen every time they’re together, beautifully mixing comedy and romance. The film was the first to earn Oscar nominations in all the main categories, with Powell up for Best Actor, Lombard Best Actress, Auer Best Supporting Actor, and Brady Best Supporting Actress, along with a nod for La Cava as Best Director. It somehow got snubbed for Outstanding Production, a list of ten films that featured such memorable movies as Libeled Lady and Three Smart Girls. One of the best depression-era tales to come out of Hollywood, My Man Godfrey is screening August 9 in the BAMcinématek series “American Gagsters: Great Comedy Teams,” which runs August 8 – September 17 and includes fifty films (all but one in 35mm), beginning with The Thin Man with Powell and Myrna Loy and continuing with such other classic duos as Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in Pat and Mike and Adam’s Rib, Abbott and Costello in Buck Privates and In the Navy, Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert in The Palm Beach Story, the Marx Brothers in Monkey Business and Horse Feathers, and multiple films starring Cary Grant, Woody Allen, Peter Sellers, Steve Martin, and Bill Murray.
Liberally adapted from Scott Mitchell Rosenberg’s 2006 graphic novel, Cowboys & Aliens is a summer popcorn slice-and-dice mash-up of just about every Western and sci-fi flick you’ve ever seen. Boasting the producing talents of Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Steven Spielberg, Jon Favreau (who also directed), and others, the film pays tribute to its match-made-in-heaven dueling genres with references to such classic tales as The Searchers, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Unforgiven, Aliens, Blazing Saddles, War of the Worlds, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Stagecoach, Star Trek, The Magnificent Seven, Avatar, High Plains Drifter, Blade Runner, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Predator, True Grit, The Poseidon Adventure, and many more. Heck, they even throw in some zombies for good measure. In the dry, hot desert shortly after the Civil War, a stranger (Daniel Craig) with amnesia arrives in the small town of Absolution, sporting a six-shooter and a weird bracelet manacled to his left arm. Soon identified as wanted outlaw Jake Lonergan, he gets himself into trouble with Percy (Paul Dano), the bully son of wealthy cattle baron Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). But before Sheriff Taggart (Keith Carradine) can turn over Jake and Percy to the federal marshals, a massive attack comes down from the sky as flying machines start blowing everything up and stealing many of the town’s residents, including María (Ana de la Reguera), wife of the weak-willed Doc (Sam Rockwell), and Percy. So sworn enemies are forced to band together, along with the mysterious Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde), to figure out just how they can get their loved ones back. Sure, the meandering plot gets unhinged time and time again — it’s never a good sign when half a dozen writers are attached to the story and screenplay — and the film lacks any James Bond–like, Han Solo/Indiana Jones–esque catchphrases, but Favreau (Elf, Iron Man) manages to hold it all together just enough to make Cowboys & Aliens a fun, out-of-this-world oater, even if it should have been better. Cowboys & Aliens is screening August 8 at Hudson River Park’s Pier 63 as part of the free River Flicks for Grown-Ups series, which continues with Crazy, Stupid Love on August 15 before concluding with Horrible Bosses on August 22. For a day-by-day listing of free summer movie screenings in New York City, go 
Shot in sharp black-and-white that makes the characters virtually jump off the screen, George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck., which opened the 2005 New York Film Festival, is a thrilling behind-the-scenes look at the early days of television journalism at CBS News. David Strathairn is outstanding as Edward R. Murrow, a dedicated reporter who took on Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch hunt in the mid-1950s. As the junior senator continued bringing innocent people down, Murrow challenged him on live TV, walking a fine line between fact and opinion, between staying neutral and injecting personal beliefs into the story. Mixing in plenty of original footage, Clooney captures the mood of the era which was primarily fear while also questioning the importance of television as a form of serious journalism, both things that are extremely relevant in today’s mass-media-driven political culture. Clooney, who cowrote and directed the film, plays legendary CBS producer Fred Friendly in a cast that also features Robert Downey Jr. (Joe Wershba), Patricia Clarkson (Shirley Wershba), Ray Wise (Don Hollenbeck), Frank Langella (William Paley), Jeff Daniels (Sig Mickelson), cowriter Grant Heslov (Don Hewitt), and Dianne Reeves as a jazz singer who often links scenes. Sports fans, take note: Among the executive producers of this low-budget triumph is Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. Nominated for six Oscars and winner of none, Good Night, and Good Luck. is screening August 9 and 16 at MoMA as part of the series “A View from the Vaults, 2012: Recent Acquisitions,” which continues through August 19 with such new films in MoMA’s collection as George Archainbaud’s Thirteen Women, Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin, and the Coen brothers’ True Grit.
