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Posted At: 9:51pm by TripletOne
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Lately I have decided to once again try and watch all of the movies on AFI's top 100 movie list. I tend to do this every couple of years, watch a few, and then promptly forget about it for a few years  I plan and have them all done by the age 36 (and I've watched juuust over half, 52 or so).
Well, this past week I've been feeling a little on the depressed side and just in the mood for looong depressing movies (or at least movies that have depressing parts) and so I've watched Dr. Zhivago followed by the Best years of our lives (definitely a must-see!).
Dr. Zhivago was, to put it nicely, a complete and total waste of three perfectly good hours. I mean, seriously, you gotta wonder who's pocket was being padded in order for that to be, what, 39 on the best movies of all time. I suppose the technical stuff wasn't really bad, just the basic plot I mean, the main guy left his adorable, loving, wonderful, sweet, caring, nice, just plain awesome wife and his cute son and the daughter he never even saw! never even met her to be with his lover (who wasn't as wonderful as his wife, imo). Then, he ends up impregnating her before leaving her and then they die (which, frankly, was the best part of the movie). The only movie that I would say is worse (at least on the top 100 movies list) is the Graduate (grah, that is so awful--and number 7 on the list, tsk tsk).
Oh, and in this "Russian" movie everyone spoke with English accents That really annoys me about American movies: foreign= British.
The Best Years of our Lives, on the other hand, was a wonderful movie! It starts off where most movies end: three WWII vets coming home right after the war and how they get back to their old lives. The three vets (who met on the way home to the same small town and ended up continuing their friendships) had different issues to deal with but they all seemed very relevant issues for that era.
Homer was a young guy engaged to his "swell" highschool sweetheart and had lost both of his arms (right below the elbow). He was given two hooks and the red cross showed him how to do almost anything with them except how to put his arms around his fiancée and comfort her. He grew resentful of his family for treating him any differently and ended up pulling away from everyone.
Then there was Fred (I think that was his name) who was a war hero. During his training, he met Marie and ended up eloping with her less than three weeks before being shipped out. Now he his coming home, slightly damaged (emotionally, having nightmares about the various wrecks he saw, etc.) and with less money. It turns out his "darling" wife only really liked him when he had money to spoil her with. They really did not know each other and did not even like each other. It wasn't long before their marriage completely fell apart.
You have to wonder how often this sort of thing really happened to people after the war. What with all the people who on a whim, eloped hours/days/weeks before leaving for the war. Then, years later, they would come home to a stranger (and maybe even to a child they had never seen). Talk about putting stress on the marriage. It may have seemed so romantic to run off and get married and then spend a year or so away from each other, wishing to be in each other's arms, but then eventually, you get to real life and to the day-to-day things.
I'm not saying that anyone who did that was wrong or anything, it just must have been so hard. I think that maybe the most romantic thing is when a couple sticks it out and are still together 50 years later. 
Finally, there was the older Al who had been married for 20 years (to the ever adorable Myrna Loy) and had two kids. When he finally gets home from the war after being gone for two years, he finds his two kids have grown up without him and he and his wife feel pretty awkward around each other. He went back to his old job as a banker (with a promotion) but didn't find it as important as he did before the war. He ended up finding comfort in alcohol for most of the movie.
Anyway, they all manage to (sort of) work out most of their problems and have happy endings.
Edited on: August 23rd, 2005 9:52 pm
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