Michael Caine at ninety
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@Mik said in Michael Caine at ninety:
My favorite movie of his is Secondhand Lions.
Totally new to me! I'll seek it out.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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Another tribute.
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Caine is a two-time Oscar winner and an international treasure. Here are some of his non-blockbuster films I treasure…
Zulu (1964)
The movie that made Caine a star is a superb reenactment of the 1879 Battle of Rorke’s Drift, where 150 or so British soldiers somehow withstood an attack by 4,000 Zulu warriors. Caine isn’t the star, but as the arrogant and insecure officer who becomes a man over the course of the battle, the movie is all his.The Ipcress File (1965)
Caine plays the now-iconic Harry Palmer, a bespectacled anti-James Bond. More bureaucrat than intelligence officer, Harry is our sloppy protagonist who works in a dingy office, lives in a dingy flat, and worries about things like balancing his expense account. The character was popular enough to power four sequels, all starring Caine.Alfie (1966)
For good reason, Caine is closely associated with Swingin’ 60s London. Alfie, one of the most moral movies ever made, is a devastating repudiation of that culture. Alfie is all swinger, and through him, we see the true cost of loveless sex—the cost in human life, in unborn human life, and on the soul.Caine is beyond perfect as the selfish, charming, cheating, charismatic, pleasure-seeking narcissist whose lifestyle is infectious until the movie has the moral courage to reveal just how small and seedy and contemptuous Alfie truly is.
Get Carter (1971)
Caine brings all his movie star power and unspoken depth to the British gangster film of all British gangster films. Cold, calculating, and fearless, Jack Carter returns home to avenge his brother. Carter is the thing that just keeps coming, and not even the ladies are safe.The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
Caine and co-star Sean Connery shine like the superstars they are in John Huston’s rollicking adaption of Rudyard Kipling’s infectious adventure about two former British soldiers tired of the lack of criminal opportunities in the British Empire. And so, they resolve to take a treacherous journey to a place where modernity dares not go, and in this place, they will serve as kings.The chemistry between Caine and Connery sells this swashbuckler in a way unseen since the days of Errol Flynn. This is also a movie with plenty to say about ego, friendship, loyalty, and, yes, colonialism.
Dressed to Kill (1980)
Brian DePalma’s sexy-as-hell take on Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) is a classic all its own and one the Woke Censors would never allow to be made today.Caine plays Dr. Robert Elliott and—without ruining anything—totally sells it.
Educating Rita (1983)
The movie that made me a lifelong Michael Caine fan is a heartrending take on My Fair Lady, with Caine in the Henry Higgins role and a fetching Julie Walters (in her screen debut) as our Eliza Doolittle.Rita (Walters) is a married, working-class hairdresser who wants something more from life than a gang of kids, a husband with no ambition, and Friday nights at the pub. She senses a wider world filled with beauty and art, so she signs up for night classes.
Her tutor is Oxford literature professor Frank Bryant, a cuckold alcoholic who despises the snobbery and pretensions of university culture.
Against his will, he tutors Rita into something he loathes and maybe falls in love with her.
Based on Willy Russell’s play, Educating Rita is thematically complicated, beautifully acted, and bittersweet.
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Caine won his first Oscar in Woody Allen’s masterpiece about three sisters searching for their place in the world. Married to Mia Farrow’s loyal, loving, and uncomplicated Hannah, Elliot is all middle-aged angst, a man who isn’t certain that the life he’s locked himself into is the one he wants. But, through Hannah’s sister Lee (Barbara Hershey), Elliot rediscovers his passion and zest for life, along with the youthful spirit that comes from an awkward crush and forbidden seduction.Caine’s performance runs the gauntlet and steals the movie out from under a uniformly superb cast.
Mona Lisa (1986)
The second-greatest British gangster film ever made stars an Oscar-worthy Bob Hoskins as an ex-convict charged with guarding the beautiful and sad Simone, a high-end prostitute employed by Caine’s gangland boss Denny Mortwell.Director/co-writer Neil Jordan takes you on a tour of a shabby subculture and then breaks your heart with a twist we should have seen coming but didn’t. Jordan brilliantly uses our knowledge of movies to yank the rug out from under us.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)
A timelessly funny comedy about rival con men (Caine and Steve Martin) and their mercenary quest to bilk a lovely young heiress (Glenn Headly).Caine matches Martin laugh for laugh, which is saying something.
A Shock to the System (1990)
A gem of a black comedy with a killer cast and killer script (adapted by my friend Andrew Klavan) about Graham Marshall (Caine), a milquetoast advertising executive who suffers one indignity too many, which turns him into a cunning sociopath. The business with the lighter is beyond ingenious, and Caine—even as Graham’s ruthlessness deepens and becomes petty—never loses the audience. Our complicity, our vicarious satisfaction in watching this warlock mow down everyone who stands in his way, defines “guilty pleasure.”And what a cast… Elizabeth McGovern, the always fabulous Peter Riegert, Swoosie Kurtz, Will Patton, and a young Jenny Wright showing all the promise that, sadly, never was.
Last Orders (2001)
A terrific ensemble about four aging friends on a road trip to honor a friend’s final request. Ray Winstone joins Caine, Bob Hoskins, David Hemmings, and Tom Courtenay in a charming and touching story full of affection, secrets, changing times, the relentless march toward mortality, and friendship.Harry Brown (2009)
Caine is perfect as an aging pensioner who’s just lost a wife to old age and a best friend to local hooligans. Unfortunately, the police are useless against a ruthless gang that terrorizes Harry’s housing project. Fed up, this former Royal Marine takes matters into his own hands, and the results are tense and glorious.Sure, Bronson made five movies like this. However, Harry Brown still stands out because Daniel Barber beautifully directs it, and although Caine plays his age, you buy into everything that happens.
Happy birthday, Sir Michael, and here’s to many, many more…
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@Mik said in Michael Caine at ninety:
My favorite movie of his is Secondhand Lions.
Totally new to me! I'll seek it out.
@George-K said in Michael Caine at ninety:
@Mik said in Michael Caine at ninety:
My favorite movie of his is Secondhand Lions.
Totally new to me! I'll seek it out.
One of my favorite movies. A delight.
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Taking umbrage with a small part of the original thread starter...
The Muppet Christmas Carol movie may be one of the very best adaptions of the book. Yes, it can be whimsical, silly and even veer a little from canon, but it's highly entertaining.
And Caine is marvelous as Scrooge.
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@Mik said in Michael Caine at ninety:
My favorite movie of his is Secondhand Lions.
Totally new to me! I'll seek it out.
@George-K said in Michael Caine at ninety:
@Mik said in Michael Caine at ninety:
My favorite movie of his is Secondhand Lions.
Totally new to me! I'll seek it out.
Yes, required viewing.
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Caine announces his retirement:
https://abc7chicago.com/michael-caine-retiring-acting-dark-knight/13919806/?ex_cid=TA_WLS_FB
He confirmed that "The Great Escaper," which was released earlier this month, will be his last acting gig, saying: "I've played the lead and it's got incredible reviews. The only parts I'm going to get now are old men - 90-year-old men, or maybe 85, you know - and I thought well I might as well leave with all this. I've got wonderful reviews. What am I going to do to beat this?"
Caine starred alongside the late Glenda Jackson in the movie, playing Bernard Jordan, a 90-year-old who absconds from a care home to attend the 70th anniversary of the D-Day Landings in France.
"We had a great time on the movie and I thought, you know, why not leave now?" Caine added.
Also speaking on the podcast, "The Great Escaper" director Oliver Parker said, "Michael has this ability to turn his performance into something else," crediting his "charisma" and "sheer presence."
Caine began his acting career on the stage in the early 1950s, before making his movie debut in 1956.
Originally called Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, Jr., he adopted the screen name Caine - taken from the 1954 film "The Caine Mutiny" - and later made it legal.
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I will definitely want to see The Great Escaper. Is it a streaming movie or at the theater?
