Here’s Having Watched Some Great Films, Kids

Monday night is Hollywood’s big event, and, let’s admit it, many of us will be watching those Academy Awards. It’s not the acceptance speeches we care about--most are pretty bad. We certainly don’t tune in to have Richard Gere or Tim Robbins bore us with their personal political agendas. And it’s only in passing that we’re even interested in what the stars are wearing.

We watch because we want to see if the Academy is smart enough to affirm how smart we are. We’ve already made up our minds on the winners, right? Because we love the movies.

I talked to dozens of people the past few weeks, from all kinds of fields, about the movies. Not one of them felt anything less than passionate on the subject.

Says Santa Ana bookstore owner Reuben Martinez: “I never leave the theater that I don’t say, ‘Gee, I wish I could do this again.’ ”

Martinez loves the black-and-white Mexican movies of the ‘40s and ‘50s. But his all-time favorite, he says, is “Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” the John Huston-directed film with Humphrey Bogart.

“That movie made me appreciate the mountains and the desert, and what happens when greed takes over,” Martinez says. “It really changed my life.”

His favorite scene: When Bogart asks two Mexican officers to see their badges, and one answers: “We don’t need no stinking badges.” Martinez delights that the line later became the inspiration for a Luis Valdez play.

Chapman University President James Doti says his zeal for movies started at an early age. He was only 9 when he first saw what is now his favorite: “Marty,” the story of a homely butcher (Ernest Borgnine) with low self-esteem.

Says Doti: “There’s a scene where Marty finally has a date. When he takes her home and asks if she’d like to go out again, she says yes. And Marty runs all the way home. Just runs, he’s so excited. What a powerful scene. I can remember how much that moved me, even as young as I was.”

Revenge movies can be exciting. Former county Supervisor Harriett Wieder, who took more than a little pounding by the news media while in office, says “Absence of Malice” stands out to her. That’s the Sally Field movie where it’s the news media that take the pounding.

We often love movies that other people hate. I know some who loathe everything about “The Sound of Music.” But Irvine Education Foundation director Elizabeth Thomas says it’s the best of many movies she’s adored.

“Every time I see it, at different stages of my life, I can always find something in it to identify with,” she says. “I really think that movie helped me develop my own interest in music.”

They don’t have to be classics to be at the top of our list. Diane Nelson, owner of a fine arts gallery in Laguna Beach, says she’s seen “Chanel Solitaire,” about the life of fashion genius Coco Chanel, at least six times. “She was a woman who had to struggle to make it on her own, and to some extent I can identify with that,” Nelson says.

Tustin Bistro owner Zov Karamardian, most proud of her Armenian heritage, responds: “Are you allowed to use cliches? My favorite is ‘Gone With the Wind.’ It doesn’t matter what your background is; you can love a movie if it has a great story. This one had everything.”

From Rob Romulo, 19, student government vice president at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa: “ ‘Amadeus.’ I went into it not knowing what to expect. But I loved it. Especially the way it concentrated on the character’s [Mozart’s] personal life and not just his great accomplishments.”

Pro “Nixon” Vote: Mike Wallace, the “60 Minutes” correspondent, says Anthony Hopkins is his pick to win the best actor award Monday night, for his “Nixon” portrayal. Wallace says in this week’s TV Guide: “Hopkins got so much of the essence of Richard Nixon. I covered Nixon, and Hopkins simply nailed the character.”

Still Counting: How popular are movies with Orange County residents? We’re now up to 400 screens here, and the Edwards Theater people have plenty more on the drawing boards. Biggest local hit this weekend: “Executive Decision,” starring Kurt Russell. It’s playing at 44 Orange County screens.

Local Flavor: That ongoing Newport Beach International Film Festival has three movies with an Orange County setting. “Shelf Life,” which showed Friday, is about a paranoid Orange County family driven into a bomb shelter by the JFK assassination. “Schemes” (Tuesday, 8 p.m., Edwards Island) was shot entirely in Newport Beach, about a newly widowed architect. And “Dreamrider” (Tuesday, 7 p.m., Captain Blood’s) is about an amputee inspired by James Earl Jones’ character to bicycle from Fullerton to Maine.

Wrap-Up: My own movie favorite: “Casablanca.” Bogie says it all for anyone who’s ever been dumped on in a romance.

By now most of us are aware that Humphrey Bogart never did say “Play it again, Sam.” (He said, “You played it for her, you can play it for me.”) But I don’t know of any movie with so many lines that have lived on so long.

“Round up the usual suspects.”

“Here’s looking at you, kid.”

“This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”

“The Germans wore gray. You wore blue.”

And, of course, the greatest four words ever assembled into a single sentence for the motion picture screen:

“We’ll always have Paris.”

*

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or sending a fax to (714) 966-7711.