Sunday, October 23, 2011

#40 The Sound of Music (1965)


Sometimes, you root for the Nazis.

Plot summary (with spoilers): The panoramic view of the Austrian vista sweeps ithrough the hilltops and centers on Sister Maria, who sings with gusto about how the hills are alive (really?!  Holy shit!) with the sound of music (aw, nuts) and then the clock tolls down below at Hill Valley and Maria knows she's late. She grabs her habit and runs off.
Down below at the nunnery, the nuns talk about how Maria is a problem at the nunnery because she is sometimes late and stuff, and sing about solving a problem like Maria. When Maria shows up, the head nun kicks her out and tells her that "God" (aka her and the other nuns) wants her to work as a governess for Mr. Georg von Trapp and his seven children.
Maria sings about her insecurities at being able to care for so many children, then sings some more about how she has confidence. She goes to the house and Georg von Trapp blows a whistle and introduces her to his seven children. They introduce themselves: Doc, Happy Dopey, Sleepy, Flopsey, Mopsey, and lil' Cottontail.
They're hardcore mean to her and put a frog in her pocket and put a pine cone on her chair. At night, the eldest girl meets her secret boyfriend Rolfe outside and he sings to her all condescending about how she's only 16 going on 17 and is stupid and worthless and has a vagina and at the end of the song he kisses her and then runs away like a lunatic and she twirls around.
At night she sneaks into the house through Maria's window and Maria catches her of course, but doesn't say anything. Then a storm comes and the six younger kids sneak into the room because the thunder scares them and Maria tells them to think about her favorite things like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, which are actually really lame things. Then Georg comes in and he's grumpy and stuff. He tells the kids to go to bed, then tells Maria that he's going away for a month to visit his girlfriend the Baroness.
While he's gone, Maria makes the children play-clothes out of drapes and then takes them picnicing and bicycling and they prance around she teaches them to sing Doe Rey Mi and they get in a canoe and say this is the bestest day ever in the whole wide world.
Then Georg and the Baroness come home with some random third dude named Max and they arrive and see Maria and the kids rowing up in a boat on the lake and when they see their dad they stand up and the boat tips over!  WTFROFL!1!!
Then the children go inside and Georg yells at Maria and she says he needs to be more loving and he tells her to pack her things and go and she says fine, then Georg hears his kids singing "Doe a Deer" to the Baroness and Max and his heart grows threes sizes that day and he sings along with them and loves them again. Phew. Max is some kind of agent or something and he wants to sign the Brady kids as a musical act but Georg refuses to allow them to sing in public.  He asks Maria to stay and she does. The kids and Maria put on a puppet show for Georg, the Baroness and Max, as Maria taught the children advanced puppetry at some point during the day in-between bicycling and singing.
Then they all make cotton candy snowmen in the fields and literal sunshine beams from their asses as they snort dandelions and all get blown by Bambi. Finally, there's some big party at the von Trapp household and the children all do a performance to say goodnight to the guests. So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu. Of course, the movie's only half over, so they're a bunch of fucking liars.
The Baroness is threatened by Maria and tells her that she can tell that she and Georg are in love with each other and Maria should leave because Georg is with her. Maria's all flustered and feels bad and runs back to the convent.
Georg is sad but tells the kids Maria is gone and the Baroness is going to be their new mother and everybody please line up to awkwardly kiss the Baroness on the cheek and run up more screen time. Maria goes back to the nunnery, but the head nun still doesn't want her there, and when Maria says she left because she had feelings for Georg, the nun encourages her to go back and marry him. So Maria does, and the children laugh and sing and crap and then Georg is happy and tells the Baroness to hit the bricks and he tells Maria he wants to marry her. So he does.
Yay!  Happy Ending! Oh, fuck. There's like forty five minutes left. What now? Oh yeah, the Nazis.  Fucking Nazis.
So this is set during the beginning of WWII, did I mention that? And Hitler takes over Austria and the Nazis want to assure the people that nothing will change. They demand all households put up Nazi flags, but Georg rips his up. Max wants the children to put on a show, but Georg still doesn't want them to sing in public, and on the night of some big Talent Show, Georg gets a draft notice from the Nazis to join their army, and he and Maria and the kids try to sneak out of the house at night and flee to Switzerland. But the Nazis catch them pushing the car down the driveway, and Georg quickly says the car wouldn't start and they were actually just going to the Talent Show to perform. The Nazis think this will be a good way to show the Austrian people that nothing has changed during the bloodless takeover of their country and the Talent Show should go as planned. With Georg in it.
Ha ha! He didn't want the kids to sing in public for no reason, and now he's doing it, too!  Oh, the contrived dramatic irony!
So they sing and do "Doe a Deer" and "So Long,  Farewell" again, and then win the contest but don't show up to get their prize because they've fled again. The Nazis drive after them and Maria goes to her old convent and asks the nuns to help them hide. (Psst. Maria. Asking the Catholic Church to help you hide from the Nazis may not be the best course of action. Just sayin'). So they hide among the statues and the  Nazis search with flashlights and lil' Cottontail wants to cheer everyone up by singing about her favorite things again and Maria shushes her and the Nazis search upstairs, but Rolfe, the eldest daughter's old boyfriend, hears something and sees them. He moves to blow his whistle, but Georg tells him he's not one of them, not really, and to join them in fleeing. Rolfe is tempted, but finally sounds the alarm. Georg and the family drive off, and when the Nazis try to pursue, we learn the nuns stole some of their car parts.
The last scene is the von Trapp family in Switzerland hiking some fucking hill and singing some more.

Review: A couple of the songs are mildly entertaining. The last scene at the church was mildly suspenseful. The kids sucked. The story sucked. The running time suuuuucccked. The end was fine.

Stars: One out of five.

Next, "Dr Strangelove" and then "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", both of which will be better than this as long as they're not totally fucking horrible.

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