Take 575: Watching the National Film Registry

  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea : Summary and initial thoughts This adaptation of Jules Verne's classic novel follows elements of both 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and a later Verne novel, The Mysterious Island . The hero of our story is Captain Nemo, whose futuristic submarine Nautilus sets the stage for the Captain's many adventures as he seeks something unknown to us. After attacking (and then rescuing the passengers of) the navy ship Abraham Lincoln , Captain Nemo and his willingly captive guests have a series of underwater adventures. Elsewhere on the high seas, man about town Charles Denver has yachted his way to a mysterious island (see what I did there?) where he hopes to discover what happened to a young woman he abandoned on the island years ago when her mother, the Princess Daaker, chose to kill herself rather than submit to Denver's sexual advances. When Nautilus encounters Denver's yacht, it destroys the vessel but saves the daughter of Princess Daaker, who ...

  Adam's Rib : Summary and initial thoughts Oh, I always enjoy this movie. A classic Hepburn/Tracy collaboration, this film is smart, sexy, and forward-thinking. But does it actually answer the battle of the sexes? Well... The film follows married couple Adam and Amanda Bonner, respectively an assistant DA and a defense attorney. Their life together is presumably reasonably equitable and peaceful...that is until Adam is assigned to a case prosecuting a woman, Doris, who, enraged by her husband's affair, tracks down him and his paramour and begins chaotically shooting around the room in every direction, ultimately wounding her husband in the shoulder. Amanda, who feels there is a double standard for women when it comes to adultery (true), sees her husband's involvement in the prosecution as on opportunity. She finds Doris and offers her services for the defense, hoping to both help the accused woman and prove a higher point: that men and women, despite being naturally equal,...