2011 Academy Award Predictions

I’m not gonna lie, it took me two tries to get my password right to log in here.  Only two tries.

Anyway, I fully, wholly, absolutely plan to start reviewing Best Picture winners again in the near future.  Since my last posting many ages ago, I’ve watched The Lost Weekend, The Departed, and Amadeus.  These three movies will be reviewed (most likely in a single combined post) in the days to come.

It took the Oscars themselves to bring me back here, as I wanted to share my predictions for this year’s awards, which are beginning in about five minutes.  My picks are not too crazy, and I’ve learned my lesson from last year and am going with the favorite for Best Picture.

Best Picture: The King’s Speech

Best Director: David Fincher, The Social Network

Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network

Original Screenplay: The King’s Speech

Best Actor: Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

Best Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter

Best Supporting Actress: Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech

Best Art Direction: The King’s Speech

Best Cinematography: True Grit

Best Costume Design: The King’s Speech

Best Film Editing: The Social Network

Best Makeup: The Wolfman

Best Original Score: The Social Network

Best Original Song: “We Belong Together,” Toy Story 3

Best Sound Editing: Inception

Best Sound Mixing: Inception

Best Visual Effects: Inception

Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3

Best Documentary Feature: Inside Job

Best Foreign Language Film: Biutiful (Mexico)

Best Animated Short: Day & Night

Best Documentary Short: Killing in the Name

Best Live Action Short: God of Love

So to summarize, excluding the shorts, documentaries, and foreign language films, I have The King’s Speech winning 6 awards, The Social Network winning 4 awards, Inception winning 3 awards, Toy Story 3 winning 2 awards, and Black Swan, The Fighter, and True Grit winning 1 award each.

- Matt

All About Eve (1950)

My rebooting of the Best Picture project took another step in the right direction on Saturday when I watched my first Best Picture winner since May, All About Eve.  This film was a huge success during its time, earning a record 14 Oscar nominations (Titanic has since tied that mark), and it is still acclaimed by many as one of the great behind-the-scenes looks into the world of performance – in this case, theater.  Going into this film, I had only really heard things about Bette Davis’ performance, but I found out quickly that there were several other great performances to be seen.

The film stars Davis as Margo Channing,  a theater star who has continued to play younger roles despite her having recently turned 40 years of age.  One night after a performance, her friend Karen (played by Celeste Holm) brings a devoted young fan to Margo’s dressing room.  The fan is Eve Harrington (played by Anne Baxter), and Margo is initially taken by Eve to the point that she allows Eve to move in with her in a sort of maid/friend role.  Within a matter of weeks, however, Margo becomes jealous of all the attention that Eve receives from her friends, particularly Margo’s boyfriend Bill (played by Gary Merrill).  Eventually, Eve secures the role of Margo’s understudy in the play Aged in Wood.  Upon finding out, Margo is furious and throws a huge tantrum in front of Bill, Eve, Karen’s playwright husband Lloyd, and the play’s director, Max Fabian.  She continues on in the play; however, an incident occurs which forces Margo to miss a performance of the play, and Eve goes on in her place.  The result is success for Eve, especially after the influential theater critic Addison DeWitt (played by George Sanders) writes a piece praising Eve while criticizing Margo.  The remainder of the film chronicles Eve’s continued rise to success, her complicated relationship with Addison, and the final realization that her life has become, for better and for worse, what Margo’s was in the beginning of the film.

Let me start off by saying that I paused this film sixty-eight minutes in and took a nap.  While that was certainly due to the lack of sleep that I had gotten the night before, it was indicative of the film up to that point.  At the time that I hit pause, the movie was on course for an 8/10 on my rating scale, at best.  However, as you’d discover by scrolling down a few paragraphs, I’ve awarded this film a rating of 9/10.  Why?  Because this movie is definitely a tale of two halves.  Little did I know it at the time, the 68-minute mark in the film is really a turning point.  The scene that follows the 68-minute mark is the one in the car with Margo, Karen, and Lloyd.  It is the first sign that things are not all that they seem, and that really sets the mood for the rest of the film.  Up until that point, the movie had been somewhat boring.  Yes, it was amusing to see Margo fume at the affection being shown for Eve, and she got to deliver her “bumpy night” one-liner, but there wasn’t really any major conflict going on.  Perhaps the way it can best be explained is that I found myself rooting for Eve rather than Margo during the first part of the film.  That was certainly not the case by the end of the film.  Credit Joseph L. Mankiewicz and company for devising the opening scene that serves to make almost the entire movie a flashback – the scene depicts Eve receiving the Sarah Siddons Award for her role in the play Footsteps on the Ceiling.  As a result of that scene, the viewer knows that Eve will become a successful theater actress at some point during the movie and inevitably cause a boatload of tension between her and Margo – it is this knowledge that kept my interest level at a sufficient level during the somewhat sluggish first hour of the film.

This film definitely has its strong points, however.  First, most of the acting is top-notch.  Davis, Baxter, Sanders, Holm, and Merrill are all very good.  The first four received Oscar nominations (with Sanders winning for Best Supporting Actor), as did Thelma Ritter for her role as Margo Channing’s sarcastic maid, Birdie.  I really wasn’t that impressed by Ritter’s performance – it seemed like the kind of witty, wisecracking performance that I’ve seen done better by Rhea Perlman on Cheers.  Besides, the role is a fairly small one to begin with, and she disappears about halfway through the movie without any given explanation.  Another positive aspect of the film is the script, which is very well written.  The dialogue is smart and realistic, and does a great job of moving the story along (especially during the second half of the movie).  Also, the aforementioned flashback structure of the film is something that I really appreciated (and was a fairly new concept at the time of the film’s production, having only been in use for about a decade – since the making of movies like Wuthering Heights and Citizen Kane).

So overall, All About Eve turned out to be a great movie despite perceived moments of dullness in the first half.  My favorite scene in the film comes near the end, when Addison confronts Eve about her life, both past and present.  I think that scene exhibits most of the film’s positive qualities – great acting, intelligent dialogue, and interesting plot development.  I would definitely recommend this film, along with the assurance that while the first part of the movie might seem slow, the second part is very entertaining and worth watching the first part to get to.  Rating: 9

The winner of the 1950 Academy Award for Best Picture.

Driving Miss Daisy (1989) & Gladiator (2000)

In the last post, written early Thursday morning, I said that I would get around to reviewing Driving Miss Daisy and Gladiator within the next week.  Well, an unfamiliar sense of motivation has come over me and I’ve decided to do those reviews now.  Both reviews will be contained within this post – somewhat ironic, considering that these two movies are worlds apart from each other.  I’ll start with the film that I watched first.

Driving Miss Daisy is a chronicle of the later events in the life of an elderly Jewish widow named Daisy Werthan.  Daisy resides comfortably in a home in Atlanta with her housekeeper Idella.  As the film begins, in 1948, Daisy has just been involved in an accident that has totaled her car.  Her son Boolie worries that her driving skills have become inadequate, and decides to hire a middle-aged African-American man named Hoke Colburn to serve as her chauffeur.  Daisy, a woman overflowing with self-pride, is embarassed by the notion that she is unfit to drive.  As such, she is initially very resistant to Hoke’s chauffeuring, going so far as to walk to the store herself.  However, she eventually realizes that Hoke only means well and so she begins to let him drive her around.  What follows is a friendship of the most unlikely kind, one that endures for twenty-five years (indeed, the final scene of the film, set in 1973, sees a now-elderly Hoke feeding Daisy, who now resides in a nursing home).  Along the way, we see how the racial prejudice of the time affects the lives of Daisy and Hoke, and the way in which each of them deals with that prejudice.

Out of the 24 movies that I have reviewed thus far (including Gladiator), Driving Miss Daisy comes in right near the middle of my rankings, at #13.  To me, it has a similar feel to the Best Picture-winning film that immediately precedes it in both year (1988) and ranking (#12), Rain Man.  Both have a relatively small feel to them – there’s no showy special effects or wild shootouts.  Both rely primarily on their acting – in particular, one tour-de-force, Oscar-winning performance in the role of the title character (Dustin Hoffman for Rain Man, Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy).  And while both won screenplay Oscars, I didn’t find either movie’s story to be particularly compelling.  Not to say that their respective stories are bad or anything, but these are first and foremost acting films.

Indeed, while I definitely enjoyed Driving Miss Daisy, it just didn’t feel like a Best Picture winner.  In this regard, I have a bit of an advantage writing this review several months after having watched the film, in that I can say that this movie has not had a huge lasting impression on me, for better or for worse.  I can still recall a majority of the film, but I don’t find myself thinking about it in the same way that I do a movie like, say, The Godfather.  This film does have its strong points, particularly the acting of Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman.  Both are fantastic and give the movie a very authentic feel.  Tandy’s acting performance is even more impressive when you consider that she was a British woman playing a Southerner (much like Vivian Leigh in her two Oscar-winning roles).

The bottom line is that Driving Miss Daisy is definitely a strong film – I’d even make the argument that it is a great film.  However, as this project has progressed, I have come to the realization that most of these Best Picture winners are great films, and that there is a higher tier of outstanding films, ones that are indisputably (in my opinion, of course) worthy of the Best Picture Oscar.  This film does not belong in that highest tier.  It is definitely a movie worth seeing, though.  Rating: 9

On a bit of a side note, I have not seen any of the other nominees for Best Picture in 1989, although My Left Foot is on my “Non-Best Picture Winners to Watch” list.  Which brings me to another point – part of the reason that I have been watching a decent number of non-Best Picture winners is because I want to watch some of the Best Picture nominees that did not win, particularly ones in years that I have seen the winner so that I can make comparisons (e.g. The Godfather vs. Cabaret (1972), Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull (1980)).  At some point, after I have seen at least 80% of the nominated films in a given year, I am going to do a posting on that year, with the ultimate intent of making a personal pick for what should have won the Best Picture Oscar that year.  But that project seems a little ways off…

Anyway, back to the reviews.  Gladiator.  As epic as Driving Miss Daisy was quaint.  Russell Crowe is Maximus Decimus Meridius, a prominent general in the Roman army who has just led his troops to victory in a major battle.  The terminally-ill emperor, Marcus Aurelius, decides that upon his death Maximus will take over leadership of Rome, rather than his own son Commodus (played by Joaquin Phoenix).  When Commodus discovers his father’s intent, he murders his father and turns Maximus into a wanted man.  A war hero just hours earlier, Maximus now finds himself on the run from a band of assassins.  Upon returning home, Maximus discovers that men under Commodus’ command have murdered his wife and son.  Understandably distraught, he collapses and is found by slave traders.  The traders sell Maximus to a man named Proximo, who employs his slaves as gladiators.  Maximus, due to both his extraordinary courage and battle prowess, emerges as one of the best gladiators in all of Rome and eventually manages to come face-to-face with Commodus himself.  The remainder of the film chronicles Maximus’ efforts to avenge the deaths of his wife and son.

I was pleasantly surprised with Gladiator.  Some of the lukewarm reviews that I read online beforehand had led me to believe that this was going to be a poorly-aging film that was clearly not worthy of the Best Picture Oscar, but I did not find that to be the case at all.  I tend to be not particularly fond of long historical epics, but this movie never seemed to drag for any significant length of time.  Russell Crowe did a great job as Maximus, and the other actors were very good, too.  The story kept my interest and I felt an emotional connection with the character of Maximus – if my wife and son were killed, I would surely seek revenge on the people responsible for their deaths.  In that sense, I was rooting for Maximus throughout the entire film.  A hero that you can sympathize with is a positive thing for any movie.  Also, I thought the special effects were very impressive, especially considering they pretty much had to create an entire ancient city.

So Gladiator is definitely a movie worth watching.  It’s probably the best historical epic that I’ve seen (although to be honest, I haven’t seen too many historical epics in my lifetime) and in that sense, it has given me renewed hope for a genre that I had kinda written off as being not my cup of tea.  I debated for a while whether to award it a perfect 10/10, but ultimately decided that it was not quite the outstanding film that I usually reserve 10/10′s for.  So it had to settle for being the top-rated 9/10 film, which currently places it at #7 in my rankings (out of 24 movies).  Not bad.  Rating: 9

The winner of the 1989 Academy Award for Best Picture.

The winner of the 2000 Academy Award for Best Picture.

“The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

There is some debate to whether Mark Twain actually said the quote that titles this entry, but nevertheless it is an appropriate header for this post.  It has been 134 days since I last wrote an entry for this blog (on The Godfather Part II) and since then I have only seen one Best Picture winner.  That is absurd and almost shameful.

I could throw out several excuses to why my Best Picture project nearly slowed to a complete halt.  I’m choosing to use the excuse that I came to a point where I felt that I was neglecting all other movies at the expense of Best Picture winners.  So I did the only logical thing (this is where the sarcasm really kicks in) – I proceeded to neglect Best Picture winners at the expense of all other movies.  Among the non-Best Picture winners that I’ve seen since watching The Godfather Part II back in early April: Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, My Favorite Wife, The Blind Side, Raging Bull, The Lady Eve, The Karate Kid (2010 version), Klute, Toy Story 3, Witness, Traffic, The Incredibles, Inception, Rush Hour, Cabaret, Citizen Kane, Kingpin, and Back to the Future Part II.  And that’s not counting any “rewatchings” of movies that I’d already seen.  In comparison, I have seen just two Best Picture winners since The Godfather Part II: Driving Miss Daisy and Gladiator.

Over the past month, I have come to realize the neglect that I’ve shown for the Best Picture project, and so I am instituting a system where I watch two movies a week: one Best Picture winner and one non-Best Picture winner.  That way I can start making progress on the project again without feeling like I’m restricting myself to a list of 82 films (58, when you eliminate the ones that I’ve already seen).

In the next week, I will post slightly-shorter-than-usual reviews of Driving Miss Daisy and Gladiator, perhaps combined into one posting.  Then, the Best Picture project will officially reboot – I’m leaning towards making my “first movie back” be All About Eve.

- Matt

The Godfather Part II (1974)

Two days after watching The Godfather, I sat down to watch the second installment in the Corleone crime family saga and the 1974 winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, The Godfather Part II.  Seeing the two films virtually back-to-back definitely proved to be a good thing – it maintained a sense of continuity that would have been negatively affected had I seen the two films a couple of months apart.  I have read postings and comments from several people on the Internet recommending the strategy of watching the two films as consecutively as possible, and I would certainly endorse that approach.  On a side note, I apologize in that I have been meaning to write this review for several weeks, but only now am I getting around to doing so.

This film is considered by many to be the finest sequel in cinematic history and equal to or perhaps even slightly better than the first film.  It currently ranks #32 on AFI’s 100 Greatest Movies of All Time, an impressive showing no matter how you look at it.  Personally, while I found this movie to be very solid and certainly compelling, I did not think it was nearly as good as The Godfather. 

This film contains two main storylines, each of which serves a very different purpose.  The main storyline involves Michael Corleone in his new role as head of the Corleone mob family, a position he assumed near the end of the first film.  He quickly proves to be a ruthless leader, ordering executions left and right and getting caught up in a series of investment negotiations with ailing Jewish mob boss Hyman Roth.  The other storyline chronicles the young Vito Corleone as he escapes from his village in Sicily following the murders of his parents and older brother on the orders of the local mob boss, Don Ciccio.  Vito travels by boat to America and over the course of time manages to establish a family and gain power as a prominent mob boss.  Eventually, he returns to his hometown in Sicily and avenges the deaths of his parents and brother by fatally stabbing Don Ciccio.

I’ll start off with what I liked about this movie.  Hands down, the acting is superb.  As Michael Corleone, Al Pacino turns in one of the finest performances I have ever witnessed in a film, and other great performances include legendary Method acting teacher Lee Strasberg as Hyman Roth and playwright-turned-actor Michael V. Gazzo as caporegime (high-ranking mob officer) Frankie Pentangeli.  Pacino was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor but lost to Art Carney (for Harry and Tonto) in what many people retrospectively consider to be one of the biggest “mistakes” in the history of the Oscars.  Strasberg and Gazzo were both nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar but lost to Robert De Niro for his role as the young Vito Corleone.  This fact surprises me, as I was definitely more impressed with Strasberg and Gazzo than I was with De Niro.  While I acknowledge the challenge that his part presented in requiring him to speak mostly Italian, it just didn’t feel like an Oscar-worthy performance to me.  Without having seen Fred Astaire in The Towering Inferno and Jeff Bridges in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (the two other performances nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar that year), I would probably give my vote to Strasberg.

Another positive is that there were aspects of the plot that I really enjoyed.  Having the Vito Corleone plot come full circle with the murder of Don Ciccio, the man who drove Vito to America in the first place, was great.  Also, I liked that the film broadened its geographical horizons by having scenes take place in Nevada, New York City, Sicily, and Cuba.  Such diverse locales prevented the film from settling into a rut, something that can easily occur in a movie with a running time of over three hours.  In addition, the film presented some interesting and compelling characters that weren’t present in the first film; namely, Hyman Roth and Frankie Pentangeli. 

For me, the biggest flaw with this film is that it is too complicated.  While I was able to resolve most of my questions regarding The Godfather by rewatching a couple of scenes, that tactic would simply not be sufficient enough to answer the questions I had about this movie.  In particular, the storyline involving the proposed investment deal with Hyman Roth was really confusing.  It was really hard to understand what the motives were behind the deal.  I was also confused to why the presence of his Sicilian brother prompted Frankie Pentangeli’s refusal to testify about the Corleones in front of Congress.  What did the brother have to do with Frankie’s business as caporegime for the Corleone crime family?

Another issue I had with the film is that the plot regarding the young Vito Corleone got somewhat boring at times.  I occasionally found myself losing interest and perhaps that was because I knew how Vito’s story was going to play out as a result of seeing the first film.  In contrast, while the plot involving Michael Corleone was much more confusing, it was certainly more compelling.  This presented a scenario where I found both plots to be flawed and thus I frequently had an issue with the movie, whether it regarded a lack of clarity or a lack of interest.

To sum up, this is a fine film and one definitely worth seeing, especially right after viewing The Godfather.  However, I found it to be considerably inferior to its predecessor, and would not rank it as highly as many other reviewers have.  As with the first film, Coppola’s direction is fantastic, and great acting and several interesting plot points are among the positive aspects, but the movie is ultimately weighed down by an oft-confusing storyline and the dry nature of the plot involving young Vito Corleone.  Rating: 9

The winner of the 1974 Academy Award for Best Picture.

The Godfather (1972)

Yesterday, I dealt my lethargy another blow by watching 1972′s Best Picture winner, The Godfather.  Currently ranked by AFI as the second-greatest movie of all time (behind Citizen Kane), my expectations were high…too high, I feared.  After my lukewarm reaction to Casablanca, I was crossing my fingers that I would not having similar feelings about The Godfather.  Luckily, my fears were unfounded.

The Godfather deals with the Corleones, a mob family living in New York.  Vito Corleone, the family patriarch and a prominent mob boss, is getting on in years and has begun to experience issues with his health.  He has three sons – Sonny, Fredo, and Michael – who help him out with mob business to various degrees.  At the beginning of the film, Michael is the least involved of the three sons…by the end, he has succeeded his father as head of the Corleone mob family.  Also prominent is the informally-adopted “fourth son” of the family, Tom Hagen, who serves as consigliere (advisor/counselor).

Bad blood comes between the Corleones and several other New York mob families, especially after Michael Corleone murders a heroin dealer and police captain with ties to another family, the Tattaglias.  This action proves to be the catalyst for many of the events that follow.  Michael Corleone flees to Sicily immediately following the murders, but he eventually returns to America and assumes the role of ruthless mob boss.

After watching this movie, I was definitely impressed but found myself with a couple of minor questions regarding the plot.  I decided to watch a few parts of the film again in the hope of clearing some of those questions up.  Sure enough, things seemed much clearer after watching those parts a second time.  For example, Don Barzini (the head of another prominent New York mob family) attends the wedding of Vito’s daughter Connie at the beginning of the movie.  Barzini plays a bigger part much later in the film, and I didn’t even notice the establishment of the character in the wedding scene until I watched it the second time.

And so, having had some time for the movie to sink in, I have arrived at the opinion that this really is a fantastic film.  It’s not the easiest of plots to follow, but it’s so compelling anyway – the whole saga is engrossing and has left me eager to watch The Godfather Part II.  There are many characters in this film, most sporting very Italian names, so it helps to pay attention to the faces of the actors because the names can sometimes get hard to distinguish from one another.

Speaking of the actors, they’re fantastic also.  For his role as Vito Corleone, Marlon Brando won the Academy Award for Best Actor (and famously refused it) – the mumbling way in which he speaks has become iconic and much-parodied.  James Caan (as Sonny Corleone), Robert Duvall (as Tom Hagen), and Al Pacino (as Michael Corleone) all got Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations, but lost to Joel Grey for Cabaret.  They’re all outstanding.  In fact, I was surprised how much Al Pacino is featured in this movie – in terms of both screen time and plot, he’s as much of a lead actor as Brando is.  An argument could be made that he should have been nominated for the Best Actor Oscar (where he would have been tough competition for Brando) rather than for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar against Caan and Duvall.  All the other actors in this movie deserve praise, too – there really isn’t one subpar performance in the entire film.

I would definitely recommend this film to anyone – even to those who are not fans of crime/mobster movies.  This film manages to transcend its genre and deliver an enthralling cinematic experience to a wide audience.  The plot is great, the performances are memorable, and the direction is also impressive – Francis Ford Coppola really managed to capture the feel of the 1940s/1950s mobster culture in New York City.  I am definitely looking forward to watching The Godfather Part II and observing the continuation of the Corleone family saga.  Rating: 10

The winner of the 1972 Academy Award for Best Picture.

You Can’t Take It With You (1938)

It’s been a couple of weeks since I last posted, and that’s because it’s been a couple of weeks since I last saw a Best Picture-winning movie.  The semester finally seems to be in full swing and it’s becoming more difficult to find two-hour chunks in the day that I can use to watch movies.  I know…excuses, excuses.  And I have watched a few other movies (not Best Picture winners) during the last couple of weeks, so I really can’t even use that as my excuse.  Oh well…

If there’s any good news, it’s that since my last post, I celebrated my twentieth birthday.  And for my birthday, I got a bunch of Best Picture winners on DVD.  So I am well stocked with movies for the next few months.  Plus, I am on Spring Break until Sunday, so I hope to watch a few movies during this precious period of having no responsibilities.

My lethargic streak did come to an end two nights ago, however, with the watching of 1938′s Best Picture winner, You Can’t Take It With You.  The movie boasts an ensemble cast, the most notable names being Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Ann Miller, and Edward Arnold.  The film begins with wealthy banker Anthony P. Kirby, played by Arnold, finding out that his business deal (which involves the acquision of twelve blocks of property in New York City) is being held up by one man’s refusal to sell his house at any cost.  That man turns out to be Mr. Vanderhof, and we find out quickly that living in the house with him is his entire extended family, which seems to be comprised of a bunch of goodhearted nutcases.  Everybody seems to have their own quirk – for example, Ann Miller plays Vanderhof’s granddaughter, a young girl who aspires to be a ballerina and spends the majority of the film dancing around the house with no self-consciousness whatsoever.  We also find out later that Vanderhof hasn’t paid his income tax in twenty-three years.  Twenty-three years.

Of course, as these things always work out in movies, Kirby’s son, Anthony Jr. (played by James Stewart) has fallen in love with his secretary, who just happens to be Vanderhof’s other granddaughter, Alice (played by Jean Arthur).  This romance is almost doomed when the Kirby family comes to dinner unexpectedly (due to a “mix-up” on Anthony Jr.’s part) and finds Vanderhof’s household in its natural state – people everywhere, painting, posing, dancing, playing the xylophone.  Even Vanderhof himself is sitting there chucking darts in the middle of all this.  The Kirbys are appalled.  Madness ensues.  You know the routine.

First, let me focus on the positive aspects of this film, and there are quite a few.  This was the second of two Frank Capra-directed films to win the Best Picture Oscar (the other was It Happened One Night) and the warm aesthetic present in that movie as well as in It’s a Wonderful Life (another Capra-directed classic) is here too.  The people in this film are all good at heart and any “faults” showcased during the movie are not the result of evil itself, but rather of a temporary shortcoming of character.  As the film progresses, we realize that the man drawn out to be the film’s villain, Anthony P. Kirby, is actually a decent man who happens to be flawed in his way of thinking.  This may sound like a sappy aesthetic to some, but there is something comforting about the notion that everybody has some good in them.  Whether that’s true or false in real life is irrelevant.  The acting is good, although there really aren’t any standout performances from what could be considered a star-studded cast.  In terms of the overall plot, it’s a good story and one that is not difficult for the viewer to follow.  It presents a separation between social classes but resolves it at the end, similar to the way that a separation between social classes is presented and resolved in It Happened One Night.  And yes, this film is funny…there were several moments when I laughed out loud.  The scene in the restaurant with Anthony Jr. and Alice is great.  There are definitely elements of screwball comedy present in this film, and that serves as one of its strongest assets.

The cons?  Well, perhaps the most glaring is that there are several occurrences in the film of human illogicality.  The worst comes more than halfway through the movie, when we find out that Anthony P. Kirby has had no idea that Mr. Vanderhof is the man whose house he has been trying to purchase.  This realization comes after having visited the house itself.  It seems illogical that Kirby couldn’t make the connection in the first place…for him not to do so after having been to the house (the realization comes during an argument that Kirby and Vanderhof are having while in jail) is absurd.  The other major problem I had was the unrealistic degree of speed that marked the change in the respective opinions of Alice and Anthony P. Kirby at the end of the film.  I don’t want to say too much more at the risk of spoiling the movie’s ending, so I’ll just state my belief that swift turnarounds like that do not happen in real life.  Or perhaps I’ve just been underestimating the power of “Polly Wolly Doodle” all these years.

I liked this film – it was not one of my favorites that I’ve watched, but it was definitely entertaining in its own way.  Capra’s direction is great and it’s no mystery why he won his third Best Director Oscar in five years for this movie, a stunning feat especially by today’s standards.  He truly stands as one of the finest directors of all time.  The film’s biggest flaws seem to be with the script itself, which was adapted from a play of the same name.  I’d be interested to see whether the moments of illogicality that I pointed out in the film are present in the play.  Overall, this was a good film and I’d recommend it to people.  Rating: 8

You Can’t Take It With You marks the twentieth film that I have watched for this project, and thus I have ranked the twenty films from favorite (#1) to least favorite (#20).  The rankings are below:

1. Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
2. Rocky (1976)
3. Schindler’s List (1993)
4. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
5. It Happened One Night (1934)
6. Rebecca (1940)
7. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
8. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
9. Ordinary People (1980)
10. Rain Man (1988)
11. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
12. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
13. Grand Hotel (1931-1932)
14. Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)
15. You Can’t Take It With You (1938)
16. Casablanca (1943)
17. A Man for All Seasons (1966)
18. Annie Hall (1977)
19. Crash (2005)
20. Cavalcade (1932-1933)

The winner of the 1938 Academy Award for Best Picture.

Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)

First things first…I ended up 16/24 with my Oscar predictions for this year, which isn’t terrible, but I was a little disappointed (especially considering I pulled off a 20/24 last year).  The “shorts” categories killed me.  Otherwise, I thought the show was very entertaining – a little too long, but what else is new?

Over the weekend, I watched the 1947 winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, Gentleman’s Agreement.  The movie stars Gregory Peck as Phil Green, a journalist saddled with the task of writing a series of articles on antisemitism.  Finding it difficult to concentrate on something that he doesn’t experience on a personal level, Phil initially suffers a case of writer’s block and nearly concedes defeat; however, just when his prospects of undertaking the project look grim, he comes up with a startling idea – to pose as a Jewish man so that he can experience antisemitism firsthand.  While several similar ideas have been carried out in the past few years (e.g. Tyra Banks putting on a fat suit to experience discrimination against obese people), this was a virtually unheard of notion in 1947.  Unsurprisingly, this film was met with a lot of controversy upon its release (although it was a considerable financial success).

Running parallel to the journalism/posing-as-a-Jew plot is a love story between Phil and Kathy Lacey, played by Dorothy McGuire.  Kathy is the niece of magazine publisher John Minify, and it is Mr. Minify’s magazine that is publishing Phil’s series on antisemitism.  Throughout the film, Phil and Kathy have a tumultuous relationship that results in the breaking off of their engagement.  The main issue in their relationship, and ultimately the issue that ties the film’s two plots together, is that Phil begins to perceive Kathy of tolerating bigotry, specifically antisemitism.  Complicating things even further is the arrival in town of Phil’s friend Dave Goldman, who happens to really be Jewish and is looking for a house to move his family into.

For me, Gentleman’s Agreement is a tale of two plots.  The journalism plot is really well-written and touches on an issue that, while not the hot-button issue that it once was, is still very thought-provoking.  Parallels can be drawn between the antisemitism depicted in the movie and the racism that exists in today’s society.  One must admire Phil for his gutsy decision to pose as a Jew during a time when Jews faced discrimination in many aspects of life.  The scene at the Flume Inn comes across as particularly frustrating, and you can see just how wounded Phil is from the experience.

It is the love story where this film loses some points.  The aforementioned tumultuousness of Phil and Kathy’s relationship comes across as underdeveloped and a bit grating.  One minute they love each other and life is as sweet as can be…the next minute there is a unsettling bitterness in the air.  In fact, the breaking off of the engagement actually comes as somewhat of a relief to the viewer, as it presumably means no more awkward moments between the two of them.  There are also slight romantic undertones between Phil and Anne, the magazine’s fashion editor (played by Celeste Holm), and ultimately Anne comes across as a more likeable character than Kathy.

This was an enjoyable film, and having a personal interest in journalism, I found myself really drawn to that aspect of the movie.  The love story wasn’t spectacular, but there have been much worse in cinematic history, so I won’t complain too much.  The acting was one of the stronger points – in particular, Peck, McGuire, and Holm all gave great performances and all were rewarded with Academy Award nominations (with Holm winning, for Best Supporting Actress).  Elia Kazan directed and did a great job – the film comes across as sophisticated and visually appealing.  Overall, Gentleman’s Agreement isn’t a masterpiece, but it’s a very strong film that’s definitely worth a viewing.  Rating: 9

The winner of the 1947 Academy Award for Best Picture.

2010 Academy Award Predictions

I thought it’d be worth posting my predictions for tonight’s Academy Awards.  We’ll see whether I need to add another movie to my “Already Viewed” list (I’ve seen Avatar, District 9, and Up) or “Need to View” list…

Best Picture: Avatar

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

Best Actress in a Leading Role: Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Mo’Nique, Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

Best Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air

Best Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

Best Animated Feature: Up

Best Art Direction: Avatar

Best Cinematography: Avatar

Best Costume Design: The Young Victoria

Best Documentary Feature: The Cove

Best Documentary Short: China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province

Best Film Editing: The Hurt Locker

Best Foreign Language Film: The White Ribbon (Germany)

Best Makeup: Star Trek

Best Original Score: Up

Best Original Song: “The Weary Kind” from Crazy Heart

Best Short Film, Animated: A Matter of Loaf and Death

Best Short Film, Live Action: Kavi

Best Sound Editing: Avatar

Best Sound Mixing: Avatar

Best Visual Effects: Avatar

So yeah, I’m kinda going out on a limb by picking Avatar for Best Picture over The Hurt Locker.  We’ll see how that works out.

Also, I watched Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) over the weekend and will write a review sometime in the next day or two.

Matt

A (Not So) Quick Recap of the First 18 Movies

In my first post, I talked about my current personal project: watching all the films that have won the Academy Award for Best Picture.  I decided to undertake this project for three main reasons.  First, I felt that it would expose me to some of the better films in history that I otherwise might have never gotten around to watching.  Second, I felt that it would expose to me to cinematic time periods and genres that I was not particularly in tune with (e.g. I have watched more pre-1945 movies in the last month than I have in my entire life).  Finally, I am very interested in 20th century/21st century history, and I believe that popular culture is an important aspect of history.  While I think that I’m pretty well-versed in popular music, I felt that I had a considerable amount to learn about movies, and that this would be an interesting project to undertake while at the same time bolstering my knowledge of film.  So in that way, this isn’t just a fun project – it’s somewhat educational.  Back in the fall, I joined the Academic Competition Club (fancy term for quiz bowl) here at Delaware, and since then I’ve adopted the philosophy that “all knowledge is good knowledge.”

Anyway, back to the point.  I’ve watched 18 of the 81 (again, as I mentioned in the first post, 82 after next Sunday) films to win the Best Picture Oscar.  That total does not include the six or seven other movies that I’ve seen before, but several years ago - I’m intending to watch them again in order to give them a fair assessment.

My plan for the remaining 64 movies is to dedicate a post for reviewing each one as I see them.  Rather than make 18 posts for the 18 movies I’ve already watched, I thought it’d be easier for me to quickly recap them and how I rated them.  I rate these movies from 1-10, with 1 being atrocious and 10 being outstanding.  So far, no film has gotten below a 6.  I guess you could consider me a pretty generous rater.

Alright, here is a recap of the 18 films that I’ve seen so far, listed in chronological order.

Grand Hotel (1932) – I was very pleasantly surprised by this movie.  I think I had it in my head that anything pre-It Happened One Night is crap, but this is well-structured, well-acted, and thoroughly entertaining.  Lionel Barrymore steals the show as the terminally-ill-but-having-the-time-of-his-life Kringelein.  Rating: 9

Cavalcade (1933) – My lowest-rated of the 18 films in this recap.  The movie is fairly well-acted and has some entertainment value – my problem was with the gimmicky plot.  I have this image of a bunch of movie executives sitting around a table in the early ’30s, chain-smoking cigarettes and throwing out ideas, and one guy comes up with, “Hey, why don’t we make a movie about a bunch of rich people in London and how all the terrible real-life events that have occurred over the last 33 years affect them?  We could throw in the Titanic disaster, put a couple of characters on the ship, that’d be pretty good.  Ooh, World War I, that’s a goldmine, we’ll have a major character go off and die in the war, but not before he falls in love with a girl back home.  And oh yeah, we’ll throw in a random horse-and-carriage trampling for good measure.”  Alright, that probably comes off as pretty cynical, but it’s not that far off from what actually happens in the movie.  Rating: 6

It Happened One Night (1934) – This is a excellent film.  Perhaps its greatest strength is how well it comes across 76 years after being made – the dialogue is witty and enjoyable and the two main characters, while flawed, are both likeable.  Laid the foundation for countless romantic comedies to follow, and outshines nearly all of them.  Rating: 10

Rebecca (1940) – When the name Alfred Hitchcock is mentioned, most people immediately think of his output between 1954 and 1963 – namely, films like Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds.  However, his only film to win the Best Picture Oscar was this, his American directorial debut.  I’ve only seen three Hitchcock films – this, Rope, and Vertigo – and this is probably my favorite of the three (although all of them were very good).  Very suspenseful, with somewhat Gothic undertones – has that great Hitchcockian feeling to it, showing that the director had mastered his craft much earlier than many people realize.  And I did not see the twist coming, which is always a positive when watching a suspense movie.  Rating: 9

Casablanca (1943) – My expectations were probably too high for this, but with the knowledge that AFI currently ranks this as the third-greatest movie of all time, I expected to be blown away.  I wasn’t.  I found the first half-hour of the movie to be quite confusing, actually, as I had considerable trouble figuring out what was going on.  Once I got that under control, I just wasn’t that impressed.  Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was a good movie, but apart from the plethora of instantly recognizable quotes (“Here’s looking at you, kid,” “Play it, Sam.  Play ‘As Time Goes By,’” etc.), nothing really stuck out to me as being extraordinary.  In addition, Captain Renault’s change from bad guy to good guy at the end of the film seems rather clunky and inconsistent with the character we’ve been watching throughout the film.  Rating: 8

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) – This is a really good movie.  The plot is engaging and you definitely find yourself rooting for the good guys to successfully blow up the bridge at the end of the movie.  Alec Guinness did a superb job and won a deserved Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Colonel Nicholson, who in the end is ironically defeated not at the hands of his Japanese captors, but rather by his own ego.  My highest praise goes to the film’s visuals, which are absolutely stunning and come across looking very authentically like the jungles of Thailand (in actuality, the movie was filmed in Sri Lanka).  Rating: 9

A Man for All Seasons (1966) – Based on the true story of Sir Thomas More, this film takes place in the sixteenth-century and has the visual feel of sixteenth-century England.  To put it simply, it’s a well-produced English costume drama.  On top of that, the acting is very good, particularly Paul Scofield as More (he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the role).  However, this film has one major flaw: it’s emotionally detached.  I found myself unable to sympathize with any of the characters besides More, which in turn made the movie fairly boring.  I think that the audiences of today (including me) are less tolerant of a lack of human emotion in movies than they were in the ’60s.  This is a finely-crafted movie that just hasn’t aged well since its release.  Rating: 7

In the Heat of the Night (1967) – It seems hard to believe that this film followed A Man for All Seasons by a single year, since the two movies seem worlds apart.  While A Man for All Seasons takes place in post-medieval England, this film takes place in rural Mississippi during the ’60s, and is about as gritty and modern as movies got during that time period.  Rod Steiger and Sidney Poitier both do a great job as the town’s semi-racist police chief and black detective from Philadelphia, respectively.  The mystery itself can get a little confusing and difficult to follow at times, but at the end of the movie it makes sense (even if you have to rewatch a few parts of the movie to see how everything fits together).  This is a good film that also serves as a historical document to a much more racist time in the history of our country.  Rating: 9

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) – Every few years or so, there comes along a film that is nearly flawless, a term which I believe refers to a movie’s all-around quality rather than any singular aspect.  This is one of those films.  The acting is superb – Jack Nicholson takes a real jackass of a guy and has you rooting for him by the end, while at the other end of the spectrum Louise Fletcher’s Nurse Ratched seems mild-mannered on the surface, but is truly one of cinema’s greatest villains.  Her icy stares and control-freak nature are much more telling than anything she says.  The plot is engaging, which is a remarkable feat considering all but one scene of the film takes place in the mental hospital.  The movie is over two hours long, but it never feels like it drags.  Rating: 10

Rocky (1976) – People give this movie a lot of crap, and I’m not exactly sure why.  I’ve read a bunch of lists on the Internet of people’s choices for the “Worst ‘Best Pictures’ of All Time,” and this seems to make its way onto a lot of those lists.  My best guess has to do with an issue that I’ll revisit with Kramer vs. Kramer and Ordinary People, which is that the competition for Best Picture Oscars was so stiff during the ’70s.  This movie has the distinction of winning over what many consider to be the greatest group of Best Picture nominees in the history of the Academy Awards: this movie, Network, Taxi Driver, All the President’s Men, and Bound for Glory.  With the exception of Bound for Glory, all of these films appear on AFI’s most recent list of the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time.  Most arguments that I’ve heard about this being one of the worst Best Picture winners don’t necessarily center on this film’s shortcomings (of which there are few), but rather on the merits of Network, Taxi Driver, and All the President’s Men.  And I feel that’s unfair.  A film should not be judged on the basis of its competition, but on the basis of its own accomplishments.  This is a great film, one that inspires by sending the message that even the biggest of underdogs has a chance to do something great.  The story has become a classic, and the image of Rocky atop the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art looking out over the city has become iconic.  This film deserved the Best Picture Oscar.  Whether Network, Taxi Driver, or All the President’s Men also deserved it is a separate discussion.  Rating: 10

Annie Hall (1977) – This one gets a ton of acclaim and is considered by many to be among the greatest comedies of all time.  Frankly, I just don’t see it.  There are some good aspects to this movie – the plot is relatable and there are several funny lines throughout.  However, there are also some negative aspects, the most glaring of which is the unlikability of Woody Allen’s character, Alvy Singer.  Throughout the entire film, Singer whines and then whines some more.  After about ten minutes, this routine goes from being somewhat humorous to extremely annoying.  Another complaint I have is with the way Singer breaks the fourth wall.  Breaking the fourth wall is a difficult thing to do in a film, requiring a certain touch.  When Singer directly addresses the camera for thirty, forty seconds at a time, that touch is nowhere to be found; rather, it comes across as clunky and (pardon the pun) in-your-face.  Overall, it’s a decent movie, but I don’t feel it deserves nearly as much praise as it gets.  Rating: 7

Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) – Wow.  This is an outstanding film – Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep are each at their peak here, and both deservedly won Academy Awards for their respective roles.  What makes this film so great to me is that it is completely realistic and relatable.  While I have been fortunate enough not to experience the effects of divorce firsthand, I imagine that the ordeal would be very similar to the one portrayed in the movie.  As I mentioned earlier in my recap of Rocky, this film has the misfortunate of being frequently compared to its competition in the Best Picture category that year; namely, the Francis Ford Coppola-directed war epic, Apocalypse Now.  Many people point to that as the film that should have won Best Picture, and while I can’t say one way or another whether I agree with that assessment (because I haven’t seen Apocalypse Now), I can say that this movie is a classic in its own right and deserved all the awards and accolades it received.  Rating: 10

Ordinary People (1980) – Like Kramer vs. Kramer, this one is also forever haunted by the gritty, critically-acclaimed film that it defeated for the Best Picture Oscar.  In this case, the defeated film is the Martin Scorsese-directed Raging Bull, which currently sits at #4 on AFI’s list of the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time.  And like Apocalypse Now, I can’t pass a judgment on Raging Bull because I haven’t seen it yet.  But I have seen this movie, and I can say that it is very solid.  Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, and Judd Hirsch all give great performances, but the real star of the show is Timothy Hutton, whose brilliant portrayal of an angsty teen tortured by the guilt of his brother’s death won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, a feat that is even more remarkable when you consider that Hutton was only twenty years old at the time.  I feel like this film and Kramer vs. Kramer go hand-in-hand, not just because of the supposed stigma associated with their Best Picture wins, but also because of similar subject matter regarding family relations – specifically, in both films it is the mother of the family who is portrayed as the villain.  There is one major difference, however; at the end of Kramer vs. Kramer, Meryl Streep’s Joanna is shown in a positive light, while at the end of this movie, Mary Tyler Moore’s Beth leaves the family, casting her in a negative light.  While I fully understand why the film ended with her departure, as a sucker for happy endings I felt regret that her relationship with the rest of the family wasn’t resolved.  Overall, I consider this film to be the slightly inferior cousin to Kramer vs. Kramer, but a solid plot and several great acting performances make it well worth watching.  Rating: 9

Rain Man (1988) – A good film, with an interesting plot and important message.  By far the most impressive part of the movie is Dustin Hoffman, who makes you believe that he really is an autistic savant.  It’s an incredible performance for which Hoffman deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Actor.  Tom Cruise is also very good and it’s interesting to watch his character Charlie as he evolves from a greedy, selfish young man into a much more mature individual who genuinely loves and cares for his brother.  There was more of a comedic element present than I expected, which turned out to be good because it allowed the film to stay relatively upbeat even during some of the serious moments.  Rating: 9

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) – I really liked this movie, and I have a feeling that it may grow on me even more as time passes.  Hannibal Lecter, played to perfection by Anthony Hopkins, is hands down the greatest villain that I’ve ever seen in a film – over the years, I’ve seen so many parodic references to this movie and specifically to him, but I still found myself blown away by his frighteningly manipulative nature.  The way in which he escapes from his guarded cell is nothing short of insane.  However, his memorable presence almost acts as a double-edged sword – he so dominates the viewer’s mind that the portions of the film not featuring him (the majority of the film, actually) seem secondary.  The story is good, though, and the movie has a great aura of suspense about it.  Lecter may be the main draw, but the film itself is still a good one.  Rating: 9

Schindler’s List (1993) – Perhaps the most well-produced film I’ve ever seen.  Steven Spielberg and crew virtually recreate the Holocaust, and it feels like you’re there watching it all go down.  The fact that the movie is in black-and-white only adds to the authentic feel.  The story is an inspirational one and keeps your attention for more than three hours, which is quite a feat.  There are several instances of brutal violence in the film, but then again the Holocaust had many instances of brutal violence.  All the actors do a great job, especially Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, and Ben Kingsley.  This is not a film I would necessarily watch that often, but that has more to do with the depressive nature of the subject than anything.  A modern masterpiece, everyone should make a point of watching this movie at least once in their lives.  Rating: 10

Crash (2005) – The best way I can describe this movie is that it aspires to be great, but just isn’t.  It tackles an important topic in contemporary society (racism) and introduces an ensemble cast of many complex characters that begin to interact with each other in a thick-spun web of events.  These characters are all well portrayed - the acting is definitely one of the stronger points of this movie.  Rather, it is the film’s plot and execution that ultimately proves to be its main weakness.   There are several examples of points in the film where I felt that the “wrong” action occurred, the most glaring of which is the scene where the little Latina girl is supposedly shot by the angry Iranian man, only for her to be unharmed (it is later revealed that the Iranian man’s daughter put blanks in his gun).  That’s a gimmicky plot device, a textbook example of heightening drama only for everything to turn out fine.  The result is that there are moments where it feels like the movie is copping out on itself.  It’s not a bad film, but I thought it could have been written and executed better than it was.  Rating: 7

Slumdog Millionaire (2008) – I was very impressed by this film.  The plot sounds kinda odd (a teen named Jamal from the Mumbai slums goes on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?) but it actually works really well.  Using Jamal’s appearance on the show as its foundation, the movie goes through his entire backstory and we discover that there is a lot more to this young man than one might think.  The shots of the Mumbai slums and the things that its impoverished residents do in order to survive are often sobering, but bring a sense of realism to the film.  The film ends on a positive  note and then everyone gets together and dances to “Jai Ho.”  How can you not love it?  Rating: 9

Well, on that note, I draw breath.  Feel free to comment on my ratings so far, and don’t feel obligated to agree with them in any way.  Opinions are unique and these ones are mine – now I’d like to hear yours.

Matt