30 Days of Oscar Day 9: Midnight Cowboy

Movie: Midnight Cowboy
Year:1970
Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director - John Schlesinger, Best Actor - Dustin Hoffman, Best Actor - Jon Voight, Best Supporting Actress - Sylvia Miles, Best Adapted Screenplay,  Editing
Wins/Snubs: The first X-rated picture to win Best Picture.  It also won Best Director and Adapted Screenplay.  I'm guessing Hoffman and Voight split the vote since they were both nominated for Leading Man, though perhaps no one stood a chance against John Wayne in True Grit.  Goldie Hawn in Cactus Flower took the Supporting Actress award, though Miles' role in Midnight Cowboy is so small I honestly can't figure out the part she played.  I think if they'd put Hoffman up for Best Supporting Actor, which its easy to argue his role was more supporting to Voight's, I bet he would have won as I've never heard of Gig Young in They Shoot Horses, Don't They who won that year.  


I knew 2 things about Midnight Cowboy going into this viewing - 1: "I'm walkin' here." from Hoffman when he's nearly hit by a cab.  And 2: It had an X-rating.  If you too know nothing about this film, perhaps you should stop here because I have a feeling I'll include some spoilers.  

Joe Buck (Voight) is leaving Texas for New York City.  He wanders around hitting on a few women until one takes him home.  It turns out he's come to NYC to try to be a gigolo - but his first "Jane" makes him pay HER.  His career never really manifests, but he does befriend Rico "Ratzo" Rizzo (Hoffman) and small time con man who seems to want to be his friend, after messing with him a bit. Rizzo has a limp from polio, and is more Buck's sidekick more than anything. Things don't go well in the gigolo career attempt, and they make a play for Florida - assuming Rizzo will be better off there - he's been falling and the winter in a condemned building in NYC isn't a picnic.  Buck gets some money - he keeps not getting paid after he has sex, so he beats up a guy and steals his money.  They get on the bus to Florida and sort of ride off into the sunset together.  


The X-rating really wouldn't come from anything I've described.  Any of the sex that happens in NYC is tame by today's standards.  We get a few naked butt shots of Voight, but that's it.  What probably caused the X-rating are Voight's flashbacks to Texas.  He was raised by a overly affectionate and still neglectful grandmother.  He falls for a girl named Annie.  One night, they're having sex in his car and a huge group of men drag them out of the car and violently rape both of them.  It's nearly as upsetting as The Accused was a few days ago.  It seems that the movie is trying to say that Buck is screwed up because of all these things.  Voight doesn't play him screwed up - he's almost Happy-go-lucky wanting to have sex with anyone - man or woman.  

The character I really liked, and I'm not sure you're supposed to, was Ratzo Rizzo.  Hoffman has a loud, fairly obnoxious accent.  He's really weaselly - being so much shorter than Voight to start with, he was smart to go with a more obsequious nature.  When he starts to obviously be getting sicker and not better, you really do feel bad for him.  Life hasn't been easy, but he's tried hard.  I didn't like the money overall, and definitely would have given the Oscar to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and lead actor to either Butch or Sundance, so I'm pretty surprised this movie won, but sometimes the Oscars do embrace controversy a bit.  

30 Days of Oscar Day 30: Ben-Hur

Movie: Ben-Hur
Year: 1960
Nominations: 12 Nominations - Best Picture, Best Director (William Wyler), Best Actor (Charlton Heston), Best Supporting Actor (Hugh Griffith), Cinematography, Art Direction, Costumes, Sound, and Adapted Screenplay
Wins/Snubs: Everything except Screenplay.  This was almost 20 years AFTER Wyler directed Mrs. Miniver and it's possible to see some similarities and growth.

I can't believe I'd never seen Ben-Hur before.  I recognized the music from the chariot race, some of the dialogue was familiar and of course the basic story of a wealthy man who becomes a slave only to eventually become a citizen of Rome (a REALLY big deal in those days).  While I hope they never remake this movie, it's easy to see all the ways they might attempt it with CGI and improved camera technology standing in for immense and expensive sets and daring stunt men and animal handlers.

Told in several acts, we meet Judah Ben-Hur (Heston) a wealthy man in Judea around the time of the birth of Christ.  His childhood best friend, Messala (Griffith) has just been made the leader of the town.  However, an altercation with the governor of the district takes place with Judah and his mother and sister.  They're thrown in prison and Judah is made a slave on a war ship (pulling an oar).   During a battle his ship sinks, but the commander, Quintus Arrius has unchained Judah from his oar, and in return Judah keeps Arrius from drowning.  Arrius brings Judah back to Rome with him, in victory and adopts him as a son.  Judah learns to race chariots, but ultimately decides he has to go back to his homeland in Judea and find out what happened to his mother and sister.  He runs into a sheik with some great horses and teaches them to run together (foreshadowing the big chariot race to come).  When he arrives back in Judea he finds Esther, a woman he once loved and still does.  She has found out that his mother and sister are lepers and they swear her to tell Judah they have died.  He thinks Messala is responsible and when the opportunity to race him in the circus comes up he takes full advantage.

The final act connects us back with the end of the life of Christ, and Judah with his sick mother and sister.  (Side-note, leper is the only noun to describe someone with a disease I can think of - we don't call them chicken poxers - it fully separates them from their humanity, all other diseases are used as adjectives to describe a patient, just goes to show how reviled they must have been to be segregated from society the way they were).  Judah witnesses the crucifixion and recognizes the man as someone who once gave him water when he was dying of thirst as a slave, and the story comes full circle.   An amazing movie - possibly the longest I've seen, and yet I was never bored or eager to do something else or assuming a given moment was the end.  Brilliant story-telling throughout, with every emotional note struck with precision and inspiration.  My only gripe is the Esther (Haya Harareet) should have been nominated for Supporting Actress.  Probably the greatest epic ever made - and I dare you to argue that any modern movie can touch it.   5 of 5 stars/lambs (though with inflation it's more like 6.5 of 5 stars).

This is the last of the 30 Days of Oscar Feature.  Thank you so much to all the people who've commented along my journey.  While I wouldn't do this every month, I challenge you all to make yourself watch movies through the lens of their Oscar achievement.  It definitely puts an interesting spin on them - not as "classics" or "must-sees" but as part of a canon of excellence.

30 Days of Oscar Day 29: Mrs. Miniver

Movie: Mrs. Miniver
Year: 1943
Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (William Wyler), Best Actor (Walter Pidgeon), Best Actress (Greer Garson), Best Supporting Actress (Teresa Wright), Best Supporting Actress (Dame May Whitty), Best Supporting Actor (Henry Travers), Cinematography (Black and White), Original Screenplay, Special Effects, Sound, and Editing
Wins/Snubs: This movie won 6 Oscars - Picture, Director, Actress (Garson), Supporting Actress (Wright), Screenplay and Cinematography.  I haven't seen too many of the other movies that were nominated that year, just Pride of the Yankees and Yankee Doodle Dandy (Cagney won best Actor for it) so I can't really say if there were any snubs.  However, there's a little boy, Toby Miniver (Christopher Severn) who could rival any little kid of any time for the most creepy - and he's even trying not to be, but he's really insanely odd.

For the most part I just wanted to see this movie because it won way back and gets me that much closer to having seen them all.  When I said I was going to watch it, a few people said, "Oh, that's a good movie" so I was encouraged going into it.  Now having seen it, I pretty well think they're crazy.  Casablanca won the next year, so I can't say the 1940s weren't a good time period for film, nor that the Academy was biased in one direction or another, but this just doesn't live up to the title of Best Picture.  Some of the acting is really good, Greer Garson smiles and plays the doting wife well.  The effects are good - taking place during WWII in England and having been filmed during WWII, I can see why it might have been given accolades for being a good representation of living during the beginning of the war - but that still doesn't make it a good movie.  First, only about half of the people in the movie even have British accents (more than a little distracting), and the bombing raids and time in a shelter seem offset by parties and the class conflict with the aristocracy creating a pretty muddled film.  I think the Academy just enjoyed the British-ness of it and the sad, tragic ending and awarded some acting.  Personally, Pride of the Yankees is much more interesting to watch, and not just because I like Gary Cooper.

One other thing of note - for the 1943 Academy Awards there were 25 nominees for Best Documentary and 4 winners, all in a single category.  Most were war movies, the U.S. Navy, and U.S. Army Special Services were among the winners for their films.  Did you know the Navy had an Oscar?

30 Days of Oscar Day 28: Network

Movie: Network
Year: 1977
Nominations: Best Picture, Director (Sidney Lumet), Best Actor (Peter Finch), Best Actor (William Holden), Best Actress (Faye Dunaway), Best Supporting Actress (Beatrice Straight), Best Supporting Actor (Ned Beatty), Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing
Wins/Snubs: Peter Finch became the first posthumous nominee and winner, Faye Dunaway won, as did Beatrice Straight (who I had to look up because no other woman stood out enough that I thought they'd be nominated, let alone win - and she holds the record for shortest time on screen (5 minutes 40 seconds) that earned an Oscar).  It also won Original Screenplay, but Rocky took Best Picture and Director for John G. Avildsen and Jason Robards won for All the King's Men.  

One of the problems I had with enjoying Taxi Driver was that I didn't think I understood the time period that the movie was made.  When I posed this to Hatter over at The Dark of the Matinee (he's from Canada), he replied with this:

Y’all were mired in a war that had gone on far too long and became wildly unpopular.

Your politicians were corrupt and sparking outrage and disgraceful scandal

The economy was in tatters and there were fears about the supply of oil

There were rampant fears about an unseen enemy (Communism)

And underneath it all, there was a fundamentalist right-wing Christian movement bubbling that was poised to take power in a big way.

Sound familiar?

So I guess it shouldn't be that hard to relate to the time of Taxi Driver.  This was ALSO the year of Network, which is a bit easier to understand.  In simple terms, Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is a newscaster who has been dumped by his network for falling ratings.  He goes a bit nuts on the air complaining about all the things listed above.  This of course causes his ratings to shoot up, but he still gets canned.  However, his producer (Faye Dunaway) sees a gold mine in this new attitude and gives Beale his own talk show.  Eventually, though the novelty of that wears off too, and Beale is actually shot on air by radicals (coincidence or horrible tragedy?).  The story is much more complex, with discussion of the ratings, the networks, the affiliates, advertisers, etc. but it basically boils down to the first "reality TV" gripping the nation before they realize that doesn't make for longevity in television.   To read a better and longer review, check out Nick's, over at Random Ramblings of Demented Doorknob.

30 Days of Oscar Day 25 - The African Queen

Movie: The African Queen
Year: 1952
Nominations: Best Actress (Katharine Hepburn), Best Actor (Humphrey Bogart), Best Director (John Huston), and Best Screenplay
Wins: Only Bogie went home with his only award, beating out Brando for Streetcar and Clift for A Place in the Sun.  Hepburn was beaten by Vivien Leigh for A Streetcar named Desire, and Huston's award went to George Stevens for A Place in the Sun which also took Screenplay.

This was one of the first movies I ever owned (Oklahoma and The African Queen on BETAMAX back in the 80s), and I've seen it and caught more and more in it every time I see it, with today being no exception.  Often when a characters in a movie rely on a map, it's usually something made up or more abstract than reality.  So, growing up I figured that's what they'd done with the maps Kate and Bogie use to navigate the river in the movie.  However, now that I'm grown up (and some say wicked smaht) and have lived in Africa myself, I can tell they were actually using a old map of Africa - with the colonial names for things mixed with tribal names so they bear little resemblance to what I know.  But it was neat looking at the movie from yet another new perspective. 

For those who haven't seen it, Hepburn plays Miss Rose Sayer, a missionary keeping house for her brother in Africa (probably in Tanzania or Zambia).  When he dies, she's forced try to get home, but WWI has gotten in the way, and the war has found its way to Africa (the monarchs gave Tanzania to the Kaiser, while Kenya stayed British).  She gets in a boat with Canadian Charlie Allnut to get back to England eventually.  However, it's rough going on a pieced together boat down rapids with crocodiles and hippos and the propriety of the time - she always calls him Mr. Allnut and he calls her Miss.  They get friendly but it's not until they're almost killed a few times that they really get to know each other.  They fight, they bicker, learn from each other and have terrific adventures, even attempting to change the course of the war.  I love this movie every time I watch it.  I'm shocked it didn't get nominated for Best Picture, and winner An American in Paris can't hold a candle to it (though it's pretty good too). 

30 Days of Oscar Day 24: Leaving Las Vegas

Movie: Leaving Las Vegas
Year: 1996
Nominations: Best Director (Mike Figgis), Best Actor (Nicholas Cage), Best Actress (Elisabeth Shue), Adapted Screenplay
Wins/Snubs: The first nomination and only win for Nicholas Cage (and so far the world hasn't come to an end, but perhaps we'll find out this was the actual cause for global warming).  This was also one of those movies that got a directing nomination without a Best Picture nomination, though it wasn't the only one - Dead Man Walking  also got a directing nomination for Tim Robbins but not a Best Picture nomination, though Susan Sarandon took Best Actress.  Apollo 13 and Sense and Sensibility got the Best Picture nominations, and Emma Thompson took the Adapted Screenplay Oscar for her troubles. 

Wow, whatever happened to Elisabeth Shue?  She was terrific in this crazy sad story about a "hardened hooker with a heart of gold" who falls in love with a serious alcoholic whose only goal is to die drinking.  Given how unbelievably sad this movie is, I'm having trouble figuring out why I liked it so much.   Because I did, and I realize how unbelievable the following statements might seem, but I assure you they're true.  Nicholas Cage was terrific - his crazy ability to act normal one minute and explode the next fit his alcoholic character with a death plan really well.  He didn't have to make sense when he suddenly tipped over the table - as long as he'd been drinking it made sense and increased the oddness of his character.  And Elisabeth Shue, as a high price hooker, with a crazy pimp, seems to be extremely wounded given the perverse things she's willing to do, but yet still wants to be with and take care of Nicholas Cage - though perhaps that's just more of what makes her character, she's willing to find anyone worse off than she is so she can take care of them. 

The other big thing that struck me about the movie was it's soundtrack.  It was so many old standards (probably being sung all over Vegas as we speak), but many done with a new twist, either sped up or slowed down to create something new.  I'll admit I only realized this was what was going on when I was singing along to a song, but kept trying to speed it up when I realized I knew all the words.  And it brought out the ups and downs of the movie - the two main characters fall in love, but it was always doomed (a death plan does that, even when one of the couple is a prostitute) and the music added just a bit levity to a very dark story with a particularly unhappy ending.  Totally not the kind of movie I usually enjoy, but I gotta say I really liked it.  4.5 of 5 stars/lambs

30 Days of Oscar Day 22: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Movie: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Year: 1976
Nominations: Best Actor (Jack Nicholson), Best Actress (Louise Fletcher), Best Director (Milos Forman), Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Brad Dourif), Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Original Score
Wins: This was the first film in 41 years to sweep all the major categories - Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Adapted Screenplay.

This was one of the films that initially gave me the idea for 30 Days of Oscar because I'd never seen it.  This was probably one of the most well-known movies that I'd never seen - phrases like "Nurse Ratched" implying a caretaker with sinister and controlling undertones.  I think I thought it was a particularly violent and scary movie, for no other reason than it came from the 70s.  Silly reason when so many of Nicholson's best movies came from back then.  Also, with a terrific supporting cast of nutjobs, including Christopher Lloyd (practicing for The Dream Team I guess), the late Vincent Schiavelli,  and Danny Devito (I totally didn't recognize him at first) and other character actors I recognize, but couldn't name.  Nicholson and Fletcher (as Nurse Ratched) totally deserved their Oscar nominations and wins, though I've only even ever heard of Jaws and Dog Day Afternoon among the movies they competed against for the main awards.

When the movie starts Nicholson has just been brought to the mental hospital from a work farm where he was locked up for assault.  He doesn't seem particularly crazy, which actually  becomes a problem when he starts making problems, like stealing the bus full of patients and taking them deep-sea fishing.  Yes, he's probably a sociopath because he's a really good liar and manipulator.  However, he doesn't seem like he's someone who should be locked up.  Ironically, with all of her attempts to control him, Nurse Ratched basically makes him crazy.  He tries to annoy her by rallying the patients to get support for watching the World Series, and then his prank going fishing.  However, he doesn't realize that you're usually under different rules in a mental hospital and it's not like jail where they let you go when you've served your time - here you have to prove a bit of sanity to get out (or at least make Nurse Ratched happy).  Of course a big showdown happens toward the end and you get to see the really evil side of Nurse Ratched.  5 of 5 stars/lambs

30 Days of Oscar Day 21: All About Eve

Movie: All About Eve
Year: 1951
Nominations: Best Supporting Actor (George Sanders), Costume Design, Black-and-White, Best Director (Joseph L. Mankiewicz), Best Picture, Best Sound, Best Writing, Best Actress (Anne Baxter), Best Actress (Bette Davis), Best Supporting Actress (Celeste Holm), Best Supporting Actress (Thelma Ritter) Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, Best Film Editing
Best Music Scoring
Wins/Snubs: Supporting Actor, Best Picture, Director, Sound, and Screenplay.  This movie set records of all kinds.  First, and only, time 4 women from the same movie were nominated. It held the record for most nominations until Titanic tied it. 

I honestly can't believe I'd never seen this.  Such a terrific bitchy chick flick that really created a story that nearly everyone can relate to, either as the young apprentice or the aging mentor.  Margo (Bette Davis) is a famous stage actress who gets a bit caught up in the adoration of a young fan who shows up at one of her shows, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter).  Eve is so ingratiating that she becomes Margo's friend and assistant, and eventually her understudy.  However, she does everything with the aim of not just being around Margo, but eventually supplanting Margo.  A playwright, Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe) tends to write shows for Margo specifically, and his wife, Karen (Celeste Holm) is a friend of Margo's, but also befriend's Eve.  Eve uses her manipulative nature to get Karen to keep Margo away from the show one night so Eve could go on.  Of course, eventually Eve blackmails Karen with this secret to get a role in Lloyd's newest play.  Eve also befriends a theater critic, Addison Dewitt (George Sanders - the only acting win for the movie which is a catastrophe) but he turns out to be immune to her manipulations, threatening to out all her lies and treachery. 

A big part of the movie is the idea that Margo could only be crazy to think this lovely young woman could be scheming to take her place.  Margo's friend's don't believe her at first, but eventually they come around and see Eve for what she really is.  Terrific writing throughout - "Buckle your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night" comes from Margo and sets up the film, life is no longer going to be easy.  There are a lot of great lines that aren't quite as famous, but were really familiar.  Oh, and Marilyn Monroe has a small role as one of the actresses who works with Margo.  It's small, but you can see how she'd wow the studios.  Impressive acting by everyone, I'm fairly shocked none of the women took an award home, but I'm guessing the fact that two were nominated in each category they probably split the votes.  Judy Holiday took home the Best Actress award for Born Yesterday, and Josephine Hull took the Supporting Actress award for Harvey.  However, going home with Best Picture and Best Director were totally deserving - though it was the Year of the Aging Diva with Sunset Boulevard also being nominated across the board.  

30 Days of Oscar Day 19: L.A. Confidential

Movie: L.A. Confidential
Year: 1998
Nominations: Best Picture, Best Direction, Best Supporting Actress (Kim Basinger), Sound, Editing, Cinematography, Art Direction, Adapted Screenplay
Wins/Snubs:  Kim Basinger deservedly took the win, though in a remarkably thin year.  Adapted Screenplay won too, again on a year that seemed to be all for them, oh and Titanic.

**Some spoilers**
I saw this when the movie first came out, but every time I went to watch it again I got distracted or decided I already knew everything about it.  So I decided it was time to revisit this.  For a movie with this many big names, it's odd that all of them, EXCEPT the Oscar winner, still have pretty amazing careers.  I'm also surprised NONE of the men got nominated, though they got a SAG Ensemble nomination.  But Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, Danny Devito, James Cromwell, David Strathairn, are really a group of actors that can't be beat, and I suppose none of them stand out from the crowd or really create a supporting character with a great distinction, they're all so wrapped up in the complexities of the story that it's hard to single one performance above the rest.  Also, since so many of them don't survive the end of the movie (usually a requirement for a leading man - Braveheart being an obvious exception) none get the obvious leading vs supporting role.

However, it's really the story that shines.  A web of corruption in L.A. police department back in the 1950s all being exposed by a single crime that weaves together the film industry, the porn/escort industry and the mob.  You can't beat the complexity of the story - it really must be experienced from start to finish, individual scenes just bleed into one another and few completely stand alone.  However, it's also not hard to understand and most things come down to money and power.  Capturing the feel of the 50's is part of where all the technical awards must have come from - the look of the movie, the color, costumes, make-up, and sweeping views of LA all provide a strong atmosphere to give it an other-worldly feel that doesn't make for a scary movie, but rather a thriller.  And honestly, the soundtrack brings you into that world almost as much as the clothes and makeup.   Kevin Spacey's my favorite character.  Watching his obsession with the TV industry and then realizing he's also a cop who is supposed to be doing good things, just at the moment it's all taken away gets me every time.  Still a 5 of 5 stars/lambs kind of film.

30 Days of Oscar: Day 15 - Glory

Movie: Glory
Year: 1990
Nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Denzel Washington), Best Cinematography, Best Sound, Best Art Direction, Best Film Editing
Wins: Supporting Actor for Washington, Cinematography and Sound.  It was the year of Morgan Freeman, with this movie and Driving Miss Daisy, but he still didn't take home an Oscar.  Batman, My Left Foot, and Born on the Fourth of July also had a big year.

I'd seen Glory about 15 years ago, probably to see why they let Ferris Bueller play a soldier.  Now watching it again, I'm kind of looking at Broderick with new eyes.  I kind of wonder where this actor went - why he didn't become a great dramatic actor (is he just too short and funny-looking?).   He's the colonel of an all-black regiment from Massachusetts during the Civil War.  Being raised in the North, he sees the men in his regiment as soldiers, good or bad, and less as men, black or white.  Another surprise - Cary Elwes playing his fellow officer, and conscience.  Usually, it's impossible to see Elwes without thinking of all his comedic (intentional or not) roles, but he holds it together throughout Glory and adds the element of everyone's conscience when something that might be normal for a regiment, but seems too harsh for this regiment in particular (when Denzel's going to be whipped for deserting, he says not to, and we see the whipping scars already ingrained on Denzel's back and know why). 

It's a really great war movie (if sometimes adding modern PC moments that seem forced), paced well between training and battle and actual character development.  The soldiers are all an impressive group of actors - Denzel for his defiant, angry Private Trip, a mature, thoughtful, careful Morgan Freeman as Sergeant Major John Rawling, and a young, bookish, naive Andre Braugher.   They avoid cliche (which seems to be a hallmark of film-making this series has shown me so far, originality is king) while telling a "based on a true story" so well, that even though this movie is over 20 years old, it doesn't feel dated in the slightest - the music, the sound, the effects, nothing seems to stand out as having been made at a particular time (other than the age of the well-known actors, of course).  There were a few moments I couldn't hold back tears for their speeches, the determination and finally the loss inevitable in war.  5 of 5 stars/lambs

30 Days of Oscar: Day 14 - Shine

Movie: Shine
Year: 1997
Nominations: Best Actor (Geoffrey Rush), Best Supporting Actor (Armin Mueller-Stahl), Best Director (Scott Hicks), Best Film Editing, Original Score, Best Picture, Original Screenplay
Wins: Best Actor - Geoffrey Rush, This was the year of The English Patient, so it's not surprising that this movie only got a Best Actor.   However, I would have liked to see Lynn Redgrave nominated for Best Supporting Actress.

This was another of my missing Oscar movies.  I'd always heard about it, knew the basic premise - a musical prodigy ends up a schizophrenic.  However, like most of the best movies, it's far more than the sum of its parts.  And since Geoffrey Rush is actually David Helfgott in about a third of the movie, those parts are important.  Noah Taylor plays David as a teenager, when he's really developing the piano skills, but also being beaten and abused by his father, a scary Armin Mueller-Stahl, who fully deserved his Oscar nomination.  Taylor's the one who has to show the loss of sanity and what the pressure of success and the inability to please your father can do to your mind.  We do see Rush at the beginning, and then it flashes back to his first music competition as a kid and moves forward from there.  Having 3 different actors play David give a boost to the development of his crazy, but it's Rush who won the Oscar for playing the adult and craziest/most musical part of David's life. 

As a coping mechanism for his illness, he repeats things and speaks in free-form thought going from one rapid phrase to another related one.  However, he's still able to play music, and from being a teenage prodigy to a babbling crazy-person in a hospital, someone missed that.  Until someone recognizes his name and brings him to a real home, where he gets to play the piano at night at a restaurant and makes friends with the people who eat there.  He's a friendly (kind of groping) good hearted guy, and Lynn Redgrave's, Gillian, finally finds she can look a bit beyond the crazy, and calm it too, and they marry.  Watching her calm him and love him for all his zaniness is probably my favorite part of the movie.  His musical skills are only enhanced, and watching him love playing music almost makes you forget his father had to beat it into him as a child.  Since he became almost exactly what his father wanted, can the means justify the ends?  For a split second you can see that his father, Mueller-Stahl thought it did, and then you're repulsed by him again.  It's never okay to abuse a child - and he takes controlling the boy's future far beyond rapping his knuckles to get him to practice the piano.  Rush has a moment with his dad where you can see that abuse is still a part of his soul when he calls his father Daddy.  Overall, a great movie about a disturbing topic, but you can see where the title comes from - Rush let's his light shine through all the crap life has dumped upon him. 

30 Days of Oscar - Day 12: Silence of the Lambs

Movie: Silence of the Lambs
Year: 1992
Nominations: Best Actor (Anthony Hopkins), Best Actress (Jodie Foster), Best Director (Jonathan Demme),
Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Sound
Wins/Snubs:  It won the big ones, Actor, Actress, Director, Picture, and screenplay.  Terminator 2: Judgement Day took Sound, and JFK took editing (something I don't necessarily call foul on.)

This was actually the first time I saw this.  I've made no secret that the trailer scared the crap out of my 12-year-old self, so I had no desire to find this.  But once upon a time (perhaps when he was a guest on Reel Insight), the Mad Hatter suggested I watch the AMC version (which presumably is a bit edited down to reduce its R rating a bit for television, "and to run in the time allotted"), which is what I did.  So, if I missed something important, now that I've survived it once, I might watch the full version someday.

In my opinion, the stars of the film were Jodie Foster's constantly scared expression and the "scare-the-shit-out-of-you" sound.  So the fact that Terminator 2: Judgement Day took the Oscar for sound is crap.  If they considered all that sound actually a score, then the fact that it wasn't nominated for best Score is crap.  If you put that music/sound over WALL*E you'd have a thriller.  Otherwise, I'm happy to agree that this is one of the best movies of all time.  Did it scare the crap out of me? YES!  Would is scare the average person, probably not, but is it a great thriller with an unconventional story, definitely.  I don't think there has even been another serial killer movie that got close to creating the tension of Silence of the Lambs.  It turns out, Hannibal Lecter is not the scary part of the movie.  His terror comes from his restraint so that when he lets loose, you jump in your seat, but you're not scared in the same way you are in both the discussion of and scenes with Buffalo Bill.

Ted Levine as Buffalo Bill and Leland Stottlemeyer

One thing, when you see an actor in a particular role, it's hard to see them in other roles that flip your idea of them on its head.  Sometimes it works great (I loved seeing Jim Carrey attempt serious roles because you're never sure he can avoid his zaniness), and other times it fails (lots of examples).  I already knew Ted Levine from his wonderful role as Captain Leland Stollemeyer on the TV show "MONK".  So when I saw his name show up in the opening credits, I was happy to see him.  And then to have him turn out to be the bad guy made him a little less scary.  His voice is distinctive enough (a la Sean Connery) that it's hard to separate how you know his voice from the current character he's trying to play. I had that problem the first time I watched a Connery James Bond movie, right around the year I saw The Hunt for Red October so I kept thinking, why is this old man's voice coming out of this young hot spy.  I think this actually helped me enjoy Silence of the Lambs because he wasn't quite as terrifying for me.  However, he was pretty unknown when the movie came out, so I bet other people had the flip experience when they saw him on "MONK".

Anyway, this is a freakin' awesome movie that if you're a scaredy-cat like me, should only be watched on AMC in the morning, preferably not in an empty house.  5 of 5 stars/lambs

30 Days of Oscar: Day 10 - Tender Mercies and Country Strong

Movie: Tender Mercies
Year: 1984
Nominations: Best Actor (Robert Duvall) Original Screenplay, Best Director (Bruce Beresford), Original Song  "Over You", Best Picture
Wins: Duvall won his only Oscar in 6 nominations, and the Screenplay won too.  Terms of Endearment took the other awards, and Flashdance, "What a Feeling" took best Song. 

I was inspired to check this movie out for two reasons.  First, there was a lot of talk about Duvall getting snubbed for his performance in Get Low (which I haven't seen yet) and I really like Duvall, and second, I finally saw Country Strong and wanted to see another "drunk, washed-up, country singer" movie.  A simple film, with great writing, and acting.  Duvall wakes up from a 2-day drunken stupor and can't pay his bill at a rural Texas motel.  He agrees to work to pay it off, and falls for it's widowed proprieter, Tess Harper, and they get married and keep working and raising her son.  However, his old life keeps coming back to haunt him.  His ex-wife, Dixie (Betty Buckley), comes to town to play a concert and he shows up because he's written a song for her to sing and so he can see his grown daughter (Ellen Arkin).  Duvall is trying hard to stay on the straight and narrow and keep his life together.  A bus-load of fans shows up at the motel gushing over him, and his new wife plays one of the songs he wrote for her and they end up recording it.  There's definitely a story of redemption, and loss and finding a new path, but in that great way that 80s dramas can be soft and a bit melodramatic, it works (Crimes of the Heart and Places in the Heart being other good examples of the genre).  There are obvious comparisons to Crazy Heart and since both men won an Oscar for Best Actor, the story works for the men. 4.5 of 5 stars/lambs

Movie: Country Strong
Year: 2011
Nominations: Original Song, "Coming Home"
Wins: Probably not since it's up against 3 proven Oscar winners. 

I think Country Strong was set up as Gwenyth Paltrow's return to Oscar, but when the studios realized that was never going to happen, they just shuffled it around.  They started it with Paltrow playing the title song at the Country Music Awards in October, and making the talk show rounds, and then a late December limited release with a January slow roll-out (it JUST opened here this weekend).  I don't think any of that marketing benefited what just wasn't a great film.  Paltrow plays an alcoholic Grammy-winning country singer, Kelly Cantor (a drunk, younger Reba or older Leann Rimes maybe? famous and beloved is what we get).  However, she had a big accident at a concert a year ago and went into rehab to save her career.  That's when it starts resembling Lindsay Lohan's career a bit too much when she's taken out of rehab by her husband/manager Tim McGraw, to go perform and rebuild her career.  She wants to bring with her a guy she met in rehab (*cough, slept with) who also plays great country music, Beau (Garrett Hedlund), but McGraw wants a new beauty-queen singer Chiles Stanton (Leighton Meester) to open (*cough because he wants to sleep with her).  They compromise and both go on tour, in a seriously dysfunctional foursome. 

Beau has talent and wins over the crowd, and helps Chiles learn to perform not just sing.  However, Kelly can't get over the issues that originally sent her to rehab - alcohol, pills, and the fact that she lost a child.  We watch her screw up, win people over, screw around, and get drunk.  Paltrow is trying really hard to steer this ship, but it's not given to her character to lead, but Beau's character who is a TERRIFIC singer, but doesn't really care about Kelly's career or life once he starts sleeping with Chiles. The movie has a ton of great music (if you like country, obviously), but even though they're following a female country star (rather than Jeff Bridges alcoholic in Crazy Heart), they don't find any new ground.  Plus, Leighton Meester is a really terrible actress and is the straw that breaks the back of both Kelly's come-back, and the likeability of the movie.  Oh, and they showed all the best lines and scenes in the trailer (which I guess is what you do when there's only about 5 great minutes of footage).  The music and Hedlund's performance keeps this movie from being awful, but 2.5 of 5 is all it gets.  Here's the song in case you want to hear all the Oscar songs for 2011.
 

30 Days of Oscar Day 9 - The French Connection

Movie: The French Connection
Year: 1971
Nominations: Best Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Director (William Friedkin), Best Film Editing (Gerald B. Greenberg), Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay (Ernest Tidyman) Supporting Actor (Roy Scheider), Cinematography, Sound.
Wins: Picture, Director, Actor, and Screenplay, Scheider was beat out by Ben Johnson for The Last Picture Show and Cinematography went to Fiddler on the Roof.

This was a great 1970s movie.  Shown with the gritty lens and movie-making style of the time (with a tinge of racism and sexism to really put it in the time period, I guess), a great drug/cop thriller.  Hackman plays a NYC narcotics cop partnered with a young Roy Scheider.  They work toward figuring out how a big drug cartel is going to smuggle in their next shipment.  The neat thing this movie does well is show you almost exactly who all the bad guys are and what they plan to do.  It felt a lot like the TV show The Wire, both in its dialogue and realism (though The French Connection had the polish of French baddies).  Terrific writing, perfect violence that makes you unsure whether to like the cops or the bad guys, and then the bad guys getting what's coming to them at the last minute.  Overall, I was really impressed with the film (thanks Fletch!) and noticed the Sound and Score much more than I usually do, they set the pace and really drove the film well - doing a good job heightening tension and adding whimsy when necessary.  Oh, and I finally saw the scene from Big in context and it's a much better scene than the 10 seconds you see in Big would lead you to believe.  Not surprised it won Best Picture - trivia - it was the first R rated film to win (since the MPAA started rating movies).

30 Days of Oscar - Day 5: Citizen Kane

Movie: Citizen Kane
Year:1942
Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Orson Welles), Best Actor (Orson Welles), Best Original Screenplay, Sound, Cinematography, Editing, Art Direction, Original Score
Wins: The only win was for Original Screenplay for Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz.  The other categories were mostly beaten by How Green Was My Valley (Picture and John Ford for Directing) and Sergeant York (Gary Cooper)

This was the first time I've seen Citizen Kane and I'm not sure another movie could have more mixed expectations than this.  Some people love it (Hatter) while others think it fine, but nothing special (Dylan).  However, for a movie that's been talked about and talked about, and emulated, and copied, and cited to death, it holds up pretty darn well.  I'm surprised by how well.  I wouldn't say I've watched a lot of movies of that era, but probably 30-40 of the ones that have stood the test of time, and it's easy to see how many different techniques that Citizen Kane used to terrific effect - particularly flashbacks, aging make-up, playing with size, shadow, etc.  I'm sure there's a colorized version of this out there somewhere, but I'm not sure it would do anything to improve the movie, if anything, all of the fancy cinematography might be lost.

The story of Charles Foster Kane (go read the Wiki summary if you want all the details), Orsen Welles wanted to comment on social classes, rich/poor, power and corruption, love and loneliness.  Cliches were created to describe some of the themes that Citizen Kane explores.  And since I'm not old enough to have seen this BEFORE all the movies that used similar themes or told similar stories, I feel I'm not in a great position to comment on whether or not the originality of the movie was in fact novel a the time, or just a great movie exploring more common ideas in new ways.  Either way, it's a terrific movie.  Yes, there were moments when it did drag a bit (mostly when his second wife was whining about singing opera), but Welles' acting ability, particularly when he's a young whippersnapper taking over the faux New York Enquirer, is extremely engaging.  Overall, it's a very good movie, but I don't think it necessarily belongs on all the Top lists it makes. 

Also, just to add my own thoughts to the "Citizen Kane/The Social Network" conversation, I think there are obvious comparisons - a young man finding huge wealth from his own work on building an empire.  However, that's about where it ends.  If anything CK is a warning for the real Zuckerberg that money and power won't buy happiness (though given his frugal and philanthropic lifestyle, he doesn't really need the warning).  As for TSN being this generation's CK, I could see that being more true - in the sense that CK took the media of its time and built a moral tale around one of its heroes.  TSN took Facebook (today's equivalent of newspapers, a bit of a reach, but close enough) and showed a story about the trouble with morals.  I don't think TSN does as complete a job of story-telling, but it's definitely a start.  Most "fairy-tales", which both could be called, usually end with a wedding or a death, so CK succeeds, and TSN didn't quite get there. 

30 Days of Oscar: Day 3 - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Movie: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Year: 2004
Nominations: Best Cinematography, Russell Boyd; Best Sound Editing Richard Kingst, Art Direction, Costume Design. Best Director - Peter Weir;  Best Editing, Best Makeup, Best Picture, Best Sound Mixing, Best Visual Effects
Wins: Best Cinematography, Russell Boyd; Best Sound Editing Richard Kingst.  Wow, for ALL the other nominations, Master and Commander was beaten by Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, including Director and Picture.  What an odd year when only 2 different films win all the non-acting awards for which they qualify. 

Based on a 21-book series of novels by Patrick O'Brien, this movie takes the characters from the whole series, uses the name of the first novel (Master and Commander) and some of the plot of the tenth book (The Far Side of the World) with elements from other books.  It easily could have been set up as a pretty awesome franchise, but given the presence of Russell Crowe and the technical and financial difficulty of recreating the high seas, and the fact that the movie barely made back it's $150 million budget, no sequel is planned. 

However, as an Oscar nominee, it was definitely deserving.  Russell Crowe plays Jack Aubrey, captain of HMS Surprise during the Napoleonic wars.  Paul Bettany plays his friend and the ships doctor and amateur naturalist, Stephen Maturin.  They're tasked with sailing across the Atlantic to prevent a ship of Napoleon's from taking the war to the colonies in the South Seas.  Lots of sailing, lots of naval battles with canons flying, and pretty amazing visuals through the movie.  As a scientist myself, seeing Maturin tramp about the Galapagos as the ship restocks supplies (water, food, etc.) is pretty amazing.  Bettany's intellectual curiosity and lack of naval background helps balance Crowe's "For King and Country" enthusiasm for war, particularly on a sailing ship.

There are many subplots between the crew, but the main focus is on the relationship between Aubrey and Maturin and the ship's mission to "burn, sink, or take as a prize" the French frigate they're hunting.  In another year, particularly the technical awards probably would have deservedly gone to Master and Commander, although it is also telling that there were no acting nominations for the film.  And something random I just realized rewatching this, there is only a single female on screen at any point and she has no lines, just smiles at Aubrey.  How many movies is that true?  What did you think of Master and Commander?

30 Days of Oscar: Day 2 - The English Patient

Movie: The English Patienti
Year: 1996
Nominations: Just about everything - Picture, Director, Actor , Actress, Supporting Actress, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Editing, Score, Adapted Screenplay, and Score
Wins: They won everything except Actor for Ralph Fiennes, Actress for Kristin Scott Thomas, and Screenplay, beaten by Geoffrey Rush in Shine, Frances McDormand in Fargo, and Slide Blade, respectively.
Robbed: I can't argue with any of the acting losses, those were some amazing performances.  And they won everything else that year!

I'd seen parts of this movie, though I can't say it was any more than what they showed at the Oscars that year or in other snippets, so I felt it was time to dig in an watch it all.  The movie is epic in nature and the story-telling matches the overall feel of the film.  Flashbacks and a progressing story intertwine two love stories, Fiennes and Thomas' illicit affair (she's married to an affable Colin Firth) just before WWII, and the current developing love between Binoche and Naveen Andrews ("Lost").

Willem Defoe comes into play and tries put a shady spin on our hero's previous actions.  One of the things I found confusing is that there are two separate plane crashes, one that results in the death of Thomas and one that causes Fiennes' burns.  Also, one seems to be in the desert and the other in Italy where the current story frame continues.  That's what threw me.  However, you don't have to follow every detail of the story to understand the sexiness that is Thomas and Fiennes' love affair and the tenderness and hope for survival with Binoche and Andrews.

This was an odd year for the Oscars.  Fargo and Shine are both remembered as terrific movies and wonderful performances, but adding that to The English Patient means only 3 movies really made up the Oscars that year, which of course isn't true.  There were a lot more smaller films that had interesting moments or a bit of writing, but nothing that has stood the test of time particularly well.  I saw Ghosts of Mississippi a few months ago also, James Woods was nominated for a Supporting role, and a young Alec Baldwin did a great job with the movie, but it hasn't aged well as a film even considering the events in the movie took place in the 50s.  Just an example of movies that weren't able to take down The English Patient.  

If you want to take part in 30 Days of Oscar, feel free!  You can check out previous days here.

Movie Meme Day 25 - A movie you plan on watching (old or new)

A movie I plan on watching soon is The English Patient.  It won the Oscar in 1997 for Best Picture, along with Best Supporting Actress for Juliette Binoche, and 6 other Oscars.  I've seen some of it in the past, but I think it's mostly the clips from other shows because it was such a winning movie the year it came out.  I think I've just been intimidated by its long running time, which is silly.  That and it doesn't come on TV very often, which is how I catch up on a lot of great movies that I missed in theaters and on DVD.  What do you think of The English Patient?  Yea or Nay?

Movie Meme Day 11 - A movie that disappointed you

I'm sure there are going to be people who disagree with me, but I have to say it's true.   Avatar was a movie I was hugely looking forward to seeing.  With all the buzz beforehand, the newest 3D technology, integrating animation and live action in a totally new way.  And on all of those things, I think they totally succeeded.  However, the process took so long, I think the story they were telling became unoriginal during the process.  They combined a bit of Dances with Wolves with Ferngully: The Last Rainforest and the story lost a lot of credibility and originality.  Considering the story takes place on another planet, with large blue people who can only interact with the avatar of people, who speak another language, have tails, and connect with the environment directly.  Somehow, the story still felt derivative.  I left feeling a bit disappointed.

Movie Meme Day 3 - Favorite Oscar-nominated movie from most recent ballot

In the interest of full disclosure, I have either purchased or been given the following movies that could also qualify for this post: Sherlock Holmes, Inglorious Basterds, Julie and Julia, Up, The Blind Side and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. However, I'm choosing the best one and my favorite, though potentially a movie I might not see again - The Hurt Locker.  I will actually steal from my previous review of this movie.

Most people know it's about a group of soldiers in Iraq, and directed by now Oscar Winner (and heroine of divorced women everywhere) Kathryn Bigelow (James Cameron's ex-wife) and that it's on lots of best-of lists. That was all I knew when I saw it. Here's a bit more: Jeremy Renner (I loved him on the now canceled "The Unusuals") is the lead actor playing a bomb tech brought in to lead a unit. He's a bit of a loose cannon, though it's not explained why, which is a nice change. He's just been a very successful bomb tech (obviously, he's still alive) and has used his methods of basically not being afraid to get him there. The unit he's joined, with Anthony Mackie (left in the photo), who likes to follow all protocols and make sure everyone is very safe (hard to fault him there - they're in Iraq disarming bombs) and Brian Geraghty who seems to be suffering a lot of stress, possibly because he works with bombs. The trio is called in to disarm IEDs and remove explosive things from all over Baghdad. It's got to be the worst job in the army - so stressful and if you mess up, you'll die, and likely you'll kill all the people around you. But Renner has found an inner strength to survive doing the job, and his team struggles to find their own methods to work with him.

There are lots of smaller scenes that have little to do with their bomb job that give depth to the story of the war, without ever mentioning the reasons, the patriotism, the enemies, the allies, etc. In reality, this story could take place during a war waged for any reason in almost any place. Obviously, it takes place in a city in a desert, but all the specifics of the war are left out of the story. Our bomb trio meets up with a group of British soldiers, but the only thing to identify them as from an allied force is that they have British accents, and mention they're on the same side. I really liked this fact about the movie. It's about the soliders, not the war. Yes, you're scared almost every time you see them go out to disarm a bomb, and most of the tension of the film comes from that idea, and not the overwhelming stress of winning or losing the war, but rather a small, specific, extremely important task. The directing of the movie is terrific, giving lingering views of everything they do without ever losing focus on the story. In addition, the acting is extremely capable, believable, and draws you in to care about each one.
Very good movie - go get the DVD. 5 of 5 stars/lambs