My Own Private Oscar Race
The Oscar nominations are out and presently I’ve seen two out of the five best picture nominees, but the three I have left to see are all playing in the area right now, so I hope to see those really soon and then have more of an opinion. But I will say that I’m really excited that Little Miss Sunshine got nominated and that Dreamgirls did not.
Enough with the present. Let’s get on to the past. I’ve been consuming the remaining Best Picture winners at a rapid pace. As of today, I have eight left to watch. They are all waiting for me at home either on VHS (two that aren’t available on dvd) or DVD from various sources.
In the spirit of rounding up what I’ve been spending a lot of my time on, I’m going to fill you in on my viewings since the beginning of the year. My roommate thinks I’m very odd with this whole project as though its a class. Its a goal. I just want to finish it. Some life goals just require you to watch a lot of movies. If only all goals in life were best served with a combination of Netflix and TiVo.
A Man For All Seasons (1966) : Based on a play about the life of Sir Thomas More who, I must admit, I probably should have known who he was from my British history class, but it took me awhile to figure out. My only problem with this film was that since the original material was from a play, it really felt like you were watching a play and not a movie. The staging, the costumes, and above all, the dialog were very stiff. But at least it was a good play. As far as the actors go, Orson Wells makes an appearance, but I just could not get into Robert Shaw as Henry VIII. He will forever be only Quint from Jaws for me. [Aside: Watching a lot of these movies as well as a lot of tv shows I'm into now makes me realize that I really carry a lot of character baggage along with certain actors. Sometimes I just can't see them as anyone other than a certain role and it messes up their new characters for me. At least I've identified that flaw in me...]
In the Heat of the Night (1967) : All I knew about this one was that it went on to be a TV show that I’ve never actually watched an episode of but that I’ve flipped past about a thousand times over the years. The movie itself was decent enough. Its from a different time when the civil rights issues were still something that weren’t addressed much in Hollywood, so I get it would’ve had a much different impact then. As it plays now, it felt more like CSI: Mississippi, which I still have to imagine was pretty innovative.
Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) : Gregory Peck stars as a writer who goes undercover (though its not a mystery) as a Jew to write a piece on Anti-Semitism for a New York City paper. This one was a real eye opener to me as an issue. I’ve studied a lot about the Holocaust and the state of Jews after WWII, but I’d no idea that anti-semitism was such an actual issue in the United States that three years after the end of WWII that Hollywood was addressing it in this way that must have been shocking for the time. While today’s world is one in which racial issues still exist and I can get a grasp on at least imagining how things used to be (and in some ways still are) regarding race [see: Crash], the idea of anti-semitism is just something that I only equate with Nazi’s and the KKK, not something that well-educated upper-crusty people would have ever thought of, let alone participate in. I’m not really explaining myself well, but I did find Gentleman’s Agreement kind of shocking even today.
Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) : This was a weird one to watch because I’d already seen the story, but not this version. I saw the 1989 TV mini-series version starring Pierce Brosnan when I was a kid. (Its probably still on a videotape somewhere at my mom’s house.) So watching an older version was weird because I already knew all the plot points (pesky international date line!) which left me to focus on the movie making aspects more and the big production pieces don’t hold up all that well after fifty years. Yet the movie is huge and epic and I can see why it would’ve been a huge hit at the time. Its not that anything was really bad, its just in this insanely connected world, maybe you haven’t actually been overseas, but you have probably seen something on PBS/Travel Channel/Discovery or online about many of the places in the movie, so that you have an impression of what they actually look like. The scenes where they dance or bullfight or watch a ritual ceremony in order that the viewer gets the “local flavor” feel a lot more staged, even though the movie was filmed around the world in thirteen countries (but a lot of it was on Hollywood sound stages and back lots). I must admit, I hit fast-forward a few times during those scenes. And of course, once they got to the US, the Indians (feather, not dot) were complete savages trying to kill them all (actually, the ‘dots’ were trying to kill them too, if I remember right). The cameo appearances were fun. Look, there’s Frank Sinatra playing the piano in the San Fransisco saloon!
Tom Jones (1963) : I don’t have much to say about this one other than it was HORRIBLE! I’ve lost all respect for Albert Finney. He owes me an apology for making that! I can’t even start to figure out what the appeal was of that movie. They tried to make a period piece except modernize it with bizarre 60’s music and weird editing techniques. Oh the makeup and the wigs. AWFUL. The IMDB.com trivia entry for this movie includes the gem; “Hugh Griffith was reportedly drunk through much of the production” I can’t say I blame him. Because… oh my good night that was horrible!!
And now I realize this post is getting really long, so I’ll stop here and put more of my “I’m trying to be short and sum up things but I’m too naturally wordy for my own good” comments in another post.
