LONESTAR

Lone Star (1996) turned out to be a fantastic film. The unfolding story is told in a non-linear fashion bouncing back and forth from present and past. Chris Cooper is magnificent as Sam Deeds, the low-key Sheriff of a Texas border town. The story connects the racial tensions and conflicts of the area's Hispanic, African American, Native American, and white citizens with all the trappings of the typical Peyton Place suburbia.

IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

What a beautiful and heartbreaking film. If Beale Street Could Talk is from writer/director Barry Jenkins, who also gifted us with the amazing Oscar-winning film Moonlight. During my journey in 2020 to see all the Oscar-winning Best Pictures, Moonlight was among the films I would consider in the Top Five of all those I watched. Because of that, my hopes were high for this one and I wasn’t disappointed.

CROSSFIRE

Crossfire is a classic film noir from the second it starts. Premiering the same year as Gentleman’s Agreement, both films are among Hollywood’s first to deal with anti-Semitism, though this one much less apologetically. It is a B picture that features some A-list actors. Headed by three Roberts (Mitchum, Young, and Ryan), the movie sets out to solve the murder of a Jewish guest in a hotel where several GIs have been frequenting, and who are among the prime suspects. Gloria Grahame (a personal favorite) turns in an Oscar-nominated performance as well.

PAPI CHULO

 

Papi Chulo is charming and sweet, while at the same time somewhat sad and uncomfortable. The story is about Sean (Matt Bomer), a young, white, recently single, physically appealing gay man who hires Ernesto, a Latino migrant worker, to do some house painting. Ernesto (Alejandro Petino) is older, straight, married, and a bit out of shape. Neither of them is bilingual but soon the relationship between this modern Odd Couple begins to morph, adapt, and continually be misunderstood until it ultimately becomes misconstrued.

TAKING OFF

The first U.S. film written and directed by Milos Forman is entitled Taking Off.  I’ve appreciated every one of his movies I’ve seen thus far, which includes One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus, Hair, and The People vs. Larry Flynt.

The critics’ reviews on Rotten Tomatoes give this film 100%, which had my curiosity piqued. Then when I saw that the cast included Georgia Engel (The Mary Tyler Moore Show), Audra Lindley (Three’s Company), and Paul Benedict (The Jeffersons), I knew I had to see it!

Unfortunately, it’s not available on any streaming channel. Not allowing myself to be deterred, I found a DVD of it online. It was worth every penny of my $19.99… and more!

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST

There have only been three motion pictures that have swept the top five categories of Best Lead Actress, Best Lead Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture. Those pictures are It Happened One Night in 1935, Silence of the Lambs in 1992, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1976. Jack Nicholson gives a tour de force performance in the latter film, directed by the amazing Milos Foreman.

THE ENGLISH PATIENT

The weekend allowed for the opportunity to view another of the Oscar-winning Best Pictures that I had not previously experienced. This time up to bat it was The English Patient. In 1997 the film would take home statues for 9 of the 12 categories for which it was nominated.

Given the prodigious central cast I was already certain that the acting would be phenomenal, and I was certainly proven correct. Ralph Fiennes, Kristen Scott Thomas, Juliette Binoche (a personal favorite), and Willem Defoe all inhabited their roles to perfection. Naveen Andrews and Colin Firth were equally engaging in their supporting roles.

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

I thought it might be rough to segue from my recent viewing of Platoon, an excellent film created in 1986, to viewing another war film that was made in 1930. I was wrong. Set in World War I Germany, All Quiet on the Western Front is a magnificent motion picture, and it was very deservedly awarded the Oscar for Best Picture in 1931.

PLATOON

Written and directed by Oliver Stone, the film that took home the Oscar for Best Picture in 1987 was Platoon. Set in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, the film is based on Stone’s actual experiences serving in the same war. It’s raw, emotionally draining, and extremely unpleasant. It’s also a damn fine movie.

HAMLET

This week has been a week of Shakespearean pondering of life and death accompanied by some revenge! Lots of revenge! As part of my commitment to seeing all the Oscar-winning Best Pictures this year, it was time to take on Hamlet. The play has been turned into a motion picture on numerous occasions, but only one version has been awarded the Best Picture Oscar, and that was in 1949. This movie stars Sir Laurence Olivier in the titular role.

THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI

Nominated for 8 Oscar awards, The Bridge On The River Kwai would end up winning 7 statues at the 1958 Oscar ceremonies, including the top honor of Best Picture. Other Oscars were awarded for Best Director, Best Lead Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Music Score.

YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU

You Can’t Take It With You is a Frank Capra film that was awarded the Oscar for Best Picture in 1939. It also garnered Capra his third win as Best Director.

The theme is a simple yet poignant one, kindness and love are much more important than money and things. Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur) is a young woman from a very happy yet financially meager family. She falls in love with Tony Kirby (Jimmy Stewart), a vice president at a bank run by his father. His father is close to settling a business merger that will make their wealthy family even wealthier. After Tony proposes marriage, it becomes time for the families to meet.

GANDHI

At their 1983 ceremony, the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Science bestowed eight Oscar awards to the motion picture Gandhi, including the award for Best Picture. This biography movie follows the life of Mahatma Gandhi as he transitions from lawyer to political leader to spiritual luminary, working to liberate India from British rule. This journey spans from 1893 through his assassination in 1948.

This film transports you so eloquently to different regions of the Middle East and to an era when the native Indian people were forced into second-class citizenship and servitude by the ruling British government. The cinematography is sublime, showing off the lavish opulence of the British residences and offices as opposed to the squalor and simplicity of the towns and residences of the native people.

BRAVEHEART

In this day of ever-increasing social awareness, it is often difficult to separate artistic endeavors from the harsh realities of their creators. Do you still listen to Michael Jackson songs? Do you still watch Woody Allen movies? Do you still watch Bill Cosby's shows? It is in this same vein I had great discontent with my need to watch a Mel Gibson film to complete my goal of seeing all Oscar-Winning Best Pictures. Mel Gibson is a racist, anti-Semitic, misogynist, homophobic cur. But he did direct and star in the film that would be handed the Oscar statue for Best Picture in 1996. That film is Braveheart.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

The Oscar awarded as Best Picture in 2008 went to the gritty crime thriller No Country for Old Men.  

From beginning to end this is definitely a Coen Brothers (the directors) crime gone wrong drama with lots and lots of bloodshed and murder. And as rampant as this carnage is, you can’t take your eyes off the screen.

GODFATHER AND GODFATHER II

In 1973 The Godfather won the Oscar for Best Picture. In 1975 its follow-up, The Godfather II, also won the Best Picture Oscar… the only time in Oscar history that a sequel has won the award.

The gangster genre is one which I’ve never been drawn towards whether it be in television, film, or novel. It’s simply always been outside my wheelhouse. For this reason, until this weekend I was in an elite and very small group of movie lovers who had never seen any of the Godfather films. I’m very pleased to no longer be a member of that elite group!

THE GREAT ZIEGFELD

The Oscar for Best Picture award in 1937 was for the movie The Great Ziegfeld, a bio picture about the legendary Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.

BIRDMAN

In 2015 the Oscar statue for Best Picture was handed to Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Earlier in the evening he had won statues for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. The picture that garnered him all these awards was Birdman (or, The Unexpected Virtue of Innocence).

CIMARRON

My 2020 quest to watch all the Oscar-Winning Best Pictures continues. The fourth film to be awarded the Oscar for Best Picture is Cimarron. This 1931 movie spans a forty-year period that commences on April 22, 1889, the day the great Oklahoma Land Rush on the Cherokee Strip began.

MRS. MINIVER

The Oscar for Best Picture award for 1943 went to Mrs. Miniver. In all, the film would earn six Oscars out of 12 nominations. Centered on an upper-middle-class family in pre-war England, the Minivers are a family about to experience what being drawn into World War II will require of them and take from them.

PARASITE

The 2019 movie to win the Oscar for Best Picture is Parasite. It is a film from South Korea and is the first non-English film to win the award. And what a brilliant film it is. This is storytelling at its finest, with an engrossing marriage of script, cinematography, acting, and detail.

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT

In 1935 the Oscar for Best Picture was awarded to It Happened One Night. This movie is one of only three films ever to sweep Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Lead Actor, and Best Lead Actress. Directed by Frank Capra, the movie is a charming comedy that teams two of the era’s top stars, Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.

AMADEUS

I’ve previously viewed two films directed by Milos Forman. I consider both of them to be among the best films I’ve seen. They are Hair (1979) and The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996). And now, added as another favorite is his Oscar-winning Best Picture (awarded in 1985) Amadeus.

THE ARTIST

In 2012, the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences awarded the Best Picture Oscar to a black-and-white, almost completely silent film titled The Artist. This movie is an inspired and cleverly impeccable delight that pays homage to the motion pictures of a century prior.

MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY

In 1936, the Oscar for Best Picture was awarded to Mutiny on the Bounty. Though the tale is a real one, the movie is an adaptation that takes several liberties. In 1787, the English Naval ship HMS Bounty set sail for Tahiti on a mission that would have the crew at sea for over two years. The mission was led by Lieutenant William Bligh, an extremely cruel and sadistic man who doled out punishments and abuse in order to break the spirit and will of his crew. In 1789, as the ship was leaving Tahiti for its return voyage, many of the crew members seized control of the Bounty. This mutiny was led by Fletcher Christian who set Bligh, and many crew members still loyal to him, adrift in a launch ship.

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

With the evening unexpectedly to myself, as part of my 2020 quest to see all the Oscar-winning best pictures, I took on the film with the longest run time. That motion picture, just a few minutes short of 4 hours long, is Lawrence of Arabia which took the award in 1963.

This movie is as breathtaking as it is long, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. Director David Lean’s ability to frame the camera to convey the wonder, isolation, awe, desperation, and even time, is quite frankly, staggering. The majority of this film takes place in the desert and its majesty and pristineness seem boundless. When you pair the picturesque wonder with the Maurice Jarr score, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, it is spellbinding. To be clear, scenes shot outside the desert are also given the same attention to detail, scale, and hew so they are always enhancing the tale as it unfolds. Stepping outside this complex and well-acted story, one’s visual and auditory senses are always being gratified in a fashion that simply heightens the entire experience.

CASABLANCA

I remember the first time I was going to visit San Francisco. Everyone said, “Oh you are going to love it”, “Oh you are never going to want to leave” and “You will want to move there”. No one had a negative thing to say about the place. Then I got there, and it was dirty, cold, and had so many street people requesting money that I never felt safe. It was not any place I would ever want to live. I have always thought that viewing Casablanca would be a similar experience. It was afforded so many accolades that I knew I could only be let down. Casablanca turned out not to be San Francisco! There is indeed a reason why this film is so revered, and that is because it truly is exquisite. Even knowing in advance how it was going to end didn’t take away from the experience of finally watching the movie awarded the Best Picture Oscar in 1944.

THE SHAPE OF WATER

In 2017 the Academy awarded the Best Picture Oscar to a charming and beautiful love story. Co-written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water is a fairy tale revealed to the audience through the recollection of Giles (Richard Jenkins). Giles is a close friend of Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins), the central character in the tale he is conveying.

The story takes place during the space race of the early 1960’s. Eliza, who is a mute, works as a cleaning person at a secret government laboratory. The laboratory houses a humanoid sea creature that the American government has captured and is studying, nay, torturing. Using non-verbal physical language and music, Eliza can begin communicating with the creature, unbeknownst to anyone else. After overhearing that the military has decided to vivisect the creature, Eliza convinces friend Giles and fellow custodian/friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer) to assist her with breaking “him” out of the facility. From there, the relationships between all of these characters are forever changed.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS

In 1957 the Academy awarded the Best Picture Oscar to Around the World in 80 Days. Based on the novel by Jules Verne, this movie is a full-on farce. David Nivens plays Phileas Fogg, an English gentleman who in 1872 makes a wager with four fellow social club members that he can successfully circle the globe in 80 days or less. He is accompanied by his valet Passepartout (Cantinflas). Passepartout provides comic relief against the stiff and regimented Fogg.

OLIVER!

In 1969 the Oscar for Best Picture was awarded to the British musical film Oliver! based on the stage play of the same name. Both are based on the novel “Oliver Twist” by Charles Dickens.

As someone who enjoys musicals (though admittedly much more on stage than on film) I don’t know why I’ve had such an aversion to seeing this particular one. I’ve avoided it for as long as I can remember with the preconceived conclusion that I wasn’t going to like it. It turns out that my assumptions were completely inaccurate. This was a solid film filled with lavish sets, some outstanding acting, and of course the great songs by Lionel Bart.

THE BROADWAY MELODY

The 1929/1930 Oscar-winning Best Picture is The Broadway Melody. It is not a great film, and barely a good one, but it is paced well enough that it is at least entertaining. Original for its time, the story is the now banal concept of a musical about the making of a musical. It is the first fully talking musical film made in the United States, though this is broken during numerous close-up shots that are inserted and noticeably devoid of any sound. These close-ups are a throwback to the more familiar silent films of the era and are jarring distractions scattered throughout the movie.

CHARIOTS OF FIRE

The acting is superb. The cinematography is breathtaking. The period wardrobe is beguiling. The score is iconic and a dynamic complement to the film (though I did have to dust off the opening theme song from the archive of “I never want to hear it again”, like “Feelings” or “You Light Up My Life”!). The story itself is one of overcoming adversity, which is a theme that typically resonates deeply with me. Yet despite all these advantages, I’m left feeling that the overall product was simply mediocre. The winner of the Best Picture Oscar in 1982 was Chariots of Fire.

ON THE WATERFRONT

In 1955, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded the Oscar for Best Picture to On the Waterfront. The film is a bare-faced look inside a corrupt mob-infested union that rules over the local dock workers.

FROM HERE TO ETERNITY

From Here to Eternity won the Best Picture Oscar in 1954. It is the most recent in my ongoing quest to see all the Best Picture winners by the end of the year. This movie is a romance film, set against the backdrop of a Hawaiian military base in the weeks leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

SPOTLIGHT

The 2016 Oscar-winning Best Picture is an engaging ensemble drama dealing with one of the biggest scandals of this generation. Spotlight is an extremely well-paced and insightful look at the work done by the Boston Globe as they discover, investigate, and ultimately reveal to the world the decades-long cover-up of widespread pedophilia within the priesthood of the Catholic Church.

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

My commitment to see all the Oscar-winning Best Pictures by the end of this year continues! This time around it is 1953’s winning film, The Greatest Show on Earth, directed by Cecil B. DeMille. It’s a big spectacle film filled with a large roster of celebrities of the day.  It also gets my ranking as being the worst movie to ever be awarded a Best Picture Oscar.

WINGS

My New Year’s commitment to seeing all previously unviewed Oscar-winning Best Pictures continues. I dove into this one tremulously. I worried I might lose focus given it is a silent film almost 2 ½ hours long. My unease was completely assuaged within mere minutes, and I came out on the other side of this one having a great appreciation for the movie. Awarded the very first Oscar for Best Picture in 1928 (the only silent film to ever garner this achievement), was the movie Wings.

THE DEPARTED

Directed by the all-time great, Martin Scorsese, I knew The Departed (2007’s Best Picture winner) would be intense, gritty, well-acted, and completely engrossing. It was all that and more. Was it my favorite Scorsese film? No. Was it one of the best Oscar-winning films I’ve seen? No. Was it a great movie? Hell yes.

PATTON

Military-themed films are a genre that I generally don’t gravitate to. Unfortunately for me, there are nine such films I will need to watch to accomplish my goal of seeing every Oscar-winning Best Picture. Fortunately for me, I selected Patton first! The 1970 winner for Best Picture is a fantastic film which I thoroughly enjoyed.

CAVALCADE

My New Year’s Commitment to watching all the Oscar Winning Best Films that I have not previously seen continues! This time around it’s Cavalcade which was released in 1933. It is based on the 1931 play written by the master himself, Noel Coward. The movie follows two families in England from New Year’s Eve 1899 through New Year’s Eve 1933, with each family representing two separate classes… similar to "Upstairs Downstairs" (for the Millennials or Gen Yers, think "Downton Abbey").

MOONLIGHT

I am in such awe of this film that I had to ruminate over it, and then watch again from beginning to end. 

It has been a very, very long time since I have been so profoundly moved by a film as I was with this one. Sadly, the best way I can describe such an intense melding of story, acting, visuals, pacing, and sound is with the very tired cliché of “masterpiece”. Moonlight, the Oscar-winning Best Picture in 2017, is an unapologetic masterpiece. Watching it is like staring at a canvas by Picasso or Pollock and imagining you get to see it from the first drop of paint through its finality. It’s often messy, continually fluid, and always mesmerizing.

IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT

“They call me Mr. Tibbs!”

Though I had never seen the movie or the long-running TV-series based on it, I was familiar with what the overall premise was. That didn’t matter in the least. The 1968 Oscar-winning Best Picture, In the Heat of the Night, was a tour de force of acting skill as Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger are superbly matched head-to-head.

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES

In 1947, the Oscar for Best Picture went to The Best Years of Our Lives. All in all, it received 8 Oscar nominations and won 7 of those. The film was released just one year after the end of World War II, and it follows three veterans as they return from battle and reintegrate into their families and their public lives.

ALL THE KING'S MEN

1950’s Best Oscar Winner, All the King’s Men, was an engaging film with some outstanding acting. Personally, I’ve never been much of a fan of the “anti-hero” but this movie zeroes straight in on one. His name is Willie Stark.

AN AMERICAN IN PARIS

My 2020 quest to see all the Best Picture Oscar winners is one step closer to completion! An American in Paris won the Best Picture Oscar in 1952. Twelve years after Gone with the Wind, it would be the second color film to earn that award. And it wasted not a single moment showing off the fullest palette of color possible, with splendid results.

GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT

It’s sad to me that the theme of this movie is one that we are still dealing with 60 years later. While anti-Semitism may not be as openly rampant as it was in the 1940s, the assumption of gentile superiority still exists and has been joined with the assumption of white superiority, heterosexual superiority, Christian superiority, and cis-gender superiority. And of course, all of these were preceded by the long-time assumption of male superiority. Sadly, there have always been those in society who imagine it is their right to tell others what their place will be. 1948’s Oscar-winning film, Gentleman’s Agreement, addresses the assumption of gentile superiority head-on. And it does so superbly.

UNFORGIVEN

My dad has always been a huge fan of Westerns. If there’s nothing else available to watch, he’ll tune in to a western… even if he’s seen it numerous times before. Me, I never much liked them. I always felt they were hokey and predictable. The characters were almost always very one-dimensional. Unforgiven changes that. This film peels away the sanitizing that films (and TV) have always applied to stories of this genre. This was a captivating story from the moment it begins until the moment it ends. The characters are all flawed. The good guys aren’t just the good guys, and the bad guys aren’t just the bad guys. The women of the West are shown as true prostitutes, not dancehall Miss Kitties. It is directed by Clint Eastwood (who is also the main star), who consistently does a great job of dealing with the intricacies of morality in his films.

GOING MY WAY

 My 2020 quest to see every Oscar-winning Best Picture continues. This time it’s with 1944’s winner, Going My Way starring Bing Crosby.  Bing plays Father Chuck O’Malley, a character I was already familiar with from the movie, “The Bells of St. Mary’s”. This was his first outing with the character, and it garnered him a Best Actor Oscar as well. In all the film achieved six Oscars. Oddly, Barry Fitzgerald (Father Fitzgibbon) was nominated both for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for the same role. The Academy would later amend its rules regarding dual nominations for the same role.

TOM JONES!

Crass, zany and bawdy! This film was a slow burn of humor and satisfaction. Albert Finney plays the titular character in the 1964 Oscar-winning best picture, Tom Jones.

This British film is an adaptation of the 1749 novel, “The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling”, and is set in the same period. A narrator shares passages from the original texts throughout the film. The story follows the trials and tribulations of a bastard child taken in and raised by a family of means. That bastard child grows up to be an extremely lovable rascal, both to the other characters around him, and to the audience.

THE STING

Another Oscar-winning Best Picture is now checked off my list! The Sting, starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman won in 1974. It picked up 7 Oscars total, but none for acting.

I thought it was a really fun brom-com (did I just make that up?!) but when it was done, I found myself wondering why all the acclaim? It was a fun journey, but not one I imagine I'll be thinking about much now that it's over.

Redford and Newman were wonderful in their parts, but I found myself more entertained by all the bit players. Sally Kirkland, Charles Durning, Ray Walston, Harold Gould, and especially Eileen Brennan.

The story progresses nicely, but also predictably. With the exception of one character being shot in the head (no spoiler on who!), I pretty much felt like I knew where things were going all the time. Even the ending. As I said.... enjoyable. That's about all I got on this one.