I grew up a TV junkie, not so much a filmgoer. In 2020 I started a deep dive to improve my appreciation for movies. This blog is a diary of my film-viewing journey since then!
The Last Emperor won the Best Picture Oscar in 1988. I’m so glad I can cross this one off my unseen list. It is a fantastic film. Given the grandeur of the camera's eye as it moves around China’s Forbidden City, I really wish I had seen this one on the big screen. It was breathtaking.
My 2020 quest to see all the Oscar-Winning Best Pictures continues. First up this weekend was How Green Was My Valley. It was the winner in 1942, infamously beating out Citizen Kane. A bit preachy and often melodramatic, I felt like I was watching an early draft of Peyton Place by way of The Waltons Mountain.
Another swell
adventure! The Apartment, 1961's Oscar-winning Best Picture, was written,
directed, and produced by the brilliant Billy Wilder. It will be the last black
& white film to win the Best Picture award until 1994's Schindler's List.
This one was a true LOVE/HATE experience. I knew it was going to be, which is one of the reasons I've always held back from watching this movie before now. It was agonizing trying to separate the phenomenal play from this film.
1962's Best Picture is West Side Story. It's Romeo and Juliet by way of Grease.
1972's
Oscar winner for best picture was The French Connection. What a ride this one was. Literally at one point!!
I loved this film. It was a pure delight from beginning to end, which was not that long given that the film is the shortest one to win Best Picture (It is 91 minutes of unabashed charm!). The 1955 Oscar-winning Best Picture is Marty.
Where to begin? 1991's Oscar winner for Best Picture was Dances With Wolves. I knew the movie was 3 hours long, so I used the day off today to take it in. Little did I know I had selected the "director's cut, " which turned it into four long hours.
People who had seen this movie kept telling me that it was great and that I would love it. I went in wanting to love it, I really did. But no. It wasn't bad by any means, but it was just so "the world is only black/white" broad brush. And my gosh, all those metaphors with Two Socks, it was like being hit over the head with the obvious.
There are several movies that people hold in great esteem that I have never had the slightest inkling to see. Two that come immediately to m...
