I will make my predictions for the second round of the playoffs on Thursday after the Games 7 in Phoenix and Washington (although I picked Detroit to win, I will be cheering for the Coyotes tonight, and I will be cheering for Washington tomorrow – but that’s only because I have hated the Montreal Canadians ever since they beat my Kings in their one and only Stanley Cup final appearance), but for now just allow me a few words on my beloved L.A. Kings who lost their first playoff series in 8 years.
I think this was a great turnaround year for the Kings. Last season they got 71 points (which is Maple Leafs level of suckage) and this season they got 101. They had the bad luck of meeting a determined Vancouver team in the first round (strangely, I think that if the Kings had got one point more, and played Phoenix, or one point less and played Chicago, they would have had a better chance – but you play the hand you’re dealt). I think the Kings did a very good job in the first round – only really having one terrible game (5), and giving Vancouver all they could handle.
The difference in the series was goaltending – after a fairly even first four games on that front; Roberto Luongo stepped up huge for Vancouver, and at the same time Jonathan Quick faltered. Better goaltending by the Kings, and Game 5 doesn’t get away from them like it did, and they win Game 6. But I am not placing blame on solely on Jonathan Quick – who had a great season. The Kings will be better next year and here’s why – their best players – Doughty, Kopitar, Brown, Simmonds, Johnson, Richardson, Quick etc. are all young, and had never played in the playoffs before. This series gave them valuable experience, and will help them going forward. The scary part is that players like Doughty, who is only 20, is going to get even better. When you add in potential prospects like Brayden Schenn (another 99 point season in the WHL, and who had a hell of a playoff for his team) and Jacob Muzzin (who won the OHL Defensemen of the Year Award this year) mean that LA has even more great talent coming up.
But the biggest difference next year will be in net in the form of Jonathan Bernier – who won the AHL Goaltender of the year award this year, and is having amazing playoffs. The Kings would be stupid not to bring him up full time next year – not to replace to Quick, but to help him out. This was Quick’s first year as a number 1 goalie in the NHL – and he played 70 games (which meant more than 1,000 more minutes than he had played at any level before). He was worn down and tired. Bring in Bernier and do what teams like Chicago, Washington and Montreal do and go back and forth between the two, giving the starts to whoever has a hot hand. This will I think help the Kings, not only during the regular season, but also during the playoffs, as you know you have a solid back-up if the starter falters – which was clearly not the case this year, as Ersberg let in 2 goals in 4 shots in his appearance in Game 5.
They do have six unrestricted free agents this year – but considering that Modin and Halpern came over at the trade deadline, Ivanans barely plays and Jones was a disaster in the playoffs those four won’t be huge losses if they go somewhere else (but I would like to see Modin return). The bigger questions will be big, veteran defensemen Sean O’Donnell, who is always solid, and Alexander Frolov, who has a ton of skill – but often goes weeks or even months without showing it. I expect the Kings to try and sign at least a few of these guys, and maybe make a splash in the free agent market this summer as well. The thing that became painfully obvious in the Vancouver series – aside from the need for stronger goaltending – is that LA needs a closer on that top line with Kopitar, and in my mind Simmonds who did great after being promoted. Ryan Smyth is a great veteran presence for the Kings, and he still does a great job at annoying goaltenders (Luongo said as much after the series), but he no longer has the shot required to put pucks in the net consistently (which Luongo also alluded to). Also, he’s a grinder who gets garbage goals, and the Kings need a sniper, someone who finds those open seams as brilliantly as Samuelson did for the Sedins. It’s not that they didn’t know this already – it was why they had talks about getting Kovulchuk (but considering Atlanta wanted Simmonds AND Johnson AND more, Dean Lombardi smartly said no), and almost got Ray Whitney from Carolina (but the 37 year old wanted a three year contract extention to wave his no trade clause, so again we smartly said no).
I never thought the Kings would win the Cup this year. It is hard for young players who have never been in the playoffs before to put up a really good run. But I do believe that the team gained valuable experience this year. I was impressed with our young guns this series, to almost to a man were wonderful for us – especially Drew Doughty whose talent and maturity at 20 scares me. And I remain convinced that as the balance of power in the West continues to shift – San Jose, Detroit and Vancouver are all getting older, not to mention the already flailing Calgary Flames, Anaheim Ducks and Dallas Stars – that the Kings will be a legitimate Cup Contender within the next 3-4 years.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Monday, 26 April 2010
Movie Review: The Losers
The Losers ** ½
Directed By: Sylvain White.
Written By: Peter Berg & James Vanderbilt based on the comic book by Andy Diggle.
Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Clay), Zoe Saldana (Aisha), Chris Evans (Jensen), Idris Elba (Roque), Columbus Short (Pooch), Óscar Jaenada (Cougar), Jason Patric (Max), Holt McCallany (Wade), Peter Macdissi (Vikram), Peter Francis James (Fadhil).
The Losers is a movie that is based on a comic book – and feels like it. No, there are no superheroes in this movie, but given what the characters do in the film, they may as well be. The movie overdoses on its hyperkinetic style, and never really relaxes long enough to concentrate on what makes the film as good as it is – that is the performances and characterizations of its actors. It spends so much time with whip bang action sequences – often done in slow motion, or else editing so rapid that it borders on incoherent at times – the director – Sylvain White – seems to not notice that his cast is actually do a good job under all the pyrotechnics. Slow this movie down just a little, and it becomes a great action film. At the speed it’s at now, I found myself constantly being taken out of the flow of the movie by the director’s insistence that we notice all the nifty things he can do.
The movie is about an elite group of American soldiers, stationed in Bolivia who are given a seemingly simple assignment – mark a compound of a “very bad man” for bombing and just sit back and ensure the job is done. They do, but when they realize that there is a group of 25 kids in the compound, they try and call off the mission. The ice cold voice on the other end of the radio informs them that he will not call it off. The group goes in, and does succeed in rescuing the kids. The put them on a helicopter which they think will get them to safety – instead the copper is shot down because that cold voice thinks they are on board. Now wanted criminals, they fake their deaths and vow vengeance on that voice – the only thing they have is that voice and a name – Max.
The five soldiers represent the usual cross section you get in movies like this. The leader is Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) – and the others defer to his judgment even after they are out of the army. The tech expert is Jensen (Chris Evans) – who talks a mile a minute and is more than a little geeky. Roque (Idris Elba) is the toughest – the closest to Clay, but also the one most likely to want to take over and be the leader himself. Pooch (Columbus Short) is the weapons expert. And finally there is Cougar (Oscar Jaenada) who never says more than four words at a time, but is dea
dly accurate with his sniper rifle. Into their midst walks Aisha (Zoe Saldana), a woman of dubious origins but who has the connections to get them back into the States, and tells them that she can help them get Max (Jason Patric), a power mad CIA agent waging his own personal war. They agree.
It’s these six people – The Losers plus Aisha – that make the movie work as well as it does. Morgan is good as the charming, roguish leader of the group – who is down, but not out, and who is the one who really wants revenge. Elba does his job as the tough guy – the most untrusting, and selfish, of the losers who more than revenge, simply wants his life back. Evans does his usual performance here as he did in the Fantastic 4 movies – if you liked him there (and I thought he was the only thing about those movies worth watching) – you’ll like him here. Short and especially Jaenada are given much less to do, but do it well. But it is Zoe Saldana who is the real star here – and not just because she is gorgeous, and wearing almost no clothes through much of the movie (although that doesn’t hurt), but because she oozes a dangerous sexuality throughout much of the film – but is able to bring it back to a vulnerable place when her characters secrets are revealed. It represents another step in the right direction for her career. Less successful is Patric, who is given the colorful role of the villain, a host of one liners and plenty of scenery to chew. Some of his scenes are inspired brilliance, but others are just plain bad. He does not quite have the gift of say Christopher Walken, who would have played this role brilliantly. However, even he is good at points. If the movie had stayed focused on these characters, instead of ratcheting up the action level with each passing scene, I think the film could have worked.
It was the action that did it in for me. Fight sequences where characters don’t seem notice that the room they are in is on fire, moments where the action is slowed down for no reason, shots of people diving out of the way of bullets reflected in fall shards of glass, people who get shot and are out running around a scene later, improbably feats of heroism and marksmanship. Yes, to a certain extent all of these things go with the terrain of an action movie – and had White played them a little straighter, without trying to gussy them up even more than they already were, the movie would have worked better. But as it stands, the action kept taking me out of the movie – kept taking focus away from what was working, and putting it all on the director – who is not quite skilled enough to pull it off.
Directed By: Sylvain White.
Written By: Peter Berg & James Vanderbilt based on the comic book by Andy Diggle.
Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Clay), Zoe Saldana (Aisha), Chris Evans (Jensen), Idris Elba (Roque), Columbus Short (Pooch), Óscar Jaenada (Cougar), Jason Patric (Max), Holt McCallany (Wade), Peter Macdissi (Vikram), Peter Francis James (Fadhil).
The Losers is a movie that is based on a comic book – and feels like it. No, there are no superheroes in this movie, but given what the characters do in the film, they may as well be. The movie overdoses on its hyperkinetic style, and never really relaxes long enough to concentrate on what makes the film as good as it is – that is the performances and characterizations of its actors. It spends so much time with whip bang action sequences – often done in slow motion, or else editing so rapid that it borders on incoherent at times – the director – Sylvain White – seems to not notice that his cast is actually do a good job under all the pyrotechnics. Slow this movie down just a little, and it becomes a great action film. At the speed it’s at now, I found myself constantly being taken out of the flow of the movie by the director’s insistence that we notice all the nifty things he can do.The movie is about an elite group of American soldiers, stationed in Bolivia who are given a seemingly simple assignment – mark a compound of a “very bad man” for bombing and just sit back and ensure the job is done. They do, but when they realize that there is a group of 25 kids in the compound, they try and call off the mission. The ice cold voice on the other end of the radio informs them that he will not call it off. The group goes in, and does succeed in rescuing the kids. The put them on a helicopter which they think will get them to safety – instead the copper is shot down because that cold voice thinks they are on board. Now wanted criminals, they fake their deaths and vow vengeance on that voice – the only thing they have is that voice and a name – Max.
The five soldiers represent the usual cross section you get in movies like this. The leader is Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) – and the others defer to his judgment even after they are out of the army. The tech expert is Jensen (Chris Evans) – who talks a mile a minute and is more than a little geeky. Roque (Idris Elba) is the toughest – the closest to Clay, but also the one most likely to want to take over and be the leader himself. Pooch (Columbus Short) is the weapons expert. And finally there is Cougar (Oscar Jaenada) who never says more than four words at a time, but is dea
dly accurate with his sniper rifle. Into their midst walks Aisha (Zoe Saldana), a woman of dubious origins but who has the connections to get them back into the States, and tells them that she can help them get Max (Jason Patric), a power mad CIA agent waging his own personal war. They agree.It’s these six people – The Losers plus Aisha – that make the movie work as well as it does. Morgan is good as the charming, roguish leader of the group – who is down, but not out, and who is the one who really wants revenge. Elba does his job as the tough guy – the most untrusting, and selfish, of the losers who more than revenge, simply wants his life back. Evans does his usual performance here as he did in the Fantastic 4 movies – if you liked him there (and I thought he was the only thing about those movies worth watching) – you’ll like him here. Short and especially Jaenada are given much less to do, but do it well. But it is Zoe Saldana who is the real star here – and not just because she is gorgeous, and wearing almost no clothes through much of the movie (although that doesn’t hurt), but because she oozes a dangerous sexuality throughout much of the film – but is able to bring it back to a vulnerable place when her characters secrets are revealed. It represents another step in the right direction for her career. Less successful is Patric, who is given the colorful role of the villain, a host of one liners and plenty of scenery to chew. Some of his scenes are inspired brilliance, but others are just plain bad. He does not quite have the gift of say Christopher Walken, who would have played this role brilliantly. However, even he is good at points. If the movie had stayed focused on these characters, instead of ratcheting up the action level with each passing scene, I think the film could have worked.
It was the action that did it in for me. Fight sequences where characters don’t seem notice that the room they are in is on fire, moments where the action is slowed down for no reason, shots of people diving out of the way of bullets reflected in fall shards of glass, people who get shot and are out running around a scene later, improbably feats of heroism and marksmanship. Yes, to a certain extent all of these things go with the terrain of an action movie – and had White played them a little straighter, without trying to gussy them up even more than they already were, the movie would have worked better. But as it stands, the action kept taking me out of the movie – kept taking focus away from what was working, and putting it all on the director – who is not quite skilled enough to pull it off.
The Losers is certainly not a bad movie. I had a mildly enjoyable time watching the film – although it certainly is one of those films that fades from memory as soon as you hit the parking lot of the movie theater. But it isn’t a great one either. The film sets itself up for a sequel – but I really don’t see that happening at any point in the future.
Friday, 23 April 2010
Year in Review: 2001
2001 was a good year for movies. There are easily another 9 or 10 films that I have filtered throughout this list at various times over the years, as I can never quite decide on a number 10 position. Having said that, the number 1 film has never changed. I thought at the time that it was the best film ever by one of my favorite filmmakers, and nearly a decade later, I still feel that way.
10. Gosford Park (Robert Altman)
Robert Altman’s Gosford Park is a English, country house murder mystery as only he could make it. Instead of starting out the movie with the murder, it doesn’t happen until about half way through the film. By then, Altman has allowed us to get to know everyone at this stately English house in the 1930s. Like Upstairs/Downstairs, Altman splits the focus of the movie between the rich owners and guests, and the servants, who have lives and secrets that their employers can only guess at – that is, if they cared enough to even try. The murder victim (Michael Gambon) is a bully and a womanizer that almost no one – either upstairs or down – likes in the least, not even his wife (Kristen Scott Thomas) seems to care when he is murdered. The film is full of wonderful performances – most notably by Oscar nominees Maggie Smith, who is a hoot as an old woman guest who is long past the point of caring what anyone thinks of her, and Helen Mirren as a servant with dark secrets. Our conduit into this world is Kelly McDonald, as Smith’s new girl, who is completely confused by everything she sees. But the entire cast – Clive Owen, Eileen Atkins, Ryan Phillipe, Bob Balaban, Emily Watson, Stephen Fry, Richard E. Grant, Derek Jacobi, Jeremy Northam and Alan Bates – are all terrific. Altman went to another country, but kept his trademark style intact – and one of his best late period films.
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson)
The first part of Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy is truly blockbuster filmmaking at its finest. Jackson’s scope is huge, and he paints on an equally large canvas. The special effects, the cinematography, art direction and every other technical aspect of the film is perfect. Yet the film never compromises its story or characters for the sake of the technical aspects – we are not involved with the film because of its technical prowess, but because the film is so intimate in its character details. Yes, the action sequences are thrilling, the special effects groundbreaking, and the whole movie is a technical marvel – but it is the characters that make this movie so special. Jackson was just getting warmed up with this film – I think part II is even better.
8. Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff)
Terry Zwigoff’s Ghost World is based on a comic book, but you would never know it. It has nothing to do with superheroes, but is instead a keenly observed character study. Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson play two teenage girls, just out of high school who are disenfranchised with their school and their peers. Then Birch meets Steve Buscemi – a much older, obsessive collector of records, and the two start a relationship, that means more to him than it does to her. The acting in the movie is great – Buscemi in particular is brilliant, not playing his usual hyper active criminal, but rather a regular guy who has nothing in his life. Zwigoff, making his feature debut after making the great documentary Crumb, has crafted a wonderful movie about being a teenager – and about being an adult.
7. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar Wai)
Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love is one of the most beautiful films you will ever see. Set in 1962 Hong Kong, the film is a relatively simple story of a journalist (Tony Leung) and a secretary (Maggie Cheung) who live in the same building as each other. Both have spouses who work a lot, and they often find themselves alone in their rooms. The movie is made up of their chance encounters with each other – in the building, at the restaurant, etc. The two come to the conclusion that their spouses are having an affair with each other, and they decide to act out their spouses meetings. Their relationship remains platonic, but there is something deeply troubling about them – Leung has a sympathetic face that helps to mask his dark side. This is a gorgeous film, utterly entrancing, and one that haunts you long after it is over.
6. Black Hawk Down (Ridley Scott)
Black Hawk Down is the best film Ridley Scott has made this decade – and the best film of his career since Alien and Blade Runner years ago. Black Hawk Down is an almost unbearably intense film about a helicopter that crashes carrying American soldiers in Rwanda, and the rebel forces who descend on them as they are trapped in hostile territory for hours. Cries of racism were way off the mark – true, the “bad guys” are all black, and seen mainly as a blur in the film, but that’s the way these men experienced it on the ground. The performances are all fine, but Scott is the real star of the show, keeping the films energy up, and ratcheting up the suspense is scene after scene until the film becomes almost impossible to watch, but is equally impossible to look away from.
5. The Man Who Wasn’t There (Joel Coen)
The Coens second film on this list is this wonderful, comedic film noir with Billy Bob Thornton’s best performance at its core. Thornton plays a barber who is so quiet that no one ever quite notices when he is around. He narrates his story in classic film noir style, and we learn about his wife’s (Frances McDormand, brilliant as always) infidelity with her boss (James Gandolfini), while at the same time he is approached by a sleazy man (Jon Polito) asking for an investment in a new idea called “dry cleaning”. Thornton decides to blackmail Gandolfini for the money, thus setting off a sequence of events, where the entire weight of the world comes crashing down on Thornton. The film is a classic firm noir story, with twists that only the Coen brothers could have thrown in (the constant talk of UFOs for example). Brilliantly shot by Roger Deakins, The Man Who Wasn’t There is a throwback to the type of film Hollywood doesn’t seem to know how to make anymore.
4. A.I. (Steven Spielberg)
I know Spielberg caught a lot of slack from critics for taking over one of Stanley Kubrick’s dream projects, but in my mind, A.I. is an almost perfect blend of the two radically different filmmakers. To those who say that Spielberg screwed up by giving the film a happy ending, all I can say is that if you call a movie which ends with the extinction of the human race a happy ending, then be my guest. This is Spielberg at his darkest – from the family who abandons David (Haley Joel Osment), to the Flesh Fair, to Gigolo Joe, to William Hurt as the icy, cruel inventor (which is right out of Kubrick by the way – watch the scene where he reaches for the naked woman’s breasts), this was the start of what in my mind has been the most fascinating segment of Spileberg’s career (at least until the latest Indy movie that is). A brilliantly well made film. I doubt Kubrick could have done any better.
3. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson)
Wes Anderson’s best film – more mature than Rushmore, and more refined than what came after – this tale of the dysfunctional, brilliant Tenenbaum clan is Anderson’s best, because although it remains firmly in his comfort zone, it is also the film where he challenged himself the most. His large cast of eccentric loonies is led by Gene Hackman, in what is probably going to be the last great performance of his career, since he seems to have retired, as the father of three genius kids who has never been there for them. He reenters their lives as adults, and causes nothing but trouble. Anderson’s film is a colorful menagerie, a mixture of hilarious comedy made up of awkward moments, and real life drama that rings true. This is the movie where Anderson became a truly great filmmaker.
2. In the Bedroom (Todd Field)
Todd Field’s In the Bedroom announced him as a major talent as a director. The film is a perfect adaptation of the Andre Dubos novel about a middle aged couple (Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek) whose life and marriage falls apart after the murder of their son, prompting Wilkinson to take matters into his own hands. Field’s film is a tightly wound thriller and a shattering family drama all at the same time. Field’s film slowly gets under our skin, and then involves us in the ever tightening noose of the plot. Tom Wilkinson’s performance here made him a star – a subtle, powerful performance of a grieving father, and the film offered the best role that Sissy Spacek had in years, and reestablished Marisa Tomei as an actress to watch for. One of the best debut films of the decade.
1.Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)
David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive has the feeling of a dream that by the end has turned into a nightmare. I do believe the much discussed theory that the first two-thirds of the film is really the dream life that Diane (Naomi Watts) has constructed for herself. In that film, we see Watts as the innocent and bright eyed Betty, who meets the beautiful Rita (Laura Elena Harring) who has amnesia and the two go on a sort of Nancy Drew like quest to find out what happened to her. The last third is her grim reality where she has failed both personally and professionally, and the woman she is in love with (Harring) now treats her with cold, cruel distance, driving her towards insanity, murder and suicide. Yet, I don’t necessarily think that it is necessary to explain every loose end in the film, or even the overall meaning of it. Lynch has crafted his best, most complete movie and was able to maintain his dreamlike atmosphere for almost his film. Lynch has always been interested in dreams, and his films have often played like them (most notably Eraserhead, Blue Velvet and Lost Highway), but he has never seemed to have as much control of his film as he does here. The film is a nasty little examination of Hollywood, how some people make it, and some get chewed up and spit out by it – but that every sexy allure never wears off. This is Lynch’s masterpiece.
Just Missed The Top 10: Bully (Larry Clark), Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe), The Devil's Backbone (Guillermo Del Toro), Monster's Ball (Marc Forster), Training Day (Antoine Fuqua), Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer), amores perros (Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu), Amelie (Jean Pierre Jeunet), Waking Life (Richard Linklater), Memento (Christopher Nolan), Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly), The Tailor of Panama (John Boorman), Blow (Ted Demme), Lantana (Ray Lawrence), Tape (Richard Linklater), Moulin Rouge (Baz Luhrman), Audition (Takahasi Miike), The Pledge (Sean Penn).
Notable Films Missed: In Praise of Love (Jean Luc Godard).
Oscar Winner – Best Picture & Director: A Beautiful Mind (Ron Howard)
A Beautiful Mind if the most frustrating type of Oscar winning movie to me. Yes, there are films that are much worse than this one that have won the award – it is actually a decent little film – but at least in some of those cases, I understand why people loved them so much. A Beautiful Mind is such a blah movie, one that you like while you’re watching it, and then instantly forget about, than I wonder how it could have won. At the time, I was rooting for Gosford Park – even though I preferred two of the other nominees – because I really wanted Altman to finally win the Oscar he so richly deserved for his career. Had they went with him and his film, it would have been a great moment. Since they didn’t, A Beautiful Mind becomes one of those films that is only watched now by completists like me who need to see every Oscar winner in history.
Oscar Winner – Best Actor: Denzel Washington, Training Day
Denzel Washington delivers a towering, powerful performance as a cop corrupt to the core in Training Day. It is the type of larger than life villain role that often wins Oscar – but most often in the supporting, not lead category. I am a little disappointed that the film isn’t as good as Washington is in it, but that’s a small complaint. I do think that the best performance of the year was by Tom Wilkinson in In the Bedroom – which is the complete opposite performance of this, as it is layered and subtle, where Washington is loud and bombastic, and I do think that the missed one of the very best performances of Gene Hackman’s career in not nominating him – but those are small complaints. Even if Washington (and to a lesser extent Ethan Hawke) are the only reasons to watch Training Day – he is a hell of a good reason.
Oscar Winner – Best Actress: Halle Berry, Monster’s Ball
There are those actresses that you never really expect to have a great performance in them, and then they blow you away with a role. Halle Berry is like that in Monster’s Ball, delivering an emotionally powerful performance as a woman whose husband, and the father of her child, gets executed, and then becomes involved, unknowingly, with the prison guard who helped execute him. It is a powerful performance – and emotionally draining, and brave performance by an actress who has pretty much spent her career trading on her good looks (perhaps Things We Lost in the Fire could be considered another brave performance, but they are few and far between in her career). I think it was obvious that Naomi Watts gave the truly best performance of the year in this category in Mulholland Drive, and out of the nominees, I probably would have favored Spacek, but this is a wonderful performance.
Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actor: Jim Broadbent, Iris
I’m not quite sure how Jim Broadbent pulled this victory off. The movie itself is a standard issue biopic, about the poet Iris Murdoch, which also garnered Oscar nominations for Judi Dench and Kate Winslet playing the young and old versions of the poet. Broadbent is quite good as her ever loyal husband who stands by his wife when she gets alzheimers and slowly slips into oblivion, and he is a fine character actor who probably does deserve an Oscar. Personally, I thought the Winslet part of the movie was vastly superior, to the tearjerker tactics employed in the Broadbent/Dench section – and even that wasn’t great. When you consider they nominated Ben Kingsley’s hellfire reining turn in Sexy Beast and for some reason completely overlooked Steve Busecemi’s work in Ghost World, which is my mind deserved to win, you have to wonder how Broadbent pulled this one off.
Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Connelly, A Beautiful Mind
Jennifer Connelly is one of my favorite actresses, so I have no problem with her winning an Oscar – especially only one year after she SHOULD have won for Requiem for a Dream. But her performance in A Beautiful Mind is rather bland and forgettable – much like the movie itself. She had the standard issue Academy award role – the long suffering wife of the much more interesting central character. She’s fine in the movie – she does precisely what is required of her – but considering how many great performances she has given in her career (Requiem for a Dream, Little Children, Dark City, House of Sand and Fog) it’s a little troubling that this is the only movie she has ever been recognized for. Considering they had great work for Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren and Marisa Tomei (who would have been my choice) nominated, I can’t help but feel that Connelly shouldn’t have won this.
10. Gosford Park (Robert Altman)
Robert Altman’s Gosford Park is a English, country house murder mystery as only he could make it. Instead of starting out the movie with the murder, it doesn’t happen until about half way through the film. By then, Altman has allowed us to get to know everyone at this stately English house in the 1930s. Like Upstairs/Downstairs, Altman splits the focus of the movie between the rich owners and guests, and the servants, who have lives and secrets that their employers can only guess at – that is, if they cared enough to even try. The murder victim (Michael Gambon) is a bully and a womanizer that almost no one – either upstairs or down – likes in the least, not even his wife (Kristen Scott Thomas) seems to care when he is murdered. The film is full of wonderful performances – most notably by Oscar nominees Maggie Smith, who is a hoot as an old woman guest who is long past the point of caring what anyone thinks of her, and Helen Mirren as a servant with dark secrets. Our conduit into this world is Kelly McDonald, as Smith’s new girl, who is completely confused by everything she sees. But the entire cast – Clive Owen, Eileen Atkins, Ryan Phillipe, Bob Balaban, Emily Watson, Stephen Fry, Richard E. Grant, Derek Jacobi, Jeremy Northam and Alan Bates – are all terrific. Altman went to another country, but kept his trademark style intact – and one of his best late period films.9. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson)
The first part of Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy is truly blockbuster filmmaking at its finest. Jackson’s scope is huge, and he paints on an equally large canvas. The special effects, the cinematography, art direction and every other technical aspect of the film is perfect. Yet the film never compromises its story or characters for the sake of the technical aspects – we are not involved with the film because of its technical prowess, but because the film is so intimate in its character details. Yes, the action sequences are thrilling, the special effects groundbreaking, and the whole movie is a technical marvel – but it is the characters that make this movie so special. Jackson was just getting warmed up with this film – I think part II is even better.8. Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff)
Terry Zwigoff’s Ghost World is based on a comic book, but you would never know it. It has nothing to do with superheroes, but is instead a keenly observed character study. Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson play two teenage girls, just out of high school who are disenfranchised with their school and their peers. Then Birch meets Steve Buscemi – a much older, obsessive collector of records, and the two start a relationship, that means more to him than it does to her. The acting in the movie is great – Buscemi in particular is brilliant, not playing his usual hyper active criminal, but rather a regular guy who has nothing in his life. Zwigoff, making his feature debut after making the great documentary Crumb, has crafted a wonderful movie about being a teenager – and about being an adult.7. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar Wai)
Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love is one of the most beautiful films you will ever see. Set in 1962 Hong Kong, the film is a relatively simple story of a journalist (Tony Leung) and a secretary (Maggie Cheung) who live in the same building as each other. Both have spouses who work a lot, and they often find themselves alone in their rooms. The movie is made up of their chance encounters with each other – in the building, at the restaurant, etc. The two come to the conclusion that their spouses are having an affair with each other, and they decide to act out their spouses meetings. Their relationship remains platonic, but there is something deeply troubling about them – Leung has a sympathetic face that helps to mask his dark side. This is a gorgeous film, utterly entrancing, and one that haunts you long after it is over.6. Black Hawk Down (Ridley Scott)
Black Hawk Down is the best film Ridley Scott has made this decade – and the best film of his career since Alien and Blade Runner years ago. Black Hawk Down is an almost unbearably intense film about a helicopter that crashes carrying American soldiers in Rwanda, and the rebel forces who descend on them as they are trapped in hostile territory for hours. Cries of racism were way off the mark – true, the “bad guys” are all black, and seen mainly as a blur in the film, but that’s the way these men experienced it on the ground. The performances are all fine, but Scott is the real star of the show, keeping the films energy up, and ratcheting up the suspense is scene after scene until the film becomes almost impossible to watch, but is equally impossible to look away from.5. The Man Who Wasn’t There (Joel Coen)
The Coens second film on this list is this wonderful, comedic film noir with Billy Bob Thornton’s best performance at its core. Thornton plays a barber who is so quiet that no one ever quite notices when he is around. He narrates his story in classic film noir style, and we learn about his wife’s (Frances McDormand, brilliant as always) infidelity with her boss (James Gandolfini), while at the same time he is approached by a sleazy man (Jon Polito) asking for an investment in a new idea called “dry cleaning”. Thornton decides to blackmail Gandolfini for the money, thus setting off a sequence of events, where the entire weight of the world comes crashing down on Thornton. The film is a classic firm noir story, with twists that only the Coen brothers could have thrown in (the constant talk of UFOs for example). Brilliantly shot by Roger Deakins, The Man Who Wasn’t There is a throwback to the type of film Hollywood doesn’t seem to know how to make anymore.4. A.I. (Steven Spielberg)
I know Spielberg caught a lot of slack from critics for taking over one of Stanley Kubrick’s dream projects, but in my mind, A.I. is an almost perfect blend of the two radically different filmmakers. To those who say that Spielberg screwed up by giving the film a happy ending, all I can say is that if you call a movie which ends with the extinction of the human race a happy ending, then be my guest. This is Spielberg at his darkest – from the family who abandons David (Haley Joel Osment), to the Flesh Fair, to Gigolo Joe, to William Hurt as the icy, cruel inventor (which is right out of Kubrick by the way – watch the scene where he reaches for the naked woman’s breasts), this was the start of what in my mind has been the most fascinating segment of Spileberg’s career (at least until the latest Indy movie that is). A brilliantly well made film. I doubt Kubrick could have done any better.3. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson)
Wes Anderson’s best film – more mature than Rushmore, and more refined than what came after – this tale of the dysfunctional, brilliant Tenenbaum clan is Anderson’s best, because although it remains firmly in his comfort zone, it is also the film where he challenged himself the most. His large cast of eccentric loonies is led by Gene Hackman, in what is probably going to be the last great performance of his career, since he seems to have retired, as the father of three genius kids who has never been there for them. He reenters their lives as adults, and causes nothing but trouble. Anderson’s film is a colorful menagerie, a mixture of hilarious comedy made up of awkward moments, and real life drama that rings true. This is the movie where Anderson became a truly great filmmaker.2. In the Bedroom (Todd Field)
Todd Field’s In the Bedroom announced him as a major talent as a director. The film is a perfect adaptation of the Andre Dubos novel about a middle aged couple (Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek) whose life and marriage falls apart after the murder of their son, prompting Wilkinson to take matters into his own hands. Field’s film is a tightly wound thriller and a shattering family drama all at the same time. Field’s film slowly gets under our skin, and then involves us in the ever tightening noose of the plot. Tom Wilkinson’s performance here made him a star – a subtle, powerful performance of a grieving father, and the film offered the best role that Sissy Spacek had in years, and reestablished Marisa Tomei as an actress to watch for. One of the best debut films of the decade.1.Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)
David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive has the feeling of a dream that by the end has turned into a nightmare. I do believe the much discussed theory that the first two-thirds of the film is really the dream life that Diane (Naomi Watts) has constructed for herself. In that film, we see Watts as the innocent and bright eyed Betty, who meets the beautiful Rita (Laura Elena Harring) who has amnesia and the two go on a sort of Nancy Drew like quest to find out what happened to her. The last third is her grim reality where she has failed both personally and professionally, and the woman she is in love with (Harring) now treats her with cold, cruel distance, driving her towards insanity, murder and suicide. Yet, I don’t necessarily think that it is necessary to explain every loose end in the film, or even the overall meaning of it. Lynch has crafted his best, most complete movie and was able to maintain his dreamlike atmosphere for almost his film. Lynch has always been interested in dreams, and his films have often played like them (most notably Eraserhead, Blue Velvet and Lost Highway), but he has never seemed to have as much control of his film as he does here. The film is a nasty little examination of Hollywood, how some people make it, and some get chewed up and spit out by it – but that every sexy allure never wears off. This is Lynch’s masterpiece.Just Missed The Top 10: Bully (Larry Clark), Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe), The Devil's Backbone (Guillermo Del Toro), Monster's Ball (Marc Forster), Training Day (Antoine Fuqua), Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer), amores perros (Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu), Amelie (Jean Pierre Jeunet), Waking Life (Richard Linklater), Memento (Christopher Nolan), Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly), The Tailor of Panama (John Boorman), Blow (Ted Demme), Lantana (Ray Lawrence), Tape (Richard Linklater), Moulin Rouge (Baz Luhrman), Audition (Takahasi Miike), The Pledge (Sean Penn).
Notable Films Missed: In Praise of Love (Jean Luc Godard).
Oscar Winner – Best Picture & Director: A Beautiful Mind (Ron Howard)
A Beautiful Mind if the most frustrating type of Oscar winning movie to me. Yes, there are films that are much worse than this one that have won the award – it is actually a decent little film – but at least in some of those cases, I understand why people loved them so much. A Beautiful Mind is such a blah movie, one that you like while you’re watching it, and then instantly forget about, than I wonder how it could have won. At the time, I was rooting for Gosford Park – even though I preferred two of the other nominees – because I really wanted Altman to finally win the Oscar he so richly deserved for his career. Had they went with him and his film, it would have been a great moment. Since they didn’t, A Beautiful Mind becomes one of those films that is only watched now by completists like me who need to see every Oscar winner in history.Oscar Winner – Best Actor: Denzel Washington, Training Day
Denzel Washington delivers a towering, powerful performance as a cop corrupt to the core in Training Day. It is the type of larger than life villain role that often wins Oscar – but most often in the supporting, not lead category. I am a little disappointed that the film isn’t as good as Washington is in it, but that’s a small complaint. I do think that the best performance of the year was by Tom Wilkinson in In the Bedroom – which is the complete opposite performance of this, as it is layered and subtle, where Washington is loud and bombastic, and I do think that the missed one of the very best performances of Gene Hackman’s career in not nominating him – but those are small complaints. Even if Washington (and to a lesser extent Ethan Hawke) are the only reasons to watch Training Day – he is a hell of a good reason.Oscar Winner – Best Actress: Halle Berry, Monster’s Ball
There are those actresses that you never really expect to have a great performance in them, and then they blow you away with a role. Halle Berry is like that in Monster’s Ball, delivering an emotionally powerful performance as a woman whose husband, and the father of her child, gets executed, and then becomes involved, unknowingly, with the prison guard who helped execute him. It is a powerful performance – and emotionally draining, and brave performance by an actress who has pretty much spent her career trading on her good looks (perhaps Things We Lost in the Fire could be considered another brave performance, but they are few and far between in her career). I think it was obvious that Naomi Watts gave the truly best performance of the year in this category in Mulholland Drive, and out of the nominees, I probably would have favored Spacek, but this is a wonderful performance.Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actor: Jim Broadbent, Iris
I’m not quite sure how Jim Broadbent pulled this victory off. The movie itself is a standard issue biopic, about the poet Iris Murdoch, which also garnered Oscar nominations for Judi Dench and Kate Winslet playing the young and old versions of the poet. Broadbent is quite good as her ever loyal husband who stands by his wife when she gets alzheimers and slowly slips into oblivion, and he is a fine character actor who probably does deserve an Oscar. Personally, I thought the Winslet part of the movie was vastly superior, to the tearjerker tactics employed in the Broadbent/Dench section – and even that wasn’t great. When you consider they nominated Ben Kingsley’s hellfire reining turn in Sexy Beast and for some reason completely overlooked Steve Busecemi’s work in Ghost World, which is my mind deserved to win, you have to wonder how Broadbent pulled this one off.Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Connelly, A Beautiful Mind
Jennifer Connelly is one of my favorite actresses, so I have no problem with her winning an Oscar – especially only one year after she SHOULD have won for Requiem for a Dream. But her performance in A Beautiful Mind is rather bland and forgettable – much like the movie itself. She had the standard issue Academy award role – the long suffering wife of the much more interesting central character. She’s fine in the movie – she does precisely what is required of her – but considering how many great performances she has given in her career (Requiem for a Dream, Little Children, Dark City, House of Sand and Fog) it’s a little troubling that this is the only movie she has ever been recognized for. Considering they had great work for Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren and Marisa Tomei (who would have been my choice) nominated, I can’t help but feel that Connelly shouldn’t have won this.Thursday, 22 April 2010
Year in Review: 1994
1994 was one of the strongest years for films of the 1990s. We saw the emergence of some great filmmakers, as well as some experienced masters up their game a little bit. I go back and forth on my number 1 and number 2 choices almost every time I think of this year – but one thing remains clear to me – that both rank among the best films ever made.
10.The Hudsucker Proxy (Joel & Ethan Coen)
I know that I will be accused by some of simply fawning over this Coen Brothers movie, which is not regarded as one of their best, with fanboyish glee, but I cannot help myself. Every time I see The Hudsucker Proxy, I laugh throughout. The film is brilliantly well made by the brothers, with expert cinematography, art direction and costume design, recreating 1958 America, not as it really was, but how it was portrayed in the movies. The brothers get excellent performances from their cast – from Tim Robbins as the naïve dupe who becomes an overnight hit at the toy company where he is made CEO to try and drive down the stock price, to Jennifer Jason Leigh, as a Katherine Hepburn-esque reporter, talking a mile a minute and Paul Newman, as the corrupt businessman smoking big cigars. Like many of their films, The Hudsucker Proxy is a celebration of movies of the past, and wonderfully quirky comedy. I still love it when Robbins shows his sketches for his invention – the hula hoop – which is just a circle, and tells everyone “You know, for kids!”
9. Exotica (Atom Egoyan)
Along with The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica represents Atom Egoyan at his absolute best. They are perhaps the only two movies of his career where everything worked out just about perfectly for him. Exotica is at its heart a mystery – we never truly know who the characters are in relation to each other, and Egoyan only gradually reveals all this information to us. The action centers around a strip club, where Mia Kirshner works as a stripper, while her ex-boyfriend Elias Koteas is the DJ. Every night tax auditor Bruce Greenwood comes in and gets a private dance from Kirshner, in her school girl outfit, which sparks Koteas’ jealously. Just what all these characters mean to each other is only revealed slowly, through Egoyan’s masterful direction which uses a flashback structure. Unlike many movies that withhold information in this fashion, Exotica never annoyed me, but rather simply drew me deeper and deeper into the mystery of the film. If Egoyan makes a film this good again, it will be a cause for celebration.
8. Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson)
After making some wonderful, low budget shockers – like Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles and Dead Again – Peter Jackson really came into his own as a filmmaker with this wonderful, dark fantasy dream turned nightmare of a movie. Melanie Lynsky and Kate Winslet give excellent performances as two teenage girls who develop a close friendship – really too close to be normal. When their parents step in and try and get in the way of the friendship, they decide that they cannot let that happen. The movie focuses on the friendship between these two girls – and the fantasy world into which they retreat, brought brilliantly to life using clay models by Jackson and company. Lynsky and Winslet were unknowns at the time, and both of them deliver powerful performances as the two girls who refuse to be separated. When all is said and done, I think that Heavenly Creatures may just be the best film Peter Jackson has directed in his career so far.
7. Three Colors: Red (Kryztoff Kieslowski)
I do think that Kieslowski’s Blue is a wonderful film in it’s own right, and that White, while easily the least of the three films, is a wonderful comedy (or anti-comedy if you will) as well. But it is the final chapter in the trilogy, Red, which is truly the masterwork of the series. The story concerns a model (Irene Jacob) who hits a dog with her car, and tracks down the owner – a retired judge who know spends his time eavesdropping on his neighbors – who doesn’t seem to care. Gradually, the movie spins out and shows the interconnections between all the characters and more. The film is really about how we behave in society – the difference between morals and laws, and how our behavior effects those around us. Kieslowski was a great filmmaker, and this, his last film, may just be the best film he ever made.
6. Hoop Dreams (Steve James)
Hoop Dreams is one of those documentaries that if it wasn’t real, you would swear that a Hollywood screenwriter came up with it. The film follows two young men from the inner city – William Gates and Arthur Agee, who are recruited to a prestigious private high school with an excellent basketball program. The film follows them for years, and gets to know them, and their families, intimately as they struggle to become basketball stars, as well as getting used to a new environment and their studies. The film is a powerful dissection of race and class, as well as one that looks at the twisted values America has – these two young men would have no shot at getting anywhere, if they didn’t know how to play basketball. They are being used, but are trying to use the system themselves. Hoop Dreams is one of the best documentaries you will ever see.
5. Ed Wood (Tim Burton)
Tim Burton is a director that I have always admired, but who I feel has a tendency to make great looking, but ultimately rather hollow films – a tendency that has gotten worse as his career progressed. Having said that, I think Ed Wood is far and away his best film – a glorious celebration of cinema’s worst director in history brought brilliantly to life by Johnny Depp in perhaps his best performance. Depp’s Wood is so wonderfully clueless as to his own lack of talent – he really does believe he is making Citizen Kane. Martin Landau gives a wonderful performance as Bela Legosi, who by the time Wood found him when a drug addict who was pretty much unemployable in the film world. The rest of the cast is also great – and I particularly love Vincent D’Onofrio as Orson Welles, who until Christain McKay’s performance in last year’s Me & Orson Welles was the best screen version of the icon. Shot in beautiful black and white, the film is utterly hilarious, and completely unique. Unlike many of his films, Ed Wood feels like a personal project for Burton, and that passion comes out in every frame.
4. Quiz Show (Robert Redford)
Robert Redford’s Quiz Show is old school Hollywood filmmaking at its intelligent best. The film looks at the infamous game show scandal in the 1950s, where contestants on the show Twenty One were fed the answers because executives want to choose who won and who lost. Ralph Fiennes is excellent as the golden boy – Charles Van Doren – who they wanted to win. John Turturro is equally excellent as a man who throws his chance away at the behest of producers, and then regrets it. Rob Morrow is the government man sent to investigate what is really going on. The movie spins it web wonderfully, mixing in dozens of characters who are fascinating (Paul Scofield is quite good in his Oscar nominated performance as Van Doren’s father for example), and the implications the film has are far greater than just on the game show universe. Watching the film now, I get a chill when Martin Scorsese comes on for his cameo appearance where he says Quiz Shows won’t die – they’ll just make the questions easier, because it’s all about the money, not intelligence. Whenever a new game show – like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire or Deal or No Deal – becomes a hit for a short period of time, I think of this movie. Redford’s best film as a director by far.
3. The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont)
The Shawshank Redemption has become one of the most beloved films of all time – and with good reason. It’s story about a friendship that forms between two prisoners at Shawshank prison is one of the most uplifting, emotional movies I have ever seen in my life. Tim Robbins is excellent as the banker who is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover, and struggles to adjust to prison life. Morgan Freeman gives one of his best performances as a veteran prisoner who eventually takes him under his wing. The movie is full of sharp characterizations – all the supporting players in the movie become real people, and the movies now infamous climax is one of the great movie moments of all time. When this movie comes on TV, I am hard pressed to change the channel. It has earned its spot on the all time best movies list.
2. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino)
Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction has inspired a generation of filmmakers – for better and for worse. How many lame attempts have we seen by lesser talents to copy Tarantino’s trademark visual style and verbal gymnastics? But none of that has diminished the impact of Tarantino’s films, especially Pulp Fiction which in my mind remained his best film until last year’s Inglorious Basterds. Mixing together multiple storylines, and moving back and forth in time, Pulp Fiction tells of the interrelated escapades of a group of LA criminals – John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson as hitmen, Bruce Willis as a boxer who throws a fight, Ving Rhames as a mob boss, Uma Thurmas as his drug addicted wife, Eric Stoltz as a drug dealer, Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer as a couple robbing a diner, Harvey Keitel as a cleaner as others who filter in and out of the story. Through it all, Tarantino keeps the movie progressing from one scene to the next with giddy pride, violence rumbling under the surface of every scene, and the hilarious dialogue sometimes giving way to something much darker. Pulp Fiction will probably remain the most well known of Tarantino’s films – it has certainly earned its spot on the list of most influential films of all time – but I think that Tarantino is getting better and better. He may top this one a few more times before he’s done.
1. Natural Born Killers (Oliver Stone)
Without a doubt the most controversial film of the year – perhaps even the decade – Oliver Stone’s film about mass murderers Mickey and Mallory Knox (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis) is a brilliant dissection of American values. Yes the film is unrelentingly violent from almost beginning to end, but it has to be. Stone takes aim at the media head on – here represented by the brilliant Robert Downey Jr. as a reporter who wants to interview Mickey and Mallory for his TV show. The movie is really about America’s fascination with violence, and how the media eats it up, making heroes out of this killers. The entire cast is great – Tommy Lee Jones has a small role as the hillbilly warden, Rodney Dangerfield as Lewis’ perverted dad, saying the most heinous things as a laugh track plays in the background, and Tom Sizemore is great as a psychopathic cop on their trail, in addition to Harrelson, Lewis and Downey – but the movie really is Stone’s show. The brilliant cinematography, the editing which mixes different types of film stock, creates a chaotic motion picture – one that swirls around and gets inside your head and stays there. Natural Born Killers is a masterpiece as only Oliver Stone could make it.
Just Missed the Top 10: Clerks (Kevin Smith), The Last Seduction, The Boys of St. Vincent (John Smith), Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis), The Professional (Luc Besson), Red Rock West (John Dahl), Crooklyn (Spike Lee), Vanya on 42nd Street (Louis Malle), 71 Fragments of a Chornology of Chance (Michael Haneke), Bullets Over Broadway (Woody Allen).
Notable Films Missed: Sanatango (Bela Tarr), Chunghi Express (Wong Kar Wai), Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami), Caro Diaro (Nanni Moretti), To Live (Zhang Yimou)
Oscar Winner – Picture & Director: Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis)
The Academy actually did a fairly good job this year – nominating 3 of my top 4 films, although this wasn’t one of them. I know that Forrest Gump has not been as kindly received by critics in retrospect as it was at the time – and it is clearly nowhere near the film that Pulp Fiction is – but I still do admire this film, which is heartwarming in its simplicity. No, it isn’t a great film, but I still quite like it.
Oscar Winner – Actor: Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump
Like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, I find Tom Hanks performance in Forrest Gump to be just about perfect for the role, but not all that challenging. After all, Forrest doesn’t really change from beginning to end of this movie, but simply stays his simplistic self. It is a fine performance don’t get me wrong, but I would have much preferred John Travolta or Morgan Freeman out of the nominees winning this, not to mention Woody Harrelson and Johnny Depp who weren’t even nominated.
Oscar Winner – Actress: Jessica Lange, Blue Sky
This was a wonderful year for lead actresses, but you wouldn’t know it by the nominees or Lange’s winning performance – which I find rather dull and at times annoying, in a film that I really did not like at all. There is a reason why this sat on the shelf for more than a year. They ruled the best lead performance by a female this year – Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction to be ineligible, but they also overlooked Juliette Lewis, Irene Jacob and Melanie Lynsky’s great performances. I think all of the nominees were probably better than this performance (although I would have complained if Miranda Richardson won for Tom & Viv as well), but this is one of those rare occurances where I wouldn’t have voted for any of the nominees.
Oscar Winner – Supporting Actor: Martin Landau, Ed Wood
I find it impossible to complain about Martin Landau’s win for this performance. For one thing, he has had a long and wonderful career. For another, he really is perfect as Bela Legosi in this film. Personally, I do think Samuel L. Jackson’s now iconic hit man from Pulp Fiction should have won – and Robert Downey Jr.’s crazed performance in Natural Born Killers should have at least been nominated, but I won’t complain.
Oscar Winner – Supporting Actress: Dianne Wiest, Bullets Over Broadway.
Dianne Wiest is wonderful is her second Oscar winning performance for Woody Allen. She plays an ego centric actress who is wrapping writer/director John Cusack around her little finger so brilliantly in this film. Personally, I would have voted for Uma Thurman, but Wiest is a fine choice.
10.The Hudsucker Proxy (Joel & Ethan Coen)
I know that I will be accused by some of simply fawning over this Coen Brothers movie, which is not regarded as one of their best, with fanboyish glee, but I cannot help myself. Every time I see The Hudsucker Proxy, I laugh throughout. The film is brilliantly well made by the brothers, with expert cinematography, art direction and costume design, recreating 1958 America, not as it really was, but how it was portrayed in the movies. The brothers get excellent performances from their cast – from Tim Robbins as the naïve dupe who becomes an overnight hit at the toy company where he is made CEO to try and drive down the stock price, to Jennifer Jason Leigh, as a Katherine Hepburn-esque reporter, talking a mile a minute and Paul Newman, as the corrupt businessman smoking big cigars. Like many of their films, The Hudsucker Proxy is a celebration of movies of the past, and wonderfully quirky comedy. I still love it when Robbins shows his sketches for his invention – the hula hoop – which is just a circle, and tells everyone “You know, for kids!”9. Exotica (Atom Egoyan)
Along with The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica represents Atom Egoyan at his absolute best. They are perhaps the only two movies of his career where everything worked out just about perfectly for him. Exotica is at its heart a mystery – we never truly know who the characters are in relation to each other, and Egoyan only gradually reveals all this information to us. The action centers around a strip club, where Mia Kirshner works as a stripper, while her ex-boyfriend Elias Koteas is the DJ. Every night tax auditor Bruce Greenwood comes in and gets a private dance from Kirshner, in her school girl outfit, which sparks Koteas’ jealously. Just what all these characters mean to each other is only revealed slowly, through Egoyan’s masterful direction which uses a flashback structure. Unlike many movies that withhold information in this fashion, Exotica never annoyed me, but rather simply drew me deeper and deeper into the mystery of the film. If Egoyan makes a film this good again, it will be a cause for celebration.8. Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson)
After making some wonderful, low budget shockers – like Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles and Dead Again – Peter Jackson really came into his own as a filmmaker with this wonderful, dark fantasy dream turned nightmare of a movie. Melanie Lynsky and Kate Winslet give excellent performances as two teenage girls who develop a close friendship – really too close to be normal. When their parents step in and try and get in the way of the friendship, they decide that they cannot let that happen. The movie focuses on the friendship between these two girls – and the fantasy world into which they retreat, brought brilliantly to life using clay models by Jackson and company. Lynsky and Winslet were unknowns at the time, and both of them deliver powerful performances as the two girls who refuse to be separated. When all is said and done, I think that Heavenly Creatures may just be the best film Peter Jackson has directed in his career so far.7. Three Colors: Red (Kryztoff Kieslowski)
I do think that Kieslowski’s Blue is a wonderful film in it’s own right, and that White, while easily the least of the three films, is a wonderful comedy (or anti-comedy if you will) as well. But it is the final chapter in the trilogy, Red, which is truly the masterwork of the series. The story concerns a model (Irene Jacob) who hits a dog with her car, and tracks down the owner – a retired judge who know spends his time eavesdropping on his neighbors – who doesn’t seem to care. Gradually, the movie spins out and shows the interconnections between all the characters and more. The film is really about how we behave in society – the difference between morals and laws, and how our behavior effects those around us. Kieslowski was a great filmmaker, and this, his last film, may just be the best film he ever made.6. Hoop Dreams (Steve James)
Hoop Dreams is one of those documentaries that if it wasn’t real, you would swear that a Hollywood screenwriter came up with it. The film follows two young men from the inner city – William Gates and Arthur Agee, who are recruited to a prestigious private high school with an excellent basketball program. The film follows them for years, and gets to know them, and their families, intimately as they struggle to become basketball stars, as well as getting used to a new environment and their studies. The film is a powerful dissection of race and class, as well as one that looks at the twisted values America has – these two young men would have no shot at getting anywhere, if they didn’t know how to play basketball. They are being used, but are trying to use the system themselves. Hoop Dreams is one of the best documentaries you will ever see.5. Ed Wood (Tim Burton)
Tim Burton is a director that I have always admired, but who I feel has a tendency to make great looking, but ultimately rather hollow films – a tendency that has gotten worse as his career progressed. Having said that, I think Ed Wood is far and away his best film – a glorious celebration of cinema’s worst director in history brought brilliantly to life by Johnny Depp in perhaps his best performance. Depp’s Wood is so wonderfully clueless as to his own lack of talent – he really does believe he is making Citizen Kane. Martin Landau gives a wonderful performance as Bela Legosi, who by the time Wood found him when a drug addict who was pretty much unemployable in the film world. The rest of the cast is also great – and I particularly love Vincent D’Onofrio as Orson Welles, who until Christain McKay’s performance in last year’s Me & Orson Welles was the best screen version of the icon. Shot in beautiful black and white, the film is utterly hilarious, and completely unique. Unlike many of his films, Ed Wood feels like a personal project for Burton, and that passion comes out in every frame.4. Quiz Show (Robert Redford)
Robert Redford’s Quiz Show is old school Hollywood filmmaking at its intelligent best. The film looks at the infamous game show scandal in the 1950s, where contestants on the show Twenty One were fed the answers because executives want to choose who won and who lost. Ralph Fiennes is excellent as the golden boy – Charles Van Doren – who they wanted to win. John Turturro is equally excellent as a man who throws his chance away at the behest of producers, and then regrets it. Rob Morrow is the government man sent to investigate what is really going on. The movie spins it web wonderfully, mixing in dozens of characters who are fascinating (Paul Scofield is quite good in his Oscar nominated performance as Van Doren’s father for example), and the implications the film has are far greater than just on the game show universe. Watching the film now, I get a chill when Martin Scorsese comes on for his cameo appearance where he says Quiz Shows won’t die – they’ll just make the questions easier, because it’s all about the money, not intelligence. Whenever a new game show – like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire or Deal or No Deal – becomes a hit for a short period of time, I think of this movie. Redford’s best film as a director by far.3. The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont)
The Shawshank Redemption has become one of the most beloved films of all time – and with good reason. It’s story about a friendship that forms between two prisoners at Shawshank prison is one of the most uplifting, emotional movies I have ever seen in my life. Tim Robbins is excellent as the banker who is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover, and struggles to adjust to prison life. Morgan Freeman gives one of his best performances as a veteran prisoner who eventually takes him under his wing. The movie is full of sharp characterizations – all the supporting players in the movie become real people, and the movies now infamous climax is one of the great movie moments of all time. When this movie comes on TV, I am hard pressed to change the channel. It has earned its spot on the all time best movies list.2. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino)
Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction has inspired a generation of filmmakers – for better and for worse. How many lame attempts have we seen by lesser talents to copy Tarantino’s trademark visual style and verbal gymnastics? But none of that has diminished the impact of Tarantino’s films, especially Pulp Fiction which in my mind remained his best film until last year’s Inglorious Basterds. Mixing together multiple storylines, and moving back and forth in time, Pulp Fiction tells of the interrelated escapades of a group of LA criminals – John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson as hitmen, Bruce Willis as a boxer who throws a fight, Ving Rhames as a mob boss, Uma Thurmas as his drug addicted wife, Eric Stoltz as a drug dealer, Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer as a couple robbing a diner, Harvey Keitel as a cleaner as others who filter in and out of the story. Through it all, Tarantino keeps the movie progressing from one scene to the next with giddy pride, violence rumbling under the surface of every scene, and the hilarious dialogue sometimes giving way to something much darker. Pulp Fiction will probably remain the most well known of Tarantino’s films – it has certainly earned its spot on the list of most influential films of all time – but I think that Tarantino is getting better and better. He may top this one a few more times before he’s done.1. Natural Born Killers (Oliver Stone)
Without a doubt the most controversial film of the year – perhaps even the decade – Oliver Stone’s film about mass murderers Mickey and Mallory Knox (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis) is a brilliant dissection of American values. Yes the film is unrelentingly violent from almost beginning to end, but it has to be. Stone takes aim at the media head on – here represented by the brilliant Robert Downey Jr. as a reporter who wants to interview Mickey and Mallory for his TV show. The movie is really about America’s fascination with violence, and how the media eats it up, making heroes out of this killers. The entire cast is great – Tommy Lee Jones has a small role as the hillbilly warden, Rodney Dangerfield as Lewis’ perverted dad, saying the most heinous things as a laugh track plays in the background, and Tom Sizemore is great as a psychopathic cop on their trail, in addition to Harrelson, Lewis and Downey – but the movie really is Stone’s show. The brilliant cinematography, the editing which mixes different types of film stock, creates a chaotic motion picture – one that swirls around and gets inside your head and stays there. Natural Born Killers is a masterpiece as only Oliver Stone could make it.Just Missed the Top 10: Clerks (Kevin Smith), The Last Seduction, The Boys of St. Vincent (John Smith), Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis), The Professional (Luc Besson), Red Rock West (John Dahl), Crooklyn (Spike Lee), Vanya on 42nd Street (Louis Malle), 71 Fragments of a Chornology of Chance (Michael Haneke), Bullets Over Broadway (Woody Allen).
Notable Films Missed: Sanatango (Bela Tarr), Chunghi Express (Wong Kar Wai), Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami), Caro Diaro (Nanni Moretti), To Live (Zhang Yimou)
Oscar Winner – Picture & Director: Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis)
The Academy actually did a fairly good job this year – nominating 3 of my top 4 films, although this wasn’t one of them. I know that Forrest Gump has not been as kindly received by critics in retrospect as it was at the time – and it is clearly nowhere near the film that Pulp Fiction is – but I still do admire this film, which is heartwarming in its simplicity. No, it isn’t a great film, but I still quite like it.Oscar Winner – Actor: Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump
Like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, I find Tom Hanks performance in Forrest Gump to be just about perfect for the role, but not all that challenging. After all, Forrest doesn’t really change from beginning to end of this movie, but simply stays his simplistic self. It is a fine performance don’t get me wrong, but I would have much preferred John Travolta or Morgan Freeman out of the nominees winning this, not to mention Woody Harrelson and Johnny Depp who weren’t even nominated.
Oscar Winner – Actress: Jessica Lange, Blue Sky
This was a wonderful year for lead actresses, but you wouldn’t know it by the nominees or Lange’s winning performance – which I find rather dull and at times annoying, in a film that I really did not like at all. There is a reason why this sat on the shelf for more than a year. They ruled the best lead performance by a female this year – Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction to be ineligible, but they also overlooked Juliette Lewis, Irene Jacob and Melanie Lynsky’s great performances. I think all of the nominees were probably better than this performance (although I would have complained if Miranda Richardson won for Tom & Viv as well), but this is one of those rare occurances where I wouldn’t have voted for any of the nominees.
Oscar Winner – Supporting Actor: Martin Landau, Ed Wood
I find it impossible to complain about Martin Landau’s win for this performance. For one thing, he has had a long and wonderful career. For another, he really is perfect as Bela Legosi in this film. Personally, I do think Samuel L. Jackson’s now iconic hit man from Pulp Fiction should have won – and Robert Downey Jr.’s crazed performance in Natural Born Killers should have at least been nominated, but I won’t complain.
Oscar Winner – Supporting Actress: Dianne Wiest, Bullets Over Broadway.
Dianne Wiest is wonderful is her second Oscar winning performance for Woody Allen. She plays an ego centric actress who is wrapping writer/director John Cusack around her little finger so brilliantly in this film. Personally, I would have voted for Uma Thurman, but Wiest is a fine choice.
Movie Review: The Secret in Their Eyes
The Secret in Their Eyes *** ½
Directed By: Juan Jose Campanella.
Written By: Juan Jose Campanella & Eduardo Sacheri based on the novel by Sacheri.
Starring: Ricardo Darín (Benjamín Esposito), Soledad Villamil (Irene Menéndez Hastings), Pablo Rago (Ricardo Morales), Javier Godino (Isidoro Gómez), Guillermo Francella (Pablo Sandoval), José Luis Gioia (Inspector Báez), Carla Quevedo (Liliana Coloto).
It’s 1974 in Buenos Aires. A beautiful young woman is raped and murdered in her apartment. The DA assigned to the case is Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo Darin) who is disgusted by the crime scene. When the police bring in a suspect, who has even confessed, Esposito throws them out. It’s clear to him that the police strong armed a mentally unstable man into confessing to a crime he did not commit. He has a suspect in mind. This is Isidoro Gomez (Javier Godino), who he has seen in old photographs looking at the victim in a way that makes him uncomfortable. To raise his suspicions even more, Gomez has taken off – leaving his apartment, his mother and his job behind. A year goes by and everyone else moves unto other cases. But Esposito cannot let this one go. It’s not because the crime itself was so brutal, or even that the killer remains free. It’s because the husband of the dead woman, Ricardo Morales (Pablo Rago) had a look in his eyes of pure love for his wife. It’s the kind of love that Esposito had never seen before, or felt himself, and it haunts him.
This is the setup for Juan Jose Campanula’s The Secret in Their Eyes, an uncommonly intelligent thriller from Argentina. The movie flashes back and forth through time – from the mid-70s when the original investigation took place, and 1999, when Esposito, now retired, plans to write a book on the case that has haunted him for the last quarter century.
The first hour of the movie is quite good – involving, intelligently written and performed, and quite well directed by Campanella. Even the inevitable romantic subplot, between Esposito and his new boss Irene Hastings (Soledad Villamil), is handled well. Darin and Villamil have great chemistry together, and you can feel the sexual tension between them, that neither really act on. She is young, beautiful and the daughter of a man with connections. He is older, more broken down, and has a solid career – but nothing spectacular. They want each other, but both wait for the other one to make a move.
What I admired in this part of the film is the subtlety of the filmmaking. The movie is called The Secret in Their Eyes, and that’s an apt title, as Campanella likes to give us close-ups of the actors eyes, which tell us more than pages of dialogue would have. The first half of the movie was very good in the way that foreign language films that are popular in North America are – that is, the film doesn’t really feel like a foreign film, just a Hollywood movie with subtitles.
But the second half of the movie kicks things up a notch, and this is really where the film goes from
a good thriller, into a near great one. It starts with a breathless chase through a soccer stadium – shot in seemingly one, unbroken shot which I’m still trying to figure out how they did it. It is followed by a great interrogation sequence that would have fit right in among the best scenes on Homicide: Life on the Street, which contains the best interrogation sequences I have ever seen. And then the movie keeps twisting, yet it never feels like something out of a screenwriter’s playbook, but rather it comes naturally from the story and the characters. The one moment that is a little too much overkill, is easily explained by the fact that the movie is a loving look back by a man who was infatuated at the time. The movie remains intelligent and well made right up until the shocking conclusion.
Note: I saw this movie at the Toronto Film Festival last fall, before it was nominated and ended up winning the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar this year. While I do not think it comes close to matching fellow nominees The White Ribbon (which ranked very highly on my top 10 list last year) or A Prophet (which will undoubtedly rank very highly on this year’s list) – it is a fine winner. Or at the very least a hell of a lot better than last year’s winner, Departures, from Japan, or many recent winners. I would say in the past decade only The Lives the Others, The Barbarian Invasions and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were better.
Directed By: Juan Jose Campanella.
Written By: Juan Jose Campanella & Eduardo Sacheri based on the novel by Sacheri.
Starring: Ricardo Darín (Benjamín Esposito), Soledad Villamil (Irene Menéndez Hastings), Pablo Rago (Ricardo Morales), Javier Godino (Isidoro Gómez), Guillermo Francella (Pablo Sandoval), José Luis Gioia (Inspector Báez), Carla Quevedo (Liliana Coloto).
It’s 1974 in Buenos Aires. A beautiful young woman is raped and murdered in her apartment. The DA assigned to the case is Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo Darin) who is disgusted by the crime scene. When the police bring in a suspect, who has even confessed, Esposito throws them out. It’s clear to him that the police strong armed a mentally unstable man into confessing to a crime he did not commit. He has a suspect in mind. This is Isidoro Gomez (Javier Godino), who he has seen in old photographs looking at the victim in a way that makes him uncomfortable. To raise his suspicions even more, Gomez has taken off – leaving his apartment, his mother and his job behind. A year goes by and everyone else moves unto other cases. But Esposito cannot let this one go. It’s not because the crime itself was so brutal, or even that the killer remains free. It’s because the husband of the dead woman, Ricardo Morales (Pablo Rago) had a look in his eyes of pure love for his wife. It’s the kind of love that Esposito had never seen before, or felt himself, and it haunts him.This is the setup for Juan Jose Campanula’s The Secret in Their Eyes, an uncommonly intelligent thriller from Argentina. The movie flashes back and forth through time – from the mid-70s when the original investigation took place, and 1999, when Esposito, now retired, plans to write a book on the case that has haunted him for the last quarter century.
The first hour of the movie is quite good – involving, intelligently written and performed, and quite well directed by Campanella. Even the inevitable romantic subplot, between Esposito and his new boss Irene Hastings (Soledad Villamil), is handled well. Darin and Villamil have great chemistry together, and you can feel the sexual tension between them, that neither really act on. She is young, beautiful and the daughter of a man with connections. He is older, more broken down, and has a solid career – but nothing spectacular. They want each other, but both wait for the other one to make a move.
What I admired in this part of the film is the subtlety of the filmmaking. The movie is called The Secret in Their Eyes, and that’s an apt title, as Campanella likes to give us close-ups of the actors eyes, which tell us more than pages of dialogue would have. The first half of the movie was very good in the way that foreign language films that are popular in North America are – that is, the film doesn’t really feel like a foreign film, just a Hollywood movie with subtitles.
But the second half of the movie kicks things up a notch, and this is really where the film goes from
a good thriller, into a near great one. It starts with a breathless chase through a soccer stadium – shot in seemingly one, unbroken shot which I’m still trying to figure out how they did it. It is followed by a great interrogation sequence that would have fit right in among the best scenes on Homicide: Life on the Street, which contains the best interrogation sequences I have ever seen. And then the movie keeps twisting, yet it never feels like something out of a screenwriter’s playbook, but rather it comes naturally from the story and the characters. The one moment that is a little too much overkill, is easily explained by the fact that the movie is a loving look back by a man who was infatuated at the time. The movie remains intelligent and well made right up until the shocking conclusion.Note: I saw this movie at the Toronto Film Festival last fall, before it was nominated and ended up winning the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar this year. While I do not think it comes close to matching fellow nominees The White Ribbon (which ranked very highly on my top 10 list last year) or A Prophet (which will undoubtedly rank very highly on this year’s list) – it is a fine winner. Or at the very least a hell of a lot better than last year’s winner, Departures, from Japan, or many recent winners. I would say in the past decade only The Lives the Others, The Barbarian Invasions and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were better.
Year in Review: 1982
1982 was not the best year for movies in the 1980s – but that doesn’t mean there are some excellent films from this year – I’d say the top 7 are all legitimately great films, and the three that round out the top 10 are excellent as well – just not quite at the same level. It also must be said that it was an excellent year for genre films – so perhaps I am being a little too hasty writing this year off.
10. Gandhi (Richard Attenborough)
Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi is a magnificent epic biopic about the famed Indian leader. Ben Kingsley, in his first major motion picture role, gives an astonishing performance as the man who tried, and succeeded, in taking down an empire using non-violent means. The film is not exactly original – it follows the standard issue formula of biopics throughout cinema history – but that is appropriate for the film. Gandhi’s story is powerful enough, and it is brought to life with loving detail by Attenborugh, who obviously felt strongly involved with the subject.
9. White Dog (Samuel Fuller)
Who else but Samuel Fuller would dare to make a movie like White Dog? The title does not only relate to the color of the dog in question, but also what kind of dog he is. He has been trained to attack and kill black people. He escapes from his rotten owner, and finds his way to struggling actress Kristy McNichol, who takes him in and loves him. But when she takes him to a trainer, she discovers the awful truth. Undaunted however, trainer Billy Dee Williams takes it upon himself to try and cure the dog. White Dog is a violent film, which for some reason was proclaimed to be racist by some at the time. It isn’t. What it is, is a disturbing look at the dark side of humanity. You cannot blame the dog for what he is – he is an innocent, being used by evil people. There is an absolutely masterful sequence where the dog escapes, and wonders the streets which is almost heart stopping in its intensity. Yes, the performances in the movie are weak at best, but it doesn’t matter. White Dog is a powerful movie.
8. Sophie’s Choice (Alan J. Pakula)
Meryl Streep gives one of, if not, the best performance of her career in this film. She plays Sophie, a Catholic Polish woman, who during WWII was thrown into a concentration camp because of her apparent crimes. While there, she has to make the most heartbreaking choice any mother has ever had to face. Now, years later, she is living in America with her new lover, Kevin Kline who is crazy himself, when a young writer (Peter McNichol) moves in upstairs, and the three of them share a strange bond together. Streep’s brilliant performance carries the movie, and helps to smooth over some flaws in the narrative. It is a brilliant, heartbreaking performance in a movie that is powerful and unforgettable.
7. Fitzcaraldo (Werner Herzog)
Fitzcaraldo was crazy, which makes it fitting that he would be played by Klaus Kinski, one of the most insane actors in history, in a film directed by Werner Herzog, who may just be the craziest director in history. At least the real Fitzcaraldo knew enough that when he decided to sail a riverboat down a river in Peru and haul it over a mountain to gain access to another river that was thought to be unreachable, he knew he would have to disassemble the boat first. Not Herzog, who was determined to haul the boat over all at once. Everyone assumed that Herzog would kill someone, but miraculously, he pulled it off. The film itself is a wonderful portrait of a crazy dreamer, who would stop at nothing – which perhaps makes this Herzog’s most personal film, if not his best. A masterful film. (Note: I remember watching The Simpsons a few years ago when Martin called out “I feel like Fitzcarraldo”, to which Nelson replied “That movie was flawed” before punching him in the stomach, which practically made me fall out of my chair laughing, as my wife looked at me as if I were nuts. Nelson’s astute criticism is correct – the film is flawed, but I love it nonetheless).
6. The Road Warrior (George Miller)
I am not a very big fan of the original Mad Max, or the third in the series – Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, but the middle part of the trilogy, The Road Warrior, is one of the best action movies of the 1980s, as well as a wonderful movie about the dystopian future that the earth has in store for us. Oil has become scarce in this world, maruding gangs of thieves and killers stalk the highways looking for people to rob and kill. Mad Max (Mel Gibson) stumbles across a working oil refinery, with a group of people inside, who are soon going to be in the fight of their lives to try and prevent one of those gangs from killing them all. Mad Max is one of those roles that is perfectly suited to Gibson, who gives an intense performance in this film. George Miller is a master at action sequences, and this one contains some of the best stunt work and car chases that have ever been put on film. The Road Warrior is exciting filmmaking from beginning to end.
5. Das Boot (Wolfgang Peterson)
Das Boot is without question the best submarine movie ever made. The film takes place on a German U-Boat during WWII, and is both an edge of your seat action movie, with some of the best action sequences ever filmed, as well as a portrait of the boredom and tedium that can come from being on a sub – with the seemingly endless hours and days spent in fruitless hunt. The film avoids looking seriously at issues like the Nazis, and portrays the crew of the boat as proud men who are trying to do their best for their fellow soldiers and their country. Peterson would go onto a career as Hollywood action movie director, and while some of his films here have been great (In the Line of Fire for example), they lack the personal details on display in this film. This is a masterfully directed film, that is exciting and tense throughout and deserves comparison to any war movie out there.
4. The Verdict (Sidney Lumet)
Sidney Lumet has pretty much directed a movie in every genre over the years, but he will probably be best remembered for his courtroom dramas. His The Verdict is one of the best movies the genre has ever given us. Centered on a brilliant performance by Paul Newman, as an alcoholic lawyer who snaps out of his drunken stupor long enough to take a case – and then finds that he has become obsessed with it. He is going to take the case to court, and come hell or high water, he is going to make the doctors at fault for a young woman’s coma pay. Newman has always been one of the best actors in the world, and his performance in The Verdict is one of his best. He is perfect as a drunk at the beginning of the film – the kind of game who stumbles into the office once in a while, and who everyone just sort of puts up with. His transformation into a battling attorney isn’t farfetched, because we believe him in the role. A lot has been made about the end of the film, and exactly what is in the cup he is drinking out of. Has he gone back to his old ways? Newman says not, but I wonder. No matter how you feel about the ending, it comes at the end of a truly great courtroom drama.
3. Tootsie (Sidney Pollack)
Sydney Pollack’s Tootsie is one of the great mainstream American comedies of the 1980s. In it, Dustin Hoffman may just give his best performance. He plays a struggling actor with an ego the size of huge star, which makes it impossible for him to find work. So he decides to disguise himself as a woman named Tootsie, and audition for a role on a soap opera – which he gets, and becomes a major star because of it. However, during the course the movie, Hoffman realizes just how woman like Tootsie – ie not very attractive – get treated by the system. The film is hilarious, but it is also rather daring. Jessica Lange is wonderful as Tootsie’s co-star, who finds herself attracted to Tootsie, which causes some confusion about her own sexual identity. Meanwhile her father, Charles Durning, falls in love with Tootsie as well – and when he discovers the secret, does it mean he really is gay? To some, this is just a pale imitation of Some Like it Hot – I however think it’s superior to that movie, and one of the great comedies of all time.
2. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott)
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner remains one of the most influential science fiction movies ever made, and perhaps the best film of his career. The film is a masterwork of cinematography and art direction, not to mention special effects, which Scott uses to support his story about a bounty hunter (Harrison Ford) on the trail of replicants (or robots) who have come to earth and are mingling with people. The rainy, bleak, dirty future on display in this movie has influenced a generation of science fiction filmmakers, and the storyline remains exciting, and at times even profound, going into areas of identity and human emotion that often science fiction overlook. Certainly a masterwork of the genre.
1. ET: The Extra Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg)
What can one say about Steven Spielberg’s E.T.? Has there ever been a magical film made for children than this one? If there has been, I cannot think of it. E.T. taps into our collective unconscious – the conflicting pain and joy in being a kid. The movie is a different sort of view on the visitors from another planet genre, as E.T. is such a lovable creation that you cannot imagine him being hostile. The film is full of magical moments – the Reeses pieces, Drew Barrymore screaming when she discovers E.T. (which of course gets him screaming as well), and of course the final sequence when Elliot and E.T. have to escape. Even though I know damn well that he is okay, every time I think that E.T. is dead, I still cry like a little girl. This is what Spielberg does best.
Just Missed The Top 10: The Thing (John Carpenter), Burden of Dreams (Les Blank), Missing (Costa-Gravas), An Officier and a Gentleman (Taylor Hackford), Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Amy Heckerling), The World According to Garp (George Roy Hill), 48 Hours (Walter Hill), Diner (Barry Levinson).
Notable Films Missed: Passion (Jean Luc Godard), Veronika Voss (Rainer Werner Fassbinder), The Night of the Shooting Stars (Paolo & Vittorio Taviani), Toute une nuit (Chantel Ackerman).
Oscar Winner – Best Picture & Director: Gandhi (Richard Attenborugh)
I obviously like Gandhi as it was on my top 10 list for this year – but that had as much to do with the fact that it was a weaker year as anything else. It is the type of film that is involving, and feels important when you are watching it – which is the type of movie that the Academy always goes for – but that you never really feel the urge to watch again. It is a fine choice for the Oscar, if a little unoriginal.
Oscar Winner – Best Actor: Ben Kingsley, Gandhi
Kingsley is astonishing in the lead role in this film, perfectly capturing the Indian leader. Kingsley is one of those actors who can seemingly do anything, so I for one, am quite happy that he has an Oscar at home. Personally, I think Hoffman deserved to win – but then he has two Oscars at home that I didn’t think he deserved, so I guess it evens out.
Oscar Winner – Best Actress: Meryl Streep, Sophie’s Choice
Streep is phenomenal in this powerful movie. This really could be the best performance of her career – and considering how many great roles she has had, that really is saying something. The rest of the nominees, let alone anyone else, cannot hold a candle to her.
Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actor: Louis Gosset Jr. An Officier and a Gentleman
This was an extremely weak category this year. Gosset is quite good in his role as the merciless drill sergeant in the film – but it’s a role that has been done better (how the Academy did not nominate R. Lee Ermey a few years later in Full Metal Jacket, I’ll never understand). Out of the nominees, I probably would have went with John Lithgow in The World According to Garp – but I do think the Academy overlooked the best performance this category had to offer – Mickey Rourke in Diner, a film I am mixed about, but a performance I think is wonderful.
Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actress: Jessica Lange, Tootsie
Jessica Lange is wonderful is Tootsie as an actress dealing with sexism, and her confused feelings towards her new “female” co-star. She is sexy, sweet and funny, and in a category that didn’t have a whole lot else to offer, she was clearly the best.
10. Gandhi (Richard Attenborough)
Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi is a magnificent epic biopic about the famed Indian leader. Ben Kingsley, in his first major motion picture role, gives an astonishing performance as the man who tried, and succeeded, in taking down an empire using non-violent means. The film is not exactly original – it follows the standard issue formula of biopics throughout cinema history – but that is appropriate for the film. Gandhi’s story is powerful enough, and it is brought to life with loving detail by Attenborugh, who obviously felt strongly involved with the subject.9. White Dog (Samuel Fuller)
Who else but Samuel Fuller would dare to make a movie like White Dog? The title does not only relate to the color of the dog in question, but also what kind of dog he is. He has been trained to attack and kill black people. He escapes from his rotten owner, and finds his way to struggling actress Kristy McNichol, who takes him in and loves him. But when she takes him to a trainer, she discovers the awful truth. Undaunted however, trainer Billy Dee Williams takes it upon himself to try and cure the dog. White Dog is a violent film, which for some reason was proclaimed to be racist by some at the time. It isn’t. What it is, is a disturbing look at the dark side of humanity. You cannot blame the dog for what he is – he is an innocent, being used by evil people. There is an absolutely masterful sequence where the dog escapes, and wonders the streets which is almost heart stopping in its intensity. Yes, the performances in the movie are weak at best, but it doesn’t matter. White Dog is a powerful movie.8. Sophie’s Choice (Alan J. Pakula)
Meryl Streep gives one of, if not, the best performance of her career in this film. She plays Sophie, a Catholic Polish woman, who during WWII was thrown into a concentration camp because of her apparent crimes. While there, she has to make the most heartbreaking choice any mother has ever had to face. Now, years later, she is living in America with her new lover, Kevin Kline who is crazy himself, when a young writer (Peter McNichol) moves in upstairs, and the three of them share a strange bond together. Streep’s brilliant performance carries the movie, and helps to smooth over some flaws in the narrative. It is a brilliant, heartbreaking performance in a movie that is powerful and unforgettable.7. Fitzcaraldo (Werner Herzog)
Fitzcaraldo was crazy, which makes it fitting that he would be played by Klaus Kinski, one of the most insane actors in history, in a film directed by Werner Herzog, who may just be the craziest director in history. At least the real Fitzcaraldo knew enough that when he decided to sail a riverboat down a river in Peru and haul it over a mountain to gain access to another river that was thought to be unreachable, he knew he would have to disassemble the boat first. Not Herzog, who was determined to haul the boat over all at once. Everyone assumed that Herzog would kill someone, but miraculously, he pulled it off. The film itself is a wonderful portrait of a crazy dreamer, who would stop at nothing – which perhaps makes this Herzog’s most personal film, if not his best. A masterful film. (Note: I remember watching The Simpsons a few years ago when Martin called out “I feel like Fitzcarraldo”, to which Nelson replied “That movie was flawed” before punching him in the stomach, which practically made me fall out of my chair laughing, as my wife looked at me as if I were nuts. Nelson’s astute criticism is correct – the film is flawed, but I love it nonetheless).6. The Road Warrior (George Miller)
I am not a very big fan of the original Mad Max, or the third in the series – Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, but the middle part of the trilogy, The Road Warrior, is one of the best action movies of the 1980s, as well as a wonderful movie about the dystopian future that the earth has in store for us. Oil has become scarce in this world, maruding gangs of thieves and killers stalk the highways looking for people to rob and kill. Mad Max (Mel Gibson) stumbles across a working oil refinery, with a group of people inside, who are soon going to be in the fight of their lives to try and prevent one of those gangs from killing them all. Mad Max is one of those roles that is perfectly suited to Gibson, who gives an intense performance in this film. George Miller is a master at action sequences, and this one contains some of the best stunt work and car chases that have ever been put on film. The Road Warrior is exciting filmmaking from beginning to end.5. Das Boot (Wolfgang Peterson)
Das Boot is without question the best submarine movie ever made. The film takes place on a German U-Boat during WWII, and is both an edge of your seat action movie, with some of the best action sequences ever filmed, as well as a portrait of the boredom and tedium that can come from being on a sub – with the seemingly endless hours and days spent in fruitless hunt. The film avoids looking seriously at issues like the Nazis, and portrays the crew of the boat as proud men who are trying to do their best for their fellow soldiers and their country. Peterson would go onto a career as Hollywood action movie director, and while some of his films here have been great (In the Line of Fire for example), they lack the personal details on display in this film. This is a masterfully directed film, that is exciting and tense throughout and deserves comparison to any war movie out there.4. The Verdict (Sidney Lumet)
Sidney Lumet has pretty much directed a movie in every genre over the years, but he will probably be best remembered for his courtroom dramas. His The Verdict is one of the best movies the genre has ever given us. Centered on a brilliant performance by Paul Newman, as an alcoholic lawyer who snaps out of his drunken stupor long enough to take a case – and then finds that he has become obsessed with it. He is going to take the case to court, and come hell or high water, he is going to make the doctors at fault for a young woman’s coma pay. Newman has always been one of the best actors in the world, and his performance in The Verdict is one of his best. He is perfect as a drunk at the beginning of the film – the kind of game who stumbles into the office once in a while, and who everyone just sort of puts up with. His transformation into a battling attorney isn’t farfetched, because we believe him in the role. A lot has been made about the end of the film, and exactly what is in the cup he is drinking out of. Has he gone back to his old ways? Newman says not, but I wonder. No matter how you feel about the ending, it comes at the end of a truly great courtroom drama.3. Tootsie (Sidney Pollack)
Sydney Pollack’s Tootsie is one of the great mainstream American comedies of the 1980s. In it, Dustin Hoffman may just give his best performance. He plays a struggling actor with an ego the size of huge star, which makes it impossible for him to find work. So he decides to disguise himself as a woman named Tootsie, and audition for a role on a soap opera – which he gets, and becomes a major star because of it. However, during the course the movie, Hoffman realizes just how woman like Tootsie – ie not very attractive – get treated by the system. The film is hilarious, but it is also rather daring. Jessica Lange is wonderful as Tootsie’s co-star, who finds herself attracted to Tootsie, which causes some confusion about her own sexual identity. Meanwhile her father, Charles Durning, falls in love with Tootsie as well – and when he discovers the secret, does it mean he really is gay? To some, this is just a pale imitation of Some Like it Hot – I however think it’s superior to that movie, and one of the great comedies of all time.2. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott)
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner remains one of the most influential science fiction movies ever made, and perhaps the best film of his career. The film is a masterwork of cinematography and art direction, not to mention special effects, which Scott uses to support his story about a bounty hunter (Harrison Ford) on the trail of replicants (or robots) who have come to earth and are mingling with people. The rainy, bleak, dirty future on display in this movie has influenced a generation of science fiction filmmakers, and the storyline remains exciting, and at times even profound, going into areas of identity and human emotion that often science fiction overlook. Certainly a masterwork of the genre.1. ET: The Extra Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg)
What can one say about Steven Spielberg’s E.T.? Has there ever been a magical film made for children than this one? If there has been, I cannot think of it. E.T. taps into our collective unconscious – the conflicting pain and joy in being a kid. The movie is a different sort of view on the visitors from another planet genre, as E.T. is such a lovable creation that you cannot imagine him being hostile. The film is full of magical moments – the Reeses pieces, Drew Barrymore screaming when she discovers E.T. (which of course gets him screaming as well), and of course the final sequence when Elliot and E.T. have to escape. Even though I know damn well that he is okay, every time I think that E.T. is dead, I still cry like a little girl. This is what Spielberg does best.Just Missed The Top 10: The Thing (John Carpenter), Burden of Dreams (Les Blank), Missing (Costa-Gravas), An Officier and a Gentleman (Taylor Hackford), Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Amy Heckerling), The World According to Garp (George Roy Hill), 48 Hours (Walter Hill), Diner (Barry Levinson).
Notable Films Missed: Passion (Jean Luc Godard), Veronika Voss (Rainer Werner Fassbinder), The Night of the Shooting Stars (Paolo & Vittorio Taviani), Toute une nuit (Chantel Ackerman).
Oscar Winner – Best Picture & Director: Gandhi (Richard Attenborugh)
I obviously like Gandhi as it was on my top 10 list for this year – but that had as much to do with the fact that it was a weaker year as anything else. It is the type of film that is involving, and feels important when you are watching it – which is the type of movie that the Academy always goes for – but that you never really feel the urge to watch again. It is a fine choice for the Oscar, if a little unoriginal.Oscar Winner – Best Actor: Ben Kingsley, Gandhi
Kingsley is astonishing in the lead role in this film, perfectly capturing the Indian leader. Kingsley is one of those actors who can seemingly do anything, so I for one, am quite happy that he has an Oscar at home. Personally, I think Hoffman deserved to win – but then he has two Oscars at home that I didn’t think he deserved, so I guess it evens out.
Oscar Winner – Best Actress: Meryl Streep, Sophie’s Choice
Streep is phenomenal in this powerful movie. This really could be the best performance of her career – and considering how many great roles she has had, that really is saying something. The rest of the nominees, let alone anyone else, cannot hold a candle to her.
Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actor: Louis Gosset Jr. An Officier and a Gentleman
This was an extremely weak category this year. Gosset is quite good in his role as the merciless drill sergeant in the film – but it’s a role that has been done better (how the Academy did not nominate R. Lee Ermey a few years later in Full Metal Jacket, I’ll never understand). Out of the nominees, I probably would have went with John Lithgow in The World According to Garp – but I do think the Academy overlooked the best performance this category had to offer – Mickey Rourke in Diner, a film I am mixed about, but a performance I think is wonderful.Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actress: Jessica Lange, Tootsie
Jessica Lange is wonderful is Tootsie as an actress dealing with sexism, and her confused feelings towards her new “female” co-star. She is sexy, sweet and funny, and in a category that didn’t have a whole lot else to offer, she was clearly the best.
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Year in Review: 1937
1937 was a great year for Hollywood – even if the Oscar winners from that year were for a large part disappointing. As is often the case, the Academy went with movies that seemed “important” while ignoring the ones that would actually stand the test of time. My number one choice will probably surprise some people – forgoing perhaps the most well known film from one of cinema’s acknowledged masters (who happens to be one of my absolute favorite directors), for a film that until very recently had been largely forgotten. But I am happy with my choice, and I think once more people see my number 1, they’ll know where I’m coming from.
10. You Only Live Once (Fritz Lang)
Very loosely based on the Bonnie & Clyde story, You Only Live Once stars Henry Fonda as a three time loser, out of prison and trying to rebuild his life with his new wife Sylvia Sidney. He gets a job, but loses it rather quickly, because the boss doesn’t trust an ex-con. Struggling to find another job, he contemplates going back to a life of crime. When an armored car robbery goes wrong, and 7 people die, Fonda is arrested, tried and sentenced to death for it, even though he proclaims his innocence. On the day he is supposed to die, he escapes and he and Sidney go on the run. Sidney was rather annoying in the film – crying a lot – which mars an otherwise excellent film with a great performance by Fonda, and stylish direction by Lang (the escape sequence, shrouded in fog, is particularly great). I don’t know if I agree with the film’s point of view – in fact I know I don’t – but this is an excellent little crime film nonetheless.
9. The Edge of the World (Michael Powell)
Before Powell teamed up with his partner, Emeric Pressburger, and would make any number of masterpieces, he made this – his first great film – in 1937. The story takes place on a island off the coast of Scotland, which is gradually seeing its population dwindle as more and more young men leave the island for steady work on the mainland, or on any of the ships that fish in the area. The residents try to hold onto their community, but it really is of no use – modern times have encroached upon them, and they just cannot compete. The film is a beautiful made film, with striking vistas shot by Powell in an area that would draw him in again and again in his career (think of I Know Where I’m Going!). While this is the masterwork that some of Powell’s films are, it is a fascinating movie.
8. Young and Innocent (Alfred Hitchcock)
Young and Innocent is one of the most delightful films in Hitchcock’s British period. It isn’t the masterwork that his films like The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes or Sabotage from that time were, but it is an expertly crafted little thriller, with comedic overtones. The film is a spin on Hitchcock’s favorite subject – the innocent man wrongly accused of a crime he didn’t commit. This time, Derrick De Marney fills that role, and he goes on the run with Nova Pilbeam when is charged with a murder he didn’t commit. The film is lightweight compared to Hitchcock’s masterpieces, but still expertly filmed (the sequence in the nightclub, when the true murderer is revealed is masterfully shot by Hitchcock), and the chemistry between the two leads is wonderful. No, Young and Innocent is not a Hitchcock masterpiece – but it is extremely entertaining.
7. Night Must Fall (Richard Thorpe)
Richard Thorpe’s Night Must Fall is a suspenseful little film about a young man (Robert Montgomery in an excellent performance) who becomes an employee and surrogate son to an rich, aging woman (Dame May Whitty) immediately following a murder that no one except Whitty’s niece (Rosalind Russell) suspects Montgomery for. Russell’s feelings become even more confused when she is inexplicably drawn to Montgomery – the kind of dangerous young man who is the antithesis of the upright lawyer who is pursuing her. The main reason to watch the film is the acting – the three leads all give excellent performances, and the slow burn of the plot that has you going back and forth on Montgomery’s guilt. Yes, the movie does show its stage roots at times, and I doubt that the psychology of a serial killer on display in this movie bares any resemblance to reality (oh, what they would say on Criminal Minds!), but this is a supremely entertaining little movie.
6. A Day at the Races (Sam Wood)
Just thinking about the Marx brothers is enough to make me laugh. A Day at the Races is one of their best films, an hilarious movie that takes place at the race track where Groucho plays Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush (god, I love the names they come up with), a Vet posing as a real doctor at a mental hospital. As with all of the Brothers movies, the plot is a thin excuse to hang jokes off of, and this one has a number of wonderful comic set pieces – the most famous of which is probably the Tutti Frutti Ice Cream scam. Free from the dead weight that was Zeppo (sorry buddy, but you have nothing on the other three), A Day at the Races is just out and out hilarious comedy at its finest.
5. Pepe Le Moko (Julien Duvivier)
Pepe Le Moko, directed by Julien Duvivier and starring the great Jean Gabin, is one of the key films that inspired the film noir movement in America in the 1940s. Gabin plays the infamous title character, a gangster trying to avoid capture by the police by hiding in the casbah of the city of Algiers – which is so jammed packed with people in the small streets, that most police don’t know their way around. The film combines elements of gritty realism in its plot, with the occasional cinematic flourish, which raises the entire stylistic intrigue of the film. The film is fast paced and exciting from beginning to end – one of the great French films of the 1930s.
4. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (David Hand)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a landmark motion picture in so many ways. It was the first feature length cel animated film in history, the first feature length animated film made in America, the first film to be entirely in color and the first feature of Walt Disney’s career. All that alone would make Snow White one of the most important films in cinema history. But the film is more than just “important” – it is utterly great. All these years later, the animation still never fails to cast its spell over audiences – both adult and children – as we are drawn to the lovable Snow White, and of course all those wonderful dwarfs who are utterly unqiue creations in their own right. The film is a little dark – trusting children, the way so many movies aimed at them do not. Yes, Snow White is a landmark motion picture, but that’s not why its beloved to this day – or why it ranks so highly on this list.
3. The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey)
With The Awful Truth, Leo McCarey made what is undoubtedly the funniest film of the year, and one of the great comedies of the 1930s. Cary Grant and Irene Dunne are perfectly matched as a married couple whose divorce will be finalized in a few days – but cannot seem to let each other go. They go to tremendous lengths to ruin each other’s new relationships, before realizing that, of course, they still love each other. The Awful Truth is a perfect example of the comedy of “remarriage”, which Grant did several times in his career (His Girl Friday and The Philidelphia Story come to mind), and Grant is at his charming, hilarious best. Dunne is his equal in every way, and the supporting cast is excellent. McCarey is one of the great directors of comedy in American movie history, with so many hilarious comedies on his resume – and The Awful Truth is one of his absolute best.
2. Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir)
I know most people would rank Jean Renoir’s undisputed masterpiece as the best film of 1937 – an assessment I have no problem with, as it is one of the all time great war movies – a beautiful, emotionally powerful film that never fails to draw me in whenever I see it. The film is about two French officers being held prisoner by the Germans in WWI. Pierre Fresnay portrays a man from an upper class family, while Jean Gabin is working class. As with all of Renoir’s films of the period, this one is very concerned with class – the Grand Illusion not just being that war in Europe is futile, because their economic interests are so intertwined (which was the argument of the book that Renoir borrowed the title from), but also that the upper class would not be exempt from the horrors of war. The great director Erich von Stroheim gives a remarkable performance as the German in charge of the camp. Grand Illusion is one of the most important films in cinema history – inspiring great directors the world over. While I think The Rules of the Game is Renoir’s true masterpiece, it is impossible to argue that Grand Illusion isn’t also deserving of that label.
1. Make Way for Tomorrow (Leo McCarey)
Leo McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow was a critical hit in 1937, but a box office failure. Among its many devoted followers at the time were Orson Welles (who said “It could make a stone cry”), Jean Renoir and Yashijiro Ozu, who would be inspired by this film to make his masterpiece – Tokyo Story. But the film pretty much disappeared for years, never getting a home video release until earlier this year, when Criterion released it and allowed this generation to see one of the great films of the 1930s. The story is about two aging parents – Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi – who are about to lose their house after years living there and raising their five kids – now all grown with families of their own. With nowhere to go, and the none of their five children willing to take both of them in, they are split up and live hundreds of miles apart. The amazing thing about the movie is how well observed it is. Fay Bainter gives an excellent performance as their daughter in law, stuck with Bondi and becomes increasingly annoyed by her – and we can understand why she is. But in the final act, when the old couple is reunited for one final day together before Moore has to go to California to live with the daughter we never see, they share a wonderful day together – and find strangers the opposite of their children – kind and thoughtful. The finale is one of the best in cinema history, and as Welles said, it really could make a stone cry. McCarey, best known for his comedies, has made one of the all time great tear jerkers here – and did it without being overly manipulative. A masterpiece in every sense of the word.
Just Missed the Top 10: The Life of Emile Zola (William Dieterle), The Good Earth (Sidney Franklin), Black Legion (Archie Mayo), Captains Courgeous (Victor Flemming)
Notable Films Not Seen: Angel (Ernst Lubitsch), Dead End (William Wyler), In Old Chicago (Henry King), Lost Horizon (Frank Capra), One Hundred Men and a Girl (Henry Koster), A Star is Born (William A. Wellman).
Oscar Winner – Best Picture: The Life of Emile Zola.
William Dieterle’s The Life of Emile Zola set a precedent that the Academy Awards continue to honor to this day – historical biopics win Oscars. This film, starring Paul Muni as the famed French author, is a fine, by the numbers example of the genre, with nothing being too great, but nothing being bad either – and a fine performance by Muni. I do find it odd that a biopic about a writer mainly focuses on a court case he was involved in, but I guess writing isn’t cinematic enough. Not a great film, but a good one.
Oscar Winner – Best Director: Leo McCarey, The Awful Truth
When McCarey won this Oscar, he apparently said “You gave to me for the wrong film”, which lets you know how much he loved his other movie from that year – Make Way for Tomorrow. Out of the nominees however, McCarey was clearly the best, and I do love how the Academy gave it to a comedy movie, so no complaints about this one.
Oscar Winner – Best Actor: Spencer Tracy, Captains Courgeous.
Out of the two performances that Tracey won his Oscars for (the other being Boys Town), this is far and away the better performance. Playing a veteran Portgeuse fisherman who takes a spoiled brat under his wing, Tracy is charming, funny and touching. The film is a little too by the numbers for my taste, but it is still quite good, and Tracey is good in it. I would have preferred Cary Grant for The Awful Truth, but the Academy never did get Grant.
Oscar Winner – Best Actress: Luise Rainer, The Good Earth
Rainer won her second straight Oscar for her performance in this movie about pesant Chinese farmers. She is quite good in the film, which is also fine once you get past the racism involved in casting the white Rainer and Paul Muni in the lead roles as Chinese people – complete with “Yellow Face”, although since the film itself is in black and white, it isn’t as noticeable. Wouldn’t have been my choice (that would Bondi for Make Way for Tomorrow, or Dunne if we limit ourselves to the nominees), but a okay choice.
Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actor: Joseph Schlidkraut, The Life of Emile Zola
In only the second year this award was given out, Schlidkraut won this award for his portrayal of the prisoner that Zola tries to free. It is a small role – his wife factors i
nto the film a whole lot more – and in my mind slightly marred by his thick accent. He’s okay in the role, but an Oscar? No.
Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actress: Alice Brady, In Old Chicago
I have yet to see In Old Chicago, which is about the Chicago fire, where Alice Brady plays the woman who owned the cow who kicked over the lamp that started the fire, so I cannot comment on whether or not this award was warranted. What I will say is that Fay Bainter was robbed of a nomination for Make Way for Tomorrow, and I do love Dame May Whitty in her nominated turn in Night Must Fall.
10. You Only Live Once (Fritz Lang)
Very loosely based on the Bonnie & Clyde story, You Only Live Once stars Henry Fonda as a three time loser, out of prison and trying to rebuild his life with his new wife Sylvia Sidney. He gets a job, but loses it rather quickly, because the boss doesn’t trust an ex-con. Struggling to find another job, he contemplates going back to a life of crime. When an armored car robbery goes wrong, and 7 people die, Fonda is arrested, tried and sentenced to death for it, even though he proclaims his innocence. On the day he is supposed to die, he escapes and he and Sidney go on the run. Sidney was rather annoying in the film – crying a lot – which mars an otherwise excellent film with a great performance by Fonda, and stylish direction by Lang (the escape sequence, shrouded in fog, is particularly great). I don’t know if I agree with the film’s point of view – in fact I know I don’t – but this is an excellent little crime film nonetheless.9. The Edge of the World (Michael Powell)
Before Powell teamed up with his partner, Emeric Pressburger, and would make any number of masterpieces, he made this – his first great film – in 1937. The story takes place on a island off the coast of Scotland, which is gradually seeing its population dwindle as more and more young men leave the island for steady work on the mainland, or on any of the ships that fish in the area. The residents try to hold onto their community, but it really is of no use – modern times have encroached upon them, and they just cannot compete. The film is a beautiful made film, with striking vistas shot by Powell in an area that would draw him in again and again in his career (think of I Know Where I’m Going!). While this is the masterwork that some of Powell’s films are, it is a fascinating movie.8. Young and Innocent (Alfred Hitchcock)
Young and Innocent is one of the most delightful films in Hitchcock’s British period. It isn’t the masterwork that his films like The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes or Sabotage from that time were, but it is an expertly crafted little thriller, with comedic overtones. The film is a spin on Hitchcock’s favorite subject – the innocent man wrongly accused of a crime he didn’t commit. This time, Derrick De Marney fills that role, and he goes on the run with Nova Pilbeam when is charged with a murder he didn’t commit. The film is lightweight compared to Hitchcock’s masterpieces, but still expertly filmed (the sequence in the nightclub, when the true murderer is revealed is masterfully shot by Hitchcock), and the chemistry between the two leads is wonderful. No, Young and Innocent is not a Hitchcock masterpiece – but it is extremely entertaining.7. Night Must Fall (Richard Thorpe)
Richard Thorpe’s Night Must Fall is a suspenseful little film about a young man (Robert Montgomery in an excellent performance) who becomes an employee and surrogate son to an rich, aging woman (Dame May Whitty) immediately following a murder that no one except Whitty’s niece (Rosalind Russell) suspects Montgomery for. Russell’s feelings become even more confused when she is inexplicably drawn to Montgomery – the kind of dangerous young man who is the antithesis of the upright lawyer who is pursuing her. The main reason to watch the film is the acting – the three leads all give excellent performances, and the slow burn of the plot that has you going back and forth on Montgomery’s guilt. Yes, the movie does show its stage roots at times, and I doubt that the psychology of a serial killer on display in this movie bares any resemblance to reality (oh, what they would say on Criminal Minds!), but this is a supremely entertaining little movie.6. A Day at the Races (Sam Wood)
Just thinking about the Marx brothers is enough to make me laugh. A Day at the Races is one of their best films, an hilarious movie that takes place at the race track where Groucho plays Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush (god, I love the names they come up with), a Vet posing as a real doctor at a mental hospital. As with all of the Brothers movies, the plot is a thin excuse to hang jokes off of, and this one has a number of wonderful comic set pieces – the most famous of which is probably the Tutti Frutti Ice Cream scam. Free from the dead weight that was Zeppo (sorry buddy, but you have nothing on the other three), A Day at the Races is just out and out hilarious comedy at its finest.5. Pepe Le Moko (Julien Duvivier)
Pepe Le Moko, directed by Julien Duvivier and starring the great Jean Gabin, is one of the key films that inspired the film noir movement in America in the 1940s. Gabin plays the infamous title character, a gangster trying to avoid capture by the police by hiding in the casbah of the city of Algiers – which is so jammed packed with people in the small streets, that most police don’t know their way around. The film combines elements of gritty realism in its plot, with the occasional cinematic flourish, which raises the entire stylistic intrigue of the film. The film is fast paced and exciting from beginning to end – one of the great French films of the 1930s.4. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (David Hand)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a landmark motion picture in so many ways. It was the first feature length cel animated film in history, the first feature length animated film made in America, the first film to be entirely in color and the first feature of Walt Disney’s career. All that alone would make Snow White one of the most important films in cinema history. But the film is more than just “important” – it is utterly great. All these years later, the animation still never fails to cast its spell over audiences – both adult and children – as we are drawn to the lovable Snow White, and of course all those wonderful dwarfs who are utterly unqiue creations in their own right. The film is a little dark – trusting children, the way so many movies aimed at them do not. Yes, Snow White is a landmark motion picture, but that’s not why its beloved to this day – or why it ranks so highly on this list.3. The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey)
With The Awful Truth, Leo McCarey made what is undoubtedly the funniest film of the year, and one of the great comedies of the 1930s. Cary Grant and Irene Dunne are perfectly matched as a married couple whose divorce will be finalized in a few days – but cannot seem to let each other go. They go to tremendous lengths to ruin each other’s new relationships, before realizing that, of course, they still love each other. The Awful Truth is a perfect example of the comedy of “remarriage”, which Grant did several times in his career (His Girl Friday and The Philidelphia Story come to mind), and Grant is at his charming, hilarious best. Dunne is his equal in every way, and the supporting cast is excellent. McCarey is one of the great directors of comedy in American movie history, with so many hilarious comedies on his resume – and The Awful Truth is one of his absolute best.2. Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir)
I know most people would rank Jean Renoir’s undisputed masterpiece as the best film of 1937 – an assessment I have no problem with, as it is one of the all time great war movies – a beautiful, emotionally powerful film that never fails to draw me in whenever I see it. The film is about two French officers being held prisoner by the Germans in WWI. Pierre Fresnay portrays a man from an upper class family, while Jean Gabin is working class. As with all of Renoir’s films of the period, this one is very concerned with class – the Grand Illusion not just being that war in Europe is futile, because their economic interests are so intertwined (which was the argument of the book that Renoir borrowed the title from), but also that the upper class would not be exempt from the horrors of war. The great director Erich von Stroheim gives a remarkable performance as the German in charge of the camp. Grand Illusion is one of the most important films in cinema history – inspiring great directors the world over. While I think The Rules of the Game is Renoir’s true masterpiece, it is impossible to argue that Grand Illusion isn’t also deserving of that label.1. Make Way for Tomorrow (Leo McCarey)
Leo McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow was a critical hit in 1937, but a box office failure. Among its many devoted followers at the time were Orson Welles (who said “It could make a stone cry”), Jean Renoir and Yashijiro Ozu, who would be inspired by this film to make his masterpiece – Tokyo Story. But the film pretty much disappeared for years, never getting a home video release until earlier this year, when Criterion released it and allowed this generation to see one of the great films of the 1930s. The story is about two aging parents – Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi – who are about to lose their house after years living there and raising their five kids – now all grown with families of their own. With nowhere to go, and the none of their five children willing to take both of them in, they are split up and live hundreds of miles apart. The amazing thing about the movie is how well observed it is. Fay Bainter gives an excellent performance as their daughter in law, stuck with Bondi and becomes increasingly annoyed by her – and we can understand why she is. But in the final act, when the old couple is reunited for one final day together before Moore has to go to California to live with the daughter we never see, they share a wonderful day together – and find strangers the opposite of their children – kind and thoughtful. The finale is one of the best in cinema history, and as Welles said, it really could make a stone cry. McCarey, best known for his comedies, has made one of the all time great tear jerkers here – and did it without being overly manipulative. A masterpiece in every sense of the word.Just Missed the Top 10: The Life of Emile Zola (William Dieterle), The Good Earth (Sidney Franklin), Black Legion (Archie Mayo), Captains Courgeous (Victor Flemming)
Notable Films Not Seen: Angel (Ernst Lubitsch), Dead End (William Wyler), In Old Chicago (Henry King), Lost Horizon (Frank Capra), One Hundred Men and a Girl (Henry Koster), A Star is Born (William A. Wellman).
Oscar Winner – Best Picture: The Life of Emile Zola.
William Dieterle’s The Life of Emile Zola set a precedent that the Academy Awards continue to honor to this day – historical biopics win Oscars. This film, starring Paul Muni as the famed French author, is a fine, by the numbers example of the genre, with nothing being too great, but nothing being bad either – and a fine performance by Muni. I do find it odd that a biopic about a writer mainly focuses on a court case he was involved in, but I guess writing isn’t cinematic enough. Not a great film, but a good one.Oscar Winner – Best Director: Leo McCarey, The Awful Truth
When McCarey won this Oscar, he apparently said “You gave to me for the wrong film”, which lets you know how much he loved his other movie from that year – Make Way for Tomorrow. Out of the nominees however, McCarey was clearly the best, and I do love how the Academy gave it to a comedy movie, so no complaints about this one.
Oscar Winner – Best Actor: Spencer Tracy, Captains Courgeous.
Out of the two performances that Tracey won his Oscars for (the other being Boys Town), this is far and away the better performance. Playing a veteran Portgeuse fisherman who takes a spoiled brat under his wing, Tracy is charming, funny and touching. The film is a little too by the numbers for my taste, but it is still quite good, and Tracey is good in it. I would have preferred Cary Grant for The Awful Truth, but the Academy never did get Grant.
Oscar Winner – Best Actress: Luise Rainer, The Good Earth
Rainer won her second straight Oscar for her performance in this movie about pesant Chinese farmers. She is quite good in the film, which is also fine once you get past the racism involved in casting the white Rainer and Paul Muni in the lead roles as Chinese people – complete with “Yellow Face”, although since the film itself is in black and white, it isn’t as noticeable. Wouldn’t have been my choice (that would Bondi for Make Way for Tomorrow, or Dunne if we limit ourselves to the nominees), but a okay choice.Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actor: Joseph Schlidkraut, The Life of Emile Zola
In only the second year this award was given out, Schlidkraut won this award for his portrayal of the prisoner that Zola tries to free. It is a small role – his wife factors i
nto the film a whole lot more – and in my mind slightly marred by his thick accent. He’s okay in the role, but an Oscar? No.Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actress: Alice Brady, In Old Chicago
I have yet to see In Old Chicago, which is about the Chicago fire, where Alice Brady plays the woman who owned the cow who kicked over the lamp that started the fire, so I cannot comment on whether or not this award was warranted. What I will say is that Fay Bainter was robbed of a nomination for Make Way for Tomorrow, and I do love Dame May Whitty in her nominated turn in Night Must Fall.
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