Cimarron the 4th movie to win best picture and the first western to win. The movie follows a family during the turn of the 20 century as Oklahoma goes from Indian territory to statehood. It starts with a great land rush scene and how Yancey Cravat an adventurer moves his wife and son to a small town and starts a little local newspaper. We get to see the town grow into a big city and how people change.
The first time I saw this movie a while back I thought it was the worst movie to win best picture. Now after watching it a second time I still think its one of the worst movies to win. I hate to say it was good for its time because it wasn't. All Quiet on the Western Front won the year before was a great movie, and Charlie Chaplin's movie City Lights (which is on The American Film Institutes Top 100 movies of all time) and Fritz Lang's movie M (although its in German is a great movie and ranks on IMDB list of top 250 movies) both came out the same year as Cimarron. Neither of those two movies were nominated for best picture proving that the academy except in a few cases was never very good at nominating movies that will go on to be classics.
So what made Cimarron so bad. It was just boring. After the initial land rush scene which was the most exciting part of the movie it was all downhill from there. Typical with other early 30's movies there was no background music. I read somewhere that directors felt it would confuse the audience if there was background music and they didn't know where it was coming from. Also the acting was a little over the top, and the story kind of meanders. The biggest problem I had with the movie was the racial stereotypes. Maybe I am a product of the age of political correctness but it seems like this movie set out to offend everyone, Blacks, Indians, Jews, and people with disabilities. I know that at the time these things weren't considered but it made it a little difficult to watch for me. I find it interesting that the Disney movie Song of the South has never been released on DVD in the United States because of the racial stereotypes but no one seems to have a problem with this movie and I think the racial stereotypes in this movie were much worse.
The one scene that was very odd to me was the Gospel meeting they had during the early creation of the town. During this gospel meeting they ask Yancey to give a little sermon even though he is not a minister. So during the sermon he is talking about some outlaws then he pulls out his gun and shots the outlaw that is there. Then he says "Fellow citizens! Under the circumstances, we will fore go the sermon and conclude this service with a brief word of prayer". Guess after killing someone the only thing left to do is pray. Very odd.
Some other options from 1931 if you are looking for a good movie
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
War Movies
After watching All Quiet on the Western Front I began thinking that there isn't that many movies about WWI. Then it got me thinking about other wars. The war with the most movies based on it is WWII, which it probably should be as there are many different stories to be told about that war. But what about other wars. Each war has their own stories.
Take for instance The Revolutionary War. Lots of good stories from that war and the only movies I can think of that are about it are 1776, The Patriot and a movie on the History Channel about Washington's crossing of the Delaware. The website ranker.com lists only 13 movies about the revolutionary war. I guess after living in Boston and being around all that history it surprises me that there aren't more movies based on it.
Then I did a search on IMDB for movies about the War of 1812(ranker.com had nothing listed for the war of 1812). That came up with only 3 movies, and one of them is a remake of the first one. Really only 2 stories to tell from the War of 1812? The war where the British burned down half of Washington DC, where Andrew Jackson fought the Battle of New Orleans, and the war that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star Spangled Banner. And the only 2 stories we can tell from that war are 2 versions about the pirate who helped Andrew Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans and the other movie takes place during the war but has nothing to do with the war. No wonder when the History Channel did a special on the War of 1812 they called it the forgotten war.
Maybe I just watch too much History Channel, but it just surprises me how much certain history gets overlooked. I recently saw a special on the History Channel about Andrew Jackson, and wow, there is a president that we should make a movie about. Really fascinating guy. And instead we had Oliver Stone make a movie about George W. Bush. I know Steven Spielberg is making a movie about Lincoln with Liam Neeson which will hopefully be good since there aren't that many Civil War movies either. Guess all I am saying is it would be nice to see movies from different parts of history instead of just focusing on the same time period over and over.
According to Ranker.com here are the number of movies made about each war. Some of the movies on the lists are made for TV and some I never heard of. And of course they aren't necessarily good movies that list would be much shorter. But they give a general idea about how many movies were made based on these wars.
WWII-207
Vietnam War-76
WWI-54
The Civil War-28(this number surprised me I actually thought there would be more)
Iraq War-19
Revolutionary War-13
Gulf War Movies-8
War of 1812-0 (3 according to IMDB)
Korean War-0 (38 according to IMDB but the only one I could think of was M.A.S.H.)
Take for instance The Revolutionary War. Lots of good stories from that war and the only movies I can think of that are about it are 1776, The Patriot and a movie on the History Channel about Washington's crossing of the Delaware. The website ranker.com lists only 13 movies about the revolutionary war. I guess after living in Boston and being around all that history it surprises me that there aren't more movies based on it.
Then I did a search on IMDB for movies about the War of 1812(ranker.com had nothing listed for the war of 1812). That came up with only 3 movies, and one of them is a remake of the first one. Really only 2 stories to tell from the War of 1812? The war where the British burned down half of Washington DC, where Andrew Jackson fought the Battle of New Orleans, and the war that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star Spangled Banner. And the only 2 stories we can tell from that war are 2 versions about the pirate who helped Andrew Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans and the other movie takes place during the war but has nothing to do with the war. No wonder when the History Channel did a special on the War of 1812 they called it the forgotten war.
Maybe I just watch too much History Channel, but it just surprises me how much certain history gets overlooked. I recently saw a special on the History Channel about Andrew Jackson, and wow, there is a president that we should make a movie about. Really fascinating guy. And instead we had Oliver Stone make a movie about George W. Bush. I know Steven Spielberg is making a movie about Lincoln with Liam Neeson which will hopefully be good since there aren't that many Civil War movies either. Guess all I am saying is it would be nice to see movies from different parts of history instead of just focusing on the same time period over and over.
According to Ranker.com here are the number of movies made about each war. Some of the movies on the lists are made for TV and some I never heard of. And of course they aren't necessarily good movies that list would be much shorter. But they give a general idea about how many movies were made based on these wars.
WWII-207
Vietnam War-76
WWI-54
The Civil War-28(this number surprised me I actually thought there would be more)
Iraq War-19
Revolutionary War-13
Gulf War Movies-8
War of 1812-0 (3 according to IMDB)
Korean War-0 (38 according to IMDB but the only one I could think of was M.A.S.H.)
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front won best picture in 1931 at the 3rd Academy Awards. Not a lot of best picture winners go down in history as a classic but this one does. It is one of the best war movies of all time. It has a very anti-war message and shows the horrors of trench warfare during WWI. It follows the life of a soldier from when he firsts enlists to his death. In the beginning he is very gung-ho. Excited to go and fight for his father land. But once he gets there he soon realizes that war is hell. He watches as most of his friends die and has to deal with the mental anguish of having to kill a man with his knife.
The movie is pretty graphic for its time. It was made before the production code was strictly enforced and the director and the studio wanted it to be an accurate portrayal of war. While not bloody you do see some guy get blown up and see his hands still holding on to some barbed wire.
The sound was pretty amazing also. While there was no background score the sounds of the bombs and machine guns felt realistic. Even scared my dog a little and I have watched other war movies with her before without a problem.
Its the movies place in history that I find interesting. First of all its one of the few movies about WWI. Most war movies take place during WWII or after. This is one of those rare war movies made between the two world wars. The social response to the movie was interesting too. In Germany it was banned by the Nazi's because of its anti-war message and in the United States it was protested because it portrayed the German enemy as sympathetic. The best thing about the movie is it still feels relevant. Even after 70 years it still gets it message through. It truly is a classic.
For those of would rather read the book.
The movie is pretty graphic for its time. It was made before the production code was strictly enforced and the director and the studio wanted it to be an accurate portrayal of war. While not bloody you do see some guy get blown up and see his hands still holding on to some barbed wire.
The sound was pretty amazing also. While there was no background score the sounds of the bombs and machine guns felt realistic. Even scared my dog a little and I have watched other war movies with her before without a problem.
Its the movies place in history that I find interesting. First of all its one of the few movies about WWI. Most war movies take place during WWII or after. This is one of those rare war movies made between the two world wars. The social response to the movie was interesting too. In Germany it was banned by the Nazi's because of its anti-war message and in the United States it was protested because it portrayed the German enemy as sympathetic. The best thing about the movie is it still feels relevant. Even after 70 years it still gets it message through. It truly is a classic.
For those of would rather read the book.
Friday, April 2, 2010
The Broadway Melody of 1929
The Broadway Melody won Best Picture in 1930. Saw it advertised as the first musical to win best picture. Which is true but is also only the second movie ever to win best picture and the first movie with sound to win best picture. If you have seen Singing in the Rain(which is a fictionalized behind the scenes of The Broadway Melody) then you have seen some of the difficulties of integrating sound into movies. Directors weren't sure how to film a movie with sound. There are still a lot of parts with no sound and they still used title cards to start certain scenes. Other interesting fact about the movie was that it was the first movie to win Best Picture without winning any other awards.
The movie itself isn't too bad. Its about two sisters who move to NY from the country and try to make it big on Broadway. Hannah is the smart business savvy sister who is dating some guy from the city and Queenie is the pretty blond who gets by on her looks. When Hannah's boyfriend gets them an audition with Mr. Zanfield(an obviously take on Broadway legend Ziegfeld) he puts Queenie at the star and Hannah gets cut from the show. Of course this causes some friction between the two sisters and things get more complicated when Hannah's boyfriend falls in love with Queenie. Fairly standard plot I guess even for that time as I read that critics at the time found it kind of cliche. The real draw of the movie and one of the reasons it probably one best picture was because as the tag line said it was "all talking, all singing, all dancing". I found the musical sequences a little lackluster probably because I am use to watching more modern movies but guess it was good for its time. Overall not the worst movie I have ever seen and while I haven't seen any of the other movies nominated for best picture in 1930 I read that this really was the best one.
The movie itself isn't too bad. Its about two sisters who move to NY from the country and try to make it big on Broadway. Hannah is the smart business savvy sister who is dating some guy from the city and Queenie is the pretty blond who gets by on her looks. When Hannah's boyfriend gets them an audition with Mr. Zanfield(an obviously take on Broadway legend Ziegfeld) he puts Queenie at the star and Hannah gets cut from the show. Of course this causes some friction between the two sisters and things get more complicated when Hannah's boyfriend falls in love with Queenie. Fairly standard plot I guess even for that time as I read that critics at the time found it kind of cliche. The real draw of the movie and one of the reasons it probably one best picture was because as the tag line said it was "all talking, all singing, all dancing". I found the musical sequences a little lackluster probably because I am use to watching more modern movies but guess it was good for its time. Overall not the worst movie I have ever seen and while I haven't seen any of the other movies nominated for best picture in 1930 I read that this really was the best one.
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