Listomania Sunday: Best Picture Winners Since 1970

Well my blog is coming to an end.  So here are my favorite Best Picture Winners since 1970. Why since 1970 because that was the halfway point in my quest.  If you want to see the list for the first that list is here.  Listomania Sunday: Oscars

1.  Silence of the Lambs- One of only the few movies to win all 5 top Oscars and one of the only thrillers to win Best Picture. Doesn't get much better then Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter.
2.  Schidnlers List - One of the most moving and inspiring films of the last 30 years. Spielberg at his best. 
3.  The Godfather- A true masterpiece. 
4.  The Hurt Locker- Even though it is a recent movie I think it deserves to be on this list. Very well done with high intensity all the way through. 
5.  American Beauty- One of my favorite movies in one of my favorite years. 1999 was a great year for movies and while most critics and my dad hate this movie I still find something about it very good.

The Kings Speech

I can't believe I made it. The final movie in my Best Picture quest. There were so many times I thought about just giving up on it but I made it through. My wife will be happy now since she thought this was a waste of my time.

For the second year in a row there were 10 nominees for Best Picture and 2010 was a good year. And for the first time (and probably the last time) I managed to see all the movies nominated for Best Picture before the nominations were announced. Coming into Oscar night there were two movies battling it out for the top spot. The Social Network and The King's Speech. The Social Network won almost every critic award but when the award season really kicked in The King's Speech started winning all the awards so it was anyone's guess who would win the top prize. But The King's Speech ended up winning.

The Kings Speech is about King George VI or Bertie (Colin Firth) as he was known to his friends before he became king. Bertie who always had a stutter is thrust in the spotlight as radio became more popular in the 30's and monarchs needed to make speeches that went out to a larger population. Being embarrassed by a speech he had given and numerous failures with speech therapist he wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) seeks out the help of the unconventional doctor Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). As Logue challenges everything Bertie has heard from previous doctors Bertie becomes disillusioned and things Logue is just a hack. At the same time Bertie's older brother who is next in line to become king is fooling around with a number of married women and is told he must stop before he becomes king. But after their father dies and he is crowned King he refuses to change and is forced to renounce the throne. This makes Bertie next in line to become King and he turns to Logue to help him. As he works with Logue he learns tricks to help him and when WWII starts and he needs to make a big radio address about the war Logue is by his side helping him.

The movie is funny, inspirational, and uplifting which is a change of pace from the dark gritty films that had won in the oughts. It had great performances especially Geoffrey Rush. He brought so much personality to his character and really gave the movie the comedy to balance the drama. Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter were both great in their roles also. While it was a good movie it was very formulaic and felt like a typical Oscar movie. I also felt one of the more interesting parts of the story was rushed and that was the story of Renouncement of the throne. It was the first time a King of England gave up his throne. And after when Bertie becomes King he even says that this is the first time a King has taken a throne while the previous King is alive and well.

I would have liked to see the more modern tale of The Social Network win or even better the twisted Inception win. The Social Network told the true story of Mark Zuckerberg and his rise to power after he started Facebook. The movie written by Aaron Sorkin with his typical rapid fire dialogue (he deservingly won Best Adapted Screenplay) and with a main character that was both sympathetic and ruthless. I felt the complicated characters that made this movie more interesting instead of the cookie cutter characters from The King's Speech . An even more bold choice for Best Picture would have been Inception which was written and directed by Christopher Nolan and told the story about a group of people who try to implant a thought into someone's head while they are asleep. The movie is also well acted and very original. But I think most Academy voters just didn't get it and only ended up winning 4 technical awards. And its loss to the King's Speech for Best Original Screenplay was a big snub in my opinion. I feel it should have went to the movie that really was original and creative.

The biggest snub in my opinion was the omission of Waiting for Super from the Best Documentary nominees. It was about the education system in America and how it needs to be improved. It was a great documentary and won a bunch of awards prior to the Academy Awards but was not even nominated. It has been speculated that its portrayal of Unions as bad made it hard for the members of the Academy (most who are members of one union or another) to vote for it. The other movie that I thought should have been nominated was Blue Valentine. Which featured great performances by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams (she did get a Best Actress Nomination) as a married couple who are trying to save their marriage. The movie is sad and depressing but really has an emotional impact. Also Subbed was Mila Kunis as Best Supporting Actress for Black Swan. As rival to Best Actress Winner Natalie Portman she was a great villain and was one of the standout performances of the year.

Current Ranks on IMDB Top 250 for Best Picture nominated Films
Inception- #12
Toy Story 3- #29
The Black Swan-#123
The King's Speech-127
The Social Network-#236

The Hurt Locker

The little movie that could. The Hurt Locker went up against the highest grossing movie of all time and came out the victor. After a lot of criticism in 2008 for movies that get left off the Best Picture nominations (specifically The Dark Knight) the Academy decided to increase the number of Best Picture nominations to 10 in 2009. And it did what I think the Academy intended it to do, get a mix of small independent films with large blockbusters. Movies that would not otherwise be nominated like the sci-fi flick District 9, the animated movie Up, and the sports drama The Blind Side got a chance at glory. But the big showdown was between Avatar the highest grossing movie of all time vs. The Hurt Locker a small independent film and two directors that used to be married Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron, with the Hurt Locker and Kathryn Bigelow coming out on top.

The Hurt Locker is about an elite bomb squad in Iraq. When a new leader SFC William James (Jeremy Renner) joins Bravo Company his leadership style causes conflict with his two subordinates, Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Eldridge (Brian Geraghty). His aggressive style goes against what they have been used too. Every call poses new problems and new bombs and they must try to figure out a way to work together to live. Meanwhile Eldridge is dealing with guilt for the death of their former leader.

 What makes this movie work is the intensity. Each bomb they are called out to defuse brings a new heightened sense of anxiety. The acting is great. Jeremy Renner is just pitch perfect as James. He is all gung ho without concern for his own safety and sometimes the safety of others. What I love about this movie besides all the suspense is that it feels real. Every character is believable. Each has their own psychiatric issues and they all feel multidimensional. The movie is very minimalist having very little score and no opening titles. It proves that you don't need a big budget to make a great movie.

On the flip side of that is Avatar, which proves that if you have a big budget doesn't mean you will have a great movie. I was surprised after the awards were announced how many people just assumed that Avatar would win. While Avatar did have some amazing special effects and great visuals the story was kind of bland. While the characters in The Hurt Locker felt well rounded in Avatar they felt very one dimensional (ironic since the movie was filmed in 3-D). It bothered me that everyone would assume that it would win without ever seeing The Hurt Locker.

 I was pleasantly surprised to see District 9 nominated for Best Picture as it was one of the most original Sci-Fi movies I had seen in a while. I am also glad Precious got nominated for Best Picture I just wish it would have received more attention as it was a dark, disturbing but incredibly well acted movie. With all the attention Kathryn Bigelow received about being the first women to win Best Director there was hardly any mention that Lee Daniels was only the second black man to be nominated. Not surprisingly The Hangover one of the funniest movies of the year didn't get nominated. The biggest snub in my opinion was The Lovely Bones which was one of my favorite movies of the year and deserved more nominations.

Oscar Trivia:

With her nomination for Best Actress for Julie and Julia Meryl Streep broke the record with 13 nominations for a leading role and a total of 16 nominations total.

Avatar and Up became the first 3-D movies to be nominated for Best Picture

On a personal note this is the first movie to win Best Picture since I started my Best Picture quest. Here is the link to my original review The Hurt Locker

Listomania Sunday: Best Nanny Movies

Well our Nanny starts this week and got me thinking about the Best Movies with a nanny in it.  Here is my list.

1.  Mary Poppins- Nothing else could be on top. Only the coolest nanny imaginable.  Not only does she have a magic bag but she sings too. 

2.  Mrs. Doubtfire- Well if you can’t have a magic bag you might as well have one of the funniest nannies. 

3.  The Hand that Rocks the Cradle-  Well if you are looking for your evil nanny this is the movie for you. Rebecca De Mornay give a chilling performance as a crazy nanny. 

4.  Adventures in Babysitting-While technically not a nanny movie it is one of the best babysitting movies. Although I wouldn’t want her to take my kid on that kind of adventure but when I was a kid it seemed like a lot of fun.

5.  The Pacifier- This also might be pushing what can be considered a nanny movie but for some reason Vin Diesel as a nanny was just fun to watch. 

The biggest debate I had with myself while making this list was about Arthur.  IMDB has the remake of Arthur listed as a Nanny movie but not the original.  Which got me thinking while technically Hobson in the original was a butler and not a nanny he definitely performed a lot of the same duties.  So if you consider Arthur a nanny movie that would definitely be high on the list. The original not the remake which I haven’t seen but looks really bad.    

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Slumdog Millionaire

Looking at the 2008 Best Picture nominations you would guess that there were not many good movies that year.  There was no movies that I absolutely loved out of the five nominated. I think Slumdog Millionaire was the best out of the nominated movies but Milk was also a very good movie. 

Slumdog Millionaire is about a lower class kid Jamal (Dev Patel) from the slums of India who goes on a “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”  and is doing really well so the authorities think he is cheating.  During the interrogation he explains how he has come to know the answers to some of the questions.  The movie flashes back and forth between the game show, the interrogation, and his past.  His past is filled with violence and after his mother is killed he runs away with his brother Salim where they meet an orphaned girl Latika.  The three become very close and Jamal develops a crush on Latika.  After being taken in by a group of thieves they are forced to beg on the streets for money.  When Jamal and Salim are able to escape Latika doesn’t make it and is forced to stay behind.  As the years pass Jamal doesn’t forget about Latika and when he is older he sets out to find her again.  When they try to rescue her from the gang that has her Salim shoots and kills the boss.  Then Salim joins a rival gang and wants Latika as his own and kicks Jamal out.  After many years of wondering what happened to the both of them Jamal finally seeks out his brother and Latika.  Thinking the only way he can get Latika back is to make money he goes on the game show hopping she is watching. 

Danny Boyle's rapid editing and great storytelling really add the intensity to a movie that is ultimately a love story about a guy on a game show.  What could have been a boring story really was exciting.  What was unexpected was the mount of violence in the movie.  Especially the beginning you think you walked into the wrong movie as they torture Jamal trying to figure out how he is cheating.  What I love about the story is how it shows random things in someone’s life can lead to a wealth of knowledge.  And the kids in the movie really do a good job. Since half the movie is flashbacks they needed to be good so the love story was believable.  This is another movie where the ensemble cast is better than individuals which is one of the reasons this became only the 11^th movie to win Best Picture without having any acting nominations although I think Dev Patel should have been nominated.  The movie won 8 Awards out of its 10 nominations including Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Editing.  It also won Best Song for Jai Ho a Bollywood dance number at the end of the movie. 

The movie that had the biggest spotlight on it going into the Oscars was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which had 13 nominations.  My least favorite David Fincher movie (Seven and Fight Club are my favorite), the big budget love story about a guy aging backwards ended up winning only 3 awards.  It was the smallest number of awards won by any movie that had that many nominations. 

The biggest story that year was not about what movies were nominated for Best Picture but the movies that were not nominated.  The biggest outcry came because one of the biggest movies of the year and most well reviewed movie The Dark Knight was left off the Best Picture and Best Director lists.  It did have 8 nominations in mostly technical awards but did win get Best Supporting Actor win for Heath Ledger in his last major role.  The omission of The Dark Knight was mostly viewed as snub against superhero movies but did cause the Academy to change their rules for the following year when they increased the Best Picture nominations to 10 movies.  A movie that got 5 nominations and 4 acting nominations but no Best Picture or Director nominations was Doubt.  The acting in Doubt just blew me away and the story was just captivating.  It was one of Meryl Streep’s best performances and her record 15 acting nomination and I think she should have won.  Going toe to toe with her was Phillip Seymour Hoffman who we never know if he is good or bad and when they are both in the room together you just feel like you are watching something special.  The last movie that very few people saw but everyone that did thinks it did get nominated for Best Picture was Gran Torino.  With great acting by Clint Eastwood and a story that is dark and hard to watch but very good. 

Listomania Sunday: Holiday 2011 Movie Preview

Thanksgiving is this week and this is the time of year when the movie studios release their big budget family movies and their small budget Oscar Contender movies. Here are the ones I want to see.

Young Adult 12/9 - Looking to repeat the Oscar success of Juno Screenwriter Diablo Cody and Director Jason Reitman reteam for this one. About at a divorced women (Charlize Theron) who wants to hook up with her old high school boyfriend who is currently married and has a kid. I loved Juno and can't wait to see if they can duplicate the fun and quirkiness of it. With Charlize Theron in the cast it has lots of potential. Some Oscar buzz generating all ready for Cody, Reitman, Theron, and Patton Oswalt who plays the old high school outcast.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows 12/16 - With Iron Man and The Avengers it is hard to believe that Robert Downey Jr. has any time left to make another movie. A sequel to the 2009 movie this one has Holmes going up against his archenemy Professor Moriatrty. Directed again by Guy Richie I expect the same kind of fun action movie.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 12/21- The original Swedish version blew me away. It was very dark and violent. Now the American version is coming out and I am always a little skeptical but it is directed by David Fincher who directed Seven, Fight Club, and The Social Network so I have some high hopes. Probably not going to be nominated for any awards and kind of a dark subject matter for the holidays but I am looking forward to it.

We Bought a Zoo 12/23 - A feel good family movie from Cameron Crowe about the true story of a single dad who ends up buying a zoo. Crowe has made some pretty good movies like Almost Famous but has not had a good one in a while. Hoping with Matt Damon he can find his groove.

War Horse 12/25 - It is probably the most anticipated movie of the season. War Horse is Steven Spielberg's newest movie about a horse in WWI. It looks pretty emotional and could very well be his ticket back to Oscar night.

No Country for Old Men

The Best Picture nominations for 2007 were mostly dark and depressing movies. The only comedy nominated was Juno which was about a teenage pregnancy still not a real happy theme. The other movies nominated had to do with ruthless oilmen, lying siblings, and a corporate legal thriller. Then ultimate winner was No Country for Old Men by the Coen Brothers about a stealing and murder.

No Country for Old Men is dark tale about a guy (Josh Brolin) who finds money and drugs from a drug deal gone badly. After stealing the money he is hunted by a paid gunman named Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) who uses and an air gun as his weapon of choice. The sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) is trying to piece everything together.

I hadn't seen the movie since I saw it in theatres and watching it again I forgot how good this movie really was. I love that the movie keeps you guessing and you're never really sure what will happen next. Javier Bardem won Best Supporting actor for his emotionless killer Chigurh, but it was Tommy Lee Jones' sheriff that I felt was the best acting in the movie. He really grounds the movie in some reality. While everything else is going horribly wrong he is trying to do his job and keep everyone safe. The Coen brothers are known for bizarre but great movies like Fargo and The Big Lebowski. But while this movie is good the ending is really strange. I felt the ending kind of took away from how great the rest of the movie was.

Even though I love The Coen Brothers I actually felt the movie that should have won Best Picture is the equally dark and odd movie There Will Be Blood. With great performances by Daniel Day-Lewis as oil man Daniel Plainview and Paul Dano as Eli Sunday a small time preacher. There is some amazing tension between the two as we see each one manipulate others one using faith and the other using money. There are no good guys in this movie as everyone has selfish motives. This is another movie that has a strange ending but I found it more satisfying than the ending for No Country for Old Men.
The biggest upset for me was that Into the Wild wasn't nominated for more awards. I loved the movie and totally expected it to get lots of nominations. In my opinion it should have been nominated for Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Director, Best Score, and Best Song for some of Eddie Vedder most haunting songs. Hal Holbrook did get nominated for Best Supporting Actor but there should have been way more nominations. The two biggest acting snubs in my opinion were for Tommy Lee Jones and Paul Dano being left off the Best Supporting Actor list. Both are amazing in their movies.

IMDB Top 250 rankings of 2007 movies
No Country for Old Men #130
Into the Wild #148
There Will be Blood #159
The Bourne Ultimatum #183
Ratatouille #195

Listomania Sunday: Best Remakes

This past week in my Best Picture Quest I saw The Departed which was a remake of the Japanese movie Infernal Affairs so I decided this weeks list would be the Best Remakes. After spending all of October doing horror movie lists I decided that I will not include any horror movies on this list so that leaves off The Thing (1982), The Fly(1986), and Dawn of the Dead (2004).

1.  The Departed (2006)- A remake of Infernal Affairs a Japanese cop drama.  It is the best remake. It improves on almost every aspect of the original. 
2.  Oceans 11 (2001)  -Although the original wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be the remake had a star studded cast and a much happier ending.    
3.  The Italian Job (2003)- A major upgrade from the original with lots of action and some awesome car chases.
4.  The Magnificent Seven (1960) - Another remake of a Japanese film. This one a remake of The Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa. One his best and most love movies seemed blasphemous to remake it into a Western but it worked and shows that a good story works in different settings.
5.  The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)- The only one that should be allowed to remake a Hitchcock film is Hitchcock.  12 years after The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) he decided to remake it with much more money, talent, and locations.  The addition of James Stewart and Doris where major upgrades but the loss of Peter Lorre as the villain was a downgrade. 

The Departed

Martin Scorcese finally won a Best Picture and Best Director with the gritty, violent, and foul mouthed The Departed based on the Japanese film Infernal Affairs. Having lost Best Director 3 times to  actors (1980 Robert Redford, 1990 Kevin Costner, and 2004 Clint Eastwood) he finally won the rematch between him and Clint Eastwood who was nominated for Letter from Iwo Jima.

The Departed is about two cops on opposite sides of the Irish mob in South Boston.  Headed by the ruthless Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) the mob is relentlessly hunted down by the police. To get inside information Costello grooms one of his guys (Matt Damon) from an early age to become a state police office.  On the opposite side the cops send one of their agents (Leonardo DiCaprio) undercover as a mob insider.  Each side senses there is a rat in their midst but are unable to figure out who it is. After everyone is double crossed at least once will the truth ever be revealed?

Filled with shoot outs and graphic fight scenes it is one of the edgiest and the most violent films to win Best Picture.  This movie is great for many reasons including the dark twisty tale, the great performances, and intense action.  Plus for me it was cool that it took place in South Boston since I used to work there and heard lots of stories about Whitey Bulger and the Irish mob there.  The use of the Dropkick Murphys song "Shipping up to Boston" was used to maximum effect.  Winning 4 awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Editing and only one nomination for the acting a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Mark Wahlberg as the foul mouthed agent Dingham.  The biggest question is how did none of the other actors get nominated.  Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon should have been nominated for Best Actor and Jack Nicholson should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor.  All were great performances. 

In my opinion no other movie that year stood a chance to win over this masterpiece and it seemed a forgone conclusion baring any surprise upsets like the previous year.  While Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima was considered the closest competition for Best Picture (it would have been the first foreign language movie to win Best Picture if it had won) for me it was Little Miss Sunshine the quirky comedy that was a distant second.  The movie that I thought was grossly overlooked was Children of Men.  Nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay it is a great sci-fi movie that was one of the best movies of the year and should have been nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Clive Owen.  The most ridiculous nomination was Borat for Best Screenplay which was mostly ad-libbed. 

The other category that got lots of attention this year was for Best Documentary.  The controversial  Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth won.  The movie was an extended version of his power point presentation on global warming.  I found the movie to be very boring and thought Jesus Camp was a much more compelling documentary.  About a controversial religious summer camp the movie follows the kids and manages to not take sides about what is taught in the camp. 

Listomania Sunday: Best Milwaukee Movies

Well this week was my 10 year anniversary of living in Milwaukee and what better way to celebrate then have a list of the best movies that take place in Milwaukee.  At first I didn't think there would be enough but I found 5.  Here it goes. 

1.  Bridesmaids - Well glad this movie came out this year othewise I am not sure if I would have had 5 movies for this list. The funniest movie of this year and one of the funniest in a long time. 
2.  American Movie - Before I moved out to Milwaukee someone I knew that had lived here told me that I had to watch this movie before moving here. A documentary about one of the craziest Milwaukee Filmakers. 
3.  Dahmer -A movie about Milwaukee's notorius serial killer. Starring two time Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner.
4.  Dawn of the Dead - Has nothing to do with Milwaukee except that is where they decided to place the fictional mall. 
5.  Mr. 3000 - While the movie may not be that great I got to be in Miller Park as an extra while they were filming it so somewhere I am in the movie clapping away. 

Crash

2005 had one of the biggest upsets in Oscar history and one of the most hated movies by critics to win recently.  For some reason critics hated Crash and it was even a surprise nominee since it had won very few critic awards before the Oscars and wasn’t even nominated for a Golden Globe (only the Sting in 1973 won Best Picture without being nominated for a Golden Globe).

Crash is an ensemble movie about racial issues. It follows a diverse group (a racist cop, a Latino who people stereotype as a gang member, to a middle class white couple who are carjacked by two black guys, and a Muslim who is trying to protect his store) on an average day in Los Angeles. We see how everyone’s actions helps create racial stereotypes and tension as they all cross paths.

I loved this movie despite what all the critics seemed to think about it. There was an amazing and diverse cast. I think Sandra Bullock gave one of her best performances in this movie and she should have got a Best Supporting Actress. One of the few awards it did win before the Oscars was the SAG award for best ensemble cast. I think it was very fitting for this movie since there was not one main actor or actress but each person was a supporting player. While it was not subtle on its agenda (which is why I think a lot of critics did not like it) I found it very thought provoking and touched on some very difficult subjects. It ended up winning only 3 awards (Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Editing) which is one of the lowest for a movie that won Best Picture.

The movie that had the most buzz going into the Oscars that year was Brokeback Mountain about two cowboys that fall in love and have to hide it from everyone. Another movie with some great performances especially by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal . The movie was an unconventional love story and marked the first time a story about homosexuals got such high praise. The movie won almost all the pre-Oscar awards including The Writer’s Guild, Directors Guild, and Producer’s Guild and was the first time that a movie had won all three but lost Best Picture. It did win Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Score. My problem with the movie is not that it is about gay cowboys but that it is a love story. I found the movie very boring and I am just not a fan of real dramatic love stories.

There are many theories on how Crash beat Brokeback Mountain and none of the theories has to do with the fact that Crash is a better movie as I believe it is. Of course the main theory is that a lot of the older members of the Academy are homophobic and wouldn’t vote for a movie about gay lovers. This point has been made over and over and now it seems like anyone that says they didn’t like it means they must be homophobic. Another theory why Crash won was the amount of money that Lionsgate put into promoting the film. The spend $4 million promoting a film that cost $6 million to make. But it was a movie that came out over the summer and very few people saw so they promoted it a lot. My theory on it is this. I think that the largest voting bloc in the Academy are actors and this was a movie that actors loved (as evidence by its win at the SAG Awards). While directors get to vote for Best Director and Screenwriters get to vote for best Screenwriting everyone votes for Best Picture. With the amazing and diverse acting in Crash I think it won over the actors and actresses more than critics or other people. But there is no telling what happened but it was a major upset and a lot of critics are still pissed, but you don’t hear any outrage over Shakespeare in Love beating Saving Private Ryan which I think is more egregious.

While there was a lot of press over these two movies there were actually other movies that came out that year. George Clooney had a big year. He was nominated for producing, directing and writing Good Night, and Good Luck (the last full black and white movie to be nominated for Best Picture) about Edward R. Murrow and for Best Supporting Actor in Syriana. With a total of 4 nominations for two separate movies his only win was for Syriana. Another one of my favorite films of the year was Memoirs of a Geisha which got 6 nominations but none for any major categories it should have at least won for John Williams Score. Walk the Line about the life of Johnny Cash was another good movie with some great performances by Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix both earning nominations and Witherspoon winning for Best Actress.

Other movies that got no love from the Academy was The Chronicles of Narinia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and The 40 Year Old Virgin (my two favorite movies of the year).

The other big surprise win at the Oscars that year was for Best Song which went to “It’s Hard out there for a Pimp” from Hustle and Flow beating out favorite Dolly Parton for “Travelin’ Thru” From Transamerica.

Million Dollar Baby

This was a pretty tight year for the Oscar race and there was no real front runners.  The Aviator was one of the bigger movies and had the most nominations with 11.  Three of the 5 nominated movies were biopics The Aviator was about Howard Hughes, Ray was about Ray Charles, and Finding Neverland was about James M. Barrie the writter of Peter Pan.  But it was the smaller boxing movie Million Dollar Baby that was the ultimate winner. 

Million Dollar Baby is about an aging boxing trainer Frank Dunn (Clint Eastwood) who reluctantly starts traing a girl Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank).   Maggie is a girl from a small town who works as a waitress to make ends meet but her dream has always been to become a boxer.  She seeks out the best trainer she can find and that is Frank.  Frank is haunted by demons of his past recently had a boxer fire him for a more aggressive manager.  Seeing as Maggie will not give and is constantly coming into the gym Frank decides to help her out.  She becomes a world wide phenomenon and finally gets her chance at the title shot.  The two develop a father-daughter relationship as Maggis father died when she was young and Frank has not talked to his daughter in a long time.  About halfway through the movie turns from a boxing movie to a medical drama with an ending I didn't see coming. 

It is hard to talk about this movie without talking about the ending, but I don't want to ruin it for anyone.  I am glad I saw the movie when I did because it was when it first came out and I had no idea what it was about.  But not only does it turn into a medical drama but also has a moral dilema at the very end.     When Award season first came around I had not heard of this movie and was one of the last movies to get a wide release in early 2005.  As Clint Eastwood proved the previous year with Mystic River he has a way of getting great performances out of his actors.  Hillary Swank won Best Actress and Morgan Freeman won Best Supporting Actor.  Clint Eastwood was nominated himself as Best Actor but lost to Jamie Foxx for Ray.  I love how this movie took me by suprise.  I went in not expecting much and just your typical boxing movie but left feeling like I saw one of the few movies that makes you question your beliefs.  Great thought provoking ending. 

The one movie that I thought should have got more attention come award season was Hotel Rwanda.  While it did have two nominations for Best Actor (Don Cheadle) and Best Supporting Actress (Sophie Okonedo) it should have been nominated for Best Picture.  A really moving story about the Rwandan genocide.  Also, the biggest upset for me was the fact that Super Size Me lot Best Documentary.  It remains one of my favorite documentaries to this day and is the first documentary I saw in the theatre. 

Not really a big suprise in  my opinion but one of the biggest stories to surround the Oscars this year was that Fahrenheit 9/11 and The Passion of the Christ didn't get nominated for any big awards.  The fact that Michael Moore wanted Fahrenheit 9/11 nominated for Best Picture and not Best Documentary means it had not chance of being nominated.  It was just pure propaganda.  The Passion of the Christ while one of the biggest movies of the year had a chance to get nominated but just a small chance since it was not in English and very rarely does a movie in a foreign language get nominated. 

Interesting many of the Best Actor and Supporting Actor nominees got there start on TV shows.
Best Actors: Clint Eastwood-Rawhide, Jamie Foxx-In Living Color, Johnny Depp-21 Jumpstreet, Don Cheadle-Picket Fences
Best Supporting Actors: Alan Alda-M.A.S.H., Thomas Hayden Church-Wings, Morgan Freeman-The Electric Company and Jamie Foxx again. 
Also of note Leonardo Dicaprio was nominated for Best Actor and did have a small role on Growing Pains right before it was cancelled. 

Oscar Trivia
For the third time Martin Scorsese lost Best Director to a former Actor (1980 to Robert Redford and 1990 to Kevin Costner)
Hilary Swank beat Annette Benning for the second time after upsetting her in 1999. Swank an unknown that year was a suprise upset for Boys Dont Cry over the heavily favorited Benning for American Beauty.  This year Swank was the favorite but Benning was unable to upset her. 
Million Dollar Baby was the last movie to date to be nominated for the Top 5 Awards (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay) winning 4 out of the 5 awards.

Best 2004 movies according to IMDB Top 250
Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind-64 (one of the most original moves of the year and very glad it won Best Original Screenplay. Most movies this unusual do not get recognized by the Academy.)
Hotel Rwanda-127
Million Dollar Baby-153
The Incredibles-219
Kill Bill Vol. 2-236

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Well it was a no doubter in 2003. Everyone knew that The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King would win and win it did. It won all 11 awards it was nominated tying the record of 11 wins (All About Eve and Titanic) and becoming the largest sweep in Oscar history (Gigi and The Last Emperor both swept with 9 wins). It was seen as pretty much an award for the entire trilogy instead of a specific film. In total all three films had 30 nominations and 17 wins. It was also one of the few movies to win Best Picture without being nominated for any acting awards (the only acting nomination any of the films got was Ian McKellan as Gandalf for The Fellowship of the Rings). The Return of the King was the first one to win major awards including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director (all three for Peter Jackson).


To sum up the three movies (approximately 9 hours in their theatrical version) LOTR is about a hobbit Frodo who gains possession of a powerful ring what gives the owner great power. He is tasked with destroying the ring before it can get in the hands of Sauron the Dark Lord. A fellowship is formed to help protect Frodo that includes Gandolf a wizard, Legolas the elf, Gimli the Dwarf, Aragorn a man and three of his hobbit friends Pippin, Merry, and Samwise. They must travel to Mount Doom to destroy the ring and along the way they must learn to work together and fight powerful orcs and other forces of the dark. When the fellowship breaks up Frodo and Sam head off on their own and after Pippin and Merry are kidnapped Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn go and search for them. Each group faces their own tests. Frodo and Sam must find a way through the mountains and after getting lost they meet Gollum a previous owner of the ring who says he will help them find their way but very much covets his “precious”. As the powerful army of the Dark Lord descends on the cities of men the cities must put away their differences and join forces to overcome the onslaught. Frodo and Sam are led by Gollum through the mazes of the mountains the whole time Gollum is trying to figure out a way to get the ring back. After overcoming many obstacles Sam and Frodo manage to make it to Mount Doom just in time for the army of men to overtake the orc army.

The movies have many amazing battle scenes and one of my favorite are the Ents attack on Isengard in the Two Towers. Of course they saved the best for last and the battle sequences towards the end of Return of the King are amazing. The story taken as a whole is one of adventure, triumph of will, and redemption. Peter Jackson’s ability to keep all the different story lines fitting perfectly is a great achievement. There are some many plot lines in the movie but you never feel too overwhelmed. The biggest problem I had with the first two movies was the lack of ending, and the biggest problem I have with the last movie is there are too many endings. When I first saw this in the theatre I was halfway out of my seat before I realized the movie wasn’t really over yet. I really think he could have cut out one of the endings. But you have to love the scope and ambition of the movies and the great visuals. With the extended editions available on DVD and Blu-Ray now there is even more to the story and it feels more complete now.

While LOTR:TROTK was the big winner there were other good movies that year. One of the other big winners that year was a small crime drama Mystic River directed by Clint Eastwood. It won Best Actor for Sean Penn and Best Supporting Actor for Tim Robbins. The dark tale about three childhood friends in Boston who have a dark secret and many years later must face old demons when one of their daughters is killed. This was a superbly acted movie and proved that Clint Eastwood knows how to direct. Any other year this would have had a chance to win Best Picture. One of my other favorite movies of the year only had two acting nominations was The House of Sand and Fog with Ben Kingsley and Shohreh Aghdashloo getting nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress and missing from list of Best Actresses was the amazing performance by Jennifer Connelly. It definitely deserved more recognition. One of the pleasantly surprising nominations was Johnny Depp’s first Best Actor nomination as Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. One of the most talked about movies of the year was Lost in Translation written and directed by Sophia Coppola which you either loved or hated and I fall in to the latter category. The movie did nothing for me and I found it kind of boring. Coppola did become only the third women to be nominated for Best Director and did win for Best Original Screenplay. The small independent film thirteen only had one nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Holly Hunter but was a great movie and should have had more nominations then that.

Oscar Trivia:
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the longest title ever to win Best Picture (second place goes to Around the World in 80 Days)
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is only the second trilogy to have all three films nominated for Best Picture (The Godfather Trilogy is the only other one).

Chicago

Chicago became the first musical to win Best Picture in 34 years the last musical to win Best Picture was Oliver in 1968.  Again this year the stiffest competition for Best Picture was from a Lord of the Rings film. This was also the second year in a row that a musical was nominated for Best Picture following Moulin Rouge's nomination in 2001. 

Chicago is about a bored housewife Roxy (Renee Zellweger) who has dreams of becoming a big star on the vaudeville in Chicago during the 20's.  When she her dreams are dashed by the guy she thought was going to make those dreams come true she ends up killing him and is sent to jail.  Inside her head is a fantasy world where every event is turned into a musical number.  In jail she meets a some colorful characters. There Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta Jones), Matron Mama Morton (Queen Latifah) and the flamboyant lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere).  A rivalry begins between Kelly and Roxy over the attention of Billy and the tabloids.  Each trying to manipulate the press to see them not as murderess but as glamorous stars.  In the end Billy is going to "Razzle Dazzle" the jury and get both of them off. 

What I love about this movie is the creative way they used the music.  One of the biggest complaints about musicals are always "why would they start singing" and  they answered that by having it  all in Roxy's head (the only musical number that doesn't really work is Mr. Cellophane which is sung by Roxy's husband Amos when she is not around).  The movie is highly entertaining and the acting is superb.  But besides being a highly entertaining movie with great musical sequences the movie is much deeper then that too.  The movie is an exploration of how people become famous for nothing, how media outlets are always trying to find the newest biggest thing, and the public obsession with celebrity trials and how they have become just a big circus.  In the age of celebrities like Paris Hilton and celebrity trials like OJ Simpson's this movie felt very current.  And I look at it as one of the first movies of the decade to deal with social issues to win Best Picture (Million Dollar Baby in 2004 and Crash in 2005 also deal with social issues). 

So the biggest question again this year was should Lord of the Rings have won best picture.  Again I feel the answer is no. While The Two Towers was a great movie like the first one it didn't have an ending and this one didn't have a beginning. While I understand that it is part 2 of a trilogy and it won't have a beginning and end my argument (as it was when the first one didn't win) is that you have to take each movie on its own merit.  If you just watch this one with out watching the first or the third one then it doesn't make much sense.  What I don't understand is how come Peter Jackson wasn't nominated for Best Director. Granted I don't think he would have won but he deserved a nomination.  And after watching it again recently I realized Viggo Mortensen should have been nominated for Best Actor or Supporting Actor because he was really great. 

Other Snubs- Leonardo DiCaprio should have been nominated for either Gangs of New York or Catch Me if You Can.  Also, About a Boy was one of my favorite movie and I think deserved more then just a Best Screenplay Award. Also My Big Fat Greek Wedding was one of the biggest and most loved movies of the year and should have at least been nominated for Best Actress for Nia Vardalos (she did get a Best Original Screenplay Nomination).

Oscar Trivia:
John C. Reilly was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Chicago but also had supporting roles in Best Picture nominated The Hours, and The Gangs of New York.  Making him one of the few people to be in three movies nominated for Best Picture in the same year but the first since the Best Picture field was limited to 5 movies.
At 29 Adrien Brody (The Pianist) became the youngest person to win Best Actor
Julianne Moore was nominated in both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress the ninth time that has happened.
Meryl Streep was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Adaptation with her 13th nomination she surpassed Katherine Hepburn as the most nominated performer in Oscar history. 
Adaptation was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman. Donald Kaufman was an alter ego used by Charlie Kaufman in the movie and is the only fictional person ever to be nominated for an Academy Award.
Roman Polanski won Best Director for The Pianist but could not be present to accept the award because he is a wanted criminal for statutory rape.

IMDB Top 250 for 2002 movies.
City of God-number 18
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers-number 30
The Pianist- number 51

A Beautiful Mind

In the First Academy Awards post 9/11 the inspirational true story A Beautiful Mind won Best Picture against some stiff competition from Moulin Rouge and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. 2001 also was a big year for black actors. It was the first time a black actress won Best Actress (Halle Berry for Monster’s Ball) ,the first time that two black actors were nominated for Best Actor (Denzel Washington for Training Day and Will Smith for Ali), and the first time Best Actor and Best Actress were both black (Berry and Washington both won). Also an honorary award was given to Sidney Poitier for his various performances in during his career.


A Beautiful Mind is about the life of Nobel Prize winner mathematician John Nash (Russell Crowe). It starts with Nash attending Princeton University where he obsesses over coming up with a truly original idea and skips most of his classes because he feels that he will learn nothing original. When he finally does come up with his original idea it is revolutionary and opens a lot of doors for him. After getting a teaching job at M.I.T. he starts doing some work with the military deciphering codes and becomes increasingly paranoid about a Russian invasion. Then he meets a beautiful student in his class Alicia (Jennifer Connelly) who would become his wife. As his behavior becomes more bizarre she has him checked out by a psychiatrist where we learn that he has been having hallucinations and created his own fantasy world. He struggles with what is real and imaginary and tries to get some sort of life back. Frustrated with the medication they gave him because it makes his mind foggy he goes off the medication and starts having hallucinations again. He finally moves back to Princeton and finds some comfort being in familiar surroundings. It is here that he learns that his original idea he was working so hard on has become very useful and he was selected to receive the Nobel Prize in Mathematics.

The movie ultimately won 4 awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. I loved that you don’t know who is real and who is imaginary till half way through and it took me by surprise. Then to watch him struggle and cope was very inspirational. It was incredibly well acted and is Russell Crowes best performance in my opinion. I think if he didn’t win the year before for his weaker performance in Gladiator he would have had a chance to win (it was his third Best Actor nomination in a row only the second person to do that). Besides Crowe and Connelly I was most impressed by Ed Harris and Paul Bettany as Nash’s hallucinations and should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actors. There was a lot of controversy around awards time about the movie saying they glossed over his life and struggles but in the end it didn’t matter and it still won.

A lot of people still ask how it beat Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring for Best Picture and I think it has to do with a couple of things. First after 9/11 people were looking for inspiration and a feel good movie and this movie provided both. A movie about a guy who overcomes tremendous obstacles was moving. Second The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring had no ending. I know it was only the first part of a trilogy but it kind of has an anticlimactic end. And when taken by itself in its original 3 hour run time it was kind of confusing if you don’t already know some of the story. Characters just show up and are not really introduced. The first time I saw the movie I didn’t know Gimli was a Dwarf till about half way through. After seeing some of the deleted scened and the extended versions the movie makes a little more sense but going from the theatrical version that was released that year I don’t think it should have won.

The other movie that got a lot of attention that year was Moulin Rouge which you either liked or hated. And I fall into the latter category. I found the movie just silly and hard to take serious with all the modern day songs being sung in the early 1900’s.

In my opinion two movies that should have been nominated for Best Picture that got overlooked were Black Hawk Down and Memento. Black Hawk Down did get a nomination for Best Director but didn’t get one for Best Picture. I think that is partly due to the violent nature of the movie and being so close to 9/11. But it was a great action and intense movie. Memento was a truly original movie that should have at least won Best Picture. I think it was a crime that something so original lost Best Original Screenplay to Gosford Park, but Christopher Nolan was an unknown and Robert Altman was a legend.

Oscar Facts
Russell Crowe’s Third Best Actor Nomination in a Row

It was also the first year that they had a Best Animated Feature Oscar which was won by Shrek beating Monsters Inc. and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.

IMDB Top 250 for 2001
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring- #17
Memento- #31
Donnie Darko-145
A Beautiful Mind-243
Monsters Inc. - 247

Gladiator

The first Best Picture of the new millennium Gladiator was a throwback to the classic sword and sandal movies. And caused some of the most arguments about a movie I have had. The first time I saw the movie I didn't really like it and almost everyone else loved it.


Gladiator is an action/political thriller about a general in the Roman Army Maximus (Russell Crowe) whose many victories has made him a hero to the Emperor. But when the Emperor's son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) kills his own father he orders Maximus and his family killed. Maximus escapes but not in time to save his family. Severely injured in the escape he is picked up as a slave by a group that do not know who he is. At this point he is sold as a gladiator to Proximo (Oliver Reed). He goes on to become a famous gladiator and he goes to Rome to fight in the Gladiator games and seek his revenge on Comodus who is trying to win over the people with the games and weaken the senate. When he finds out that Maximus is alive he has to find a way to kill him without having the people turn on him.


After watching it again it still didn't win me over. For some reason I just can't seem to care about Maximus. I just think Russell Crowe was not very convincing and think his performance was overrated. It seemed to me that a lot of people thought he should have won the previous year for The Insider and since he lost they gave it to him this year. Joaquin Phoenix was just annoying and always whining about not being loved he really didn't come across as a real menacing bad guy. Considering I love action movies this movie should have been one I loved but it did nothing for me and I never understood why it was praised so much. Winning 5 awards including Best Actor, Special Effects, Costumes, and Sound but losing Best Director and Best Screenplay making it one of the few movies to win Best Picture and lose the other two. And maybe that says something that it lost Best Screenplay since I like movies that are well written and the two movies that won Best Screenplay (Traffic for Adapted and Almost Famous or Original) were two of my favorite movies of the year. Maybe since it was after the big 2000 election controversy voters felt the political aspect of the movie was more relatable. 


Traffic was the other big winner with 4 wins for Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Screenplay and Best Editing. Stephen Sodeberg was nominated for Best Director for two movies Traffic and Erin Brockovich making him one of only three people to be nominated for Director against himself. Both movies were also nominated for Best Picture and Best Screenplay.


My favorite movie of the year was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon a foreign language action/love story. No foreign language movie has ever won Best Picture and I was hopping that this would be the first but I guess voters felt that if it won Best Foreign Language Movie it shouldn't win Best Picture. But the visuals and the story were just amazing and breathtaking. It was the first foreign language film that I saw in the theatre and I am glad I did. The biggest snub in my opinion was Almost Famous which did win Best Original Screenplay but should have been nominated for Best Picture and Best Director. It also should have won Best Supporting Actress for Kate Hudson who was amazing in that movie as Penny Lane.

Two Cent Tuesday: Red State

Two Cent Tuesday where I review a movie I recently saw.
This week I got to see Red State on Video on Demand.

Red State is the newest movie by Kevin Smith the writer and director of movies like Clerks, Chasing Amy, and Dogma.  The story about the making of the movie has almost as much drama as the movie itself.  From the start the movie was filled with controversy. Then at the premiere at Sundance the movie had protesters and Kevin Smith decision to self distribute was more of the talk of the festival then the movie himself.  After taking it on tour to different states the movie was finally released on VOD before a limited release in theatres later this month. 

The movie is about an ultra religious cult who decide that they need to do more then just protest gay funerals.  Led by a charismatic preacher Albin Cooper (Michael Parks) who everyone calls father.  When three teenagers go on the internet to find a women to have sex with they get lured into a trap set up by the cult.  After being taken captive they realize that they have to fight for their lives.  They witness someone else that was taken captive executed for being a homosexual then they realize they are next.  Meanwhile the  ATF is called in after a sheriffs deputy is shot.  The head of the unit is Joseph Keenan (John Goodman) who wants to take down the compound peacefully, but gets orders to take it with force so the ATF does not get embarrassed again.  An all out firefight ensues with an ending that is unexpected. 

As my friend told me before I saw it the movie is like Mallrats in Waco.  This is not your typical Kevin Smith movie. Some consider it a horror movie but it was more of an action thriller.  Which was pretty well written and directed for a guy who usually makes really ridiculous comedies.  The movie starts off as a typical Smith comedy about these three teenagers looking to score.  But takes a drastic turn to craziness.  The movie has some big stars including Academy Award winner Melissa Leo, John Goodman, and a small but great role for Kevin Pollak.  A lot of talk was given to Michael Parks for his crazy preacher I think John Goodman stole the movie with his ATF agent who is forced to question his morals and follow a direct order.  And of course the ending is something I never saw coming.  I love it when endings surprise me and love it even more when good endings surprise me. 
Overall: B+

Listomania Sunday: 1999 Movies

 
This past week on my Best Picture Quest I watched American Beauty.  1999 was one of my favorite years especially for movies.  It was also the first year that I actually made a Top 10 list.  I was trying to find the original list but didn’t.  But here is my Top 5 movies from 1999 which I am pretty sure is very close to my original list. 
 
1.  The Matrix-One of the most original movies I have ever seen. Completely blew me away with the stunning visuals and crazy fight scenes.
2.  Fight Club- Violent and gruesome. Also a cool ending that I didn’t see coming.
3.  The Sixth Sense-Talk about endings I didn’t see coming. This movie was a complete surprise.
4.  Boys Don’t Cry-Never heard of Hilary Swank before this movie but it was a great movie made even more stunning by the fact it was based on true events.
5.  American Beauty- Something about this movie really spoke to me.  The dark story and superb acting made it one of the best of 1999 even if my dad hated it.
 
Like I said there were a lot of movies that year that I loved so here are a few others that didn’t quite make the top 5.
10 Things I Hate about You, The Blair Witch Project,  Cruel Intentions, Dogma, The Mummy, and Galaxy Quest.