The Silence of the Lambs

1991 was a pretty diverse year for Best Picture nominees.  A thriller, an animated film, a conspiracy film, a gangster movie, and a romantic drama.  The five nominees were The Silence of the Lambs, Beauty and the Beast, Bugsy, JFK, and The Prince of Tides.  It honestly doesn't get more different than those five movies.  Beauty and the Beast became the first animated movie to be nominated for best picture.  The ultimate winner was Silence of the Lambs which many people consider to be the only horror movie to win Best Picture. I consider it more of a psychological thriller more than a horror movie, but the point is movies like this do not usually even get nominated let alone win.  The only other psychological thriller to win was in 1940 when Hitchcock's Rebecca won.   Also, going against Silence of the Lambs was the fact that it came out in January (most movies nominated for Best Picture usually come out in the latter half of the year) and it is the first movie to win that was already available to watch at home on tape. Despite all of this it still won best picture and became one of only 3 movies to win the Top 5 Academy Awards(Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress).

The Silence of the Lambs is about  an FBI trainee Clarice Starling(Jodie Foster) who is sent to interview Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter(Anthony Hopkins).  The FBI is trying to use knowledge gained from other serial killers to help create a psychological profile  for a current serial killer called "Buffalo Bill".  They send Clarice to develop the profile of Hannibal Lecter. Lecter is an ex-psychiatrist who would also would kill and eat his victims.  Lecter uses his ability to analyze people to prey on the weak minded.  When he first meets Clarice he tries to intimidate her but she barely flinches.  Having met someone who he feels is almost equal to him he starts to play a little cat and mouse game with her.  There are many back and forth between the two of them and Clarice is able to decipher the cryptic clues he gives about "Buffalo Bill".  After "Buffalo Bill" kidnaps a senators daughter the warden of the jail tries to use Lector for his own gain.  Of course Lecter is aware of this and uses the warden's over confidence to plan what is one of the most gruesome escape in movies.  But before he escapes he has one last meeting with Clarice and hands her his psychological review of "Buffalo Bill".  But can she catch "Bill" in time before he kills the senators daughter? I won't ruin the end.

This is such a great movie.  Some many things I love about this movie.  First off it gets right into the story.  You meet Clarice as she is summoned to the head of the FBI and then she is meeting with Lecter shortly after.  And once Anthony Hopkins come on screen you see the menace in his eyes and the movie never backs down.  At just under 2 hours in someone else's hands this could have been a 3 hour movie.  But Jonathon Demme keeps it compact and quick.  Also, the scenes with both Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster are amazing.  It is great to see two great actors inhabit the same screen and go head to head.  Even though we see that Clarice is still learning and does not equal Lecter she stands her ground and he comes to respect her.  The conversations are not only well acted but well written and directed.  The tension you get just from their interaction is better than any of the actually "horror" scenes in the movie, and Lecter is more scarier when he is toying with people psychologically then when actually killing them.  Of course when we do get to the killing part it gets pretty gruesome and we begin to see the real craziness of Lecter.  And the movie has one of the best last lines of any movie "I'm having an old friend for dinner".  The movie deserved all of the wins it got.

Two of the best picture nominated films Beauty and the Beast and The Prince of Tides were not nominated for Best Director.  This created a bit of a controversy since Barbara Streisand directed The Prince of Tides and it was the third time in five years that a women directed a movie that was nominated for Best Picture but was not nominated for Best Director.  Randa Haines for Children of a Lesser God and Penny Marshall for Awakenings were the other two women who directed a Best Picture nominee but did not get a Best Director nomination.  The only female director to be nominated up to this point was Lina Wermuller for the foreign  film Seven Beauties in 1976.  The Academy was perceived as being prejudicial to women directors.  The two directors that replaced them was Ridley Scott for Thelma and Louise and Jon Singleton for Boyz N the Hood.  Jon Singleton became the first African-American director to be nominated for Best Director and also at 24 the youngest director to be nominated.

Other Notable Oscar Trivia
Terminator 2: Judgment Day won four technical awards
After winning Best Supporting Actor for City Slickers Jack Palance did push-ups on the stage to prove he wasn't old.
Anthony Hopkins win for Best Acting is considered the shortest time on screen for a leading actor win. He had less time on screen then Jack Palance did in City Slickers.
Laura Dern was nominated for Best Actress for Rambling Rose and her mother Diane Ladd was nominated as Best Supporting Actress for the same movie.  The only real life mother and daughter to be nominated for the same film.
And personally I think Val Kilmer should have been nominated for playing Jim Morrison in The Doors.  Great performance.

Two Cent Tuesdays: Transformers Dark of the Moon 3-D

Having seen the last two Transformers movies in the theatre I figured I had to see this one. And while the first two movies were so-so this one was getting high praises and since it was filmed in 3-D I had to check it out.

Quick synopsis as this is a Michael Bay film and the plot is not complicated. Basically the Decepticons(the bad robots) are trying to use this weapon that crashed on the moon in the 60’s to bring their dying planet(Cybertron) to Earth. And the only ones that can stop them are the Autobots(the good robots) and of course Sam Witwicky(Shia LaBeouf).

In comparison to the other two movies this one was much better. Which I know isn’t saying much. My problem with the first one was that it took too long for the robots to start fighting and it was very cheesy with its humor. The second one was actually slightly better in my opinion except for those two annoying robots. Michael Bay finally went back to what he does best and made a movie with some awesome action sequences. While I have read a lot of reviews that claim the movie still doesn’t make a whole lot a sense, to me it doesn’t have too. It makes just enough sense to justify the action sequences. The beginning is still a little boring with Sam looking for a job and his parents coming to visit, and his girlfriend Carly working for some rich guy. The whole setup is kind of silly and you never really feel that Sam and Carly have any chemistry and when he sets off to save her in the end you don’t really buy it. But again it’s all a means to an end and when he goes to save her all kinds of crazy stuff happens so the reasoning doesn’t matter much. I guess what I am saying is sit back and enjoy the action and don’t over analyze the movie.

The other big plus of the movie is that supporting cast. Returning from the first two movies you got John Turturro as the crazy conspiracy theorist Simmons this time with a hilarious sidekick Dutch played by Alan Tudyk. Also giving great performances Academy Award winner Frances McDormand and Academy Award nominated John Malkovich. Then you got Ken Jeong from The Hangover movies and Patrick Dempsey from Greys Anatomy. And probably the weirdest cameo was by Buzz Aldrin as himself.

The biggest disappointment for me with the movie is that you don’t get many of the Transformers personality. The original cartoon was about the Transformers and the movies are about the humans dealing with the Transformers. Besides Optimus Prime and Bumblebee you don’t get to know any of the other Transformers like Ironhide, Ratchet, Sideswipe and Wheeljack.

As far as the 3-D goes it makes the best use of 3-D since Avatar. There are certain movies that work well in 3-D and it takes a certain director to be able to direct a movie with 3-D in mind. That is where Michael Bay excels. His comes up with some crazy action sequences and uses 3-D perfectly. There is a lot of talk about the future of 3-D and if it is just a fad or will become standard on all films. Remember when “talkies” first came out they said it was only a fad and wouldn’t last. While I think we are a long way from 3-D becoming standard for dramas or comedies(I can see it being used in comedies before dramas) I am not sure if it is just a fad. For now it works well in action movies with the proper director with a good eye. Only time will tell what will happen in the future.

Overall I love the action and that’s why I go to see Transformers movies. The movie doesn’t strive to be more than a brainless action movie and the plot makes just enough sense. The supporting cast is impressive and the comedy works in this film without being too silly. Rating B+

Dances With Wolves

The 90's are my high school and college years. It is the decade that my movie tastes grew and these are the movies that would come to shape my views on movies. Half of the movies to win best picture in the 90's I actually saw in the theatre and the 1997 Oscar race is what really started my obsession with the Academy Awards. I don't want to get ahead of myself too much. Dances With Wolves won in 1990 and I did see it in the theatres when it was originally released. But for some reason when I was trying to watch it this time I had all kinds of troubles. First it was on Netflix Streaming then right before I was going to watch it they took it off, then I tried to get the disc from Netflix and they sent me the 1993 winner. So, I ended up finding a $15 gift card to Best Buy someone had got me for Christmas and went and bought the movie on Blu-Ray and finally got to watch it.

Dances With Wolves is about a Civil War Lieutenant John Dunbar who after trying to commit suicide is rewarded with a medal and given the choice of where he would like to be stationed at. He chooses a remote post in the west. When he gets there he finds it abandoned and decided to stay and keep the fort operational until others arrive. His only companions at first is his horse and a wolf who he names Two Socks because of his two white feet. When no one comes for a long time he begins to make friends with the nearby Sioux Tribe. At first he sees it as the first steps to being an ambassador but after falling in love with one of the members of the tribe they become his family. The Sioux people begin calling him Dances With Wolves after they see him playing with Two Socks. When the army finally arrives they see him as a traitor who turned his back on his military duty and joined the Indian tribe. They arrest him and after a daring rescue by the Indians he is faced with the decision of where his loyalties lie.

Originally 3 hours long the Blu-Ray Directors cut is almost 4 hours long. While the beginning is slightly boring the movie never really feels long. I always loved the west and wished I could have seen it back then in the wild with the large herds of buffalo so I don't mind the slow sweeping shots of the scenery. The story itself is engrossing. I love how we learn about the Sioux as Dunbar does. At first they are just silent but over time we begin to understand. There are some funny scenes with the tribe where we see they are not much different the us. The movie shows the softer side of Indians and how we have always misunderstood them and just need to look at life from their point of view. It is that idea that the movie is trying to get across and one of the few "message" movies that gets its point across without hitting you over the head with the message. Kevin Costner did a great job directing and acting in the movie. All the members of the tribe were terrific. Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, and Graham Greene all got Nominated for Oscars and all lost. The movie did win a total of 7 awards.

It was odd that a Western won best picture in 1990 since it seemed like it was the year of the gangster flick. The movie was up against The Godfather Part III and Goodfellas for Best Picture also that year Millers Crossing and State of Grace came out but were not nominated for anything. The other movies nominated for Best Picture were Awakenings and Ghost. With Ghost winning Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Whoopi Goldberg. Must have been a bad year for Original Screenplays as I don't think Ghost was that good and I haven't seen any of the other movies nominated. Although Jacobs Ladder and Millers Crossing probably should have been nominated. Maybe one of the biggest surprises of the year was the Best Actress win of Kathy Bates for Misery(who beat Julia Roberts in Pretty Women). Very rarely does acting in a horror movie get recognized. A very deserving win for Joe Pesci in Goodfellas.

Oscar Facts:
Dances with Wolves was only the second Western to win Best Picture the first was Cimarron in 1931,
Kevin Costner became of the few people to direct himself to an Oscar Nomination
With the nomination of The Godfather Part III the Godfather Trilogy became the first to have all three movies nominated for Best Picture.

By the Numbers:
Dances with Wolves was ranked number 75 on AFI's 100 Greatest Films in 1997 but not ranked on their 2007 list.
Goodfellas was ranked number 94 in 1997 and number 92 in 2007 on AFI's 100 Greatest Films list. And is currently ranked number 15 on IMDB Top 250.

Two Cent Tuesday: Bridesmaids

I know this movie has been in theatres for a while now but I finally got around to seeing it.  Glad I did not only is it one of the funniest movies in a while but it is one of the few movies to take place in Milwaukee. 

While the movie is usually described as The Hangover with women I think it is more similar to Judd Apatow's The 40 Year Old Virgin which shouldn't be too much of a surprise since Judd Apatow produced this one.   The reason I think it is more similar to The 40 Year Old Virgin is that now only does it have the crude humor at its core it is a love story and a story of friendship. In the end you end up caring for the characters. 

Obviously from the title the movie is about a group of bridesmaids.  Lillian is getting married and has her best friend Annie as her maid of honor and 4 other girls as her bridesmaids.  Annie is going through a difficult time in her life and has a job she hates and no boyfriend of her own. So when Lilly says she is engaged it makes Annie feel like her life just isn't going anywhere.  But she is Lilly's best friend so she agrees to be the Maid of Honor and tries to do everything she is supposed to do.  But of course anytime you get a bunch of people together personalities clash and crazy things happen.  Annie feels that Whitney is trying to move in on her best friend and take over as Maid of Honor.  It turns into a battle of the two women trying to one up each other and since Whitney has a lot of money and always outspends Annie.  Meanwhile Annie loses her job, gets kicked out of her apartment, and ruins the first promising relationship she has had in a while all in hilarious fashion.  While you might be able to predict the end of the movie you will never expect some of the stuff that they do on screen.

Besides Kristen Wiig from Saturday Night Live who co-wrote the movie and is absolutely hilarious they breakout star of the movie is Mellisa McCarthy.  She plays the most outrageous character in the movie and absolutely cracks me up.  When they are discussing a bridal shower theme and she suggests a "Fight Club" theme where they all just start beating up  Lilly is one of the funniest parts of the movie. 

I read recently that this is the highest grossing R rated female comedy of all time.  What an odd category. It seems sad that we cant just say that it is a funny movie and it is making a lot of money. We have to say it is a female comedy.  Not sure why we need there to be male comedies and female comedies.  I guess I think funny is funny it doesn't need to be qualified with what gender.  I think what surprises most people is that two females wrote the movie and I guess females aren't supposed to have this kind of humor. My Rating -A

Listomania Sunday: Best Documentaries

A coworker once asked me if all documentaries are left wing propaganda.  I guess the only documentary filmmakers he heard of were Al Gore and Michael Moore.  I had to tell him that most documentaries are not political at all and in fact there are some right wing documentaries also. But of course Hollywood is know for being liberal and there do tend to be more left leaning documentaries nominated for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards but that doesn't mean all documentaries are like that.  I decided to make a list of my favorite documentaries which recently has become one of my favorite types of movies to watch.  Especially at Sundance there are usually some amazing ones.  Although it seems like a lot of the good documentaries at Sundance are picked up by HBO and shown on TV and never make it to the big screen to be eligible for the Academy Award.  But here is my list. 

1.  Super Size Me
2.  Grizzly Man
3.  Waiting for "Superman"
4.  Bowling for Columbine
5.  Spellbound

This was a tough list to make as I have a lot of favorite documentaries.  Others that just missed the top 5 are Encounters at the End of the World, Restrepo, Jesus Camp, and A Small Act.  And if you love nature docs you should check out March of the Penguins, Microcosmos and Winged Migration.

Driving Miss Daisy

So I finally made it to the last Best Picture winner of the 80’s.  This is also the first Oscars that Billy Crystal hosted and I can still see him singing a song about all the Best Pictures. The big winner that night was Driving Miss Daisy a great feel good movie.
 
The movie is about a wealthy elderly Southern women Miss Daisy(Jessica Tandy) whose son hires a black man  Hoke(Morgan Freeman) as her Chauffeur.  At first she is in denial that she even needs a driver and claims she can drive herself.  When she finally starts letting him drive they start becoming friends.  Her friendship with Hoke opens her eyes to the injustices and prejudices of the South and she becomes a supporter of Martin Luther King.  In the end they become very close friends till the very end. 
 
The growth of their friendship and the incredible acting is what makes this movie so good.  Both Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman are great and you really feel as if they are best friends.  The movie won 4 awards including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, and Best Makeup.  Of the 9 nominations it received it was not nominated for Best Director and became only the 3rd movie to win Best Picture without being nominated for Best Director (Wings in 1927 and Grand Hotel in 1932 are the other two).  I was surprised it didn't get nominated for best score as I thought the music was prefect.  Jessica Tandy was 80 years old when she won and became the oldest actress to win.
 
Other winners that year included Oliver Stone’s second Best Director win for Born on the Fourth of July. And beating Morgan Freeman for Best Actor was the incredible performance of Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot.  Denzel Washington won his first Oscar as Best Supporting Actor for Glory.  The Little Mermaid won Best Score and Best Song for “Under the Sea’.  And Dead Poets Society won Best Original Screenplay. 
 
Other notable nominations. Tom Cruise received his first nomination for Born on the Fourth of July.  John Williams was nominated against himself in the Best Score category again for the Scores of Born on the Fourth of July and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. 
 
As far as I am concerned the movie that should have been nominated for Best Picture but wasn’t is Glory.  An amazing war film with great acting that deserved more  nominations.  It would have been great to see Morgan Freeman get nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Glory in addition to his Best Actor nomination for Driving Miss Daisy two very different roles both played perfectly. 
 

Two Cent Tuesday: Hot Coffee

I have thought about canceling HBO since I got Netflix and don’t watch HBO much anymore.  One of the reasons I don’t want to get rid of HBO is because every year they pick up some of the most interesting documentaries from Sundance.  Hot Coffee was on my list of movies I wanted to see this year at Sundance but didn’t get a chance too.  So I was excited to see it on HBO. 
 
Hot Coffee is about our court system in the United States and Tort reform(not torte as in the cake).  Now I have heard that term tort reform before but never knew what it meant.  This movies starts with the most notorious case of “frivolous” lawsuits the spilled McDonalds coffee case.  Director Susan Saladoff interviews the members of the family and lawyers of the victim.  They talk about how the public is misinformed about the facts of the case.  After showing pictures of the third degree burns and skin grafts that the lady received from the coffee it is clear that it is not a simple case of a little burn.  When the lawyers were doing their investigation they learned that McDonalds used a practice of keeping the Coffee at a constant temperature of 180 degrees.  An extremely dangerous and unnecessary temperature.  So when it turned out that McDonalds was aware of the dangers of keeping the water that hot and did nothing to fix it the Jury decided that they were negligent and ordered them to pay $2.9 million(the amount of total sales McDonalds makes on coffee in a day) but was reduced to $480,000.  After hearing all the facts it is hard to argue the final outcome.  But in the 15 years since that happened you never hear the facts about how McDonalds was negligent. 
 
Most tort reform supporters want to put a cap on how much money can be awarded to an individual that sues a company.  The argument for tort reform is that these “frivolous” cases are clogging up the court system and costing millions of dollars.  Of course it turns out that the biggest supporters of tort reform are the giant companies like McDonalds and the tobacco industry who don’t want to pay out large sums of money even they are at fault.  Saladoff uses numerous examples of people being harmed and not being able to do anything to those responsible.  One case where an OB/GYN missed a problem during a pregnancy that resulted in a child being born with developmental issues the parents sued for malpractice. After winning the case and being awarded almost $6 million by a Jury to help pay for years of therapy for the child they found out that tort reform had passed in their state and there was a cap on how much they could get.  Now instead of having those responsible for his harm paying for his care they are on Medicaid.  How does that save the tax payers money?  The other thing it does is makes the Jury inconsequential.  They Jury system is basic tenant of America and the movie makes the case that we should trust the Jury to come to the correct decision after seeing all the facts.  If it is a frivolous lawsuit the jury will decide no politicians. 
 
The movie was very eye opening.  Like I said I never knew what tort reform was and from the way politicians talk about it, it does sound like a good thing.  But seeing some of the consequences of the reform definitely makes me think otherwise.  I love learning new things from documentaries and this definitely did that.  What it did not do was give a balanced argument.  As my co-worker will probably say just another one of those liberal documentaries as it does paint the Republicans as being in cahoots with big business and as being the bad guys.  The movie  was very one sided but effective. Rating B+

Rain Man

Rain Man is the first movie that won Best Picture that I saw in the theatre.  It is also the first movie that was rated R that I saw in the theatre.  It is amazing that my mom even took me to see the movie at 11 years old.  But besides for a few curse words and a short sex scene the movie wasn't too racy for me.  Some of the adult themes might of went over my head but the basic story of two brothers going on a road trip and becoming close friends works for all ages.

Rain Man is about Charlie Babbitt a young hot shot car salesman who after his father dies finds out that he has an autistic older brother Raymond.  When Charlie finds out that most of his father's money will go to this brother he never knew he decides to kidnap Raymond from the institution and try to get some of the money for himself.  On the road trip from Ohio to California the two brothers bond and  have a few crazy adventures together.  In the end Charlie and Raymond become close and Charlie begins to understand the disease that Raymond has.

The movie is a fun and touching movie about two brothers getting to know each other.  The reason the movie works so well is the brilliant performance of Dustin Hoffman as Raymond.  Hoffman makes Raymond feel sympathetic but not pathetic or useless.  It also brought  more attention to the disease of autism.  It showed how someone with the disease can be functional and semi-independent.  Tom Cruise gives a good performance as Charlie and you really believe his transformation from greedy  car salesman to caring brother.

Another reason the movie works is the fine line director Barry Levinson walked between the serious and comedy.  Other Levinson movies like Bandits, Man of the Year, and one of my favorites Toys also walk that fine line.  His movies don't always work but I love how his movies really try to balance the absurd with touching drama especially in Toys where Robin Williams is battling evil toys with old classic toys.  Somehow he makes it very emotional even though it is one of the whole thing is crazy.
 
Overall the movie won 4 academy awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman.  The other big winner in 1988 was Who Framed Roger Rabbit with 6 nominations and winning 4 awards but was not nominated for Best Picture.  The biggest surprise win was Kevin Kline for Best Supporting Actor in A Fish Called Wanda.  Jodi Foster won her first Best Actress award for the Accused and Tom Hanks got his first nomination for Best Actor for Big.  Meryl Streep was nominated for the 6th time in the 80’s for A Cry in the Dark which the only thing I remember about that movie is her shouting half the movie “The dingo took my baby”.  One of the oddest things about the awards in 1988 was that two movies that weren’t nominated for Best Picture were nominated for Best Director.  Those two movies were A Fish Called Wanda and The Last Temptation of Christ taking the spots of Dangerous Liaisons and The Accidental Tourist from the Best Picture nominees. 

Two Cent Tuesday: Paranormal Activity 2

 

So here is my two cents on Paranormal Activity 2.

I was pretty excited to watch this movie as I loved the first one which was really creepy and an original take on the haunted house genre.  Typical with sequels this one failed to live up to the first one.

This was more of a prequel to the first one as we see the same characters from the first one before they experience their haunting.  This movie focuses on the family of the sister of the girl from the first movie.  If you have seen the first one you know the basic plot of this one. A family sets up a security camera and ends up capturing weird things happening in the house.

Now I don’t know if it is because I saw the first one in the theatre and I watched this on DVD during the daylight, or that I was kind of tired when I watched the movie, but this one seemed much slower than the first one.  I know the first one built up the tension and it was just little things that happened at first but this one seemed to take longer to get to the bigger stuff or the little things that happened just weren’t scary(oh no the pool vacuum cleaner is haunted scary).  Like I said I was tired when I watched but this movie didn’t help  I had trouble staying awake.  And even when things started to really get going it still didn’t have that punch the first one did.  Basically the only scary part was with the dog and you didn’t get to see anything.  I did  like how they tried to explain what happened in the first one and even left the movie open for another sequel which I am pretty sure will come out this Halloween but overall I felt this one was just boring and didn’t have the tension the first one did.  Rating D.