Out of Africa

After writing a huge post about Amadeus I realized that I probably should try to make my posts shorter.  I am going to try to keep this one brief.  Out of Africa is the 4th out of 5 biopics to win Best Picture in the 80's  and the 2nd in a row.

The movie follows Karen(Meryl Streep) a Danish women who marries a Baron out of convenience then moves to Africa to start a dairy farm. After getting to Africa she finds out her husband changed his mind and they start a coffee plantation instead.  Along the way things with her husband doesn't work out and she falls in love with a free spirited hunter Denys(Robert Redford).  He is not the settling down type and is constantly on safaris or hunting trips.  They love each other but he refuses to settle down.  In the end things don't work out with either Denys or the plantation and she is forced to move back to Denmark broke.

The movie is based on the autobiography of Karen Blixen who after moving back to Denmark starting writing books.  Not really a big fan of romance movie this movie didn't do much for me.  Most of the movie was filmed in Africa and it looks beautiful but the love story part is just OK.  The most annoying thing about the movie is Meryl Streeps accent which she said she tried to make as authentic as possible but ended up being annoying.  Robert Redford does a pretty good job at being Robert Redford.  He was his normal charming self.  Out of all the nominations Out of Africa got I am surprised Redford did not get one.  In fact Redford has only one nomination for his Acting and that was for The Sting.  Probably because he makes it look so natural and effortless.  Ultimately the film was nominated for 11 awards including Best Picture, Best Director(Sidney Pollack), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress(Meryl Streep her 6th Nomination), and Best Supporting Actor(Klaus Maria Brandauer as Karen's husband).  It won a total of 7 awards but none for acting.  Geraldine Page won Best Actress for The Trip to Bountiful and Don Ameche won Best Supporting Actor for Cocoon.

The most notable thing about the Oscars this year was the fact that The Color Purple was nominated for 11 awards and didn't win any.  This tied the record with The Turning Point for most nominations without a win. The biggest surprise was that Steve Spielberg was not nominated for Best Director marking only the second time that a movie was nominated for 11 awards but the Director wasn't nominated(the first was for Pride of the Yankees). 

Other Oscar Notables
William Hurt won the Best Actor Oscars for Kiss of the Spider Women and became the first person to win an Oscar for playing a homosexual role. Hurt went on to be nominated the following two years but lost those two. It struck as odd that he was that popular in the 80's and hasn't really done much since then. Although he was nominated again in 2005 for a History of Violence. 
Harrison Ford was lost to Hurt for Best Actor who surprisingly onfor his role in Witness. Supprisingly this is his only Oscar nomination.
Angelica Houston won Best Supporting Actress for Prizi's Honor which was directed by John Houston making her the first actress to win in a movie directed by her dad. John Houston also directed his dad Walter to an Oscar for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre making him the only director to direct their father and daughter to an Oscar and the Houston family the first to have three generations of Oscar winners.
Back to the Future was nominated for Best Original Screenplay and in my opinion should have been nominated and won for Best Picture.
The other big snub was the omission of the song Don't You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds from The Breakfast Club.
And why no nominations for The Goonies?

Listomania Sunday: Alien Invastion Movies

I recently saw a sneak peak at the movie Attack the Block.  The movie is about aliens that invade inner city London and a gang of teenagers have to fight them off.  The movie is a fun and exciting movie with lots of action and some cool looking aliens.  It got me thinking about the best movies about aliens. And with Super 8 coming out this weekend seemed like a good time to for a list.
There were too many movies with aliens to come up with just a list of 5 so I decided to narrow the list down to best alien invasion movies. These are movies that have aliens coming to Earth for whatever reason.  I was thinking of including Close Encounters of the Third Kind but decided that was more of an alien abduction movie.


1.  Independence Day-An instant classic when it came out. Lots of destruction crazy aliens and great one liners.  Made Will Smith an action star and gave Jeff Goldblum one of his best roles.

2.  District 9-A little different alien invasion movie. Instead of aliens coming to take over the world they accidently crash land in South Africa and are forced to live in quarantined area.  Making more of a political statement then about alien invasions but still has some great action.

3.  Signs-Even if the aliens don't show up till the end the suspense in this movie is great.   The movie slowly builds up the tension and had me hooked the whole way through.

4. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)-Another example of the original being much better than the remake. Again a movie that makes more of a political statement using aliens. Here one alien comes to Earth and warns men to stop using nuclear weapons or face the wrath of the aliens.

5. Evolution-A crazy comedy about tiny microorganisms from space that evolve rapidly and threaten to take over an Arizona city.  Love David Duchovny and Julianne Moore who normally play much more serious roles in comedic roles. And Seann William Scott as the wannabe firefighter is hilarious.

The one movie that I had great debate in including in this list is E.T.  A great movie about a more peaceful alien then some of the other movies but just missed out.


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Amadeus

When I think about Amadeus two things come to mind. First is the song Rock me Amadeus by Falco the second is the annoying laugh from the movie. The movie is the third out of five movies that won best picture in the 80's based on a historic person. This is one of those movies that I had seen once before but didn't remember that well(besides the laugh). But watching it again I realized that this is a really good movie.

Amadeus is about the life of Mozart and his rival Antonio Salieri. The movie is told in flash back by an elderly Salieri(F. Murray Abraham) who is in a mental institute after trying to kill himself. He begins telling his story about how he first met Mozart(Tom Hulce)and became intensely jealous of Mozart's natural talent. A court composer Salieri worked for Emperor Joseph II and made recommendations to the Emperor. Mozart instantly impresses everyone with his talent. Salieri who has made a promise to God to devote his life and work to him see the very vulgar Mozart as a mockery of his God given talent. Salieri couldn't understand how God could give such a gift to someone who had very little respect for anything. Salieri eventually turns his back on God and makes it his life purpose to destroy Mozart. Because of his influence on the Emperor Salieri is able to make it very difficult for Mozart to get any work. He tells everyone that Mozart like young girls so no one will hire him to tutor, and all of his opera have short runs due to Salieri's suggestions. He does this even though he recognizes the immense talent that Mozart has. Mozart does not realize that Salieri is the one blocking his rise and Mozart lives in poverty and becomes an alcoholic. Eventually Salieri decides that he will have Mozart write one last piece then kill Mozart and claim the last piece as his own. While the plan doesn't work out exactly as planned but when Mozart ends up dying penniless Salieri feel guilty which leads him trying to kill himself.

For a three hour movie the pace is fast and at the end it doesn't feel like it was three hours. The acting is great. Hard to believe that a guy from Animal House would be nominated for an Academy Award but that's what Tom Hulce did. He portrays Mozart as a complicated man with both whimsy and desperation. He lost Best Actor to F. Murray Abraham who was amazing as the insanely jealous and calculating Salieri. Also good in the movie was Jeffery Jones and I think he should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor. In total Amadeus won 8 Academy Awards besides Picture and Actor it also won Best Director(Milos Forman),Best Screenplay Adaptation (Peter Shaffer for the adaption of his own Broadway play), Best Art/Set Direction, Best Sound, Best Costume Design, and Best Makeup. It also marked the fourth time that a movie that won a Tony Award for Best Play also won Best Picture at the Academy Awards(the other three are from the 60's and are My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and A Man for All Seasons).

The only other movie I have seen that was nominated in 1984 was the equally good The Killing Fields. That movie about a New York Times journalist covering the fall of Cambodia in 1975. Haing Ngor won Best Supporting Actor for the role of the assistant to the journalist. Haing Ngor was not an actual Cambodian doctor and not a professional actor. He became the second no professional actor to win the awards(Harold Russell was the first for The Best Years of Our Lives in 1946). Also, after watching Sam Waterston on Law and Order for so many years it is weird to see him in anything else but he was nominated for Best Actor for this movie also.

Other notable Oscar Nominations. Sally Field won Best Actress for her role in Places in the Heart and gave her famous "You really like me" speech. Also nominated for Best Supporting Actor was Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid. All of the nominations for Best Song were very popular songs on the radio including Ghostbusters, Footloose, and the eventual winner I just Called to Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder from the movie The Woman in Red. And John Williams was nominated against himself for Best Original Score for the movies Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The River. He lost to Maurice Jarre for A Passage to India. Greystroke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes was nominated for Best Screenplay and P.H Vazak was listed as one of the screenwriters. P.H Vasak was the name of a sheepdog owned by writer Robert Towne who didn't want to be associated with the movie.

MTV Movie Awards 2011

Well the MTV Movie Awards are tonight thought I would give my two cents on them.

The MTV Movie Awards usually nominate the highest grossing movies and movies that speak to the masses. I like to think of myself as a film goer that can appreciate both the indie art house movies and the mindless summer blockbuster, but nowadays I find myself tending to see more critically praised movies and not so much the big budget movies. There was a time when I would have seen all the movies nominated for Best Movie but those days have passed I guess I am just not the target demographic for MTV anymore. In fact there was a short time when I would have seen all the movies nominated for Best Movie at the MTV Awards and Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Oh well guess people change I just hope that I am not becoming one of those movie snobs I hated growing up. I did manage to see 3 of the movies nominated (Inception, The Social Network, and Black Swan) but those 3 were also nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. MTV usually nominates a few movies that were also nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars but very rarely does a movie win both. Three movies have won both awards they are Titanic, Gladiator, and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Lately though it seems like voting has been taken over by Tween Girls. I don’t think movies like Terminator 2, A Few Good Men, Seven, or Pulp Fiction would win these days. The past two years the Twilight movies have won Best Movie beating movies like The Dark Knight and The Hangover.  It has the most nominations again this year so we will see if it can make it 3 years in a row.
Lets get to the predictions
Update in Red with Winners. All in all I did pretty well. I correctly predicted 10 our of the 12 winners. 

Best Movie-The nomination that most surprised me here was Black Swan thought it was a little too trippy for most people.
My prediction- The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. My personal Pick- Inception
Winner-The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Best Female Performance- Jennifer Aniston seems out of place here with the much younger crop of nominees.

My Prediction: Kristen Stewart Personal Pick: Natalie Portman
Winner-Kristen Stewart

Best Male Performance-Battle of the two guys from Eclipse

Prediction; Robert Pattinson Personal Pick: Jesse Eisenberg (honestly it’s the only one I had seen in this category)
Winner-Robert Pattinson

Best Breakout Star-I hate it when they nominate people who have been on TV shows for Breakout Performances but I don’t think Olivia Wilde has a chance here. Also I have no idea who Xavier Samuel is from Eclipse so I am going with that he is not a breakout star. It’s a difficult choice between Hailee Steinfeld, Andrew Garfield, and Chloe Grace Moretz.

Prediction and Personal Pick: Chloe Grace Moretz
Winner-Chloe Grace Moretz

Best Comedic Performance-Just recently saw Easy A and glad I did because it is the funniest movie out of these choices.
Prediction and Personal Pick-Emma Stone
Winner-Emma Stone

Best Line from A Movie-Tough choices but I am going to go with the dialogue from the movie that won best Screenplay at the Oscars.
Prediction and Personal Pick: “If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook”-Social Network
Winner-"I want to get Chocolate wasted" Grown Ups

Best Villain-Hard one I only saw two of the movies nominated and neither one of those are great villains.
Prediction: Tom Felton from Harry Potter Personal Pick: Can I just pick the winner from 1996 and say Kevin Spacey from Seven still the best villain to win the award.

Winner-Tom Felton

Best Fight-This one is for me is between Kick-Ass and Inception two of my favorite fight scenes of the year.

Prediction: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Personal Pick: Inception
Winner-The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Best Kiss: Another category with two Eclipse nominations

Prediction: Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson Personal Pick-Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis
Winner-Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson

Best Jaw Dropping Moment-wow a category without an Eclipse Nomination but another Tween sensation will probably take this one.
Prediction: Justin Bieber Personal Pick: Inception
Winner-Justin Bieber
Best Scared-As-Sh_ _ Performance-Again no Eclipse nominations here but not sure who is going to win.

Prediction and Personal Pick: Ryan Reynolds
Winner-Ellen Page

Biggest Badass Star-Not sure what constitutes Biggest Badass star but the best badass in this group is the smallest

Prediction and Personal Pick: Chloe Grace Moretz
Winner-Chloe Grace Moretz

Terms of Endearment

I always think of this movie as a chick flick.  Hard to believe that the guy who help create and write the Simpsons also wrote and directed this movie.  While there is some comedy in the movie it is mostly a tear jerker.  It is also the third family drama to win Best Picture in the past 5 years but at least this one didn't have the mother leaving the father and son like Kramer vs. Kramer and Ordinary People.  Although the movie does portray men as imbeciles and in the end the father gives up custody of the kids. 

The movie is about a relationship between a mother and daughter.  Over the years they have many battles yet they still love each other.  Aurora played by Shirley Maclaine is a little overbearing and is constantly calling Emma  played by Debra Winger.  After Emma gets married to Flap Horton(Jeff Daniels) Aurora tells her that she is making a big mistake.  Even after Emma and Flap move out of Houston to Iowa Aurora still calls multiple times a day.  Emma and Flap start drifting apart and both end up having affairs.  After Emma moves away Aurora starts up a friendship with her astronaut neighbor(Jack Nicholson).  This brings new happiness to Aurora's  life that she hasn't had in a while.  When Emma is diagnosed with cancer the two women become close and the differences they have had become less important.  Aurora and Flap still have their differences and when it becomes clear that Emma will die everyone decided that it is best for Emma and Flap's kids to go live with Aurora. 

While the end is very emotional and the movie takes a different tone after Emma gets diagnosed with cancer I found the movie as a whole to be kind of boring.  Which is odd since I remember liking it the first time I saw it, but this time just didn't do anything for me.  The movie moves very slowly and I found the laughs few and far between.  Shirley Maclaine and Jack Nicholson won Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor.  Shirley Maclaine clearly deserved it as she was very good in the movie but Jack Nicholson who played the retired Astronaut just didn't do much and while the character is memorable I am not sure he deserved the win.  Debra Winger was also great in the movie and she was also nominated for Best Actress but lost to Shirley Maclaine.  While Jeff Daniels was good as Flap he did not get nominated but John Lithgow did as the forgettable Sam they guy who Emma has an affair with.  This was James L. Brooks first movie he wrote and directed after writing and directing for TV.  Known for his comedy this was a very different type of movie for him.  He does have a skill at capturing what feels like real life with it's comedy and heartache which he also shows in his other nominated movie from 1997 As Good as it Gets(which also earned Jack Nicholson an Oscar).  This one just doesn't work for me and I struggled to stay awake all the way through. 

1983 does not seem like it was a great year for movies.  The only other movie I saw that was nominated for Best Picture was The Right Stuff about the early years of the space program.  A good movie but not a great movie either.  The biggest movie in 1983 was Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi which got 4 nominations in technical categories but no major ones.  I love the fact that War Games a teen sci-fi movie got 3 nominations.  Winning best song in 1983 was "Flashdance...What a Feeling" from the now iconic Flashdance.  Scoring no nominations were classics such as Scarface and A Christmas Story.  The big foreign language film from 1983 that managed to sneak into the Best Director and Best Screenplay race was the Swedish film Fanny and Alexander by famed director Ingmar Bergman.  Although I never saw it the movie is considered one of the best movies from that year.  Other movies from 1983 that I never saw that are supposed to be good are Silkwood, The Big Chill and Yentl. 

Movie Reviews Week Ending 5/29/11

Well I hadn't been to a movie in the theatre in almost 4 months but this week I made up for it. I ended up seeing three movies in three days this week plus a few more on Tv and DVD. I figured I would give a mini review and wrap up.

First on Wednesday I got free passes to a sneak preview of Attack the Block. An independent British sci-fi movie. The movie was recently released in the UK but has no release date in the US yet. To generate buzz for the movie they had a one time showing in 25 cities across the country. Luckily for me Chicago is close enough to drive to and I was able to get tickets. I enjoyed the movie. It was a lot of fun and really entertaining. The movie is about aliens that invade inner city London and these kids that try to fight them off. I love the movie because it doesn't take itself real seriously. There is a lot of silly drug humor and more then a few things that don't make sense but they are easily overlooked. The action is fun and exciting and the alien creatures are very cool looking. This movie is being compared to The Goonies one of my favorite movies of all time. Besides being about kids I don't think the two movies have much in common. Goonies is a feel good adventure movie where nobody gets killed and Attack the Block is a sci-fi movie where there are lots of people being killed.

On Thursday I saw the first of two documentaries this week that had their debut at Sundance. POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. This was directed by Morgan Spurlock the guy who made Super Size Me. And like Super Size Me this is an entertaining documentary. Spurlock has an over the top personality that is perfect for these documentaries. In this one he explores the world of product placement in TV and movies. He decided that he will make a documentary completely funded by product placement. The movie follows Morgan as he tries to get sponsors for the movies (not surprisingly no fast food place will do it). As he gets more sponsors he interviews directors and spokesman for products to find out how much influence advertisers have. While the topic isn't as serious as the one he tackled in Super Size Me he manges to make it fun even if in the end we are not really sure what he learned.

On Friday I managed to see the second film on my opening weekend must see list The Hangover Part II. This movie pretty much follows the same exact formula as the first but takes the jokes up a few notches on the gross factor. I guess if the formula isn't broke don't fix it because I laughed so hard during the movie. One of the few sequels that lived up to the hype.

Saturday I took the ay off from going to the theatre and watched the Netflix movie I have had for a while Love and Other Drugs. Being a pharmacist the story about drug rep intrigued me also when I found out that Anne Hathaway was naked a lot in it I had to see it. It wasn't too bad even if it had a sappy ending. Both Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhall were good in it and the story moved along pretty well even if there were some parts that were a little over the top.

Sunday morning I woke up and HBO was showing the documentary How to Die in Oregon. The movie won the Grand Jury prize at Sundance this year and wanted to check it out. The movie is about the controversial Death with Dignity law in Oregon. This law allows doctors to prescribe medication to terminally ill patients that will hasten their death. Basically an assisted suicide law that gives full control to the patients when they want to die. The movie follows one terminally ill patient as she decides to get the medications and her and her family's struggle with the decision of if and when to use it. The movie also show the struggle of a women who's husband died a very slow painful death to pass a similar law in Washington state. The movie brings up a lot of difficult issues and as my wife pointed out not the most pleasant movie to watch on a Sunday morning. I love documentaries that challenge me and can't wait to see it with other people to get their opinion.

Listomania Sunday: Post-Apocalyptic Movies

Well I am writing this on May 21, 2011 the day that Harold Camping predicted the rapture would happen. So, in case I am raptured today I wanted to help everyone left behind by listing the Top 5 post-apocalyptic movies they should watch in their post-apocalyptic world.  If it doesn’t happen then just consider the list as an interesting look at what the future may hold.

1. Children of Men-A great movie that deals with life after women stop having children.  Great psychological drama different the most post-apocalyptic movies since death happens slowly and not all at one time.

2. The Stand-I don’t usually include TV miniseries on my lists but this is an exception. It is a great movie adaption of the Stephen King book.  About a virus that kills off almost everyone in the world people have dreams either about an angel or a devil and sets up an epic battle between good and evil.  At over 6 hours long I figure in a post-apocalyptic world you will have plenty of time between the looting to watch it.

3. 28 Days Later- Another movie about a virus that kills almost everyone.  This virus turns everyone into zombies that start killing other people.

4. The Road Warrior- The second Mad Max movie and one that started a whole world of rip off.  The movie had Mel Gibson (in one of his early movies) wondering around a desert wasteland looking for gas and water.

5. 12 Monkeys- Apparently I like movies that deal with a virus wiping out the earth.  This one deals with a virus and time travel. A man has to go back in time to prevent a terrorist attack that releases a virus that will wipe out a large population and force the rest of the population to live underground. Sounds convoluted but it has great performances by Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis.