Braveheart 1995

The Film:

Oh dear. We're starting to hit peak 90s nonsense now. I remember going to see this one at the cinema (along with most of the films mentioned below - I saw a lot of films in 1995). I think I might have seen it again once since then. I wasn't really impressed either time. I can't see that changing much this time round.

At the time of Braveheart, Mel Gibson wasn't quite the controversial figure that he is now. He was known for being really Catholic and having lots of kids, but the drunk-driving, anti-semitic, homophobic and (allegedly) wife-abusing side of him hadn't yet been revealed to the public. I don't know what difference all this will make to my viewing of this film - possibly none (it's "Passion of the Christ" that bothers me more on that count) but, suffice it to say, I wasn't ever that much of a fan of Mel Gibson anyway. If we watch it with a dram of really good Single Malt and follow it with a couple of episodes of Still Game, maybe it won't be too bad....

The Ceremony:

March 25th 1996 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. After Letterman's dodgy attempt the previous year they got Whoopi back - and also got Quincy Jones in to produce. It was generally considered to be a great success, although ratings were down. Whoopi's opening monologue was a good one:

Other Notable Winners That Night:

Gibson took home two awards for Braveheart, but he didn't even get a nomination for his acting (thank God!). There were some big names in those categories this year. Nicolas Cage beat two previous winners (Dreyfuss and Hopkins) and a future double winner (Penn) to take home Best Actor and the glorious and fabulous Susan Sarandon quite rightfully saw off Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson (who won the screenplay award instead) to win for her portrayal of Sr Helen Prejean.

Among the other awards was one for one of my favourite documentaries, Anne Frank Remembered (I was quite obsessed with it for a while) and the second of Wallace and Gromit's three Oscars.

There still wasn't an Animated Feature award at this point, so the only thing that Toy Story took home was a "special achievement" award.

Best Song:

It's another Disney - this time "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas (that Gibson fella gets everywhere!). This managed to beat the mighty "You Got A Friend In Me" from Toy Story!

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

There are a LOT of films I would rather have watched instead of Braveheart. It was a good year for a real variety of top quality films. The other four nominees were Apollo 13, Babe, Il Postino, Sense and Sensibility. To my shame I've still never seen Il Postino, but out of the other three I would probably give it to Apollo 13.

However, there are loads more films that were also (imho) much better than Braveheart, including: Dead Man Walking, Leaving Las Vegas, Toy Story (which didn't get nominated, but Babe did?!?), The Usual Suspects, Casino, Mr Holland's Opus, Bridges of Madison County, 12 Monkeys.... Of these I'd go for Dead Man Walking. Beautifully written and directed, wonderfully acted.

Our Verdict:

Away an bile ya heid ya bawbag! (that's me
shouting at Mel, not him at the English!)

Well, I can give you a one word review. And that word is "pish". I should probably say a bit more than that though.

It's been a while now since we watched the thing, but I happen to be writing this review on 25th January. I'm not sure if that's an appropriate coincidence, or an extreme affront to the sacred memory of Robert Burns, but here goes!

Braveheart is the story of 13th Century William Wallace, who leads a noisy and bloody uprising against the English. My knowledge of this era of history is very patchy, but the general consensus seems to be that Gibson's knowledge (or, at least, his regard for it) is just as patchy. As such, the story very quickly becomes rather formulaic, and this won't be the last time we are going to watch pretty much the same story in this challenge. (Next time it's a different century, different country, different antipodean actor but a very similar story!)

Oh look, a woman. There's a novelty!

  Young William Wallace watches his family die at the hands of the English invaders and escapes to Europe where he gets educated before returning to Scotland. He marries his childhood sweetheart (oh look - a female cast member....but not for long!) who is then raped by the English and eventually executed for trying to fight back.

Arses - some of the best acting in the whole thing!

Wallace has a fairly understandable reaction to all this - and leads his men to slaughter all the English in the vicinity. Then to slaughter a fair few more English. And to paint their faces blue, show the English what they keep under their kilts, and slaughter even more of them - including the King's nephew, who's head he sends as a warning to the King (sort of part John the Baptist, part Gwyneth Paltrow). In return the King sends his son's wife to try and reason with Wallace. (Yeay - another woman! That's your lot though....) Then there's another battle, Wallace gets caught, hung drawn and quartered, shouts "Freedom!" a lot and Robert the Bruce finishes the job for him.

Gie it up ye!!

There's a lot of shouting, a lot of blood, sweat and spit, a lot of hairy men in kilts and far too much of Mel Gibson's ego and his dodgy Scottish accent. There are some great actors in there and the battle scenes are pretty impressive. But, ultimately, I really don't care. Not because I don't care about Scotland or Scottish history, but because very little in this film makes me care about what's going on. I know I'm in a minority - IMDB is full of glowing reviews. But to me it's just another example of overblown 90s unlimited-budget (including Oscar marketing!) film-making, which looks impressive but does very little for me. Next time I watch a Scottish film it will almost certainly be Gregory's Girl (again) and it will be a much better experience than sitting through this!

Forrest Gump 1994

The Film:

Two of my absolute favourite films of all time were released in this year. Neither of them are Forrest Gump.

I did rather like Forrest Gump at the time - particularly the soundtrack, which makes for a really good compilation CD, including the Alan Silvestri theme tune. I also really liked Tom Hanks - and still do.

However, I fear that time may not have been good to this one. Partly because of the schmaltzy portrayal of an "inspirational" person with learning difficulties (and a lot of very lucky breaks), partly because the technological "wow" moments are probably not that wow-ish now - and also because I'm not entirely sure how the historical elements of it are going to look - we're essentially watching something from twenty five years ago which is mainly set a further twenty five years in the past. Hmmm.

The Ceremony:

March 27th 1995 - this year at the Shrine Auditorium. Another three and a half hour marathon - but it got the best ratings in over a decade.

Whoopi was asked but turned it down this year, so they went with David Letterman - who made such a hamfisted botch of the whole thing that it just showed how tightly scripted (and not by him) his own show was. The most infamous cringey bit is attached - I think both Uma and Oprah got over this a lot more quickly than Letterman did!

Other Notable Winners That Night:

Tom Hanks got his second Best Actor award in a row, Jessica Lange was Best Actress. Young upstart Quentin Tarantino won for the Screenplay of Pulp Fiction - and future Doctor Who actor Peter Capaldi won the Oscar for Best Short Film for the decidedly weird "Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Life" (who'd a thought that Malcolm Tucker had an Oscar!)

However, the most important win of the night (imho) is the singular Oscar that my absolute favourite film of all time won. Best Costume went to the genius designers of the frocks worn by the stars of the faaaaabulous Priscilla Queen of the Desert!

Best Song:

Yes, you've guessed it, it's a Disney. Having said that - it's one of the best. Three of the five nominees were from The Lion King - and "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" was the one that won Sharon (to appropriately give him his drag name) her Oscar.....

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

The simple answer - any other of the nominees other than Forrest Gump. They are all better films! It's a classic year. We have Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show and - my other all-time favourite from this year - The Shawshank Redemption.

Other nominees that didn't make it to the Best Picture category but wipe the floor with Forrest Gump - Priscilla (of course!), The Lion King, The Madness of King George, Bullets Over Broadway, Ed Wood, Heavenly Creatures.....

It just shows how much a good marketing campaign can make a difference at the time (something we will see much more of in the 90s, unfortunately!) but also that the cream will rise to the top eventually. Shawshank now appears on many more "best of" lists (often at number one, or second behind The Godfather) than Forrest Gump does.

Our Verdict:

Lieutenant Dan

I'm trying really hard not to judge Forrest and co too harshly just for being the sort of film it was in the year it was, up against all those other films. When I was in my early 20s I went to see Forrest Gump and really enjoyed it - but now I'm in my late 40s and I'm struggling to see why.

Clearly the film itself hasn't changed, but I certainly have - and the extra 25 years of post-Forrest history since it was released have definitely changed things. Watching it again now, it's far clearer than it was at the time that Hollywood went for the safe ultra-American patriotic flag waving option rather than the cross-dressing, prison-escaping, British-swearing, murdering alternatives that were on offer. What a shame.

Jenny

I feel, therefore, that this is another film that needs a Good/Bad/Ugly review. First, the Good. Tom Hanks really shouldn't have got the Oscar, but he's always worth watching and just the thought of anyone else trying to play that part is frankly horrifying. I love Tom Hanks, and I like him in this, so he's definitely a good thing about the film. Secondly, the cinematography is great. It's a good film to look at. The technology is impressive for the time, and holds up far better than I thought it would, from Forrest being patched in to various world events to the disappearance of Lt Dan's legs (sparing Gary Sinise the trials that Jon Savage went through in The Deerhunter!). Thirdly, that soundtrack is still great - in fact, I sang along to keep my strength up for the rest of the film.

Jenny!!!! (again!)....and I bet you struggled to read
any of these captions without doing the voice!

Now, the Bad (and there may be some controversial views here). I'm generally a fan of Sally Field but I really couldn't stand her as Forrest's mom. The southern drawl that worked so well in things like Places In The Heart and Steel Magnolias just grates on me here. I find the character unsympathetic and the performance cartoonish, and that spoils things. The whole story, when it really comes down to it, is also pretty bad. If it's meant to be believable and realistic, then it really isn't. If it's meant to be magic-realism, with a fantastical element, then it doesn't go far enough. It just sits awkwardly somewhere in the middle. Forrest is portrayed as a simple, limited, innocent and honest man who manages to influence Elvis, become a war hero, a millionaire businessman, a sporting hero and a national inspiration - and yet, with the themes of war, abuse, HIV/AIDS and bereavement, none of this is really played for laughs or even whimsy. It just doesn't work. Forty-something year old me isn't buying it!

Life Is Like A Box of Chocolates

As for the Ugly. The character of Jenny comes under this category. She really bothers me and I can't feel any sympathy for her. Whatever the reasons/excuses, Jenny is unpleasant and mistreats Forrest in all sorts of different ways throughout the film. She is selfish and exploitative and never really gets her redemption - not even through the emotionally manipulative way her story ends. Linked with that is the portrayal of a the "developmentally challenged" Forrest. Where Rain Man still (imho) triumphs, Forrest Gump completely fails. We're made to feel patronisingly sorry for Forrest, ("ah, bless him"), particularly by the way he's dressed, sitting bolt upright on the bench, trustingly telling anyone that sits next to him every little detail of his life. Remember - this is a millionaire-businessman-war-hero - but we need to feel like we're better than him. Because if that's the case, we too can live the American Dream with the same success that he does.

In the Trump era, I can't help feeling that this film would go down a bit too well with his supporters. The small liberal shout-outs in the story, such as his Black best friend (who dies) and the anti-war hippies like Jenny (who dies) are drowned out by some very MAGA-esque patriotism. I'm pretty certain that this wasn't the intention of Winston Groom (who wrote the original novel) or even Tom Hanks and Bob Zemeckis (both out and proud Democrats!) - but it's what I see this time round, so I don't think I'll rush to see it again.

Schindler's List 1993

The Film:

I'm not really sure what to say about this film by way of an introduction. It's one I've seen several times in full, and have also used clips of in lessons. I saw it at the pictures (on my own) when it first came out and - like I did with Cry Freedom a few years earlier - I cried on the bus on the way home.

This is without doubt one of the most important films on our list. The world is (hopefully) a better place because it has been made. The production led to the development of an archiving project called "Survivors of the Shoah" which recorded and videoed the stories of those who went through some of the horrors depicted in the film - a vital project to have been completed in the 1990s, as most of those who participated have now died. Whatever else Spielberg has done (good or bad) - this is what he should be remembered for.

To say I'm "looking forward" to watching it again would probably be a poor choice of phrase - but it's been a while since I've watched the whole thing, so it will be interesting to see if it has lost any of its impact.

The Ceremony:

21st March at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion - and it's Whoopi's first year. She was a surprise choice and became the first African-American and the first woman to host the show. Critics were worried beforehand that she might be a bit of a loose cannon - but she was generally very well received, and went on to host another three times.

Other than that, it was pretty much business as usual, but with a conscious attempt to be classier than in previous recent years. There were vocal performances from Dolly Parton, Bruce Springsteen and Janet Jackson among others - and a lavish Debbie Allen dance number (of course). Oh, and the lovely Paul Newman was there - winning his Jean Hersholt Award!

Other Notable Winners That Night:

Thankfully Harvey Keitel put some clothes on - and stayed
out of the picture!

It was a serious year all round this year - out of the eight big categories, there was only one comedy film nominated (Dave - for Original Screenplay).

Apart from Jurassic Park (which took three technical awards), the other two big winners were The Piano and Philadelphia. I love Philadelphia and - despite a massively virtue-signalling role - Tom Hanks deserved his Oscar, up against some heavyweight competition. However, just like with Tom Cruise in Rain Man, Denzel Washington got totally overlooked in the less showy but just as brilliant supporting role!

I'm not a big fan of The Piano, but the photo above is the sort of thing we've not seen since the 40s. Hooray for three women winning three big awards for the same film!

Also of note - Wallace and Gromit won the first of their three Oscars this year, for the splendid The Wrong Trousers. One of the greatest pieces of stop-motion animation ever!

And while we're here....this also happens to be the year in which I appeared in an Oscar-nominated film! I've looked closely several times but my performance appears to have been mainly consigned to the cutting room floor. In various abandoned takes I would have been seen grabbing Daniel Day Lewis from behind to stop myself from falling over and helping Emma Thompson regain her balance after she fell into me. There were a lot of people in that crowd scene and we were directed to riot! Daniel and Emma were both nominated for their performances in In The Name of the Father. I was not. (But my Bacon number is 3!)


Best Song:


With the over-abundance of Disney stuff winning this award in the 90s, I was slightly bothered that we were going to have an inappropriately cheery video to add to this post. Fear not, there isn't a Disney in sight this year, just The Boss! This is a deeply sad and serious song - and all the more deserving for it. 

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

There is absolutely no question in my mind that the right film won this year. Because of its cultural and historical significance. Because it was about time Spielberg won something. And most of all, because it is such a good film.

Two of the best - at their best!

Having said that, the other four nominees were also pretty good films. The Piano I've mentioned - good, but not one I particularly like. I've decided not to give the award to In The Name Of The Father, because that would be biased, seeing as I'm in it (honest guv!), but it's a great film! The Fugitive is also a much better film than it has any right to be, mainly because of its Oscar winner, Tommy Lee Jones. However, my favourite of the other nominees is probably Remains of the Day. If it had been released a couple of years earlier, it's likely to have won two acting awards and maybe even Best Picture - comparing this to Hopkins Oscar-winning role a few years earlier and you can't deny how good an actor he is (even if he always sounds just a little bit Welsh in everything!).

The biggest shock to me in looking at these nominations is the absence of Philadelphia in both Best Picture and Best Director category. Just shows what sort of a year it was.....(ps - the 90s start going downhill pretty quickly....)

Our Verdict:

Helen Hirsch - one of the characters that makes the film

Oh my word this film is a masterpiece! And it has lost nothing of its power or greatness over the years or, indeed, with repeat viewings. Everything about a Spielberg film that makes it a great Spielberg film is here in it's most perfect form.

First of all, Spielberg can tell a good story. He knows how to construct a film to provide pace, intrigue, moments of excitement and shock, light and shade etc. One of the things that I had forgotten, having not seen this all the way through for quite some time, is how the whole film hangs together as perfectly told story. It never forgets that it is following a narrative that needs key characters, plot points etc. And yet, at the same time Spielberg never forgets the responsibility he has taken on to document the horrors of history. Those scenes are there, they don't pull any punches, and they deliberately put individual human faces on unimaginable numbers.

The list is life!

That's the second great Spielberg-esque element of the film. His ability to shoot great spectacle - crowd scenes, action sequences etc - without them ever losing the connection to the characters and just becoming something impressive to look at (yes, I mean you David Lean!). The whole film looks good. The choice to film in (almost all) black and white has been criticised, but I think it works. The use of colour to highlight the girl in the red dress is possibly the only point where Spielberg sentimentality spills over too much, but I like the point he is making. Starting (with the candle flame) and ending (with the tributes) in colour works brilliantly and frames the film well.

No words

The often-derided Spielberg sentimentality is reined in just enough for me. It's important that we care for these people. It's important that we feel for their plight and it's really important that we cry (or an equivalent reaction!) and Spielberg uses his tricks sparingly to ensure that this happens. The reality and brutality is there, but so are the ordinary people with their ordinary lives dealing with extraordinary circumstances, and we get to know these people just enough to feel it personally when the worst happens.

Prepare to cry buckets - either all the way home on the bus
or in front of a class of 30 teenagers.....

The cast is superb - proper A-list serious actors at their peak. The three key leads are all superb, particularly Ralph Fiennes at a relatively early (and very pre-Voldemort) stage in his film career, taking on the role of a man who has become a monster, managing to play him with (practically) no sympathy and no trace of cartoonish villainy.

The last Spielberg motif is the absolute triumph for me. Even thinking about that John Williams score reduces me to tears. The violin solo is an extraordinary piece of music and it gets me every time. (Maybe it's something about Jewish music? The other film clip I have to apologise in advance to my classes for is the opening scene of Prince of Egypt - guaranteed to set me off!)

The closing scenes with the modern day "Schindler Jews" and the actors with their real life counterparts laying stones on Schindlers grave are beautiful and a fitting conclusion to what Spielberg intended to achieve with this film.

It would be wrong to say I love this film. However, I think it's probably the most important of all the films on our list, and it manages to be an "important" and "worthy" film without compromising on any of the elements that also make it a really good film. G-d bless Steven Spielberg!

Unforgiven 1992

The Film:

This is one that I hadn't seen before, despite having several opportunities at the time. I think it's partly because I always claim that I don't like Westerns (except Butch and Sundance and True Grit!) and also because I'm really not that keen on Clint Eastwood.

I've read a bit more about it since - including the opinion of several critics that this is more of an "anti-Western" - and I'm looking forward to it a lot more now. It's also got Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman in it, both of which are good signs for me.

Given that the list of winners for the 90s is patchy at best, I'm hoping to be won over.....

The Ceremony:

March 29th 1993 - same place, same host and exactly the same running time. The ratings went up again, but the critics were getting bored of Billy Crystal. The theme this year "The Year of the Woman" was also criticised, including by several feminist groups - but it did produce the picture below, featuring 67 former winners:

Here's Billy's opening monologue:

Other Notable Winners That Night:

It's her Oscar and no one else is having it!

Unforgiven picked up four awards - including two for Clint's Producing/Directing role and a (very well deserved) Supporting Actor award for Gene Hackman. (One of Hackman's fellow nominees was Jaye Davidson for The Crying Game - completely spoiling the big "reveal" for anyone who had yet to see the film!)

Best Actor went to Al Pacino (finally) for the fairly average Scent of a Woman and Emma Thompson won Best Actress for Howard's End. Slightly more controversial was Marisa Tomei's Supporting Actress win for My Cousin Vinny. She beat four "serious" actresses (three Brits and an Aussie!) for her win, causing several critics to question if there had been a mistake in the voting - with one starting a rumour that the wrong name had been called out. Anyway, whatever people thought - she won the Oscar fair and square!


Best Song:

With two nominations each in this category, it was a fight between Aladdin and The Bodyguard. My preference would have been for "I Have Nothing" (my favourite Whitney song!) but it was the 90s, so the animation won. "A Whole New World" is a lovely song - as long as it's not Katie Price and Peter Andre singing it! (It's ok, this is the Peabo and Regina version!)

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Helena Bonkers-Conkers in her demure pre-Burton days!

We are definitely entering my peak cinema-going years now. Unforgiven is the only one of the five nominees that I didn't go and see at the pictures when it came out.

I liked all of the others at the time, but haven't seen any of them for a while. The Crying Game was much more than just *that* scene, A Few Good Men was much more than just *that* line and Scent of a Woman was a bit more than just *that* dance. But Howard's End was more than all of them - so it get's my vote!


Our Verdict:

Oooops

Not being a big fan of Westerns (with a couple of notable exceptions) and definitely not a fan of Clint Eastwood (again, with a couple of exceptions - one that's coming up later in the challenge) I really wasn't expecting to like this. However, I was wrong. This film is now very firmly on the list, with Cimarron and The Last Emperor, of films that far exceeded my expectations.

Do ya feel lucky.....ooops, sorry, wrong film!

The claim that it is an "anti-Western" is probably an accurate one - at least, if I've understood it correctly. This isn't some rootin' shootin' how-the-west-was-won sort of film, it isn't a grand sweeping epic family saga, it isn't a good vs evil and good wins sort of film, it's not some allegory for communism or anti-communism and it's not really a buddy movie either (although there's some of that in the relationship between Clint and Morgan's characters - and not for the last time in this challenge!)

Two of the greats - acting the pants off everyone else!

What Unforgiven manages to do is to tell a very different story within the setting of a Western. There's still the familiar landscapes and buildings, the same basic characters - sharp-shooting gunmen, a sheriff, an out-of-towner and the residents of the local brothel (unfortunately the only women in the film - but playing a tough, key role in the story. 

The story is about guilt, regret, justice and redemption - but the main characters have very different ideas of what that means. The key characters are written brilliantly, and cast perfectly - Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman particularly, but also Richard Harris, Saul Rubinek (who made me forget he was Daphne Moon's spurned fiance after only about a minute of "oh look, it's him off Frasier!") and even Clint himself, who I generallt reckon can't act for toffee. 

There are some women in the film....in the whorehouse!

The story is deliberately morally ambiguous, which left me (deliberately) a bit uneasy but also kept me compelled through to the end. It doesn't shy away from violence and realism - and it includes some of the most violent scenes we've seen so far - but it never glorifies any of it. 

It's intelligent film-making with something to say. It's an acting masterclass, particularly from Freeman and Hackman. I will almost certainly watch it again. And, looking back at those other nominees, I'm happy to concede that this was the rightful Best Picture of that year. Fair play to you, Mr Eastwood!

The Silence of the Lambs 1991

The Film:

This one is a bit of an epic, in a very different way to last year's offering. It's one of the most well known of all Oscar winners - but probably not because it's one of only three to have won the "Big Five" (after It Happened One Night and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest). It also happens to be one of the most quoted and parodied of all films in recent years.                                                                                                                                      This is the first of several 90s winners that are inextricably linked in my mind with French and Saunders (I can think of at least three more that are coming up!). Which does sort of spoil the tension a bit. I've also got a very strong image of Hugh Dennis doing a Hannibal Lecter impression on The Mary Whitehouse Experience - I think it was a send up of Masterchef! 

And, of course, fava beans and chianti will never be quite the same for people of a certain age.....

The Ceremony:

March 30th 1992 - same host, but back at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion this year. The show had pretty much the same general format, and ran to about the same length. The reviews were good and the ratings went up again.

There was some controversy in the lead up to the Ceremony, with various protests from LGBT activists (particularly Queer Nation). They objected to the negative portrayal of LGBT characters in Silence of the Lambs and JFK (and also Basic Instinct, which was being heavily promoted at the time). I'm not sure quite how far Hollywood has moved on since then - significantly more awards have been given to actors portraying LGBT characters and films with LGBT themes. The characters (generally) aren't villains any more, but they still usually have a miserable time and an untimely death.....

Other Notable Winners That Night:

Not actually an Oscar - just the recipient of one!

Silence of the Lambs did something that has only been done twice before - scooped the top five awards. That didn't leave much of any note for anyone else that night. The Supporting acting awards went to Jack Palance and Mercedes Ruel and the other Screenplay award went to Thelma and Louise, written by Callie Khouri - who has the eternal respect of this household for creating the TV series Nashville.

The only other film to win more than two awards this year was Terminator 2 - which won two for its sound and two for its visuals. In terms of the visual awards, it's definitely a taste of things to come, as computer technology starts to develop at an incredible rate!



Best Song:

Most of the nominees came from Beauty and the Beast and the only real rival was Bryan Adams and THAT song that was number one when I finished first year at Uni and was still number one when I started second year..... Anyway, the title track won and was sung live on the night by Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson (with a bit of Angela Landsbury in the background). We'll have enough of Celine Dion later on this decade, so here is just the Dame Angela version:

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Tale as old as time......

Even if it is really just a jumped-up B movie, I think I'm still going to give it to The Silence of the Lambs.

Of the other nominees, I thought Prince of Tides was boring, JFK is problematic and I still need to watch Bugsy. Thelma and Louise and Boyz N The Hood should probably also have got a look in.

It's the fifth nominee that got the most attention, as Beauty and the Beast became the first animated film to be nominated for Best Picture. (It was thought it would be the only one, as the Best Animated Feature Award was introduced soon after - but, since the number of nominees for Best Picture was widened, there's been a few more). It's a lovely film, with the central characters of a fiesty young woman and a locked-away beast. But that's where the similarities between this and the actual winner end!


Our Verdict:

An Oscar for him......

This is a film that I've seen a few times (including at the cinema when it first came out) and one that I remember really liking. However, I hadn't seen it for quite some time and my head was so full of parodies that I really wasn't sure how it would hold up. Also, the villain is a problematic trans character who tortures and kills women for their skin - and I was really not sure quite how problematic that would be.

Generally speaking, I really enjoyed (if that's the right word) watching the film again. It's generally well written and very well acted, cleverly paced with good moments of tension and shock. It's also the goriest of the films we've watched so far (and is still the only horror film to win). And - hooray! - it's led by a strong female character that gets most of the lines (I'm still counting them on one hand since the 60s!)

......and an Oscar for her.

Anthony Hopkins, who I otherwise picture as a mild-mannered bookshop owner or a repressed English butler, is truly terrifying as Lecter (and only ever so slightly Welsh....) It's as much what he doesn't do as what he does. It's all very underplayed, with staring eyes suggesting all of the evil genius that is going on behind them.

Not French and Saunders

Jodie Foster holds her own opposite him and keeps the film going. She manages to be vulnerable and relateable but never weak. We're able to get behind her viewpoint really well.

The aforementioned problematic villain, Buffalo Bill, is not as problematic (imho) as I had initially feared. I'm happy to be corrected, but I see them far more as a psychopath who happens to be trans (or, as the film suggests, has a psychosis brought on by trauma that makes them think their trans) rather than any suggestion of a negative attitude towards trans people or the LGBT+ community. The whole portrayal is generally a bit dated but I think the character comes across well. And, of course, it is possible to argue that the real villain is Lecter himself.....

Not Hugh Dennis

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this film after all this time, and in the context of this challenge. However, I don't see it as being in the same league as the other Big Five winners - and it's not a classic winner. This is definitely only a B movie, made a bit special with A-list acting. It had a good campaign and great word of mouth in a year where the competition wasn't that great.

But it's very entertaining and it's given us a few (unintended) laughs along the way....

Dances With Wolves 1990

The Film:

And so we enter the 90s with another epic historical drama. One that I vaguely remember half-watching a while back and never really having any desire to go back to. Probably mainly because of its length - it's another 3 hour historical epic!

I'm not much of a fan of Kevin Costner, and this has Costner all over it. I've also never really been that interested in frontiersmen and pioneering and all of that sort of American history. Although I think, slightly older and wiser, I'm probably more up for it now than I was in my 20s.

This is definitely not a "cowboys and indians" film - it's a soldiers and Native Americans film. So I've never been entirely sure if it's really a Western (in the way that Cimarron and Unforgiven are) or not. IMDb reckons it's a Western, and cites it as the largest grossing Western of all time, but different lists categorize it differently

Now that the film is nearly 30 years old, it's already seen as more than slightly dated in referring to the Sioux people as "indians" (not just in the narrative, but in the whole production) - however this is generally still outweighed by the overall respect that is given to the Native Americans throughout the film - which led to Costner being officially accepted as an honorary Sioux.

The Ceremony:

March 25th 1991 at the Shrine Auditorium - and we get Billy Crystal again, as we are going to have for most of this decade. He definitely brings an updated and very much needed style to the whole proceedings - this is definitely a nineties show, unlike the eighties shows that came before. When it was announced that Crystal would be presenting again, he joked that he would try and bring the whole thing in in under nine hours. It actually ran for a reasonably modest three and a half.

The ceremony had the theme of "100 Years of Film", celebrating the centenary of Edison's Kinetoscope and Kodak celluloid film. Reviews were mixed, but it got the highest ratings since 1984. The whole thing is out there on Youtube - I've picked a nice little item where Bob Hope introduces the first movie memories of several other stars. Fabulously nostalgic!

Other Notable Winners That Night:

Dances With Wolves took seven awards - including two for Kevin Costner, but not for his acting. The acting awards went to four different films: Reversal of Fortune (Jeremy Irons), Misery (Kathy Bates), Goodfellas (Joe Pesci) and Ghost (Whoopi Goldberg).

From a UK point of view, as well as Jeremy Irons (who was first seen, by those of us of a certain age, singing children's songs with Brian Cant!), the big winner was Nick Park who got his first Oscar this year - not for Wallace and Gromit (although they were also nominated) but for Creature Comforts. We'd already seen this on Channel 4 and we also had versions of it turned into TV ads. It still holds up today, amid all the technological advances of the last three decades!

Best Song:

One of only a couple of winners this decade that aren't from animated films - and the first of two to be sung by Madonna. The actual Oscar went to Stephen Sondheim. It's a classy song, and her performance on the night is worth watching:

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Kevin Costner is gonna get whacked!

Whilst I can see why the Academy went for Costner and his sweeping plains of buffalo, it's really not my kind of film and - up until this challenge - was the only one of this year's nominees that I didn't already know. Among the others are Ghost (fun, but overrated and not really Oscar material), Awakenings (one of few films to have me blubbing like a baby all the way through the end credits), The Godfather III (only mediocre when set against its predecessors - otherwise a great film, apart from the helicopters and Sofia's death scene!). Any one of Reversal of Fortune, The Grifters or Misery should have taken Ghost's place. But my winner would have been the other nominee, Goodfellas. It's better than Godfather III, and holds up against the other two. A great film!

Our Verdict:

Sorry Costner fans, but it's a nope from me.

It's a while now since we watched this one so I apologise if my review is a little hazy. For a film that lasted three hours, not a great deal really happened that has stuck in my memory, so very little has changed in terms of my initial opinion. It's a film that I can appreciate and I would even go as far as to say that I'm glad it was made - but it's not really my thing.

Buffalo. Many buffalo.

As with Out of Africa a few years ago, the film looks good and sounds good. The cinematography is excellent - sweeping plains and herds of buffalo, beautiful sunsets for Costner to gaze out upon. The John Barry score (same as Out of Africa!) is also impressive and gives the film the sense of respectful grandeur it deserves.

The story itself is fairly slight for the time it takes to tell it. Costner is John Dunbar, a Civil War hero who is sent to a remote outpost where he firstly befriends a wolf and then a Sioux tribe. Among them is a white woman (Mary McDonnell) who has been raised by the tribe - which serves to set up the idea that they are open to outsiders and to provide a love interest for Dunbar.

Buddy movie - exhibit A

The first half hour or so really put me off - there's a battle with lots of horses running about and then some nonsense with an insane Major (which felt like it had come straight from Tom Jones, and didn't really fit at all). However, once he meets the wolf I could see what all the fuss is about. If I'd really got into the film I would probably waxing very lyrical indeed about what the film says about insiders/outsiders, communities, belonging, sense of place, the evil that men do etc etc. I can see that it's all there, from the relationship between Dunbar and Two Socks (the wolf he dances with) through the relationships with Kicking Bird (Graham Greene) and Stands With a Fist (the love interest - who's name I'd completely forgotten and had to look up!) and in the big set pieces throughout the film.

Buddy movie - exhibit B

The epic scenes with the herds of buffalo are genuinely impressive and, although I never really got to grips with Mary McDonnell and her dreadful wig, I really like the way the relationship and trust between Dunbar and Kicking Bird develops throughout the film.

It's a good film and I'm glad I watched it. If it had been released a year earlier, it would have been a lot lower on the 80s list than I think it's going to be on the 90s!

It's been a while........now where were we?

"Sorry I got held up....."

Coat!

The above is a quote from one of my favourite ever films - which is never otherwise going to appear on a blog about the Oscars. It was released in 1972, so wasn't going to get a look in with those Italian gangsters and Berlin nightclubbers! - but it has just appeared in Mark Kermode's list of the greatest films for children ever, which has made me very happy indeed! (It is also one of two films that feature the best coat in the history of coats ever - top of my list of movie memorabilia I would love to own. Where is it? Did Jenny Agutter get it back? Does one of Lionel Jeffries kids have it? Did one of Peter Sellers kids take it in revenge when Lynne died? I'm a bit obsessed....)

Anyway, it seemed an appropriate heading, because I've not blogged for a while and it's bothered me. I have three main excuses - one is feeble and the other two are linked.


Feeble Excuse 

Lots of A Level, lots of GCSE, too many late nights prepping and marking. The last thing I wanted to do when I finished was sit down and write more things.... Even I don't quite buy that one, but the fact that my last post was in March, when things really kicked in exam-wise, suggests that there's probably something in it. Anyway, it's the summer holidays now. So that excuse has gone!


Better Excuses....
Ok, these two are definitely linked - and sort of took over my whole mindset when ploughing through the next few films on the list.

Firstly, I was not looking forward to the 90s. The 70s had been great, the 80s were ok (and brilliant in
parts) and I was enjoying the personal nostalgia. However, the 90s was the decade that I really got into films. I bought Empire every fortnight, I went to the cinema regularly and several of my favourite films of all time are from the 90s. However, most of them didn't win Best Picture. And a lot of stuff that I either didn't really like or didn't really want to watch again did win.

Secondly, I started watching lots more films from the 30s and 40s and I would much rather be blogging about them instead - but I've got to finish this challenge first. The more the 90s films were annoying me (apart from a few gems) the more I watched the old stuff!

At the time of writing this, we've just watched 2005 (an absolute classic!) so I have a lot of catching up to do. Therefore - I need to get the following out of my system:


Six Other Classic Best Picture Nominees from the 30s and 40s:

Ok - here are my rules: 
1. Must have been nominated for Best Picture (so not Laura or Now Voyager!)
2. Must be something I hadn't seen before starting the challenge (so not 42nd Street or Top Hat or Double Indemnity!)

I've watched about a dozen or so that fit these criteria - here's my favourite six (I couldn't get it down to five). And, yes, they all star strong women doing feisty things! Something that is sadly lacking in the 90s (Kate Winslet in a ballgown with an axe is the feistiest it gets!).

In chronological order....


Jezebel (1938)

Lady in Red.....

We've watched a lot of Bette Davis since Margo Channing topped off the female-dominated 40s in grand style! This is not my favourite of them (after All About Eve, that's probably Now Voyager) but it's the only one that was nominated for Best Picture and it won Bette an Oscar.

A year before Gone With The Wind, Bette plays a mid-19th Century stroppy Southern Belle (Julie) that could give Scarlet a run for her money. In fact, the central maguffin for the first half of the film is a scarlet dress which she wears to deliberately cause a scandal. Although the film is in black and white, you can just tell how scarlet that dress is!

Anyway, Julie's scandalous behaviour scares off her suitable (but wet) suitor and then, with yet more inappropriate clothing, she behaves very badly again when he brings his new wife home a few years later. This would have been enough melodrama in itself, but then everyone starts dying of yellow fever and it all gets rather dark.....

It's a very 30s drama, with a dark and depressing edge that had generally gone by the middle of the 40s (maybe a consequence of WW2?). Without Bette it would probably have been too overblown and overacted, but she is superb as usual.

This one lost out to You Can't Take It With You - and was also up against The Adventures of Robin Hood. Never a real contender, but worth watching for Bette.


Gaslight (1944)

Paula suspects something

This film is now most notable for being the origin of the term "gaslighting" which is officially defined as "a form of psychological manipulation in which a person seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual, making them question their own memory, perception and sanity". And that's pretty much the plot of the film.

Paula (Ingrid Bergman) brings her new husband Gregory (Charles Boyer) to live in the house where her Aunt had been murdered several years earlier. Various things start to happen, she loses things and lets her husband down - things aren't going well between them. She starts to notice that the lights dim in the house at certain times with no explanation. When she questions this, Gregory tells her she's imagining things - and she starts to think she must be going mad.....

This is a great film in its own right. It's a good psychological thriller (there's also Joseph Cotten as the detective investigating the Aunt's murder) and has superb performances at its heart, including Bergman's Oscar winning triumph. It's also a really important film and, despite being old and in black and white, it should really be shown and watched more often - because, sadly, the concept of "gaslighting" is at least as relevant and prevalent now as it was when the film was made.

This is one of two films that are far superior to that year's winner, Going My Way (the other being Double Indemnity). Oh, and it's got Angela Landsbury in it too!


Mildred Pierce (1945)

Daughter Dearest

If we've got Bette Davis, there has to be Joan Crawford in there somewhere - so here she is, winning her Oscar (just the one, Joan, and don't you forget it!). I'm Team Bette all the way, but I don't begrudge her this one. By 1945, Joan was "box office poison" and, in real life, was already in full "mommie dearest" mode. This film marked the first kick start to her career, still more than a decade away from the psycho-hag films she ended with.

This is a great film. It's directed by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) and, along with Joan, we also have an Oscar-nominated Eve Arden, a fabulously bitchy Ann Blyth (and a forever typecast Butterfly McQueen!). Thus showing yet again that the lack of good movie roles for women isn't a legacy of a bygone era, it's something that happened AFTER the golden age of Hollywood.

This is another psychological thriller - did Mildred shoot her husband, and if so, why? Told through flashbacks it's an almost perfect mix of whodunnit and whydunnit. The hard edge that Joan has works well here, as we wonder how far we are meant to be sympathetic towards her. The film shows family breakdown and family politics really well and, in Ann Blyth's Veda, a really complex and interesting relationship between mother and daughter (ironically, considering how Joan played her real life role of mother!)

Joan won the Oscar but the film lost out to Lost Weekend. Lost Weekend is the better film (my Billy Wilder bias only gets thrown when Joe Mankiewicz shows up!) but this one is also a corker!



The Razor's Edge (1946)

This is not going to end well.....

This is one that I knew very little about, but it sounded intriguing so I bought it! It's directed by Edmund Goulding, whose most famous film is the wonderful Grand Hotel more than a decade earlier. It's based on a Somerset Maugham novel and is quite a complicated (and arguably overlong) saga focusing on the complicated and failed relationships of a group of people - spanning several decades, at least three continents and the 1929 stock market crash. A lot goes on in two and a half hours, and I can't even begin to try and explain it here, so I won't try.

It has a cracking cast - Tyrone Power is very serious (and very good) with not a swash in sight to buckle. Gene Tierney is fabulously selfish and bitchy in the lead female role and Anne Baxter is also superb as their tragic friend, in the role for which she won her Oscar. Somerset Maugham appears as a character in the film (as he does in his own book) providing a clever narrative link - and it all ends tragically, yet wistfully, in the South of France.

Of course it's nowhere near as good as Best Years Of Our Lives, or It's A Wonderful Life (which it clearly isn't, at least not for the women in the film), but it's worth a watch, particularly for the performances of the three mentioned above.

(Apparently it was remade in the 80s with Bill Murray and Theresa Russell. Not even Bill Murray liked it. I'll give that one a miss!)


The Heiress (1949)

The joys and pains of love

It is quite remarkable to think that, at the time of writing this blog, the star of this film is still alive. 103 year old Olivia de Havilland made her first film 84 years ago, and won her Oscar for this film, 70 years ago. I'd never heard of it before we started our Oscar challenge, but I've now watched it twice and I really like it.

It's based on the Henry James book Washington Square and centres around Catherine, the nearly-not-quite-an-old-maid daughter of an overbearing father (played by Ralph Richardson). She is constantly compared unfavourably to her dead mother and is made to believe she is plain, awkward and lacking in personality. Along comes a young Montgomery Clift who falls for her - and she falls back. Dad reckons he's just after her money and does all he can to break up the relationship. Catherine's aunt Lavinia thinks otherwise, and does all she can to try and keep them together.

Catherine eventually decides her fate for herself.....and I'm not going to give the ending away!

Olivia is fabulous in this film. She is, of course, a beautiful woman in real life - and yet she manages to act plain and unattractive rather than being made up to look that way. This really adds to the idea that her misfortunes are all nurture rather than nature - and it's all about the acting. The way she walks, holds herself, looks at people, speaks apologetically etc. Wonderful stuff!

One of Andy's absolute favourites, All The Kings Men, won Best Picture that year. Probably the right decision, but this one is also a classic!


A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

Does what it says on the tin!

My last choice is also from 1949. Joseph L Mankiewicz proved himself a worthy rival to Billy Wilder across two years in which he won two Screenplay awards and two Best Director awards. The other two were for my absolute favourite Best Picture winner, All About Eve. However, he did the same thing the year before with this film which seems to have been nearly forgotten about - possibly because it didn't bag the big prize.

It's not as good as All About Eve (few things are) but it has a lot in common with it. There are three strong women as the focus of the film (with a fourth just as a voiceover, voiced by AAE's Celeste Holm) and their husbands play second fiddle in the plot, but are still strong enough characters to not be caricatures. Thelma Ritter is also thrown into the mix as a wisecracking housekeeper. So far, all things I love about AAE!

The plot is a clever one - as the title suggests, three wives all receive a letter from a friend of theirs, the unseen Addie Ross, who tells them all that she is running away with one of their husbands. The three women receive this letter just as they board a riverboat for a day-long school picnic. They spend the day wondering which husband it's going to be - leading to flashbacks of how each of them got to know their husbands and each other.

The rest of the film feels like a bit of a dress rehearsal for All About Eve. It's got the same feel to it, including great dialogue between women and other women, and women and their men. It's got a lovely mix of drama and comedy and characters that are likeable enough for you to be rooting for them, but not so much that you really care too much about their fate. It's not as slick as AAE and it does wander and drift a bit in the middle, but I really like it. It's a shame that it doesn't get seen more.


Well - that turned out to be very cathartic. I feel that I now have the strength to get back to Kevin Costner, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson etc..... Oh joy!