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!