Thoughts on Oscar 2013

Jess' Take: I was not a good guesser this year - I went too far with my own what I want to win, rather than who I think will win.  Plus, we forgot to even guess a Best Supporting Actor.  After seeing Django, I was convinced Christophe was going to win an Oscar, deservedly.  The other acting awards were pretty predictable.  I think there was still some competition for Best Actress, but after the SAG awards, we knew it would likely be Jennifer Lawrence - which I think was as much an award for the brilliant start to her career as much as for Silver Linings Playbook alone.  It's not really a typical Best Actress performance, but it was still terrific.  I'm a huge fan of Ang Lee as a director, so I was really happy to see the love for Best Director.  Overall, I think the Academy saw the huge achievement it was to even make Life of Pi and was willing to acknowledge that risk and then reward the extremely strong and beautiful result of that risk.  As you might remember from our review, I liked Les Miserables quite a lot.  However, I do not think they should have gotten the sound awards they did - that was easily the biggest problem I had with the film.  The live recording did give really terrific acting performances, but it required a greater post-production effort to get it to sound as good as it could when they matched the voices with the orchestra (which I think they didn't).

Okay, the hosting.  Seth McFarlane was pretty funny.  I liked the opening shtick with William Shatner when he was trying to lower expectations, but sadly he was only able to meet those those expectations.  He talked to himself and the crew under his breath too often, referencing the jokes he was hoping would land a little too often.  Also, the level of sexism (aka 13-year-old boy humor) was off-putting fairly quickly.  I have no problem with the idea of talking about the actresses who have striped for movies, but I don't think the Oscar telecast was the time - particularly setting up as a reason for his being a terrible host (lowest bar of humor reached, congrats).  Unfortunately, it set such a bad tone for me that he was hard to watch alone on stage. He was still much better at carrying the show than the pairing of Franco and Hathaway, but still didn't reach the levels of most other hosts.

Rachel's Take: First off, why does the Academy even bother with a theme? Take this year's "theme" of music through the movies (or something) which the ceremony failed to actually celebrate. Apparently musicals didn't exist before Chicago a decade ago and then they only let one Best Song nominee be performed live, which only lucked out by being a.) a Bond song and b.) performed by Adele. I've never been one to care for the Best Song performances during the ceremony and was glad when they stopped it a year or two ago, but this seems incredibly hypocritical. Overall the theme was completely lost, though a random dance number with Jo-Go and Harry Potter made my fantasy day. If ever there were a great moment for an Oscar montage, they blew it.

At least I wasn't completely put off by host Seth MacFarlane. I'm pretty sure I audibly groaned when I heard he would be hosting this year, because I've never understood the appeal of Family Guy, et al. I'm surprised at the backlash, because he wasn't nearly as crude and offensive as I feared he might be, but that could be me expecting the worst. However, the opening was far too long, as was the ceremony as a whole. But I dug his little asides, as he proved he knew the hosting gig and the jokes were mostly BS.

As with this year, I always enjoy when the awards are spread out among many films, and no one "sweeps" them all. Outside just a few awards, I was left guessing who the actual winner might be until announced, and it feels as though that rarely happens too. And after a quick check, it turns out I've seen a majority of the winners, outside the best leading acting categories. Honestly, I'm pretty happy with this year's winners, but the ceremony itself was rather forgettable.

Oh, but I just have one request: Can we please keep actors who typically do comedy from presenting? That Rudd/McCarthy bit was the most painful of the night. And thinking back, most of the worst Oscar moments (in recent memory) come from the likes of Stiller, Ferrell, etc. I don't think the Academy knows how to write jokes for those guys, so we should just skip them altogether or get better writers. Oh, and another request: MOAR MONTAGES! Like this lovely one from just two years ago:

30 Days of Oscar: What I've Learned

One of the things I've started making my students do is reflect on what they've learned.  It's a different part of your brain that has to summarize information and send out a new synthesis, rather than just the recall part of your brain that is good for exams.  Actually reflecting on what you've learned is a great way for most people to actually retain information (think final exam rather than midterm) and can reveal a lot of the importance of what you've done.  So what have I learned about the Oscars after 30 days of watching them?

1.  I watched 5 more Best Picture winners I hadn't seen - so I'm up to 67/84, and the most recent one I haven't seen is Patton from 1970.  And I've now seen 3 more Best Actress winners, trying to make up the deficit.

2.  There are a lot of movies, particularly Best Picture winners, that are ahead of their time.  Discussing antisemitism even before WWII.  Looking at women's rights in the 1930s.  They articulate arguments that we still discuss today, with almost the same resolve the movies present.

3.  Some movies actually should be remade.  There are a few of these that you can see have influenced other films, but others are original enough that they could hold up to a good retelling (Disraeli, Rebecca).

4.  Turns out I've seen most of the nominees from all of the 1980s and 1990s - I blame my mom.  Maybe next year, I'll focus on sweeping up the last of those.  I made up for it by seeing 3 movies from the 30s and 3 from the 40s.

5.  We all have preconceptions about movies we've never seen.  Turns out The Dirty Dozen wasn't a western.  And Jezebel doesn't have Mae West.  The Deer Hunter isn't as disturbing as many other things we've put on film since, but it is a heartfelt look at Vietnam.  

Summary for 30 Days of Oscar 2013:

1930: Disraeli

1938: The Life of Emile Zola
1939: Jezebel

1941: Rebecca

1948: Gentleman's Agreement, The Farmer's Daughter

1957: Anastasia
1963: Lawrence of Arabia
1968: The Dirty Dozen

1974: The Paper Chase, Paper Moon

1979: The Deer Hunter

2000: The Green Mile
2005: The Sea Inside, Finding Neverland

2010: The White Ribbon

2011: Rabbit Hole

2012: A Cat in Paris, A Better Life, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

2013: ParaNorman, Flight

30 Days of Oscar: Day 30 - The Dirty Dozen

Movie: The Dirty Dozen
Year: 1968

Nominations: Best Supporting Actor (John Cassavetes), Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Effects - Sound Effects

Wins/Snubs: It only won Best Sound Effects, and George Kennedy took Supporting Actor for Cool Hand Luke (which is totally deserved, what a performance!).  

I had never seen this - a huge blind spot on my part.  Considering that in many ways Inglorious Basterds is a bigger spin on this story, I'm surprised I didn't force myself to watch it sooner.  It's really amazing - a serious war movie with a lot of humor.  Lee Marvin (aka Liberty Valance) stars as a WWII Major Reisman who is tasked with a nearly impossible mission to infiltrate a Nazi mansion and blow it up, taking out as many Germans as possible.  To help him, he's given a dozen prisoners who will get their freedom if they survive.  During training they get pissed that there's no hot water for non-officers, so they refuse to shave or bathe, hence the name "Dirty Dozen".  They're not idiots (most of them), and they train hard for the top-secret mission that, of course, runs into problems.  They infiltrate well, even though one guy dies in the parachuting, but when someone has to scale the roof, his foot falls through changing his ability to get the grenades in the right place.  The whole thing really falls apart when one of the prisoners, a crazy guy (Telly Savalas) kidnaps one of the women with the officers and begins shooting her.  But everyone is well trained enough to cover and a long firefight ensues.  I would have no problem supporting all of these nominations, particularly the win for Effects.  For the 1960s, they're particularly well done.   

Of course, since I saw Sleepless in Seattle first, the scene below is all I could think of watching the end.  

30 Days of Oscar: Day 29 - Lawrence of Arabia

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
Year: 1963

Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (David Lean), Best Actor (Peter O'Toole), Best Supporting Actor (Omar Sharif), Cinematography (Color), Editing, Sound, Score, Art Direction, Best Adapted Screenplay

Wins/Snubs: Best Picture, Director, Cinematography (Color), Editing, Sound, Score, Art Direction all took the Oscar.  Gregory Peck beat O'Toole for To Kill a Mockingbird, and Ed Begley in Sweet Bird of Youth beat Sharif - who was too pretty to win anyway.

Last year, I completed the 30 days with Ben-Hur, so it only seemed fitting to knock off another epic and I saved Lawrence of Arabia for just such an occasion.  Coming in just short of 3 and a 1/2 hours, it took a while - and shockingly isn't even the longest Oscar winner (LOTR: Return of the King and Gone with the Wind take that).   As with Ben-Hur, it was worth almost every second.  Peter O'Toole is pretty amazing - and he's young and cute too.  O'Toole is real-life T. E. Lawrence is a lieutenant in the British military stationed in Cairo during World War I.  He's sent to assess the likelihood Prince Faisal (Alec Guiness - seriously) the head of a tribe fighting the Turks, might succeed.  On his way, he meets Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) when Lawrence and his guide drink from his well - so Sherif kills his guide.  Lawrence is pretty savvy in the desert, though and finds his way anyway.  This is the beginning of his love affair with this area - he goes on to help the various tribes beat back the Turks.  He becomes accepted by some of the people, even donning their dress, instead of his military fatigues.  

There is so much of this movie to describe, and so many parts of it, you'll already recognize - I'd bet they've used parts of the score on anything movie themed (the Oscars must have used it dozens of times).  Whether or not you've ever seen this movie, you'll know a huge part of it.  I will say, the fact that Anthony Quinn and Alec Guinness play Arabs is a little off-putting, and Omar Sharif, while part Egyptian, is way too pretty to be believable as living in the desert.  But these are more reflections of their time, and the acting is pretty great, not racist or over the top itself (think unlike Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffanys).  I loved it - the last time I had a reaction to an actor I've known in very different roles was seeing Al Pacino in The Godfather.  O'Toole carries the film brilliantly, with his reluctance for violence, and joy at being accepted by people unlike himself.   Within this amazingly gorgeous scenery, you completely miss the fact that hours are passing, which speaks to this movie's ability to combine some spectacular viewing.  

30 Days of Oscar: Day 28: Finding Neverland

Movie: Finding Neverland
Year: 2005

Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Johnny Depp), Best Art Direction, Costume Design, Adapted Screenplay, and Original Score

Wins/Snubs: This was the year of Million Dollar Baby, Sideways and The Aviator, so Finding Neverland only won Original Score. Sideways took Adapted Screenplay, and The Aviator took costume design and art direction.  

This movie makes me cry every single time.  The semi-autobiographical story of J. M. Barrie and how he was inspired to write Peter Pan after meeting the Llewelyn Davis boys - George, Jack, Peter, and Michael, and their mother, Sylvia (Kate Winslet).  He's married, but not getting along well with his wife, and his most recently play has flopped.  His child-like nature is ready to spend some time playing around.  He teaches the kids to imagine, which is important at this point as their father recently died, and their mother is not particularly healthy.  Of course, Barrie's attention to their family, given his marital status, doesn't go over well in London during the turn of the century.  But, that doesn't really matter as the kids need "Uncle Jim" and he needs them to help him write Peter Pan.  Depp did a really great job amidst all his piracy taking on a fairly serious role in a sad movie, with an accent (Barrie's Scottish), between Pirates 1 and 2, though he still dresses up as Captain Hook.

It's a rare year that Kate Winslet isn't nominated for an Oscar, and this year was no exception - instead of being nominated for this role, she was nominated for Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind's Clementine.  So I can't really fault them for not nominating her for this - her role is smaller and less complex than usual.  The kids in this could have made the film unbearable, but Freddie Highmore as Peter is terrific, and the others hold their own.  

30 Days of Oscar: Day 27 - Jezebel

Movie: Jezebel
Year: 1939

Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actress (Bette Davis), Best Supporting Actress (Fay Bainter), Cinematography, Music - Scoring.

Wins/Snubs: The ladies took it, over actresses I barely know except Bainter in another role!  The film lost out to You Can't Take it With You by Frank Capra who also won director.  The Great Waltz took Cinematography in a field of 11, which is shocking. 

One of the things you can count on is that society changes.  The clothes I'm wearing while I type this would be considered horribly inappropriate for a woman for most of human history (jeans and a sweatshirt, don't be pervy).  It seems that every generation pushes the limits of clothing, to the mystification of their elders (think visible underwear, grunge, etc.).  In those terms, nothing Julie (Bette Davis) does in Jezebel is actually shocking - wearing a strapless, red dress to a ball where she should have been wearing white and sleeves.  The dress she wore is about 10x the material most of my students will be wearing come April.  But at that time, and in that place - the antebellum South, it was pushing the limits society, and in particular her beau, Preston (a young, supercute Henry Fonda), can handle. Since Pres is in line for big things at the bank, this kind of public shame is intolerable and he leaves her.  When he finally returns, he's married to someone else, and most has been forgiven, if not forgotten.  When the city of New Orleans is hit with a high incidence of yellow fever, they're all trapped at Julie's plantation for a while. 

For a movie that today could only be taken as a metaphor, Jezebel knows exactly what it is, what it's about, and when it should end.  We're given just a snippet of Julie's life, a terrible moment of petulance that costs her the man she loves, but the movie ends just as she and Pres are on another adventure without a knowable ending.  I would have hated to see Bette Davis as Scarlett in Gone with the Wind, but she made a pretty terrific Jezebel.  

30 Days of Oscar: Day 26 - The Sea Inside

Movie: The Sea Inside
Year: 2005

Nominations: Best Foreign Language Film, Best Makeup

Wins/Snubs: The Sea Inside won best Foreign film, over The Chorus (which is also awesome), Yesterday, As it is in Heaven, and Downfall.  I haven't seen the latter 3, but it's a very deserving film, so I don't have a problem.  If this movie had been made today, it's likely Javier Bardem would have gotten a Best Actor nomination, though perhaps he was #6, after winner Jamie Foxx, Leo DiCaprio (The Aviator), Johnny Depp (Finding Neverland, stay tuned for more on that film), Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby) and Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda).  Actually, listing them makes me realize, he likely was #6.  Since I don't like Million Dollar Baby, I'd put him up over Clint, but that's more personal choice than objective observation.  

Ramon Sampedro (Bardem) dove off a cliff into water in his 20s, hit his head on the bottom and broke his neck.  There's some allusion to the idea that perhaps he was okay with killing himself then (they don't say he was trying to kill himself by jumping off the cliff, but that perhaps he was well aware of the risks and did it knowingly).  For most of the movie, it's 25 years later.  He's a quadriplegic, and is taken care of all day, every day, but his brother, sister-in-law, and nephew.  They've all changed their lives to accommodate his care.  Now he wants to fight for his right to die and a group, led by Gene (Clara Segura) is helping him legally.  A lawyer, Julia (Belen Rueda) has been hired, who also wants to help him write his book of poems and letters.  Julia also has a degenerative disease that will eventually leave her in a wheelchair.  There are many hurdles to overcome - the court thinks it is a crime to assist someone to die.  During an interview on TV, a local woman, Rosa (Lola Duenas) sees Ramon and comes to see him to convince him to live.  She's had a rough life, and he's kind and talks to her, and eventually she falls in love with him.  However, Ramon has many rules for himself that help make it easy to hold fast to the idea of dying, and one is not loving.  

This movie is sad, and makes you feel helpless, but above all makes you wonder about what you would do - both if you were the one trapped in the bed and if you were the people surrounding him being asked to kill him.  Would you help him or justify your love by caring for him instead, despite his wishes?  It's a hard movie to watch, but still a really terrific story told particularly well with Bardem's sweet smile and knowing attitude.  He must be right about his decision, and hold fast to it.  There's a scene where he's arguing with a disabled priest that is priceless.  It likely won't convince you of one correct side, but it will make you think about what you believe. 

30 Daysof Oscar: Day 25 - Reel Insight #100: Liam Neeson Redux...and Unplugged

In the midst of our 30 Days of Oscar, we wrap up this chapter of the podcast with our 100th episode! We get back to our roots and retrace our steps all the way back to our first episode by re-discussing Liam Neeson, but hopefully a lot more smoothly. Also, outside of bumpers, there was zero editing involved. Thankfully we didn't go off on too many tangents and kept the actual discussion under 2 hours. However, in case you missed our first episode (lucky you), the original Liam discussion has been tacked on at the end for a nice comparison. So please enjoy the last episode of the Reel Insight Podcast (for now) and thanks for all you support over the past 99 episodes!

0:00 - Intro/Feedback
8:46 - New Movies: Flight, Zero Dark Thirty (Jess) and Warm Bodies (Rachel)
18:37 - Random Topic: What will win Best Picture and what should win Best Picture?
26:57 - Star of the Week: Liam Neeson
28:19 - Crossing the Line
33:02 - Darkman
39:12 - Schindler's List
45:24 - Nell
50:18 - Rob Roy
58:48 - Les Miserables
1:06:40 - Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
1:11:23 - K-19: The Widowmaker
1:18:22 - Taken & Taken 2
1:27:19 - The Grey
1:33:53 - Wrap Up
1:45:16 - Bonus: Episode #1 Liam Neeson Discussion

30 Days of Oscar: Day 24 - Triple Feature #17 (Oscar Edition!)

Nick cemented his lead and Pat got on the board after last week's trinity, making this your final Oscar Triple Feature round.

Poster Scramble: I've scrambled the pieces of a movie poster, some pieces are even flipped around or upside down.

Title Swap: I've replaced the main words of a film title with synonyms.

Understudy: I've replaced the actors' heads in a screenshot with our avatars.

30 Days of Oscar: Day 23 - Rabbit Hole

Movie: Rabbit Hole
Year: 2011

Nominations: Best Actress (Nicole Kidman)

Wins/Snubs: I don't think Natalie Portman lost any of the awards that season.  There are some challenges of a role that isn't as completely "leading" as another.  Every second of Black Swan is about Portman's Nina.  Not so with Kidman's Becca, which sometimes does create a slight disadvantage.  

Rabbit Hole has an unfortunate name that made it difficult to want to see because the name doesn't reveal enough, so it becomes popularly subtitled as "a movie about parents dealing with the death of a child".  That's one of the things I've learned from 4 semesters teaching - despite your best intentions giving a creative name to a class, the students are going to call it whatever they want that's easy to remember, so it's probably best to give in to that and use simple, descriptive language.  The idea that these parents are "down the rabbit hole" dealing with an unimaginable new life 8 months after their son died in a car accident, is only a part of what this movie is about, so perhaps the title was a hindrance.  

Boiling down the very complex emotions and relationships that inevitably change after the loss of a loved one, particularly a young child, into a simple title does a disservice to the intense emotions this story presents.  Becca is married to Howie (Aaron Eckhart), and they're dealing with the loss of their son in different ways, but they're trying to do it together.  They attempt to go to group therapy, but Becca doesn't want to continue as she can't bear to hear more about these people's problems.  Howie finds comfort in knowing he's not alone and connects with the loss he sees in others.  People walk around them on eggshells, trying not to offend them, but distancing them also.  
Overall, I really liked this movie - Becca is still a mother, even after her son has died.  She reaches out to the teenager who killed her son in a kind of perverse way of staying connected with that final moment of her son's life.   It's a double edged sword - she sees this kid who will get to grow up and go to prom, but knows that he lives with killing her son through all of that, and that her son will never have those chances.  The scenes where they interact are the best in the movie (the kid, Miles Teller, is really convincing).  There are some nominations where a great actor is just lauded again for doing their job (see Washington's nomination for Flight) and when Kidman was nominated for this, i thought that's all this was, but Rabbit Hole is actually a very good movie, and Kidman's performance is terrific too.  

30 Days of Oscar: Day 22 - The Life of Emile Zola

Movie: The Life of Emile Zola
Year: 1938

Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (William Dieterie), Best Actor (Paul Muni), Best Supporting Actor (Joseph Schildkraut), Best Writing Screenplay, Art Direction, Best Writing - Story, Best Assistant Director, Best Music - Score, Best Sound, Recording

Wins/Snubs: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Schildkraut), Best Screenplay.  Paul Muni won the previous year, and Spencer Tracy took it for Captains Courageous this year instead.  But Muni has one of the highest nominations/movie ratio of all actors. 

I honestly didn't know this story - though I knew the name of Emile Zola, I'll admit I didn't know why.  Now I do - which is one of the best parts of this series of 30 Days of Oscar.  Another entry in the "wow, they did THAT story back then."  This is just before World War II, and the story centers on a Jewish Captain, Dreyfus, in the French military who is accused of selling secrets to the Germans.  He is innocent, but even when presented with evidence, the higher ups won't back down.  Zola finds out and publishes an article, J'accuse (I accuse you), in the newspaper attempting to get arrested for libel so they'll have to reopen the Dreyfus case.  He stood up against anti-semitism before it was something everyone was required to do.  Oh yeah, and he was a really famous writer first.  

At first, I didn't care for this - Muni was over the top as a young Zola, sharing an apartment with a young Cezanne.  Then he write his first big novel, slightly scandalous, and is a huge hit, with lots of very big books to follow, and he can marry his sweetheart now that he has money.  But by the time he's the big shot who is trying to be convinced to help Dreyfus, you've been sucked into his story and you actually care about Zola and whether he'll be ruined by using all of his celebrity to attempt to write a wrong.  Of course this is all based on a true story, so it's easy to figure out he'll be right.  This movie was made less than a year after the REAL Dreyfus passed away at a ripe old age.  Overall, I enjoyed the film, but it's a good example of how not to make a biopic - don't bother with the whole life.  

30 Days of Oscar: Day 21 - Flight

Movie: Flight
Year: 2013

Nominations: Best Actor (Denzel Washington), Best Original Screenplay (John Gatins)

Wins/Snubs: While there are still 10 days to go before the big show, we know that Denzel isn't going to take it this year.  Daniel Day-Lewis has a lock, with Bradley Cooper possibly being the dark horse.  Screenplay, too, is not going to Flight, but that one is harder to call.  

This is a great performance, don't get me wrong.  Washington has every right to be up there.  But this is not a great movie, but I'll admit I'm having trouble separating several issues I have with this film.  First, it's not my cup of tea - I'm really not a fan of watching people go through addiction, and Washington plays Whip Whitaker, an airline pilot with a SERIOUS alcohol and cocaine problem.  However, I really like his performance - he's nuanced and doesn't actually seem to care that his life is a mess.  He knows he is damned lucky to be alive with that kind of addiction, but he even says at one point, it's his choice.  And, thanks to a miraculous series of events, he saves almost everyone on a doomed flight that essentially falls from the sky, which makes him feel a little bit like he deserves to be a treated like a hero.  He even attempts to act the part by getting rid of all of this booze after the crash (partly to act the part of the hero, and partly as an attempt to really be a good guy).  
Unfortunately, I never got behind the story this movie is telling, which is why I don't think it's got a shot at Best Original Screenplay.  In the hospital, after the crash, Whip meets Nichole, a recovering addict in the hospital after an overdose, but getting clean.  He helps her out and they stick together for a little bit, until she realizes she'll never stay sober with him.  Don Cheadle did help the story a bit as the attorney for the pilot's union who has blocked some damning evidence (he was high and drunk during the crash, but that didn't cause it and may have saved the plane), and actually wants to help this guy he thinks is a hero - we get to see our own frustrations acted out in Cheadle's eyes.  Because it is frustration.  There is nothing new in this story of addiction, he falls down, he falls down some more, he makes an attempt, he fails, and eventually, like all addicts, he reforms or dies.  They didn't actually pull on the audience heartstrings by making us feel his heroism much after the first 30 minutes.  They play on it being a miracle, or luck, but only in one great scene by Cheadle do we think the save might actually something to do with Washington.  Meh.  2.5/5 stars

30 Days of Oscar: Day 20 - The White Ribbon

Movie: The White Ribbon
Year: 2010

Nominations: Best Foreign Language Feature, Best Cinematography

Wins/Snubs: It won the Golden Globe the same year, and lots and lots of other awards, but the Oscar went to The Secret in their Eyes (El Secreto de sus Ojos).  Cinematography went to Avatar, which I can't disagree with.  

The original German title of this film translates to A German Children's Story.  I sense that it was changed because that title gives the film even creepier undertones than it already has.  The movie takes place in a small German village before WWI.  It's narrated by the town's school teacher, who wants to marry the Baron's nanny, before she gets fired.  But a series of strange events begin - the doctor's horse trips over a booby-trapped wire and he's thrown and injured, the wife of a tenant farmer falls through a second story hay loft and dies, the baron's son is kidnapped and tortured, but survives, and a handicapped boy is kidnapped and beaten.  They don't spend much time explaining what might have happened, but in "investigating" these issues the town discovers that many residents are creepy, abusing, evil, and more than a little bit judgmental.  Ultimately, it leads people to suspect a lot of the children of the village of rising up against the adults that oppress them, abuse them, and basically try to "teach" them to be perfect.  The White Ribbon refers to the ribbon the pastor puts on his children's arms to remind them to be pure.  

Overall, I didn't like the film, but it's certainly food for a lot of thought about what the story was trying to tell us, and what it was an allegory for.  It does show a lot of the unrest in Germany between peasants and landed gentry, but that's about all I got from it other than some people have secrets so bad you don't want to know them.  Now I need to see The Secret in their Eyes to compare. 

30 Days of Oscar: Day 19 - The Deer Hunter

Movie: The Deer Hunter

Year: 1979

Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Cimino), Best Actor (Robert DeNiro), Best Supporting Actress (Meryl Streep), Best Supporting Actor (Christopher Walken), Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Sound, Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound

Wins/Snubs: Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Cimino), Best Supporting Actor (Christopher Walken), and Best Sound.  DeNiro was beat out by another movie about the Vietnam war - Jon Voight in Coming Home, which also took original screenplay.  Meryl lost to Dame Maggie Smith in California Suite, a comedy about a hotel and misadventures.  Don't feel bad, Meryl won the next year for Kramer vs Kramer.  

This increases my Best Picture viewing again, and pushing the most recent one I haven't seen back to 1970s Patton.  This one has been in my list for ages.  But the controversy and "heavy" nature people ascribe to it have always scared me off a bit.  The length of well over 2 hours also put me off a bit.  However, now that I've seen it, I recommend that anyone who really likes to understand film, studies film, and likes to talk about film should make a point to see this.  The Deer Hunter takes place in 3 acts - the first in an industrial town following a group of guys, one of whom is preparing for his wedding, just before they all ship out to enlist for the war in Vietnam.  Act 2 takes place in Vietnam, watching the torture, escape, and attempts to get home they have to go through (particularly DeNiro's Mike, Walken's Nick, and John Savage's Steven).  The final act looks at how they each deal with what happened - Mike comes back and is able to get together with Nick's girl, Linda (Streep).  Steven came back without his legs and is having trouble dealing with any life outside the military hospital.  Nick never returned due to really horrific circumstances - and eventually Mike honors a promise to not leave him over there and goes to find out what happened.  

The movie is really powerful.  It received a lot of criticism for demonizing the North Vietnamese and in particular their use of Russian roulette (putting one bullet in a gun, and then daring to pull the trigger with the gun to your head).  To me it felt more like that was a metaphor more than a true to life torture method they actually used - given that a certain percentage die, doesn't seem like an effective or efficient torture method.  It's more taking away the idea that any prisoner has a chance to survive the war - they're all equally likely to die.  Also, the particularly gruesome picture of war (only 5 years after the War ended) would have been extremely jarring and controversial at the time - today we've seen more, but you can see where the inspiration came from for onscreen depictions of war.  DeNiro's quiet, angry performance is really amazing.  He's improved on his Godfather performance even with the strength and rage he exudes.  He's fiercely loyal to his friends, but doesn't put up with their issues.  The other part of the film that is amazing is Christopher Walken's performance - he's young and hasn't taken on many of the ridiculous idiosyncrasies he's known for now.  He's a broken man - you have to see what a happy man he begins with to understand how broken he becomes by the end of the film.  It's broken without destruction - he's very much physically in tact, but his mind is just gone dealing with his past actions, and his perception of those actions.  

30 Days of Oscar: Day 18 - The Lunchtime Poll #20

So it looks like most people are going to be watching the entirety of the awards.  I'm definitely among the DVR group, but I also watch the whole thing the night of, just 20 minutes or so behind.

Yep. I watch it live and never miss a beat, from start to finish every year.	5 (50%)
I only check in with the most interesting awards while it's on.	0 (0%)
I DVR it and watch it a my leisure.	2 (20%)
I don't have the time or patience, so I just check the results online the next day.	2 (20%)
Nah man. Awards are stupid.	1 (10%)

This week Heather and Veronica want to know two things:

Who do you think WILL win the Oscar for Best Picture?  AND Who do you think SHOULD win the Oscar for Best Picture?

There's likely not another night of TV where so many people will be disappointed and so few really excited - even during the Superbowl, at least half the fans are ecstatically happy.  Not so for the Oscars, since only 1/9th of the people will be truly satisfied by the outcome.  So we ask you to tell us what you think will win, and then what you think should win.  Sometimes they're they same thing, sometimes not.  

30 Days of Oscar: Day 17 - Triple Feature #16 (Oscar Edition!)

I may be trying to keep up with a newborn (they are SOOO needy!), but the show must go on. Andrew and Nick took last week's Oscar round. So who's next?

Poster Scramble: I've scrambled the pieces of a movie poster, some pieces are even flipped around or upside down.

Title Swap: I've replaced the main words of a film title with synonyms.

Understudy: I've replaced the actors' heads in a screenshot with our avatars.

30 Days of Oscar: Day 16 - Animated Short

Movie: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Year: 2012

Nominations: Best Animated Short

Wins/Snubs: I never guess correctly in the short categories, but I chose this last year in the polls because of its fantastic name.  It turns out I was right for more reasons.  

The film is only about 15 minutes, but they manage to invoke The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Morris Lessmore is picked up by a storm and dropped in another place.  Then they invoke Pleasantville, because people are in black and white until they figure something out or accept that books are awesome.  A book comes to talk to Mr. Morris Lessmore and help him fly.  But everything that comes next is perfectly original and will draw on your heart strings.  The music even evolves as Mr. Morris Lessmore does - it starts out as a very intricate version of "Pop goes the weasel" and ultimately becomes more elaborate and finally more childlike.  As a silent film, I'd watch another 20 minutes.  Check it out.

30 Days of Oscar: Day 15 - Paper Moon

Movie: Paper Moon

Year: 1974

Nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Tatum O'Neal), Best Supportin Actress (Madeline Kahn), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Sound

Wins/Snubs: At the time Tatum O'Neal was the youngest recipient at 10 years old.  She has a lot of dialogue for a young actor, and would probably win over most of the other young nominees throughout time.  

Moses Fry (Ryan O'Neal at his young and cutest) goes to a woman's funeral where the local people are trying to get the woman's 9-year-old daughter to Missouri, during the Depression.  He and the daughter, Addy (Tatum O'Neal) look quite similar and there's a chance Moses is Addy's father, and somehow gets saddled with her.  Fortunately, he likely is her father, they have the same streak for hustling and conning people.  Fry is a bible salesman (he reads the obituaries, goes to the widow's home and says her late husband bought a deluxe bible for her before he passed) and Addy manages to improve his con, sizing up the wealth of widows better than Fry himself. 
One day they go to a carnival, and Moze becomes obsessed with Miss Trixie Delight (Kahn) an "exotic dancer".  She joins the pair, along with her maid Imogene (P.J. Johnson), traveling around.  Trixie would love to have the now well-off Moze be her sugar daddy.  Of course, things in their relationship go south, with a LOT of help from Addy and Imogene conniving to get what they want.  

Tatum O'Neal is really terrific.  She's mouthy, brash, smokes, heaps attitude upon her father, and yet breaks your heart for a second when she thinks Moze is going to give her up for good.  She definitely deserved the Oscar.  Unfortunately, who knows how much making this movie and getting so big so young influenced the rest of her life.   And just like the first time I saw Sean Connery as James Bond, this was one of those experiences where an old man's voice I'm familiar with was coming out of a young, handsome guy - Ryan O'Neal was super cute.