Best Picture Hall of Fame

watched On The Waterfront and The Gladiator very recently. Need to get my reviews written up for them and posted.
Both old favorites of mine.

I requested most of the noms from my library last night. Damn I love the library...I should be watching these in mass in a few days. I can't wait either, so many of these classics I've only seen once and it was decades ago. So for me it will be a real treat just to finally see them again.

same for me. A chance to revisit AND to actually see some of the recent winners I never got to check out.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Long time favorite even though I am pretty sure this is just my third time watching it. Despite that I found myself remembering it very well. It really is perfect in every way. Nicholson gives one of the greatest performances ever. The story is engrossing throughout. Full of humor and pathos. I really feel like this film should be in my top ten, it's that perfect.

I understand the inclination to call nurse Ratched a villain. I do find myself sympathetic to her position on many occasions though. McMurphy is giving a lot of these men the freedom they should be chasing themselves. However he is obviously a loose cannon who doesn't understand the severity of these men's mental states and ultimately doesn't have their best interests at heart. McMurphy obviously brings some needed joy to these men's lives but he has his self interest at heart just as much, if not more so, than Ratched. There is obvious a balance to be struck and I think the story has that in mind throughout. I just thought it would be interesting to bring up because I have heard Ratched described as a villain many times while I don't think I have ever heard McMurphy described that way.

What a year for film. All 5 of the best picture noms are fantastic. 3 of them were in my last 100: Cuckoo's Nest, Nashville, and Dog Day Afternoon. I watched Barry Lyndon just last year and loved it as well. You know it's a great when Jaws finished 5th in the race for you. Still need to see Amachord. Cool to see Fellini nominated for best director.

Cuckoo's Nest is the best film in probably one of the best years for film ever.

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Letterboxd

Argo



I gave it a 7/10 as a first watch and I had figured I wouldn't care for it as much the second time around. This is actually my least favorite Affleck directed film although I haven't seen Live by Night. I feel like the broad story itself is intriguing but it doesn't have as many twists and turns as I would have liked like his other films do. What stands out to me most are Goodman and Arkins small but effective performances, they totally make the movie seem cool. My favorite part of the movie is honestly the line "Argo f#@k yourself". I don't really have a lot to say other than I believe this one will be a forgotten Oscar winner, much in the same way as a Shakespeare in Love or a A Man for All Seasons. I do like it, but it's probably somewhere in the middle of all of the winners I've seen.

2012 has a few films that weren't nominated that I would have liked to have seen get more recognition. I also prefer Silver Linings Playbook, Les Miserables, and Django. It's better than Beasts, Amour and Lincoln and about the same as Life of Pi.

Argo

When this movie first started, I found the beginning to be confusing, and a little dizzying, but as it went on, I got more and more interested in it, and I liked it. It picked up when Ben Affleck started talking about the plan to get the 6 hostages out by faking a movie production. I loved how they made sure that every little detail was carefully planned out, including things like storyboards for the movie, and even advertising it.

By the time Affleck got to Iran and told the hostages his plan to get them out, I was fully engrossed in the movie. The more they talked about how dangerous it was, the more the tension built, all the way through to the airport scene when they're trying to leave.

One of the little things that bugged me was

I thought all of the actors were very good, but surprisingly, I thought the standout actors were the ones who had the smallest parts, John Goodman, Alan Arkin, and Bryan Cranston. I liked the way the end credits showed the passports of the actual people next to the actors who played them. Based on looks, I thought most of the casting was great, with the exception of Tate Donovan, who looked much younger than the person he played.

I think Argo is a deserving Best Picture winner, but it's not the movie that I would have voted for that year. I would have easily voted for Les Misérables, but Lincoln was probably the most deserving movie that year.

Gladiator

I wasn't sure if I had seen this movie before or not because it was checked off on my MoFo list, but I didn't remember having seen it, but apparently this was a rewatch of a movie that I just didn't remember seeing. Some of it came back to me as I watched it, but other parts felt like I was seeing them for the first time. And I remembered some of the "afterlife" scenes, but I had no idea that they were from this movie.

Overall the movie was too violent for me, but that shouldn't surprise anyone. I especially disliked the scene with the tigers.

However Russell Crowe was great as Maximus. He made it easy to like Maximus and want to see him win every time he fought.

I haven't seen any of the other Best Picture nominees that it was up against, but I doubt that I would have voted for it. However looking at some of the other movies that were released in 2000, it seems like it wasn't one of the better years for movies. I think Unbreakable might be the only movie that I might have considered Oscar caliber that year.

I've already rewatched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and On the Waterfront, and I watched A Beautiful Mind, so I'm done watching all the movies. I'll try to have my last few write-ups done in the next few days.

I saw Gladiator twice in the cinema and a few times on dvd since but hadn’t seen it for ages. What struck me this time was just how simple the story was. You don’t need twists to make an effective movie, a simple story well told works just as well. In fact that and the historical setting combine to give Gladiator a sort of instant classic feel. It doesn’t feel as though it has dated (at least not yet) compared to some films from the same time.

No doubt this is a really well made film. When Ridley Scott is good, he is very very good. The only thing I didn’t really like was where the occasional dips into unnecessary slo-mo. It is pretty violent, but then a gladiator movie without violence wouldn’t really get to the heart of the struggle to survive or the underlying violence of Rome. The civilisation of Rome is a dream, the reality is violence both in the colosseum and out of it. I felt there was a parallel drawn between the citizens of Rome watching the games and the audience of Gladiator watching the fictional bloodshed. Are we really much less bloodthirsty, or do we just have the luxury of cgi making our thirst for blood more palatable? It’s an interesting question raised by the film. Especially when they had the gladiators recreate a historical battle. There’s a little bit of cheese in this, like the whole crowd falling silent at the end, but not too much. My only question about the story was why did they bother hanging up the bodies of his wife and son? It seems like something they would do as a warning/message to someone else, but if they thought he was dead and would never see them, what was the purpose of that?

Historical accuracy is probably close to nil, but that never bothered me. It’s all so long ago, it just essentially slapped authentic-sounding historical names on the fictional figures of good old emperor, bad new emperor and honest-but-wronged general-turned-slave-turned-gladiator.

Russell Crowe is good as Maximus. All he needs to do here is be stoic and he does the strong, silent type well. I have subsequently had my doubts about Crowe as an actor, but he definitely does the job here, you really believe in him and his fight for vengeance. Joaquin Phoenix as the immature, cruel and dangerous Commodus I thought was excellent. There’s real tension and menace in his interactions with his sister and his nephew. All the supporting cast are excellent too. Did Crowe deserve the Oscar? Well, I won’t begrudge it to him, but I would have given it to Geoffrey Rush in Quills. I would have liked Phoenix to have won for supporting actor. Ridley Scott should have won for best director because colour coding your locations like traffic lights really isn’t that clever Steven Soderbergh and doesn’t make your film actually any good. (Actually Aronofsky should have won for Requiem for a Dream but he wasn’t even nominated).

Did Gladiator deserve to win best picture? Of the films nominated, yes, definitely. There are a few other films of 2000 I think were good (although going by imdb year doesn’t necessarily guarantee Oscar eligibility for that year): Quills, In the Mood For Love, Requiem For A Dream, Memento - but Gladiator is probably the biggest crowd-pleaser.

Final thought: I had never noticed before that the music for Gladiator sounds really, really similar to the music for Pirates of the Caribbean. It was weirdly distracting.

That's what I expected.

Well I'm glad to see you at least liked that. Disappointed there's no mention of Phoenix's performance, however.

I'm a big fan of Crowe and Gladiator is the movie that made me a fan, but I absolutely agree with all of this. Yet another instance of the academy getting it wrong.

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Del Toro beating Phoenix was just pure garbage.

12 Years a Slave SPOILERS



At the forefront of this film is the performance by Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup. Truly a grand performance that for the most part is the reason why the film is very well done. Also the screenplay is very well done. I will say Lupita was good but I was kind of shocked that she wasn't better and/or had more screentime. I'll take Lawrence's performance over hers. I thought Fassbinder was pretty terrifying as a slave owner. The film was at it's best with emotional gutwrenching scenes and I think that's what McQueen was going for. Northup being hung from the tree was devasting, as well as the Lupita lashing scene was just purely brutal. It's excellent filmmaking to show us how terrible slavery is.

With that being said, this was far from a favorite from that year. Gravity, American Hustle, and Her are all in my top 100 and I would have liked to see any of those 3 beat this film. I would probably also consider Nebraska and Captain Phillips to be above it. My problem is I don't think it's an enjoyable film, so repeatability is a tough thing that it has going against it. But it certainly hits all the right notes technically, which makes it a difficult film to rank.

For now,

On the Waterfront

Another one of those that I've seen countless times since I was a kid and always enjoyed it.
From Malden's gruff priest to Steiger in a more timid role than the ones that I've come to be used to, but still great as Charlie and Lee Cobb making for a violent, short-tempered gangster that rules the dock to Brando being, well, Brando. Echoing the troubled spirit that he previously done in Streetcar Named Desire.
I think the only person I have been so-so on has been Eva Maria Saint. Understandably, her character as just come out of Convent School where she's taught that there is Justice and Truth and Goodness and comes home to the docks to its corrupt and dangerous day to day. Starting with the murder of her brother. So, the fact that she spends most of the movie in a frantic, nearly hysterical mindset is, as I stated, understandable. It's just that there is something about her that has always ran lukewarm for me. And I don't understand how she won an award for it either.

But she is my one and ONLY objection to this film.
The rest is spot on. From the other dock workers, the portrayal of what it takes to get to be allowed to work and the corruption that bullies them into remaining "D and D" (Deaf and Dumb) when such things as the opening murder of a young man who was going to testify against the mob that owns and runs the dock occur. There is an authenticity to the film and to the story as it plays out with some great characters. Especially as we get a close up ride along with Brando's Terry's inner turmoil and eventual decision to stand up and testify.

Along with the iconic ride in the back of the cab with his brother Charlie, I have always loved the ending to this movie.
Him going down to the docks after he testifies to truly show himself standing up to the mob. With a real fist fight that includes Cobb's (Johnny Friendly) gang joining in to pummel him.
After which, the crowd of dock workers refusing to go to work unless Terry comes with them, Malden pulls a con that I get a chuckle out of. He whispers in a battered Terry's ear that Friendly is placing odds that he won't get up.
Giving him the grit to do just that.
And we have a proper ending as he stumbles, nearly falling from the beating, through the warehouse doors, followed by the crowd of dock workers.
It's a helluva great ending to a great film. And yeah, it deserved its win. Absolutely.

Sorry about that. (It was late, and I was tired.)

Considering that I hated Phoenix's character because he was cruel, self-centered and immature, I'd say he did an excellent job.

Rocky (1976)

I usually like to go for a photo that meant something to me, mostly it's from a favorite scene or moment. And this time it was the pet store scene. I really liked the small budget, on location, indie film, feeling that Rocky had. I didn't expect that. I thought this would be a glossy, big budget, feel good flick. Instead it felt more personal and more real. I know that Sylvester Stallone had wrote the script and tried for years to get his movie made. I'm glad he did!

I thought I had seen Rocky decades ago, but realized during the movie that I was watching it for the very first time! So that was really cool thing for me.

I thought Stallone was excellent here, very personable and very realistic, I liked his character. I've basically not seen him in other movies, with the exception of Creed (2015) and Death Race 2000 (1975). So to me this was all new.

I liked the Talia Shire character Adrian, though it was kind of funny how she went from nearly catatonic and frumpy looking, to very stylish dressed...and where did her glasses go? I liked her in the pet store scene and the first part of the movie. I wish her character had been developed more, because to me the story of Rocky getting his own life together, was more interesting than the boxing.

I liked it, very glad to have seen it.

I didn't even think she gave the best supporting performance in the movie(Sarah Paulson)

Gladiator

How can I properly express in any proper eloquence how, exactly, I feel about and for this movie??

Oh, I know --

I F@CKIN LOVE THIS MOVIE

Like others have stated, when Ridley Scott gets it right, he get's RIGHT. And this film is the epitome of that statement on every level imaginable.
From the cinematography; such as the subtle color hue from the opening scene of him imaging his home as his hand brushes the tops of the wheat and everything is golden and bright, to the blues of the battlefield in Germania. This is wonderfully turned around at the very end of the film (and I'm not sure if I ever truly paid enough attention to the connection previously) where the arena is bright and golden and his home, in the afterlife, is tinged in blue.
The fight scenes are very well done and everything is gorgeous and the pacing works great for me.

Along with this is the cast. At the very center is Russell Crowe and Joaqin Phoenix who both do a commendable job at bringing their roles to such life, but we also have a supporting cast that bring their best to the table as well. With three legendary British actors with Richard Harris, my man Oliver Reed and Derek Jacobi; all of them doing what they do best.
There is also Connie Nielsen who's character,Lucilla, is literally dancing with the serpent to not only stay alive, but to keep her son safe as well. And Djimon Hounsou should be mentioned as Maximus' friend in the Arena, with a wonderful mix of tenderness, wisdom and strength.

While it is a simple story, without a lot of twists and turns, it is a splendid story done very VERY well. I have never grown tired of this movie and severely doubt I ever will.
F@ckin BRAVO @Miss Vicky!!

I didn't care for Paulsen personally @Siddon

Great write up Ed! Glad you love that film.

A Beautiful Mind is on my radar for tomorrow.