Best Picture Hall of Fame

Cricket isn't in this Citizen.

OMG! Then I must have forgotten someone, but who?

Siddon

No he got me, wrong movie though

12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
Imdb

Date Watched: 1/7/2018
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: Best Picture Hall of Fame
Rewatch: Yes

I'll preface this with the same thing that I say about most films based on actual events or actual people: I don't know how accurate 12 Years a Slave is to what really happened and I don't care.

While there have been many films made on the subject of black slavery, none that I've seen have been able to tackle that subject without sliding into exploitation, over-sentimentality and preachiness, or a two-dimensional view of both victim and perpetrator. Although McQueen makes an admirable attempt to present a more rounded and human film, he doesn't quite get it right. He comes pretty close though with the immense help of a solid cast. The performances in the film are mostly excellent - or at least passable - with one glaring exception: Paul Dano as Tibeats. Tibeats comes off as poorly done caricature and, except for his menacing singing at his introduction, he takes me out of the film with every frame he is in. Admittedly, with the exception of Love & Mercy, I dislike Dano as an actor in general and I don't know how much of this is the fault of the screenwriter but this strikes me as a particularly poor performance.

And Dano is not my only complaint about the film. I also had an issue with one particularly brutal scene near the end of Northup's time on Master Ford's plantation. It's not the scene itself though that I object to. It's the scene's score. Throughout most of the film, the only music we hear comes from Northup's fiddle or from the voices of the enslaved people. But in this scene the score is intrusive and overpowering and rather than enhancing the emotion of the scene, it prevents me from feeling much. I also don't think the filmmakers did very well to show the passage of time in the film. From Solomon's abduction to his rescue does not feel like 12 years to me as a viewer, though I'm not sure what could have been done to fix that.

That being said, the film is solid overall and, aside from a few hiccups, I found myself engaged with the film and moved by Northup's journey and that has been true each time I've watched this. It's a very good movie, but I don't think it deserved the win as Best Picture. Having seen all of its competitors in that category, I'd rank it perhaps fourth out of nine - behind Her, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Dallas Buyers Club. I'm glad it beat Gravity and American Hustle though.

__________________

Pretty sure:
Gladiator - Miss Vicky Miss Vicky NOM SENT
On the Waterfront - Raul Rauldc14 NOM SENT
Silence of the Lambs - Cricket
A Beautiful Mind - Neiba Neiba NOM SENT
Moonlight - Thursday Thursday Next NOM SENT
All the King's Men - Sean Seanc NOM SENT
Forrest Gump - gbgoodies GBGoodies NOM SENT

Kinda sure:
Rocky - Siddon - Siddon NOM SENT
Mutiny on the Bounty - CR Citizen Rules NOM SENT
The Godfather - SilentVamp SilentVamp NOM SENT
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Donniedarko Donniedarko NOM SENT
Argo - Edarsenal Edarsenal NOM SENT
12 Years a Slave - Clazor Clazor NOM SENT


Sarge NOM SENT

you missed Sarge

I'm glad you compared what was better in that hear @Miss Vicky.

I'm going to incorporate that into my write ups as well.

2012 was a strong year, so it will be tough sledding for 12 Years a Slave it looks like.

12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)

What an amazing film! It's not heart warming in fact it's bone chilling. The injustices and brutality of slavery is shocking to see. Even more so for a free black man who is ripped away from his wife and children in New York and sold into slavery. The real Solomon Northup after his 12 years in slavery wrote a detailed account of his time as a slave. This movie is then based on that book.

Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Solomon Northup. What a superb acting job he does. He could have played Solomon with rage, with broad movements and strong facial expressions. But he doesn't do that. We learn in the film that to survive Solomon must hide his intelligence and his emotions. There's one very potent scene where after being abused by a plantation carpenter (Paul Dano) he fights back. The punishment he received was too hard for me to watch. Chiwetel Ejiofor gives one of the most controlled, skillful performances I've seen.

Paul Dano who plays the vindictive and hateful Tibeats, gives new meaning to playing the heavy with realistic fervor. I wish he had more scenes.

Lupita Nyong'o who plays the slave girl Patsey also made this movie so memorable and believable. There's a scene where she risk a beating by leaving the plantation just to get a bar of soap. She pleads with the plantation owner when caught that she had to have the soap as she smelled so bad she made herself sick. So powerful.

What I admired most about this film was it's honesty in the story telling and in the production values. Another director might have over hyped it with too powerful of a music score or overly dramatic camera work. But the director, Steve McQueen keeps the production in sync with the nature of the story.

I don't know why y'all think that was me.

Just kidding. Obviously, Gladiator was my nomination. I actually considered it for the 13th HOF but chose another Best Picture winner, Dances With Wolves, instead. When this HOF was announced, I instantly knew what my nom would be.

I got one right at least!

I've only seen Gladiator once and that was in the theater. But, I had to use the bathroom (too much soda pop!) so I missed the whole first scene in Germany. But I've never forgot the movie, and most movies go in and then right out my head....but ancient Rome is just too cool to forget!

Three people thinking I nominated 12 years a slave. It was on my top 5 list of movies to nominate, but I went another way in the end.

I've watched all but five of the noms: All the kings men, Mutiny on the Bounty, On the waterfront, Rocky and Moonlight.

Of the rest, Gladiator, Argo and Silence of the lamb are favourites.

Have only seen cuckoo's nest once and wasn't overly thrilled, but will rewatch with an open mind.

Own 8 and will search for the rest in the library in a few days, so it looks to be a swift start. Will probably have a review up by tomorrow.

One of the reasons that I decided to join this HoF was because there are several Best Picture winners that I haven't seen because they don't sound like my kind of movies, but I've always had a curiosity about them because they won the Best Picture Oscar. There are also some Best Picture movies that I've seen once or twice, but I just didn't like them as much as I had hoped to (based on the hype of them winning the Best Picture Oscar), so I wanted to rewatch them, but I never get around to them because they're always near the bottom of my watchlist. I expected that some of these movies would be nominated, and I was right.


These are the movies that I haven't seen, but I've wanted to watch them for a long time specifically because they won the Best Picture Oscar:
Rocky
Silence of the Lambs
Gladiator
A Beautiful Mind
12 Years a Slave


These are the movies that I've seen, but I just don't get the hype, so I wanted to rewatch them:
On the Waterfront
The Godfather
Forrest Gump
Moonlight


Mutiny on the Bounty - I saw this many years ago, but it's on my watchlist to rewatch it for the 1930s countdown, so I'm glad it was nominated.

All the King's Men - I don't think I've seen this movie, but the synopsis sounds familiar, so I might have seen it and the title just isn't registering for some reason.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - I saw this many years ago, (back when I was in high school), and I remember liking it, but I haven't seen it since then, so I'm sure that I've forgotten more of the movie than I remember. I'm looking forward to rewatching it.

Argo - I saw this when it was released on DVD, and I liked it, but I didn't love it. Hopefully I'll like it more on a rewatch.

Based on this post, I'll guess that Siddon nominated One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest because it's the only movie that you left off your list.

Chicago was the musical that I was considering nominating because I thought you might like it.

I've seen Forrest Gump and I'm not a fan of it, but I'm looking forward to rewatching it to try to figure out why other people love it.

It wasn't hard to figure out that Miss Vicky nominated Gladiator. I suspected that even before the nominations were revealed.

In addition to guessing that Siddon nominated One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I'll also guess that:

Citizen Rules nominated 12 Years a Slave
Sarge nominated Rocky
Edarsenal nominated Mutiny on the Bounty
Raul nominated On the Waterfront

I do like it, or at least I liked it the last time I saw it. It's been a few years though. I think the thing that sets it apart from most other musicals I've seen is that the song and dance numbers all happen either on stage or in Roxie's imagination. It makes them easier for me to accept them.

There's really only one scene that I would consider particularly graphic. But I haven't seen the film in a really long time, so my memory might not be that accurate.

Out of all the Best Picture winners, that is legitimately the film I love the most. If I had joined, I definitely would not have nominated it though.

Reading through reactions to the nominations, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only person who doesn't particularly care for Forrest Gump or The Godfather. It's probably still a minority opinion, but I'm glad I'm not the only one haha.

__________________

I really enjoyed Forrest Gump the first couple of times I saw it, but since then I've become much less enamored with it. I think the last time I watched it was when I did a commentary with Sexy Celebrity. That didn't go so well. We'll see what happens this time.

I was torn between The Departed and Rocky but figured there was much more chance that someone else would nominate it than there was someone else nominating Rocky.

I love Gladiator but not sure whether it was over watching but the last couple of times that I watched it I was a bit Haven't watched it for a while and also have a new TV and sound system so hopefully that will rekindle the spark

__________________
"I don't want to be a product of my environment, I want my environment to be a product of me" (Frank Costello)