Category: Oscar Nominee

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Miracle on 34th Street (1947) – Rewatch

This is such the seminal telling of the story that I can’t watch any of the other versions despite trying. Edmund Gwenn IS Santa Claus, come to spread Christmas and belief to Macy’s executive Maureen O’Hara, her young daughter Natalie Wood, and New York City at large. I’ve been watching this film all my life at Christmastime and the sentimentality, nostalgia, and desire to believe in the Christmas spirit have never wavered upon each viewing. The one thing that has changed in recent viewings is my joy at seeing the US postal service being a hero in the film. There’s a bittersweetness that gets added when thinking of how it has been gutted in recent years.   Best Picture Nomination   Holiday

Oscar Wins: Best Actor in a Supporting Role; Best Writing, Original Story; Best Writing, Screenplay

Oscar Nomination: Best Picture

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Throw Momma From the Train (1987)

In this take on Strangers on a Train, Billy Crystal is a novelist who suffers from writer’s block after his ex-wife Kate Mulgrew received acclaim from a story she allegedly stole from him. He thus takes a job teaching at a community college where he meets quirky Danny DeVito who proposes that he’ll kill Billy’s ex-wife if Billy kills his overbearing mother Anne Ramsey. It’s an entertaining dark comedy with good chemistry between the two leads and Ramsey giving an especially solid performance in her supporting role.

Oscar Nomination: Best Actress in a Supporting Role

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In Harm’s Way (1965)

Beginning with the attack on Pearl Harbor, this film follows a number of military members during the first years of the war in the Pacific. It’s an epic melodrama that often feels like the story could have been made into a television soap opera both in their luridness and their predictability. As common during the epic films of the era, this film exhibits quite an all-star cast with John Wayne, Patricia Neal, Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda, and Paula Prentiss. I liked that the female characters weren’t just relegated to being love interests but also showed some of the jobs women undertook during the war from nurses to plane spotters. While the battle scenes weren’t as thrilling as I’d like, the film is engaging even with its close to three hour runtime.  War

Oscar Nomination: Best Cinematography, Black-and-White

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Lady on a Train (1945) – Rewatch

On her way to New York to spend the Christmas holidays, mystery lover and debutante Deanna Durbin witnesses a murder outside her train car. Since no one else believes her story, she then devotes her time to solving he crime with the occasional help from mystery writer David Bruce. The main character is quite flighty and the film is not a particularly Christmas-y tale, but it is a cute, relatively light mystery flick. Although Durbin was famous for her singing voice, I find the few songs ridiculously shoehorned into the movie and now fast forward through them on every rewatch.   Holiday  Mystery

Oscar Nomination: Best Sound, Recording

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The Prince of Tides (1991)

As far as psychiatric ethics go, this film is an abomination. After his twin sister’s latest suicide attempt, Nick Nolte travels from South Carolina to New York to meet with her psychiatrist, Barbra Streisand. There under the guise of ‘helping’ his sister’s recovery, Streisand holds meetings that essentially become therapy sessions with Nolte and later starts up an extramarital affair with him. Their relationship is mind boggling on its own and then when the big twist is revealed, the whole plot flies off the handle. The film is beautifully shot, particularly the Carolina scenes, and in all of her scenes, Streisand is always cast in gorgeous light.

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture; Best Actor in a Leading Role; Best Actress in a Supporting Role; Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published; Best Cinematography; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration; Best Music, Original Score

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A Special Day (1977)

During Hitler’s 1938 visit to Italy, a tired and overworked mother of six stays at home while the rest of her family goes to the rally. Through a series of circumstances, she ends up spending the day with one of the few other people who skipped the event, her persecuted gay neighbor. The story, told in gorgeous sepia tones, is of two lonely individuals finding solace with each other even for a short while. Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni always have incredible chemistry and it matters not at all here when they aren’t meant to be romantically attached.

Oscar Nominations: Best Actor in a Leading Role; Best Foreign Language Film

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The Preacher’s Wife (1996) – Rewatch

As a remake of The Bishop’s Wife, it’s hard to review this without comparing it to the earlier picture. Denzel is the angel Dudley come to help Vance, the spouse of the titular Houston. It’s not difficult to see how Washington would be chosen in the role previously held by Cary Grant. There are few modern actors who could pull off the debonair charm, ever capable of throwing out a grin that makes the film’s women and the audience swoon. Houston and Vance are at least as capable filling in the same roles as Loretta Young and David Niven, here with an added showcase for Houston’s singing. There are a bunch of additional characters: Gregory Hines as a property developer bent on demolishing the church, Loretta Devine as a jealous secretary, and Jenifer Lewis inexplicably cast as Houston’s mother. While neither are Must Watches for me, I slightly prefer the earlier version if only because of its shorter, tighter story, but this one is still a decent feel-good film that I don’t mind putting in every other year or so.  Holiday

Oscar Nomination: Best Music, Original Musical or Comedy Score

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Bubbling Over (1934)/Guard Dog (2004)

Bubbling Over is a short with an all Black cast featuring the incredible talent of Ethel Waters. Waters is a poor woman saddled with the laziest husband alive along with his incredibly lazy family. It mostly serves as an artifact of its time, but it does have a few entertaining musical numbers. Waters wasn’t in nearly enough films so I’ve been checking out those I can find.

Guard Dog is a Bill Plympton cartoon that attempts to explain why a neurotic dog barks so much. Even with the dog protagonist, I’m not much of a fan of Plympton’s animation style. The short plot does tie up nicely that at least produces a bit of a chuckle in the end.

Oscar Nomination: Best Short Film, Animated (Guard Dog)

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The Bridges of Madison County (1995)

I remember the summer this was such a hit with middle aged, particularly white, women. Being firmly ensconced in those categories now, it seemed like a good time to check it out. It mostly doesn’t work for me. The parts with the adult children are drawn out and overall unnecessary, not helped by the fact that the two characters are quite dislikable. Clint Eastwood as the love interest here is a bit far-fetched and I kept imagining many other actors in the role. Similarly, while she brings her usual quality to her role, I didn’t quite believe Meryl Streep’s portrayal as an Italian immigrant though the melancholy and resignation she experienced as an Iowan housewife did come across. Overall there wasn’t a lot of chemistry between the two and the pairing was hurt more from that than the actors as individual characters. The setting is attractive and feels evocative of Iowa in the late summer, though the featured bridge isn’t the most inspirational structure.  Romance

Oscar Nominated: Best Actress in a Leading Role

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The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)

Early in this film, Andrew Garfield’s Jim Bakker is at bible college, arguing in front of class regarding the meaning of various bible passages. Through the flirtatious glances cast between him and Jessica Chastain’s Tammy Faye seated in the audience, one of the worst concepts of modern day Christianity, prosperity gospel, is seemingly born. In her later life, Tammy Faye seemed to be a sweet, simple-minded, but relatively harmless, follower of Christ. Chastain’s portrayal maintains this, casting Tammy Faye as a naïve but loyal servant of the lord who couldn’t help but be caught up in the whirlwind of materialism and grifting, all in the glory of god. It’s only at moments when her beliefs and the life she lives is questioned that the mask that is literally tattooed on her face seems to crack. Similarly, Jim Bakker in current times comes across as nothing more than a narcissistic charlatan. Garfield’s slimy portrayal does him no favors. Together these two performances, along with support from the likes of Cherry Jones and Vincent D’Onofrio, elevates this film while laying out all the brash, misguided, brightly-colored glory of the Bakkers’ ministry and early televangelism at large.

Oscar Wins: Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling; Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

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