Category: Oscar Winner

Papa’s Delicate Condition (1963)

Almost entirely a showcase for the charming Jackie Gleason, this film, based on a memoir by silent film star Corinne Griffith, tells the tale of an early 19th century family who is exasperated by the delicate condition of their patriarch, that is the irresponsible acts he performs while intoxicated. Those acts include indulging every whim of his adoring six-year-old daughter. Glynis Johns plays his long suffering wife though the whole affair remains fairly light and gay.

Oscar Win: Best Music, Original Song

The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)

As a light, but exceptionally long, rendering of the well-known story of the Frank family and their companions hiding from the Nazis, this film is adequate. It gives a good view of the crampedness of the quarters they shared and some of the harrowing events that occurred while they were there. But it is told in a relatively breezy way. Aside from going through the motions to keep from being found, there’s not as much of a sense of both the danger and tedium that had to exist for such a long period of time together. Millie Perkins is not particularly believable as a young teenager, a bit too cute and precious. On the other hand, Joseph Schildkraut as Otto Frank and Shelley Winters as Petronella Van Dam bring real emotion to their roles, the former as a father trying to keep everyone safe and the latter trying to hold on to life as she once knew it.   Best Picture Nomination

Oscar Wins: Best Actress in a Supporting Role; Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture; Best Actor in a Supporting Role; Best Director; Best Costume Design, Black-and-White; Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

No Man’s Land (2001)

During the Bosnian War, men from both sides of the fight find themselves trapped together in a trench between battle lines. The UN is impotent to help, as mere observers to the war going around among them. There are a number of light moments in this satire, but it would be a disservice not to offer the spoiler that the ending is as bleak as it can be. War is futile.

Oscar Win: Best Foreign Language Film

Blithe Spirit (1945)

As a lesson to not mess with the supernatural, Blithe Spirit features Rex Harrison as a British author who realizing he needs more material for his next book hires a medium to perform a séance in his home. Unfortunately the séance is too successful and brings forth his dead former wife to haunt him. Despite an unfortunate makeup choice where the ghost looks like the Wicked Witch of the West, the film is witty and amusing, culminating in an end where everyone receives their just desserts.

Oscar Win: Best Effects, Special Effects

Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1938)

With a love triangle as its backdrop, Alexander’s Ragtime Band attempts to tell the early history of jazz during the early parts of the 20th century, all through the music of Irving Berlin. The story is shallow, but the cast is fine, filled with the likes of Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Ethel Merman, Don Ameche and Jack Haley. The music is the best part and the songs are catchy as all get out. Just reading the name of the film gets the title song stuck in my head.  Best Picture Nomination  Musical  Music

Oscar Win: Best Music, Scoring

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture; Best Writing, Original Story; Best Art Direction; Best Film Editing; Best Music, Original Song

Vicki Christina Barcelona (2008)

Stupid Oscars compulsion making me watch more Woody Allen films. This one is filled with unlikeable characters: unlikable crazy Spaniards and the extremely unlikable pretentious Americans who invade their country and their lives for the summer. This has Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, Chris Messina, and Patricia Clarkson. There are dozens of better films to watch them in.

Oscar Win: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

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