Category: Oscar Winner

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Midnight Express (1978)

Brad Davis is sent to a Turkish prison after attempting to smuggle 2kg of hashish out of the country. He’s initially given a sentence of four years for possession and he must decide whether or not to join fellow English-speaking prisoners John Hurt and Randy Quaid in taking the Midnight Express, slang in the prison for an escape attempt. Differentiating from the non-fiction book it was adapted from, it strangely includes a girlfriend character which adds some explicit sex scenes, while purposefully suppressing the homosexual sexual activity that actually happened. The depiction of the prison is a surprising oddity as the prisoners are allowed a bit of freedom of movement within its walls but are also subjected to a great amount of violence from guards and other prisoners. It’s a bleak reminder to not screw around when visiting other countries.   Best Picture Nomination  Crime

Oscar Win: Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium; Best Music, Original Score

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture; Best Actor in a Supporting Role; Best Director; Best Film Editing

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Cries and Whispers (1972)

While Harriet Andersson painfully dies of uterine cancer, her sisters Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Thulin and servant Kari Sylwan keep watch, struggling to care for her while dealing with their own issues. I’m sure much of the film went over my head as it is quite stylized and the perspective quickly changes between the four women, but the performances reflect lives of pain and loneliness. Unforgettably the rooms these women embody are dramatically and oppressively covered in red while they themselves drift around in white dresses.   Best Picture Nomination

Oscar Win: Best Cinematography

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture; Best Director; Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced; Best Costume Design

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Easter Parade (1948)

When his dancing partner Ann Miller quits to go solo, Fred Astaire believes he can find anyone to take her place and chooses Judy Garland. Wet blanket Peter Lawford is along for the ride in a best friend role, but there’s really little purpose to his character. I admire the talent of Astaire and love to see him work, but in so many of these musicals, he looks like he could be the father of his love interest, which is the case here again. He and Garland perform well together, but they have little romantic chemistry. Miller is also undeniably talented, but in every film I’ve ever seen her in, she performs unnaturally toward the camera. The film has very little to do with Easter, though begins and ends on the holiday and there’s very little by way of a story. Even after watching the film, I don’t understand what exactly happens at an Easter parade.   Holiday  Musical

Oscar Win: Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture

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Amarcord (1973)

It is hard to not immediately compare this to The Hand of God as they are both Italian films featuring a teenager as he comes of age surrounded by a cast of eccentric characters. It’s obvious this influenced that other film. While I’m still rather done with films centered on white, teenaged boys, especially when they all seem to feature adults sexually taking advantage of children, this one exceeds the others as it allows the focus to move away from the boys and let the other characters have time to shine. Set in a Northern Italian seaside village during the 1930s Mussolini era, it offers a real sense of time and place while also having just enough surreal, dreaminess to invoke a feeling of nostalgic memory.

Oscar Win: Best Foreign Language Film

Oscar Nominations: Best Director; Best Writing, Original Screenplay

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Story of a Dog (1945)/One Survivor Remembers (1996)

As a dog lover, it’s difficult to enjoy Story of a Dog. The film follows a group of dogs as they go through Basic Training so they can serve with their trainers during World War II. The dogs are forced into unnatural situations, such as remaining calm during gun fire, just to fight in man’s war.   War  Animals

Holocaust survivor Gerda Weissmann Klein died this month, so I thought it was a good time to watch the short film that serves as her testimony, One Survivor Remembers. As the only survivor of her family, she was sent to various work camps along the German border, finally forced into a months long death march which killed all of her remaining friends, only to finally be liberated by the man she would eventually marry. Unlike some other Holocaust films that can verge on tragedy porn, this one maintains a steadfast focus on Gerda’s gracious telling of her story.  War

Oscar Win: Best Documentary, Short Subjects (One Survivor Remembers)

Oscar Nominations: Best Short Subject, One-reel (Story of a Dog)

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The V.I.P.s (1963)

A group of rich and famous people are majorly inconvenienced when they are stranded at Heathrow Airport due to fog. The film delves into all the mundane details of the rich people problems that these rich, white people are facing and how the delay could bring ruin to each of them. It’s generally boring, particularly as it insists on focusing mainly on Elizabeth Taylor leaving Richard Burton for a more appealing younger man. Even young Maggie Smith is underutilized as a secretary unrequitedly in love with her boss The airport setting is somewhat fun, particularly in its period details, and Margaret Rutherford is a delight, though also underused, as a scatterbrained duchess trying to save her family’s estate.

Oscar Win: Best Actress in a Supporting Role

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The Sandpiper (1965)

Single mother and artist Elizabeth Taylor’s delinquent son is forced by the courts to attend headmaster Richard Burton’s school. Though he is married to Eva Marie Saint, he begins an affair with the free-spirited Taylor. All the men in the film seem to have been in love with Liz at some point and she is really gorgeous in the film. I suppose audiences at the time might have enjoyed Taylor and Burton carrying on an extramarital affair onscreen in a way that somewhat mirrored their own lives, but I personally don’t feel much chemistry between the two of them. I relate most to Saint’s level-headed, sensible character and the film wastes her power.

Oscar Win: Best Music, Original Song

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The Great Waltz (1938)

The life of Johann Strauss II is told through a generic love triangle between him, his wife Luise Rainer, and opera singer Milizas Korjus. The music is beautiful though Korjus’s singing is overwhelming and featured too frequently. Outside the musical scenes, the rest of the film is rather bland and unmemorable.  Music  Musical

Oscar Win: Best Cinematography

Oscar Nomination: Best Actress in a Supporting Role; Best Film Editing

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Nights of Cabiria (1957)

This film follows the episodic journey of prostitute Cabiria from her almost drowning after being pushed in a river by her boyfriend to her later romance with a man who seems too good to be true. Through it all, she maintains an unmerited optimism against the cynicism of her peers and life itself. I didn’t love this as much as La Strada, the previous collaboration between Federico Fellini and Giulietta Masina, but Masina’s presence still shines. Her character is so incredibly tough and spunky with a fragile, hopeful light that refuses to be extinguished no matter the degradations she must endure.

Oscar Win: Best Foreign Language Film

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Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

When boxer and amateur pilot Robert Montgomery’s plane crashes, he’s prematurely pulled into the afterlife before his time by Edward Everett Horton. Horton’s boss Claude Rains finds Montgomery a new body to inhabit and he falls in love with Evelyn Keyes when he’s resurrected. I long ago saw Warren Beatty’s 1978 remake of the story, but this version is particularly adorable. Rains steals the show as the bemused and ever-patient Mr. Jordan. Honorable mention is given to James Gleason portraying Montgomery’s manager who is dragged in to the whole changed body scenario.  Best Picture Nomination  Supernatural  Sports

Oscar Wins: Best Writing, Original Story; Best Writing, Original Screenplay

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture; Best Actor in a Leading Role; Best Actor in a Supporting Role; Best Director; Best Cinematography, Black-and-White

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