In early 2010 I decided to watch all the Winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture. This was something Lisa and I had started discussing years ago – signing up for Netflix made it easier and then discovering that they were all in our Monroe County Library System made it even easier especially after we shut down the CD portion of our Netflix.
I had seen almost no Best Pictures through 1970 with the exception of parts of West Side Story, parts of Gone With the Wind, and bits and pieces of a few others.
From 1970-1980 I had seen about half of them and many not for a long time – from 80-90 the same and then from 1990 on most of them with a couple of exceptions. As I got into the 80s I realized that while I had seen most of the winners there were some great movies that were nominated that I had never seen and others that I loved and hadn’t seen in a while. I had thought about it and then I watched 1981’s winner: Chariots Of Fire and was frankly bored to tears. Looking at the other movies nominated that year I had seen 2 – Raiders of the Lost Ark and On Golden Pond and 2 I hadn’t Atlantic City and Reds.
I decided to watch the other nominated movies for each year – revisiting in many cases the ones I have seen and make my own pick of Best Picture – so here goes.
1981
Winner: Chariots of Fire
Chariots of Fire takes place in 1924 and is the true story of 2 runners – one Christian the other a Jew both dealing with prejudice and questions of faith.
Thoughts: Chariots of Fire is a fine film with great scenery and acting. The music score is, of course, one of the most famous. However I thought this movie was overall pretty darn boring. I just didn’t enjoy the story and while I see the merit of the story I just didn’t think it was all that interesting.
Rating: 6
Nominees
Of these 5 nominees, Atlantic City was the one I’d never heard of. This is a true and understated character study of the relationship between a young Susan Sarandon and an old Burt Lancaster. Atlantic City is one of 26 films that have been nominated for all the major best of categories – Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor and Actress and one of only 6 that didn’t win any. Lancaster’s character is the personification of Atlantic City. Still dressing the same yet the clothes are tired, still remembering the good old days and being roughed up and affected by drugs. He wants a relationship and has one with Sarandon whose ex-husband ran off with her sister. You feel sad for both characters – both of them are searching for something – Lancaster for the life he had, and Sarandon for a life she wished.
Rating: 7
On Golden Pond is a great movie based on a play. Katharine Heburn’s portrayal in this movie is one of her best. Who doesn’t remember her calling to the loons and saying “Norman you old poop” in that Hepburn way, 1981 brought a whole knew legion of fans to her. This was Henry Fonda’s last performance and his sarcastic wit as Norman was great. It’s ultimately the story of the end of a couple’s life and the fact that they both won an Oscar for the movie shows just how good they were. They played off of each other well and you got the sense watching it that they were an old married couple. Jane Fonda purchased the rights to the screenplay with the intent of having Henry Fonda play Norman since the part reminded her of him.
In 1981 my Dad loved the movie so much he took every relative (except his 6 year old son) to see it and when my sister was born 2 years later he named her Katherine in part after Hepburn (although they missed the second “a”)
Rating: 8.5
ROTLA is my favorite of these from a pure enjoyment perspective and the one I’ve seen the most but I watched it again. I was actually surprised that it was nominated since it seems to fly in the face of the usual Academy nominees – a sci-fi-esque adventure film although Spielberg directed true to the serial cliffhanger movies of the 20s and 30s. This movie has it all: gun fights, car chases, Nazi’s – a great flick. Watching this again one realizes how good Spielberg’s direction is. There is a great scene in the Well of the Souls where Indy and Sala are picking up the Ark and he shows them carrying it as shadows on the wall eerie and mysterious. John Williams score once again shows how good he is and how well he and Spielberg work together.
My rating: 9
Reds I had heard of but had never seen. It’s the story of John Reed a Communist sympathizer and journalist who chronicled the Russian Revolution of 1917 and his relationship with Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton). Also in the film is Jack Nicholson who plays Eugene O’Neil, Bryant’s lover. What sets it apart from the other movies here is that Beatty who Directed, starred and co-wrote the movie included throughout the film interviews with people who were there and knew the characters. In 1979 when this was shot they were all in their 80s and 90s so historically it was good the film was made this way. The movie is certainly epic and I love Keaton but I’ve just never been a fan of Warren Beatty and this move felt too much like the Warren Beatty show.
Rating: 8
1982 Winner – Gandhi
Gandhi is a 3 1/2 hour film of the life is Gandhi. It starts out with his assassination and then quickly focuses on him as a young man heading to India as a lawyer. It takes the viewer through the pivotal points in his life and how he becomes the pacifist resistor. The movie is epic and expansive and excellently done. The movie won 8 total academy awards. The musical score (which didn’t win) was done in part by Ravi Shankar giving it a very Indian sound.
Rating: 8
l 
While I had seen parts of Gandhi and Tootsie – E.T. was the one on this list that I had seen in its entirely. I remember seeing this in the theater in 1982 and was going to go see it again but showed up and the local theater had closed. E.T. is a great film for anybody – a story of friendship, bravery, tolerance. I’ve read that it was inspired by Spielberg’s parents own divorce when he made up an imaginary friend. What’s amazing about Spielberg is his ability to reach out the child in us. E.T. instills that sense of wonder through Eliot that the world is black and white, right and wrong. A distrust for adults because adults do bad things. All that wrapped up in yet another amazing John Williams score.
Rating: 8
I had never head of Missing in spite of the excellent cast. It’s the true story of Charles Horman an American journalist who was covering the overthrow of the Chilean Government by Pinochet in a bloody coup (and US backed). Horman disappears and his wife has no idea how or when The movie mostly centers around his wife (Sissy Spacek) who is joined by Horman’s father (Jack Lemmon) a NY business man used to getting his own way. It’s a story of frustration as they are met with bureaucratic walls both Chilean and the US. Spacek gives a great performance as the young wife and Lemmon portrays the distant father who doesn’t understand why his son would want to “waste his life” doing what he believes is playing around. He comes to understand throughout the movie that his son is more noble and maybe more. Both Lemmon and Spacek were nominated for their performances and justly so.
Rating: 7.5
As I watched the Best Pictures certain actors and actresses would appear – showing how good they are. Dustin Hoffman is one of those – he was in Urban Cowboy, Kramer vs Kramer and later Rain Man – all best picture winners. Many of his movies have been nominated. Tootsie is a very 80s movie – montage scenes sent against synthesized music, the clothes, the sets. It’s the story of an out of work actor who decides to dress like a woman to get a part on a soap opera. His girlfriend is Teri Garr who is distraught through most of the movie, Bill Murray is Hoffman’s roommate and best friend. Dabney Colman plays pretty much the same part he does in most movies and is a shade of his 9 to 5 character. Here is a chauvinistic director of the soap opera – calling woman “honey” and “babe”. My criticism of the movie is that it is disjointed in places. Unlike Mrs. Doubtfire which spends time explaining how Robin Williams transforms, there is none of this in Tootsie. One minute he’s a man the next scene he walking through the streets of NY as a woman. The movie is largely OK –
Rating – 7
The Verdict is an excellent movie with Paul Newman as an aging alcoholic lawyer. He has struggled with his practice, with no money. He is thrown a case that involves the Catholic Church and a woman who has died while in care at their hospital. Newman’s performance is as always outstanding the supporting cast does a great job. It’s a fairly understated film built around the strength of Newman’s performance – in all a well done movie.
Rating: 7.5
1983
Winner: Terms of Endearment was the tearjerker winner of 1983 – in fact I remember my mom watching this and getting weepy towards the end. Personally I didn’t think it was best picture worthy. Of course Shirley McClain and Jack Nicholson are great in their roles. Debra Winger apparently was difficult while filming this movie as she was battling drug addiction but also had a good performance. The movie seemed to jump time and location. One minute Debra Winger is getting news about some tumors the next she’s in the hospital. I thought the relationship between Winger and McClain was well done – a mother and daughter in constant turmoil and yet a love for each other.
Rating: 7
I remember seeing parts of this as a kid and it is as known for its music as it was for its cast. I am now the same age as the characters and have a new perspective. It’s about a group of former college friends who gather together for the funeral of a friend who committed suicide. Kevin Costner had scenes filmed in his first role but most of it ended up on the cutting room floor. All that survived in the movie is close-ups of his hands and hair at the beginning as he body is prepared. Costner’s big break came a year later in another Lawrence Kasden directed film (and one of my favorites) Silverado. There are some great scenes in this as the friends are coping with their loss. One of them has gone on to become a TV star a la Magnum PI (complete with mustache) and yet they treat him the same way. The music in the film inspired several best selling compilation albums and was the music of the baby boomers who at the time this came out were in their mid-30s – and it was the success of both this movie and Stand By Me that inspired a lot of nostalgia projects in the 80s – 30smething in particular as well as The Wonder Years, the bands put out new albums many for the first time in 15 years, they sold out concerts and a whole new industry was born. As someone who’s recently been reflecting on his own life as his 20th High school reunion is coming up I had a whole new appreciation for this film and can sympathize with the story and the characters.
Rating: 8.5
The Dresser is the story of an aging Shakespearean actor, known only as Sir who is touring England putting on King Lear. Sir is becoming senile and Norman is his dresser who has devoted his life to Sir. He’s a costumer, rehearser, caretaker, and servant. There are some great scenes and you watch in as Sir becomes more confused and Norman struggles to hide it from the other cast and make sure that this performance of King Lear comes off without a hitch. Finney’s performance is incredible as is Tom Courtney as Norman. One of my favorite scenes is during a storm sequence when Sir is delivering a soliloquy and people are back stage, including Norman, are trying to create a massive storm. They are all exhausted from the effort and Sir gets off-stage and says “I said a STORM!”
Rating: 7.5
The Right Stuff: I loved this movie as a kid. The movie is about the choosing of the 7 original Mercury Astronauts, how they were chosen and what it took to get them up during the space race of the early 60s. In between the scenes with the 7 are interspersed the life of Chuck Yaegar who was passed over because he didn’t have a college degree. The movie was based on the book by Tom Wolfe -a fictional biographical account. Wolfe did his research and like other similar stories is a mixture of fact and fiction – some events condensed and others altered (really real life isn’t that exciting). The film is funny and touching and although 3 hours long goes be very quickly.
Rating: 9
Tender Mercies is a very understated movie about an old Country Western Singer, Robert Duvall, as he battles alcoholism and falls in love with a woman with a son whose father died in Vietnam. Duvall is outstanding in these roles – very subtle yet complex. You almost could envision that his role in Crazy Heart in 2011 could be this same character 40 years later – there are a lot similarities. Duvall won the Best Actor for the role of Mac Sledge – oddly enough the only time he has won. A very young Ellen Barkin and Betty Buckley make some supporting characters but it does have a tendency to drag on in places and I lost interest periodically.
Rating: 6
1984
I was pleasantly surprised by this film. I remember seeing parts of it as a kid and seeing the ads on HBO but I thought that it was going to be a 3 hour drag fest. Quite the contrary I thought it was excellently done – fast past, funny, somber, thought provoking. Hulce’s Mozart is a great performance with that maniacal laughter and genius. If this is historically accurate Mozart could hear music in his head in a way that few people ever had. He would compose his symphonies in one draft with no edits. The story is told through the eyes of a court composer played by F. Murray Abraham who won the best actor award. He was jealous of Mozart and as he is telling the story blames himself for Mozart Death. The sets and costumes are amazing the score (Mozart music) seemed to blend seamlessly and you felt bad for Mozart as the movie progressed.
Rating: 9
The Killing Fields is a really powerful and moving film. Set in Cambodia in the early 70s during the Vietnam war it’s the story of an American Writer, Sydney Schanberg play by Sam Waterston who I didn’t recognize with dark hair and a beard Dith Pran – a Cambodian journalist as they are trying to bring the story of the suffering of the Cambodian’s to the Western world. Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime starts to crack down. They get Pran’s family out but he stays out of loyalty to Sydney. When the American’s are evacuated they try to smuggle Pran out but are unable to. The movie then switches to two parts – the first about Pran’s life in a work camp in the Killing Fields – a place where Cambodian are forced to farm and the Khmer Rouge kills millions for things like being educated. The second is about Syndey’s attempts to find Pran and bring him back. Pran is played by Haing S. Ngor a Cambodian Physician in his first movie role. His life in Cambodia was similar to Pran’s and he called on those feelings to play this role – one of the best performances I have ever seen. Pran’s life in the work camp in particular is powerful and frightening – and you just hope he can escape the horror.
The movie is bloody in places as it should be – as Cambodia was at this time and hard to watch in places but I think is an important film to see as it shows what can happen when a dictator is allowed to stay in power.
Rating: 9
Oh my god let this one end! That’s what I felt through most of the movie. This was David Lean’s last film and his first in over 10 years. I can say one thing about Lean – he likes sweeping movies. In my best picture watching he directed by The Bridge on the River Kwai and the extremely long but well done Lawrence of Arabia. Like his other movies he has Sir Alec Guiness to play a role –although in this case he played a native Indian – it seemed like he could have found a native to play the role. Apparently he cut much of Guiness’s part which caused a rift between the two until just before Lean passed away.
The movie doesn’t really get going until about an hour and 10 minutes in when there is an accusation of a rape of a British woman by an Indian Doctor. It then had about 30 minutes of interest and then another hour of slowness.
Rating: 6
Places in the Heart is a movie that I remember seeing as a kid. Sally Field plays Edna Spalding, the wife of the local sheriff in the south during the Depression, who becomes a widow. She finds out that her finances are dire and is in danger of losing her house to the bank and having to send her 2 children to relatives. With the help of a black migrant (Danny Glover) and Mr Will (John Malkovich – the cousin of the banker who became blind during WWI, she decides to grow and farm the cotton fields.
A side story has Ed Harris cheating on his wife with a friend. The movie’s acting is well done and a great period piece. Malkovich was in both this and the Killing Fields and was the first 2 movies he was in (seriously did he EVER have hair?). The acting here is superb with this cast although Sally Field does have a tendency to over act.
The side story with Ed Harris seemed somewhat extraneous – with the exception of a community dance where he, his wife and his lover with her husband show up with Edna there is no interaction between the two stories – and even at the dance there was no interaction with the characters. It almost felt like it was put in because neither story was long enough for the movie.
The two kids were played by actors neither of whom did much before or after this movie. Over all this movie is very well done the cast is superb and its worth watching.
Rating: 9
A Soldier’s Story is a standard military murder mystery set against the backdrop of a black army unit in WWII. The cast is a whose who of black actors of the time. In addition to Denzel Washington in one of his first roles, there is also David Alan Grier and Robert Townsend. Howard E. Rollins, Jr is the main character – a black lawyer sent to investigate the death of a sergeant someone many in the company despise. Rollins would go on to play Mr. Tibbs in the TV version of In The Heat Of The Night. The movie is very well done as a court case and worth seeing.
Rating: 8
zzzzzz. I just couldn’t get into this movie. Streep and Redford are great actors but the movie bored me to tears, all 3 hours of it. Streep plays Karen Dinesen a wealth English woman married to Baron Blixen in a loveless marriage. She falls for Redford’s character Denys Hatton – an American Big-game hunter. I just couldn’t get into this movie – yes the scenery is amazing and the score is well done but I just didn’t care. Also I was bothered by several scenes that were obviously done in front of a “green” screen .
Rating: 6
The Color Purple is based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Alice Walker – a book that I will be reading shortly as part of my Pulitzer project. It’s the story of Celie Harris a black woman in the 20s who as a teenager is given to a much older man, Danny Glover, who abuse her and belittles her for her entire life. The movie takes you through the life of Celie who is played as an adult by Whoopie Goldberg and her first role – an Oscar nominated performance. Oprah Winfrey also in an Oscar Nominated role, has a part. I remember the ads for this as a kid – at the time it seemed to be a departure for Spielberg coming off of the Sci Fi genre. As usual he does an excellent job with setting scenes and creating suspense through the camera.
Rating: 8.5
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