My Oscar Journey!

Based on the popular Tony Award winning musical, “The Music Man” tells the story of a con man named Harold Hill (played by Robert Preston) who comes to a town in Iowa to con the people into buying instruments and starting a boy marching band. The local librarian Marian Paroo (played by Shirley Jones) sees through him and wants to stop him, but when Harold helps her younger brother (played by Ron Howard) she beings to fall in love with him and helps him to cover his fraud. This was a great movie musical, but I felt that the second half wasn’t as good as the amazing first half. Preston is incredibly charming as Hill and Shirley Jones does a great job as always with Marian. Some of my favorite numbers were “Rock Island”, “Sincere”, “Pick a Little, Talk a Little”, “Marian the Librarian”, “Lida Rose/Will I Ever Tell You”, and of course the Broadway standards “Til There Was You”, “Seventy Six Trombones”, and “Gary Indiana”. “Marian the Librarian” had some of the best choreography I’ve seen in a movie musical, and “Lida Rose/Will I Ever Tell You” was beautifully shot and sang by Jones and the great Male Quartet, The Buffalo Bills. 

“Judgment at Nuremberg” centers around the Nuremberg trails in Germany that took place after the Holocaust. It depicts a specific trail of four German judges that sentenced executions and sterilizations of many Jews and others who were deemed unfit to live or breed based on the Nazi Nuremberg laws. This film was excellent. The performances were all amazing, the screenplay is off the charts and the story itself is just incredibly engaging. It was one of the first Holocaust films made and it has more of a tone of “The Reader” than something like “Life is Beautiful”. The film is nearly three hours but it honestly didn’t feel like it because it was paced so well. The issues it brings up are interesting and as an audience member it makes you think, “Who exactly knew what EXACTLY was going on in Germany during the Holocaust?” Like I said, the performances are amazing. Spencer Tracy (Best Actor Nomination) and Maximilian Schell (Best Actor Win) give spectacular leading performances here, but I think it’s Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift (Best Supporting Actor Nomination) and Judy Garland (Best Supporting Actress Nomination) who steal the show here. They all deliver performances so far from their usual types that they’re all almost unrecognizable in look and in speech. All of their trial scenes blew me out of the water. If Rita Moreno hadn’t been nominated for her wonderful performance as Anita in “West Side Story”, Garland would have went home with the Oscar and Clift should have won. Also making a small supporting performance in this film is a young William Shatner!

Anyone who has taken a history class knows about the event of “D-Day” that took place during World War II in Normandy. “The Longest Day” tells us about that very day from the perspectives of the Americans, the British, the French and the Germans. The cast is humongous and includes John Wayne, Henry Fonda, George Segal, Richard Burton, and Sean Connery among many others. I actually enjoyed this one! I’m not the hugest fan of war films, but most that are centered around WWII are engaging because it was a very interesting war. It was also easy to follow because every side speaks in their native language, so I always knew who I was watching and could follow the conflict with no problem (which is an issue in many war films). Because this film is more about the action than the characters, and it jumps around from place to place so often it’s hard to pinpoint standout performances. However, Richard Burton manages to stand out mainly because he is in the last scene and it really struck me with its simplicity. John Wayne is also good in this and he pops up more probably than anyone else in the film.

Paul Newman (Best Actor Nomination) stars in “The Hustler” as “Fast” Eddie Felson, a pool hustler who becomes obsessed with beating an even better played named Minnesota Fats (played by Jackie Gleason, Best Supporting Actor Nomination). Eddie’s life becomes even more complicated when he becomes involved with a fragile alcoholic woman named Sarah (played by Piper Laurie, Best Supporting Actress Nomination) and a dirty man named Bert (played by George C. Scott, Best Supporting Actor Nomination) who eventually becomes Eddie’s manager. This is truly a character film and I really liked it! I feel like every single character went on a distinct, interesting and dark journey throughout the film. All of the actors do a brilliant job. The scenes with Newman, Scott, and Gleason are electric yet simple, and Laurie is absolutely tragic and heartbreaking as Sarah. This is one of the first great performance films I’ve come across on the list in a while, so if you think that’s something that’s up your alley, check this one out! An interesting story with great characters and fantastic acting!

This film is known as the epic of all epics, and for good reason. The shooting? Epic. The acting? Pretty epic. The music? Very epic. “Lawrence of Arabia” stars Peter O’ Toole (Best Actor Nomination) as the title character, who is a British soldier that helps the Arabs in their rebellion against the Turks in World War I. When he begins to find allegiance with the Arabs he is torn between them and the Brits, and many other inner conflicts arise for him as the film progresses. I did enjoy this film but I honestly didn’t like it as much as I thought I would. As usual, I found issues with how long the film was. I think when the film started to get too long I lost interested and track of the story. It also didn’t help that a few of the characters looked the same. Peter O’Toole was fantastic in this as he always is and Omar Sharif (Best Supporting Actor Nomination) is good as well. Though I didn’t love the film, I really liked it and appreciated all of the epic aspects of it because it’s crafted amazingly well. 

“Ship of Fools” is a multi-layered, multi-genre ensemble film about a group of people on a ship that’s on its way to Nazi Germany from Mexico. We follow the various characters on the ship as they deal with issues such as love, anti-semistism, age and sex. I actually thought some of the film was ahead of it’s time which was cool, but it was a bit too long and convoluted near the end for me to really like it. I think though the issues they explored were interesting, there were so many characters that some of the plot was spread pretty thin so I ended up not caring about some of the characters. The one great thing about the film is the performances from Oskar Werner (Best Actor Nomination) as the ships doctor, Simone Signoret (Best Supporting Actress Nomination) as a Spanish Countess on her way to jail in Germany and Michael Dunn (Best Supporting Actor Nomination) as the lovable dwarf and somewhat narrator of the story. They all turn in fantastic performances and never get lost in the shuffle of the big cast and thin plotlines. They keep their characters fresh and interesting with every scene. You will also recognize George Segal and Vivien Leigh in her last film appearance in this. 

“The Artist” is a French-made Black and White silent film about a silent film actor named George Valentin (played by Jean Dujardin, Best Actor Nomination) who is beginning to fade in the world of show business as talking features become more and more popular. As we see George’s fall, we see the rise of a young actress named Peppy Miller (played by Berenice Bejo, Best Supporting Actress Nomination). This film was fantastic. I loved the style and the fact that it wasn’t just a silent film, but that in itself it was an homage to silent film, similar to “Hugo”. Dujardin gives a brilliant performance as Valentin as we watch him fight and struggle with the industry and himself. He’s captivating from start to finish. Bejo absolutely shines as well as Peppy. She almost literally brightens up the screen with her luminescent smile and look from the second she pops on screen. And boy can the both of these actors dance! The musical number the end of the film is so good its almost indescribable. Interestingly enough there is also a good performance here from a dog! Uggie is the name of the dog that plays George’s dog and partner in crime, Jack and it’s some of the best animal work I’ve seen. This film also features performances from John Goodman, James Cromwell, Miss Pyle and Malcolm McDowell. This one may well be on it’s way to winning Best Picture.

“The Descendants” stars George Clooney (Best Actor Nomination) as a man named Matt King, whose wife has recently ended up in the hospital in a coma after a boating accident. The film follows him and his two daughters (played by Shailene Woodley & Amara Miller) as they come to grips with how they are going to handle life after their mother/wife passes away. I really enjoyed this film alot actually, which is surprising because it wasn’t what I was expecting. I thought it was going to have a similar humor that “Sideways” had (also directed by Alexander Payne) but it was definitely more of a quiet character study. George Clooney doesn’t necessarily fit into this film because he can’t seem to shed his “movie stardom”, but he still seems to do the best he can. I was really impressed with Shailene Woodley as his oldest daughter though. I thought she really handled all of her moments really well for what could have been a one dimensional character. I especially loved how she reacts to the news about her mother. I thought that was very well done and it’s a shame that she got left out of the Best Supporting Actress category (even though she got a Golden Globe nomination). The film walked away with the Best Picture-Drama award at the Golden Globes so we’ll see how it fares at the Oscars against the fierce competition of “The Artist”!

“A Thousand Clowns” is a quirky little film based on the play by Herb Gardner, about an eccentric man named Murray Burns (played by Jason Robards) who is forced to find a job in order to keep custody of his young nephew Nick (played by Barry Gordon). The two social workers who mandate the Murray improve his living conditions for Nick are played by William Daniels (who will be familiar to most people as Mr. Feeny from “Boy Meets World) and Barbara Harris (who’s character eventually starts a relationship with Murray). The film is a little strange at times and hard to get into for about the first twenty minutes, but after the film settles and you get used to the style, it actually becomes an interesting film. Most of the cast reprises their roles from Broadway (except for Harris, who replaced Tony/Oscar winner Sandy Dennis) and they all do a fine job. Robards is great as Murray, but sometimes a little too loud and “stagey”. I loved Barry Gordon as the precocious young Nick and Harris also does a nice job with Dr. Sandra. Martin Balsam won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Murray’s brother/agent, Arnold.

“Tom Jones” is a British period comedy starring a very young Albert Finney (Best Actor Nomination) as the title character. Throughout the film we follow Tom on his adventures to re find his true love, find out who his parents are, and a lot of women in between! This one was a joy to watch and it was really very funny. It was very surprising to see Finney so young and handsome in this! He was still a talented actor back then with the same strong voice and he does an excellent job carrying the film. Hugh Griffith (Best Supporting Actor Nomination) is absolutely hilarious in this as Tom’s true love Sophie’s father. He steals every scene he is in and uses his big eyes to great comedic effect. Edith Evans (Best Supporting Actress Nomination) is also very very funny as his upright sister. This was a great film and it kind of reminded me of “Barry Lyndon” but it was funnier of course and more focused since it’s not a life story like Lyndon is. This is the only film in history to have three women nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Unfortunately none of them won, but the prize went to Margaret Rutherford for “The V.I.P.s”. But the film won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Score and Best Adapted Screenplay.

I’m going to start this one off by saying that “Cleopatra” was over four hours long. I’m so exhausted from watching this film that I can’t even watch the second film I had planned on watching today. In a nutshell, the film spans eighteen years in which Cleopatra (played by Elizabeth Taylor) is having a love affair with Julius Caser (played by Rex Harrison, Best Actor Nomination) and then later Marc Antony (played by Richard Burton). This film wasn’t 100% boring. I just mostly found it incredibly mediocre and when a mediocre film is four hours, it gets really annoying. The subject matter is interesting but I think things would have been better off if the film was split in two per suggestion of the director. It’s also a shame to see such great actors in this film doing a lot of overacting (especially Taylor, who has laughable over-dramatic moments). One of the honestly really cool things about this film is the spectacle of the sets, the costumes and the cinematography. In fact, if adjusted for inflation, this film is still the most expensive ever made, and at least that’s kind of impressive. But the film itself is not. It’s another film that got negatively reviewed by critics but seeped its way into a Best Picture nomination for this reason or that. It was also a box office bomb that killed Warner Bros. until the release of “The Sound of Music”.

“Zorba the Greek” is a nice little film about learning to really live life at it’s fullest and exploring things that you aren’t used to. It stars Anthony Quinn (Best Actor Nomination) as the title character who teaches various life lessons to a young English writer named Basil (played by Alan Bates) who has come to Greece to free his writer’s block. Along the way they both teach each other various lessons and experience love, loss and joy among many other things in Crete. Quinn gives a brilliant and fun performance as Zorba and he plays very well off of his fellow actors. Something that really struck me about this film was it’s good blend of drama and comedy. At first I was quite confused why the film was considered a drama because it was so funny but once tragedy strikes, everyone is so committed that the transition between the two is seamless. Some parts were a little confusing and when Quinn wasn’t around a bit of the fun was sucked out of the film, but I enjoyed it overall.

Another film about the Greeks, “America, America” is the true story of Director, Producer and Writer Elia Kazan’s uncle named Stavros (played by Stathis Giallelis) who through many trials and tribulations made it from Greece to Turkey and finally to America. I thought this film was actually really good even though it was quite long. Giallelis gives a pretty good performance for an inexperienced 22 year old actor, but his character is quite annoying and bull headed at times and I often questioned his motivations. I loved the performance from Linda Marsh who plays his intended wife named Thomna. She appears in the middle of the the film and is one of the most interesting characters. She does a beautiful job in all of her scenes and it’s a shame that even though she got a Golden Globe nomination for the role, that she didn’t end up with an Oscar nomination.