May 2013
3 posts
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My Ranking/Thoughts on the Best Picture Nominees...
2012 was actually a great year when it comes to what was nominated for Best Picture. This was the first year when nominating more than five films felt right and still even one or two got left out (“Moonrise Kingdom”). So that being said I actually enjoyed all of the films that got nominated. “Les Miserables” got the most backlash of the year and “Argo” came out...
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Day 117: "Lincoln"
“Lincoln” is everything you’d expect. Good Direction, beautiful cinematography, solid score, great screenplay and powerhouse performances. My problem with the film is that it doesn’t take any chances. It’s a very safe film and I’m glad that it didn’t sweep the Awards like many thought it would. Daniel Day-Lewis (Best Actor Win) of course give an absolutely...
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Day 116: "Argo"
Based on the incredible true story during the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis, “Argo” tells us what really happened behind the scenes of the CIA operation. The man behind the operation was CIA exfiltration specialist Tony Mendez (played by Ben Affleck, who also directed and produced) who eventually gets the idea to get six American hostages who are from the U.S. embassy out of Iran by staging...
December 2012
2 posts
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2012 Oscar Buzz Film Review: "Django Unchained"
Quentin Tarantino has done it again folks! He has created a truly unique film that mixes his specific brand and style with that of a classic Western in “Django Unchained”. Production wise, I think this may be one of his best shot, art decorated and costumed films he’s ever done. The team worked together and did some awesome stuff with this. The colors simply look amazing and...
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2012 Oscar Buzz Film Review: "Les Miserables"
First off, I have to say that “Les Miserables” is one of the most ambitious movie musicals I have seen probably since “Moulin Rouge”. The world of movie musicals has been in somewhat of a mess for years with a couple of exceptions (“Chicago”, “Hairspray” and almost “Sweeney Todd”) but “Les Mis” in my opinion is exactly how...
November 2012
2 posts
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Rankings/Thoughts on the Best Picture Nominees of...
“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” and “War Horse” were the only Best Picture noms that I hadn’t seen by the time the ceremony occurred, but now having finally seen both I can rank all of the nominees and give my thoughts on the year in general. Overall, this is a pretty decent group of nominees that have a nice bit of variety. However, this group could have been...
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Day 115: "War Horse"
Based on the popular 1982 children’s novel and Tony-Award Winning stage play of the same name, “War Horse” is the story of a young British boy named Albert (played by Jeremy Irvine) who develops a deep loving relationship with a horse his father acquires through a gamble, named Joey. After raising and caring after Joey for quite some time, Albert’s father has to sell Joey...
October 2012
1 post
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Day 114: "Sons and Lovers"
Based on the novel by D.H. Lawrence, “Sons and Lovers” is a coming of age story about a boy named Paul Morel (played by Dean Stockwell) who lives in a coal mining town with his alcoholic father (played by Trevor Howard, Best Actor Nomination) and his over protective mother (played by Wendy Hiller). We follow him over the years as he experiences first love, true love, loss and many...
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Day 113: "The Alamo"
As one can probably assume, “The Alamo” is about the true historical 1836 Battle of Alamo between Texas and Mexico. It stars John Wayne as the famous Davy Crockett who comes from Tennessee to help lead the battle with Jim Bowie (played by Richard Widmark) and William Travis (played by Laurence Harvey). This one starts off well enough but it failed to keep my interest. As the film went...
September 2012
5 posts
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2012 Oscar Buzz Film Review: "Beasts of the...
The winner of the 2012 Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic at the Sundance film festival and the Camera d’Or at Cannes, “Beasts of the Southern Wild” centers on a young six year old girl named Hushpuppy (played by Quvenzhane Wallis) and her father (played by Dwight Henry) who live in a community called the “Bathtub” which is an island surrounded by water near New Orleans. It...
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Day 112: "The Sundowners"
Set in the Australian outback, “The Sundowners” follows the Carmody family, led by Paddy (played by Robert Mitchum), as they travel and herd sheep. Because this is their living, they move very often and haven’t settled down in a place to live. Conflict arises once his wife Ida (played by Deborah Kerr, Best Actress Nomination) and his son Sean (played by Micheal Anderson, Jr.)...
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Day 111: "The Apartment"
“The Apartment” is a wonderful romantic comedy classic starring Jack Lemmon (Best Actor Nomination) and Shirley MacLaine (Best Actress Nomination). Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, a regular office Insurance man who lends out his apartment to some of the married higher ups he works with, so that they can carry out their affairs with other women. Doing this favor for these men eventually gets...
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Day 110: "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"
Known as one of last years mixed reviewed Best Picture nominees, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” tells the story of a young boy named Oskar Schell (played by Thomas Horn) who’s father (played by Tom Hanks) has been killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11. A year later, Oskar finds a key in a vase in his father’s closet with the name “Black” on it...
June 2012
3 posts
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Day 109: "Fanny" & "Elmer Gantry"
Based on the musical, play and earlier film version of the same name, “Fanny” tells the story of the love between two young french people from the country named Fanny (played by Leslie Caron) and Marius (played by Horst Buchholz). Marius is the son of a bar owner, Cesar (played by Charles Boyer, Best Actor Nomination) and he wants more out of his life than just inheriting Cesar’s...
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Day 108: "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1962)
“Mutiny on the Bounty” is a remake of the 1935 Best Picture winner based on the novel of the same name. It tells the story of a ship named the Bounty (obviously) and the new Lieutenant (played by Marlon Brando) who eventually decides to stage a mutiny and take the ship over from the cruel Captain Bligh (played by Trevor Howard). This film ranks high on my dissapointments from this...
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Day 107: "The Sound of Music"
Julie Andrews (Best Actress Nomination) stars in the beloved film version of the last Rogers and Hammerstein musical, “The Sound of Music”. The film centers around the character of Maria (played by Andrews) who is a nun sent from her convent to be the governess of the seven children of the recently widowed Captain von Trapp (played by Christopher Plummer). Though the task proves to be...
March 2012
6 posts
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Day 106: "The Music Man"
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...
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Day 105: "Judgment at Nuremberg"
“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...
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Day 104: "The Longest Day"
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...
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Day 103: "The Hustler"
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...
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Day 102: "Lawrence of Arabia"
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...
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Day 101: "Ship of Fools"
“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...
January 2012
14 posts
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Day 100: "The Artist"
“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...
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Day 99: "The Descendants"
“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...
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Day 98: "A Thousand Clowns"
“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...
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Day 97: "Tom Jones"
“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!...
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Day 96: "Cleopatra"
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...
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Day 95: "Zorba the Greek" & "America, America"
“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...
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Day 94: "Becket" & "My Fair Lady"
“Becket” shows us the very complicated and destructive relationship between King Henry II (played by Peter O’Toole, Best Actor Nomination) and his eventual archbishop Thomas Becket (played by Richard Burton, Best Actor Nomination). This was an interesting film that was well done, but it mostly worked because of O’Toole and Burton’s great performances and the writing....
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Day 93: "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop...
“Dr. Strangelove” is a very funny satirical look nuclear war scares during the Cold War. It stars the amazing Peter Sellers (Best Actor Nomination) as The President, a British Officer named Mandrake and the title character, Dr. Strangelove. He is absolutely hilarious in this! He plays each of his three roles with the utmost specificity and perfect comedic timing. Apparently many of his...
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Day 92: "Doctor Zhivago" & "Darling"
“Doctor Zhivago” is a romantic war epic that is over three hours long. Usually I don’t like such films at all, but I thought this one was interesting at least. It stars Omar Sharif as the title character and tells the story of his love with a woman named Lara (played by Julie Christie). As I said, it’s an interesting film and I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love...
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Day 91: "Alfie" & "A Man for All Seasons"
Alfie (played by Michael Caine, Best Actor Nomination) spends his days and nights sleeping around with lots of women and being “unattached” as he calls it. He doesn’t begin to examine his lifestyle until a series of events happen that include one of his girls having a son, his health on the decline, a tryst with an older woman, and a tragic affair with the wife of one of his...
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Day 90: "The Russians are Coming, The Russians are...
“The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming” is a hilarious comedy of errors about a group of innocent Russians led by Lt. Rozanov (played by Alan Arkin, Best Actor Nomination) who are simply trying to find a motor boat in order to move their submarine that’s stuck. They look for help in a Cape town and all hell breaks lose as everyone thinks that it’s a Russian...
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Day 89: "Bonnie and Clyde" & "Who's Afraid of...
“Bonnie and Clyde” is based on the true story of bank robbers/lovers Bonnie Parker (played by Faye Dunaway, Best Actress Nomination) and Clyde Barrow (played by Warren Beatty, Best Actor Nomination). They became notorious for robbing tons of banks during the Great Depression, getting away with it and killing a few people as well. They were joined by Clyde’s brother Buck (played...
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Day 88: "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" & "Doctor...
“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” handles the still controversial issue of interracial marriage in a great balance of comedy and drama. Joey (played by Katharine Houghton) is bringing her fiancee John (played by Sidney Poitier) home to meet her parents, but she hasn’t told them that he’s black. When she finally tells them her mother (played by Katharine Hepburn, Best...
December 2011
16 posts
8 tags
Day 87: "A Farewell to Arms" (1932) & "Imitation...
“A Farewell to Arms” is based on the famous novel by Ernest Hemingway, and is about a solider named Frederic (played by Gary Gooper) who falls in love with a nurse named Catherine (played by Helen Hayes) and how they deal with their forbidden relationship in the time of war. Many people try to keep them apart for various reasons but they always find a way back into each other’s...
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Day 86: "Citizen Kane" (1941)
Regarded by many as one of the greatest films of all time, “Citizen Kane” is about a newspaper tycoon (played by Orson Welles, Best Actor Nomination, Best Director Nomination, Best Original Screenplay Win) and his rise to success along with his trials and tribulations. This film is told primarily in flashbacks after Kane’s death, as journalists scramble to figure out what his...
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Day 85: "The Private Life of Henry VIII" (1933)
Another film about the famous monarch, “The Private Life of Henry VIII” focuses on his many marriages. It completely skips Catherine and moves in on the execution of Anne and his marriage of Jane Seymour. Charles Laughton (Best Actor Win) plays the King and it’s certainly the most unattractive and almost disgusting portrayal of Henry that I’ve seen on film. Interestingly...
A Blast into the Past!
Hey everybody! I’m having a great time with the 60s so far, and the current awards contenders that are coming out! This week will be a little something different though. I’m taking a break from the 60s and going back into the 30s & 40s and watching some nominees in the years that have 10 nominees each to lessen that load when I get there. So look out for those classics this week,...
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Day 84: "Oliver!" & "In the Heat of the Night"
The musical nominees keep on comin’! “Oliver!” is based on the Charles Dickens novel “Oliver Twist” and tells the story of an orphan (played by Mark Lester) who finds his way to London and meets a young man called The Artful Dodger (played by Jack Wild, Best Supporting Actor Nomination) who along with a lot of other boys picks pockets for a man named Fagin (played by...
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Day 83: "Funny Girl" & "The Lion in Winter"
Another iconic movie musical, “Funny Girl” stars Barbra Streisand (Best Actress Win) in her star making role as real-life comedian Fanny Brice. The first half of the film mainly focuses on her rise to fame, while the second half tells of her marriage to a successful gambler named Nick Arnstein (played by Omar Sharif). I enjoyed the film as a whole but liked the first half much better...
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Day 82: "Anne of the Thousand Days" & "Rachel,...
“Anne of the Thousand Days” tells the timeless story of Anne Boleyn (played by Genevieve Bujold, Best Actress Nomination) and King Henry VIII (played by Richard Burton, Best Actor Nomination). Becuase I am very interested in the Tudor family and their history, I found this movie very interesting and really enjoyed it! If you are not a fan of this type of film though, I wouldn’t...
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Day 81: "Hello, Dolly!" & "Butch Cassidy and the...
Based on the iconic stage musical and Thornton Wilder’s play “The Matchmaker”, “Hello, Dolly” is about a matchmaker named Dolly Levi (played by Barbra Streisand) who is attemping to set up Horace Vandergelder (played by Walter Matthau), who is an older rich man, with Irene Molloy (played by Marrianne McAndrew) who is a young lady who sells hats. However, things start...
My Thoughts on the Nominees from the 1970's
It’s taken a while but I’m FINALLY done watching all of the nominees from the 1970s!! I will now go through each year and share my thoughts on the winner, what I thought should have won and my personal favorite of the nominees (which is sometimes different from what I think should have won.)
1970: The nominees are: Airport, Five Easy Pieces, Love Story, MASH, and Patton. The winner...
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Day 80: "Airport" & "Patton"
Another big budget 70’s disaster film, “Airport” tells of a stormy winter night when a flight takes off for Rome with a man harboring a bomb on board. Like most of these disaster movies, it takes a while for it to get remotely exciting but it does have it’s thrill moments. I didn’t love it but I enjoyed it well enough for me to keep interested. The best thing about...
