Ranking the Best Pictures, Part Three: 28-6

by Chris Marshall:

Finally, at long last, we come to the Tier One movies. The best of the best. The cream of the crop. Again, it’s really, really long, so I’m going to get straight into it. The shortest one of these rankings posts is still 500 words longer than the previous longest Oscar Project post, and it’s 1,000 words longer than the average.

In case you missed them, here are links for parts one and two:
Part One: #84 through #57
Part Two: #56 through #29

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Ranking the Best Pictures, Part Two: 56-29

by Chris Marshall:

I realized a little too late yesterday that these articles are going to be super long, so I’m just going to jump right into the rankings. Tier two movies commence!

In case you missed it, here's part one, which ranks the winners from 84 to 57.

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Ranking the Best Pictures, Part One: 84-57

by Chris Marshall:

At long last, it’s time for the Ultimate Best Picture Winner List! I’m going to post these over the next three days, 28 movies at a time. Before I get into it, I just want to point out that there were very few of these I disliked. Ok, I probably disliked most of the movies in today’s post, but even those ranked in the 50s and 60s aren’t that bad. They’re just comparatively worse than many of the top-ranked films.

All right, that’s enough of a preface. This post is going to be long enough as it is. Let’s get into it, shall we?

The Oscar Project Coda: Best of the 2000s/Best Decades

by Chris Marshall:

It is so, so strange not having any more Oscar winners to watch. I mean, I guess I could go back and watch all the nominees, but there’s a limit to my masochism. Besides, there are no existing prints of one of the early nominees, so I would always feel like there’s something missing. On the other hand, I am very much looking forward to watching movies that are more fun, more offbeat, and more interesting than the standard Oscar fare.

Most Best Picture winners are obviously high-caliber films, but the Academy virtually never picks anything that comes out of left field. I complained in my last post about people who called The Artist a safe pick. I stand by what I said, simply because by Best Picture standards, it was actually quite a bold choice. But compared to what exists out there in the wide world of cinema, it’s pretty tame.

The Oscar Project #84: The Artist (2011)

by Chris Marshall:

I think the symmetry between the first and most recent Best Picture winners is absolutely perfect. Way back in 1927, Wings became the first film to win the top award at the Oscars, and as it turned out, it was the only silent picture to ever win… until this year.

Yes, in some sense, The Artist is not a true silent film. There are moments of sound and even color in the movie, but I have to imagine it’s the closest we’ll ever get to it again. And in another fitting connection, The Artist was set in 1927, the year Wings came out. I know this symmetry only exists because I happened to choose to do The Oscar Project this year, but it almost seems pre-ordained.

I do have to admit that I prefer this year’s winner to the first one, as much as I’ve defended the quality of some (thought definitely not all) of those early winners. But that’s mostly because The Artist is a very good film, finely crafted and well-acted. It didn’t win because it was a gimmick. I wouldn’t say it was the best movie of 2011—that title goes to Drive, based on what I’ve seen from last year—but it was certainly one of the best.

The Oscar Project #83: The King's Speech (2010)

by Chris Marshall:

It’s hard to believe that I’m at a point in The Oscar Project where I’m watching a movie that I originally saw in a theater in Ohio. While watching The King’s Speech, my main thought was, “Didn’t I just see this?” It has, amazingly, been a year and a half now, but it still seemed so fresh in my memory.

I genuinely enjoyed the film, both this time and the first time, but I also believe it was nowhere close to the best movie of its year. I thought that honor went to The Social Network, and I say that even though I hate, hate, hate Aaron Sorkin. But there’s nothing wrong with The King’s Speech, and it certainly feels like the type of movie that the Academy loves.

It recounts the true story of George VI’s[1] struggle with his stuttering problem and his efforts to overcome it, at least to a great enough extent that he could deliver speeches when World War II broke out. His speech impediment was quite severe, and it was made worse considering how, shall we say, insensitive people were back then. If you look back at the Best Picture winners from the 1930s, you will often see stutterers portrayed as the bumbling comic relief.

The Oscar Project #82: The Hurt Locker (2009)

by Chris Marshall:

In 2009, a war film once again won Best Picture, and like all the previous winners, it focuses on a small group of individuals rather than providing any broader context for the events depicted. This time around, our protagonists are members of a bomb squad in Iraq, faced with the extremely dangerous task of defusing IEDs.

We spend an extensive period of time with three different characters, but the true focus of the film is on William James (Jeremy Renner), who takes over as head of the squad when the previous leader (Guy Pearce) is obliterated by a remotely detonated bomb[1]. James seems like a normal enough guy at first, but it soon becomes apparently that there is something a little off about him. It’s as if he cherishes the thrill of his job.

That’s a positive characteristic in many occupations, but when your job entails a significant risk of dying every time you do it, it can be a little unsettling, especially if you are one of the guys with the duty of protecting him. Making matters worse is that James is not much of a communicator, going so far as to remove his headset during one mission.

The Oscar Project #81: Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

by Chris Marshall:

On the surface, a movie about trivia seems like it would be perfect for me. I’ve virtually dedicated my life to the pursuit of becoming a great trivia player[1]. Then again, Slumdog Millionaire is no more about playing trivia than No Country for Old Men was about finding a briefcase full of money. It’s a love story, and the game show plot is only a contrivance to facilitate the real point of the film.

Jamal Malik finds himself on the Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and stuns the world (well, at least India) by advancing all the way to the final, 20 million rupee question. The buzzer sounds, though, meaning he will have to wait until the next night to see the question. Immediately after walking out of the studio, he is arrested on suspicion of cheating.

Why does he seem so suspicious? He’s from the slums and has extremely little formal education. How, then, could he possibly advance so far when doctors, lawyers, and professors can’t advance past the 16,000 rupee question? After some rudimentary torture at the hands of the police, he explains how he knew each answer.

The Oscar Project #80: No Country for Old Men (2007)

by Chris Marshall:

Even though it is starkly different from most of their earliest movies, No Country for Old Men is one of the finest Coen Brothers films. It takes a very serious, somber tone, but it would be a mistake to say there are no laughs; they are just of a much different variety than typically seen in their past work.

But that makes sense. This is by no means a comedy—Cormac McCarthy has never been considered much of a jokester. Instead, its goal is no less than to personify Evil in the character of Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). Is he human? Is he a monster? Some combination of the two?

He actually reminds me in many ways of Leonard Smalls, the biker from Raising Arizona. They both seem to appear out of nowhere and take joy in killing the innocent. Even animals aren’t spared. Smalls blows away a rabbit and a lizard as he rides down the highway; Chigurh shoots at a crow with his shotgun. Both of them seem, paradoxically, more and less than human simultaneously. Chigurh appears completely unfazed by pain. Even he’s limping or otherwise physically impaired, his face betrays nothing.

The Oscar Project #79: The Departed (2006)

by Chris Marshall:

At this point in The Oscar Project, it’s hard to summon up much excitement about the last few films. It has nothing to do with their quality—all the remaining movies range from good to great—but rather the realization that there’s nothing new left to watch. The true point of this endeavor was to give me motivation to watch all the Best Picture winners I’ve never seen, and now that there are none of those left, it feels like I’m just going through the motions.

That’s not to say I won’t finish; I would have to be a crazy person to quit at this point, something I have no intention of doing. But it is true that I’m more looking forward to the Director/Franchise/Genre of the Week posts than I am the last few Oscar winners, simply because those are all movies I haven’t seen before.

That’s enough navel-gazing for one post, though. Let’s move on to the film. The Departed is a very good movie, both in terms of its technical merit and how enjoyable it is to watch. I don’t, however, believe it achieves the same level of greatness as some of his previous films that were unfairly passed over for Best Picture, such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas.

The Oscar Project #78: Crash (2005)

by Chris Marshall:

My first draft of this post consisted of just one word: “Garbage.” Maybe that’s a little too uncharitable, but it summed up my feelings immediately after watching Crash. That being said, though, in the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I was already biased against the film before going into it, simply because of all the negative criticism I’ve read about it over the past few years.

But I’m pretty sure I never would have liked this, even if I went into it totally blind. I’m not against “message films” in principle, but I prefer not to be bludgeoned over the head with that message. There is literally not a single scene in this movie that can’t be boiled down to one of the following formulae: two people of different races being racist toward one another or two people of the same race talking about how bad racism is.

The thing is, that’s not a bad message at all. The problem is that it’s not a new or insightful or useful message. This is something that everybody knows already. I’m not claiming that racists don’t exist; they do, and they’re terrible. Most of the time, though, racism doesn’t take the blatant, overt form on display in Crash. The characters in this movie just openly hate people of other races.

The Oscar Project #77: Million Dollar Baby (2004)

by Chris Marshall:

For years I had virtually no interest in seeing Million Dollar Baby, and I don’t know why. It’s (kind of) a boxing movie, it has Clint Eastwood in it, and it was almost universally beloved by critics. But for whatever reason, I could just never summon up enough enthusiasm to watch it.

That was a mistake. Like Unforgiven before it, Clint Eastwood again delivered a magnificent film, buoyed by the performances of its three stars: Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, and most importantly, Hilary Swank. Swank was only five years removed from her breakout performance in Boys Don’t Cry, for which she won Best Actress. This time, as the up and coming boxer Maggie Fitzgerald, she would win it again. Freeman, for his role as retired boxer Scrap Iron Dupris, finally won his first Academy Award.

So yeah, I really liked this movie, even though a great deal of its last act has been spoiled for me many times over. I won’t reveal it here, except to say that a sense of dread hung over me the entire time I was watching. I knew it was going to happen, but I didn’t know when, so every fight was tinged with anxiety.

The Oscar Project #76: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

by Chris Marshall:

Return of the King posed a unique problem for The Oscar Project. It is only the second sequel to win Best Picture—The Godfather Part Two being the first—but this time, neither of its predecessors took home the top prize. Although I had seen all of the films at least once before, I hadn’t watched them since soon after they came out in theaters.

For this reason, I was a little concerned that I would be totally lost upon re-watching Return of the King. As it turned out, though, I remembered enough for it to (mostly) make sense, and I think it works pretty well as a standalone movie anyway. Obviously it is greatly enhanced by seeing the first two in the series, but I feel like it would be mostly comprehensible to a newbie.

I try to tread lightly when discussing The Lord of the Rings because I am by no means an expert. As I mentioned, I’ve seen the movies only once or twice each, and I’ve never read any of the books. The only Tolkien I’ve read at all is The Hobbit, and it doesn’t help much with these films. Therefore, I just want to say that everything I write should be viewed in light of that admission.

The Oscar Project #75: Chicago (2002)

by Chris Marshall:

2002 marked the first time since Oliver![1], a full 34 years earlier, that a musical won Best Picture. Because I’m not much of a musical aficionado, I was perfectly fine with that long gap. And Chicago, while competently executed, didn’t blow me away, certainly not enough to make me pine for the golden era of the genre.

For one thing, it’s one of the least plot-driven musicals to have won the top prize. Not counting the ending credits, the film only lasts an hour and 47 minutes, which is already short by Best Picture standards[2]. Take away the song and dance performances that were basically stand-alone vignettes—not a negligible portion—and you’re left with a very small amount of time that’s devoted to story.

I’m not saying that the songs in musicals should always or necessarily exist to further the plot. That’s not the case. But in this situation, I didn’t like the songs enough to justify taking me away from the film for so long. It’s not that they were bad or that I actively disliked them. It’s just that they seemed forgettable, not in the same class as the musical numbers in The Sound of Music or even West Side Story.

The Oscar Project #74: A Beautiful Mind (2001)

by Chris Marshall:

A Beautiful Mind is at times brilliant and at times schmaltzy, but it’s always interesting. I think that might have more to do with the subject of the film himself rather than Ron Howard’s directing, but either way, I like this movie, despite its many imperfections. Even though I was frustrated with it on a number of occasions, it was easy enough to overlook those flaws.

I first saw it over a decade ago shortly after reading the book, written by Sylvia Nasar, which I also enjoyed immensely. The film is a loose adaptation of the biography, which covers John Nash’s early life, work, descent into madness, and recovery in much greater detail. I think Howard’s decision to narrow the scope of the book was the correct one; schizophrenia is difficult to portray on-screen, so using more tangible representations of Nash’s hallucinations was the right call.

For the uninitiated, the film version of A Beautiful Mind is about John Nash, the economist and mathematician responsible for many breakthroughs in game theory, particularly what is now known as the Nash equilibrium. More specifically, it’s about his struggles with schizophrenia and his eventual, near-miraculous recovery, after which he is awarded the Nobel Prize in economics.

The Oscar Project #73: Gladiator (2000)

by Chris Marshall:

This isn’t necessarily a complaint, but I feel like I watched Gladiator just a few days ago, except back then it was called Braveheart. That might seem like a strange statement, since they’re set over a millennium apart, in different parts of Europe, and have very different storylines. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it just seemed like there was a sameness to them.

Both films feature lots of extra bloody and gory swordfights, and the main character in each is seeking, at least in part, to avenge a loved one’s death. Yes, those are characteristics that a lot of different movies have, but these in particular have a similar “feel” to them. Maybe it’s because they both star a huge action star who’s not so well liked in real life. Maybe I’m just crazy.

Nevertheless, taken on its own, I thought this was a highly enjoyable film. Normally I don’t care too much about the brutal fight scenes, but these were well crafted, and unlike, say, The Hunger Games, the edits and camera movements didn’t happen so fast that I couldn’t keep up with what was going on. That’s a huge pet peeve of mine in many modern action movies.

The Oscar Project Interlude #7: Best of the 1990s

by Chris Marshall:

Well, the 1990s are finished. This decade in The Oscar Project took place during a time of major change in my life. I watched the first movie of the decade in somebody else’s apartment in Columbus, Ohio, because my power was out, and I watched the last while lying in bed in Smithville, Mississippi. It’s kind of hard to imagine that I wrote the first post of this series two and a half months ago when I should have been paying attention in my hierarchical linear modeling class at Ohio State.

It’s been quite a ride. When I first started in late April, I’d seen 21/84 of the winners, or 25%. Now I’ve seen 80/84, or 95%. By Tuesday, I will have seen every single one of them, which I bet very few people are able to say. There have been some really bad movies, though not as many as I expected, and some extremely good ones, many of which completely took me off guard.

The Oscar Project #72: American Beauty (1999)

by Chris Marshall:

When I first saw American Beauty shortly after it came out, I thought it was really something special. I thought it had something deep and profound to say about the world. As I’ve grown older, though, I’ve come to decide that’s not the case. It’s just a movie about a bunch of awful people doing a bunch of awful things.

Now, that’s not to say that the characters have no redeeming value. Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), effectively the main character, has moments where he’s funny and makes sense, but I think the movie’s overall message that it’s acceptable to completely give up on caring about life is problematic. Of course, I admit I could be misreading the point of the film.

Lester’s wife, played by Annette Bening, is made out to be totally terrible, and she pretty much is. His daughter Jane (Thora Birch) is the angsty, misunderstood teenager who finds in her new neighbor (the gamekeeper from The Hunger Games) somebody to accept her. He’s wise and world-weary, but he also sells drugs to earn vast sums of money. And his dad is an evil, homophobic Marine who has Nazi paraphernalia. It’s all quite dysfunctional.

The Most Exciting NBA Season EVER

As free agency signings have started and all the big trades are happening, the NBA’s collective bargain agreement – you know, the reason they almost cancelled last season – is looking like more and more of a joke. Designed in part to allow small-market teams a shot at a superstar and a  legitimate chance at the title, this year is looking to be the most unbalanced in terms of superstar-laden teams I can remember. That being said, I’ve never been more excited for an NBA season.

If all pans out well (and a lot of this is still in progress) the big teams will look something like this:

The Nets: Deron Williams, Dwight Howard, Joe Johnson, Gerald Wallace

The Knicks: Amar’e Stoudemaire, Carmelo Anthony, Tyson Chandler

The Celtics: Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett (and some good young talent)

The Heat: LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh

The Lakers: Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum

The Thunder: Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Harden

The Spurs: Tony Parker, Tim Duncan and a really good supporting cast & coach

The Clippers: Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Chanucy Billups (?) – Ok, maybe not these guys. But I can hope.

The Oscar Project #71: Shakespeare in Love (1998)

by Chris Marshall:

Poor Colin Firth. Shakespeare in Love marked the second time in three years that one of the Brothers Fiennes stole his wife (or fiancée) away in a Best Picture winner. In The English Patient, he played Geoffrey Clifton, and his wife had an affair with Count Laszlo, played by Ralph Fiennes. Here, his fiancée Viola, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, falls in love with the Bard, who is played by Ralph’s younger brother Joseph.

It was a rough couple of years for Colin, but he’ll bounce back in a big way in a little over a decade when he gets to be a king. Being a king is cool, even if you do have a stuttering problem.

Joseph has not achieved the same level of fame that his older brother has, but he’s still got a very solid list of acting credits. Most impressive is that Shakespeare in Love was only his second screen credit—not a bad start to his career[1]. Paltrow, who I normally don’t like at all, even came across as very likeable here. I worried that my feelings about her in general would cloud my judgment about her performance, but I thought she was quite good.

The Oscar Project #70: Titanic (1997)

by Chris Marshall:

I realized a couple of things while watching Titanic today. One, it was the first (of only four total[1]) Best Picture winners that I saw in a theater. Two, it came out 15 years ago. Holy schlamoly I’m old. It pains me to remember things so clearly when they happened a decade and a half ago.

It’s also a perfect showcase for the best and the worst of James Cameron. From a technical standpoint, it is incredibly well made. The cinematography, set design, and special effects all hold extremely well all these years later. But the actual screenplay, despite having a number of memorable, canonical lines, falls flat most of the time. Especially when Old Rose is speaking near the end, it sounds more like she’s reading a poem than actually speaking.

Of course, she was pretty old, and I guess she’d had plenty of time to think about it. Still, it seems like Cameron’s characters rarely talk like actual human beings. I think that’s why the Terminator films work so well. Arnold can get away with talking like a machine because he is a machine. When Edward Furlong says those horrible lines, not so much.

Thoughts on a Beautiful Wimbledon

by Chris Marshall:

I’m an unabashed Roger Federer die-hard. I’ve never made any efforts to hide that fact. But it’s been a hard couple of years for Fed Fans. Since winning the 2010 Australian Open, he’s appeared in only one Grand Slam final, when he was handily beaten by Rafael Nadal in Paris last year. Once he turned 30, it was easy to believe he’d never win another major.

Although I was never totally convinced, I fell into that pattern of thinking more and more often over the past few months. Every time he would do something really promising, something else would happen to make me question whether or not he still had it. Just a couple of weeks ago, he lost to Tommy Haas in the final of Halle. Yes, he lost on grass to the 34-year-old Haas, who needed a wild card just to get into the Wimbledon main draw.

That was a bad sign, but Federer has a way of making me start to believe again. Wishful thinking most of the time, but he’s won so much in the past that it doesn’t take much to get my hopes up. Then he fell down two sets to Julien Benneteau in the 3^rd round, and I was absolutely convinced he was done. Kaput. It not only would have knocked him out of Wimbledon. It would have ruined his streak of seven million (estimated) consecutive quarterfinals reached.

Manly Things at BWWs: Anderson "Spider" Silva vs. Chael Sonnen

Anderson Silva has been talked about as one of, if not the best UFC fighter to ever live. He dominates to the point where he has toyed around with his last few opponents in the ring before beating them. He was so dominant at the middleweight class that they tried moving him up to have more competition. While most of my information comes from listening to the announcers during the fight, I think it’s safe to say that this guy is really, really good.

Enter Chael Sonnen. I’ve talked about the need for sports to have a villain, and Sonnen is the most perfect villain I’ve seen in a long time. He’s just the best at being the worst; everything about him is designed to get under your skin and throw you off your game – his name is Chael for crying out loud. 

In 2010, Sonnen fought Silva, and thoroughly beat him for 23 straight minutes. He landed 300 more punches than Silva did, and Silva would have surely lost if not for a last second submission that made Sonnen tap out. Since then, Sonnen has been talking a nonstop stream of trash towards Silva and anyone that would listen, insulting Silva’s family and culture and everything else. Silva, normally a composed fighter, was rattled. He got angry, whispering “I’m going to kill you” in Sonnen’s ear during one of their pre-fight meetings. This isn’t something Silva does. Ever.

The Oscar Project #69: The English Patient (1996)

by Chris Marshall:

I spent so much time dreading The English Patient that it became something like a superstitious object. For whatever reason, I had it in my head that it was the worst movie ever made, maybe even worse than The Great Ziegfeld. I guess that had a lot to do with its tone and subject matter, as well as being perhaps the clearest example of Oscar bait in many years. Whatever the reason, I always viewed this film as the last real roadblock of The Oscar Project.

Then I watched it, and strangely enough, it wasn’t as horrible as I had feared. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I liked it, but it was nowhere near the worst Best Picture winner I’ve seen on this journey. The most obvious comparison that came to mind while watching it was Out of Africa. I could recognize why it’s considered a “good movie,” but at the same time, it was the type of film that often fails to capture my interest.

I’ve had a long-running joke with my former (and future) roommate Justin, in which I claim that nobody has ever actually seen The English Patient, and it won the Oscar because all the voters assumed it was probably good but didn’t want to take the time to sit through it. This is a slight exaggeration, of course, but I’d venture a guess that it is probably the least seen Best Picture winner of the last 25 years.

The Oscar Project #68: Braveheart (1995)

by Chris Marshall:

What is it about films directed by Mel Gibson? They always seem to feature loving depictions of torture[1]. I’m not sure exactly what that says about Mr. Gibson, but it can’t be anything good. Of course, maybe I only think that way in light of his behavior in recent years. Still, it’s something that occurred to me while watching the closing scenes of Braveheart.

It’s somewhat stunning to think about what has befallen Gibson’s career. When this film was released in 1995, he was at his apex. At that point he had made three Lethal Weapon films, three Mad Max films, Hamlet, Pocahontas, and a favorite of mine as a kid, Maverick. Then came Braveheart, and he was no longer merely a popular star; he was a critical darling.

He never achieved that same level of success again, but over the next few years, he still starred in a series of moderately popular films. Then, after the 2004 release of The Passion of the Christ, everything went off the rails, both for his career and his public image. Although Apocalypto was not a terrible film, it came out during a time when Gibson was facing considerable scrutiny, and he did not direct or act in another film for four years.

The Oscar Project #67: Forrest Gump (1994)

by Chris Marshall:

Never judge a Best Picture winner based on the quality of its competition. I brought this point up more than ten posts ago, but the 1994 Academy Awards were a prime example of this phenomenon. Because Forrest Gump won in a year when Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption were both nominated, it’s easy to fall into the trap of criticizing the film based not on its own merit, but on the fact that it beat out arguably superior competition.

That’s not to say this is the only criticism of Forrest Gump, of course, but it is a current of thought I’ve heard expressed before. Yes, I think Pulp Fiction is a better movie[1], one of the best ever made, but that has nothing to do with the quality of Forrest Gump, which I think is a perfectly fine film in its own right. Maybe that’s due to sheer repetition; I’ve mentioned before that I’ve likely seen it more than any other Best Picture winner. But whatever the reason, I think its quality should only be judged on criteria intrinsic to the film.

For all his acclaim, it still surprises me that this is the only winner Tom Hanks has ever appeared in. He also won Best Actor for playing the title role, his second year in a row to win the top acting award. In this film, he creates one of the most iconic characters of the last 20 years. With the possible exception of Titanic, I’d argue that Forrest Gump is more ingrained in pop culture than any other Best Picture winner of the 1990s.

The Oscar Project #66: Schindler's List (1993)

by Chris Marshall:

Steven Spielberg is one of the greatest directors of all time, and I think it’s unfortunate that, at least in some circles, his contributions to cinema aren’t appreciated to the fullest extent. I think most people enjoy his movies, but he’s not often considered as one of the top “artistic” auteurs in the medium. Perhaps there’s some truth to that, but when you have a filmography like his, it’s impossible not to acknowledge his genius.

I believe this lack of universal respect for his artistry is the main reason why only one of his movies has won Best Picture. He’s considered more of a populist director, and while many of his biggest blockbusters have been nominated, only Schindler’s List took home the top prize, likely because it is an “important” movie in addition to just being a great one. Just to be clear, I am taking nothing away from Schindler’s List; it is brilliant, but I wish his more “fun” films garnered more respect.

Anyway, about the movie. I assume it’s a movie where, even if not everybody has seen it, at least everybody knows what it’s about. It is a holocaust film, yes, but more than that, it’s about a man who dared to take action, at great personal risk, in an attempt to save the lives of more than 1,000 Jews.

The Oscar Project #65: Unforgiven (1992)

by Chris Marshall:

Unforgiven is a work of genius, one of those rare films where I felt like I was experiencing greatness while I was watching it. I expected it to be good, but I was completely taken off guard by how much I loved it. It was nearly perfect.

Clint Eastwood is one of the immortal legends of American cinema, and his very presence in a film means something. That’s not to say that every one of his movies is good; that’s far from the truth. But particularly in the latter part of his career, his face carries such a heavy symbolic weight that he hardly needs to say anything at all. Of course, Eastwood is typically at his best when he’s silent.

Eastwood, as the “reformed” outlaw William Munny, has plenty of lines in Unforgiven, but he delivers them in a way that lets us know that he never says anything without contemplating it deeply. He has acquired a deep wisdom, both from his worst days and from his best days. But he knows he will never truly be a good man, for he has committed unspeakable atrocities, sins that he can never atone for.

The Oscar Project #64: The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

by Chris Marshall:

I remember liking The Silence of the Lambs well enough the first time I saw it, and I’ve watched various parts of it a few times since then. But I’ve never really considered it a classic, at least not in the same sense that many others do. I never bothered with the prequels or sequels (it seems like there are so many) because I just never had any real interest in them.

Upon revisiting it for The Oscar Project, I was reminded of just how well crafted a film it is. It very well might have been the “fastest” movie so far, by which I mean it felt much shorter than its two hour running time. Everything flows together so smoothly and swiftly that you never have to wait for a new development in the plot.

Still, I’m not completely sold on it being an all-time classic, despite its dominance at the Oscars. The Silence of the Lambs became the third film, after It Happened One Night and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest[1], to win all five major Academy Awards: picture, actor, actress, director, and screenplay. I don’t think it’s quite in the same class as those two films, however. Maybe I’ve gotten so used to Oscar winners being about “important” things that I’ve forgotten how to enjoy films that are simply well-made and fun to watch.

The Oscar Project #63: Dances with Wolves (1990)

by Chris Marshall:

I went into Dances with Wolves absolutely expecting to hate it. I’ve never liked Kevin Costner, and nothing about the plot seemed really appealing to me. But then something happened that I never could have anticipated: it was really good! I found myself becoming absorbed in the story, and I couldn’t pull myself away.

Costner, who directed and starred in the film, certainly had some Costner-y moments, but on the whole, he did a fine job as Lt. John Dunbar, who is eventually given the name Dances with Wolves by the Lakota Sioux tribe he joins. After the first few minutes of the film, which are preposterous, he finds his comfort zone, and once he is assigned to his outpost on the frontier, everything starts to flow naturally.

Because of his courage/stupidity during a Civil War battle, Dunbar is given his choice of where he wants to be assigned. He picks an isolated “fort” on the frontier, claiming he wants to see it before it’s gone. While he’s there, he develops a friendship with the local Sioux tribe and a romance with a white tribe member (she had been adopted as a child after her family was killed). When the white men inevitably come to appropriate the land for themselves, Dunbar, known at this point by Dances with Wolves, sides with the Indians.