The Oscar Project #35: Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

by Chris Marshall:

Is it possible to acknowledge a film as great but not particularly like it? To admire a movie for its craftsmanship and the technical skill required to pull it off but not actually enjoy the time you spent doing so? Because that’s the overarching feeling I have after watching Lawrence of Arabia.

As was the case with Mutiny on the Bounty, I have memories of this film from my childhood despite never having watched it before. Specifically, I remember it coming on TV in “letterbox format,” meaning it had big black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, and I couldn’t imagine why anybody would want to watch a movie like that. I was told that you could actually see more of the picture in that format, which was totally baffling to me. How can you get more with less?

Fast forward 18 years to a time when I can make sense of this seeming paradox, and now I won’t watch a movie any other way; full screen DVDs aren’t worth the discs they’re printed (is that the word I want?) on. Now that I’ve watched Lawrence of Arabia, I also understand why it is so critical to watch this film in particular in widescreen format.

The Oscar Project #34: West Side Story (1961)

by Chris Marshall:

For all the mean things I’ve said about musicals in the last few posts, I really don’t hate them. There are just plenty of other things I’d rather be watching, especially in cases, as with West Side Story and The Sound of Music, where I’ve seen the movies before. I feel like I’m not really adding anything to my life by sitting through them again.

But I’m no cheater, and the rules of this project state that I have to watch every movie, even if I’ve seen it before. Early on, that didn’t matter much, because Casablanca was the only movie I had seen before 1950. As we get closer to the modern era, though, I’ve seen more of the winners, and it can feel a little tedious re-watching things.

This is doubly true when dealing with films that are almost three hours long. I appreciate West Side Story, but I don’t love it, certainly not in the same way that I do The Godfather, which I’m looking forward to seeing again. Perhaps I was a little too resentful of its existence when I watched it this time around, but I’m trying to be fair nevertheless.

Mike Reviews Diablo 3...and then plays some more

Blizzard has always felt like a revolutionary company. They have flagship games: Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo and World of Warcraft all seemed to revolutionize-- or at the very least carve an independent niche in – the strategy, role playing and massively online roleplaying genres. I don’t think any other video game companies can claim this kind of success. So when you fast-forward 10 years or so past the debut of these great games, and it’s time to make a sequel, what happens?

It’s not that Diablo 3 isn’t a good game. I’ve logged way, way too many hours since it came out Tuesday night, and I genuinely enjoy playing it (even on a lag-riddled, slow computer). But...it feels like it’s a sequel and nothing more. Blizzard has dropped the revolutionary attempts to change something fundamental about what everyone else is doing and opted for a graphics reboot with some fun gameplay. All their improvements or changes feel like Blizzard is following some of the current trends (little penalty for in-game death, skill sets that aren’t locked in stone) and not making them.

The Oscar Project #33: The Apartment (1960)

by Chris Marshall:

I don’t know what the deep and profound significance of this is, but the first year of each decade produces some pretty great movies. So far, years ending in 0 have brought us All Quiet on the Western Front, Rebecca, All About Eve, and now The Apartment. That’s a pretty fine list there.

There is just so much to like about The Apartment, not least of which is the fact that it’s directed by Billy Wilder. I’ve seen four of his films now (this, Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, and Sunset Blvd.), and I’ve loved them all. That is a pretty disparate group of genres to attain mastery in. When Michael Hazanavicius won Best Director this year for The Artist, he said, “I want to thank Billy Wilder, I want to thank Billy Wilder, and I want to thank Billy Wilder.” It’s easy to understand why.

There is such depth in his filmography that it almost defies belief. In addition to the aforementioned films, he also directed Some Like It Hot, Ace in the Hole, Stalag-17, Witness for the Prosecution (and so on). I stop there lest this entire article turn into a list of movies, but Wilder’s filmography merits a mention. He’s made more great movies than most directors make decent ones.

The Oscar Project Interlude #3: Best of the 1950s

by Chris Marshall:

Holy schlamoly, it’s time for the 1960s! It feels like I’ve been doing this project my entire life, but I’ve actually been watching the movies for only a month a half. I’ve watched a lot of movies this year in addition to The Oscar Project, though. In fact, as of the time I’m writing this post, I just watched my 100^th movie of the year!

I thought about dedicating a post just to that milestone, but I ultimately decided to incorporate it into this interlude post. I figured I’d already said everything I have to say about the 1950s as a whole; it had the beginning of modern musicals, some pleasant surprises, a lot of long/overlong films, and a couple of major disappointments. For those of you who don’t want to read about my year of movie watching in excruciating detail, my Best of the 1950s list is at the bottom of the post.

Mike Reviews Phoenix

Here's a joke about Phoenix having not yet risen from the ashes, or something. Ha.

Welcome to Phoenix, one of the fastest growing cities in the United States! In case you didn’t know, Phoenix is home to such things as an enourmous (and british spellings) Sheraton hotel, a museum of musical instruments (where all but 30 countries have instruments represented!), and a crazy-cool wire suspension thing that lights up at night that's right next to train station and is definitely not the best place to go to at night or alone at any point.

I was really ready to go to Phoenix. I thought this would be some crazy bustling city (it has like 5 million people that live here) and the downtown would be bumping. I was completely wrong. This was basically a ghost town, and I was right in the middle of downtown. There was no one around. I’ve never felt more safe walking around in a city down dark alleys at night. It was just empty. It was like they could shoot apocalypse movies here without having to clear anyone out.

The Oscar Project #32: Ben-Hur (1959)

by Chris Marshall:

The first time I watched Ben-Hur, it was over a full week in Coach Phil Webb’s 10^th grade world history class. I have some doubts about the veracity of many of the events depicted, but it seemed like a good way to spend class time back then. When I watched it this time, I only took three days, a marked improvement.

It’s not because I didn’t like it, but why oh why did it have to be so long? Gone with the Wind is officially the longest Best Picture winner, but it also had a musical prologue, entr’acte, and epilogue, in addition to the intermission. Take all those out, and I’m willing to bet it’s no longer than Ben-Hur, which clocked in at 3 hours, 31 minutes.

I know I complain about movie length too much. I just wonder why the Academy has never realized that just because a movie is the longest doesn’t mean it’s the best. I admittedly haven’t seen either (yet), but I’m willing to bet that North by Northwest and Some Like It Hot, both of which came out in 1959, would both give Ben-Hur a run for its money.

When I met Someone who Defined My Childhood (At Comic-Con)

At Comic-Con, the A-list personalities had their own wall, but a lot of smaller personalities had booths, like authors of fantasy series, or respected artists, or actors that couldn’t quite make the Big Wall. I was walking around, when I turned the corner to see, no joke, my favorite author of all time, Michael A. Stackpole. This was a guy I started reading in 5^th grade (my first “real” books) and kept reading through college (and now). He wrote Star Wars books, so I read his stuff and all the other ones other people wrote. Then I saw he wrote Battletech books, so I read his stuff and all the others. He turned to fantasy, so I followed him and read all his stuff and then all the other good guys like Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin. Also, he's awesome.

The Oscar Project #31: Gigi (1958)

by Chris Marshall:

Believe it or not, Gigi is a pretty good movie. When I see a period piece musical set in France, the last thing I expect is to like it, but here we are. 

Leslie Caron, who we last saw in An American in Paris, plays the title role so well that I completely forgot about how much I didn’t like her character in that film. It had nothing to do with her, but nothing happened to make me care. In Gigi, though, she’s charming, devious, mischievous, a sort of primordial Juno, if Juno were less abrasive.

Indeed, it is the performances as a whole, rather than the musical numbers themselves, that make this movie so effective. Alongside Caron, Louis Jordan is also tremendous as Gaston, the upper-class socialite/playboy who ultimately falls for Gigi. And Maurice Chevalier as the quasi-narrator Honoré is extremely enjoyable as well .

Crossing one off the Bucket List: Comic-Con

Hey ladies

Could there be a better coincidence than arriving in Phoenix for a conference only to find Comic Con is also in town? I’m guessing there’s a lot of overlap between attendees, so maybe they were just making it convenient for everyone. We played the “are they going to Comic Con or are they a professor” game, and it got pretty tough pretty quickly.

It was pretty hard to hide how excited I was for this. Going to Comic Con has always been on my bucket list, and to have some free time to just hop on over and go was an opportunity that couldn’t be passed over. I speak nerd very well, but comics are definitely not my specialty, so I still felt a bit out of my element. Of course, not having an anime costume was a real problem.