The Oscar Project Interlude #6: Best of the 1980s

by Chris Marshall:

Well, as I somewhat feared, the 1980s as a whole was one of my least favorite decades so far in The Oscar Project. It’s not that every movie was terrible, just that there was no film that was really great. Every other decade has had at least one: Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, All About Eve, The Apartment, half of the 1970s. But the 1980s didn’t provide a film approaching that caliber.

And yes, there were a couple I just didn’t like at all. I feel like I was able to find some redeeming quality in every movie I watched this decade, but Chariots of Fire having a cool soundtrack doesn’t make up for all of its other flaws. I don’t think the 80s was a particularly bad decade for film in general, but it was a bad decade for the Academy. I mean, why wasn’t Ghostbusters or Back to the Future winning Best Picture?

The Oscar Project #62: Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

by Chris Marshall:

I often complain about the tendency of actors playing Southerners to "over-Southern," but it really hasn't been that big of a problem so far during The Oscar Project. Driving Miss Daisy, on the other hand, runs with every possible opportunity to do it. I don't expect great acting out of Dan Aykroyd, but it's particularly off-putting when an actual Southerner, namely Morgan Freeman, does it.

That being said, Freeman did a superb acting job in spite of the minstrel show voice he adopted. As did Jessica Tandy, for that matter. I imagine that somebody less attuned to the nuances of a Southern accent would assume they were pitch-perfect in their roles.

Tandy, playing the role of an elderly Jewish woman in Atlanta in the mid-20th century, begins the film in her late 60s. She is widowed but still cares for herself, although she does have plenty of help from her black (her race is important) housekeeper. After having an accident while backing out of her driveway, her son (Dan Aykroyd) decides she needs a chauffeur. He hires a man named Hoke (Morgan Freeman) and tells him that no matter how difficult his mother is, he should carry on. She has no power to fire him, so there's no need for him to fear for his job. His goal is to make her accept him.

The Oscar Project #61: Rain Man (1988)

by Chris Marshall:

Rain Man is one of that handful of Best Picture winners I’ve seen multiple times, so there was a nice sense of familiarity when I watched it again. Like Forrest Gump, which I’ve seen probably more times than any of the others, it’s one of those that’s always on TV, so even if I haven’t seen it from start to finish more than once or twice, I’ve still seen all the scenes on several occasions.

I don’t think there’s anything particularly great about this movie, but it’s perfectly enjoyable. Tom Cruise hadn’t quite reached his peak yet, and Dustin Hoffman was already a well-established fixture in Hollywood. I think they work very well together here. Hoffman, of course, won Best Actor for his portrayal of the titular Rain Man, the autistic savant Raymond Babbitt, putting him in the elite group of actors who have won multiple Best Actor awards.

Cruise’s performance was effective, if not spectacular, and at least he made up for Valeria Golino’s terrible acting job as his girlfriend. Granted, I only know her from this and the Hot Shots! films, but I’m just completely unimpressed by her talents.

The Oscar Project #60: The Last Emperor (1987)

by Chris Marshall:

If nothing else, Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor is one of the finest looking Best Picture winners to date, even during the darker periods covered by the film. It spans the life of the last emperor of China, Pu Yi, who was unseated from power after the rise of Chiang Kai-Shek. Unlike many stories about great leaders, Pu Yi did not rise from nothing to a place of great power. Instead, he began with everything and ended with nothing except his pride and his memories.

Because Pu Yi became emperor at the age of 3, he is played by a number of different actors, but we spend the most time in his adulthood, where he was portrayed by John Lone. There is very little star power in this film, with Peter O’Toole being the only widely recognizable star. But it is well-acted, despite the lack of known names.

Becoming an emperor when you are three years old presents an interesting set of benefits and challenges. Most of the benefits belong to Pu Yi himself, who is spoiled on a level that is unimaginable in modern days. If he misbehaved, what could be done? He ruled China absolutely, and absolute fealty was required among his subjects, even when he was a toddler.

The Oscar Project #59: Platoon (1986)

by Chris Marshall:

Before Tom Berenger and Charlie Sheen became members of the Cleveland Indians in Major League, they fought together in Vietnam, and I think it’s safe to say their relationship was slightly more contentious in Platoon. Berenger, as the sinister Sgt. Barnes, is the platoon leader, while Sheen, playing the tastefully-named Chris, is a neophyte recent arrival to the war.

The film is mostly based on Chris’s experiences, particularly on his relationships with Barnes and Sgt. Elias (Willem Dafoe). In many ways, the main thematic element of the plot is similar to Oliver Stone’s next film, Wall Street. A character played by Charlie Sheen is forced to choose between the “good” father figure (Dafoe here, Martin Sheen in Wall Street) and the “bad” one (Berenger, Michael Douglas).

The Slovenian cultural critic Slavoj Zizek argues that the problem with Oliver Stone’s films is that the message he wants to deliver is obscured by the way he goes about it. Specifically, he argues that even though we are supposed to disagree with Berenger’s and Douglas’s tactics in the two films, that’s not what actually happens because the villains are the most dynamic, charismatic characters in the movies.

The Oscar Project #58: Out of Africa (1985)

by Chris Marshall:

It’s taken me a long, long time (like, three days!) to finish Out of Africa. This shouldn’t necessarily be seen as an indictment of its quality, but I did fall asleep four separate times while watching it. Rest assured, I went back and made sure I watched every moment of it, even if it did take several attempts.

At its most basic level, it’s not a terrible film by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a perfectly acceptable piece of cinema, and it’s obviously the type of thing that the Academy loves. But it is so far outside of my interests that it became difficult to focus on it for too long. It didn’t help matters that I tended to try to watch it late at night.

The film is based on the novel by Isak Dinesen[1], whose real name is Karen Blixen, and recounts the events of her life in Kenya, which was at the time a British colony. Blixen is Danish, and at the beginning of the film she marries Bror, which is a silly name. They aren’t particularly in love with each other, but trifling things like that didn’t matter so much back then. They were good friends and liked each other well enough, so why not?

The Oscar Project #57: Amadeus (1984)

by Chris Marshall:

One of the first things I thought while watching Amadeus was that Mozart, portrayed by Tom Hulce, bore a striking resemblance to Fred Armisen. As much as I like Armisen, I felt like this was a bad sign right off the bat. Our hero (is he a hero?) turns out to be one of the most annoying characters in the Oscar Project to date.

Most of the problem stems from his laugh, which is an abomination. Few things bother me more than a bad laugh, and this film gives him oh so many opportunities to use it. And then there’s his stupid, stupid face. I hated him so bad.

This is a shame because outside of Mozart himself, there’s nothing very objectionable about Amadeus. I thought F. Murray Abraham was good as Salieri, and in fact, I started rooting for him to murder Mozart as soon as possible. I’m not exactly sure this was the director’s[1] intention.

Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - an Abe-omination

First, a few things: I went into this movie in probably a bad mood, and I had read the book. I liked the book – it wasn’t great, but it was a cool concept and I thought the author, Seth Grahame-Smith, did a good job.

The book was written like Abe Lincoln really was a vampire. G-S tried to take existing journal entries and letters from Lincoln and add in vampire things and made it sound realistic. The vampires that existed in the novels were NOT adverse to silver, they COULD be seen in mirrors and they could harm each other. Aside from the whole moving really fast, being really strong, not totally loving sun and needing to drink human blood (and immortality), vampires are just like us. This a concept that he carried out well.

The Oscar Project #56: Terms of Endearment (1983)

by Chris Marshall:

I’m now halfway through watching the Oscar winners of the 1980s, and as I feared, I haven’t been very impressed by the quality of the movies. I was, however, quite pleased with Terms of Endearment. It’s a typical Oscar bait tearjerker, but at least it was well made.

Like Ordinary People, it could have easily fallen into that dreaded Lifetime movie category if not for the quality of its cast. Debra Winger was still a relative newcomer at the time, but this was Shirley MacLaine’s third appearance in a Best Picture winner[1]. Among the supporting cast, Jack Nicholson, who won Best Supporting Actor for this role, and Danny DeVito (!) were making their second Best Picture appearances.

The story is really quite expansive, though it never feels like it. I don’t know if it’s ever specifically said how much time passes, but it begins right before Debra Winger’s wedding and ends when her oldest kid appears to be in his tweens/early teens. Nevertheless, the plot moves fluidly, and it never feels like the movie is trying to do too much.

The Oscar Project #55: Gandhi (1982)

by Chris Marshall:

Gandhi is a film that brings me back to Oscar winners of old, in that they take an Indian man, a man who devoted the second half of his life entirely to securing India’s independence from the British Empire, and they cast an actor (Ben Kingsley) who is white and British. I’m sure there’s some kind of symbolism in that. I’m just not sure what it is.

That being said, Kingsley was fantastic as Gandhi. In the first part of the film, which takes place in South Africa, everything seemed a little off. Honestly, though, I think that has more to do with seeing Gandhi (who was an attorney, after all) wearing suits and other European clothing. I’m so accustomed to seeing him in his traditional Indian garb that it just seems wrong to see him wear anything else.

After Gandhi returns to India, by which point he has already overcome grave injustice toward his fellow Indians in South Africa, Ben Kingsley stops being Ben Kingsley and transforms entirely into Mohandas K. Gandhi. I don’t think anybody ever doubts his acting skills in general, but if they do, they need look no further than this film.