Judging Oscar: 1986

For other years completed in this project see the purple Judging Oscar links in the sidebar ----------------------->

BEST PICTURE

WINNER: Platoon (Oliver Stone, 1986)

Stone takes the WWII movie and puts it in Vietnam.  There are a couple of decent setpieces but overall, I don’t find anything particularly noteworthy about it apart from this being the only major Vietnam movie that was directed by an actual Vietnam veteran.  Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger are very good as the dueling Sergeants with differing philosophies of warfare and leadership, and that dynamic really is the most gripping part of the film.  This comes to a head in the film’s best scene: a tiny farming village where the distrustful GI barge in and begin to emotionally and, later, physically torture several South Vietnamese civilians because they are believed to be untrustworthy in their association with a battalion of Vietcong.  Led by the malicious Sgt. Barnes (Berenger), even Chris Taylor (Sheen) gets in on the hostilities before Sgt. Elias (Dafoe) steps in and puts an end to the madness.  It is a good scene and Stone certainly doesn’t shy away from some of the other secret realities of the war (drug use, racism, classism, disenchantment, distrust of authority), but it also doesn’t add up to much more than a slightly interesting shrug.  Thankfully, this is before Stone got swept away with his fractured patchwork aesthetic of the 90’s, so the film actually maintains a consistent point-of-view and shows some understanding of screen geography, even if it lacks the associative power of his post-JFK work.

Blue Velvet (1986)

Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)
I've seen Blue Velvet several times and the thing that strikes me about it this time is Lynch's fascination with human beings.  Not simply their dark, sinful substrata, but their violence, their nïaveté, their curiosity, their fatalism.  

I wouldn't call Lynch a fatalist, but he is fascinated by the inevitability of some people's choices, their preoccupation with things that are harmful, even fatal to them.

Dennis Hopper frighteningly lives there.  It is his most strikingly honest performance, maybe because he always lived there, even as he pushes realism out the door in favor of broadstroke menace and subdued chaos.

I would like to think the obviously mechanical robin could be real, but no.  The mechanical bird is the only kind of bird that can conquer the type of darkness Lynch shows us.  It is the only solution he can muster.  
Fabrication.  Art.  Reorganized nature.
Maybe Lynch is a fatalist after all.

film journal entry: 06.30.2012

2001 Cii Movie Awards

This list and awards compiled March 8, 2013

                      For the criteria of choosing the awards, click here.

Top 10 Films of 2001

1. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson)
2. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)
3. Ali (Michael Mann)
4. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson)
5. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg)
6. Domestic Violence (Frederick Wiseman)
7. What Time Is It There? (Tsai Ming-liang)
8. Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis)
9. Electric Dragon 80.000 V (Sogo Ishii)
10. Black Hawk Down (Ridley Scott)

Honorable Mentions: In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai), Gosford Park (Robert Altman), Y Tu Mamá También (Alfonso Cuarón), The Man Who Wasn't There (Joel Coen)

Best Actor
* Gene Hackman – The Royal Tenenbaums

Jack Nicholson – The Pledge

Will Smith – Ali

Billy Bob Thorton – The Man Who Wasn’t There

Tom Wilkinson – In the Bedroom

Best Actress

Halle Berry – Monster’s Ball

Maggie Cheung – In the Mood for Love

Catherine Keener – Lovely & Amazing

Audrey Tautou – Amélie

* Naomi Watts – Mulholland Drive

Best Supporting Actor

* Jim Broadbent – Moulin Rouge!

Steve Buscemi – Ghost World

Jude Law – A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Ian McKellen – Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

Tony Shalhoub – The Man Who Wasn’t There

Ben Stiller – The Royal Tenenbaums

Best Supporting Actress

Jennifer Connelly – A Beautiful Mind

Cameron Diaz – Vanilla Sky

* Illeana Douglas – Ghost World

Frances O’Connor – A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Gwyneth Paltrow – The Royal Tenebaums

Maribel Verdú – Y Tu Mamá También

Best Director

Robert Altman – Gosford Park

Claire Denis – Trouble Every Day

* Peter Jackson – Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

David Lynch – Mulholland Drive

Steven Spielberg - A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Best Screenplay

Electric Dragon, 80.000V (Sogo Ishii)

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Frances Walsh, Phillipa Boyens & Peter Jackson)

Memento (Christopher Nolan & Jonathan Nolan)

Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)

* The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson & Owen Wilson)

Best Cinematography

* Ali (Emmanuel Lubezski)

Electric Dragon, 80.000V (Kasamatsu Norimichi)

In the Mood for Love (Christopher Doyle & Mark Li Ping-bin)

LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring (Andrew Lesnie)

Mulholland Drive (Peter Deming)

Best Editing

Ali (William Goldberg, Lynzee Klingman & Stephen E. Rivkin)

Black Hawk Down (Pietro Scalia)

Memento (Dody Dorn)

* Mulholland Drive (Mary Sweeney)

Trouble Every Day (Nelly Quettier)

Best Film Score

* Amélie (Yann Tiersen)

In the Mood for Love (Mike Glalasso & Shigeru Umebayashi)

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Howard Shore)

Mulholland Drive (Angelo Badalamenti)

Best Production Design

* A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Amélie

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

The Man Who Wasn’t There

The Royal Tenebaums

Best Ensemble Cast Performance

Gosford Park

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

Memento

The Pledge

* The Royal Tenenbaums



2001 Films Seen (49 features as of 03.08.2013)

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
Ali (Michael Mann, 2001)

Amélie (Jean-Pierre Juenet, 2001)

American Pie 2 (J.B. Rogers, 2001)

Baby Boy (John Singleton, 2001)

Bandits (Barry Levinson, 2001)

A Beautiful Mind (Ron Howard, 2001)

Black Hawk Down (Ridley Scott, 2001)

Blow (Ted Demme, 2001)

Bridget Jones’ Diary (Sharon Maguire, 2001)

Domestic Violence (Frederick Wiseman, 2001)

Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)

Electric Dragon 80.000 V (Sogo Ishii, 2001)

Frailty (Bill Paxton, 2001)

Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff, 2001)

Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001)

Hannibal (Ridley Scott, 2001)

Hearts in Atlantis (Scott Hicks, 2001)

Heist (David Mamet, 2001)

Hell House (George Ratliff, 2001)

I Am Sam (Jessie Nelson, 2001)

In the Bedroom (Todd Field, 2001)

In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai, 2001)

Iris (Richard Eyre, 2001)

Jurassic Park III (Joe Johnston, 2001)

Life as a House (Irwin Winkler, 2001)

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001)

Lovely & Amazing (Nicole Holofcener, 2001)

The Majestic (Frank Darabont, 2001)

The Man Who Wasn’t There (Joel Coen, 2001)

Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2001)

Monsters, Inc. (Pete Docter, David Silverman & Lee Unkrich, 2001)

Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)

Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)

Monster’s Ball (Marc Forster, 2001)

The Others (Alejandro Amenábar, 2001)

The Pledge (Sean Penn, 2001)

The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)

Schlock!  The Secret History of American Movies (Ray Greene, 2001)

The Score (Frank Oz, 2001)

Scotland, PA (Billy Morrissette, 2001)

Shrek (Andrew Adamson & Vicky Jenson, 2001)

Swordfish (Dominic Sena, 2001)

Training Day (Antoine Fuqua, 2001)

Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis, 2001)

Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe, 2001)

Waking Life (Richard Linklater, 2001)

What Time Is It There? (Tsai Ming-liang, 2001)

Y Tu Mamá También (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001)

Judging Oscar: 1980

One of my many on-going film viewing projects is to eventually see all the Academy Award nominees for Best Picture and Best Director.  I have watched or re-watched these films fairly close together and then placed a value judgment on what I saw cinematically.  First up is 1980.

BEST PICTURE

WINNER: Ordinary People (dir. Robert Redford)

When the notes of Pachabel’s canon overlay the idyllic autumn images of a posh Chicago suburb, I figured this was establishing an ironic counterpoint to the story of a family that seem to have it together yet are in the midst of falling apart.  While Pachabel’s familiar theme is taken as indirect comment at first, it is transformed over the course of the movie to express the aching of an idealized memory felt by all the characters in the Jarrett home.  Pachabel’s canon is finally subverted, but only at the end, as it quietly highlights the weight of Beth’s leaving.  There is no irony in Redford’s direction and he avoids stylistic flourishes apart for the flashes of memories that haunt Conrad and Calvin.  In a film full of great performances, Timothy Hutton is the easy standout as the most fully seen and realized character and Hutton is capable of finding every note needed to express not just sadness and apathy but the subtle arc of a teenager growing up under the weight of past burdens.  It is inexplicable why he was nominated as a supporting role, when he is quite clearly the main character and narrative catalyst.  But even the small parts are well cast and played with just enough depth to keep them from being ciphers serving the main narrative.  Elizabeth McGovern is worth mentioning, as she fills her role with stumbling angst and genuine charm.  The movie is not anything I would consider a masterpiece but I can’t fault the Academy for rewarding a well-made character piece.

Coal Miner's Daughter (dir. Michael Apted)

Slow and steady wins the race.  The movie never gets ahead of itself, never sprints toward the money and stardom of Loretta Lynn’s story, but slowly builds up its characters and the atmosphere of poverty, station and Southern tradition from which these characters come, from whose ranks they will break when their ship comes in.  Spacek deservedly nabbed all the acclaim, but Tommy Lee Jones is, as much as he can be, her equal, and creates an amiable and loyal yet conflicted husband who is afraid he is a little too socially ahead of the curve and not sure how he feels about that.  It’s impossible not to see the film as an examination of gender roles as both Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn have escaped the traditional expectations only because of the number of eyes that watch them sing.  Finally, by the end, what I feel we are witnessing is the high cost of fame. 

The Elephant Man (dir. David Lynch)

This is a film that will live or die to an audience by the pathos garnered by Hurt’s performance, a balance that is made both easier and more difficult by the makeup that mimics the condition of the historical Joseph Merrick.  Lynch’s great achievement in the first half of the film, is in making me approach Merrick emotionally in all the ways Treves does – first as a curiosity, then with pity, then as a macabre scientific spectacle, then anger over the circumstances, frustration over the limitations of communication, and then finally, sympathy that segues into affection.  I felt all of these things for Merrick.  Hurt’s ability to find empathy with the vocal limitations and the slight gestures of his body kept this a very human drama.  I found myself moved by Merrick’s generosity and tenderness in a way it would be easy to take for granted in many other people who had not lived through such abuse due to their deformities.  It feels like an extension of the Kaspar Hauser stories, one where it is mind-boggling to consider how someone could have not only lived through such mistreatment and limitations, but also to have a heart big enough to embrace others afterwards.  Though flawed in the vignetting of scenes and the clumsiness of the last act, it is a film that resonates very deeply with me.

Raging Bull (dir. Martin Scorsese)

A completely unsentimental neo-realist drama couched in between gloriously stylized boxing matches, beginning mythically with injustice before ending in the spiritual death of Jake LaMotta.  Scorsese has filmed one of the great modern tragedies, only he presents a character so universally flawed and despicable that it is hard to do much more than revere the filmmaking and bemoan LaMotta.  But if taken as a portrait of total depravity and human degradation through pride and violence in both heart and life, then Raging Bull can be viewed as not only a technical masterpiece, but also one of the great films of what a life looks like completely absent of grace.

Tess (dir. Roman Polanski)

Tess is a good movie.  It is easy to take for granted the things it does really well (sense of place, family interactions, empathy) because of how effortless it all seems, but it also never achieved anything more than that.  And in a year where the other four film nominated were buoyed by career performances by John Hurt, Timothy Hutton, Sissy Spacek and Robert De Niro, Nastassja Kinski, though good, just doesn’t have the same range as the other actors above her and is given a more ambiguous character to play.  The film has its moments, but in comparison, can’t really stand against the other films in the category.

MY PICK: Raging Bull

The Academy chose five good films this year and even though 1980, in retrospect, has become the year Raging Bull DIDN’T win best picture.  Ordinary People is still a decent choice, even if I wouldn’t have chosen it.  I would take Raging Bull first, then Coal Miner’s Daughter, with The Elephant Man and Ordinary People being about equal in my book, and Tess falling in last place (I consider it a 1979 movie anyway, due to its world premiere being in October of 1979).  

BEST DIRECTOR

WINNER: Robert Redford (Ordinary People)

The compliment I can give Robert Redford’s directorial debut is that his direction does not get in the way of the characters.  That may sound like faint praise but it is really a wonderful achievement.  Not surprisingly for actor-turned-directors, he gives his actors some juicy roles and lets them at it.  Redford’s lack of pretension helps him keep the film from getting too bogged down in some sort of psychological ellipsis, but his lack of interest in planting the story within any sort of social context besides what the narrative affords keeps the film from becoming something truly great.  I don’t mean to sound cynical, but it feels like he won the award more for not screwing up than he did for making a great film.

David Lynch (The Elephant Man)

It would be easy to blame Lynch for the things that don’t work for me about The Elephant Man – the heavy vignetting of scenes, the clumsiness of the last act – but I would have to completely discount the startling first act, the quiet insights into Merrick’s psyche and some of his visitors and the incredible performance of John Hurt.  Lynch avoids making the film a grand spectacle, and that is praiseworthy, and continues as one of the pioneers of incorporating expressionistic sound design in Hollywood films, but he also can’t help himself at times and feels uneasy about getting too close to his characters, especially Dr. Treves.  It is a fine effort, but not without its faults.

Roman Polanski (Tess)

Tess was obviously a personal labor of love for Polanski (he dedicated the film to his late wife Sharon Tate, who had given him the book, hoping he would make the film someday), but he has so forsaken the kinetic energy of his earlier films that by this point he seems like a completely different filmmaker with the same name.  Though he shot the film in France, Polanski finds the right landscapes to read as Britain and he finds colorful supporting actors to fill out the film.  If there is one thing that gets in the way of things, it is his blind love of Nastassja Kinski and his desire to build her the defining moment of her career.  Maybe he did that, but I don’t think it was nearly as defining a moment as he had hoped.

Richard Rush (The Stunt Man)

There must have been a contingent within the Academy that really loved this film because it seems such an odd choice to nominate Richard Rush, who, before this award, had done very little and has since basically dropped off the face of the earth.  But Rush’s film is interesting, if convoluted (which is part of the point) and frustratingly inconsistent, with some of the greatest scenes in American cinema that year (the opening sequence, the ice cream meltdown scene) and yet never finding the right rhythm overall or undecided as to which side of the reality vs. illusion fence it wants to land on.  I can say that Rush made a very strange hugely entertaining movie, and that’s worth something, but I don’t see this as one of the five great directorial efforts of 1980.

Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull)

Scorsese made a deeply personal film about someone quite different than himself; he synthesized techniques from the French New Wave, Italian Neo-Realism, and Hollywood’s Golden Age into a film that would never look like this if Scorsese was not behind it.  It is easy to praise Raging Bull for its bold stylization, but one should not overlook the performances that build upon Brando’s foundation toward a raw naturalism.  Also, though some consider the unsentimental character to be a detriment, Scorsese should be applauded for not giving in to the urge (that I can only assume had to have been there at various times) to make Jake LaMotta more likeable or relatable. 

MY PICK: Martin Scorsese

The director category nearly mirrored Best Picture, with Richard Rush being nominated over Michael Apted.  Now, with the benefit of hindsight bringing the lasting worth and influence of these films to the fore, Scorsese is the obvious choice, if only for his technical achievement.  And judging by the AFI Top 100 Movie List (Raging Bull is #4), if the Academy did it over again today, Scorsese would probably walk away with the statue.

1999 Cii Movie Awards

This list and awards compiled March 4 2013

                      For the criteria of choosing the awards, click here.

Top 10 Films of 1999

1. Three Kings (David O. Russell)
2. Man on the Moon (Milos Forman)
3. The Straight Story (David Lynch)
4. The Insider (Michael Mann)
5. Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson)
6. Bringing Out the Dead (Martin Scorsese)
7. Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze)
8. The Wind Will Carry Us (Abbas Kiarostami)
9. The Matrix (Andy Wachowski & Lana Wachowski)
10. Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick)

Honorable Mentions: Go (Doug Liman), Limbo (John Sayles), Fight Club (David Fincher), Toy Story 2 (John Lasseter & Ash Brannon), Election (Alexander Payne), Cradle Will Rock (Tim Robbins), The Iron Giant (Brad Bird)

Best Actor

* Jim Carrey – Man on the Moon

Russell Crowe – The Insider

Tom Cruise – Eyes Wide Shut

Richard Farnsworth – The Straight Story

Mark Wahlberg – Three Kings

Best Actress

Annette Bening – American Beauty

* Nicole Kidman – Eyes Wide Shut

Julianne Moore – The End of the Affair

Hilary Swank – Boys Don’t Cry

Reese Witherspoon – Election

Best Supporting Actor

Tom Cruise – Magnolia

* Philip Seymour Hoffman – Magnolia

John Malkovich – Being John Malkovich

Christopher Plummer – The Insider

Ving Rhames – Bringing Out the Dead

Tom Sizemore – Bringing Out the Dead

Best Supporting Actress

Toni Collette – The Sixth Sense

Cameron Diaz – Being John Malkovich

Katie Holmes – Go

* Catherine Keener – Being John Malkovich

Samantha Morton – Sweet & Lowdown

Melora Walters – Magnolia

Best Director

Spike Jonze – Being John Malkovich

Stanley Kubrick – Eyes Wide Shut

* David Lynch – The Straight Story

Michael Mann – The Insider

David O. Russell – Three Kings

Best Screenplay

Being John Malkovich (Charlie Kauffman)

Election (Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor)

Go (John August)

* The Insider (Michael Mann & Eric Roth)

Three Kings (David O. Russell)

Best Cinematography

American Beauty (Conrad L. Hall)

Eyes Wide Shut (Larry Smith)

The Insider (Dante Spinotti)

Snow Falling on Cedars (Robert Richardson)

* Three Kings (Newton Thomas Sigel)

Best Editing

Bringing Out the Dead (Thelma Schoonmaker)

* Fight Club (James Haygood)

Go (Stephen Mirrione)

The Insider (William Goldenberg, Paul Rubell & David Rosenbloom)

The Matrix (Zach Staenberg)

Best Film Score

* American Beauty (Thomas Newman)

Being John Malkovich (Carter Burwell)

Eyes Wide Shut (Jocelyn Pook)

Fight Club (Dust Brothers)

Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace (John Williams)

Best Production Design

American Beauty

* The Matrix

The Talented Mr. Ripley

Titus

Topsy-Turvy

Best Ensemble Cast Performance

Cradle Will Rock

Go

The Insider

* Magnolia

Three Kings

1999 Movies Seen (81 features as of 03.04.2013)

8mm (Joel Schumaker, 1999)

American Beauty (Sam Mendes, 1999)

American Pie (Paul Weitz & Chris Weitz, 1999)

Analyze This (Harold Ramis, 1999)

Any Given Sunday (Oliver Stone, 1999)

Arlington Road (Mark Pellington, 1999)

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (Jay Roach, 1999)

Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze, 1999)

Big Daddy (Dennis Dugan, 1999)

The Big Kahuna (John Swanbeck, 1999)

The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez, 1999)

Blast from the Past (Hugh Wilson, 1999)

Bowfinger (Frank Oz, 1999)

Boys Don’t Cry (Kimberly Pierce, 1999)

Bringing Out the Dead (Martin Scorsese, 1999)

The Cider House Rules (Lasse Hallström, 1999)

Cookie’s Fortune (Robert Altman, 1999)

Cradle Will Rock (Tim Robbins, 1999)

Cruel Intentions (Roger Kumble, 1999)

Deep Blue Sea (Renny Harlin, 1999)

Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (Mike Mitchell, 1999)

Dick (Andrew Fleming, 1999)

Dogma (Kevin Smith, 1999)

EDtv (Ron Howard, 1999)

Election (Alexander Payne, 1999)

The End of the Affair (Neil Jordan, 1999)

End of Days (Peter Hyams, 1999)

Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)

Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999)

Forces of Nature (Bronwen Hughes, 1999)

The General’s Daughter (Simon West, 1999)

Girl, Interrupted (James Mangold, 1999)

Go (Doug Liman, 1999)

The Green Mile (Frank Darabont, 1999)

Happy, Texas (Mark Illsley, 1999)

The Hurricane (Norman Jewison, 1999)

In Dreams (Neil Jordan, 1999)

The Insider (Michael Mann, 1999)

Inspector Gadget (David Kellogg, 1999)

Instinct (Jon Turteltaub, 1999)

The Iron Giant (Brad Bird, 1999)

King Gimp (Susan Hannah Hadary & William A. Whiteford, 1999)

Lake Placid (Steve Miner, 1999)

Limbo (John Sayles, 1999)

The Limey (Steven Soderbergh, 1999)

Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)

Man on the Moon (Milos Forman, 1999)

The Matrix (Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski, 1999)

Mickey Blue Eyes (Kelly Makin, 1999)

My Best Fiend (Werner Herzog, 1999)

Mystery Men (Kinka Usher, 1999)

Notting Hill (Roger Mitchell, 1999)

October Sky (Joe Johnston, 1999)

Office Space (Mike Judge, 1999)

Payback (Brian Helgeland, 1999)

Pushing Tin (Mike Newell, 1999)

The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan, 1999)

The Red Violin (François Girard, 1999)

Runaway Bride (Garry Marshall, 1999)

She’s All That (Robert Iscove, 1999)

Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999)

Snow Falling on Cedars (Scott Hicks, 1999)

Spectres of the Spectrum (Craig Baldwin, 1999)

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Trey Parker, 1999)

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999)

Stigmata (Rupert Wainwright, 1999)

The Straight Story (David Lynch, 1999)

Sweet & Lowdown (Woody Allen, 1999)

The Talented Mr. Ripley (Anthony Minghella, 1999)

Tarzan (Chris Buck & Kevin Lima, 1999)

The Thomas Crown Affair (John McTiernan, 1999)

Three Kings (David O. Russell, 1999)

Titus (Julie Taymor, 1999)

Topsy-Turvy (Mike Leigh, 1999)

Toy Story 2 (John Lasseter & Ash Brannon, 1999)

True Crime (Clint Eastwood, 1999)

Tumbleweeds (Gavin O’Connor, 1999)

Varsity Blues (Brian Robbins, 1999)

The Wind Will Carry Us (Abbas Kiarostami, 1999)

Wing Commander (Chris Roberts, 1999)

The World is Not Enough (Michael Apted, 1999)