Category Archives: Oscar Vault Monday
Oscar Vault Monday – La vita è bella (Life Is Beautiful), 1998 (dir. Roberto Benigni)
I believe the first time I saw this movie my mother and I had taped it off of Encore when they were celebrating recent Oscar winners. It had already won all its awards and we had already cheered for Begnini on the strength of his personality alone. We wanted to rent it from the local video store, but all they had was a dubbed version, full frame (aka cropped) VHS (we didn’t have a DVD player at this point). We were overjoyed when we found it widescreen and subtitled, and taped it because it was playing while I was in school. That taped version would later be taped over (I forgot to pull out the chip!), but that is a family controversy for another day. I still remember how much I loved that film and how excited I was for it to win even when I hadn’t seen it yet. When we did see it, we were excited all over again. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning three: Best Dramatic Score (won, they still had a Comedy score category at this point, which was won by Shakespeare in Love), Best Foreign Language Film (won), Best Film Editing, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor Roberto Benigni (won), Best Director and Best Picture. It was also only the 6th foreign language film to be up for Oscar’s top prize; only eight films have done this in all of Oscar’s history: Grand Illusion (1938); Z (1969); The Emigrants (1972); Cries and Whispers (1973); Il Postino (1995); Life Is Beautiful (1998); Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and most recently Amour (2012). Letters from Iwo Jima, which was nominated for Best Picture in 2006, was entirely in Japanese, but it was an American production (and directed by Clint Eastwood). The other films up for Best Picture for 1998 were Elizabeth, Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line and winner Shakespeare in Love.
Oscar Vault Monday – Random Harvest, 1942 (dir. Mervyn LeRoy)
I first saw this movie a few years back on TCM and it destroyed me. I saw it recently at the Castro Theatre and I guess I had forgotten a few things about it because there were whole plot twists I didn’t remember and it destroyed me all over again. If you haven’t seen this film before, beware I will be discussing some of the film’s major plot twists. Random Harvest came out the same year as arguably Greer Garson’s most famous film – Mrs. Miniver – as such, she was nominated (an won) Best Actress for playing the titular role in that film, and was ineligible to be nominated for her performance in this film. Regardless, the film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, though it failed to win any: Best Score, Best B&W Art Direction, Best Writing Screenplay (this was a third category, and is not analogous to the Best Original or Best Adapted Screenplay categories we have now), Best Supporting Actress Susan Peters, Best Actor Ronald Coleman, Best Director Mervyn LeRoy and Best Picture. The other films nominated for Best Picture that year were 49th Parallel, Kings Row, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Pied Piper, The Pride of the Yankees, The Talk of the Town, Wake Island, Yankee Doodle Dandy and winner Mrs. Miniver.
Oscar Vault Monday – Four Weddings and a Funeral, 1994 (dir. Mike Newell)
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Four Weddings and a Funeral at least forty times. I used to have it on VHS tape and I would watch it A LOT as a child. Re-watching it for the first time in years recently, I realized just how much it affected me as a person. I love when I go back and look at the things I loved as a child and realize that even if I didn’t realize it, a film really impacted me. I’ll go into more details about how what I mean later in this piece. The film was only nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. The only other film I can think of that was nominated for so few Oscar, but was in the running for Best Picture is the 1931 winner Grand Hotel, which was only nominated for Best Picture. Richard Curtis lost the Best Original Screenplay award to Tarantino for Pulp Fiction. The other films nominated for Best Picture that year were Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, The Shawshank Redemption and winner Forrest Gump. Despite its few Oscar nominations, it received nine BAFTA nominations, winning four, included Best Film: Best Original Screenplay (lost to Pulp Fiction), Best Music (lost to Breakbeat), Best Supporting Actor Simon Callow, John Hannah (lost to Samuel L. Jackson for Pulp Fiction), Best Supporting Actress Charlotte Coleman, Kristin Scott Thomas (she won), Best Actor Hugh Grant (won), Best Director (won) and Best Film (won).
Oscar Vault Monday – Cabaret, 1972 (dir. Bob Fosse)
The first time I saw this film was during TCM’s 31 Days of Oscar in 2011 and a few days ago I gave it a much deserved re-watch. I think I liked it even more on this second viewing. There is a new Blu-ray edition coming from Warner Brothers, which I will be reviewing later this week. Cabaret holds the record for most Oscar wins (eight!) without winning Best Picture. I would be hard-pressed to choose between this film and The Godfather, too. Pretty much every year in the 70s had too many great, important, monumental and insanely entertaining pieces of cinema. In the end, I think the films’s awards are not as important as the impact of the films themselves. That said, Cabaret‘s ten Academy Award nominations were: Best Song Score or Adaptation Score (this category doesn’t exist anymore, won), Best Cinematography (won), Best Editing (won), Best Sound (won), Best Art Direction (won), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor Joel Grey (won), Best Actress Liza Minnelli (won), Best Director (won) and Best Picture. The other films nominated for Best Picture that year were Deliverance, The Emigrants, Sounder and winner The Godfather.
Oscar Vault Monday – The Towering Inferno, 1974 (dir. John Guillermin)
Believe it or not, the Irwin Allen produced The Towering Inferno was not only nominated for eight Academy Awards, it won three of them. This star-studded ensemble disaster flick was not the first of its kind, but it is definitely one of the best. I remember when I first watched it, I was dubious of its merit and wondered about its Oscar pedigree, but in the end, I was sucked in by it and entertained from start to finish. If you look at a lot of the other Oscar nominated films from 1974 – and the 70s in general – The Towering Inferno is like a breath of fresh air made of pure entertainment. I hate the notion that Oscar nominated films need to be serious or arty or what have you. This is cinema in all its glory. The Towering Inferno’s Oscar nominations were as follows: Best Sound, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography (won), Best Film Editing (won), Best Original Song (won), Best Original Dramatic Score, Best Supporting Actor Fred Astaire and Best Picture. The other films nominated for Best Picture that year were Chinatown, The Conversation, Lenny and winner The Godfather Part II.
Oscar Vault Monday – Taxi Driver, 1976 (dir. Martin Scorsese)
A lot has been written about this film by people who know it a lot better than I do, so I’m gonna preface this by saying what I want to do with this piece is not a full analysis of the film, but rather snippets of thoughts and ideas that ran through my head when I watched it Thursday last at the Castro Theatre. I first saw Taxi Driver when I was about 15 (I rented it on VHS and I did not tell my parents) and I don’t think I really understood what I was watching. Really, going into the screening on Thursday, all I remembered from the film was the scene where Robert De Niro takes Cybill Shepherd to the porno theater. That was the first time I ever saw porn. Needless to say, it was shocking. Believe it or not, that was the only time I’d seen the film before this last time. So I have only seen it twice now. I’m guessing it’s a movie that gets richer each time you watch it, much like my favorite Scorsese film, 1985’s criminally under-seen After Hours. I would also like to mention that 1976 is a year where I can’t really say I wish one film beat another film. For me, it’s a year where all of the nominees are so important and so different, that choosing just one seems like a disservice. Well, four of them, anyway, as I have not yet seen Bound For Glory. Although Taxi Driver won the Palm d’Or at the Cannes film festival, it received only four Academy Award nominations and failed to win in any of the categories: Best Picture, Best Actor Robert De Niro, Best Supporting Actress Jodie Foster and Best Original Score. The other films nominated for Best Picture that year were All The President’s Men, Bound For Glory, Network and winner Rocky.
Site Update: Oscar Vault Monday Hiatus
I will be going in vacation to New York City (I’ve never been!) starting tomorrow, so Oscar Vault Monday is going on hiatus until the 21st. I Hope you all have been having a great new year so far!
Oscar Vault Monday – Moulin Rouge!, 2001 (dir. Baz Luhrmann)
When this movie first came out I was dying to see it, but sadly my hometown theater didn’t get it and I had to wait for it to be a rental. I rented a shitty full frame VHS from my local rental store and I fell in love with it. Luckily, a week or so later we went out-of-town and I bought the special edition DVD and I watched it right away in all its widescreen glory. Let me tell you, I already felt pretty strongly about aspect ratios, but that little experience cinched it for me. The full frame ruined soooo much of Luhrmann’s amazing framing and ruined some of the film’s reoccurring themes. I finally got to see the film on the big screen when I was in college and boy what an experience that was! I also got to see it at the Castro Theatre last summer and boy who giant screen really brings out the power of the imagery and emotions of the film. After I saw this film the first time, I went back to my local rental store and rented absolutely every film starring either Nicole Kidman or Ewan McGregor that they had (which was actually quite a lot of films). That was a lot of fun. Moulin Rouge! was nominated for eight Oscars, winning two: Academy Award Best Art Direction (won), Best Costume Design, Best Makeup, Best Sound, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Actress Nicole Kidman and Best Picture. Luhrmann didn’t receive a nomination for Best Director and Oscar host Whoppi Goldberg famously quipped when presenting the film that “apparently it didn’t have a director.” This was a year where two of the Best Picture films didn’t get Best Director nods (the other was Todd Field for In The Bedroom) and two directors whose films weren’t nom’d did: David Lynch for Mulholland Drive and Ridley Scott for Black Hawk Down. Always strange when that happens, though I am 100% behind Lynch’s nomination.
Oscar Vault Monday – Born Yesterday, 1950 (dir. George Cukor)
I absolutely adore this film. Since it was recently added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, I thought it would be a great time to explore this film. It’s one that is often overlooked and I think there’s some irrational anger aimed at it because of Judy Holliday’s win over both Gloria Swanson in Sunset Blvd. and Bette Davis in All About Eve. But I think that is a load of baloney. This is a great film and while Holliday’s performance may not have reached the iconic status of those other two performances, it is most definitely a deserved win. Billie Dawn is a remarkable character and Holliday plays her to perfection. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one: Best B&W Costume Design, Best Screenplay, Best Actress Judy Holliday (won), Best Director and Best Picture. The other films nominated for Best Picture that year were Father of the Bride, King Solomon’s Mines, Sunset Blvd. and winner All About Eve.
Oscar Vault Monday – A Few Good Men, 1992 (dir. Rob Reiner)
This is one of those movies that I have seen so many times I don’t have an accurate count. It’s also one that I mostly watched edited on television, so when I watched it for the first time on DVD there were so many things that had either been cut out for time or censored for content; it was shocking. Moral of the story: make sure you watch this movie on DVD. My mother and I always joke about how if this movie is on television, no matter what we are doing, we will leave it on because we just have to see that ending scene. It’s definitely one of the greatest endings in film history. A Few Good Men was nominated for four Academy Awards, though it failed to win any: Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Supporting Actor Jack Nicholson and Best Picture. Rob Reiner failed to receive a Best Director nomination despite the Best Picture nod. His place went to Robert Altman for The Player, which failed to receive a Best Picture nomination. Always strange when that happens. The other films nominated for Best Picture that year were: The Crying Game, Howard’s End, Scent of a Woman and winner Unforgiven.
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