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Oscar Vault Monday – Heaven Can Wait, 1978 (dir. Warren Beatty, Buck Henry)
Heaven Can Wait is one of my favorite romantic comedies, though I don’t really want to box it into that genre. It’s more than just a run-of-the-mill rom-com. It’s a meditation on life and love and the pursuit of happiness. It’s also a little bit sci-fi and a little bit sports. Basically, it’s a mix of a lot of great things all in one perfect 101 min film. It lost to The Deer Hunter and I’m not even going to try to argue that that was the wrong choice, because I don’t think it was. The Deer Hunter was definitely the right choice; I just really love Heaven Can Wait and feel like not nearly enough people have seen it. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction (won), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor Jack Warden, Best Supporting Actress Dyan Cannon, Best Actor Warren Beatty, Best Director and Best Picture. It was up against Coming Home, Midnight Express, An Unmarried Woman and winner The Deer Hunter.
Oscar Vault Monday – Sounder, 1972 (dir. Martin Ritt)
1972 is a hard year to discuss a film that was nominated but didn’t win Best Picture considering the winner that year was The Godfather. I decided to go with Martin Ritt’s Sounder because it is almost as opposite a film from The Godfather among the other nominees. Yet, in a way it’s very similar. Both films are about the lengths one will go for family. Sounder is a drama, but in the end it’s also one of the most uplifting films I’ve ever seen. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress Cicely Tyson, Best Actor Paul Winfield and Best Picture. The other films nominated that year were Cabaret, Deliverance, The Emigrants and winner The Godfather.
Oscar Vault Monday – The Red Shoes, 1948 (dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
There is just so much to say about 1948’s The Red Shoes, that I just can’t cover it all. I saw this for the first time last week and I absolutely fell in love with it. I think it’s one of those films that has aged splendidly because it was so ahead of its time when it was first released. It’s about obsession and love and desire and artistic drive and feminism and just so many other things. It also contains some of the greatest art direction and cinematography of all time. It was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (won), Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (won), Oscar Best Film Editing, Best Writing – Motion Picture Story and Best Picture. It was up against Johnny Belinda, The Snake Pit, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and winner Hamlet.
Oscar Vault Monday – The Crying Game, 1992 (dir. Neil Jordan)
Neil Jordan is one of my favorite directors. I have so much love for Interview With A Vampire and Breakfast On Pluto. I finally got around to watching this film, Jordan’s only film to be nominated for Best Picture, a few years back and I so fell in love with it. I think I watched it twice before I sent it back to Netflix and then got it for Christmas a few months later. It is just such a beautiful film. On the outside it’s a film about the IRA, but really it’s a film about love and how it can arise so unexpectedly. The Crying Game was nominated for six Academy Awards, winning one: Best Film Editing, Best Original Screenplay (won), Best Supporting Actor Jaye Davidson, Best Actor Stephen Rea, Best Director and Best Picture. It was up against A Few Good Men, Howards End, Scent of A Woman and winner Unforgiven.
Oscar Vault Monday – Lilies of the Field, 1963 (dir. Ralph Nelson)
I finally saw this movie a few months ago after being a fan of Sidney Poitier since I was a little girl. I have no idea what took me so long. It is a marvelous film and Poitier gives such a stirring performance. Though he was already on his way to being a huge star in his own right, this film cemented him in the history of cinema and paved the way for countless others while it was at it. It was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one: Best B&W Cinematography, Best Supporting Actress Lilia Skala, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor Sidney Poitier (won) and Best Picture. It was up against America, America, Cleopatra, How The West Was Won and winner Tom Jones.
Oscar Vault Monday – Funny Girl, 1968 (dir. William Wyler)
I’m going to admit this straight up: this is mostly going to be an “I love Barbra Streisand in this movie” post. I’d never been a big fan of Babs until I saw this film and I’ve been converted forever. This was her debut film performance and she won the Best Actress Academy Award for it – in the only tie in that category’s history with Katharine Hepburn in The Lion In Winter. Somehow, though, the Academy decided to give the top prize of the night to Carrol Reed’s overblown, boring and trite musical Oliver! I mean, if they were going to give the top prize one last time to a musical, well until Chicago‘s win 34 years later, why couldn’t they have gone with Funny Girl?! The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards and only won the one: Best Actress Barbra Streisand (won), Best Supporting Actress – Kay Medford, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Song, Best Score of a Musical Picture (Original or Adaptation), Best Sound and Best Picture. William Wyler wasn’t even nominated for Best Director! The other films nominated for Best Picture that year were: Rachel, Rachel, Romeo and Juliet, The Lion in Winter and winner Oliver!
Oscar Vault Monday – Citizen Kane, 1941 (dir. Orson Welles)
Love it or hate it, Citizen Kane made an indelible mark in cinematic history and will forever be lauded as one of the great films ever made. The American Film Institute listed it as the #1 American film on both their 1998 list of the 100 Greatest American Films and their Ten Year Anniversary list from 2007. Everybody knows that quote “rosebud….” whether they know what it refers to or no. It did not, however, win the Academy Award for the Best Picture of 1941. No, indeed, that award went to the schmaltzy Zanuck produced, John Ford directed family drama/literary adaptation How Green Was My Valley. I recently saw that film, and I must say I found it to be the most boring of all the Best Picture winners I’ve seen (I’ve only got six left to watch!) I can see why it won though, Academy Politics and John Ford at the helm and Darryl F. Zanuck as producer. But it definitely is not a film that endures or a film many will remember, other than perhaps how much it bored them, the way thatCitizen Kane will. Kane is a classic in every sense of the word. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards, ultimately only winning one. Those nominations were Best Film Editing – Robert Wise (who would go on to become a great director/producer in his own right, winning four Academy awards), Best Score, Best Sound, Best B&W Cinematography, Best B&W Art Direction, Best Actor Orson Welles, Best Director Orson Welles, Best Original Screenplay Orson Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz (won) and Best Picture. It was up against Blossoms In The Dust, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Hold Back The Dawn, One Foot In Heaven, Sergeant York, Suspicion, The Little Foxes, The Maltese Falcon and winner How Green Was My Valley.
Beware, if you’ve never seen the film before there will be at least one really big spoiler.
Oscar Vault Monday – Working Girl, 1988 (dir. Mike Nichols)
I really love this movie. I’m pretty sure I first saw it when I was about 6 or 7 years old and for the longest time I couldn’t wait to go and work in an office (not the case so much anymore, haha). I loved everything about it. The story is a pretty basic David vs. Goliath kind of deal, but set in an office, with a dash of Shakespearean mistaken identity thrown in as well. It’s also a romantic comedy, albeit one that is slightly more serious than most. There’s broken hearts and bad relationships, real friendships, ambition, a bit of women’s lib and office politics. It’s very much a movie of its time, but because it has some basic archetypes at its core, as dated as its costumes, etc are, the story and therefore the film is timeless. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, winning one: Best Song (won), Best Supporting Actress Joan Cusack, Best Supporting Actress Sigourney Weaver, Best Actress Melanie Griffith, Best Director Mike Nichols and Best Picture. It was up against The Accidental Tourist, Dangerous Liaisons, Mississippi Burning and winner Rain Man.
Oscar Vault Monday – Goodfellas, 1990 (dir. Martin Scorsese)
Originally when I was going to write about 1990, I was going to write about Ghost because I really love that film and it always fascinates me that it was nominated for Best Picture. Then I watched Goodfellas and discovered that Ray Liotta was NOT nominated for his stellar performance in it and there was just no way I couldn’t write about how wrong that I think that is. I haven’t seen a lot of Scorsese’s films, but I’ve seen a good deal, and this is my favorite of those I’ve seen. I also think it’s his finest film, I say this having not seen Raging Bull and I know that that film is often heralded as his best. Goodfellas was nominated for six Academy Awards, but only won one: Best Film Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress Lorraine Bracco, Best Supporting Actor Joe Pesci (won), Best Director and Best Picture. It was up against Awakenings, Ghost, The Godfather: Part III and winner Dances With Wolves. I’ve yet to see Awakenings, but of the other four, and despite my undying love for Ghost, I’d definitely say Goodfellas is the best film of the group.
Oscar Vault Monday – La Grande Illusion, 1937 (dir. Jean Renoir)
I first saw this in college for a class called “Coffee and Cigarettes: The Literature of Anxiety and Boredom” (yes, that’s really the official title of that class). I think we watched it to examine the situation the officers in the film find themselves in: a prisoner of war camp. They’re all educated men, all men who are doers, and suddenly they can’t do anything. At least I think that’s why we watched, I don’t recall much discussion after watching the film. Whatever the reason was, I’m glad we watched it; it’s a fabulous film, filled with amazing performances. It’s also one of the very first anti-war war films, a genre I tend to really love. It was the first foreign language film to be nominated for Best Picture and one of only eight to do so: La Grande Illusion (French, 1938); Z (French, 1969); The Emigrants (Swedish, 1972); Cries and Whispers (Swedish, 1973); Il Postino (Italian/Spanish, 1995); Life Is Beautiful (Italian, 1998); Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Mandarin Chinese, 2000); and Letters from Iwo Jima (Japanese, 2006). It was up against nine films the year it was nominated: Alexander’s Ragtime Band, Boys Town, Four Daughters, Jezebel, Pygmalion, Test Pilot, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Citadel and winner You Can’t Take It with You.
the diary of a film history fanatic 
