Clean Up

Let's see, where was I?

Oh right.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991): I watched this movie by myself, in the middle of the night, in my giant, cavernous apartment, with no lights on, and boy howdy was it creepy. It deserved every award it got. And then some, probably. I think this movie has no flaws whatsoever, but I still find it inferior to Rain Man. Moving on.

No Country For Old Men (2007): The Coen Brothers weren't shafted! 11 years later, they get their rightful due they were screwed out of when Fargo didn't win. I think I would've liked this one more if I didn't know the Coens made it. I kept waiting for the quirkiness to step in, but just found mountains of unrelenting evil and death. Oh well. I prefer a little comedic relief in my drama, like, for instance, an autistic man who only flies on Quantas. Moving on.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008): Somewhere, somebody must have said, "You know, Andy tries to watch all of the Best Pictures, so let's tailor a movie to his particular tastes and see if we can unseat Rain Man." "Good idea," says his partner, "but what does he like?" "Foreign cultures!" "Flashbacks!" "Organized crime!" "Elegantly intertwining storylines!" "Happy endings!" "Hilarious bits mixed in with serious, heart-rending bits." "Great. Anythin else?" "Game shows!" "Wait, how can we work game shows into this?" Thus, the challenge was laid down, and from this spitballing session came Slumdog Millionaire, complete with game shows, and yes, I did in fact love every second of this movie. If they had remembered "mental illnesses," it might have actually succeeded in unseating Rain Man. Maybe next time, movie producers.

It Happened One Night! (1934): So I was looking on Turner Classic Movies On Demand the other night, and It Happened One Night! was listed. At first I felt it was kind of cliched, but then I realized in 1934 there weren't cliches yet and that pretty much every romantic comedy since has copied its formula, and since I love Frank Capra, I let it go. Pretty enjoyable little flick. In other news, did Clark Gable always look that pissed? A quick Yahoo image search reveals, yeah. Pretty much. Also, one thing I did NOT expect to see was the ending from SpaceBalls sneakily cribbed from this movie, almost line for line. Seriously. And as far as I know, no one else realized that either. Kudos to Mr. Brooks.


Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Quit Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964): HOW IN THE NAME OF ALL THINGS HOLY DID THIS MASTERPIECE LOSE TO MY FAIR FUCKING LADY????? More to come in a following blog post dedicated entirely to why Dr. Strangelove is awesome and My Fair Lady is inawesome, which is a word I just made up. It shall feature lots of capital letters, multiple punctuation marks to end sentences, and possibly some bold print. Along with profanity. When some people think about what they would do if they could go back in time they think of preventing the Holocaust, or changing major mistakes they made in their lives. Me? I want to make Dr. Strangelove win in '64.

In other news, Rain Man is awesome.

So, let's look at the Big Board (don't let the Russian Ambassador in):

2008 Slumdog Millionaire*
2007 No Country For Old Men*
2006 The Departed*
2005 Crash*
2004 Million Dollar Baby*
2003 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2002 Chicago
2001 A Beautiful Mind*
2000 Gladiator
1999 American Beauty
1998 Shakespeare in Love
1997 Titanic
1996 The English Patient
1995 Braveheart
1994 Forrest Gump
1993 Schindler's List
1992 Unforgiven*
1991 Silence of the Lambs
1990 Dances with Wolves
1989 Driving Miss Daisy
1988 Rain Man*
1987 The Last Emperor
1986 Platoon*
1985 Out of Africa
1984 Amadeus
1983 Terms of Endearment
1982 Gandhi
1981 Chariots of Fire
1980 Ordinary People
1979 Kramer Vs. Kramer
1978 The Deer Hunter*
1977 Annie Hall
1976 Rocky
1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest*
1974 The Godfather Part II*
1973 The Sting*
1972 The Godfather*
1971 The French Connection
1970 Patton
1969 Midnight Cowboy
1968 Oliver!
1967 In the Heat of the Night*
1966 A Man for All Seasons
1965 The Sound of Music
1964 My Fair Lady
1963 Tom Jones
1962 Lawrence of Arabia*
1961 West Side Story
1960 The Apartment
1959 Ben-Hur
1958 Gigi
1957 The Bridge on the River Kwai*
1956 Around the World in 80 Days
1955 Marty
1954 On the Waterfront
1953 From Here to Eternity
1952 The Greatest Show on Earth
1951 An American in Paris
1950 All About Eve
1949 All the King's Men
1948 Hamlet
1947 Gentleman's Agreement
1946 The Best Years of Our Lives
1945 The Lost Weekend
1944 Going My Way
1943 Casablanca
1942 Mrs. Miniver
1941 How Green Was My Valley
1940 Rebecca
1939 Gone With the Wind
1938 You Can't Take It With You
1937 The Life of Emile Zola
1936 The Great Ziegfeld
1935 Mutiny on the Bounty
1934 It Happened One Night*
1933 Cavalcade
1932 Grand Hotel
1931 Cimarron
1930 All Quiet on the Western Front
1929 The Broadway Melody
1928 Sunrise
1927 Wings

Next up: Annie Hall (1977)

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

I hate movies that last too long. Yes, Mr. Filmmaker, I realize that all of your ideas were just pure brilliance, but they're not all relevant to this movie, so please just stick them in the bin for next time, and hire a freaking editor. This practice most often infuriates me when a movie decides to give you details of everything that happened to everybody and everything in the movie after the action and development has stopped instead of just ending the friggin movie. For a particularly awful example of this, see Casino Royale, or just a few more years and see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Lawrence of Arabia is 3 hours and 40 minutes long, and it didn't remotely seem too long to me. There was enough good plot and character development happening the whole time that I was intrigued until the end. It took me a long time to talk myself into seeing it. Over a month, actually, but it's a good one if you've got four hours that you'd rather not spend doing anything constructive. Steven Spielberg cites this as his favorite movie of all time, and even has a little spiel about it on the bonus features disc. I think the most telling thing about how much I liked this movie is that after spending 220 minutes watching it, I took the time to peruse the special features. Anyway, if there's one thing I'm not going to do, it's argue with the creator of Animaniacs about what is and is not awesome.

My favorite dialogue:

Tafas: Truly now, you are a British officer?
Lawrence: Yes.
Tafas: From Cairo?
Lawrence: Yes.
Tafas: You did not ride from Cairo?
Lawrence: No, thank heavens. It's 900 miles. I came by boat.
Tafas: And before? From Britain?
Lawrence: Yes.
Tafas: Truly?
Lawrence: From Oxfordshire.
Tafas: Is that a desert country?
Lawrence: No. A fat country. Fat people.
Tafas: You are not fat?
Lawrence: No. I'm different.

So, yeah, David Lean is quickly climbing the ranks of "Directors whose movies I'll see just because they directed it," and is now ranked just behind The Coen Brothers and Clint Eastwood.

Oh, and speaking of the Coen Brothers, I watched a TOTALLY ilLEGAL COPY of No Country For Old Men last week too. After the Oscars, I presume I'll be writing an exasperated post about how the Coens were shafted again.

Ok, so time to update the sadly neglected Board.

A Two-Fer

First, The Godfather Part II (1974)

There are people who say that The Godfather is the best movie ever made. These people are wrong. Even if you mob movies are your favorite thing in the world, The Godfather Part II is pretty much superior to its predecessor in all ways, including the vital realization that Michael Coreleone is really a jerk and that nobody in his family, or in any other for that matter, likes him.

Of course, it could be the fact that it wasn't based on the book, and thus I didn't really know what was going to happen, unlike with the first movie. Ah well.

Moving on, In the Heat Of the Night (1967):

You know what's nice? When things are exactly as awesome as you expect them to be. Since my exposure to this film consisted of reading the blurb about it on the back of the DVD case in Family Video and hearing that Sydney Poitier is an amazingly good actor, I had pretty high hopes for it. And it was great.

Part of the appeal for me probably came from simply relating to the plight of Virgil Tibbs. While being a victim of racial prejudice isn't a problem I have to deal with, I do have plenty of experience with being the smartest person in the room and not being able to hide my contempt for some of the incompetent people I'm working with. I understand the hatred Virgil has for close-minded small towns. I feel his frustration when he cannot leave when he wants. While I haven't been chased by a lynch mob in recent years, I've been regarded suspiciously by my peers ever since 6th grade, when it was no longer cool or acceptable to be smarter than them. And I understand the feeling of being resigned to a rather solitary existence both of the main characters express.

Also, Tibbs is able to solve the mystery without the modern conveniences of slow motion close-ups of the relevant evidence while techno music plays in the background, which should be impressive to everyone. He has to make due with some early funk instead.

So there we go. Let's update the sadly neglected Board.

A Quick Update Before I Sleep

1. Fiction suggestions: good call. I haven't read anything in a while, so I'm open to suggestions.

2. I have a friend! Woo WOO! It's my friend Satya from high school. She's maybe the only person I know besides myself who can pull off wearing the "This is what AWESOME Looks Like!" shirt. Today is her birthday, which gave me a great excuse to call her up and hang out with her tonight.

3. I attempted to set a serious cockblock on a coworker tonight. He's bragged about his mastery of patient abuse to me before, and is generally full of shit at all times, so I don't feel remotely bad about it. In fact, I'm going to be disappointed with myself if I failed in this task.

4. Furthermore, the whole episode revealed something to me. Contrary to everything I've ever been told about myself, I have a hard time getting women because I'm not cocky, condescending, and conceited enough. It turns out my coworkers full of shititude and ridiculously inflated and unchecked ego is part of the appeal. This is sad, because there's simply no way I can detach myself that far from reality. My greatness is more understated, you see. And only intelligent women can see it, I think. Regrettably, intelligent women appear to be in short supply.

5. I've broken two automobiles since my last post.

6. I've also gotten a shiny new Quesadilla Maker. I bought cheese tonight, but unfortunately I left it at Satya's, so it'll be a couple nights before I get it back and try it. I'm hoping this experience goes so well that I can develop a new feature for this space in addition to "Monday YouTube," "Best Movie Reviews," and the excessively verbiose "Thoughts on Songs I Heard on the Radio Today." The new one: "Things you can make with a Quesadilla Maker."

7. I got the Quesadilla in a white elephant gift exchange. There were a variety of interesting gifts, with "unused appliances received as gifts in years past" being the favorite. Counter space in young married couples is apparently at a premium. A sandwich maker, a milkshake maker, a quesadilla maker, and a bread maker all showed up. I brought two gifts: a travel size magnetic "Nine Men's Morris" game, and Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits. Simon and Garfunkel were not well-received at first, mainly because I'm quite sure everyone in my family already owns it. However, it's value rose later, when all of my siblings realized they had merely succeeded in trading their unused appliances for equally unused appliances, and the goal of "trading down" in order to get something much smaller appeared. Thus, when my sister Abby threw the Simon and Garfunkel back to grab a holiday mug and bowl set, Paul threw in the Quesadilla Maker to get it off his hands for the smaller CD, and I valiantly grabbed it in exchange for the candy dishes I won. The Nine Men's Morris game went to Joe, who was a pioneer in the "Grab the smallest gift and make a run for it" strategy.

Other gifts of note in the exchange: My little brother Aaron brought a cup. I cheap plastic cup from a pizza place in Muncie. It was easily the lamest White Elephant gift in history, or would be, if it weren't for the fact that Casey and Joe brought an exploding coffee maker that is almost guaranteed to spray scalding water all over the kitchen.

8. I've watched The Godfather Part II. I should do a review of it. Also, I fell asleep three times watching The Godfather Part III.

The Godfather (1972)

Hey, I finally saw The Godfather. My expectations were tempered, because I'd already read the book, and I really liked it, so I pretty much assumed the movie wouldn't be anywhere near as good. Well, I was wrong. The Godfather is pretty much as good as everyone says it is, and most of the parts they cut from the book were parts I didn't care for anyway, like the Nino and Johnny in Hollywood parts and the Johnny wants his ex-wife back parts. Those were pretty boring, and I didn't miss them in the movie.

Now, I do want to address the part of The Godfather that annoyed me ten years ago when I read it and annoyed me again when I watched it. This would be the "Michael is exiled to Sicily and gets married only to see his wife murdered by his traitorous bodyguard" part. It annoys me because Appollonia has somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 lines in the movie and possibly less in the book, but I'm supposed to believe that Michael is close enough to her to fall in love with her while at the same time he's engaged to Kay Adams (at least, I think he was in the book; he wasn't in the movie). This part irked me in the book because it had no bearing on any other part of the plot, and is never even mentioned again. After Appollonia's car explodes, the very memory of her existence vanishes. The entire episode struck me as senseless; killing Appollonia off so that she won't have to be written into the rest of the plot is lazy, but there was no reason whatsoever we had to know what Michael Corleone did while exiled if it was going to have no bearing at all on the rest of the plot.

But the rest of the movie is really good. Hell, even that part is pretty good, just completely superfluous and mostly senseless. Update the Board, and move on.

Platoon (1986)

First, a big thank you to everyone who wished me birthday greetings, including Casey, Mom, Dad, Lindzy, BerryBird, Nadine, Liz, Galen, Tavis, Nando, Kelli, Walter, and anyone else I might have forgotten.

Now, on with the review. I'll admit I was not very pumped to see this one. It's about the Vietnam War, and I feel The Deer Hunter covered this territory as well as any movie ever could. I got a little bit more pumped when I read the opening credits and saw lots of familiar names in addition to Willem Dafoe, who I thought was the star of it and also is fricking awesome.

I genuinely liked this movie, but it suffered from my biggest pet peeve when it comes to movies of any kind: pretentious, preachy dialogue that no one in real life ever actually says. In this movie, they try to pass that stuff off as Taylor, the main character, narrating letters he's writing home, but it still doesn't work for me. I'm plenty smart enough to figure out that the soldiers are fighting themselves as well as the NVA, and that the conflict between Barnes and Elias is a physical manifestation of that struggle without Taylor telling me that's what's happening. I've not seen enough of Oliver Stone's work to know if this is a regular tactic of his or not, but it really needs to go.

As I said, I liked this movie, I'd recommend it, and I probably wouldn't mind seeing it again. It suffers from the fact that The Deer Hunter, a movie that I'm not going to see again because it almost traumatized me, preceded it by 8 years and forever set the standard for movies about Vietnam. However, it is helped by the fact that it deals more with the atrocities of war as opposed to its effect on its participants, and because 19 years later, Crash would come along and take preachy, pretentious dialogue that nobody says in real life to new levels of ridiculousness, which makes the few instances of it in Platoon seem much more forgiveable.

So, in all, good movie. Excellent acting, good directing, a bit heavy-handed writing.

Also, what are the odds that two stars of this bleak, dark drama about the atrocities humanity is capable of would go on to star in popular, light-hearted sitcoms? Probably better than the odds that two stars of Predator would go on to become governors, but still doesn't seem likely.

Time to update the Board.

The Sting (1973)

I'm really glad The Sting won Best Picture. People in Best Pictures suffer from mental illnesses, get traumatized by wars, get shot up by mobsters, lose boxing matches, and witness genocide. It all gets very draining after a spell.

Here's what I knew about The Sting going in:

1. It's about confidence men.
2. It takes place in the '30s and features a Scott Joplin adapted score.
3. It has Robert Redford and Paul Newman in it.

And somehow, it managed to be even cooler than I thought it'd be. Everyone walks around with sinister mustaches like Mark Trail villains and pull slick shenanigans while delivering slick lines. Even Eileen Brennan is cool in this, and the only thing I've ever seen her in is Clue, when she played the hopelessly annoying and dorky Mrs. Peacock.

All in all, it's an entertaining and engaging little show that I can't find any reason to dislike. Nothing too deep, but it's a nice change of pace from the dark, dire, and depressing that usually dominates this list.

Time to update the Board. I'm now 1/3 of the way finished with the list. Next up: People get shot and killed in a war. Should be a good time.

Unforgiven (1992)

I'm tired, and I have to wake up in time to go to a party tomorrow, so I'll do this really quickly.

When asked about the criticism surrounding the thematic material of Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood remarked, ""I've gone around in movies blowing people away with a .44 magnum. But that doesn't mean I think that's a proper thing to do."

Unforgiven is a movie made by a man who was in too many movies where he ran around blowing people away with a .44 magnum. Every character in this movie is exposed as a fool for trying to solve their problems by shooting people. I didn't like it as much as I liked Million Dollar Baby, but I liked it enough that "Directed by Clint Eastwood" is all the endorsement I need to see a movie. "Directed by Clint Eastwood" + "Starring Morgan Freeman" = "I better have a damn good reason why I haven't seen this movie yet.

Time to update the Board. And then time to sleep.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of three movies to win all five major Academy Awards (Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, Screenplay). Since I saw the play in college, I knew the story and knew what to expect, so I was mostly watching this one for the acting, which was stellar without exception.

Louise Fletcher's portrayal of Nurse Ratched, in particular, was amazing. According to the special features, the cast and crew were encouraged to spend most of their time getting to know the patients and staff at the hospital it was filmed at. Fletcher must have paid close attention. I recognized many of the tricks she used to manipulate the patients on her ward. For instance, taking a vote is always a surefire way to stop an upstart. On my unit at work, we have on patient who will say no to everything, another who will say yes to everything, one who always insists she's watching the show but cannot name a single thing that happened, and two more who will throw conniptions if they don't get to watch their programs but will leave the room until it's over. Staff can control any vote, and it's difficult for patients to argue with them.

I liked the play when I watched it in college. I watched it a little differently now that I've worked in a mental hospital myself.

Also, Jack Nicholson in The Departed isn't worthy to be Jack Nicholson in One...'s understudy.

Nothing left to do now but update the Board.

The Bridge On the River Kwai

Movies about war frequently irritate me. A lot of them like to preach to the audience about how noble and selfless and courageous the soldiers are, and characterization is frequently one-sided: the noble Americans take on the evil Japanese, or Germans, or Vietnamese, or Russians, or what have you.

Thus, my expectations were not too high with The Bridge on the River Kwai. First, it's a war movie. Second, it was written in the fifties. Third, well, I don't have a third, but the fifties were pretty dang annoying, so it should count twice. My fears were pleasantly proven wrong.

TBOTRK works because it does not fall in the trap of painting good guys and bad guys, and every major character is portrayed sympathetically. About half an hour before the movie was over, it occurred to me that there was no possible ending available that I would like, because I felt invested enough in every character to care about what happened to them. Also, the message I took out of the movie was one about the inherent lunacy of war, and that the officers who run it are rather nuts and not heroes at all. This is one of only two possible messages that make for acceptable war movies, and I already watched "War is mind-breakingly terrible and utterly destroys everyone involved with it" in The Deer Hunter.

Finally, I'm not really old enough or enough of a classic movie buff to be familiar with the works of Alec Guinness outside of Obi Wan Kenobi. I made several hilarious jokes to myself early on involving Jedi Mind Tricks.

As for other complaints, the only female of note in the movie is Nurse Screws The Male Lead, so I could critique the utter lack of women in this one, but I'll give it a pass since it was made in 1957, when it was illegal for women to leave the house without the permission of their husbands. That's completely true. You can trust me; I was a history major.

So yes. Excellent movie. Well worth the buck I spent renting it. Time to update the Board.

Some Very Random Observations

1. I had a dream last night. I dreamed the sanitation department came into my apartment and took all my garbage out. It was about the best dream ever. You can imagine my sadness when I awoke to find that there was still garbage in my apartment.

2. Prior to typing this post, I was idling away time by reading other blogs and clicking a click pen. Then I read the click pen, and it says "Minnesota State High School League" on it. I don't have the damndest idea where it came from or why I have it.

3. I watched The Departed tonight. Since I haven't seen any of the other nominees for 2006, I can't tell you if it should have won or not. The only post-Oscar hype I remember was, "Hey, Martin Scorsese finally won," so I guess there was no big controversy. I can tell you that DiCaprio was pretty good in it, Matt Damon was Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson was Jack Nicholson, and the plot and dialogue were good enough to suck me in for the whole two and a half hours. I can also tell you that acting-wise, the supporting triumvirate of Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, and Mark Wahlberg were superb.

As far as how good it was, it regrettably had the misfortune of following The Deer Hunter, a movie which left me with a severe case of second-hand post-traumatic stress disorder. The Departed was not quite that powerful, you could say.

Finally, if there was ever a movie that did not pass Bechdel's Rule, this is it. I think the only female character had all of 20 lines, all of which were said to either DiCaprio or Damon, and got credited below Mark Wahlberg. At any rate, time to strike it off the Big Board, and plan my next move.

4. Just as an indication to how not awesome my week was, up until today I considered the highlight working with Paula Who Stood Me Up A Few Months Back on Tuesday and keeping enough dignity to not ask her out despite her heavy flirting with me. Then today, I got asked out by a different coworker, and said yes, because I desperately need people to hang out with.

5. I think my life would only improve if I could somehow take it upon myself to stop going on dates with coworkers.

In a world where movies win awards, One Man must see them all...

Confession: I have a hidden resistance to watching good movies. They are frequently depressing. Or boring. Or shocking. Or something else. Good movies tend to make you feel things. Or think about things. I usually find it much more enjoyable, and comforting, to watch a rather silly flick and make sarcastic comments about it. Or, even better, make all kinds of pompous and pretentious claims about the 'symbolism' found within it as if it were some weirdo arthouse show. There's no real downside to well made cheesy movies. For example, I can watch Steven Seagal save the environment by beating the crap out of ugly mulleted dudes and enjoy it on face value for an hour, and then the rest of my days I can laugh at the inherent goofiness of the movie and enjoy watching it again in search of more goofy stuff to pick out.

Also, it turns out that I probably have terrible taste in movies. If I get bored in the near future, which is a distinct possibility since I talked myself out of asking out Paula at work today, I might blog just exactly how bad my taste is. For now, just know that I just clicked through the 100 worst reviewed movies on Rotten Tomatoes, and frequently found myself saying, "Come on, that one wasn't bad. It had plenty of entertainment value."

Lately, though, I've been passing up the Frankenfishes and Stay Alives of the world and been grabbing your critically acclaimed types instead. I think Rain Man caused the change, mainly because this is probably about the fifth time I've mentioned it in the past three months. Maybe, I thought, I should give these Oscar nominee type movies a shot. Perhaps I enjoy good movies more than I think I do.

And so began one man's quest to watch all of the Best Picture winners. Let's pull up the Big List (ones I've seen are in bold):

2006 The Departed*
2005 Crash*
2004 Million Dollar Baby*
2003 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2002 Chicago
2001 A Beautiful Mind*
2000 Gladiator
1999 American Beauty
1998 Shakespeare in Love
1997 Titanic
1996 The English Patient
1995 Braveheart
1994 Forrest Gump
1993 Schindler's List
1992 Unforgiven*
1991 Silence of the Lambs
1990 Dances with Wolves
1989 Driving Miss Daisy
1988 Rain Man*
1987 The Last Emperor
1986 Platoon*
1985 Out of Africa
1984 Amadeus
1983 Terms of Endearment
1982 Gandhi
1981 Chariots of Fire
1980 Ordinary People
1979 Kramer Vs. Kramer
1978 The Deer Hunter*
1977 Annie Hall
1976 Rocky
1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest*
1974 The Godfather Part II*
1973 The Sting*
1972 The Godfather*
1971 The French Connection
1970 Patton
1969 Midnight Cowboy
1968 Oliver!
1967 In the Heat of the Night*
1966 A Man for All Seasons
1965 The Sound of Music
1964 My Fair Lady
1963 Tom Jones
1962 Lawrence of Arabia*
1961 West Side Story
1960 The Apartment
1959 Ben-Hur
1958 Gigi
1957 The Bridge on the River Kwai*
1956 Around the World in 80 Days
1955 Marty
1954 On the Waterfront
1953 From Here to Eternity
1952 The Greatest Show on Earth
1951 An American in Paris
1950 All About Eve
1949 All the King's Men
1948 Hamlet
1947 Gentleman's Agreement
1946 The Best Years of Our Lives
1945 The Lost Weekend
1944 Going My Way
1943 Casablanca
1942 Mrs. Miniver
1941 How Green Was My Valley
1940 Rebecca
1939 Gone With the Wind
1938 You Can't Take It With You
1937 The Life of Emile Zola
1936 The Great Ziegfeld
1935 Mutiny on the Bounty
1934 It Happened One Night
1933 Cavalcade
1932 Grand Hotel
1931 Cimarron
1930 All Quiet on the Western Front
1929 The Broadway Melody
1928 Sunrise
1927 Wings

Total: 32/80
*watched since Sept. 07
(Also note that this is a good opportunity to make "Oh my God you've never seen Gone With the Wind?" type comments.)

When the Academy Got It Wrong (also to be updated as I see more also-rans):

1999, American Beauty over The Iron Giant. The Iron Giant is as good as any movie on this list. It's considerably better than Shakespeare in Love, and Gladiator doesn't even come within shooting distance of it. I just say this to point out that if it had been released a little earlier or a little later, I wouldn't have to feel bad about ousting my favorite Kevin Spacey movie, and one of the few movies on this list that could give The Iron Giant a run for its money, from the list. Luckily for American Beauty, The Iron Giant is animated, and is therefore only for kids and can never, ever be taken seriously by anyone else.

1990, Dances With Wolves over Awakenings. Nothing against DWW, but Awakenings was just better. Also, for those keeping score at home, this makes two movies involving Vin Diesel that got jobbed out of an Oscar, and unlike most people I don't even count Saving Private Ryan.


1981, Chariots of Fire over Raiders of the Lost Ark. I base this on the fact that all of the Indiana Jones movies are fun to quote, and the only thing I've ever quoted from Chariots of Fire is the theme. Plus, Chariots of Fire is a movie about Olympic runners that somehow manages to be slow.

1976, Rocky over Network. I risk losing my share of the inheritance over this, but Rocky is one overrated movie. Underdog nobody boxer stands up to arrogant image-conscious champ. Well-made, inspiring, cool soundtrack, great movie all around, but pretty standard plot. Network, meanwhile, is witty, cool, and prescient in all its superbly acted lunacy.

1964, My Fair Lady over Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. As a rule, I don't make these decisions unless I've seen both movies, but God I hate My Fair Lady. I've never seen Dr. Strangelove, but the title alone is more interesting and better written than anything in My Fair Lady. The Musical Era is going to be tough to endure, I think.

As I see more, I'll update my list, and then maybe write a review of it or something.

Last movie: Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Next movie: The Silence of the Lambs (1991)