The Best Movies I Have Never Seen Before: The Woman Next Door (1981)

Thursday, March 14, 2013

The Best Movies I Have Never Seen Before: The Woman Next Door (1981)

The Woman Next Door (1981)
Directed by: François Truffaut.
Written by: François Truffaut & Suzanne Schiffman and Jean Aurel.
Starring: Gérard Depardieu (Bernard Coudray), Fanny Ardant (Mathilde Bauchard), Henri Garcin (Philippe Bauchard), Michèle Baumgartner (Arlette Coudray), Roger Van Hool (Roland Duguet), Véronique Silver (Madame Odile Jouve).

Francois Truffaut was a great admirer of Alfred Hitchcock. The book length interview that Truffaut did with Hitchcock is certainly necessary reading for fans of either filmmaker. Watching Truffaut’s 1981 film The Woman Next Door, it’s hard not to think of Hitchcock. True, the film may not quite be a thriller in the way Hitchcock made them, and yet it recalls the tone of some Hitchcock’s best films. While I certainly do not think it’s one of Truffaut’s best efforts, it is a fascinating film nonetheless.

Gerard Depardieu stars as Bernard, who lives a happy life out in the French countryside with his wife, Arlette (Michele Baumgartner) and their young son. Everything seems idyllic until the vacant house next door suddenly finds new tenants. Bernard meets the husband, Phillippe (Henri Garcin) first and is friendly with him. Then he meets the wife – Mathilde (Fanny Ardant), and he turns cold. He was involved with Mathilde a few years before he met his wife, and the relationship was passionate, yet dysfunctional and ended badly. Still, the problems that arise later in the movie may well have been avoided had Bernard simply told Arlette the truth. Which he doesn’t. Things are made worse by the fact that Mathilde doesn’t tell Phillippe the truth either.

Bernard tries to stay away from Mathilde, who just wants to talk at first, but he cannot. They are drawn together, even though both had thought they had moved on and become happy since their relationship ended. They both know it’s wrong, but they cannot help it. An affair begins, that will eventually consume them – first driving him to do things he didn’t think possible, and then her to take things even a step further.

For the most part, when I think of Truffaut’s films, I think of his lightness of touch and the gentle comedy in which he brings to his movies, even when they are more serious in nature. That comedy is missing in The Woman Next Door, because it wouldn’t really be appropriate. There is nothing funny about this affair that consumes these two people, and will ruin many others lives. Yet, Truffaut’s skill and style is still there. His camera forever moving, watching from a distance as these two circle the drain together. The ending is heartbreaking, and yet completely appropriate.

Ultimately, I do not think that The Woman Next Door is quite a great movie. There is greatness in it – from Truffaut’s direction to the performances by Depardieu and Ardant, and his portrait of small town life. And yet, at times, the films drags a little bit. Hitchcock, I feel, would have known better and cut some of the movie down a little bit, to bring it to its violent conclusion faster. Yet, if the worst thing you can say about a film is that Hitchcock would have done it slightly better, I still consider that to be a high compliment.

The Best Movies I Have Never Seen Before: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Friday, March 8, 2013

The Best Movies I Have Never Seen Before: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
Directed by: Tay Garnett.
Written by: Harry Ruskin and Niven Busch based on the novel by James M. Cain.
Starring: Lana Turner (Cora Smith), John Garfield (Frank Chambers), Cecil Kellaway (Nick Smith), Hume Cronyn (Arthur Keats), LeonAmes (Kyle Sackett), Audrey Totter (Madge Gorland), Alan Reed (Ezra Liam Kennedy), Jeff York (Blair).

I often find older movies sexier than newer ones, despite the obvious disadvantage that in older movies, you really couldn’t show very much. As a case in point, I show you 1946’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, which is a movie dripping with lust and sexuality, despite the fact that there is no nudity in it. Now, I haven’t seen the 1981 remake with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange, which apparently was full of nudity, but I bet you I would agree with what I have heard about it – that despite the more graphic nature of the film, it still doesn’t compare with the sexuality on display in the original. Few movies have.

The film stars the great John Garfield as Frank Chambers, a drifter who happens upon a gas station/restaurant and gets offered a job by the older owner, Nick (Cecil Kellaway). Frank figures this is as good as place as any to stay for a little while before moving on. Than he sees Nick’s wife - Cora (Lana Turner) – and his life will never be the same. These two characters are attracted to each other at their basest levels almost from the moment they first lock eyes, and as they circle each other and flirt, you can feel that tension between them that becomes almost as unbearable for the audience as it does for the characters. When the husband is for a while, they give into their desires. Frank wants Cora to run away with him. But she wants security and money – she has put too much time into Nick to walk away with nothing. But if something were to happen to Nick, she could have everything she wants – money and Frank. But things that seem so easy when you’re planning them, have a way of going wrong when it comes time to actually do the deed – as Cora and Frank find out.

The Postman Always Rings Twice is a classic film noir that has all the necessary agreements. John Garfield is excellent as Frank, who may be a drifter, and a little bit of a lowlife, but who would never become a murderer if he had not met Cora. Turner makes an excellent femme fatale, drawing her everyman co-star down into the depths of depravity with her. Poor Cecil Kellaway is in fine form as the naïve, drunken husband who cannot see what is right in front of his face. And the great Hume Cronyn, who shows up late as a lawyer, has never been sleazier.

And yet, The Postman Always Rings Twice is a little bit different than many film noirs. I felt for the characters a little bit more this time around. Cora is a femme fatale for sure, and yet she is a human one. She is a woman who has been looked at as a sex object by every man she has met since she was 15. She latched onto a seemingly nice, stable guy and has discovered that even that won’t bring her peace. With Frank, for the first time, she feels love. And yet, she cannot go back to being poor. And Garfield, as the dupe, makes his character more love struck than most noir leading men. Even as the plot disintegrates around them, and they are brought into court and the lovers turn on each other, he cannot help but love Cora.

The film was directed with style by Tay Garnett, and based on the great James M. Cain’s novel. Cuts were made because the movie was considered too sexual for 1946, and yet the final cut is still dripping with lust. You feel that tension, that connection right until the final frames of the movie. The Postman Always Rings Twice is great noir.

The Best Movies I Have Never Seen Before: The Eel (1997)

Thursday, March 7, 2013

The Best Movies I Have Never Seen Before: The Eel (1997)

The Eel (1997)
Directed by: Shôhei Imamura.
Written by: Shôhei Imamura & Daisuke Tengan & Motofumi Tomikawa & Akira Yoshimura based on the novel by Yoshimura.
Starring: Kôji Yakusho (Takuro Yamashita), Misa Shimizu (Keiko Hattori), Mitsuko Baishô (Misako Nakajima), Akira Emoto (Tamotsu Takasaki),  Fujio Tokita (Jiro Nakajima), Shô Aikawa (Yuji Nozawa), Ken Kobayashi (Masaki Saito), Sabu Kawahara (Seitaro Misato), Etsuko Ichihara (Fumie Hattori), Tomorowo Taguchi (Eiji Dojima), Chiho Terada (Emiko Yamashita).

Shohei Imamura got his start as an assistant director to the great Yashijiro Ozu, and yet when he started to make his own films, they couldn’t possibly be more different than his former boss’. Ozu’s films are extremely controlled. His shots last minutes at a time and his camera never moves. His films are about families, who are never quite able to tell each other what they are thinking and feeling. And they are heartbreaking in their simplicity. Imamura’s films on the other hand are messy and bursting with life, death and violence. He isn’t interested in perfection like Ozu, but in something more primal. His 1997 film, The Eel, won the Palme D’Or at Cannes, and although I do not think it’s quite a great film, it is certainly an interesting one.

The film opens in 1988, with office drone Takuro Yamashita coming home to discover his wife having sex with another man. He pulls out a knife and brutally murders her, letting the lover escape, and then calmly bikes to the police station, in his blood splattered yellow rain slicker to turn himself in. Flash forward 8 years, and Yamashita is being released from prison. He seems to have been a model prisoner, so the guards even let him take the pet eel he kept all those years inside at the prison pond. Trained as a barber in prison, he opens up a small barbershop in a nearly deserted suburb of Tokyo. The local Buddhist Priest is his parole officer, and he tells no one about his past. Although business is slow, and everyone looks at Yamashita strangely for keeping a pet eel, he quickly becomes a part of this small town. Especially once Keiko (Misa Shimizu) starts working there. She is a friend of the Priest’s, who came to this small town to kill herself. Yamashita found her and alerted authorities and saved her life. Now, she wants to repay him. She looks a lot like his wife, and he remains closed off emotionally towards her – only allowing himself to open up and talk to the eel. Then a figure from his past, and another from hers, both show up and throw things into chaos.

I have heard The Eel compared to the films of John Ford, and I really cannot think of a better comparison. Imamura’s portrait of this small town has the same sort of feel as Ford films like The Quiet Man, about an American returning to the small Irish village of his ancestors. Although the subject matter of The Eel appears to be dark, Imamura actually finds quite a bit of comedy in his characters and their surroundings. He has not made a deadly serious film about a disturbed murderer who talks to an eel. He has made a more thoughtful film about a man who has shut himself off from the world, afraid of getting hurt, who trusts the eel not to betray him like so many others have. Through his relationships with the other people in the town – especially Kieko – he learns to come out of his shell a little bit. Even when they find out the truth, they do no react in horror as we may expect, but seek to understand him.

The film climaxes with an absurd, sustained fight sequence that in my mind may push the comedy a little too far to really fit in with the rest of the movie. Yes, Imamura has portrayed his characters in the movie as ridiculous from the start, but he also feels a tremendous amount of sympathy for them – something that is nearly impossible to accomplish in a movie. But Imamura does so here. Yes, the film is messy – at times perhaps even confusing – and Imamura could have made a tighter film that may have been better. But then, it wouldn’t be his film. The Eel may not be quite as good as some of Imamura’s other films (and I do need to see more, although I love 1979’s Vengeance is Mine), but it is a fine film.

Movie Review: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II

Monday, March 4, 2013

Movie Review: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II
Directed by: Bill Condon.
Written by: Melissa Rosenberg based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer.
Starring: Kristen Stewart (Bella Swan), Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen), Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black), Peter Facinelli (Dr. Carlisle Cullen), Elizabeth Reaser (Esme Cullen), Ashley Greene (Alice Cullen), Jackson Rathbone (Jasper Hale), Kellan Lutz (Emmett Cullen), Nikki Reed (Rosalie Hale), Billy Burke (Charlie Swan), Mackenzie Foy (Renesmee), Maggie Grace (Irina), Jamie Campbell Bower (Caius), Christopher Heyerdahl (Marcus), Michael Sheen (Aro), Dakota Fanning (Jane), Cameron Bright (Alec), MyAnna Buring (Tanya), Lee Pace (Garrett), Joe Anderson (Alistair).

I have often been accused of liking movies where nothing happens. You know the movies I mean – the long, slowly paced ones that have a lot of talk in them and not a lot of action. The films of Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy, Wendy & Lucy and Meek’s Cutoff) are a prime recent example. But I always say that in those films, a lot happens, you just have to pay attention. The characters are struggling with their own morality, or with feelings they are trying to repress. It is all very subtle, but it’s very much there.

It may seem odd to start my final review of a Twilight film with talk of long, slow movies where subtle things are bumbling beneath the surface, but I think it’s appropriate. Because after reading all four of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight books, and watching all five movies based on those books, I have come to the conclusion that The Twilight Saga really is a series of books and movies in which nothing happens. The characters stare longingly at each other, and have long, serious sounding conversations about love, vampires, werewolves, the Volturri, sex, family and everything else – but none of it really means anything. The dialogue is horrid, and the meaning behind it all ridiculous. Worse yet, it seems like Meyer was so in love with what she created, that she takes out all real conflict in her stories. You read the books, and it seems like we have four novels leading towards and ultimate showdown with the Volturri – one in which nothing really happens and EVERYONE gets to live happily ever after. No one pays any sort of price for anything that happens. At least director Bill Condon and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg know enough to know we WANT to see a big confrontation, which they give us, even if it turns out not to be real.

The first hour of Breaking Dawn Part II is the worst this series has ever been – in fact, it’s as bad anything I have seen in recent years. In it, Edward and Bella deal with their young daughter Renesmee (the single worst name in history), and with Bella as a young vampire – incredibly strong and hungry. Everyone sits around looking very serious, and saying ridiculous dialogue to each other – especially if it involves Jacob and “imprinting”. Bella’s father is told that she is alive, but different – and seems to have no real problem with that. Then, of course, the Volturri – the powerful Italian vampires who run everything – find out about Reneesme, and embark on a journey to confront the Cullens. The Cullens gather their own forces, and it appears we are about to witness and epic vampire battle royale – which we do see, but it turns out not to be real.

My problem with the Twilight Saga has always been the same, and always been relatively simple. Nothing ever seems to be at stake in movies. There is never any real danger – we know that everything will be ok in the end, and so the movies lack any real dramatic tension. Perhaps even worse is that everyone seems so miserable for the entire running time of every movie. Love is hard, and is not all joy to be sure, but shouldn’t Edward and Bella – who end this saga in the most sickeningly cloying scene in the entire series, in a field full of flowers telling each other “No one has ever loved anyone as much I love you” seem at some point to be happy? They have spent the entire five movies looking, sounding an acting completely and totally miserable. I don’t even think it is either actor’s fault – this is clearly how these characters are supposed to behave, but sweet Jesus, does it ever get tiring.

You could argue, I suppose, that I am criticizing Twilight for not being the movie I want it to be, rather than the movie that it is. Fair enough, I guess. It always bugs me when people do this – telling filmmakers what they should have done, instead of just critiquing what they did do. Yet, in this case, what they did do is create a dramatically inert series of movies – movies with nothing of interest happening, with dour, boring characters, and horrible special effects - seriously folks, can you honestly looking at all the scenes of vampires running at full tilt in this movie – none worse than Bella taking off after that climber, and not burst into laughter at just how shoddy the special effects are? These movies make $300 million a pop, couldn’t they spring for better effects for the finale?

Still, I suppose that perhaps all I should do is just throw up my hands and admit the books and movies are not for me. Obviously, millions of teenage girls LOVE this series – both the books and the movie – beyond all reason, and they tend to be an underserved demographic, as Hollywood chases after the dollars of teenage boys, and simply assume girls will also show up. So, good for them I guess. I just wish the series treated these teenage girls with more respect – more respect for their ability to handle complex, intelligent plots and characters. There is no reason you couldn’t make a cheesy love story about vampires. But there is no reason that when you do, it has to be as dour and self-serious as the Twilight series.

The Best Films I've Never Seen Before: Targets (1968)

Friday, March 1, 2013

The Best Films I've Never Seen Before: Targets (1968)

Targets (1968)
Directed by: Peter Bogdanovich.
Written by: Peter Bogdanovich.
Starring: Tim O'Kelly (Bobby Thompson), Boris Karloff (Byron Orlok), Arthur Peterson (Ed Loughlin), Monte Landis (Marshall Smith), NancyHsueh (Jenny), Peter Bogdanovich (Sammy Michaels), James Brown (Robert Thompson Sr.), Mary Jackson (Charlotte Thompson), Tanya Morgan (Ilene Thompson), Sandy Baron (Kip Larkin).

In his debut film Targets Peter Bogdanovich contrasted real life horror with the violence we see on movie screens. No matter how violent movies were then, or have become now, they always pale in comparison to what people actually do to each other. He came up with the idea for Targets when Roger Corman came to him and told him that he wanted the young writer to direct a movie. Boris Karloff, the famed horror legend, owed Corman two days of shooting and he wanted Bogdanovich to shoot 20 minutes in those two days, add in another 20 minutes from the 1962 film The Terror, also with Karloff, and then shoot another 40 minutes with other actors, thus making a full length film. After watching The Terror, Bogdanovich had no idea how to make a film using any of that footage – so he came up with an idea. Karloff would essentially play a version of himself, the footage from The Terror (which he did not use 20 minutes of), would be one of the characters movies (and a bad one at that), and then he would add in a story inspired by Charles Whitman – who after killing members of his family climbed the Bell Tower at Texas University and opened fire on the people below. The result was Targets, a surprisingly suspenseful film, which often gets mentioned on lists of the best directorial debuts of all time.

The movie opens in a screening room with Byron Orlok (Karloff) watching the conclusion of The Terror. He hates the movie and announces on the spot that he is retiring. This angers the head of the studio who has already put money into the next film by director Sammy Michaels (Bogdanovich himself) on the condition that Orlok was going to play the lead. But Orlok has had enough. He is tired of being viewed as a camp actor, his films no longer scaring audiences. He picks up the newspaper and points to a story about a massacre and says this is real horror, and he has had enough of the fake stuff. Grudgingly, he agrees to do a public appearance the next day at a drive-in, which will show the horror film. This will be his last public appearance, before he returns to England to enjoy his retirement.

It’s here where we meet Bobby Thompson (Tim O’Kelly). He is clean cut and handsome – an All American boy. We see him buying a rifle, and then putting it in the trunk of his Mustang – that already contains at least a dozen guns. We see him enjoy a nice family dinner with his parents and his wife, go target shooting with the old man, and then sitting down to watch TV with the family. These scenes are oddly disquieting, as they are seemingly innocent. But there is emptiness to Bobby – and really his entire family. They are playing the happy family, but they don’t feel like it. The next day, Bobby will murder his wife (as she comes over to kiss him) and his mother, and an innocent delivery boy. He leaves a note saying “I’ve killed my wife and my mother. I know they will catch me, but before they do, many more will die”. Then he heads out to prove the note correct – first shooting at cars on the freeway from his perch atop an industrial complex, and then heading to the same drive-in where Orlok will be that night.

There is a little bit of a disconnect between the two stories, but for the most part, they do work well together. The scenes with Karloff have a sad tone to them, even though on the surface, they are quite funny. Karloff knew by this point, very late in his career and his life that he was never really going to be taken seriously as an actor. His Orlok knows this two, and while he is resigned to the fact, there is a sadness about him as he goes through the motions for a last time. The scenes with Bobby are tense and amazingly well staged by Bogdanovich – especially when you consider that he was a first time director at the time. Bogdanovich doesn’t even try to answer the question of why Bobby does what he does – something that always frustrates some audiences, but for the most part works. When someone decides to try and kill as many people as they can, there is no real reason why. The climax at the drive in is tense and well staged, but the ultimate conclusion, although well directed and acted by Karloff, rings false.

When Bogdanovich was done Targets, he thought he had made a great movie, and didn’t want it to come and go as another quickie exploitation film by Corman, and convinced him to try and let Bogdanovich sell it to a major studio. Robert Evans saw it and loved it, but couldn’t get Paramount to buy it until Bogdanovich convinced two film critic friends of his to review it, then Paramount caved. Promptly after buying it, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were both assassinated, and all of a sudden a film about a sniper didn’t seem like such a good idea. They still released the film – barely – and although it got good reviews, audiences stayed away in droves (even though they added a Public Service Message to the beginning of the film about gun control). But Targets found its audience later on. It allowed Bogdanovich to make his next film, his masterpiece, The Last Picture Show (1971) and it gave Karloff his last great film role. While it is far from a perfect film, Targets is a film that gets it mostly right – and is still intense and intelligent all these years later.

Ranking the Best Picture Winners: 10-1

Ranking the Best Picture Winners: 10-1

10. Schindler’s List (1993)
What Should Have Won: They picked right for once!
What Was Snubbed: Altman got a nomination for director, but his film Short Cuts should have been nominated as well. And Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence deserved more attention as well.
Review: Spielberg’s Schindler’s List is that one of a kind that everyone seemed to agree should win the best picture Oscar. There is hardly a prize it didn’t win, and it’s not difficult to see why. Magnificently well made, well acted, well written, emotionally gut wrenching and important filmmaking doesn’t get any better than this. It truly was the only choice they could have made the year.

9. The Departed (2006)

What Should Have Won: The Departed was clearly the best of the lot, so they did themselves proud.
What Was Snubbed: Todd Field’s Little Children and Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men were masterworks that deserved more love. And while I know it’s pie in the sky thinking, I do love David Lynch’s Inland Empire.
Review: The Departed is an intricately plotted, violent crime movie set in Boston that moves at lightning quick pace. It is also a morally complex examination of wounded machismo, making it fit in effortlessly in the Scorsese oeuvre. Like they would do the following year, the Academy gave its top prize to a movie that normally they wouldn’t look at twice, and did themselves proud. One of the best choices they ever made.

8. Annie Hall (1977)

What Should Have Won: Star Wars would have been a more popular choice, but I’ll stick with the Academy on this one.
What Was Snubbed: Robert Altman’s Three Women was amazing, and Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind should have been nominated as well.
Review: The Academy so rarely goes for comedy, and when it does, it usually picks wrong. Not this time. Woody Allen’s Annie Hall is a film that seemed to define a generation of relationships. Allen has never been better as an actor, and in Diane Keaton he found the only woman who could have done Annie justice. The rare comedy that never gets old no matter how many times you watch it. You can say Star Wars deserved the award more, but I’ll stick with Annie.

7. On the Waterfront (1954)

What Should Have Won: They picked the right movie.
What Was Snubbed: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece Rear Window was released this year, and should have got a nomination.
Review: On the Waterfront contains one the best screen performances in history from Marlon Brando playing Terry Malloy, the former boxer turned dock worker who feels the need to stand up to the corruption that surrounds him. The film is that rare movie that stays with you, haunting your dreams for weeks after seeing it. The entire cast is great, and it is probably director Elia Kazan’s greatest achievement – whatever his motivation for making it was.

6. No Country for Old Men (2007)

What Should Have Won: There Will Be Blood was my favorite film of the year, although No Country was second, so I shouldn’t complain.
What Was Snubbed: Todd Haynes’ brilliant I’m Not There, David Fincher’s Zodiac and Andrew Domink’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford – if they had nominated these three along with Blood and No Country, it would have been the strongest nominee slate ever.
Review: The Coens are geniuses, and No Country for Old Men is one of their masterpieces. A dark crime drama, with moral undertones, No Country for Old Men is one of the darkest, most violent films to ever win the Oscar – and I couldn’t be happier. This is the type of film that normally, the Academy may give a nomination to, but they never hand it the win, but this year they did themselves proud by selecting this film. My guess is that this will go down as one of the Academy’s best choices.

5. Unforgiven (1992)

What Should Have Won: Unforgiven was clearly the best film this year.
What Was Snubbed: Spike Lee’s Malcolm X deserved a whole lot more respect than it got from the Academy.
Review: Perhaps my favorite Western of all time – I film can watch repeatedly and never grow tired of, and Clint Eastwood’s greatest accomplishment as both an actor and a director. This is the film that finally, and totally, demystified the Western, looked seriously at the consequences of violence. Quite simply, one of my favorite films ever.

4. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

What Should Have Won: All five choices are great, so any of them could have one, but I’ll stick with the Academy and say they made the right call. No, they should have given it to Jaws. No, they made the right call. Okay, I admit it, I find it impossible to choose.
What Was Snubbed: Surprisingly, no one. This is the only year in Oscar history where the five nominated films, were also my five favorite films of the year.
Review: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is one of my favorite films of all time. It is the film that gives us the definitive Jack Nicholson performance in the rebel, RP McMurphy, who shakes up a mental institution. Nurse Ratched remains one of the calmest, yet scariest, screen villains of all time, and the eccentric supporting cast is all wonderful. The film is at turns funny and tragic, and director Milos Forman somehow captures just the right tone. This is one of the best novel to screen adaptations of all time, and quite simply a great movie.

3. Casablanca (1943)

What Should Have Won: How could anyone argue with Casablanca?
What Was Snubbed: Shadow of a Doubt is one of Hitchcock’s greatest films, but the Academy ignored it.
Review: For once, the Academy picked the audience pleasing film over the more “important” films, and got it exactly right. Is there a more beloved film ever made than this one? A more imitated? Is there a better romance in cinema history? I don’t think so. Every element in this film works perfectly – the pitch perfect performances, the most quotable dialogue of any movie ever, the excellent visuals, everything. No matter how many times I see it, it just keeps getting better.

2. The Godfather (1972)

What Should Have Won: The Godfather. Duh!
What Was Snubbed: The Heartbreak Kid is a minor comedy classic.
Review: Francis Ford Coppola’s first gangster epic is one of the most popular films ever made, and it’s easy to see why. The performance by Marlon Brando is perhaps the most iconic in cinema history – and Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, James Caan, John Cazale et al do brilliant things as well in the movie. This is a brilliant, violent, family epic that is also one of the great gangster films ever made. How anyone could argue with this choice is beyond me.

1. The Godfather Part II (1974)

What Should Have Won: The Godfather Part II, not even close, and that’s saying something considering how good Chinatown is.
What Was Snubbed: Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage is a masterpiece – but it may not have been eligible. A Woman Under the Influence was however.
Review: Francis Ford Coppola’s second Godfather film is probably a greater achievement than the first. The scope is grander, the acting more powerful, and the tragic downfall of Michael Corleone packs an emotional wallop. It is a perfectly constructed film that does the exact opposite of the first film, and remains the only perfect sequel in cinema history. A truly towering achievement, and the best film to ever win the Best Picture Oscars.

Ranking the Best Picture Winners: 20-11

Ranking the Best Picture Winners: 20-11

So we come to the end of the week - and the final two posts ranking the Best Picture Oscar winners. All 20 of the films highlighted today are masterpieces. Even if something else - either nominated or not - was better (at least in my mind), I'm not going to complain about any of these winning. At some point in 2013, I hope to post a similar list for Best Actor winners - and I will especially if I can track down George Arliss' Oscar winning performance in Disraeli (1929), the only Actor winner I have not seen (aside from The Way of All Flesh, which Emil Jannings won for, alongside his performance in The Last Command in the first year of the Oscars - the only year you could win for more than one performance - and that will never happen since The Way of All Flesh is sadly one of the many lost silent films). Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this countdown, even if you completely disagree with my rankings.

 

20. Platoon (1986)

What Should Have Won: Platoon was the right choice out of the nominees.
What Was Snubbed: Blue Velvet was clearly the best, most talked about film of the year.
Review: Oliver Stone’s grunt’s eye view of the Vietnam War was somehow the Vietnam movie that should have been made first. Not as epic as The Deer Hunter, or as mesmerizing as Apocalypse Now, Platoon beats them both in terms of realism, and what it was actually like to be the ground. Stone plays this one much straighter then his later efforts, but that’s the right choice here. A truly great film.

19. The Deer Hunter (1978)

What Should Have Won: The Deer Hunter, which many have forgotten about, is still my favorite of the nominees.
What Was Snubbed: Terence Malick’s Days of Heaven is one of the most beautiful films ever made.
Review: The Deer Hunter was one of the first Hollywood films to directly address the war in Vietnam, and while its view of the war is probably mostly fantasy, the emotions the movie stirs are raw and real. Robert DeNiro is excellent in the lead role as a man who went through hell in Vietnam, and tries to rescue his friends who have been through even worse. It is an emotionally gripping film, that doesn’t feel nearly as long as it’s three hour running time, and a great choice for the Oscar that year.

18. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

What Should Have Won: For the first time in their history, the Academy got this one right.
What Was Snubbed: Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel was an early sound classic – in either language.
Review: Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front remains one of the best, most powerful war movies ever made. Daring, for an American film, it looked at the lives of German soldiers in the trenches of WWI, and discovered that war was pointless and wasteful. Despite the fact that it was been copied so many times since, the original still holds a raw power. And Lew Ayres was great in the lead role.

17. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

What Should Have Won: Out of the nominees, David Lean’s war movie was the best.
What Was Snubbed: Stanley Kubrick made an even better war movie that year in Paths of Glory and Sweet Smell of Success is also a masterwork. Better than both was Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd.
Review: The Bridge on the River Kwai is a thrilling spectacle of a movie, with multiple plotlines that weave together effortlessly until the thrilling climax. Alec Guiness is wonderful as the stuffed shirt British officer, but William Holden is just as good as the more free wheeling American. But the real star of the movie is director David Lean. No one has ever done epics as well as he did, and The Bridge on the River Kwai is one of the best.

16. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

What Should Have Won: Out of the nominees, they picked the best one.
What Was Snubbed: Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious is one of his very best, and John Ford’s My Darling Clementine is also a masterwork as well as Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep.
Review: This was a timely film at the time – about three returning veterans from WWII struggling to fit back in with the rest of society, and it still remains perhaps the best movie ever about returning from war. It is long for a drama – nearly three hours – but the time passes quickly, because the characters are so well developed, and so clearly presented that we become involved in their plight. It’s the rare message movie whose message never gets old.

15. All About Eve (1950)

What Should Have Won: It’s hard to argue when the Academy gives the Oscar to a genuine masterpiece, but Sunset Boulevard is even better.
What Was Snubbed: Perhaps even better than either of them though is The Third Man, which managed a director nomination, but nothing for picture.
Review: All About Eve is probably the best of all the backstage dramas. Bette Davis as the aging star, Anne Baxter as the young up and comer who stabs her in the back, George Sanders as the slimy agent, not to mention Thelma Ritter and Celeste Holm. Every line is a treasure. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s best film, and a wonderful film, so I cannot complain, even if it beat Sunset Blvd., the best movie about Hollywood ever made.

14. The Apartment (1960)

What Should Have Won: The Apartment was an uncommonly daring choice – not just a comedy, a black comedy!
What Was Snubbed: No nomination for Hitchcock’s Psycho or Powell’s Peeping Tom – two classics.
Review: By choosing the Apartment, the Academy was going against four straight years where they picked big, flashy color movies, by instead picking a low key black and white comedy. This is a very daring film for 1960, dealing with more current sexual morays then most films of the day. But it is also a surprisingly funny comedy, with a spoonful of sugar that made all the bitterness go down easily. Jack Lemmon and Shirley Maclaine are perfectly matched in one of Billy Wilder’s best films.

13. Amadeus (1984)

What Should Have Won: Amadeus was the best of the bunch, and the best of the year.
What Was Snubbed: Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, Wim Wender’s Paris, Texas and Robert Altman’s Secret Honor were never going to get in, no matter how good, but they should have had the guts to nominate Rob Reiner’s This is Spinal Tap.
Review: Perhaps the best winner of the 1980s, Amadeus is one of those movies that never fails to draw me into its web. F. Murray Abraham delivers one of the best performances of the decade as Saleri, a bitter composer who cannot stand the fact that Mozart (Tom Hulce, also wonderful), an immature drunk is so much better than he is. While it is probably more fiction than fact, it makes for a magnificent movie. One of the few costume dramas I truly, deeply love.

12. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

What Should Have Won: Oliver Stone’s JFK was the year’s best film easily, no matter how much I love The Silence of the Lambs.
What Was Snubbed: How they could not nominate John Singleton’s Boyz in the Hood is beyond me.
Review: Every year, we still get at least 10 imitators of this film, and none have ever come close to this one (okay, David Fincher’s Seven does). Hannibal Lector is still one of the best villains in cinema history, no matter how much they try to ruin him in sequels and prequels. And Clarice Starling is still the best female heroine in this type of movie. The direction is great, the acting great, the writing great. All in all a pretty much perfect movie.

11. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

What Should Have Won: Lawrence is fairly undeniable.
What Was Snubbed: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Manchurian Candidate, Ride the High Country, Lolita and a few others in a very strong year.
Review: David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia could be the best of all the big studio “epics”. What makes it so fascinating, is that it isn’t a love story or a war movie, there is little action, and a lot of talk, and it goes on for nearly four hours, and yet the movie never drags. It is an entrancing film from beginning to end, all hinging on Peter O’Toole’s remarkable performance. No one would even dream of making a film like this today, and that’s why it remains so vital and alive, and pretty much unequalled.