I don't think I've seen any of these, not sure if I saw Branagh while in school or if it was one of his other 23 Shakespeare movies. Either way, I'm excited to finally watch a couple of these just to tick em of my list. Even more excited to see DDL, who everyone raves about and I know is probably the greatest living actor right now.
1989 Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis - My Left Foot
Surprisingly, this was one of the few DDL performances I hadn't seen so I was pumped to finally watch this especially from all the glowing reviews I've read about it. Those reviews are spot on, too. This is an amazing performance and really shows the dedication of DDL to create a character with such meticulous devotion. The best thing about this one is that DDL doesn't just nail the physical acting, which is incredible, but he creates a person beneath all the disability. Compare it to recent winner Eddie Redmayne and his boring portrayal of Stephen Hawking. That was purely physical because Redmayne didn't do much with the actual person underneath the disability, we just got a class in good physical acting. But DDL gives life to Christy Brown, a man who has cerebral palsy and is unable to use anything except his left foot. His mind is fully functioning and aware and DDL shows this off wonderfully, as if his character is just a prisoner wanting to break free. We feel his emotional state even through the limits of his physicality and the emotional state covers a great range, too. It's not just an angry performance. It's not manipulative to make you feel sorrow, we take everything Christy experiences and understand that he's a person just like s with all the ups and downs that come with life. We can see when Christy is extremely happy or angry or depressed or scared because the emotion comes through the physical acting of DDL and he makes this all seem very natural instead of forced. DDL also does this incredible thing with Christy's voice that I enjoyed immensely. He develops the character's voice as the film goes along going from being mute to practicing Shakespeare in his room to try and help give his voice clarity even though the end product is still rough and hard to understand. And one of the best things about the performance is that Christy is not this perfect, happy-go-lucky, disabled guy. He tries to woo his therapist/teacher and gets really frustrated and mad. He is cantankerous in the current day scenes when talking to the nurse, making him kind of an asshole when he flirts with her. It's a real lived in performance of a fully realized character and it's these little dedications that make this an unbelievable performance from DDL. There's a reason this man has 3 Best Actor Oscars and you see exactly why with this performance.
Kenneth Branagh - Henry V
How much does Branagh wish he was Laurence Olivier? He basically followed in Olivier's footsteps from what I read on another blog. The first film they both directed was Henry V and then did a few more Shakespeare adaptations and Branagh even played Olivier in My Week with Marilyn, earning a Supporting Actor nomination. I thought that was interesting. I like Branagh as an actor, especially his Shakespearean stuff. He brings a modern quality to the performances and doesn't make it feel so stuffy and upperclass. You can tell he's loving every second of playing Henry and it translates to the performance. He nails the monologues of Henry and I really like the prayer to God one before the big battle, that's where Branagh turned it on and made the role his own I thought. It's like taking it from reciting Shakespeare to channeling the spirit of Shakespeare and his characters. And really when you think of Branagh, don't you think of Shakeaspeare? I know I do, especially having watched a bunch of his films in high school. But we think of him in relation because he fits the type so well. His big moment in the film is the St Crispin's Day speech and Branagh is really charismatic and entertaining during it. I would much rather watch Henry V over some of the other choices for Best Picture and that's due in large part to Branagh's acting (and his directing). This film is widely considered one of the best film adaptations of Shakespeare and Branagh plays a big hand in that. Shakespeare material is unique in that you can judge those that perform it against others that have come before and not really caveat it that it's different in some way, it's the same words being spoken and expressed typically. Branagh does a great job with the material even if I think his "once more unto the breech" speech falls a bit flat. That part felt more theatrical and like obvious acting and didn't hit the right emotional buttons to work.
Tom Cruise - Born on the Fourth of July
The one thing you can say about Cruise in almost all of his performances is that he's super dedicated to them. You just know the dude loves acting and keeps it at 100 always. That can be both a good and bad thing where it looks like he's trying too hard in a bad film or like here where it fits what is needed for the film. This nomination also feels like the Academy recognizing Cruise's ability to do some dramatic work and not just be a movie star. The performance is pretty good but he certainly doesn't come close to the level of Daniel Day-Lewis, which isn't much of a knock just that Cruise is good and not great. I feel Cruise is believable enough and really has to show a lot of range in the performance. In the beginning, he plays the young Ron Kovic who is idealistic and has very noble morals and believes in his country and fighting for freedom. He's very rah-rah and determined but not much needs to be done with the character. This establishes him as a good American boy so that his change later has more impact. Then Cruise goes off to war and experiences some real fucked up situations and gets paralyzed in a battle. This was where I started to like the performance more because up until then there was nothing to set Cruise apart from any other actor, it was just generic young man stuff. But you see the change when Kovic is injured and Cruise portrays Kovic as very upbeat despite being paralyzed and in a run down VA center. He stays active and believes fully that he will walk again through determination but he slowly is broken down by the system and all the negativity and lack of support on all fronts: emotional, physical, mental, even spiritual. There's a lot of inner turmoil and conflict in the performance as Cruise sees a country that hates him for being a war "hero" which brings him closer to his fellow veterans. Maybe it just hits home for me as a veteran but I liked what the character ended up doing no matter how heavy handed Stone's film was. I read that Cruise was actually the favorite going in and I can understand why. But ultimately I feel like even though Cruise is trying his hardest to give a meaningful, layered performance, he bit off a little more than he could chew at the time.
Morgan Freeman - Driving Miss Daisy
While it's great that a black man was again nominated in the Best Actor category, I really hate that it was for this kind of role. Freeman plays a black driver, who is more of a yessum type man, doing whatever the white folk want to have a job and survive. I hate to make it about race but when this is the type of role that's nominated, you have to look at it realistically. Freeman does a great job in creating his character, there is no doubt in that. It's just that his character is a second class citizen in the film no matter the relationship between him and Tandy. Freeman is doing what is necessary for the character because the character is the type that is super chipper and positive and cuts off any negative response by being talkative and apologetic. He's a likable character to the audience and to the white folk of the time. Tandy warms up to him as her driver and helps teach him to read even though that whole issue is glossed over when it would have made for a great extended plot line. The two have good chemistry but that seems more due to Freeman's character being so affable than Tandy's character being loving. The two bicker in the beginning and it's actual interesting to watch because Freeman is able to either stand his ground or deflect any negativity from Tandy due to his nature. The two eventually become very friendly and it's a believable, almost natural friendship. I like that Dan Akroyd's character treats Freeman as an equal and relies on him and confides in him like he's not just hired help. Freeman gives a well liked and wonderful performance that is decent, but not amazing. This just isn't something I can vote for due to what the character is and because there's a performance this year that blows this out of the water. Freeman is also nominated partly because he was good in another film, Glory, and I think the Academy took into consideration both performances.
Robin Williams - Dead Poets Society
This was Williams' second nomination and you can see the Academy was (and would continue to be) in love when he eschewed his wild comedy and toned it down and went serious. Of course, he still uses comedy in these roles and it's a nice mix of Williams' acting ability. He plays a teacher at a prestigious Northeast prep school and we soon learn that he approaches teaching in a markedly different way in order to connect with his students. He takes them outside, has the students rip out parts of their textbook, and goes against traditional lesson plans in favor of life lessons and teaching the kids to think outside of the box. Williams is fine as the teacher and fits the role of eccentric professor incredibly well. I think the performance mostly shows off that Williams can do serious acting and not rely on his jokes to save him. But in saying that, that's really all the performance has going for it. You like it and enjoy it but it's standard inspirational teacher stuff that you've seen over and over, just a different flavor. And if you really want to get technical, Williams isn't really the main focus - the kids are, so is he really Leading? You could argue no and probably wouldn't be wrong. This is a pretty good entry in Williams' filmography but not sure he needed to be nominated for this. Would have liked to actually get to know Williams' character more but he remains a little enigmatic. In this category, Williams was never a serious contender.
A mixed bag this year. Williams and Freeman don't really inspire anything in me, they are just kind of okay, decent performances in feel good Hollywood movies that are mostly forgettable. Do you think of those actors and think of these performances? Nah, you just remember they were nominated for them and move on. Cruise tries really hard to deliver a memorable performance but falls short (height joke not intended). I think it's a combination of the film and his ability that prevents him from being really amazing and challenging for a win. This was like a good job being dramatic type of reward from the Academy and finally recognizing Cruise the movie star. Branagh is a nice second. Maybe in another (weaker) year he could be a winner but not this year. I like his performance a lot and am satisfied with the nomination. DDL is the clear cut winner, which I think I've said a few times on this blog before. He's just so damn good and one of the greatest living actors and this was his introduction to the Oscars. He's incredible as Christy Brown and really deserved his first Oscar. This is a decent year.
Oscar Winner: Daniel Day-Lewis - My Left Foot
My Winner: Daniel Day-Lewis - My Left Foot
Kenneth Branagh
Tom Cruise
Morgan Freeman
Robin Williams
Showing posts with label 1989. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1989. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Best Picture 1989
Not much to say other than I'm so glad to be in the 80s finally. It's a huge deal to me because I feel like I'm actually starting to make a dent in this project and it feels good. I've only seen Field of Dreams and I'm glad to finally watch some of these that are always brought up in Oscar discussions so I can have an informed opinion.
1989 Best Picture
Driving Miss Daisy
I was eager to finally watch this film as I had never seen it before. I certainly knew a ton about it and especially knew that it was a controversial choice in hindsight. And I totally agree with it being a controversial choice. This is a bad Best Picture choice. It's pathetic really. I like my Best Picture winners to be either great films, which this one is not, or to have a really strong message/story that makes you understand why it was chosen. Driving Miss Daisy is forgettable pap. If it had never won Best Picture, would we ever talk about it again? I don't think we would except to talk about it in regards to glossing over the racial issue. Though it pretends to be a film that treats the racial issue with enough respect, it's a bad look all around. Tandy gets a black man hired to be her driver and the two have issues at first until she warms up to him and becomes a little more racially aware, though he's still her driver. It's too pithy about race and Freeman as the aw shuck, yessum black man is a bad look. Sure, it's probably a survival tool for him in that era but that's not something the Academy should be rewarding time and again. White old lady eventually comes around to the idea that blacks are people too after talking with one extensively and then ending up in a retirement home. If this was just a nominee I might not be talking about it so harshly but I don't like it's message and the fact that it actually won BP! I'm sorry but I'm someone that feels race should not be dealt with so cavalierly, it's something we are still dealing with in 2016 and to act like this little episode fixed anything because a white old lady made a black friend is absurd. Though this is a feel good, pleasant enough film I need something more from this. It's a short hour and a half and that's not enough to have a say on its subject matter. It's too brief and knowing the other choices in the category are far better hurts to see this as the winner. I dunno, it's just a bad choice all around by the Academy. I've been really negative but it at least has a memorable score by none other than Hans Zimmer of all people and looks pretty good, all things considered. Just don't understand all the love it received. Does anyone ever get bored and decide to rewatch this film? I didn't think so.
Born on the Fourth of July
If you didn't know, this is a war film by Oliver Stone. The second in his Vietnam trilogy, actually. If you can name or have heard of the third one, well kudos to you film buff because not even I knew what it was (Heaven and Earth). I think with war films I have a greater understanding of how effective they are having served in two wars myself. I feel like I'm able to gauge the realism of the subject even if it's about the Vietnam War simply because I've been around it. I can and have called out the realism for some Iraq/Afghanistan war films because I lived it. When it comes to Vietnam, it's how realistic is the actual combat or military interactions and whatnot. This film gets a lot of things right, which is to be expected with Oliver Stone helming it. I really think this is a strong film, though nowhere near as close to Platoon. This film seems too Hollywood and on the nose about things but still hits hard especially when it comes to the soldiers themselves. Tom Cruise is pretty fantastic as the main character, having to show a lot of emotional range even if it's not super nuanced. We follow this idealistic kid who had a romantic notion about war from his upbringing and America's whitewashing of anything bad to do with WWII. This noble ideal of war is far from the truth and Cruise's character learns that the hard way. He's an all-American kid who excels at wrestling and has a good home life. He volunteers to fight the good fight and goes over there and realizes that killing women and children isn't very ideal. He kills a member of his unit on accident and has to live with the guilt before also getting paralyzed from a bullet. Cruise remains upbeat and positive even when in the dilapidated VA Health system that probably is exaggerated for effect because I can't imagine those guys being in such squalor. He has setbacks that prevent him from walking and then returns home a crippled 'hero.' He's still idealistic about winning the war and being pro-America but then realizes that people look at him differently and don't support him and even outright hate him. This is proved over and over again that America doesn't care about him and that the government sucks because he was this expendable tool for a bullshit purpose. I think the film is strong in its message that we need to take care of our veterans and not just discard them as lesser beings. There is great synergy between when Cruise was a squad leader and there was mass confusion that lead to a village getting shot up and he couldn't command his guys to when, at the end, he has the attention of the protesters and is barking out orders on how to get exposure at the Convention. It shows just how much Cruise has to grow his character and how much the attitudes of the audience have to change. The progression of an individual from wide-eyed idealist to jaded protester is quite something to watch. I wasn't sure if this film was just going to be a rehash of Platoon for Stone or if it would be a lame ass Hollywood vehicle for Cruise or what exactly, but it turned out to be a compelling look at how a man can become disillusioned with his country while still loving it. This might hit a little more for me given my military ties but I don't see it's nominations as a fluke and think it's mostly well deserved. It is for sure a bit heavy handed but I guess it depends on what side of the film you fall down on if you can tolerate it.
Dead Poets Society
You have probably seen this film before and if you haven't, you actually have. By that I mean, you've probably seen parodies or allusions to it in other films or, more to my point, have seen other inspirational teacher films, which is what this is. Robin Williams is an eccentric teacher with non traditional ways of teaching in order to connect with the kids and mold them into being individuals and thinking outside the box. It's really pretty standard stuff. You know all the beats of the film already before you even see it. The administration and older teachers get upset that Williams isn't teaching the curriculum and is doing his own thing. The kids are wary at first but then warm up to it and inevitably defend him in the end. The kids have their own issues that get solved because of the inspiration from Williams. Only real wrinkle is there is a death among the kids which sort of hastens the administration getting rid of Williams. The film is entertaining and full of iconic moments like the kids standing on their desk at the end and the whole 'yawp' thing. The kids are the real stars of the film and honestly the main draw. You'll recognize a bunch of them like a young Ethan Hawke and a really good Robert Sean Leonard (who you know from House). I found myself more interested in their day to day dealings rather than the whole inspirational teacher thing. The idea of the Dead Poets Society club is pretty interesting and wish the film would have focused on that and expanded on it. I would say that this is taking the feel good movie spot for the category but then you've got Driving Miss Daisy, Field of Dreams, and hell, even My Left Foot (though not really). So I don't really think this film belongs on this list, no matter how entertaining you find it to be. This spot could have gone to the terrific Do the Right Thing. Carpe diem, though.
Field of Dreams
I bet you get the quote wrong. It's "If you build it, HE will come," not They. I swear there was some commercial that said they will come which is always what I remembered it as. One minor issue is that Shoeless Joe Jackson throws right and bats left, yet Ray Liotta did the opposite of that. Historical accuracy be damned, right? I guess that doesn't really matter in the long run. This film really does feel like an odd choice for Best Picture, though. I get that it's pretty entertaining and tugs at the heartstrings and makes you feel all warm and fuzzy about baseball and remembering the past but really? The film is way too convenient in moving the plot along. It's one coincidence after another and I understand suspension of disbelief for a film like this but it never even tries to explain itself. Like when Costner's character figures out he needs to go visit the writer, Terence Mann, he says I don't know why, it just feels like that's who I should go see. It's very random. Costner's wife is pretty annoying in the film but most of the other characters are pretty good. James Earl Jones, Timothy Busfield, Ray Liotta, and especially Burt Lancaster (which I'm surprised they didn't nominate him in Supporting since that would have been such an Academy thing to do) are good in their roles and at least keep the film worth watching. I also feel like if you don't really enjoy baseball this film is going to fall really flat, so it seems like it's very niche instead of having broad appeal. I like Field of Dreams, don't get me wrong, but it's a weird little film that always surprises me when I remember it was nominated for Best Picture. I think this film just hits a lot of the old Academy members' sweet spots with the older actors, baseball, family togetherness, and it's even got a very liberal slant. This is just one of those feel good films that always seems to sneak in over more deserving and critically acclaimed films like Do the Right Thing, which I'll say for like the tenth time already.
My Left Foot
This should be the measuring stick of disabled person films. I say that because the film doesn't treat DDL's Christy Brown as this untouchable, miracle, perfect guy. It doesn't manipulate the audience into feeling a certain way for the character or his predicament. It presents it all as is and let's us see that Christy is not a perfect person. He's just like any of us with all the flaws and issues that go along with being human. I hate to compare it to The Theory of Everything since they are very different films in subject but I use it as an example of one film manipulating the audience in how to feel with a treacly performance of the leading character that doesn't quite get to the heart of the man. It's like opposite sides of the same coin and I much prefer the My Left Foot side. I was a bit worried when this film was about 50 minutes in and we hadn't really seen much of Christy's adult life, knowing that he was an accomplished painter and writer. The beginning breezed along and was still interesting seeing how Christy was brought up and discovered to be pretty smart, just physically disabled. Also, the kid that plays the younger Christy is almost as good as DDL is and really helps bridge the transition from younger to older perfectly. Without a great performance from him, DDL's part may not have been as good in a small way. Speaking of DDL, his performance is brilliant and along with Brenda Fricker, make this film an absolute must watch. The film itself is a bit short, only about an hour and 43 minutes and at the end I was wanting a bit more about Christy. This could have easily been 2 hours long and not lost anything. I wanted to know a lot more about Christy's adult life but I understood what the director was aiming for. This film is a pleasant little watch that peers into the life of an interesting individual without telling us how to feel about him and let's us make our own decisions about the man. Not sure where it will land in this group quite yet, but it is a strong film nonetheless.
I'm honestly a little underwhelmed with this year. Actually, I'm a lotta underwhelmed. I don't like the winner really at all. I was very open to it going in especially since I've heard a lot of people enjoy it or love it but think it a weak winner. I don't know what the hell there is to love about it. It seems like such a backward movie for 1989, given Do the Right Thing came out this year, also. And yes, that film should be on this list and wouldn't be a bad winner. It's a bad look for the Academy. Then you have two sorta feel good films, or at least crowd pleasers, that don't really seem like they belong in Dead Poets Society and Field of Dreams. Maybe one of them, but not both, since you've also got Driving Miss Daisy filling that quota. Neither are amazing and wouldn't make good winners, they just have the fact that a lot of people love them going for it. Born on the Fourth of July is a more heavy handed film, but I enjoyed it for what it is. Not sure it really needed to win Best Picture, though. That leaves My Left Foot as my winner. It has an incredible performance (really two) and the film itself left me wanting more of Christy. A little more and it would have been a slamdunk winner, but it's still really good.
Oscar Winner: Driving Miss Daisy
My Winner: My Left Foot
Born on the Fourth of July
Field of Dreams
Dead Poets Society
Driving Miss Daisy
1989 Best Picture
Driving Miss Daisy
I was eager to finally watch this film as I had never seen it before. I certainly knew a ton about it and especially knew that it was a controversial choice in hindsight. And I totally agree with it being a controversial choice. This is a bad Best Picture choice. It's pathetic really. I like my Best Picture winners to be either great films, which this one is not, or to have a really strong message/story that makes you understand why it was chosen. Driving Miss Daisy is forgettable pap. If it had never won Best Picture, would we ever talk about it again? I don't think we would except to talk about it in regards to glossing over the racial issue. Though it pretends to be a film that treats the racial issue with enough respect, it's a bad look all around. Tandy gets a black man hired to be her driver and the two have issues at first until she warms up to him and becomes a little more racially aware, though he's still her driver. It's too pithy about race and Freeman as the aw shuck, yessum black man is a bad look. Sure, it's probably a survival tool for him in that era but that's not something the Academy should be rewarding time and again. White old lady eventually comes around to the idea that blacks are people too after talking with one extensively and then ending up in a retirement home. If this was just a nominee I might not be talking about it so harshly but I don't like it's message and the fact that it actually won BP! I'm sorry but I'm someone that feels race should not be dealt with so cavalierly, it's something we are still dealing with in 2016 and to act like this little episode fixed anything because a white old lady made a black friend is absurd. Though this is a feel good, pleasant enough film I need something more from this. It's a short hour and a half and that's not enough to have a say on its subject matter. It's too brief and knowing the other choices in the category are far better hurts to see this as the winner. I dunno, it's just a bad choice all around by the Academy. I've been really negative but it at least has a memorable score by none other than Hans Zimmer of all people and looks pretty good, all things considered. Just don't understand all the love it received. Does anyone ever get bored and decide to rewatch this film? I didn't think so.
Born on the Fourth of July
If you didn't know, this is a war film by Oliver Stone. The second in his Vietnam trilogy, actually. If you can name or have heard of the third one, well kudos to you film buff because not even I knew what it was (Heaven and Earth). I think with war films I have a greater understanding of how effective they are having served in two wars myself. I feel like I'm able to gauge the realism of the subject even if it's about the Vietnam War simply because I've been around it. I can and have called out the realism for some Iraq/Afghanistan war films because I lived it. When it comes to Vietnam, it's how realistic is the actual combat or military interactions and whatnot. This film gets a lot of things right, which is to be expected with Oliver Stone helming it. I really think this is a strong film, though nowhere near as close to Platoon. This film seems too Hollywood and on the nose about things but still hits hard especially when it comes to the soldiers themselves. Tom Cruise is pretty fantastic as the main character, having to show a lot of emotional range even if it's not super nuanced. We follow this idealistic kid who had a romantic notion about war from his upbringing and America's whitewashing of anything bad to do with WWII. This noble ideal of war is far from the truth and Cruise's character learns that the hard way. He's an all-American kid who excels at wrestling and has a good home life. He volunteers to fight the good fight and goes over there and realizes that killing women and children isn't very ideal. He kills a member of his unit on accident and has to live with the guilt before also getting paralyzed from a bullet. Cruise remains upbeat and positive even when in the dilapidated VA Health system that probably is exaggerated for effect because I can't imagine those guys being in such squalor. He has setbacks that prevent him from walking and then returns home a crippled 'hero.' He's still idealistic about winning the war and being pro-America but then realizes that people look at him differently and don't support him and even outright hate him. This is proved over and over again that America doesn't care about him and that the government sucks because he was this expendable tool for a bullshit purpose. I think the film is strong in its message that we need to take care of our veterans and not just discard them as lesser beings. There is great synergy between when Cruise was a squad leader and there was mass confusion that lead to a village getting shot up and he couldn't command his guys to when, at the end, he has the attention of the protesters and is barking out orders on how to get exposure at the Convention. It shows just how much Cruise has to grow his character and how much the attitudes of the audience have to change. The progression of an individual from wide-eyed idealist to jaded protester is quite something to watch. I wasn't sure if this film was just going to be a rehash of Platoon for Stone or if it would be a lame ass Hollywood vehicle for Cruise or what exactly, but it turned out to be a compelling look at how a man can become disillusioned with his country while still loving it. This might hit a little more for me given my military ties but I don't see it's nominations as a fluke and think it's mostly well deserved. It is for sure a bit heavy handed but I guess it depends on what side of the film you fall down on if you can tolerate it.
Dead Poets Society
You have probably seen this film before and if you haven't, you actually have. By that I mean, you've probably seen parodies or allusions to it in other films or, more to my point, have seen other inspirational teacher films, which is what this is. Robin Williams is an eccentric teacher with non traditional ways of teaching in order to connect with the kids and mold them into being individuals and thinking outside the box. It's really pretty standard stuff. You know all the beats of the film already before you even see it. The administration and older teachers get upset that Williams isn't teaching the curriculum and is doing his own thing. The kids are wary at first but then warm up to it and inevitably defend him in the end. The kids have their own issues that get solved because of the inspiration from Williams. Only real wrinkle is there is a death among the kids which sort of hastens the administration getting rid of Williams. The film is entertaining and full of iconic moments like the kids standing on their desk at the end and the whole 'yawp' thing. The kids are the real stars of the film and honestly the main draw. You'll recognize a bunch of them like a young Ethan Hawke and a really good Robert Sean Leonard (who you know from House). I found myself more interested in their day to day dealings rather than the whole inspirational teacher thing. The idea of the Dead Poets Society club is pretty interesting and wish the film would have focused on that and expanded on it. I would say that this is taking the feel good movie spot for the category but then you've got Driving Miss Daisy, Field of Dreams, and hell, even My Left Foot (though not really). So I don't really think this film belongs on this list, no matter how entertaining you find it to be. This spot could have gone to the terrific Do the Right Thing. Carpe diem, though.
Field of Dreams
I bet you get the quote wrong. It's "If you build it, HE will come," not They. I swear there was some commercial that said they will come which is always what I remembered it as. One minor issue is that Shoeless Joe Jackson throws right and bats left, yet Ray Liotta did the opposite of that. Historical accuracy be damned, right? I guess that doesn't really matter in the long run. This film really does feel like an odd choice for Best Picture, though. I get that it's pretty entertaining and tugs at the heartstrings and makes you feel all warm and fuzzy about baseball and remembering the past but really? The film is way too convenient in moving the plot along. It's one coincidence after another and I understand suspension of disbelief for a film like this but it never even tries to explain itself. Like when Costner's character figures out he needs to go visit the writer, Terence Mann, he says I don't know why, it just feels like that's who I should go see. It's very random. Costner's wife is pretty annoying in the film but most of the other characters are pretty good. James Earl Jones, Timothy Busfield, Ray Liotta, and especially Burt Lancaster (which I'm surprised they didn't nominate him in Supporting since that would have been such an Academy thing to do) are good in their roles and at least keep the film worth watching. I also feel like if you don't really enjoy baseball this film is going to fall really flat, so it seems like it's very niche instead of having broad appeal. I like Field of Dreams, don't get me wrong, but it's a weird little film that always surprises me when I remember it was nominated for Best Picture. I think this film just hits a lot of the old Academy members' sweet spots with the older actors, baseball, family togetherness, and it's even got a very liberal slant. This is just one of those feel good films that always seems to sneak in over more deserving and critically acclaimed films like Do the Right Thing, which I'll say for like the tenth time already.
My Left Foot
This should be the measuring stick of disabled person films. I say that because the film doesn't treat DDL's Christy Brown as this untouchable, miracle, perfect guy. It doesn't manipulate the audience into feeling a certain way for the character or his predicament. It presents it all as is and let's us see that Christy is not a perfect person. He's just like any of us with all the flaws and issues that go along with being human. I hate to compare it to The Theory of Everything since they are very different films in subject but I use it as an example of one film manipulating the audience in how to feel with a treacly performance of the leading character that doesn't quite get to the heart of the man. It's like opposite sides of the same coin and I much prefer the My Left Foot side. I was a bit worried when this film was about 50 minutes in and we hadn't really seen much of Christy's adult life, knowing that he was an accomplished painter and writer. The beginning breezed along and was still interesting seeing how Christy was brought up and discovered to be pretty smart, just physically disabled. Also, the kid that plays the younger Christy is almost as good as DDL is and really helps bridge the transition from younger to older perfectly. Without a great performance from him, DDL's part may not have been as good in a small way. Speaking of DDL, his performance is brilliant and along with Brenda Fricker, make this film an absolute must watch. The film itself is a bit short, only about an hour and 43 minutes and at the end I was wanting a bit more about Christy. This could have easily been 2 hours long and not lost anything. I wanted to know a lot more about Christy's adult life but I understood what the director was aiming for. This film is a pleasant little watch that peers into the life of an interesting individual without telling us how to feel about him and let's us make our own decisions about the man. Not sure where it will land in this group quite yet, but it is a strong film nonetheless.
I'm honestly a little underwhelmed with this year. Actually, I'm a lotta underwhelmed. I don't like the winner really at all. I was very open to it going in especially since I've heard a lot of people enjoy it or love it but think it a weak winner. I don't know what the hell there is to love about it. It seems like such a backward movie for 1989, given Do the Right Thing came out this year, also. And yes, that film should be on this list and wouldn't be a bad winner. It's a bad look for the Academy. Then you have two sorta feel good films, or at least crowd pleasers, that don't really seem like they belong in Dead Poets Society and Field of Dreams. Maybe one of them, but not both, since you've also got Driving Miss Daisy filling that quota. Neither are amazing and wouldn't make good winners, they just have the fact that a lot of people love them going for it. Born on the Fourth of July is a more heavy handed film, but I enjoyed it for what it is. Not sure it really needed to win Best Picture, though. That leaves My Left Foot as my winner. It has an incredible performance (really two) and the film itself left me wanting more of Christy. A little more and it would have been a slamdunk winner, but it's still really good.
Oscar Winner: Driving Miss Daisy
My Winner: My Left Foot
Born on the Fourth of July
Field of Dreams
Dead Poets Society
Driving Miss Daisy
Friday, November 25, 2016
Leading Actress 1989
It sucks when life gets in the way of things. With my work, I often times only have one choice of what I can do when I get home. Unfortunately, that sometimes means watching a boring 2 hour film or a movie I've seen like 5 times before. Prioritizing and balancing this blog out can be tough sometimes. Move forward with the project or get further behind on watching the latest Netflix show everyone is talking about or even not going out after work. Thankfully I really enjoy watching these films, even some of the bad ones, so it's not too much of a drain. Plus, I've had some long layoffs before and I don't really want this blog and project to take 20 years. Anyway, I'm wary of the Best Actress category. I'm waiting for a year to blow me away and to consistently find some really great and wonderful performances. Hopefully this is the year but I won't hold my breath.
1989 Best Actress
Jessica Tandy - Driving Miss Daisy
This is very clearly a veteran nomination that charmed the voters enough to get a win. You hold this up to other Best Actress winners and it is not one of the strongest choices by any means. I think you have to look at this field as a whole to really understand why Tandy was able to win. You've got a French film/actress nominated that wasn't going to do much, an unknown British actress, an up and comer with Pfeiffer, and the only real threat in Jessica Lange for a film I know nothing about. That's without having seen any of the other nominees but I imagine holds true for the average voter even back in 1989. They enjoyed this little film about an old lady who is, let's be frank, a fucking racist who gets a negro, oops, I mean black driver in Morgan Freeman and she warms up to him over time all the while still bossing him around. She helps him to read even though that really interesting side piece is glossed over and not much is done with it. If the film were to focus on her being a former teacher and teaching him to read instead of just barely mentioning it, this might have been a better choice. Instead, she's a stubborn, old lady who is wary of her black driver and accuses him of stealing and wants him to slow down while driving and not joke around with the other black help. But of course, Tandy has a change of heart after her negr...er, driver is questioned by some cops in Alabama. She even asks Freeman to a dinner where MLK is speaking because she has become this good Southern woman that the audience can now feel good about supporting. I don't buy the performance. It's boring to me and very predictable. I don't care that she starts to see race as a social thing to support instead of as just being part of the help. It's pandering to the audience and honestly doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Tandy is an awful person who suddenly changes and it doesn't feel authentic or warranted. Sure the two have decent chemistry but I credit that to Freeman's performance more than Tandy's. I don't look at this as a good win or an oh, that's cute type of win. This is a bad look for the Academy who were for whatever reason eager to reward Tandy for such a bad role and a mediocre performance. No thanks.
Isabelle Adjani - Camille Claudel
Isabelle Adjani is really beautiful. That information doesn't have any bearing on the performance but thought I'd throw that out there. I really liked Adjani for the first half of the film. I was surprised that she was giving such a good performance as the title character who was a sculptress and mentored by Auguste Rodin (a good performance from Gerard Depardieu who I had issues with in 1990) before later becoming lovers. I liked the first half because Adjani's character is so determined and such a no-nonsense hard worker. It was refreshing to see her not get bogged down with stale romantic plots and instead be a focused woman engrossed in her work. Adjani gives the appropriate seriousness to the character where you can believe sculpting is her life and passion and that she was a bit of a rebel and ahead of her time for doing so. It was really strong stuff and highly interesting watching her not take shit from the men she worked with. Then the film can't help itself and we get the romantic part of the film which actually isn't too bad. The two respect each other's work and even though Rodin is involved with someone, the two spark up a romance that isn't too treacly or unbelievable. The romance seems rooted in reality up to a point when the fame and pressures of life and other women creep into the relationship. That's when Claudel starts to become critical of her own work and emotional more than she had been in the past. It's this part of the performance that I don't like because Adjani resorts to screaming and overacting the craziness of her character. Whereas in the beginning she was so assured in her character and so earnest I hated when the film devolved into what you kinda think of as a typical French film with all the histrionics. I was really rooting for this performance, too, because the rest of these nominees are so underwhelming. Even still, I was surprised at how good Adjani was at first and think the fault lies more with the film itself. I'll have to see where she ends up for me.
Pauline Collins - Shirley Valentine
I'd be real surprised if anyone has actually heard of Pauline Collins or this movie. I was a bit wary going in because this reeked of the Academy reaching for a nomination for another British film/performance. They fall in love with them and some of them are pretty underwhelming. Collins, however, is actually really good in her role. Now, let me preface this by saying Collins played this very same role on stage in London and on Broadway of a middle aged British woman who feels her life and marriage is in a rut and then goes off to Greece to find herself. It was a one person play and the film reflects that by making her the undisputed star and by not really making us care about the other characters much. So Collins had so much time to develop this character by playing her over and over and over night after night on stage. This is a lived in performance that shows Collins is super comfortable with being Shirley Valentine. There's been a couple of these types of instances so far in the project and it always shows that the performer benefits from the repetition. Would Collins be so likable and well received if she had only done a few takes of the character for the film and that's it? Doubtful and that's okay. She's really funny here in this performance with that dry British humor, spitting out her aphorisms and life affirming messages. Collins also gets to break the fourth wall quite often and it helps her character engage with the viewer and helps the performance be a lot more accessible. I completely understand why the Academy went for her in this instance. It's definitely a one woman show on film even with the other characters and is really easy to like. I would say this is the perfect melding of circumstance and performance because there's no other way Collins gets nominated. This might not be an essential watch but I think people would enjoy it if they had nothing better to do and be surprised at how much they like it because of Collins' performance.
Jessica Lange - Music Box
The second Jessica nomination this year, how neat. And neat would describe this film pretty well. This is a film that is about familial love and coming to grips with the past but is such a boring, flatline of a film that it makes Lange's performance look even worse. Lange plays a lawyer whose father was a gendarme over in Hungary in WWII and gets accused by the Communist Hungarian government of being a war criminal. Lange takes on her father's case and defends him. She does a great job of shooting holes in the prosecutor's case and it slowly is revealed that her father might not actually be innocent. This sounds like a pretty interesting story with some great emotional ups and downs but man, this film and performance by proxy falls miserably flat. The role just seems designed to get an Oscar nomination and though Lange acquits herself well enough, there's a real lack of passion in the character. The courtroom stuff is too polished and slick, I never really bought the familial bond and love for her father which in turn made the reveal that he was a monster lack any emotional power. She was just an actress going through the motions of reacting to the realization that her father wasn't who she thought and fought for. There's no real tension or suspense. You know at the end that the father is going to turn out to be a Nazi. The film just goes through the motions without ever giving us a reason to want to like it. Same for Lange's performance, unless you are a super Lange fan, there's not much to really enjoy.
Michelle Pfeiffer - The Fabulous Baker Boys
I hate to sound like a broken record but I kinda feel like the reason Pfeiffer was nominated because she was an IT actress, one of those hot, young, talented women who the Academy loves. So they end up nominating these women like Pfeiffer a couple times in hopes to make them stars and draw viewers and because they are old, white men. Pfeiffer was nominated 3 times in 5 years and so far it's been for ingenue type work. In Love Field she played almost a Marilyn Monroe type figure and here she's a sexy lounge singer. I wasn't a huge fan of her third nomination in 1992 and this performance feels lightweight, which I hate to say. She is great as a singer, even doing all her own singing. That part feels really authentic and helps cement her as being an actual lounge singer like her character. I wouldn't mind listening to an album of her songs, that's how natural her singing is. It's the fact that she doesn't show up for like the first 20-30 minutes and isn't in the last 20 minutes except the very last scene that makes it lightweight. She comes in as an escort who wants to sing, though that part of her life is really not dealt with at all, and has a sort of attitude and is late and Pretty Woman-ish. Then she sings - well - and sleeps with Jeff Bridges in the inevitable romantic plot. It's telegraphed a million miles away, it happens, and then she moves on to something better, or at least more lucrative. Yes, Pfeiffer plays up her sexy qualities and can sing, but besides acting as the sexy ingenue in the nightclub act, she doesn't have much else to do. That's mostly the fault of the film itself. Pfeiffer literally only has to be attractive, sing pretty good, and be a source of conflict for the Bridges brothers and that's essentially it. That's why I call it slight and lightweight. It's a nomination you get when the Academy wants to make you a star. Pfeiffer is good but I don't feel she elevates herself into Oscar territory. I think it's more you fall in love with Pfeiffer and want to see her rewarded more than anything else. Okay performance but little else to it.
I don't know if I'm going to be able to even pick a winner. None of these performances are that good or at least feel like they should be a winner. Collins might be the best of the bunch but that performance and film are not Oscar winning caliber. Pfeiffer is okay but her performance doesn't feel strong enough for a win. Adjani, I don't even know where to put her. I like the first part of her performance before it becomes more stereotypical and her film and role are way more challenging than the other two I've mentioned. Lange is just so passionless and boring, like we are supposed to nominate her strictly because of what the character and film are about. I dislike Tandy a lot in that role even though I really quite enjoyed her Fried Green Tomatoes work. This has to be the worst Best Actress category I've seen so far and most likely one of the worst of all time. I'm not even going to pick a winner as I don't feel Collins would be a good winner at all.
Oscar Winner: Jessica Tandy - Driving Miss Daisy
My Winner:
Pauline Collins
Isabelle Adjani
Michelle Pfeiffer
Jessica Lange
Jessica Tandy
1989 Best Actress
Jessica Tandy - Driving Miss Daisy
This is very clearly a veteran nomination that charmed the voters enough to get a win. You hold this up to other Best Actress winners and it is not one of the strongest choices by any means. I think you have to look at this field as a whole to really understand why Tandy was able to win. You've got a French film/actress nominated that wasn't going to do much, an unknown British actress, an up and comer with Pfeiffer, and the only real threat in Jessica Lange for a film I know nothing about. That's without having seen any of the other nominees but I imagine holds true for the average voter even back in 1989. They enjoyed this little film about an old lady who is, let's be frank, a fucking racist who gets a negro, oops, I mean black driver in Morgan Freeman and she warms up to him over time all the while still bossing him around. She helps him to read even though that really interesting side piece is glossed over and not much is done with it. If the film were to focus on her being a former teacher and teaching him to read instead of just barely mentioning it, this might have been a better choice. Instead, she's a stubborn, old lady who is wary of her black driver and accuses him of stealing and wants him to slow down while driving and not joke around with the other black help. But of course, Tandy has a change of heart after her negr...er, driver is questioned by some cops in Alabama. She even asks Freeman to a dinner where MLK is speaking because she has become this good Southern woman that the audience can now feel good about supporting. I don't buy the performance. It's boring to me and very predictable. I don't care that she starts to see race as a social thing to support instead of as just being part of the help. It's pandering to the audience and honestly doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Tandy is an awful person who suddenly changes and it doesn't feel authentic or warranted. Sure the two have decent chemistry but I credit that to Freeman's performance more than Tandy's. I don't look at this as a good win or an oh, that's cute type of win. This is a bad look for the Academy who were for whatever reason eager to reward Tandy for such a bad role and a mediocre performance. No thanks.
Isabelle Adjani - Camille Claudel
Isabelle Adjani is really beautiful. That information doesn't have any bearing on the performance but thought I'd throw that out there. I really liked Adjani for the first half of the film. I was surprised that she was giving such a good performance as the title character who was a sculptress and mentored by Auguste Rodin (a good performance from Gerard Depardieu who I had issues with in 1990) before later becoming lovers. I liked the first half because Adjani's character is so determined and such a no-nonsense hard worker. It was refreshing to see her not get bogged down with stale romantic plots and instead be a focused woman engrossed in her work. Adjani gives the appropriate seriousness to the character where you can believe sculpting is her life and passion and that she was a bit of a rebel and ahead of her time for doing so. It was really strong stuff and highly interesting watching her not take shit from the men she worked with. Then the film can't help itself and we get the romantic part of the film which actually isn't too bad. The two respect each other's work and even though Rodin is involved with someone, the two spark up a romance that isn't too treacly or unbelievable. The romance seems rooted in reality up to a point when the fame and pressures of life and other women creep into the relationship. That's when Claudel starts to become critical of her own work and emotional more than she had been in the past. It's this part of the performance that I don't like because Adjani resorts to screaming and overacting the craziness of her character. Whereas in the beginning she was so assured in her character and so earnest I hated when the film devolved into what you kinda think of as a typical French film with all the histrionics. I was really rooting for this performance, too, because the rest of these nominees are so underwhelming. Even still, I was surprised at how good Adjani was at first and think the fault lies more with the film itself. I'll have to see where she ends up for me.
Pauline Collins - Shirley Valentine
I'd be real surprised if anyone has actually heard of Pauline Collins or this movie. I was a bit wary going in because this reeked of the Academy reaching for a nomination for another British film/performance. They fall in love with them and some of them are pretty underwhelming. Collins, however, is actually really good in her role. Now, let me preface this by saying Collins played this very same role on stage in London and on Broadway of a middle aged British woman who feels her life and marriage is in a rut and then goes off to Greece to find herself. It was a one person play and the film reflects that by making her the undisputed star and by not really making us care about the other characters much. So Collins had so much time to develop this character by playing her over and over and over night after night on stage. This is a lived in performance that shows Collins is super comfortable with being Shirley Valentine. There's been a couple of these types of instances so far in the project and it always shows that the performer benefits from the repetition. Would Collins be so likable and well received if she had only done a few takes of the character for the film and that's it? Doubtful and that's okay. She's really funny here in this performance with that dry British humor, spitting out her aphorisms and life affirming messages. Collins also gets to break the fourth wall quite often and it helps her character engage with the viewer and helps the performance be a lot more accessible. I completely understand why the Academy went for her in this instance. It's definitely a one woman show on film even with the other characters and is really easy to like. I would say this is the perfect melding of circumstance and performance because there's no other way Collins gets nominated. This might not be an essential watch but I think people would enjoy it if they had nothing better to do and be surprised at how much they like it because of Collins' performance.
Jessica Lange - Music Box
The second Jessica nomination this year, how neat. And neat would describe this film pretty well. This is a film that is about familial love and coming to grips with the past but is such a boring, flatline of a film that it makes Lange's performance look even worse. Lange plays a lawyer whose father was a gendarme over in Hungary in WWII and gets accused by the Communist Hungarian government of being a war criminal. Lange takes on her father's case and defends him. She does a great job of shooting holes in the prosecutor's case and it slowly is revealed that her father might not actually be innocent. This sounds like a pretty interesting story with some great emotional ups and downs but man, this film and performance by proxy falls miserably flat. The role just seems designed to get an Oscar nomination and though Lange acquits herself well enough, there's a real lack of passion in the character. The courtroom stuff is too polished and slick, I never really bought the familial bond and love for her father which in turn made the reveal that he was a monster lack any emotional power. She was just an actress going through the motions of reacting to the realization that her father wasn't who she thought and fought for. There's no real tension or suspense. You know at the end that the father is going to turn out to be a Nazi. The film just goes through the motions without ever giving us a reason to want to like it. Same for Lange's performance, unless you are a super Lange fan, there's not much to really enjoy.
Michelle Pfeiffer - The Fabulous Baker Boys
I hate to sound like a broken record but I kinda feel like the reason Pfeiffer was nominated because she was an IT actress, one of those hot, young, talented women who the Academy loves. So they end up nominating these women like Pfeiffer a couple times in hopes to make them stars and draw viewers and because they are old, white men. Pfeiffer was nominated 3 times in 5 years and so far it's been for ingenue type work. In Love Field she played almost a Marilyn Monroe type figure and here she's a sexy lounge singer. I wasn't a huge fan of her third nomination in 1992 and this performance feels lightweight, which I hate to say. She is great as a singer, even doing all her own singing. That part feels really authentic and helps cement her as being an actual lounge singer like her character. I wouldn't mind listening to an album of her songs, that's how natural her singing is. It's the fact that she doesn't show up for like the first 20-30 minutes and isn't in the last 20 minutes except the very last scene that makes it lightweight. She comes in as an escort who wants to sing, though that part of her life is really not dealt with at all, and has a sort of attitude and is late and Pretty Woman-ish. Then she sings - well - and sleeps with Jeff Bridges in the inevitable romantic plot. It's telegraphed a million miles away, it happens, and then she moves on to something better, or at least more lucrative. Yes, Pfeiffer plays up her sexy qualities and can sing, but besides acting as the sexy ingenue in the nightclub act, she doesn't have much else to do. That's mostly the fault of the film itself. Pfeiffer literally only has to be attractive, sing pretty good, and be a source of conflict for the Bridges brothers and that's essentially it. That's why I call it slight and lightweight. It's a nomination you get when the Academy wants to make you a star. Pfeiffer is good but I don't feel she elevates herself into Oscar territory. I think it's more you fall in love with Pfeiffer and want to see her rewarded more than anything else. Okay performance but little else to it.
I don't know if I'm going to be able to even pick a winner. None of these performances are that good or at least feel like they should be a winner. Collins might be the best of the bunch but that performance and film are not Oscar winning caliber. Pfeiffer is okay but her performance doesn't feel strong enough for a win. Adjani, I don't even know where to put her. I like the first part of her performance before it becomes more stereotypical and her film and role are way more challenging than the other two I've mentioned. Lange is just so passionless and boring, like we are supposed to nominate her strictly because of what the character and film are about. I dislike Tandy a lot in that role even though I really quite enjoyed her Fried Green Tomatoes work. This has to be the worst Best Actress category I've seen so far and most likely one of the worst of all time. I'm not even going to pick a winner as I don't feel Collins would be a good winner at all.
Oscar Winner: Jessica Tandy - Driving Miss Daisy
My Winner:
Pauline Collins
Isabelle Adjani
Michelle Pfeiffer
Jessica Lange
Jessica Tandy
Monday, November 21, 2016
Supporting Actor 1989
I need to start thinking up some real philosophical shit to write in here again or go off on some movie ramblings or something. These are getting to be pretty bare! Only seen the winner here and I'm intrigued by some of the names/films, so let's get to it.
1989 Best Supporting Actor
Denzel Washington - Glory
For the record, I skimmed through this film for Denzel's performance and even then didn't watch it all super thoroughly simply because I've seen this film so many times that I didn't want to watch it again. That way I could move on to Best Actress that much quicker. Denzel plays Private Trip, a soldier in the all black Northern Army regiment. We first notice him because he lays into some other black soldiers and is a very angry person. We come to find out he was a slave and jumped at the chance to kill some southerners. We also find out that underneath that tough, bitter, angry exterior there's a decent man who tries to get shoes for his fellow soldiers. Denzel at first lays it on a bit thick as if to hammer home just how angry and tough his character is, but then settles in to what his character is which is an asshole that wants the best for his fellow soldiers. He makes this big stink about the white soldiers receiving more pay and organizes a protest of not accepting the pay. This in turn allows Colonel Shaw a chance to show he's with his men by not accepting his pay. It's a meaty role for Denzel and he makes the most of it like when he gets whipped for going AWOL to find the shoes and he remains stoic and then quietly has tears fall down his face. An obvious Oscar moment that could have gone off the rails with a lesser actor. Denzel continues to be a strong and stubborn soldier and eventually warms up to Colonel Shaw and wants to fight for him. We see this epitomized in the end when Denzel dies for his commander and his unit and his fellow soldiers and his country, holding the flag til the end. It's a very baity role that Denzel does well to keep from becoming such a generic and stale soldier done good performance. I'd say Denzel elevates the role into something more noticeable and powerful, which is a big reason he won the Oscar. It's a really good and important performance that I'm glad the Academy paid attention to.
Danny Aiello - Do the Right Thing
I had never seen this film before (I regret having to say this over and over the deeper I go into this project) and was uncertain about how I was going to feel about a white guy being the only nomination in a predominantly black film. Aiello is pretty great though and I understand his nomination because the Academy was never going to nominate anyone else for this film and this was their way to reward the film along with Best Screenplay. But truthfully, Spike Lee doesn't allow any of his black actors to shine as much as Aiello does. The one black actor to get a lot of screen time is Spike Lee himself and he's a stiff actor. Aiello gets plenty of screen time as the proprietor of Sal's Pizzeria and gets a quiet moment to shine when discussing with his son why he stays in the black neighborhood. Sal never seems like a racist, just a guy who has had a shop in an area for a long time who now has to deal with the changing of the times. He wants to sling pizza and doesn't care who his customers are, just as long as they pay. Sure he gets into tiffs when Radio Raheem blasts his radio in his establishment or tells Buggin' Out he has to pay extra for cheese and to fuck off as to why there are no blacks on his wall of pictures. The love for Mookie's sister is really strange and out of place and seems more like a misstep by Lee than anything else since there is no need for that little diversion. The ending is also sad because Aiello didn't deserve to have his shop ransacked and torched just because the people were misinformed. You can easily side with Aiello as a sympathetic figure and it's easy to see why the Academy would side with him for a nomination.
Dan Akroyd - Driving Miss Daisy
Dan Akroyd came along for the ride with the love the film garnered. I also think that maybe he had some goodwill as a respected comedian going somewhat legit in a drama and that earned him some respect and a nomination from the Academy. Akroyd plays the son of Jessica Tandy's character and is the one who hires Morgan Freeman to drive his mother around. He shows up now and then during the film checking in on his mother and seeing how he can help Freeman. He's a decent character and seems to respect the black folk even back in the 50s-60s and is a genuinely good person. That's really all there is to Akroyd's character though. I can't really argue that he's this transcendent character and bridges relations between whites and black and gives a must see performance. He's just Dan Akroyd in a film about race relations and he does a good job. Simple as that. He's nowhere near being considered for a win and the nomination here is the reward. I suspect if the film wasn't so liked for whatever reason, he wouldn't have made it into this category which should tell you everything about this nomination.
Marlon Brando - A Dry White Season
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, yes, this is a veteran nomination and solely because Brando is a well respected Academy favorite. Brando had been in a self imposed acting retirement and came back to act in this film, which interestingly enough is the first Hollywood film directed by a black woman. I may have to check my info on that but according to IMDB, that's accurate. This was really just a chance to nominate Brando again and nothing else. He plays a lawyer who helps Donald Sutherland's character by defending a black South African. He's only really in two scenes. The first one is brief where he meets Sutherland and takes on the case. Then the next one is in the courtroom and Brando gets to sink his teeth into a very easy and noble role. He grills the police who are corrupt and takes it to them and comes off looking righteous and just. It's a glorified cameo and though Brando is good, it's nothing outstanding or worth a nomination and I'm a huge Brando fan. You can skip this and not miss out on anything.
Martin Landau - Crimes and Misdemeanors
This film is a little strange. I keep wavering back and forth on whether I liked it and think it's a good film. I'm leaning towards yes for both. I say strange because I guess it's supposed to be a dark comedy of sorts but Landau's story and character is played straight and doesn't elicit any laughs. The comedy comes from Woody Allen's character and the other stories and it's not exactly laugh out loud stuff. It feels weird tonally and it's like Landau is in a different film. Landau plays an eye doctor who has been having an affair with Anjelica Huston and she is now threatening to talk to his wife because he's not spending enough time with her (Huston) and isn't leaving his wife. Landau becomes desperate and has someone take care of the problem by having Huston killed. Now Landau has to live with the guilt of having someone he loved killed because it would expose his lies and infidelity. That's basically what the film is about, that Crime and Punishment idea of dealing with an egregious sin and living with yourself. Landau is very good in the role of having to play a man who is burdened in mind, body, and soul. He just looks like a guy who has a ton of stuff going on in his head. It's a very serious performance that asks a lot of existential questions. Landau must confront his own morals and even questions his religious ideas. His guilt, anxiety, anger, conflicted state of mind is written all over Landau's face and is a real honest portrayal of all of those emotions. This is a strong performance but it also is essentially a lead performance, so the focus is on Landau who shines with the extra attention, which is almost not fair. It's a surprisingly good male performance in a Woody Allen film.
Well you can throw out Brando and Akroyd right from the beginning. Neither are awful. In fact, they are both entertaining and somewhat decent. It's just that Brando is a cameo and the Academy is throwing him a career nom and sympathy vote. Akroyd just comes along for the ride with his film and doesn't do all that much besides be pleasant. Now when you start to look at the remaining three is when it gets really interesting. I like each of the remaining three. Denzel's win is pretty important to the history of Oscar so that's in his favor but it's also a strong performance that can stand alone. I really enjoyed Aiello even though the film doesn't give him all that much to do. He mans the pizzeria and interacts with the black neighborhood but maybe not to an amazing degree. I would take him simply because I liked him and the film. Then you have Landau who gives a very serious performance and sticks out positively in a Woody Allen film. As of right now that's the order I keep it. Landau may be just a bit technically better than Aiello but for some reason I like him more, plus Landau wins eventually so I don't feel so guilty. I like the win for Denzel and wouldn't really change it. Having a white actor win for a majority black film is kind of a bad look. So Denzel can stay the winner. This is a pretty good group even with the bottom two.
Oscar Winner: Denzel Washington - Glory
My Winner: Denzel Washington - Glory
Danny Aiello
Martin Landau
Dan Akroyd
Marlon Brando
1989 Best Supporting Actor
Denzel Washington - Glory
For the record, I skimmed through this film for Denzel's performance and even then didn't watch it all super thoroughly simply because I've seen this film so many times that I didn't want to watch it again. That way I could move on to Best Actress that much quicker. Denzel plays Private Trip, a soldier in the all black Northern Army regiment. We first notice him because he lays into some other black soldiers and is a very angry person. We come to find out he was a slave and jumped at the chance to kill some southerners. We also find out that underneath that tough, bitter, angry exterior there's a decent man who tries to get shoes for his fellow soldiers. Denzel at first lays it on a bit thick as if to hammer home just how angry and tough his character is, but then settles in to what his character is which is an asshole that wants the best for his fellow soldiers. He makes this big stink about the white soldiers receiving more pay and organizes a protest of not accepting the pay. This in turn allows Colonel Shaw a chance to show he's with his men by not accepting his pay. It's a meaty role for Denzel and he makes the most of it like when he gets whipped for going AWOL to find the shoes and he remains stoic and then quietly has tears fall down his face. An obvious Oscar moment that could have gone off the rails with a lesser actor. Denzel continues to be a strong and stubborn soldier and eventually warms up to Colonel Shaw and wants to fight for him. We see this epitomized in the end when Denzel dies for his commander and his unit and his fellow soldiers and his country, holding the flag til the end. It's a very baity role that Denzel does well to keep from becoming such a generic and stale soldier done good performance. I'd say Denzel elevates the role into something more noticeable and powerful, which is a big reason he won the Oscar. It's a really good and important performance that I'm glad the Academy paid attention to.
Danny Aiello - Do the Right Thing
I had never seen this film before (I regret having to say this over and over the deeper I go into this project) and was uncertain about how I was going to feel about a white guy being the only nomination in a predominantly black film. Aiello is pretty great though and I understand his nomination because the Academy was never going to nominate anyone else for this film and this was their way to reward the film along with Best Screenplay. But truthfully, Spike Lee doesn't allow any of his black actors to shine as much as Aiello does. The one black actor to get a lot of screen time is Spike Lee himself and he's a stiff actor. Aiello gets plenty of screen time as the proprietor of Sal's Pizzeria and gets a quiet moment to shine when discussing with his son why he stays in the black neighborhood. Sal never seems like a racist, just a guy who has had a shop in an area for a long time who now has to deal with the changing of the times. He wants to sling pizza and doesn't care who his customers are, just as long as they pay. Sure he gets into tiffs when Radio Raheem blasts his radio in his establishment or tells Buggin' Out he has to pay extra for cheese and to fuck off as to why there are no blacks on his wall of pictures. The love for Mookie's sister is really strange and out of place and seems more like a misstep by Lee than anything else since there is no need for that little diversion. The ending is also sad because Aiello didn't deserve to have his shop ransacked and torched just because the people were misinformed. You can easily side with Aiello as a sympathetic figure and it's easy to see why the Academy would side with him for a nomination.
Dan Akroyd - Driving Miss Daisy
Dan Akroyd came along for the ride with the love the film garnered. I also think that maybe he had some goodwill as a respected comedian going somewhat legit in a drama and that earned him some respect and a nomination from the Academy. Akroyd plays the son of Jessica Tandy's character and is the one who hires Morgan Freeman to drive his mother around. He shows up now and then during the film checking in on his mother and seeing how he can help Freeman. He's a decent character and seems to respect the black folk even back in the 50s-60s and is a genuinely good person. That's really all there is to Akroyd's character though. I can't really argue that he's this transcendent character and bridges relations between whites and black and gives a must see performance. He's just Dan Akroyd in a film about race relations and he does a good job. Simple as that. He's nowhere near being considered for a win and the nomination here is the reward. I suspect if the film wasn't so liked for whatever reason, he wouldn't have made it into this category which should tell you everything about this nomination.
Marlon Brando - A Dry White Season
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, yes, this is a veteran nomination and solely because Brando is a well respected Academy favorite. Brando had been in a self imposed acting retirement and came back to act in this film, which interestingly enough is the first Hollywood film directed by a black woman. I may have to check my info on that but according to IMDB, that's accurate. This was really just a chance to nominate Brando again and nothing else. He plays a lawyer who helps Donald Sutherland's character by defending a black South African. He's only really in two scenes. The first one is brief where he meets Sutherland and takes on the case. Then the next one is in the courtroom and Brando gets to sink his teeth into a very easy and noble role. He grills the police who are corrupt and takes it to them and comes off looking righteous and just. It's a glorified cameo and though Brando is good, it's nothing outstanding or worth a nomination and I'm a huge Brando fan. You can skip this and not miss out on anything.
Martin Landau - Crimes and Misdemeanors
This film is a little strange. I keep wavering back and forth on whether I liked it and think it's a good film. I'm leaning towards yes for both. I say strange because I guess it's supposed to be a dark comedy of sorts but Landau's story and character is played straight and doesn't elicit any laughs. The comedy comes from Woody Allen's character and the other stories and it's not exactly laugh out loud stuff. It feels weird tonally and it's like Landau is in a different film. Landau plays an eye doctor who has been having an affair with Anjelica Huston and she is now threatening to talk to his wife because he's not spending enough time with her (Huston) and isn't leaving his wife. Landau becomes desperate and has someone take care of the problem by having Huston killed. Now Landau has to live with the guilt of having someone he loved killed because it would expose his lies and infidelity. That's basically what the film is about, that Crime and Punishment idea of dealing with an egregious sin and living with yourself. Landau is very good in the role of having to play a man who is burdened in mind, body, and soul. He just looks like a guy who has a ton of stuff going on in his head. It's a very serious performance that asks a lot of existential questions. Landau must confront his own morals and even questions his religious ideas. His guilt, anxiety, anger, conflicted state of mind is written all over Landau's face and is a real honest portrayal of all of those emotions. This is a strong performance but it also is essentially a lead performance, so the focus is on Landau who shines with the extra attention, which is almost not fair. It's a surprisingly good male performance in a Woody Allen film.
Well you can throw out Brando and Akroyd right from the beginning. Neither are awful. In fact, they are both entertaining and somewhat decent. It's just that Brando is a cameo and the Academy is throwing him a career nom and sympathy vote. Akroyd just comes along for the ride with his film and doesn't do all that much besides be pleasant. Now when you start to look at the remaining three is when it gets really interesting. I like each of the remaining three. Denzel's win is pretty important to the history of Oscar so that's in his favor but it's also a strong performance that can stand alone. I really enjoyed Aiello even though the film doesn't give him all that much to do. He mans the pizzeria and interacts with the black neighborhood but maybe not to an amazing degree. I would take him simply because I liked him and the film. Then you have Landau who gives a very serious performance and sticks out positively in a Woody Allen film. As of right now that's the order I keep it. Landau may be just a bit technically better than Aiello but for some reason I like him more, plus Landau wins eventually so I don't feel so guilty. I like the win for Denzel and wouldn't really change it. Having a white actor win for a majority black film is kind of a bad look. So Denzel can stay the winner. This is a pretty good group even with the bottom two.
Oscar Winner: Denzel Washington - Glory
My Winner: Denzel Washington - Glory
Danny Aiello
Martin Landau
Dan Akroyd
Marlon Brando
Supporting Actress 1989
The 80s! Wooooo! Also, I decided against doing any favorites list or most surprising or whatever. Maybe at the end of the project but right now I'd rather stay on target.
1989 Best Supporting Actress
Brenda Fricker - My Left Foot
Brenda Fricker is so frickin good! Okay, now that that's off my chest, Fricker is really the only choice for the win. She is so strong as a character in this film that you can argue that she might be better suited for the Leading Actress category. I understand why she wasn't submitted there because who is Brenda Fricker? and because her character really supports Christy Brown almost exclusively. The whole time while watching her performance I was thinking of it as the Yin to Daniel Day-Lewis' Yang. Or maybe it's vice-versa, but the point stands: Fricker balances out DDL's performance and makes it work even more. She's the one who encourages him and supports him and really helps him become who he is. She feels more like a legit supporting character than an actress making a play at an Oscar. Fricker is so caring and attentive and so motherly in her scenes that you can forget that you're watching a movie. The two characters are so connected that neither work without the other and so it makes sense that they both won Oscars for their work. Fricker's performance is strong and really shows off what a supporting actress should be. She's just so steady and sets the bar for all the similar performances from disabled person films. You have to be human and you have to treat the subject like they are loved or at least they are understood and Fricker displays those emotions perfectly. She just really compliments DDL and the film itself and is a great choice for the win. Watch it and not say yeah, now I get why she won because you can't do it.
Anjelica Huston - Enemies, A Love Story
We are still in Huston's grace period after winning her Oscar 3 years before in this same category. Not to say that's the only reason she was nominated, just that the Academy has a well documented track record of continually nominating winners after they've won for maybe what's seen as lesser work. For the record, I do like Huston's performance here. She plays the wife of Ron Silver, a sleazy Jew who has many women in his life. Huston comes back after Silver thinks she died in a concentration camp and now further complicates his muddied love life. It's a weird film but Huston plays a very clever character. She knows her husband is a player even from the old days and isn't shocked or surprised when he has a wife and a mistress already. Her character is very matter of fact about things and almost used as the voice of reason or at least the normal one of the three women. Her character gets a lot of the funny moments in the film like when Silver's current wife thinks she's a ghost who has returned from the dead and reacts to her presence. Her Tamara is very dry and patient which speaks to her almost nonchalance towards her former husband stepping out on her and the other women. Huston isn't a big part of the film but she adds a ton a charisma whenever she's onscreen. But just like the other women, she doesn't quite stand out as a whole and doesn't make the film any more palliative.
Lena Olin - Enemies, A Love Story
Olin plays a fiery, Russian Jew who is the mistress for Ron Silver. This is a pretty strange movie when you really boil it down. Silver is seeing three different women and marries all of them at various times and they all know about each other. She is hot tempered and the sensual, sexy one of the triumvirate. She also seems the more accepting and understanding one of the bunch, though Huston is very nonchalant about his dalliances, too. She brings to mind Lauren Bacall with her husky, masculine voice and sultry looks and though that might bring forth a compelling interest for her character, her Masha is a little all over the place. While the histrionics are somewhat contained, she seems suited to be the sexy woman and not much else. She has her quiet moments that are interesting and her sex scenes are notable because of her looks of boredom and obligation. It's interesting in that there is a lot going on with the character but none of it seems cohesive. It's entertaining but also you know it's mainly because she's good looking and gets some explosive moments in the film. I'm okay with her being nominated but realistically, she was never going to win for that performance.
Julia Roberts - Steel Magnolias
So it's kinda hard to discuss this performance without giving a spoiler alert, so spoiler alert. I always thought this film was just about a bunch of Southern fried ladies gossiping and talking and carrying on, which is accurate, but I was not expecting the ending or really Roberts' arc at all. So that threw me for a loop. Roberts plays a young woman who has diabetes and is getting married. She has a diabetic episode while getting her hair done which shows us the seriousness of her situation. Then come to find out she wants to get pregnant which could kill her and does end up pregnant. She has the baby but it screws up her kidneys and leads to a coma and her family pulling the plug. Pretty heavy stuff for a film that's also lighthearted and fun with some other notable women giving decent performances, too. I feel the role helped get her the nomination because she plays such a doomed character and she was/is an up and coming actress at this time. The performance itself is nothing too special. She has the right amount of charm and hits the right serious notes when necessary. I think this is just rewarding a film that people really loved and anointing a new star in the process. Not a bad first nomination but more of a primer for Roberts than anything else.
Dianne Wiest - Parenthood
This is a performance in a light comedy that isn't really that much of a comedic performance. I like Dianne Wiest here and she is able to get off some zingers that don't first seem like zingers. Her delivery of the jokes is either very subtle or non-traditional and it makes for a very funny character once you parse it all down and actually get it. I think if you're not paying attention, you'll miss the humor in the performance because Wiest isn't in the same vein as Steve Martin. Wiest plays a single mother trying to connect and deal with her two unruly kids who want nothing to do with her. This is a Ron Howard directed Steve Martin vehicle and it's almost astonishing how tame the humor is. Obviously nowadays we are used to a lot more risque and vulgar stuff, but the big moment in this film is joking about a vibrator and it's so banal almost. Just weird seeing some jokes that were probably edgy and funny back then fall flat when I'm watching it today. Not all comedy transcends. Anyway, Wiest is actually sort of touching in her performance because she loves her kids and just wants to get through to them and look out for their well being but they resist and rebel. There's not much of an arc because she stays the same way all through the film but it is a nice little caring performance that brings some humanity to a generic comedy. She's good but nowhere near worthy of the win, especially since she won once before this and once after.
This category has a clear cut winner in Brenda Fricker but then the next four are a jumbled mess of I don't know. Wiest is decent but nothing amazing. Roberts is okay but her nomination is a star making turn designed to get some eyeballs on the Oscar ceremony. Huston is good but that film is weird and does her no favors. Olin is alright but again the film hurts her. I think this just really comes down to preference (duh). So Fricker followed by Wiest who gives an interesting performance in that film though it's not even close to a win. Then Huston, Olin, and Roberts in that order. Simply because I do enjoy Huston more, Olin is good enough and gives more of a performance than Roberts who is cutesy but still raw. It's a shame that the rest don't really matter but Fricker is a great winner.
Oscar Winner: Brenda Fricker - My Left Foot
My Winner: Brenda Fricker - My Left Foot
Dianne Wiest
Anjelica Huston
Lena Olin
Julia Roberts
1989 Best Supporting Actress
Brenda Fricker - My Left Foot
Brenda Fricker is so frickin good! Okay, now that that's off my chest, Fricker is really the only choice for the win. She is so strong as a character in this film that you can argue that she might be better suited for the Leading Actress category. I understand why she wasn't submitted there because who is Brenda Fricker? and because her character really supports Christy Brown almost exclusively. The whole time while watching her performance I was thinking of it as the Yin to Daniel Day-Lewis' Yang. Or maybe it's vice-versa, but the point stands: Fricker balances out DDL's performance and makes it work even more. She's the one who encourages him and supports him and really helps him become who he is. She feels more like a legit supporting character than an actress making a play at an Oscar. Fricker is so caring and attentive and so motherly in her scenes that you can forget that you're watching a movie. The two characters are so connected that neither work without the other and so it makes sense that they both won Oscars for their work. Fricker's performance is strong and really shows off what a supporting actress should be. She's just so steady and sets the bar for all the similar performances from disabled person films. You have to be human and you have to treat the subject like they are loved or at least they are understood and Fricker displays those emotions perfectly. She just really compliments DDL and the film itself and is a great choice for the win. Watch it and not say yeah, now I get why she won because you can't do it.
Anjelica Huston - Enemies, A Love Story
We are still in Huston's grace period after winning her Oscar 3 years before in this same category. Not to say that's the only reason she was nominated, just that the Academy has a well documented track record of continually nominating winners after they've won for maybe what's seen as lesser work. For the record, I do like Huston's performance here. She plays the wife of Ron Silver, a sleazy Jew who has many women in his life. Huston comes back after Silver thinks she died in a concentration camp and now further complicates his muddied love life. It's a weird film but Huston plays a very clever character. She knows her husband is a player even from the old days and isn't shocked or surprised when he has a wife and a mistress already. Her character is very matter of fact about things and almost used as the voice of reason or at least the normal one of the three women. Her character gets a lot of the funny moments in the film like when Silver's current wife thinks she's a ghost who has returned from the dead and reacts to her presence. Her Tamara is very dry and patient which speaks to her almost nonchalance towards her former husband stepping out on her and the other women. Huston isn't a big part of the film but she adds a ton a charisma whenever she's onscreen. But just like the other women, she doesn't quite stand out as a whole and doesn't make the film any more palliative.
Lena Olin - Enemies, A Love Story
Olin plays a fiery, Russian Jew who is the mistress for Ron Silver. This is a pretty strange movie when you really boil it down. Silver is seeing three different women and marries all of them at various times and they all know about each other. She is hot tempered and the sensual, sexy one of the triumvirate. She also seems the more accepting and understanding one of the bunch, though Huston is very nonchalant about his dalliances, too. She brings to mind Lauren Bacall with her husky, masculine voice and sultry looks and though that might bring forth a compelling interest for her character, her Masha is a little all over the place. While the histrionics are somewhat contained, she seems suited to be the sexy woman and not much else. She has her quiet moments that are interesting and her sex scenes are notable because of her looks of boredom and obligation. It's interesting in that there is a lot going on with the character but none of it seems cohesive. It's entertaining but also you know it's mainly because she's good looking and gets some explosive moments in the film. I'm okay with her being nominated but realistically, she was never going to win for that performance.
Julia Roberts - Steel Magnolias
So it's kinda hard to discuss this performance without giving a spoiler alert, so spoiler alert. I always thought this film was just about a bunch of Southern fried ladies gossiping and talking and carrying on, which is accurate, but I was not expecting the ending or really Roberts' arc at all. So that threw me for a loop. Roberts plays a young woman who has diabetes and is getting married. She has a diabetic episode while getting her hair done which shows us the seriousness of her situation. Then come to find out she wants to get pregnant which could kill her and does end up pregnant. She has the baby but it screws up her kidneys and leads to a coma and her family pulling the plug. Pretty heavy stuff for a film that's also lighthearted and fun with some other notable women giving decent performances, too. I feel the role helped get her the nomination because she plays such a doomed character and she was/is an up and coming actress at this time. The performance itself is nothing too special. She has the right amount of charm and hits the right serious notes when necessary. I think this is just rewarding a film that people really loved and anointing a new star in the process. Not a bad first nomination but more of a primer for Roberts than anything else.
Dianne Wiest - Parenthood
This is a performance in a light comedy that isn't really that much of a comedic performance. I like Dianne Wiest here and she is able to get off some zingers that don't first seem like zingers. Her delivery of the jokes is either very subtle or non-traditional and it makes for a very funny character once you parse it all down and actually get it. I think if you're not paying attention, you'll miss the humor in the performance because Wiest isn't in the same vein as Steve Martin. Wiest plays a single mother trying to connect and deal with her two unruly kids who want nothing to do with her. This is a Ron Howard directed Steve Martin vehicle and it's almost astonishing how tame the humor is. Obviously nowadays we are used to a lot more risque and vulgar stuff, but the big moment in this film is joking about a vibrator and it's so banal almost. Just weird seeing some jokes that were probably edgy and funny back then fall flat when I'm watching it today. Not all comedy transcends. Anyway, Wiest is actually sort of touching in her performance because she loves her kids and just wants to get through to them and look out for their well being but they resist and rebel. There's not much of an arc because she stays the same way all through the film but it is a nice little caring performance that brings some humanity to a generic comedy. She's good but nowhere near worthy of the win, especially since she won once before this and once after.
This category has a clear cut winner in Brenda Fricker but then the next four are a jumbled mess of I don't know. Wiest is decent but nothing amazing. Roberts is okay but her nomination is a star making turn designed to get some eyeballs on the Oscar ceremony. Huston is good but that film is weird and does her no favors. Olin is alright but again the film hurts her. I think this just really comes down to preference (duh). So Fricker followed by Wiest who gives an interesting performance in that film though it's not even close to a win. Then Huston, Olin, and Roberts in that order. Simply because I do enjoy Huston more, Olin is good enough and gives more of a performance than Roberts who is cutesy but still raw. It's a shame that the rest don't really matter but Fricker is a great winner.
Oscar Winner: Brenda Fricker - My Left Foot
My Winner: Brenda Fricker - My Left Foot
Dianne Wiest
Anjelica Huston
Lena Olin
Julia Roberts
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