Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1988

The Contenders:
The Accidental Tourist
Dangerous Liaisons
Mississippi Burning
Rain Man (winner)
Working Girl

Can't Send No Postcards

Film: Letters from Iwo Jima
Format: DVD from personal collection on laptop.

I consider myself a fan of Ken Watanabe for the same reason that I’m a fan of people like Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, and David Gulpilil: they all have gravitas. There is a presence that each of them (and many others) bring to every role they undertake. When Watanabe is on screen, I want to watch him. Letters from Iwo Jima may not be my favorite of his films (I have a soft spot for Tampopo), but it might be his most impressive role.

As the name of the film implies, this is a war film. What makes it particularly unusual is that despite its being directed by Clint Eastwood, most of the film is in Japanese. This is, after all, the Japanese side of the battle for Iwo Jima. The Japanese lost this battle, with both sides taking horrific casualties. That known going in, this was never going to be a fun romp in the park.

Doing Time

Film: Brubaker
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

I imagine for a particular type of actor, playing the crusading hero is kind of fun. Personally, I’d rather play villains because they tend to get the best lines. But at a particular stage in a career, I guess a lot of actors want to look back at something they did that might have had more of an impact than just cackling madly and chewing scenery. Thus we get Robert Redford’s performance in Brubaker where he plays the role of a crusading prison warden.

We don’t know this initially, by the way. The film begins with Henry Brubaker (Redford) riding on a bus to Wakefield State Prison in an unknown (but likely Southern, based on accents) state. For all we know, he’s just one of the inmates. What he finds is a place rife with disturbing behaviors, terrible conditions, and a great deal of illegal activity from the higher-ups and many of the prisoners. The general population is given sub-standard food that is rife with maggots, sleep in terrible conditions, and are farmed out as slave labor for local businesses. The prisoners who act as trustees actually live pretty well. The food grown on the prison farm is sold off to businesses at a profit, and the food the prison buys for the inmates is also sold for a profit. When one of the death row inmates (played by Morgan Freeman in his first credited big screen role) threatens the life of another inmate (David Keith), Brubaker blows his cover and starts reforming the prison.

Matthew 6:28

Film: Lilies of the Field
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

Apparently it’s nun week here at 1001plus. I’m not sure why this is, but I should probably track down The Nun’s Story while this particular iron is hot. I knew nothing about Lilies of the Field when it showed up from NetFlix, so imagine my surprise when I popped it into the spinner and it proved to be another film with a significant nun component. It also has a significant Sidney Poitier component, and that’s rarely a bad thing. Rather than being put out by the small convent, I decided to instead be happy that it wasn’t merely a Sidney Poitier film, but one for which he won an Oscar.

So let’s talk high concept for a moment here. At its heart, Lilies of the Field is a simple story. An itinerant handyman named Homer Smith (Sidney Poitier) finds himself on the property of a small group of nuns. He offers to fix a fence he sees four of the sisters struggling with but is instead sent to fix the roof. Expecting to be paid, he’s instead given a meager dinner at the behest of Mother Maria (Lilia Skala). The next day, it’s more of the same. Homer eventually figures out that Maria wants him to build them a chapel. She also wants him to do virtually everything else for the nuns, including providing English lessons.

Heaven Knows Why I Watched

Film: Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

There’s something about war films from the middle of the last century that lend themselves to a religious message. In a way, it kind of makes sense. If we believed that we were in the right in the war, and I’d argue that we did have the moral high ground in World War II, it would make sense for us to assume that we had God on our side. Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison takes this to some extremes, with Deborah Kerr substituting for God in this case. We’ve got an interesting proposition here, something that is part war story, part religious screed, part Robinson Crusoe. In some sense, it’s not sure what it wants to be, which makes it less than the sum of its parts.

We start simply enough. A lone marine who eventually claims to be named Corporal Allison (Robert Mitchum) washes up on the shore of what initially appears to be a deserted South Pacific island. A little investigation reveals what appears to be a small church. This is inhabited by Sister Angela (Deborah Kerr), the only current inhabitant of the island. After their initial meeting, we learn a little of how the two have found themselves in this unique situation. For Allison’s part, he was disembarking from a sub when his ship started to draw fire. The sub captain essentially abandoned him and some other marines, leaving Allison to drift. Sister Angela’s story is a bit more convoluted.

Owner's Manual Not Included

Film: How to Train Your Dragon
Format: Streaming video from Amazon on rockin’ flatscreen.

Movies made for kids have a few basic formulas. The most common of this is a kid or small group of kids (or alternatively something kid-like) who are misfits from their society who then discover something important and through a variety of trials end up changing their society. Done well, you get Ratatouille. Done less well, you get A Bug’s Life. Really, the formula itself is set; the quality of the movie comes almost exclusively from how well the elements are created and meshed together. Tack on a good story and smart performances, and you might have something great. This is the formula for How to Train Your Dragon, meaning that the question that needs to be answered isn’t specifically how the story will turn out, but how good is the journey to that ending.

I’m going to start with my complaints because I really want to spend the bulk of this talking about just how much this film gets right. In the complaint department, I have only one real thing to talk about: the characters’ accents. How to Train Your Dragon takes place in a Viking village. Who decided that Vikings should sound like they’re from Scotland? If we’re looking for some cultural touchstone, they should sound closer to the Swedish Chef. I suppose that no one would take them seriously if they were running around saying, “Hingy dingy horsky dorp dorp dorp,” but that’s not an excuse to have them sound like a gang of Glaswegians. And beyond that, it’s the adults who sound like they should be wearing kilts; the kids all sound like they’re from Iowa.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1964

The Contenders:
Becket
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Mary Poppins
My Fair Lady (winner)
Zorba the Greek