Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1997

The Contenders:

As Good as it Gets
The Full Monty
Good Will Hunting
L.A. Confidential
Titanic (winner)

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 1997

The Contenders:

Peter Cattaneo: The Full Monty
Gus Van Sant: Good Will Hunting
Curtis Hanson: L.A. Confidential
Atom Egoyan: The Sweet Hereafter
James Cameron: Titanic (winner)

The Magic Before Mike

Film: The Full Monty
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

I’ve watched a number of movies I haven’t been completely keen on lately. I needed to watch something that I knew I was going to like. That means watching something I’ve seen before. In this case, The Full Monty was at hand, and so into the spinner it goes. For those uninitiated, this is the male stripper movie before Magic Mike.

Our protagonists are a group of unemployed factory workers in Yorkshire. They’re unemployed because the steel mill they worked at has been shut down. Gary “Gaz” Schofield (Robert Carlyle) and his friend Dave (Mark Addy) are reduced to breaking into the closed factory and stealing metal for scrap to get along. For Gaz, things have become extremely difficult. His ex-wife is on the verge of suing him for back child support. Failing to pay means being separated from his son Nathan (William Snape).