Bumped while voting is ongoing
I had such a fun time coming up with these comparisons last year, I couldn't help myself but to do it again. Once again, I'm going to review a classic Best Picture Oscar winner or two, and I'm going to let all of you help me pick which one I go with. For each of the current nominees for that award, I've selected a previous winner that shares some key element with it.
The Nominees:
The Big Short:
Our apparent political heroes turn out to be just one more part of the whole circle of corruption in a ripped-from-the-headlines tale = All the King's Men (1949)
Bridge of Spies:
Tom Hanks is the spirit of America = Forrest Gump (1994)
Brooklyn:
The lives of immigrants in 1950s New York, particularly one earnest, lovelorn shopgirl = West Side Story (1961)
Mad Max: Fury Road:
An un-Oscarly swerve into the action genre, with cutting-edge car stunts = The French Connection (1971)
The Martian:
A breezy adventure executed with state of the art technique, in which human cunning triumphs over the odds. It's also too damn long and gives a huge number of famous actors virtually nothing to do = Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
The Revenant:
Lots of blood, and the thing most people know about it involves a liver being eaten = The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Room:
A single parent turns her (his) entire life over to the needs of her (his) darling moppet of son = Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
Spotlight:
Plucky reporters go to whatever ends necessary to track down a story = It Happened One Night (1934)
My current aim is to review each day of Oscar weekend, February 27 and 28, so the top two vote-getters will both get reviewed. That means two votes per participant, too. The poll will close at 11:59 PM CST on February 20.
12 February 2016
21 comments:
Just a few rules so that everybody can have fun: ad hominem attacks on the blogger are fair; ad hominem attacks on other commenters will be deleted. And I will absolutely not stand for anything that is, in my judgment, demeaning, insulting or hateful to any gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion. And though I won't insist on keeping politics out, let's think long and hard before we say anything particularly inflammatory.
Also, sorry about the whole "must be a registered user" thing, but I do deeply hate to get spam, and I refuse to take on the totalitarian mantle of moderating comments, and I am much too lazy to try to migrate over to a better comments system than the one that comes pre-loaded with Blogger.
Forrest Gump, because I love it, and you've made your general feelings clear about it, and I'm interested in reading a well-written essay about what's bad about it.
ReplyDeleteAround the World in 80 Days, because I happened to watch it for the first time since I was a kid and, even if there's nothing really hateable about it (unless you count, you know, the racism), I was stunned into silence by what a big ball of nothing it is. How is it that I far more easily stomached three hour movies when I was nine? (Probably something to do with the Internet--and our newfangled Facebooks and/or Youtubes, specifically.)
Silence of the Lambs would be an alternate, but someday you'll do that of your own accord anyway.
I picked French Connection because it's plainly excellent and Silence of the Lambs because I'm a fan of gruesome horror as I'm sure many of your readers are.
ReplyDeleteWhen I made this poll, the big question in my mind was "what comes in second after Silence of the Lambs" far more than it was "what comes in first".
ReplyDeleteBut I think that's the internet as a whole, not just this blog's readership.
Forrest Gump because it's shit. Silence of the Lambs because it's amazing.
ReplyDeleteForrest Gump, because I want to see if either a.) You can convince me it's actually worth a good god damn or b.) The best possible takedown.
ReplyDeleteI voted for what are likely to be the two most entertaining reviews, West Side Story and Forrest Gump. Can't wait to see you sink your teeth into the latter!
ReplyDeleteForrest Gump because until A&E I felt alone in the world in hating it.
ReplyDeleteFrench Connection because it's great, and Forrest Gump because I need to be told why it's a guilty pleasure rather than an acceptable movie!
ReplyDeleteForrest Gump, definitely. There was a period when I was young and naive that I would easily have called that my favorite movie, whereas these (perhaps more politically astute) days, I find it just unbearable. Would love to see the official Antagonie & Ecstasy take.
ReplyDeletesilence of the lambs, because this blog is this blog and it's a cryin' shame we don't have it yet
ReplyDeleteTim is gonna shit on Forrest Gump something fierce. I feel young, fiercely liberal, more overtly political Tim Brayton of this blog's early days may bubble up in a few places towards this schmaltzy conservative film.
ReplyDeleteIt Happened One Night!!!!! I just adore it and would love to read what Tim would write :) Though Lambs would be awesome too!
ReplyDeleteWhat, no Cimarron, Mrs. Miniver, The Greatest Show On Earth, The Broadway Melody, Gigi, Cavalcade, Crash, or How Green Was My Valley?
ReplyDelete...you may be wondering, after posts like these, if your readers want you to suffer. To which the answer is: yes. Yes we absolutely do. (It makes the reviews funnier.)
Hey now, How Green Was My Valley is a great film. It just has the misfortune of being the most conspicuous Best Picture Winner That Beat Something Better in history.
ReplyDeleteAnd the izz: I am somewhat mortified that It Happened One Night is doing so shittily in the poll, and I shall have to concoct some reason to review it in the middle-distant future.
I'd like to state that I am one of the souls that voted for It Happened One Night (and Silence of course), because I'm sure the ACS stuff is already filled enough misery business for Tim.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I don't need him to tell me Forrest Gump is blegh (though I don't hate it as much as everyone). I know it's blegh.
I REALLY need to know why you don't like Forrest Gump. Please. Just tell me. Why.
ReplyDeleteMy momma always said life was like an online poll. It never gives you the answer you want.
ReplyDeleteWin Forrest Win!
I pointedly did NOT vote for Forrest Gump because it is one of two films (the other being Napoleon Dynamite) that I hate with an all consuming passion. Yeah, it would be good fun to read a takedown of it, but I can't in good conscience be a part of encouraging any thinking person to put themselves through that steaming pile of shit.
ReplyDeleteBut how much of that Silence of the Lambs vote is topped up by superdelegates, hmm?
ReplyDelete#ImWithHannibal
ReplyDeleteWelp. So much for All the King's Men, I guess. Shame, it's one of the great political noirs of all time, and it doesn't get anywhere near the love it deserves.
ReplyDeleteWhat's left to be said about Gump or Silence that hasn't already been covered a dozen times over?
PS - Super excited for your Deadpool review. I was expecting a piece of shit but so far most reviews have been shockingly positive.