Thought it would be fun to have a couple of guys who have seen EVERY single Best Picture winner to chime in on what the best and worst of them were. I had them each submit 5 of their favorites and five of their worst. We start with the best. These are the two films they both picked. I’ll post the other films they picked a little later today, and  I’ll post the worst films on Monday.

About the writers: Junior is a regular at Mike Minion’s Westbury quiz, and a HUGE movie buff. He has seen pretty much every Hollywood film ever made, including every film that won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Mike Minion has also seen every Best Picture winner except one, which he will explain later. They came back with separate lists, but they agreed on two films being one in the Top 5, and three films made both of their lists for Bottom Five. I then chimed in because, well, it’s my website, damnit. Here are the two films they agreed were among the 5 best:

CASABLANCA. Junior’s take: One of the most iconic movies ever. Loads of memorable lines: “Here’s looking at you, kid,” “Round up the usual suspects,” “Louie, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” etc. A great cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Peter Lorre, Claude Rains, Dooley Wilson, etc. Withstands the test of time. Warner Bros. has a great history and this is one of their best efforts. Could be one of the most quoted films of all time. The screenplay won an Oscar, too. A true classic.

Mike’s Take: So many movies seem dated and stale 5 years after their release. But Casablanca holds up incredibly well. The dialogue is witty and sharp and the love story is one for the ages. Great side characters (especially Claude Rains) help make this tale of a man “torn between love and virtue” one of my favorites.

JGT’s Take: I reviewed it a while back. I thought it was pretty good, but a bit overrated. (Continue reading below)

Continue reading “The Best Oscar Winners of All-Time” →

A couple of years ago, I started reviewing classic movies I had never seen as an inspiration to catch up on my movie viewing. I was going pretty good for a while but then fell off the tracks. Well, it’s time to get back in gear. I saw that Marty was gonna be on Turner Classics a few days ago, so I decided to watch. Here’s my review:

I think most people would agree, this is a very nice movie. Which strikes me as a bit strange, since most of the characters in this movie are anything but nice. In fact, most of them are incredibly selfish jerks. The brutal honesty of this film is somewhat astounding, and every character is absorbed with their own self interest. I’m not saying it isn’t real, but anyone who tells you that the world wasn’t a cruel place back in the “good ol’ days” should watch Marty.

Let’s start with Marty’s mother, who says she wants him to marry so she doesn’t look bad for having a bachelor son. Then, when Marty does find a girl, she tries to screw it up so her son won’t leave her lonely. She really wants her cake and eat it too. Then comes Marty’s best friend Ange, who refers to Marty’s girl as a dog and then, instead of being happy for his lonely buddy for finding a girl, gets mad because Marty blows him off for that girl. Some friend. Then there is Marty’s cousin Tommy, who ignores Marty’s pleas for advice so that he can carry on a fight with his wife Virginia (played by the impossibly gorgeous Karen Steele. Yowsas!) Then there is Tommy’s mother, who seems to exist to make everyone around her miserable.

And finally, there is Marty himself. Now before you get all riled up, I liked Marty a lot, and for the most part he was a stand up guy. But he was also quite passive aggressive and a bit immature. When Clara refuses to kiss him, he yells “Alright! Alright! I’ll take ya home!”, trying to make her feel bad for not kissing him. (Also, Marty, a quick piece of advice, never tell a girl you’ve considered suicide while on a first date.)

Now, you probably think that I’m being some sort of contrarian jerk who is trying to rip a great film. I’m not. In fact, just the opposite. I thought the darkness of the movie, and the selfishness and brusqueness of the characters, is in fact what made it so good. Yes, there were some very warm scenes, but they would not have been so poignant if they didn’t take place in an atmosphere of duplicity and shameless self interest. It goes without saying that we root for Marty throughout, not because he’s so sweet but because he’s so real. He is trying to balance his own self-interest with the interests of those around him, while at times getting so caught up in his own problems that he becomes a little selfish himself. We can all relate. If he had been more one dimensional (completely selfless and inscrutable at all times), this film would not have been nearly as good.

I am a big fan of good “Day in the Life” films, and this is one of those. Getting a peek at the Bronx in 1955 is a heck of a lot of fun. This was an excellent film, and I have no problem giving it a high mark. GRADE: B. (Grades are in comparison to other great films, not to all films in general.)

RELATED: Variety’s 1955 review.

I just saw Road House for the first time. Road House is not one of the greatest films I have ever seen, but it is certainly one of the most amazing films I’ve ever seen. It is one of those rare films that is so unintentionally insane that you wonder if maybe it wasn’t unintentional.

Patrick Swayze is Dalton, a big time bouncer with a Zen approach who is hired to come to clean up a crazy bar in a small town called Jasper. It has all the makings of a “flashy big city guy moves to small town and slowly falls in love with the folksy ways of the natives, while learning a little something about himself along the way” kind of film. It isn’t. It is, again, sheer insanity, a film whose eccentricities keep you glued to the screen. There is a blind musician, a bad guy who hits the brakes on his dirtbike just long enough to laugh maniacally, boots with razor blade tips, and boobs. Lots of boobs. But don’t worry, ladies, the director (Penn State grad Rowdy Herrington) wanted to make a film that appealed to all audiences, so there are lots of scenes with a chiselled Patrick Swayze with his shirt off, including an awkwardly long scene of a greased down Swayze doing yoga in the yard while “The Bad Guy” Brad Wesley watches from his house across the lake. (Swayze and his arch enemy lived across a small lake from each other.)

One thing the town of Jasper is short on is an effective police force. Despite numerous knife fights at the Double Deuce, no officer ever makes an appearance. Despite several explosions, there are no investigations. When a Bigfoot truck destroys an auto dealer, there are no questions asked by the local authorities. Even after Dalton (spoiler alert) kills a man with his bare hands, no police show up to ask him any questions. Jasper truly is a vigilante town. 

It is also a small town with a hot doctor. Needless to say, despite their apparent differences, the hot blonde doctor who wears short skirts to work and the tough guy bouncer fall in love. Or at least lust, despite the pain she must have been the morning after (spoiler alert!) having sex against a jagged stone wall. The love story endures its ups and downs, as the doctor doesn’t really approve of her boyfriend ripping another mans jugular vein out of his neck (women can be like that). But after Dalton proves his love by killing several men by more traditional means, she falls in love with him all over again. Love can be funny sometimes. 

The film also had one of my favorite taglines ever: The dancing’s over. Now it gets dirty. I am not making that up. Another interesting note is that two of the stars of the film also starred in the Big Lebowksi. Sam Elliot, who starred as Wade in Road House, was the Stranger in Lebowski, while Ben Gazzara (Brad) starred as Jackie Treehorn in Lebowski. 

The writing in the film is delightfully awful, and one has to wonder if some of the writers maybe one day moved on to writing for Silk Stockings. If you have not seen this film, it qualifies as a MUST SEE. I am giving it a B+, so brilliantly bad that it’s great.
PREVIOUSLY: JGT reviews 12 Angry Men.

The movie Midnight Express was on TV Monday night, and I got sucked in. It had probably been ten years since I had seen it last, and it certainly holds up. One thing I wondered: “How did the star Brad Davis not become a Hollywood superstar?” He looked like a young Brad Pitt and was a terrific actor. He had a bit part in Chariots of Fire, but that was pretty much it for his film career until he died of AIDS in 1991. (Another interesting fact: he was a descendant of Jefferson Davis.) Here is a good article written about his widow in the NY Times in 1997, which explains that his career was done in by drugs and alcohol.

Midnight Express was about a young American named Billy Hayes who made the bad decision to try to smuggle hash out of Turkey. He wrote a book, which was turned into the great 1978 film, thought there were some discrepancies. For instance, Billy Hayes never bit out anybody’s tongue, and the story is that that scene so horrified the cast they refused to shoot it, and the director and the two actors were the only two on set when that scene was shot. Another thing which upset both Hayes and critics was how horribly Turks were depicted in the film. All of the Turkish characters were borderline evil. Anyways, as I said before, it’s a great film, one I highly recommend, and I also recommend watching the interview with Billy Hayes above. Part two of that interview is right here.

Ok, so I still need to watch Princess Bride, but I think I can do so tomorrow. So I wanna see if I can watch a war movie over the holiday. (If not, I’ll try to watch it next week). Above are 7 of the many war movies I have never seen, and want you guys to vote for which one I should watch for the first time.

Great film. Highly recommended. Reminded me of my jury experience last year, though our discussion was much more civil and our jury was a bit more diverse. But the movie did a great job of pointing out what an amazing process the whole thing is. I loved that we learned so much about each man, and I didn’t realize until the end what we didn’t learn about them. Made the movie even better. It was astounding how many conclusions we could draw about 12 different characters in just 96 minutes. Fonda was terrific, even though his character at times was almost a little too idealistic to believe at times. I loved how the camera got tighter and tighter as the film progressed, increasing the tension and sense of claustrophobia that one feels after a full day in the jury room. Lee J. Cobb’s performance as the angry and tortured Juror #3 was terrific, making him a source of both enmity and pity. Interesting fact: Jack Klugman is the only juror who is still alive. The director of the film, Sidney Lumet, is still alive as well (And it’s pronounced Luh-met, not Lue-may.) I give this one a B+. See this movie if you haven’t already. Barring a last minute comeback, looks like Princess Bride will be next.

Ok kids, there are a ton of great films I have never seen. 5 of them are listed below. Vote for which one I should watch this weekend. I’ll watch it and post a review next weekend.

Ok, it’s back. After a long hiatus, I am back to watching movies that everybody else on earth has seen but I haven’t. I decided to start with one of the ultimate classics-Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Yes, that’s right folks, before Saturday night I was that guy who hadn’t seen Casablanca. Ok, first things first: This was a fun film, but certainly overrated. I mean, people act like this is the greatest thing to ever happen to film, and in reality it’s a neat little story told well…but it doesn’t threaten to crack my Top 10 movies I’ve Ever Seen. Humphrey Bogart’s character was funny, smart, and a heck of a lot of fun. Ingrid Bergman was ok but not incredible. I really enjoyed the Captain Renault character played by Claude Rains, and it was fun to hear so many lines that have since become iconic in the American lexicon. I enjoyed the characters, but didn’t feel any particular attachment to them, and even my friend that I watched it with was surprised she didn’t cry at the end. Because, really, the end was rather exciting but not very emotional. It was a movie, but felt like a play, with not much action going on outside of the characters. Now remember, the grade I give these movies is based on thier comparison with other classic movies, not against just regular movies. Keeping that in mind, I give Casablanca a C+. My next classic to watch, which I am going to try to do tonight, is 12 Angry Men. After that, it’s up to you guys. I’ll post a poll in a little while. Let me know what you thought of Casablanca in the comments below.

PREVIOUSLY REVIEWED:

• Dr. Strangelove.
• North by Norhtwest.
• Spaceballs.
• Godfather 2.

Alright, I’ve been catching up lately on some of the great movies I never saw the first time around, so that I can be kool. Here are three reviews for movies I recently saw for the first time.

Blue Velvet. I loved Twin Peaks, so it should come as no surprise that I thoroughly enjoyed Blue Velvet. Sexy, scary, and surreal (often in the same scene), the movie was a pure buzz from start to finish. I enjoyed the characters, the dialogue, the plot, everything. Dennis Hopper is downright amazing, as is Isabella Rossellini. And though I didn’t like Maclachlan’s character as much as I did in Twin Peaks (possibly my favorite tv character of all time.), he was still very solid. This one gets an A-

The Magnificent Seven. A fun movie, really good Western soundtrack, some really great actors. Still, certainly not my favorite Western of all time. A little too cheesy (if that’s at all possible for a 60s Western) and all of the deaths were as melodramatic as possible, with essentially every character getting off some famous last words. I did, however, thoroughly enjoy Eli Wallach as the head of the bandits, and I liked the fact that they had their reasons for ransacking the village (they were starving, and hey, a bandit’s gotta eat.) All in all, an enjoyable movie (and one that will make my next viewing of Three Amigos much more enjoyable), but not an epic one. (Keep in mind I am grading in comparison to other great movies, not to regular movies). C+

Blow Out. This 1981 Brian de Palma film is a joyride for most of the flick, though it gets a little silly at the end. Great storyline. A presidential candidate has his car tire blown out, car plunges into creek, and he dies but the hooker with him lives. A sound guy for a lowgrade slasher films (John Travolta) happens to be recording nearby and picks up the gunshot on his microphone. The government is trying to cover this up, and a maniacal John Lithgow (the shooter) is trying to kill the hooker to make sure she stays quiet. Travolta develops a crush on the hooker, played by de Palma’s wife at the time, Nancy Allen. Convoluted, but de Palma makes it tie together nicely, and it is gripping until the closing chase, which is melodramatic and ridiculous to the point of being laugh out loud funny (super-slow motion, giant American flag, fireworks, etc.) . But the little tie in to slasher films at the end is a nice touch. The reason to watch this film in the first place, though, is that the whole thing takes place in 1980 Philadelphia, with a special cameo by the Forum Theatre. Lots of good city scenes, and the car driving through City Hall is fun. It is worth checking out for the Philly stuff, the plot is fast and fun, and Travolta is actually pretty damn good in this. B

I feel like American Beauty is one of the most hated on Best Picture award winners, and I really liked it. I thought it had a unique plot, and really, how many movies are made about midlife crisis that aren’t just predictably crappy (Wild Hogs, anyone?). I thought their were several hilarious sequences, and “The King” was a great character. I thought the movie kind of made light of it’s own pretentions, and I liked it’s creepy overtones. Anyways, feel free to rake me over the coals below. Tonight I plan on watching the Magnificent Seven, which was on late last night so I taped it. Will let you know what I think. I watched Born Into Brothels over the weekend and thought it was really good.