Matt vs. the Academy

I believe I've yet again broken the record for the longest period between the first review and the verdict. At around nine months, reviewing 1987's Best Picture nominees has certainly taken a long time, all the more shameful considering it's not even a 10-nominee year. But let's wrap it up now with my thoughts on which film should have taken home the trophy. The nominees for Best Picture of 1987 are: Broadcast News Fatal Attraction Hope and Glory The Last Emperor Moonstruck Quite an eclectic bunch. Period war films and epic biopics are stalwart genres for the Academy, but this year also saw the poorly represented comedies and psychological thrillers have their shot at the limelight. It will be no surprise to anyone who read my previous review that Hope and Glory is being eliminated from the running first. Contrived in script and performance, it did not appeal to me at all. Beyond that, it's a much tougher decision. Moonstruck is incredibly charmin...

Well, this is a rarity. Two posts in two days! That hasn't happened since the first year of this blog. But rather than question it, let's just see how long this renewed enthusiasm lasts. We now take a look at the final nominee in 1987's battle for Best Picture... Hope and Glory Director : John Boorman Screenplay : John Boorman Starring : Sebastian Rice-Edwards, Sarah Miles, David Hayman, Geraldine Muir, Sammi Davis, Susan Wooldridge, Derrick O'Connor, Ian Bannen Academy Awards : 5 nominations 0 wins Hope and Glory is the story of family life during wartime, as seen through the eyes of a young boy, Billy Rohan (Rice-Edwards). When World War II reaches suburban London, Billy's father (Hayman) enlists to serve his country, leaving Billy and his mother (Miles) and two sisters (Muir & Davis) to survive the constant threat of air raids. Billy occupies himself with daily strolls through the rubble in his street, collecting shrapnel from the previous n...

It may be a few weeks past already, but since this is my first post back after the Oscars ceremony, it would be remiss of me not to offer a small debrief. As I predicted, Birdman and Alejandro G. Inarritu took home the Best Picture and Best Director gongs respectively. The lesson there is: Never go against the guilds. All in all, I managed to pick 20 of the 24 categories, which sounds impressive, yet that's exactly the way it played out last year, as well. I'd love to credit my superior analysis, but I have to at least acknowledge that there were very few surprises. The favourite won in almost every category, so it turns out that playing it safe is a good strategy. My darling wife and child are both in Australia at the moment, while I remain here in Los Angeles. This seems like the perfect opportunity to make some real progress on Matt vs. the Academy, but they've already been gone for almost two weeks and this is the first post I've managed to write. Still, I'm d...

Yes, I'm still alive. Obviously, I've had a lot going on these last few months. The play I mentioned in my last post (over four months ago - yikes!) has come and gone. The Club was our theatre company's final show in New York City (read about it here ) before Kat, Charlie and I packed up and moved out west to Los Angeles. It's been a couple of months already so we're settled in now and are not even remotely missing the New York weather. I figured I should try to squeeze one more review in before the end of the year, so yesterday I watched the film that would take the top prize in the 1987 Best Picture competition... The Last Emperor Director : Bernardo Bertolucci Screenplay : Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci (based on Henry Pu-yi's autobiography "From Emperor to Citizen") Starring : John Lone, Joan Chen, Peter O'Toole, Ying Ruocheng, Victor Wong, Dennis Dun, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Maggie Han, Ric Young, Vivien Wu Academy Awards : 9 ...

Who'd have thought raising a baby would take up so much time? Between looking after Charlie and getting things together for our theatre company's next play (more on that soon), movie-watching opportunities have been negligible. On top of that, we're also organising our imminent move to Los Angeles, so things are busy, to say the least. I finally found a spare couple of hours to look at another 1987 Best Picture contender... Fatal Attraction Director : Adrian Lyne Screenplay : James Dearden Starring : Michael Douglas, Glenn Close, Anne Archer, Ellen Hamilton Latzen, Stuart Pankin, Ellen Foley, Fred Gwynne Academy Awards : 6 nominations 0 wins Dan (Douglas), Beth (Archer) and their six-year-old daughter Ellen (Latzen) are the picture of a perfect family. But when Beth and Ellen take a weekend trip to the country to scope out the new family house, Dan throws matrimonial bliss out the window and shamefully has a brief affair with a work acquaintance, Alex (C...

This past Sunday was Father's Day here in the United States and, indeed, most other countries around the world. Obviously, it held particular significance for me since it was the first Father's Day in which I was actually a father. Interestingly, however, Father's Day is celebrated in September in Australia - another one of those odd differences between our nations. Even more interestingly, Mother's Day is celebrated on the same day in May in both countries, so since our now international family will do things both the American and the Australian way, Kat will only get one day of honour every year, while I will cheekily receive two. Let's take a look now at one of the contenders in the Academy's race for Best Picture of 1987... Moonstruck Director : Norman Jewison Screenplay : John Patrick Shanley Starring : Cher, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia, Olympia Dukakis, Danny Aiello, Julie Bovasso, John Mahoney, Louis Guss Academy Awards : 6 nominations ...