Matt vs. the Academy

Well, look at me. I'm posting again only a couple of weeks after the last one. The only explanation I can come up with is that this awards year is not full to the brim with three-hour epics ( I'm looking at you, 1956 ) so it's been a tad easier to find time to watch them. The majority of 1943's contenders are under two hours, and in fact, the following review is for the shortest of the bunch, clocking in at only 75 minutes! Here now is our next 1943 Best Picture hopeful... The Ox-Bow Incident Director : William A. Wellman Screenplay : Lamar Trotti (based on the novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark) Starring : Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Mary Beth Hughes, Anthony Quinn, William Eythe, Harry Morgan, Jane Darwell, Matt Briggs, Harry Davenport, Frank Conroy, Marc Lawrence Academy Awards : 1 nomination 0 wins I usually like to avoid spoilers in my discussions of these films, but The Ox-Bow Incident is one of those pictures that is extremely difficult to talk a...

Yes, I know. It's been ages since my last post ... again. So what's new? In that time, my episode of Maron has aired, I got cast in an Annette Bening movie , and Kat, Charlie and I spent three weeks in Australia, catching up with friends and family. Oh, and we have a new baby due in a couple of months! Which will likely destroy any chance of this project's pace speeding up. But enough of life. Let's get back to the movies. Here's the next of 1943's contenders for Best Picture... Heaven Can Wait Director : Ernst Lubitsch Screenplay : Samson Raphaelson (based on the play "Birthday" by Leslie Bush-Fekete) Starring : Gene Tierney, Don Ameche, Charles Coburn, Marjorie Main, Laird Cregar, Spring Byington, Allyn Joslyn, Eugene Pallette Academy Awards : 3 nominations 0 wins Upon his death, Henry Van Cleve (Ameche) decides to skip the Pearly Gates and head downstairs first, convinced that Hell is where he belongs. The Devil (Cregar), who see...

For as long as I can remember, I've loved hearing behind-the-scenes stories about movie production, whether in books or documentaries or actual behind-the-scenes tours. So with delight, Kat and I joined a visiting friend recently to take the  Warner Bros. VIP Studio Tour  in nearby Burbank. The Warner Bros. lot has a lot of history and I always enjoy visiting backlots. There's just something about the fake buildings that fills me with a sense of awe and wonder. The tour also included a stop at the Warner Bros. Museum, which housed special exhibits of the Batman and Harry Potter franchises. But it was the tiny corner dedicated to Warner's past Best Picture winners that had me fascinated. Hint: this blog's current year of review resulted in a win for Warner Bros. so I have a little treat for you when I get to reviewing that picture. For now, let's have a look at a British entry in 1943's Best Picture race... In Which We Serve Director : Noël Coward and Da...

Well, I mentioned the possibility of having to change the next year of review and, indeed, circumstances now require that I do just that. My plan to see The Apartment at the TCM Classic Film Festival  was thwarted. It seems too many festival pass holders had the same idea so there was no room for any extras. Fortunately, the festival screens several movies at once, so Kat and I hopped over to one of the smaller venues instead to catch another Best Picture nominee from a different year. So, we'll come back to 1960 another time, but for now, we begin our review of the Academy's nominated films of 1943... Madame Curie Director : Mervyn LeRoy Screenplay : Paul Osborn and Paul H. Rameau (based on the book by Eve Curie) Starring : Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Henry Travers, Albert Bassermann, Robert Walker, C. Aubrey Smith, Dame May Whitty, Victor Francen, Elsa Bassermann, Reginald Owen, Van Johnson, Margaret O'Brien Academy Awards : 7 nominations 0 wins In la...

After an early morning trip to the airport, Kat and Charlie are back home, with my in-laws in tow. As everyone attempts to recover from their jet lag - and at 13 months, Charlie doesn't know if it's day or night, the poor little guy - I managed to write up my thoughts on the last film of this year of review. Our final contender for the 1996 Best Picture prize is... Secrets and Lies Director : Mike Leigh Screenplay : Mike Leigh Starring : Timothy Spall, Brenda Blethyn, Phyllis Logan, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Claire Rushbrook Academy Awards : 5 nominations 0 wins After her adopted mother passes away, London optometrist Hortense Cumberbatch (Jean-Baptiste) - probably not related to Benedict - decides to track down her birth mother. As a black woman, she is understandably surprised to discover that her mother is Cynthia Purley (Blethyn), a white woman who, despite a good heart, has the smarts and social graces of a small puppy. Cynthia and Hortense slowly develop ...

After three weeks away in Australia, my darling wife and child return to LA on Monday. While that will do wonders for my emotional well-being, I suspect it will also mean an end to this notable streak in blog posts. I'll cram one more movie in before they return, but I may not get a chance to write about it immediately. We shall see... The Academy's choice is up next in our look at the Best Picture nominees of 1996... The English Patient Director : Anthony Minghella Screenplay : Anthony Minghella (based on the novel by Michael Ondaatje) Starring : Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Kristin Scott Thomas, Naveen Andrews, Colin Firth, Julian Wadham, Jürgen Prochnow, Kevin Whately Academy Awards : 12 nominations 9 wins, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actress (Binoche) In the war-torn Italian countryside near the end of World War II, nurse Hana (Binoche) tends to a severe burn victim (Fiennes) with an English accent and...

Last night, I had the pleasure of attending a pub trivia night here in Los Angeles. Pub trivia is a staple of weeknight life in Australia and, in fact, I was even a pub trivia host for quite some time back home, but a mixture of a scarcity of time and a scarcity of venues hosting such events has meant I haven't been to one in rather a long time. I'd like to think my movie knowledge helped our team to second place, although I let my teammates down when I represented them in the speed round and failed under pressure to name a movie beginning with the letter N. The shame. Now, let's take a look at another Best Picture contender from 1996... Fargo Director : Joel Coen Screenplay : Ethan & Joel Coen Starring : Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, Harve Presnell, Peter Stormare, John Carroll Lynch Academy Awards : 7 nominations 2 wins, including Best Actress (McDormand) and Best Original Screenplay Car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (Macy) hatches a...

It's been a few months now since I moved to Los Angeles and I've already landed my first TV role, so I'm happy to conclude it was a wise move. About a month ago, I shot a couple of scenes for Marc Maron's self-titled sitcom on IFC . Season three begins in May, so I don't know exactly yet when my episode will air, but watch this space. Next up in 1996's battle for Best Picture... Shine Director : Scott Hicks Screenplay : Jan Sardi Starring : Geoffrey Rush, Noah Taylor, Armin Mueller-Stahl, John Gielgud, Lynn Redgrave Academy Awards : 7 nominations 1 win, for Best Actor (Rush) The true story of a unique man, Shine explores the life of pianist David Helfgott, from young boy to adolescent (Taylor) to maladjusted adult (Rush). The child of immigrant parents, Helfgott was taught piano at a young age by his father, Peter (Mueller-Stahl), who also imparted an intense passion for winning at all costs. As a teenager, David wins a prestigious music compet...

The streak continues. Let's move right along now to our next year of review. I kicked it off last night by visiting the New Beverly Cinema , a brilliant revival movie house here in Los Angeles that is every cinema aficionado's dream. Before the film, I was treated to trailers of some of the other 90s films screening later in the month, as well as a teaser featurette for the 1966 comedy Not With My Wife, You Don't! , starring Tony Curtis, Virna Lisi and George C. Scott. I have a feeling I will make my way back to this cinema again. The first subject in our look at the 1996 Best Picture contest is... Jerry Maguire Director : Cameron Crowe Screenplay : Cameron Crowe Starring : Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Renee Zellweger, Kelly Preston, Jerry O'Connell, Jay Mohr, Bonnie Hunt, Regina King, Jonathan Lipnicki Academy Awards : 5 nominations 1 win, for Best Supporting Actor (Gooding) Hard-working sports agent Jerry Maguire (Cruise) grows a co...

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 ...

Milestone time! The following review represents the 200th film I have screened for this project. It's sobering to think the 100th film ( Pulp Fiction ) was reviewed just a touch over one year after the project's commencement, yet the subsequent 100 films took over three times as long to get through. But who's quibbling? And now we close off 1934's record-setting 12-way Best Picture race with... The House of Rothschild Director : Alfred L. Werker Screenplay : Nunnally Johnson (based on the play by George Hembert Westley) Starring : George Arliss, Boris Karloff, Loretta Young, Robert Young, C. Aubrey Smith Academy Awards : 1 nomination 0 wins As an old Jewish money changer in 18th century Prussia, Mayer Rothschild (Arliss) is forced to deal with many injustices from the government. After being gouged by the tax collector, his dying request to his five sons is to head up a bank in each of the major cities across Europe. Thirty years later, Nathan (also A...

Every now and then during this project, particularly while reviewing years prior to 1940, there is a movie that proves a tad elusive to get my hands on. I've visited the UCLA Film Archive twice (once for this current year of review, as it happens) to view three separate films and have had to find some "creative" ways (*cough* YouTube *cough*) to view others. When I began the current year of review (five months ago, shamefully), this next film had been given no home video release. It was also nowhere to be seen via my usual illicit channels, so I simply threw caution to the wind and hoped that TCM would schedule it soon. As luck would have it, they have indeed scheduled it ... for July. As more luck would have it, the Warner Archive Collection added the film to its list of distributed titles just a couple of months ago, making it available to order . Serendipitous, indeed. Considering I only have two films left in this current year of review, it seemed silly to wait an...