I've never seen it but you boys are making me curious. I'll see if it's on Netflix.

Willem DaFoe keeps telling the chick "ask him who he is" and points at his missing thumbs. But from what I remember, he had nothing to do with his thumbs getting cut off. It was a lot of build up with no pay off. It was a big british cock-tease. I barely remember what the movie was even about. I remember wanting to like it very much, as it would be a new Amadeus, but I got to be an even bigger snob by throwing other smaller films around and saying they were better. Fargo, Shine, even Slingblade were more memorable to me than this 3 hour bore. And mind you, I sat through all 4 hours of Branagh's Hamlet at one of the upstairs theaters at the Inwood. I can take a long movie if I'm entertained. Also to temper this, I should tell you I walked out of Casino because it dragged on for so damn long. Hate that movie, too.

Those movies you mentioned are better, especially Fargo. Casino sucks balls too. I will have no further words on The English Patient until it's time to watch it again.

Not available to watch online. Fuckit.

and based on Diello's post above, if you admit to liking it, that automatically seems to mean you think it should win more awards than Ben Hur or some shit.
It was a decent movie. End all be all? no.

Anything with Sharon Stone is likely to suck. She sucked the life out of Casino.

Among other things.

Don't let them drag you into this.

It sucked and you are wrong. All of your movie opinions from here on out are invalid.

I'm with Diello on this one. Remember Walt liked Crash and The Butterfly Effect on first viewing.

Out of Africa - Let's chalk up 1985 as another one of those "WTF were they thinking?" years. In fact, during the entire decade of the 80s, the Academy seemed to have its head up its ass, or at least they were feeling insecure and wanted desperately to seem intelligent and cultured. It seems the Academy was in its English Major phase. The age of blockbuster movies was well upon us, and what passed for popular entertainment from Hollywood usually at best was brainless fun. The Academy went the opposite direction and honored whatever looked like it was not brainless fun, meaning smart and boring. They already honored Chariots of Fire and Gandhi, which both were well-made yet dull. Then they goofed and celebrated Amadeus, which was smart and fun. It was a fortunate goof since they could've gone with something like A Passage to India, which I've never seen but sounds desperately dull and like something they'd quite like to honor, with lots of upper class Brits acting terribly nonplussed at everything that happens around them while they stand around, as Eddie Izzard once described, "moving books slightly to the left." By 1985, the Academy hadn't yet figured out that an English degree is useless and they should go into something more profitable, like Engineering, so they latched onto what looked like the film with the greatest pedigree. It had a foreign locale in a pre-TV era, it had Meryl Streep with an accent, and it had lots of scenes with people moving books slightly to the left. If I've learned anything from this little project, it's that I can usually at least understand their line of thinking. Their choices may have been wrong with hindsight, but at that time, you can see why they picked what they did. I can't see that here. This is a very long, very dull love story with no particularly great scenes and no extraordinary characters. It's set in Africa and there aren't even any really pretty shots to look at. All the color was dull and muted. And with all these African tribes around, couldn't they find a minute or so to give us of them tribal drum dances? Give me stompin' natives any day over some rich Euro whose just trying to find a man she can love. Feh. This movie just sits up there on the screen doing nothing special and throwing out some occasional Oscar bait, and those idiots bit at it. Fuck a bunch of Academy members in the 80s.

Did it deserve to win?: Hell to the naw. Remember, 1985 was the year when The Color Purple went 0-11, which started an outcry that eventually snowballed into the words "Academy Award Winner Cuba Gooding Jr." I've seen The Color Purple a few times and in my opinion it is a great film. If you make it all the way to the end and you're not at least welling up, then you're part robot and, frankly, you frighten me. Two of my other all-time favorites, After Hours and Brazil, also came out that year. Honestly, I think Back to the Future deserved it more than Out of Africa, but that could never win because it's fun.

(out of 5)

There is only 1 remaining BP winner that I have yet to see.

Up next: Platoon

Platoon - This is one of those movies that changed things. It raised the bar on how battle would be portrayed in the movies. The bar has since been raised even higher by the likes of Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan, but Platoon was the first to place us within the battle so we could feel the horror and experience the chaos. (If some obscure Hong Kong film did earlier and better, I don't really give a shit.) Platoon is often overshadowed by Full Metal Jacket, which came out the next year. No point in comparing the two, as they have completely different approaches and explore different angles of the same war. Much as you may love FMJ, don't discount Platoon simply because you don't feel it is its equal. I've seen Platoon plenty of times in my life, and this latest sitting still kept my stomach in knots. I knew where it was going and there were no surprises it could spring on me, but that feeling of dread that starts very quickly early in the film and doesn't let up until the end is absolutely killer. It's not perfect. Charlie Sheen isn't up to the task to completely sell his character's arc. He just can't do the breakdowns without looking a bit silly. He also can't overcome his voice-over monologues, but some of that mediocre writing. I still think Sean Penn would've killed in this role. You'd think a weak lead actor would sink a film, but Sheen is good enough to not be distracting and the supporting characters (aside from Kevin Dillon) are all fantastic. Weird how the two weakest performances in the film were by the two guys who'd go on to bigger things than nearly everyone else in the cast. Greatest of all is an original look at how an unfocused war affected the grunts who were stuck in the middle of the shit pit. It may have been surpassed by other films in later years, but its impact has never been lessened.

Did it deserve to win?: It was a race between this and Hannah and Her Sisters. As Woody Allen wondered how you could compare Annie Hall and Star Wars, the same applies here. You can't compare these two very different films, so it's a matter of taste. This time Woody didn't win, thought it would've been okay if he did. My preference is Platoon. I'm just glad they used their heads for a change, considering they gave 8 noms to A Room with a View.

(out of 5)

Up next: The Last Emperor

One of these days I'll get around to seeing that.

Platoon is fucking great. 5 stars without question.

Watch all this year's BP nominees in one 24-hour period.

Who's in?

If I have to watch Toy Story 3 again, I may just kill myself.

Rest assured, kids grow out of that watch-the-same movie-repeatedly thing around age 7.

31 Days of Oscar on TCM starts tomorrow. Stu can tell you about all these movies. Get your DVRs ready.

Watch every night.

We certainly will. Thanks, Stu!

Maybe you could start a "thread" with your thoughts on each one. You can rate them on a 5 star scale, using emoticons that fit the plot of the movie instead of stars. You could also compare them with other nominees that year. Then maybe Diello can give a list of top 10 movies from the NY Times that year. And maybe he can get tired of it after 15 or so years.

That sounds like a really gay thread.

I'd recommend old movies, but people complain when they are longer than a 3 Stooges short.

I can't believe they never gave the 3 Stooges an Oscar. Daffy Duck got snubbed too.

So did blackface

The Last Emperor - Here's another movie I always resisted. It looked boring as hell to me, just another dull epic that looks pretty but is a few gunfights shy of catching the interest of my teenage self. That no one really talks about this movie anymore only seemed to cement my suspicions about it being yet another bloated epic, and so I've never been anywhere near it until now. First thing I have to admit how surprised I was when this thing started to suck me in. It took about a half hour, and I have to confess that the first part damn near knocked my ass out. Perhaps I started watching it too close to siesta, but I had to shut it off and go catch a little catnap. I had images of Ben-Hur in my head again, but when I returned to it well-rested, I got completely involved. Suddenly the epicness overtook me and I truly admired everything that was on the screen. Yeah, it's great to look at. All those technical awards it won were completely deserved. But it also moves at a nice pace and keeps those patches of boredom away. The emperor becomes a character you really care about and when he's an old man and out of power, you find the same emotions when he finds when he comes to them. You're happy when he's happy, and you're angry when he's angry. And there's a terrific, transcendent moment at the very end that made me smile and say, "Wow." Basically, I was swept up and along for almost the entire ride, and I now understand why critics and the Academy went so crazy for this movie that year. It may not be the kind of movie you turn on whenever you just feel like watching a movie or one you and your buddies talk about over beers, but it's quite possibly the single best film of that year. They may have actually gotten it all right for a change.

Did it deserve to win?: Like I said, you may be willing to watch Full Metal Jacket, Robocop, or Raising Arizona a dozen more times in your life, but they're not in the same league as The Last Emperor. There's greatness in all these titles, but one goes above and beyond.

(out of 5)*

* - one star docked for putting me to sleep early on

I have now seen every Best Picture winner, at least until The King's Speech wins at the end of the month.



Up Next: Rain Man

Congrats!

This comes on TCM tonight for those that want to see one of the first Oscar winners.

How long is it?

145 minutes.

It seemed longer than an hour and fourty five minutes

Fuck that. Community is on tonight.

Rain Man - Here's a movie I never understood the love for. I saw it in the theater when it first came out and I was ready to be entertained, but as I watched it I couldn't understand why everyone was going so crazy over it. I even watched it a second time to see if I missed something. Nope, same reaction: underwhelmed. Meanwhile, "definitely", "Wapner", and "I'm an excellent driver" became part of our regular lexicon, and Dustin Hoffman's Raymond became a classic character that people imitate to this day. I figured it was me and simply placed this movie on the List of Things I Don't Get along with Apollo 13 and Gladiator. So now I've watched it again, and somehow this time it got through to me. It's still not a great movie, but it's greater than I originally thought. I knew the story and its twists and turns, but I found I enjoyed going on the journey with these two guys. I was with them during the conversations about K-Mart underwear and I chuckled when Raymond farted in the phone booth. And when they reached the end and realized they couldn't be bros and hang out together, it was an emotional moment and I could understand why those with weaker constitutions would cry. Suddenly I understood what everyone else saw back in the day. Tom Cruise was great in this. I still don't get how Dustin Hoffman got all the accolades. Well, I understand, but I don't get it. Cruise had to carry the entire film, and his character had an actual arc. Hoffman hits his one tone and stays there the whole time.

Did it deserve to win?: Despite my uptick in admiration, no. At the time I thought Mississippi Burning was better. Apparently, everyone hates that movie now since it has the gall to view the Civil Rights movement from Whitey's PoV. The classics from 1988 aren't the kind that win awards (Die Hard, Naked Gun), but we still had Bull Durham, A Fish Called Wanda, and Talk Radio.

(out of 5)

Up next: Driving Miss Daisy

I'd probably give Rain Man 4 stars, but Die Hard and Mississippi Burning were both better.

I'm probably closer to 3 1/2.

Me too, but you said it was gay to rate half stars, so I rounded up.

That may be the dumbest thing I've ever said, but it still stands.

You've said dumber.

Someone's looking to get his ginger ass kicked.