A Night At (ALL) The Oscars

I'll be frank: I watched this movie, started the post, and then life happened. I've had this tab open on my computer for a month and a half, easily. So what you're about to see is not a finished post, but it's what I was able to write down before shit got real.  [When I was a senior in high school, my English teacher said that there is no such thing as a "slow beginning." We either find the whole story enjoyable or it isn't worth its salt. I've thought about that a lot since then, because I could never quite figure out if I agreed with him or not. Then I watched Cimarron,  and I made up my mind. I'm going to preface this whole post by saying I've somehow successfully managed to avoid watching Westerns my whole life on the assumption that I wouldn't enjoy a single one of them . I never in my life have seen the appeal of men in cowboy hats shooting each other over stolen property, all the while encroaching on native territory and disrespectin...

Number Three on the list is All Quiet On The Western Front from 1930, directed by Lewis Milestone. It tells the story of a group of naive and hot-headed German students driven to enlist in World War I by a patriotic professor, only to have the loss, trauma, and shell-shock destroy them from the outside in. I was riveted from the very beginning of the movie, so I didn’t write a single note while I was watching. However, I did take note of what the introductory card said: “This story is neither an accusation nor a confession and least of all an adventure for death is not an adventure for those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, revenge though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war...” Honestly, I don’t have a ton to say about it. It was a great movie. The only difficulty I had was trying to differentiate character names;  All Quiet  was, in its essence, an ensemble film, so learning a lot of character names...

Coming in at number two, we have MGM’s The Broadway Melody  of 1929, directed by Harry Beaumont, which was the first musical to win Best Picture. Like I did with Wings , I made notes as I watched. In order, this is what I have: MGM - Harry Beaumont Dir. CACOPHONY Canned singing? Eddie Kearns Mahoney Sisters - Hank and Queenie *title cards* Hank & Eddie = <3 I have a feeling we’re going to be hearing this song a lot. LOVE TRIANGLE - This isn’t a musical — it’s a movie about one (Nevermind) —> kind of. Gay jokes? SOMEONE TAP DANCES IN POINTE SHOES OMG Then, pretty much, I got lost about two thirds of the way through and stopped making notes. I’ll be frank: there is a monumentally short list of movies that I dislike, and this movie unfortunately made it onto that list. I wouldn’t say it was a bad movie, per se, I just didn’t enjoy it. You’ll find by reading this blog that I have a pathological need to find the best in everyone and everything, so one of the hardest things for...

The first stop along my Oscars journey was Wings , a 1927 silent film about two World War I fighter pilots. ***I am going to preface this post by saying that I already think I'm out of my depth here and feel incredibly dumb. I knew NOTHING about the Academy in its infancy and I think that the research I've done to answer some of my own questions about the early Academy Awards proceedings warrants its own blog post. Thus, I have left most of the details of the very first Oscars ceremony out of this post, as it would most likely be triple the length of already is.*** I was very surprised by this movie. The only silent film I'd ever seen was The Artist , and as that film came out in 2011, I wasn't sure how accurately it reflected the films of the era. My memory of The Artist is also pretty foggy, so I really was going into this movie blind. I wanted to go into this experiment having done as little research as possible, but I accidentally found out one bit of information ab...

So, I had an idea.  It's been on my bucket list for a while to watch every film that has won the Academy Award for Best Picture. And then my dad said it could be cool to blog while I do it. He said, "it'll be like 'Julie and Julia!'" And I was sold. So, I've decided that I am going to watch EVERY Best Picture winner IN ORDER, FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. That is 92 films up to this date, May 22, 2020. So I'd better get cracking! Every title is listed below in order, along with whether or not I've already seen the movie, and either what I remember of the movie OR what I've heard of the movie, if anything. [HS] - Have Seen [HNS] - Have Not Seen -Wings [HNS]  -The Broadway Melody [HNS] I think there's a song called Broadway Melody in Singin' in the Rain? -All Quiet On The Western Front [HNS] I've heard the name. That's all I got. -Cimarron [HNS]  -Grand Hotel [HNS]  -Cavalcade [HNS]  -It Happened One Night [HS] Love Clark Gable. Someth...