Still More 80s Movies 5: Oscar Winners

Everything said in the intro to the Still More 60s Movies 5 entry still stands.  On to the next!

1980

1. Best Foreign Language Film: The Tin Drum

I read and loved the book.  One of the best novels ever.

The movie version is very faithful to the novel, which makes sense given that Gunther Grass acted as advisor to the production.  The "sex scenes" involving then-11 year old David Bennent were very controversial at the time, and the film was banned in several countries, but The Tin Drum was critically acclaimed, and I've seen much worse in much earlier films.

Fun Fact: Star David Bennent would go on to appear in 1985's Legend alongside Tom Cruise and Mia Sara.  That one role was as far into American films as he ever ventured.

2. Best Music: A Little Romance

An American girl (Diane Lane!) living in Paris falls in love with a French boy she meets on a film set.  Director George Roy Hill also directed The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, two movies which are featured in this one.  He'd only do three more movies in the 80s: The World According to Garp, The Little Drummer Girl and the Chevy Chase vehicle Funny Farm before going on to teach drama at Yale.

1981

1. Best Foreign Language Film: Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears

A factory girl searches for love in Russia's biggest city.  I didn't like this one as much as Dersu Uzala, another Russian movie seen recently, but it was still very enjoyable.  The story is framed as a debate between modernism and traditional Russian values, and I'm not sure that the protagonist makes the right choice at the end, but then again it's not my culture, and her settling down with a man who seems both extremely proud and extremely temperamental makes a certain kind of sense.

Older Russian movies never seem to have the "hook" seen in Western movies: that crucial opening scene present to pique the viewer's interest.  It's a very different approach to storytelling.

2. Best Documentary: From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China

The famous violinist visits China, where he engages in several musical exchanges with musicians there.  It seems lightweight at first, but then the school director is talking about being locked in a closet for 14 months, to the point where his legs stopped working properly.  

China has come a long, long way in 40+ years.  Hopefully the present regime recognizes that some of this progress was due to goodwill exchanges like Stern's trips to Beijing and Shanghai.

1983

1. Best Documentary: Genocide

Like some other Oscar-winners recently reviewed here, these being The Diary of Anne Frank and Black Fox, Genocide once again proves that WWII movies score big when it comes to the Academy.

Genocide, narrated by Orson Welles and Elizabeth Taylor, is a study of the Holocaust.  Like the other films listed above, it's not an easy watch, but you'll walk away from it with a renewed appreciation of how easily fascism infiltrates most democratic societies.  "Making Germany great again" indeed.

2. Best Documentary (Short Subject): Close Harmony

One choir composed of young children and another composed of senior citizens come together in song.  The end result is somewhat cacophonous, but the interviews with the children about how they perceive both age and aging are interesting.

1984

1. Best Documentary: He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin'

The founder of the National Dance Institute prepares a class of a thousand kids for a dance performance narrated by Kevin Kline.  Not sure why this one deserved an Academy Award, but it's OK.

2. Best Documentary (Short Subject): Flamenco at 5:15

I begin to realize that the kind of "flamenco dancing" seen in ballroom dance competitions is at best a pale reflection of the real thing.  The combination of music, dance and sheer timing in the performances is truly impressive.

1985

1. Best Foreign Language Film: Dangerous Moves

This movie didn't scream "Oscar" to me, but the ending is cool.  I also enjoyed seeing Liv Ullman, who some may remember from several Ingmar Bergman movies.  The story is centered around a series of chess matches between two Grandmasters for the World Championship.  I'll agree that it sounds boring, but it flows along nicely and the battle of wills between the two protagonists is interesting.

2. Best Documentary: The Times of Harvey Milk

I liked 2008's Milk, and Sean Penn deserved the Best Actor Oscar for it, but Gus Van Sant's movie doesn't do the best job of demonstrating why people cared so much about Harvey Milk.  This searching documentary provides a more thorough examination of that topic, and will leave you with a lot to think about.

1986

1. Best Actress: Geraldine Page: The Trip to Bountiful

An unhappy woman ventures back to her hometown after a overlong sojourn in the city.

And hey, isn't that Rebecca De Mornay?  Who once made me so "hornay?"  She appeared in Risky Business two years before, and after The Trip to Bountiful she'd go on to appear in both Backdraft and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.  She's still around, by the way.  The last thing I can remember seeing her in was Netflix's Jessica Jones, which aired around 2019, but she's been in movies as recent as last year.

Geraldine Page?  I'm not that familiar with her.  Her film career stretched all the way back to 1953, and her last movie hit theaters in 1987.  She may not have won an Oscar until the end of career, but she was nominated many, many times before that.

2. Best Documentary: Broken Rainbow

Strap yourself in, because this one gets intense.  Broken Rainbow details the history of exploitation between the Hopi, the Navajo and the U.S. government, at the time of filming most directly expressed as the forced relocation of Navajo people from Hopi lands as part of a mining scheme.  The part about birth defects resulting from uranium mining is particularly hard to watch.

1987

1. Best Foreign Language Film: The Assault

A man struggles with childhood memories of World War II while unexpected acquaintances keep reappearing in his life.  I felt like the structure of the story probably worked better in the novel.

2. Best Documentary (Short Subject): Women for America, for the World

Several women urge against complacency with regard to nuclear proliferation.  I was 11 years old when this came out, but I can still remember that sense of imminent threat.  Movies like Threads and The Day After hit us hard.

1988

1. Best Documentary: The Ten-Year Lunch: The Wit and Legend of the Algonquin Round Table

A series of interviews regarding an influential lunch club that took place in New York's Algonquin Hotel.  Several of those in attendance went on to fame as poets, actresses, playwrights, journalists and authors of note.  This one was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be, touching as it does upon many social issues prevalent in the 1920s.  Quite a party while it lasted.  Too bad the Great Depression was waiting in the wings.

2. Best Documentary (Short Subject): Young at Heart

A pair of octogenarian painters share their personal philosophies.  Their thoughts on aging: 1) don't spend too much time mourning or looking backward, and 2) make yourself busy.

1989

1. Best Foreign Language Film: Pelle the Conqueror

Quite depressing as foreign movies go, but beautifully filmed with enough twists and turns to keep the viewer interested.  I agree with the critics: this one's great.*

2. Best Documentary: Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie

The only movie here I didn't finish.  It gets bogged down in a lot of details regarding the French Resistance, and never elevates itself above decades-old quarrels which will never be resolved.

Besides, I'm getting tired of Nazis.  The Third Reich will put you at least 1/4 of the way toward your Oscar dreams, but only so many Nazi-themed movies can be viewed in the same time period.

Related Entries:

Still More 70s Movies 5: Oscar Winners

Still More 60s Movies 5: Oscar Winners

Still More 80s Movies 4

Still More 70s Movies 4

*If you're watching this movie via the link provided be warned: the subtitles only work via PC or laptop, and the auto-generated text is hard to decipher.

Academy Award Winners: 1929-1930

The third Academy Awards were held not long after the second Academy Awards.  They moved the date back so that the ceremony could be held closer to the eligibility period.  During this year the "Outstanding Picture" category was changed to "Outstanding Production."

Those interested are welcome to consult the Wikipedia article on the third Academy Awards.  What follow below are my thoughts on the Best Picture, Best Directing, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Cinematography winners.

The Oscar ceremony recognizing movies released between August 1, 1929 to July 31, 1930 was held in 1930.

1. Outstanding Production: All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

2. Best Director: Lewis Milestone - All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Lewis Milestone also won Best Directing (Comedy) for 1927's Two Arabian Knights.

 

At this point I've seen all three filmed adaptations of Erich Maria Remarque's novel, these being the 1930 and 2022 versions released in theaters, and the 1979 made for TV movie.  Of these three versions the 1979 TV movie is my favorite, primarily because it strikes, in my opinion, the best balance between the humanity of its characters and the horror of war.

 

Which is not to say that Lewis Milestone's 1930 version is bad in any respect.  If it's not -- again, in my opinion -- as good as the 1979 version it's still excellent.  1930's All Quiet on the Western Front was a considerable technical achievement, and the story it tells is still just as timely.  Just compare this film to other World War I films of the time period, everything from Hell's Angels (below) to Wings.  It's head and shoulders above those other movies, and represents, moreover, a considerable improvement over the director's own Two Arabian Knights, which won him his first Academy Award a year previous.

Fun Fact 1: Many German war veterans served as extras in this film.

Fun Fact 2: The Nazis (Brownshirts) weren't fans of this movie's anti-war message.  They disrupted several screenings of it in the years leading up to World War II.

3. Best Actor: George Arliss - Disraeli (1929)

All but surrounded by Russian spies, Benjamin Disraeli attempts to grab control of the Suez Canal in the interests of the Crown.  I'm not well read on this era in British history, but I felt that the story was convincing and George Arliss is good in the lead role.

4. Best Actress: Norma Shearer - The Divorcee (1930)

Now here's a movie that goes down MUCH differently in 2023 that it did in 1930.  Is the main character's version of turnabout fair play?  Is her husband's offended jealousy unfounded?  Is a divorced woman "ruined?"  Is their marriage salvageable?  I suppose your answers to these questions in 2023 depend more on your lifestyle, religious affiliation, gender orientation and sexual orientation, and less on a publicly held morality that you feel you have to answer to.

My thoughts on The Divorcee?  It's a little too much like a play at times, and the scenes in the cabin leading up to the accident are confusing.  This said, once the protagonist crosses the altar it's a much easier movie to understand and to relate to.  Norma Shearer was a good actress, and I don't know that many of her contemporaries could have handled this role so well.

5. Best Cinematography: Willard Van der Veer - With Byrd at the South Pole (1930)

Documentary on Byrd's Antarctic Expedition.  The task of filming this expedition was indeed daunting, involving cameras mounted on boats, planes and even dogsleds.  With Byrd at the South Pole remains the only documentary to win an Oscar for cinematography.

Fun Fact: a lot of the money for this expedition came from the Ford Motor Company.  Byrd was good friends with Edsel Ford (for whom the car is named) and his father Henry Ford.

6. Honorable Mention: Hell's Angels (1930)

All Quiet on the Western Front?  In many way's Hell's Angels is the inverse of that movie, in other ways it's just not very good.  Some of the accents, for example, are atrocious, even if the scenes of aerial combat are an improvement over Wings, which won the Academy Award for Outstanding Picture two years before.

Jean Harlow was very sexy though, and producer and director Howard Hughes spared no expense in both filming Wings and converting this previously silent picture to sound.  I was familiar with this movie from both The Amazing Howard Hughes and The Aviator, and even though the dramatic elements often fall flat it's still an interesting watch.

Parting Thoughts

 

This round of Academy Award winners was much easier to sit through.  All Quiet on the Western Front is still a good movie with a lot to offer modern viewers.  The other films here?  I can't say that any of them are bad, but they require more effort on the part of the viewer.

Related Entries:

 

Academy Award Winners: 1928-1929

Academy Award Winners: 1927-1928

Some Other Movies from 2022 (2)

Upcoming Superhero Movies in the Order I Want to See Them 4

 

Academy Award Winners: 1928-1929

The second Academy Awards narrowed down the categories to those we know today.  I think this was a cogent move on the Academy's part, as expecting the public to differentiate between the two Best Picture winners and the two Best Director winners was asking too much.

Those interested are welcome to consult the Wikipedia article on the second Academy Awards.  What follow below are my thoughts on the Outstanding Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Cinematography winners.

The Oscar ceremony recognizing movies released between August 1, 1928 to July 31, 1929 was held in 1930.

1. Outstanding Picture: The Broadway Melody (1929)

Denied!  Couldn't track down a copy of this one.  There's a clip on YouTube, and judging by the subject matter that's as far as I'm willing to go.  I'm not that into musicals, and I'd rather not pay for the privilege of watching it.

Considered by many to be the first complete musical, the contemporary critical assessment of The Broadway Melody was lukewarm.  Modern reviewers have been even less kind to the picture, and its rating on sites such as Rotten Tomatoes is unsurprisingly low.  In retrospect it seems to have been more of a technical achievement than an artistic one.

2. Best Director: Frank Lloyd - The Divine Lady (1929)

The days of silent film might have been numbered, but this movie, which featured synchronized sound minus dialogue, still won Best Director.  It's the story of Admiral Nelson's affair with a married woman during the Napoleonic Wars, and I'm guessing it won on both the strength of its battle scenes and the surprise hit song it introduced to the public. 

Fun Fact: the star of this film, Corinne Griffith, invested in real estate in and around Beverly Hills and died one of the richest women in the world.  During divorce proceedings in the 1960s, she claimed to not be Corinne Griffith, but rather Griffith's younger or twin sister, who took over the role of "Corinne Griffith" after the real Corinne Griffith died in 1920 or 1924.  To this day no one has been able to either prove or falsify this claim.

3. Best Actor: Warner Baxter - In Old Arizona (1928)

The first feature-length "talkie."  In Old Arizona is a lighthearted look at the Old West, with The Cisco Kid caught between a womanizing army sergeant and a duplicitous young woman.  Nothing in this movie is especially authentic, and I can only assume that star Warner Baxter won the Oscar due to the fact that he could act and speak at the same time.  He's definitely not bad in this movie, and some of the dialogue is clever, but I wasn't feeling "Oscar" here.

 

4. Best Actress: Mary Pickford - Coquette (1929)

Mary Pickford stars as a rather insincere Southern belle forced to choose between an earnest suitor and a jealous father.  Is it just me, or is this the kind of role rarely offered to actresses now?  Whatever the case, Pickford deserved her Oscar.

 

There is, by the way, a documentary about her on YouTube.  By 1929 most of her career was behind her, but she'd be involved in the film industry up until the 1940s. Alongside Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith and her then-husband Douglas Fairbanks, Pickford was one of the "united artists" who founded the production company of the same name.

5. Best Cinematography: Clyde De Vinna - White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)

Racial politics at work in the Marquesas.  I suppose Clyde De Vinna won the Oscar for the underwater scenes featuring pearl divers.  Overall this movie is very heavy-handed and I wouldn't recommend it.

6. Honorable Mention: Blackmail (1929)

Alfred Hitchcock's first film with sound.  Of all the movies discussed in this and the previous entry, I found Blackmail the most interesting.  Curious about movie history?  Sunrise and Metropolis are must-see films.  Looking to watch a great performance?  Mary Pickford in Coquette and Emil Jannings in The Last Command stand out.  But however good these other movies are, Blackmail is far more absorbing.  The performances, the staging, the way in which it was filmed all point toward an attention to detail that would loom large over subsequent decades of movie history, anticipating not only the director's own Psycho and Frenzy but also the British film industry as a whole.

Parting Thoughts

 

Hopefully I'm done with silent films with this entry.  Honestly, my patience with them is wearing thin.  Sitting through movies such as 7th Heaven and White Shadows in the South Seas has been instructive, but I'll be glad to see the silent era draw to a close with this entry.  I admire both the art and the artifice at work in those films, but I also enjoy the sound of people talking.

Related Entries:

 

Academy Award Winners: 1927-1928

Some Other Movies From 2022 (2)

Upcoming Superhero Movies in the Order I Want to See Them 4

Some Other Movies From 2023

Academy Award Winners: 1927-1928

The first Academy Awards ceremony was very different from the version familiar to us today.  Instead of a single "Best Picture" category there were awards for both "Outstanding Picture" and "Best Unique and Artistic Picture."  Likewise the Oscars for "Best Director" were divided between "Best Directing (Comedy Picture)" and "Best Directing (Dramatic Picture)."

Those interested are welcome to consult the Wikipedia article on the very first Academy Awards.  What follow below are my thoughts on the Best Picture, Best Directing, Best Actor and Best Actress winners.

The Oscar ceremony recognizing movies released between August 1, 1927 to July 31, 1928 was held in 1929, which is when the picture above was taken.

1. Outstanding Picture: Wings

Two aspiring pilots find themselves at odds over a beautiful socialite as America enters World War I.  In 2023 this silent film resembles nothing so much as a series of cut scenes from a video game, and I was surprised how easy it was to watch.

The aerial combat scenes (and, to a lesser extent, this tracking shot) blew people's minds in 1927, and Wings was also one of the first big movies to show both male and female nudity.  Clara Bow, who appears as one of the two love interests, was a huge sex symbol in the late 20s, and her likeness features on many of the posters for Wings.

Fun Fact: Margot Robbie's character in 2022's Babylon is based on Clara Bow.  Many of the rumors regarding Bow's sexual proclivities were, however, untrue.

2. Best Unique and Artistic Picture: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

German director F.W. Murnau's first American feature, and a film often referred to as "the greatest silent movie ever made."  It's more technically accomplished than the other movies discussed here, but I'm not sure that it holds up as well in terms of story.

After Sunrise Murnau would go on to make three more films, 4 Devils, City Girl and Tabu: A Story of the South Seas.  4 Devils was lost after its release in theaters, and Tabu was released after the director's death in 1931.

3. Best Directing (Comedy): Lewis Milestone (Two Arabian Knights)

Brought to you by Howard Hughes!

In Two Arabian Knights a pair of American POWs try to evade the Germans while contesting for the love of a beautiful Arab princess. I can only assume that audiences in 1927 found this movie hilarious, because it sure wasn't doing anything for me.

Star William Boyd would go on to portray Hopalong Cassidy for many years after. Director Lewis Milestone had a long career ahead of him, helming such films as All Quiet on the Western Front, The Front Page and Of Mice and Men.

4. Best Directing (Drama): Frank Borzage (7th Heaven)

A Parisian street cleaner takes in a woman down on her luck.  7th Heaven lost in the "Outstanding Picture" category to Wings, but Frank Borzage won Best Director (Drama) for his skillful handling of this story of love found in an unlikely place.

A remake of this movie set in the modern day could work very well.  The desperation, the search for love and the idea of divine intervention in human affairs are all just as relevant today as they were in 1927.

5. Best Actor: Emil Jannings (The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh)

Of the movies discussed here The Last Command is my favorite by far.  It tells a timely story of a great man's rise and fall, the way in which it tells this story is both precise and sweeping in scope, and Emil Jannings is undeniably great in the lead role.  I'm neither here nor there with Janet Gaynor winning the first-ever Best Actress award, but yeah, Jannings amply deserved his Best Actor Oscar.

Unlike the other movies discussed here, all of which saw release in 1927, The Last Command was released in 1928,

Sad Fact: Jannings would go on to star in several Nazi propaganda films leading up to WWII.  His doing so effectively ended his career in movies.

6. Best Actress: Janet Gaynor (7th Heaven, Street Angel and Sunrise)

I haven't seen Street Angel and I probably never will, but Gaynor's haunting eyes and doll-like face add a lot to the two movies in her filmography that I've seen.  Of these two movies I definitely prefer 7th Heaven, as she passes through a much wider range of emotions in that film.

7. Honorable Mention: Metropolis

One of the earliest science fiction movies and, I would argue, the most culturally relevant film of 1927. Director Fritz Lang made Metropolis while still resident in Germany, and it showcases both his German expressionism and his awe of America, the country he would later call home.

In terms of depth I'm not sure if the biblical themes are as profound as some make them out to be, but Metropolis remains a classic.

Parting Thoughts

 

Taking only the movies discussed here into consideration, the Germans seemed to have had an effect on cinema far disproportionate to the number Germans actively involved in making films at the time.  F.W. Murnau, Fritz Lang and Emil Jannings are all evidence of this trend.  The German influence would wane after World War II, but it's surprising how strong a presence they were up until that point.

All in all I enjoyed the films above, even if my mind wandered at times.  It's funny, but I can almost remember some of them as if the characters in them were audible.  In the absence of sufficient sensory input, I suppose our minds always want to fill in the blanks, and this "weakness" of the human brain works, I further suppose, to either our advantage and disadvantage depending on the situation.

Looking to give silent films a try?  These movies would be a good place to start.  I can't see myself venturing still further backward into the history of film anytime soon, but this era in movie-making is definitely less foreign to me now.

Related Entries:

Some Other Movies from 2022 (2)

Upcoming Superhero Movies in the Order I Want to See Them 4

Some Other Movies From 2023

The Films of Steven Spielberg

Award-Winning Superhero Movies...?

1. Spotlight (2015)

Sabretooth, leading a team that includes Batman, the Hulk, and Doctor Strange's girlfriend, investigates child molestation accusations leveled against the Catholic Church.  Along the way they encounter Dr. Manhattan and Dr. Erskine, two lawyers (or are they doctors?) involved in the dispute.

2. The Revenant (2015)

Leonardo DiCaprio gets on the bad side of Bane, with predictable results.

3. Steve Jobs (2015)

Magneto invents a crappy computer that isn't compatible with anything.  Then he invents another one, also not compatible with anything.  And then he invents another one after that.  And no, the third one isn't compatible with anything.

4. The Big Short (2015)

Batman likes heavy metal and plays drums when he's angry.  He's also knowledgeable about stocks, and foresees the global financial meltdown of 2007-2008.  Batman is awesome!

3. Birdman (2014)

Batman wants to direct and star in a play that he wrote.  His daughter, Spider-man's girlfriend, and the Hulk also star.

4. Whiplash (2014)

J. Jonah Jameson (or is it Commissioner Gordon?) teaches Reed Richards how to play drums.  Halfway through the movie Reed dumps Supergirl.

7. American Sniper (2014)

Rocket Raccoon gets post-traumatic stress disorder after a safari in scenic Iraq.

8. The Imitation Game (2014)

Doctor Strange invents the first computer after Sinestro recruits him into the OSS, or whatever the British had before James Bond showed up.

9. Foxcatcher (2014)

The Hulk and his brother (possibly Gambit) are good at wrestling, so some rich guy gives them money to do it (wrestling, I mean).

10. Gone Girl (2014)

Batman marries the WRONG woman.

5. Gravity (2013)

Batman in space.

6. 12 Years a Slave (2013)

Baron Mordo gets on the wrong end of Magneto.  Maybe it has something to do with the Apple II.

7. Argo (2012)

Batman goes to Syria to save some reporters.  Good job, Batman!

8. Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Rocket Raccoon and Mystique begin a troubled relationship.

9. The Descendants (2011)

Batman in Hawaii!  Damn, Batman's been in a lot of movies!

10. Black Swan (2010)

Thor's girlfriend wins the starring role in a production of Swan Lake.  Things get weirder and weirder from there.

11. The Dark Knight (2008)

Hey, it's not always about superheroes, right?  The kid from Empire of the Sun tries to save Chicago from that guy who played Billy Bob Thornton's son in Monster's Ball.  And no, Batman's not in it.