Day 38: Titanic

Titanic: 1998: Winner of the 70th Academy Award

Starring 

Leonardo DiCaprio:Jack Dawson

Kate Winslet :Rose DeWitt Bukater

Billy Zane :Caledon 'Cal' Hockley

Kathy Bates:Molly Brown

Frances Fisher :Ruth Dewitt Bukater

Gloria Stuart :Old Rose

Bill Paxton :Brock Lovett

Bernard Hill :Captain Edward James Smith

David Warner :Spicer Lovejoy

Victor Garber :Thomas Andrews

Jonathan Hyde :Bruce Ismay

Suzy Amis :Lizzy Calvert

 Lewis Abernathy :Lewis Bodine

 Nicholas Cascone :Bobby Buell

“I’m the king of the World” those were Leonardo DiCaprio’s words as eh outstretched his arms on the dream movie of James Cameron. Yo did you know this movie won 11 academy awards? Only won or equaled to by LOTR #3? With a slightly smaller cast and generally two unknowns who were about to make movie box office and movie cinema history. This movie was titanic in every way, the way it was filmed, the cost, the production, the stars, the idea, the award sweep, the audience, it was the movie that was literally unsinkable. I’ve watched everything documentary like on this moive and I can tell you it was the little engine that could. I was 8 when this movie came out.  My parents were so friggin;’ happy when this movie came out and because it was rated R they couldn’t take me so my consolation prize was a titanic t-shirt that I had until I was about 15. This movie totally made it big and it is forever inspiring really bad spin-offs of the first opening line and then the one with Leo and Kate on the rails. One of my favorite movies “Love Actually” uses it for romantic  therapy. The story of the underdog romance will go on and onnnnn… Celine Dion status. 

 

It also won awards for:

Best Cinematography,

Best Costume Design

Best Visual Effects

Best Sound (Gary Rydstrom, Tom Johnson, Gary Summers, Mark Ulano)

Best Sound Effects Editing,

Best Original Dramatic Score

Best Film Editing,

Best Original Song

Best Art Direction

Best Director

Day 37: Out of Africa

Out of Africa : 1985: Winner of the 58th  Academy Award

Starring:

Robert Redford - Denys Finch Hatton

Meryl Streep - Karen Blixen

Klaus Maria Brandauer - Bror Blixen/Hans Blixen

Michael Kitchen - Berkeley Cole

Shane Rimmer - Belknap

Malick Bowens - Farah

Joseph Thiaka - Kamante

Stephen Kinyanjui - Chief Kinanjui

Michael Gough - Lord Delamere

Suzanna Hamilton - Felicity

Rachel Kempson - Lady Belfield

Graham Crowden - Lord Belfield

Benny Young - Minister

Leslie Phillips - Sir Jospeh

Annabel Maule - Lady Byrne

Iman - Mariammo

Meryl Streep is so pretty, its so not fair she aged too damn well. So in this movie she is a wealthy heiress who is dying  to have adventures but needs to get married and have a title so she strikes up a deal with Baron Von Blixen who is broke. Perfect match. They travel to Africa in the British Colony, get married and start a coffee plantation.  However this man is so not marriage material, he is cheating on his wife as soon as they get married. Granted it was a marriage for convenience it still means something. Right? Anyway, so then she stays at the coffee plantation and the whole movie is about her being strong willed and yada yada, being a lone woman in the land of no women. Anyway the e crux is when the war starts and she has to go to deliver some supplies to her husband and they have smush  time and she contracts syphilis. Yes this is an important point. Because later she wants to sleep with Brad Pitt  Robert Redford. But she tells him the truth. He don’t care he loves her. Later they argue that he doesn’t love her  and frankly she’s being one of those naggy needy girls. The man needs his space girl. Has she not seen “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”?  “You can’t go and give your heart to a wild thing…”its like a staple by which you should live on.  I had issues with this movie. Mainly how long it was, kind of unnecessary and the damn accent bothered me a heap ton. I swear I prefer it when they say they are Dutch and speak normally, it might leave you wondering a bit, but at least you can understand what they are saying.  The other would be getting someone who could portray a decent accent. I will say this thought the costumes were very pretty and someone should have casted Brad Pitt in a Robert Redford life story sometime.  I mean it, I swear different nose and jawline but essentially same dude. Boy the 80’s had really crappy serious movies. 

It also won awards for:

Best Director (Sydney Pollack)

Best Art Direction (Stephen Grimes, Josie MacAvin)

Best Cinematography (David Watkin)

Best Adapted Screenplay (Kurt Luedtke)

Best Original Score (John Barry)

Best Sound (Chris Jenkins, Gary Alexander, Larry Stensvold, Peter Handford)

Day 36: Dances With Wolves

Dances with Wolves 1990: Winner of the 63rd Academy Award

Starring:

Kevin Costner as Lt. John J. Dunbar / Dances with Wolves / Narrator

Mary McDonnell as Stands With A Fist

Graham Greene as Kicking Bird

Rodney A. Grant as Wind In His Hair

Floyd Red Crow Westerman as Chief Ten Bears

Tantoo Cardinal as Black Shawl

Jimmy Herman as Stone Calf

Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse as Smiles A Lot

Michael Spears as Otter

Jason R. Lone Hill as Worm

Charles Rocket as Lt. Elgin

Robert Pastorelli as Timmons

Larry Joshua as Sgt. Bauer

Tony Pierce as Spivey

Kirk Baltz as Edwards

This movie was surprisingly funny. Ok so this one guy gets sent to the prairie, but he is a retard and he then shots himself but of course this guy never figures to go and check why. The guy was fucking loony. Anyway so this dude gets sent out to some flat land where the Sioux Indians inhabit and therehe is alone in the hinterlands until some Indians decide to mess with him. Blah blah blah later they are best friends and he gets captured by the US Army. I expected this movie to be like Brave Heart but it was a unlikely and very welcomed surprise. It was funny when it needed to be it was heartbreaking, dramatic, romantic and violent. All in its due time and course. Even though I wished with all my heart that Dances with Wolves and Stands with a Fist stayed with the Sioux, I understood why he had to leave. Plus, I totally loved Two Socks! He was pretty awesome. Even if he was a wolf, I so cried when he died. I also wanted to watch this movie because all of my friends had watched it. Even my cousin who is soo not a movie buff.  However rest assured it was pretty awesome. 

It also won awards for:

Best Director – Kevin Costner

Best Adapted Screenplay – Michael Blake

Best Cinematography – Dean Semler

Best Film Editing – Neil Travis

Best Sound – Russell Williams II, Jeffrey Perkins, Bill W. Benton and Gregory H. Watkins

Best Original Score – John Barry

Day 35: It Happened One Night

It Happened one Night: 1934: Winner of the 7th Academy Award

Starring:

Clark Gable as Peter Warne

Claudette Colbert as Ellie Andrews

Walter Connolly as Alexander Andrews

Roscoe Karns as Oscar Shapeley

Jameson Thomas as "King" Westley

Alan Hale as Danker

Arthur Hoyt as Zeke

Blanche Friderici as Zeke's wife

Charles C. Wilson as Joe Gordon

Wow,  Claudette Colbert, show your gams girl! I never knew that the showing of the leg to get some  male traveler to stop was from this gem from the mid -thirtes. Starring two of the greatest actors of the time, Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable. Gable has also popped out on “Mutiny on the Bounty” and the very small movie “Gone with the Wind.”  Although in this one he plays a lovelorn sailor, I mean a lovelorn gambler, I mean a lovelorn journalist. Ah yes that’s the ticket. Well he is a down on his luck journalist who finds himself riding on the same bus to New York with a millionaire’s daughter who in her discontent has run away from home.  So he takes her on after she loses her luggage and any material possession she may own.  As per diem she falls in love with him and it’s a bit of a cat and chase movie until the end.    I saw this movie in the Sex and the City 2 movie actually. The very first scene where Carrie and Big are at the Hotel after Stanford’s wedding. They watch the movie and Carrie says Claudette Colbert is “pretty” (sorry I don’t think so.) I like Clark Gable in this movie I really do. It might actually be my favorite. But considering I have only watched.. umm three Clark Gable movies not sure if that stands. Also I had a bit of a marathon watched all three Clark Gable included movies, so saw his many facets and could see why he was so loved by studios. Even though I will say his justification air of authority annoyed me in Mutiny on the Bounty. 

It also won awards for :

Best Picture :Columbia Pictures (Frank Capra and Harry Cohn)

Best Director: Frank Capra

Best Actor :Clark Gable

Best Actress: Claudette Colbert

Best Writing, Adaptation: Robert Riskin

Day 34: Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind:1938: Winner of the 12th Academy Award

Starring:

Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara

Clark Gable as Rhett Butler

Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes

Olivia de Havilland as Melanie Hamilton

Hattie McDaniel as Mammy

Thomas Mitchell as Gerald O'Hara

Barbara O'Neil as Ellen O'Hara

Evelyn Keyes as Suellen O'Hara

Ann Rutherford as Carreen O'Hara

George Reeves as Stuart Tarleton

Fred Crane as Brent Tarleton

Oscar Polk as Pork

Butterfly McQueen as Prissy

Victor Jory as Jonas Wilkerson

Howard Hickman as John Wilkes

Alicia Rhett as India Wilkes

You will at one point in your life watch this movie. Guaranteed, if you don’t watch it at school then you shall watch it on AMC. If you don’t have cable you will most surely see it on Netflix. And if you don’t have that you may watch it on some other movie. Maybe not all of it but enough to strike your fancy and so then you shall watch it in entirety. I watched it when I was 13 after I read “Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.” The movie was so riveting and so new for its  time no wonder it won a bajillion awards. Although true “The Wizard of Oz” was also nominated for the Best Picture award it lost. There was no competition for this.  This movie not only sweeps in awards it sweeps in time. It also provided America with it’s exit line. “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”  Rhett Butler don’t we all want him, nobody wanted that pansy of an Ashley! Scarlett was out of her damn jealous mind. And Milly that kind hearted soul.  The story of how the civil war riveted the south how it changed it people and the struggle of one beautiful girl who with determination and a helping of ugly prevailed and got to keep her land.

It also won awards for:

Best Director: Victor Fleming

Best Actress :Vivien Leigh

Best Adapted Screenplay: Sidney Howard

Awarded posthumously

Best Supporting Actress: Hattie McDaniel

Received a miniature "Oscar" statuette on a plaque

Best Cinematography, Color: Ernest Haller and Ray Rennahan

Best Film Editing :Hal C. Kern and James E. Newcom

Received a miniature "Oscar" statuette on a plaque, replaced with a regular statuette in 1962

Best Art Directiion : Lyle Wheeler

Day 33:Best Years of Our Lives

The Best Years of Our Lives: 1946: Winner of the 19th Academy Award

Starring:

Myrna Loy as Milly Stephenson

Fredric March as Technical Sergeant Al Stephenson

Dana Andrews as Captain Fred Derry

Teresa Wright as Peggy Stephenson

Virginia Mayo as Marie Derry

Cathy O'Donnell as Wilma Cameron

Hoagy Carmichael as Uncle Butch

Harold Russell as Petty Officer 2nd Class Homer Parish

Gladys George as Hortense Derry

Roman Bohnen as Pat Derry

This movie was spectacular. I absolutely loved it, maybe it was Dana Andrews or the fact that it wasn’t a about war. Well not all of it actually. The movie is about returning war veterans and the hardships they encounter when they come home to unfinished lives. I demand particular attention to the drunk scene which is perhaps the first scene of the movie but so worth it. The three stories all different are united by the ideal of a war veteran returning to a broken country. I won’t lie to you the story of the last, the youngest soldier irked me some .  Him not being able to accept his hook handedness, there was just something so annoying about him, maybe the fact that everyone has accepted the fact that he has no hands but he has not. HE can’t accept love from anyone. That was the only part of the movie that annoyed me. However I very much love the old couple. They were the best. I loved how they tried to rekindle  there loving taking off right where they had left. I can see why this movie won best picture , it was three faces about a reality and even if it was romanticized it was still awesome.

It also won awards for

Best Director:William Wyler

Best Actor :Fredric March

Best Writing (Screenplay):Robert E. Sherwood

Best Supporting Actor :Harold Russell

Best Film Editing:Daniel Mandell

Best Music (Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture):Hugo Friedhofer

Honorary Award:To Harold Russell

You have been Crossed Out

Here's the list of the movies again and I'm going to cross of the one's i've already watched seeing as how on thrusday i shall post the 42nd movie and thats half.


Wings

The Broadway Melody

All Quiet on the Western Front


Cimarron


Grand Hotel

Cavalcade

It Happened One Night

Mutiny on the Bounty


The Great Zeigfield.


The Life of Emile Zola

You Can’t Take it with You

Gone with the Wind


Rebecca


How Green was My Valley


Mrs. Miniver


Casablanca

Going My Way

The Lost Weekend

The Best Years of our Lives


Gentleman’s Agreement


Hamlet


All The Kings Men


All About Eve


An American in Paris

The Greatest Show on Earth

From Here to Eternity

On the Waterfront

Marty

Around the World in 80 Days

The Bridge on the River Kwai


Gi-Gi


Ben-Hur

The Apartment


West Side Story


Lawrence of Arabia


Tom Jones

My Fair Lady


The Sound of Music

A Man for all Seasons

In the Heat of the Night

Oliver!

Midnight Cowboy

Patton

The French Connection

The Godfather

The Sting

The Godfather II

One Flew over the Cukoo’s Nest


Rocky


Annie Hall


The Deer Hunter


Kramer vs. Kramer

Ordinary People


Chariots of Fire


Gandhi

Terms of Endearment

Amadeus

Out of Africa

Platoon

The Last Emperor

Rain Man


Driving Miss Daisy


Dances with Wolves

The Silence of the Lambs


Unforgiven

Schindler’s List

Forrest Gump

Brave Heart

The English Patient


Titanic


Shakespeare in Love

American Beauty


Gladiator

A Beautiful Mind

Chicago


The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King


Million Dollar Baby


Crash

The Departed

No Country for Old Men

Slumdog Millionaire

The Hurt Locker

The King’s Speech

I'm missing alot of the 80's  and form 65 to 75 roughly i believe. As well as the whole last five to ten year's. However I'll get to them I promise!

Day 32: American Beauty

American Beauty: 1999 : Winner of the 72nd Academy Award

Starring:

Kevin Spacey ... Lester Burnham

Annette Bening ... Carolyn Burnham

Thora Birch ... Jane Burnham

Wes Bentley ... Ricky Fitts

Mena Suvari ... Angela Hayes

Chris Cooper ... Col. Frank Fitts, USMC

Peter Gallagher ... Buddy Kane

Allison Janney ... Barbara Fitts

Scott Bakula ... Jim Olmeyer

Sam Robards ... Jim Berkley

Barry Del Sherman ... Brad Dupree

I love this movie because it introduced audiences into a world completely different than the one we are all accustomed to. So Lester is a man who has lived his life according to all the conventional rules and ideals of society only to find himself, unhappy and quite worthless. His wife is a beautiful picture with a bit of mold on the inside, the woman's stark raving mad if you ask me. And his daughter Janey is a social misfit with an askew view on society, yet trying her hardest to conform. These are all the intertwined points on one of the century's most acclaimed pictures. I watched this because a friend lent it to me and I watched it with my parent's. If you have ever seen it you know how uncomfortable I must have been, but despite that I loved it. I just bought it recently and I’ve already watched it twice. Also I have never looked at a red rose, that could possibly be an American Beauty the same way ever again. That scene where he imagines her in rose petals from the ceiling, I thought was just so …. oh man it was great. It captures the true nature of passion and unrestrained imagination. If you haven't watched this movie, you can't have lived, it is beautiful and poignant, everyone must watch!

It also won awards for:

Best Director,

Best Actor :Kevin Spacey

Best Original Screenplay

Best Cinematography

Day 31: Silence of the Lambs

Silence of the Lambs:1991: Winner of the 64th Academy Award

 

Starring:

Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling

Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter

Scott Glenn as Jack Crawford

Ted Levine as Jame Gumb, "Buffalo Bill"

Anthony Heald as Frederick Chilton

Brooke Smith as Catherine Martin

Diane Baker as Senator Ruth Martin

Kasi Lemmons as Ardelia Mapp

Frankie Faison as Barney Matthews

Tracey Walter as Lamar

Charles Napier as Lt. Boyle

Danny Darst as Sgt. Tate

Alex Coleman as Sgt. Jim Pembry

Dan Butler as Roden

Paul Lazar as Pilcher

Ron Vawter as Paul Krendler

Roger Corman as FBI Director Hayden Burke

Chris Isaak as SWAT Commander

Harry Northup as Mr. Bimmel

Masha Skorobogatov as Young Clarice Starling

Don Brockett as cellmate and "Pen Pal"

Anthony Hopkins I love you! Everything you do I love! As the genius madman/ cannibal Hannibal Lecter, Hopkins was damn brilliant. It is also further proof that the man can be evil and you still have to love him. He was on screen for no longer than ten minutes and he won the oscar. And who could forget his big line. “ A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti..apffffffffff.” (The sound effects and face are much more menacing I promise.)Further I think this is my favorite Jodie Foster movie, she is a very convincing driven cop who wants to prove her worth more than anything else and as a near an equal as can be to Lecter. I saw this movie when I was fourteen for the first time and I wont lie, I was quite taken, never had I seen a thriller this brilliantly adapted, I decided to read the book , and dear blog afficionado, I was not disappointed! To this day it is one of my favorite trilogy's both in film and book, following on the heels of LOTR. I know it isn't the movie for the faint or weak of stoamch, but I dare anyone to watch and not like it.

It also won awards for:

Best Actress: Jodie Foster

Best Actor : Anthony Hopkins

Best Director: Jonathon Demme

Best Adapted Screenplay :Ted Tally

Day 30: Rocky

Rocky: 1976: Winner of the 49th Academy Award

Starring:

Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa

Talia Shire as Adrian Pennino

Burt Young as Paulie Pennino

Carl Weathers as Apollo Creed

Burgess Meredith as Mickey Goldmill

Joe Spinnell as Tony Gazzo

I liked this movie, but I couldn't help thinking there was something wrong with Rocky. Like maybe he wasn't all there mentally. It is the story of the American underdog and I understand that. It was a chance for the Holllywood underdog (Stallone) to show his acting chops. My likes about this movie we're obviously the soundtrack, and the girlfriend. Shire is cute and quirky and exactly the kind of girl you can mentally picture Rocky with. I also loved the scene where he walks the girl to her house and he gives her a lecture on how to behave, and at the end of the walk she calls him a perve or dumbass... that was hilarious. What I didn't like was the psycho brother and the cocky boxer! First of all that guy was a huge pain in the ass to look at and secondly he should have been more supportive instead of looking for recompense. Then the boxer, OK I get he is the best and Rocky just wanted to go the distance, but come on he should have one. This guy literally had nothing her improvised and he was the only one who got to the 15 rounds with Apollo Creed. Dude it irked me that he didn't win. I can see why this movie won awards, the nation needed a hero, even if he was a halfwit.

It also won awards for:

Best Film Editing

Won

Richard Halsey and Scott Conrad

Best Film Editing Won Richard Halsey and Scott Conrad

Best Director Won John G. Avildsen

Best Director

Won

John G. Avildsen

<>

Best Director

Won

John G. Avildsen