Day 39: Midnight Cowboy

Midnight Cowboy: 1969: Winner of the 42nd Academy Awards

Starring:

Dustin Hoffman as Enrico Salvatore "Ratso" Rizzo


Jon Voight as Joe Buck

Sylvia Miles as Cass

John McGiver as Mr. O'Daniel

Brenda Vaccaro as Shirley

Barnard Hughes as Towny


This movie was weird, but it was short so I forgive it. Ok so Jon Voight is an annoying cowboy and Dustin Hoffman is a weird looking Hispanic and/ or Italian. The cowboy is trying to hustle his way in New York after things didn’t go so well for him back home after he came back from the army. His backstory is told mainly thru flashbacks and hallucinations of past events. Ratso is a third rate con-man who should most likely be called a third rate pickpocket. Anyway after Ratso tries to con the cowboy some weird happenstance of chance brings them together and they form a bond. Then they go to this Andy Warhol/ Rocky Horror Picture Show Transylvanian like peoples/ bad 70’s art deco’s party. The cowboy unknowingly gets high of his keister and ends up in bed with one of the wealthy ladies at the party. And he does it with her. Blah Blah Blah, the ending is really sad though. Ok here’s the truth about the 70’s: they were too fucking high to make one steady pic! I swear even thought the camera work was great it was a shoddy way to tell the story of some shit for brains cowboy. Plus did Hoffman have to look so repulsive. Maybe that was the whole point, but it made me want to turn of the movie for fear he would stink it up. I guess I just didn’t like the movie. Not because of it’s sexual premise but because I hate it when the main character is so fucking stupid you might as well just shoot him eh won’t wonder anyhow. Gah! The movie frustrated me a bit and the whole back story about him and Crazy Annie that was super weird. The weird Grandma, he should be n therapy.

It also won awards for:
 
Best Director : John Schlesinger
Best Adapted Screenplay: Waldo Salt

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