My title will be explained eventually, let's just say I'll be trodding some sensitive grounds due to recent events. Intrigued yet? It's really not that interesting, but I haven't decided yet whether I'll be taking the blatant Family Guy route or if I'm going to tiptoe through the tulips at the risk of not sharing my true opinion. Either way, my apologies for taking so long to crank out this blog. I realized that unemployment is a lot less depressing when you're teaming up with anthropomorphized animal polygons to fight a bunch of Disney villains on the PS2. Which is my long-winded and slightly douchey way of saying, "I've been playing video games and not watching Oscar nominees." But now I'm back, and so we shall get to it. Except that I should also mention that in my last post I mentioned the book that inspired my blog title! Holy crap! I love in books when the book title shows up. Okay, I'm done now.
This first movie turned out to be better and less whiny than I expected: Coming Home. Since it's about a Vietnam vet who loses the ability to walk and has to return home to be treated like crap, I was expecting the usual fare. I was expecting more of a Born on the Fourth of July type thing, which as you may recall from my 1989 post: I did not like. It's also based on the same book, so it's funny that in the Oliver Stone version the vet is consumed with protesting loudly and comparing dead baby counts and in this movie he becomes a quiet romantic. So...which one actually happened? Was it the "I had a passionate love scene with Jane Fonda and then became a better person" version or the "I had a shouting match with Willem Dafoe and disgraced the music of John Williams" version? I prefer the first, but not because of the Jane Fonda part. I find her annoying. But Jon Voight is oddly compelling in this film. He manages to show the audience the pain that was felt by many of our Vietnam vets without being too blatant or preachy about it and then he shows us a truly human side as well. Here I was expecting to write in my blog: "well this film teaches us that if you treat your nurse like crap then she'll eventually love you" as the newest installment in my continuing frustrations with sadly accurate film romances that involve a jerk and a perfectly nice woman. Thankfully, this didn't go that route. Voight's character shows some real warmth and in the few scenes in the movie where he is protesting, he doesn't go in the Cruise/Stone direction by saying: "here's a logical argument, I am in a wheelchair and should ergo be heard." Instead, Voight comes across as very soft-spoken and opposes the war from a human point of view instead of a political one. This engages the viewer instead of polarizing them. Don't let my optimism fool you, aside from Voight's performance this movie is fairly ordinary. But since it's better than the other movies of its type that I've seen, I give it credit. And anytime Oliver Stone gets upstaged, it's a good time. Of course, this movie came out 11 years before his version and so he's only upstaged when you watch them the way I have been watching them...hence yet another invented phrase of mine: "reverse upstaged." I wish I had come up with it sooner.
This next movie can only be described as "cute:" Heaven Can Wait. I guess in a year of 2 dreary Vietnam movies and a brutal prison escape movie, maybe they wanted to lighten things up a bit with a fun comedy. And this movie is definitely fun. Literally nothing more than that. It's about a football player who dies before his time and is thus sent back in another man's body. I think I laughed out loud a grand total of about 2 times during the whole movie, but it was still enjoyable. And it's predictable with the love story and the football aspect of course remains relevant and yadda yadda. Even on the level of charming comedy film it still could've done a few things a bit better, such as showing us a bit more often the actual body that he was inhabiting. Because we just see him as Warren Beatty the whole time (if they showed the old guy whose body he ended up in, they didn't do it enough because I don't remember seeing it). And why is it important to do this? Because it helps us connect with some of the more absurd concepts: the old guy is married to a way younger woman, the old guy becomes a quarterback, etc. The first one would be especially important to establish because the older the guy is the funnier the relationship is. Having seen ye olde "body switch" episode on basically every sci-fi show ever, I know it's important to keep reinforcing the whole idea (such as seeing an old guy in the mirror as Warren Beatty stands before it). Plus, who doesn't love a good sight gag? My point is this: I wouldn't nitpick about stuff like that with a movie of this type, but when it's nominated for Best Picture then it better pull off ye olde body switch better than at least most movies/shows. It better revolutionize the gimmick. Know what's wrong with Bruce Almighty? Nothing that really comes to mind, it's pretty funny and has a surprising amount of heart. Know what would be wrong with it if for unknown reasons it was nominated for Best Picture? Many, many things. Everything is different when viewed through an Oscar lens, and I hope that also explains some of my many tirades. Anyway, as I said, this movie is cute and I enjoyed it but that's about all.
And speaking of Oliver Stone, he wrote this next movie: Midnight Express. I know I wasn't actually just speaking about him but a paragraph back is a small enough distance to warrant me saying that right? I think so. I had mixed feelings about this movie, but instead of the usual mixed feelings phenomenon of "I love aspects of it and hate others" (like Avatar) it was more of an "I somewhat neutrally dislike aspects of this film and mildly appreciate other aspects of it" (like...Mexican food?). Actually, the only aspect I dislike is the main character. Although you grow to like him as the movie progresses, and I give the actor credit for that, in the beginning he's a schmuck. Because anybody who tries to smuggle drugs into a country like Turkey is a moron. There are plenty of illegal activities you can do in the United States if that's your thing. But there are a lot of countries in the Middle East where they do terrible terrible things to drug runners. And why was he running the drugs? For the money. And the money is for...what now? No idea. New car I guess. It's based on a true story so I hope in real life his dog needed an experimental back surgery and the only way he could pay for the surgery was with copious amounts of unmarked bills. That, coupled with the fact that it was written by Oliver Stone, led me to think that maybe it was going to be a "we're almost as bad as that country and we should make all drugs legal" thing. If someone wants to make a movie exploring the pros and cons of various drug arguments, fine. But using a man's personal story? That's bad. So it's thankful that that's not what the film ended up doing. Instead, we see a frat boy turn into a better man by realizing all of the things he was missing. So this made his lackluster decision to smuggle drugs more plausible and more interesting. He was one of those "I'm bored so I break the rules" type guys who then became a better man in prison. Moral of the story: don't be a douche and you can avoid being beaten, stabbed, and attempted-raped in prison. It was also good to see John Hurt as always, even in a supporting role, and the other roles were solid as well. Overall, the film was well-done but not overly fantastic. It beats pretty much most of the 80s nominees, but the 70s seems to be a whole new playing field and the bar has been raised.
And now, here comes some possible controversy with: An Unmarried Woman. I was all set to rant and rave about this movie. But sadly, the female lead in the movie died last week. And in case you're having trouble interpreting my often sarcastic writing style, I am saying that it's sad that she died and not that my rant was ruined. There will be other rants, other movies. It sounds like she was a down-to-Earth actress who people enjoyed working with. I haven't seen any of her other work, but her performance in this movie is solid and quite honestly (not just saying this because she died) I think its faults are with the writing and not her performance. She played the character well but the character was annoying. This was yet another in a string of 70s films that went along with the sexual revolution, but here's something I find amusing: why are they all written by men? All of these movies have the same claim to fame: portraying women in an empowering way. So why would a man know anything about an empowered woman? All they basically do is write male characters and give them breasts. In this movie the woman's husband cheats on her and so she leaves him and then tries to have some random loveless hookups with random guys, ends up falling for one of them, so on and so forth. She ends up not being with him for whatever superfluous melodramatic reason that I forget. But allow me to outline the plot if it had a male lead: dude's wife cheats on him and he becomes a notorious Casanova. He's a lovable rogue but ultimately a jerk since he objectifies women (so they can't hurt him) until he meets the woman that gives the crap right back to him and ultimately shows him that it's okay to love and blah blah blah. I know what you're thinking: "but Domenic, didn't you just say that they wrote a male character with breasts? So wouldn't what you just described be the same as this movie's plot?" Nope! And here's why: audiences wouldn't want a movie with a lovable female rogue because women would say she's a tramp and men would find her intimidating. Instead, this movie has a female lead that basically bumbles through her various romantic encounters. That way, women can laugh at her and say "haha I've been there!" or "what a klutz!" and men can say "boy, I'm not threatened at all by her and I am in no way emasculated as I view this film!" Isn't the study of culture grand? Well anyway, since I had to talk about societal things that I find interesting which only somewhat apply to the film, that will tell you that there's not much there. And like most movies of its type, it's a bit too long. But Jill Clayburgh: she seemed like a nice lady and a solid actress. I'll have to check out more of her work, and not just so I'll feel less guilty about bashing her movie.
And this brings us to this year's excellent winner: The Deer Hunter. I saw this several years ago, but it stuck with me so much that I felt I didn't have to view it again. That's a good thing. Also, it's like 3 hours long and even I won't sit through that much movie again unless I feel I need to in order to pick up on something I missed. Remember when I said that Apocalypse Now was the best Vietnam movie because it was more of a humanity movie? Well this is a straight-up Vietnam movie and in that category there is no better film. Because it doesn't exist solely to say that the war was bad. Everyone already knows that anyway, and even if they didn't you can pick that up from the movie. The characters are the focal point of the film and that's the way it should be. DeNiro and Walken lead the excellent ensemble cast and Meryl Streep is there too in an early role of hers that is way less annoying than usual. The film centers around several friends who all go off to fight in Vietnam and how their lives change because of the war. And though the film is long, it portions its sections so well. It roughly evens out to: the first hour is spent getting to know the characters how they were, the second hour is Vietnam, and the third hour is seeing how the characters changed. Remember that LXG/On Golden Pond moment I mentioned in 1981? And yes, I realize I'm the first and last person to pair those movies together. Well as my mother quite accurately pointed out to me: another excellent example of that dynamic comes in the most important scene in this film. Early in the film, we see DeNiro hunting deer in a fairly nonchalant manner (get it? That's where the film title is from!). But then during the big scene, he can't bring himself to kill a deer because the war has changed him. And oddly enough, it was for the better. He grew to appreciate life after his harrowing experiences and who was he to take away the life of an innocent creature when he himself had been spared? Sadly, Christopher Walken goes the other way after the war. In the beginning he was a happy patriot giggling in the happy aftermath of a wedding with friends (I believe it was his wedding but I forget, and I didn't feel like just rewatching that part). The point is that by the time it's the end of the movie, with the famous Russian Roulette scene, we see quite plainly the terrible personal costs of the war. Quite honestly, and Apocalypse Now was already filming when this was released so it doesn't count, no one should have made a Vietnam movie after this movie came out. Because it did everything so well. It got its point across without being too blatant and it beautifully told a very personal story with relatable characters. It didn't whine, but it made the same points that Oliver Stone feebly tries to get across. Why Jon Voight's movie also got nominated in the same year I have no idea, because even though it was pretty good it's got nothing on this movie. So watch it on a day when you have 3 hours to spare and you feel like your life sucks, because you will probably end up feeling better about your life by comparison.
Well that's it for this year, which even though it took me a while to finish up I really quite enjoyed. I have already seen every other winner for this decade, because they're all really good and one of them is the greatest film of all time, so I hope that the nominees that I haven't seen are also of high quality. All I know for now is that the next installment will include: classic neuroticism, nazism...umm...and on a more positive note: LITERALLY THE EXEMPLIFICATION OF MY CHILDHOOD AND A BIG PART OF WHY I LOVE MOVIES AS MUCH AS I DO. So yeah you'll want to be here for that.
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