1963: The Year that Was Long Enough to Fill Six Movie Slots

Not actually. But time-wise, you bet. In fact, one of this year's nominees was intended to be two movies but they instead decided to make it one big hunk of nonsense. Which is just as well, because otherwise I'd have had to bring myself to watch two overdone movies and that would have taken some serious willpower. I'm not sure I have anything good at all to say about this year. In fact, I'm pretty positive that I don't. It contains what I deem to be the worst Best Picture winner of all time, at least from 1963-2010 and probably ever. No joke. It made me look back on Terms of Endearment fondly (almost).

Our first selection is a very sub-par Elia Kazan film entitled America, America. The only kind of cool thing I can say about this is that I am probably the first person to ever get it from Netflix. And quite possibly still the only person. I know this because the DVD was just released fairly recently and I had it sent to me by Netflix the second it became available to them. The DVD I received was far more pristine than every other Netflix disc I've ever gotten so I'm at least one of the first to get it. That's probably the most positive thing I can say. The fact that this movie was directed by the same man who directed one of the greatest Best Picture winners of all time is baffling to me. His entire body of work is masterful, except for this one. Plenty of people sing its praises but I really don't see it. It reverse reminded me of Zorba the Greek in the sense that it was way too long, black and white, and about a Greek guy who isn't a very admirable human being that the screenwriter wants you to feel for. Except this guy is leaving Greece for a better life, and where? Hint: it's in the title. Twice. Really dumb title. I think in the movie itself it actually has an exclamation point but I could be wrong. Some of the cinematography is indeed stunning, but that's mostly in the first ten minutes. What follows is a tale of a guy who is quite honestly really dumb. And it's loosely based on the story of Kazan's uncle coming to America to make a better life for his family. That sounds highly admirable. But his uncle was either really dumb and somehow Gump-ed himself into helping his entire family or Kazan secretly thought his uncle was a schmuck and wanted to make him look bad. The man gets bamboozled out of his money on several occasions, he marries a chick for her money and leaves her, and there were one or two run-ins with various prostitutes if I remember correctly. Which I might not because I watched it several weeks ago and it's really boring. By the time he reaches America all the movie has time for is a scene where he's a shoeshine boy. Which might be okay in a different movie that was shorter and that had a more consistent narrative. But at the end of almost 3 hours of random nonsense I really wanted to see a bit more than just a Greek dude shining some shoes with the promise that he'd save his tips until he had enough pennies saved up to build modern America single-handedly. Or something. And then just as the credits start to roll and you figure that you're free to go, Kazan literally starts READING the credits. "The Production was Designed by Gene Callahan. The Editing was done by" whoever. He mercifully stops after the main people and before the caterers but it's quite ridiculous. Maybe it was a personal enough project for him that he wanted to recognize everyone individually. Or maybe he thought that only he could call people's attention to them, otherwise no one would notice. Don't know. Don't care. Waste of life.

But it's only just under 75% of the waste of life that is Cleopatra. This is remembered as one of the biggest flops ever, although it apparently made back its money eventually. If you adjusted its budget for inflation the final number would be a staggering 297 million dollars. Which makes it one of the most expensive films ever produced. It was originally intended to be two 3 hour films, one about her and Caesar and one about her and Antony. Instead it's a 4 hour mess of both and it might be the most overdone film ever. Even with all of that, my dad walked in when I was watching it and said, "with all the money they spent it looks like Rex Harrison is in a hotel lobby instead of ancient Egypt." Yes, that's right. Rex Harrison. The inspiration for Stewie played Julius Caesar. If he had said "victory is mine!" at any point I would have flipped out. He was WAY too British for that role. The only highlights of the movie I can think of are A) James Bond's Q makes an appearance as a Roman senator and B) it does star the eternal hottie Elizabeth Taylor. And make no mistake, for 1963 or for any time from now until the end of everything she was a gorgeous human being. I think she might be the only reason anyone has ever sat through this movie, including the director. And if I was a twelve-year-old boy then the fact that she is looking good in all 65 (a record-setting amount of costumes for a film) of her outfits whilst surrounded by other scantily-clad handmaidens then it might be my favorite movie. But since I am not, in fact, a twelve-year-old boy it was more like "the only reason this 4-hour putrescence isn't killing me is the fact that she's in it." The reason I use the word "putrescence" is because I think it makes garbage sound sexy. The plot itself is the same plot that's been done bunches of times, about the world's first femme fatale. A woman whose exotic beauty influenced the largest empire the world had ever seen. This story was done in a much better way on HBO's Rome, although I think they intentionally made up Cleopatra to look a bit mannish. Because after Elizabeth Taylor does it, you really just have to go in a different direction with the look. The woman who played her on TV is certainly good looking in real life but her hair was shorter than mine and she had weird tattoos and stuff. If I'm harping on Elizabeth a lot it's because that was also the main draw of the film at the time. The main reason they didn't want it to be 2 movies is because her real-life lover Richard Burton (who plays Antony) wouldn't be in it until the second movie and they figured no one would see the first. I don't think they were giving audiences enough credit. But if they were then shame on the audiences of the 60s because they were worse than today. And they didn't even seem to have much chemistry. I think all 3 of the main people are great actors, as I believe I've mentioned each of them in the past, but none of them are good in this. They say Elizabeth vomited after she saw the movie for the first time. Although that could have just been from the physical toll of watching a 4-hour movie where very little happens and nothing unexpected happens. But now I can say that I've seen the film that "killed the sword-and-sandal movies" and "nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox." So there you go.

Not much unlike a certain 2009 blockbuster is the epic western How The West Was Won. Because it was more about the spectacle and the medium itself than the movie. The 2009 blockbuster I'm of course referring to is James Cameron's Avatar, and that right there folks is my 67,000th reference to Mr. Cameron and his movie that I have a hate/love/hate relationship with. This particular epic western isn't bad though. The music is particularly fantastic and includes orchestrations of old standards such as "Greensleeves." In fact, the best parts of the movie were probably the Overture, Entr'Acte, and Exit which just consisted of the music and a nifty painting. The rest of it is fairly overdone, as it was done in something called Cinerama that was intended to take up 3 (3!) separate screens. The DVD restoration from a few years ago is incredible in that it converts the film into a normal aspect ratio without distorting the picture (mostly) and without distracting lines left over from where the reels were put together. It was a format normally reserved for documentaries and you can kind of see why that would be the case because the actors and directors had a rough time with the equipment. The whole thing plays like a living documentary and it's unsurprising because it was based on a series of articles in "Life" magazine. As such, while some of the scenery/cinematography is breathtaking, there's nothing to really hold onto narrative-wise. It chronicles 5 different locations/periods of time within one family's journey through America during our most tumultuous historical era. This would work really well as a miniseries because then you would be able to branch out each of the 5 stories a little bit more. The film is fairly lengthy at a little over 2 hours and 40 minutes but that's not nearly enough time to do what is essentially five movies. So just as you start to get used to a set of characters and a particular tone, it changes. Thankfully 3 of the 5 segments are directed by the same person, so that helps bring a sense of continuity. And Debbie Reynolds is in enough of the segments to create a connection between them. The rest of it is filled out with a ridiculous amount of stars, including the two craziest voices of the era: John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart. If they had a scene together I would have been giddy with excitement but they sadly did not. But even with all of that, overall it's more of a spectacle than anything else. Which is fine I guess, and considering the other drivel from this year I can't really get too upset about it either. In fact, watching it was downright pleasant as compared to some other things.

Well that was tame of me...and we'll keep it tame with Lilies of the Field. I didn't think this movie was particularly good but it also wasn't overtly terrible. And it was a MERCIFUL hour-and-a-half long. After two 3-hour movies and a 4-hour movie I'm so glad this was normal length. Sidney Poitier earned an Academy Award for his performance in this film, which is kind of unfortunate. And I will tell you exactly why. He gave a lot of powerful performances in his career that were quite realistically a big part of the Civil Rights movement of the time. He showed us that not only could a black man act, he could do it better than the vast majority of his peers. And they gave him an award for playing what was essentially the "happy negro." Not trying to stir up controversy, that's literally the only phrase to describe his character within the context. You've got lots of happy negro banjo music going while the somewhat-bumbling-but-good-natured friendly black guy comes across some Nuns who are in need of assistance. They believe that God has sent him to help them. Because he needed some gas for his car and I guess if Jesus didn't want him to stop there then He wouldn't have made Sidney waste all that gas on late-night White Castle runs. And I guess the various other people who probably stop for gas there on a daily basis weren't sent by God and were only there to pump the gas and be on their way. I personally think the nuns were hoping that Mr. Poitier wanted a little cream with his coffee but that's just me. For the relatively short length of the film, it has a remarkably small amount of variety. Sidney teaches the nuns how to sing a down-home Southern song, he helps build a bit of their church, some almost-interesting religious conversation takes place...rinse and repeat. You could call the film charming but it's just so repetitive that it only could have functioned as an episode of Gunsmoke or something. Which is why it baffles me that it was a book. Either they cut out 90% of the story or they were using the term "book" loosely. Either way, Mr. Poitier does do a great job but it's within a role that's not particularly interesting. Still a big victory for him and for America, but I wish it would have come in a different form.

And this brings me to this year's winner, which is the non-hyperbolic worst Best Picture of all time (so far) Tom Jones. When I first saw the title I thought it was a biography of the singer. Not only would I say that a biography of the singer would be better, I would also say that 2 hours of just Tom Jones singing would be both more enjoyable than the film and better as a movie. Even if the camera never moved and it didn't cut out Tom stopping for a sip of water, ad-libbing goofy jokes with the audience, and whatever sub-par comedian half-time show he might have. This movie is actually based on a bawdy-for-its-time book from the 1800s about a dude trying to achieve some upward mobility in society. Wow. What a brilliant plot. Throwing in obscure references to sex doesn't make that interesting. And that's apparently the biggest draw that the film had. Obscure references to sex. And either they were SO obscure that I didn't notice them, or 3 was a big number of innuendos for 1963. Because I didn't think it was bawdy in even an "old timey" way. Cleopatra was filled to the brim with stupid innuendos such as "oh yes well you will have to give me a tour of your palace sometime princess." HA! Get it? He wasn't talking about the building! Unless that building was a brick house! OH SNAP. Boy that's Oscar-worthy dialogue. Of course, I could be entirely wrong about the source material and maybe the original novel about the mobility upward-er was meant to be taken somewhat seriously and was considered controversial but not because that was the author's intention. If that's the case then I hope the author's descendents weren't around to see his work turned into a really terrible Marx brothers film. Imagine the tone of a Marx brothers movie without any of the brilliance and that's basically this movie. The first five minutes are done as a silent film. Why? Just cuz. I tried to think of possibly artistic reasons but I couldn't come up with any. The fourth wall would occasionally be broken to say things that are only entertaining because they're being said to the audience. And at one point the main character hangs his hat over the camera, presumably just to do it. They're basically adopting a (maybe) farcical work of literature by making a farce of a farce. And that doesn't really work. Because if you're saying that farces are stupid then that means real period-piece drama isn't, which means you're not making the movie you respect and are instead making the thing you're making fun of. Something that complicated should be clever, but it's not. Because I just came up with that. I'm clever. They're dumb. Terrible movie. Doesn't know what it is. Isn't funny. Isn't bawdy. Isn't interesting. And yet it won the year after one of the greatest Best Picture winners/films in general of all time. No justice in the world I tell you. But I suppose that since the modern day equivalent would have been giving the Oscar to The Hangover for having the audacity to show a scrawny Asian man's penis then maybe the Academy has learned something after all. Although it did win the Golden Globe for comedy...

Well there you have it, quite a boring year overall. And a freaking long one. Holy crap. Even though 2 of the films were normal-sized, this year had a grand total of something like 12 hours of movie. I've already seen every 1962 movie, and it's been that way for some time because its nominees are considered things that people should watch. Instead of things people should watch if they're crazy and feel like watching every Oscar nominee. There's another crazy long movie in 1962 but it's actually good so you don't notice that it takes up a sizable chunk of your life. Aside from that seminal classic you can also expect such things as friendly albinos, scary Tahitians, and cheery Gary, Indianans. It's a verifiable who's who of ridiculous movie characters.