Oscars – Best Picture Winner #50

BEST PICTURE OSCAR WINNERS
#50 – Annie Hall (1977)

Category is: Quirky, Neurotic, Gimmicky Rom Com!

This is about Alvy Singer (neurotic egotistical Woody Allen) and Annie Hall (down-to-earth Diane Keaton in a pant suit) and their relationship. This is basically a collection of dialogues and monologues about life. Their relationship flourishes, then it wanes, then there’s some arguing, then they break-up, then he lingers on her, and then he writes a play about it where he changes the ending and gets the girl! Just the usual relationship stuff! I suppose at the time it was innovative, but I guess from my 21^st Century eye it just seems mainstream to me! Relationship therapy is a big aspect of this film, both professional and amateur. There are scenes where characters speak to each other in analytical ways that are surreal, or maybe that’s how artsy 70’s New Yorkers were! They pontificate on the spot, and muse about deep seated reasons that condition characters in the moment as proof-points of their behaviour.

Do you hate what you just read? That’s how the movie is! I’m telling you!

There’s a scene where they’re talking, but the subtitles say what they’re ~really thinking~ There’s a scene where it gets animated! NEAT! There’s a scene where while they’re having sex, a projection of Annie goes and sits on the chair to show how removed she is. They play tennis, go to California to a party full of weird people, Alvy reminisces about his childhood, and Marshall McLuhan comes out of no where to throw shade at professor being foolish!

A scene in the beginning where he wonders where his classmates are gets kids to say where they are and one little girl says that she’s “into leather”. Really makes you think!

PS: Really, the movie is about the cameos! Which include: Christopher Walken, Shelley Duvall, Jeff Goldblum, Capote, Sigourney Weaver and MARSHALL MCLUHAN

“I’m into leather”

Marshall McLuhan throwing shade

And then he sneezes the coke everywhere!

Oscars – Best Picture Winner #49

BEST PICTURE OSCAR WINNERS
#49 – Rocky (1976)

Yo Adrian!

Written by Sylvester himself! This low budget film follows Rocky, a Philadelphian boxer as he goes from shit stain to fighting the best boxer in the country and falling in love with Adrian, his friend’s sister.

Romantic story goes like this: He’s an idiot, proud that he’s never broken his nose in all his years of fighting. And she’s a pet store working spinster. He keeps going for her, she agrees and she slowly takes those glasses off and becomes the minx that she is! Werk mama! That’s Talia Shire, from the Godfather, is a Coppola and Jason Schwartzman’s momma.

The movie’s simple: Rocky boxes for shitty money, his trainer doesn’t care about him, he helps the local mafia, everyone thinks he’s a dumb loser, like does he have a family? what? Then all of a sudden the best boxer in the country decides to randomly fight him as a publicity stunt (picks his face out of a book actually), he trains, dates Adrian on the side and then the actual fight goes on and on and on. It actually reaches the limit, which I didn’t know existed, I thought they kept going until one of them died or whatever, but actually there’s a limit and they reach it then apparently the judges decide like “Ohhhh who punched the other one better? Hmmm” and they decide Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) did, but Rocky and Adrian don’t care they yell eachothers’ names and confess their love among the crowd and then it ends.

So the first ever sports film to win best picture has two boxing matches one in the beginning and one at the end and a lot of training scenes with the egg yolk drinking and the boxing meat and all that. I really enjoyed that foxy news lady’s fro, the Philadelphian and mainly Rocky’s accent and when Apollo Creed enters the arena dressed as George Washington and throws money at the crowd; Very American. (Very HAMILTON: THE MUSICAL!)

Also this underdog movie (low budget) about an underdog boxer (Yo I’m Rocky) gives me an uplifting feeling about the Academy Awards overall.

So basically: Sports Go Sports! by Garfunkel and Oates
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fraSdN-PG8

Oscars – Best Picture Winner #48

BEST PICTURE OSCAR WINNERS
#48 – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Nurse Ratched, one of the frostiest evil bitches in the game!

This film follows Mac (Nicholson) as he arrives at a mental ward after being transferred from prison. He then tries to continually have fun, encourage the others to live it up and gets the others on his side with his multiple escape plans. He befriends a tall Native American patient (he calls Chief) that everyone thinks is deaf and mute (but he’s not! And he’s the narrator in the novel, but in the MOVIE? LOL NOPE)

Mac orchestrates such things as stealing a bus full of fellow patients, picking up his very friendly female mate and then stealing a boat and riding around. He also gets girls to bring alcohol to the ward and gets everyone wasted.

Nurse Ratchet barely ever shows any emotion, she represents absolute bureaucratic power. At first I was like she’s not evil, she just HAS power and is casually using it. During “therapy” she never wavers and subtly humiliates the patients. Everyone MUST take their pills, and she plays horrible music and ignores Mac at every possibility. There is a subtle glimmer of pleasure she shows when screwing Mac over. A very important scene is when Mac realizes that it would’ve been better to stay in jail because with jail you are guaranteed freedom, but at a mental ward you are there until deemed fit for society. When he brings this up with the others he realizes that they’re all there VOLUNTARILY and really only he is a prisoner.

After the electroshock therapy on Mac fails, and his ward booze-fest, Ratched tells the youngest ward member that she will be telling his mother, this prompts him to FREAK OUT and commit suicide. Then Mac chokes the SHIT outta her, but as you can see she survives with a bitching neck brace and has Mac lobotimized. The Chief smothers him in an act of euthanasia, breaks out and runs into the horizon. GTFO!

Oscars – Best Picture Winner #47

BEST PICTURE OSCAR WINNERS
#47 – The Godfather II (1974)

The only sequel to win the Oscar for Best Picture with the prequel winning also.

This movie is an Italian gangsta extravaganza. Part of it follows the old Don (Dead Brando) when his family is killed in Italy and he flees to New York. He starts from the bottom then works to dethrone an Italian gangsta who steals from other Italians. It’s 1917 New York which was cool to see. De Niro plays the younger upstart gangsta Vito, which was awesome. He kills the guy by using a towel as a silencer, then when he gets powerful goes back to Italy to STAB the guy who killed his family.

The modern family story is about the Don’s youngest son (Pacino: the new Don) who has taken over the family business. This film is very much about siblings. The sister is post-divorce being a floozy, ditching her kids for parties. The older brother is dating a blonde drunk girl who gets wasted at a first communion (been there) and is jealous of his powerful younger brother. Older bro tries to get him wacked! In the end he gets shot on a boat.

The movie is all deals the new Don is trying to make. His sour relationship with the Senator of Nevada, his dealings in Cuba where he witnesses all the rebels and a suicide bomber, and he also has to deal with his wife who tries to leave him and tells him she had an abortion because she didn’t want his son.

Sliced within the movie is various court scenes of a trial against the Don and the ‘mafia’

This movie is dark. It’s a parallel between Vito’s creation of a family (gangster) and the breaking apart of the current Godfather’s situation. One of the final scenes makes it very clear that Al Pacino’s character joined the army after the Pearl Harbor bombing, in an attempt to not be apart of his father’s business. He never wanted to get involved, WELL LOOK AT HIM NOW

Oscars – Best Picture Winner #46

BEST PICTURE OSCAR WINNERS
#46 – The Sting (1973)

What’s with the early 70’s winners all about crime and gangs? HMMM…
This film follows Robert Redford who is a small time con wanting to do the BIG con in the mid-30’s. This film is all about conning people, and there’s lots of shadiness and people conning people conning people conning people…etc.

So Redford does a con with his partner, spends it, then owes it, his partner gets killed and he’s on the run but also wants to do the BIG CON and works with some guy to do it. They set up a rich man with this elaborate horse race con. Like they set up the radio voice, the pub and everything to make it look like a real illegal gamble place and bring him there several times until he feels confident enough to bet half a million dollars and then they CON him, fake a shoot out scene and then laugh after he leaves. Job well done everyone!

Throughout the movie there are about 5 scenes of Redford running through streets getting shot at because people are trying wack him. WHERE ARE THE POLICE? A funny side story is this diner girl Redford always eats at and after she helps him not get killed, he starts to be like HMMMM GIRL??? And later they have sex and LATER he sees her in an alley and some guy SHOOTS HER IN THE HEAD because she was hired to actually kill Redford this whole time and was totally packing heat…oh okay…

This film has a quirky style with cheesy scene dividers, music jigs and even the ending is that slow enclosing circle as the two con artists walk away after successfully stealing money from a rich crook? THIEVERY ❤

P.S this film and the EXORCIST both were nominated for 10 Oscars this year. Also someone STREAKED with their dick out during the ceremony. Why does stuff like that never happen anymore…sigh

Oscars – Best Picture Winner #45

BEST PICTURE OSCAR WINNERS
#45 – The Godfather (1972)

The quintessential American film (right beside Citizen Kane) and the first Best Picture winner to have an Oscar statue in the movie. Meta.

This film follows a mafia family, the Corleones. Of course Marlon Brando as the patriarch is what the film is known for, with his wheezy creepy voice. This film is all about shady deals, vicious threats (“Offers they can’t refuse”) mafia wacking which is then followed by revenge wacking. It’s wacks on wacks on wacks.

The film starts with the Don’s daughter’s wedding where he must grant favours such as helping his godson get a movie role by cutting the producer’s horse’s head off and leaving it in his bed for him to wake up to; to “convince” him to give the role to the godson. How much ambien did that producer take to sleep through that eh?

Later the Don is advised by his adopted German-Irish son/lawyer/consiglieri to get into the narcotics business, he tries and then the other Italian families GUN HIM DOWN and shoot the crap out of him. While in the hospital recovering, the 3 sons and the Don’s mafia team plan revenge. This becomes a mafia family fight. The Don’s “good” son (Al Pacino) who is a war hero and has a fancy education decides to finally get involved with his brothers and take part in some family business. A.K.A shooting two guys in a restaurant and fleeing to Italy to lay low, marry some random chick and then after she gets killed in a car-splosion returns home to take over the family business. Meanwhile, his sister’s married life sucks and she’s getting beaten and his promiscuous older brother is trying to kick the new brother-in-law’s ASS.

The Don dies and Al Pacino officially becomes the new Don. His older brother gets killed by the other families and Pacino responds by orchestrating a mass-killing of them all (which is paralleled to him becoming a godfather during his sister’s baby’s baptism) to gain control and put the family on top. And to end it all off he kills his brother-in-law because he is shit and beat up his sister.

And poor Diane Keaton’s character Kay, the mungicake All-American girl who is dating Al Pacino. He leaves to Italy for years and she never hears from him. He returns and they start going back together and the film ends with her witnessing him as the new Don. She sees his sister cry that he killed his husband right after the baptism and when Kay asks if its true he says “No” which is totally true because he just GOT SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT BECAUSE HE’S A MOB BOSS.

She probably realizes this because right after she accepts his lie she’s pouring a drink and looks into the new godfather’s office and sees him getting praised and worshiped and one of his people closes the door so she can’t see with a facial impression similar to “No girls allowed” Poor mungicake!

Oscars – Best Picture Winner #44

BEST PICTURE OSCAR WINNERS
#44 – The French Connection (1971)

Darn the French! Always smuggling in heroin into the clean, pure and pristine U.S of A!!!!!!!

NYC detectives Doyle and Russo do a bunch of detective stuff around a rich French guy they suspect is organizing a large heroin bring-in to NYC, worth a lot of money. There’s lots of snooping and slyness like when the detectives enter a bar full of black people and racial profile them hardcore finding like so many pills and drugs and taking a guy to the bathroom to beat him up, but actually they know each other and he gives them info.

As the detectives get closer to figuring whose behind the drug push, they get targeted. There’s a sniper shoot out in a residential apartment area (SO NYC!) there’s an intense subway chase where a guy gets gunned down on the stairs to the subway (SO NYC!) But the most memorable scene is the really long and intense car chase scene under the subway tracks. Very GTA: Liberty City, which is SO NYC!

In the end they find the drugs in a car the French guy was trying to smuggle into NYC. There’s a final-abandoned-warehouse-chase-scene where there’s a cops vs. druggie mafia shootout and in the end one of the detectives shoots OVERKILLS the wrong guy. The film ends with Doyle going into another room and one gun shot is heard.
Cliffhanger: Did the French drug king pin get caught? DUH DUH DUHHHH
THE END

Cliffhanger or reallness. Basically these detectives are extreme try-hards, almost losing their jobs,getting too into this drug bust and the film ends with them getting reassigned. DRYYYYY

Oscars – Best Picture Winner #43

BEST PICTURE OSCAR WINNERS
#43 – Patton (1970)

Based on the real life American WWII general George S.Patton during WWII where he is a crazy anti-hero by helping defeat the German’s but totally being a jerk about it.

As a character he is awesome. He speaks in front of a gigantic American flag! Pretty cool! He’s well read, using opposing general’s books against them, reading the Bible for PROBABLY the war tactics within, constantly referring to past historical battles and relating the current war to other historical Roman and Greek wars (sort of poetic), and being somewhat empathetic with fallen soldiers.

A lot of historical battles are portrayed throughout. After securing North Africa he defies the original plan and enters Italy and races the British forces (the ALLIES!) to capturing an Italian town. Afterwards he slaps and insults a soldier who is having an anxiety attack in the hospital tent.THAT’S A NO-NO PATTON!

He gets canned for being a huge jerk, and doesn’t get to lead the D-DAY attack! Awwwwww! He begs for another chance so they let him sweep through France, taking it back from the Germans. After the war is over he gets in trouble again for saying things related to how Russia is still lower than Britain and America, and how American politics was similar to Nazi’s. Whooooops! He gets let go again, but still allowed to rebuild Germany.

This movie’s soundtrack is haunting and extremely familiar when I heard it. Those haunting trumpets! I’m telling you!

Oscars – Best Picture Winner #42

BEST PICTURE OSCAR WINNERS
#42 – Midnight Cowboy (1969)

1969 is the only year an X-rated movie won best picture, and it’s a movie about a small town Texan guy who dresses like a cowboy and moves to NYC to pursue a lucrative career as a prostitute because the women are rich and all the guys are “tutti fruttis”. 1969…1969! Good

Joe Buck (good name) moves to NYC. He sets up shop, and trolls around the city looking for poon. He gets it from this typical older woman who freaks out when he asks for money. He eventually meets Rizzo/Ratso this limping scumbag. The character who famously says “HEY! I’M WALKING HERE!” but note: he’s actually limping. Ratso tricks Buck saying he’s sending him to a pimp, but sends him to a creepy religious dude instead. Buck gets desperate and lets a young nerdy guy give him a blowjob, but then doesn’t have any money! AWW POOR NERDY TEEN! Buck has no money, finds Ratso and moves in with him. They steal and con people just to stay alive. Buck continues to try to be a prostitute, but Ratso says cowboys are “strictly for fags”. Eventually some Warhol-esque people invite them to a party.

The party is full of weird people, and drugs and weird movies. Typical 60’s stuff I suppose. Buck smokes weed and does drugs and hallucinates! YAY! A socialite takes him home, he has impotence, they play a board game she asks if he’s gay and then they have a weird scratchy cat-fuck session. When they wake up she sets up a ‘meeting’ with one of her friends. EVERYTHING’S LOOKING UP FOR BUCK! When he gets home Ratso is sickly and wants to go to Florida. They get on a bus and they’re as close as brothers. Ratso dies on the bus, and Buck holds him as the bus continues on it’s way to Miami.

The X-rated black-and-white scenes are mainly of Buck’s past where he starts dating the village “fast girl” which makes the other guys jealous so they rape the BOTH of them. Very graphic and intense.
The best part of the movie is all the weird people Buck comes across in the city. A flamboyant twink, a woman rubbing a rat toy over her face, this weird bald man who takes him home who Buck tries to choke with a phone receiver! It’s all about variety.

Oscars – Best Picture Winner #41

BEST PICTURE OSCAR WINNERS
#41 – Oliver! (1968)

FOOOOOD! GLORIOUS FOOOOOD!
(everyone’s theme song)

The latest Oscar movie to depict London as a dank, nasty shithole. Hmmm I wonder what that’s all about? LOL

So Oliver is an orphan, a slave to the SYSTEM, MAN! All he wants is some food, but the orphanage is like NAW MAN! So he asks for more. DON’T EVER ASK THE SYSTEM FOR NOTHING! This causes his child corpse and soul to get sold to some family who uses him for child slavery. They make fun of his dead Dead DEAD mom (hilarious) and he attacks them and punches a girl in the face. Take THAT!

Then he runs away to London and becomes a pick pocket living with a bunch of other children and an OLD MAN (who has a pet owl, does drugs and is friends with a sketchy burglar guy). Oliver gets caught and then adopted by another OLD (rich) MAN because the legal system (an alcoholic judge) is effed up son! Then this skeezy burglar guy is scared that Oliver will tattle, he forces his red-head girlfriend to steal him, then abuses him. She changes her ways and tries to save Oliver which works!!! which of course causes her boyfriend to beat her to fucking death on the lovely streets of London. Eventually it’s the burglar’s dog who riles up the townspeople to chase that guy. He somehow accidentally hangs himself and then Oliver gets to go home safe and sound to the rich guy’s place. Fuck the other street kids LOL.

Oh yeah, so also, the old man who adopted him discovers that “HEY! That random kid I adopted is my random dead niece’s bastard son from like several years ago.” What a great scene, but not as great as the scene of street children doing coke, and Oliver punching a girl in the face.