Maria Full of Grace

Film: Maria Full of Grace
Year: 2004
Cast: Catalina Sandino Moreno, John Álex Toro, Johanna Andrea Mora, Virginia Ariza, Yenny Paola Vega, Guilied Lopez, Patricia Rae, Orlando Tobón, Rodrigo Sánchez Borhorquez, Charles Albert Patiño, Wilson Guerrero, Jaime Osorio Gómez, Selenis Leyva, Ed Trucco
Director: Joshua Marston
Nominations: Best Actress (Moreno)

Give me a minute, gotta let the heart palpitations stop.

Phew, okay. It's just that while watching this, I was alternately afraid I was gonna cry, puke or have a panic attack.

I remember back in 2004 this film took the critics by storm, while the rest of the English-speaking world was barely aware of it. They missed out, and the critics were absolutely right.

What I love about movies like this is how authentic they feel. I didn't enjoy Being Julia for several reasons, one of which was how obvious it was that everyone in it was acting, and I would say they were trying to out-ham each other but really, everyone was obviously holding back from taking too much attention off its leading lady. With Maria Full of Grace, it felt so honest on every level that you feel like it wouldn't be much different if it were a documentary.

Which it almost is. The tagline for this movie is "Based on 1000 true stories", as it's a very authentic look at what drug mules go through, and why they get into it in the first place.

Maria Álvarez (Catalina Sandino Mareno) is a seventeen-year old poor Colombian girl forced to not be in school and spend her days working in a flower plant de-thorning roses to support her family, which includes her working mother (whose salary doesn't cover even half the household needs), and non-working sister, an unwed mother who stays at home to care for her newborn son, meaning that all the money Maria's meager wages bring covers more than half the entire income for the house.

To make matters worse, her boss (Rodrigo Sánchez Borhorquez) is a jerk who seems to pick on Maria more than the others, her boyfriend (Wilson Guerrero) is a bit of an idiot, and Maria is now beginning to suspect she's pregnant. After puking on the job and getting a dressing down from her boss (who completely fails to recognize that Maria doesn't feel well and believes she's just slacking off, even after she throws up), she quits. There aren't many jobs available to someone her age and without much schooling, so what is she to do?

After meeting the charming Franklin (John Álex Toro) at a party, she ends up agreeing to become a mule. Before she even commits herself, she realizes her friend Blanca (Yenny Paola Vega) has already agreed, and she's slightly encouraged to do so herself after meeting Lucy (Guilied Lopez) who has successfully muled twice before and has advice that will help Maria.

There are several risks involved to Maria's health, not the least of which is that if one of the pellets of heroin bursts while in Maria's stomach, she will die. And she has to swallow 60 of them, which strikes me as a crap-ton, but apparently is based on reality, as is the idea that a large man would be made to swallow a hundred.

At this point, the movie becomes incredibly tense. I was on the edge of my seat for the last half of it. What makes this so much worse is knowing that it does happen, and that the risks are incredible. In fact, Maria isn't alone, as Blanca, Lucy and at least one other lady are all on the same flight to America, all stuffed with dozens of heroin pellets, and things get very tense when Lucy, whom Maria had started thinking of as a mentor, starts to feel sick and realizes a pellet likely has burst inside her.

So how does Moreno do? Incredible. I don't know why we've seen so little from her since, or at least so little that lives up to the potential she shows here. Very pretty, but in a real way rather than a Hollywood way, and simultaneously tough and fragile, her performance as a girl pushed to the edge and willing to undertake work she'd never consider in other circumstances is raw, heartbreaking and riveting. Several times while watching her, I wondered what I would do if circumstances brought me as low as hers had. This is what keeps her sympathetic, even as she gets deeper and deeper into her new "career", running more and more out of options. And of course there's the constant thought that she's pregnant, and what is all this doing to her baby? Moreno really sells all the conflicting emotions while not becoming overwrought.

My next two films will be Million Dollar Baby and Vera Drake to finish off this year and category, and then I'll be taking a bit of a break from posting, but not from viewing. See, most of the watching I get to do comes from streaming services, and movies can disappear from those without warning, and also in part it's from some movies I've borrowed from friends and family, and I don't want to be accused of holding onto those forever, so I'm going to prioritize the borrowed and streamed movies first, but I'll keep doing draws, they just might be very slow in posting, and my memories of the films might be a few weeks old from this point rather than fresh.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Film: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Year: 2004
Cast: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, David Cross, Jane Adams
Director: Michel Gondry
Nominations: Best Actress (Winslet), Best Original Screenplay

Now we come to a film that, unlike a lot of the films on my blog, isn't just more recent but also probably the most well-known.

Before I talk about the movie, and the nominated actress from it, I want to talk a little bit about its leading man, Jim Carrey.

There's a man who needs no introduction, at least to the current generation. For a while, he was one of the biggest movie stars on the planet. As a comedian, he was considered by many, myself included, to be the heir to Robin Williams's throne. Some questioned whether he would have the staying power of Williams, or if he could do dramatic films with the same believability that Williams did, and Carrey himself responded with his mid-90's/early 00's film choices. Carrey desperately wanted to win an Oscar, and tried hard with two films in immediate succession: The Truman Show and Man on the Moon, the latter being a biopic of Andy Kaufman. He would go on to try a third time with the quickly-forgotten The Majestic, a movie meant to harkin back to the films of Frank Capra, with Carrey in the role that likely would have been filled by James Stewart, but Frank Darabont proved he was no Capra and Carrey was certainly no Stewart. There won't be another Stewart, so he shouldn't have tried.

This was his fourth attempt, and now I come to something that, as an adult, bothers me about Carrey. I refused to see this about him when I was younger, but now it's pretty obvious to me, and that is there is a certain "Carrey-ness" that he nearly always has with him, and it rubs people the wrong way. Robin Williams had a certain "Williams-ness" as well, but it worked in his favor whereas Carrey's worked against him. The best way I can describe it is that Williams always gave you the sense that he was a funny, sweet man, while Carrey gave you the sense that he was a funny jerk. This could be utterly wrong; Williams might very well have been a jerk (he was a double-divorcee and I think there were some less-than-savory rumors about him), and Carrey could be a great guy (this I'm near certain is wrong; numerous reports are that Carrey really is a jerk), and it doesn't matter what character they're playing or if it's comedy or drama; Williams was always likable (even at his least sufferable) while Carrey...isn't. Even when he's supposed to be. Think about his most popular comedy movies; Ace Ventura, The Mask, Dumb and Dumber; seeing a pattern yet? Even as Truman Burbank he had his Carrey-moments, and as Kaufman he was trying to be unlikable, so...

If you really don't understand what I mean by "Carrey-ness", watch the trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog. Or don't because no one needs to suffer that way.

I watched a couple of his more recent movies; The Number 23 and Yes Man, and that's when I first understood the "Carrey-ness" problem, because both were movies in which he was trying to leave his rubber-face big goof persona behind, with The Number 23 being a straight drama we would expect to star someone like Kevin Bacon, while Yes Man was a comedy, but a more down-to-earth comedy like we usually get from Hugh Grant. In both of them, Carrey tried to be Bacon, or Grant, but in both of them, that Carrey-ness was still there, and you just didn't buy it. His serious performance seemed like Carrey mocking someone else's serious performance. He just couldn't turn off that Carrey-ness.

Well, if there's a movie where he turns it off with 100% success, it's this one. I totally believed him as sad-sack Joel Barrish, a man with nothing going on in his life and who personifies social anxiety and general awkwardness. You know that he was tempted to really play this up, acting the nebbish role with the same gusto as his other "weird" characters, with rapid eye twitches, sudden about-faces to avoid eye-contact, etc. But he doesn't do that. He feels familiar, like we've met this guy before, or even, perhaps more so, been this guy. As I understand it, we can thank director Michel Gondry for this in its entirety, because he was determined that Carrey be an everyman, and did things like ask him to hold on the hurt of a relationship of his that had just ended, allowing everyone to improvise except Carrey, giving him wrong orders or filming when he said he wasn't, not filming when he said he was, etc. Whatever all he did, it worked.

Joel essentially lives for his relationship with free-spirit Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) but the relationship between them isn't what it used to be, and after a big fight, in which he says something inexcusable to her, she storms out. The next time he tries to call, she's changed her number, and when he visits her at work, not only does she have a new boyfriend, Patrick (Elijah Wood), she behaves as if she doesn't recognize him. He learns that she's undergone an experimental procedure wherein she's wiped her memory of him, which hurts him to his core, and he decides he wants to do the same thing, so he won't have the pain of losing her. Midway through the procedure, when he's literally walking through memories of his time with her, he realizes he doesn't want to forget her after all, and tries to save the rapidly disappearing memories.

There's a lot more going on here, and a lot to explore. First, the whole idea of specific memory erasure could be a compelling film concept all on its own, but screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (along with Gondry and Pierre Bismuth) don't want to tell a sci-fi story. Their focus is on people, and we get a better movie for it. Second, a majority of this movie takes place from Joel's perspective as the erasure process is being performed, which is alternately, beautiful, creepy, wistful, sad, and angering. I love the ambiguity as to whether or not his recollections have anything to do with reality, and how we're never told because we only get his perspective. Third, the people doing the erasure easily could have been flat, undeveloped labcoat-wearing extras, but they're actually compelling enough that they could have starred in their own movie. The drama going on between the four of them (Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson and Elijah Wood) is enough to almost be its own story, with multiple secrets and breaches of ethics. That's all I'll say about it, and I'm afraid I've said too much already.

But the main focus of the film is on exploring Joel's and Clementine's relationship, retro-actively and in anachronic order; we see literally nothing in the order it happened and we have to kind of piece together what brought them together in the first place, what went wrong, whether or not what we're seeing is what really happened and whether or not the two of them should have ever been together.

There's a reason this film got a screenplay nod, too.

Clementine is a fascinating character in her own regard, mostly because we see three versions of her; the one in the real world, the one who purely exists in Joel's memories (almost a fourth character, as we see her when they were happy together and when they were about to break up), and a version he creates in his mind who's trying to help him remember. She's alternately fun and freaky, bitchy and supportive, and Winslet has to balance all of this and make each aspect true to the character, even as we get to see her both the way Joel likes to remember her and the way she really is. It's totally believable that they're the same woman. One crucial scene has her telling Joel right off that she's just a girl with her own problems and has no interest in being used by him as some sort of saving grace...and then Joel admits that's exactly what he tried to make her. Later, he says that unforgivable thing to her, and we wonder if he means it or if he's just angry and hurling an accusation, if he's right and she's in denial or if he's just a suspicious clingy jealous guy. We never really learn the answer and either is possible, but when he goes to have her erased from his mind, even though he's doing it to get over the pain, he starts repeating the same stuff that caused her to leave him, getting as vindictive as he thinks she's being.

I don't know that Carrey deserved to be nominated just for finally (this one time) turning off his Carrey-ness, but Winslet, an actress who's always watchable and always feels totally comfortable and natural, absolutely did, because this was a tough job and she pulled it off without even making it look hard. Just thinking about what it took to play three characters who are actually all the same character, and all are different but just similar enough to be believably the same person...ow, my head. Winslet is playing against type here, but to be honest, she's becoming such a chameleonic actress that I'm not sure she has a type anymore. She manages in this movie to steal scenes from Jim Carrey, who infamously upstages everybody in all his movies (on purpose), and is the most memorable part of what was supposed to be a Jim Carrey movie. She was supposed to be an added bonus and yet she's the real star of this.

So far, and admittedly that's only two down, Winslet is head and shoulders above her competition, but we'll see how the others do.

Being Julia

Film: Being Julia
Year: 2004
Cast: Annette Bening, Jeremy Irons, Shaun Evans, Michael Gambon, Lucy Punch, Bruce Greenwood, Juliet Stevenson, Miriam Margoyles, Tom Sturridge, Sheila McCarthy, Rosemary Harris, Rita Tushingham, Maury Chaykin, Julian Richings
Director: István Szabó
Nominations: Best Actress (Bening)

Ever seen a movie that you knew from the opening titles was made for no other purpose than to get its lead performer an Oscar nomination?

I mean, that's the only reason I can think of that anyone thought to make a movie like this in 2004. It's a costume drama about the theater, set in 1938 and starring a bunch of consummate actors we already know could handle a movie like this in their sleep, with all the focus on its leading lady, every scene she's in framed as if it's a "For Your Consideration" clip.

It's based on a novella by W. Somerset Maugham, and re-titled so there's no mistaking which performance we're supposed to be focused on (the novella was named simply Theatre), and her co-stars are careful not to upstage her in any way, while she gives the performance we all know she can give.

I'd usually give a plot description here, and I will in a moment, but the plot's not why this movie was made. It's purely a way to get Annette Bening an Oscar nod, and her performance certainly shows; every note of it is a clear, desperate, urgent plea for the Academy to notice her. And when I say that this movie was made to get her nominated, I mean it. This isn't an award-winning performance. It's the kind designed to get on the ballot, not the kind designed to win. And there's literally no other point to this movie; they couldn't have thought, after screening it, that it would make any money (it didn't; it cost 18 million to make and earned less than 15), or that it would garner any other nods. Its costumes and sets look like a dozen other movies set in the 30's, the score is listless and dull, the story is nothing special at all. From start to finish this was a movie whose sole goal was to make it possible for Bening to bill herself as "Three-Time Academy Award Nominee Annette Bening". That it worked kinda irritates me.

Bening stars as Julia Lambert, an aging but very respected stage actress in London, who is bored with her glamorous life, stuffy theatrical director husband Michael (Jeremy Irons) and I'm putting myself to sleep just describing this thing. Oh, boo hoo, you're rich, admired and glamorous but you're bored. A younger man, Tom (Shaun Evans), enters her life and flatters her ego enough that she begins an affair with him; an affair entirely based on her need to feel appreciated, which is odd because she's surrounded by flatterers wherever she goes. In fact, there's more than an implicit suggestion that her maid, Evie (Juliet Stevenson), is in love with her, but knows she can't ever say that.

Michael doesn't really give a rip about her affair with Tom, as the both of them have had numerous affairs over the years, but for some reason both feel the need to pretend to each other that they don't. Tom reveals pretty quickly that he's a manipulative bastard who is at least as skilled at lying to everyone as Julia is. She realizes that Tom has begun seeing a young ingenue (Lucy Punch) and even though Julia has been pretending the entire time that Tom is just her side piece, seeing him with another woman clearly hurts her. So she plots an elaborate revenge that involves casting the young actress (who can't act) in her new play, praising her performance the entire way, and really, honestly, do you even care?

That's the main problem; this movie has no stakes. We don't like Julia, but we're expected to sympathize with her, and she has no real problems, but the entire movie is about her hardships and how she overcomes them. She has an affair, but there's no reason to worry about her husband finding out. She's hurt by her lover, but she only ever cared about how he relieved her boredom and made her feel younger. She's getting on in years but never really seems all that threatened by her fading youth and fame. The story proceeds by numbers and Bening's character has no real arc. The one nice touch was Julia frequently imagining that her long-departed theater coach (Michael Gambon) is still around, directing her on how to act in life. It's not enough to make me care, and as a narrative device, it's not used anywhere near enough.

As for Bening herself, I've already talked about how she's clearly gunning for an Oscar nod here, but the performance isn't terrible, just really self-indulgent. I'll confess, I've never found Bening to be an actress to get excited about. Nothing's wrong with her, per se, but I have never known her to elevate a film by her presence, or to give a performance that really packs a punch. When this movie's release was first announced, several Oscar watchers wondered if this would be the performance "that finally wins her an Oscar", as if she's been unjustly robbed for years now, but honestly, what performance of hers truly deserved to win? I'll say right now, it ain't this one. Which is odd, because I remember this year clearly, and I recall that it was a forgone conclusion that Bening was getting nominated. She won the Golden Globe (for Comedy) and got a SAG nod (in fact, SAG's Best Actress slate was the same as the Academy's that year) and no one was surprised that she got the nod, but...really, what for?

Year and Category Selection Time

Here we are again. I will say that this slower pace I've gone at this time will probably be more prominent going forward, because I can't guarantee that I'll have the sort of time I did for that short span in my first three draws to watch all the nominated movies. But watch them I will.

And the year and category this draw is...

...2004 Best Supporting Actress!

The nominees for Best Actress, 2004, were:

• Annette Bening in Being Julia
• Catalina Sandino Moreno in Maria Full of Grace
• Imelda Staunton in Vera Drake
• Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby (the winner)
• Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

What's weird is I'm actually missing the idea of being able to watch more older movies. While I've not seen four of these five films, I feel like I've seen so much from this era that I can almost predict what each is going to do.

That said, I'll be watching and reviewing as always, and sticking to film alphabetical order, so in the coming weeks I'll be watching, in this order: Being Julia, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Maria Full of Grace, Million Dollar Baby and Vera Drake.

Two of them also showed up in other major categories their respective years, so as always I'll talk about their other nominations as well.

Stay tuned.

1974 Best Supporting Actress: My Choice

1974's Best Supporting Actress films have all been watched, and I gotta say, this was a strange year. All five performances seem to illicit the same response from me, namely: What was it about this particular performance that made it stand out? Several huge snubs were committed this year, for example Karen Black in The Great Gatsby and Beatrice Arthur in Mame (which was a critical and commercial bomb, but she earned some acclaim nonetheless), and for that matter, most people consider Valerie Perrine's role in Lenny to be Supporting, which in modern estimations is probably true, and it's not impossible she might have won if she'd been nominated here, but instead she was nominated for Best Actress.

This isn't to take anything away from any of the nominees, but it's funny that in nearly all cases, the roles could be thought of almost as cameos. Ingrid Bergman and Talia Shire probably only got about 20 minutes of "face time" each, while Madeline Kahn's role is mostly remembered for one scene, which is also true of Valentina Cortese. As for Diane Ladd, she doesn't appear until the latter half of her film, and while she chews up all the scenery in her scenes, she's still a very peripheral character.

1974's nominees, once again, are:

• Ingrid Bergman as Greta Ohlsson in Murder on the Orient Express
• Valentina Cortese as Séverine in Day for Night
• Madeline Kahn as Lili von Schtupp in Blazing Saddles
• Diane Ladd as Florence Jean "Flo" Castleberry in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
• Talia Shire as Constanzia "Connie" Corleone in The Godfather, Part II

The Academy's Choice: Ingrid Bergman in Murder on the Orient Express

Weighing the Performances:

I wish I didn't seem like I was damning all these fine actresses and perfectly respectable performances with faint praise. I thought they all did admirable jobs; I just didn't feel in any case like they were standouts, and felt that most of them didn't really have enough screentime or focus to do much with. Compare this to, say, 1995 (the first year I began predicting the Oscars) where the nominees included the long-suffering wife of a failing president, a grieving but determined wife of a stranded astronaut, a talkative hooker whose lack of intelligence is both hilarious and kinda touching, and two sister characters who could both be considered second leads in their films. Heck, the bubble-headed hooker is pretty much the female lead of her film, too, and in all cases the actresses had many scenes and a lot to work with.

For 1974, though, we have, in the order above, one legendary performer acting alongside a large number of other legendary performers, all given a handful of small scenes, hers no exception and not really a standout; an aging Italian actress in a French film playing an aging Italian actress who has to be kept happy or she'll melt down; a comedienne playing a German lounge singer in a parody film who sings about being tired of going through men, a brassy, outspoken waitress and a gangster's daughter coping with the death of her husband by avoiding her parental responsibilities and running to drugs, booze and men.

We hear frequently about the year 1976, and how all but one of the performances nominated for Best Supporting Actress that year were essentially cameos, but I've never heard that said of this year, and I don't know why, because it's more or less true. None of these actresses receive much focus, the plots don't hinge on any of their characters' actions, and all of them seem to actually be featured in about 20% of their respective films, if not less. I know this is the supporting category, but even in this category most performances are still prominent.

Ingrid Bergman in Murder on the Orient Express

Let's start with Ingrid Bergman, who portrays Swedish missionary Greta Ohlsson in Murder on the Orient Express, who considers it her calling to work with "little brown babies in Africa".  As I said in the review of that film, Ms. Bergman does a fine job, and totally sells the plain, frumpy, mousy missionary to the point where we forget any glamorous roles we've seen Bergman in, and she does go through a span of emotions in a short scene, maintaining a quiet intensity and dignity that holds up even during a long, unbroken shot focused solely on her. As good as this is, I still wonder why she was considered the standout by the Academy, who didn't nominate Anthony Perkins, Wendy Hiller or Lauren Bacall for the same film, despite them being equally Award-worthy, if different from Ms. Bergman. For that matter, this is Bergman's third Oscar. What about this role made the Academy think that a woman who'd already won twice (which is usually once more than most actors can hope to win) deserved to win a third time? By the way, you know who else didn't think Bergman deserved to win? Bergman. As she said in her acceptance speech:

It's always very nice to get an Oscar. But in the past he has shown that he is very forgetful and also has the wrong timing. Because last year when "Day and Night" (sic) won for the best picture (actually Foreign Language film) I couldn't believe it that Valentina Cortese was not nominated, because she gave the most beautiful

Valentina Cortese in Day for Night

performance...that all we actresses recognized because, after all, we have all forgotten our lines and always open the wrong doors, and it was wonderful to see her do it so beautifully....but here I am and I'm her rival and I don't like it at all. Please forgive me, Valentina. I didn't mean to.

So, with that, let's move on to Valentina Cortese, who, in Day for Night, played an aging, fading actress who used to get the leading lady roles and now here is playing "the mother", and finding herself unable to remember her lines, continually opening the wrong door to exit a scene (both pointed out by Bergman above), having each take become more hysterical until she breaks down crying. This is very likely the scene that got her nominated, and I must say it is a memorable moment  (even if I felt like her character didn't really figure much into the behind-the-scenes drama of that film), and it's nice to be able to watch her scene and figure out what it was that made Academy voters stand up and take notice.

To answer Ms. Bergman's confusion above, back in that era it was common for foreign language films to compete for the Academy in the year of their initial release, but still be ineligible in other categories until it got an American release (in New York or Los Angeles), so Day for Night was not in competition in other categories than Foreign Language Film until this year, despite being released overseas the previous year.

Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles

Madeline Kahn was one of the funniest women in Hollywood during her day, a gifted comedienne who could be funny just being deadpan with a quirk in her eye. She was nominated this year for the Mel Brooks parody film Blazing Saddles, playing a Germanic lounge singer sent to seduce the hero into allowing himself to be controlled by the villain. Instead, his legendary black-man-loving skills convert her to his side. I loved Kahn in another Mel Brooks film,  Young Frankenstein as well as Clue, either of which could have or even should have been nominated performances for her (Young Frankenstein even came out the same year as this; her nod for Saddles is probably for both films), and she had been nominated the previous year for Paper Moon, a movie I have yet to see. Considering her nomination this year to be the Academy's way of honoring her for both Brooks movies is probably the only way to really understand what about Blazing Saddles got her nominated. Of the movies I've seen her in, this is probably the one where she left the least impression on me, with most, if not all, of her costars being funnier and more interesting than her essentially one-scene-wonder role (she has more scenes, but she's in about 15% of the movie, and it's unquestionably her lounge act scene that got her nominated).

In Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Diane Ladd, much like the other nominees this year, is in less

Diane Ladd in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

than half the film but dominates all her scenes as Flo (her full name isn't given here, but the TV series establishes her middle and last name, which is why I listed it here), the waitress who doesn't mind catcalls and flirting, but won't hesitate to put you in your place if you push her too far. She starts off annoying Alice, but ends up her best friend and confident, almost a mother-type for her who provides Alice some much-needed emotional support. It's a fine role, and Ladd is very good in it, and she made me laugh out loud a few times, which oddly enough is more than I can say for Madeline Kahn, despite Kahn's role being considered iconic today. It still doesn't feel like there's enough substance to the role to win, but the nomination was deserved.

Talia Shire, younger sister to Francis Ford Coppola, repeats her role from The Godfather as Connie Corleone in The Godfather, Part II, the only female performance in that entire trilogy to earn a nomination. I talked in that film's review about how Ms. Shire effortlessly goes from a cringing, abused housewife to a boozy, irresponsible sponge, while never once making us feel like she's betraying her character. In fact, seeing what's become of her makes us feel a bit of antipathy toward

Talia Shire in The Godfather, Part II

Michael, knowing that before he killed her husband, making her a widow (something he'd said he wasn't willing to do) she might have been able to leave him and be a responsible mom and happier person. I don't know if that means she's a winner, but she deserved to be nominated.

In attempting to wrap this up, I will say that much like Bergman, I don't think Bergman deserved to win, especially not as this was Oscar #3 for her. If she'd never won, I'd consider this a viable make-up Oscar, but she'd won twice, including already winning one award more as a way of Hollywood welcoming her back after having a baby out of wedlock (almost no one feels like she really deserved that second Oscar for Anastasia, considered one of her worst performances). I also don't think much of Madeline Kahn, at least not in Blazing Saddles, and I know that will make people mad because this role has a ton of fans.

So, of the three actresses left, which one do I think did the most with what screen time she had? It was a tough choice, but I have to agree with Bergman on this one. Valentina Cortese's part had the most substance and was the most memorable.

My Choice: Valentina Cortese

Join me next time as we choose another year and category.

Murder on the Orient Express

Film: Murder on the Orient Express
Year: 1974
Cast: Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam, Ingrid Bergman, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Rachel Roberts, Richard Widmark, Michael York, Colin Blakely, George Coulouris, Dennis Quilley
Director: Sidney Lumet
Nominations: Best Actor (Finney), Best Supporting Actress (Bergman), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Dramatic Score, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design

For some reason, the Academy has never been big on Whodunits, even if they're based on the work of the Queen of Whodunits herself, Agatha Christie. In fact, this is only the second Christie adaptation the Academy took any notice of at all, the first being Witness for the Prosecution, not even twenty years before.

This one, however, unlike Witness, was an adventure featuring one of her famous recurring sleuths, in this case the great Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, played here by Albert Finney. In this case, M. Poirot is merely returning to England, having secured passage on an all-booked-up trip on the Orient Express thanks to knowing the director of the train line, Signor Bianchi (Martin Balsam). He's approached by an abrupt, mysterious American businessman, Mr. Ratchett (Richard Widmark), who's afraid someone might be planning an attempt on his life. Poirot isn't impressed by Ratchett and turns down the offer to become his paid bodyguard for the remainder of the trip.

But just because Ratchett might be paranoid doesn't mean he was wrong. One morning after the train is delayed by snow covering the track, Ratchett is found dead in his room, a preponderance of evidence surrounding him.

Who among the twelve passengers killed him? Could it be haughty American socialite Harriett Hubbard (Lauren Bacall)? Mousy, withdrawn missionary Greta Ohlsson (Ingrid Bergman)? Fragile young Countess Helena (Jacqueline Bisset) or her fiery husband Count Rudolf (Michael York)? Eccentric Russian Princess Dragomiroff (Wendy Hiller), or perhaps her androgynous maid Eddie Izzard, I mean Hildegarde Schmidt (Rachel Roberts)? Short-tempered British soldier Arbuthnot (Sean Connery)? Or perhaps one of Ratchett's own staff, like his secretary McQueen (Anthony Perkins) or his butler, Beddoes (John Gielgud), who we know couldn't have done it because that would be too cliched, right? There are other suspects, of course, but I'm not about to sit here and list them all or this review will go on forever.

This film was a smorgasbord of talent, with one of the most star-studded casts of any film I've reviewed yet. Among its massive cast are three concurrent Oscar winners, six concurrent nominees, three future winners and one future nominee (yes, there is some overlap in there). Out of them all, only Finney and Bergman managed nominations for this film, with Bergman winning.

As you might guess, this film is fascinating to watch, mostly to just sort of bask in the glow of so many of yesterday's international mega-stars in one place. I understand Lumet got Connery signed first and his star power convinced others to sign on, and the more big stars who joined the cast, the easier it was to convince still more to sign.

The end result is a superbly acted masterpiece with so many great actors doing their thing that none of them really stand out, which is odd because apparently one did. I mean to say that one performance among the supporting cast stood out, because Albert Finney is indeed the clear lead here, as the detective figuring it all out, and he has the most scenes and the most to work with. This would be a role that could be quite boring if done wrong, but the writing and Finney's performance cause M. Poirot to be the true draw in this film. Poirot starts off the film tired and irritable, and just wants everyone to leave him alone, even at one point suggesting that the police in Prague (the next stop) can handle this. Once he is convinced to take the case, he does so with gusto, only to find himself more disgusted by the man who was killed than by his potential killers. The ending, which you probably already know, but which I will not spoil, really gives Finney the opportunity to shine, as solving the case presents a moral dilemma to Poirot that he clearly wrestles with even after the decision is made.

So I can understand Finney's nomination, even if I think the nomination was his award, but the rest of the cast is uniformly excellent and all receive about the same amount of screen time. Bacall, Connery and Hiller's roles are probably the showiest, but showy doesn't mean best acted by any stretch, and I was also impressed with Anthony Perkins's nebbishy attache, the first to react to the true identity of his employer, and the first to suggest that had he known, he would have killed him. Rachel Roberts was also a standout to me, but mostly because I think her character was supposed to be a lesbian, despite this not being hinted at aside from her look and demeanor, which either means they didn't intend this, or that they decided not to make her sexuality have anything to do with the story, a pretty progressive idea for 1974. Roberts herself was not a lesbian, but I haven't seen her in other films, so I don't know if she comes off as masculine elsewhere as she was here.

But none of them were nominated. Instead, Ingrid Bergman was, in a role that would end up winning her a third Oscar. And her performances is...fine. I mean, she's Ingrid Bergman and she's doing what she tends to do here, but I don't really understand how of all the performances in this film, hers is the one to stand out enough to not just be nominated, but to win.

What's funny is that Lumet first approached her about playing the Princess Dragomiroff, and even suggested that if she took that role, it would make her a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination. But she wanted to be Greta, and insisted on it, so Wendy Hiller took the role of Dragomiroff, and took her cue from her costuming (you have to see her costumes to believe them), playing the Russian royal to the hilt, thick accent and all. Bergman's performance is much quieter, much more subtle, but probably more intense for all that. In her big scene, she has to convey several emotions within just a few moments, and she does them all convincingly, while sounding very much like a lot of non-English speakers from Scandinavian nations I've known in real life. So I don't wish to make it sound like she didn't do a very good job; far from it. But I don't know what made it stand out, especially considering she's far from the only subtle, understated, yet powerful performance in this film. It's definitely to her credit that with only a few minutes, and in a role that's quiet and unassuming, she managed to impress so many. I do wonder, however, if Bergman had taken the Dragomiroff role, would she have missed the Oscars, or been nominated for that instead?

I guess I can't really talk about this movie much longer without mentioning that it was recently remade, with Kenneth Branagh directing and taking the title role. I haven't seen that one, though I'd like to very soon, but it's funny that Branagh went the same way as Lumet, hiring an all-star cast that included Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Josh Gad, Daisy Ridley, Michelle Pfieffer, Olivia Colman and Johnny Depp in the role of the murder victim. For whatever reason, the Academy failed to recognize that one, even in the costuming or production design departments. I guess lighting can really only strike once.

The Godfather, Part II

Film: The Godfather, Part II
Year: 1974
Cast: Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, Talia Shire, Morgana King, John Cazale, Marianna Hill, Lee Strasberg, Michael V. Gazzo, GD Spradlin, Richard Bright, Gaston Moschin, Tom Rosqui, Bruno Kirby, Frank Sivero, Francesca De Sapio, Leopoldo Trieste, Dominic Chianese, Troy Donahue, John Aprea, Joe Spinell, Carmine Caridi, Danny Aiello, Harry Dean Stanton
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Pacino), Best Supporting Actor (De Niro, Gazzi, Strasberg), Best Supporting Actress (Shire), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Dramatic Score, Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Costume Design

It's a bit weird to talk about a film's sequel before we talk about the main film itself, but such is the nature of how I choose my years and categories.

The Godfather, Part II was the first, and for nearly 30 years the only, sequel to win Best Picture. It's still the only sequel to a film that won Best Picture to also win Best Picture and part of the first of only two trilogies to have all their installments nominated. Of course I'm speaking of The Lord of the Rings series, which, like The Godfather's three films, had all three of its chapters nominated for Best Picture, but whereas The Lord of the Rings won the big prize for its final chapter (many feel it was granted for the three films in total), The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II both won Best Picture their respective years, and Part II is frequently brought up as an example of a sequel that not only lives up to but may very well surpass its original.

It does so by not just being a continuation of the story but also, through a series of flashbacks, showing us how a young boy named Vito Andolini came to America and grew up to become the founder of the Corleone crime family. This is juxtaposed with the continuing tale of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), who has now been the Don of the Corleone family for about a decade (counting the final years covered in the first film), and is even more deeply mired in criminal activity than he was when we saw him last. "Remember when you told me the Corleone family would be completely legitimate in five years?" asks his wife Kay (Diane Keaton). "That was seven years ago." He brushes that away with a promise that he's still working on it, but we certainly don't see that here. In fact, he's become a great deal more ruthless and brutal in the ensuing years between this film and its predecessor.

Part of the biggest issues Michael has at this point is that there are so few men left that he can trust. A majority of them are dead or have proven that perhaps they weren't as trustworthy as he believed. Clemenza is now dead of a heart attack, and the new caporegime looking after the family's interests in New York is the volatile Frankie Pentangeli (Michael V. Gazzo), whose loyalty is definitely in question. Frankie is eager for permission to take out the Rosato brothers (Carmine Caridi and Danny Aiello), who are taking over his territory, but the problem is they work for Meyer Lansky Hyman Roth, a Jewish Floridian gangster with whom Michael is trying to broker a deal to take over some of Roth's business interests. His older brother Fredo (John Cazale) has always been the weak, stupid one, and still is. Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) remains the most loyal man in Michael's organization. Michael makes it clear to him that he's the only one Michael trusts. "Everyone in this family is a businessman," he says, indicating a willingness in all of them to make deals with men who would take Michael out.

On the night of his son's birthday party, Michael, who has relocated to Nevada, meets with the corrupt Senator Geary (GD Spradlin) who's willing to take a payoff to ignore the criminal element in the Corleone business dealings, but only for a substantial kickback that he wants mainly because he hates having to work with Italians. He also meets with Frankie, who threatens to become violently angry at Michael's refusal to let him move against the Rosatos, but eventually settles down. Overshadowing all these meetings is the acknowledgement that Michael is getting into bed with Roth, a man the old Don Corleone did occasional business with but never trusted, because he truly is dangerous.

Later that night, Michael and Kay barely survive an assassination attempt, and Michael suspects that the assassins were able to get that close to him due to having a man on the inside. Who sent the assassins, though? Roth? Pentangeli? Maybe even Senator Geary? Who's the man they have in Michael's inner circle?

Michael plays them all; setting up Roth to believe Michael's ready to take out Pentangeli, but telling Pentangeli that it was Roth who sent the assassins. A series of botched hit jobs on all sides winds up with Michael subjected to a Senate hearing where he denies being involved in organized crime...not knowing Pentangeli is the surprise witness.

In the 1910's, a much younger Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro), named so in America because he gets named after the city he comes from, has married, made friends with local Italians Clemenza (Bruno Kirby) and Tessio (John Aprea) and learns most of his neighborhood is under the tight fist of Don Fanucci (Gaston Moschin), known as the "Black Hand". Fanucci causes Vito to lose his job at a grocer due to Fanucci needing a place for his nephew to work. After getting involved in smaller crimes with Clemenza and Tessio, earning notice from Fanucci, who demands a percentage, Vito realizes he needs to take Fanucci out, beginning his rise to power in Brooklyn.

I could keep going but there's a lot happening in this movie, and I'm purposefully leaving a lot out. Likely you already know the story, with all the various twists and turns, so let's talk about the movie as a movie.

To start off with, I'll mention that it not only won Best Picture, but also Best Director (The Godfather can't even claim that!), Best Supporting Actor (De Niro), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction/Set Decoration and Best Original Dramatic Score. That's seven wins to The Godfather's mere three. Al Pacino, nominated for Best Actor this time because he has no Brando to contend with, lost his prize to Art Carney in Harry and Tonto, a loss many believe was due to Pacino splitting his vote with Jack Nicholson in Chinatown. Having seen both movies, I don't know which one I would have voted for between Nicholson and Pacino, but I can say that I think I like Pacino's performance in the original film a bit better than this one, due to watching Michael's slow but inevitable shift from a guy trying to live a clean life who gets drawn into his family's world of crime and death. Here he's deep into it, and while he says he's trying to get out, he doesn't seem to be putting much effort into it. It's a solid, quietly intense performance, and it deservedly made Pacino one of the more viable leading men in Hollywood, but I'll reserve judgement on whether he was robbed of an Oscar win (for either this or The Godfather) until I've seen all his competition in both years. I can say for sure that of the three men nominated for the original film (Pacino, who should have been nominated for Best Actor, James Caan and Robert Duvall) he's the clear winner there, but I haven't seen Cabaret yet.

This film, like its predecessor, managed the rare Triple Crown; three performances from the same film nominated in the same category, and it also beat the odds, as a Triple Crown has always resulted in a three-way loss, but not this time. Robert De Niro, Michael V. Gazzo and Lee Strasberg all received nominations for this film, but it was De Niro who took it home. I was impressed to some degree how easily he convinced me that his character could grow to become the old man we met in The Godfather, including adding a bit of a rasp to his voice and using Brando's affected manner of speaking, while not descending into copycat or parody. My only question is when did Vito have that trademark mole removed. Gazzo, a playwright by trade, gobbles down scenery like mad here, but doesn't come off as over the top or trying too hard. You can believe his mobster just behaves like this. Strasberg, meanwhile, is primarily remembered as an acting teacher to the stars, whose students include Pacino himself, as well as Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Fonda, Julie Harris, Paul Newman, Ellen Burstyn, Geraldine Page, Eli Wallach, and directors Frank Perry and Elia Kazan, among others. They say those that can do, and those that can't teach, but it doesn't hold true here. Strasberg, who primarily acted on the stage, here plays Hyman Roth as a seemingly congenial old man, the sort of guy you might run into at the grocery store who'd ask how your day is going and pat your children on the head, but there's an underlying threat in nearly every word he says, and he's able to sell the danger while still smiling and seeming totally friendly. Between the three nominated performances, I think I actually like his the best.

Talia Shire returns in this film as the youngest child of Vito Corleone, and the only daughter, Connie. The first film memorably opens on her wedding, and throughout the first film we learn she's regularly being cheated on and beaten by Carlo, her first husband, leading him to be threatened by oldest Corleone child Sonny (Caan), which in turn leads Carlo to sell out Sonny to the Tattaglias. Michael, once he's taken over, realizes this and kills Carlo. Since then, Connie has apparently gotten married again, and is currently in the process of a divorce, and has already moved on to another man, a non-Italian named Merle (Troy Donahue) whom none in her family approve of. Since being widowed by her brother, Connie has taken to drugs, drinking and men, and Michael considers her a disgrace to the family, only showing up when she needs money, and never seeing her children. What makes Shire's nomination for this role interesting is that this is her second time out as Connie, and the first time got her no notice at all, but here her role is smaller and yet got more notice. Think the nomination was meant to honor both performances? That's very likely. She was nearly entirely sympathetic in the first film (if there was any part of her that wasn't, it was her seeming willingness to stay with and protect her abusive husband) to being the family shame in this one, but in this one she seems like a real actress. That's probably not fair, because Shire (Coppola's little sister) was very much a real actress even before being cast in The Godfather, and she would go on to earn an Oscar nod for another film her brother had nothing to do with, but that hasn't stopped people from suggesting she was only cast in this series thanks to nepotism and that Coppola pulled some strings to get her nominated. I don't agree (apparently Coppola considered firing her because she was too glamorous), and I thought she did a great job here, transforming from cringing housewife to well-dressed lush, going from "aww, poor thing" to "what a bitch" in just two films, and with a slight change of hairdo and poise. Yeah, I'm on board with her nomination.

As for the other wins, it's almost like the Academy was awarding this film to make up for how scant the awards were for its predecessor; we tend to remember The Godfather as the dominant film of its year, but it actually won only three Oscars (Picture, Actor, Screenplay) while Cabaret swept with eight wins, making it still to this day the film that won the most Oscars without winning Best Picture. Sure, all this film's wins were deserved (aside from two of its three Supporting Actor nods, as well as Pacino and Shire, the only loss was for Costume Design), but I don't see much of a difference between the writing, score and cinematography between the two films, and the directorial job is absolutely the same, so it's almost like Coppola's win, as well as composer Nino Rota's, was for both films. Shire's nod absolutely was, though I agree she should have been nominated, while I still don't know how I feel about Pacino's double losses. He absolutely gave a winning performance the first time around. Did he deserve it for both? Would a win for him have been just a make-up Oscar for losing his first round? I feel like I'll be better equipped to say once I've seen Cabaret, Harry and Tonto, The Heartbreak Kid and Lenny. He definitely deserved to win over Albert Finney in Murder on the Orient Express, a performance that, as I'll detail in the next post, was totally competent but not a winner. He and Nicholson, though...a lot of thought will have to go into this before I decide which of the two was more deserving.

Day for Night

Film: Day for Night
Year: 1974
Cast: Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Valentina Cortese, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Dani, François Truffaut, Alexandra Stewart, Jean Champion, Nathalie Baye, David Markham, Nike Arrighi, Bernard Ménez, Zénaïde Rossi
Director: François Truffaut
Nominations: Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Cortese), Best Original Screenplay, Best Foreign Language Film (1973)

As the tag line says, this movie bills itself as a "movie for people who love movies". Maybe a better one would say "a movie for people who love to learn about how movies are made".

What this movie is, essentially, is a movie showing us what went into making it. It's not literally a movie about filming this movie; it's a French melodrama about filming a French melodrama, all while the actors and crew go through similar things that the film-within-a-film's characters are going through. Mostly affairs.

François Truffaut himself plays Ferrand, the director in the film, trying to keep everything straight as chaos erupts around him, thanks to a man-child of a handsome young movie star (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a fading lush of a supporting actress who used to be a glamorous leading lady but now can't hold it together long enough to shoot a short scene (Valentina Cortese), a British leading lady who suffered a nervous breakdown on the set of her last film, a pregnant supporting player whose character is not supposed to be (and who grows visibly more so as the shoot continues) not to mention constant set and prop issues.

It all comes together to make a delightful and eye-opening look at the world of cinema. It's funny, it's heart-breaking and it never takes things so far that we feel we're descending into parody. In fact it all feels very real, like you get the feeling that when the cameras stopped rolling it all kept going just like this. I've seen many movies about making movies, and this one might be the best of all. Truffaut was nominated for Best Director for this film and how could he not have been? We see his directorial efforts more directly than we likely ever will again.

The cast is filled with colorful characters, my personal favorites being Léaud as Alphonse, a young actor in his twenties who's basically an unsupervised toddler (a running gag is him frequently asking the other men around him "do you think women are magical?", and he seems to be asking in all sincerity), Joëlle (Nathalie Baye), the plucky script supervisor who almost seems to be the one guiding Ferrand through directing this thing, and Aumont as Alexandre, an aging leading man who quietly kinda/sorta comes out to his ex-lover, who also happens to be playing his wife in the film.

Said ex-lover is Séverine (Cortese) an Italian actress who's losing her looks and her abilities (in the scene she can't get right, we see her lines taped to numerous props), who must be kept happy at all times (no points for guessing whether or not this effort is successful). She's hilarious and very showy, but I still think the other characters I named rank above her. She's also not in the movie very much, which doesn't mean she shouldn't have been nominated, and to be frank her diva-in-distress was just about the most Oscar-worthy performance in the film, considering how well she convinced us that she was having trouble acting.

What I really loved was seeing the various ways that real life affected the film shoot; dealing with the pregnant actress, Joëlle suggests writing her pregnancy in, which Ferrand is all for until he realizes that this will make people think the baby is Alphonse's. In the end they decide to shoot as much of her as they can before she starts to show. It doesn't hold.

Even the title of this movie (both of them!) is a behind-the scenes term, for when you shoot a night scene in the daytime by putting a filter over the lens. In France they call this La Nuit Américaine ("The American Night" and this film's French title) while in America it's called, you guessed it "bright outside, dim inside". No, seriously, it's called, as I'm sure you guessed, Day for Night.

Don't worry yourself about having to "read" a movie with subtitles if you don't speak French, just make sure that if you enjoy movies at all, especially if you enjoy knowing how they're made, see this. A good time is guaranteed.

I'll be watching the first two, perhaps three, Godfather movies this week, and then Murder on the Orient Express to finish off this category, so forgive me if the posting is more sporadic.

Blazing Saddles

Film: Blazing Saddles
Year: 1974
Cast: Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn, Slim Pickens, Dom DeLuise, Mel Brooks, Liam Dunn, George Furth, Burton Gilliam, John Hillerman, David Huddleston, Richard Collier, Alex Karras, Jack Starrett
Director: Mel Brooks
Nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Kahn), Best Original Song ("Blazing Saddles"), Best Editing

Boy, was this ever a different experience than I've had watching movies for this blog up until now.

I've actually seen this movie before, but the only time I saw it all the way through was back when I was a kid. I caught it again on cable back in the 2000's but had to turn it off before it was over (and came in in the middle anyway), so a re-watch was definitely necessary and I'm very glad I got the chance. What a hilarious movie.

This was the third film from Mel Brooks, that great spoof-master who has been called one of the greatest comic directors of all time, and this was made back when he was actually making original movies that spoofed ideas or genres, rather than spoofing films directly, such as Spaceballs (Star Wars), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (The Adventures of Robin Hood and  Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) or Dracula: Dead and Loving It (all Dracula movies but especially the old Universal film).

Blazing Saddles, though, isn't just a parody of westerns. It also calls out the western genre for its romanticizing of a pretty rough time period and area, often behaving as if it was all crusading lawmen and sweet-souled cowboys. This movie shows in stark detail how settlers were often uneducated, inbred, racist morons, corrupt politicians definitely already existed, and the gangs that ride into town to beat the men and rape the women were often doing so on a land baron's orders.

Bart (Cleavon Little) is a "freed" slave who now works with a crew of other former slaves building a railroad. When it turns out that railroad's current plans take it through a patch of quicksand, land developer Hedley LaMarr (Harvey Korman, who continually has to correct people who call him by the name of Algiers's leading lady) decides to divert it through the town of Rock Ridge, but the townspeople refuse to vacate, even after he sends in outlaws to harry them.

He decides the best thing to do is answer their request to the governor for a new sheriff by sending someone whose mere presence will make them leave of their own volition; a black man and former slave, Bart himself.

I don't know why I'm describing this plot. At this point, I'm sure you've seen it. It's a comedy classic, and a deserved one, managing to include social commentary without beating you over the head with it, or focusing on it at the expense of the comedy.

But it's part of this blog because of the performance of well-loved comedienne and actress Madeline Kahn, a regular of Brooks's films, who portrays seductive singer Lili von Schtupp (google the word), whom Hedley sends in as a means of controlling Bart without force. Ms. Kahn is always funny, and always a delight to watch, and her scenes are among this film's best, but was this really an Academy Award-winning performance? Truthfully, I don't know. I certainly think the role wasn't exactly something she could do much with. Just be seductive and sexy, speak-sing a song about being tired of all the men she's had, and...well, I've just about said it all. In my opinion this is nowhere near Kahn at her best; if you want to see that, watch her in Clue, which I still say is one of the funniest movies ever made and she's a big part of the reason why. I would have nominated her for that one, but I suppose I can't fault the Academy in 1974 for not knowing that film was coming. I can, though, for nominating her for seemingly no other reason than that she's Madeline Kahn, and had just come off a successful (Oscar-nominated) performance in Paper Moon.

What's really funny is that as I was watching this, I kept thinking to myself "this is really funny, and socially relevant, but you could never make this movie today. Some idiot would call it racist." And the very next day I saw that someone had. I don't want to get political, but if you can't see that this movie is showing us how dumb racism is, then you're part of the problem. This movie shows racist settlers as stupid and inbred (everyone in town of Rock Ridge is named is "Johnson") while Bart's the only one in town with brains. I'd say this movie has done more to fight racism than a thousand Twitter warriors, but all people in today's world can see is the uncensored use of the N-word. What I'd love to see Brooks do is re-release this movie with a vary obvious dub of one person (for all characters) boredly saying "n-word" over every use of the slur in the film. It might drive the point home even further.

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Film: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
Year: 1974
Cast: Ellen Burstyn, Kris Kristofferson, Alfred Lutter, Harvey Keitel, Diane Ladd, Lelia Goldoni, Billy Green Bush, Jodie Foster, Valerie Curtin, Vic Tayback
Director: Martin Scorsese
Nominations: Best Actress (Burstyn), Best Supporting Actress (Ladd), Best Original Screenplay

I'll admit something; until this weekend, I primarily knew this movie as the basis for the sitcom Alice, which I caught several times in reruns back in the 90's and thought was cute enough. And of course as the film that won Ellen Burstyn her Oscar.

So if you're like me, and are more familiar with the sitcom than the film, do yourself a favor and forget everything you know about the sitcom before you sit down to watch. I did not, and the film I saw could not have been more different than the TV series. It would be similar to if Robert Altman's M*A*S*H had been a dark, gritty war film like Saving Private Ryan. Okay, maybe not that dark. There are several light-hearted moments in this film, but a sitcom premise it is decidedly not.

Ellen Burstyn plays Alice Hyatt, a suburban housewife to rude, boorish truck-driver Donald (Billy Green Bush) and mother to mouthy little Tommy (Alfred Lutter), who had aspirations of being a singer, and later in the film, when asked why she gave that dream up, her reply is "I got married", said in a tone that suggests that alone explains it. She does later admit that her husband put the kibosh on her dreams by saying no wife of his was gonna get pawed by drunks as she sings in some bar, but she says all this in a tone that says "husbands, you know? What can you do?"

So that by itself communicates just how much times have changed even since the 70's, an era that was noted for a rise in progressivism and women's lib.

Donald is literally just a shade less than a domestic abuser. We never see him actually hit Alice or little Tommy, but when Tommy replaces the sugar for Donald's coffee with salt, Donald first yells at Alice, asking "what the hell did you do to the coffee?" and when he realizes what Tommy has done, chases him out of the house in a frightening scene. Alice later makes excuses for him to her friend Bea (Lelia Goldoni). Oh, yes, the 70's still had a lot of work ahead of them before women realized men like Donald are bad news.

But an accident takes out Donald and leaves Alice a single mother with no job and no experience outside of being a singer. She cries when she's first told of the accident, but even Tommy later notices how short a time seems to go by before she seems to have made her peace with it. She decides now's the time to take her chance at becoming a professional singer, packing herself and Tommy up and heading west, intending to arrive in Monterey to hit the big time. Meanwhile, she'll hire herself out as a bar singer in the bigger cities on her way.

First stop: Phoenix, where she actually does get a job singing and playing piano in a bar, but she also takes up with rakish younger man Ben, who we in the new 10's know is a bad man because he's played by Harvey Keitel in a supporting role. It turns out that not only is he married (and his wife is expecting) but he's also dangerous; violently abusive and potentially murderous. This scene was apparently so traumatizing to Burstyn that her reaction to Ben in this scene is not acting, nor did it stop once "cut" was called. I can see why. Keitel was only becoming a well-known actor by that point but he would make his career playing men who aren't very nice, and this scene is probably why. Even Scorsese was scared of him after that!

So, good-bye Phoenix and hello Tuscon, where Alice, now out of gas and out of options, takes a job at a diner and enrolls Tommy in school. And here is where the sitcom premise arose from; Alice was about a single-mom waitress and her pals at the diner. In this movie, the diner is just another hurdle on Alice's road to trying to figure out who she is and what she wants. She tries (with varying success) to get along with her new co-workers, brassy southern belle Flo (Diane Ladd) and spacey Vera (Valerie Curtin), as well as her grumpy boss Mel (Vic Tayback, who would reprise his role on the sitcom), while being romanced by regular customer David (Kris Kristofferson), a farmer and divorcee who would be good for her, or could be just another fatal attraction to add to the list.

I understand that Ellen Burstyn was attracted to this project because having just come off playing a woman with a literal demon for a child, she wanted to do a realistic project displaying the trials of the modern woman. And boy, did she. Alice's struggles are palpable, and Burstyn portrays this all so well that we feel every inch of what she's going through. Alice isn't some larger-than-life person; she's just a mom who's doing her best. She's not a great mom, and in some cases not even a good one, and her kid isn't the typical precocious Hollywood youngster but a mouthy little brat who drives everyone around him crazy. I'd be annoyed with him myself if it weren't so obvious that the film wants me to be. Alfred Lutter's performance is so natural that it's hard to believe they didn't just let the camera role while he annoyed his costars. If there's a child performer here who's awkward and stilted, it is, strangely enough, a young Jodie Foster, who seems very conscious that she's being filmed. Lutter doesn't seem like he's acting. Foster definitely does. Makes you wonder why one would keep acting well into adulthood and win two Oscars and the other wouldn't survive the 70's with an intact acting career.

The portrait of mother and son was one of the most honest I've seen in a film. He's not a sarcastic young genius and she's not a the patient, saintly mom who always knows what to say. Later in the film, Kristofferson calls her out on her apparent inability to discipline him and let him do whatever he wants. She's angry and hurt in this scene, and she should be, and she doesn't really have a realization later that he's right, yet he's still not shown as the jerk that criticized her parenting.

I've heard some critiques on the 1974 Oscars saying that Burstyn won this year because the Academy couldn't decide between Faye Dunaway in Chinatown and Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence. I have yet to see A Woman Under the Influence but I've seen Chinatown and, not to take anything away from Ms. Dunaway, but as far as I'm concerned, between the two of them, Burstyn is the clear winner here. We'll discuss this more once I get to this category but right now we're on the supporting side.

Diane Ladd doesn't show up until the latter half of the movie (in fact, the diner itself doesn't), but once she does, she leaves a huge impression. Once again, forget the sitcom portrayal of her by Polly Holiday (as funny as it was). Here, she's a foul-mouthed yet supportive mother type, willing to be whistled at and flirted with, but won't take your crap. She never once says "kiss mah grits!", the character's catchphrase on the show, but she does say things like "Mel, why don't you give yourself a jerk job in a paper sack and get off my ass, would ya?" or when Mel demands to know where Vera is, she yells "She went to shit and the hogs ate her!" It's tempting to write her off as vulgar comic relief, but she's also the one there for her when Alice needs her, even after Alice openly tells her "I don't like you". Ladd manages to go over the top while still reminding you of someone you might have met; in fact the entire movie keeps the realism levels high while still managing to wow you with its acting. Ladd made me laugh out loud several times, but also brought a pathos to the role that humanized her.

Well, okay, about that realism, maybe not all the movie is. In a very inventive opening, we see Alice as a little girl, coming home to her farmhouse singing "You'll Never Know" from Hello, Frisco, Hello to her doll, but not idly; actually trying to sing like a professional. The scene is framed and filmed like a classic from the 40's, even opening with a credits sequence right out of Michael Curtiz's dreams. Then her mother threatens to beat her if she doesn't come in for supper right now, and young Alice tells her doll that one day she'll be a singer and "anybody who tells me I won't can blow it out their ass". Fade almost immediately to "present day" and "All the Way to Memphis" by Mott the Hoople blares over the soundtrack. I loved this juxtaposition, and the undercutting of the idyllic scene of yesteryear with the vulgarity that reminds us the 40's weren't really like what the Hayes Code tried to suggest they were.

In conclusion, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is a deserved American classic that you need to see. Just don't mistake it for the sitcom.