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canbelto writes:

Plus the gentle ribbing of wine snobs -- my boss at work is a wine snob, and ... he's exactly like Miles.

I know a Miles too, although he doesn’t read Barely Legal. At least, I hope he doesn’t. :)

Old Fashioned writes:

Those moments in High Society were the only ones I truly enjoyed.

Unfortunately, that still leaves the rest of the picture. No offense, carbro.

I agree with you, canbelto, that The Godfather Part II is not clearly superior to Part I, taken as a whole. Part II has the splendid Little Italy section, with De Niro at his best, but on the other hand it has too much Diane Keaton, not that it’s all her fault – the part is poorly written-- and other weaknesses. On the good side, it relies less on bloody shock effects and Brando’s not in it (speaking of overrated performances......).

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I had to Google "1986 Oscar Foreign Film" to find the name of the thing (sometimes advancing middle age is a blessing), but "Betty Blue" is the most mawkish and pretentious "art" film I've ever seen. I rank it lower than "The Piano" (and I'd always found Holly Hunter so attractive before). No offense, canbelto, but on last viewing I still loved "Cries and Whispers."

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I love many moments in "Singin' in the Rain." I love the "dignity, always dignity" montage, and Lockwood and Lena "acting" (the repeated "I love yous"), I also love lines like "She can't sing, she can't dance, she can't act". And of course I love Gene Kelly splashing through the rain in sheer exhuberation. But "Make 'Em Laugh" never makes me laugh -- in fact I think it's one of the most irritating musical numbers ever. Ditto for "Moses S'poses." And there's something very annoying about Debbie Reynolds.

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Singin’ in the Rain is in some ways more successful as a comedy than as a musical, I think. The story and the dialogue play an exceptionally large role in making the movie successful. And Jean Hagen, a nonsinger and nondancer, gives the outstanding performance. I agree that the Debbie Reynolds part doesn’t work, but not that it’s necessarily her fault, although she is green. For all his good looks and physicality, Kelly was not at his best as a romantic lead. The big duet with him and Reynolds is a washout, but if she’d been paired with a fine partner, like Astaire, she might not have looked great but she would have looked better. Unless Kelly is paired with a big(ger) star, like Hayworth or Garland, he tends to dominate his female leads out of existence.

kfw writes:

I had to Google "1986 Oscar Foreign Film" to find the name of the thing (sometimes advancing middle age is a blessing), but "Betty Blue" is the most mawkish and pretentious "art" film I've ever seen.

I haven’t seen it, but that doesn’t surprise me. Because of the arcana of Academy rules and plain bad taste, the Best Foreign Film nominees are often mediocre a/o obscure and occasionally worse.

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Pulp Fiction Might be the most overrated movie of the 1990's although it certainly has plenty of competition for that title.

Citizen Kane Seems to be on most top ten lists but I don't think it is even the best movie the Orson Welles made.

Singin' in the Rain On my top ten list except for every minute in which Debbie Reynolds is on the screen.

Million Dollar Baby It isn't a good boxing movie--of which there are very few--or a good melodrama. I agree with canbelto that the only good thing about it is Morgan Freeman, for whom portraying God was not that much of a stretch.

Shawshank Redemption A good movie but not that good.

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Thanks for weighing in, Ed. I agree about Million Dollar Baby. Eastwood’s movies tend to be overpraised – good intentions taken for achievement – and MDB was another honest effort in a mediocre year for the kind of pictures that get award nominations. (Wasn’t a good boxing picture, either, but then I was not expecting it to be. It’s so hard to find boxing movies with well-staged matches. I did have hopes, unfulfilled, for Cinderella Man.)

I don’t agree about Citizen Kane or Pulp Fiction. You can disagree about how good they really are, but both pictures changed the landscape and deserved their prominence.

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Thanks for weighing in, Ed.  I agree about Million Dollar Baby.  Eastwood’s movies tend to be overpraised – good intentions taken for achievement – and MDB was another honest effort in a mediocre year for the kind of pictures that get award nominations.  (Wasn’t a good boxing picture, either, but then I was not expecting it to be.  It’s so hard to find boxing movies with well-staged matches. I did have hopes, unfulfilled, for Cinderella Man.)

If you're interested in good boxing movies, there are a couple you might want to seek out (if you haven't seen them already):

* CHAMPION (Kor) - story about reallife SKorean lightweight boxer Kim Deuk-ku who gets a championship match again Ray Mancini.

* CRYING FIST (Kor) - story about an aging boxer trying to regain some past glory and a juvenile delinquent looking to do something with his life. The buildup is great and I found the boxing moments in the 3rd act to be quite good.

* BEAUTIFUL BOXER (Tha) - fact based story about Thai boxing champion and transvestite. Focuses mostly on issues of self and not sexuality. Stars reallife muy thai champion and many of the boxing matches have a genuine feel to them.

CRYING FIST is one of my favorite films of the past year.

-goro-

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I agree about Million Dollar Baby being a sentimental tear-jerker but regarding

t's not enough that Maggie is 30 and still a waitress -- her mom has to be a greedy, unpleasant welfare queen. The film just piled on misfortunes for poor Maggie, and with each misfortune I drew further and further away from the picture. I thought Hilary Swank's performance was overrated -- it's a one-note caricature of Appalachian hillybilly. And why this apparently sweet young woman would want so desperately to punch the living daylights out of someone else is something I didnt really get.
I have to voice a fairly strong disagreement.

I think it's important to recognize that, given the culture in which Maggie grew up, waitressing at 30 is a pretty normal experience. Growing up in a trailer park under the care of a mom who is a "greedy, unpleasant welfare queen" often results in arriving at adulthood without having had opportunities or occasions to dream of much more than waitressing. So, when someone from the "other side of the railroad tracks" DOES have a true and passionate aspiration, it is quite frequently to do something acceptable within their culture. And being a boxer IS acceptable.

I grew up on the other side of the tracks too, in a housing project. Although luckily, my mom was great, I could identify with Maggie quite a bit. As a young adult, it didn't occur to me to go to college following high school nor was there any encouragement from my parents. I drifted among jobs - yes, including waitressing - for some years before I realized I could work towards a real profession.

And I liked boxing a lot, followed it closely for about a dozen years, and even thought for a time that it would be cool to be a female boxer. For people from my background and culture, there is nothing one-note about Swank's character or portrayal. It made perfect sense to me.

Back to movies on that list, I also place The English Patient high on the top shelf.

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I grew up on the other side of the tracks too . . .

Haven't seen Million Dollar Baby -- boxing just doesn't lure me in -- but I've seen Swank in interviews comparing her own trailer-park upbringing to that of her character. I'm inclined to trust that an actress as talented as she would be able to personify as many dimensions as the script writers allowed -- maybe even more than they intended.

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May I suggest, respectfully that I don’t think canbelto was saying that a woman from Maggie’s background by definition wouldn’t be interested in boxing. She was suggesting that it was implausible for this particular young woman. Obviously there’s room for discussion, but I’m inclined to agree that the picture doesn’t account for why this nice girl with her less than imposing physique wants to box, and Swank, although I admired her performance, doesn’t suggest (as Russell Crowe, playing another paragon, does in “Cinderella Man” -- with no help from the script, I might add) that apart from other motivations, Maggie has her aggressive side. Look at the way Morgan Freeman punches out the snotty kid. Yes, the kid has it coming – but suddenly you see this mild old man turn tiger.

As for being “acceptable” – there is a scene in the movie where Maggie’s mother whines – all she does is whine, actually – that people will laugh at Maggie for boxing. I’m sure you’re correct in calling it an acceptable goal for a woman of Maggie’s class, but it’s not shown as such in the movie. Maggie is clearly meant to be swimming against the tide.

I like boxing, for the record. carbro, you don't have to worry about the boxing in MDB turning you off -- you hardly see any. :)

About The English Patient. It was indeed overrated in some quarters, and I just ate it up with a spoon. :)

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Thanks dirac for so eloquently explaining what I was trying to say. :) My point is, throughout the film we've seen Maggie be eternally chipper and cheerful. She is sweet, plucky, and we dont see any sign of aggression from her. Why does she want to be a boxer so bad? We never know.

Now this would have been acceptable except of course Clint Eastwood creates a villainess boxer, who's so aggressive and vicious that she sucker-punches Maggie after every round.

I guess what I'm trying to say is Eastwood elevates Maggie to almost sainthood, and piles misfortunes galore on her, until she's become some kind of Christ-like figure. And for this reason I dont think the movie works. I think it's hard enough to pull off a boxing movie, but the ones that do (Raging Bull, for instance) should show the complexity of this most brutal of sports. Having a sweet, rather frail-looking waitress walk into a gym one day and become a boxing champ and then a quadrapalegic makes a very sentimental tearjerker film, but it doesnt make it a great film.

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:) Every four years, amidst the interviews with Summer Olympic participants, I am struck (no pun intended) by the very gentle demeanor of the wrestlers. It is as if they all channel any and all agression into their athletic discipline. They're such a bunch of marshmallows! Really!
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I guess what I'm trying to say is Eastwood elevates Maggie to almost sainthood, and piles misfortunes galore on her, until she's become some kind of Christ-like figure.
I heartily agree with you on this, Canbelto. :D I still think that nice girls from certain backgrounds often DO want to be boxers and I say this only because that was more than a fleeting thought of mine in my kung fu days. This nice girl here spent quite a bit of time watching and analyzing Sugar Ray Leonard's technique. :)

Anyhow, I had a lot more trouble accepting the collective overblown characterization of Maggie's family members. I believe the actors were obeying Eastwood's direction but they were way too larger-than-life for me to accept. And lastly, the scene at the hospital (rehab facility?) where both Freeman's and Eastwood's characters were each separately able to slip undetected into the building! Too implausible for me.

Despite all that, I liked the movie :) , found it compelling because it came out amidst the true tragedy of Terri Schiavo's life and found that it propelled many discussions about life under such conditions.

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:)  Every four years, amidst the interviews with Summer Olympic participants, I am struck (no pun intended) by the very gentle demeanor of the wrestlers.  It is as if they all channel any and all agression into their athletic discipline.  They're such a bunch of marshmallows!  Really!

carbro, LOL! The wrestling champs are always the ones blubbering uncontrollably on the medal stands. I remember one wrestler Kurt Angle who won a match and blubbered so much I thought he'd dehydrate. Seriously. In contrast, those swimmers look as if they are made of ice. Especially the *really* good ones (the world record setters, like Michael Phelps or Ian Thorpe). They always walk with an air as if they expect to win a gold medal and set a world record. All in a day's work.

vagansmom, Maggie's family is another reason I thought the movie was overrated. They were so stereotypical you could practically see WHITE TRASH written on their foreheads. Come on. Subtlety is not really Clint's forte. Mystic River was a fine film but also extremely overwrought. In contrast, Hilary Swank's other Oscar winner, Boys Don't Cry, also depicted "white trash" but in a humane, complex way.

Especially Maggie's line, "Momma, you take Mardell and JD and get home 'fore I tell that lawyer there that you were so worried about your welfare you never signed those house papers like you were supposed to. So anytime I feel like it I can sell that house from under your fat, lazy, hillbilly ass. And if you ever come back, that's exactly what I'll do." That moment always seemed very false to me. Daughters dont talk to their mothers like that.

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I remember that I couldn't decide if that line rang true or not (and how did you manage to quote it word-for-word? I'm impressed :) ) but I finally deemed it acceptable because, if you have a horrific mom, you learn to talk to her in a language she understands (or so my friend with a similar sort of mom tells me) even if it's not a language you'd use with others.

I want to add my vote for "Sideways" as being overrated. I thought it was nice, a good Grade B movie, a "Rockford Files" (nickname in my family for any program that entertains lightly, with characters one likes to watch).

Here's another one: "Gladiator". For the life of me, I have no idea why that movie won Best Picture award. Or why Crowe, admittedly a fine actor, won Best Actor for that particular role (but that's another story). And I have to add "Brave Heart" to the overrated list as well. Other than their Cecil B. DeMille-like scenes, I don't get why either movie received so much notice.

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I want to add my vote for "Sideways" as being overrated. I thought it was nice, a good Grade B movie, a "Rockford Files" (nickname in my family for any program that entertains lightly, with characters one likes to watch).

Here's another one: "Gladiator". For the life of me, I have no idea why that movie won Best Picture award. Or why Crowe, admittedly a fine actor, won Best Actor for that particular role (but that's another story).

vagansmom, I have to disagree on Sideways. I thought it was a tiny gem of a movie. The complexities of the characters , which drove the plot really interested me as well as the ending when all of a sudden, you ask "who are really the losers ..." made me sit up and think, which I always think is a good sign.

On Gladiator I have to agree. The special effects were very impressive but otherwise it just seemed like a business as usual 1950s MGM toga movie with state of the art digital effects thrown in. I was very disappointed

Richard

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Crowe won for “Gladiator” for a couple of okay reasons, even if he did appear to be walking through the movie with a hangover. 1. Russell Crowe, even a disengaged Russell Crowe, is still better than almost anybody and he was the central factor in Gladiator’s success, making a ridiculous role plausible, human, and moving. 2. He didn’t win for The Insider before.

I guess I should note for the record that no one is saying that boxers are mean, nasty people with fangs who snarl at you on the street. I was trying to get at something more nuanced. Returning to Russell, since I brought him in from left field, I would draw your attention to his portrayal of Braddock in Cinderella Man. Out of the ring, Braddock is your basic Good Guy, but in the ring he gets this tiny smile as he hammers away, and you can see the pleasure he takes in his calling and his skills.

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Russell Crowe won in a classic case of Oscar's "Oh S__t" syndrome. This happens when the Academy realizes they've totally passed over someone deserving of the award. In this case, Russell Crowe SHOULD have won for either The Insider or LA Confidential. So they gave him Gladiator instead.

Other examples of this:

1. Jimmy Stewart winning for Mike Connors in "The Philadelphia Story," in which his role was rather minor, and he really wasnt anything special in it either. But he was passed up for "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" so the Academy had to right a wrong. (In this case by giving Stewart the award they unforgivably passed up Henry Fonda in Grapes of Wrath.)

2. Bette Davis - should have won for "Of Human Bondage," so they gave her an Oscar in "Dark Victory." Davis being Davis she showed up to the Oscars in a housedress.

3. Nicole Kidman - passed over in Moulin Rouge, where she was witty, sexy, and exciting. Gave her the Oscar in The Hours, where she was drab, dull, and onscreen for only about 30 minutes.

Then there are the cumulative cases. In these cases, the Oscars usually give these people "Lifetime Achievement" or "Irving Thalberg" awards. Examples include Cary Grant, Barbara Stanwyck, and Alfred Hitchcock. Or sometimes these people will win an Oscar that they totally dont deserve, because theyve been passed up for years. Examples of this: John Wayne for "True Grit," Paul Newman for "The Color of Money",

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Another consolation prize. Not for having been overlooked by the Academy, but for having been overlooked by the director, Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins, since that same year, she was denied the opportunity to reprise on film her Broadway triumph as Liza Doolittle. Audrey Hepburn was fine -- made a spectacular entrance at the ball -- but she didn't even do her own singing!

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Another syndrome I forgot to mention is the "we forgive you" syndrome. This happened to Ingrid Bergman (Anastasia), Dustin Hoffman (Kramer v. Kramer), Sean Penn (Mystic River). Bergman was "forgiven" for running off with Roberto Rosselini, Hoffman for criticizing the Academy Awards, Penn for basically not caring about the Awards. But for Mystic River, all of a sudden Sean Penn showed up for all the Oscar junkets and played nice, so they gave it to him. Personally, I think Bill Murray should have won.

This also happened to Elia Kazan, who was given a Lifetime Achievement award. It made for one of the more uncomfortable moments of Oscar history, as the applause was tepid at best and some actors flat out refused to applaud him.

It's actually rare for an actor to be awarded an Oscar for his best performance. Marlon Brando was (for On the Waterfront), Gable was never better than in "It Happened One Night," and Gregory Peck deserved the statue for "To Kill a Mockingbird." Vivien Leigh's two best performances (GWTW and Streetcar) happened to nab her Oscars. Olivia de Havilland's best performance was in "The Heiress." Diane Keaton was at her most charming in "Annie Hall." Jack Nicholson in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Anthony Hopkins really did peak in "Silence of the Lambs."

These are exceptions though. Robert de Niro won for "Raging Bull" when he was much much better in "Taxi Driver." We won;t even go into Al Pacino -- never winning as Michael Corleone, but winning for "Scent of a Woman." Humphrey Bogart didnt win for Casablanca, but for African Queen, a so-so movie. Ingrid Bergman didnt win for Casablanca or Notorious, a but for Gaslight and Anastasia. Jimmy Stewart won for Philadelphia Story, but he was better in Mr. Smith, It's a Wonderful Life, and Vertigo. Laurence Olivier - better as Richard III. John Wayne should have won for "The Searchers." Dustin Hoffman won twice, but SHOULD have won either for The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, or Tootsie. Audrey Hepburn won for "Roman Holiday" but was better in "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Jack Lemmon was at his best in "Some Like it Hot." And on and on and on.

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