CHICAGO (2002)

CHICAGO (DIR: ROB MARSHALL) (SCR:BILL CONDON)

CHICAGO was the first musical since 1968's OLIVER! to win best picture, and its victory marked the full blown return of the once all but forgotten genre of the Hollywood musical.  And while the film certainly owes a debt to the classic musicals of early decades, its darker tone and unlikable characters  (not to mention its more realistic way of introducing the musical numbers) marks it as a decidedly different kind of musical.  As a fan of musicals, I'm glad they made a comeback, especially in such the  high kicking style of this enormously entertaining film.
The history of Hollywood movie musicals is definitely an interesting one: for decades, they were often box office gold for the studios.  From the Astaire-Rogers films of the 30's all the way to the smash hit GREASE in 1978, they seemed unstoppable.  But in the '80's, they all but disappeared; part of this may have been because 1982 saw the release of ANNIE and the inevitable GREASE sequel, GREASE 2,  both highly promoted films that tanked at the box office.  Another reason may have been the rise in popularity of MTV, which brought new music and singing (or lip syncing) stars right into people's homes, saving them a trip to the theater. To a new generation of film goers, the idea of paying to see a musical in a movie theater seemed silly.  Oh sure, films like FLASH DANCE (1983) and FOOTLOOSE (1984) would feature lots of music and dancing, but there would be no spontaneous bursting into song, none of the sudden break with reality that the old musicals featured that now seemed passe'. In 1992, the Disney studio tried to revive the musical with NEWSIES, and the result was another flop. (Ironically, NEWSIES would eventually become a successful broadway show). Except for the singing in animated films,  the musical seemed dead in Hollywood.   That changed in 2001 when Baz Luhrmann's wild, lurid MOULIN ROUGE! was a box office success.  Meanwhile, a revival of Bob Fosse's CHICAGO was a huge, surprise hit on Broadway.
The story of CHICAGO began as a stage play back in 1926; written by Maurine Watkins, it was based on real life murder trials covered by Watkins as reporter for the Chicago Tribune.  It became a silent film in 1927, and then another movie called ROXIE HART in 1942, featuring Ginger Rogers in the title role.  In the 1960's, Gwen Verdon, wife of  legendary Broadway director and choreographer Bob Fosse, read the play and suggested he adapt it as a musical.  The show eventually opened on Broadway in 1975, but its initial run was seen as a disappointment.  Fosse planned a movie version in the 1980's, but his death in 1987 ended that, and it looked like the show would be forgotten.  But when that 1996 revival of CHICAGO was a huge success, becoming the third longest running show in Broadway history,  Hollywood could resist musicals no longer.
It was Miramax studios that was considering an adaptation and looking at various directors; Rob Marshall, a choreographer who had directed a well received TV version of ANNIE in 1999, pitched to the studio heads the idea of making most of the musical numbers in the film take place in Roxie's imagination, thereby making the transition from people talking to people singing more natural to modern audiences.  The studio loved the idea, and Marshall got the job, with screenwriter Bill Condon hired to adapt the film.  Renee Zellweger, flying high after her starring role in 2001's BRIDGET JONE'S DIARY, was hired to play Roxie Hart, despite her lack of musical training.  Catherine Zeta Jones, who began her career onstage in British musicals, was cast as Velma Kelly.  After Hugh Jackman turned down the part of shyster lawyer Billy Flynn because he felt he was too young for the role  Richard Gere was cast.  Although Gere had done musicals before, dancing was new to him, but he and Zellweger worked hard getting themselves in shape for the film, and they both had no trouble winning audiences over.  Made on a budget of around $45,000,000, and buoyed by almost universally positive reviews,  CHICAGO would go on to make a healthy $170,000,000  in the US.

Catherine Zeta Jones

Set in 1924, the film is about Roxie Hart (Zellweger), a young wannabe singer, who shoots and kills her lover Fred (Dominic West) when she finds out he's been lying to her about getting her career started.  While in jail, she meets Velma Kelly (Jones), a famous singer who also shot and killed her husband and sister after catching them in bed together.  Meanwhile, Roxie's sad sack husband, Amos (John C Reilly), hires corrupt lawyer Billy Flynn (Gere) to defend her, and Flynn immediately gears up a media campaign to get Roxie off.

The American jazz age of the 1920's has always held a certain fascination for later generations, with its cool clothes, bathtub gin, cameras with popping flashbulbs and speakeasies, and that fascination goes especially for the city of Chicago, with its infamous levels of corruption; the film nails all of that right from the start, with a exciting performance of  the song "All that Jazz" from Catherine Zeta Jones in a loveably seedy jazz joint.  Along with capturing the clothes and styles of the flapper era, the opening scene also establishes how we will see most of the movie's musical numbers inside of Roxie's imagination, (Roxie pictures herself taking Velma's place on stage).  It is immediately apparent just how right director Marshall was in making that decision; not only does the imaginary nature of the music  make watching a musical more accessible for a modern audience, it fits the character of fame obsessed Roxy perfectly; she certainly would see her life as a big on stage show with her, of course,  as the star.  And the cutting between the real world and Roxy's fantasy world is often imaginative and exciting, especially when the hanging execution of female prisoner Hunayak  (Ekaterina Chtchelkanova) is contrast with Roxie picturing the same woman on stage performing a disappearing act with a rope.
Really, I find this film  just a joy to watch; it practically  bursts with  beauty and  excitement and  it's never far from another gorgeously shot production number full of dancing and wildly colored costumes.  And the numbers all have wonderfully realized images, like Billy literally using Roxie as a ventriloquist dummy to mislead the press, whom he also plays like puppets, or Billy leading Roxie into a court room seen as a three ring circus with him as a glittery ring leader.    The songs (with music by John Kandar and lyrics by Fred Ebb) are all catchy and memorable, and each performer, from the leads to the supporting roles, delivers them excellently. My personal favorite number is the "Cell Block Tango", in which the music builds slowly from sounds Roxie hears in her cell into a full blown song; it's sung  forcefully by the six female prisoners, with its memorable "he had it coming!" chorus, and  it combines Fosse's trademark sexy choreography with dark humor ("You know, some guys just can't hold their arsenic.") into a classic scene.

The Cell Block Tango

All of the performances are good, and I especially like Richard Gene as the slippery Billy Flynn; he's not only sings and dances well, but he terrifically embodies Billy's slick hustler style; I love the way that he has Roxie recount her life story while he spells out exactly how he will spin it for the press, or the way he scoops up the money Amos offers to him to pay for Roxie's legal fees after initially rejecting it.  The fact that Gere was not even nominated for an Oscar for the role is surprising, especially given that Jones, Zellweger, Reilly and Queen Latifah all were (Jones won).
If the film has a flaw, it's that its dark and cynical tone goes too far; after all, the film ends with two unrepentant murderers gleefully finding fame and fortune! It is interesting to note that in the other two versions of the film, Roxie's fate is quite different: in the 1927 film she is freed from jail, but forgotten by the press and cast out of her home by her husband.  The movie ends with her seeing a paper with her name in the headline washing down the drain.  And in 1942's ROXIE HART her character turns out to be innocent.  Here, there is no such comeuppance or vindication.  There is really only one character in the film that is sympathetic, and that's Roxie's hangdog husband Amos (Reilly's stand out performance of the heartbreaking "Mr Cellophane" is the film's most emotional moment), who stands by Roxie even as he learns of her unfaithfulness, even raising every penny he can to pay Billy, only to have her leave him flat at the end.  Yes, this is a story of ruthless characters, who only care for themselves,(this is the rare musical without a love story, save perhaps for Roxie's love of fame),  from the bribe happy prison matron Mama to the lecherous sleaze bag  Fred that Roxie shoots without compulsion.  But we can't help admire their intelligence and determination: Billy's a corrupt lawyer, but he can play the press (and a jury) like a harp.  And Roxie is smart enough to know when to have a fainting spell and fake a pregnancy to keep media attention on her.  I think the point of the film (and the musical) is that in a violent, corrupt town like Chicago in the 1920's, where, as Billy tells Roxie, "murder is a form of entertainment", looking out for number one is the only way to succeed.  So, Amos's kindness is his downfall, while all of the other characters get what they want though sheer toughness and using what gifts (Roxie and Velma their looks and talent, Mama her position of authority over the prisoners, and Billy his law degree and media savvy) they have to get ahead.  So the film's dark tone seems just right for the film's setting: in a dog eat dog world, Roxie and Velma are the top dogs.

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

Obviously it's clear how much I enjoy this movie, and  for it's place in helping the return of the movie musical, it's victory seems apt.  The only film I think that gives it competition is Peter Jackson's THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS, the second, and in my opinion the best, of THE  LORD OF THE RINGS films. But I couldn't take away an award from CHICAGO, especially since Jackson's turn would come soon...

A BEAUTIFUL MIND (2001)

A BEAUTIFUL MIND (DIR: RON HOWARD) (SCR: AKIVA GOLDSMAN, BASED ON  THE BOOK OF THE SAME NAME BY SYLVIA NASAR)

At first glance, the Academy's choice of Ron Howard's A BEAUTIFUL MIND for best picture made perfect sense: it was a handsome looking biopic about the trials and tribulations of a brilliant man, played by Russell Crowe, one of the world's biggest stars,  who had just won an best actor award for GLADIATOR, the previous year's best picture winner.  Furthermore, director Howard was a popular figure in Hollywood, having made the transition from successful TV star to film director smoothly years earlier.  But, like so many biographical films, A BEAUTIFUL MIND was criticized for perceived inaccuracies in the life of its subject, and it's victory may have had more to do with a multimillion dollar public relations push by it's studio, Universal, than any real merit the film had.  Now, it's impossible for any biographical film to be completely accurate, but I do think Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman may have taken one liberty too many here (more on that later).  In any event, I think this overlong film falls far from greatness, with its predictable moments of uplift hitting all the obvious beats, and its glossy, almost too pretty cinematography by Roger Deakins that practically screams "Oscar"!

It all began in 1998 when writer Sylvia Nasar published A BEAUTIFUL MIND, the unauthorized biography of  John Forbes Nash Jr., a Nobel prize winning mathematician who had struggled with schizophrenia for much of his life.  Producer Brian Grazer liked the book and bought the rights and convinced Howard to direct.  Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman convinced them to let him write the script, partly because as a child both of his parents were psychologists, and it was he that came up with the film's central twist, that Nash's insanity would be portrayed from his point of view, with characters the audience assumed were real turning out to be figments of his imagination.  With Goldsman's script set, Howard considered many actors for the lead role in what was becoming a hot property; finally  Crowe was picked for Nash, and  Jennifer Connelly cast in the important role of Nash's wife, Alicia.  Crowe researched the role by watching videos of Nash delivering speeches, and he eventually met Nash himself on the set of the film.  The film was shot mostly on location, with several trips made to Princeton university, and Howard shot almost all of it in sequence, despite the added cost and difficulty, to make the character's changes in the film more natural for the actors.  Upon the film's release, it received mostly positive reviews, despite the aforementioned controversy, and it would eventually go on to make $170,000,000 on a budget of around $78,000,000.

Russell Crowe

Beginning in 1947, it tells the story of John Nash, a socially awkward but brilliant Princeton student.  While in school he befriends his English roommate Charles (Paul Bettany), and after graduation he does research and teaches classes at MIT, where he meets and falls in love with, and marries Alicia (Jennifer Connelly), one of his students.  He is eventually sought out by government agent Parcher (Ed Harris) to help  break secret Russian codes.  The more he helps, the more he becomes convinced that Russian spies are trailing him and Alicia; soon his paranoia takes over his life and he is institutionalized for schizophrenia.  While in the institution he realizes that both Charles and Parcher were just figments of his imagination.

The interesting thing about this film is that it's almost two films in one: the first film combines a love story about a socially awkward man with a spy thriller, complete with a car chase.  And then, once John is diagnosed, it winds up feeling like a classic tale of overcoming addiction; almost a remake of Billy Wilder's THE LOST WEEKEND (1945) with schizophrenia substituted for alcoholism.  Really, Goldsman's script hits almost all of the notes found in an addiction story: at first, John is in denial that he even has as a problem, and is forced into an institution, where he is helped out by a tough but supportive doctor (Christopher Plummer), then he hits rock bottom, seems better, relapses, and finally slowly builds his way back to normalcy, aided by a faithful, long suffering wife.  Of the two halves of the film, I prefer the first part, especially in the early scenes at Princeton, where it's refreshing to have a story that values intelligence in its hero, and the visualizations  of his thought processes are well handled. I also like the fact that it is clearly John's intellect that attracts Alicia to him; it's lovely how, on their first date, he finds shapes for her in the stars.  I start having trouble with the film when we first find out that Charles and Parcher are both imaginary; it hurts the plausibility of the film because he spent so much time with both of them, and on repeat viewings it becomes impossible to know just how many scenes are real or just in John's head.  It's also one of the big breaks with the real story that the film takes, in that the real John Nash's hallucinations were only auditory, and while I understand that just showing John react to voices in his head wouldn't make for much of a movie, I think the film errs in making his imaginary characters seem so real and giving them so much screen time; it would have worked better if Charles and Parcher remained in the shadows more.  I also think that both Bettany and Harris (normally fine actors) often over play their roles, especially in their later scenes when he know they're not real (That said, I think this film handles the imaginary characters reveal better than the overrated FIGHT CLUB).  And the second part of the film drags on for too long, with John's inevitable relapse and recovery slowing things down considerably (I also object to the moment where John almost accidentally drowns his infant son; putting a baby in danger is an easy way to get a jolt of out an audience, but  I don't think the story here warrants it).  Even worse, the film takes so long to get to John winning the Noble prize that it seems like an afterthought, and I would have liked to have known more about just what he did to win the award.

Jennifer Connelly

Russel Crowe may have based his performance on the real John Nash, but at times it feels more like he's imitating Dustin Hoffman in RAIN MAN.  Crowe stammers, shuffles, avoids eye contact when talking and wears a vacant stare long before we find out he's schizophrenic; I think he overdoes these mannerisms to the point where his ability to function at all before his breakdown seems unlikely.  And Crowe's muscle bound torso seems out of place on a college professor.  Still, Crowe does manage to make John likable enough to keep our interest, and the obvious pain he feels on discovering his that Charles and Parcher aren't real is palpable.  Jennifer Connelly won an Oscar for best supporting actress for her work here, and in many ways she has a tougher role than Crowe in that Alicia is both his and the audience's main link to reality.  More importantly, she really shows the hardship and difficulty of loving and living with a man as troubled as John is effectively; she has a strong scene in which she  vents her anger  by smashing a mirror, but we always see that she realizes that John's troubles are not his fault.  In the real world, Alicia divorced John for several years and then remarried him, but since Howard and Goldsman want this film to be seen as a love story, that break with reality  doesn't bother me.

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

I think it's clear that I have mixed feelings about this film, and in all honesty, I think all four films that were also nominated for best picture  (THE LORD OF THE RINGS:THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, IN THE BEDROOM, MOULIN ROUGE, and GOSFORD PARK) are all better.  I also preferred MOMENTO and THE ROYAL TANNENBAUMS.  So no, I don't think Ron Howard's pleasant but unspectacular movie deserved to win. 

GLADIATOR(2000)

GLADIATOR (DIR: RIDLEY SCOTT)  (SCR: DAVID FRANZONI, JOHN LOGAN AND WILLIAM NICHOLSON)

In an interesting bit of irony, the Academy started the new millennium off by awarding Ridley Scott's GLADIATOR as best picture,  which was a conscious throw back to filmmaking of a different era.   In the 1950's and '60's, when Hollywood was competing with television, the studios often used big budget spectacle to lure audiences into theaters, leading to what would be known as sword and sandal films.  Usually set in ancient Rome (like GLADIATOR), movies like BEN HUR and SPARTICUS featured epic battle scenes and casts of thousands.  Unfortunately, GLADIATOR is also like many of those films in that it doesn't hold up well and goes on for too long; while generally well made and acted, it is  a reasonably entertaining movie with some good action but I think far better films were made that year.

Screenwriter David Franzoni first came up with the idea in the 1970's after reading the book THOSE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE, a history of the Roman games, by Daniel P Mannix.  In 1997, while working with Steven Spielberg on ARMISTAD, Franzoni pitched the idea of a film about a Roman gladiator to the director, who got the film green lit through the DreamWorks film studio. (Given the film's inevitably big budget, co-financing was provided by Universal Studios).   Franzoni wrote a script that combined fictional characters (the hero Maximus) and historical ones (the villain Commodus) while the  studio approached veteran director Ridley Scott to helm the film; eventually producer Douglas Wick won Scott over by showing him a copy of the 1872  gladiator painting "Pollice Verso" by Jean-Leon Gerome.  Mel Gibson was offered the lead role of Maximus, but he felt he was too old, and eventually it came to Russell Crowe, who at that point was best known for starring in serious dramas like 1999's THE INSIDER, for which he was nominated for an Oscar.  But the choice of Crowe proved correct, as the role both won him an Oscar and established him as a credible action hero.  As the other roles were quickly filled in with both newcomers (Joaqin Phoenix) and vetereans (Richard Harris, Oliver Reed) the film went into production.  At first, Scott caught a lucky break when a section of woods that set to be deforested anyway could be burned down for the film's opening battle scene.  But then trouble began: first, it took months to build a one third replica of the Roman Colosseum (which would be augmented with computer effects in the film).  And then Crowe's legendarily difficult behavior reared its head, as he began to complain about the film's script.  Scott, who had already had writer John Logan rewrite Franzoni's original screenplay, brought in yet another writer, William Nicholson, to appease Crowe.  But the star was still unhappy, sometimes walking off the set when he didn't get his way.  At one point Crowe was quoted as saying to Nicholson "Your lines are garbage but I'm the greatest actor in the world and I can make even garbage sound good."(!)  To top everything off, Oliver Reed died of a heart attack before finishing the film, so a body double and more computer effects had to be used to cover for him, adding to the cost of the film.  Despite all of this, GLADIATOR would become a sizable hit, returning around $187,000,000 in the US on a budget of around $103,000,000.

Pollice Verso

Russel Crowe

Set in 810 AD, it's about Maximus (Russell Crowe) a great Roman general, who, after  leading  his army into victory against the barbarians in Germania, wants nothing more thatn to return home to his wife and child.  But Roman leader Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) wants Maximus to be the next leader of Rome; when Marcus's son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) hears of this, he kills his father and orders Maximus's family killed and Maximus executed.  Maximus escapes and eventually becomes a gladiator; after winning fame, he eventually heads to Rome and an inevitable conflict with Commodus.

GLADIATOR may resemble the sword and sandal films of the 50's and 60's in its story and location, but Scott clearly wanted to make a more gritty view of the past than those films portrayed; so, gone are the scenes of Roman leaders drinking wine out of huge goblets while slave girls hold grapes over their heads, instead, taking full advantage of an "R" rating, Scott gives us brutal fight scenes with decapitations and stabbings that could never have been shown in older films.  (Interestingly, Scott mentioned Steven Spielberg's  SAVING PRIVATE RYAN as an influence).  Clearly, the director realizes that modern audiences, like the Roman audiences of old, expect plenty of action in a movie called GLADIATOR, and so he gives it to us, cramming in numerous combat scenes in the film's two and half hours; from the opening huge battle scene to one on one sword duels to arena melees featuring snapping tigers and chariots, Scott delivers.  And all of  the scenes are well staged and exciting, letting us see Maximus use both his fighting ability and his leadership skills.   Unfortunately, it is when it's out of the arena that the film sometimes falters; while beautifully shot (Scott's films always are) it's simple plot sometimes feels overly stretched, and the completely serious tone of the proceedings, with dialogue often delivered in a stentorian style, can also get a bit wearing. To the film's detriment, and despite its historical setting, the story often feels like one from a  modern action film, with it's improbably noble (and practically indestructible) hero and cliched revenge plot.  Still, those violent scenes are undeniably rousing, and Scott understands that the build up to the action is as important as the action itself, especially in the lead up to Maximus's debut in the arena, which is given a big drum pounding lead in as we see the nervous warriors preparing for battle.

I've already mentioned that Crowe won a best actor award for the film, but I personally don't think it was deserved.  Oh sure, he's a more than credible action hero who seems right at home slashing away in an arena, but there's not much range to his character: when he isn't fighting, he mostly glowers and sulks.  In many scenes he merely reacts to other actors expressing more emotion than he does.  Really, I prefer Crowe's performances in other films, like 1999's THE INSIDER, over the work he does here.

Joaquin Phoenix

As for Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus, well, actors often say that it's more fun to play a villain than a good guy, and Phoenix certainly seems to be having a blast here!  (Phoenix also won an Oscar as best supporting actor).  Commodus is cowardly (he doesn't show up for a battle until after it's over), perverse (he lusts for his sister), and a tantrum throwing brat, and yet Phoenix gives him just enough humanity to make him often more pathetic than outright evil, especially when he admits to his father Marcus (Richard Harris) that he has fallen short of the old man's  expectations; he's almost likable in his honesty, until he has his hands around the emperor's throat.  I love the way that Phoenix absently spins a sword in his hand like a bored schoolboy while listening to the Roman senate, or the way that he chillingly threatens the life of his nephew while telling the young boy a story in front of his deceitful sister.  The dead eyed stare Phoenix gives his sister is memorable enough that he probably won his Oscar on this scene alone. The rest of the film's cast are all solid, despite the film's self serious tone,   and I especially like Oliver Reed as the warrior trainer Proximo; Reed may not have known that this was his final role, but he goes out on a high note, playing the character with full flinty vigor.  

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

As a straightforward piece of entertainment, GLADIATOR delivers with exciting action, but I don't think it ranks as the best film of that year. I'm far more impressed with Steven Soderburgh's TRAFFIC, which took a long hard look at the drug war and may be that rare movie that could actually change the political attitudes of the viewer.  I'm also a big fan of Cameron Crowe's ALMOST FAMOUS and Ang Lee's gorgeous martial arts fantasy CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON.  Still, GLADIATOR is an enjoyable film,  and therefore not a bad choice.

AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999)

AMERICAN BEAUTY (DIR:SAM MENDES) (SCR: ALAN BALL)

The Academy's decision for best picture of 1999 was a bit of a surprise: Sam Mendes's AMERICAN BEAUTY is no sweeping epic or period piece, instead it was the first modern dramatic film to win best picture since 1988's RAIN MAN.  It's also a dark, satirical and often hilarious look at modern American suburban life, not the stuff of most Oscar winners.  Even more surprising, both director Mendes and screenwriter Alan Ball had never worked on a feature film before.  Personally, I think it was an excellent, perhaps even bold choice, and I assume the Academy responded to the fact that the film is multilayered and open to a number of interpretations, along with being highly entertaining.

Ball began working on the script, which he originally intended to be a play, in the early 1990's, and he based it on the then media circus that was surrounding teenager Amy Fisher and her obsessive love for a middle aged man.  He shelved the idea for a few years while he worked as a TV sit com writer.  Frustrated with the limitations of television, he decided to try pitching movie ideas, and revived and rewrote his play.  The script bounced around for a while before the Dream Works studio decided to buy it.  Many directors, some of them big names like Robert Zemeckis  and Mike Nichols, were considered.  Meanwhile, veteran theater director Sam Mendes was looking to break into films, and when Ball's script wound up in a pile on his desk, he immediately was drawn to it (ironically for such an American story, Mendes was born in England).  It turned out that Ball had seen Mendes's theater version of CABARET and thought he would be a good choice.  Together they convinced Dream Works to hire him.  Despite the studio's desire for a big star like Bruce Willis for the movie's lead role of Lester Burnham, Mendes had already decided on Kevin Spacey, who was known mostly for supporting roles in films like THE USUAL SUSPECTS and GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS.  Mendes also cast Annette Bening as Lester's wife Carolyn, and young unknown actors Thora Birch, Mena Suvari and Wes Bentley for the teenager roles.  Because the film's setting is never identified, it's anytown feel  was captured mostly on Hollywood sound stages, with a few exteriors done in Sacramento, California.  The production of the film went quickly, and it's final budget was a modest $15,000,000.  After an initial limited release, strong reviews and word of mouth would propel it to gross over $150,000,000 in the US, a rare feat for a drama lacking big stars.

It tells the story of Lester and Carolyn Burnham, a middle aged suburban couple with a high school aged daughter, Jane (Thora Birch).  Their marriage is mostly loveless and their daughter is alienated from them.  Lester becomes sexually obsessed with his daughter's cheerleading partner Angela (Mena Suvari).  While pursuing her, Lester also quits his job, starts smoking pot and buys a new car.  Meanwhile his daughter finds herself drawn to next door neighbor (and pot dealer) Ricky (Wes Bentley), and Carolyn starts an affair of her own.

The film is narrated in a funny, cynical tone by Spacey's character Lester, who blithely mentions right away that he is speaking to us from beyond the grave; it is a tribute to Ball's excellent script that the narration is used sparingly, mainly at the beginning and end of the film, without falling into the usual trap of "over explaining" that film narration often does.  And it's appropriate that Lester's narration is only sporadic in that this film is not just about one man facing a mid life crisis, but a whole group of interconnected people facing their own problems.  And what problems we see!  Ball and Mendes rip the facade of bland suburbia away and shows the lies and desperation underneath: from infidelity and drug use to repressed homosexual urgings and dysfunctional families.  And all of the characters feel true, like people we all know, without being wholly good or bad, and with layers that aren't readily apparent.  (He even gets the teenage characters right!) For example, Wes Bently's Ricky seems creepy and odd when he first appears videotaping Jane without asking her, but we eventually see him as a gentle, poetic soul who videotapes things because he sees the beauty in everything around him and wants to remember as much as possible. 

Wes Bently

Spacey won a best actor award for his performance, and it's easy to see why; although his Lester never shows big emotions (he seems calm even when hurling a plate at the wall), we always know what he is thinking, and Spacey makes his transformation from pudgy shlub to buff dynamo more than just a physical one.  The film's attitude towards him always seems complicated: while it's hard to condone his lust for a teenage girl, it is that lust that reawakens something in him, making him a better man, pushing him to leave his boring job and stand up to his overbearing wife, often in hilarious fashion. (I love the way he yells "I rule!" after telling his wife he's bought a new car.)  While he may seem silly as a 42 year old man trying to act like a 22 year old, his attempt to recapture his youth at least makes him happier, so it's hard to condemn.  The real make or break point comes for him at the film's end, when he finally has a chance to have sex with Angela and she tells him that she's a virgin, and then he realizes the absurdity of the situation and calls it off; but the realization that he can't be young again doesn't depress him, indeed it seem to push him into a state of serene acceptance, one in which he is glad to hear that his daughter is in love and reminisces of good times with his wife .  It is the film's final act of cruel irony that Lester's final moment of bliss comes seconds before he is shot and killed.  But, is this a happy ending or a sad ending?  His narration from beyond the grave is clearly coming from a better place, so did his final moment of realization prepare him for the after life?  Was it a revelation that made him a better man at the best possible moment, gaining him a trip to heaven? By resisting temptation, was he made holy? It almost looks like he's is praying as the gun appears behind his head. There are no easy answers given, in fact the last lines of the film clearly imply that only death can truly explain everything ("You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure." Lester intones, "but don't worry... you will someday."), but the fact that such thought provoking questions are even being raised is a rare and wonderful thing in a Hollywood film.

Kevin Spacey and Mena Suvari

Along with Spacey, every other performance in the film is excellent, with even minor roles being filled out by good actors.  Bening is very good as Carolyn, as she finds a sympathetic side to a cold, perfectionist woman who could come across as just a shrew.  I love that way that she gives herself  a pep talk when trying to make a real estate sale ("I will sell this house today.") and then cries and slaps herself when she fails, showing that she is just as hard on herself as she is on others.  And then there's Chris Cooper as Col. Frank Fitz, perhaps the film's most tragic character, a repressed gay man who's outwardly homophobic to cover his own self loathing; although his actions are terrible, as when he beats his son, we still feel sorry for him when he makes a clumsy attempt to kiss Lester, and Cooper sunken, beaten expression in that moment movingly conveys the tragic sense of longing the character feels.  Also memorable is Alison Janney as Fitz's wife Barbara; even though she only has a few scenes, she perfectly shows the years of being trapped in a loveless marriage in her almost catatonic eyes.

Yes, this is a great and though provoking movie, and I can't really find any serious flaws in it; even Conrad Hall's cinematography expertly captures the suburban locations in cool, stark and almost colorless beauty ( a look that contrasts nicely with Lester's fantasy sequences, which almost burst with color), while Thomas Newman's unusual, electronic score fits perfectly. It's an both a unlikely Oscar winner and an unlikely Hollywood movie in general, the kind of film rarely made, and rarely made right.

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

1999 was a very good year for Hollywood, with a surprising number of good oddball films like Spike Jonez's BEING JOHN MALKOVICH and PT Anderson's MAGNOLIA somehow getting made, and while I certainly enjoyed those two films, I think AMERICAN BEAUTY holds up as a modern classic that people will watch years from now to see how Americans in 90's lived.

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (1998)

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (DIR: JOHN MADDEN) (SCR: MARC NORMAN, TOM STOPPARD)

When John Madden's SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE was announced as the winner of best picture of 1997, it caused some controversy in Hollywood: Miramax, the studio it came from,  aggressively courted Oscar voters in trade papers (with ads that have come to be known as "for your consideration" inserts).  While this was common practice, the lengths that Miramax studio head Harvey Weinstein went to were seen as excessive, and some contended that he had essentially bought the award, stealing it away from Steven Spielberg's popular war film SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.  Controversy aside, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE was the first film in the much maligned  romantic comedy genre to win since 1977's ANNIE HALL, (and the fact that it was a prestigious period piece about an acclaimed historical figure probably helped).  Personally, I feel that it didn't need any kind of boost from Weinstein since it's a wildly entertaining, funny, romantic, great looking and exciting film that's a shameless crowd pleaser (along with the romance and comedy, there are some exciting sword duels) that can satisfy both fans of the famed play write and novices alike.
Its long journey to the screen began in the 1980's when screenwriter Marc Norman first got the idea of writing a script about William Shakespeare while talking to his teenage son.  He decided to portray Shakespeare as a frustrated writer who had to deal with the same production headaches modern screenwriters have to, while also adding a love story to inspire the creation of the play ROMEO AND JULIET.  After finishing the script, he sold it to Universal in 1991; play write Tom Stoppard, a Shakespearean scholar who had famously toyed with HAMLET in his play ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDERSTERN ARE DEAD, gave it a rewrite, adding several characters.  At one point it was in production with Julia Roberts to star, but she wanted Daniel Day Lewis to play the lead, and when he demurred, so did she.  Although the film appeared dead, it found a champion in Weinstein, who loved the script and eventually bought it for Miramax.  English director John Madden was signed to direct and Gwyneth Paltrow to star.  After reading with hundreds of actors, Madden cast Joseph Fiennes to play the title role.  Except for some reworking of the ending that was done just weeks before release, the shoot for the film went well and the film was an enormous critical and commercial success, making over $100,000,000 on a budget of around $40,000,000.

Set in the year 1593, the story deals with William Shakespeare (Fiennes), a young, struggling play write, who is working on his latest play, ROMEO AND ETHYL THE PIRATE'S DAUGHTER, to be produced by Philip Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush)  at the Rose theater. Meanwhile, Viola (Paltrow), a wealthy young woman who loves the theater, dresses as a boy and auditions for a part in the upcoming play (women were not allowed to appear on the stage then).  William is impressed by her acting, and eventually discovers her deception and falls in love with her.  Unfortunately, she is set to marry the stuffy Lord Wessex (Colin Firth), and if that weren't enough, the play is beset by money troubles.

Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow

The film opens with a beautiful tracking shot of an empty Shakespearean theater that comes to rest on a handbill for ROMEO AND JULIET lying on the ground, literally plunging us into the world of the play; then for a nice contrast we immediately cut to theater producer Philip Henslowe  literally having his feet put to the fire by angry creditors, reminding us that the commercial aspects of storytelling were as important in 1593 as they are now.  This sets the tone of the film right away, announcing that this would be a portrait of Shakespeare that would be both reverent and irreverent, that would show him as just another struggling writer, but one who was capable of great things.  So, the first time we see the man who would become the most famous writer in the history of the English language, he is suffering from writer's block and distractedly practicing his signature on a piece of paper.  And we also see that he was not above lifting ideas from people around him, picking up plot points from rival writer Christopher Marlowe(Rupert Everett) or stealing a line from a roadside preacher ("A pox on both your houses!").  The film is filled with in jokes for fans of Shakespeare, like when Henslowe begs him to "speak prose",  and the plot has the kind of gender bending deception that pops up in so many of the bard's works.  There's even a moment when Viola asks him if he is the author of Shakespeare's plays, a veiled reference to the long standing theory that Shakespeare's work was ghost written. And yet, despite the often playful tone,  Joseph Fiennes in the title role wisely never becomes a parody, he is instead completely earnest and honest in the role, turning a character who could have been too romanticized or stiff into someone relatable and likable, even if he does at one point sell the same play to two different producers.  

Our first image of the immortal bard

Along with being about the creative spirit and the romantic muse, the movie is also a good natured valentine to theater folk and artistic people in general.  Although the various colorful backstage characters often fight over creative differences and have egos to be stroked (Ben Affleck is well cast as a pompous leading man, ridiculing his own image), they all wind up feeling  passionate about the play and are willing to come together to make it the best it can be.  I love the way that the thuggish money lender Hugh Fennyman (Tom Wilkinson) winds up being one of the play's staunchest defenders, and how even rival theater owner Richard Burbage (Martin Clunes) allows Shakespeare and his company to use his venue when their's is closed down by the government.  It all leads to a great, inevitable climax when ROMEO AND JULIET is finally performed with Shakespeare and Viola playing the lead roles, the story echoing their own passion for each other,  and it works as both as excellent recreation and a romantic extension of the story.

Gwyneth Paltrow won a best actress award for performance as Viola, and, like the film's best picture victory, there was a certain backlash to her victory, which I find unfair; true, I think part of the reason she won is because she plays such a likable character (a plucky proto feminist who defies convention out of her love for the theater), Paltrow definitely brings intelligence and poise to the role, and her love of both Shakespeare the man and the play write shines through, not to mention that she and Fiennes show real heat in their love scenes.  If her character is a little too perfect, and her feminism a little too anachronistic, I'm alright with that, after all, to be the romantic muse of William Shakespeare leads to some inevitable idealization.  

Another controversy about the film arose when Judi Dench won a best supporting actress award for playing queen Elizabeth, even though she is only in the film for six minutes.  And while her character exists mainly to move the plot along and provide some comic relief, Dench plays her with such sly wit and sharp intelligence that she steals every scene she's in, brief as her performance is.  (Interestingly, she played Queen Elizabeth one year earlier in the film MRS BROWN, which was also directed by Madden).  

While some historians have criticized the film's inaccuracies, especially concerning Shakespeare's inspirations, the film is so lighthearted and joyful that is clearly not intended as a history lesson.  Instead, it plays wonderfully as a clever, romantic period piece that does its title character proud, and it may have even opened a whole new kind of viewer to the joys of Shakespeare's plays, certainly no small thing. 

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

While it's clear that I love this film, I have a hard time choosing between it and Gary Ross's  far different satirical fantasy PLEASANTVILLE (which, sadly wasn't even nominated).  And, while I think I lean towards Ross's film because of it's innovative (and gorgeous!) use of black and white and color, it's a close call between these two excellent films, and so I can't argue much with the Academy.

TITANIC(1997)

TITANIC (DIR: JAMES CAMERON) (SCR:CAMERON)

Three years after awarding box office champ FORREST GUMP, the Academy once again agreed with the American public, giving a best picture victory to James Cameron's TITANIC, which was not only the most popular film of that year, but the highest grossing film ever up to that point (unadjusted for inflation).  The win was icing on the cake for Cameron, who's incredibly expensive and risky project had paid off in a way no one (probably not even him) saw coming.  And not only did it win best picture, TITANIC also won ten other Oscars, tying it with BEN HUR for most wins ever; it was also the first winner to be produced, directed, written and edited by the same person.  But, as with
FOREST GUMP, there was an inevitable backlash against the film (the fact that many of its biggest supporters were teenage girls in thrall to its romantic storyline didn't help), with many people ridiculing its melodramatic  and simplistic story.  Looked at objectively, years after all the hype, TITANIC is a solidly entertaining period piece, that looks great, is full of drama and excitement, and that, yes, has a nice romantic storyline.  But I don't think it ranks as the best film of its year, with its main flaw lying not with the love story, but with the portrayal of one of the film's main characters.
The movie sprang from the mind of James Cameron around 1995, when, after viewing Roy Ward Baker's 1958 film about the Titanic A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, he decided to explore the remains of the actual Titanic.  This lead to him pitching the idea of a Romeo and Juliet story on the Titanic to the 20th. Century Fox studio.  The studio was understandably dubious, especially given Cameron's budget requests and the film's  projected length, but he was riding high after having made the back to back hits  TERMINATOR TWO (1991) and TRUE LIES(1994).  So the studio took a chance, and Cameron shot real footage of the wreck of the Titanic that would appear in the film, and then went to work.  It was a massive production, with over a thousand extras and enormous sets that were built to the exact specifications of the real Titanic, along with numerous costly special effect shots.  The studio wanted Matthew McConaughey to play the lead role of Jack, but Cameron demanded the then mostly unknown Leonardo DiCaprio be cast, with the also mostly unknown Kate Winslet set to play the female lead Rose.   The shoot was long and difficult, with literal tons of icy water being blasted onto the cast and crew; meanwhile the budget got so big that another film studio, Paramount, chipped in part of the cost, while Cameron himself gave up his director's fee and percentage of the gross.  All told, the budget was a stunning $200,000,000.  Upon its initial release, it looked like the film had no chance of breaking a profit; sure it opened up at number one at the box office, but at under $30,000,000, hardly the stuff of blockbuster numbers.  But then an amazing thing happened: it stayed at number one with little drop off for an astounding fifteen weeks, still the longest run for any film ever.  Stories appeared of fans (mostly women or teenage girls) seeing the film again and again, obsessing over DiCaprio and his character of Jack, vaulting him to the kind of screaming fandom usually reserved for teen pop stars (this showed the wisdom of Cameron casting DiCaprio; although he was 23 when the film was made, DiCaprio looked even younger, exciting teenage girls in a way a more mature looking actor may not have).   This adoration lead to the film making over $600,000,000 in the US alone.  Even before the Oscars, Cameron's huge gamble had paid off.

Leo DeCaprio & Kate Winslet

The film's story begins in the modern day, with treasure hunter Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton)seeking a valuable diamond necklace believed to still be on the wreck of the Titanic.  He enlists the aid of elderly Titanic survivor Rose (Gloria Stewart), who recounts the story of how, when she was a young woman,(Winslet) she rode on the Titanic with her fiancee Cal (Billy Zane), whom she was planning on marrying only for financial protection for herself and her mother Ruth (Francis Fisher).  On the ship, she meets the dashing but poor Jack (DiCaprio), and finds herself drawn to him.  The insanely jealous Cal attempts to have Jack framed for theft, but when the ship strikes an iceberg and begins to sink, Rose stays with Jack, even when that means missing her place on a lifeboat.

The film opens with modern shots of the actual rotting watery remains of the Titanic being searched by remote controlled robotic ships.  This leads to an extended set up for the main story that focuses on a search for a (fictional) valuable diamond necklace.  While I think this opening goes on too long before getting us to the real story of the film,  the shots of the sunken ship are hauntingly beautiful, and it does introduce to the character of Rose, well played by Gloria Stewart.   I also enjoy the moment when a computer geek (Lewis Abernathy) gives the audience a quick computer simulation of the ship's sinking that nicely sets up the latter part of the film.
It's when the flashback begins that the movie really takes off, and when Cameron's eye for detail and historical recreation become so important; by the end of the film, cinematographer Russel Carpenter's camera will have shown us every inch of the Titanic, from the stunning ball rooms to the steerage to the massive engine room, along with many glorious shots of the ship in all its hulking entirety.  The inevitable sinking of the ship is stunningly filmed, and I find the boat's final descent, with helpless passengers clinging on vainly, to be particularly powerful.  Cameron also gives us a wealth of minor characters, many of them based on real people, moving all around the ship, (I especially like Kathy Bates as the unsinkable Molly Brown) heightening the sense of realism.  The result is what  I like to call immersive cinema, that is, a film set completely out of the audience's own world that is so full of details and well populated with interesting characters that, for the length of the film, the audience feels like they are actually in that world.  It is a transportive experience, and I think that's one of the keys to the film's success.  That's why I'm not generally bothered by the film's simple storyline, because it provides immediate and easy to identify with characters that can be universally embraced and related to by any audience (the fact that the film was a world wide hit proves this).  This transportive feeling is one that Cameron would use again in 2009's AVATAR, which was an even bigger hit than TITANIC, and that was so immersive that there were reports that some audience members were depressed when the film ended and they had to "return" to planet earth, as it were.
I often wonder if, when scripting the film, Cameron realized how, with the character of Jack, he was creating an almost perfect dream man for young women and teenage girls.  He's a world traveler and artist, who lives by his own rules and loves dancing and drinking; while he has a bad boy streak (he wins passage on the boat in a poker game),  he's no thief, even when standing next to an open safe filled with valuables.  And he falls for Rose completely almost immediately, praises her "inner fire", and bravely acts to save her life when the ship is sinking.  While he may be too good to be true, DeCaprio gives such a sincere performance that it's hard not be won over by him.  If anything, his charming nature seems almost too easily earned, which may explain why he was not even nominated for best actor for the role.  Sincerity is also the word for Winslet's performance as Rose; if Jack is the man girls dream about, Rose is the woman they dream about being. Like Linda Hamilton in the TERMINATOR films and Sigourney Weaver in ALIENS, she is another strong woman in a Cameron film; she is smart (she figures out that there are not enough life boats right away), brave (she saves Jack's life, too) and follows her heart, even when it means giving up a life of wealth with Cal.  It's clear that Cameron had much affection for his Romeo and Juliet, and that really comes through in the almost immediate bond between them.  While I don't enjoy every scene they have together (the scene in which he teaches her how to spit comes to mind), it's hard not to be won over by them, or to deny the loveliness of the soon to be iconic moment when  Jack and Rose stand together at the mast of the ship, arms outstretched. 

Billy Zane

But, while I am won over by the romantic couple, the film's greatest flaw lies in the character of Billy Zane's Cal; now normally you would think that he would be a sympathetic person.  After all, here is a man who's fiancee openly cheats on him, even after he gives her a valuable diamond necklace.  But Cal is so vile, so pompous, classist and cruel, that he never has a single likable moment in the film.  He's even a fool, scoffing at Rose's admiration for Picasso ("he won't amount to a thing") and dismissing her fears about the number of life boats.  Personally,  I find his villainy so over the top that it hurts the film, changing Cameron's scrupulously realistic tone into almost a cartoon every time he opens his mouth and starts sneering.  Even worse, his framing of Jack for theft is an unnecessary subplot that distracts from the sinking of the ship and pads an already lengthy film. And then he follows that up by literally shooting at Jack and Rose when he sees them together, and, just when he couldn't seem to get any worse, he cowardly uses an abandoned baby to con his way onto a life boat.  At this point he might as well wear a black mustache and hat while tying Rose to the train tracks!  Billy Zane is a fine actor, but his character is written in such broad tones that there's no way to save him. I suppose that Cameron felt that humanizing Cal might have made Rose less likable, but I think it would have added to the complexity of both Cal and Rose if he was a decent man that she just falls out of love with as she finds herself drawn to Jack.  But making Rose less noble and more complicated might have made her less of an identification character for the female audience that made the film so popular, so there you have it.  Sometimes you can't argue with success.  

I've already mentioned how Cameron's viewing of Roy Ward Baker's 1958 film A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, influenced him,  and that influence goes beyond mere subject matter, with Cameron borrowing some of the details (like the string quartet that continues to play even as the ship sinks) and exact shots and dialogue from the earlier film.  Although that film didn't have Cameron's huge budget and special effects, it has a documentary tone that ultimately makes it seem more real, if less moving than TITANIC.  More importantly, it doesn't have any villains like Cal, allowing the iceberg to be villain enough, and for that alone I think it's, overall, a better film. 

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

Despite all it's gorgeous recreations and romantic moments, TITANIC is not my favorite film of that year.  I prefer BOOGIE NIGHTS, PT Anderson's amazing, entertaining story of the rise and fall of a fictional porn star.  I also love Barry Levinson's wickedly funny WAG THE DOG, a media satire that seems to get more relevant every year.

THE ENGLISH PATIENT (1996)

THE ENGLISH PATIENT (DIR: ANTHONY MINGHELLA) (SCR: MINGHELLA, BASED ON THE NOVEL OF THE SAME NAME BY MICHAEL ONDAATJE)

Anthony Minghella's THE ENGLISH PATIENT was the perfect best picture winner in that it fairly reeks of class, with its gorgeous, exotic settings (not since LAWRENCE OF ARABIA has a film so strikingly captured the foreboding beauty of desert plains) attractive European actors, and acclaimed novel pedigree.  And it worked on more than one level, playing as both an epic war film, and a doomed romance.  Most importantly,  with its great performances and well handled time shifting story line, it holds up as an excellent film.

In 1992, author Michael Ondaatje published THE ENGLISH PATIENT, basing its central character on the real life Count Laszlo de Almasy, a Hungarian who explored the Sahara desert.  The book was critically acclaimed and, when English director Anthony Minghella read it all in one sitting, he wanted to make it into a film.  He pitched it to American producer Saul Zaentz, who had seen Minghella's previous film, TRULY MADLY DEEPLY (1990) and wanted to work with him.  Minghella scripted the film, consulting both author Ondaatje and an actual journal of Almasy's , and he also carefully storyboarded every shot.  At first 20th. Century Fox was interested in making the movie, but when Minghella refused to cast big star Demi Moore as Katherine (which I think was the right choice!), the studio pulled out.  It almost appeared that the film would fall through, but then independent film company Miramax stepped in to help, and Zaentz himself put up six million dollars of his own money.  Kirsten Scott Thomas, Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes were all cast in important roles (this would mark only the second lead role for Fiennes after his breakthrough in SHINDLER'S LIST in 1993).  Shot on locations in Italy and North Africa, the film's production was, in Minghella's own words "difficult" and "strenuous", partly because he had never made a film on such an epic scale before.  But the cast and crew bonded together and came to believe in the film, and, after a lengthy five month editing process, it opened to rave reviews  and eventual box office success,  bringing in around $80, 000,000 dollars on a budget of around $44,000,000.

Set in Italy during the end of World War II, its about Hana (Juliette Binoche), an English nurse who stays in a abandoned building with a dying, badly burned patient Laszlo (Ralph Fiennes) who has a mysterious past.  In flashbacks we see him as a dashing cartographer mapping the desert of Cairo and falling in love with the married Katherine (Kirsten Scott Thomas).  Meanwhile, Hana mourns the losses of both her lover and best friend in the war, and finds herself falling for a bomb defuser from India named Kip (Naveen Andrews).
The ENGLISH PATIENT begins with a stunning image: an aerial shot soars over the curves of desert sands, looking almost like the curves of a prone human body.  Then we see the shadow of a small plane zooming above those sands.  For a brief moment we see Katherine, a pretty young woman, sitting in the passenger seat of the plane, asleep or dead.  Then the plane is shot from the sky by a German cannon.  It is with this wonderfully enigmatic image that the film both opens and closes.  This is a long film that unfolds its secrets slowly, taking its time to explain how that opening scene came to be.  Because it cuts between two different stories in separate time periods, sometimes the thrust of both stories is slightly diminished, but for the most part the movie works as two very different love stories unfold, and the way that the two stories come together at the end, with Hana reading the dying Katherine's love letter to the doomed Laszlo weaves the two stories together perfectly.  Minghella also pulls off some excellent set pieces, such as when Hana, who thinks she is cursed because both her lover and her best friend have died in the war, begs her new lover, Kip, not to go an defuse a bomb, but he calmly tells her that it's his job.  This leads to him trying to defuse a bomb under a bridge while an oncoming tank causes it to shake.  It's a marvelously suspenseful scene worthy of Hitchcock, made all the more dramatic by the immediate romantic chemistry that Kip and Hana have, and our fear that the tragic Hana may soon have more sadness in her life.

Ralph Fiennes and Kristen Scott Thomas

Ralph Fiennes, in only his second lead role (the first was the disappointing STRANGE DAYS) really gives two terrific performances here: first, he must play the horribly burned Laszlo, and he shows more emotion with his eyes and simple gestures under pounds of makeup than most actors can with their full bodies (the moment at the end when he silently begs for an overdose of morphine is moving without being maudlin).  And then in flashback we see him as a doomed romantic lead, and again he is completely convincing.  Really, this is his first movie role to display his good looks and sex appeal, and the passionate heat he and Thomas generate in their slow building romance and steamy sex scenes is almost palpable (when he tells her "I can still taste you" we can believe him!). His character is a man of few words and big actions, and it's easy to see why Katherine falls for him, even if he seems initially aloof.
In contrast to the doomed, obsessive nature of Laszlo and Katherine's romance, the attraction between Kip and Hana is sweet and charming, giving us two immediately likable and brave characters who are drawn to each other naturally.  In a truly lovely moment, Kip hoists up Hana on a pulley so that, with the aid of a flare, she can see the paintings on the walls of a dark building, echoing a similar moment seen earlier in flashback when Laszlo and Katherine find some cave drawings in the desert.  Although Kip and Hana go their separate ways at the film's end, they pledge to meet again some day soon, and it's to the film's credit that we both believe them and want them to be true to their words.

Naveen Andrews

It's interesting to note that both Thomas and Binoche were nominated for best supporting actress awards, with Binoche winning; perhaps part of the reason she won out is that her Hana character is more likable than the adulterous Katherine, but in any event, they are both impressive.  And so is Willem Dafoe as the mysterious David Caravaggio, a soldier who shows up at the house Hana and the wounded Laszlo are staying; I enjoy the way that Dafoe plays his character as outwardly friendly, but  clearly hiding some dark secret.  And the scene in which we see him tortured in flashback is a stunner.

There was some criticism of the film's final resolution, when we learn just how Laszlo and Katherine wound up in that plane from the beginning.  It turns out that Katherine's jealous husband Geoffrey (Colin Firth), having found out about the affair, flies his plane with her in it out into the desert to meet Laszlo, and then crashes it straight into the ground (he tries to hit Laszlo but misses) killing himself and badly hurting Katherine.  Laszlo drags the badly wounded Katherine to a cave and leaves her there, and with no one else around, goes to get help.  When he eventually finds the English army, they assume he is a spy and arrest him.  He then escapes and makes a deal with the German army, giving them maps in exchange for a plane, and it is here that the criticism begins.  Is it right for the romantic hero of a film to make a deal with the Nazis?  While it's clear that he only makes the deal because of  his pledge to Katherine not to leave her in the desert, it's still morally questionable.  Personally, I have no problem with this since the film clearly shows that Laszlo's fatal flaw is his single minded, lustful desire for Katherine above everything else.  Even as a war rages on around him, he shows no interest in anything other than her, spitefully rejecting her intention to return to her husband, and boldly showing his longing for her in a way that her husband can't possibly ignore.  Therefore the deal he makes with the Nazis is a deal with the devil that seals his fate; the fact that he will both find the woman he loves dead and then suffer a long painful death himself puts him in a hell truly of his own making.  His willful ignorance of the world around him and placement of love (or maybe just lust) over all things is what puts him on that plane; he is too self centered to accept the world around him, so even though he is a romantic hero, he is a flawed one, one who can sell out to anyone, even the Nazis,  just to accomplish his desires.

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

I think it's clear that I greatly enjoy this film, and that I find it a worthy choice, although this is another one of those tough years for me in that I also greatly enjoyed Milos Foreman's wildly entertaining THE PEOPLE VS LARRY FLYNT, one of the best movies about censorship ever made.  So while I loved THE ENGLISH PATIENT and generally see it as a good choice, I'm not sure if it's my favorite.

BRAVEHEART (1995)

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BRAVEHEART (DIR: MEL GIBSON) (SCR: RANDALL WALLACE)

Mel Gibson's BRAVEHEART was an obvious choice for the Academy, given as how it was a big historical epic with exciting battle scenes not unlike 1959's winner BEN HUR; along with being a throw back to the "cast of thousands" kind of filmmaking that was so rarely done in the 90's. And it was a personal triumph for Gibson as both director and star.  Like Kevin Costner's win for DANCES WITH WOLVES in 1990, Gibson's award seemed to be partly given to him just for being able to successfully complete a big budget pet project and turn it into a box office hit.  And while I personally enjoyed other films that year more, it's still a great looking and often thrilling film.

It all began when an eight year old Randall Wallace heard stories about famous thirteenth-century Scottish clansman William Wallace (no known relation to Randall) from his relatives, who mentioned statutes in Scotland that had been built in his honor.  Years later the adult Randall determined to write a film about William.  Research was not easy, but a reproduction of an old book, written by a poet named Blind Harry, provided some anecdotes about the famed clansman.  Eventually, he finished the script and got it to Gibson, who had just made his directoral debut in 1993 with THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE.  At first, Gibson wanted to only direct the film, thinking that he was too old to play William, but funding for the sure to be expensive film could only be green lit if he agreed to star as well.  Once that was settled, the film quickly came together: the rest of the cast was filled with mostly unknown British actors, and it was shot on locations in Ireland and Scotland, using thousands of extras, many of whom were Irish army reservists who's training came in handy for the battle scenes.  Although Gibson had to trim the film's violence to avoid an NC-17 rating, he was still able to keep its three hour length; the final budget for the film was over $70,000,000, and, after a somewhat slow opening weekend, it would go on to make around $75,000,000, making it a reasonable, if not spectacular, success.

Set in the thirteenth century, it tells the story of Scottish clansman William Wallace (Gibson): after his wife(Catherine McCormack)  is executed for attacking an English soldier who tried to rape her,  William leads a Scottish rebellion against the rule of King Edward I of England (Patrick McGoohan).  After a few successful battles against the English, he is eventually defeated by England's overwhelming forces and is put to death, although his memory lives on to inspire the Scottish people.

Mel Gibson

It's hard to believe that Mel Gibson was once known primarily for his charm and good looks instead of his excessive, alcohol fueled behavior, but that certainly was the case in the 1980's and 90's.  Also, as this film proves, he was a confident director (he would win an Oscar for his direction) who could handle both big battles and smaller scaled scenes with equal skill (cinematographer John Toll also won a well deserved Oscar for making the constantly overcast European locations look beautiful).  Although the film is too long and far from subtle, it mostly works as an exciting  action filled period piece that can certainly be held up favorably to the epics of past years, especially SPARTACUS, which has a slightly similar plot.
I've already mentioned the connections this film shares with Costner's DANCES WITH WOLVES, and here's another connection; just like Costner, Gibson seemed fully aware of his star persona and how best to utilize that on film.  He first rose to fame in action films like 1981's THE ROAD WARRIOR, so he seems right at home in the film's action scenes, yet he was also a sex symbol, so there are also plenty of romantic scenes too, in which his soft spoken sexuality and animal magnetism are winning.  (He seduces Sophie Marceau's princess Isabelle after only meeting her twice, and we completely understand her attraction!).  He also really nails the rousing speech he gives to his men before leading them into battle, which also gears the audience up for what is sure to be an epic fight.
And that fight, in which William leads his rag tag army to victory over the English, is the film's really outstanding moment. With skillful use of slow motion and editing, Gibson builds great tension as the two armies race towards each other like huge crashing waves, and he doesn't skimp on the bloody nature of battle, making it all the more realistic and powerful.  I also like that we completely understand how William's army can win against superior forces by using clever strategy and playing their opponents over confidence against them.   This probably ranks as one of the best epic battle scenes in movie history; if it has a flaw, it's that it comes at about the half way point in the film, and the later fight scenes just don't hold up to it.

The exciting battle scene begins

Some historians have criticized the film's inaccuracies, but, since this is a tale based on poems written years after the life of William Wallace, that doesn't bother me, especially since the film itself shows William's exploits being exaggerated as they pass from person to person; clearly this is intended to be a historical fairy tale.  So it makes perfect sense that William is an almost indestructible warrior, and that the complexities of the British political scene at that time can be boiled down to the evil English (Patrick  McGoohan makes a great slimy villain as King Edward) exploiting the noble Scotsmen. In many ways William Wallace is a lot like another near mythical character: Robin Hood, who both fight against injustice with a loyal army of rebels.  He even has a little John character in the towering Hamish (Brendan Gleeson). It is also not surprising that the film was popular in the US, given that its theme of a rebellious army standing up to English repression is similar to what the American colonies did a few centuries later.
I've already mentioned that I think the film is too long; this is especially true in the film's pleasant but pointless opening scenes in which we see William as a child.  Even worse are the torture sequences towards the film's end; Gibson indulges in heavy handed  Christ figure imagery as William is brutally tortured to death in an absurdly drawn out moment that becomes a kind of torture for the audience, although it is interesting in that it appears to be a dry run for Gibson's later and even more popular film, 2004's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST.  Still, one really gets the sense that BRAVEHEART was a special movie for Gibson, one that he hated to see end, so the film still works, overlong as it is.

The movie's most troubling flaw comes in the portrayal of the gay prince Edward (Peter Hanley), who shows every negative stereotype about gay men possible: he's narcissistic, weak and simpering.  Even worse, when the disgusted king Edward pushes the prince's lover out a window to his death, it's played for dark humor, implying that he had it coming!  Although the character's homosexuality does play a part in the plot, (his refusal to have sex with the Queen pushes her into William's arms) it feels more like an excuse to make his villainous character a  weakling.  It also didn't help that Gibson had already made homophobic comments in the press before making this film.   Not surprisingly, gay rights groups objected to the character, but for the most part, Gibson refused to apologize.  Personally, while I do find the Prince offensive, he's a minor enough character that I can just cringe when he's onscreen and then forget about him when he's gone, and  I still find myself enjoying the film  despite this stereotypical character, just as some modern audiences can enjoy a film like 1956's THE SEARCHERS despite its essentially racist storyline.

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

While I think BRAVEHEART is an impressive achievement, it was not my favorite film of the year; for it's powerful portrayal of the serious topic of the death penalty, I think Tim Robbins's DEAD MAN WALKING  was a truly great film, one of the best Hollywood films made in the 90's, and therefore more worthy of a best picture award.  But I can understand why the Academy was more drawn towards Gibson's uplifting epic than Robbins's more controversial film, and so I don't begrudge their choice.