The Littlest Winslow

Before Chuck Norris, there was Eastwood. And I can’t deny: I’m highly tempted to give up the Epic Film Quest all together. Cold turkey.

After watching the 1992 Best Picture winner, Unforgiven, I only want to watch movies that star Clint Eastwood wielding a gun in each hand, chasing down felons or participating in your standard, everyday Western shootout. I want my life to be inundated with witty one-liners chock-full of curmudgeonly attitude, as Eastwood guns mofos down and sprays the town with their blood. That totally happens in, like, Ghandi…right!?

Regrettably, Eastwood was kind of before my time. I’ve seen modern day Eastwood films like every other asshole alive (Gran Torino, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, etc.), but never really got to appreciate his older work. Unforgiven is one of those movies that makes me want to quit my job and become an uber Eastwood-phile. I want to sit on my couch surrounded by tubs of ice cream (yes, plural tubs) and repeating every beloved line to myself and to the Internet. I want to channel my inner Eastwood so I can quote him thoroughly, completely, and in context should I ever find myself riding a horse in the desert, participating in a gunfight, exchanging wits with a nemesis, or battling a gang of thugs in a scary LA suburb. (Actually, scratch that last one. Eek.)

To celebrate Unforgiven and this stop on my quest to watch all of The Academy’s Best Pics, I binged on this YouTube clip of some of the best Clint Eastwood quotes known to the Milky Way galaxy. You should watch it and pretend that you’re as cool as Clint Eastwood. Because that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 45 minutes of life.

Some real winners here:

“You did two things wrong. One is you asked a question, and two is you asked another question.”

“Nobody….I mean nobody…puts ketchup on a hotdog.”

“I have dined with some of the ugliest goddamn bitches in my time. And I have dined with some of the goddamndest ugly bitches in this world. But you, my dear, are the ugliest bitch of them all.”

“You couldn’t take care of a wet dream.”

“Your lucky numbers are 84, 23, 11, 78, and 99. What a load of shit.”

“And I’ve drunk more beer, pissed more blood, and banged more quiff, busted more balls then all you numbnuts put together.”

And that’s only a small sample of the 10 minute-long clip, and an even smaller sample of the legend’s six-ish decades of acting excellence. Need. More. Clint.

Suffice to say, Unforgiven is a resounding Grade: A movie.

A church, a broken window, some piano playing, singing, and two priests not getting along so much. That about explains the 1944 Best Picture winner Going My Way, starring Bing Crosby, and it was JUST AS EXCITING AS IT SOUNDS!!!!

Crosby plays Father Charles “Chuck” O’Malley, a young up-and-comer (if priests can even be referred to as “up-and-comers”) heading to a new congregation for his new post. Father Fitzgibbon (Barry Fitzgerald), the old school Elder Priest or something, disagrees with O’Malley’s ways, which really just includes real, grounded friendships, playing golf, and teaching children how to sing (The horror!). Fitzgibbon’s disapproval doesn’t really make any sense, but neither does religion sometimes. OH SNAP! A scandalous blog I lead, I know. Other characters float in and out, like a girl who ran away from home, some kids O’Malley teaches to sing, and a few others, but they don’t really matter too much because there isn’t really much of a plot and the film’s pieces rarely connect the puzzle. The movie was well-paced though, (which as you know by now is so crucial to me when I’m watching older, black and white films), and enjoyable enough.

Fun Fact: This movie won a helluva lot of Academy Awards (7!) and was the first and only time an actor was nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. Fitzgerald lost to Crosby for Actor, but then snagged the Best Supporting trophy.

But before I start sounding like a Negative Nick about Going My Way, we should all hail the mighty Crosby – whose trademark bass-baritone made him a star on screen, in the recording industry, and on radio (he has three stars on the Walk of Fame to prove it). Some of these old-timer films simply exist as a vehicle for a super-mighty-talented guy to show off his super-mighty-talented talent, and Bing Crosby is “a dreamboat,” as one of my Facebook friends leisurely commented one day. The guy has mad skillz and no one can argue with that. Listening to the movie’s songs make it worthy of a watch, but negative points for yanno, the stuff I said above. The relationship between O’Malley and Fitzgibbon does progress nicely though, and by film’s end it’s kind of nice. Said the worst description of a movie ever.

To conclude with this conclusion, Going My Way is to Bingy as An American in Paris is to Gene Kelly: The movie was just OK for me, but the talented singing man keeps it out of C-territory.

Grade: B-

37 of 84 movies remain in the quest. Baby steps.

Nominations are in for the 2013 Academy Awards and like most years, there aren’t too many surprises…except for that Ben Affleck snub for Best Director, Argo (what WHAAAAT!?). Speaking of Best Director, Zero Dark Thirty’s Kathryn Bigelow is also egregiously missing from the list. Yikes.  Beasts of the Southern Wild fared way better than most probably predicted and…well, lets just get to it:

Best Picture
Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

Best Actor
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Denzel Washington, Flight

Best Actress
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts, The Impossible

Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin, Argo
Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, The Master
Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook

Best Director
Michael Haneke, Amour
Ang Lee, Life of Pi
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Best Original Screenplay
Amour, Michael Hanake
Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino
Flight, John Gatins
Moonrise Kingdom, Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola
Zero Dark Thirty, Mark Boal

Best Adapted Screenplay
Argo, Chris Terrio
Beasts of the Southern Wild, Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin,
Life of Pi, David Magee
Lincoln, Tony Kushner
Silver Linings Playbook, David O. Russell

Best Animated Feature:
Brave
Frankenweenie
ParaNorman
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
Wreck-It Ralph

Best Cinematography
Anna Karenina, Seamus McGarvey
Django Unchained, Robert Richardson
Life of Pi, Claudio Miranda
Lincoln, Janusz Kaminski
Skyfall, Roger Deakins

Best Costume Design
Anna Karenina, Jacqueline Durran
Les Misérables, Paco Delgado
Lincoln, Joanna Johnston
Mirror Mirror, Eiko Ishioka
Snow White and the Huntsman, Colleen Atwood

Best Documentary Feature
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugar Man

Best Documentary Short
Inocente
Kings Point
Mondays at Racine
Open Heart
Redemption

Best Film Editing
Argo, William Goldenberg
Life of Pi, Tim Squyres
Lincoln, Michael Kahn
Silver Linings Playbook, Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers
Zero Dark Thirty, Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg

Best Foreign Language Film
Amour, Austria
Kon-Tiki, Norway
No, Chile
A Royal Affair, Denmark
War Witch, Canada

Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Hitchcock, Howard Berger, Peter Montagna and Martin Samuel
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater and Tami Lane
Les Misérables, Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell

Best Original Score
Anna Karenina, Dario Marianelli
Argo, Alexandre Desplat
Life of Pi, Mychael Danna
Lincoln, John Williams
Skyfall, Thomas Newman

Best Original Song
“Before My Time” from Chasing Ice, music and lyric by J. Ralph
“Everybody Needs A Best Friend” from Ted, music by Walter Murphy; lyric by Seth MacFarlane
“Pi’s Lullaby” from Life of Pi, music by Mychael Danna; lyric by Bombay Jayashri
“Skyfall” from Skyfall, music and lyric by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth
“Suddenly” from Les Misérables, music by Claude-Michel Schönberg; lyric by Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boublil

Achievement in production design
Anna Karenina, Production Design: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, production Design: Dan Hennah; Set Decoration: Ra Vincent and Simon Bright
Les Misérables, Production Design: Eve Stewart; Set Decoration: Anna Lynch-Robinson
Life of Pi, Production Design: David Gropman; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock
Lincoln, Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Jim Erickson

Best animated short film
Adam and Dog
Fresh Guacamole
Head over Heels
Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare”
Paperman

Best live action short film
Asad
Buzkashi Boys
Curfew
Death of a Shadow
Henry

Achievement in sound editing
Argo ,Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn
Django Unchained, Wylie Stateman
Life of Pi, Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton
Skyfall, Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers
Zero Dark Thirty, Paul N.J. Ottosson

Achievement in sound mixing
Argo, John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Jose Antonio Garcia
Les Misérables, Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes
Life of Pi, Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill and Drew Kunin
Lincoln, Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Ronald Judkins
Skyfall, Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell and Stuart Wilson

Achievement in visual effects
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and R. Christopher White
Life of Pi, Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott
The Avengers, Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams and Dan Sudick
Prometheus, Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley and Martin Hill
Snow White and the Huntsman, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould and Michael Dawson

The ceremony and live broadcast will take place February 24 on ABC.

I am prepared for the inevitable backlash that this post is going to cause me. I have finally seen Braveheart. For the first time.  Alright, already…let me have it.

I’m not really sure what I was doing in 1995 that may have prevented me from seeing this Mel Gibson-led and directed Oscar winner. Maybe I was attending the 5^th grade. Maybe it was the day of the championship game of our backyard baseball league, cleverly coined as “BYB.” Maybe I was at the movies, seeing far greater films, like Jumanji or Toy Story. Dammit, I don’t know why I had never seen Braveheart, but in my defense, I was 10 at the time and once Gladiator came out, I never had any reason to watch Braveheart. One just simply rewatches Gladiator when he would like an ambitious period movie with sickass battle scenes, amazing acting and a heartbreaking finish.

Sooo, what? Oh, Braveheart. Right.

Mel Gibson has totally Tom Cruise’d himself. Even though I rather enjoyed The Beaver, Braveheart was the first Gibson movie from the past that I actively sought out. As if it wasn’t hard enough to take his sexy mane of hair and face-painted face seriously, Gibson had to rant about Jews and threaten his girlfriend and rob banks and steal children’s Halloween candy and stuff. (I may have made those last two up..) Watching his take on William Wallace, it was hard to concentrate on the actual performance simply because I know what a douchenozzle he is now. It’s the same reason I struggle with the Mission: Impossible series. I just can’t get involved in that shit.

On the other hand, Braveheart looked amazing, thanks to its Irish and Scottish filming locations, killer costume design, and medieval flair. It’s well-paced and has enough supporting characters to enrich the film with a mighty fine ensemble of characters. I just found it to be rather predictable in certain ways, unlike the best, most radically charged-up awesome fun time flick: GLADIATOR. But then again, Russell Crowe isn’t exactly the poster child for humanity either. Whatever. Braveheart won a shitload of awards that year, so maybe it is me, gentle readers, who is the asshole here.

In sum: I saw Braveheart. I saw it 17 years too late. And it wasn’t overly painful. Always striving for excellence here at The Littlest Winslow. Yep.

Oh, I almost forgot! I grade things now!

Braveheart: B
(Gladiator: A)

What next!?

Readers, friends, foes, and followers: Apologies for the radio silence! I was conquering the island of Oahu on a two week excursion of awesomeness. I jumped out of a plane, surfed Waikiki, hiked up a volcano and as a result, sadly neglected this ol’ blog here. However, The Winslow was in my thoughts as we took a side quest to Halona Cove – the filming location of the 1953 Best Picture winner From Here to Eternity – Epic Film Quest shoutout!

While driving down the eastern coast of Oahu, we stopped by the Halona Blowhole specifically to check out the Cove and see the very spot where Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr made out in the then-controversial “sex scene”. (I asked the wifee to roll around in the sand with me while a stranger filmed it, but she understandably declined). Surely, you remember the scene to which I’m referring:

How steamy.

It’s been awhile since I’ve tackled another film on my quest to watch every single Best Picture winner ever. (I am a slacker and procrastinator, but shit gets busy when you’re gettin’ hitched.) Now that I’m back from Hawaii, I’ve got a renewed sense of determination and motivation, and do plan on finishing my quest…even if it takes me an eternity, dammit! ONWARD!

Here a few pics and a vid I took at the scene. I promise to never abandon you ever again. Or at least not until I get married again. (That was a joke)

The first time I learned about the work of Ernest Borgnine was during my Freshman year of college. My professor of Art and Language of Television was obsessed with the movie Marty.  So I, like a studious, dedicated and attentive student of the arts…ignored his recommendation entirely.  (College kids are assholes, what can I say?)

Shortly before starting my Film Quest, I found Marty on Netflix and remembered that professor of mine. I gave it a whirl. I was really drawn into Borgnine’s portrayal of the title character. Marty’s vulnerability leaped off the screen; Borgnine’s chemistry with female-lead Betsy Blair was real and palpable. It was a film full of hope, anchored by Borgnine’s socially-awkward performance of a man who was hapless, yet eternally optimistic.

Borgnine died on Sunday at the age of 95 leaving behind quite the film legacy. To celebrate his work, Turner Classic Movies is airing a 24-hour movie marathon of Borgnine’s films on July 26, starting with The Catered Affair at 6 a.m., followed by The Legend of Lylah Clare at 8 a.m., and Pay or Die at 10:30 a.m. The rest of the schedule is as follows:

Torpedo Run – 12:30 p.m.
Ice Station Zebra – 2:30 p.m.
The Dirty Dozen – 5:15 p.m.
Private Screenings (2009) – 8 p.m.
Marty – 9 p.m.
From Here to Eternity – 10:45 p.m.
The Wild Bunch – 1 a.m.
Bad Day at Black Rock – 3:30 a.m.
A repeat of Private Screenings – 5 a.m.

On my last Epic Film Quest review, I said I really, desperately needed a home-run film to come up soon. Well fuck me sideways, Sydney Pollack’s 1985 Romance Drama Out of Africa was not what I was looking for. It took a lot out of me, kids. A lot. But it did have some cool lion scenes (says my inner 7-year-old).

The film stars Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, and takes place in 20th century colonial Kenya. Streep is a Danish baroness and plantation owner who starts up a steamy (not really) love affair with a free-spirited (I guess) game hunter (Redford). There are about 1,000 virgin jokes before Streep’s character, Karen, convinces her friend to marry her. Karen tells us via narration that she once had a farm in Africa no less than 12 times in 10 minutes. They move to Africa. She wants a dairy farm, so he buys a coffee plantation instead.

This film is 2 hours and 45 minutes of brutal, mind-numbing non-action. The characters were nowhere near fleshed out enough to justify that running time! Alas, it’s hard to hate on Streep because she’s the most likable human being ever and one of the best actresses in the history of time too.  So, she’s kind of a big deal regardless. And Redford? He’s pretty much Christian Grey, but for the mature ladies. What a pantydropper, that one. Even in the film, he courts Karen by nonchalantly declaring: “Lets lie down and get on with it.” I guess we could all learn a thing or two from Mr. Redford’s Denys Finch Hatton.

About two hours in, I wondered why this movie was even happening to me. I’m still young enough, I suppose, to exclaim that this is a movie that my mom would watch and like. Therefore, I am naturally horrified, and do not recommend it to anyone under the age of 30, especially if you are a straight male.

But how about a positive spin? I must say – some of director Sydney Pollack’s shots of Africa were actually quite beautiful. It made me think of how I’d really like to go to Africa one day…except I don’t really care about the culture or people so much. I’d mostly want to go take a Safari tour, and see the land and its animals. Maybe watch a lion eat something (says my inner 7-year-old). I mostly have an irrational fear that I’d find myself surrounded by scary, cannibalistic natives in which I’d have to escape and flee for my life. But then again, that could happen way closer to home, in places like, oh say, Miami. Eek.

In short: I love Meryl, disliked Out of Africa, and strongly fear/hate cannibals.

The latest movie on my quest to see every Best Picture winner in the history of forever was The French Connection, starring Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider. The film was the winner from 1971. It was directed by William Friedkin. I wasn’t a fan.

I’m having another one of those “I didn’t really think this through” moments. It kind of sucks writing about movies I struggled through, and even more frustrating is that I always feel the need to explain why I didn’t like it. If these movies won Best Picture, they obviously have some merit, which means that millions and millions of people did like them. As this quest continues, I feel myself wanting to tread heavier as I trudge through film after film. So here I go. I’m going to start adopting a more “take no prisoners” approach. You may have liked _____ (Insert Film Name Here) 30 years ago, but I thought it royally sucked! Whatever.

In terms of The French Connection, where was the exposition? The character development and depth? The set up? Two cops are trying to shut down a French narcotics ring led by Alain Charnier. They yell at people a lot. Charnier’s minions kill people and do bad things and then get caught. Everyone runs around squawking. There was a pretty cool chase scene, but by that point, I just didn’t really care. And then (SPOILER ALERT) you don’t even find out if they caught the guy or not! You have to watch the sequel to find out.

Really!?

The film did have a gritty-city look and feel to it. The shaky camera added to the tensity of the chase scenes, but this may just be another case of exhaustion. I’m part of a modern-day audience, one over-saturated with EXPLOSIONS! and car chases, and HEIST films, and double-crossing deception! In terms of action and story, I deem this Connection a missed one.

I’m taking recommendations for what Best Pic I should tap next. I really need a home-run soon. And by “home-run,” I mean motivation.

The latest stop on my quest to see every single Best Picture winner ever: An American in Paris. So what does Gene Kelly have in common with Veganism and the Paleo Diet? Absolutely nothing at all!

The Winz combined forces with Zoe over at SexyTofu for a Food and Films excursion, Part Dos! If you’ll so kindly recall, we once ate tofu fried rice and watched Rain Man. It was both glorious and delicious. This time, we outdid ourselves once again, which really just means that we got fat and watched some TV together.

The Food:
To satisfy our body’s need for occasional foodstuffs, we made this delicious dish I stole found on my buddy-ol’-pal Shannon’s site Cumin and Coriander. The dish: Thai Chicken, Sweet Potato, and Spinach Curry. You can find the recipe there, but this coconut milky, curry-filled dish of extreme awesomeness pleases every time (Tip: Boil your potatoes for a minute or two to quicken the cook time. Use the entire can of coconut milk for more juicy goodness. And don’t forget that Sriracha. It’s clutch). Zoe’s a vegan (hence: tofu) so she had hers with Satan on the side (Seitan – a product made from Wheat Gluten). And me? I’m currently rockin’ the Paleo diet (more on that later), so my dish was made with mucho chicken (mmm, protein) and no added salts or wheats. Only natural ingredients that are either from the ground or able to be killed. Holla, animal slaughter! Just kidding. A good movie-watching session should always be paired with good food. And booze. Although our meal remained alcohol-free, we cooked the shit out of that shit.

The Film:
An American in Paris was the winner from 1951, except thanks to the marvels of modern technology, we watched the Blu-ray edition. You know what that means? COLOR. Hell, yeah.

Although Gene Kelly can tap his ass off, the film left a little to be desired. I had no idea what the hell was happening about three times throughout the 115-minute run. Long-winded musical numbers disturbed the pacing and seemed out of place, at times. The relationships and story were also a little forced. It seemed to be a platform to show off Kelly’s mad skillz rather than to serve a story (The Artist, anyone?). People spoke French and then they danced and tapped. That’s it in a nutshell. The inclusion of color really added a lot, as many of the scenes were definitely bolstered by its vibrant display of yellows, greens, and blues. The coloration definitely gave it more of a fun appeal, and I think we may have struggled a bit more had we watched in black and white.

Despite its shortcomings, Kelly was great, as was Nina Foch as Milo Roberts, an older ladyfriend and socialite who shows interest in our hero and his artwork. The film was shot in Hollywood, so the French-style of the film was contrived and overly theatrical, but hey man, it was 1951. They were probably still shocked that they were making their pictures move. All in all, I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it (looking at YOU, Midnight Cowboy!)

Good food, good moviefilm, and though it’s not on the Quest, I should probably see Singing in the Rain sometime….in the very far, ever-distant future. After I watch these other 46 Best Pictures. Blerg!

While wasting my life away on the couch on what looked from my window to be a beautiful Sunday afternoon, I wished I drank less whiskey the night before. Though, the day’s hangover meant I had nothing but time to take 1953′s Best Picture winner, From Here to Eternity, out for a test drive while my liver worked overtime. A black-and-white movie was a risky move for my sorry state, but it was one that inevitably paid off. Why? Because with a cast like Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra, and Burt Lancaster, what can go wrong, really?

Private Prewitt (Clift) gets an army transfer to Hawaii after trying to escape a life of boxing with his former company. He’s abused and tortured by his superiors for not wanting to fight, because as we see later in the film, the dude can kick some serious ass. He has only one friend who will stand up for him, Sinatra’s Maggio, who turns out to be a little firecracker himself. Meanwhile, Sergeant Warden (Lancaster) bangs his captain’s wife on a beach during their secret love affair, cementing one of the most classic love scenes in movie history.

Sure, the love scene is mostly classic and iconic, but the rest of the film holds its own too. The narrative nicely frog-hops between the various B-plots, giving the more-than-credible cast his and her own time to shine (Deborah Kerr nabbed the role of the Captain’s lustful wife Karen Holmes). Oftentimes, older movies struggle with pacing (at least to a modern audience member like myself), but the way each mini-story unraveled propelled the story forward even further, making it a great success in terms of story-telling and acting, while also capturing the zeitgeist of the time.

Oh, right. And then Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.

Twelve years passed from the time Pearl Harbor was attacked to the time when this film was made. I wonder if that was considered “too soon” for the 1953 audience. I remember when World Trade Center and United 93 came out just five years after 9-11 and thinking that the studios were batshit crazy for making and releasing those films so soon. Granted, 12 years is longer than five, but I wonder how widely accepted From Here to Eternity was at first. Obviously, it went on to win Best Picture, so I guess any naysayers got over it once they discovered how much merit the film has.

Last, but not least, I would also like to say that From Here to Eternity is a far superior film than Michael Bay’s 2001 shitshow entitled Pearl Harbor. But now that almost everyone in the world despises Mr. Bay, maybe this can go without saying. Which is always something people say right after they’ve already said the thing that didn’t really need mentioning.

The 50′s was a great era. Looking forward to the rest of the winners from that time period. That said, my next rendezvous is with Marlon Brando and “On the Waterfront.” Ahoy!