1930/1931 - Cimarron: "We're going into new stuff, Pet"

1930/1931 Best Picture Winner

Premiered January 26, 1931 in New York City.

Budget:  1.5 Million

Gross:  Unkown

Watching this movie gave us a new appreciation for "All Quiet on the Western Front". That film is looking better and better all the time. Cimarron has a poor plot, poor actors and poor audio. The first hour started out promising but the film began to decline with each passing minute. From a historical perspective, the film gave us a look into the plight of the people who lived in that enviornment, but that was one of the few positives of the film. The movie did not give us a protagonist to root for. The main character, "Yancey" is a terrible husband and his wife isn't much better, although she changes her ways later. Overall, we are just glad to have this movie out of the way.

Callie
Favorite: The church service scene was quite humorous...even though I don't think it was meant to be.
Least Favorite:  When the most redeemable character, Isaish, died.  The movie went downhill from this point on.
Joel
Favorite: A few camera angels impressed me.
Least Favorite: I disliked "Yancey" as the "hero". He was a terrible husband and often slurred his words like the actor was drunk.

1929/1930 - All Quiet on the Western Front: "Me and the Keiser want you here to march tomorrow."

1929/1930 Best Picture Winner

Premiered April 29, 1930 in New York City

Budget: 1.2 million

Gross:  3 milion



After watching this movie, we got into discussion about the "Hurt Locker", another Oscar winner. There are a lot of similarities between the two films. No political message, no warm fuzzy feelings at the end of the film, just a picture of war. This movie follows one unit in the German Army as they deal with the rigors of war. It is an excellent (and eye opening) portrayl of life as a soldier.

The production values were excellent. It was interesting to compare Wings and this movie and technology came a long way in two years. The acting was very good as well.

Callie

Favorite:  I got a lot out of Paul's perspective of being on the front.  After being on the front and returning home, he said he would rather be on the front versus home because is was simple:  "You know if you are dead or alive."  I think this is so true with our relationship with God, when we are on the front and living on the edge of ourselves life is simplified in the fact of either we are all in with Christ or we're not.  When we live in a safe place, it all gets confusing and we can become lukewarm.

Least Favorite:  There was a lot of prolonged kisses between family members and soldiers (sometimes on the lips).

Joel

Favorite: I enjoyed the battle scenes. The makers of this film were ahead of their time.

Least Favorite: There was no musical score! During the first battle scene, we turned to each other and mentioned that something was missing...the music.

1927/1928 Wings: "I'll get a heine"

1927/1928 Best Picture Winner

Premiered August 12, 1927 in New York City

Budget: 2 million

Gross: Unkown

I think it is interesting that the first and last films to win the Oscar award for Best Picture are silent films. It shows that we have come full circle. We were at the movie theater a couple of days ago and they showed the trailer for "Wings" and announced that they were going to show the entire film on the big screen. I think it is great that the public is interested in this historic film.

To be honest, we were a little nervous about watching a 2 1/2 hour silent movie. However, we were plesantly surprised. We even looked at each other at the end and said, "It actually wasn't that bad". It was cheesy at times, but overall it kept our attention and taught us about the plight of World War I fighter pilots. We found the lighthearted tone to be intriguing for a war movie, yet it did not come across as disrespectful. Overall, we were entertained throughout.

Callie

Favorite:  Reading the text in between the scenes and seeing the slang of the time.

Least Favorite:  The "bubbles" scene.  It seemed completely over the top and strange.

Joel

Favorite: The dogfight scenes were very well done. You can see that the special effects of the film were ahead of its time.

Least Favorite: Some scenes and shots went on way too long. Obviously our attention spans have gotten shorter over time.





1928/1929 - The Broadway Melody: "Better to be a star in OshKosh than starve on Broadway."

1928/1929 Best Picture Winner

Premiered on February 1, 1929 in Hollywood

Budget: $379,000

Gross:  $2.8 Million

Some critics call this movie the worst Oscar Best Picture winner in history. We hope that it doesn't get any worse than this movie. It was obviously a struggling time in film as they were figuring out the sound aspect.  The acting was terrible, the script was awful and the editing must have been done by a child. The movie lacked any deep plot, but was simply a lighthearted, nonsensical look at two sisters trying to make it big on Broadway.  Don't waste your time on this movie. 

Callie
Favorite:  When the preacher was dancing during "The Wedding of the Painted Doll" act.
Least Favorite:  Listening to the men's group sing during the birthday scene...I don't think men are meant to sing that high.

Joel
Favorite:  When the final credits rolled.
Least Favorite:  The fight scene between Eddie and Jacque.  It was over the top and unrealistic.

"And the Academy Award for Best Picture goes to..."

Over the last several months, we've taken a long hard look at our family budget and we decided to...gulp...cut TV. That's right, no satellite, no cable.  We have an old analog TV so we don't even have any network TV channels. For the past several weeks our television consumption has consisted of the "Wiggles", "Dora the Explorer" and "Veggie Tales" DVDs. My wife, Callie, and I were going crazy and we love movies so we came up with a plan: We are going to watch every Oscar winning movie. All of them. Going back to 1927.

I must admit that this makes me a little nervous. When I think of old movies, I think Star Wars but when I look at the list of winners I see that there are A LOT of winners before the 80s. Some famous (The Sting, Gone With the Wind and The Godfather) and some I've never heard of. Callie, on the other hand, loves old movies and is looking forward to the old iconic films of the past.

We will watch each Oscar winner in order and then blog our critique of it. Here's our rating system:

"Don't Waste Your Time" - yep, that's what we mean. I'm hoping that none of these movies gets this rating.

 "You Should Watch This Movie At Some Point In Your Life" - If you have a movie bucket list, this film should be on it.

"Honey, We're Putting The Kids Down Early So We Can Watch This Movie" - You've got to see this movie!