BTV (week from 28th April): Your guide to Oscar favourites on the box

A retired cowboy, an animated magician and a resplendent kung-fu fighter walk into an Oscars orientated blog…

Unforgiven (1992) Tonight 21.00 ITV4 (4 wins from 9 noms)

Until 1992, Clint Eastwood hadn’t been too much of a bother to the Academy.  Clearly not favouring his mexican standoffs, line of questioning to punks or his antics with apes, his trophy cabinet was probably adorned only with a Little League runners-up pendant from 1942 and a replica .44 Magnum (you know, the most powerful handgun in the world, which would blow your head clean off).

On clearly familiar turf and dusty sidewalks, his perennial Western Unforgiven changed all that and pistolled him into the realms of Hollywood’s most loved filmmakers.

It is fairly nuts and bolts stuff.  Retired gunslinger persuaded out of retirement for one last mission.  A corrupt sherif.  Six-shooters. Stetsons. Saloons with swinging slatted doors.  The whole caboodle.  However, it is Unforgiven’s heart, as well as its redhot performances (Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman winning his second Oscar, Saul Rubinek and a delightfully hammy Richard Harris are all particularly pleasing) that make it standout as one of the all-time great cowboy flicks.

Eastwood picked up the big two prizes, Best Picture and Best Director, a feat he would repeat in 2004 for superior boxing melodrama Million Dollar Baby.  He was nominated in both years for his lead performances too, losing out to Al Pacino for Scent of a Woman (HOO HA) and Jamie Foxx for Ray respectively.

The Illusionist (2010) Saturday 14.40 Thursday 08.00 & 18.30 Sky Indie (1 nom)

Clearly, it is a great time for silent black and white French films (or SBAWFs as they are rapidly becoming known).  As I read recently in one of my favourite obnoxious blogs, silence is officially cool.

Not to be confused with the previousOscarfavouriteohfortheloveofGodwhycan’thebegoodagain Ed Norton vehicle The Illusionist (2006), The Illusionist was a year before its time.  Nominated for Best Animation (and predictably beaten by Toy Story 3), it is the charming story of a charming but lonely magician.

Unlike the film itself though, the eponymous conjurer is truly behind the times.  The rabbit-in-a-hat merchant can’t keep up with modern showmen and the progressive tastes of his core audience.  He travels from Paris, to the highlands of Scotland, down to Edinburgh and on to London, to resurrect his waning star, with his trusty bunny and forming an unlikley relationship with a precocious young traveller.

Visually, The Illusionist is incredible.  Each cityscape is meticulously detailed and familiar.  Interiors and set-pieces carry forward all of the attention to detail of Belleville Rendezvous but, this time, with a coherent and touching story to match.

Sunday Afternoon Special

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) 13.30  Dave (4 wins from 10 noms)

Every few awards seasons, a foreign language film comes along and gives Hollywood a shaking of Louise Woodward magnitude (surely not still too soon?).  These movies transcend their own category (conveniently, pigeon holing some of the world’s best cinema into an easy to manage 5 nominees), and manage to melt the icy hearts of the Academy members to win recognition for their other achievements.

Bergman and Fellini both managed it a couple of times.  Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful (also on tonight on Sky Indie), much maligned for being over sentimental mush (and so right up Oscar’s strada), scored 3 wins including a memorably celebrated Best Actor win for its director.  Guillermo Del Toro’s remarkably effect-laden Pan’s Labyrinth also won 3 in 2007.  And this year’s Best Foreign Language winner A Separation from Iran, a deeply effecting and gritty portrayal of family difficulties and the domestic legal system, was nominated for Best Original Screenplay too.

But it is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that has made the biggest impact of any foreign language film, with 10 nominations.  Although it lost out to Gladiator for Best Picture and Ang Lee would have to wait a further five years before picking up a Best Director statue for Brokeback Mountain, CT,HD’s (ABBREVIATION ALERT) arresting visuals and  music (making up, frankly, for the bizarre story line) put no doubt in voters’ heads as to where the Best Art Direction-Set Direction, Cinematography and Original Score awards would be heading.

Enjoy

Bloscars

BTV: Your guide to Oscar favourites on the box (week from 21st April)

As a precursor for this week’s choices, I just wanted to raise a pet peeve of mine.  Plagiarism.

The practice of taking existing words and reusing them for one’s own ends is unimaginitive, lazy and should not be tolerated.

Understood?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) Tonight 21.55 BBC2 (5 wins from 9 noms)

This adaptation of a great American novel isn’t only recommended this week because it is probably one of finest films ever made, but also because it allows me to ask one of my favourite Oscar trivia questions:

This is one of only three films in the history of the Academy Awards that has been able to win all of the ‘Big 5’ awards (i.e. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted/Original Screenplay.  Can you name the other two?

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) Thursday 21.00 TCM (5 wins from 7 noms)

This adaptation of a great American novel isn’t only recommended this week because it is probably one of finest films ever made, but also because it allows me to ask one of my favourite Oscar trivia questions:

This is one of only three films in the history of the Academy Awards that has been able to win all of the ‘Big 5’ awards (i.e. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted/Original Screenplay.  Can you name the other two?

Sunday Afternoon Special

The Messenger (2009) Noon Sky Movies Premiere (2 nom

This isn’t my usual Sunday arvo easy watch that you can slam on while keeping an eye on whether Van Persie has scored another rasper or perusing Amy Childs’ sweat patches in the copy of Heat that you ‘ironically’ picked up.

The Messenger follows Ben Foster’s recently demobbed soldier, returning to the States from the front line in the Middle East (notice the clever way I avoided specifying Iraq or Afghanistan for fear of making an elementary error).

His latest mission in the States would be his most difficult – morbidly visiting door-to-door to personally deliver the devastating news to loved ones of soldiers killed in action.

Reactions vary from solemn acceptance, to infinite grief, to violent denial. Foster sensitively portrays the youthful harbinger of doom struggling to cope with his own post-warfare troubles while simulatneously trying to help stricken strangers deal with theirs.

Samantha Morton, as ever, is a fascinating screen presence as Foster’s ill-advised love conquest, troubled widow of a killed serviceman. While Woody Harrelson, in Oscar nominated form, is Foster’s mentor setting the ground rules (no touching, comforting or hugging) while trying to overcome his own demons.

Oren Moverman and also earned a nomination for their screenplay which is by degrees touching, devastating and acerbic.

Enjoy

Bloscars

BTV: Your guide to Oscar favourites on the box (week from 14th April)

Buoyed by the booming success of last week’s inaugural BTV (in excess of 3 views), I have decided to make it a regular fixture of your Saturday morning lie-in.  Huzzah.

DO NOT follow me on Twitter (@bloscars if you’re that way inclined) or head to the homepage and sign up to receive automatic updates by e-mail.

Wait a minute.  Strike that.  Reverse it.  DO NOT FORGET TO follow me on Twitter (@bloscars if you’re that way inclined) or head to the homepage and sign up to receive automatic updates by e-mail.

Whether you choose to follow me or not, Bloscars Television AdVice (a joke  repeated here for the sole reason that I really, really like the joke) will continue to provide recommendations for three Academy appreciated films that ‘coincidentally’ happen to be on your television screens this week.

8 Mile (2002) Tonight 21.00 Sky Movies Indie (1 win from 1 nom)

You’ll have to forgive me this little indulgence (or you could refuse to forgive me of course, both work equally as well).  But 8 Mile is the kind of film that ‘people’ describe as a guilty pleasure.  Poppycock, says I.

It’s a film of genuine quality with all the hallmarks of a classic underdog story: a down on his luck guy failing at his chosen pursuit; life lessons learnt; some enemies become friends, some friends become enemies; Kim Basinger naked; Slim Shady hecking the heck out of Brittany hecking Murphy; and then the phenomenal climax (I’m referring to the final rap battle of course, not the Eminem/Murphy heckfest).

Also, it means that I can spit some of my favourite quotes.  Ahem…

“Why you fuckin’ with the gay guy G, when really you’re one that’s got the HIV”

“This guy keeps screaming; he’s paranoid.  Quick, someone get his ass another steroid”

“So, I’m a German, eh? That’s ok, you look like a fucking worm with braids”

***BLOSCARS FREESTYLING ALERT***

Oh dear, I think these quotes have gotten boring.  In fact, I think I can hear my hundreds of readers snoring.

***BLOSCARS FREESTYLING ALERT OVER***

Want a taster?  Here’s a taster, fool…

Double Indemnity (1944) Thursday 1.00am Sky Movies Classics (7 noms)

While a year before, Five Graves to Cairo garnered three Oscar nominations, Billy Wilder’s 1944 classic Double Indemnity set him along a path of immaculate filmmaking that culminated in six personal awards (and countless others for an ouvre that includes Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17 (my personal favourite), Sabrina, Some Like It Hot and The Apartment).

Double Indemnity’s Film Noir credentials are beyond reproach…

Dark, tall and handsome lead protagonist giving a running voice-over. Check.

Enigmatic, beautiful femme-fatale who may not be all that she seems. Check.

Screenplay by Raymond Chandler. Check.

Beautifully shot luscious black and white cinematography. Check.

Guns. Check.

Homaged by Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. Check.

But it is the razor-sharp dialogue shared by Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck – positively bubbling with irrepressible sexual frisson – that lifts Double Indemnity from one in a long line of Film Noir back-catalogue, to one of the all time great movies.

Sunday Afternoon Special

Toy Story 2 (1999) 16.00 Channel 5 (1 nom)

Toy Story 2, my favourite of the trilogy, was criminally robbed of any Oscars whatsoever (and only mustering one nomination for Randy Newman’s in the Best Original Song Category – an award he has since bagged twice for Monsters Inc. and Toy Story 3).  Alas, its release predated the introduction of the Best Animated Feature award.

This was a wrong somewhat righted last year when the last of the films picked up 5 nominations (including Best Picture) and 2 wins.

Jokes, characters and a storyline that will entertain the entire family make this perfect Sunday afternoon fare.

Enjoy

Bloscars

BTV: Your guide to Oscar favourites on the box (week from 7th April)

Are you one of those pathetically submissive individuals who is constantly bullied, downtrodden and dictated to?

Armed with nominal free will and the meekest of countenance, you’re barely able to muster up a decision on what sock to put on first in the morning without the inexplicably imperative guidance of another.

You go from submissive minute to submissive minute, cowering and trembling under an oppressive umbrella of indecision and filibustering, yearning to step under the rain cloud of choice and be saturated in the precipitation of independence. But you will never venture from under the canopy of helplessness; settling for an eternity of arid door-mattery.

You’re an automaton. A rag doll to be manipulated by your peers – the puppet masters of your listless destiny of inconclusivitude.

If that sounds like you, then I demand that you unequivocally read our new weekly update where we will arrogantly inform you what the best films are the best films to watch out of this week’s televised films.

BTV (which stands for Bloscars Television adVice, obviously) is your guide to three Academy Award nominated movies to look out for and, if fortune desires it, enjoy over the course of the next seven days.

Juno (2007) Tonight 22.05 More4 (1 win from 4 noms)

Juno, together with Little Miss Sunshine, is the perfect example of Oscar’s recent propensity to recognise smaller movies.

While some commentators view this with inverted snobbery – art-house ‘cineastes’ preferring that the low-budget works are seen by a couple of dozen of patrons, in a protentious frenzy of nose-cutting and face-spiting – most see it as a welcome antidote with brash multi-million dollar blockbusters.

Taking its cue from the grandmother of the indie-spirit, Harold and Maude, Juno charmingly ticks off all of the stock ingredients: sharp, witty script (an Oscar winning one from former stripper Diablo Cody); break out performances from young trendy actors (the delightful Ellen Page as a pregnant teenager and Michael Cera as, you guessed it, a clueless but amiable chump); supporting cameos from reliable old hands (J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney as the young mum-to-be’s refreshingly supine father and stepmother); and an acebutalmostjustalmostcrossingintothemantrapoftwee soundtrack jam-packed with folk-pop.

The film’s power lies in the eponymous bloater’s demise from smart-mouthed teen with confidence beyond her years, to clueless little girl who just wants a cuddle from her dad and to reclaim her rightful existence as a teenager unburdened by responsibility.

Crocodile Dundee (1986) Monday 17.00 Film4 (1 nom)

…and that is all I want to say about that. Worth the Best Original Screenplay nomination alone.

Sunday Afternoon Special

Big (1988) 16.40 Film4 (2 noms)

Big was the very first and, for a while, only video that my eldest brother owned. As such, it got played to death in our house. Which is no bad thing, considering its surprising quality.

The plot is perfect in its simplicity. A boy beseeches a scary looking coin-op gypsy to make him big. And then, the very next morning, he rolls out of bed fully pubic and looking very much like the Tom Hanks.

In a lesser actor’s hands, this would never have made it beyond a weak curiosity. But Hanks is perfect as the juvenile in an adult’s body. Literally living the dream of so many children; he thinks like a child, moves like a child and behaves like a child. Working for a toy company, filling his home space hoppers and basketball nets and getting up to japes like this…

Hanks picked up the first nomination of his current five (he would go on to pick up to in two years for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump but was soundly and rightfully beaten by Dustin Hoffman’s idiot savant in Rain Man.

It would be interesting* to get your thoughts on this week’s films. Have you seen them before? Do you like them or loathe them? Any favourite quotes or scenes? Please feel free to leave spamless inoffensive comments at your will…if you have any.

Enjoy

Bloscars

(* = Bloscars cannot guarantee that your thoughts will be interesting)