And now we come to our Oscars week, beginning with Best Picture of the Year - after all, I've reviewed every other movie I watched this year, why not review the Big Five?
These were the Big Five of 1990:
And these are my takes, counting down from my fifth choice to my top choice:
5. The Godfather: Part III
Francis Ford Coppola, producer
fifth and final nomination in this category; Golden Globe nominee for Best Picture - Drama
The Godfather is a masterpiece. The Godfather: Part II is well-made but, to me, is uneven and mostly a subtle cash grab. The Godfather: Part III cannot even bother to be consistent with the personalities and mythos established with the other two, an unsubtle cash grab. Connie Corleone takes an active part in family affairs, Sonny has an illegitimate son who acts like Sonny, and Tom Hagen can't make it but hey, now we we have two characters half-performing his duties. It somewhat works when focusing less on the actual plot - in this case, Michael trying to go legit but in doing so entangling himself with the modern mafia that is the Vatican while sorting the manipulations and betrayals of an old family friend (whom we've never seen before) - and more on Al Pacino monologuing about his regrets, King Lear-ing all over the place while he makes confession (the movie's greatest scene, the moment that made me sit up and pay attention) and tries to repair things with Kate. Almost three hours and only three scenes worth discussing, I don't call that worthwhile - and I tell you what, everyone in the cast looks just as miserable to be there as I am watching it. It's competent, it's handsomely mounted, it just doesn't have heart.
4. Dances with Wolves
Kevin Costner / Jim Wilson, producers
their only nomination in this category; Golden Globe winner for Best Picture - Drama, National Board of Review's Best Picture of 1990, PGA Awards winner for Best Picture; BAFTA Award nominee for Best Film, LAFCA Awards runner-up for Best Picture
I go back and forth. I cannot resent its win for Best Picture because so much of it works; I cannot entirely endorse its win because, like The Godfather Part II, it is constructed more as a testament to its filmmaker than it is as a testament to the story it's telling. At least, that's the only reason I can think of as to why it takes almost an hour to get Costner's Lt. Dunbar talking to the Lakota Sioux, lest we lose out on any of his gazing, any closeups of his thinking; it's why we take so long to watch Dunbar suffer under the white man and anguish at the plight of the buffalo. By contrast, his learning the Lakota language, his romance with the white-born but Lakota-raised Stands with a Fist, his slow friendship with the indigenous people: the patience with which all that is told is quite moving, realistic, effective. There's nothing missing here, just the emphasis sometimes gets lopsided so that one feels less the emotion, more the budget. Still, if you're not moved to tears by Wind In His Hair's proclamation at the end, my God, are you stone?
3. Awakenings
Walter F. Parkes / Lawrence Lasker, producers
Parkes' and Lasker's second and final nomination together; National Board of Review's Top Ten Films of 1990
The kind of premise that could get mawkish, especially with the Based On A True Story hook. It comes close but its commitment to the reality of miracles keeps it from crossing that line. It is a heartsrings movie, with people seeing hope for a cure ultimately disappointed, a glimpse of heaven all too brief and quickly snatched away. It offers the negatives and the positives simultaneously: think of the tears shed when De Niro's mother communicates with her boy for the first time in decades coupled with your own frustration with her not allowing him to just date and explore the world - and it's all valid! Makes an interesting observation, often missed, about how time can't be frozen, you can't go back, you can appreciate all that came before but you must live in the now. That is the natural state of things.
2. Ghost
Lisa Weinstein
only nomination; Golden Globe nominee for Best Picture - Musical/Comedy
Maybe unfair because this is the nominee I've seen the most, but it's also the only nominee I've wanted to watch as often as I have. It has a unique balance of should-be disparate tones that mesh beautifully together to reflect how random, ridiculous, tragic, and ultimately hopeful the cycle of life, love, and death are - with love, of course, more eternal, more infinite than the passing of the flesh. Tony Goldwyn's in a thriller, Demi Moore's in a romantic drama, Whoopi Goldberg's in a comedy, and Patrick Swayze is in all three: ah, the human experience, how beautiful it is. I can watch this again and again - and I have - and I continue to find new things to appreciate about it...like the grace notes Stephen Root provides in his single scene as a detective sympathetic to Moore's grief but willing to play along with what he believes are her delusions - you know he's experienced all this before, personally and professionally. Such a lovely movie.
1. GoodFellas
Irwin Winkler
fourth and final nomination in this category; BAFTA Award winner for Best Film, LAFCA Awards winner for Best Picture, NYFCC Awards winner for Best Film; Golden Globe nominee for Best Picture - Drama, National Board of Review's Top Ten Films of 1990
An entertaining crowdpleaser that never forgets that its subjects are horrible, no one should want to imitate them. The fact that Henry Hill “always wanted to be a gangster” is our first clue that he’s a sleazeball, a phony, a man who, in his wildest imagination, can only dream as far as the end of the street. While you’re laughing - “you’re gonna let ‘im talk to you like that?” - while you’re in awe of the use of music, camera, and montage - the “Layla” sequence - the fun is always stopped cold by an act of brutality that shakes you. It’s haunting…and highly rewatchable.
Tomorrow, I run down the nominees for Best Supporting Actress: Annette Bening (The Grifters), Lorraine Bracco (GoodFellas), Whoopi Goldberg (Ghost), Diane Ladd (Wild at Heart), and Mary McDonnell (Dances with Wolves).
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