(by Madison)

Experience

Definitely one of the best experiences so far. On vacation in the Outer Banks this summer with my family, everyone had a night to cook dinner and choose the after dinner activity. After our delicious dinner, Raymond and I chose watching our next Best Picture winner for our activity. To make it extra special, we set up our projector and huge screen outside by the pool. We all sat around on lounge chairs, in the hot tub, and in the pool watching Grand Hotel.  I did not fall asleep, but my parents did.

The Movie

This was the first movie we watched with actors I recognized: Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore and brother Lionel. It is set in a “grand” hotel in Berlin and it begins and ends with this quote by one of the guests at the hotel: “Grand Hotel. People come and go. Nothing ever happens.” The statement, however, is ironic because everything is happening at the hotel. The purpose of the movie was for the hotel guests to all have different stories that somehow end up converging with each other throughout the movie. The web of stories include romance of course, theft, and death among a dramatic dancer (Garbo), a Baron (J. Barrymore), a doctor, a dying man, (L. Barrymore), and others.

One problem I had with the movie is that I got confused with who was who, but that was probably just my fault for not paying close attention to names. Some of the men looked similar and the women looked very similar. There are interesting twists throughout while still giving way to the classic protagonist/antagonist struggle.

The movie appropriately ends with the opening quote by the drunk doctor who notices none of these hotel shenanigans.

(By Madison)

Experience

This was another movie we watched in my room on my tiny TV on an August evening. Unlike the others, I think I actually stayed awake through this one!

The Movie

I thought this movie ranked up there with All Quiet… in terms of deepness in plot and character development. Cimarron is adapted from a book by Edna Ferber written in 1929 and was apparently a big budget film despite the depression. It’s about a man who claims a plot of land in the newly opened Oklahoma territory and moves his young wife and baby out there with him (their slave boy stowed himself in the back of the wagon because he wanted to move with them).The family quickly becomes the most prominent family in their new town where they own and publish the town gazette and the man (Yancey) is a sort of town head or lawyer as well. The movie follows years and years of their life in the town and their successes despite disputes with other town members and, of course, Indians. I was not expecting any huge plot twists so I was shocked when Yancey learns of a new frontier and tells his wife he must go. I’ll have to stop there so as not to spoil the rest of the movie. The development of Yancey’s wife’s character from this point on was my favorite part of the movie.

I found the film to be incredibly true to history. At the time, I was working on a research project about World’s Fairs and how influential they were in the US at first, and at one point in the movie the ladies mentioned the fashion from Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 and I just loved that. Other than that, I think it accurately portrayed the sentiments of possibility and opportunity (sadly even racism) felt in America in that decade and beyond.

Raymond’s Inputs

Yay! Thank you Madison for writing! It looks like we are all caught up now and can continue our quest!

I wanted to add to this review because I also particularly enjoyed this movie. The character development, plot twists, and historical relevance all contributed to a great experience.

The issue I wanted to add a bit more about was the racism as portrayed in the film. First off, the character of the slave boy is portrayed as simple minded, outspoken, always singing gospel songs — it is not exactly a favorable portrayal, and is very stereotypical. The boy is even the subject of some mistreatment and ridicule in the movie itself, so the film combines an unfavorable portrayal of the boy with an actual depiction of racism.

In the film’s defense, Yancey — the protagonist — is something that must have been rare at the time. Yancey is shown as genuinely caring for the boy, is respectful to the Indians and even embraces a marriage between one of the characters in the movie and an Indian, in spite of the rest of the town looking down upon the marriage. Yancey is also sympathetic to a woman with the reputation of being a prostitute, and the local outlaws. Despite his wife disagreeing with him, he states that its no fault of the individuals that they are in their condition — he blames it solely on the social order of the time.

I could not help but think this was rather progressive, and was not really something I expected from the movie. While the portrayals of the minority characters were rather stereotypical, the dialogue in the film seemed to push the idea that everyone should be treated with respect, regardless of the circumstances they are in.

It was a very interesting movie, and I would highly recommend it next time you are in on a rainy night and looking for something to watch.

Prequel

Its hard to believe that Madison never saw All Quiet on the Western Front.  This movie would not be hard to find, but still we decided to join Netflix to help support us in our journey.  This way, we would not be searching around for hard-to-get movies, or waiting for people to return them to libraries so we could check them out.  We signed up for the 2 DVDs per month plan, and unfortunately haven’t even been using that much.  We also haven’t watched a single thing online either.  We need to start approaching this quest more seriously if we ever plan to finish.  It has been a busy few months tho, with Madison working at Comcast, me starting grad school, the holidays, and the whole house thing.

This post is long overdue, as we watched this movie forever ago, but I still want to document it.  Otherwise this whole thing is just going to fall apart.

Experience

This is another movie we watched at my parent’s house, not too long after we watched The Broadway Melody. All Quiet on the Western Front is a classic, and a movie that I thoroughly enjoyed watching again.  Unfortunately for Madison, she fell asleep watching it, and we ended up finishing it the next morning.  To her defense, it is a long movie.

The Movie

The movie itself is amazing.  Its based on a book by Erich Maria Remarque.  It is a story about kids in a school in Germany who are swept up with patriotic spirit and inspired to leave school and join the military during World War I.  After training they are deployed into the trenches, where they become demoralized.  There are food shortages, rats, disease, rain, and they are always being shelled and rarely seeing combat.  One of the soldiers ends up hiding with a dying enemy soldier in a trench, where he comes to the realization that their enemy is just like them, and no one wants to be there.

The movie captures the horrifying realities of war, and is a stark contrast to the first movie on our list, Wings.  War for these kids was not about the glory and honor that it was made out to be — it was about suffering, demoralization, and carnage.

I do not think my summary of this movie can do the film justice, so I will just leave it at this:  This movie is a must-see to all of you who (like Madison) have never seen the film.  So far, it has been the first dark and depressing movie on the list, and definitely the best.  We home for many more movies like this to come!

Experience

The Broadway Melody .  It was a movie that neither Madison nor I had seen, and the first movie we got through our new Netflix subscription. We watched it at Madison’s house over the summer, while we drank a bottle of wine.  We had to watch it in her room too, because that was the only place with air conditioning.

The movie

Oh the movie.  The movie was everything I think of when I think of old movies:  hammy acting, simple story lines, and a play within a movie. With a title like The Broadway Melody, it would be hard to expect anything more than that.

Apparently the movie was filmed in Technicolor (perhaps this had something to do with it winning the award) but the Technicolor version was lost somehow, and only the black and white one survived.

Perhaps this storyline was somewhat original at the time, but here it goes — prepare to not be unimpressed:  A sister act moves from a small town to the big city to hit it big on Broadway!  Woooow!

Hahah, as I am writing this, I decided to ask my Gods (Wikipedia) about the movie to get some of the character names, and what to I find, but a hilarious quote that confirms everything we thought about the movie:  “weak, cliché-ridden, and overly melodramatic.”  Hahahaha!  The multitude of authors (this is Wikipedia afterall) goes on to say that even at the time the movie was released, it was considered as such.  So there you have it.  Its a feel good movie that reminds me of 42nd Street.  Only not as cool.  Hahaha, and the title song “The Broadway Melody” is repeated throughout, and not nearly as catchy as anything from 42nd Street.

And for the record, if you can’t get enough, MGM released three ’sequels’ — all with the same title.

So, since the movie was kind of lame, I have decided to summarize it from the point of view of one of the main characters, Hank.

“Look at me!  I can sing!  Its the Broadway melodyyyyyyyy!‘!! I’m such a big shot”

“A new sister act is in town!  They are good too!  Lets put them in the show, because I fell in love with the older one at first sight”

“Wow, I’m bored with the older one.  And her little sister is WAAAAY hotter than she is, I am in love with her now!”

“Dammit, the little sister won’t date me because she cares about her older sister?  What kind of crap is this?  And why is she dating that douchebag?  Its obvious she really does not like him.”

“Yay, everyone finally came around!  I’m going to marry Queenie, the hotter, younger, more talented little sister!  Yaaaaay!”

Oh shoot, I think I just spoiled the movie for you.  But I guess thats okay, because I don’t think anyone would watch it for the storyline.

I wonder what this movie would have been like if it happened in real life.  I guess Madison is happy she doesn’t have a hot little sister…

This is a long delayed blog entry.  Back at the beginning of the summer, Madison, Alicia, and I watched Sunrise:  A Song of Two Humans.  We found the movie on VHS at Drexel’s Library, and had to watch it at my parent’s house because we did not have access to a VHS player anywhere else.

To spice up the event, we busted out a bottle of tequila and some fruit mixers.  Once we had the cold drinks ready to go, we sat down on the couch and started watching the olympics.  Track and field was on, and all three of us had trouble turning it off.  When we finally got bored it was time for the movie.

Sunrise, the second movie on our list, won the 1927-1928 award for Most Artistic Quality of Production.  This, like the award for Most Outstanding Production given to Wings, was only presented during the first year of the Academy Awards and is regarded as the equivalent of best picture.

This time, Madison and I knew what we were getting into, watching another full-length silent film.  Alicia thought it was strange and took a while to get used to it.  Madison and I settled right in.  She did fall asleep toward the end, but I managed to survive this one.

The story was a lot more bizarre than the first.  A man and his wife live a simple life in the countryside, but a sexy visitor from the city shakes things up the husband starts having an affair with her.

Lets just say 1927 silent film sex scenes are bizarre to say the least.  The husband could use some lessons in romance and treating women better.  The scene was pretty funny though.

So, being the she-devil that she is, a tramp from the city, convinces the husband to kill his wife so he can be with her.  He decided this is a good idea.  He will convince her to go on a boat-ride with him and he will drown her!  PERFECT PLAN!  Kill your wife and run off with the hot girl!

As soon as he decides to kill his wife, his demeanor changes, and he starts to move around eratically and avoid eye contact — he looked a lot like Frankenstein.

I don’t want to spoil the movie, but it is really not a suprise that he decides not to kill his wife.  Instead, after an awkward attempt at killing her which he bails out on, he takes her to the city.  They have a wonderful time filled with taking pictures with eachother, going to a carnival, dancing, and getting into a lot more humorous situations — such as chasing a pig around the fair.

Then, at the end of the day, it starts storming and they have to take the boat back accross the lake (drunk) and run into trouble. Here, I will not spoil the ending, as it was not something I expected at all.
Overall, the movie was far more entertaining than Wings. Wings was too much of a feel good pro-America war movie to fully entertain me — Sunrise on the other hand, was darker with a more interesting story line.

There were obvious fable-like morals being broadcast throughout the movie, the kind of simplicity and moral fortitude you would expect from something filmed in 1927.  Overall it was a better movie than Wings, but I am glad that from here on out there will be sound!

Wings is a silent film from 1927 that won the Academy Award for Most Outstanding Production, an award that existed only that year, prior to the existence of Best Picture.  The storyline is trite:  It is a story of a woman, Mary, who loves a man that is in love with another woman, a city girl who had interests only in money.  Mary and he were neighbors as children and always very close.  She always had a crush on him, but he never did on her.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that in the end, that Mary would win the man over and they would be together.  The plot also takes some highly unlikely and laughable twists to make this happen.

We laughed as we watched the movie, and marveled at the simplicity of its story line.  The acting was what is to be expected from an old silent film — exaggerated and simple.  The dogfight scenes in the movie are particularly impressive, especially when you take into consideration that there wasn’t the technology back then to simulate the footage.  These scenes are the only time we ever felt as though we were watching something epic.  And epic they were.  They alone make the movie worth watching.

Watching a silent film was also an experience.  I will admit that we both fell asleep at different times throughout the film.  The predictable series of events did not exactly arouse our interest and curiosity.  And it was late.

Overall, we enjoyed the experience.  Watching a full-length silent film was a unique experience and catching a glimpse into 1927 pop culture was even more exciting. The film had a very “pro-american” bias to it, with lines such as “Swift and straight as arrows of vengeance came the two Americans…” dominating the commentary during fight scenes.

Here are a couple quotes from the movie, so you can get an idea of how epic the dialog was.  We still quote these on occasion:

“D’you know what you can do when you see a shooting star?  You can kiss the girl you love.”

“She has bubbles even in ‘er eyes – she wins – “

The Academy Award for Best Picture is awarded to the film that is determined to be the best movie produced in that calendar year.  The award takes into consideration the writing, direction, production, cinematography, acting, costumes, dancing, music, and all other aspects of the film.

In 2007, I was 23 years old, and I sat watching the Academy Awards by myself in my room as I worked on schoolwork.  The Academy was celebrating 80 years of the ceremony, and did so with a montage of every best picture film since 1927.  I put down my pen to watch, only to realize I had not seen a majority of these films.  This thought brewed in the back of mind for a few days, until it came up in conversation with my girlfriend.  She said that she too had not seen most of the films.  So, on that day, we resolved to watch every picture, starting from the beginning, that we had not seen.  It was to be an epic quest, but thanks to local libraries and Netflix, it was definitely attainable.

So we started by compiling what we affectionately referred to as “The List”.  We went through and checked off every movie we had seen.  And so it began…

The following table lists all the winners.  An ‘X’ under our names indicates we saw the film together.  An ‘O’ indicates that we had already seen the movie before we started this quest.

Two films are listed for 1928 because there was no best picture award that year, but rather two equivalent awards, Most Outstanding Production and Most Artistic Quality of Production, won by Wings and Sunrise, respectively.  Both of these films are silent films.