They should have won an Oscar

Robert Mitchum: The Night of the Hunter

B&W and only film directed by Charles Laughton (Captain Bly of an early "Mutiny on the Bounty" -- not the one with Mel Gibson <G>) and has Mitchum as the psychotic preacher with L-O-V-E tattoed on one hand and H-A-T-E on the other trying to get $10K hidden by two kids. Unbelievably intense and beyond scary.

Another vote for Bette Davis as Margo Channing,too. Just saw "All About Eve" again the other day on cable: "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night!" Has a great cameo of Marilyn Monroe, too. Here's an exchange with her in "Eve" as Claudia Caswell as the consort of acidic Addison DeWitt (The Wit, get it? perfectly played by Russian-born Brit George Sanders):

[a butler passes by]
Miss Claudia Caswell: Oh, waiter!
Addison DeWitt: That is not a waiter, my dear, that is a butler.
Miss Claudia Caswell: Well, I can't yell "Oh butler!" can I? Maybe somebody's name is Butler.
Addison DeWitt: You have a point. An idiotic one, but a point.
Miss Claudia Caswell: I don't want to make trouble. All I want is a drink.
Max Fabian: Leave it to me. I'll get you one.
Miss Claudia Caswell: Thank you, Mr. Fabian.
Addison DeWitt: Well done! I can see your career rise in the east like the sun.

They don't make films like these anymore.
 
Wornears said:
Robert Mitchum: The Night of the Hunter

Films like this are one of the reasons I toy with subscribing to Netflix. I've never seen it but everytime I read the commentary on it, I know I need to.

Night of the Hunter

Thanks for the nudge. Mitchum is an all time favorite.

(See also "Mr. Moses" & "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison" for other great & offbeat Mitchum films.)
 
My daughter and her boyfriend are big movie buffs, not so much into the older ones like I am, and they've had Netflix for a couple of months and are very pleased with it. I have too many external addictions as it is...
 
Wornears said:
My daughter and her boyfriend are big movie buffs, not so much into the older ones like I am, and they've had Netflix for a couple of months and are very pleased with it. I have too many external addictions as it is...

OT -

We usually just buy the DVD at Best Buy, Wally World, or Amazon when they hit the ~$7 threshold. I figure I'll watch it at least one more time and the rental is near $5 at Blockbuster. My local Blockbuster just closed so Netflix is beginning to look viable.

I had it in 1998 but let it go. What I didn't like is that to really make it economical you need to watch the movies as they come in. We often rent on the weekends, not plow into a film on a Tuesday.
 
I don't know the Oscar pedigree of this film, but it is one of my all-timers:

Orson Wells -- A Touch of Evil

see: http://www.filmsite.org/touc.html

Has Charlton Heston playing a Mexican detective (!!), whose attractive wife is kidnapped by local thugs, and Wells as the long-time corruptible lawman of the border town. This movie is the definition of film noir -- just incredible B&W photography and an opening tracking shot (aka dolly shot) that is unbelievable. Check this out from Wikipedia on "tracking shot"

"Studio mangling by superimposing credits and titles over the opening tracking shot in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil was not resolved until the fourth release of the film."

Wells was not a studio boy, that's for sure, so I doubt he got an Oscar for this film. In fact, according to the link -- the whole film was snubbed. Shows you what the Academy knew.
 
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I love "All about Eve", I haven't seen Sunset Boulevard so I can't comment on whether Bette Davis was robbed or not, but she might be my all-time fave actress. I'm also a fan of "A Touch of Evil", one of the few Orson Welles films you can see the way he meant it to be, or pretty close anyways. There is a deluxe edition of Citizen Kane with documentaries about Welles where you can learn the sad story of his rise and fall, some his own fault, mostly the interference of others. My nomination for the most unjustly snubbed film is "M", a 1931 film by Fritz Lang, who also directed Metropolis, maybe the best silent film. M stars Peter Lorre as a serial child killer, which is probably why Hollywood snubbed the film, along with the fact that it was a German film. The energy in this film and the virtuosic filmaking is unmatched in modern films imo. Fritz Lang had it going on to the nth degree
 
Wornears said:
oops. Sunset Blvd by the incomparable Billy Wilder starred Gloria Swanson as has-been screen star, Norma Desmond, and a young William Holden as her kept man. Very twisted movie and more unmatched B&W photography. See it.

see: http://www.filmsite.org/suns.html

Beat me to it.

"And they fished me gently, ever so gently, from the swimming pool with a pruning hook."

Holden had a lot of great lines over the years but few came close to that one in Sunset.
 
My biggest Oscar disappointment was Ralph Fiennes as Amon Goeth in Schindler's List. He was nominated, but Tommy Lee Jones won that year for The Fugitive. What a joke.

As far as Bladerunner goes, one of my absolute favorite films ever. The narrated version is so much better in my opinion. The monologue that Rutger Hauer delivers at the end in brilliant.
 
How about Marty Scorsese? Nominated for best director many times but never won. Wasn't nominated for Taxi Driver. He's destined for an "honorary" oscar, or has he already got one?
 
Actor Wes Studi should have won an oscar for playing Magua in "Last Of The Mohichans" (1992).

Most credible American Indian portrayal I've ever seen.


Russ
 
Russell Crowe did an outstanding job in 'A Beautiful Mind'. I guess the academy has no problem with bad guys being psycho, but not a good guy.

Tom
 
Akira Kurosawa received an honorary oscar and was nominated once in his career, "Ran" 1986. Here's a list of my favorites of his films, I think they all could be considered nomination worthy and many oscar worthy, obviously oscars have traditionally been a "local" affair. If you haven't seen any do yourself a favor and check out one of the classics from the fifties like 7 samurai, hidden fortress, throne of blood, ikiru, rashomon, etc. And if you haven't heard of Toshiro Mifune he probably had one of the best acting careers ever, so he would go on the snubbed list as well.

Rashomon 1950 (won best foreign film oscar)
Ikiru 1952
Seven Samurai 1954
Throne of Blood 1957
The Hidden Fortress 1958
Yojimbo 1961
High & Low 1963
Red Beard 1965
Dersu Uzala 1975 (won best foreign film oscar)
Kagemusha 1980
Ran 1986
 
donoghue said:
Akira Kurosawa received an honorary oscar and was nominated once in his career, "Ran" 1986. Here's a list of my favorites of his films, I think they all could be considered nomination worthy and many oscar worthy, obviously oscars have traditionally been a "local" affair. If you haven't seen any do yourself a favor and check out one of the classics from the fifties like 7 samurai, hidden fortress, throne of blood, ikiru, rashomon, etc. And if you haven't heard of Toshiro Mifune he probably had one of the best acting careers ever, so he would go on the snubbed list as well.

Rashomon 1950 (won best foreign film oscar)
Ikiru 1952
Seven Samurai 1954
Throne of Blood 1957
The Hidden Fortress 1958
Yojimbo 1961
High & Low 1963
Red Beard 1965
Dersu Uzala 1975 (won best foreign film oscar)
Kagemusha 1980
Ran 1986

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, being that Yojimbo = A Fistful of Dollars, Seven Samurai = The Magnificent Seven, Yojimbo = High Plains Drifter = Last Man Standing and many parts of the original Stars Wars themes, characters, scenes, and imagery were lifted The Hidden Fortress & Yojimbo as well as other Kurosawa films. It shows Kurosawa's mastery of imagery and univeral nature of his work.

Mifune is great as well, very fun to watch.

dew.
 
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