1954 BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR!

This is my choice (choices) for Best Picture for the year 1954.  My criteria is that I can only use films that are on the 1001 list. To make it a little easier on myself, I am using the rules of the first Academy Award and name a winner for Best Picture (won by Wings for 1927-1928) and Best and Unique and Artistic Picture (won by Sunrise from 1927-1928). 

This year is often noted as being the best year of the Classic Movie era. There are a lot of potential choices here, but my two winners seem pretty clear.

And the nominees on the entries from every edition of 1001 Movie You Must See Before You Die are...
Johnny Guitar
On the Waterfront
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Les Diaboliques
Animal Farm
Rear Window
A Star is Born
The Barefoot Contessa
La Strada
Senso
Silver Lode
Carmen Jones
Sansho the Baliff
Salt of the Earth

                    

And the winner for the Best Picture of 1954 is…Rear Window

Rear Window

In Rear Window, Stewart plays Jeff Jeffries, a photographer with a broken leg and an impossibly beautiful society girlfriend (Grace Kelly) who likes to bitch at him about his lifestyle and talk about eating at Twenty-One. Jeffries has little to do but sit around his apartment and spy on his neighbors, who seem to, luckily for the movie audience, not believe in curtains. We, the viewer, get to put ourselves in the postion of Jeffries, also the viewer, and live vicariously through him. Of course, he witnesses foul play from one of these neighbors and putting together the puzzle pieces as to what is going on is most of the fun in one of my favorite Hitchcock movies.

Rear Window

And the Award for Unique and Artistic Picture of 1954 is...The Seven Samurai

The Seven Samurai

I had never seen an Akira Kurosawa movie until about fifteen years ago when I decided to finally pick up a copy of The Seven Samurai from the Criterion Collection. And after my viewing, I have to admit I was blown away. It's definitely on the short list of greatest films of all-time by any definition. 

It's the story of seven samurai warriors hired by villagers to save their village from the onslaught of oncoming bandits. It's great as an adventure film, a philosophical treatise of good vs. evil, right and wrong and there are so many stories within the film's many characters, that one can watch it many times and always get something new out of it. I liked it watching it for the third or fourth time this time out and hope not to wait so long before watching it again.

The Seven Samurai was remade in America as The Magnificent Seven, but that film pales when put up against the original in my opinion.

The Seven Samurai

1952 BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR!

This is my choice (choices) for Best Picture for the year 1952.  My criteria is that I can only use films that are on the 1001 list. To make it a little easier on myself, I am using the rules of the first Academy Award and name a winner for Best Picture (won by Wings for 1927-1928) and Best and Unique and Artistic Picture (won by Sunrise from 1927-1928). 

This year is often noted as being the best year of the Classic Movie era. There are a lot of potential choices here, but my two winners seem pretty clear.

And the nominees on the entries from every edition of 1001 Movie You Must See Before You Die are...
The Quiet Man
Forbidden Games
Angel Face
Singin' in the Rain
Ikiru
Europa '51
The Bad and the Beautiful
The Big Sky
High Noon
Umberto D
The Golden Coach

                  

And the winner for the Best Picture of 1952 is…Singin' in the Rain

Singin' in the Rain

This most famous of musicals is a pretty interesting piece to see after just seeing the recent Oscar-winning film The Artist cover similar terrain.

The plot of Singin' in the Rain involves two silent movie stars who have trouble adjusting to the new "talking" picture phenomenon. It's funniest moments involve either Jean Hagen and her grating voice or Gene Kelly's sidekick Donald O'Connor.

Kelly's mammoth Broadway Melody number is memorable,though his waterlogged rendition of the title song is such a part of movie lore it overshadows virutally everything else. However, I still am giving this the nod over worthwhile contenders The Bad and the Beautiful and High Noon.

Singin' in the Rain

And the Award for Unique and Artistic Picture of 1952 is...Ikiru

Ikiru

Ikiru is a story that seems to look better the older you get. The plot involves a by-the-book office manager who finds out he has only a few months to live and decides to do something meaningful with his life. It doesn't sound all that exciting by the description, but it is in an emotionally charged and inspirational film if you are in the right mood for it. The unusual storytelling order with the last half of the movie being told in flashback is another effective touch.

Ikiru

1950 BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR!

This is my choice (choices) for Best Picture for the year 1950.  My criteria is that I can only use films that are on the 1001 list. To make it a little easier on myself, I am using the rules of the first Academy Award and name a winner for Best Picture (won by Wings for 1927-1928) and Best and Unique and Artistic Picture (won by Sunrise from 1927-1928). 

Some great ones to choose from this year.

And the nominees on the entries from every edition of 1001 Movie You Must See Before You Die are...
Orpheus
The Ashphalt Jungle
Rashomon
Winchester '73
Rio Grande
All About Eve
Sunset Boulevard
Los Olvidados
In a Lonely Place

                    

And the winner for the Best Picture of 1950 is…Sunset Boulevard

Sunset Boulevard

Sunset Boulevard is the story of the over-the-hill movie the star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) and her kept young man (William Holden) is part film noir, part Hollywood tell-all, part horror movie sprinkled with just a dash of camp. Wilder and Charles Brackett's screenplay is smart and sharp and the casting of the three leads (Erich Von Stoehim being the third) is perfect.

I admit that this film does make me think of the Carol Burnett skits that featured Burnett (as Norma) and Harvey Korman (as Max). Some may also think of Glenn Close's turn as Norma on Broadway in the musical version of the story. Or might make you think of a drag queen performing as Norma Desmond at a night club near you. 

Regardless, Sunset Boulevard in its original form is a must see for any movie buff.

The actual Academy winner All About Eve, The Asphalt Jungle and In a Lonely Place might have been my choice if they had come out in different years. Oh, well. 

Sunset Boulevard

And the Award for Unique and Artistic Picture of 1950 is...Rashomon

Rashomon

After that first time I watched The Seven Samurai, I felt compelled to watch other Kurosawa movies and thought Rashomon was a good place to continue. Rashomon is a film whose very title has become a part of our language when a situation arises that involves competing and contradictory points of view. The presentation of this drama with its four (maybe five) stories really is food for thought about how we perceive things. If anyone asks me where to start with Kurosawa movies, I'd probably recommend Rashomon first before jumping into The Seven Samurai.

Rashomon

RASHOMON (1950, JAPAN), IKIRU (1952, JAPAN), THE SEVEN SAMURAI (1954, JAPAN), DERSU UZALA (1974, RUSSIA)

The Seven Samurai

I had never seen an Akira Kurosawa movie until about fifteen years ago when I decided to finally pick up a copy of The Seven Samurai from the Criterion Collection. And after my viewing, I have to admit I was blown away. It's definitely on the short list of greatest films of all-time by any definition. 

It's the story of seven samurai warriors hired by villagers to save their village from the onslaught of oncoming bandits. It's great as an adventure film, a philosophical treatise of good vs. evil, right and wrong and there are so many stories within the film's many characters, that one can watch it many times and always get something new out of it. I liked it watching it for the third or fourth time this time out and hope not to wait so long before watching it again.

The Seven Samurai was remade in America as The Magnificent Seven, but that film pales when put up against the original in my opinion.

Rashomon

After that first time I watched The Seven Samurai, I felt compelled to watch other Kurosawa movies and thought Rashomon was a good place to continue. Rashomon is a film whose very title has become a part of our language when a situation arises that involves competing and contradictory points of view. The presentation of this drama with its four (maybe five) stories really is food for thought about how we perceive things. If anyone asks me where to start with Kurosawa movies, I'd probably recommend Rashomon first before jumping into The Seven Samurai.

Ikiru

Ikiru is a story that seems to look better the older you get. The plot involves a by-the-book office manager who finds out he has only a few months to live and decides to do something meaningful with his life. It doesn't sound all that exciting by the description, but it is in an emotionally charged and inspirational film if you are in the right mood for it. The unusual storytelling order with the last half of the movie being told in flashback is another effective touch.

I've watched many other Kurosawa films doing his great period between the late 40's and mid 60's, including: Druken Angel, The Idiot (based on the Dostoevsky story), Throne of Blood (A variation of Macbeth), The Hidden Fortress (One of the inspirations for Star Wars), The Bad Sleep Well (which contains elements of Hamlet), High and Low (a very effective crime story), The Lower Depths (based on Maxim Gorky's story),  Yojimbo (Samurai film remade by Sergio Leone as A Fistful of Dollars), Sanjuro (the sequel to Yojimbo) and Red Beard.

This is quite an impressive list of films and compares to the prominent works of Alfred Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman that they made during roughly the same time period.

It's also interesting to see Kurosawa's acting stock company in all of these films, all starring Toshiro Mifune (With the exception of Ikiru.)

Dersu Uzala

Completing the movies from the Kurosawa 1001 list, Dersu Uzala is a film Kurosawa made in 1975 in Russia and is about an early 20th century tribesman who becomes a frequent guide over time for a band on explorers. There is a lot of peril that the tribesman has to find to get the guys out of and they come to respect and revere him over time. The saddest moment in the film is towards the end when the tribesman tries to live in the city, but can't adjust to these strange people that live "in a box." This is a good film, but I can't say I liked it as much as some of the director's classics from the 50's and 60's.

I've already seen Kurosawa's Ran, and this 1985 Samurai version of King Lear seems to be the one film by consensus of his later films that rate as highly as his older classics.