Thursday Movie Picks - Oscar-Nominated Movies That Should Have Won

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join us by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them - it's easy and fun!

Well, as I mentioned just yesterday, the most wonderful time of year is upon us: OSCAR NIGHT! I wish I were a little more excited for this Sunday's ceremony, but... well, this season has turned into one of those years where all the precursors are in lockstep, and this year is so much richer than having the same winners over and over would have us believe.

But, in order for somebody or something to win an award, others must lose, and that's what we're focusing on today: movies that were nominated for an Oscar that should have won. In my opinion, of course, since it's my blog. For the purposes of today, I'm focusing solely on Best Picture just to lessen the list of potentials a bit. And look, even narrowing it down to just the big award, there were PLENTY I could have picked. But let's be honest: In one of the early years of this new millennium, the Academy made one of their worst choices for Best Picture when they instead could have made one of their best. Just imagine looking at a ballot with ANY of the following three films on it and saying, "Nah, A Beautiful Mind was better than that!"

Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001) Quite brilliantly taking the piss out of the classic British Manor House Murder Mystery on its head, Altman works his customary magic with perhaps the best ensemble he's ever had (after Nashville of course, because nothing is better than Nashville). Julian Fellowes's screenplay is just delectable, the performances are indelible (witness the genesis of Downton Abbey's Dowager Countess in Maggie Smith's Oscar-nominated performance), and the costumes and sets are, of course, gorgeous. It's one of the best films of Altman's career, and given his filmography, that's saying something!

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001) Stupid, silly Academy "waiting until the third LOTR film to honor the whole trilogy." This is even sillier in hindsight, since the first of the trilogy is still the best. The world-building here is just jaw-dropping, expanding outward throughout while somehow never overwhelming the whole endeavor. That the film works as both first chapter and as a stand-alone film as well as it does is a testament not only to Tolkein's source material, but to Peter Jackson's meticulous, gorgeous direction: This is a big gosh-darned MOVIE movie, one that latches onto the ability of cinema to transport us to new worlds and then goes full-speed ahead, completely immersing us in Middle Earth. Gorgeously designed, flawlessly edited, beautifully scored, and powerfully performed, this is the greatest fantasy film ever made. (It's also the first movie I saw more than once in theaters, so you can probably guess which of these three was my pick to win...)

Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001) Baz Luhrmann's dizzying whirligig of a musical is certainly the MOST movie of 2001, but it's also the most visionary. A bit of Old Hollywood razzle-dazzle by way of the ADD-afflicted MTV generation, Moulin Rouge! throws a century's worth of pop culture and cinematic tropes into a blender, mixes it all up, and comes up with an elemental story (penniless writer falls in love with consumptive courtesan-with-a-heart-of-gold) in phantasmagorical gilded-age dressing and an almost punk-rock attitude. It's too much at first, but by the time Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman are singing a medley of love songs at each other on top of a giant elephant as CGI fireworks explode all around them, the film has swept you off your feet into its mad embrace, causing an intoxicating head rush you won't ever want to escape.

Thursday Movie Picks - Downstairs People

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun - a new year's the best time to start something new! - by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a little something about them.

A new year, a new slate of Thursday Movie Picks! Wanderer has kindly posted this year's schedule, including a couple of topics suggested by yours truly! For this week, we're talking about the Downstairs folk. As in Upstairs/Downstairs. So, maids, butlers, kitchen staff... your Daisys, your Mrs. Hugheses, your Annas and Mr. Bateses... sorry, Downton Abbey just started a new season and I'm back to being obsessed again. Anyway, to the task at hand, this week's picks! Join me on this journey through history...

Farewell, My Queen (Benoît Jacquot, 2012) Sidonie Laborde is a servant in the court of Marie Antoinette. She's just gotten a promotion of sorts to be the Queen's reader. Even as things start to fall apart in France, Sidonie stays by the Queen's side, seeing life in the court and life in the servants' quarters from an increasingly unique perspective. Jacquot's film is notable, and all the more enjoyable, for showing us what life was like behind the curtain of the royal court - has there been another film that showed life in the servants' quarters of a grand palace? Plus, Léa Seydoux and Diane Kruger give excellent performances as Sidonie and Marie Antoinette, respectively.

Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001) Turns out, there's a hierarchy among downstairs folk that mimics that of the upstairs folk! Who knew? The lives of the downstairs side of the Upstairs/Downstairs equation is the real hook to Julian Fellowes's script, not the barely-even-solved murder mystery. Well, that and the performances by that murderer's row of great British thespians. Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith may have gotten the Oscar nominations, but Clive Owen, Kelly MacDonald, Emily Watson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Michael Gambon, Stephen Fry, and even Ryan Phillippe (among MANY others) do excellent work.

Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939) Poor, poor Mammy. Oh, how she tries to help Scarlett O'Hara get through the South's loss during the Civil War. Lord only knows why she even stays with her afterwards, given that Scarlett is a right bitch to anyone that isn't named Scarlett or Ashley, but she does. Maybe it's to look after Prissy, who, let's face it, is kind of useless. I mean, REALLY. She doesn't know NOTHING about birthin' no babies?!? There's no use beating around the bush: Gone With the Wind is both glorious and maddening in equal measure, and I'm never quite sure on which side of that fence I stand. But hey, it's still the All-Time Box Office Champion when adjusting for inflation (and nothing will ever touch it), and there's good reason for that.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - 3 Women

I have a deep and abiding affection for Shelley Duvall (due to far too many viewings of Faerie Tale Theatre when I was young), Sissy Spacek (due to Carrie), and Robert Altman (due to Gosford Park), so it was a given that I would eventually make my way to 3 Women. It sits in an interesting place in all three of their filmographies: Altman had recently done Nashville, Spacek had just done Carrie, and Duvall was about to do The Shining. Spacek, for one, certainly comes into the film looking quite a lot like a resurrected Carrie White:

She's watching you!

All buttoned-up with those big, innocent eyes taking everything in with a keen curiosity - and perhaps a slight bit of malevolence.

Believe it or not (and I still have a hard time believing this), Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall were the same age when they filmed this: 28 years old. It seems even more impossible when watching how they act opposite each other, especially when they're in a bar and Sissy's Pinky Rose (née Mildred) adds some salt to a beer to make more foam, blows it off, and then drinks the whole damn thing. Or better yet, just compare the above image of Spacek in this film to the below of Duvall's Millie (née Mildred):

"I'm good enough, I'm pretty enough, and doggone it, people like me!"

They have similar body types - long and willowy with huge eyes, but I never in a millions years would have guessed they were both EXACTLY the same age.

Also, just to digress slightly for a bit, but someone needs to tell me how Duvall's Millie Lammoreaux isn't the biggest goddamn gay icon in the world. First there are the FABULOUS yellow ensembles (like the above which she puts on for a dinner party), then there is the CONSTANT chatter with anyone around without a care for whether or not they're listening, and the OBSESSION with women's magazines and throwing dinner parties with "fancy" food and just fabulosity in general, and FINALLY, there is the tragic downfall, complete with AMAZING cry-face:

Claire Danes could never

Let's face it people: Shelley Duvall's Millie Lammoreaux is a lost gay icon, and we need to bring her back.

But anyway, back to the issue at hand: Picking the Best Shot.

I had not seen 3 Women before this, and it was somehow both more conventional and far weirder than I had been led to expect. It's certainly enigmatic, as I suppose befits a film that was based on a dream the director had and adapted to a treatment which he planned to shoot without a script. It also contains one of the most stunning dream sequences ever put on film. But it's all pretty straightforward until the last scene, which is so ambiguous that even the director claims to not know what it means. It's almost a prototype version of Single White Female, with Spacek as the girl who becomes obsessed with Duvall enough to take over her life, but it's also not that at all, really. It seems to me to be more about identity itself than the stealing of it.

Actually, the film it reminded me most of wasn't Single White Female, or Persona (which it has also been likened to, perhaps more accurately), but rather Jonathan Glazer's recent Under the Skin, in which Scarlett Johansson is an alien trying a human being on for size. Even as she is focused on her task of seducing men to do... something... to them, she shows a genuine curiosity about her prey and the race to which they belong. For the first half of 3 Women, Spacek gave a performance that felt very much like that, observing the actions of everyone around her, trying to understand what they mean, and trying to imitate them for a bit. She becomes fascinated by a pair of twins, wondering out loud if they switch roles each day and what it must be like. In my pick for best shot, she follows them as they leave work for the day, maybe a little too closely, and eventually starts walking exactly in step with them.

Best Shot

This is what it feels like to be a twin - to be exactly the same as someone else. She tries it on for size, decides she's gotten enough, and goes on her merry way. And then later on she decides (or perhaps she has already decided) she wants to be exactly like Millie - or does she? The film plays it coy about whether or not Pinky "becoming" Millie is a plot or if Pinky is just suffering from some kind of head trauma, but it's unsettling to watch nonetheless (not as unsettling as Under the Skin, mind you, but still...), and Duvall nails the feelings of fear, depression, and being lost that comes with the potential loss of identity.

(The film also gains a lot of horror from the casting, as Carrie White is pretty much the last person anyone would want obsessing over them - who knows what she'd do if you pissed her off?)

I'm not sure the film has a "titular" three women, although the ending would suggest it's Pinky, Millie, and Janice Rule's Willie. But there are many combinations of three women in the film, including plenty of shots of one woman reflected/refracted into three... and not to mention the women in the striking, haunting murals Willie is always painting. But this was the shot of three that stood out to me the most, and that is most likely to have an effect on my dreams.

BONUS: I don't usually post my "runner-up" Best Shots, but I just have to mention this shot of Janice Rule, which shook me to my core:

The still frame doesn't do it justice, but in motion, there was something about it that was absolutely haunting... and again reminded me of Under the Skin (I'm sorry - I saw that thing a month ago and it has taken up permanent residence in my brain. I still can't shake it - Nathaniel, can we PLEASE do it for next season of Hit Me With Your Best Shot?).