More Oscar Winning Movies

Continuing from my last update... so, I watched 3 more Academy Award winners since then. I have now seen 43 of the 81 films (+1 since the last update with the new addition, No Country for Old Men).

Here are some quick reviews.

In the Heat of the Night

I thought this was a good movie with an decent plot. The movie was racially tense, which kept it interesting. It was basically about a bad ass black homicide detective that somehow found himself helping a racist all-white Southern hick town police department solve a murder. The movie didn't feel dated to me despite its release in 1967.

Sunrise

Okay, so this was the Best Picture winner of the 2nd Annual Academy Awards. Let's just say it was old... and it was silent. Yes, it was a silent film though there was background music and sounds. I'd never seen one before, and I can't really see myself getting into them much. The basic story involves a man who plots to kill his wife so that he can be with his lover. It was a weird story.

One thing that I found interesting was the use of superimposed images to fade out a scene. The film makers really loved using that technique all over the movie. I wonder if it was some new cutting edge special effect for that time period.

I don't really recommend the movie for the movie itself. But, I do encourage viewing it for its historical significance.

All the King's Men

This is one movie that I really liked. It is based on a novel by Robert Penn Warren with the same title. It's about a guy, Willie Stark, who wants to get into politics and do the right things... basically, really help out the people. Well, eventually he makes it, but he becomes just as corrupted as the politicians that he once fought so hard against.

I thought it was a great movie, and the story never got boring. The acting was really good, and the scandalous sub-plot fit well with the overall movie. Anyway, I highly recommend this movie to everyone. There's also a 2006 remake with some big name stars including Sean Penn, Anthony Hopkins, and Jude Law. Maybe I'll go watch that one just to see how differently they did it on the second go-around.

Before I end this, I'll leave you with an interesting and morose piece of trivia about one of the Oscar winning performers in this movie. The actress that played Sadie, Mercedes McCambridge, had a son that got himself into a bit of legal trouble involving finances. Anyway, he ended up murdering his entire family, and then committing suicide. Pretty twisted.