I’ve seen most of these movies this time, so we’ll bring back the ‘other nominees’ post. What glorious days! What excellent times are these, that we may discuss movies that were nominated for Best Picture but did not win them. What lost souls! What annals of time, once thought lost, are now reawakened! We honor these forgotten films, these dead, may they be remembered.
I get no information here. None whatsoever. There are two people? They….they are around water at some point? Nothing. This movie might as well be about mermaids for all I know. Is it…is it about mermaids?
AWAKENINGS: Directed by Penny Marshall, 88% on Rotten Tomatoes
Except this one. I didn’t see this one. Continue to forget this movie.
GHOST: Directed by Jerry Zucker, 74% on Rotten Tomatoes
Ghost, not to be confused with Ghost Dad, (It also came out in 1990, so I understand if you got them confused. I did at first!) is one of those movies that everybody has a sort of idea about, but nobody ever particularly…wants to see. You all know about the concept of holding somebody from behind and making pottery with them. Everybody gets that Patrick Swayze possesses Whoopi Goldberg so that he can have sex with Demi Moore. Do we know this because we’ve seen the movie, or because it’s been referenced and re-referenced so many times that it has become a part of the public consciousness, swimming in the memory stream where anybody can access it. Ghost is a weird movie for this to happen, because apart from its goofy presence, it isn’t really a movie of note.
This whole enshrining in the pop culture zeitgeist (literally: ‘spirit of the time’. It was a ghost pun! I am clever) thing is remarkably fascinating to me, though I cannot imagine anybody else caring in particular. I just love the idea that a physical action (making pottery) is so eternally connected with this movie that you cannot ever really separate the two. It’s been parodied more times than people have seen the movie. Community had a whole episode whose major plot revolved around how all-encompassing this reference is. A person who has never seen this movie can have about as good an idea of what happened in it as somebody who has.
I suppose I could connect this into my entire theory of winning Best Picture, about how winning the award saves films from being forgotten, puts them in the public memory forever. There are certainly several paths to filmic immortality, and having a goofy premise and a memorable but silly scene is but one of them. Ghost is a pretty dull film, and if it were a regular love story it would be lost to the ages (read: 1990). Instead, somehow, each of us reserve a tiny bit of memory space to that pottery scene from Ghost.
“Patty Cake, Patty Cake, Baker’s man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can….or else”
The Godfather Part III: Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, 67% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Coming out sixteen damn years after part II, The Godfather Part III is famous for being amongst the most disappointing sequels of all time. Does it deserve this claim to fame? Ssssssorta?
This movie is not as good as The Godfather or The Godfather Part II. Listen, settle down everybody, I know, I know, but sometimes I make controversial statements on this blog and you gotta DEAL with it. But separated from these films, this isn’t….well, this is fine. This is a fine movie. Of course, you can’t really separate it from its prequels because, well, the plot pretty much revolves around the action of the second movie, but if we’re playing in the realm of pure theory and imagination, sure. I would probably watch and enjoy this movie if I could distance it from some of the best movies of all time. It suffers from the same issue as latter-day episodes of The Simpsons: Watchable, oftentimes very enjoyable, but forever compared to what it once was, which was the best thing to ever happen. Also like latter-day The Simpsons: Joe Mantegna is a bit overused.
There are bits here that are certainly enjoyable. A few cool action scenes, including a helicopter fight. A lot of nice, juicy lifelong regret. A general sense of existential pointlessness that I can’t get enough of. There are also really really poor performances, an overwrought Vatican-based plotline that I never felt like caring about, and just a whole lot of convolution in general. A great deal of blame is famously placed on Sofia Coppola’s shoulders, which isn’t entirely unwarranted (she’s real bad here), but I have a feeling that this is a classic case of super high expectations not being met. Again, it would have to be one of the single greatest films in history to meet these expectations.
Wait a minute…if they’re so good WHY IS THERE THAT DEAD GUY THERE!?!?!
GOODFELLAS: Directed by Martin Scorsese, 96% on Rotten Tomatoes.
And, curiously, that “one of the single greatest films in history” came out that very same year! Consider the strange world in which Goodfellas was the third part of the Godfather Trilogy. Wouldn’t that seem right? Wouldn’t that somehow match those high high expectations we had? Of course, this is silly and impossible, and I’m just playing dumb mind games, as while Goodfellas is the same genre as the Godfather films, it’s very much the polar opposite in tone and delivery. The Godfather gangsters are all big, epic men, delivering serious death and maintaining serious political alliances. The heroes in Goodfellas, meanwhile, are…well, assholes. Dumb fuckups who turned to crime because they don’t really care about anybody else. It’s a remarkable dichotomy, and it is very very clear that Scorsese is responding to the high and mighty world of The Godfather here.
Ahh, and the result is so fun to watch. Goodfellas is a remarkable, memorable movie from start to finish, from “As long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster” to the The Great Train Robbery-inspired final shot. It’s just such an example of a great film maker working on all cylinders, cramming each moment with some reference or trick or interesting visual that simply works. The result is clearly Scorsese’s best film. No wonder he went and made it twice.
This is the sort of film that everyone should see and enjoy. This is a really obvious thing to say, and frankly I’m a little embarrassed that I have to be the one to tell you this. It’s just that simple! Go see it! It’s fun! You’ll like it.
The Best Pictures of Our Lives 
