And the Winner Is …
At A Glance
- It's time for the Oscars, and SoozyQ has a few award-winning favorites of her own.
The Academy Awards are right around the corner and it's time to put aside the fun and quirky movies like Beerfest and watch some critically-acclaimed feature films. An Academy Award is the top prize for people who work in the film industry and although the more recognizable categories are Best Picture and Best Actor, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doesn't fail to honor visual effects.
Officially, the Academy states that judges nominate movies on the basis of "the artistry, skill, and fidelity with which the visual illusions are achieved."
Fun Fact: Microsoft Researcher John Platt was awarded a
Technical Achievement Award from the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2006 for his work
on creating more realistic cloth textures in computer-
generated animation.
The Man of Steel is back.
Superman Returns
This year, Superman Returns has been nominated for its achievements in visual effects. I remember watching it at the theater and loving every minute of it, minus Kate Bosworth who I thought looked too young and fragile for the Lois Lane role. Aside from that minor distraction, I was thrilled to find the HD version in Video Marketplace and it became the first movie I downloaded and watched.
The movie is a major upgrade, visually, from the earlier series that featured the late Christopher Reeve. There are some memorable scenes that look incredible. (Spoiler Alert: Skip the next paragraph now if you don't want to know about key scenes.)
My favorite part is when he stops a plane from barreling into the Earth and also the scene when Superman surprises Lois on the roof and takes her flying. The love story between the two is better than ever since the movie starts when Superman returns to Earth after leaving Lois and the planet behind for five years. You can't blame her for trying to stay angry at him, but the Man of Steel doesn't need super powers to make her fall in love again.
It took Hollywood nearly two decades to bring the story back to the big screen, but they did it right. The story is a classic and the movie rocks. I'm rooting for it to win this coming Sunday.
Unforgiven won eight Oscars.
Past Winner to Watch: Unforgiven
I'm usually not interested in watching Westerns, but when I saw Unforgiven available in HD on Video Marketplace, it piqued my interest. Back in 1992, the movie won eight Academy Awards: Best Picture, Actor in a leading role (Clint Eastwood), Actor in a Supporting Role (Gene Hackman), Directing (Eastwood), Art Direction, Film Editing, Sound, and Writing.
More recently, Clint Eastwood has added more awards to his name by winning for Directing and Best Picture for both Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby. Eastwood is nominated again for Best Director this year for his film Letters from Iwo Jima, which is also nominated in other categories, too.
Unforgiven is about an aging killer named William "Bill" Munny, played by Clint Eastwood, who comes out of retirement to claim a bounty on a couple cowboys who have hurt a prostitute. As my husband told me before it started, "There are no good guys and bad guys in this movie." I'm more into action thrillers, so the slower pace of the movie felt long to me in the beginning, but it's crucial to the story and to Eastwood's character, so don't let it distract you from watching it.
The last 30 minutes of the movie are filled with lines you'll never forget, and the whole movie looked amazing on my 50-inch screen. (Spoiler Alert: Skip the next two paragraph if you don't want to hear about key scenes.)
Munny was a notorious killer before meeting his wife. She changed him, but she's dead when the movie begins. "My wife, she cured me of it … cured me of drink an' wickedness," Munny says to his friend Ned Logan, played by Morgan Freeman. In my favorite scene, Munny hears that Ned has been murdered by the town Sheriff "Little Bill," played by Gene Hackman, and he nonchalantly takes a bottle of whiskey and starts drinking it excessively while continuing to ask questions to the prostitute who brought him the news.
It's one of those moments that you almost miss but carries so much importance. As the movie nears its end, more of Munny's true self comes out and in another unforgettable scene he states, "I've killed women and children. I've killed everything that walks or crawls at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you, Little Bill, for what you done to Ned." It's chilling and definitely an award-winning performance.
Article by SoozyQ
