Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)

Academy Awards, USA 1981

Winner Oscar	Best Actress in a Leading Role Sissy Spacek
Nominee Oscar	Best Picture Bernard Schwartz
	Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium Thomas Rickman
	Best Cinematography Ralf D. Bode
	Best Art Direction-Set Decoration John W. Corso John M. Dwyer
	Best Sound Richard Portman Roger Heman Jr. James R. Alexander
	Best Film Editing Arthur Schmidt

Universal Pictures
Directed by Michael Apted
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(Blu-ray, Universal)

Sissy Spacek channels her inner country singer to perfection, singing her own songs in an uncanny imitation of Loretta Lynn, which I guess is acting. Tommy Lee Jones is her husband/manager. Their rocky relationship begins in the backwoods of Kentucky where he manages to convince her father that he should marry a 13-year-old. They move to Washington state where he becomes a logger and decides to push her into a singing career. He has a knack for promotion and they tour the southern radio network with her first record. It becomes an unexpected hit and he manages to get her on stage at the Grand Ole Opry. She becomes a sensation and soon is best friends with none other than Patsy Cline, her idol. They tour the country together, but her husband, now relegated to the background, becomes dissatisfied and turns to alcohol and women. Cline dies in an airplane crash and Lynn becomes despondent about the whole situation, leading to a nervous breakdown on stage. She takes some time off only to reemerge more successful than ever. Briskly paced, if entirely predictable, Hollywood biopic that brings nothing new to a tired genre. 

Captains Courageous (1937)

Academy Awards, USA 1938

Winner Oscar	Best Actor in a Leading Role Spencer Tracy
Nominee Oscar	Best Picture
	Best Writing, Screenplay Marc Connelly John Lee Mahin Dale Van Every
	Best Film Editing Elmo Veron

MGM
Directed by Victor Fleming
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(DVD, Warner Bros.)

The spoiled brat of a wealthy business tycoon falls overboard during an Atlantic crossing. He is rescued by fisherman Spencer Tracy, who takes him back to his fishing vessel. The captain, Lionel Barrymore, refuses to go back to shore and instead puts him on the payroll for three months of hard fishing in the north Atlantic. The rest is fairly predictable, with Tracy becoming a father figure and the boy maturing due to the hard work and discipline of ship life. Tracy gets all the best scenes, but tends to overact, while Barrymore's more subdued performance actually comes off as more believable. No classic by any means, but a quality adaptation of Kipling.

The Pride of the Yankees (1942)

Academy Awards, USA 1943

Winner Oscar	Best Film Editing Daniel Mandell
Nominee Oscar	Best Picture Samuel Goldwyn Productions
	Best Actor in a Leading Role Gary Cooper
	Best Actress in a Leading Role Teresa Wright
	Best Writing, Original Story Paul Gallico
	Best Writing, Screenplay Herman J. Mankiewicz Jo Swerling
	Best Cinematography, Black-and-White Rudolph Maté
	Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White Perry Ferguson Howard Bristol
	Best Sound, Recording Thomas T. Moulton (Samuel Goldwyn SSD)
	Best Effects, Special Effects Jack Cosgrove (photographic) Ray Binger (photographic) Thomas T. Moulton (sound)
	Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture Leigh Harline

RKO Radio Pictures
Directed by Sam Wood
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(DVD, MGM/Fox)

Gary Cooper is famous baseball player Lou Gehrig in this Hollywood biopic. He's really a mama's boy, reluctant to go against her wishes to become an engineer like his uncle. However, when she needs a hospital stay he secretly signs with the Yankees organization to pay for it. He makes his way through the minor league, telling dear old mom he is away at school, until getting called up to the big leagues. He soon convinces his fellow players, and family, that he was meant to be a baseball player. After a long, amazing career, he begins to suffer from the disease that will soon kill him, and be named after him. Cooper's wide-eyed, naive portrayal of Gehrig is simply too much to overcome in this predictable, cliched story. 

The Hospital (1971)

Academy Awards, USA 1972

Winner Oscar	Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced Paddy Chayefsky
Nominee Oscar	Best Actor in a Leading Role George C. Scott

United Artists
Directed by Arthur Hiller
My rating: 3.5 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(Blu-ray, Twilight Time)

George C. Scott is a doctor going through a middle age crisis at a large urban hospital. Separated from his wife and adult children, his work is the only thing holding him together, and now that is falling apart as well. The hospital is in complete disarray, with mistakes leading to not only patient deaths, but doctors and nurses are beginning to die as well. Contemplating suicide, he meets Diana Rigg, the daughter of a recently admitted patient. She openly flirts with him, sparking a lively debate about his supposed impotence, which is addressed later that night. She also causes him to re-examine the meaning of his life by offering to take him along to a remote Indian village in Mexico to start over. He almost accepts, but ultimately has guilt about his responsibility to the hospital. Paddy Chayefsky's screenplay is brilliant: a scathing satire of modern medicine, a deep reflection on life. They could only make these kind of films in the 70s. 

A Place in the Sun (1951)

Academy Awards, USA 1952

Winner Oscar	Best Director George Stevens
	Best Writing, Screenplay Michael Wilson Harry Brown
	Best Cinematography, Black-and-White William C. Mellor
	Best Costume Design, Black-and-White Edith Head
	Best Film Editing William Hornbeck
	Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture Franz Waxman
Nominee Oscar	Best Picture George Stevens
	Best Actor in a Leading Role Montgomery Clift
	Best Actress in a Leading Role Shelley Winters

Paramount
Directed by George Stevens
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(DVD, Paramount)

Montgomery Clift hits up his rich uncle for a job in his women's fashion manufacturing business. As one of the only male employees, he soon strikes up a forbidden romance with factory worker Shelley Winters. Meanwhile, he has his eye on socialite Elizabeth Taylor, and they start an intense romance after meeting at one of his uncle's swanky parties. However, he can't give up Winters, and when she tells him she's pregnant, he finds himself torn between two worlds. He tries to talk Winters into an abortion, but they can't find a willing doctor. When she insists that he marries her, and to expose his double life to Taylor and family, he concocts a plan to murder her. It does not go well. Good mix of melodrama and suspense, but one has to wonder what a director like Hitchcock, who was clearly an inspiration, would have done with this material. Clift, Winters and Taylor are all excellent. 

Canyon Passage (1946)

Academy Awards, USA 1947

Nominee Oscar

Best Music, Original Song Hoagy Carmichael (music) Jack Brooks (lyrics) For the song "Ole Buttermilk Sky".

Universal
Directed by Jacques Tourneur
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(DVD, Universal)

Dana Andrews is a no-nonsense store owner in a frontier Oregon town with ambitions to expand his freight company. He is engaged to a pretty country girl, but really in love with the more outgoing Susan Hayward. She is engaged to his best friend, a poker player deep in debt. Meanwhile, Andrews is hounded by a burly Ward Bond, whom Andrews believes he saw murder two miners. They finally tee off in a memorable bar fight. His best friend gets into more trouble when his debts lead to murder. He is arrested, tried and sentenced to hang. Meanwhile, Indians attack the town and Andrews uses the opportunity to bust his friend out of jail. The various plot lines are resolved in satisfactory, if a bit predictable, ways, with everyone ending up with the right person. Folk singer Hoagy Carmichael is both a character and commentator.

D-Day Remembered (1994)

Academy Awards, USA 1995

Nominee Oscar

Best Documentary, Features Charles Guggenheim For episode American Experience: D-Day Remembered (1994)

PBS
Directed by Charles Guggenheim
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(DVD, The National WWII Museum)

David McCullough narrates a straightforward account of D-Day. We see the secret preparations in England, the voyage across the Channel, and of course the battle on the beaches of Normandy. Moving, factual, if brief.  It consists almost entirely of historical footage, spiced up with some sound effects which place you in the moment.

The Texas Rangers (1936)

Academy Awards, USA 1937

Nominee Oscar

Best Sound, Recording Franklin Hansen (Paramount SSD)

Paramount
Directed by King Vidor
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(DVD, Universal)

A trio of outlaws have a successful scheme robbing stagecoaches, with one of them posing as the driver. They are eventually surrounded one night but manage to escape, only to get separated. The two remaining friends plan to carry on robbing stagecoaches, but it goes awry when a Texas Ranger rides shotgun. Impressed, they join the Rangers themselves, but quickly realize the inside information will allow them to continue to as outlaws. They find their old friend rustling cattle across a river and let him in on the deal. However, their conscience eventually gets the best of the two Rangers, turning them against each other. Enjoyable western with Fred MacMurray, Lloyd Nolan and Jack Oakie well cast as the three outlaws. Surprisingly violent for 1936.

Royal Wedding (1951)

Academy Awards, USA 1952

Nominee Oscar

Best Music, Original Song Burton Lane (music) Alan Jay Lerner (lyrics) For the song "Too Late Now"

MGM
Directed by Stanley Donen
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(DVD, Warner Brothers)

Fred Astaire and Jane Powell are a brother and sister act with a successful Broadway show. Inspired by the upcoming royal wedding, they take it to London. Jane meets Peter Lawford, a young playboy Lord, while Fred falls for dancer Sarah Churchill, who turns out to be engaged. While they sort out their various romantic problems, there are numerous breaks for songs and dances, including Fred's famous dance on the ceiling of a revolving set. 

Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman (1974)

Academy Awards, USA 1975

Nominee Oscar

Best Documentary, Features Judy Collins Jill Godmilow

Rocky Mountain Films
Directed by Jill Godmilow and Judy Collins
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(DVD, Wildflower)

Antonia Brico struggles to gain acceptance as a classical conductor in a male-dominated profession. Modern interviews are intertwined with her past, showing her beginnings as a piano prodigy. She eventually finds success as a conductor, overcoming the bias against her. In the present, she teaches and still conducts in Denver. She has many good stories to tell, and her name-drops are astounding. 

Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern (1995)

Academy Awards, USA 1996

Nominee Oscar

Best Documentary, Features Steven Ascher Jeanne Jordan

Artistic License Films
Directed by Jeanne Jordan and Steven Ascher
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(DVD, Wellspring)

A farming family in Iowa falls more and more in debt. The aging couple decides to sell everything but the house and land, which they give to their grown son, and retire to town. A simple story that often feels like a home movie, with the filmmaker's own family the subject. I noticed a thank you to Ross McElwee in the credits, and this owes quite a bit more than camera equipment to him. The attempt to demonize the bank falls flat. 

Two for the Road (1967)

Academy Awards, USA 1968

Nominee Oscar

Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen Frederic Raphael

Twentieth Century-Fox Film
Directed by Stanley Donen
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(Blu-ray, Twilight Time)

Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney are an unhappy couple traveling by car through France. In flashbacks, they recall their happier times together and we learn how they met. In another flashback, they travel with an annoying American couple and their even more annoying spoiled child. Back the present, they both have affairs, hers is more serious than his, but manage to stay together. A rather unpleasant story of a self-absorbed couple, told in a non-linear fashion, which really adds nothing to the story except confusion. It does however, give Audrey a reason to model fashion trends. 

La Ronde (1950)

Academy Awards, USA 1952

Nominee Oscar	Best Writing, Screenplay Jacques Natanson Max Ophüls
	Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White Jean d'Eaubonne

Commercial Pictures

Directed by Max Ophüls
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(DVD, Criterion Collection)

Ophuls uses a gimmick: a series of ten vignettes are interlinked by following one person leaving one love affair for another one. Each time, there is a subtle rise in social status, beginning with a prostitute and ultimately ending with a member of royalty, before the circle is completed back to the same prostitute. There is a "host" who also appears in each segment as a different character, a sort of omnipotent narrator. I suppose this was all novel at the time, but even the famed "Ophul's touch" can't save this from being predictable and just plain silly.

Brazil (1944)

Academy Awards, USA 1945

Nominee Oscar	Best Sound, Recording Daniel J. Bloomberg (Republic SSD)
	Best Music, Original Song Ary Barroso (music) Ned Washington (lyrics) For the song "Rio de Janeiro".
	Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture Walter Scharf

Republic Pictures
Directed by Joseph Santley
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(Blu-ray, Olive Films)

Virginia Bruce is a novelist visiting Brazil, whose previous book had insulted all Latin men. As a result, she is snubbed by just about everyone, except Tito Guizar, who immediately falls in love with her. The only problem is that he is a popular singer, so he pretends to have a twin brother who Bruce hires as a tour guide. So they go around looking at the sights, hang out in a swanky nightclub watching the floors shows, and visit a country mansion to meet "real Brazilians". Meanwhile, his manager, Edward Everett Horton, provides comic relief by constantly demanding a new song for an overzealous American publisher. He finally writes one, which promptly wins the grand prize during the Carnival finale. Weak attempt at an MGM-style musical by little Republic, filled with Latin stereotypes, a bland leading man and terrible comic relief from the annoying Horton. Roy Rogers makes an appearance during the Carnival scenes, for no reason whatsoever. 

Puss in Boots (2011)

Academy Awards, USA 2012

Nominee Oscar

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year Chris Miller

Paramount
Directed by Chris Miller
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(Blu-ray, DreamWorks/Universal)

The cat from Shrek lives in a wild west town as a fugitive, after helping his childhood friend Humpty Dumpty rob a bank. Humpty shows up again, this time with a plan to find the Golden Goose. First they have to steal some magic beans from Jack and Jill, here a bickering middle aged couple who terrorize the countryside from their wagon. They get help from Kitty Softpaws, a thief. They plant the beans which transport them to the clouds, where they find a giant and of course the Golden Goose, which they kidnap and take to town. However, the goose's over-sized mother soon comes looking for her lost chick, almost destroying the town. Puss and Humpty must overcome their emotional baggage in order to save the town, and themselves. Over-baked concoction of western tropes and children's fables, with too much in-your-face 3D, but still manages to salvage a good time. 

Regret to Inform (1998)

Academy Awards, USA 1999

Nominee Oscar

Best Documentary, Features Barbara Sonneborn Janet Cole

New Yorker Films
Directed by Barbara Sonneborn
My rating: 3.5 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(DVD, Docurama)

An American widow travels to Vietnam seeking closure for the death of her husband in the Vietnam War. Her narrative is intertwined with other widows, and relatives, from Vietnam, to show the universal suffering caused by the war. Director Sonneborn expertly weaves together modern interviews and historical footage to great effect. The background music, mostly ethnic Vietnamese, often gives it a hypnotic feel. Highly recommended.