Awakenings & 12 Angry Men

Over the past week I watched two older films that were both nominated for best picture; Awakenings and 12 Angry Men.  You may wonder why I’m watching and reviewing such old movies, and my answer is two-fold. Firstly, it costs $10 to see a movie in the theater, and while I’m fine with paying that for a movie I really want to see in the theater, I don’t want to pay the additional $10 for my wife to also see it.  Not sure if I’m selfish or just cheap, but it is probably both.  Secondly, I enjoy watching good movies no matter when they were made, and I wanted to introduce a couple classics to some friends.

Awakenings  Story: 4.8  Originality: 4.3  Quality: 5  Entertainment: 3.8  Pace: 3  Total: 89.1  RT: 87  Audience: 85

Awakenings was made in 1990 and stars Robin Williams as a doctor in a nursing home/mental institution who recognizes forms of awareness in comatose patients, led by Robert De Niro.  Williams presses for an experimental drug to be given to them and observes them as they begin to wake up.  Based on a true story, the Story is exceptional and very well told.  There is a slow Pace (3) to the film that allows the story to develop, giving the Story a rating of 4.8, reflecting the Best Picture nomination it received.  I have not seen a film quite like this before, giving it an Originality rating of 4.3. The acting is superb, and De Niro received a Best Actor nomination and the feel is accurate for the time setting (as far as I know, I wasn’t exactly around in the late 60’s) giving a Quality rating of 5.  While it is not the most Entertaining (3.8) movie, I do recommend the film as it receives a total rating of 89.1.

12 Angry Men  Story: 5  Originality: 5  Quality: 4.8  Entertainment: 5  Pace: 4  Total: 99.4  RT: 100  Audience: 95

12 Angry Men is the engrossing story of twelve jurors in the murder trial of a young Puerto Rican man.  None of the trial is captured in the film, but the viewer is quickly caught up as the jurors summarize the trial.  Eleven jurors believe the man is guilty (all for various reasons, including wanting to get out quickly to go to a baseball game), and one man simply has a reasonable doubt.  The story is very compelling and the format in which it is told keeps, what could be a slow movie, the viewer captivated the entire time.  The Story receives a rating of 5, which is reflected in it receiving the #6 spot on IMDB’s Top 250 (a great resource when you don’t know what to watch).  Originality receives a rating of 5 while Quality receives a rating of 4.8.  As I mentioned before, the movie is surprisingly entertaining considering the set never moves from the single room, and the Entertainment rating is a 5, giving 12 Angry Men a total of 99.4

Hugo & Act of Valor

 

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to watch two (relatively) new movies, Hugo and Act of Valor.  As I mentioned in my last post, my wife enjoys watching movies that are nominated for best picture, which Hugo was, so we went that route.  I was ok with watching this movie because on Blu-Ray it looks great on my tv.  The movie itself however, was disappointing to me.  I understand how it was nominated for best picture and won so many awards, and it’s mostly because the movie, at its core, is about movies.  Between Hugo and The Artist, which won best picture and I have not seen, they won nearly every major award, and both films are about movies.  You have to love the ego of the Academy that basically pats itself on the back.  Is there a group more out of touch with what people actually like/want that the Academy?  I cannot even think of a comparison to relate to this voting, but maybe by the end I will come up with one.  Now back to Hugo, which was directed by the great Martin Scorsese; the movie was pretty boring and the climax was nothing to write home about.  I don’t care to go into details about the plot because it didn’t interest me while watching, so it definitely won’t interest me to write about it.  Hugo is classified as a kid’s movie, but that’s only true in the sense of putting it on for your kids to fall asleep to.  The effects were great and the film was well done, but that’s really the only thing that saves this film.  Scorsese should stick to what he’s good at; making films where everyone dies. All in all, Hugo receives a 3.4 for Story, 3.6 for Originality, 5 for Quality, 3 for Entertainment, and 2.8 for Pace for a Total of 71.  My score is lower than the average viewer score of 82 and Rottentomatoes 93, but obviously I wasn’t a big fan. 

The second film I watched, Act of Valor, benefited from the fact that I viewed it in the theater, something that may or may not have helped my experience of watching Hugo.  Act of Valor stars a group of active-duty U.S. Navy SEALs and gives a fictionalized account of real life Navy SEAL operations.  My expectations going in were mixed as the previews looked exciting, but the reviews were poor.  In the end, this movie did not disappoint.  The action and suspense more than make up for the poor acting, which was to be expected from non-actors.  The strategies and tactics used by the SEALs was something I have never seen in any film, and I expect to see them used in more future films.  The extraction scene in the first third of the movie was one of the best action sequences I have seen in any film and was highly entertaining.  After seeing the way these men risk their lives with the thought of only protecting their fellow soldiers, I gained an even deeper respect for our military.  Act of Valor receives a 4 for Story, 4.5 for Originality, 2.5 for Quality, 4.8 for Entertainment, and 4.6 for Pace for a Total of 81.8.  This score is far more representative of the average viewer score of 85 than the 29 it receives from  Rottentomatoes.

Oh and I got one (kind of)!  The Academy selecting The Artist and Hugo as the major award winners would be like the Westminster Kennel Club judges selecting Air Bud as their winner for best film.  Just a mockery.  The problem is, the People’s Choice awards are just as bad because, as a rule, people are mostly stupid.  I don’t know how this can be fixed, and I don’t care enough to come up with a solution (though I do enjoy complaining about it.

Oscar

The Academy Awards took place this past weekend, and in typical Oscar fashion, most of the best picture nominees were movies that few of us had seen.  Of the nine films that were nominated for best picture, I personally have only seen two; one of which I believed deserved its nomination (The Help), and the other I did not (Moneyball).  My wife takes advantage of awards season in the sense that she allows the nominated films to act as a guide for the movies she wishes to view in the near future.  I take advantage of this time to remind her that I have been telling her we should see movie X for some time.  Often times, we end up disappointed in nominated films, because let’s face it; a nominated film does not necessarily equal an entertaining film.  From the 1990 winner for best picture (Dances With Wolves) to the most recent winner (The Artist), I have seen all but five of the 22 winners, and only a handful of them do I consider being entertaining.

Obviously winning Best Picture, or being nominated for that matter, does not determine what movies the viewer may like.  I find a better source for a movie’s entertainment to be the website www.rottentomatoes.com, and even better than the cumulative critics ratings is the Audience, or User, ratings.  As will become evident in a moment, I apparently do not have a life, because as of this date, I have rated 842 films on the site.  The site gives the user the option of rating a film between 1-5 stars, Not Interested, and Want To See. 

After taking advantage of this site for years, I realized that merely rating a movie as 1-5 did not tell me nearly enough about what I liked about the film.  Due to this, I developed my own system to determine the greatness of a film.  I simply call it my Movie Greatness Ratings.  I decided to take the elements that I believe make a movie great, and give them weighted averages to determine the overall score.  The following are the elements that I believe make a movie great:

Story

Story includes the elements of the plot and the ability to capture the audience's attention, the writing for its specific genre, and the film remaining in the guidelines that the story has established (no cheating).

Originality

Originality includes a unique premise or ideas, including effects, that are either new or uncommon in films. Includes a new take on familiar genre or story.

Quality

Quality includes the level of production, direction, acting, and overall feel of the movie.

Entertainment

Entertainment includes the film's ability to keep the audience's undivided attention, maintain interest in where the film is going, and causing a resistance to get up and use the bathroom until the film is over.

An additional factor that I rate, but do not include in the formula because it has no effect on a film’s greatness is Pace.  I include this because some people do not enjoy slow movies, and others may not enjoy film that is frantic.

My Movie Greatness Ratings total scores typically lie somewhere between the Critics and Users ratings on Rottentomatoes, but it gives more details about what makes the movie good.  The highest rating for an individual category is 5.  It is my intent to update this site with the scores of films that I watch and hopefully provide some insight about what I enjoyed in a particular film.  Below are my ratings for the two Best Picture Nominees that I have seen:

The Help:

Story: 4.7  Originality: 4.8  Quality: 5  Entertainment: 4.8  Pace:3.5

Total: 95.8  Rottentomatoes (RT): 75  Audience: 91

Moneyball:

Story: 4  Originality: 4  Quality: 5  Entertainment: 3  Pace: 3

Total: 77  RT:95  Audience: 90

Last night as I layed (or is it lied? (that just makes me feel like I’m not being honest) Perhaps lyed? (I think that’s past tense for a type of soap). I can’t believe I’m already off on some tangent five words into my blog. That’s definitely a personal record, and perhaps a world record at that. I could probably write an entire blog based solely (not like James Brown or feet) off this tangent. I think my ADD is kicked in full gear at the moment. That’s what happens when I don’t write for months). Anyways…last night as I lied (repeat entire last sentence) in bed, I realized that my inner voice is having an identity crisis. She (yeah I know, I’m surprised about the femininity of my inner voice as well. That’s probably where the identity crisis starts. I don’t think it ever hit puberty so it at least sounds like a she to me.) does not know how to address me. Sometimes it’s “I need to do something” and other times it’s “you need to do something”. I think it’s based off of the circumstance. For instance; if I just did something really well, my inner voice says “I did a really good job”. However (said like Stephen A. Smith), if I did something poorly, my inner voice says “You did a bad job”. Now if I really mess up, my inner voice distances herself from me even further, “David really screwed this up. That guy just can’t get it right”. Perhaps my inner voice isn’t having an identity crisis at all; maybe it’s just that my inner voice is a bandwagon fan of me. Occasionally she'll throw out a "We did a good job", to which my outer voice will yell out "Shut up schizo, we're one person!!". I am curious if I am the only person whose inner voice does this to him, or if anyone else’s inner voice was not educated in the proper 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd person narratives? Perhaps that’s all it really is; uneducated. Because I never remember my inner voice trying to wake me up in english class. She must have been sleeping the whole time, even when I was awake and my outer voice was learning. Wow, my inner voice is stupid; and she isn’t even saying anything to dispute that right now.