It’s been a longtime tradition that studios save their Oscar hopefuls for the end of the year - closer to voting, fresh in the memory. It's no surprise, then, that three of the five Best Picture nominees were all released in December, two of them in the timeline we present today: December before Christmas. One of those is Bugsy:
Bugsy is a biopic of Benjamin Siegel (Warren Beatty), a Jewish gangster whose titular nickname was then-contemporaneous slang for crazy, due to his tendency to violently fly off the handle. Siegel invented Las Vegas as we know it today; the film gets into the risks he took, the tension between East Coast mobster Meyer Lansky (Ben Kingsley) and West Coast mobster Mickey Cohen (Harvey Keitel), his romance with Virginia Hill (Annette Bening), whose legs inspired the name of the casino-hotel The Flamingo, and more. It was not a total success at the box office, but director Barry Levinson blamed that on the fact that their distributor was more focused on the release of Hook, which came out just nine days before. Well, Bugsy got a Best Picture nomination and two Oscars; Hook was the #6 Box Office Hit of 1991 and won zero of its five Oscar nominations and had the larger cultural impact (my generation certainly seemed to hail it as a masterpiece), so who really won here?
The other nominee is JFK.
Oliver Stone had already made a name for himself as the button-pushing, Oscar-winning filmmaker behind Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July, as well as the screenplay for Midnight Express - this three-hour-and-change epic focuses on one New Orleans-based lawyer fixating on the much-discussed conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy and the subsequent cover-up. Not your typical holiday blockbuster fare, but it made over $200M worldwide, won two Oscars, and permeated the culture (even Seinfeld has an episode referencing a “magic loogie”).
It makes you feel for the no-doubt hopefuls that played at the same time. Such as:
At Play in the Fields of the Lord
release: December 6
dir: Hector Babenco
pr: Saul Zaentz
scr: Jean-Claude Carrière and Hector Babenco, from the novel by Peter MathIesson
cin: Lauro Escorel
An epic about a mission in South America and the multiple factors that go into extinguishing an Indigenous community. Aidan Quinn and Tom Berenger are the leading men - Quinn wonderful as a midwestern American who fervently believes in the mission he joins, converting the natives into Christians, but while he never doubts Christ, he begins to doubt the intentions of the mission are anything more than a great vanity project, a means of forcing the American understanding of God and His word upon people who already have their own understanding, thank you very much; Berenger is in a terrible wig as a pilot who happens to have some Native American ancestry, and so uses that to identify with the Native community that treats him as the reincarnation of a god when he falls out of the sky (wrecks his plane). Both wonderful performances, both asking complex questions about how non-Natives interact and identify with the tribes they claim to seek out for a bit of that ol’ Brotherhood of Man feeling and what their moral obligations are. Also love that it takes a clear stance in favor of defending these communities, even as it sees their obliteration as inevitable, given the increasing encroachment of exploiters of land and faith. Clearheaded about how historic impact is decided by individuals within small communities. Just wonderful. The best thing I can say about this movie is that it is, upon research, about 3.10 hours, yet I wouldn't have put it at being over 2.5 hours.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
release: December 6
nominations: Best Sound Effects Editing (George Watters II / F. Hudson Miller), Best Makeup (Michael Mills / Ed French / Richard Snell)
dir: Nicholas Meyer
pr: Steven-Charles Jaffe / Ralph Winter
scr: Nicholas Meyer & Denny Martin Flinn, story by Leonard Nimoy & Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal, from the television series created by Gene Roddenberry
cin: Hiro Narita
A movie that feels like it could have just been an episode of the series, but that was defunct at the time. The “undiscovered country” of the title is Peace on a grand scale, and Kirk and Spock find themselves on trial for the murder of a Klingon ambassador. Great makeup, Iman is a standout. But, yeah, mostly serviceable.
Young Soul Rebels
release: December 6
dir: Isaac Julien
pr: Nadine Marsh-Edwards
scr: Paul Hallam & Derrick Saldaan McClintock & Isaac Julien
cin: Nina Kellgren
Two Black disc jockeys - one straight, one gay - ply their trade over pirate radio in 1970s London...while a serial killer is on the loose. A little bit of a hangout film, a little bit of Cruising mixed with Blow Out. Strangely timely, as it deals with racists who believe race-mixing has destroyed their country while still enjoying the music, people, and culture of the very races they claim to despise. Same as it ever was.
Hook
release: December 11
nominations: Best Original Song ("When You're Alone"), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Norman Garwood / Garrett Lewis), Best Costume Design (Anthony Powell), Best Makeup (Christina Smith / Monty Westmore / Greg Cannom), Best Visual Effects (Eric Brevig / Harley Jessup / Mark Sullivan / Michael Lantieri)
dir: Steven Spielberg
pr: Kathleen Kennedy / Frank Marshall / Gerald R. Molen
scr: James V. Hart and Malia Scotch Marmo, story by James V. Hart and Nick Castle, from characters created by J.M. Barrie
cin: Dean Cundey
A rewatch! Peter Banning is a straitlaced lawyer who discovers he is the real-life Peter Pan after his children are kidnapped by Captain Hook, and he must remember his past in order to save them. First saw this movie in college, right about the time Hook was being reclaimed as a modern classic amongst my peers - not just people I knew personally, but people online were using lines like, "There you are, Peter," as universal references everyone would know. At the time, I hated it, thought it was impressive from a sets/costume/makeup perspective, but, otherwise, an uneven, contradictory endurance test. A lot can change in 20 years; my feelings about Hook have not. The one consistent saving grace is Maggie Smith's performance as Grandmother Wendy, and that's mostly due to her delivery of, "I'm old now, Peter," as the final note on a montage where Pan comes into Wendy's bedroom. The rest of it has Moments, sure, but it is written around those Moments inorganically.
Bugsy
release: December 20
wins Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Dennis Gassner / Nancy Haigh), Best Costume Design (Albert Wolsky)
nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Warren Beatty), Best Supporting Actor (Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley), Best Original Screenplay, Best Score (Ennio Morricone), Best Cinematography
dir: Barry Levinson
pr: Warren Beatrty / Mark Johhnson / Barry Levinson
scr: James Toback
cin: Allen Daviau
Remember Bugsy Siegel from Mobsters? This is his biopic, which we'll discuss more when we get into the actual Oscars. So stay tuned.
Father of the Bride
release: December 20
dir: Charles Shyer
pr: Carol Baum / Nancy Meyers / Howard Rosenman
scr: Nancy Meyers & Charles Shyer, from the screenplay by Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett and the novel by Edward Streeter
cin: John Lindley
Peers were shocked that I had never seen this before, it was such a mainstay of my generation's childhood. Well, now I have and I was very excited to see this remake of the 1950 Best Picture nominee, given its reputation and the presence of Martins Steve and Short and Diane Keaton. Keaton is admirable, echoing Joan Bennett's own believable professionalism as a woman playing The Wife while the husband clearly loses his mind. It is better than the original, in some ways - it does a much better job of establishing actual familial affection between father and daughter, and the runner about the knock-off tux is hilarious - but in some ways it's just as good as the original, which is to say: I thought it was just fine.
JFK
release: December 20
wins: Best Cinematography, Best Editing (Joe Hutshing / Pietro Scalia)
nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Tommy Lee Jones), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Score (John Williams), Best Sound (Michael Minkler / Gregg Landaker / Tod A. Maitland)
dir: Oliver Stone
pr: A. Kitman Ho / Oliver Stone
scr: Oliver Stone & Zachary Sklar, from the books On the Trail of the Assassins by Jim Garrison and Crossfire by Jim Marrs
cin: Robert Richardson
A rewatch! A multiple times rewatch! New Orleans attorney Jim Garrison works on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. More when we get into the Oscars.
Our next post will finish out the year with one final Best Picture nominee, released on Christmas Day...
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