Transcript
Speaker: know the Oscars went to, but should they have gone there? Welcome to And the Oscars Should Have Gone To, a place where we discuss, debate, and decide certain Best Picture races from the Academy Awards, and then reveal who we think should have been awarded the Best Picture Oscar that year. Maybe our Best Picture pick was clearly the movie everybody loved that year.
Speaker: Maybe it was an influential work that filmmakers still discuss years later. Or maybe it's just the movie that everyone re-watched year after year As always, we recommend that you folks at home watch each nominee so you can make your own determination and then let us know how wrong we are.
Speaker: And with that, we thank the Academy. Let's start the show.
Speaker: And welcome back to another episode of And the Oscar Should Have Gone to This year we are talking about the movies of 1995 that were nominated for Best Picture at the 68th Academy Awards, held the following year. And so we are going to be talking about Braveheart, which is an American epic historical war drama directed by and starring Mel Gibson, who portrays Scottish warrior William Wallace in the First War of Scottish Independence.
Speaker: Apollo 13, which is an American docudrama directed by Ron Howard and starring Dylan's favorite, Tom Hanks, yeah Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, and Ed Harris, which dramatizes the aborted 1970 13 lunar mission.
Speaker: Babe, a comedy drama directed by Chris Noonan, which tells the story of a farm pig who wants to do the work of a sheepdog, with the main animal characters being played by both real animals and animatronic puppets.
Speaker: Il Postino, the Postman, is a comedy drama film co-written and starring Massimo Troisi and directed by English filmmaker Michael Radford that tells a fictional story in which the real-life Chilean poet Pablo Neruda forms a friendship with a simple Prochita postman who learns to ah who learns to love poetry. And finally, Sense and Sensibility, a period drama directed by Ang Lee based on Jane Austen's 1811 novel of the same name that follows the Dashwood sisters, members of a wealthy English family of landed gentry as they must deal with circumstances of sudden destitution.
Speaker: Let's see, i think we'll start with Il Postino, The Postman. ah Rob, what'd you think of this movie? Okay, i um I saw it back in the day 95 or so. Anyway, Il Postino or The Postman, it's Il Postino in Italian, The Postman in English. um Not a bad movie, um got good reviews, um made a little money at the box office, not a lot. But the movie was filmed in 11 weeks at $3 million dollars and low budget kind of showed this was the um the independent um submission, I think, of the of the five.
Speaker: Watched the movie in over two nights, but I really think they should have probably ended it maybe two-thirds of the way through. I think it went downhill a little bit when the poet left. But it's about a um a a postman. He's not really a postman. He's just looking for a job and he gets a job as a postman with only one customer. And that's Pablo Neruda, the poet who lives up on a hill. Apparently there's no cars on this island, so he has to ride a bike.
Speaker: And he rides the bike up to this, um the the top of the hill and gives good old Pablo his mail. And of course they become closer and he falls in love with someone and has him write poetry for her. And it's um a little bit of a room romance of a movie, a little bit of a movie about like friendships and um you know, his relationship with his, his boss, his relationship with his, um His girlfriend and their soon to be wife and Pablo, of course, ah was subtitled in Italian set in Italy in about 1950 or so.
Speaker: um Interestingly enough, the original setting was in Chile and the main character was a teenage fisherman. But they they they changed it to a middle aged postman set in Italy.
Speaker: um One thing I thought that was interesting was um Troisi. The the le main star was severely ill during the shooting of the movie. He postponed his heart surgery until after of the movie was done. Never got to the heart surgery and died of a heart attack in 1994 before the movie was actually 100% finished. So when we all saw the movie, and or some of us saw the movie in 1995, he had already passed away, the lead in the movie, so it's kind of spooky.
Speaker: But he was possibly posthumously nominated for the Oscar for Best jar for best Acting as well. um What else about this movie? It won it won the Oscar for Dramatic Score. It featured tracks of celebrities reading Neruda's poems and mixed in with the the score. Kind of a little Italian music in there. um And I always kind of like to look on Rotten Tomatoes, see what they think of it. um I like that site.
Speaker: But it says that Il Plastino movingly explores themes of love and friendship through sensitivity depicted in beautifully acted relationships in 1950s Italy. So I think that kind of sums it up a little bit. They they captured the period, I thought, very well. um It's not a movie that I think you should all you know run out and see and it's going to make you Friday night.
Speaker: But it was of of some quality and i I did enjoy it. I do think it went on a little long, even though it was a little little less than two hours. I still think it was a little long. Um, and it's, it it made 22 million in the USA, but it said it was the highest grossing non-English film in us s history at the time. So that's a little accomplishment for hi Postino. So I enjoyed it mildly. I give it a thumbs up. I recommend it. Um, again, don't run out and see it thinking it's going to be your favorite movie or anything, but I do, I do recommend it. So what do you guys think?
Speaker: Il Postino. Yeah. When did I see this? I'm not sure. I don't think I saw it in 1995. Maybe okay a few years after, maybe into the 2000s. I'm not sure. um I think if you love foreign films, I think if you love foreign films about post-war Italy...
Speaker: You should definitely see this movie, but I i maybe could recommend some others like um Cinema Paradiso and The Bicycle Thief would probably be better watches. But um I remember at the time when I did finally watch it, I it i found it a little bit tedious.
Speaker: Um, and then immediately didn't remember anything about the movie 20 years later. I'm pretty sure it's been at least 20 years since I've watched it. It's again, found it a little bit tedious. And, um, like you said, Rob, it's a little bit too long, but I did like the themes of this movie. So first of all, Pablo Neruda is a real Chilean poet and he's exiled and, you know, um, it's a simple, it's a simple guy looking for work and, um,
Speaker: I think the whole point of the movie is that he has this relationship with Pablo Neruda that opens up his eyes and helps him become, um ah Dylan reminded me that I said this, actually a fully actualized human by the end. Like he really understands, he understands poetry better. he um he becomes sort of more involved in the communist movement, I think because of Neruda, his relationship with Neruda, he starts to understand the world ah beyond his own little self. And, um you know, he finds love and and ah he finds the beauty in the island around him. And i so I think that that's a lovely piece of the movie where it's really taking a simple guy to a higher level of thought and self-actualization. That said, it took a long time to get there in movie time. so And um I didn't find the acting exceptional. um It was fine. Like I said, there are other better...
Speaker: italian movies about post-war italy and and the devastation there um it's fine i would say again if you're a foreign movie geek or an italian movie geek like you probably have to watch this one if you're just looking for a good time with movies um i don't know you could probably skip this one you're not gonna really um i think you're not gonna get a lot out of it so dylan what did you think I thought it was pretty dull.
Speaker: yeah I agree if Rob, was probably the the independent foreign movie slot that got filled. I never heard this guy before, never heard of him since. ah The woman, I don't think I ever saw her before since.
Speaker: And folks, TV doesn't count. So someone says, well, you know, she was on Scrubs, like that's... Ha ha ha. Doteful. That doesn't count. She was on the Italian Scrubs, obviously. Yeah. I think Michael Radford, think he did like B-level movies or something. i the name so of i like Like Rob said, two-thirds the way through, it seemed like, okay, I kind of got it.
Speaker: And like Glenna said, it took a long time to get the self-accusation. It was a lot of him being... Like, is he like Forrest Gump? He seems like mildly retarded or artistic. I wasn't really sure. No, really. He guess like does seem like really simple, like maybe yeah somewhat um developmentally challenged. Yeah, like clinically simple. Like, he just doesn't seem to know what's going on and doesn't understand boundaries. And I'm just going to walk into the poet's house.
Speaker: Yeah. So it wasn't, I only was that great a movie and the messages i could have gotten in a short story. It didn't need all that. Um, the cinematography was terrible. Uh, it looked real grainy. Now maybe it was yeah. Okay. So Rob, when you, I didn't see at the time, did it seem that way?
Speaker: probably can't remember, but did it seem that way at the time or did I just not have a good DVD? Well, it was overemphasized on the VHS tape. yeah yeah The cinematography was. no mass I mean, the lines weren't straight. The characters were a little like blurry. Yeah. No, in in the I don't really remember the cinematography in the in the theater so much from... okay years ago I wonder if that was intentional to i mean i miss one had some potential sort of evoke post-war Italy. come no i think they had no money. I've seen those movies from post-war Italy and they're much sharper and better. so now i think I'm thinking about now. Maybe they didn't have the money. yeah but
Speaker: see what you think so No reason to see it. How about we talk about sense and sensibility? Well, first of all, I love Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. Ours are already halfway there. They can do no wrong. for me.
Speaker: um And they were quite winning in this. Yeah, I'm not a Jane Austen fan, not to denigrate the works. They seem seminal works of English literature. They're just not for me. But they obviously they're adapted endlessly, either anachronistically or in a modern template or straight up Ang Lee is it's definitely a workman like director in that kind of Ron Howard vein where it's like, you know, he doesn't have a style necessarily or a genre you associate with. He just has kind of good, solid storytelling movies. And this was a good, solid storytelling movie. He has glasses. I'm not into period pieces, but it doesn't mean I avoid them if they're good. And this is quite good. It's very charming.
Speaker: Um, as always, there's stuff about the British class system. I'll never in a thousand years quite understand, but I got the point that somehow they're, sir they're rich, but poor.
Speaker: Yeah, they're like somehow beneath their station. They get robbed of their inheritance. So all of a sudden they don't have an inheritance. And that means like, especially women of that time, it's ah it's the women. it's the oh yeah it's but yeah It's like the second wife of the man who dies and then her daughter's with him. And then the older son...
Speaker: um kind of, he he makes a promise to the father to take care of them. And then he withholds that promise. He withholds the money, he doesn't tell them anything about it. And so he kind of robs them of their inheritance or, or sorry, he, he, he robs them. It's not their inheritance, but he robs them of, um, the promise that he made to the father.
Speaker: So I know shit about shit, but right it's like, emma thompson with women and it's women back then. They're not just going they can't just run out and get a job. I mean, I guess they could become washer women, but, Oh, no, but it's always the same with the men like, oh, my goodness, this this man is you know beneath his station or does not on a par or this like. think what you're saying is you're not sympathetic to this ah to the situation.
Speaker: Well, they weren't homeless, no. Yeah. so But be that as in May, um the acting is sparkling. um Hugh Grant is is at peak Hugh Grant-ness with his his mumbling and his stuttering and and his floppy hair. Yeah.
Speaker: it's really, it's really pretty to look at. The story moves along. don't know if you could tell, like when Glenn was saying, I like, yeah, I don't remember any of that, but, but I don't mean in a bad way. It's like, Oh, i was I was watching. It was very, it moved along. And I got, I got the point with the two sisters plights and each one was looking for something different. and they They kind of realized, you know, what they actually wanted. And ah no I would, i would definitely recommend it for not just it being good on its own and really good acting for, I think two actresses who are still kind of at the beginning. Well, definitely Kate Winslet, but I think,
Speaker: don't think Emma Thompson had done much of note in movies before this. Howard Zend, was that before this? Yeah. And was this, this was after Remains of the Day too, wasn't it?
Speaker: Oh, yeah. My mistake. I guess she's been starting to make the rounds. Yeah. But ah yeah Kate Winslet had been a few things more as a kind of a child. I mean, teenage actress, but. I think Emma Thompson was pretty well known by this point. Okay. No, maybe she was then. Yeah. um But i was it's if it's a really fun movie, and it doesn't tax you the way some other movies do, and it's brisk.
Speaker: And if you don't like period pieces, which I really don't, this would be one of the ones to see um because it's it's kind of expertly done by an expert craftsman. ah So I have nothing to complain about with it. Everyone should i should say and we should see it, but if you're in period pieces, you should start here because this probably the peak of it.
Speaker: And I think we had talked before, like, wait, this isn't a Merchant Ivory movie? So it's definitely in that... that vein uh being very pretty really good acting and just kind of moving along but don't know rob Well, um Emma Thompson, to take it one step further, also wrote the screenplay.
Speaker: Oh, on the way. Yeah, it took her it took her seven years to write the screenplay, and and she wrote it by herself, and I thought she did a pretty good job. she She strayed from the novel in strategic ways that I think strengthened the movie. I was reading a little bit about that online.
Speaker: um they were The studio was a little hesitant to go with her as to go with this movie because it was a novice screenwriter. um But i I thought she pulled it off and I thought she did ah a great job. She's a national treasure.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. She had no intentions of being in the movie the seven years it took her to write this screenplay, but she was persuaded to be Eleanor. And one of the reasons was she's like, as this time is going by, I'm i'm aging, and the age gap between the character and, you know, character of Eleanor and um Emma Thompson herself was growing. And maybe one, you've got to use your imagination ah a little bit that there are sisters of similar age, because I think Emma Thompson is a little older than Kate Winslet, but um so what? I mean, you we yeah use our imagination a lot in movies. um both This movie was both a critical and commercial success. One of the best Jane Austen adaptations, I think, of all time.
Speaker: um Wait, you're saying that? Your personal opinion? or you mean Yeah, do. um I would say it's both um both. I don't know of a Jane Austen movie or book that was made into a better movie than this. Prime Prejudice? but Everybody likes Prime Prejudice.
Speaker: Although they like the BBC, yeah i think the English miniseries about that. Yeah, I prefer this one to the Prime Prejudice movie, certainly. Yeah. Yeah. um yeah So the story was about like sudden financial insecurity, as you were saying, and having to marry for money because they didn't have the security anymore. Their their wealth was kind of taken from them by a broken promise. So that's kind of the the theme that goes on. um it's a it's mildly suspenseful i think um you can kind of use your imagination to kind of go with some suspense but not really a true like thriller at the same time uh lots of twists and turns mostly involving the love interests which i thought the men i think did a did a great job in this movie even though they were hardly ever in scenes with with the women uh which was another interesting take um
Speaker: One of the things that she wanted to create that was different from the book was um not depicting a couple of women waiting around for men. And I don't know if that particular aspect of it she was able to pull off because it does seem a little bit like...
Speaker: Eleanor and um and what's it Margaret. no mark I just used the actress's names. I don't know. Yeah. Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson. It seems like their characters were were waiting around a little bit for men, especially with this sudden financial insecurity. Do you think she pulled that off? I don't know.
Speaker: Well, are you asking me or Glenys? Glynis, she looks like she has something to say. Yeah. What do you think? but um Do you mean was what pulled off? Like that it seemed like that they were desperate? Like like these the characters were deep enough so that they actually seemed like they had other things going on in their lives other than waiting around for for men. And in the book, they're portrayed that way. But in the movie, she tried not to portray them that way.
Speaker: Right. I mean, the challenge of that is that women of that time in that station were kind of waiting around, figuring out which one's going to marry me so I don't live in destitution, right? so Yeah. i think but But I do think, yeah, there's obviously modern day sensibility there as well, where they're Maybe a sense in sensibility. i Maybe. a sense Well, one is sense and one is sensibility. Yeah, the two sisters, sense and sensibility. One is all feeling and the other one is thinking too much, right? I think that's the whole point. Yeah. um But they're both in this precarious situation or, you know, what was precarious for wealthy people back then? Yeah, I mean, I think it i think it's...
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, well, I'll just launch in and say I really like this movie a lot. Oh, wait, can just pause for a second? Yeah. I just want to say, also, don't forget, I think a Jane Austen novel is much more complex than like an Ang Lee movie. So between Emma Thompson's screenwriting and the directing, they probably had to cut out a lot of layers of stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe in book it's more complex. That's all. Jane Austen's literature.
Speaker: Jane Austen's characters are usually, um I think, a bit more complex than... you can a movie at 110 minutes can probably portray exactly so and they tried to focus in the movie a lot on the sister's relationship too which i i think gave the characters a little bit of depth so i do think she she pulled that off the question i had but um they um you know it was as as much as like the love relationships um you know there was i guess was 27 years old and 19 years old but so they had they had a little bit of a challenge with an age gap so they had um And Lee had the two of them live together for a while, I guess, at the beginning of the shooting of the movie to work on their relationship.
Speaker: um But it helped that this movie helped Winslet kind of become a serious actress. yeah She was just in them the only movie I know of before this one was a Heavenly Creatures. Me too. Yeah. Yeah. um Which isn't really ah her and Melanie Linsky. That's what it was. They wasn't really a movie to consider the two of them serious actresses. But I think they've really the two of them have have written Linsky and TV and movies and Winslet actually both in TV and movies as well, kind of coming in and into their own and. making careers for themselves despite being in that movie that didn't really help them, I i would think.
Speaker: Yeah, we'll see. I honestly think both of them are such great actors that I i doubt that they actually needed to live together, but I'm sure that that just sounds like ah you know something that a director might think is great idea, but i I think both of them are great actors.
Speaker: actors so um I don't know if that was necessary, but whatever. i think the movie's great. I think it is really one of my favorite Jane Austen adaptations. I'm not as big of a fan as of Pride and Prejudice as people are of any version of that or just the story. But um yeah, I think that they they really pull off, like, um they give him a Jane Austen novel, a modern sensibility ah that was a for like 1995 audience to be able to to get what's going on and why it's important. So I do think it it succeeds in that way. um Yeah, I really enjoy this movie. i don't remember enjoying it the first time as much. I think I'm always comparing everything to Howard's End and Room with a View. And I think at the time, it's like, well, it's not Merchant Ivory. It's Ang Lee. Yeah.
Speaker: I just remember being at the time, I guess, maybe not getting it as much too. And then years later when we've, I've watched it a few times since then. And I would say this is definitely a movie I could just watch anytime and be pretty happy to watch it. um And you know the details don't stick deeply in your head. There's a bunch of men,
Speaker: One's kind of lout to some degree. um Others are worthy. One's caught up in an engagement he can't get out of, cetera. It all resolves because Jane Austen is the original rom-com um queen, basically. I mean, I think that's why they they adapt these is that she really created that genre in a sense of like a romantic novel, right? Well, no, I guess um probably the Brontes did earlier. But what I was Jane Austen's lighthearted. Exactly, exactly. So there is a little element of comedy and um comedy of manners and that kind of thing. So I think that that's why we really enjoy... It's not dark and brooding. It's really generally quite ah watchable and and readable and very light. So yeah, i know I really like this movie a lot. I like all the actors. Like you said, Hugh Grant and... um
Speaker: Alan Rickman always robbed of an Oscar and, um, Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet can do no wrong and et cetera. So I just, I really could watch this movie anytime if it's on, if it's, if it's on our, we just watched TV on Roku now. Um, but if it's on or to be, I watch free movies. and um but, uh,
Speaker: If it's on, I will always watch it. Oh, yeah, it's time. It's it's been a few years. I'll watch Sense and Sensibility. So i do really i do really, really like this. And it's a very pretty movie, too. So i think that's one thing you get with an Ang Lee movie is it's going to look very beautiful.
Speaker: It's funny. I think the three of us like this movie fairly equally. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's a perfect example of a China. How rare that we all agree. How rare. Yeah, we all agree. Depends on what the next one is. Oh, gosh. What is the next one? um We should talk about, let's talk about Apollo 13. Okay. Okay.
Speaker: okay um We made some predictions about this, about who how you would feel about this, Rob. So now I want to find out if it's true. yeah Rob, why don't you Okay, I'll go. um i I had seen this one two or three times already, so I'm fairly familiar with it. No need to rewatch it. But um I like i like you know anything that Gary Sinise and Tom Hanks are in together. Yeah.
Speaker: I like this movie. I've seen it a few times, and it's always a good little thrill ride, I think. Very historically accurate. They went to great lengths, Ron Howard especially, and Jim Lovell was a consultant on this movie, and it's from his book. called Lost Moon. But they, it was very, very, I like the fact that it was so historically accurate because it kind of made Foray a good, a good watch because you feel like you're actually there right along with them. The, the acting back on earth was a little, don't know what the word is. A little, little cheesy, little corny, I think with the wife having bad dreams about him dying and then not going to the, not going to the uh the launch but not on my watch launch yeah yeah famous but it was um it was the the cast had like astronaut and and nasa training and preparing for the movie which i thought was pretty cool they would they went inside this weightlessness um tank that allowed you to be weightless for a certain period of time they called it the vomit comet I remember seeing interviews after this movie came out about how uneasy that whole thing made them, but they wanted the movie to be accurate. But Lovell, when he wrote the book, Lost Moon, he obviously wanted it to be made into a movie, and he had Kevin Costner in mind for the actor and the studio film.
Speaker: um She offered it to Tom Hanks and Hanks accepted and that's how we got Tom Hanks for this movie. he had They said Hanks had a greater knowledge of space and Apollo 13 in general too. He was like a real junkie about, he's a history junkie anyway, Tom Hanks. so um They also considered Bill Murray, Dan Eckhart, and Tommy Lee Jones for the role. one guy who wanted to have the role who was politely turned away was John Travolta. so Politely.
Speaker: Well, that was the right choice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But every shot was original. No actual footage was used, even though it looks like they're using actual footage of, of a launch, which I thought was pretty good. Um, the, uh, the actors, when they were suited up with their helmets locked in place, they were cooled in, cooled by and breathe air pumped into their suits as if they were an actual Apollo 13 suits, which I thought was, was pretty interesting as well. Uh, it was a summertime movie. Um,
Speaker: Just like Braveheart, which we'll talk about in a minute, was. And they remembered it at year end and nominated for an Oscar, which I thought is impressive for them. Their Oscars memory, which is technically sometimes very short, for it short-sighted and short-term.
Speaker: But um um I loved it. i I recommend it. I hope you bet on me liking it because I did. I did bet on We did. We did. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And you guys are not going to like it, and that's why you bet on me. don't know. Well, I'll go next. I'll i'll go next. Okay. Okay. No, Apollo 13, I do like it, or at least I did like it when I first watched it, and I think I watched it in the theater. and i just remember being very much a – I don't know if I would have described it then as this, but like it is a Ron Howard movie. Like you're going to feel good at the end of it. You're not going to feel that bad at the end. You're going to feel good because it's Ron Howard. And yes um I think that Tom Hanks is Tom Hanks in this. And i who Rob, who did you say was was considered for this?
Speaker: Oh, Costner was the guy that level wanted. That would have been terrible. um Yeah. Like I think the thing I realized watching it many years later is like, wow, this feels like a really long movie. How long was it?
Speaker: Oh, it's more than two hours, certainly. It was too long. Yeah, like just probably two and a half. Yeah. But I think if you like the geeky, nerdy kind of like science stuff, I shouldn't call it science. I like science. But if you like all that technical stuff, which I didn't mind like when they built the sort of Rube Goldberg machine that helps them, I don't know, fix the oxygen problem. Like, honestly, I can't remember all the problems that they had, but it was just a ton of problems. And watching them work that, it's sort of like, they're working the case, which I, looking back, it's like, it's fine. I don't need to watch it again because now I know it's like, oh, there is little bit of tedium for me and it is a little bit long. And the acting is not stellar. The acting is stellar. what you expect of feel good actors in the right it's Tom Hanks being Tom Hanks I do like Gary Sinise in movies but he's always Gary Sinise um Kevin Bacon's always Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton the whole time I was just waiting for him to say game over man but he didn't say I think that would have improved the movie just a little bit more probably his fabulous line from alien alien or aliens aliens aliens sorry my bad um yeah i don't know i think it's very much depends on how you feel about both tom hanks and ron howard but you know what everybody likes tom hanks and ron howard so you'll probably enjoy seeing this movie and you'll learn a little bit about the apollo 13 you won't have to watch a documentary you can just watch a movie and learn something So that's always fun. So would say like overall, this is a crowd pleaser.
Speaker: Nothing horribly wrong with it, but also not probably an astounding piece of art either. So, but you won you won't be sorry for watching it. I'd watch it. fiy If I were you, our listener, give it a watch. Yeah, i I like how you said that you don't have to watch a documentary because it kind of, and and and some and some angles it did play a little bit like a documentary. Exactly. I thought because it was so technical.
Speaker: If there's a way to be lazy, I'm going to find it. And this is it. Watching a movie about a historical thing, it's like, and then you can just like fact check it on Wikipedia later. So, um but yeah, I mean, you learn a little bit and it's, you know, I don't really know much about all those moon missions other than what I watch in movies. So I learned a lot, but Dylan, what did you think about Apollo 13? Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I remember seeing the movies. And again, it's unfair for any of these movies. Obviously, to see these things on the big screen is much more rewarding than to see them on the small screen. So to see all the lunar stuff, well, I guess technically not lunar stuff, the interstellar scenes is quite fun. i do like, i think I think Rob said, well, I guess you both kind of said, i did like I did prefer the kind of technical, like,
Speaker: you know how are we going to deal with zero gravity let's build this you know contraption or like how is it going to get how do we get from the moon and back like oh we're using gravity let me get the chalkboard out like i like all that stuff because it is sort of working the case yeah yeah i did like them in outer space because a great sense of claustrophobia i thought where it's like oh man they're i mean they're gonna run out of air and they're in each other's ass and stuff it's like they can't even get rid of urine it like it was i thought was a good feeling like oh they're fucked you know what i mean unless something happens Um, I did not, this is, this is endemic to Ron Howard. Uh, he's, he's definitely of an old school directing style and the characters are usually pretty one dimensional and they are, um, you know, they don't really have much nuance. I think Kevin Bacon is possibly a playboy. So he's like a real, real rap scallion or something, but not, not really. Um,
Speaker: the scenes on earth were just kind of silly and very wooden and very stiff. But when they got into outer space or into mission control, I thought the movie really came alive. So to me, it's kind of two movies. Yeah. One is kind of, I, I'm not really about their personal life so much, but they're, uh, I, they,
Speaker: I, I, with someone else, maybe like meaning with the meaning of being an astronaut or something, but they, they seem to have like ambivalence about what they were doing. And I wasn't really clear, but I i didn't care about that part. Um, I was much more interested in the outer space stuff as I'm calling it. Um, and I thought that was really fun. And like you two said, uh, I mean, I don't know how true any of it is, but i I, assume he did the research. So it seemed like, Oh wow, that's how it happened. That's you know how you deal with it. And, uh,
Speaker: Ed Harris, great you know old school you know ah Spencer Tracy type role where I'm the guy in charge. and you know I just say things like, I don't care if it's impossible. You're going two plus two equal equals five. God damn it. you know It's very old school, old Hollywood. I really appreciate it. It's always fun to see kind of actors like that chewing the scenery and things.
Speaker: uh like you say it's not on my watch like yeah well the sun rises and sets whether it's on your watch or not i mean just i love stuff like that it's old hollywood you know yeah um no kevin bacon's not a good actor neither is bill pullman and neither tom hanks bill paxton yeah yeah paxton that's right don't confuse those two even though we often do one's dead and one just has the late bill paxton um So, I mean, they were fine. they were just They were just there to move the action along. So it's not their fault they weren't good in it. That's why they were hired probably because they're kind of cardboard and can just move the story along. So know I'd recommend seeing it. It is, again, it's way too long and too much on the personal stuff. Like I don't care about their wives because they don't figure into it.
Speaker: yeah It's not my fault, but they don't figure into it. As you were talking about it, Dylan, I realized that was the part I didn't like, was all the the drama on Earth with the family. like I think you could just cut all of that out, and I would have been so happy because, really, the the time and space is suspenseful enough. I don't need to see that through the lens of his wife. Obviously, his wife's going to be worried.
Speaker: So I did not care for the drama on Earth um part of It could have been cut... way down to the point like, okay, these are human beings with lives and families. I get it. They're not just like astronauts or heroes, but that went on way too long. Yeah, that was a good point. There's some scene they're all sitting around watching on TV or something. It's like, that shit adds up good 20 minutes. it went on too long. It was too much of it.
Speaker: yeah It's like, i just to play devil's advocate, I think that they if they didn't do that, they we would have said the characters didn't have enough depth, but then again, they went on way too long. I agree. I mean, that's why those things are kind of shoehorned in to show that, oh, these are flesh and blood people. And even the Ed Harris scenes in a, I forget, they're in a conference room and they have the whiteboard. And the first time it's like, oh yeah, i love these kind of Hollywood scenes. But then they did it again.
Speaker: And as like, oh, I got the first time, like, you know, we're going to do the old fashioned way with like chalk and chalkboards and shit and using, you know, fucking Euclid and stuff. And but then they kind of did it again. It's like, oh, I got it. So um ah by no means, this is a bad movie. it's It was mostly entertaining, um but it's really the space stuff that I found quite interesting. enthralling and the the drama.
Speaker: And Ron Howard, I don't think he's very good at this. um his his his His directing choices are very old fashioned, but to a degree that I find uncomfortable where it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah get yeah yeah yeah get to the story so but that's just me he's a very popular filmmaker so i mean obviously most people like it so i would see i would recommend this like if it's on tv like i wouldn't run out and rent it and it doesn't it has no legs other than that line so it's not it comes around to movie theaters every year like a apollo 13 no way so you're probably not gonna be able to see in the movie theater but yeah if it's on tv or you you want to rent it it's it's entertaining a little long but
Speaker: Aren't they all? um All right. Let's talk about Babe. um About a pig. The main character is a pig. I think um what a fun movie. And at the time, I think so this the animatronics. and Was there any animation? There had to be an animation in it as well, I think. Right. I thought they blended the two didn Yeah. And I think like it's technically pretty good for 1995, but even technically still kind of holds up and it's super cute. Yes, it is kind of a kid movie, but I think it's one of those kid movies that is really enjoyable. So I think that it's really just such a sweet movie. It's got such a feel good ending to it. Like it's, it's, it's very pretty to look at There's no moments of like, ah, let's move this along. It's just, it, it, the story moves along swiftly. It's a pig who wants to do the work of a sheepdog and doesn't want to end up bacon. um so, uh, yeah, I, I really liked it. Uh, Rob, why don't you go next?
Speaker: Talk about Babe. Yeah, I probably didn't like it quite as much as you did. I think it's a good movie, not a great movie. um I think it's a bit overrated. um it's it's ah i I watched it with my seven-year-old and my four-year-old, and they actually lost interest about three-quarters of the way through. And I was like, oh, come on, this is the best part. This is where he's acting as a little sheepdog. It just didn't work for them. Yeah.
Speaker: No, it's it's a good movie. It's not a great movie. That's just that's my summation. But um I don't know. I i i like i had James Cromwell to be nominated as as best actor over like someone like Mel Gibson. like took Wait, didn't he get nominated for best supporting?
Speaker: Supporting actor. He did, right? He was supporting. I think so. Supporting? Oh, because Babe is the is the main character. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Got it. That'll do, Pig. Okay. He was supporting actor. That'll do, Pig. Yeah, he only had 16 lines in the movie. And they said he took the role because, mean, it only paid him $50,000 and he got a free trip to Australia. Oh, no. Only. Yeah. Yeah. I guess he had never been to Australia or something.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, I know. 50 grand. um For 16 lines. But it was, it the critics did love it. the it was It was big at the box office. i don't know about calling it Babe Mania or anything like that, but it was... It was a successful movie. There was Babe Mania, and it made me not want to watch it because I don't like that kind of thing around a movie. i'm like, ugh.
Speaker: yeah I'm not being forced to like this. um But I think there was Babe Mania. I just managed to avoid it in 1995 until... Yeah. But there was um there was there was... Not everyone loved this movie. there were like There were protests outside the theaters by vegetarians about the whole thing about the... the eating of the the meat and this that. And actually Cromwell became a vegetarian because of this movie.
Speaker: That's a true story. That is a true story. So he, he got that out of this movie other than the 50 grand and the trip to ah Australia. But, uh, It was all right. if you if you if you There's been much better children's movies since this movie and that have not got nominated for Best Picture. So it's a little frustrating to me that that this won, maybe because it was a little bit ahead of its time technically in 1995 with the talking animals in it. I mean, it really did look like they were talking. You know, I think they did a pretty good job with the mouths. It wasn't fake and it wasn't really phony. It would looked like these animals were really talking and, you know, maybe was a little bit ahead of its time or something, which is why I got one of the five for best picture. But I don't think in any years in this century it would have gotten nominated for best picture. I really don't.
Speaker: um so anyway see it if you want um take the kids you're an adult you know you you can like this movie as well but uh a good movie so what do you think dylan i think it's more of an adult movie than a kid's movie frankly do you really okay yeah it has lots of references to death graphically uh yeah it has references well it doesn't it has actual violence it's between animals but it's like no it's pretty obvious what's going on um the the whole mood is very grim really until towards the end. Um, I think it helped that the, that the,
Speaker: The voice actors were actually good actors. I think Hugo Weaving was one of them. And I forget, there was another person I recognized. You the animals were more human. Was Sam Neill in there somewhere? Probably.
Speaker: um ah but So in a way, like I kind of don't expect kids to enjoy this because it's kind of, it's really, ah it's it's kind of a weird movie and it's off kilter.
Speaker: It's more like a Kubrick movie than a you know, than fucking a Pixar movie, you know? Everything just a little dark. The angles are just a little off. um At any moment, at least at least until the last 10 or 15 minutes, the pig is like, oh, you're going to get your head cut off or you're going to get killed or you're going to get eaten. like The whole movie is about the pig like navigating a world that's out to get him, which can be very tense, I thought.
Speaker: um Yeah, Cromwell doesn't speak much, which is also very intimidating. um he's like well he wants to kill the pig that's why he has the pig but then he reconsiders but i don't know maybe he's gonna kill it anyways um the dog is incredibly cruel to the to the the pig but then you realize the dog has problems so i think it's actually too complex for kids and the fact that george miller the guy did mad max in witches of eastwick was actually the driving force behind this i think think he wrote produced and i forget i don't know why he didn't direct it but it has his fingerprints like all over it i don't know what chris newton did before or since but To me, this is obviously a George Miller movie um and because it's also very short, relatively speaking. And the story keeps moving forward with more and more action.
Speaker: um And like much like El Postino, but in a much more entertaining way, it's about transformation. The farmers transform. The pig is transformed. The dogs transform. That's way too complex for a child. So I don't see this as a kid's movie at all. Just like Animal Farm. A kid can read it, but boy, oh boy. you know what I mean?
Speaker: They're all forced to change except for Babe. They have to change around Babe, which is good because again, most of movie, he doesn't know what he's doing and at any moment he can be killed. like It's very explicit. He's going to get chopped into bacon. It's not like, oh no, I'm going to lose my job. they like No, they make it clear, kids, you're going to murder this little guy and then you got to eat him.
Speaker: That's pretty grim. But the world changes around Babe, actually. They all learn to be themselves because he refuses to be anything but himself, which is, you know, again, fairly profound for a kids movie, which is why i don't kind of view as a kids movie. um I think e everyone should see it because it's really famous and it was incredibly popular at the time and I think pretty well received critically.
Speaker: ah And I don't remember Babe Mania. I remember more Braveheart Mania. but Or, you know, Leaving Las Vegas Mania. But I think i think e everyone should see this.
Speaker: i think it is a great movie, actually. i'm just surprised it took so long to see it. But again, I think when it looks like it's going to be animals or and ah and animation, I just lose interest. And a kid's movie, ostensibly.
Speaker: Right. what What seemed like a kid's movie. But I would say the two times I've watched in the last five years, it's just been really ah fun and sweet. and um But yeah, also a little bit dark. So, okay. Yeah. One thing that's interesting too. Sorry. go ahead. Just one more word on Babe is that my kids actually think that like when a pig provides bacon, pork, sausage, or ham, they actually like give it to you. They don't think, they don't know they have to be killed for it. Yeah. See, that's what I'm probably would not disabuse ah that notion until much later.
Speaker: Okay, let's move on to our final movie, the winner that year, Braveheart. I want to start with Rob. I want to hear what Rob has to say. Yeah, no, Braveheart is a great movie, in my opinion. I i mean, it's it's got its flaws. it's like It's like they say it's a lot of historical inaccuracies. But boy, for a three hour movie, it can really keep your attention, I thought, the the whole way. um Critics loved it. People loved it. It came out in May. Right around Memorial Day in 1995, well-remembered at year-end. Maybe wasn't taken so consider like so seriously for an Oscar until it won at the Golden Globes.
Speaker: But once Mel Gibson won Best Director at the Golden Globes, I think everyone... brought it back into the spotlight and, uh, it got nominated for, think it's like 10 Oscars. I could be a little off there, but quite a, quite a few of them. No acting Oscars, right? was mostly like directing. No acting. And one of the few movies, yeah, that got nominated for best, or one best picture with no acting Oscars. Interesting. Um,
Speaker: Yeah. um ah Gibson, he was the was William Wallace, the um the common man who led the the Scots into battle and really kept up with the British, beating them and in ah in a battle, losing but coming out victorious himself in a battle. He um died an awful death at the end of the movie, but... He was his romance. um I don't know. I think I think Mel Gibbs I think I appreciate his his directing and his acting more than most. I think he's he's borderline brilliant with the fact that he can do both and he can pull it off and he can win Best Picture. I mean.
Speaker: would Kevin Costner did that with Dances with Wolves and then Mel Gibson did it with this movie. I think he's underrated as as an as an actor, even though I think he is highly regarded. um He gets himself in trouble a lot with his anti-Semitic comments. um of It is right. does he yeah Yeah, kind of killed his career in ah in a certain way. He just can't keep his mouth shut. Although, keep in mind, he did come back to get nominated for Best Director for Hacksaw Ridge.
Speaker: Did he really? you did no yeah oh okay so he did He did finally get back into, at least on the inside of Hollywood's good graces. Yeah, because he's just such a talent. so i mean how do you you know How do you keep that away for forever? Just take him for what he is. Does that mean it's time to get Kevin Spacey back? or now Oh, please. yes I don't know. i don't know yeah that's it That's a topic. He was acquitted. cast I know.
Speaker: He was acquitted. yeah yeah Another talent. um But I guess they were they had budgetary constraints filming this movie and trying to get it funded. So he used the same extras to play both armies in some of the battle scenes, which I thought was funny. know he was paying the extras, but he did. um I think for for filming a movie in a time of being 750 years old, I think he captured like kind of the...
Speaker: the dirtiness grittiness of the time the mood of the time the um was kind of conveyed well on the screen um it's it's almost like he had had lived back then and knew exactly how it was but i think you know i think that was pretty amazing even though there was some historical inaccuracies that we can get into later but the battle of Sterling has to be probably one of the greatest battle scenes, I think, in and movie history. I think they really played that well as two armies charging at each other and just fighting each other with, with swords and knives. And, um you know, one side coming out victorious and, ah you know,
Speaker: in a way that you can like you can lose a lot of men but still win the battle. it's just it was very graphic and very rated R. I think they had to cut back this scene quite a bit because they were going to give them an NC-17. But they they pulled off the R.
Speaker: um Two different romances for William Wallace in this movie. One of them, his childhood friend that grew up and he ended up marrying much to the displeasure of her parents. And then so again, spoiler alert, she ended up dying at the hands of ah of the of the British, which ah you know kind of made the British look pretty pretty bad in this movie, I think, from a lot of different angles. And then another kind of bizarre one, I think, where he kind of fell for the the daughter of the of the king of of England, right? Am I right? are you talking about the Sophie Marceau character? Yeah. I think she was like an arranged marriage. She was like French or something.
Speaker: Okay. Like she wasn't related to the king by blood. But I thought it was bizarre because, okay, because there was one, they only had seen each other in one scene, and then they had like a a romance, which was, I think. Don't worry about that, Rob. I'll get to all the criticisms, believe me. You just you just stay with the positive.
Speaker: Okay. Don't worry. I'll stay with the positives. Yeah. Well, I mean, we already hit upon Best Picture with no acting nomination, so I think that could be a negative and a positive. Yeah. um in Influential, I think Peter peter Jackson cited Braveheart as a major influence to his Lord of the Rings trilogy, which I thought was interesting. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Okay. But I enjoyed the heck out of this movie. I think it was three hours and could have even been a little bit longer and would have kept my attention. So I recommend it. I highly recommend it.
Speaker: Actually, Rob, you made me hate it even more with all those very, no very, very cogent, seriously, very cogent, insightful things you said like, oh, yeah. um i remember I remember seeing when it came out. was like Oh, yeah, it's very entertaining, I guess. And then seeing it again.
Speaker: ah the flaws were just too glaring. And i don't know that's because of movies being, these types of movies being better 30 years later, or i don't know, watching Game of Thrones, or I have no idea, but watching the second time, the flaws are for me were much more pronounced. Like you, I'm a Mel Gibson fan, actually. I mean, i don't know if he's a piece of shit in real life, but I think he is kind of an underrated movie star actor. I always make that distinction. He's he's not Christian Bale, but for his early...
Speaker: his first 10 years, he's pretty good actor for yeah like a movie star. And he is an excellent director. um i agree with all that. um And this wasn't his first movie.
Speaker: I think he'd done The Man Without a Face, which was a very small drama, which I didn't see. So I don't know if it's any good. So this is of his first big, big movie. And yeah he handles the logistics really well.
Speaker: um And he handles I know what you're talking Rob. There apparently very a ton of historical inaccuracies, but it doesn't really bother me. i think when you do these types of things, you have to chop and edit to make it more dramatic and interesting. So that doesn't that I really don't care about that so much. um i do care about is there were a few dream sequences that were stupid and a few, don't know, the ghost of his wife shows up. That was stupid.
Speaker: um The first 20 minutes was just setting the whole thing up. It's like, dude, if you're doing three hours, you can't waste too much time on like, you know, on him being a kid and setting up, you know, his relationships and and things. That was just really not a good use of screen time.
Speaker: The battle scenes were pretty good. I'll give you that. That they influenced Lord of the Rings is kind of a demerit, but that's cool. um
Speaker: The acting wasn't great, but these movies don't require great acting, so that I don't think that's a ah big deal. More the the British were always, or sorry, the English, I should be more accurate. Every one of them was portrayed as just an awful human being. And every Scotsman was either a noble, you know, warrior or a rascal. It's like, that's just way too one dimensional. And that's not befitting a nineties movie. That's a fifties movie by the nineties. We'd gotten way past that.
Speaker: Um, so I think that was an error in storytelling. Um, the king was just twiddling his mustache evil. They had a gay son or some bullshit. And then the the French noble woman just can't help but fall in love with Mel Gibson's barbarian who somehow speaks Latin and all this other shit. So that was, that was not very plausible. And again, this, these things add up to a very, very long movie. The scene at the end, yes, he gets tortured to death. That went on way too long. Like I got it. Um,
Speaker: So I don't think it's a great movie, to be honest. It was entertaining in the time, but um it was it was a big hit and the critics liked it. But the the one thing that stands out from it is they cannot take away our freedom, which is a great line, by the way.
Speaker: Um, you know, I, I've never seen it played in a movie theater since I don't hear people talk about it. I don't think it's cultural legs for that long. Um, and I think, I think the direction is pretty good actually for all the flaws that that this was his first big movie. That's pretty impressive actually. And he probably deserved the Oscar for best director. Um, definitely over the other.
Speaker: for maybe I'm shocked he didn't get nominated for best actor. The scene, the scene, this would have been the the time to reward him, you know, just like, oh, you know, you did as good. you You're Mel Gibson. You deserve an Oscar nomination. So I'm kind of surprised by that. But um So you said a lot of good things so far. I'm kind of ready for you to rip it apart, though. Well, it's too long. It's too wooden.
Speaker: You know, in the end, everyone everyone's cardboard. really care. Mel Gibson, the character Mel Gibson seems have zero flaws. So it's like, I don't care about him. um Scottish and English. Well, I know how it ends up. The Scottish ended up with English. So it's like, that's great, but you lost. Yeah.
Speaker: every Again, every character was a cliche and it was way too long. um So no, I'm not saying it's a bad movie. It's just not a great one. It's okay. So a movie of this epic nature seems to be seems like it would be a little bit more polarizing and it seems like you're kind of like right in the middle.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, i have to admire, again, Gibson did a great job directing, considering this is his first big movie. But if was someone else, he'd be like well, there's too many dream sequences and too much slow motion and too much like, ah you know, I'm so evil. Watch what I do to the Scottish. Like, yes, yes. And Mel Gibson. I'd love, i oh my God, i so I still love my wife so much. Like, you be sure, why not? um it was it was just too one-dimensional every part of it and again having seen much better battle scenes and actually battle scenes before this ron for akira kurosawa is the standard for these battle scenes way the fuck better than anything in braveheart understand it's a foreign movie but did get nominated um for best director way back so it wasn't unknown to americans so no i'm not really tearing it apart it's just yeah it's it's okay yeah whatever you got three hours i guess
Speaker: All right. gleusleni I'm probably on Braveheart somewhere in between the two of you where I don't think it's held up as the great movie that it probably was considered in 1995. I definitely see a 1995 movie.
Speaker: why people thought it was a great movie i think it is along the lines of dances with wolves and very yeah heroic and there's no very few character flaws here and the actors aren't really great actors although i do enjoy brendan gleason quite a bit oh yeah of this i'm really in anything honestly the gleason family just has my heart but um i think that uh mel gibson is fine he's doing movie star acting which is what we expect I thought like Rob's three hours. No longer. No, no, no. Cut an hour off of this and you've got a great movie. I think like I definitely thought it was just way too long. um I started to get what I i learned to,
Speaker: phrase when we were watching Game of Thrones and we would watch the extras and the showrunners would say like you've got to beware of battle fatigue and I think that I started to get some battle fatigue with this where it's just like get over with already you know because there were a few battles right there's a lot fight it seemed to me know You said the Battle of Sterling. I was like, i don't know which one was that. I think he is generally ah a good director. If he could get past his craziness, maybe that he would be a great director. Who knows? but um
Speaker: And I agree with Dylan. All the schmaltzy directing bits. It's like... the the dream sequences too much on the childhood, the, the weird love affairs. i don't know. I just think, um I don't know, in a more skilled director in a different decade, this might've been a better movie, but yeah ah you know, who am I to say it was hugely popular. So, you know, people did love it. ah And, and it's been the, the source of a lot of lines, you know, um or a lot of references, cultural references or movie references. So,
Speaker: people did love it so i guess i'm probably in the minority where i say it was fine i don't want to watch it again like you have to see it i don't think you have to see it twice um and and to just too long way too long which is always my complaint about most movies unless the movie is really good and it deserved that three hours so um i didn't think this needed three hours to tell that story braveheart was the winner that year So i'm I'm going with Braveheart easy. I think this is an easy choice. I just think it's, in my opinion, far and above the the rest of them. i think it was I think it was a good year for movies. I think there were several movies. I i i just think Braveheart is just, do you watch the other four and... Yeah, they're they're they're good movies. i I liked all five of them, to be honest with you. But this is just too much of an epic and too much Great Direction and too much of Mel Gibson's genius to be ignored. And I i think it stood above the others, head and shoulders above the others. And I'm going with Braveheart. I enjoyed it. I disagree with you guys on the length. I think it was it was a perfect length and and i I wouldn't change much in it.
Speaker: And I'm going with Braveheart. All right. ah No, I would pick Babe easily. I think it holds up better. i think it's a i think it's technically quite good also with the the animals and stuff. So it's not it's not that it wasn't as, that's not as technically ah interesting as Braveheart, certainly. I think they're equally interesting in that sense, but different. But honestly, Babe had much more complex characters in the animals than Braveheart did with any of the humans. And I'm i'm not being facetious. Wow.
Speaker: the story was much more interesting. The themes were much more nuanced. It was pretty brisk. No battle fatigue in Babe. and um Yeah, I just think it's one of these things. I think it's a better movie in every sense, which doesn't make Braveheart a terrible movie. I'm just, I think Babe is, there's nothing in Braveheart that Babe doesn't do better.
Speaker: And sorry, that does include the acting, which says something. But so yeah, for me, it's easy. It's Babe. um I'm also going to pick Babe. Ooh. Yeah. i thought you might pick Sense Sense. Yeah. Well, I would because I think it's a great movie, but I am factoring in, years later, the popularity. And Babe and Braveheart were much more neck and neck.
Speaker: Yeah, i think I think it's great. I think it's a more fun watch. It's not that it's not as long... I don't know if we've righted anything, but there you go. we've given ah robin bra So two to two. right yeah I think that... so oscar yes yeah I think we've given you some movies to watch. So go out there and get watching. So um our next episode is going to be... Dylan, you always know these things. 2004. Interesting year. Interesting lineup. And who are the nominees?
Speaker: next episode is going to be 2004. The winner of that year was Million Dollar Baby and the other nominees were at The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Ray, and Sideways.
Speaker: All right. All right, Makushla. Don't forget to email us at theoscarspodcast at gmail.com just if you have an opinion. And we will see you ah for our next episode. Any last words?
Speaker: Not on my watch. That'll do, pig. They can never take our freedom!
