Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 470-471: The Oscar's Guide to Survival

In this post we present two Best Picture nominees that demonstrated just how to survive some fairly perilous situations. Whilst it's very unlikely that you'll be in the same predicament as either of these film's protagonists I think it's still very handy to know what to do in times of crisis no matter how bizarre the situation.

But perhaps handy is a bad term to use when describing 127 Hours, which showed just how to cope if you find yourself wedged in a ravine. The film was Danny Boyle's follow-up to his Best Picture winning Slumdog Millionaire and showed just how versatile the director could be. Boyle also assembled the majority of the team that worked on Slumdog including screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle and composer A.R. Rahman. The film tells the story of thrill-seeking engineer Aron Ralston who travels to Utah for a spot of canyoneering. Unfortunately for Ralston, he slips down a canyon with a boulder trapping one of his arms making it impossible for him to escape. The 127 hours of the title refers to the time that Ralston was trapped down in the canyon with his survival based on his collection of water and keeping himself relatively sane by narrating his stories to the video camera he had on his person. With more than half of the film being devoted to Ralston's dilemma, it's a testament to Boyle and Beaufoy that 127 Hours is never dull. Instead the footage of Ralston's hopeless situation is interspersed with memories of his family as well as fantasies about the two girls he met just prior to his fall. The editing in 127 Hours is certainly impressive with Jon Harris cutting between Ralston's current position and other points in his life. Mantle's cinematography enhances the narrative as we see the situation from several perspectives, perhaps most memorably from inside Ralston's water bottle. Possibly the most memorable part of 127 Hours occurs in its final few scenes as Ralston finally frees himself by hacking off his hand. Whilst this isn't the most practical of survival tips it saved Ralston's life and the final montage; which features the real Ralston more than proves that.

Having now watched two Boyle films for this project, it's clear that he's someone who's interested in character rather than plot. The character of Aron Ralston is an interesting one as initially he's presented as a free spirit who doesn't care about anything but finding his next thrill. This is perfectly represented in the opening sequence where Ralston takes two girls on an adventure who then realise that they didn't figure into his day at all. However, as Ralston's situation worsens, we see another side to him as the caring son and loving brother. Throughout the film it feels as if Boyle and Beaufoy strip away Aron's cool exterior to reveal a man with plenty of anxieties but someone who is resourceful enough to survive his extraordinary circumstances. Making Ralston even more likeable is actor James Franco, who we previously saw give a show-stealing performance in Milk. Here Franco continues to grow as he utilises his cool guy persona to full effect but also employs his dramatic abilities and as a result makes us sympathise with his character. Rahman's score is also worthy of a mention as it lends itself well to the tone of the film and echoes Ralston's mood perfectly. After romping home at the 2009 ceremony, Boyle's 127 Hours team failed to pick up one Oscar which I feel is a shame as it was one of the more technically sound movies released that year. Unfortunately, the 2011 ceremony included the strongest line-up of films since the field was increased and 127 Hours was a film that fell victim to the fact that it was up against nine other contenders. That being said this is an incredibly intense nail-biter of a film that is enhanced by some fine technical components and a memorable central performance from Franco.

Three years on another British director and American star teamed up for more survival tips this time informing the audience how to cope if one is ever attacked by Somali Pirates. Paul Greengrass' Captain Phillips told the true story of Richard Phillips, whose perilous cargo ship journey around the Somali coast later became the subject of a memoir. Due to the fact that he's played by everybody's favourite nice guy Tom Hanks, Philips is presented as a down-to-Earth guy who is trying to carry out a job to the best of his ability. What I liked about Billy Ray's screenplay was the fact that Captain Phillips isn't a one-sided story and instead it focuses on the Somalian pirates as much as it does Phillips and his crew. I would go as far as to say that Grengrass and Ray make you care about Abduwali Muse, the self-proclaimed leader of the pirates who becomes Phillips' opposite a the film progresses. The first half of the film hypes up the tension as Muse's team boards Philips' container ship but is outwitted by his crew who capture the former and try to negotiate a trade. However, this trade is unsuccessful and the second half of the film sees the matter becoming even more gripping as the pirates abduct Phillips in the ship's lifeboat. As the situation for the pirates becomes more perilous, Ray makes us realise why these men take up piracy in the first place and what options they have in their native land. Although the Americans ultimately end up victorious, I couldn't help but feel a little sympathetic as Muse found himself arrested for piracy whilst his friends were all killed.

It's the blurring of the lines between good and evil that is one of Captain Phillips' main strengths and helped to make it one of the best films of 2013. Paul Greengrass is one of my favourite directors and he made Captain Phillips feel almost as claustrophobic as his 9/11 drama United 93. Cinematographer Barry Akroyd employs a similar style to the one he used on The Hurt Locker and as a result makes Captain Phillips feel almost like a documentary. Greengrass perfectly amps up the tension gradually with the pirates' first attack on the ship feeling particularly tame when compared to their later treatment of Phillips. Christopher Rouse's frantic editing of the piece is also outstanding and helped to make me feel slightly uneasy all through the film. Captain Phillips also features what is, in my opinion, Tom Hanks' Best Performance of the last ten or fifteen years. Hanks is so absorbing that he makes you sympathise with Phillips even before the pirates board his ship. His portrayal of the everyman in a perilous situation put me in mind of his turn in Saving Private Ryan in which he played an equally sympathetic character. I personally felt it was rather odd that Hanks didn't even receive a nomination for his role here and was seemingly snubbed in favour of Christian Bale's comedy hairpiece-led turn in American Hustle. In fact the only member of the cast who was nominated for their role in the film was Barkhad Abdi who delivered a breakthrough performance as Muse. Abdi was great at mastering certain facial expressions which portrayed his desperation as the situation slipped out of his control. It's through Abdi's performance that you at least have some sympathy for Muse's plight and why people like him are forced into piracy. Although Abdi won a BAFTA for his role, not one of Captain Phillips' six nominations resulted in a win. This is a shame as I feel that it's a great film full of tension, great characterisation and two winning performances. But at least I know now that, if I ever do find myself on a freighter ship on the African coast, I'll be able to survive it in the same way that Phillips did.

Next time we go from survival skills to dance lessons with a side of psychological torment

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 443-444: Let's Get Animated

As I discussed in the last post, foreign language films are very unlikely to ever receive a nomination for Best Picture. However, one type of film that has even less chance of making its way into the Best Picture shortlist is the animated movie. Up until now only one fully animated film has made it into the Best Picture category, that being Beauty and the Beast. The Academy attempted to redress this balance by introducing a Best Animated Feature category in the early 21st century. However, by extending the Best Picture category to a potential ten nominees, animated films were finally given their dues by the Academy.

Interestingly both of the animated features nominated for the Best Picture prize came from one studio, that being the much-acclaimed Pixar. Pixar, who partnered with Disney, had delivered plenty of films that had won the Best Animated Feature prize including Ratatouille and the fantastic Wall-E. One year after Wall-E they released Up which won the Best Animated Feature prize as well as scooping a deserving Best Picture nod. I think Up is a film that is most famous for its first ten minutes in which we go through the life of Carl Fredricksen, a young wimpy kid who grows thanks to the love of his eventual wife Ellie. Director Pete Docter is responsible for plenty of tears with a five minute montage that includes Carl and Ellie's wedding, the discovery they can't have children, their planned trip to South America and her eventual death. These scenes are accompanied by Michael Giacchino's memorable score which itself went on to win an Oscar. After this emotional opening, the rest of Up looks at Carl's new adventure as he straps balloons to his house and flies away in order to avoid going into a retirement home. The problem is that Carl has taken young Adventure Scout Russell along for the ride and over the course of the film his young companion goes from unwanted nuisance to surrogate grandchild. Whilst the relationship between Carl and Ellie plays more to the adult audience, Docter makes sure there's something for the kids in the form of a colourful bird and dogs with talking collars. The more manic part of the film sees Carl attempt to protect the aforementioned bird by taking on his childhood hero; adventurer and subsequent madman Charles F. Muntz. After several madcap sequences, Up returns to its emotional core as the final scene brings home how much Russell and Carl now mean to each other.

It always amazes me just how much work goes into making a Pixar movie especially after learning that Docter started writing the script five years before Up was finally released. The lead character of Carl is an interesting one for an animation as he's not somebody who you'd particularly want to root for. But Docter makes him likeable by including that opening montage as well as adding aspects of famous film curmudgeons including Spencer Tracy and Walter Matthau. Carl is voiced brilliantly by Edward Asner who is able to bring out both his character's gruffness and kindness of spirit. Until researching this blog post, I hadn't realised that the character of Russell was an Asian American and that casting a youngster from this ethnic background garnered praise from the local community. After moaning about annoying child stars recently it was great to hear Jordan Nagai's endearing vocals as the wonderfully innocent Russell. Nagai didn't actually audition for the role but his energy was noted by Docter whilst he was waiting for a brother who was up for the role. Every single frame of the feature has been lovingly created, with some of Pixar's animators spending ages in South America to get the features of Paradise Falls completely right. Upon this viewing of Up, which must be my third or fourth, there were several problems I had with the narrative. As a more mature viewer I got a little bit bored in the sections that weren't for me and I didn't particularly care for Kevin the Bird as I found him to be a bit irritating. But with a fine beginning and end, two great voice actors and wonderful animation, Up is a modern classic that will be watched by current and future generations for centuries to come.

Despite producing many incredibly popular animated features, Pixar will always be most famous for the Toy Story films. This is primarily because Toy Story was the studio's first full feature when it was released in 1995. Four years later the sequel was released to even more acclaim but audiences were then made to wait another eleven years for the conclusion to the trilogy. Toy Story 3's main plot saw Woody, Buzz and the gang realise that seventeen-year-old Andy now didn't want to play with them particularly as he was just about to head off to college. The predicament about what to do with our childhood toys is one that all of us have gone through and seeing this through the eyes of the toys themselves is quite unique. Whilst Andy decides to take Woody to college, a choice that I still find odd to this day, the other toys are destined for the attic. However, due to some miscommunication, they end up believing they were destined for the garbage and therefore take matters into their own hands. With Woody splitting himself from the gang, they arrive at Sunnyside Daycare believing that they will find children who'll play with them properly. However, they quickly learn that Daycare is manipulated by the cute-looking but evil-minded Lotso who believes that every toy at the institution has been discarded by a child. I think that screenwriter Michael Arndt did a great job at turning the middle chunk of Toy Story 3 into a prison movie spoof. There were some great scenes in which the returning Woody learnt of the security at the centre and how he would best be able to sneak his friends out. The final scenes of the film though were the most touching, and to me rivalled anything in Up, as the toys believed they were to be incinerated and held hands to face the inevitable. This emotion lasted on to the scene in which Andy finally set a heartfelt goodbye to Woody and friends in a moment that evoked memories of the final moments of Winnie the Pooh.

I think enlisting Arndt to write the script for Toy Story 3 was a masterstroke and one that more that paid off. Arndt, who previously won an Oscar for penning Little Miss Sunshine, knew that the key to the film's charm was the relationship between the toys and therefore based the story around their closeness. The scene in the incinerator still makes me well up when I think about it and that scene where the toys link hands one-by-one is particularly poignant. I found the structure of the film allowed the old characters to shine while at the same time introducing new memorable supporting players. Obviously some of the most memorable scenes in Toy Story 3 belong to Ken, who is superbly voiced here by Michael Keaton, a character who goes from sleazy enforcer to groovy manager of the daycare thanks in part to his relationship with Barbie. Despite the film being about talking toys, Toy Story 3 is a film that feels incredibly close to real life and the fact that it touches on themes of moving on means that it resonates with every member of the audience. I think what makes the Pixar films so great is that they never insult their audience in the way other animated movies seem to. Both in Up and Toy Story 3 the stories are quite complex and contain something for every member of the family. In fact the two films I've watched for this particular post are better written than a lot of the other Oscar-nominated movies that I've talked about recently. The only minus point in Toy Story 3's favour is the fact that Pixar have now announced a fourth film which won't follow on from this classic. Instead it has been announced as a stand-alone sequel which leads me to believe that it's simply an attempt to cash in on the franchise's success. But disregarding that fact I think it's fair to say that Toy Story 3 caps off what is arguably the most consistent and well-rounded film trilogy of all time.

Next time we follow two British national treasures as they go on a trip around America.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 439-441: A Load of Bullock's

Throughout the last couple of decades Sandra Bullock was mainly seen as an actress who'd fronted a number of successful romantic comedies. That perception slightly changed when she featured in the Best Picture winning Crash and was finally altered for good when she won her only Best Actress Award to date at the 2010 ceremony.

Bullock won her award for The Blind Side, a film which saw her play the kindly but abrupt interior designer Leigh Ann Tuohy. I personally feel though that Bullock isn't the star of the film as this isn't really Leigh Ann's story but rather that of Michael Oher. We first meet 'Big Mike' when his size impresses the coach at the prestigious Wingate Christian School enough to grant him a scholarship. The problem is that Michael can't play for the school football team until his grades improve which is a shame as he doesn't seem to comprehend anything that is being taught to him. At the same time Michael finds himself out on the streets and is rescued by Leigh Ann and her family. The relationship between Leigh Ann and Michael is probably why the film struck a chord with the Academy and why Bullock ultimately received her Oscar. But at the same time I felt this part of the film was rather saccharine as getting to know Michael helped Leigh Ann to grow as a person. Instead I enjoyed watching Michael try attempt to find his place in the world and struggle with the fact that the Tuohy's intentions may not have been all they seemed. Judging from the poster alone, The Blind Side is seemingly about football but there is very little of the sport included in the film. There is only one extended football game in the movie and if you've ever seen a sporting film before you know exactly what to expect. Indeed, The Blind Side isn't very big on surprises but instead is one of those sort of films that Oscar loves to honour that being a 'feel good story'.

Whilst Bullock received all of the praised for The Blind Side I'd instead like to complement Quinton Aaron on his performance as Michael. I felt that he perfectly captured the essence of the gentle giant with Michael having the body of a giant but the mind of a child. I don't think Aaron ever made Michael into a patronising character and instead made him feel incredibly three-dimensional. That's more can be said for Bullock's Academy Award-winning turn in which she seemingly drew inspiration from previous Best Actress performances. Bullock's performance particularly evoked memories of Sally Field in Norma Rae and Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich both of whom won the Oscar for their roles. But while those two characters stood up for something they believed in, all Tuohy did was act as a Good Samaritan for a boy in need. I think my main problem with the role, and the film as a whole, is that there's not much story progression one Michael moves in with the Tuohys. Leigh Ann is definitely a one-note character meaning that Bullock was hard pushed to actually deliver a spot on performance. I believe that Bullock's win was primarily due to the fact that the Academy believed that it was her time to win one. Never mind that there were better performances from less established stars as Bullock was going to win the Oscar regardless of how good she was. The Blind Side's other Oscar-shaped surprise was the fact that it was nominated for Best Picture at all. As I've already mentioned, the 2010 ceremony saw the reintroduction of ten nominees meaning that some mediocre pictures had to be given nods. The Blind Side was one of those films which I believed was simply filling a gap and was one of the reasons that, two years later, the Academy decided to honour between five and ten films rather than a set number.

However, even this new system of picking nominees didn't stop the occasional bad movie turning up and that's just what happened when Bullock's next nominated film turned up. I still remember distinct whooping coming from the audience when Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close's Best Picture nomination was announced to the assembled crowd of press and PR people. This to me signals that one of its main intentions was to garner as many Oscar nominations as possible which is reinforced by the fact it had a limited release during the final week of 2011. The film also includes a ton of familiar faces including Bullock, Tom Hanks, Max Von Sydow, Viola Davis, John Goodman and Jeffrey Jones. Unfortunately for this talented bunch they're simply supporting players with the lead role being taken by Thomas Horn, a young man who had no prior acting experience before being cast in the film's lead role. This to me was one of the key problems with Extremely Loud as the character of Oskar Schell is a tricky one to pull off due to the fact that he suffers from some form of autism. I do feel that even a talented child actor would struggle to make Oskar seem sympathetic so in my opinion Horn was fighting a losing battle. It got to the point that occasionally during the film I just wanted to slap Oskar as Horn wasn't able to convey the fact that his character sometimes spoke out of turn without realising it. As well as including the Academy favourite of a character with a learning difficulty, Extremely Loud's other ace in the hole was that it concentrated on the events of 9/11. Oskar's father Thomas Schell, played by Hanks, was the only person who really understood him and so his son was devastated when he was killed at the World Trade Center. The film centres on Oskar's search to find the lock that fits the key that his father left for him and that had the name Black on it. Although the quest for the mysterious Black is an interesting one, I felt that director Stephen Daldry didn't do enough to make us care about Oskar's end goal.

I personally felt there were only two enjoyable parts of the film the first of which is when Max Von Sydow enters the story as a character simply known as 'The Renter'. The mystery man is renting a house with Oskar's grandmother and cannot speak leading to some interesting odd couple scenes between the pair. It's quite clear that The Renter is Oskar's grandfather as our protagonist starts to notice similarities in the mannerisms between he and his late father. Von Sydow rightfully received Extremely Loud's only nomination although he ultimately lost the Best Supporting Actor fight to Christopher Plummer. I then had to wait until the film's conclusion for something else to grab me namely Sandra Bullock's time to shine as Oskar's mother Linda. Throughout the film Linda had been somewhat of an afterthought but Bullock proved why she'd been cast in the movie during the revelation that her character had been ahead of her son the entire time. The story of Linda's meeting of all of the Blacks was more engaging than anything that Oskar had done during the entire film and it made me wish that we'd have had more of her on screen during the film. Aside from Bullock and Von Sydow everything else about Extremely Loud was felt cloying from the overblown score to the focus on subjects that the producers knew that the Academy loved. I do feel I've been spoilt a bit after watching Hugo, a film with two fine child actors, but I think that if Oskar had been cast more successfully then I would've enjoyed Extremely Loud a little more. Horn had in fact been cast after producer Scott Rudin saw him on a game show and I bet that he regretted his decision after seeing the finished product. Thankfully Horn has now returned to his studies and is putting acting on the back-burner for the time being and let's just hope that his skills have vastly improved if he ever decides to darken the big screen again.

After one film in which I felt she was over-rated and one film in which she wasn't given the chance to shine, I'm glad that Sandra Bullock's talents were finally on display during Gravity. The film is another rare example of the Academy honouring a sci-fi movie, something that still rarely happens despite the increased number of Best Picture nominees. Gravity saw Bullock nominated for her second Best Actress award for playing Mission Specialist Ryan Stone, a biomedical engineer who is currently on her first NASA Mission. The film concentrates on Ryan's predicament after her shuttle is hit with debris from a Russian satellite killing everyone but her and veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski. From there the plot of the film sees Ryan and Matt's mission to get to the International Space Station with a limited supply of oxygen between them. Gravity is very simplistic in nature with Alfonso Cuaron's script, which was co-written with his son Jonas, feeling very basic in nature. Ryan is a character who has gone into space after essentially losing everything as her daughter was killed aged just six years old. Meanwhile Matt is the classic veteran who is on his last NASA mission and is eager to return to Earth. I felt it was quite clear what was going to happen to each character but the ride to the finish line was still expertly plotted. Cuaron's Oscar winning direction was one of the main draws of Gravity due to the fact that he made every moment count. At just ninety minutes, Gravity is one of the shortest Best Picture nominees but its running time is one of its strengths as it adds to the intensity of the situation. Eventually separating herself from Matt, Ryan's endeavours continue as she's forced to go it alone and endures several life-threatening situations. The first time I watched Gravity I was literally biting my nails during the final sequence as I waited to see if Ryan would make it to Earth in one piece.

The fact that Gravity had such an emotional impact on me is a credit to all of the team involved in the film. The Academy agreed with that statement awarding Gravity with seven of the ten Oscars it was nominated for that night. Gravity became one of a number of films that won multiple awards without getting the Best Picture nod only beating Cabaret which won eight but lost out to The Godfather. Gravity's wins included two successes in the sound category which to me was one of the movie's key aspects with the silent nature of the space playing a big part throughout. I personally felt the use of sound added to the dramatic effect of the film with Ryan's voice coming slowly into the film as it began. Steven Price's Oscar-winning score was similarly moving as it echoed Ryan's struggles perfectly and added even more tension to the film's final scenes. Whilst she didn't win an award for the film, a lot of praise has to go for Sandra Bullock for being extremely captivating in a film in which she was on screen for every frame. Bullock's facial expressions were perfectly judged as she made the audience sympathise with a woman who still grieving for the daughter she'd lost. Aside from Bullock, the only other cast member with a sizeable role in Gravity was George Clooney who to me seemed to be channelling Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear. Clooney's charisma was fully exploited in the role of Matt although he came good when he had to act as a mentor to Bullock's rookie astronaut. There was a lot of confusion when Gravity took home the award for Best British Film at that year's BAFTAs especially as it's a film with two big American stars and is directed by a Mexican. However the award-winning Production Design and Visual Effects were all done in several English studios. I do believe that Gravity perfectly exemplifies the skill of the British  Film Industry who worked tirelessly to recreate the zero-gravity atmosphere of the movie. I would go as far as to say that Gravity probably deserved to win the Best Picture award over that year's victor as it's an example of great film-making that contains a compelling if basic story and perfectly utilises modern day cinematic techniques.

Next time we focus on the most recent foreign language film to receive a Best Picture nomination.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 412: My Day on Death Row

In the last post I mentioned how Morgan Freeman's participation in Million Dollar Baby was partly to do with the fact that he could provide a similarly stirring voiceover to the one he delivered in The Shawshank Redemption. That film also has a lot in common with our next nominee The Green Mile, not least because it has the same director in Frank Darabont and is based on a novel by Steven King.

In addition The Green Mile is also set in a prison, albeit a small one on death row in which several inmates await the electric chair. The story is narrated by Paul Edgecomb, who was a guard on death row in the 1930s and is currently living in a retirement home. In a nice little bit of symmetry, the first film I ever watched for the challenge; Top Hat, is referenced several times throughout The Green Mile. The film itself gets the title from the colour of tarpaulin that the prisoners walk their final mile on before they get to the chair. The main focus of the story is on the arrival of a new prisoner John Coffey, a mountain of a man who is accused of raping and murdering two young girls. Despite his hulking stature, Coffey has almost a childlike demeanour and is even scared of the dark. As the film goes on it transpires that Coffey has magical powers which allow him to cure Paul of his urinary infection, bring a dead mouse back to life and later remove the brain tumour from the wife of the head guard. I felt that Darabont balanced the fantastical elements of the story nicely with the more unsavoury nature of some of the characters. One thing he does do is set a fine line between the heroes and villains of the piece meaning that there are very few shades of grey in the film. For example both sadistic prison guard Percy and psychopathic inmate 'Wild Bill' Wharton are painted as pure villains and neither have any redeeming features to speak of. Both also get their comeuppance at the end of the film with Wharton being revealed as the man who was involved in the crime that Coffey was charged with. What I did like about The Green Mile was its final chapter in which the redemption that happened in Shawshank doesn't occur for Paul. Instead he has been given almost a curse by Coffey and as a result has had to see his loved ones die gradually over the space of fifty years.

Even though I've seen The Green Mile before I didn't quite remember the ending where we learn just what sort of effect John Coffey had on Paul. I also don't remember the film being quite as long as it was, just over three hours, however the time seemed to past relatively quickly. The fact that I was never bored is a testament to both Darabont's direction and his adaptation of King's source novel. One part of the film I did like was the fact that John Coffey was never overused and his magical powers were littered throughout the film making them more special when they did appear. Instead, Darabont's focus on the mundane nature of the mile meant that you got a real sense of what it was like to be working on death row. Tom Hanks was the perfect choice to play Paul Edgecomb as he has the everyman quality that the role requires. Hanks is surrounded by a bunch of character actors who play his colleagues including Barry Pepper, David Morse and James Cromwell. I particularly admired Sam Rockwell's performance as the certifiable Wharton as he added an extra element of crazy to an already deranged character. Meanwhile, Doug Hutchinson did his best to make the audience detest the weasel-like Percy and I felt he pulled it off admirably. However, the best performance for me came from relative newcomer Michael Clarke Duncan, who sadly passed away a couple of years ago. Cinematographer David Tattersall goes to great lengths to capture the size of Duncan on screen but I felt the actor did great at portraying his character's softer side. Duncan was in fact the only member of the cast to be nominated for his role in a film which also picked up another three nominations. Although at times The Green Mile makes you suspend your disbelief I feel you're rewarded for doing so by a magical film which is ably written and directed and that contains a number of fine performances.

Next time you'll have to grab your passports as we go on a whistle-stop tour around Asia

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 351-353: Hanks for the Memories

We continue our look at some of the biggest stars of the decade with somebody who has maintained their star presence over time. Initially a sitcom star, Tom Hanks moved to the big screen with hits such as Splash!, Dragnet and Punchline. Hanks was nominated for his first of five Best Actor awards for his role in the mostly comedic Big but it was his progression into drama that really saw him thrive. He won his first Best Actor award for his role as an AIDs-sufferer in Philadelphia and followed this up with appearances in three more Oscar nominated pictures.

In fact Hanks' first appearance in an Oscar-nominated film went on to win both Best Picture and the star's second Best Actor award. The film in question was Forrest Gump, a movie in which Hanks plays the titular simpleton who becomes part of some of the twentieth century's most important events. As this was my first time watching Forrest Gump I was in two-minds as I'd heard differing things about the quality of the film. Whilst some cite it as their favourite film, others view it as far too saccharine for their tastes but I sat somewhere in the middle. I wasn't a fan of the narrative device of having Gump tell his life story to other people whilst they wait for various buses. However this may be due to the fact that I'm a regular user of public transport and hate it whenever a stranger starts a conversation with me. Although the exploration of Forrest's childhood was necessary, especially in regards to his relationship with Jenny, I felt the pace lagged significantly at the start. It was only during his time in Vietnam and the introduction of Bubba and Lieutenant Dan that I warmed to both the character and the film as a whole. Though I wasn't overly charmed by all of Forrest's accomplishments I thought that the film was well-paced and that no segment really outstayed its welcome. Personally I felt the film was its best in the sequences featuring Jenny as they featured some of Forrest Gump's darkest moments. It was this balance of light and shade that Forrest Gump lacked and this is partly because the lead character doesn't always understand social situations. I don't think the final scenes of Forrest Gump tugged on my heartstrings as much as they probably should have done but I still think that this is an accomplished bit of film-making.

I do think that Forrest Gump would have fared better in an earlier decade as Robert Zemeckis' film has more than an air of Frank Capra about it. Most of the film's success is due to Hanks' central turn as he never turns Forrest into a caricature and instead makes the audience believe in his character's naivety. One of Hanks' best attributes is charm and he utilises this to great effect in order to make Forrest seem as likeable as possible. Hanks deals well with Eric Roth's screenplay and makes you really care about the character as the film progresses. I personally felt that Robin Wright's turn as Jenny was equally impressive and she deserved to be Oscar-nominated for her role in the film. She plays Jenny as somebody who has never really found her place in the world and experiments with various activities during the episode. One of the film's most memorable scenes was Jenny's attempted suicide and Wright brilliantly executed this uneasy moment. Wright and Hanks bounced well off one another, with the latter able to demonstrate another side to Forrest namely the anger that he produced every time that Jenny was in trouble. Gary Sinise added a little bit of comedy to the film as the self-hating Lieutenant Dan, who isn't given the death he wants due to Forrest's intervention. Sinise's brilliant turn in the film earned him a Supporting Actor nomination and I for one felt that was well-deserved. One of Forrest Gump's most groundbreaking elements was its use of CGI to successfully implant Forrest in a number of historical settings. Forrest's interaction with many of America's presidents was almost seamlessly executed and the visual effects team won an Oscar for their excellent work. I also loved the film's soundtrack which brought together the best musical aspects from each year in which the movie is set. Ultimately I can see why Forrest Gump's nostalgia appealed to the elderly members of the Academy and I was rather charmed by certain elements of the film. But I feel that there were better films released in the same year and therefore I think that Forrest Gump's shouldn't have received that year's Best Picture award.

Alongside his charm, one of Hanks' other great qualities his ability to make many of the characters he play feel down-to-Earth. For example, in Apollo 13, Hanks makes you care about Astronaut Jim Lovell almost instantly as the opening scene follows him interacting with friends and family at a moon landing party. Here Hanks shows that Jim is a likeable guy, who really cares about his wife and is also incredibly passionate about his job. Ron Howard's film feels almost like a drama documentary as it recounts in detail the ill-fated trip that Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise took in the titular vessel. What makes the film special is the way in which William Broyles, Jr. and Al Reinert's screenplay allows us to get to know the characters before they embark on their mission. Particular time is taken in establishing the relationship between Jim and his wife Marilyn, who becomes the emotional centre of the film following her husband's perils in space. We also learn about Swigert's playboy lifestyle and are made to care about original Apollo 13 crew-member Ken Mattingly who is let go after fears that he may infect the rest of the team. After getting to know the characters, Howard and the writers then propel us right into the spacecraft as we feel every inch of the fear that the astronauts experience. I personally was gripped right from the infamous 'Houston we have a problem' line to the trio's landing safely on Earth. The cramped confines of the lunar module were brilliantly recreated by the film's excellent production design team and were effectively utilised to make us experience the claustrophobic nature of the voyage. Similarly well-produced was the mission control centre, which was constructed at Universal Studios, and felt very convincing from the first time we saw it on screen. Along the way the film comments on the meanings of family, friendship and survival as well as looking at how the media are only interested in the seedier aspects of life.

The characters in Apollo 13 were splendidly brought to life by the film's ensemble cast all of whom injected plenty of personality into their roles. Hanks made you understand just why people were so ready to follow Jim's word and just how much of a family man he was. Hanks brought a likeability to the role and demonstrated how Lovell's fame hadn't made him either arrogant or selfish. Oddly, Hanks wasn't Oscar-nominated for his role here although two fellow cast members ranked up nods in the Supporting categories. As Lovell's wife Marilyn, Kathleen Quinlan was superb at tugging on the audience's heartstrings and conveying just how worried any woman would be in her situation. Even the real Marilyn praised Quinlan's turn and commented on how she made he remember the feelings that she experienced at the time. Ed Harris was also nominated for his role as the mission's Flight Director Gene Krantz, a part in which he undertook a lot of training in order to understand every piece of technical dialogue. I personally enjoyed Gary Sinise's turn here more than I did in Forrest Gump as he was able to employ more emotion as dejected astronaut Ken Matitngly. Sinise did a good job at portraying Mattingly's loyalty to his fellow astronauts as he returned to mission control to help ease the voyage home. Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon were similarly on form as the other two crew members with the latter being particularly impressive as the inexperienced playboy Swigert. The film's art direction and costume design were superb throughout whilst Dean Cundey's cinematography was incredibly involving and helped to capture the mood of the crew. Surprisingly Cundey's work on the film was one of the only categories in which Apollo 13 wasn't nominated. The film did win two awards, in the Sound and Editing categories, however I feel that it was deserving of more accolades. Although this was another Oscar nominee that harked back to the past, I felt that Apollo 13's honouring of recent history was well-executed. Indeed I feel that its combination of visual effects, character development and superb direction made it one of the best films of the decade and therefore a fitting Best Picture winner. Unfortunately this wasn't to be the case as another historical film would triumph at that year's ceremony.

Three years later, Hanks would star in another film set in the past in which he once again proved how he was a master at portraying normal men in extreme situations. His character in Saving Private Ryan, Captain John Miller, is revealed to be a smalltown teacher who wants to get back home to his loving wife. But, as we see throughout the film, Miller is reluctant to be seen as anything else than a Captain to a group of men who appear to thoroughly respect him. As the title would suggest, the film deals with the search for a Private Ryan, a young soldier who is due to return home after all of his brothers were killed in action. The film follows Miller's squad of men on a quest that some of them are sceptical about and question why they're putting their lives at risk to save one man. Joining Miller's squad is nervous cartographer Upham who is drafted in as an interpreter having previously never been in the field. As the film progresses, tensions fray as two members of the group are killed in very different circumstances. What I like about Robert Rodat's script is the way in which each of the squad members are given very different characteristics which in turn allows the audience to get to know them individually. I think this is especially rare for a war film as I've previously found that a lot of the supporting players are given very little development throughout. Whether it be the loyal Hovarth, the realist Reiben, the practical Wade or the wise-cracking 'Fish' everybody has their own unique style. When Ryan is finally tracked down he doesn't want to abandon his team and this sets up a truly memorable final battle scene as the American soldiers do their best to defend a bridge. What spoiled the film slightly for me was the opening and closing scenes in the military graveyard in which the elderly Ryan visits Miller's grave. These scenes felt a little out of place as they were a lot cornier than anything that had happened previously and put a blemish on the face of what was otherwise a masterful piece of film-making.

I first saw Saving Private Ryan at the cinema when I was fifteen and it completely blew me away. From the opening half-an-hour reconstruction of the D-Day Landings to the aforementioned final battle; Saving Private Ryan draws its audience in to the horrors of World War II. I found it to be incredibly realistic in is depiction of the soldiers all of whom were just doing what they could to survive. Their reactions to risking their lives to save one man made sense as did Reiben's later attempt to leave the mission altogether. Saving Private Ryan was also a stylish war film due to its use of saturated colours and the fact that some of it was shot using handheld cameras. Janusz Kamiński's excellent cinematography was rewarded with an Oscar and it's fair to say he earned it for the opening and closing scenes alone. The film's editing, sound editing and sound effects editing were similarly honoured and it's fair to say that Saving Private Ryan was a technical triumph. Meanwhile Steven Spielberg won his second Best Director Oscar for what I consider to be one of  his best ever films. If I was to give one criticism then it would be that it was a little too focused on the American efforts in the war and almost left out the other allied forces entirely. This criticism puts me in mind of the first ever Best Picture winner Wings, which similarly focused on how the Americans were the heroes in the First World War. As I previously mentioned, all of the members of Miller's troop were given distinctive personalities and they were brought to life by a brilliant group of character actors. Tom Sizemore and Edward Burns were captivating as Horvath and Reiben respectively whilst Adam Goldberg was perfect as the wise-cracking 'Fish'. I really enjoyed Jeremy Davies' performance as the rookie Upham, who was often astounded by the brutality of war. Matt Damon made the audience really care about Ryan's wellbeing in the final battle and his appearance really bolstered the latter part of the film. But ultimately this was all about Tom Hanks and I feel it's an outrage that he didn't win his third Oscar for the film. From the first time he arrives on screen, Hanks is utterly believable as a man who is forced into a leadership role and who is currently trying to cope with an uncertain future. Along with Hanks' snub, the film itself missed out on a rightful Best Picture win as Private Ryan is ultimately a modern-day masterpiece which should have won every award going.

Next time we stay in the past with a murder mystery set in 1950s California.