March 31, 2014

1937 - 10th Academy Awards

 photo 1937.jpg

and the nominees were:
Charles Boyer, Conquest
Fredric March, A Star is Born
Robert Montgomery, Night Must Fall
Paul Muni, The Life of Emile Zola
Spencer Tracy, Captains Courageous
Irene Dunne, The Awful Truth
Janet Gaynor, A Star is Born
Greta Garbo, Camille
Luise Rainer, The Good Earth
Barbara Stanwyck, Stella Dallas

Oscar turns 10! And what better way for me to appreciate his first decade of life than watching a hokey movie starring a kid, two movies starring Greta Garbo, another biopic with Paul Muni playing another Frenchman, and a movie with Paul Muni and Luise Rainer playing my ethnicity in my honor </sarcasm>. I'll start off by saying that I'm only looking forward to seeing two of the Actor nominees and I'm actually not excited about any of the Best Actress nominees. Coming in with low expectations can only lead to a somewhat positive outcome, right? Let me know which one of these you've seen/are your favorite :)

8 comments:

  1. Well, you know which Best Actress nominee is my favorite but I think this is a generally strong year for this category.
    Also, I love the Best Actor line-up. Montgomery is superb and March and Muni are outstanding, too.

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    1. That's interesting you say that--for some reason my impression was that it was a generally meh year for Best Actress...

      Montgomery and March are exactly the ones I'm looking forward to!

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  2. I actually did this Best Actress year. :) it's... interesting.

    Life of Emile Zola = a terrible Best Picture win, imo.

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    1. You have no idea, I'm pretty excited to be covering a year where other bloggers have actually seen the films :)

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  3. Low expectations are absolutely the way to go, sometimes the pressure and reputation placed around a perf can kill it. You'll have fun with this year I think :)) Rooting for Stanwyck I think. I LOVE that performance more than most.

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    1. Derek is on to something here.
      Allen,
      since this post of yours, I've kept thinking I might've done Barbara a great injustice giving her only 3 stars for Stella Dallas... The performance has 2 scenes (just 2!) where her acting is breathtaking - you will easily find them in the film. The thing is... it's also a flawed performance (I blame the director or the editor because there are shots where I distinctly remember her out of character). Anyway, we'll see how u feel, maybe I'm the only one who saw "fake" a couple of times.

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    2. Interesting! I generally hear a lot of fuss over Dunne (whom I've yet to warm up to) and Garbo (who's become one of my least favorite actresses of this era since I've begun doing this) so it's good to hear Stanwyck might be worth the watch.

      Alex--I find myself wondering if I should regrade some of the performances that I watched like six months ago so I know what you mean. It's a tough job, all this watching and blogging and rating ;P

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    3. Well, I feel that when we're judging them by themselves, we're doing fine. It's comparing that makes me reconsider. It's like: why did I give X only 3 stars, when I like her more than Y, from a different year, who got 4 stars from me. :P Luckily I don't keep a ranking of all nominees visited, it would be frustrating I feel [might only do that with the winners seen]. Because how can you compare a 2013 performance to a 1940s more theatrical one?! Hmmm

      As I guess you know Irene was my choice, and the fact that I really liked the film also had something to do with it. I hope you'll find her fun(ny).

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