Mike Boone
Supporting Actor
TravisR said:
I would point out that the 4 movies you mention that you loved while growing up, all got mostly excellent reviews. In those times only five movies each year made the cut to be nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award, and Star Wars, Jaws, and Raiders of the Lost Ark were all nominated for that Oscar. And even though I'm a former marathon runner myself, I still thought that Raiders of the Lost Ark was a better example of skillful movie making than Chariots of Fire which beat Raiders to win the Oscar. Of course I realize how political Oscar voting can be, and also how Academy members sometimes seem to be over-awed by period pieces that include British accents. Now, such a film of that type, like A Man For All Seasons, IMO, richly deserved it's win for Best Picture, and the Oscars it gained for Paul Scofield's towering performance, and the brilliant writing of Robert Bolt. But the totally magical film, E.T., being denied Best Picture, in deference to the award being given to a standard, by the numbers, biopic, like Gandhi, was a real travesty. As a movie reviewer mentioned, one would hardly suspect that director Richard Attenborough had fought for 20 years to be allowed to make Gandhi, because little evidence of his passion showed up on screen. Certainly, though, Ben Kingsley's performance in the title role was strong, and his efforts partially redeemed what, IMO, is an otherwise pretty mediocre film. I usually have an excellent memory for individual scenes in films, but though I can remember where I took my daughter to see Gandhi after it received its Oscar nominations, I could not even give a rough description of 15 minutes of scenes in Gandhi if such a task was required to prevent me from going before a firing squad. I recently bought the Blu-ray of Gandhi, and I'm determined to give the film another chance, sometime. But I tend to think that many who have only seen Gandhi once, as I did, probably now look back on the film as being about as unmemorable an experience as my one viewing has proved to be. IMO, Steven Spielberg was cheated 2 years in a row by the Motion Picture Academy, because its members were impressed by the noble themes contained in Chariots of Fire and Gandhi, and not because those themes were brought to the screen through any great quality of film making.
