Official Nominations: Platoon. Children Of A Lesser God. Hannah And Her Sisters. The Mission. A Room With A View.
I haven’t been keeping a running total of how many times I’ve agreed with the winner in this category (maybe I should be, hint hint), but it feels like this is one of those rare times that The Academy and I are in perfect sync. While a couple of the other films here might have been in with a shout if Platoon had not been in the mix, Platoon is head and shoulders above those in every way. This was a one horse race from the outset.
Children Of A Lesser God is a fine drama, notable for its performers and performances, but it’s, for lack of a better term, just another romantic drama. They’re not my thing and if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. A film has to be truly special in this genre to get a rise out of me. Hannah & Her Sisters is Woody Allen again – you should know by now that I’m not his biggest fan, but his movies are always watchable even as they inevitably irritate me. This is one of his most popular and acclaimed movies, but I wouldn’t put it much higher or lower than the bulk of his work.
The Mission is a good film – well acted, strong direction, great score, and it notable (to me at least) at taking subject matter I wouldn’t normally care and making a compelling story out of it. Finally, A Room With A View is a film which people are either going to love or hate. I’m not a fan. I can break it down technically and say that, yes, it looks beautiful, it has a great cast, and ticks all of the boxes for the withered old shite The Academy seems to love, but it’s also incredibly dull, overblown, and I just don’t care about any of the people or what they’re doing.
My winner then, is one of the great Vietnam movies, and one of the great War movies, getting into the dirt and showing conflict for what it can be – dirty, bloody, and as polluted by in-fighting as much as dealing with the enemy. A superb cast, Stone uses some of his own experiences to double down on the film’s realism, and there are several unforgettable cinematic moments.
My Winner: Platoon
My Nominations: Platoon. Aliens. Betty Blue. A Better Tomorrow. Big Trouble In Little China. Blue Velvet. The Fly. The Hitcher. Stand By Me.
It’s hardly a surprise that Platoon is the only nomination to make it over to my list. Joining it is, arguably, another Vietnam war movie in Aliens. James Cameron’s hit sequel goes for action over suspense and excess over minimalism, except he wisely keeps both in check. There is an uncommon subtlety to the action still peppered with tension, and there are plenty of quiet character moments which connect us to those involved and the story at large. It’s both a popcorn film at its finest, but a technical marvel, and a film demanding study and re-watch.
Watching A Better Tomorrow today for the uninitiated might feel like an exercise in rolling out cliches – the slow motion gunplay, the younger justice-serving rookie cop brother and his older criminal brother, the cool wisecracking side-kick who deserves their own spin-off, but much of it was either started or perfected here. Taking influence from both the buddy cop action movies of the US and the more serious but stylized crime dramas of the 60s and 70s, John Woo gives his own unique spin and essentially kicked off a new genre.
While it didn’t start it’s own genre, Big Trouble In Little China is very much a film in a category all of its own, merging every genre and style you can think of and becoming John Carpenter’s most fun movie. It’s silly, endlessly enjoyable, and like several others on this list, I can put it on a any time and never be bored.
It seems bizarre with retrospect that Blue Velvet didn’t get an official nomination given how dull the list of official nominees is. It’s both profoundly more influential and generally more respected than anything other than (and maybe including) Platoon, and Lynch was still a big hitter. If there’s one film which should have been on the official list, it’s Blue Velvet. Betty Blue grabbed a Best Foreign Film nomination, but there’s no excuse why it shouldn’t have received one for Best Picture.
Stand By Me is a film whose reputation has only grown in the years since release, but even at the time it was critically acclaimed and received a Writing nomination. Once again you look at the official nominations, and you look at Stand By Me and ask yourself ‘what were they thinking’? My final two choices were never going to be considered for this category, a shame because both are peerless in their respective sub-genres. If there’s a better body horror movie than The Fly, I haven’t seen it, but it’s more than a simple gross-out and has two excellent leads at the top of their game, while The Hitcher is an endlessly enticing and mystifying action/horror/thriller road movie with a career best Rutger Hauer lurking in the back seat. Take a few entries out of my category and compare it with the real list. I think we know which one is better.
My Winner: Aliens
Let us know your winner in the comments!
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