Oscar Movie Re-education Program

I just looked through a list of all the Oscar-winning movies ranked by IMDB score and somehow I have missed at least a third of the Oscar-winning movies.

I have avoided some that were designed to depress me.

WAR: BAD

To start, I don't need to be convinced that War is Hell, so it's been no thank you to these movies despite their IMDB rating:

• Wings (7.5)
• The Bridge on the River Kwai (8.1) *
• Patton (7.9)
• The Deer Hunter (8.1) *
• From Here to Eternity (7.6)
• Platoon (8.1)

Three of those movies topped 8, though, so perhaps they have something to say that's worth stomping my heart down into the mud. I'm all up for The Bridge on the River Kwai, then, and maybe I'll just shut my eyes during the Russian Roulette scene in The Deer Hunter. La La La.

PEOPLE: BAD

• Moonlight (7.4)
• In the Heat of the Night (7.9)
• One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (8.7) *
• No Country for Old Men (8.1)
• Green Book (8.2) *
• Dances with Wolves (8.0)
• 12 Years a Slave (7.5)
• Gandhi (8.0)

Well, the obvious choice is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, because of that insane rating, 8.7, see what I did there, and because I fall into the oppressed category and not the oppressor. I have tried to watch Dances with Wolves and Gandhi, and I know they'd be good for me, but just like rehab, I ain't got 70 days. Green Book, then.

BUMMERS IN GENERAL

• Nomadland (7.3)
• Million Dollar Baby (8.1) *
• Calvalcade (5.9)
• How Green Was My Valley (7.7)
• On the Waterfront (8.1)
• The Lost Weekend (7.9)

Cavalcade sounds like the seminal Upstairs/Downstairs, right up my alley, but if I'm sticking to my self-imposed rule of highest IMDB rating I have to go with Million Dollar Baby, oh god, because I have tried three times to finish On the Waterfront.

MOVIES I MIGHT ACTUALLY ENJOY

• The Broadway Melody (5.7)
• The Greatest Show on Earth (6.6)
• Cimarron (5.9)
• The Great Ziegfeld (6.7)
• Around the World in 80 Days (6.8)
• All the King's Men (7.5) *
• The Life of Emile Zola (7.2) *
• Going My Way (7.1)
• Tom Jones (6.5)
• An American in Paris (7.2)

Notice how this category has lower ratings than movies that will make me a better person. All the King's Men is about a populist corrupt politician, so I should have watched that a few years back already. All I know about Emile Zola is he was somehow involved in the Dreyfus case, J'accuse, and I don't remember who was accused and of what, and if I had any sense I would go look it up on Wikipedia right now, but frankly I feel so shitty now that I no longer care. 

So. I wonder if I should save this for my March vacation. Seven Movies in Seven Days to a Better Me. 

Comments

[KC]

I feel like re-education via Oscar-winning movies would have some weird biases towards "film as art" (aka: we are going to be deliberately unpleasant because things normal people enjoy are not Art) rather than "truth" exactly. But if you feel the need for more unpleasantness in your life, eh, sure, go for it?

(I would enjoy The Greatest Show on Earth, I suspect, if I had not read an autobiography of Barnum, but as it is... nope. The man was proud of his "cleverness" which was mostly cheating people, and proud that he could exploit freaks "better" than anyone else could, and the degree of rehabilitation necessary to turn that into that plot line... I mean, imagine if someone pretended The West Wing TV series had been written as a reflection of how things actually worked during Trump's presidency?)(but it sounds like an enormous amount of fun! And if they were not pretending it was about Barnum, but just about a mythical Mixed-But-Finally-Good circus guy, then sure, but they decided to name names, so.)

[TheQueen]

KC - I think you are thinking of "The Greatest Showman" which was a puff piece about PT Barum with a Hugh Jackman, as opposed the "The Greatest Show on Earth," which was one of those star-laden 50's gimmick vehicles.

[KC]

You're right! And I guess that was a few years ago...