For Love of Books: Norton Annotated Editions

The wonderful Annotated editions of The Wizard of Oz and Classic Fairy Tales from W.W. Norton

Back in 2000, Norton, that wonderful publisher that has ruled the roost of critical editions for great works of literature for decades, released The Annotated Alice.  It was a large hardcover book, almost the size of a coffee-table book.  It had wonderful annotations throughout the text as well as wonderful illustrations throughout the entire text of both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.  It was not a brand new book, however.  It was a reprint of a book originally printed by Crown Publishers in 1960 (it has been printed both by Bramhall House and by Clarkson N. Potter – both of them were imprints of Crown, but I can’t tell what was published by which and when).  It was apparently the brainchild of Clarkson N. Potter, a publisher with some great ideas.  After Alice, he spent the next two decades culling some of the great works of literature and having them all printed in these large hardcover formats with illustrations and annotations throughout.

 

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Picture – 1939

It's just a hunch, but I'm gonna go ahead and guess that he doesn't give a damn.

The 12th Academy Awards, for the film year 1939.  The nominees were announced on February 11, 1940 and the awards were held on February 29, 1940.

Best Picture:  Gone with the Wind

• The Wizard of Oz
• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
• Wuthering Heights
• Stagecoach
• Of Mice and Men
• Ninotchka
• Goodbye Mr. Chips
• Dark Victory
• Love Affair

Most Surprising Omission:  Young Mr. Lincoln

Best Eligible Film Not Nominated:  The Lady Vanishes

Rank (out of 82) Among Best Picture Years:  #47

 

The Best of the Nighthawk Awards: The 1930′s

The animated film that really started it all: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Before diving into the Best Pictures of 1939, I’ll cover the decade at a glance with my own awards.

1930 – 1939

Total Films I’ve Seen:  460

Films That Make the Top 5 in a Category:  35

Best Film Not to Make the Top 5 in Any Category:  Scarface

Film of the Decade:  The Wizard of Oz

Worst Film of the Decade:  Oliver Twist (1932)

Worst Best Picture Nominee of the Decade:  Cleopatra

Worst Film of the Decade made by a Top 100 Director:  Jamaica Inn

 

The Year in Film: 1939

My Top 10:

The best film of the decade and maybe the century: The Wizard of Oz

1. The Wizard of Oz
2. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
3. Wuthering Heights
4. Stagecoach
5. The Lady Vanishes
6. Alexander Nevsky
7. Gone with the Wind
8. Of Mice and Men
9. Gunga Din
10. Port of Shadows

 

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Picture (Ranked) (2010 update)

Sunset Boulevard (1950) - the greatest film ever made

Here we have it. Oscar day is upon us. And for those of you who have been reading these posts for the last month, thanks, and I hope, if you like film, you’ll keep reading. For the next year, I’ll be doing a countdown of the 100 Greatest Directors of All-time, doing one every few days or so. I’ll also continue to do regular film posts and the Family News page will come back to the front, if you’re here to read about Thomas, Veronica and me.

Okay, so that was last year.  The Top 100 Directors are now all completed as can be seen here. This next year involves further work on my Year in Film series, my Top 100 Novels and, starting this week, an in-depth look at all the Best Picture nominees.

Anyway, for the last post, since I have seen 461 475 of the 468 478 films that have been nominated for Best Picture, I am giving a comparative ranking of all the films nominated for Best Picture.

 

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Picture (2010 update)

I would have to say the five best films made before the establishment of the Academy Awards would be The Battleship Potemkin, Greed, The Birth of a Nation, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Gold Rush.

 

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay

Adapted Screenplay is a tricky thing because for some twenty years it was simply called Best Screenplay, and often films were nominated for this as some form of Original Screenplay (either Story or Story and Screenplay). It isn’t until 1956 when it finally settles down into its current form.

 

Left out by AFI: The top 5 Kids Films (non-Animated)

There are some movies that are ridiculously difficult to categorize (what the hell are Fargo and Trainspotting?), but there are also movies that fall across the board into several categories.  For my database (of course I have a database – these lists don’t spring out of nowhere, I have all 5206 films I’ve seen listed), I assign one genre to each movie.  And for some films that can be tricky.  The Wizard of Oz is a fantasy film and a traditional musical, but I list it as a kids film.  But when I sorted out the Animated films, that only left a handful of kids films that were really worth mentioning.  And so, I am cutting this list off at 5, and here they are:

#5 – Babe (Chris Noonan) – 1995

I almost cut the pig and went with Enchanted, but even Amy Adams’ performance and the wittiness couldn’t overcome the pointlessness of her falling for Patrick Dempsey.  So, I went with the pig, even though I think he’s somewhat overrated.

#4 – The Miracle on 34th Street (George Seaton) – 1947

A true Christmas classic, which AFI classified as a Fantasy for some reason.

#3 – The Muppet Movie (James Frawley) – 1979

We played “Rainbow Connection” at our wedding.  Kermit uses the worst pun ever (“I was almost gone with the Schwin.”).  Big Bird has a hilarious cameo (“No thanks, I’m on my way to New York to break into public television.”).  It even has Orson Welles.  And of course, the fork in the road.

#2 – Mary Poppins (Robert Stevenson) – 1964

A film I grew out of, then grew back into.  A perfect performance by Julie Andrews.  Magnificent songs.

The best Kids / Fantasy / Musical ever made

#1 – The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming) – 1939

How much more can I say about this than has already been said?  This would be on the top of the list for almost any genre it can be placed in.  The book is enjoyable, a great children’s book, but the film is for everyone and it’s the performances in the film that truly make it come alive.  Judy Garland spent the rest of her life making films, but she was never as vibrant, as alive or as beautiful as she was in this.

 

The Top 100

I get asked a lot what I thought of a particular movie and my answer is usually, “it was okay.” That’s because most movies are okay. They’re not great, they’re not bad. Just okay. In almost 5000 movies in my spreadsheet that I’ve seen, less than 500 got ** or lower. Some 1500 get ***.5 or ****. And so, even though I try to see better movies (with my obsession with awards), fully 60% of the movies I have seen got *** or **.5. In other words, they were okay.

Well, almost five years ago now I got tired of seeing okay films. I also got tired of not having seen certain films (specifically The Shining). I decided to finally watch The Shining, but also to watch all the Kubrick films I had never seen. I also decided to rewatch all of the other Kubrick films. Thus, my Director Project was born. I made a list of great directors and decided I would watch all of the films by these directors.

Over the years, certain people have been crossed off the list and other directors have been added. But, from the list I made, I am almost done. I have five Kurosawa films to rewatch and then my actual vision for the project is complete. In a later post, I’ll include the director list. In this post however, I can rejoice that the only films I have left to watch are foreign films. Since I have finished all the English language directors on the list, I have written up a list of my top 100 English language films of alltime.