4 January, 2020
A primer on great screenwriting: using characters as they existed in the book but doing what you have to do to compress the story and get it to come out right on scene. In other words, there is no scene like this in the book.
note: A great Top 5 and very good Top 10. My list continues down at the bottom.
12 August, 2019
“And now all that is over, and that’s the hardest part. Today everything is very different. No more action. I have to wait around like everyone else. I’m an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.” (p 284)
note: Once you get past the top two, it’s not nearly as strong as 1989 but it would hard to be that good. There is, however, a large number of films on my list outside of the Top 10 (barely making the list but making it nonetheless) which are all listed down at the bottom.
3 December, 2018
“Deep Throat moved closer to Woodward. ‘Let me explain something,’ he said. ‘When you move on someone like Haldeman, you’ve got to be sure you’re on the most solid ground. Shit, what a royal screw-up!'” (p 220)
Note: There has been a change since my Nighthawk Awards, with The Shootist moving up into the Top 10. If it seems like a big leap, that’s because #6-10 aren’t all that strong and in a good year many of them wouldn’t make the list. The only two films on my list that aren’t in the Top 10 are both reviewed below because of nominations: Bound for Glory and Family Plot. (more…)
13 March, 2018
Westerns are a uniquely American art form. It has been said that the three things America has contributed to world culture are baseball, Jazz and Westerns. The very start of Westerns goes back to the start of narrative story-telling in American film with The Great Train Robbery perhaps the first great narrative American film.
I had written a paragraph about what I see as the basic Western (as opposed to the sub-genres listed below) but then I found this bit on page 195 of The Rough Guide to Westerns that summed it up much better than I had:
Pulp writer Frank Gruber says there are seven essential Western plots:
- The Union Pacific story (the railroad/stagecoach comes to town or wagon train adventures)
- The ranch story (conflict between ranchers or ranchers vs. others)
- The empire story (an epic version of the ranch story)
- The revenge story
- The cavalry and indians story
- The outlaw story
- The marshal story.
Those pretty much sums it up. The fifth one is a specific sub-genre below and the third one really kind of fits into the “Epic” sub-genre. But otherwise, those are pretty much the films that don’t have a sub-genre. Ironically, most of the films starring the biggest Western stars (also listed below) aren’t in any of the sub-genres but fit those basic story types. You can also get much more detailed by going here, though most of what is down below you will only find here which is why I wrote all this. (more…)
17 September, 2017
No one knows how to bring you back around better than Danny Boyle.
You can read more about this year in film here. The Best Picture race is discussed here, with reviews of all the nominees. First there are the categories, followed by all the films with their nominations, then the Globes, where I split the major awards by Drama and Comedy, followed by a few lists at the very end. If there’s a film you expected to see and didn’t, check the very bottom – it might be eligible in a different year. Films in red won the Oscar in that category (or Globe, in the Globes section). Films in blue were nominated. Films (or directors) in olive are links to earlier posts that I don’t want to have show up in blue and be mistaken for a nominee. Films with an asterisk (*) were Consensus nominees (a scale I put together based on the various awards) while those with a double asterisk (**) were the Consensus winners.
I’m listing the top 20 in the categories but only the top 5 earn Nighthawk nominations.
7 July, 2017
You definitely don’t want to be the other guy.
You can read more about this year in film here. The Best Picture race is discussed here, with reviews of all the nominees. First there are the categories, followed by all the films with their nominations, then the Globes, where I split the major awards by Drama and Comedy, followed by a few lists at the very end. If there’s a film you expected to see and didn’t, check the very bottom – it might be eligible in a different year. Films in red won the Oscar in that category (or Globe, in the Globes section). Films in blue were nominated. Films with an asterisk (*) were Consensus nominees (a scale I put together based on the various awards) while those with a double asterisk (**) were the Consensus winners.
I’m listing the top 20 in the categories but only the top 5 earn Nighthawk nominations.
Analysis: The Departed has the lowest Consensus total in five years but that doesn’t mean it’s a competitive race. It just means that there was a lack of consensus, with a record eight different films winning a Best Picture award (1974 is the only other year with more than six and that was because different eligibility years lead to three films winning the BAFTA). The Departed wins the Oscar, BFCA, LAFC and CFC while Letters from Iwo Jima wins the LAFC, NBR and the Globe for Best Foreign Film. The other award winners are The Queen (BAFTA), Little Miss Sunshine (PGA), Babel (Globe – Drama), Dreamgirls (Globe – Comedy / Musical), United 93 (NYFC) and Pan’s Labyrinth (NSFC). Every Consensus winner after this (through 2016) will score at least 585 points (The Departed has 485) and every year will have at least one film that wins five awards. (more…)
20 May, 2017
The DiCaprio side of the DiCaprio-Scorsese collaborations takes a quantum leap.
You can read more about this year in film here. The Best Picture race is discussed here, with reviews of all the nominees. First there are the categories, followed by all the films with their nominations, then the Globes, where I split the major awards by Drama and Comedy, followed by a few lists at the very end. If there’s a film you expected to see and didn’t, check the very bottom – it might be eligible in a different year. Films in red won the Oscar in that category (or Globe, in the Globes section). Films in blue were nominated. Films (or directors) in olive are links to earlier posts that I don’t want to have show up in blue and be mistaken for a nominee. Films with an asterisk (*) were Consensus nominees (a scale I put together based on the various awards) while those with a double asterisk (**) were the Consensus winners.
I’m listing the top 20 in the categories but only the top 5 earn Nighthawk nominations.
Analysis: Ray and Eternal Sunshine actually tied for the 5th Consensus nominee spot. Million Dollar Baby, with a third place finish, is the first Oscar winner not to be #1 or #2 at the Consensus Awards since 1995, and no film has finished below 2nd since (through 2016).
All 20 of these films are **** and there are no other **** films. It’s a magnificent Top 10 and the third best Top 20 to-date. (more…)
