Word: oscared
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...world? They're nowhere to be found. Too short a shelf-life, the executives claimed. So instead of continuing the postmodern trend launched by Run Lola Run, American Beauty and Being John Malkovich earlier this year, we're getting epic fluff--the annual flurry of "Oscar-bait...
...Oscar-bait: n. 1. A movie lasting at least 160 minutes 2. A movie starring Jodie Foster...
...Anna and the King-imperialism and Ms. Oscar-bait herself starring in a self-proclaimed epic about the "East meeting the West." Sure, the story is recycled, but who cares-it's good for you! The Hurricane tells the also "epic" tale of a boxer's struggle to battle racism and the justice system after being wrongly convicted of murder. Gag. There's more-Bicentennial Man's story of a "robot journeying to be a real man," Ride with the Devil's Civil War extravaganza, The Cider House Rules' lovey-dovey schmaltz, etc. Add in last week's Green Mile...
There is something different about an Oscar-worthy movie. It is larger than life, it has grand themes on love and life, it is supposed to inspire, thrill, move. In short, it is Dances With Wolves grand, it is Saving Private Ryan intense, it is The English Patient complex. Director Norman Jewison's (Moonstruck, Agnes of God) latest offering, The Hurricane, aspires to be an Oscar movie. It is lush, it is serious and boy does it try to stuff itself full with Oscar-worthy themes...
...while all four possibilities for this movie were certainly interesting, put them together and you get a movie that just tries too hard to accomplish too much. And what suffers the most? Explanations and motives for half of the movie, which, Jewison, in trying to incorporate every Oscar-worthy theme in filmmaking, has no choice but to leave out in a movie that is already very long. So we're never given a real reason as to why the ridiculously sinister Depalowski goes out of his way to persecute (and believe me, he really goes...