It’s been ages since I wrote my last Best Picture post and the reason for that, other than my own laziness, is that nearly every movie from this year was awful. They were so awful that I had to try multiple times to watch them, and I would use the term “watch” loosely. It was more like they played in front of my face while I wished for death. Before I get into the individual movies, let me briefly discuss the awards themselves. Well… nothing extraordinary happened this year. There were a few more firsts, like the youngest best actor nomination, a movie winning more than 2 awards, movies getting multiple nominations for best actor and so on. The movies themselves, however, left much to be desired and out-shadowed any monumental firsts that may have happened..
Nominees
Cimarron – A western period piece with… questionable characters and plot.
East Lynne – Another melodrama romance.
The Front Page – A “comedy” about some guys running a paper or something.
Skippy – A sweet movie about a boy and his friend and his friend’s dog.
Trader Horn – This guy goes to Africa and some stuff happens.
My Pick
My pick is not Trader Horn as you might have been able to guess by my informative synopsis of the plot. I hated this movie. I hated it so much. I tried maybe 4 times to finish it. For a quarter of it I was on my phone scrolling through Reddit, and for a third I was sleeping. I can’t even tell you which of the main characters was Trader Horn. It was either the guy with the oversized hat or the old guy. I don’t care if it was the first non-documentary movie filmed in Africa, it still has to entertain and it didn’t.
My pick is obviously not The Front Page. Another of the movies that I had trouble sitting through. I think I stayed awake the whole time, but I wasn’t paying attention. I mean it starts with some light comedy about hanging people. Sprinkle in a joke about a woman being hysterical and you’ve got the recipe for the most painful comedy of the year. This movie has aged like milk.
My pick is also not East Lynne. I had a hard time following along, but the biggest issue I had with it is that I wasn’t able to watch the full movie since the only available copy is missing the last 12 minutes. After getting to the “end” of the movie, I tried to find out what happened, but there is an extreme lack of information about this specific version. Although since it was based on a novel, I was able to find some information about the original story. It seems like this iteration deviated substantially from its source material. In the novel, she leaves her husband because she thinks he’s cheating on her. In the movie, she leaves her husband because… her husband thinks she’s cheating on him? In the play, she goes back to him because she finds out he wasn’t actually cheating and wants to be with her kids. In the movie, she goes back to him because… she wants to? In the play, she dies because she’s exhausted and women are weak like that. In the movie she… I don’t know because there’s no ending! Frankly, I was glad it was over and don’t even care to see the ending. Every aspect of this adaptation made it worse and I am sure the ending to the movie was equally as tragic.
My pick is surprisingly not the actual winner, Cimarron. Yes, you heard me folks, the movie about how America stole the land from the Native’s and called it their own did not win my pick for 1932. I expected to hate this movie because it’s a western, but I didn’t hate it because it was a western, I hated it because it was Gone With the Wind, or Breakfast at Tiffany’s levels of cringe. First I’m going to give you my reaction to this movie after I initially watched it, then I’ll give you my reaction to it now.
1932 Best Picture winner, the movie with such classic lines as “Look Isaiah [their black child slave], lot’s of watermelons over there.” and “How many times have I told you not to talk to those dirty, filthy Indians?” All these lines, of course, were said with utmost seriousness. People at the time just lapped this movie up. It got great ratings and made a ton of money. I suppose I can see how this movie could potentially have won back in 1932 since they didn’t exactly think how we think today in terms of human rights. It doesn’t hold up in a single way to a modern viewing though. It starts with white people getting to settle on Native land like it’s a big party and there’s a black slave who has to fan the white family while dangling from a ceiling fan. This kid dies for them and no one even cares. Watching it today is pretty revolting, there’s no question about that. With that said, I think story wise it’s a big step up from last year’s nominees, it’s just the fact that the story it’s trying to tell is gross. The quality is also sub-par, especially compared to the previous year’s winners. I guess they didn’t want to preserve this rotten piece of history.
So I wrote that after seeing the movie for the first time, and that reaction and feeling stuck with me for awhile. As I sat and dwelled on it, I found myself changing my opinion. It’s still a gross movie, but it’s not exactly fair of me to judge it with a modern perspective. I really did get the sense during the movie that it felt like it was being progressive and modern. The main character was trying to stand up for Native rights in a small way and I’m sure they felt like they were taking a step in the right direction for society. Since then we’ve come football fields of steps in that direction which is fantastic and I’m glad that the movie doesn’t hold up or it’d mean that we haven’t progressed at all in 90 years. I’m not going to say this movie is good, or even watchable, but it can have it’s place in history. I can see why it won Best Picture; with its grand scope, the big action scene at the beginning, and its “progressive” story. In either case, it still won’t be my pick.
My pick for Best Picture 1932 is somehow Skippy, the sweet little family film. I had such low hopes for this movie and was blown away. It even made me reflect heavily on what Best Picture really means. Before that though, let me say this movie is about a rich boy who likes to spend time on the wrong side of the tracks with his poor friend and his dog. It stars Jackie Cooper as Skippy and he carries the entire movie on his back. This kid is incredible. He’s such a joy to watch that it’s easy to look past some of the dated references and still have a great time. It made me laugh, made me cry, made me question Best Picture altogether.
Let me ask you, how can you even classify something as the best? Movies are art and art is subjective, therefore how do you determine the best movie of the year? I would say Cimarron had a grander scope and better production values than a little movie like Skippy, although Skippy was infinitely more enjoyable to me. Skippy made me cry and Cimarron made me cringe. Can I then say that Skippy is the best movie of the year? Objectively I can’t because there are people that will absolutely find it boring. Some people enjoy action movies, or comedies, or documentaries. It’s like if you had a yearly award for best fruit. Honey-crisp dominated the apple category, but this year it was time for an orange to win so this year the best fruit award goes to mandarin orange. Well not everybody likes oranges, some people just like apples. I think you get where my little analogy here is going… I don’t think Skippy is the best movie of the 1932, but of the 5 nominees it was my favorite. This year I liked the apple instead of the orange and maybe next year I’ll prefer the banana. If you also like apples then this is a great apple even 90 years later and I would recommend giving it a try.
So this took me almost 3 months to write. I’m well aware of the fact that I’ve gone back to my old habits and I’m not going to make any promises this time. Getting this post out at all was a miracle because I hated 80% of the movies this year. It was a real bummer to say the least. I’m not sure what my next post will be about. It could be another Best Picture post, or maybe TSDPDT, or I might not be back at all until October for my annual horror movie binge. I want this to keep being fun, so I’ll see what inspires me the most.
The Waffleton Post 