Million Dollar Baby (2004)

The first time I watched Million Dollar Baby (2004) and he’s got a serious problem with Clint Eastwood and Hillary Swank (he thinks Clint is a terrible actor and Hillary looks like a man – which could be due to the fact we’ve seen Boys Don’t Cry at least five times), so needless to say, I was unable to truly enjoy this piece of film. But because he moaned and bitched through the entire movie, I was able to watch it for the 365 Oscar Project like I had never seen it before. I wasn’t too excited to watch a movie about boxing, but this movie really wasn’t about boxing at all. The story of the two main characters really helped me through the nearly two and a half hour epic. Plus, who wouldn’t want to watch a movie narrated by Morgan Freeman? He’s FABULOUS.


Okay, so the movie tells the story of Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) who is a semi-washed up boxing coach with one star pupil left. He runs a pretty crappy looking gym where Eddie “Scrap-Iron” Dupris (Morgan Freeman), a former boxer, works as a janitor. Scrap-Iron was injured in his 109th fight, causing him to lose his eyesight in one eye. Frankie feels guilty that he didn’t stop Scrap-Iron from fighting, which is why he lets him work and live at the gym.

Those that practice at the gym are a pretty rag-tag group of young men and one woman, Maggie Fitzgerald (Hillary Swank). Maggie is an incredibly poor waitress that comes from a very poor family. She’s just a girl with a dream. She’s 31, which Franking thinks is too old for a woman fighter. When Frankie loses his star fighter he decides to take Maggie on despite his reservations to train a woman. His insistence that women can’t fight is actually quite insulting now that I think about it.

Throughout the movie we learn that there’s something strange and sad about Frankie. We see multiple boxes in his closet full of ‘return to sender’ letters that he has written to his daughter Kate. He also goes to church every day and while the movie never straight out tells the view why he does this, it’s implied that he has some sort of guilt built up surrounding his daughter.

Maggie doesn’t have a dad. Can you see where this is going?

Maggie turns out to be a pretty darn good fighter with Frankie’s help and the two form a relationship that a blind man could have seen coming 100 miles away. They eat lemon meringue pie together and talk about life. Maggie tells a story about her father and how he put her childhood dog out of its misery after it got sick. It’s really touching.

Maggie begins begging Frankie to get her a title fight. He is resistant to the idea, but finally gives in. Maggie fights this really nasty, mean looking woman and takes a nasty blow to her neck. Her spine is permanently injured, leaving her paralyzed.

Frankie takes care of Maggie each and every day and tries to find a doctor that can heal her. Unfortunately, nothing can be done. Maggie is placed into a nursing home. Her deadbeat mother comes to see her once and attempts to get Maggie to sign a power of attorney, which would leave her money to her mother if she died. Maggie tells her to piss off and Frankie becomes the only family she has.

Maggie becomes incredibly depressed and bites her tongue, hoping she’ll bleed to death. (Can the tongue bleed that much? I’m skeptical.) She asks Frankie if he remembers the story she told him about her father putting her childhood dog down (and you can hear the audience gasp as they realize how this whole movie is going to end). Frankie ponders the idea of what truly living means, and in the end decides to help Maggie die. He calls her “my darling”, the Irish phrase he had written on the back of her boxing robe, and gives her a shot of adrenaline. She dies. Whoa, heavy.

Scrap-Iron returns as the narrator and we learn that he has been writing a letter to Katie, Frankie’s daughter, telling her the story of Frankie and Maggie. He says that Frankie never returned to the gym and that he just wanted Katie to know what kind of guy her father was. The last shot of the movie is Frankie eating lemon meringue pie.

I watched this movie when Mother Nature had brought my monthly gift, and let me tell you, it DEVISTATED me. I cried for a week. Just a warning for all you sensitive ladies out there.

Here's the trailer for Million Dollar Baby.  Again, who wouldn't want to watch this movie after hearing Morgan Freeman's voice?



Million Dollar Baby was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four, including Best Picture, Best Director (Clint Eastwood), Best Supporting Actor (Morgan Freeman), and Best Actress (Hillary Swank).

If you’re looking for a well acted tear-jerker about loyalty, I highly recommend Million Dollar Baby. I give it four statuettes out of five. Well played, Clint, well played.

Titanic (1997)

I was 12 when Titanic (1997) premiered. I saw the movie four times in the theatre and multiple more times once it came out on video. But after I turned 14, I turned my back on Titanic and didn’t watch the movie again until I began this project. I was not excited to watch it again, but I was hooked as soon as I saw Leonardo DiCaprio’s eyes (incidentally, the same thing that caused me to drop $40 of hard earn allowance money on tickets the first time around).

We all know the story (unless you were under a rock throughout the late 1990’s and even if you were the only person never to have viewed the film, you should still know how it ends), so I’ll keep the recap brief.

Bill Paxton (pre-polygamy days) is a high-tech grave robber who is attempting to find a giant blue diamond necklace that is assumed to have gone down with the Titanic. Instead he finds a nudie drawing of a hot chick who is now 100 years old. She sees the drawing on the local news (who knew they could show drawn boobs?) and she calls up Bill Paxton. The next day she, her granddaughter (played by James Cameron’s wife) and her dog are aboard Bill’s boat. She begins telling the story of her trip in the Titanic, which throws us back in time to 1912.

Rose is a wealthy red head who is engaged to an asshole. They (along with Rose’s overbearing mother) are taking a trip back to the USA on the Titanic. Leonardo DiCaprio, or Jack, as he is known in this film, wins Titanic tickets in a poker game. They meet one night after Rose tries to jump overboard (she doesn’t like being rich or engaged to a rich guy or something). Jack stops Rose from committing suicide and the two become close. He shows her a good time boozing and dancing in steerage and her fiancée gets really upset. To win her love back he gives her a giant blue diamond necklace shaped like a heart. She doesn’t really like it, so she runs off with Jack (as much as one can “run off” on a ship). She asks Jack, who is an artist, to draw her naked wearing only her necklace. After that they do it in a car (I know you remember the steamed up windows with the hand print).

Their sex in a car causes the Titanic to hit an iceberg. The boat doesn’t have enough lifeboats, so only the wealthy women and children get off the sinking ship. Rose decides to stay with Jack and after about an hour of wondering when these people are going to drown, the boat goes down. Jack and Rose hold hands, vowing to ‘never let go’. Jack dies, Rose gets saved. On the rescue ship she almost runs into her old fiancée, but covers her face so he can’t see her. She changes her name to “Rose Dawson” taking Jack’s last name.

The movie ends with old lady Rose throwing the diamond necklace into the water. Oh yeah, then that Celine Dion song about her heart going on plays over the credits.

There we go. Four hours in three paragraphs.

In case you forgot why you were so excited to see this movie in 1997, here's the trailer.



Titanic was nominated for 14 Oscars and won 11 of them. According to AFI, Titanic is the 83rd Best Movie of All Time (2007 list), My Heart Will Go On is the 14th Best Song from a Movie, and Jack’s line “I’m the King of the World!” is the 100th Best Line of All Time.

Titanic will be re-released in 3D in 2011, so get excited.

While this movie took me back to my tween days, I’m not as much of a fan as I used to be. Titanic gets three statuettes out of five from me, and two of those belong to Leonardo DiCaprio’s eyes.

The Last Emperor (1987)

Alright, so I’ll be honest. Before beginning this project I’d only viewed 24 Oscar winners, but I’d at least heard of the majority on the list. The Last Emperor (1987) is one of the few exceptions. I’d never heard of the film (granted I was two when the movie was released) nor had I heard of anyone in the movie, except for the wonderful Peter O’Toole (who I recently watched in his stint on Showtime’s The Tudors, he makes an excellent Pope). What I knew of the movie before I watched it was the two sentence synopsis on my Netflix On Demand screen. What I knew of Chinese history, the topic of this movie, was nil. So let’s just say that watching The Last Emperor was a learning experience on many fronts.


As the name may suggest, The Last Emperor tells the story of the last emperor of China, Pu Yi. The movie takes place throughout his life from 1908 to 1967. It begins in 1950 at a Chinese train station. A prison train pulls into the station and prisoners of war empty out of the train. The prisoners wait in the train station and a few bow down before a fellow prisoner who is Pu Yi. They are led away by guards. Pu Yi walks to the bathroom, locks the door, and slits his wrists.

We’re then transported to 1908 when three year old Pu Yi is taken to the Forbidden City and crowned the Emperor of China. He is an absolutely adorable little boy and I wish scenes of young Pu Yi would have lasted longer. There are a few strange moments when we see the imperial physician check Pu Yi’s stool and the young emperor in bed with his wet nurse.

The film flips back to 1950 and Pu Yi’s suicide attempt has failed. He is then taken to prison.

We next see Pu Yi in 1914 when he is eight. His brother comes to visit. The two boys play together and things go well until his bother informs Pu Yi that he isn’t the real emperor of China. Pu Yi gets pretty pissed and, in order to prove that he is emperor, makes his servant drink ink. Nasty. The boys climb the walls of the Forbidden City and see a man in a car. Pu Yi’s brother informs him that the man in the car is president of China. His advisors tell him that China does in fact have a president and is a republic. Tough break for such a young dude.

The brothers meet again in 1950 at the prison. The prison governor begins to read a book about Pu Yi’s life written by his tutor.

The film flips to 1919 and we see Pu Yi meet his tutor, who is from Scotland. This is the beginning of Pu Yi’s fascination with the Western world. His tutor, Reginald, quickly becomes his best friend and confident. Pu Yi seeks his advice and Reginald often speaks to the emperor’s advisors on his behalf. The emperor marries two women in 1922, Wan Jung who is the empress and Wen Hsiu who is his secondary wife. They all have sex together. There do seem to be some perks to being a fake emperor of China.

Back in prison Pu Yi is brought to testify to his war crimes. We quickly learn that Pu Yi had a relationship with the Japanese and that is why he is now in prison.

In 1924 the Chinese government expels the emperor from the Forbidden City. They make arrangements to go to the British Embassy, but instead flee to the Japanese Embassy. The Japanese had offered to help Pu Yi and his family who were no longer considered Chinese citizens. Pu Yi sells many family possessions and lives a comfortable life with his two wives. He parties, drinks, and sleeps with many women. He still dreams of moving west. Pu Yi and Wan Jung have even taken western names ‘Henry and Elizabeth’. Wen Hsiu decides that she’s sick of playing second fiddle in this marriage and leaves.

Then trouble arrives. A Japanese spy named Eastern Jewel (I’m not making this up) arrives at the home of Pu Yi and Wan Jung. She gets wan Jung hooked on opium and also sways Pu Yi to the side of Japanese.

Back in prison we learn that Pu Yi claimed that he was kidnapped and taken to Japan against his will. In a flash to 1932 we see that Pu Yi went to Japan of his own free will. He convinces the Japanese to allow him to become the emperor of Manchuria, a portion of China that is no longer under Chinese rule. He becomes incredibly power hungry and his life begins to fall apart. His wife, who is so hooked on opium she sleeps with another man and is impregnated, is sent away. The Japanese surrender in 1945 and Pu Yi is forced to evacuate Manchuria. As he attempts to escape, he is captured by the Russians, who eventually turn him over to the Chinese. This is how he arrived in prison.

Pu Yi admits that he is responsible for his actions and serves nine years in prison before his release. The movie ends in 1967 with Pu Yi’s return to the Forbidden City.

Whoa. Trust me, that was the brief version. Watching the movie will definitely provide you with more detail, but you get the picture.

I’d also like to put a disclaimer on this film. If you’re thinking this would be a great way to teach your children about Chinese history, I suggest you find a G rated film. Unless you’re ready to explain why the emperor has a wet nurse until he’s nine, why he sleeps with two women at once, and why the empress is kissing women. And of course, this is a movie, and something were changed for time and plot continuity – it’s not exactly spot on historically.

The Last Emperor was nominated for and won nine Oscars including Best Musical Score which was A.MAZ.ING.

Here's the trailer, which will give you a great snippet of the music.

I really liked this film and feel that I definitely need to view it again, because I’m sure I missed many things. This one is a four out of five statuettes.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1976)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1976) was the first, what I would deem, modern movies I’ve watched on my quest to view all 82 winners and the first one in color! Additionally, it was the first movie that I watched starring someone that I had grown up watching on the big screen. I’d heard of a lot of the other actors that starred in the films I’ve watched, but for the majority of them their Oscar winner was the first time I’d ever seen them on film. Not so with the great Jack Nicholson, who I’ve seen in just about a million movies. I’ve also heard from lots of people that One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a great film. While I enjoyed this movie, I didn’t think it was spectacular. The message was great, the acting was amazing, but it lagged to the point where there were times I wished it was over. You could definitely tell this film was based off a book; at times I felt like I was watching a book on my screen.

Jack Nicholson plays Randle Patrick McMurphy criminal who is a repeat offender. He was sentenced to time in prison for statutory rape and has been transferred to a mental institution for evaluation. It seems like Randle has been faking mental illness to avoid the hard labor sentence of prison. At the mental institution Randle’s floor is run by a hard-ass nurse named Nurse Ratched. She’s pretty much a dictator, which is in direct contrast to Randle’s anti-authoritarian attitude. They are like oil and water from the beginning.

Ratched runs group therapy sessions with the patients on the floor that boarder on humiliating. It seems as if almost everyone on the floor is slightly brainwashed by her which is how she maintains order. Randle finds that the other patients, all male, are more focused on their fear of Ratched than they are on getting better and returning to the outside world.

One of the best parts of the movie is the cast of characters that live in the mental institution. There’s the stuttering Billy, the delusional Martini (played by Danny DeVito), Chief who is an enormously tall Native American, and a few others. Chief and Randle become the closest, as most people think Chief is mute, but Randle talks to him and treats him as an equal.

Randle becomes the de facto leader of the floor, causing as much trouble for Ratched as possible. Power begins to turn towards Ratched though when Randle learns that he cannot leave the mental institution but all of the others are their voluntarily. This news seems to knock him off his feet a bit.

One day Randle helps the other men on the floor escape for a day to go deep sea fishing. Ratched’s reaction is to double down her humiliating sessions and attempt to break Randle. The hospital attempts to give Randle electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) which does not work in settling him down. After his ECT session Chief opens up to Randle and speaks to him, bringing the two of them even closer.

Randle sneaks girls into the hospital one night and throws a party on the floor. Billy (the stutterer) and one of the women spend the night together while the other patients drink themselves to sleep. Nurse Ratched walks into the hospital to see this scene and tries to embarrass Billy by telling him she’ll call his mother. Billy is so distraught that he kills himself. Randle is so upset by Billy’s death he tries to choke Ratched with his bare hands. Randle is taken off the floor.

He returns later that night and it is clear that something has happened to him. Chief sees that he is unresponsive and it becomes clear that the hospital has given him a lobotomy. Chief, who can’t stand to see his friend like this, smothers Randle to death with a pillow. He then breaks a window and escapes from the hospital.

The end is the movie is incredible touching and is truly a testament to the power of friendship. The movie really does make you think about what crazy actually means. My interest was also sparked enough to want to read the book. It’s deep and I wouldn’t watch it if you’ve had a rough day. 

Here's the trailer.  I don't think it does the movie justice.



One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest won the top five prizes at the Oscars (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay). It was the second movie to ever do so, after It Happened One Night (1934). According to AFI it is the 20th Best Movie of All Time out of 100.

I’ll give this one four out of five statuettes. Definitely on the “Watch Again” list.

All About Eve (1950)

All about Eve (1950) is one of those movies that I can’t believe I lived without watching for 24 years. It was so freaking fabulous that as soon as the movie was over I wanted to hit play and watch it all over again. It had every component a guilty pleasure should have – handsome men, beautiful women in amazing dresses, dramatic love stories, and awesome one liners. It was so good I almost couldn’t believe it won an Oscar (ah, take that diss Hollywood).


Made in 1950, it’s easy to see that All About Eve really set the tone for movies in the decade including one of the first appearances by Marilyn Monroe. And let me tell ya, I know totally understand what Kim Carnes was singing about in Betty Davis Eyes.

The film centers on the famous stage actress Margo Channing who finds her life turned upside down by the young, manipulative Eve Harrington.

The film begins at an awards ceremony for Eve, and then turns back in time to show the viewers how Eve became so famous. Eve befriends Margo’s best friend Karen Richards and her husband, Lloyd who is a playwright. She tells Karen how much she admires Margo’s work and Karen introduces the two of them. Margo is taken with Eve and how much she admires her, so she takes Eve under her wing. Eve moves in with Margo and becomes a sort of personal assistant. The only person who seems to suspect something is strange about Eve is Addison DeWitt, a theatre critic. Eve schemes her way into becoming Margo’s understudy and performs Margo’s role one night. The theatre critics love her and Margo begins to become very upset with Eve.

Lloyd is working on a new play which is set to star Margo, but Eve blackmails Karen into convincing Lloyd to give her the role. Eve takes the role and begins her next plan, which is to drive a wedge into Karen and Lloyds marriage and one day marry Lloyd. Addison Dewitt discovers that Eve is not who she says she is, but is Gertrude Slojinski a woman from Wisconsin who was paid to leave town after an affair with her former boss. DeWitt blackmails Eve saying that she now belongs to him.

Eve becomes a famous Broadway actress and the film ends as it begins, at an award ceremony. Eve receives the top honor for a theatre actress. When she returns home she see that a young female fan, named Pheobe has slipped into her apartment. Pheobe begins to take care of Eve, and the movie ends with Pheobe wearing Eve’s clothes holding Eve’s award.

Ah, the circle of life.

This film has some serious staying power. It’d be a great one to remake. Maybe with Meryl Streep as Margo and Michelle Williams as Eve. Love it!

I couldn't find a decent trailer for this movie, which is unfortunate.  But I did find a clip of the famous "bumpy night" line.



All About Eve was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six, including Best Picture and Best Director. Unfortunately neither Betty Davis (Margo) or Anne Baxter (Eve) won Oscars for their performances, even though they were AMAZING in this movie.

This movie is the origin of AFI's 9th Most Memorable Movie Quote - "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night."  It's the 16th Best Movie of All Time according to AFI also. 

I’m going to give All About Eve five statuettes out of five, a perfect score for a perfect movie.

You Can't Take It With You (1938)

I’ll admit it, it took me a few weeks to get through You Can’t Take It With You (1938). I began the movie when I lived in Lansing and finished it once we were settled into our new home in Grand Rapids. Now, it wasn’t just the move that delayed my finishing this Oscar winner, but the pace at which the first hour of this movie flows. Once the film hit its stride I was able to attach to the story and the strange characters that were living it, though I’m pretty sure the young Jimmy Stewart was what helped me stick this one out.


The tagline for this 1938 classic (“You’ll love them all for giving you the swellest time you’ve ever had!”) isn’t exactly what I found to be truth, though the word ‘swellest’ endears me to the picture.

So here’s the gist:

The entire film centers around one freaky family who all lives together in a large house. There’s Grandpa Martin Vanderhof (played by Lionel Barrymore, great uncle to E.T. great Drew Barrymore) who is the glue that holds the family and the neighborhood together. He doesn’t care much for money and hasn’t paid taxes in over a decade. His daughter writes plays because a typewriter was accidently delivered to the house, her husband who makes fireworks, a daughter who spastically dances around the house like a drunken Anna Pavlova, her son-in-law who is obsessed with the University of Alabama and plays the xylophone, another daughter who is a secretary (yes, after all this craziness all I have to say is she’s a “secretary”) and a few other people who live with them (I’m not sure of their names, relations, or what they do other than make weird things). Okay, so now that you have a clear mental picture of the insanity that this movie centers around, here’s the general plot.

Alice, the secretary daughter works for the Tony Kirby (cutie Jimmy Stewart) and they’re in love. Mr. Kirby, Tony’s dad, is a billionaire who wants to buy Grandpa’s property (if they said why, I must have been deep into a Sudoku and missed it). Tony and Alice want to get married, but Mrs. Kirby isn’t thrilled with the idea. In fact, she’s a pretty cold lady and I’d be scared crapless to be her future daughter-in-law. Anyway, Alice invites the entire Kirby clan over to Grandpa’s house for dinner. The Kirbys accidently arrive on the wrong night, so instead of pretending to be normal the family is acting like their normal wacko selves. Just as the Kirbys are about to flee the insanity, the police bust in and arrest everyone for disturbing the peace and attempting to insight a revolution (I can’t really explain, something to do with the stockpile of fireworks in the basement). While in a holding cell Grandpa realizes that Mr. Kirby is the banker trying to purchase his house. After a bunch of family drama, Alice and Tony break up. Alice flees town and Grandpa resigns to sell his house and follow her. When Alice gets news of this she comes home. She reconciles with Tony, Mr. Kirby has a change of heart and sell the house back to the family, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Love conquered all in 1938, even real estate and cold mother-in-laws.

Head spinning a bit? Yeah, imagine watching 126 minutes of this craziness.

Capra- Stewart had many successful collaborations over the years (It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) that had much more staying power. This just doesn’t really compare to their other films.

I’ll give it three statuettes out of five. I’d probably have to have a box of wine to sit through this again.