From the Multimedia Desk...

Oscar-worthy Films Worth Watching

This column is a list of the strange, unique, seldom-seen, engaging, popular, not-so-popular, yet always watchable materials tucked away in our eclectic Multimedia Collection at the Schulz Information Center Library. Surely not everyone’s taste, but worth checking out. This time around, in honor of the Academy Awards set to broadcast on March 5, let’s concentrate on some less than obvious Oscar winners:

The Accountant (MRES 5036) - Can one man, one hard drinking, chain smoking, backwoods accountant, stop a  national conspiracy, change the course of history, and save a way of life? "It's do-able... but it ain't gonna be purdy." Two brothers whose farm is on the brink of bankruptcy consult an accountant who has some highly unconventional money-making suggestions. Veteran character actor Ray McKinnon wrote, directed and stars in this Oscar winning short subject from 2001. A wildly entertaining and bitingly funny dark comedy.

All About Eve (VHS 2162 & DVD 223) - Nominated for 14 Academy Award and winning for Picture, Director, Costume Design, Sound Recording, Screenplay and Supporting Actor (the amazing George Sanders), this backstage soap opera has one of the brightest and most biting screenplays to ever grace the screen. The vicious one-liners and word-play draws the best out of a great cast including Bette Davis, Celeste Holm, Anne Baxter, Garry Merrill and a career defining supporting turn by Thelma Ritter. Even Marilyn Monroe shows up in a nifty tiny role as a gold-digging ingénue.

Le Ballon Rouge (VHS 2564) - This timeless children's classic is every bit as charming as it was in 1956. A beautifully photographed tale of young boy in Paris makes friends with a red balloon that has a mind of its own. Together the pair wanders the beautiful streets of Paris, coping with grownups and the local bands of children. Now here’s the head-scratcher: did the film win in the short subject category? Perhaps the memorable cinematography? How about the lovely musical score? Those would be the obvious choices given the artful craft. Nope, the virtually dialog-free film won for Original Screenplay!

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (DVD 620 & VHS 813) - Luis Buñuel's Oscar winner for 1972 Foreign Language picture deals with six outwardly respectable upper-middle class members of society and their repeatedly thwarted attempts to have a meal together - the interruptions becoming more and more surreal as the film progresses. A few months back we recommended Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou (VHS 1266) which was admittedly a pretty weird flick. Get set, Luis was still at the top of his game over 40 years later with this effort. Once again, the less you know going in, the better. Highly recommended!

Leave Her to Heaven (DVD 662) - Based on the runaway best-seller by Ben Ames Williams, this 1945 melodrama would appear on the surface to be an average soap-opera, but rapidly devolves into a shocking exploration of psychotic behavior. Gene Tierney deservedly won an Oscar nomination as an extremely possessive woman who will do whatever it takes to keep her husband all to herself, even murder … or worse! Even 60 years later, the shocking  drowning sequence is still difficult  to watch.  The Oscar  went to the eye-popping Technicolor  cinematography.

Mrs. Miniver (VHS 1154) - Actress Greer Garson holds the record for delivering the longest Oscar acceptance speeeeeech.... for best actress in 1942. How long? Well, apparently the recommended time was 45 seconds per speech but Miss Garson (known in the industry at the time as "the Queen of Hollywood") spoke for all of seven minutes! A rousing war-time morale booster, the movie remains an entertaining piece of hokum about life on the home-front.

Rashômon (DVD 635, VHS 187, & VDISC 176) - Although nominated competitively for Art Direction (losing to The Bad and the Beautiful, which is VDISC 43 in our collection), Akira Kurosawa's classic tale was voted by the Board of Governors as "the most outstanding foreign language film released in the United States during 1951". This was before the Foreign Language Film category was distributed; a tale of a roadside crime told from multiple points of view, the innovative structure has been retold in countless remakes all the way from a Paul Newman western to an episode of Star Trek!

Titanic (VHS 5743) - One of three films to win a total of 11 Academy Awards, the others being Ben-Hur (DVD 921 & VHS 2972) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (DVD 384), which begs the question:  Why?

Wings (VHS 1177) - For everything there must be a first, and this motion picture was the first to win for Best Picture. The 1927 World War I epic stars Buddy Rogers, Richard Arlen and the famous “It Girl”, Clara Bow. A tale of two best pals who become wartime aviators, the flying sequences still hold up very well – all the more thrilling knowing that most of the shots (and crashes!) are real. Lending a greater air of authenticity is the fact that director William A. Wellman served in the French Foreign Legion and was a World War I ace pilot. Oh, and it is a good thing this is a silent movie; look closely during the aerial sequences, and you can read the lips of the pilots – this one would definitely get at least a PG-13 rating today.

Written on the Wind (DVD 604 & VHS 1188) - It is for movies like this one that the word “lurid” was invented! Wow, where can we start? Here’s a plot synopsis of this 1956 epic, courtesy of IMDB.com: “Mitch Wayne and Kyle Hadley, the playboy son of an oil tycoon, have been best friends since childhood. Kyle's wild sister, Marylee, hopes to marry Mitch, but he treats her as a brother. Marylee says that Mitch finishes everything Kyle starts. Mitch and Kyle both fall in love with Lucy, but she marries Kyle before Mitch can express his feelings. For a year after his marriage Kyle stops drinking and behaves more responsibly, until he discovers that he may be sterile. Slyly, Marylee suggests to Kyle that Lucy and Mitch are lovers, and when Lucy finds that she is pregnant, a drunken Kyle accuses Mitch of being the father.”  When the Lumiere bothers invented the motion picture camera in 1895, do you think this is what they had in mind? Oh, inexplicably, Dorothy Malone won an Oscar playing Marylee. Even more frightening is the fact that Robert Stack was nominated for the role of Kyle.