Best Picture Winner: #5Release Date: September 11, 1932Rating: NRRuntime: 1 hour, 52 minutesDirector: Edmund Goulding Quick Impressions:After Cimarron so bitterly disappointed us, I was relieved to watch Grand Hotel, the first Best Picture winner we’ve encountered so far that I had already seen. “Don’t worry,” I reassured my daughter when …
Best Picture Winner: #4Release Date: February 9, 1931Rating: PassedRuntime: 2 hours, 3 minutesDirector: Wesley Ruggles Quick Impressions:I set my expectations too high for this one. Based on a novel by Edna Ferber, starring Irene Dunne, featuring Edna May Oliver, Cimarron sounded great. As a child, I was not fond of …
Best Picture Winner: #3Release Date: August 24, 1930Rating: NRRuntime: 2 hours, 32 minutesDirector: Lewis Milestone Quick Impressions:During the opening credits of All Quiet on the Western Front, I noted, “Erich Maria Remarque, he wrote the novel.” “There’s a novel of this?” my daughter said in surprise. “Oh yes,” I replied. …
Best Picture Winner #2Release Date: June 26, 1929Rating: PassedRuntime: 1 hour, 40 minutesDirector: Henry Beaumont Quick Impressions:My daughter and I expected a let down after the soaring excellence of Wings, but we still pressed on to watch The Broadway Melody (1929). I had never seen this one, either, though I’m …
Best Picture Winner #1Release Date: May 19, 1927Rating: PG-13Runtime: 2 hours, 24 minutesDirector: William Wellman Quick Impressions:My daughter and I dream up a fun project to do together every summer. This year, we’ve decided to watch every film that won the Oscar for Best Picture (that we can get our …
Rating: PG-13Runtime: 1 hour, 51 minutesDirector: Benh Zeitlin Quick Impressions:We’re still avoiding theaters, but when I realized visionary director Benh Zeitlin’s eerie take on Peter Pan was available for home viewing, I bought it immediately. I liked Benh Zeitlin’s previous film, Beasts of the Southern Wild with its memorable, Oscar-nominated …
Rating: PGRuntime: 1 hour, 34 minutesDirector: Tony Cervone Quick Impressions:Like most people, we don’t get out much anymore. We haven’t even been watching many movies at home. In fact, for the past few weeks, we’ve hardly watched anything but Jeopardy! and Scooby-Doo. Our family loves Scooby-Doo. It’s one of the …
Rating: RRuntime: 1 hour 48 minutesDirector: Gavin O’Connor Quick Impressions:I seriously considered watching The Way Back way back in March when it released in theaters. I usually like Ben Affleck’s work. True, I typically prefer him as a director, but he’s also a good actor in the right part. He …
Rating: PG-13Runtime: 1 hour, 35 minutesDirector: William Eubank Quick Impressions:“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” That’s a paraphrase of some great dialogue from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland used by George Harrison (my friend’s favorite Beatle) in his song “Any Road.” Learning that …
Rating: PGRuntime: 1 hour, 40 minutesDirector: Chris Sanders Quick Impressions:The trailer for this film managed to wow both my four-year-old and my father, neither of whom is an easy sell when it comes to going to the movie theater. And so we planned to take my son to see The …
