Best Picture Catchup: The Sting, Dances With Wolves, Oliver!, From Here to Eternity

Recently I decided to try to catch up and see all of the Best Picture winners at the Academy Awards that I had never seen before.

I decided to narrow the mission to just winners since 1950 since some of the older movies are harder to find, even with streaming services.

I had a strong start to my mission, having seen 44 out of the 70 Best Picture winners and I had not missed a winner going back until 1997. After three weeks, I've added 12 movies to my list, making my new count 56 out of 70 movies.

I really enjoyed the four movies I watched this week and three out of the four I think were deserving of winning Best Pictures compared to the other movies nominated (one year I disagreed with the win and another year my favorite movie that year wasn't nominated). Enjoy!

The Sting (1973)

My fellow movie fans were surprised that I had not seen this one before. I’m surprised I took so long too. I’m a huge fan of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” an Oscar-nominated western directed by George Roy Hill starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. With “The Sting,” Hill reunites with Newman and Redford for a con artist movie set in 1936. Robert Shaw, who played Quint in “Jaws,” excels as the murderous Irish mob boss who these confidence men take for a ride. Marvin Hamlisch provides a memorable score based on ragtime music leading to a top 10 hit on the music charts for him. The best word to describe this movie is delightful. It’s just a lot of fun and it packs a punch with a ton of style. It’s exciting without playing to the lowest common denominator. The only bad thing I can say about this movie is that it inspired some pretty weak imitators, all desperate to come up with a fun heist movie. Sure, we’ve had some good ones like the remake of “Ocean’s 11” but lots of duds in that genre. I’m not sure if there was a more deserving film to win Best Picture that year. I really respect “The Exorcist,” “American Graffiti” and “Last Tango in Paris” but “The Sting” is much much better. When I eventually update my list of best movies ever, there will be a spot for this movie.

Dances With Wolves (1990)

There’s a good reason I never had a desire to see this movie before. I am not a fan of Kevin Costner. Yes, he’s done some decent sports movies like “Field of Dreams” and “Bull Durham” but I’m not much of a baseball fan (since I didn’t grow up with an MLB team in my hometown) and so those movies are fine to me but not my favorites. Even when Costner is in a good movie, it always feels like his acting isn’t what made the movie great. When I was my most impressionable when it came to movies, Costner had a string of bad movies. Like really bad. His breakthrough was in 1987 with “The Untouchables” a perfectly fine movie ruined by Brian De Palma’s direction and he continued with hits nearly every year: “Bull Durham” in 1988, “Field of Dreams” in 1989, “Dances with Wolves” in 1990, “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” in 1991, “JFK” in 1991 and “The Bodyguard” in 1992. I was three years old through eight years old during this hot streak he was on. When I was old enough to pay attention to these kind of movies, I remember Costner’s terrible period, starting with “Waterworld” in 1995, the hugely expensive box office flop. Young Adam associated Costner with those kinds of movies. Later, as a teenager I was surprised to learn one of my favorite movies “Goodfellas” did not win Best Picture at the Oscars. What could have beat such an awesome movie? The answer is “Dances With Wolves.” I held a grudge. Now that I’ve actually seen the movie? It’s a good movie. It really is. And it’s the best I’ve seen Costner in a movie. He certainly underacts but he’s realistic and true. I give him respect. Do I still think that “Goodfellas” should have won? Of course I do. To me, it’s in my personal top 10 movies of all time. The American Film Institute released a list of its 100 greatest movies ever made and “Goodfellas” was ranked 93rd. “Dances With Wolves” did not make that list. OK, enough about my bitterness. Let’s talk about “Dances With Wolves” itself. It’s an epic. It’s emotional and intimate. It’s well shot with exciting action scenes. The Native American actors truly excel. There’s a lot to like here. I’m glad I saw it and maybe if Costner continued making movies this great I would not have waited so long to check this one out. Side note: I do recognize that many many people love this movie more than I do. Even when I posted on Facebook that I was watching it, I was flooded with praise for this movie. I recognize I am probably in the minority of only “really liking” this movie instead of loving it. But don’t misinterpret my review as criticism of this movie. I still think it’s very good.

Oliver! (1968)

So I wasn’t expecting to like this traditional musical turned into a movie. It seems in the 1950s and 1960s, musical movies were much more popular with “An American in Paris” (1952), “Gigi” (1959), “West Side Story” (1962), “My Fair Lady” (1965) and “The Sound of Music” (1966) all winning the top prize in the previous two decades. In fact, a musical movie did not win again until “Chicago” in 2003, so I wrote off “Oliver!” as something that was loved at the time but would not hold up more than 50 years later. I was wrong. It’s not a flawless movie but it’s got some dark imagery, catchy musical numbers that will get stuck in your head and two awesome acting performances. Ron Moody excels as Fagin, a role that was originally offered to Peter Sellers and Pete O’Toole before they turned it down and they settled for the West End actor. Jack Wild also soars as The Artful Dodger and he’s got several stirring musical numbers including “Consider Yourself” and “I’d Do Anything,” songs you would know if you heard them. Both earned acting nominations. The same really can’t be said for the star Mark Lester, who plays Oliver Twist. He’s meek and quiet and has no personality. Normally I don’t criticize child actors but he’s 61 now so I think it’s fair. Oliver Reed also is a big dud as Bill Sikes, a meaty role. Turns out he’s the nephew of the director who made the movie so maybe nepotism played a part in his casting. Tons of famous actors have played Fagin in literally dozens of movie and TV adaptations of Oliver Twist (not even including stage). Some names include Lon Chaney, Alec Guinness, George C. Scott, Richard Dreyfuss and Ben Kingsley. Even Dom DeLuise voiced a version in the animated film “Oliver & Company.” Different actors have played the role with varying degrees of criminality or straight-up evil. For some, he’s just a creepy thief but he’s halfway decent deep down inside. Others make him just as repugnant as Bill Sikes. Interesting enough, very early versions used to use prosthetics to make the character seem like a Jewish stereotype and even back then some knew this was kind of anti-semitic. Moody was the first Jewish actor to play the role so he doesn’t go that route, but his song “Pick a Pocket or Two” has a cadence similar to Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” so I could hear a hint of anti-semitism. The 1968 musical movie sanitizes the story a bit. One big death is shown off screen and Fagin is completely innocent of that crime (which differs from the novel where he played a part in it). I was surprised by how much I enjoyed “Oliver!” and when I looked I had not seen the other nominated movies it beat for Best Picture that year: “Funny Girl,” “The Lion in Winter,” “Rachel, Rachel,” and “Romeo and Juliet.” Actually, my favorite movies that were released that year did not get Best Picture nominations: “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Rosemary’s Baby,” “The Odd Couple” and “The Producers.” I’d rank all four of those movies ahead of “Oliver!” but that’s no slight to this film.

From Here to Eternity (1953)

This is the 1950s version of an Oscar bait movie. History. Romance. Murder. A wartime battle scene. Big stars like Burt Lancaster, Donna Reed and Frank Sinatra. A director who just made “High Noon” (and would later make “A Man for All Seasons” another Best Picture winner). It has it all. For the first 90 minutes of the two hour movie, I really liked “From Here to Eternity.” It was fairly interesting like a soap opera. The last 30 minutes? Wow. That’s when it goes from good to great. It takes some dark turns. There’s exciting action sequences. A few unexpected surprises. Watch this one until the end for sure. Is there a movie that should have won Best Picture that year? It’s really hard to say. Some might prefer “Stalag 17” or “Roman Holiday” but I can’t say one is really better than another. What “From Here to Eternity” has going for it is winning acting and a clever screenplay that focuses on the personalities of those enlisted in the military. I started to really care about each character in a very short time. It also features a very famous scene in movie history when they kiss on the beach and the wave splashes over them. You might have seen this parodied a few times, including “Airplane!” and “Shrek.” Another interesting legend about this movie is that Sinatra used mafia connections to get his role, which inspired Mario Puzo to base a character off of that in the book “The Godfather.” Sinatra was not considered much of an actor but he did win a Best Supporting Oscar for this role which was perfect for him. The truth is that his wife at the time Ava Gardner used her studio connections to land him the role. Donna Reed, already famous for appearing in “It’s a Wonderful Life” in 1946, won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her small role in “From Here to Eternity” and she deserved it. She oozes charisma on the screen. After her win, she starred in “The Donna Reed Show” for eight seasons. Going to TV might have seemed like a step backward for an Oscar winner, but there weren’t many female-led sitcoms at that time, especially ones where the star actress had the show named after her. It was a big deal. And she absolutely nails her speech during the ending of the movie. Her Oscar was certainly earned. I don’t want to overhype this movie because I had low expectations but it really impressed me. I can’t complain about its Oscar win.