The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on September 21, 2010

If you look on IMDB for the next string of films for 1928-1929 here, you will not find them listed under the Academy Awards pages.  It’s kind of odd, but shows how my blog and their sight are respectively one year off.  My 1934 is their 1935.  So somewhere between...   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on September 19, 2010

There are two ways that people can travel.  Whether you’ve gone across the world or across town, you can probably distinguish the two.  There are those who will eat McDonalds wherever they can and listen to their all important iPod on a tour bus.  They will read or snooze while...   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on September 18, 2010

Jewish and Christian children start hearing tales of Moses at an early age.  As they get older, they might be quizzed over naming the Ten Commandments.  Get them in the right order and there might be extra credit.  And every Easter or Passover they might be sat down to watch...   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on September 16, 2010

Sometimes it is hard to tell people that I really don’t care for anything with the Rodgers and Hammerstein seal of approval.  I see their eyes light up and reminisce about how innocent, colorful and quaint those films are and I hold my tongue and nod.  Who am I to...   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on September 15, 2010

This is the story of a Quaker family in southern Indiana during the Civil War.  You already want to skip it, don’t you?  Believe me, it’s better than you expect. The family consists of parents Jess (Gary Cooper) and Eliza (Dorothy McGuire), oldest son Josh (Anthony Perkins), teenage daughter Mattie   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on September 13, 2010

Third generation cattle rancher Bick Benedict (Rock Hudson) visits Maryland in the 1920’s to buy a prized horse and leaves with a wife as well.  Within two days Leslie (Elizabeth Taylor) falls all over Bick and his big Texas ideals, though she’s an independent minded woman.  The wide open opportunit   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on September 10, 2010

While seeing a live theatrical performance, a story that has been told thousands of times over again is what you see, but what is happening behind the stage?  Are there squabbles, tensions, people on their last nerve just inside the curtain?  Sometimes the fresh human story about the production you’   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on September 9, 2010

One day, about six years ago now, I got a little bored waiting for a class to start and wondered the corridors of Grissom Hall.  When you’re a student at Purdue, everyone gushes about Neil Armstrong, Amelia Earhart and even Orville Redenbacher but Gus Grissom seems to be just a...   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on September 7, 2010

While Terms of Endearment is your quirky girl-time tear-jerker that mothers and daughters can paint their toes to, Tender Mercies is your stronger, quieter type of family drama that the men won’t immediately flee from. Robert Duvall plays Mac Sledge, a broken down middle-aged man who was once a grea   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on September 6, 2010

The summery on this little Netflix slip began with something cheesy like daughters are from Mars and mothers are from Venus.  I groaned, realizing I was in for mother-daughter weepy feelings time, where most people reach for the tissues, I grab a bucket. Aurora (Shirley MacLaine) and her daughter Em   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on September 5, 2010

After Alex commits suicide, his old friends from college get together for a weekend after his funeral.  They discuss the past few years, what they do, what they wish they did and where they wish they could be.  Some have families, others prestigious careers and some haven’t amounted to much. ...   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on September 4, 2010

After Jim Allen (Paul Muni) returns from serving in WWI doesn’t want to return to his old job at the factory.  Instead he wants to become an engineer, “a man’s job where he can do things.”  He starts from the bottom up, travels as a skilled laborer wherever the job...   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on September 3, 2010

Alright, I’ve been looking and flipping over stones but there are still three films I cannot find from this year.  Sadly, the winner of Best Picture is among the three.  If you have any information on the whereabouts of Cavalcade, Smilin’ Through and State Fair, I’d appreciate it.   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on September 1, 2010

Sadly, this is the only film starring Mae West that was ever nominated for Best Picture, so we’ve got to talk about her.  Mae was a woman ahead of her time, of the twelve films she acted in, Mae wrote ten of them.  Her revealing costumes and risky subjects caught...   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on August 31, 2010

Based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott, Little Women tells the story of four sisters during the Civil War.  Their father (Samuel S. Hinds) is serving in the army as a minister, leaving the mother (Spring Byington) and four daughters to find ways to get by on hard times....   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on August 30, 2010

When I pick up a film from the early thirties with a long ridged title like The Private Life of Henry VIII, I have my doubts.  Honestly, I expected some dry, very historical account of Henry’s life with a stuffy British narration.  I could not have been more wrong. The...   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on August 25, 2010

Have I gone AWOL?  Uh, no.  Sorry about the lack of content in the past few days.  Life happens, I’ve got real world things to do and other lame excuses. In the mean time, that odd-fitting widget to the right has changed pictures hasn’t it?  There’s a brand-spankin’-new trail   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on August 22, 2010

Stage director Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter) is starting a new show, Pretty Lady, despite his history of nervous breakdowns.  Abner (Guy Kibbee) will fund the production if his young girlfriend Dorothy (Bebe Daniels) is the star.  But Dorothy is only using old Abner as a sugar-daddy to move her caree   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on August 21, 2010

As I popped the DVD in and pressed play, the first image to come up was full color.  It was Frank Capra Jr., the great director’s son, telling me what a milestone Lady for a Day was for his father.  He explained how Columbia Pictures was just itching for an...   read more

The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on August 20, 2010

A while back, I had a conversation with a friend about movies.  She talked excitedly about how some of her favorite films starred Gary Cooper, but unfortunately went to see The Back-Up Plan with Jennifer Lopez and shook her head saying, “They don’t make them as well as they used to.&#822   read more