For Oscar movies, I think it was possibly the worst year ever. Not one of the Best Picture nominees really deserved to be up there - Witness is my favourite by default.
Out of Africa is a bore, but it does have beautiful cinematography and a gorgeous score so I can see why it appealed to so many. Krause Maria Brandauer is excellent, the one real reason to see it imo.
Yeah, like Midnight Cowboy, The Deer Hunter, Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty, A Beautiful Mind and Moonlight were literal best pictures of their years (rolling my eyes).
shareThere are always better films - which are usually far off the academy radar - but I do personally feel that Midnight Cowboy and Moonlight were great choices to represent their years. I love both of those films.
I like The Deer Hunter, Shakespeare in Love and American Beauty but they were over-rewarded, that’s for sure. To be fair, The Deer Hunter was the heavy critics favourite and considered a very important film in its day.
A Beautiful Mind was a hideous choice.
Some of them are alright, I was just questioning them as Best Picture of the year. The Deer Hunter has an unforgettably grueling second act, but the first act -- the wedding -- is tedious and when DeNiro's character goes hunting in the mountains the mountains are clearly the Rockies and not within a thousand miles of Pittsburgh. The last act is redundant with Vietnamese shooting themselves in the head playing Russian Roulette.
shareI agree - I don’t think it’s close to being the great film it was thought to be in its day, although there are things I admire about it. It was timely, well-acted and handsomely mounted so I don’t have a huge issue with it chosen as representative of its year, but it’s not one I go back to. The final act is borderline cartoonish and hard to swallow (what are the actual odds that Walken could have survived this long playing this game?). And yep, it’s a long, LONG movie.
shareAgnes of God, Back to the Future, The Breakfast Club, Witness, Fright Night, The Color Purple, The Goonies, Silverado, Cocoon, Fletch, Mask, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Flesh + Blood, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Commando, Ladyhawke, and Weird Science? Yeah bad year for movies.
shareWitness would be my favorite of the year.
shareThere were some other better films that year that would have been more deserving. Out Of Africa would not even be in my top 15 of 1985.
shareIt's a literary adaptation which always helps. But I think it's pretty good set of nominations that year (Witness, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Prizzi's Honour, The Colour Purple) and I remember them well. Some years the films in contention are forgotten within a few years.
Occurs to me I'd like to see Out of Africa on the big screen sometime so we can really appreciate the aerial shots and Barry's music.