Another film that I've seen a little of but up till now have never fully watched, here is my review for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Plot: McMurphy is a recidivist anti-authoritarian criminal who is transferred to a mental institution for evaluation. Even though he doesn't appear to have any mental illness, he tries to avoid hard labor to make his sentence in a more hospital environment. But in the mental institution, he encounters and starts to befriend his fellow inmates and begin to have a power struggle against the head administrative nurse, Nurse Ratched.

Boy this is such a great film. There's so much that they put into the story and they use their characters very well. You get interested in them very easily as the film goes on from Billy to Taber (played by Christopher Lloyd who had his debut in this film). But honestly, the real focus and entertainment of the film is Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher as McMurphy and Nurse Ratched. Their on going battle against each other just gets you more and more with McMurphy always trying to escape or fighting against Ratched's rules and Ratched having control over the patients is both suspenseful and sometimes enraging. I say enraging because of Nurse Ratched as a character and how she takes control of the institution. It's no wonder that she's #5 in AFI's top Villains. Even from the little bit of this movie that I saw years ago, I knew and witnessed enough from what I saw that I hated her guts like no one's business. As you go further and further into the movie your desire to strangle, torture, beat, or stab the daylights out of her for how cruel and cold-hearted she can be. We're talking Delores Umbridge from Harry Potter kind of hate ladies and gentleman, and it's not pretty. But thankfully with her, there's also McMurphy who is always trying to get the other patients away from her control. From stealing a hospital bus to bringing girls and booze to the hospital, he was a great opposite of Ratched.

And that's my review for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It's a great film that has a great cast and a great story with a lovable hero and a extremely hated villain. It's a great film to watch if you haven't seen it already and it deserved to win best picture during its year.

Okay so back to the older winners, this one I had trouble finding online or at the library, but luckily my brother had a VHS copy. How did he do that?...no genuine idea.

Plot: The film revolves around a an upper-class British family, the Marryots and their servants, the Bridges. Between 1901 and 1933, we take a look at what they all go through during many historical events around that time.

Honestly, this movie was just meh. I mean the acting was good for what it was worth, but...it just didn't age well. There's all this death, life and love from all of these characters while Britain it self goes through things like the Second Boer War, the death of Queen Victoria, the sinking of the Titanic, and World War One. And honestly, it's not all that particularly interesting. It's not to say that it was completely boring or anything like that - the acting was good for what it was, and there are some characters you actually care about a tiny bit - but the characters are a little too simple and the story is very loose when it comes to bringing these historical events into the story and having anything to do with the characters. Most of the events like Queen Victoria's death or the sinking of the Titanic are close to never really brought in. Thinking more about it, I guess all that made sense back in 1933 where all these events are something everybody knew back then, but some of these things were over 100 years ago or less. And some of us might not be familiar with or have even learned some events from school or something like that. I mean I've learned a lot of things in school over the years but I never knew there was a Second Boer War, or even a first for that matter. I wish I knew more, because they bring it up so bluntly that we don't even know which war it was. All the characters say is "We're going to war!" and "we won" and that's almost all of what they gave us with that.

And that's my review for Cavalcade. I don't doubt that it was a great movie to have back in its time, but it has aged to be a film that has characters that are too simple and are often not all that interesting, and lacks real effort in bringing the characters and the historical even together very well. It has its little nice moments, but is otherwise not the greatest among the best picture winners.

Only two winners left from the 80's, so now it's time to review Platoon.

Plot: The story focuses around Chris Taylor who volunteers to fight in Vietnam. He is assigned to Bravo Company where he meets a culturally diverse group of soldiers lead by Sargent Barnes and Sargent Elias. Throughout the film, Taylor witnesses the terrors of Vietnam from the enemy and sometimes even from his fellow soldiers.

I was surprised to eventually learn that Oliver Stone directed this movie out of his own personal experiences in fighting Vietnam himself. But then again you can tell by how this movie turned out. It covered so many things that happened to soldiers in Vietnam. I mean sure there's all the blood and gore and fellow soldiers dying like any war film, but then you have the misery and horror of venturing the jungle, soldiers searching and destroying villages, soldiers having a feud against another and what have you. And the acting is great - my personal favorites were Charlie Sheen as Taylor and William Dafoe as Sargent Elias - and the battles where very epic and of coarse, give a very dark and suspenseful look at being in the battle lines as a war film naturally should.

And that's my review for Platoon. It has great acting, well done action, and thanks to Stone's knowledge of the war based on his own experience, it's a much deeper and harsher look at what the soldiers in Vietnam went through.

This one I've only seen the beginning of but never fully finished, but thankfully my brother came up from college and owns the movie. So here is finally my review for The French Connection.

Plot: Based on a true story, Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo are New York City detectives who try to track down the source of heroin coming from Europe. After tracking on a hunch from Doyle, they discover mob members who are agents in bringing heroin to New York from France. So it's put to them to try to find the source and put a stop to them.

What can I really say? It's a very good thriller movie. The story is very well written to the point where the film won best adapted screenplay, it's historically accurate to what happened (at least that's what the National Film Registry says. I mean I don't know the real story, but if they called it that, then that's what it is), and it has memorable performances - most notably Gene Hackman as Doyle. AFI has ranked Doyle #44 on their 100 Heroes & Villains. And for the most part I can see why. Despite his personal problems he is willing to do whatever it takes to arrest drug dealers and bring them to justice. There are one or two moments where I feel he takes that a little too far, but nevertheless I understand AFI's choice for #44. This film is also known to have one of the most famous car chase sequences in film history. Doyle chasing the hit man was a great chase scene - it made the scene epic, it was very well edited and it had a pretty good payoff in the end. I also liked how Alain Charnier was as a villain. The end of the subway scene especially kind of makes it a little wonder that Doyle so desperately wants to catch this guy.

And that's my review for The French Connection. It's a great thriller with a great, story, great chase scene, a hero who I do question a little but at the same time understand why is so loved in the film world and is altogether an enjoyable movie and it's little wonder that it won best picture.

With only a couple more winner from the 80's to go, let's review another particularly great film: Gandhi.

Plot: The story begins in 1948 where Gandhi is assassinated. The film then starts off 55 years earlier where 24 year old Gandhi begins to realize how the British laws are biased against Indians after he is thrown off a train South African train for being an Indian sitting first class. So he starts a non-violent protest campaign for the rights of Indians in South Africa. After the campaign succeeds for the most part, he goes back to India and eventually agrees to start a non-violent campaign for India's independence from the British Empire.

Wow. Where do I begin with reviewing this movie? I mean as a whole the movie is great with giving us a long but deep and remarkable tale, about this man, but... let's be honest, the real heart of this film is just Ben Kingsley as Gandhi. His performance is what really makes this film so mind blowing. Just how he shows us Gandhi as a man of non-violence and trusting in love and truth and how he reacts to things like his own people fighting either the empire or themselves or whenever he get arrested, or what have you. When you look back at the movie as a whole after you've seen it, you become amazed at how much of Gandhi's life Kingsley give you. And...well really there's nothing else much to say about him. Everything else in the film was greatly done to help Kingsley bring the tale of Gandhi to life. Frankly, the only thing close to a down is that it is pretty long, but they give so much to the story that I'm not completely sure what should've been left out.

And that's my review for Gandhi. Everything aside from Kingsley was right on the dot with bringing us what was happening around that time, but it's Kingsley's performance that really brings it to life making Gandhi a great film to the point where it's very little wonder that it won best picture.

Okay next on the 80's we have the first one that won from that decade, so here's Ordinary People.

Plot: The film revolves around a high school boy named Conrad and his parents. After the death of his older brother Buck, Conrad has attempted suicide and has been in a psychiatry hospital for four months before going back to school and joining the swimming team. Meanwhile his mother tries to live life as if the death of Buck never happened by trying to keep the family as it once was while his father has trouble trying to connect with both of them. Eventually, Conrad begins to see a psychiatrist to try to deal with post-dramatic stress disorder and survivor's guilt from his brother's death.

I don't want to start by just saying that with a good movie considering how simple that is to say...but I can't help it. It was. It had a nice story, the characters were very well acted, it was deep and sad and it was just...really good. They very clearly displayed what each character goes through after Buck died and it really shows how the rest of the family is tormented by it. Timothy Hutton as Conrad especially gave out a performance that make it very little wonder that he won an Oscar for his performance... except that his Oscar was for supporting actor and not leading. I say that because personally I felt he was the real main focus of the story. I mean Of coarse Beth and Calvin are part of the main focus of the story, but Conrad was more the person to pay attention to in my opinion. He was there when Buck died, he's the one that tried to commit suicide and is seeing a psychiatrist, he's trying to make things a little better for him at school with quitting the swimming team and starting to date a girl he likes, all while still being haunted and tortured by the stress and guilt of his brother's death. So with all that, I felt he was the main leading character and not really anyone else. But that's just my view on it. And even if he isn't, Beth and Calvin were still very good as the leading roles. Calvin especially I liked during the very end. One of the things I remembered really liking when I last watched the end of this film up till now was his last scene with Beth. I just really liked his monologue when he was talking to her - it was just really well written to me and he acted it out in a way the really went deep into who her character is and how he feels about it.

And that's my review for Ordinary People. It had a good story, great performances, a little bit questionable as far as who are the leading or supporting roles but is altogether an enjoyable film.

The classic F. Scott Fitzgerald book becomes another movie...I'll just leave it at that until after the plot paragraph.

Plot: Nick Carraway moves to New York working as a bond salesman. He lives in a small house in Long Island next to the large mansion of a mysterious millionaire named Gatsby who throws great big parties regularly in his home. Eventually Nick meets and befriends Gatsby himself, where he learns that he is secretly asking Nick to help him meet his married cousin Daisy with whom Gatsby has had a past with.

I read the actual book The Great Gatsby back in my junior English class back in high school. While it wasn't the most wonderful thing I ever read, it was still enjoyable for the most part...especially comparing to other books we read that year that I didn't really give a rats for like The Bell Jar and The Catcher in the Rye. So when I learned that another film based on the book was coming out, I was interested to see how it was going to turn out. But as the day of it coming out came closer, I learned from one of my best friends Meg, that the director of the movie also the one who directed Moulin Rouge. From there I had a very good idea at how the director, Baz Luhrmann was going to structure this movie; almost just like Moulin Rouge, he was going to make the first hour or first half of the movie have all the crazy visuals, dancing, super quick cuts on the editing, be very huge and energetic and seems like it's not going to stop at all, and then the rest of the film is where we get the real meat in the story with the drama and romance and so on. And you know what? That turned out to be almost exactly what I got when I went to see this movie. The first half of the movie is almost all about the parties at Gatsby's mansion with these pop songs slightly mixed with actual jazz that is ridiculous to play considering the time period the story takes place at, but you tap your feet to the rhythm to them anyway. And even with the scenes that are as far away from Gatsby's mansion as possible the editing has all these quick cuts. In fact the editing is a lot like how Doug Walker pointed out the editing in the beginning of Moulin Rouge in his video review where he even created a game called "Find the Shot that Lasts More Then Five Seconds." I actually ended up playing that game during one of the scenes in the first hour that didn't have squat to do with Gatsby's parties. And you know what? It's the same freaking deal! There were scenes like when Nick, Daisy and Tom are just having dinner or when Gatsby was just taking Nick out to lunch where there were little to no shots that were even longer then 3-4 seconds. In both of those scenes there's no reason for that to happen. The dinner scene was just introducing Tom and Daisy and giving us a little more about Nick's life and the drive to lunch was Gatsby telling Nick almost everything about him. Those scenes should've been nice and slow in terms of editing, but instead they're acting like we need to see the scenes in practically every angle imaginable. But like I also predicted, the rest of the movie is where the editing does slow down to a more normal rate and we focused more on the romance, drama and altogether emotion that leads us to the REAL story of the film. And I'm pretty glad that I was right about that as well as all the partying and crap from the first hour of the film. Because the rest of the film is what I was really looking forward to with this movie, and not only did they do it, but they did well. In the rest of the film, we get great performances from the cast such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton and of coarse Toby Maguire. Jeremy Jahns said in his review to the movie that DiCaprio was a good choice to be Gatsby because just because he is DiCaprio, you immediately want to root for him. I'm not a die hard fan of DiCaprio, but looking back, yeah he has a point. DiCaprio did give us a rather touching performance that made me root for Gatsby a little bit more then I did when I read the book or saw the other movie with Robert Redford. Mulligan and Edgerton also did great job with their performances as Daisy and Tom with displaying just about exactly how I remember the characters. Toby Maguire as Nick...is something of a mix. I mean as a whole I thought he did great too, but the problem is he wasn't exactly groundbreaking as far as he goes as an actor. I personally did somewhat hope that he would considering he hasn't really done anything after the Spider-Man movies. I mean the latest movie I've seen of him up till now was Brothers, and that was back in 2009. That movie was one of the earliest movies I reviewed too, that was like...my 27th, 28th review...and here I am roughly 415 ish reviews later...yeah. So with that said, I hoped that we would get a little more for him. But even though he didn't exactly blow me away, he also wasn't terrible or was a pain to watch, he just gave a nice enjoyable performance, and for now, that's fine too...again, for now. And also we get a little more of the symbolism of the story. While I don't remember everything from the book (I mean come on, junior year in high school was over 5 years ago) I do remember some of the most memorable symbolism that Fitzgerald gave. And I honestly think that with most of them, the movie played them out a lot better then I thought they would with things like the green light next to Daisy and Tom's house. Even with the rest of the film however, it does have some noticeable problems that have to do with the movie as a whole. One is that it's too long - I think it should've been maybe about 20 minutes shorter, (especially with all the party stuff) and there was some development to the story that was left out. George, Myrtle and Jordan play a fairly big factor into the book and halfway through the film I couldn't help but notice how George and Myrtle especially were very downplayed in their roles. Does it make sense that they were? ...I guess, but if a guy like me remembers the book just from reading it in high school, chances are that fans of the book are probably not going to like that.

And that's my review for The Great Gatsby, it has its unnecessary similarities to Luhrmann's directing from Moulin Rouge with focusing on just great visuals and dancing and super quick editing during the first hour and then getting to the deep part of the story with the rest of the film. But what comes out from the film altogether is a film with great performances, good loyalty to the book (as far as I know) and visuals that are indeed good that altogether makes this version of The Great Gatsby a film that's not exactly something I would buy on Blue-Ray, but I had a pretty nice time seeing it.

Okay so going back to the 80's with Terms of Endearment.

Plot: Aurora has a close love-hate relationship with her daughter Emma over the years that Emma has been growing up. When Emma graduates high school, she immediately marries her boyfriend Flap and moves in with him. Through the years afterwords, Aurora and Emma stay in contact talking about each others lives as Emma and Flap raise a family and Aurora becomes interested in her neighbor who is a retired astronaut.

This was the winner that I watched just about right after Midnight Cowboy. And thank heavens that I watched a movie like this after seeing a movie that I found to be rather unpleasant. Not only was the plot very nice and somewhat simple, but it was very well acted, fairly well paced and it had a very nice cast - Jack Nicholson especially was a nice addition and it isn't entirely surprising that he won supporting actor for his performance. But what really makes this film so enjoyable is the second half of this movie or somewhere around the very end to be sure. I won't give anything away of coarse, but it's very moving and heart-string pulling, and it also was an unexpected but in my opinion a rather unique and smart direction that the movie went from the first half or so.

And that's my review for Terms of Endearment. It's a very nice film that is very well acted with a great cast, moving second half or so, and is altogether just a very enjoyable film that I would recommend.

Okay so it's the last best picture winner from the 60's...man.

Plot: A Texan named Joe Buck travels to New York to become a male prostitute. Things go unsuccessfully as his naïveté gets the better of him with his small amount of costumers, he starts to lose money dramatically. But then a polio-crippled con man named Ratso cons him of $20 but later convinces Joe to stay at his place and be his manager, helping him to make a name for himself.

Yeah. I know it's probably really shocking to rate this movie so low, but trust me, if with wasn't for Jon Voight - but mostly Dustin Hoffman, or how this film worked in terms of story telling with its occasionally noticeable symbolism or story-telling with its editing, or if the movie in general wasn't any more X-rated, I wouldn't hesitate to rate this movie much lower then I did. If any of you have read my reviews for movies like Borat, and ESPECIALLY Hangover Part II, then you know that I can have a very seriously low tolerance when it comes to having nudity or sexual content in some of the most undeniably disturbing ways imaginable. And the fact that this was X-rated - the first and currently only winner to be X-rated at that - don't really help the film for me. I don't give a rats that they eventually re-rated it to just R, they rated it X first and I am sticking to that rating. Because yes, this film had ways of being pretty bad when it comes to its sex scenes or sometimes just scenes in general. So with that said, this film was by no means the highlight of my day when I saw it. However, as much as I dislike it, I do have to give it points to how good it is as a film. Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman gave out great performances - Dustin Hoffman especially was someone who I enjoyed and looked forward to the most when I was watching this film..I mean come on, it's Dustin Hoffman! And I admit that the editing worked really well with some of the symbolism or all around subtext to what was happening in some of the scenes... even when some of it is harder to understand then others and it can be a little confusing to know for sure what is real and what was just Joe or Ratso's imagination or one of Joe's flashbacks. And otherwise, the film plays out its grit very well with displaying the urban American life in New York.

And that's my review for Midnight Cowboy, you may enjoy it for its performances from Voight and Hoffman, and otherwise how well its made as a film, but otherwise, it's just X-rated disturbing, making it hardly the best thing I've ever scene and is not recommended for people who have even half the low tolerance I have for sexual content in this disturbing kind of nature.

Ah yes. This british film with this ever so classic musical score. Here's my review for Chariots of Fire.

Plot: Based on a true story, the film revolves around two men, Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell. Both men are runners from the University of Cambridge - Harold tends to experience anti-semitism from the staff at the college while also being unbeatable in the national running competitions, but is also falling in love with a woman named Sybil in the process. Meanwhile, Eric is a missionary who was born in China but is patriotic of his family's homeland of Scotland. His devout sister disapproves of his running but he believes that it's a way of glorifying God. And so the film tells both of their stories about their personal lives and troubles in trying to make it to the Olympics.

This is a nice sort of simple film. The characters are well acted, you care about what happens, they set up the time period very well and they're just telling some very nice stories. If I had a favorite of the two stories, I would have to say the Eric storyline is the best. Okay maybe it does have a little bit to do with him being a missionary which is cool for me as a christian, but even biased as it admittedly sounds, he just had a more interesting story all around. Harold's was good too with the little bit or romance and having an encouraging couch (who I didn't realize that, that was Ian Holm until I saw the cast list...stupid mustache razza frazza...), but it's nothing too completely new as far as a sort of sports storyline goes. He has a goal, has an encouraging coach, fall in love with a girl, it's all not that original. But Eric is more interesting with how he had this conflict with racing and his faith. It just made him a more interesting character as well as how he would also quote bible verses and have a really cool sermon or two during the film. Anything else to say is how easily memorable the score to this film is. Just the instrumental theme alone is so memorable with how it has been used in other films like Madagascar and Bruce Almighty.

And that's my review for Chariots of Fire. It was a nice time it had enjoyable characters - Eric was my favorite, but Harold was good too - it was well made, had a memorable score, it's a good film to enjoy all around.