Film 2007

I was perusing the list of past Oscar-winners late last year, and I realised that I wasn't the film buff I thought I was. There was so much that while I'd heard of them, I'd never seen them. So I made a long list of films that were either nominated for Best Picture or had their actors nominated and it was as long as your arm.

So I set out on a mission to find these films on DVD. Of course most are not out there (yet). Whither A Thousand Clows, I Never Sang For My Father, Resurrection, Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams, A Hatful Of Rain, Rachel, Rachel, Sounder, The Turning Point (though it's about bellet), Breaking Away (about cycling), Diary of A Mad Housewife, The Subject Was Roses and many, many more?

However I did track down quite a few, some of which are listed below:

The Bad Seed
Horrid child kills other children while making poor mother's life hell. Who can tame her? Not on DVD over here, probably because of the Bulger killers? For the early-60s it's quite racy subject matter, and it's not schockly rubbish. It's still a contentious issue today. The girl who plays the bad seed herself if magnificent. In steely black and white.

The Hospital
LIke a rambling soap opera, perhaps a blueprint for things like St Elsewhere, the underused George C Scott plays doctor in a busy city hospital. I liked it.

Testament
Jane Alexander - nominated for a million Oscars but never won any, plays the mother of a family who suddenly find their normal lives interrupted by a surprise nuclear exchange in this mid-70s forgotten classic. How they and the community survive afterwards is the reall story. Quite fascinating, very different to things like Threads or The Day After. My favourite subject matter too. And really really sad.
Jane Alexander is one of those actresses that few people could spot in a crowd today. See also other mulitple Oscar nominees Jill Clayburgh, Karen Black and Sally Kellerman.

The Man in The Glass Booth - An overwrought and frankly scary Maximillian Schell is an obsessed with being Jewish magnate living in New York, when one day what he's been waiting to happen, happens - he's actually exposed as Nazi war criminal. A lengthy trial follows - but is he all he seems? Mid-70s this one, not bad, rather shouty, interesting story. Schell is always good though.

Save The Tiger - Jack Lemmon is great (and won Best Actor) for his turn as a disillusioned owner of a fashion house lving in the past where things were better. But were they really? Wordy, thought-provoking and nicely shot, with the great Jack Gilford in a supporting role.

Inside Moves - A very strange film about a crippled man who frequents a bar popular with others in a similar predicament, who has miracle surgery and becomes a major league basketball star who turns his back on his old friends who he now sees as an embarrassment. Wouldn't have payed to go the cinema to see this one.

Still to watch:

The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!
Kotch
..And Justice For All
Starting Over
Atlantic City

and countless others. I love DVDs.