Aug. 18, 2002 - 1:22 am
as you can most likely see from the cover, this film got 7 Oscar nominations in 1999 including one for Best Picture. it did not, however, actually win any Oscars. that doesn't happen too often in my memory that a film gets that many nominations and doesn't actually win anything. in any case, this finishes out my list for all the years past 1993. there are 6 nominees of the 1990s that i still have left to see though. this film is also number 131 today on the IMDb's top 250 list.
starring Al Pacino and Russell Crowe, and directed by Michael Mann, it's another true story about a researcher who got fired from his high ranking job at a tobacco company in the mid 90s and decided to blow the whistle on what he knew was going on. the first half of the film centers on Al Pacino's character, who works at CBS producing stories for 60 Minutes, trying to get Russell Crowe's character to go ahead and tell everyone the vital tobacco information that he's dying to tell everyone. it's a really painful thing to him because he's getting death threats and his family is falling apart because of his unstable situation now that he no longer has his high paying job. the second half of the film deals with CBS's unwillingness to run the interview that Mike Wallace had with this insider. they're afraid that a big lawsuit (which would undoubtedly result from running the damaging interview) will hurt their position with the Westinghouse corporation who is working on buying CBS.
it's a good film and it pretty well sustains the intensity for the full two and a half hours. it wasn't quite as boring as i had originally thought it might be, but i don't know if i will ever watch this film again. i don't feel like it taught me a lot about filmmaking, and it's too much like a documentary for me. i'm not a big fan of the documentary in general. it's a little too clinical. i like a fully conceived project. not something that just happens because it's conveniently happening in front of the camera. this film wasn't a true documentary in any sense, but the plot is based on a real life story which is very intellectually based and not very emotionally based. so yeah, it was a great story, but not something that makes me think enough to watch the film multiple times.
i'm very surprised that Russell Crowe got nominated for Best Actor in this film. i would say that the film more focuses on Al Pacino's character. the whole second half of the film really doesn't have that much Russell Crowe in it. oh well, we've learned how that goes. you don't have to be in the entire film to be classified as the lead. the rules on that are quite shaky. i wonder if Russell Crowe will be nominated for a film that he does this year. that would be four years in a row for the guy. let's see...nope. he has no real films coming out in 2002. maybe in 2003. looks like Tripoli (2003) will be another Ridley Scott and Master and Commander (2003) will be a Peter Weir film. interesting.
in other news, MTV has started advertising for the Jimmy Fallon-hosted Video Music Awards (VMA's). the awards show will air on Thursday August 29 at 8/7C. but anyway, in the commercial he has a couple of wishes. the third wish...to have Natalie Portman as his girlfriend for a week. smart man. anyway, if you want to see Jimmy and Natalie, you can download the clip here. the size is approximately 7.4MB, 42sec. if you've got a fast connection, check it out. anything to see Natalie right?