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A great year for Japanese anime. In fact, I think the two best pictures of the year were both animated features from Japan—Grave of the Fireflies, Isao Takahata's wrenching story of a brother and sister orphaned by the Allies' relentless fire bombing at the tail end of World War II; and on the other end of the emotional spectrum, Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro, a magical tale about a girl and her not-so-imaginary imaginary friend.
If you don't know Miyazaki's work, you've really shortchanged yourself. His film Spirited Away deservedly won the first Oscar for best animated feature back when that category was introduced in 2002. In addition to Totoro and Spirited Away, check out any of the following: Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Porco Rosso, Ponyo ... actually, it's a pretty long list. You really can't go wrong with any Miyazaki.
It was also a great year for comedy—we got Bull Durham, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Beetlejuice, The Naked Gun, Big and my pick, A Fish Called Wanda. All of them are better than any film I have penciled in for best drama.
PICTURE (Drama)
winner: Dangerous Liaisons (prod. Norma Heyman and Hank Moonjean)
PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: A Fish Called Wanda (prod. Michael Shamberg)
PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro) (prod. Toru Hara)
ACTOR (Drama)
winner: Jeremy Irons (Dead Ringers)
ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Tom Hanks (Big)
ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Jodie Foster (The Accused)
ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Jamie Lee Curtis (A Fish Called Wanda)
DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Isao Takahata (Hotaru no haka a.k.a. Grave Of The Fireflies)
DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Hayao Miyazaki (Tonari no Totoro a.k.a. My Neighbor Totoro)
SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Kevin Kline (A Fish Called Wanda)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Lena Olin (The Unbearable Lightness of Being
SCREENPLAY
winner: Ron Shelton (Bull Durham)
I don't know about you, but I love Thanksgiving. Always have, always will. To me, it's like Christmas only better, an excuse to hang out with the people you love and eat obscene amounts of food without the hassle of buying more junk nobody needs.
But clearly that's just me.
Anyway, there aren't a lot of good Thanksgiving-related movies out there, but here are my picks as the five best:
Miracle On 34th Street (the 1947 version, please)—This is the one Katie-Bar-The-Door and I watch every year as we're sleeping off lunch. The charming story of how Santa Claus came to town and wound up on trial for his sanity, Miracle on 34th Street starts at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and is a great way to kick off the Christmas season (assuming that, like the Monkey, you refuse to acknowledge those decorations that have been up since Columbus Day).
Serve with warm pecan pie straight from the oven.
Hannah And Her Sisters (1986)—Woody Allen's surprisingly warm tale of three neurotic sisters and their equally neurotic love lives, bookended by sumptuous Thanksgiving celebrations straight out of a Martha Stewart wet dream. As a bonus, Woody learns life is worth living while watching the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup.
Serve with a nice Bordeaux aged in Anton Chekhov's wine cellar.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)—Roger Ebert's favorite Thanksgiving Day movie, it's a classic odd couple comedy from John Hughes, starring an uptight Steve Martin and the slovenly salt of the earth John Candy as two men desperately trying to get home for the holidays. "How do they know which way we're going?" Tart and funny with all the sugar backloaded to the last five minutes.
Serve with all the trimmings.
Home For The Holidays (1995)—My literary agent, Jill, thinks this is the best Thanksgiving movie ever. It's a comedy filled with hostility, anxiety, irrational grievances and all the unfulfilled familial expectations you could ever want. Not to mention someone gets a turkey dumped in their lap. In other words, it's a documentary of the typical American Thanksgiving dinner.
Serve with bile and battery acid.
The Ice Storm (1997)—Alcoholism, wife swapping, teenage sex—and the best Thanksgiving toast ever. If you grew up in a lunatic asylum or are simply nostalgic for the free-love Seventies, this is the movie for you. Stars Joan Allen and Kevin Kline (sans moustache, and you know what that means).
Serve with cocaine and quaaludes.
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