In Contention

Tag: George Sluizer

  • LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 1987 and 1988

    Catch up with the idea behind this series here.

    So sorry for the hiatus with this column but I took a break last week to focus on the top 10 horror films list and am a day late this week because I was stuck shooting all day yesterday. I’m sure you’ve all been missing it intensely.

    But where were we? Ah, the late-80’s. A time when Hollywood fluff like “Moonstruck” and “Fatal Attraction” were up for Best Picture, but lost to, what else, a historical epic from an acclaimed director. Bernardo Bertolucci’s, “The Last Emperor,” swept the 1987 ceremony, winning nine Oscars from nine nominations, the largest haul since “West Side Story.”

    1988 belonged to “Rain Man,” but is perhaps more notable for Kevin Kline’s slapstick work in “A Fish Called Wanda” earning him a rare statue for a comedy. Every argument with an Oscar nerd since regarding comedic performances sees them bring it up as a precedent. Didn’t help Jim Carrey, Eddie Murphy or Sacha Baron Cohen though.

    The ceremony itself is infamous for an opening number that involved Snow White and Rob Lowe singing some awful duet. Why this particular number, in a vast sea of awful numbers throughout the course of Oscar history, has been singled out is beyond me. And probably beyond Rob Lowe as well.

    But now it’s my turn to do some singling out.

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  • THE LISTS: Top 10 horror films of all time

    It’s Halloween week and since we are a movie site, we are under some kind of unspoken obligation to provide our dear readers with a list to fit the festivities. You may remember a similar list popping up two years ago, in which all current contributors voiced an opinion and the final results represented a collective agreement. Since I was not a contributor at that time, Tapley asked me to offer up a new take this year.

    A little backstory on my relationship with scary movies seems appropriate. I was raised by two Christian parents who were very protective of the images that I put into my head. When I was six years old, I was playing at a friend’s house when he suggested we watch “Beetle Juice.” Knowing that it was a potentially objectionable title, I called my mom and asked if it was okay and she said it was not. Kids being kids, we watched it anyway.

    What did I think of it? It scared the crap out of me. So much so, that I understood why my mom didn’t want me to watch it and actively avoided scary images on my own free will from then on. When one or two infiltrated me, such as “Ghostbusters,” I was always a little rattled. As I’ve grown, I’ve only become slightly less sensitive to these types of images and only actively seek out scary films if I hear there is a lot more going on to make it worthwhile.

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