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Oscars Retrospective: Oliver! (41st Academy Awards Review)

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Overture/Main Titles~Lionel Bart - Oliver!           With the exception of A Christmas Carol (1843), Oliver Twist (1839) was arguably the most famous novel of early 19th century British writer, Charles Dickens, and is usually the story that first springs into mind when the adjective “Dickensian” is used. Dickens’ stories and their Dickensianism have always been a ripe subject for film adaptations. But while A Christmas Carol has a new film adaptation about every 10 years, and it’s very debatable which is the best one, film adaptations of Oliver Twist are much more rare and the one that is almost universally regarded as the most definitive, iconic and beloved interpretation of the story was the 1968 musical film (originally a play released in 1960). In some ways, this movie could also be considered the last hurrah of the British Invasion as this was the last British film to win Best Picture after several victories in a row and pop culture would refocus ba...
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Success or Snub? Oliver! (41st Academy Awards Review Pt. 2)

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To see part 1, click here . Yellow Submarine (Full Album)~The Beatles           To ascertain whether or not any one movie deserved to be called the best movie of 1968 requires some context of the year 1968 first. 1968 was one of those years that comes along once in a generation where everything hits the fan all at once (if you remember 2020, 1968 was your grandparents’ 2020). Public opinion turned against the Vietnam War with the Tet Offensive, the My Lai Massacre occurred (though wasn’t revealed to the press until years later), civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, race riots broke out all across the country as a result, Senator Robert F. Kennedy ran for President on a platform of quelling this violence and bringing racial harmony, he was also killed for his troubles, the Cannes Film Festival was canceled because of student riots in France, protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago broke into a full-scale riot when the ...
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