Review-O-Sphere

 To see part 1, click here .   49th Parallel Suite~Vaughan Williams - 49th Parallel World War II upended Hollywood in so many different and radical ways that you could honestly read whole books about the time period. Large chunks of the industry were nationalized by President Roosevelt and many major studios were hired to start producing propaganda films. Not that I would expect any major studio to have the guts or poor taste to try to make a movie coming out against the war effort but the point remains: Hollywood was changed in a big way in 1942 and you can easily tell just by looking at the turnaround of films coming out. Most major films coming out were not-even-remotely-veiled propaganda films for the American war effort to drum up support for the troops. From actual propaganda films such as Frank Capra’s Why We Fight documentary series (1942-1945) to the fact that many film icons would now star in movies where they fight the Nazis, such as Tarzan ( Tarzan Triumphs (...

    Main Title~Herbert Stothart - Mrs. Miniver One of the hardest aspects of trying to embark on a quest to watch and grade every movie that won the Academy Award for Best Picture (Outstanding Motion Picture) is having to contextualize the awards ceremony in the time that they occurred. So, it can occasionally be a tad quibbelsome (a word I’m only using to keep with the British motif) trying to compare films that may not have aged the best but were still serious contenders in their day. Of course, oftentimes the best films that were the most excellent back then are usually the ones that happen to age the best which is why you see numerous snubs. But still, sometimes you find a movie that has aged poorly but we still understand why it won the Oscar back when it came out. This brings us to Mrs. Miniver . Now this is basically going to be two different reviews going on at once. We can review it as how it holds up today but we’re also going to review it in the context of the t...