Claire's Life

In 2018, Entertainment Weekly  published a bracket called "The Greatest Best Picture of All Time." I am now on a quest to watch and rate all the represented movies. Old Hollywood Continued:  Gone With the Wind (1939)   vs.  Marty  (1954) First Contestant Gone With the Wind  is the longest Best Picture winner, the record-holder for  the most-watched American movie of all tim e, and winner of 8 competitive Oscars in addition to two honorary ones. It is also, in my opinion, not worth half the hype it has. But here goes. The plot of Gone With the Wind  is four hours long, and goes something like this: a spoiled brat named Scarlett is growing up on an antebellum Georgia plantation, surrounded by slaves who seem downright happy to be there. She is in love with a man, Ashley, who doesn't love her back. So naturally she marries his fiancee's brother to make him jealous, which doesn't work. Then the Civil War breaks out. Her first husband dies off-scree

Back in February 2018, Entertainment Weekly  magazine published a bracket to help readers determine the "Greatest 'Best Picture' of all Time." They also ran a poll on their website, in which I couldn't participate because I hadn't seen enough of the movies. Since then, I've been on a quest to watch them all. I report here on the results of my first round. Part 1: Old Hollywood The top-left corner of the bracket featured 16 movies made between 1930-1960. With the help of our county library system, Bryan and I started here. First Contestants:  All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) vs. The Lost Weekend  (1945) All Quiet on the Western Front  was the third movie, second talkie, and second war flick ever to win Best Picture. War is a theme that the Academy loves and has returned to frequently. All Quiet on the Western Front , however, is a war film that could not have been made in any subsequent decade, for two reasons: It's about World War I. It