Looking Back: Cimarron

I go back and do a video review for the fourth Best Picture winner, Cimarron (1931). This was the first Western to win Best Picture. The movie begins in the year 1889 and ends in 1929. Over those 40 years, larger-than-life Yancy Cravat (played by silent star Richard Dix) fights against outlaws and social injustices in a newly settled part of Oklahoma (which is not yet a state) while running an outspoken paper with his wife played by Irene Dunne.

Quickie Reviews: Mrs. Doubtfire

Released: November 24, 1993

Story: Actor Daniel Hillard (Robin Williams) is recently divorced. In order to spend more time with his kids, who live with his ex-wife (Miranda played by Sally Field), he dresses up as the old English nanny Mrs. Doubtfire and gets hired by Miranda to look after the Children.

Quickie Reviews: The Birdcage

Released: March 8, 1996

Story: Val Goldman (Dan Futterman) has a problem. He wants to get married to Barbara Keeley, but she is the daughter of conservative Ohio Senator Kevin Keeley (Gene Hackman). Senator Keeley is the co-founder of the Coalition for Moral Order. When his fellow co-founder is found dead in the bed of an underage hooker, the senator is desperate for a virtuous family event to save his political career and get him re-elected. He agrees to meet Val’s parents. What he doesn’t know and what Val and his fiancee, Barbara (played by Calista Flockhart), must keep secret is that his parents (played by Robin Williams and Nathan Lane) are gay, Jewish, and run a drag club below their South Beach home. His parents go along with the plan but the dinner they throw for the Keeley’s doesn’t go as planned.