Ryan Donahue (catbox9)

The 1982 film Gandhi is a biographical film about the life of Gandhi. The film begins with his assassination and then goes back to an even in South Africa. Most of the film deals with Gandhi's attempt to bring independence to India.

Overall, this film reminded me of The Last Emperor which was another multiple Academy Award winning biopic. Like that film, I didn't particularly care for this film as I generally do not care for biographical films (Lawrence of Arabia being a notable exception). While I did not care for this film, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences did, awarding this film eight Oscars including best picture, best actor (Ben Kingsley), and best director. I suppose Kingsley's Oscar was well-deserved giving how demanding his role was and the artistic Oscars are also worthy given the artistic nature of this film. The academy tends to award films like this the best picture Oscar so I'm not sure I can even complain about that.

68/100
D+

Shakespeare in Love is a period piece. The film is about William Shakespeare as he is writing his play Romeo and Juliet. In this film, which is not based on reality, his own life seems to echo what he writes for his play. A few of the characters are based on actual people and a few scenes are based in reality, but most of this film is completely made up.

Playing William Shakespeare is Joseph Fiennes. His love interest is played by Gwyneth Paltrow. This film also has Judi Dench, Geoffrey Rush, and a few others in supporting roles.

In terms of awards, this film did quite well winning seven Academy Awards including best picture. This film didn't really seem like a best picture type of film to me, so I'm surprised it won. Other wins include a best actress award for Paltrow which seemed at least reasonable. Dench won for best supporting actress but I question this one as well as she barely had any role whatsoever in this film. The film also won for best costume design which seems pretty justified given the fancy costumes a film like this requires. Overall, this wasn't one of my favorites but it was certainly better than I was expecting as this type of film generally doesn't interest me. It was good enough to hold my attention and that's about as much as I could have hoped for going in.

74/100
C