Alright so finally we reach my 400th review: Dances with Wolves. I decided to go with this one for 400 because when I reach some in the hundreds, I want my review to be on a film that's either a big deal at that time or one that have a personal meaning to me. So like when I made Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Atlantis: The Lost Empire my 100th and 200th reviews respectively, I did that because they were among my favorite films of all time. And when I made The Dark Knight Rises my 300th review, it had just hit the theaters at the time and it was such a big highly anticipated film. This falls into a personal meaning because according to my parents, this actually is the first film I've ever seen in my life. Like their basic story was that they brought their three months old into the theater and the three month old got into watching it as it played. I know it sounds silly and it probably isn't much of a reason to count as the first film I ever saw, but all the same I find this a big enough deal to eventually be one of my bigger reviews. So here at long last is my 400th film review: Dances with Wolves.
Plot: First Lieutenant John Dunbar is transferred to the western frontier after helping the Union army of a battle against the confederates. When he gets to his post, Fort Sedgwick, he finds it abandoned and in disrepair, but he decides to repair it and enjoy a simple quite life manning the fort by himself. But then he encounters a village of Sioux Native Americans living near the fort and begins to become fascinated with their lifestyle and customs while trying to form a friendship with them.
Now for quite a while, I've heard people say that this film winning best picture was a big screw up for the Academy Awards because everyone felt that Goodfellas should've won without a doubt. Now I've only seen a little more then half of Goodfellas, but from what I've seen, sure, it look like a really good fun film. But does that make this film the worst film to win if not Goodfellas? No. I honestly find it to be a really well done film. It has a really nice story, likable characters, I liked how it was very slow-paced even if it might've dragged a tiny bit, Kevin Costner did a great job as John Dunbar/Dances with Wolves, I find it really impressive that he also directed this movie on top of acting in it, and it has a really good message about the life of the Native Americans at that time. In fact I can agree that despite being a good film, Dances with Wolves really won just because of its political statement. I wish that wasn't really true, but ultimately it is. But I think that even through that's the case it's still does a great job at displaying who these people are and about their language, culture, traditions and so on. And having not seen the other nominees from that year aside from The Godfather Part III (you know, that one movie that doesn't exist...) The only other real problem that comes to mind when I was watching this film is that some people might not like it since Avatar pretty much took its story. But if some people feel that way, I'll argue that what makes this film better is that it has more of a historical and educational value and that they use it very well with primarily their characters rather then the visual effects. So with that said, I'd like to think you can enjoy it anyway whether you basically know the story already because of Avatar or not.
And that's my review for Dances with Wolves. It may have wrongly won best picture because of its political statement, but I for one still think it's an enjoyable movie that has a good story, good characters that gives us some very well displayed historical value. It most likely shouldn't have won, but at least it was hardly the worst movie to win best picture. So now I have finally reached 400 reviews. I want to say thank you for reading my reviews and also thank you again that thanks to all of you, my blog has reached a total of more then 10,000 views. I plan to have the next 100 reviews to finish my little quest of watching and reviewing all the best picture winners along with a few franchises an things like that, that I haven't touched yet. Until then, yay that I have now reached 400 and here's to eventually one day reaching 500!
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