Doctor Zhivago (David Lean, 1965); Over the Top (Menahem Golan, 1987)

I assume I'm strawmanning here. But what Oscar contenders are supposed to have over art cinema and the avant-garde is expert storytelling. So where is that in the Zhivago? The train ride out of Moscow is indelible and it's difficult not to be impressed by the epic sway of the thing. But the central romance between Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif) and Lara Antipova (Julie Christie) is shoddily telegraphed. In fact, if your attention flagged during the scene where Yuri moons over Lara as she's ironing, you might miss that they ever were in love at all before the typically truncated second act. (If these limitations are present in Boris Pasternak's 1957 novel, which I'll likely never read, that's of no concern here; I'm writing about the film.) And with three-plus hours to play with, it's not as if Lean had no time to develop the romance a bit more. Like so many directors in this era of tumescent prestige pics, Lean doesn't know when to cut. Weighed down with Quality, his camera in an early scene lingers on young Yuri's face staring at a balalaika. We know it's Yuri's Rosebud. But Lean stays on the face for such a preposterous amount of time that I honestly thought I hit pause on the player. Dude, we get it. Cut! P. S. People telling me I should see it on the big screen to the rear.

Over the Top is a dumb Sylvester Stallone vehicle that shockingly lost money. Arm wrestling, trucks, and Rocky/Rambo seemed like such a surefire recipe in 1987. But until the screenplay gives up on the story after Stallone wins the climactic arm wrestling match (and, really, who cares about anything else at that point?), it tells a damn tight story. So tight, it's true, that you'll forget it in a week or so. But its bite-sized fun was a tonic after the longueurs of the Zhivago. Best line came not from the film but from the Mr. when I asked about the fairness of one of the wrestling moves: "Why are you asking me about penalty rules in late-1980s arm wrestling contests?!?"

Doctor Zhivago: B

Over the Top: B