A Total Bore.

Rating: 1/10 (9 February 2014)

I've been a movie lover my entire life, and I love British cinema and try to see every film nominated each year for the major Academy Awards, but I found this film insufferable. So did the two friends who went to see it with me. For the second time in my life I got up and walked out of the theater. They did also.
Maybe it was because it was the 5th of the 1981 "Best Picture" nominees that we had all seen. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was a fun "movie-movie," "On Golden Pond" contained great acting by Henry and Jane Fonda and Katharine Hepburn, "Atlantic City" had a wonderfully original script and fabulous performances by Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon, and "Reds" was a wonderful history of the American Communist Party done as though it were "Lawrence of Arabia." It should have been "Best Picture". The only attribute I can praise "Chariots of Fire" for is the the Costume Design. Boo to Roger Ebert for hustling this snooze-fest into a Best Picture award.