Nothing But the Best: "A Beautiful Mind" (2001)

Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind

Welcome to the series Nothing But the Best in which I chronicle all of the Academy Award Best Picture winners as they celebrate their anniversaries. Instead of going in chronological order, this series will be presented on each film's anniversary and will feature personal opinions as well as facts regarding its legacy and behind the scenes information. The goal is to create an in depth essay for each film while looking not only how the medium progressed, but how the film is integral to pop culture. In some cases, it will be easy. Others not so much. Without further ado, let's start the show.

R.I.P. John Forbes Nash (1928-2015)

John Forbes Nash

This past Saturday, mathematician John Forbes Nash and his wife for close to 60 years Alicia died in a car crash. With an impressive career that earned him a Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics, he influenced the the math world with his radical new ways of thinking with Game Theory. It even came to be that he earned the nickname of The Phantom of Fine Hall for his desires to scribble arcane equations in the middle of the night (a reference that made it into Rebecca Goldstein's "The Mind-Body Problem"). For a man with such a storied career going back to the 50's with a published paper on non-cooperative games, he left a valuable mark on the world that would be hard to properly summarize. This is largely because despite an amazing career with a lot of revolutionary ideas, he also developed mental illness - a notion that makes his achievements all the more interesting.

Review: "Noah" Mixes Grandiose with the Surreal and Philosophical in Amazing Ways

Russell Crowe

When director Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan became a financial success story, including an Oscar win for Best Actress (Natalie Portman), it seemed rather fascinating on where he would go next. Known for having a catalog of unpredictable, surreal takes on contemporary society, his latest Noah seems like somewhat of a detour. However, knowing that it is his passion project helps to make the $125 million budget make more sense. Whether seen as a biblical epic or a disaster film, this film manages to go straight for the widest possible audience. Luckily, Aronofsky's passion comes through in one of the most bombastic, unique, and best biblical epics in decades.