1975's Oscar Nominees

but good line up!

what won? cuckoo?

yes, it was a Cuckoo sweep. (Louise Fletcher in wrong category)

Eric: Ask me knock knock knock.

I guess most of you know Louise Fletcher & Lily Tomlin were originally sposed to play the other's Oscar-nominated role.

Went with Dog Day Afternoon without thinking about it. Having thought about it, I stand by that choice.

It's a big-ass rabble-rouser, but I think it fails at conveying its real point, which is that Nurse Ratched is right. These people need their pills, some of them desperately.

Eh? While I can sorta see coming away with this after watching, I can't for a second imagine that this was Milos Forman's "real point." (And it most certainly wasn't Kesey's, for all that Forman switches things up from Kesey's nove.) I mean, maybe if you've never seen another Forman movie, but otherwise I just don't see it.

how great his stories about sharks are for establishing plot and mood

Played like sleepaway-campfire shit

Well, duh.

Never could really get into Altman movies - they strike me as the parent of the quirky indie dreck of this decade - preciousness, overly long, meandering ...

Jaws was actually not a very tight movie, parts of it were actually kinda dull considering it was about a shark attacking people.

Dog Day Afternoon gets my vote.

appallingly, i've never seen barry lyndon, so i can't vote in this. of the other four i guess i'd take dog day over cuckoo's nest and jaws . i think nashville is shallow, mean and hugely overrated, but i've said all that on other threads.

Don't forget that the music is crappy too (but you were probably saying that anyway).

Never could really get into Altman movies - they strike me as the parent of the quirky indie dreck of this decade - preciousness, overly long, meandering ...

I can definitely buy the latter two. But how in the world could Nashville (or Three Women or The Long Goodbye or, esp., McCabe and Mrs. Miller) be accused of preciousness?

Haven't seen the ones you list in parentheses, so I could very well be wrong - but Nashville and Short Cuts definitely felt precious to me, in the sense that they seem too in love with their characters and it's a bit of quirkiness for quirkiness' sake.

man movies - they strike me as the parent of the quirky indie dreck of this decade

maybe those indie filmmakers would say so, but the mumblecore films' attitude toward their characters is way way different.

That's also like blaming Led Zeppelin for 40 years of shit metal.

(tho I don't like Led Zep either)

is there an Altman poll? i want an Altman poll.

That would be preciousness for its own sake.

I find him unpollsuitable. Like Fassbinder, his work is one big film.

and then we get to read dumb "Oh, no love for..." posts cuz no one thinks Brewster McCloud is his best movie.

NO, NO LOVE, YOU'RE NOT #1 IN YOUR FAMILY, EITHER

can't front that it isn't a strong line-up, buuuuut

don't really want to see the two standouts, barry lyndon and nashville, again. maybe on the big screen, but BL is exactly what people always accuse kubo of being, ie inert.

as a 'statement about america on the eve of the bicentennial', i'll take jaws over nashville, which i don't totally 'get'. certainly not as good as a bunch of other 70s altmans.

one flew over the cuckoo's nest hasn't dated too well... i guess dog day hasn't either but of the two acting showcases im going to take pacino over nicholson.

i'd feel wrong voting jaws, but it's kind of going that way.

unpollsuitable

word of the day!

I'll make sure that the next year I poll only features movies I don't, against all Oscar history odds, think are great. Last year, for instance.

against in accordance with Oscar history odds

as a 'statement about america on the eve of the bicentennial', i'll take jaws

you and Fidel Castro, who saw it as an anti-capitalist allegory.

1977's list is even more middlebrow:

Annie Hall
The Goodbye Girl
Julia
Star Wars
The Turning Point

Yes, tho Annie Hall is maybe the best actual winner of the whole decade.

My god, The Turning Point; it's only worth watching for this scene, a masterpiece of camp:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a_wW3sNRPk

... the hell?

well, also to look at Baryshnikov.

Eric, you really need to catch up on yr '70s middlebrow.

I saw The Turning Point in the Little Carnegie theater on 57th Street -- asnd there is a shot of that theater in the film, I think the only time I've had that Sherlock Jr experience. (Also saw Annie Hall there opening weekend)

Hey, I've seen Kramer vs. Kramer, The Sting and at least two Neil Simon productions.

The Goodbye Girl is paaaaainful.

You know what's stinky? The Oscars.

So, I hate to break it to you, is Mahogany. < / Morbs >

I do wanna view Mahogany at some point, to see if Anthony Perkins' hatred of Diana Ross's lack of professionalism comes through.

(btw Eric, they're reviving The Wiz on Broadway)

Listening to "Do You Know Where You're Going To" at the market last week, I noted Diana's lack of command of grammar.

xpost ooh, i should audition!

I think I've mentioned I scream "Do You Know Where You're Going To" at NYC drivers

I'm a hueg kubrick stan and barry lyndon is his underrated masterpiece so...

have I mentioned my theory that the shining was kubrick's sadistic revenge on the moviegoing public for ignoring barry lyndon?

"Ignore my brilliant 18th-century satire?! Here's... a NONSCARY horror epic!"

So, I hate to break it to you, is Mahogany.

Well, now I know.

Then again, I always knew. Mahogany is stinky. But its stinkiness is noble, precious even. Like Empire Records, it bites off more than it can chew, so damn eager to please everyone in viewing range. But in this, it reflects the well-meaning-but-not-too-well-meaning liberal mindset of Oscar ideology more accurately than the sure-footed snoozefests that usually get the noms. In short, it's beautifully confused. Plus the clothes are fab!

So are the clothes in Nashville!

No they're not.

Right, they're not. But even if they were, they'd be nowhere near as fab as the ensembles (don't pronounce the "s") in Mahogany.

Revision: Everything about Nashville is better than anything in any other movie.

Even Gertrud?

Even Lipstick.

I think this has got to be the strongest Best Picture field ever, with Nashville at the top, Jaws second, Cuckoo's Nest third, then Dog Day, and Barry Lyndon last. And I like Barry Lyndon, even though I think Gene Hackman's famous Night Moves (also '75) joke about Rohmer might just as well have been directed at Kubrick's film. Someone asked about the best non-nominated picture that year--Frederick Wiseman's Welfare, I'd say. I just saw an excellent HBO documentary on John Cazale called I Knew It Was You; not sure who was up for supporting actor in '75 (Henry Gibson?), but they somehow managed to overlook Cazale in Dog Day.

1974 was a better Best Picture year -- if you ignore the nod to The Towering Inferno.

Tough call...For top three, yeah, '74; GFII, The Conversation, and Chinatown are unbeatable. But I don't think Lenny's all that terrific (coincidentally enough, I'm halfway through rewatching it on DVD), and Inferno seriously undermines the other four. I guess I meant that '75 is the rare year where the Best Picture field in almost inarguably five deep.

Fair enough. The Best Director nods are more interesting: Fellini replaces Spielberg (a moment captured on film as Spielberg listens to the announcement) for Amarcord, his best movie since the fifties.

I only dig The Conversation from 1974. Cassavetes/Elaine May robbed in 1974 and 1976. But when wasn't Cassavetes robbed?

Avant-garde, porn, and other art cinemas were sooo much more compelling in the 1970s than this New Hollywood silliness.

Ugh -- Cassavetes. I prefer the dramatizing of his psychodramas when playing villains.