1975's Oscar Nominees

(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.

Towering Inferno is no worse than Jaws.

Jaws didn't have a kitty and Oh Jay.

Towering Inferno = Jaws? They're not in the same stratosphere.

jennifer jones being eaten by shark would be better than robert shaw

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

They were all pretty compelling on the whole, though I think the case for '70s porn has been radically overstated, personally.

I used to think that about 1970s porn until I saw more softcore and sexploitation. And Chuck Vincent. And the greatest film ever made.

nearly all porn is worse than The Towering Inferno, and even worse than A Woman Under the Influence.

Almost every Rohmer and Kubrick film is better than Night Moves. (I also think the Hackman line is sposed to show he's a philistine)

First statement = you're on a mountain of drugs

Second statement = you're in rehab

nearly all porn is worse than

Even this first conditional phrase is untrue. Morbs, have you seen some of the really dark straight porn that's out there? Gay porn has a different dynamic, I think. There's HATE in some straight porn. In a lot of it, even.

I can't think of anything theoretically worse than really dark straight porn.

Tell me about it. Not only enlimpening, but makes you want to scrub your skin off.

I also think the Hackman line is sposed to show he's a philistine.

In the context of the film, no, I don't think so; it's preceded, from what I remember, by Susan Clark saying something to the effect that her co-worker (Hackman's nemesis, the guy she's having the affair with) found the Rohmer film "yummy." It's the other guy who sounds faintly ridiculous, even more so after Hackman's dry dismissal. (Which is not my own dismissal. I've seen Rohmer films that are clearly superior to Night Moves, and others that aren't as good. Ditto Kubrick.)

I think that's obviously true. They're not having a debate about film, fer chrissakes.

I saw Night Moves for the first time only two months ago and was impressed; I'm not an Arthur Penn fan.

anyway, are ppl who call Lyndon dull judging it by wham-bam standards? There's quite a lot going on... Pirates of the Caribbean, now that's boring.

Full recovery! Much love!

i'm sorry but not enough has been made of this comment VERY easily Barry Lyndon, a great film, Kubrick's best after his co-directing job on A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
????!!!!!!!!??????

yeah Kev, "co-director" is pushing it since SK was DEAD.

Just because he wasn't breathing behind the camera doesn't mean his vision isn't stamped on the film (in a quite dominant way too). I've said this before millions of times (including somewhere on ILX I'm sure) but there are moments in that film that Spielberg could never have created and moments Kubrick could never have created. Thus I sleep VERY well at night stating that A.I.: Artificial Intelligence is the best film by BOTH directors (unless Spielberg turns into Mizoguchi in his remaining time here).

Voting Nashville. This is a good list (even with awful Ryan O'Neal stinking up Barry Lyndon and Pacino chewing scenery left and right in Dog Day.)

for realz, i want a detailed defense of AI (or if you've done it elsewhere, point me to it!). There is about ten minutes of good material in that movie (opening sequence) and the rest is shittttay. and this is speaking as a guy who loves the hell out of every Kubrick movie.

Not on this thread.

Ryan O'Neal is splendidly cast in BL.

Ryan O'Neal wasn't spendidly cast in anything.

c'mon, a dopey gullible-turned-ruthless Irish naif... PERFECT!!!

I agree 1000% with Morbs. Very much like the genius casting of Bill Pullman in Lost Highway (or maybe Robert Cummings in Saboteur).

i want a detailed defense of AI

Well, for a detailed defense, you'd have to pay me. And this is certainly not the thread for it. But very briefly, that hybrid quality is precisely what I adore about the film, the way it's a Kubrick film but not quite, ditto Spielberg. "Sui generis" gets thrown around a lot but I can't think of a Hollywood film that more deserves that description.

"Very much like the genius casting of Bill Pullman in Lost Highway"

You are a crackhead.

i mean, in theory, i agree with you -- AI is interesting in the way you're talking about it. But it is still kind of a horrible movie. Sorry, I'll stop derailing this thread. Voted Barry Lyndon. Movie gets funnier every time I see it.

with fans like you, who needs haters?

Barry Lyndon IS a comedy, tho.

It has wit. It is not a comedy.