1975's Oscar Nominees

Good movies here.

"Cuckoo's" has the most things going for it and the least things wrong. So...that? Part of me wants to say Jaws but it's been ages since I watched it.

Amazingly, I have only ever seen one of these movies. Even more amazingly, the one I've seen is Barry Lyndon.

Unfortunately for the movie, I read Kesey's book first and it made the movie seem too buttoned-down in comparison. Very good on its terms, but the book was really nuts.

And it's either Lyndon or Nashville for me. Both are easily among the ten best movies ever nominated for the award.

I have also only seen Barry Lyndon, but have seen almost all of Jaws in pieces (Universal Studios ride, etc)

what is wrong with you people?

were you locked in the basement as children?

"Lyndon" and "Nashville" are perhaps great "achievements," but I'm not sure how often I ever want to watch them. "Dog Day" has great acting, but I struggled with with the last time I put it on. "Cuckoo" is quality popcorn. But "Jaws" is the most ruthlessly perfect and influential of all of those. So I go with the shark.

yeah, a lot of blind spots here. I think the first R rated movie I saw was Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood (when I was 17)

ridiculous overstatements about Jaws are de rigueur here. There's NOTHING 'perfect' about it.

I've come to think Lyndon just might be greater than Nashvillke.

I mean, Robert Shaw's great achievement in Jaws is you don't laugh his character off the screen.

wait, is Eric saying DDA isn't just another lousy Lumet movie?

"Jaws" is perfect the way a shark is a perfect eating machine. It's perfect at what it does. It's a great horror movie.

I mean, Robert Shaw's great achievement in Jaws is you don't laugh his character off the screen.

Nonetheless a great achievement.

I'm inclined to be generous about DDA given its company.

Barry Lyndon is my wife's favorite movie,and by far the best Kubrick for me (controversial?)
I love Altman but I'd pick 5-6 of his other 70s stuff over Nashville.

Barry Lyndon is my wife's favorite movie,and by far the best Kubrick for me (controversial?)

Maybe controversial if only for the "by far". It's a great, great movie, though.

I'm a Clockwork Orange fan myself, but then again I'm a sick piece of work.

Lyndon is the only Kubrick movie i've not yet seen. (oh and Fear and Desire his obscure debut)

Dog Day Afternoon gets my vote, awesome story, Pacino's best role, John Cazale v. good as well, shocking ending too.

i think Eyes Wide Shut might actually be my favourite Kubrick, even though it is way too long.

nashville

I voted nashville, too

yeah, this is a good lineup, though something about nashville's always rubbed me the wrong way. i voted for cuckoo's nest.

i tried to watch nashville years ago but couldnt understand a word anyone was saying. was it really noisy? was it the accents? i cant remember.

Altman loves overlapping dialogue, usually recorded with one mic. It works better in stereo than surround. Turn up the center channel.

Or with headphones. Last time I watched McCabe & Mrs. Miller I watched it wearing headphones, and caught a lot of background talk that I'd never noticed.

I'm not crazy about any of these pictures; none are great movies. Agree with Eric about Cuckoo's Nest (I played Martini in a high school production); Jaws, Nashville, Barry Lyndon are good films by great directors that I never want to rewatch.

I voted for Cuckoo's Nest.

Nashville, easy.

That's a tough line up but yeah, Nashville for me too. that movie is a trip.

I'm not crazy about any of these pictures; none are great movies.

Two are, easily.

as opposed to the great films nominated for Best Picture this decade: just Munich, I think...

I'd say three. Dog Day Afternoon doesn't quite work. I will refrain from boring you all with why I think that without your asking. And Cuckoo's Nest isn't really that good of a movie. 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.

as opposed to the great films nominated for Best Picture this decade: just Munich, I think...

Atonement?

Miss.

Thanx for responding to my call, Eric.

VERY easily Barry Lyndon, a great film, Kubrick's best after his co-directing job on A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, and a movie I want to see again right now.

I'm no fan of Nashville. As with so many such films (arty or not), the music is cute while you're watching but crumbles into insignificance once the film is over. Plus, right, Altman has much greater to offer this decade and after. But better Nashville than the messagey fare that usually gets the Best Picture nom.

Dog Day Afternoon is one of Lumet's better efforts. Not saying much but voila. Haven't seen Cuckoo since well before the advent of the DVD. Would probably prove diverting in 13 parts on YouTube.

And Jaws...eh, what are you going to do? Like The Sound of Music, the film itself is a mere cog in a riveting industrial history.

All in all, not a bad Oscar year. But yeah Kubrick takes it.

Kael, however, generally otm on Jaws' merits:

http://emdashes.com/2006/08/a-goldmine-of-pauline-kael-rev.php

Partly OTM, but she doesn't mention how effective Shaw is as a plot device, how great his stories about sharks are for establishing plot and mood, and much scarier he makes the movie. Really, it'd be shit without him.

Not really clear on this supposed surfeit of "greater" Altman films there are out there, and I'm a huge fan. Sure, there's McCabe & Mrs. Miller and The Long Goodbye and 3 Women, but surely no one's out there suggesting Images or Buffalo Bill or HEALTH are better, right?

I think you just ranked your Altman.

My, but that sounds dirty.

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

Played like sleepaway-campfire shit

But so well!

I think on most days, I hold Nashville above them all tho. (California Split is my pick for his most overrated '70s flick.)

First half of it is so super entertaining, though.

Not really clear on this supposed surfeit of "greater" Altman films there are out there, and I'm a huge fan. Sure, there's McCabe & Mrs. Miller and The Long Goodbye and 3 Women, but surely no one's out there suggesting Images or Buffalo Bill or HEALTH are better, right?

No, but the first three are all better than Nashville. And I did say "and after" which means there are MANY post-1970s Altman films I'll take over Nashville and that includes the underrated Prêt-à-Porter and the overrated Gosford Park (kinda think they're the same damn film). And [shameless auteurist alert!] A Prairie Home Companion may be his very best.

California Split is my pick for his most overrated '70s flick.

Yeah it disappointed me even though I'm a sucker for gambling flix.

Well, at least we're in agreement that Gosford Park is overrated.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller and 3 Women are somewhat overrated, and not better than Nashville.

(they do contain maybe Beatty's and Duvall's best performances)

And shameless auteurist alert! A Prairie Home Companion may be his very best

NOw that's the kind of addled contrarianism I like!

Better Altman films than Nashville

McCabe and Mrs Miller
The Long Goodbye
3 Women
Secret Honor
The Player

Ah, the benefits of not throwing in my vote right away.

I only saw Secret Honor once and thought it was one of his worst.

What are the best American films NOT nominated for Best Picture this year? how about Love and Death, The Day of the Locust, and The Man Who Would Be King? (critical consensus wd likely be Shampoo)

Grey Gardens is the only one I can think of, though I guess that didn't really roll out in full release until the next year.

Rollerball maybe.

This is still a great batch of films. Maybe some recency bias, since I just finally saw it for the first time last year, but Dog Day Afternoon would now get my vote.

My ranking first to last:

Barry Lyndon
Jaws
Nashville
Dog Day Afternoon
One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest

I'd probably go

Dog Day
Jaws
Nashville
Lyndon
Cuckoo's

I've softened on Dog Day a bit, but the presence of Lyndon and Nashville means the other three are always going to be battling for, at best, third place

Tbh, I really need to rescreen Lyndon, I haven't seen that since I first dove into Kubrick's catalog in college. My strong distaste for period pieces at the time made me walk away thinking it was good, not great.

As I'm sure I've mentioned somewhere in here, I also think Cuckoo's Nest is pretty great.

This book from last year, btw, makes the case for '75 being the best five-deep best picture slate, or at least the apotheosis of New Hollywood at the Oscars, which I know a few on this thread probably regard as the same thing.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Oscar-Wars-Book-Cover-Publicity-H-2023.jpg

I haven't watched Cuckoo's Nest in many years (I played Martini, of course, in a high school production). I'm sure in the abstract I'll have problems with the film's (and the novel's) valorizing of McMurphy, the last of the '60s hellions -- in my high school production the audience roared when he attacked Nurse Ratched.

The way the text lined up, I misread it that you played Nurse Ratched

As I kid I thought the book superior to the film (by many, many lengths). Now, older and operating off my dimming memory of my last viewing, I feel maybe the movie works better for me -- Nurse Ratched isn't such a bad guy after all, etc.

I haven't read the book. Just as she is presented in the film, I don't really get the idea that Nurse Ratched isn't such a bad person. The way she plays mind games with Billy is evil.

You try to control that room

I have, believe me.

(Says the middle-school supply teacher...)

lol

The way the text lined up, I misread it that you played Nurse Ratched

― Rich E. (Eric H.),

They said I looked too soft and genteel.

I loved Nashville when I first saw it in high school partly because Altman was so new to me and all of his innovations were just incredible to see for the first time. But there's also an ugly side to his work that's grown more disappointing over the years, and it's definitely there in Nashville - it remains technically impressive but also uneven and marred by cheap cynicism.

Barry Lyndon is the opposite - I thought little of it when I first saw it, again in high school, but it's grown exponentially on me. A lot of Kubrick's done that - I probably would've called Barry Lyndon the first in a string of uneven or disappointing films by Kubrick, going all the way to his last film, but I'd call every one of those films masterpieces now with Eyes Wide Shut being the favorite. I think part of it comes from maturing and getting older - a lot of what I see in them now that feels so moving or revealing isn't something I'd relate to when I was a teenager.

And Dog Day Afternoon is great - probably my favorite Lumet film, my favorite Pacino performance...maybe even my favorite Brooklyn film. Not long after I first moved to Brooklyn, it was pretty wild to watch it in 35mm at BAM then head over to the neighborhood where they originally shot it.

I dunno, I still see an empathy in Nashville that I don't see in many other films

xp I did the same thing with Dog Day Afternoon except the cinema I saw it in was right there, a couple of blocks from where the film was shot. I can walk from my apartment to the Dog Day Afternoon "bank" in about 10 minutes. And there's also a hot dog stand around there called Dog Day Afternoon, naturally.

I think Nashville has a lot of things in it that don't work or are just ill-conceived, but then a lot of things in it do work, and it's all just so crazily ambitious that I have to respect it as some kind of masterwork.

That's about right, Josefa, re Nashville. Let me add: the film doesn't seem to understand or pretend to show an interest in the era's country music and country music culture either, which I'm sure counts as a plus for some viewers.

And then just the whole idea of having non-country culture actors who are only nominally musical performers write and sing their own material live - what an insane idea, but it mostly works.

That aspect bothered me, just because I do listen to quite a bit of country from that era, but it's interesting to process that when I watch it now. Wishful thinking but part of me would have loved to see real country stars playing themselves in the cast, with Dolly Parton replacing Barbara Jean. (Ronee Blakley is great as Barbara Jean though, so nothing against her - it just would've been mind-blowing to see Nashville as it was in that movie, but I doubt it could have ever worked.)

"I'm Easy" is a pretty great song.

it's easy like Sunday morning

Maybe because they’re attached to the movie and I can’t untertwine them, but only a few of the songs strike me as truly bad beyond the ones that are clearly supposed to be bad (“200 Years,” most obviously).

Barry Lyndon is just cold, remote, and weird to me. Maybe one day it will click for me but I'm not there yet. It represents one of the few occasions I don't jibe with Dr Moribius's tastes, given that he loved it.

I've never cared for Nashville, for some of the reasons mentioned above. I don't find it either its milieu or its politics (such as they are) very persuasive. It's like my 5th favorite Altman of the '70s.

I'd place McCabe, Thieves Like Us, 3 Women before it.

3 Women for sure yes

MASH also, despite its raging misogyny.

Hellllllll no

A line must be drawn and I draw it at preferring MASH over Nashville

Cuckoo's Nest has the best soundtrack. Apparently the final theme was played at Jack Nitzsche's funeral and left everyone in bits:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L5SwisFSCE

xp I'm surprised at the reaction. The ensemble absolutely clicked, the script and editing (including sound) is fantastic, and it's funny as hell--despite, as I say, its raging misogyny. I'd watch it over Nashville any time.

(xpost) Love Nitzsche's crazy theremin music over the end credits.

I'd rather watch Prêt-à-Porter than MASH again.

Clem, I think that's a musical saw rather than a theremin (can't seem to find any online confirmation of this either way, tho).

Ah, here we go:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/jun/07/musical-saw

Inneresting (since it's Jack Nitzsche)! Always just assumed a theremin.

Barry Lyndon is just cold, remote, and weird to me.

Well sure, it's a Kubrick movie

I'm surprised at the reaction

I get it. Me? I'm always surprised that some people prefer watching Roadhouse to Showgirls

Maybe needs a theory of conscious vs unconscious camp

in which camp are you

Camp Arawak

Camp is Camp and it belongs to the audience not the klutz making their Art

Is broadly my take

My favorite Altmans are McCabe & Mrs. Miller, California Split, The Long Goodbye, Gosford Park and probably M*A*S*H. Misogyny's definitely there in M*A*S*H, but at the same time it's an honest (albeit unfortunate) reflection of both the military and '60s counterculture. I can't call it one of the film's merits, but it is a sad truth about the way women were treated across the sociopolitical spectrum.

FWIW, like I did with 1970, took a look and quickly came up with ten favorites from 1975 (only two of the Best Picture nominees though that's actually not bad for the Oscars) - pretty amazing year:

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles [Chantal Akerman]
Mirror [Andrei Tarkovsky]
Barry Lyndon [Stanley Kubrick]
Do Rah-e Hal Bara-ye Yek Mas’aleh (Two Solutions for One Problem) [Abbas Kiarostami]
Dog Day Afternoon [Sidney Lumet]
Welfare [Frederick Wiseman]
India Song [Marguerite Duras]
Manila in the Claws of Light [Lino Brocka]
The Passenger [Michelangelo Antonioni]
Night Moves [Arthur Penn]

Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman)
The Story of Adele H (Francois Truffaut)
Fox and His Friends (Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Love and Death (Woody Allen)
Night Moves (Arthur Penn)
Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick)
The Passenger (Michelangelo Antonioni)
The Man Who Would Be King (John Huston)
Xala (Ousmane Sembene)
Jaws (Steven Spielberg)

Honorable Mentions: Shampoo (Hal Ashby), Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven (Rainer Werner Fassbinder).

of the ones I've seen in the past few years, I'd go Lyndon > Jaws > Dog Day.

I haven't seen the Nashville or Cuckoo's since the '90s. back then I preferred the former to the latter, but I'd need to see them again to rank them against the other three.

(xposts) I'd probably put Welfare #1 for the year, partly a function of having seen my favourites from the list too many times.

in my high school production the audience roared when he attacked Nurse Ratched

i played mcmurphy last month; audiences invariably cheered billy saying he's not sorry but you could always hear a pin drop in the blackout after i strangled nurse ratched; energy rly seemed to lurch around in an uncomfortable way i enjoyed and made me reappraise a thing i loved in high school but decided in college was Too Schematic. (maybe i was just unsympathetic.) play def the worst of its three incarnations tho: strips away most of the book's hallucinatory subjectivity but without grounding it in naturalism as sturdily as the movie.

woulda voted for whichever of nashville/lyndon i'd last seen. don't rly get mash.