1976 Oscar Nominees

Yeah, this lineup does sort of approach the apotheosis of new hollywood, isn't it.

er, doesn't it

It does indeed. Also, this was the year of Hitchcock's last film, Family Plot which, prolly needless to say, I'll take over any of these.

Family Plot is great too. I don't see why I can't have both that AND Taxi Driver/Carrie/Assault on Precinct 13/et al.

I've always been fascinated by the perfect symmetry of Ashby's '70s career: the six films mentioned above, plus The Landlord--seven for seven, without a single misstep. Obviously there's some variance in quality among them, but most every other major director of the era had at least one high-profile debacle on his resume: [i]1941, Quintet, New York, New York, Sorcerer, etc. (And the three exceptions that come to mind--Coppola, Kubrick, and Lucas--directed fewer than 10 films between them.) Ashby basically emerges as the secret hero of A Decade Under the Influence, Ted Demme's documentary on American film in the '70s.

Yeah, I noticed that too. I'm not as crazy about Shampoo as I used to be, and I haven't seen The Landlord, but Ashby had a helluva streak.

taxi driver for me

network

New York, New York is not a debacle. Jesus you people have awful taste.

Of course I like Sorcerer better than Coming Home so maybe I'm the one with the problem.

TAXI DRIVER, c'mon!

Alex otm re NYNY! Must be that time of year. ;)

Scorsese perfected Taxi Driver with its superior remake, The King of Comedy.

12 Angry Men is just 12 great performances locked in a room.

Even Armond White, your colleague in the Hate Lumet Treehouse, sees value in his putting great acting on the screen, as in Long Day's Journey into Night. If de Palma ever manages it, do give a call.

"Scorsese perfected Taxi Driver with its superior remake, The King of Comedy."

Wowthisisgettingeerie. ;)

I saw the Hill recently. Even Lumet haters might really like that one.

Def TaxiDriver.

If de Palma ever manages it, do give a call.

No.

Which is to say, it's impossible for me to call you in 1976, when De Palma put at least four of them in just one film.

Ooooh burn. That's kind of DePalma's exception though. I'd agree with Morbs that acting is an afterthought in a lot of his movies (which I often love.)

No argument from me there. I do think the performances typically work for his films just fine.

I like Spacek and Laurie -- Amy Irving is great in that? in a Fast Times at Ridgemont High kind of way?

No, I mean, you know, great, as in Jason Robards as Jamie Tyrone great. (an Oscar winner in '76 as Ben Bradlee, to steer back on topic.)

(I also can't imagine you really really could be calling Betty Buckley's efficient performance as the friggin' gym teacher great. Oh, you are a card.)

A poll of the '76 acting nominees would be fab: every nominee came from Network anyway. I think it's still the only movie to earn three acting Oscars.

Efficient hardly describes her cautiously optimistic chat with Spacek at her prom table.

My second-favorite 1976 de Palma-directed performance is probably Genevieve Bujold in Obsession. Good year for him.

Bujold was great in Coma. What ever happened to her?

Bujold is good in Obsession, but the movie is the one true bummer in that mid-70s spread.

Unless you are humorless and go for that type of thing.

you know me!

oh, if you take The Fury as pure burlesque, your love is slightly fathomable. :)

Bujold hit a new peak w/ Croney in Dead Ringers.

How I'd have voted on the '76 acting awards: De Niro, Spacek, Robards, Laurie.

Pretty IMDB of me, but it's that kinda year.

"Cut out 'her tit.' This is a family newspaper."

How I'd have voted on the '76 acting awards: De Niro, Spacek, Robards, Laurie

If I were voting now, I'd let Dunaway keep her Oscar knowing that Spacek would win in '80.

Between it and Coal Miner's Daughter, Carrie's the better picture, but she's great in both.

Liv Ullmann should've won at some point. Marion fucking Cotillard....

Sorely missing nominees: Walter Matthau in The Bad News Bears, John Wayne in The Shootist and Shirley Stoler in Seven Beauties

Knowing that I'd give my Oscar to Faye in '81, I'd give Spacek her due in '76.

...President's Men by a country mile. self-congratulatory? i don't see that at all, but maybe the film can come over that way because the real guys were (and i sorta think they had every right to be), as detailed by Goldman in ...Screen Trade etc.

Let me clarify something from upthread. I shouldn't have used debacle to describe New York, New York--I've only seen it once, but I remember there were some things I liked about it. (One of the supporting performances, De Niro's manager or agent, was especially good.) But I'm pretty sure that, after a certain amount of anticipation, it was jumped all over by most critics, and also that it lost a fair amount of money at the time. It was one of many smaller-scale Heaven's Gates (before the real Heaven's Gate arrived) that helped bring about the end of the unlimited freedom that many leading '70s directors more or less enjoyed for the first half of the decade: NY, NY, 1941, At Long Last Love, The Missouri Breaks, Quintet (Altman had more than one), Cruising (maybe a better choice than Sorcerer), Stardust Memories, a few others. These films are inevitably viewed more favorably over time; even Heaven's Gate gets some votes in Sight & Sound's greatest-ever poll nowadays. But they were perceived as flops at the time, and Hal Ashby was a rarity in that he managed to escape the decade without one.

Well yeah, but Hall Ashby was also a more restrained director than those guys were so it doesn't shock me that he wouldn't create something that was perceived as being an over-ambitious flop (or in the case of 1941 just a plain flop.) He also didn't direct anything as good as NY, NY or Stardust Memories (let alone most of those directors' best efforts--although I think now away from the expectations of the time NY, NY is maybe my favorite 70s Scorsese.)

NYNY was certainly a commercial debacle -- Scorsese was so destroyed by its failure he moved in with Robbie Robertson and nearly coked himself to death.

I think The Last Detail is significantly better than Stardust Memories, though I mostly have a cool admiration for all Ashby's other stuff (and for his ability to make a posturing, offensive, cutesy nothing like the Harold & Maude script into something watchable).

Even Armond White, your colleague in the Hate Lumet Treehouse, sees value in his putting great acting on the screen, as in Long Day's Journey into Night. If de Palma ever manages it, do give a call.

Great acting is so 2008.* Who cares? What good did it ever do Malcolm Le Grice, a better director than almost anyone mentioned on this thread? And gimme something like Femme Fatale, which demonstrates movies as the best set of electric trains a boy ever had, over a tomb for great acting like 12 Angry Men or that pesky Taxi Driver any day.

* Ok I don't really believe this exactly. I love Joan Crawford's great acting in Rain and Possessed (1947) (both quite uncampy, I should add) and Helen Mirren's in The Queen. But great acting has done almost as much damage throughout film history as severe edits by The Man. Also great acting almost never means comedy nor Eric H's Oscar to Dunaway in 1981 for arguably the greatest film performance of all-time.

Feel like I should say Taxi Driver but Network's batshit glory gets me every time. The more that people point out its flaws the more I seem to like it.

"I think The Last Detail is significantly better than Stardust Memories"

I kinda forgot about that one. Yeah it is better.

t was one of many smaller-scale Heaven's Gates (before the real Heaven's Gate arrived) that helped bring about the end of the unlimited freedom that many leading '70s directors more or less enjoyed for the first half of the decade

Peter Biskind is responsible for spreading this risible notion. The good movies may have been better than during the Hollywood studio heyday, but there were just as many bad movies. Because the seventies films were taking greater risks their failures seem more grotesque. Every one of the poll options is significantly flawed – and this is one of the better years.

*omit "than"

agrteed KJB, if you're reinventing the medium or doing comedy "great acting" is not likely in your toolbox, but then I like to see films after the reinvention is complete, ie Godard bores the living shit outta me 70% of the time. I'll look up Malcolm Le Grice though.

I still may like Seven Beauties more than any of those 5 movies.

Also, a well-drawn 4-hour compilation of Watergate-related news footage would kick AtPM's ass. Especially with at least 30 minutes of Nixon denials.

Even 12 Angry Men is just 12 great performances locked in a room.

so you get Sidney Lumet

Who is visionary genius.

Also, a well-drawn 4-hour compilation of Watergate-related news footage would kick AtPM's ass. Especially with at least 30 minutes of Nixon denials.

Truth talking. It'd probably be more compelling stylistically too.

Network is great but come the fuck on its Taxi Driver in a walk

Taxi Driver will win, but Network is a better movie.

well Wexler won in '76 for Bound for Glory, gotta give em credit for that. xp

Every good word in the English language is in that script.

― "Minneapolis" (barf) (Eric H.

"cocksmanship"

Nine years later, I would change my vote from Taxi Driver to All the President's Men.

It's cool, I just changed my vote from All the President's Men back to Network and now the two are tied for second place!

It's been a busy day.

wd now write in Mikey and Nicky

I wasn't here 9 years ago, but Taxi Driver is still the best and Network still sucks.

were there ever consecutive Best Actress winners who played soulless villains besides Louise Fletcher and Dunaway?

Closest case I could determine was Natalie Portman in Black Swan and Streep's Margaret Thatcher.

Depends on what you think about Katherine Hepburn in On Golden Pond and Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice

Bette Davis '38/Vivien Leigh '39? Maybe they weren't entirely soulless.

I wasn't here 9 years ago, but Network is still the best and Taxi Driver still sucks.

you can deconstruct Scarlett O'Hara myriad ways, but she is clearly the heroine of GWTW

(and so is BD in Jezebel from what i can recall)

btw I have come to the realization that Holden was about 18 months older than I am now when they shot Network, and no one yet has impugned my cocksmanship.

Date more loquacious programming directors with father complexes.

Basically X agrees

Just curious, which of these should've won against ROCKY?

— Eric Henderson (@ephender) February 14, 2024