skimpole
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Here is Glenn Kenny's list for 2016: http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2016/12/fifty-noteworthy-films-released-in-the-united-states-in-2016.html#comments
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I saw three movies. La La Land has many virtues. Emma Stone is very good, the first movie numbers are very good, and the ending is keeping with the inspiration of Jacques Demy. I suppose I'm supposing that the movie could have been a bit better, there could have been one more dance number, and the relationship between Stone and Gosling could have been a little deeper. The Whales of August probably didn't deserve its oscar nomination for Anne Sothern. It's not a bad movie, but it's also not a very deep one. But it is nice to see Bette Davis, Lilian Gish and Vincent Price for one last time. Travels with my Aunt is also not a particularly profound film, and it involves Maggie Smith playing the mother to an actor nine years older than himself. It makes more sense when one learns that role was originally for Katharine Hepburn. But the movie does have some of the Cukor charm.
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Actor
Woody Allen, Annie Hall
Henry G. Sanders, Killer of Sheep
Vladimir Gostyukhin, The Ascent
Fernando Rey, That Obscure Object of Desire
Richard Dreyfuss, Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Runner-ups: Boris Plotnikov (The Ascent), Robert De Niro (New York, New York), Bob Newhart (The Rescuers), Bud Cort (Why Shoot the Teacher?), John Gielgud (Providence), Dennis Hopper (The American Friend), Marty Feldman (The Last Remake of Beau Geste), Rutger Hauer (Soldier of Orange), Bruno S. (Stroszek), Jack Nance (Eraserhead), Gordon Pinsent (Who Has Seen the Wind), Harvey Keitel (The Duellists), Art Carney (The Late Show), John Travolta (Saturday Night Fever), Mark Lester (Crossed Swords/The Prince and the Pauper), Ben Gazzara (Opening Night)
Actress
Diane Keaton, Annie Hall
Kaycee Moore, Killer of Sheep
Tabata Ndiaye, Ceddo
Jane Fonda, Julia
Liza Minnelli, New York, New York
Runner-ups: Gena Rowlands (Opening Night), Kimiko Ikegami (House), Shelly Duvall (3 Women), Sissy Spacek (3 Women), Lily Tomlin (The Late Show), Jodie Foster (Candleshoe)
Supporting Actor
Dirk Bogarde, Providence
James Earl Jones, Star Wars
Francois Truffaut, Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Jason Robards, Julia
Anatoli Solonitsyn, The Ascent
Runner-ups: Tony Roberts (Annie Hall), Peter Cushing (Star Wars), David Warner (Providence), Curt Jurgens (The Spy that Loved Me), David Niven (Candleshoe), Peter Firth (Equus), Peter Ustinov (The Last Remake of Beau Geste)
Supporting Actress
Vanessa Redgrave, Julia
Melinda Dillon, Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Ellen Burstyn, Providence
Lyudmila Polyakova, The Ascent
Miki Jinbo, House
Runner-ups: Teri Garr (Close Encounters of the Third Kind), Carole Bouquet (That Obscure Object of Desire), Angela Molina (That Obscure Object of Desire), Ai Matubara (House), Kumiko Oba (House), Helen Hayes (Candleshoe)
Not seen: The Goodbye Girl, The Turning Point, A Special Day, Looking for Mr. Goodbar--------There are three movies that have won the top five oscars (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay): It Happened One Night, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, and The Silence of the Lambs. And there are three movies that have won my top five alternate oscars: Annie Hall is the third, after Children of Paradise and Vertigo.
--------For the first time since 1958, all four acting oscars are won by English language movies, though Providence has a French director.
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From Fanny and Alexander:
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The first movie the great British director Terence Davies saw was Singin' in the Rain. Here is his use of "Tammy" in The Long Day Closes (which seriously, TCM should show, along with Distant Voices, Still Lives and the rest of his filmography).
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I saw it when TCM aired it during Anthony Quinn's Star of the Month lineup. Maybe it was one that got pulled from the Canadian schedule.
No, I saw it on TCM Canada as well.
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Part of the problem is that TCM has shown most of the American films from 1925 to 1959, and those it hasn't shown there's probably a good reason it hasn't done so far. I don't know why TCM hasn't shown Peter Ibbetson: it's on DVD as part of a Gary Cooper collection
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I was wondering how Chris Sarandon's turn in Dog Day Afternoon would age, how it would be viewed by newer audiences. I placed him among my nominees, as have a few others, and a couple (I think) even have him as winner. For those who don't know or haven't seen the movie, Sarandon plays the overly medicated, pre-op transsexual lover of Al Pacino's bankrobber. He doesn't have a lot of screen time but what is there is good stuff. I wondered, though, how his heavily "swish" character would be viewed now, as on the surface it plays into a number of negative stereotypes, specifically homosexuality and/or gender dysphoria as mental illness. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who think that a character in a story or a film is supposed to be representative of all members of that person's race, gender, religion, etc. A Jewish bad guy in a movie doesn't mean all Jews are bad guys, only this specific Jewish guy or gal. But while there were strong strides made in the portrayal of gay and lesbian characters in the 1970's, there were still plenty of offensive ones, too. My question is how many think the Sarandon role would be viewed as such now?
As far as I recall, Sarandon was virtually unknown when Dog Day Afternoon was released, so most audiences weren't aware how far from his usual screen persona this role would be. Much like the supporting actors in the same year's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Sarandon's anonymity helped the performance as the viewer didn't know what was acting and what was reality. Many at the time questioned how many of the Cuckoo's Nest actors were actual mental patients cast in the film (answer:none), and the same was wondered about Sarandon.
I was busy last week, so I didn't comment on it at the time. I didn't think much of Sarandon's performance, and didn't think it was the best supporting performance in Dog Day Afternoon. Since the movie was based on a true story I assume that Sarandon's character was close to the truth. What is more striking is that in popular culture homosexuals were conflated with trans individuals. In Soap, Billy Crystal's character, if I remember the first homosexual on a network TV show. was thinking about becoming a woman, and then tried to kill himself when the man he was in love with backed out. That ended any trans part on Crystal's character's part. Two decades later the more scabrous South Park had its elementary school teacher realizing he was gay, then becoming a woman (and Richard Dawkins' lover), then deciding to become a man again and eventually being elected president.
As for Sarandon's performance, I think it got nominated because his concept was showier than Cazale and Durning's roles, though I think their roles were better. It's an old bad Oscars habit, where people get nominated for showy roles, like having drunk scenes for actors, or acting hysterically (like Joan Crawford in Possessed) Likewise, I think Dourif was nominated in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest because he was the most sympathetic of the patients, and his fate was so unfortunate.
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1972
- The Godfather
- The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
- Solaris
- Aguirre: the Wrath of God
- Red Psalm
- Winter Soldier
- Cabaret
- Frenzy
- Avanti
- The Getaway
Runner ups: The Mattei Affair, Pink Flamingos, Blaise Pascal, Tout va Bien, The King of Marvin Gardens, Chloe in the Afternoon
1973
- Cries and Whispers
- Badlands
- The Sting
- The Spirit of the Beehive
- The Mother and the ****
- O Lucky Man!
- Don’t look Now
- The Long Goodbye
- The Friends of Eddie Coyle
- The Day of the Jackal
Runner-ups: Scarecrow, American Graffiti, State of Siege
1974
- Murder on the Orient Express
- The Godfather, Part II
- Chinatown
- The Conversation
- Celine and Julie Go Boating
- A Woman under the Influence
- That’s Entertainment
- The Enigma of Kasper Hauser
- The Phantom of Liberty
- Scenes from a Marriage*
Runner-ups: My Little Loves, Alice in the Cities, Conversation Piece, Day for Night, Fear Eats the Soul, Arabian Nights, Lacombe, Lucien, Lancelot du Lac, California Split, Thieves Like Us, Still Life, Stavisky, The Parallax View, Electra my Love
1975
- Barry Lyndon
- The Mirror
- Love and Death
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- The Man who Would be King
- Jaws
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show
- Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
- Moses and Aron
- Nashville
Runner-ups: The Travelling Players, Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom, The Story of Adele H, The Passenger, Fox and his Friends,
Eadweard Mubridge, Zoopraxographer
1976
- All the President’s Men
- That’s Entertainment, Part II
- Taxi Driver
- The Pink Panther Strikes Again
- The Tenant
- Cria Cuervos
- Mickey and Nicky
- Fellini’s Casanova
- Family Plot
- The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
Runner-ups: The Innocent, 1900, Face to Face, The Marquise of O, Harlan County, USA, Edvard Munch, Numero Deux, A Slave of Love
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I saw three movies this week. Unfortunately The Sunshine Boys is one of the worst movies I've seen this year. The only joke for the first 40 minutes is that Walter Matthau's character is senile (and George Burns isn't in the best of shape mentally either). This really doesn't work well 41 years later, and Matthau's character isn't particularly sympathetic either. The original Babes in Toyland has problems as a fantasy. Simply having the characters play Mother Goose characters themselves isn't fantastic in and of itself. And I'm afraid I'm not really a Laurel and Hardy fan. Only at the end does the movie show a childlike wonder in what a country like Toyland should actualy have. The Curse of the Golden Flower is certainly the most elaborately decorated of Zhang Yimou's martial arts movies. And Gong Li gives a good performance as the empress both treacherous and betrayed. But the consensus is that it doesn't have the imagination of Hero or The House of Flying Daggers is generally correct.
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Actor
Robert De Niro, Taxi Driver
Dustin Hoffman, All the President's Men
Peter Sellers, The Pink Panther Strikes Again
Robert Redford, All the President's Men
William Holden, Network
Runner-ups: Woody Allen (The Front), Roman Polanski (The Tenant), Peter Falk (Mikey and Nicky), John Cassavetes (Mikey and Nicky), Donald Sutherland (Fellini's Casanova), Ben Gazzara (The Killing of a Chinese Bookie), Gerard Depardieu (1900), Robert De Niro (1900), Bruno Ganz (The Marquise of O), Tatsuya Fuji (In the Realm of the Senses), David Bowie (The Man Who Fell to Earth), Geir Westby (Edvard Munch), Rudiger Vogler (Kings of the Road), Hans Zischler (Kings of the Road), Nicol Williamson (The Seven-Per- Cent Solution), Alan Arkin (The Seven-Per-Cent Solution)
Actress
Ana Torrent, Cria Cuervos
Liv Ullmann, Face to Face
Laura Antonelli, The Innocent
Eiko Matsuda, In the Realm of the Senses
Faye Dunaway, Network
Runner-ups: Jodie Foster (Freaky Friday), Barbara Harris (Family Plot), Sissy Spacek (Carrie), Tatum O'Neal (The Bad News Bears), Dominique Sanda (1900), Edith Clever (The Marquise of O), Elena Solevy (A Slave of Love), Isabelle Adjani (The Tenant), Audrey Hepburn (Robin and Marian),
Supporting Actor
Jason Robards, All the President's Men
Herbert Lom, The Pink Panther Strikes Again
Hal Halbrook, All the President's Men
Peter Finch, Network
Harvey Keitel, Taxi Driver
Runner-ups: Donald Sutherland (1900), Zero Mostel (The Front), Robert Duvall (Network), Jack Warden (All the President's Men), Burt Kwouk (The Pink Panther Strikes Again), Martin Balsam (All the President's Men), Erland Josephson (Face to Face), William Devane (Family Plot), Laurence Olivier (Marathon Man), Peter Boyle (Taxi Driver), Ned Beatty (Network), Albert Brooks (Taxi Driver), Melvyn Douglas (The Tenant), Anthony Quinn (Mohammad, the Messenger of God), Peter Sellers (Murder by Death), Patrick Troughton (The Omen)
Supporting Actress
Geraldine Chaplin, Cria Cuervos
Jennifer O'Neill, The Innocent
Karen Black, Family Plot
Jodie Foster, Taxi Driver
Ingrid Bergman, A Matter of Time
Runner-ups: Jodie Foster (Bugsy Malone), Shelly Winters (The Tenant), Azizi Johari (The Killing of a Chinese Bookie), Laura Betti (1900), Cybil Shepherd (Taxi Driver), Maggie Smith (Murder by Death), Elsa Lanchester (Murder by Death)
Not seen: Seven Beauties, Cousin Cousine, Voyage of the Damned--------In case, it wasn't clear, Torrent is my juvenile performer of the year, as she was in 1973.
--------Donald Sutherland just can't catch a break can he? It looks like he'll never be nominated.
--------Supporting Actress was not a well respected category this year. Straight's performance is best known as the shortest to win an award. Alexander's role may even be shorter. Foster's role is kind of short in retrospect. As for Laurie, in my view Carrie's virtues begin and end with Spacek, while Voyage of the Damned was at the time considered an all star prestige picture with little prestige. So I'm actually rather proud of my five nominees.
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I saw six movies for the first time last week. Porco Russo may be the least of the Miyazaki movies I've seen, but that's only by a very high standard. It's certainly amusing, inventive and thoughtful enough on its own terms. American Honey is a surprisingly epic account of a young adult as she enters the not so wonderful world of the precariat (in the case selling magazines under questionable purposes). It actually works very well, and one should remember the star Sasha Lane, since the critics don't appear to be. Possessed and The Story of Bernadette were watched as part of my slow working through oscar nominees. Possessed is interesting, with Van Heflin good as Crawford's no account object of lust. Crawford herself isn't quite as good: there's the element of hysteria that come close to camp. For that year I prefer her performance in Daisy Kenyon. The Song isn't quite the piece of religious kitsch that it appears in retrospect, though even viewing Jennifer Jones indulgently isn't going to make one think she deserved an oscar nomination for that year. And it's hard to avoid the thought that one wouldn't be as impressed with Bernadette's visions if she looked more like Agnes Moorhead. Manoel on the Island of Marvels is actually a three episode Franco/Portuguese television production. But its director Raoul Ruiz edited it into a slightly shorter feature film called Manoel's Destinies. It's great, and shows that you can make a fantasy film better than The Dark Knight on a hundreth of the budget. Finally Knight and Day was a not particularly well reviewed or successful blockbuster starring Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise. I suppose I should be more annoyed of the almost cartoonish way Cruise disposes of the many people fighting him. But actually I find the charm of the two leads acceptable and some of the action scenes reasonably interesting
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LA Confidential would have been better if the actors who last names begin with a C had switched who lives and who dies.
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Actor
Michael Caine, The Man Who Would Be King
Sean Connery, The Man Who Would Be King
Tim Curry, The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Ryan O'Neal, Barry Lyndon
Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon
Runner-ups: Roy Scheider (Jaws), Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws), Graham Chapman (Monty Python and the Holy Grail), Woody Allen (Love and Death), Jack Nicholson (The Passenger), Gene Hackman (Night Moves), Jack Nicholson (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Fox and His Friends), Warren Beatty (Shampoo), Michael Lonsdale (India Song), Warren Beatty (The Fortune), Jack Nicholson (The Fortune), Paolo Bonicelli (Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom), Maxim Munzuk (Derzu Uzala), Yuri Solomin (Derzu Uzala),
Actress
Delphine Seyrig, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Margarita Terekhova, The Mirror
Diane Keaton, Love and Death
Isabelle Adjani, The Story of Adele H.
Julie Christie, Shampoo
Runner-ups: Goldie Hawn (Shampoo), Delphine Seyrig (India Song), Maria Schneider (The Passenger), Rachel Roberts (Picnic at Hanging Rock), Stockard Channing (The Fortune), Eva Kotamandiou (The Traveling Players), Louise Fletcher (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
Supporting Actor
Michael Palin, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Robert Shaw, Jaws
Christopher Plummer, The Man who Would be King
John Cazale, Dog Day Afternoon
John Cleese, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Runner-ups: Leon Vitali (Barry Lyndon), Eric Idle (Monty Python and the Holy Grail), Richard O'Brien (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Terry Jones (Monty Python and the Holy Grail), Charles Durning (Dog Day Afternoon), Max von Sydow (Three Days of the Condor), Will Sampson (One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest), Jack Warden (Shampoo), Ned Beatty (Nashville), Saeed Jeffrey (The Man who Would Be King), Keith Carradine (Nashville), Jonathan Adams (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Henry Gibson (Nashville), Charles Gray (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Michael Lee Aday/"Meat Loaf" (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Keenan Wynn (Nashville), Marty Feldman (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother), Leo McKern (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother), Harold Gould (Love and Death), Patrick Magee (Barry Lyndon), Murray Melvin (Barry Lyndon)
Supporting Actress
Lily Tomlin, Nashville
Ronee Blakley, Nashville
Nell Campbell, The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Geraldine Chaplin, Nashville
Carol Cleveland, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Runner-ups: Larisa Tarkovskaya (The Mirror), Patricia Quinn (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Lee Grant (Shampoo), Shelly Duvall (Nashville), Barbara Harris (Nashville), Lorraine Gary (Jaws), Elisabeth Erikson (The Magic Flute), Marie Kean (Barry Lyndon), Renato Moar (Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom)
Not seen: The Man in the Glass Booth, Give 'em Hell, Harry!, Hedda, Hester Street, The Sunshine Boys, The Day of the Locust, Farewell my Lovely, Once is not Enough-------1975 may be the best Academy selection of best Picture nominees when they had five nominees, and probably ever.
--------How odd that each acting category should have two movies I haven't seen. Hopefully that changes next week.
-------O'Neal didn't get any acting nominations from anyone I believe, but it's not easy playing a selfish twit whose virtues nobody recognizes.
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I think the problem with actors and actresses was twofold: they were less certain of what a director wanted by this stage than they were in Older Hollywood (and this was obvious with all of the old timers looking clueless in the disaster films involving earthquakes, planes and buildings that literally "shook" '74 theaters). Secondly, this was the ME Decade when every performance became more of a "look at MEEEEE" instead of focusing on the characters as written in the script. Every Robert de Niro character I see during this decade comes off as Robert de Niro. I never can remember the name of his character.
I don't think that's true. People who don't like an actor or people with a limited knowledge of Hollywood might think that each actor is stuck playing a particular persona that closely resembles their actual self. That's not really true. It's certainly not true of De Niro, who I might point out is not a mafioso, a vigilante, a Vietnam veteran or a boxer, among other roles. And most people have no trouble remembering the name of Travis Bickle (or Vito Corleone to merely confine oneself to his seventies roles.)
I would suggest that the decline of Hollywood films starts around 1981, after the Heaven's Gate fiasco. After that time Hollywood shows a lot less interest in making movies that ambitious. I'd suggest there was a decline of quality in Hollywood movies after 1960 as leading directors either grew older or didn't really show their trouble. Around 1970, more imaginative directors become more prominent and last for the decade.
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I mentioned Still Life as one of my runner-ups. I got this information from a blog scalisto.blogspot.ca:
An aging rail worker, living a mononously quiet life with his wife, is asked to retire. The second of the two austere-looking, deliberately paced films Shaheed Saless made in Iran proved to be one of the turning points of Iranian cinema in the 70s.Winner of numerous prizes at the Berlin Film Festival in 1974, including the Silver Bear for Best Director, STILL LIFE examines the lot in life of an old man who guards a railroad crossing and his wife, who brings in a meager income weaving carpets. After 30 years in the same job, the man is forced into retirement by the arrival of the new guard. Finally, he is forced to a bleak epiphany of society's indifference to his fate.
Sohrab Shahid Saless' Still Life (1974) is, barring Kiarostami's Homework (1989), the greatest Iranian film that I've seen. To see that even during the pre-revolution era, when the escapist cinema of Hollywood and its imitations were much more popular, such uncompromising and quality films were being made is both surprising and hope-instilling. Typically European in its form but uniquely Iranian in its content, Still Life is the kind of movie that contemporary contemplative cinema takes off from. Produced by a newly formed group called Kanun-e Sinemagaran-e Pishro (Centre for Avant-Garde Filmmakers), that also produced some of Mehrjui's early features, the film was one of the many films that were discontented with the existing way of governance. Although never overtly political, Still Life not only manages to critique deeply the disparity that existed between villages and cities of the country during the Shah's regime, but also remains one of the best works from the country till date.
What is singular about Still Life is the way it handles cinematic time. Saless, while letting us witness individual scenes unfold in real time – be it entire dinner sessions or railway transitions – without hindrance, shuffles the order of these scenes in a way that disregards chronology. In one scene in the film we see the couple's son return home and in the next one, he is missing. And then he's back in the subsequent one. Soon one notices that most of the scenes could have taken place in any arbitrary order in real time and each of those orders is essentially irrelevant, given the idea of the film. What's the use of chronology when time repeats itself by going in cycles? In Jeanne Dielman (1976), Chantal Akerman used each day of the protagonist life's to illustrate its microscopic deviation from the previous. She seemed to be essentially constructing a spiral out of Jeanne's life – a structure that made her life seem to go in circles but which, in actuality, ends only in annihilation. Saless, on the other hand, treats time as some form of stray deadlock that could only be resolved by an alien intervention. Within this loop, all time is one and each day is virtually indistinguishable from the other.
Even with all its serious themes, Still Life isn't entirely humourless. There is a constant undercurrent of dark comedy throughout the film (In a masterstroke of black humour, Saless has Sardari regularly tune the alarm clock!), but, like all the other elements of the film, it remains extremely subtle and never thrusts itself upon us. Instead, Saless builds one stretch of time upon another, elevating the film from the territory of mere narrative cinema to the realm of the philosophical, the experiential and the contemplative. In the shattering last scene of the film, we see Sardari, who is now forced to accept the reality that he can no longer work at the railway crossing, vacating his quarters. After he loads the cart with his possessions, he decides to check the house one last time for any object he may have forgotten. As he stands in the middle of the now-empty house, gazing at the room of whose inanimate furniture he had become a part of through the years, Sardari notices the final remnant of his life at this place – a piece of mirror hanging on the wall. He reaches out to collect it and, in the process, looks at himself for the first time in the film. Mohammad Sardari has indeed become old.-
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I haven't seen Why Rock the Boat, but I remember seeing a part of it on television when I was a child. All I remember is having a character talking about someone attacked or devoured by piranhas, from which I suppose is where the movie got the title. It's interesting to compare the Canadian movie industry to the Australian one. The latter got a more attention in the United States around the turn of the seventies to the eighties. Especially prominent were a number of historical films that appealed directly to the Australian experience such as Breaker Morant, My Brilliant Career, The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, Picnic at Hanging Rock and Gallipoli. These movies all had the advantage of saying something direct about the Australian past, while appealing to larger themes such as the follies of war, female coming of age, and racial injustice. Canadian films didn't take such an approach. Many of them tried to resemble conventional American film, only cheaper and less imaginative. And the linguistic, regional and confessional divide makes it trickier to produce historical movies that appeal to all of Canada.
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I want to comment a little more on Jack Nicholson in Chinatown, which in my view is his greatest performance. It's striking how intelligent J.J. Gittes is (there's no time that the audience is ahead of him), but how ultimately unsuccessful he is. His problem is that he can not conceive, until it is too late, the complexity and malevolence of the evil he is facing. It's certainly worth noting the many subtleties of the performance, considering the element of self-parody that would be shown in later performances. I'm particularly reminded of when he is at the nursing home and is trying to get information, and the slight note of distress when one of his ploys is blocked.
And out of many lines from one of Hollywood's most famous and admired screenplays, the key line is clearly this:
"I don't blame myself. You see, Mr. Gits, most people never have to face the fact that at the right time, the right place, they're capable of anything."
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Julie Christie is the lead actress in Shampoo.
So that means Hawn is supporting?
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1974
BEST PICTURE
Benji
Blazing Saddles
The Front Page
That's Entertainment
Young Frankenstein
Just out of curiosity Speedracer, did you not actually see the movies nominated for best picture that year, or do you really not like them?
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Is everyone in Nashville supporting? I'd say yes.
Are Christie and Hawn both leads in Shampoo?
Graham Chapman is clearly the lead in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and definitely the lead in Monty Python's Life of Brian. All the others are supporting in my view.
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I saw three movies last week. Did you ever think that the way to make Tokyo Story a better movie was to make Setsuko Hara's character an unconscionable witch? Me neither. But that is the idea behind The Trip to Bountiful which is a basically unimaginative version of something that's been done much better earlier. Geraldine Page's performance is not very impressive, even in what was not a very impressive year for actresses. The most impressive thing about Lassie Come Home was that Lassie was actually a girl. All this time I had confused her character with the Lad stories I was read to in grade school. Aside from that, I suppose you have to be a dog person to really enjoy the movie. Many critics found Tomorrowland disappointing, but I found it consistently imaginative and clever, even if the ending was a bit formulaic and didactic.
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Here are my choices of the 111 films I've seen from 1974 for…
9. LAUREN BACALL (Harriet Belinda Grunwald Hubbard/"Linda Harden"), Murder on the Orient Express
I believe it's "Linda Arden"
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Actor
Albert Finney, Murder on the Orient Express
Al Pacino, The Godfather, Part II
Jack Nicholson, Chinatown
Gene Hackman, The Conversation
Peter Falk, A Woman Under the Influence
Runner-ups: Erland Josephson (Scenes from a Marriage), Burt Lancaster (Conversation Piece), Bruno S (The Enigma of Kasper Hauser), Pierre Blaise (Lacombe, Lucien), Martin Loeb (My Little Loves), Francois Truffaut (Day for Night), El Hedi Ben Salem (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul), Elliott Gould (California Split), George Segal (California Split), Keith Carradine (Thieves Like Us), Zadour Bonyadi (Still Life), Jean-Paul Belmondo (Stavisky), Rudiger Vogler (Alice in the Cities), Warren Beatty (The Parallax View), Dustin Hoffman (Lenny), Gene Wilder (Young Frankenstein), Warren Oates (Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia), Dirk Bogarde (The Night Porter), Warren Oates (Cockfighter),
Actress
Dominique Labourier, Celine and Julie go Boating
Gena Rowlands, A Woman Under the Influence
Juliet Berto, Celine and Julie Go Boating
Liv Ullmann, Scenes from a Marriage
Ellen Burstyn, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
Runner-ups: Faye Dunaway (Chinatown), Brigitte Mira (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul), Goldie Hawn (The Sugarland Express), Shelly Duvall (Thieves Like Us), Yella Rottlander (Alice in the Cities), Charlotte Rampling (The Night Porter), Valerie Perrine (Lenny), Mari Torocsik (Electra, my Love), Zahra Yazdini (Still Life), Stefania Sandrelli (We All Loved Each Other Very Much),
Supporting Actor:
John Cazale, The Godfather Part II, The Conversation
Robert De Niro, The Godfather Part II
John Huston, Chinatown
Lee Strasberg, The Godfather Part II
Richard Widmark, Murder on the Orient Express
Runner-ups: Michael V. Gazzo (The Godfather Part II), Jan Malmsjo (Scenes from a Marriage), Robert Duvall (The Godfather Part II), John Gielgud (Murder on the Orient Express), Kris Kristofferson (Alice Doesn't live Here Anymore), Jean-Pierre Leaud (Day for Night), Peter Boyle (Young Frankenstein), G.D. Spradlin (The Godfather Part II), Martin Balsam (Murder on the Orient Express), Barbet Schroeder (Celine and Julie go Boating), Sean Connery (Murder on the Orient Express), James Caan (The Godfather Part II), Holger Lowenalder (Lacombe, Lucien), George Coulouris (Murder on the Orient Express), Gastone Moschin (The Godfather Part II), Harrison Ford (The Conversation), Alfred Lutter (Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore), Marty Feldman (Young Frankenstein), Jean-Pierre Cassel (Murder on the Orient Express), Helmut Berger (Conversation Piece), Frederic Forrest (The Conversation), Roman Polanski (Chinatown), William Holden (The Towering Inferno), Richard Bright (The Godfather Part II), Charles Boyer (Stavisky), Harvey Korman (Blazing Saddles), Gene Hackman (Young Frankenstein), Robert Shaw (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three), Tom Baker (The Golden Voyage of Sinbad), Michel Piccoli (The Phantom of Liberty)
Supporting Actress
Lauren Bacall, Murder on the Orient Express
Ines Pellegrini, Arabian Nights
Rachel Roberts, Murder on the Orient Express
Aurore Clement, Lacombe, Lucien
Bulle Ogier, Celine and Julie go Boating
Runner-ups: Bibi Andersson (Scenes from a Marriage), Talia Shire (The Godfather Part II), Silvana Mangano (Conversation Piece), Diane Ladd (Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore), Wendy Hiller (Murder on the Orient Express), Jacqueline Bisset (Day for Night), Marie-France Pisier (Celine and Julie Go Boating), Cindy Williams (The Conversation), Nathalie Asnar (Celine and Julie go Boating), Vanessa Redgrave (Murder on the Orient Express), Ingrid Bergman (Murder on the Orient Express), Jodie Foster (Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore), Ingrid Caven (My Little Loves), Monica Vitti (The Phantom of Liberty)
Not seen: Claudine, Thunderfoot and Lightning-------I think 1974 is my favorite year for movies.
-------And the choices for best leads are incredibly strong. I really regret not making room for Josephson, Lancaster and Dunaway, the last of whom could easily have won in other years. With three of the leading actors of their generation giving their best performance, it does make one wonder why I chose Finney.
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Films of 2016
in General Discussions
Posted
And here is New Yorker critic Richard Brody's list of the best movies of 2016: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-best-movies-of-2016