OT: The Trouble With Oscar (2022 for 2021 Films) - Psycho (1960) Discussion

[–] KingsRule (941) 3 years ago

Please don't troll this board by posting OT content.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I've been called a lot of things, but never a troll.

I feel like I've reached some sort of new level of recognition...

PS.

Psycho was nominated in 1961 for the 1960 Oscars for

Best Director(Hitchcock's fifth and final nomination)
Best Supporting Actress, Janet Leigh(the only nomination for a Hitchcock actor after 1946, even as great performances by Robert Walker, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Vera Miles, Doris Day, Kim Novak, Henry Fonda, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr, James Mason, Martin Balsam, and especially Anthony Perkins, were ignored.)
Best Cinematography, Black and White
Best Art Direction, Black and White

...and won none of them.

Psycho SHOULD have been nominated for

Best Picture
Best Actor (Anthony Perkins)
Best Actress(Janet Leigh -- move her UP from Supporting Actress)
Best Supporting Actor(Martin Balsam -- and Janet Leigh said so.)
Best Score (Bernard Herrmann)
Best Adapted Screenplay(Joseph Stefano)
Best Film Editing (George Tomasini)

Indeed, Psycho was one of the most ridiculously snubbed movies in Oscar history. Picture? Perkins performance? Herrmann's historic score? Tomasini's historic editing (in the shower scene and several others.) Stefano's eminently quoteable screenplay?

So there's some on-topic Oscar talk.

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[–] Interlepos (1807) 3 years ago

Anthony Perkins not being nominated for Psycho is just wild. With the benefit of hindsight it is definitely one of the biggest snubs in oscar history. Even more so than the film not being nominated for best picture.

There are a few other "big ones" I can think of:

1. Malcolm McDowell not being nominated for A Clockwork Orange.
2. Jack Nicholson being ignored for The Shining (and the movie itself completely shut out).
3. And if you've seen it: Clark Gable for his last towering performance in The Misfits.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

Anthony Perkins not being nominated for Psycho is just wild. With the benefit of hindsight it is definitely one of the biggest snubs in Oscar history.

When you think about it Psycho should really (rather like Star Wars and Jaws in the '70s) have won awards for its editing and for its Score by Herrmann, but sadly it wasn't even nominated in those categories. There's some reason to believe that late-50s/early-60s Herrmann was a difficult fellow and not well-liked by his fellow composers (after all, how else to explain his lack of noms for either Vertigo or NbNW in previous years?) but what could explain fellow editors not wanting to nominate Tomassini?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

swanstep wrote:

When you think about it Psycho should really (rather like Star Wars and Jaws in the '70s) have won awards for its editing and for its Score by Herrmann, but sadly it wasn't even nominated in those categories.

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(I missed this comment the first time around)

That's an interesting idea, swanstep -- that had Psycho "got more respect" at the Oscars it could have won "below the line technical awards like later genre blockbusters.

The Jaws score was a "no brainer" nomination and win in 1975. THAT academy would have done the same by the Psycho score (indeed, Jaws and Psycho share having "one motif" -- the screeching murder violins; the locomotive shark approach AND an overall great score.)

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There's some reason to believe that late-50s/early-60s Herrmann was a difficult fellow and not well-liked by his fellow composers (after all, how else to explain his lack of noms for either Vertigo or NbNW in previous years?)

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Yes, that one-two-three ignoring of Vertigo-NXNW-Psycho is right up there on the most egregious (and, let's face it, stupid) snubs in Oscar history. Talk about movies where the score MADE them.

I think I read somewhere that it boiled down to a simple fact: Herrmann had dropped his membership in the music branch of the Academy over some argument. I guess his fellow composers reasons -- "he dropped out of the club, so the club will ignore him." I also read somewhere than Herrmann and Dimitri Tiomkin(Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train...Rio Bravo) had a real feud going and Tiomkin led efforts against Herrmann.

CUT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

In 1977 at the Oscars for 1976, TWO Herrmann scores were up for Best Score: Taxi Driver(a classic) and Brian DePalma's Obsession (a blatant Vertigo homage with a lesser score than Vertigo.) Herrmann had died in 1975; these were posthumous nominations and it was figured he would win for ONE of them (likely, Taxi Driver.)

But he won for NEITHER of them. Jerry Goldsmith -- just this side of John Wiliiams as the guy who scored all the movies in the 70's (with a little Elmer Bernstein thrown in) won for The Omen. A horror film! Said Goldsmith, "I thought Benny was going to win for one of his two. I didn't even have a speech ready."

"Benny" spent some years in the wilderness after he was fired off of Torn Curtain in 1966.. It is telling that his final Oscar nominated scores were from movies by Scorsese and DePalma. "The new guys want me!" he exulted before dying of sudden heart attack, young in his fifties. Sad. And we can figure that DePalma would have used Herrmann for every movie he could have: Carrie(which Herrmann had agreed to before dying), The Fury, Dressed to Kill..

All this said, I think that Herrmann DID win an Oscar in the forties, didn't he? Maybe The Ghost and Mrs. Muir?

So he wasn't ENTIRELY ignored by the Academy.

Just for his best and most historic work.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

swanstep wrote:

but what could explain fellow editors not wanting to nominate Tomasini?

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I don't have the data like I do on Herrmann and the Academy, so I'll repeat my guess with a little embellishment:

From my readings over the years, I think that film editors pride themselves on "invisible editing" - cuts so smooth -- with shots matched so perfectly -- that the audience doesn't even NOTICE the cuts; the movie just flows.

But in Psycho, in a number of key scenes, you really NOTICE the cuts. Hitchcock prided himself on using Russian principles of "montage" in his cinematic approach; with jagged, jumping cuts that helped "pump up the action" and were rather exciting.

These "montages" predated the shower scene in Psycho by YEARS:

The Statue of Liberty climax in Saboteur("hanging by a thread" -- and that thread gives way)
The runaway carousel in Strangers on a Train
James Stewart vs Raymond Burr at the climax of Rear Window(this is VERY montage-y)
The concert assassination attempt(particularly in the 1956 remake) in The Man Who Knew Too Much.
The crop duster scene in North by Northwest.

...

In Psycho, the shower scene is "the Hitchcock montage of all time." But there are also these "jagged" moments:

The cuts (especially the FINAL cut) down to and through the hotel room window in the first scene.
The cut to the highway patrolman's face and Marion rising up from her sleep to see it.
Cuts during Norman's clean-up of the shower murder
The cuts as Arbogast questions Norman (Tomasini went nuts trying to match the SOUND of the overlapping dialogue.)
The attack on Arbogast(particularly the cut from the high shot of Mother running out to the close-up on Arbo's bloodied face; and the "cuts" that are KNIFE cuts as she brings the knife down on him and finishes him off at the bottom of the stairs.)
"Mother" spinning around in the fruit cellar via a couple of VERY jagged cuts -- they don't look like mismatched shots -- just disjointed.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

So, I can see "polished" film editors rejecting the stricking and in-your-face cutting of Psycho. To their detriment.

Nor did they nominate the equally great but equally jagged cutting in The Birds (the attack on Melanie upstairs is pretty much the shower scene on steroids).

The Academy DID nominate North by Northwest for film editing at least. Its pretty jagged too, but overall its a bigger, more expansive movie with more "acceptable and invisible" cutting. Still, it didn't win.

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Hitchcock only hired a few of his (more expensive) "movie technicians" for Psycho, relying on his TV crew for the rest. Tomasini was one of the ones hired from the movie team.

Tomasini actually hired a small crew of SEVERAL editors to work on Psycho in general and the shower scene in particular. One of them went on to be the listed "main editor" for Family Plot 16 years later.

ANOTHER one of them was interviewed for a book on the shower scene, and I loved this response to this question:

Q: When you were editing the shower scene in the editing room, what did you think about it?
A: I thought "this movie is going to make more money than North by Northwest."

Wouldn't it be fun to be all alone(well, maybe with a few other guys) looking at that shower scene and IMAGINING the whole world watching it year from now?

Also, come-and-gone superstar Michael Douglas(Wall Street) says that, during a day of visiting his father Kirk Douglas shooting Spartacus on the Universal lot, he was invited over to the editing room to watch work being done on Psycho -- "I watched them cut the shower scene," noted Douglas.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Hitchcock fired Bernard Herrmann off of Torn Curtain, but I always thought it was sad that his two other main collaborators -- George Tomasini(editing) and Robert Burks(cinematography) met too-early deaths. Tomasini died at only 55 of a heart attack while on a camping trip. (Marnie was the last Hitchcock film he cut.) Burks died in a house fire in the late sixties, along with his wife (Marnie was the last film he SHOT.) However, Hitchcock didn't hire Burks to film Torn Curtain. He was sort of "pre-fired" by Hitchcock. Torn Curtain was evidently Hitchcock's personal waterloo of "cutting ties."

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[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

Much as I worship Hitchcock, the most glaring loss here was Herrmann's.
Probably one of the top 3 scores ever written for film.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Much as I worship Hitchcock, the most glaring loss here was Herrmann's.
Probably one of the top 3 scores ever written for film

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Absolutely. The music branch evidently "had it in" for Herrmann(he had quit the Academy) but perhaps voters simply didn't understand exactly how great it was.

Who could know that those "screeching violins" of murder and climax would become a motif across decades and a turn of the century?

I like to point out that Psycho has all these disparate "suites" of music along the way:

The screeching violins.

The credit music(so jagged, the nerves are on edge before the horror comes -- and this music is MARION's theme for her long drive. She leaves the movie, this theme leaves.)

The "three notes of madness" that close the film (Norman in the cell) , but also occur earlier(when Arbogast looks up at the house and his doom) Herrmann put these notes in at the very end of Taxi Driver at Scorsese's request, and John Williams put them into Star Wars at George Lucas request.

Marion deciding, in her home room, to steal the money. (The cue is called "Tempation.")

The opening descent over Phoenix -- beautiful, sad , DESCENDING music that comes back when Norman brings Marion her food on the porch of the motel.

Music over Norman's clean up of the murder (it has a "buzzing bee" quality at times.)

Arbogast's final walk -- from his car to the motel, into the office, out to the porch and up the hill to the house.

Arbogast's final walk -- up the stairs. A "shimmering wall of sound" of violin noises to create tension at all times...and then the violins EXPLODE.

The final deep notes that accompany the final moments of the lives of Marion and Arbogast.

The music for Lila's climb up the hill to the house.

The music for Lila's exploration of the house -- timed to the beat of the human heart. Word.

"And more."

What WAS the Academy thinking?

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[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

What an incredibly precise and detailed description.
I couldn't have stated it better.
I listen to this music often. Especially in the summer when I can have the windows open and strobe lights on just to freak out my neighbors.
Thank God for YouTube.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Thank you.

I developed that precision over years of watching Psycho, studying it, and "breaking it down" and realizing just how varied the score is.

My favorite stretches are: Arbogast from his car up to the house and up the stairs. Brilliant and moody, start to finish.

AND:

Lila climbing the hill. There is a sickish feeling to the ascent...she's going to a very bad place..in the daytime.

AND:

I also like the bleak sadness of the opening "descent into Phoenix."

Oh, hell -- I love ALL of it.

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Funny about freaking out the neighbors. That music can certainly do THAT.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

It has been reported last week that 8 categories(including Film Editing, Sound, Make-Up, Score, and others) will not be given out one-by-one during the TV broadcast, but will be given out before the broadcast begins -- and then shown in taped inserts during the live show.

While the Academy has to do whatever it has to do to make ABC happy, I'm personally horrified by bumping Film Editing, Sound, Make-Up, Score to a montage from a pre-show (in contrast I have no problem with short film awards being so bumped - they *always* felt out of place in the main show to me). Film *is* a collaborative medium and those big craft awards for editing and sound and score (with Makeup and Hair a worthy recent addition) really stand in for some of the huge areas of expertise (with whole guilds full of people involved) that large film productions involve. As a kid watching Oscars shows on tv from the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion I really enjoyed seeing some of (the best of) these behind the scenes people get recognized. Often those awards went to some of the more popular movies of the year too, e.g., Jaws won for Editing, Sound, and Score. So did Star Wars. So, in a weird way, the key craft awards, despite supposedly being boring to the celeb-obsessed people, often had a populist edge.

As a kid too, I appreciated the Oscar in the '70s for the fact that they felt like a genuine industry/company town-type awards show - lots of in-jokes etc. - that we were being allowed to peak in on. I liked all the old guys and gals the shows would wheel out to present that I'd sometimes never heard of. Who was this David Niven guy? Claudette Colbert? Bette Davis? It was a whole world and place with a History that we were invited into for the night. I liked that feeling. The Oscars has estranged itself from me with a *lot* of their recent moves (bumping Honorary Awards to a pre-show most egregiously) and bumping some of the key craft awards extends their desparate pandering run.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

(Cont'd) One of the relatively successful and influential movies of 2021 that now won't get its Oscar moment in the sun is Cruella. It's been big in various design communities I have relatives and nieces involved with (they got me to watch the film!) and, for example, the silver medalist, Trusova, in the women's figure skating at the Olympics used Cruella soundtrack and costume/ makeup for her Free Skate/Long Program. It was awesome and fun and now the Oscars has cut itself off from all that. Genius (not).

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

While the Academy has to do whatever it has to do to make ABC happy, I'm personally horrified by bumping Film Editing, Sound, Make-Up, Score to a montage from a pre-show (in contrast I have no problem with short film awards being so bumped - they *always* felt out of place in the main show to me).

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I'm with you on the short films -- we should be talking about all the work put into THEATRICAL films, and/or long form documentaries (which often play well in theaters.)

The "keeping ABC happy part" is the stunning shocker to me -- I never dreamed it was a possibility that ABC could cancel the broadcast. I figured that ABC(or some big network) would keep on showing the Oscars if only for the tradition of it AND to honor good films("bad" films don't much get Oscars) AND to honor movie history.

But now we learn: nope, ABC is ready to pull the plug. Ratings uber all. And hey, in THIS era, maybe politics as well. The film industry is historically liberal/progressive since at least the 70's but when last year, the "In Memoriam" segment that would honor the death of Sean Connery among others, began with a speech on police killings...uh, THERE? (Of course , conservative viewers left long ago and are simply discounted but I think this played wider. Its not "right wing" to feel under constant assault by the left wing.)

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Film *is* a collaborative medium and those big craft awards for editing and sound and score (with Makeup and Hair a worthy recent addition) really stand in for some of the huge areas of expertise (with whole guilds full of people involved) that large film productions involve.

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Yes. Indeed, the one claim to fame of the Oscars VERSUS the Golden Globes (which were sort of a joke til the 90s and then "propped up") is that it does NOT list totally to "giving awards to movie stars and TV stars." Craft IS honored, and seeing those highly paid "little people" get THEIR day in the sun is always poignant to me.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

As a kid watching Oscars shows on tv from the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion I really enjoyed seeing some of (the best of) these behind the scenes people get recognized. Often those awards went to some of the more popular movies of the year too, e.g., Jaws won for Editing, Sound, and Score. So did Star Wars. So, in a weird way, the key craft awards, despite supposedly being boring to the celeb-obsessed people, often had a populist edge.

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Absolutely right! It became rather a tradition that the Oscars would "split" among the "quality SciFi blockbusters" on the one hand(technical awards) and the "serious dramas"(acting and other awards.) Star Wars and LOTR fans could get their fix in; Marvel, too, recently.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

As a kid too, I appreciated the Oscar in the '70s for the fact that they felt like a genuine industry/company town-type awards show - lots of in-jokes etc. - that we were being allowed to peak in on.

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Yes...and in a light-hearted, jokey manner. Politics came in in a "real way" (and had to be honored) when it was delayed over the King Assassination(in 1968) and the Reagan attempt(in 1981), but for a lot of the time, we were hanging with the Holllywood in-crowd.

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I liked all the old guys and gals the shows would wheel out to present that I'd sometimes never heard of. Who was this David Niven guy?

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...with the naked male streaker running behind him (a mere flash on the broadcast, a graphic photo in the newspapers.)

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Claudette Colbert? Bette Davis? It was a whole world and place with a History that we were invited into for the night. I liked that feeling. The Oscars has estranged itself from me with a *lot* of their recent moves (bumping Honorary Awards to a pre-show most egregiously) and bumping some of the key craft awards extends their desparate pandering run.

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I think you and I commiserated in the past as the Oscars started to turn its back on its own history-- "clips packages" disappeared and the honorary awards (often to truly great filmmakers and actors from the PAST) got kicked down to "quick clip" status. To me, it always looked like the makers of the "new movies" felt that they couldn't compete with the greats of the past. Maybe a little CORRECT ,but still: honor your past! Irony: they really DID that when they had Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway give the Best Picture Oscar that year but OOPS-- wrong movie(not their fault). It was charming to see them both return the next year to "do it right."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

(Cont'd) One of the relatively successful and influential movies of 2021 that now won't get its Oscar moment in the sun is Cruella. It's been big in various design communities I have relatives and nieces involved with (they got me to watch the film!) and, for example, the silver medalist, Trusova, in the women's figure skating at the Olympics used Cruella soundtrack and costume/ makeup for her Free Skate/Long Program. It was awesome and fun and now the Oscars has cut itself off from all that. Genius (not).

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Genius (not.) A LOT of their decision making has been "genius (not)" in recent years. I don't get their thinking most of the time. Overlong and overstuffed, the broadcast ceremony was still a lot of fun right through the 90s.

The message may be that yeah, the movies really are over as they used to be. Marvel movies make a billion dollars, everything else is streaming and fragmented and deeply loved but only by small pockets of people(the COVID effect isn't really over either we don't go out as much as we used to.)

I'm not sure that I am here to make the same arguments I make about Oscars each year -- I sort of dropped the argument several years ago. But this threat from ABC is important -- what if, after all these sacrificial changes, the show STILL fails in the ratings?

The Academy may have to move the show to TNT cable...and decide to put all the categories and honorary awards back IN.

PS. I very much liked Cruella and the look and the music and the performances BUT..they sure turned the Epitome of Evil from my childhood into an oddly sympathetic near-heroine this time. Its like seeing a nicer Mrs. Bates, which, I guess was what they did with Bates Motel, huh?

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[–] jay440 (107) 3 years ago

Sean Connery, Michael Caine, and Roger Moore joined to give one out(Two Bonds and a Caine.)

Or just Three Sirs (knighted in 2000, 2000, and 2003 respectively)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Sean Connery, Michael Caine, and Roger Moore joined to give one out(Two Bonds and a Caine.)

Or just Three Sirs (knighted in 2000, 2000, and 2003 respectively)

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So Connery and Caine were knighted in the same year, nice pairing. Sir Roger strikes me as a bit lesser than Connery and Caine as a star (and unlike the other two, he won no Oscars). But he WAS a Bond of great longevity (most of the seventies and half of the eighties) and evidently a very charming fellow.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

"Licorice Pizza" has been kept off streaming and in theaters by PTA. Is this a canny move meant to attract "anti-Netflix" votes? We shall see.

. West Side Story had low box office, and now moves to Disney Plus, which I don't have, so I may not see that one.

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I spoke too soon, both times. And the makers must be watching each other: Licorice Pizza and West Side Story are now BOTH up on streaming but...you have to buy them, you can't just rent them yet. WSS is on Disney Plus as I noted, but I CAN buy it over at Amazon Prime.

I suppose the strategy is to have these two films available on TV on a run-up to the Oscars at the end of the month. Weeks or months from now, Licorice Pizza will likely end up a "regular choice" on some channel, you won't HAVE to buy it to see it.

But I did.

Indeed, "the movies can still move me, sometimes" and the moment I turned on my home screening TV screen menu and saw the "Licorice Pizza" poster on the screen ("NOW AVAILABLE") -- my heart kind of leapt a little bit, just like when I was a young movie fan. Its HERE. I own it. I've watched it again.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I will note this. As with most of my favorite movies, I know that the first time I saw it , I really liked it, but could not pinpoint exactly WHY. It takes one or two more screenings -- "in depth" -- to see what works.

So I can say this now:

The movie's opening scene -- a "meet cute" in which our boy is instantly smitten and our girl fends him off but is really just as smitten as he is( a "secret" to the story) is wonderfully written, wonderfully shot, wonderfully acted and...

...set entirely to a dreamy and romantic Nina Simone song called "July Tree" that begins with our first view of Alana Haim (from behind her,swaying her hips like the sexy rock star that she is as she walks towards a group of teenagers in that pert but sexy photographers assistant outfit) .

"July Tree" plays constantly under the flirtatious banter of the two fated lovers(even as the girl keeps insulting the boy, and he refuses to give up his pursuit) and...when the scene comes to its sweet glorious end....the song ends right on the dot with the last moment of the scene. That's a great editing job -- and why this movie is more special than your usual teen romance.

The final notes of "July Tree" underlie this dialogue:

Alana: Alright, you have to get back to school and I have to get back to work.
Gary: Don't use the pressure of time as an excuse. We're fated. Don't you see? Our paths brought us to this moment.
Alana: Stop being Philosphy Guy
Albert Einstein.....we'll see. Maybe we'll see each other again. (Long pause) We won't see each other again.

And she walks away from him towards us, but only we see her smile appear.

And the Nina Simone song ends...and we are launched.

That opening scene seemed to hook critics who liked this movie from the get go. The scene is discussed in many of the reviews. If you're going to fall in love with Alana Haim, or Cooper Hoffman, or Paul Anderson's visual style or his writing ability...it will happen right here.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

And then it locks in with three more scenes, for a total of four that are so charming, the audience will go anywhere with these characters thereafter:

ONE: Gary and Alana meet in line for the school portraits. Gary invites Alana out for dinner that very night. He says he will be waiting at the Tail of the Cock after he drops his little brother at home for the night. She seems to refuse.
TWO: Gary and his little brother. Gary takes care of the little brother. Gary tells the little brother "I"ve met the girl I'm going to marry, Greg." The brother responds "Oh, yeah?" "Yeah, and you're gonna be my best man." Gary leaves his brother at home with "I love you, Greggo" and the brother responds "I love you too." NOW we know that Gary isn't a hustler, he's a good guy, Alana has nothing worry about.
THREE: Gary at the Tail of the Cock bar, chewing away, likely nervous: she's not coming. But she DOES. She sits next to him and funny dialogue ensues.

Alana: Stop it.
Gary: Stop what?
Alana: I can hear you breathing. (Long pause) STOP.
Gary: Breathing?
Alana: Yes.

FOUR: The dinner of Gary and Alana. A whole bunch of great dialogue here, again, our two young novice actors handle their lines and facial expressions like pros and we start rooting for this thing to happen. Clever Gary says: "On our next date, I'm going to take you to dinner is a Japanese restaurant I work with." Alana gets it: "Our NEXT date?" But she goes on that one too. The movie is well and fully launched.

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Flashback: My favorite movie of 2018 was "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" but most particularlyrits one segment called "The Gal That Got Rattled." That one was written and directed by ANOTHER auteur(The Coens, two as one) and I realized watching Licorice Pizza this time that Alana Haim with her not fully pretty looks is rather like Zoe Kazan of "The Gal Who Got Rattled" -- and Kazan, too, was in a romance. So maybe I just like quirky romances with quirky looking young women in them.

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[–] jay440 (107) 3 years ago

Sir Roger strikes me as a bit lesser than Connery and Caine as a star (and unlike the other two, he won no Oscars).
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Moore was knighted in 2003 for his humanitarian work with UNICEF, and yes, a charming fellow, like Caine, probably great fun to hang out with. Maybe not so much with Sir Sean.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Moore was knighted in 2003 for his humanitarian work with UNICEF,

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A very good reason to do so

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and yes, a charming fellow, like Caine, probably great fun to hang out with.

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Roger Moore's stint as Bond is his claim to career fame, but all reports are that he was just great to hang out with, and that goes a long way in celebrity circles.. Caine was (and in very old age, is) very witty and fun to be around if only for US watching him on talk shows and the like.

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Maybe not so much with Sir Sean.

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Yes, evidently a more serious and seriously grouchy fellow than Caine and Moore. Caine could bring out the humor in him, but he just always seemed more prone to anger and conflict. Great movie star actor, though.

That said, I guess my point here is that we used to have a greater variety of stars -- with a history, in many cases - to hand out even the "lesser" Oscars.

And in this OT thread on a Hitchcock movie page, I will note that the British government was rather churlish in waiting to give Alfred Hitchcock HIS "Sir" until what turned out to be the last year of his life. All these years in the US, I guess -- and he did become a US citizen. I suppose he was lucky to BE knighted? At least he was alive to KNOW he was knighted. Why so long, a reporter asked him. "I suppose they forgot."

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[–] SteveG (1370) 3 years ago

Its an awful presentation and has no relevance anymore. I used to be dedicated in my viewership but I have not watched in over ten years. I do check on the winners but it has very little impact on what I chose to watch or not watch. The world it is a changin and not for the better.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I do check on the winners but it has very little impact on what I chose to watch or not watch.

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I'm watching Licorice Pizza's results. It is up for Picture, Director, and Original Screenplay. It won Original Screenplay at the British Oscars. Wags are betting on it to win the Oscar too. Screenplay only. It doesn't seem to be in the race for Picture of Director.

Licorice Pizza has a GREAT screenplay, and deserves not only to win, but to be placed alongside such other Oscar-winning screenplay greats as The Apartment, The Producers, Pulp Fiction,Fargo, and LA Confidential (only one of which won for Best Picture, too -- a lot of great movies won only for their screenplays, but that's good enough for me.)

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The world it is a changin and not for the better.

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Well, certainly not in this case. The Oscars used to be a nationwide(in the US) and worldwide evening of prestige and a pretty nice way to see a lot of big stars in one place. (This was the ONLY television program that Cary Grant would appear on, for his entire career.) The inclusion of "below the lines" awards made this the prestige event of the year in movies -- not just the actors and directors were honored, it wasn't just to honor THEM.

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[–] SteveG (1370) 3 years ago

The fact that PTA hasnt won an AA is proof that it is illegitimate, worthless and irrelevant. He is outside of the traditional filmmaking system and the AA is a part of that system and only rewards its own. Even if he were to win for screenplay this year I would say “So What.” Ben Affleck and Matt Damon won that when they were just kids and barely actors.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

@SteveG. While I sympathize with some of your anti-AA sentiments, I think you're wrong to single out Affleck and Damon's award for the screenplay of Good Will Hunting as especially egregious or unjust. It's a legitimately great script with great dialogue throughout and a bunch of standout monologues. That A&D were so young when they wrote it and that they did so precisely to get themselves some good acting roles *was* a great story at the time and probably did help them edge out PTA's great script for Boogie Nights (in most years PTA's own youth and ambition and buzziness would have pushed him over the top for the Screenplay award). Honestly, the GWH script is widely used to teach screenwriting these days, and the film itself is widely thought to be a modern classic (for what it's worth, it's an 8.3 - top 100 level - on IMDb whereas Boogie Nights gets 7.8 and adapted screenplay winner from 1997 LA Confidential - also used as an exemplar in modern screenwriting classes! - gets 8.2).

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[–] SteveG (1370) 3 years ago

Its a good film and a good script but its hardly groundbreaking. I dont begrudge Damon and Affleck for winning, my point is that anybody can win the AA for screenwriting, its a very capricious catagory.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I think you're wrong to single out Affleck and Damon's award for the screenplay of Good Will Hunting as especially egregious or unjust. It's a legitimately great script with great dialogue throughout and a bunch of standout monologues.

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In another thread on this board(in response to your sharing of that great NYT article) I cited 1994 and 1997 as my favorite movie years of the 90s...AGAINST 1999, which got a whole book written about it and is favored in that article.

And in citing 1997 movies, I FORGOT to include "Good Will Hunting."

There's a reason for that. As I recall, it was one of the first Harvey Weinstein movies -- back when the beef on the guy wasn't about his sexual criminality but his ruthless pursuit of the Oscar -- and "Good Will Hunting" struck me as "perfect Oscar bait" -- a movie written and conceived solely for the purpose of WINNING Oscars. There was something about the monologues that struck me as showing off for Oscar. Every character got a monologue, and one of the actors won for HIS(Robin Williams, beating Burt Reynolds for Boogie Night. I'm sure YouTube has the clip to prove me wrong, but it seemed that ol' Burt sat seething while Robin mugged about on the Oscar stage.)

But it worked. It won Oscars AND it was a hit. It made Damon and Affleck movie stars in an indirect way, it "validated" Robin Williams(never a favorite of mine). And it allowed director Gus Van Sant the clout to make....Psycho. Funny how certain movies connect.

A "bit o' scandal." Oscar-winner screenwriter William Goldman(who I quote around here a lot, because he wrote some books and columns from the inside on fillmaking) had to come out and write a column swearing that he did NOT ghost write "Good Will Hunting." "Opposition attacks" on A and D said so. Goldman said that he WAS brought in by Weinstein to "advise" and touch up the script a bit, without credit. Oh well, a script has many fathers and mothers.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Honestly, the GWH script is widely used to teach screenwriting these days,

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As it should be. William Goldman helped write it. Hah. No, actually, it demonstrates how to structure a story to get Oscar nominations and for some wins.

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and the film itself is widely thought to be a modern classic (for what it's worth, it's an 8.3 - top 100 level - on IMDb whereas Boogie Nights gets 7.8 and adapted screenplay winner from 1997 LA Confidential - also used as an exemplar in modern screenwriting classes! - gets 8.2

--
That's a nice bunch of ratings for a nice bunch of movies from a really great year (1997.) And I believe that QT's screenplay from Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch for "Jackie Brown" helped make THAT movie QT's best. Even better than Pulp Fiction...and likely never to be bettered by QT himself.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Here's something for comparison.

The other night I watched "Little Miss Sunshine" (2006), a movie that won Alan Arkin a long-deserved Oscar(Best Supporting, though) and...I read to my horror...won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for 2006.

If Licorice Pizza LOSES the Original Screenplay award(which is now possible, more below), the fact that Little Miss Sunshine WON that award...will be one of those "little Oscar outrages" to me. See, the Oscars DO still matter. At least on paper.

I remembered not liking Little Miss Sunshine when it came out, and watching it again, I remembered why. The characters -- all developed as "indie movie characters" -- had a cartoon-like, too-broad, sketched-in quality that seemed insultatingly "surface" and un-real. Greg Kinnear was the family tyrant, dead set on selling a "self help book" with worthless lessons on self help(honestly, who figures out GOOD lessons on self help.) Paul Dano(still with us years later as The Riddler in The Batman) never speaks, on purpose, until, of course, he does. Steve Carell(a rather nifty, quirky actor) is saddled with a gay role that plays out too broadly, too. I recall that the same conceit from Sideways(a DESERVED Best Original Screenplay winner) -- the protagonist trying to sell a book -- was realistic in Sideways and unbelievable in Little Miss Sunshine.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Oh. Alan Arkin. He's the best thing in "Little Miss Sunshine" -- he's Alan Arkin after all -- and he dies halfway through and you MISS him. But right before he dies, his Irasicible Oversexed Old Man (copyright) gives one heartfelt speech to the "bad" Kinnear(he loves his son no matter what) and one heartfelt speech to the little girl in the story(he loves his granddaughter no matter what) just so he can die "nice." Its all terribly amateur. But Arkin sold it great. I liked his advice to young Dano "F all the girls you can, and do it while you're YOUNG. You wait til 18, you're looking at jail time" Paging Licorice Pizza. Arkin also offers us older folks hope for the future, detailing all the sex he got at the retirement home("One man to four women.") Hey, wait, I said I did not LIKE this script. Well, most of it. Hell, Arkin won for life achievement. Arkin won for "Wait Until Dark." Just like I see Martin Balsam's "A Thousand Clowns" win as REALLY being for Psycho.

I recall Arkin being very funny on the Oscar red carpet about the Oscar nom for the little girl in Little Miss Sunshine. Asked how he felt about that:

Interviewer: How do you feel about the Oscar nomination for your young co-star?
Arkin: I hope she loses.
Interviwer: What?
Arkin: I hope she loses.
Interviewer: You can't mean that.
Arkin: No. I absolutely mean it. I love her. I adore her. I don't want her to have her life ruined by winning this way too young!

Anyway, I forgot that Little Miss Sunshine won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar and...its a little bit like Good Will Hunting except with less skill and craft: a script written to win an Oscar.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

With a day to go, I'm still curious to see if "Licorice Pizza" can win the Best Original Screenplay award.

Because somebody is trying HARD to make sure that it does NOT.

It was revealed that starting years ago, studios and producers starting hiring POLITCAL opposition attack firms to ATTACK other movies for their "political mistakes" or lies. Not very nice. Doesn't always work -- I recall attacks on "A Beatiful Mind"(the REAL guy wasn't NICE), but sometimes it does.

Anyway, there have been MANY articles attacking Licorice Pizza as if all it has in it is that "man with the Japanese wives" scenes, and those are bad enough to make sure that Licorice Pizza not be ALLOWED to win anything.

I wonder if PTA is sitting there thinking -- "if only I took out those two scenes." He only defended them in one interview -- and(of course) got further attacked for his defense. I would expect that Licorice Pizza will continue to have those scenes left in for posterity -- it would be cowardly to take them out for future streaming broadcasts (are DVDS even sold anymore?)

I expect that PTA doesn't give a damn. Licorice Pizza still got a LOT of great reviews (sometimes "dinging" the Japanese scenes, sometimes ignoring them) and it DID get nominations for Picture, Director, Screenplay (a lot of movies DON'T.)

And -- as I'm sure he knows -- the movie from the get-go has a BIGGER problem for some folks that was the premise of the whole damn film: a possible love affair between a 15 year old "boy" and a 25 year old "woman." Except its a love STORY, not a love affair...and HES the man and SHE's the girl. Its a very interesting premise with some food for thought. I believe the story is carefully set up to reject any thoughts of "pedophilia" -- he is not a child; America has very arbitrary age limits for consent and maturity. The woman doesn't "groom" him. Much older MEN come after HER. Etc.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I've been watching the 'wind down" of Alana Haim's promotion for Licorice Pizza; its been an interesting journey to watch this one young woman carry much of the load(Cooper Hoffman, perhaps to shield him from questions about his father , has been much less seen.)

There are three Haim sisters in Haim, the band. A couple of weeks ago, only one of the others - Eldest Sister and Comedian Este -- took the long flight to London and the train to Paris to accompany Alana on her promotion. The "true star of Haim" (middle sister Danielle) skipped the trip.

But aha...last week in Los Angeles, Danielle DID emerge from hiding to accompany Alana to a Vanity Fair event. A shorter journey than to London and Paris. Este sat this one out (I guess you can't get all three Haims to these events.) There are clips of fans swarming "movie star" Alana for autographs as the quiet, cool Danielle just stands back and gives up the spotlight. What an interesting dynamic these sisters have!

As I have noted, interviewers of "Haim the band" are now forbidden to ask about Licorice Pizza. Can't have Alana getting hit with questions about those Japanese characters. For her part, Alana says she is "about to close this chapter" and leave Licorice Pizza behind.

I have one wonder about tomorrow night at the Oscars and Licorice Pizza. Can the studio get enough tickets for PTA AND Alana Haim AND Danielle Haim AND Este Haim AND Mama Donna Haim AND Papa Moti Haim? (The entire Haim family is in the movie.) In the old days, they could...but with COVID restrictions, maybe not. So who will come? I'll be watching.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Meanwhile, back at the "Japanese scenes" attack:

One of the more dumb attacks on the scenes was: "They didn't dignify the Japanese wives Japanese dialogue with subtitles." But Spielberg put no subtitles on the Spanish in WSS and that was "good." Plus: the JOKE here is that what the woman is saying in Japanese has nothing to do with the husband's translation. He is making it up. That is the JOKE.

But then as I've said, these folks who write on these movies are dumb people writing about movies that are smarter than they are.

I feel sorry for the actor John Michael Higgins, who plays the husband. He's a really good comic actor who really "shone" for Chris Guest in those fake documentary comedies. He got one interview on Licorice Pizza and got pulled. Its not the first time he's been treated badly, though. Decades ago he played David Letterman in an HBO movie about the Letterman/Leno feud. Letterman invited him on the show...and kept him backstage to the end saying "sorry, we've run out of time." He brought Higgins on just to dump him -- and never had him on again("Maybe we'll bring him back on his next project.")

In the movie, one point about the Japanese restaurant owner is that he is being kindly enough to help Gary support his family by paying for rather not-good PR writing. Higgins "re-writes" the copy better via his suggestions. Nuance. And Alana Kane bows in respect to the Japanese wife she meets. Nuance.

But this: which movie company is PAYING for all the attacks on Licorice Pizza? Which Oscar movie backers want Licorice Pizza dead? Hmm?

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

which movie company is PAYING for all the attacks on Licorice Pizza? Which Oscar movie backers want Licorice Pizza dead? Hmm?

Looking at the Orignal Screenplay category I don't see much competition for LP & PTA apart from Worst Person In The World (which has a fundamental point of comparison with LP - it's also about a twenty-something woman trying to figure out her life). Worst Person (which has its moments but isn't a triumph in my view) is a bit of a longshot through, and not many people have seen it.

My own reservations about LP notwithstanding I'm sure that PTA has got this. Actors are most of the Academy and they all know of and want to get cast by PTA. Hell, PTA's a pretty personable fellow with a wide social circle in TV and music as well as in film. Just his friends and colleagues voting for him alone might get him over the top. With no real competition in this category, then, PTA gets the award by personal standing and name recognition, and also perhaps as a lifetime-achievement thing to make up for all the great scripts he's written that didn't win from Boogie Nights on. It'll be nice for PTA - it just does change your obit if you win an Oscar. The Obit-writers don't care that you won it for 'the wrong movie'.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

which movie company is PAYING for all the attacks on Licorice Pizza? Which Oscar movie backers want Licorice Pizza dead? Hmm?
Looking at the Orignal Screenplay category I don't see much competition for LP & PTA apart from Worst Person In The World (which has a fundamental point of comparison with LP - it's also about a twenty-something woman trying to figure out her life). Worst Person (which has its moments but isn't a triumph in my view) is a bit of a longshot through, and not many people have seen it.

===

Hmm..I didn't know that plotline...well, you can have similar stories and tell them differently, of course...

Isn't Belfast in the running?

Hey, I don't know, maybe I'm being paranoid, but I DID read once about oppo research companies being hired and there HAVE been "attack articles" on front runners.

That said, this new flurry of articles almost entirely against LP just because of the Japanese restaurant scenes(with no description of the other scenes, and no sense of the early rave reviews for the film) are there right now. Perhaps the people who hate LP for these scenes simply won't give up and want to launch a final assault.

Very sad.

BUt I have also read this: people click on headlines that OUTRAGE them. Maybe that's why clicking on these attack articles. Maybe that's why somebody keeps sending them out to me.

Satan's Machine.

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CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

My own reservations about LP notwithstanding

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And I recall that and I honor that you have honored me in my posts on the film -- see, folks, people CAN disagree on the internet with civility

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I'm sure that PTA has got this.

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Alright! Fingers crossed.

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Actors are most of the Academy and they all know of and want to get cast by PTA. Hell, PTA's a pretty personable fellow with a wide social circle in TV and music as well as in film. Just his friends and colleagues voting for him alone might get him over the top.

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Ha. True. How many people in Haim's record company can vote?

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With no real competition in this category, then, PTA gets the award by personal standing and name recognition, and also perhaps as a lifetime-achievement thing to make up for all the great scripts he's written that didn't win from Boogie Nights on. It'll be nice for PTA -

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Its been a long drought, and the Tarantino theory works with 50-somethings, too. What if PTA IS starting a decline? Give it to him NOW.

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it just does change your obit if you win an Oscar. The Obit-writers don't care that you won it for 'the wrong movie'.

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Ha. All the actors who got it for the wrong movie. William Holden(LP reference) for Stalag 17 instead of Sunset Boulevard. James Stewart for The Philadelphia Story instead of Mr Smith goes to Washington. I'd say Martin Balsam for A Thousand Clowns instead of Psycho -- but he wasn't even NOMINATED for Psycho.

Directors, too. Marty Scorsese for The Departed. There was almost flop sweat hoping he's FINALLY win...

I guess PTA is going to have to wait for THAT one.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

Isn't Belfast in the running?

Damnit, yes it is and was, and now it's won. Good grief. I haven't seen Belfast so maybe its script *is* the real deal. No one seems especially enthusiastic about the film though so.... so I'm genuinely surprised that all the standing advantages PTA had didn't see him home for the Orig. Screenplay Oscar.

Note that I'm just following a text summary of the ceremony (I'll watch the thing tomorrow for various reasons). It *sounds* like Branagh himself was genuinely surprised to win and that the craft awards being bumped from the main show is going down like the proverbial cup of cold sick... Oscars Heal Thyself.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Isn't Belfast in the running?
Damnit, yes it is and was, and now it's won. Good grief. I haven't seen Belfast so maybe its script *is* the real deal. No one seems especially enthusiastic about the film though so.... so I'm genuinely surprised that all the standing advantages PTA had didn't see him home for the Orig. Screenplay Oscar.

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I gotta admit, swanstep, you had me goin' -- "Maybe PTA can win this one" -- but it was not in the cards.

The "Anti-Japanese joke" campaign was pretty thick and heavy and hasn't really gone away. And even if that did NOT get it, in the final analysis , Belfast sounds like the kind of Oscar bait the Academy likes.

Also, there is a new "international voting populace" which may have also led to Parasite's win(in TWO picture categories) two years ago. Yeah it was a good movie but...Best Picture AND BEST international film?

LP was kind of a "home grown Los Angeles story" -- like King Richard, but different of course.

I noticed this: a quiet hero of the night when things got out of hand was good ol' Denzel. That's right, the star of "The Magnificent Seven."

I'll be watching both "Magnificent Sevens" many times in the years to come. I"ll be watching Licorice Pizza many times in the years to come. I know that I'll never watch Power of the Dog again.

Belfast? I don't know yet. I will watch it to find out.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Pedro Almodovar (he's 72, Hitchcock's Frenzy age) has written a nice piece for Indiewire on his two days at the Oscar(one day before, one day of) and it is very complimentary to most of the people he met.

He loved running into "old friend," PTA and he wrote this about the two young stars of Licorice Pizza, who were also there:

"I also met the two protagonists of his "Licorice Pizza," Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman, both brimming over with the same charm as in the film and I have to tell both of them so. Its been years since we've seen two presences like theirs in the cinema, so fresh, so seductive, so personal. I fell in love with them, just like the camera that shot them in the film." (END)

Let those words be the sign off for Licorice Pizza.

I saw Cooper Hoffman for .00003 seconds in a shot of him in the audience. The three Haim sisters(all of them together again) only in the red carpet shots.

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[–] Heisenberg (6730) 3 years ago

1 Oscars=shit
2 No "award" can EVER involve serious art. It is not a competition, hence there is no first nor second. The whole thing IS just a show by the bosses to get money.
3 Hence, it will be a great day when they go Dodo.
4 You ARE trolling the Psycho board, you....psycho.

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[–] liscarkat (18373) 3 years ago

The Academy Awards have become nothing but vetting for DIE. The ceremony is mainly for actors to spew woke virtue signaling and get applauded for it by their colleagues. The whole thing is meaningless and unwatchable. -

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I flash back to the Best Picture nominees of 1970:

Airport
Love Story
Patton
MASH the Movie
Five Easy Pieces

Neither Airport nor Love Story got very good reviews (Oh, I think Ebert liked Love Story.) Airport was considered clunky and old-fashioned. Love Story was considered badly acted and written. But they were BOTH great big giant hits, popular with the public. So the Academy at least could NOMINATE them for Best Picture. It was a gesture of good will to audiences.

And indeed, another pattern played out. MASH and Five Easy Pieces were too "hip and counterculture." Airport and Love Story were too popular and mediocre. So the Oscar went to the "in betweener": Patton, a well-written (Oscar) middle of the road epic with a taste of 1970 profanity right up front(Patton's speech.)

Still, there was "something for everybody" that night. The old folks(Airport, which DID win Helen Hayes an Oscar for her hammy old lady bit.) The hippies(Five Easy Pieces). The middle of the roaders(MASH as well as Patton -- there were some Korean War vets who loved it).

Modernly, it seems, the Academy would NEVER bow to popularity and nominate a movie like Airport for the Best Picture Oscar.

Quite frankly, the Oscar voters follow the critics so closely these days that I suspect someone on the voting members STAFF is simply assigned to read all the "Top Ten Lists" and pick the nominees from them. Maybe they actually watch the movies, maybe they nominate and cast winning ballots for movies and actors they READ about.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Also in the 70's, something interesting happened: along with mediocre Best Picture nominees like Airport and The Towering Inferno(the ONLY disaster movie of that era to get such a nomination; McQueen and Newman as stars helped)..some really GOOD blockbusters like The Godfather, The Sting, The Exorcist, and Jaws got Best Picture nominations(and two of those WON.)

That's a problem today: all of our blockbusters are comic book movies in the main. Its hard to nominate a Batman movie when one comes out every two years. The best that has been done has been to give the Oscar (TWICE) to actors who play the Joker. (The wrong one won, once.) Last years's Spider-Man had a rather spectacular meta-idea(bringing about four villains back TOGETHER; lucky they were cheap hires the first time -- and giving us ALL the Spidermans in one room), but doesn't seem to have made it "special enough" even for one of the ten Best Picture slots available.

We may never have a stand-alone blockbuster like The Godfather or The Sting again...so we will never see movies of that type nominated again.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Speaking(on topic!) of Psycho -- that movie drew a "wrong decade" card at the Oscars. The "old guard" Oscar voters weren't interested in giving many nominations (let alone wins) to a "sick horror movie," no matter how great the cinema or the storytelling or the acting.

But eventually Gregory Peck was the head of the Academy and he "cleared out the deadwood"(Old Hollywood retirees) and in the 70's, horror movies The Exorcist, Jaws, and Carrie all got nominations. Hell, Jerry Goldsmith's score for The Omen beat TWO Herrmann scores for the Oscar.

Came the 90s, it got even better. In 1990 , Kathy BATES won for playing a psycho in Misery. In 1991 , Silence of the Lambs won Best Picture, Anthony Hopkins won for Hannibal Lecter(a Norman Bates peer) and Robert DeNiro was nominated for his psycho in the remake of Cape Fear, a role originally played better -- with no nomination -- by Robert Mitchum in 1962.

So...had Psycho come out in the 70's, it would have gotten lots more nominations (Picture, Perkins at minimum) and had it come out in the 90s...wins.

But...life is timing. Psycho had to settle for big bucks and a special place in movie history.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

A bit more on the Oscars:

I was looking at the presenter list and...a lot of them, I don't know. (Dammit...I DID get old.)

But Bill Murray will be there. And Kevin Costner ( a big Oscar winner turned has-been turned streaming TV star with Yellowstone.)

And John Travolta.

He's interesting to me. In recent years, Travolta seems to be a star the Oscars can always get to present.

Which is "delicate." Travolta is pretty much a "straight to video" star now. Cruising alongside Bruce Willis (especially) and Nicolas Cage as "over."

Still, Travolta was in back to back blockbusters of the 70's: Saturday Night Fever and Grease. He IS an icon from those ...and he came back with Pulp Fiction and rode out about another ten years of superstardom born from it. He's a great hero AND a great villain in Face-Off(see it to find out why.) One critic who reviewed Get Shorty(1995) said "John Travolta may be the only true movie star we have." And he was. Well, one of them. A lot of charisma and humor. A great voice. Swagger.

He lost his gorgeous wife, Kelly Preston, not too long ago. This will be a public reappearance for him. I'm rooting for him.

Just one thing: last time he presented, Travolta wore a hairpiece that looked like a black rubber cap on his head. Time to show that bald pate , JT. We'll be watching.

PS And didn't he mangle some actress's name at the Oscars, once? It got him a lot of ink and publicity that seemed to actually keep him in the spotlight.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Well..."game day." (Oscars.)

And this: I've already seen some footage on the internet of an "honorary Oscar" being given out this week before the show:

To Samuel L. Jackson

By Denzel Washington

With Quentin Tarantino in the audience and getting thanked by Sam.

That's some pretty starry stuff. And they couldn't find room for it on the main show?

I must admit though -- it seems a little early for Oscar to be "taking care" of Samuel L. Jackson. He's working all the time..He's probably got a competitive win still ahead. On the other hand -- like Gene Hackman -- Sam works in a lot of lesser quality stuff between great ones.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

The heavily-previewed salute to The Godfather was a disappointment: they smushed together the three films, they piped loud rap over a pretty random and too short set of clips, and they did not assemble all major living cast members. Duvall (who may not be well enough I guess) and Keaton (who's plenty well) should have been there. Perhaps especially Keaton because it does The Godfather no good to be seen as just a boys club.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

I have a couple more observations/complaints about this year's Oscars.
1. The endless comedy 'bits' are flat out terrible, and are especially painful to sit through when so many awards have either been bumped from the show altogether or are presented in a radically reduced way (supposedly to save time, etc.). 'We didn't get a proper editing award, or get to see Sam Jackson's Honorary Award for *this*?'
2. The emphasis on big musical and choreographic numbers is misplaced. Hell, we had choreographed dancing in front of the In Memoriam screen! And we had a sprawling 'We don't talk about Bruno' number despite the fact that it *wasn't* nominated! Fundamentally this sort of razzmatazz belongs at the Grammies and Tonies. It's as if the Oscars doesn't think Film itself (or its own In Memoriams or...) is interesting enough. See also having Extreme athletes present an award. Really?
3. I pretty much hate the Kodak theater. It feels small and intimate, as if only the self-regarding people around the tables at the front are there. The rest of the crowd drops away. Making the whole show feel small in that way seemed to me to influence how winners spoke on stage too, like they weren't in a really big room and ultimately with a global audience. It made for a lot of very informal, unmemorable speeches I believe.
4. The Audience Award countdown segments were an absolute disaster. Hijacked by Zack Snyder fans apparently. Again, we didn't get a proper Makeup Award for *this*?
5. The Godfather at 50 was somewhat undermined by Pulp Fiction at 28 and Juno at 15.
6. No reading of the nominees cut away to shots of the individual nominees. Only 1 award I believe, after the final nominee was read, even cut to a panel of nominee faces, all but one of which the world gets to see be crushed in real time. The current Oscars doesn't give us much or any of that drama now. And with no cutaways to nominees in either of his award categories, PTA may as well not have been there. Bizarre.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I have a couple more observations/complaints about this year's Oscars.
1. The endless comedy 'bits' are flat out terrible, and are especially painful to sit through when so many awards have either been bumped from the show altogether or are presented in a radically reduced way (supposedly to save time, etc.). 'We didn't get a proper editing award, or get to see Sam Jackson's Honorary Award for *this*?'

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My thoughts exactly. If we HAD to lose all those awards(including Sam's) why did they HAVE to replace them with such awful sketches and evidently one performance of a song not even nominated! (The opening with Beyonce singing a nominated song from King Richard gave the show a Grammy vibe, not an Oscar vibe -- and, coupled with Venus and Serena as the first people we saw on the show...set the unfortunate stage for how King Richard would REALLY dominate the Oscars.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

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2. The emphasis on big musical and choreographic numbers is misplaced. Hell, we had choreographed dancing in front of the In Memoriam screen!

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The decline of the "In Memoriam" segment is a true sadness of the Oscars. Once upon a time, the images flowed by as somber, sweet music played and things reached the biggest name, one of their greatest film moments, and biggest applause at the end.

Now...this thing. Yes, it was nice when Bill Murray appeared to honor Ivan Reitman (they were connected) but when Jamie Lee Curtis appeared to honor Betty White(with a cute little doggie in her arms) I was thinking...what?

There was a stark and somber moment in the In Memoriams, however when "Halayna Hutchins, Cinematographer" appeared on screen. We ALL knew who she was. And her shooter would end up tweeting comically on the Will Smith thing ("The Oscars is Jerry Springer, now?") A shameless world.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

. It's as if the Oscars doesn't think Film itself (or its own In Memoriams or...) is interesting enough. See also having Extreme athletes present an award. Really?

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I flashed back to 1972 and the awards for 1971. A big hit -- The French Connection -- won Best Picture, ending the awards for the night and THEN, the show went on another 15 minutes or so to welcome Charlie Chaplin back to America after years of exile (a bit of a leftist thing, I suppose Wayne didn't like that either.) But still: the awards took a back seat, but in honor of their history.

I flashed back to 1998 and the awards for 1997. At the end(maybe before Picture), as many living Oscar acting winners as could make it sat in bleachers and the camera panned movie history. Then the nights winners -- Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Kim Basinger and Robin Williams -- took front seats in the bleachers, with Nicholson grinning and raising his history-making Oscar(one win in each of three decades) high. That MEANT something. I think Olivia de Havilland was there./

The Oscar show has always been "forced to be what it is." Names being read, envelopes being opened(with some suspense, some times), winners speeches. It can NEVER be a "total entertainment package."

I'm reminded, though, when it was the ONE place that audiences could see the movie stars of the big screens at movie theaters in a more intimate way.

I believe Cary Grant would ONLY appear at the Oscars when he was a working star and TV existed, you only saw him THEN. (Like when he accepted another exile's Oscar -- Ingrid Bergman.) Grant made a few appearances on TV after retirmement -- like at the Hitchcock AFI event -- but generally, only at the Oscars.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Consider the 1961 event for 1960 films. Married star couple Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh came out, him so very handsome, she so very beautiful in a shimmering silver dress for b/w TV. They looked like STARS, and seemed the embodiment of happiness.

But better than that, Leigh had one great movie in competition that night (Psycho) and Curtis had one too(Spartacus, with Kirk Douglas) and the year before, Curtis had been in Some Like It Hot, and TWO years before Curtis AND Leigh(and Kirk Douglas again) had been in The Vikings. The stage was awash with glamour, romance, and great movies as Leigh and Curtis took the stage. Alas, they'd be divorced two years later, but nobody KNEW that at the time.

Came the 70's and 80's...and a little bit of the 90's...New Hollywood could honor Old Hollywood by bringing on stars like Grant and Stewart and Novak and Douglas for appearances. Stewart and Novak did a "Vertigo" reunion, but Grant and Stewart were great together, too -- two white haired eminences (I think Grant gave an Oscar to Stewart.) Plus the time that Frank Sinatra gave honorary Oscar to Cary Grant(his only Oscar.)

I used to think that Hitchcock took the Oscar stage only in 1968 to accept his Thalberg award with no clips and a perfunctory "Thank you very much," (somewhere between embarrassment and contempt.) Turns out I forgot one : Hitchcock took the Oscar stage in 1974 to give an honorary Oscar to Best Pal (and "frenemy") Lew Wasserman.

One more: I remember the audience going NUTS(QT most nuts of all) when Chuck Jones got HIS Oscar - -on stage -- for Bugs Bunny and everything else. TRULY a great, truly honored, you felt the rush of your childhood flashing across your mind.

And thus and yet...little of THAT the other night(hell, its been a week now.) But SOME I will confess: The Godfather and Pulp Fiction and White Men Don't Jump got their due. Sort of. Enough, I guess. But not really, not given the clunkiness of the rest of the show.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

3. I pretty much hate the Kodak theater. It feels small and intimate, as if only the self-regarding people around the tables at the front are there. The rest of the crowd drops away.

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Some of it was "COVID spacial seating" yet again this time, I think.

The set up helped set up the coming disaster. Other than perhaps Denzel, Will Smith was the biggest star there that night, so he got the "royal seat" up front and many reaction shots(when others got none.)

Its funny how good films and the natural voting process put different big stars in the place at different Oscars. At last year's COVID desert of a ceremony, Brad Pitt HAD to show up because he'd won the year before for Once Upon a Time In Hollywood. Back in the day, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep were up front a lot; modernly, its been Streep only with Jack unofficially retired. For 12 years now.

But in 2022 for 2021 movies...it was Will Smith as the centerpiece. Ooops.

Funny: luck of the draw: Bradley Cooper got to be up front near Will. Bradley Cooper -- big star? The jury is out, but he was representing TWO movies: my beloved Licorice Pizza and that other one by del Toro. (Ha.)
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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

4. The Audience Award countdown segments were an absolute disaster. Hijacked by Zack Snyder fans apparently. Again, we didn't get a proper Makeup Award for *this*?

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Yep. The ratings went up marginally ("The SECOND lowest.") Was it worth it? I am now convinced that the Oscar show will broadcast forever. The Smith incident demonstrates that "something can happen." I suppose ABC will just lower their ad rates. But to get these marginally better ratings, movie history has been sacrificed.

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5. The Godfather at 50 was somewhat undermined by Pulp Fiction at 28 and Juno at 15.

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Yeah. Suddenly it looked "old." And what kind of marker is Pulp Fiction at 28? I'm convinced it was so Scientologist Travolta could give Scientologist Smith his award. Note that 2020 Best Actress winner Frances McDormand was a no-show; 2020 Best Actor winner Tony Hopkins flew out all the way from Wales.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

6. No reading of the nominees cut away to shots of the individual nominees. Only 1 award I believe, after the final nominee was read, even cut to a panel of nominee faces, all but one of which the world gets to see be crushed in real time. The current Oscars doesn't give us much or any of that drama now. And with no cutaways to nominees in either of his award categories,

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Its only now I realized that this was the case. The whole show felt truncated, but I REALLY missed shots to more people connected to the nominated movies. With Licorice Pizza, "a star is born" Alana Haim got no shots that I could see; Cooper Hoffman, just one quick one.

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PTA may as well not have been there. Bizarre

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Indeed, and he was sitting with his wife Maya Rudolph a celebrity in her own right.

I've been thinking that the smear campaign over LP and its Japanese restaurant scenes CAME from a small group of professional scorn groups, but PLAYED to a group of Oscar voters who are, you should forgive the phrase, "woke" and perhaps LP became somewhat of a leper at the show; not to be much honored. I may be wrong, but it kind of felt that way to me.

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[–] liscarkat (18373) 3 years ago

Why has "Psycho" been chosen for so much OT crap?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Because whereas Psycho may not be the most important MOVIE at Moviechat...it is the most important CONCEPT at Moviechat.

The world is always tilting a bit psycho and has to be righted. And as Hitchcock always liked to warn us, there are psychos among us.

One was at the Oscars the other night.

PS. You posted on this OT thread. Which was OK. It was OT.

PPS. This is a movie chat board, why has it been chosen for so much political crap? (That's OK, its a free country, I'll read it all and defend your right to post it.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Should Will Smith Present the 2022 Best Actress Award Next Year?

Though it does not happen every time, it is traditional for the winner of the Best Actor award for one year to present the Best Actress Oscar to the next year's winner as part of the ceremony.

For instance, 2020 Best Actor winner Anthony Hopkins flew all the way from..Wales?...to present the 2021 Best Actress Oscar to Jessica Chastain in 2022.

So, ostensibly Will Smith has "first dibs" to present the Best Actress Oscar for 2022 next year in 2023.

The Academy will have to decide...

But wait! The 2020 Best Actress Oscar winner was...Frances McDormand. And she did NOT appear to present the 2021 Best Actor award in 2022. Nowhere to be seen. Where was she?

But wait: Instead of McDormand , waiting to present the 2021 Best Actor Oscar to Will Smith(the favored winner, so they bet right) were three stars from Pulp Fiction, one of whom was...Will Smith's fellow Scientologist John Travolta.

Hmmm.

Anyway, the Academy will have to decide next year whether or not to invite Will to present the Best Actress Oscar.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

The heavily-previewed salute to The Godfather was a disappointment: they smushed together the three films, they piped loud rap over a pretty random and too short set of clips, and they did not assemble all major living cast members. Duvall (who may not be well enough I guess) and Keaton (who's plenty well) should have been there. Perhaps especially Keaton because it does The Godfather no good to be seen as just a boys club.

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It was odd. The whole night had an odd "good news"/"bad news" on the film history front.

I remain convinced that the show needs to honor its past -- and with clips.

We ended up with two tributes to the two Oscar heavyweights of 1972:

The Godfather (which actually only one 3 Oscars, though they were key: Picture, Actor, Adapted Screenplay.)

Cabaret(which won a whole lot more Oscars.)

1972 was a long time ago, so we found ourselves looking at three old men(The Godfather) and one very frail and old woman (Liza Minnelli.)

With Minnelli, I wondered this: I though they had dispatched with presenters mangling the nominees by having them pre-record the nominees and they playing that over the clips or photos.

But here they made Minnelli stagger through the process so badly that she clearly couldn't read any of them...or her lines, for the most part. It was sweet but sad. Lady Gaga helping and saying "I got you" was nice, but Liza was like a sitting duck up there with no pre-recorded material.

I wanna know. They could salute The Godfather and Cabaret, but couldn't salute that other great 1972 film...Frenzy?

I kid, I kid. I think only Barbara Leigh Hunt is left alive from the cast...ironic, she's the first murder victim.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

The Pulp Fiction reunion was nice, but corny in the old Oscar sketch tradition. Still, Uma, Sam and Travolta(nicely bald as I wanted to see him) are pretty damn iconic. When Travolta said "That's a bold statement," the nostalgia meter rang for me.

And White Men Can't Jump's cast. Also nice. (Woody's the star survivor.)

I was all for those nostalgic salutes to great movies past. I was sad to realize that the era of Hitchcock -- and Welles, and Bogart and Gene Kelly and Grace Kelly -- is so far back in history as not to rank anymore for a re-visit, I guess. (Though the NXNW crop duster made it into a watch commercial.)

Flashing back to The Godfather and Cabaret as 1972 winners. The Oscar CEREMONY in 1973, at which they were awarded was a classic of its time. Brando sent Sacheen Littlefeather to refuse his Oscar(almost as bumpy as this year's "bad event.") At the very beginning, Clint Eastwood got stuck reading Charlton Heston's opening remakrs(including about parting the Red Sea) in confused anger as Burt Reynolds laughed that crazy laugh of his(Heston, who had had a flat tire, stormed the stage and practically strong armed Clint off.)

I watched that ceremony at home, on TV with lots of family and everybody talked about it the next day. A truly BIG movie won Best Picture -- blockbuster and instant classic, The Godfather. Clint and Burt and Chuck were there. And Raquel. And Liza with a Z. And Sounder was up.

Overall: Amy Schumer hit some good opening jokes, but the "sketches" were pretty poor. All that great writing talent in Hollywood and they can't hire the best to write the sketches?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

AND: Wanda Sykes flat out insulted the Best Picture frontrunner: Power of the Dog. She said something like "I've seen Power of the Dog three times. And I'm almost half way through it." Here are Oscar presenters insulting the Oscar bait leader as dull . (It didn't win, anyway.). Johnny Carson didn't used to do that.

And Bob Hope said at the 1960 Oscars: "Here are the mothers of America trying to get their kids to take showers, and Alfred Hitchcock makes Psycho."

See...a joke. Not an insult against the movie.

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[–] christomacin (4655) 3 years ago

Cabaret(which won a whole lot more Oscars.)

People forget Cabaret came pretty close to sweeping the Oscars that year. One wonders if Brando won the Oscar largely due to being a revered Hollywood veteran. It could easily have gone to Caine, Olivier or O'Toole. I personally would have given it to O'Toole for The Ruling Class if I'm being honest and if I was an Academy member back then. Anyway, if Brando had not prevailed that would have been one less Oscar for The Godfather. As for the other two it DID win (Picture and Screenplay) I would be VERY curious to know how close the voting was. Wasn't Nino Rota STRIPPED of his Best Musical Score Oscar for some technical reason as well? Strange. Rota was stripped of his Oscar but not Will Smith. Hmm... almost as if the Old Guard of the Academy wasn't to thrilled with this dark "New Hollywood" creation and it's young, long-haired and beard Italian American creator. I'd imagine Cabaret, being a musical and having a "safer" message (bad Nazis and the Holocaust) was a lot more palatable to Old Guard members of the Academy than a dark fable about power and the corruption of the American Dream. How close did Cabaret come to winning even those two Oscars? I guess we'll never know.

P.S. On a related note with Brando's Godfather Oscar, some people made the claim that the Littlefeather Incident (Brando's refusal of his Oscar and John Wayne's angry reaction) was actually WORSE than what happened with Will Smith. What they fail to acknowledge is that it only potentially happened (prevented by prompt security arrangements), was not caught on camera, and relies mostly on Littlefeather's account... which I don't find hard to believe necessarily but the fact remains it's an unsubstantiated claim that Wayne (especially with the resurfacing of his comments in Playboy). Whether he intended to use physical violence against her person we can't know for sure.

Also related to my point above (about the tension between the Old Guard and the New Guard). IF Wayne had stormed the stage and struck Littlefeather, it COULD have been worse than 2022. It's not inconceivable that an MLB-style bench clearing brawl amongst the various factions could have occurred. Hollywood WAS very sharply divided back then along ideological and generational lines. Let's not forget the Vietnam War was only just coming to a close in early 1973. HOWEVER, it DIDN'T HAPPEN but the Will Smith slap DID.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

@Christo. Your reflections here are interesting. I'd actually never heard the story about Wayne's having to be restrained from assaulting Littlefeather before it cropped up in the coverage of the Will Smith incident. Anyhow, I think you are right that precisely because Wayne never got to carry out his plan (whatever it was) in the theater in front of everyone, the cases are *really* incomparable. Unfortunately for Smith, he not only got to *do* what he did, the thing he did is not just commit violence but it was truly *in front of everyone* that has an extra level of taboo about it. Consider the expression 'Take it outside'. What that means is that some (usually) small violence is going to happen but it's going to happen off-the-record, and in such a way so that no wider institution is going to be implicated or have its norms contravened. Smith did what he did *inside*, on-the-record, in a way that involved the Academy and the film community and even the viewing public directly. *That's* what was so crazy, and, by golly, if Wayne *had* assaulted Littlefeather in front of everyone in 1973 it would have been an even more epochal event than Smith's (even without a full bench-clearing brawl breaking out!).

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[–] christomacin (4655) 3 years ago

In some alternate reality there is footage of folks like Gene Hackman, Lee Marvin, James Caan and Steve McQueen on one side squaring off with likes of Jon Voigt, Clint Eastwood, and John Wayne on the other. A lot of actors back then had Marine corps experience (Hackman, Marvin) or were scrappy street fighters in their youth (Caan and McQeen). Not the sort you want to get in a fight with. Now THAT would be entertaining to watch.

One other thought: IMAGINE how much worse and how much more damaging this would have been to both the Oscars and the country if Zelensky had appeared via satellite during the broadcast. The embarrassment for America and propaganda value for Russia would have been immense. We dodged a bullet here, and also in this not becoming an interracial altercation. It could have been worse... a whole lot worse. Amazing what the consequences of one mad minute can sometimes be.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Cabaret(which won a whole lot more Oscars.)

People forget Cabaret came pretty close to sweeping the Oscars that year.

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Yes. I watched the Oscars that year through teenage eyes --- and with my movie fandom "maturing" (somewhat) into an appreciation for "film."

I had seen The Godfather in a big movie theater on a big screen with a curtain opening on the show after waiting in a long line for a couple of hours. It was an "event movie" in every way.

I will admit that I saw Cabaret in a somewhat more "dinky" and pedestrian theater, and I walked right in. And to my teenage mind, THAT movie was "OK but nothing special." The generally small scale and realistic songs and dances seemed minor -- it didn't even seem like a real musical to me (though the slow build to terrifying "The Future Belongs to Me" in an outdoor setting did.)

And there Cabaret was, winning award award while The Godfather got 'nuttin. Keep in mind, The Godfather's three wins were all near or at the end of the show (Adapted Screenplay, Actor, Picture.) I did not yet have my knowledge that "Best Picture" also rans often get a screenplay award.

But Coppola didn't win Best Director (something that would be rectified in the most surprising and unique way possible by giving it to him for Godfather II two years later.) Pacino and Caan and Duvall in the Best Suppporting Actor slot cancelled each other out, Eddie Albert(my choice, for The Heartbreak Kid) wasn't big enough to beat Joel Grey's weird and cryptic performance(of a character who really wasn't one), in Cabaret.

Get this: The Godfather wasn't even nominated for Best Cinematography, and it sure has a very famous "look" and color to it.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

One wonders if Brando won the Oscar largely due to being a revered Hollywood veteran.

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Somewhat, but in Hollywood, he wasn't that revered. He was rather hated (for his ego and weirdness) and dismissed(for his inability to front a real hit for about 10 years.)

Still, this was truly a comeback for a once-great man. And -- I believed this then, I believe it now -- Brando gave us a fully formed Hollywood iconic figure whose impact is felt in the first scene of the movie and who became the basis of impressions both by TV professionals and amateurs parties...for years to come. The voice, the "changed" Brando face, the wedding tuxedo(he only wears it in one sequence but that is how we SEE Don Vito.)

I do not believe that Brando and Pacino should have switched Oscar categories. Pacino IS support in the first movie; he is the lead of II. And in the story, Don Vito looms over everything -- all THREE of his sons(in different ways with each one), his adopted son, his daughter, the men he meets in his shadowy office for favors, and the rival gangsters he convenes for a summit after Sonny's murder.

I suppose Pacino should have won for Best Supporting Actor in 1972(certainly over Grey, and I'd take him over Albert if I had to), but it would have "less than" (Not that this stopped DeNiro from accepting for young Don Vito two films later.)

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[–] christomacin (4655) 3 years ago

"Somewhat, but in Hollywood, he wasn't that revered. He was rather hated (for his ego and weirdness) and dismissed(for his inability to front a real hit for about 10 years.)"

Good point.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Thanks, but I guess I should say that he WAS revered, too.

The Hollywood suits hated Brando and thought he wasn't box office, but Francis Coppola revered Brando -- and said that only Brando or Olivier should play The Godfather.

He made the best choice, overall. The SURPRISING choice from existing stars.

George C. Scott was a possibility(imagine him slapping around Johnny Fontaine for crying); Burt Lancaster tried out("do-able" in a lesser production.) Ernest Borgnine put in HIS bid(coulda happened but...yikes, less chance for a classic.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

It could easily have gone to Caine, Olivier or O'Toole.

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I suppose...but I do recall Brando being in front runner position that year . The too-automatic saying "they cancelled each other out" applied to Caine and Olivier in Sleuth, and The Ruling Class wasn't much seen(that MATTERED at the Oscars in 1972.)

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I personally would have given it to O'Toole for The Ruling Class if I'm being honest and if I was an Academy member back then.

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Fair enough. You know, I have NOT SEEN The Ruling Class(read all about it) and I guess I should put it on my "catch up list."

I loved watching and listening to Peter O'Toole. He was Oscar nominated for my favorite of his roles -- in a very lightweight movie: My Favorite Year. He plays Errol Flynn(under another name) trying to do a live TV comedy show in the fifties. Utterly charming and as a matter of writing and line reading, this scene:

The story's protagonist, nerdy Jewish TV writer Mark Linn-Baker , , takes Flynn/O'Toole home to his family in (the Bronx? Brooklyn?) and his big Jewish mother asks O'Toole if he has any children. O'Toole says "yes, a child, but I haven't seen her in a long time .z' Movie star or no, the Jewish Mother chides him:

Mother: You haven't seen your child in over a year? (Pause, quietly but firmly): SHAME on you.
O'Toole: (After a long pause, in that great voice of his) Yes.....shame ....on ....me.

He makes up for that by film's end.

O'Toole was up for Best Actor for My Favorite Year in 1982, the same year that Paul Newman was up for The Verdict; Dustin Hoffman for Tootsie. What a line up! Ben Kingsley won for Gandhi. I was rooting for Newman....O'Toole second (Hoffman had one Oscar by then.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

1972 Movie Award Hitchcock Trivia: Hitchcock's Frenzy was very well reviewed and made money, but got no Oscar nominations. I could understand that in one way(the film was too sexually violent; feminists campaigned against it for the wrong reasons) but not in others(I thought Frenzy was better made than Sleuth, and should have had some of those nominations.)

As it turns out, ONE awards ceremony saw its way clear to make a very good nomination for Frenzy:

Barry Foster for Best Supporting Actor, National Board of Review(US).

There were two winners in that category: Joel Grey and Eddie Albert (!!)

The other two nominees were Robert Duvall and...Barry Foster(for playing the craziest Hitchcock psycho this side of Norman Bates, Bob Rusk of London.)

Caan wasn't nominated. Pacino was moved up to Best Actor. And beat Brando.

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Meanwhile, thanks to having two categories for movies to compete in(Cabaret was moved over to the Musical or Comedy category, leaving room for Frenzy in Drama), Frenzy got four Golden Globe nominations: Picture, Director, Screenplay, Score(!). Winning none, but at least it got on the map. Those "worthless" Golden Globes are still handy to have for back up.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Anyway, if Brando had not prevailed that would have been one less Oscar for The Godfather.

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Yes, but I do think it was a key win. As Oscar winner Jack Palance said, "the win isn't for the acting, it s for the character." And Don Vito Corleone is one of the GREAT iconic characters in movie history. Just like Norman Bates(hey, wait a minute.)

The Godfather(movie) AND the Godfather(Brando) went into Oscar history together.

And I think that screenplay rawards are always to be treasured: no script, no movie.

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As for the other two it DID win (Picture and Screenplay) I would be VERY curious to know how close the voting was.

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A now-dead Oscar winning screenwriter I quote here from time to time, William Goldman(his wins were for All the President's Men and Butch Cassidy) wrote a few articles in favor of persuading the Academy to show us the final vote totals. This was stimulated when the rumors prevailed that Oscar winner Jack Palance(!!) accidentally read the wrong name when Marisa Tomei won her Oscar. Not true, said the Academy(Damn straight, says I -- SPECTACULAR performance by Tomei; funny, sexy, made us believe Joe Pesci is loveable, and she memorized reams of technical automotive dialogue.)

Anyway, Goldman's point was that we could see if "Number One" won by a landslide or if it was close, and what the order was.

The Academy respectfully refused.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Wasn't Nino Rota STRIPPED of his Best Musical Score Oscar for some technical reason as well?

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Sounds correct. I can't remember the details.

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Strange. Rota was stripped of his Oscar but not Will Smith. Hmm... almost as if the Old Guard of the Academy wasn't to thrilled with this dark "New Hollywood" creation and it's young, long-haired and beard Italian American creator.

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Possibly, but it might have been a technical reason -- previously recorded music or something. The deal with Will Smith doesn't have to do with the validity of his Oscar win. I'm beginning to think that's the ONLY thing he wiill win on after this is all over. He will get to keep his Oscar because he won it fair and square.

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I'd imagine Cabaret, being a musical and having a "safer" message (bad Nazis and the Holocaust) was a lot more palatable to Old Guard members of the Academy than a dark fable about power and the corruption of the American Dream. How close did Cabaret come to winning even those two Oscars? I guess we'll never know.

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Something else I don't know: exactly how and when the "old guard, deadwood" Oscar voters were purged from he Academy. Once they started to go, we got nominations for movies like The Exorcist and Carrie.

A lot of things came together for Cabaret. Fosse's distinctive style and "reinvention" of the musical. Liza Minnelli(as iconic THAT year as Brando.) The historical themes as "the Nazi nightmare takes over." And, yes, perhaps moreso then than now, Holllywood had a proud Jewish community within it and they like to see their stories honored. Not every movie with a Holocaust theme wins, but many are nominated. The Holocaust era has won some Oscars.
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[–] christomacin (4655) 3 years ago

"A lot of things came together for Cabaret. Fosse's distinctive style and "reinvention" of the musical. Liza Minnelli(as iconic THAT year as Brando.) The historical themes as "the Nazi nightmare takes over." And, yes, perhaps moreso then than now, Holllywood had a proud Jewish community within it and they like to see their stories honored. Not every movie with a Holocaust theme wins, but many are nominated. The Holocaust era has won some Oscars."

Certainly, Cabaret is a respectable film and nothing wrong with the themes. I hope that didn't come out the wrong way. Still, The Godfather (maybe?) was a much more bitter pill though in terms of showing a certain view of America (apropos the early 70s) for them to swallow... also very VIOLENT.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Certainly, Cabaret is a respectable film and nothing wrong with the themes. I hope that didn't come out the wrong way.

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Oh, no, not at all. I see your points here.

I would add that here that Cabaret was a 1972 film with some early serious consideration of gay and bi themes, too. Also responded to, by the voters in the Hollywood community.

The Godfather was very much Italian and Italian-American in ethnic world, and pretty much portrayed a MAN'S world(Kay, daughter Connie and Brando's wife are all outsiders.)

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Still, The Godfather (maybe?) was a much more bitter pill though in terms of showing a certain view of America (apropos the early 70s) for them to swallow...

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I pretty much forgot to think about that. 1972 Oscar voters included a lot of people from the "happily ever after" era of American studio fillmaking, and perhaps the cynicism of The Godfather, with its warped capitalism and -- crucially -- Don Vito's store of journalists, judges and politicians "in the pocket" -- was upsetting. (Me, I concurred with this world view early on, and I still have it.)

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also very VIOLENT

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Well, ya know, this IS the Psycho page and again OT proves not OT.

Though The Godfather was presented as a "historic drama" and as an "epic" of sorts, it was also very much ...a horror thriller. A HORROR thriller. The novel was sold that way, with some critics phrase "The Godfather's men kill with guns, garrottes, knives and axes." Ultra-Psycho.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Indeed, both Psycho and The Godfather depend on gory murders to draw in large audiences. Psycho "only" has two(but they were horrific and entertaining.) The Godfather has -- what? -- 20? And people REMEMBERED how the horse died(first) and then Luca Brasi(the OTHER big strangulation murder of 1972 at the movies, alongside Frenzy), and then the rat by the Statue of Liberty, and eventually "Sollozo the Turk and Captain McClusky" in the Italian restaurant and Sonny at the turnpike...these were ALL very memorable murders, just like Marion's and Arbogast's in Psycho.

These murders were far more memorable set-pieces than the innumerable teenager killings in Friday the 13th and whatnot. They were PRESTIGE murders.

I loved The Godfather in 1972 because it was , indeed, "the fastest three hour movie ever made." I'd grown up as a kid on the LONG epics Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zchviago(my well-meaning parents tortured me too young with history), THIS three hour long movie was a THRILLER (with great acting and dialogue ala Hitchcock.)

On e thing that bothered me(among several) with Godfather II is how Coppola, left to his own devices, ended up making EXACTLY (almost) one of those Oscar-bait epics with Godfather II. David Leanish; early Merchant-Ivory. It FEELS really long and diverts to "dull historical epic country" with most of the DeNiro section (a few gory murders aside.)

The most "Godfather I" like scene in Godfather II has to be the early confrontation of the WASPy and corrupt Nevada Senator with ice-cold Michael ("I can tell you my offer right now: nothing.") That felt like a scene from the right movie.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

@Christo. Your reflections here are interesting. I'd actually never heard the story about Wayne's having to be restrained from assaulting Littlefeather before it cropped up in the coverage of the Will Smith incident.

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Nor I (ecarle.) Interesting. It demonstrates that security must have been a bit more "secure" in 1973. Wayne was pretty old and sick by then, probably easily restrained. Smith took everybody by surprise.

For me, I found out that there was value in watching the Oscars no matter how "irrelevant" the show is today. (The movies, less so.)

The value was in watching violent social history unfold before my very eyes.

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Anyhow, I think you are right that precisely because Wayne never got to carry out his plan (whatever it was) in the theater in front of everyone, the cases are *really* incomparable.

--

Yep. One thing didn't happen. One thing DID. In front of 15 million "live" viewers and now before scores of millions more "on replay."

Watching it "live" I tracked with what the Oscar producers and TV director thought -- that the first part (the punch that was really a slap) was "fake," another bad gag in a night full of them.

But when the sound cut and you could see the rage in Smith's eyes when he sat down and -- on live feeds on the internet -- hear EXACTLY what he said -- TWICE -- with a really bad, really ENRAGED cussword, it transformed: whoa, this is REAL, this is BAD.

And then it got complex.

Forty more minutes to the Best Actor Oscar, and we all KNEW it was in the bag for Smith. Had Smith been NOT clearly to win, he likely would have left. But he had to stay.

If memory serves, Smith left BEFORE Best Actor when he was up for Ali years ago. That was the same Oscar show where I personally noticed the bitter anger when he presented the Special Effects award ("This is for movies that people ACTUALLY GO TO SEE." ) He didn't say it funny.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

There is always a tension when superstars go to the modern Oscars, because they know they are in a room with a lot of people who make movies nobody goes to see, and make paltry money to make them. "A different world," and there is a kind of mutual dis-respect in the world.

Clint Eastwood was funny about it when he picked up his Unforgiven Oscars in 1993 -- "I see you've finally noticed me after all these years."

Burt Reynolds seethed in interviews about how Nicholson and DeNiro and Pacino got Oscar respect, but Oscar gave him very little (one nomination for Boogie Nights; he lost to Robin Williams.)

Arnold Schwarzenegger took the Oscar stage a few times. He didn't look angry -- but he looked somewhat embarrassed, like he knew he wasn't a good enough actor to be there.

ETC.

Anyway, add those comments into the mix with the 1,000 others about the Will Smith incident. But it IS worth thinking about.

As I've noted elsewhere, it doesn't much matter what the Academy does to him, or that he resigned from the Academy(ala Bernard Herrmann.)

What matters WILL be: do the studios pull him off of big movies, even NETFLIX big movies.

The possible answer in the press is: maybe.

It happens. See Johnny Depp and Mel Gibson.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

One other thought: IMAGINE how much worse and how much more damaging this would have been to both the Oscars and the country if Zelensky had appeared via satellite during the broadcast. The embarrassment for America and propaganda value for Russia would have been immense. We dodged a bullet here, and also in this not becoming an interracial altercation. It could have been worse... a whole lot worse. Amazing what the consequences of one mad minute can sometimes be.

--

Yep. Zelensky appearing seemed to have been under some consideration(said Amy Schumer who is, remember, related to US Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and hence, "connected") until Sean Penn made one of his usual "too much" statements and threatened to "smelt" his two Oscars if it didn't happen.

I'd like to see them, now.

Note in passing: Sean Penn is in my 2021 face, Licorice Pizza. I liked him in it, but I guess it proves yet again that he does little for the box office.

CONT

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

It's kind of intersting to look back at 1972's films and ask what would win if *today's* academy were voting and there was a 10-strong Best Picture pool. Here are my best guesses for the 1972 Best Picture noms (by today's standards):

The Heartbreak Kid (Elaine May probably also gets some big nods: writing and maybe directing, not just her actors)
Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie (which won best foreign film in 1972 anyway)
Frenzy (Hitch gets to battle it out with Bunuel!)
Aguirre The Wrath of God (the cool kids' choice, shares some of the sfx/sci-fi vote with)
Solaris (more cool kids, and gets a lot of the Dune vote and also Drive my Car/Nomadland vote)
Deliverance
Godfather
Cabaret
The Candidate
The Ruling Class
Sleuth

I tend to think that Cabaret gets lost (and probably eliminated early) and Godfather wins rather easily in this expanded Best Picture field (with today's preferential voting Godfather picks up massive 2nd and 3rd choices etc. as all the long-shot picks with relatively low first choice totals get eliminated and redistributed to voters' next choices).

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

It's kind of intersting to look back at 1972's films and ask what would win if *today's* academy were voting and there was a 10-strong Best Picture pool.

--

An interesting and appropriate game!

Note in passing: there WERE 10 nominees back in the 40's and hence, Hitchcock in 1940 got BOTH Rebecca AND Foreign Correspondent onto the nominee list, winning with one of them (the wrong one?)

--

Here are my best guesses for the 1972 Best Picture noms (by today's standards):

The Heartbreak Kid (Elaine May probably also gets some big nods: writing and maybe directing, not just her actors)
--
There was a lot of push for that movie; funny how Eddie Albert and May's daughter proved the main beneficiaries.

--

Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie (which won best foreign film in 1972 anyway)

--

I got to see my some Bunuel. Hitchcock and he were pretty much the same age; Hitchcock said he liked him "I like Bunuel, the Spaniard," Hitchcock once said, proving that he'd seen some of his movies by recounting scenes. There is a great photo circa -- 1972! -- of a group of famous old directors in George Cukor's living room -- Hitch is sitting next to Bunuel.)

---

Frenzy (Hitch gets to battle it out with Bunuel!)

--

Well, I expect Bunuel would still win Best Foreign Film. Interesting: Frenzy was kind of a foreign film itself(England) but I guess the English language kept it "Hollywood, British style."

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

With regard to Frenzy's lack of any Oscar noms, I can't express the outrage and justification I have for Psycho to have DEFINITELY gotten both more Oscar nominations and wins(it gone none of the latter.)

I'm more ambivalent about Frenzy, but the reviews WERE great(I think it got great reviews only trailing The Godfather and Cabaret in number)
and it deserved these nominations, if nothing else:

Picture
Director
Adapted Screenplay
Supporting Actor(Barry Foster as killer Bob Rusk; unforgettable)
Supporting Actress(Barbara Leigh-Hunt, as victim Brenda Blaney; unforgettable.)
Film Editing(The main murder, the truck scene.)

And I CAN see pulling nominees like Eddie Albert , JOEL GREY(yes, the winner) or Geraldine Page or Susan Tyrell for Foster and Leigh-Hunt.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Aguirre The Wrath of God (the cool kids' choice, shares some of the sfx/sci-fi vote with)
Solaris (more cool kids, and gets a lot of the Dune vote and also Drive my Car/Nomadland vote)

--

I READ about those movies, agree with your "cool kids" assessment. Rhetorical question: how come college students back then were more connected to Bergman and Fellini and Truffaut and foreign films in general than they are today?

--

Deliverance

--

That one really did get a Best Picture nomination --and a nod both to its technical skill and its historic take on male-on-male rape. The Academy had to acknowledge its disturbing qualities for a a major studio movie (no acting nominations, though -- and hey, maybe Ned Beatty should have made that Supporting Actor list, too.)

---

Godfather
Cabaret

--
..as noted.

--
The Candidate

--
A GREAT movie. Very real(semi-documentary in style.) Very funny. Robert Redford superstar in his prime. Won the Best Original Screenplay award, deservedly. As they say, it is as relevant to today's politics as ever. 50 years might SEEM to be a long time, but look at how many issues were the same. What's changed isn't the issues in America, its the demographics.

---
The Ruling Class
Sleuth

---

I gotta see The Ruling Class. Does not O'Toole think he's Jack the Ripper at one point, and kill?

Stray thought: Peter O'Toole as Bob Rusk. I think I just liked O'Toole too much(see My Favorite Year) to want him in that role. If he'd even take it.

CONT

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[–] christomacin (4655) 3 years ago

'Stray thought: Peter O'Toole as Bob Rusk. I think I just liked O'Toole too much(see My Favorite Year) to want him in that role. If he'd even take it."

O'Toole played a psychopath in the World War II film "Night of the Generals" (1967). It was a murder mystery about a German General who was a killer of French prostitutes in occupied Paris. He would have made a good (but very different) Rusk. Not as "laddish" as Barry Foster.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

O'Toole played a psychopath in the World War II film "Night of the Generals" (1967).

--

I did not KNOW that (as Ed McMahon used to say, but who remembers him?)

--

It was a murder mystery about a German General who was a killer of French prostitutes in occupied Paris.

--

I do remember the movie coming out; I wanted to see it because I already had my thriller jones going, but the parents didn't go, so I didn't go. (They didn't forbid it, its just that sometimes, they didn't go to movies I read about.)

--

(O'Toole) would have made a good (but very different) Rusk. Not as "laddish" as Barry Foster.

---

Laddish is a good take on Foster's Rusk. I suppose O'Toole would have been a bit more urbane and sly.

In the novel, Bob Rusk is described pretty much as looking like Rod Taylor -- Hitchcock's lead in The Birds. But native Australian Taylor wasn't "pure" casting for an English film, I suppose, and his stardom had waned (he was doing series TV by then.)

I think the bottom line for Hitchcock in casting Frenzy is that NO major star wanted a role in the film, particularly not the sick role of Rusk. Frenzy would prove to BE a comeback film of great energy, but when Hitch came calling for actors, he seemed in decline, "over." Senile, maybe. (Everything after Psycho before Frenzy, even The Birds, seemed to be works of decline.)

What I DID like about Barry Foster's casting as Rusk is that he came with no preconceived stardom for the audience to overcome(as Caine or O'Toole would have.) Foster seemed very REAL as Rusk, as if he were cast out of an asylum for short work and then had to go back.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

Rhetorical question: how come college students back then were more connected to Bergman and Fellini and Truffaut and foreign films in general than they are today?

While there certainly are foreign film addicted youngsters out there, that whole culture of campus film clubs and repertory cinemas right next to colleges that supported wider interests in artsy film is long gone. Without that, and with the rise of so many other entertainment options from video games to social media to more-currently-produced-TV-than-any-one person can ever watch (most of which are the complete opposite of 'intense concentration and absorption/no social interaction for a couple of hours/reading lots of subtitles') the idea that flourished for a few decades at least that as part of being a smart, hip young person who can hold a conversation at a party, etc. you should have at least a passing familiarity with artsy cinema from at least France, Italy, and a few other places foreign - that has collapsed. Not having much affinity for foreign films is now *not* a social handicap and *is* instead more like a common blindspot, like knowing nothing about (musical) theater, or opera, or ballet.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Rhetorical question: how come college students back then were more connected to Bergman and Fellini and Truffaut and foreign films in general than they are today?

While there certainly are foreign film addicted youngsters out there, that whole culture of campus film clubs and repertory cinemas right next to colleges that supported wider interests in artsy film is long gone.

---

Yes, I guess so..an entire "film culture" is gone, that was PHYSICALLY tied to the colleges.

Lifelong, I've never had much interest in "foreign films," but I do recall, as a kid, that my parents would take us sometimes to see b/w British comedies(the early stuff with Peter Sellers and Terry-Thomas, not the big Technicolor Hollywood stuff) at a theater next to the local college campus. I instinctively KNEW that I was not at a "regular movie theater" -- something more arty than that, and the lines were fairly long with college kids and discriminating adults.

Funny thing: I READ about all those college youth liking foreign films when I was even YOUNGER -- they seemed so 'old and wise" at 21. Now at this advanced age, college kids are surely smart(the computer whizzes) but they still seem like "kids" to me. Its hard to imagine them with a taste for Bergman or Fellini as they had "once upon a time."

Camille Paglia seems to have faded away, but for a few years there , she doubled as a "Hitchcock scholar" aside from her political stuff. Anyway, in one of her columns she noted that as a college film professor over the decades, she had watched as her college students dropped away from Ingmar Bergman(too dull) and gravitated TO Hitchcock(old movies but clearly exciting in their fashion, AND artful.) Paglia said that Hitchcock had taken over as THE college student favorite in her classes.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

and with the rise of so many other entertainment options from video games to social media to more-currently-produced-TV-than-any-one person can ever watch

---

You got that right. I turn on my TV and look at a "streaming menu" and realize: I could NEVER watch even 30% of what's offered, in a lifetime.

This makes it harder and harder for "popular classics" to emerge.

And though Netflix delivered two of my favorite ACTUAL MOVIES of recent years -- The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and The Irishman -- for the most part, Netflix movies still don't seem like REAL movies, to me.

Exhibit A, recently. "Don't Look Up" has just about the most all-star cast ever -- Leo, J-Law, Meryl, Cate, Tyler and on and on....but no matter how "big" those stars are, how much money they have been paid, how many Oscars some of them have -- its not a MOVIE. Hell, The Towering Inferno(Newman and McQueen and everybody ) STILL seems more all-star -- and the stakes seemed HIGHER in that one. (We were WORRIED for 300 people trapped in a burning skyscraper; the whole WORLD getting destroyed here seemed...abstract.)

Its doomsday scenario is meant to emulate Dr. Strangelove (An approaching meteor equals climate change similes nuclear destruction) but it feels much more like an SNL sketch with "big stars." (Their stardom almost disappears in the face of such slight material.) Oh, one star was actually funny in it: dependable Jonah Hill. (He's in my three favorite films in a chronological row Moneyball, Django Unchained, The Wolf of Wall Street -- he knows how to deliver a one-liner well.)

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

(most of which are the complete opposite of 'intense concentration and absorption/no social interaction for a couple of hours/reading lots of subtitles')

---

Yep...movie WATCHING is pretty easy these days. Although my older self enjoys watching English-language films with subtitles. Some hearing loss here, but mainly , those actors MUMBLE.

The only problem: with comedies, you can READ the coming punchline before the actors says it.

However: Licorice Pizza with subtitles has been great because one gets all the details: like the "play by play" Dodgers game readout by Vin Scully on an unseen TV when Alana comes to meet Gary at the Tail of the Cock, or a game show in the background on the TV in one scene. ALL THE LINES are on screen to read on this "background noise."

---
CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

the idea that flourished for a few decades at least that as part of being a smart, hip young person who can hold a conversation at a party, etc. you should have at least a passing familiarity with artsy cinema from at least France, Italy, and a few other places foreign - that has collapsed.

---

Yeah. We are flooded with information about a new generation that doesn'r read books much(for leisure) or get into these kinds of cultural things. Maybe its bad...or maybe its just a new world.

Everyone still CRAVES some sort of entertainment. Its why The Batman (Batman for the umpteenth time) is making a billion bucks right now and why Netflix DOES have an audience for its more adult middle-aged aimed entertainment.

But its not the same.

This stray thought: again when I was a kid, my parents would have other couples over and play bridge in the living room some nights. It was a GIVEN that everybody needed to know how to play bridge and would socialize with their neighbors. Gone.

--

Not having much affinity for foreign films is now *not* a social handicap and *is* instead more like a common blindspot, like knowing nothing about (musical) theater, or opera, or ballet.

--

Yes. I"ll admit though I have attended them, the ballet and opera are not for me. Philistine! Stage drama and musicals I can still "do." Foreign films -- I'm working on it. HBO Max has a fine collection of "old" foreign films. I've watched a few in the past year, I hope to watch more.

As for college students, I don't know WHAT they are watching. Streaming series, altogether in the dorm, perhaps?

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

As for college students, I don't know WHAT they are watching. Streaming series, altogether in the dorm, perhaps?

Well, they're mainly playing immersive videogames and on various sorts of social media. If some tv show or movie or song happens to trend on tik-tok or instagram *then* then the average kid will watch that or listen to that, but not otherwise. But only the video games and the surfing of social media algorithms are real. The numbers when I've looked into these things are mindboggling. Facebook's advertising revenues last year were $84Billion, Instagram (owned by Facebook) did $82Billion. That's a lot of eyeballs and a lot of time engaged with what....a first draft of the metaverse? And yet Tik-tok is even bigger among young people (in terms of hours of engagement each week) than those two and snap-chat put together. And you have to remember that the average young person sends and receives many hundreds of texts and notifications a day, and that the very idea of being out of touch with that stream of impulses on a phone for even half an hour causes many youngsters to simply freak out, have anxiety attacks, you name it.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

Everyone still CRAVES some sort of entertainment. Its why The Batman (Batman for the umpteenth time) is making a billion bucks right now

I seem to be competely out of sync these days with what most other people find entertaining. I only lasted 20 minutes into Spiderman: No Way Home - I really couldn't stand any of the interactions between Strange & Peter, e.g., when spells were being cast. The constant quipping and frivolousness when something supposedly very important and easily-gotten-wrong was underway just drove me nuts. Why was I watching this stuff that couldn't take itself seriously at all? The constant battling involving harm-free collisions and falls through god knows what amount of space just left no stakes at all to anything. Further the whole multiverse structure is just the death of narrative stakes since, by definition, every logically possible outcome happens in some time-line and no timeline is more important than any other. I enjoyed Into The Spider-verse (animated) a few years ago with multi-Spiderman and multiverse possibilties and featured a truly graphically amazing villain, Kingpin. But No Way Home just infuriated me.

I'm also currently an hour into The Batman and very bored. Maybe Batman's song from The Lego Movie killed off ultra-grim/dark visions of Batman for me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqv_LUStxDw

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Everyone still CRAVES some sort of entertainment. Its why The Batman (Batman for the umpteenth time) is making a billion bucks right now
I seem to be competely out of sync these days with what most other people find entertaining. I only lasted 20 minutes into Spiderman: No Way Home - I really couldn't stand any of the interactions between Strange & Peter, e.g., when spells were being cast. The constant quipping and frivolousness when something supposedly very important and easily-gotten-wrong was underway just drove me nuts. Why was I watching this stuff that couldn't take itself seriously at all?

---
Note in passing: I believe that "quality" is what killed off the films of Burt Reynolds and, later, Arnold Schwarzenegger. They made movies that were about them as STARS, Arnold's character MEETS the real Arnold in "The Last Action Hero," and there are Planet Hollywood jokes and..the movie as a story you care about is over. Reynolds made silly comedies with outtakes at the end that were funny -- but showed that neither he nor his fellow pal actors really CARED to give us a story we could get into.

Compare that to the SUBLIME entertainment that Hitchcock gave us with North by Northwest(where Cary Grant is believeably in constant danger of getting killed) and Psycho (where the whole movie is terrifying and people we like DO get killed.) Hitch put us IN his stories. It hit the limit with Torn Curtain and Frenzy, in which the murders on screen are so real, cruel and lingering that we have no sense of them being fake and staged for us.

But the comic book universe we now live in is, I suppose, somewhere between the terrible Burt/Arnold product and Hitchcock's dead-serious entertainment.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I only lasted 20 minutes into Spiderman: No Way Home

--
So, you, like never made it to where about five of the Spider-Man villains(and the actors who originally played them) ended up crowded together in an apartment. That WAS trippy. Especially since it was Ageless Marisa Tomei's apartment (with a little de-aging help from CGI.) She played Aunt May.

Not to mention: ALL the spidermans in one room too.

It was all very meta and I suppose the "group of villains" thing tickled me.

But that's about it.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Gurther the whole multiverse structure is just the death of narrative stakes since, by definition, every logically possible outcome happens in some time-line and no timeline is more important than any other.

--

THIS to me is the death of these movies mattering. Characters "die" but can come to life "somewhere else," Even fiction has famously and oftimes moved audiences deeply with the death of on screen characters. Marion Crane, for instance. Janet Leigh said that people would stop her on the street and say "You...you're ALIVE!" Debra Winger saying goodbye to her little children as she is dying of cancer in Terms of Endearment moved folks to tears on every PART of it(to die so YOUNG; and leaving behind those KIDS, to be stuck with THAT dad and THAT grandmother.)

These were REAL emotional wallops that the comic book universe has tossed away.

"Avengers" Endgame brought half the world back to life after killing them, and then "killed" two important charactors, but I don't believe they are REALLY dead, so I can't mourn them.

I suppose if there is an upside to all this "meta death and life" in the comic book movies it is that it connects to the spiritual concept that we just might live MANY lives(reincarnation), or that our physical bodies don't matter as much as our spiritual selves. But the movies play too goofy for that kind of gravitas.

Stray thought: I think what started all this "at the movies" was "killing Spock off" in Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan (he got a great death scene opposite grieving Captain Kirk)...and then bringing Spock back "reborn" two movies later. The death scene in II no longer holds any real impact if one knows he's coming back. (Not so for Marion Crane or Debra Winger in Terms of Endearment.)

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I enjoyed Into The Spider-verse (animated) a few years ago with multi-Spiderman and multiverse possibilties and featured a truly graphically amazing villain, Kingpin. But No Way Home just infuriated me.

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Hmm...well one "meta verse" worked and the other didn't. Sounds like the jokey and non-consequential tone of the new one was the problem?

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I'm also currently an hour into The Batman and very bored.

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What bugs me is that I saw The Batman in a theater only about three weeks ago(my choice, grant you) and -- here it is on HBO Max this week. That's just BARELY better than last year when WB movies premiered simultaneously on TV and at the theaters.

Silly me: I thought they'd wait at least a few MONTHS before moving The Batman to HBO Max, but not -- its practically a TV movie.

That has made $750 million worldwide in theaters.

But this: some person somewhere has down the calculations: with world population being what it is, a given movie COULD earn ...trillions. A billion isn't all that much, especially with inflationary ticket prices.

Of course that billion goes into SOMEBODY's pockets...so it is earnings enough.

--

Maybe Batman's song from The Lego Movie killed off ultra-grim/dark visions of Batman for me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqv_LUStxDw

---

Ha. "Lego Batman." I would here like to say that I was very excited about, very much in anticipation of , the first major Batman movie(ahem..."Batman") back in 1989, and the movie did not disappoint. Jack Nicholson FINALLY making a blockbuster entertainment; his commitment to his role as the Joker (as opposed to Brando's desultory cameo in Superman); Tim Burton's vision and Danny Elfman's score. It was a "blockbuster with gravitas" (complete with Vertigo bell tower finale and North by Northwest final cliffhanger) and...I kinda wish they had stopped there.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

I'm also currently an hour into The Batman and very bored

In a partial retraction... when I restarted the film it was night-time, and its self-seriousness and slightly adolescent obsession with 'darkness' didn't bug me as much then. And the acting (great vibe between Pattinson and Kravitz especially) and general cinematic skill on display won me over. I guess it had a lot of the same strengths as The Joker movie - real commitment to a particular ultra-scuzzy/hellish Gotham and to a whole set of obvious influences (Se7en, Zodiac, Dirty Harry, French Connection, Good Time etc.) to articulate that environment and mood. The director claims Chinatown as a major model but I don't quite see it myself beyond the general everything is rotten vibe. It's kinda amazing exactly how hard it is to figure out what's going on at timesin The Batman! Whole action sequences became completely abstract with so much darkness and spray around. And some of the Riddler's plans also remained pretty obscure to me (why exactly did he try to get himself caught? why did he tell Batman his plan when that might still undo the plan at least in part? and what was the Villain's plan for Bruce Wayne (who was still on his mind) anyway?), and the movie in a way seemed well-objected to by Selena Kyle. The film convinces us that the problems in Gotham run so deep that no individual can make much of a difference (not even Batman) and if they do they'll soon be killed. Batman ends the film looking shockingly delusional compared to Selena Kyle.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

In a partial retraction... when I restarted the film it was night-time, and its self-seriousness and slightly adolescent obsession with 'darkness' didn't bug me as much then. And the acting (great vibe between Pattinson and Kravitz especially) and general cinematic skill on display won me over.

--

My decision on the Batman movies is in: I'll see them all, til the day I die. As long as they are "stand alones" like The Batman and EACH of the Nolans and EACH of the Burtons and even EACH of the Schmachers(which will stand forever more as evidence of how to wreck a franchise.)

I've lost track of the Ben Affleck ones I actually SAW. The first Suicide Squad, I think. And the ridiculous mismatch of Batman versus Superman.

But the stand alones? And better still...without Robin?

They are becoming what they should be: Bond movies. Good action and good actors every three years or so, and then new Bonds/Batmans.

THE Batman benefitted from Pattison's very weird guy(with the cowl off) and Kravitz's very together woman( I liked how she quit her camera spy gig mid-task, it just seemed funny.)

I have hopes for Colin Farrell's unrecognizable penguin(in another movie; he may get a TV show, but I won't watch it.)

Paul Dano's Riddler was just OK. You know what I like about Paul Dano? That he's in a nice relationship with his matching oddball-looking person, Zoe Kazan. And they have at least one child together. They are like the "anti Johnny and Amber." (Hey, I WARNED folks about THAT marriage way back when it happened.)

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I guess it had a lot of the same strengths as The Joker movie - real commitment to a particular ultra-scuzzy/hellish Gotham and to a whole set of obvious influences (Se7en, Zodiac, Dirty Harry, French Connection, Good Time etc.) to articulate that environment and mood.

---

Its hard to argue with a billion dollars, but I will with Joaquin's Joker movie.

Jack Nicholson has enough Oscars, and made enough money off of HIS Joker but really...I'd switch Jack in , in a heartbeat for Joaquin.

Its that climactic scene on DeNiro's talk show that sank a movie I already didn't much like. In real life, security -- and maybe cops -- would be tackling Joaquin within one minute of his creeped out remarks to DeNiro...nor do I believe that talk show host would "engage" a mad man on camera. And Phoenix seemed to elect to go with a bit of a "stage gay" vocal...I don't know if it was good or bad, but i noticed it.

Anyway, Joker and now THE Batman have staked out Batman as dark, grim, not for kids at all.

That's OK. We got plenty of stuff FOR kids.
The director claims Chinatown as a major model but I don't quite see it myself beyond the general everything is rotten vibe.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

his matching oddball-looking person, Zoe Kazan

Maybe she's oddball-looking by LA/Hollywood standards, but she's a cutie in the real world. She was the sick girlfriend in The Big Sick and we never think of her as anything less than very cute. At any rate I kinda get her mixed up myself with Zosia Mamet (who was one of the four titular females, Shosh, on Girls), another young, female Hollywood scion with a Z-first name. I don't think Z-Mamet has so far shown any writing talent whereas Z-Kazan has written quite a lot as well as acted. Z-Mamet is closer to being oddball-looking in my view. Z-Kravitz is the only one with movie star looks tho'. What's with all the Z-names in this micro-generation?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Its that climactic scene on DeNiro's talk show that sank a movie I already didn't much like. In real life, security -- and maybe cops -- would be tackling Joaquin within one minute of his creeped out remarks to DeNiro...nor do I believe that talk show host would "engage" a mad man on camera.

--

The world works in mysterious ways. Not three days after I posted the above, I did some YouTube surfing on QT and found an audio tape of QT PRAISING that final talk show scene to high heaven for its "profoundness and intensity." "It goes beyond suspense!" QT wails in that trademark over-emotional way he has of speaking. QT also says the scene worked great in a THEATER with a CROWD as he could sense everybody quieting down and tensing up waiting for the murder to occur. QT also found DeNiro's talk show guy to be "just another David Letterman asshole type" who doesn't deserve what happens to him. No kidding.

I dunno. I can't say that QT changed my mind about that scene at all. I just feel that it stretched MY limits of credibility(which are often more flexible than others; hah).

Years ago -- the 80's -- some guy pulled a gun on a news anchor team while they were doing the news. I saw the video. It is terrifying; he says nothing and the anchors suddenly grow quiet and its very "real."

And that guy gets tackled in like two SECONDS(nobody was harmed.)

The "Joker" scene carries the same sort of terror as that real life event, but that real life event is how it would REALLY happen, I believe. Over fast.

As to QT, I respect the writer and filmmaker a bit more than I respect the critic. A) He liked Psycho II better than Psycho. B) He didn't like Don Siegel's John Wayne movie The Shootist("You don't see anything here you haven't seen before and better.")

Nope.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Maybe (Zoe Kazan) is oddball-looking by LA/Hollywood standards, but she's a cutie in the real world. She was the sick girlfriend in The Big Sick and we never think of her as anything less than very cute.

--

I did see The Big Sick and yes, she was pretty cute in that. She also did a brief nude scene as Leo DiCaprio's brief secretarial tryst in "Revolutionary Road," a Mad Man story cast with the wrong Mad Man. (Superstar Leo wasn't nearly as well cast in the part as Jon Hamm had been for cable.)

---

Zoe Kazan is rather like Alana Haim -- who, with the right make-up on -- can switch to a real beauty.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

My introduction to Zoe Kazan was in her "frontier pioneer woman' role in her segment of the Coen's "Ballad of Buster Scruggs," my favorite movie of 2018. In her first scene, Zoe is photographed to look very plain , her ACTING is oddball and timid -- perhaps I was fooled by that.

But I fell a little bit in love with Zoe Kazan in that role -- just as I did ("retroactively") with Alana Haim (as a 19073 memory) in Licorice Pizza. Its a "real life" thing -- some of us guys will fall in love with women who we know we have a real CHANCE with -- their looks can be lesser because OURS are.

I dunno -- maybe seeing Zoe Kazan paired at premieres with Paul Dano ends up "transferring" some of his weirdness to her.

In any event, I can't say I was out to call Zoe unattractive. Oddball, I'll stick by(at least in Buster Scruggs -- her segment was called "the Gal Who Got Rattled" and it was heartbreaking.)

---

At any rate I kinda get her mixed up myself with Zosia Mamet (who was one of the four titular females, Shosh, on Girls), another young, female Hollywood scion with a Z-first name.

--

An interesting comparison. Those famous surnames, too.

I didn't watch "Girls", but I looked at promotional commercials and I realize that I know Miss Mamet from a stint on Mad Men, a show I did watch. And -- yes -- definitely oddball, waifish, too. There is a market for "that look" in movies; always has been. Carol Kane, Kim Darby...maybe back to Susan Strasberg in Picnic. Not to mention, Mia Farrow got it going as a waiflike star for awhile.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

Needless to say, the class of 1972, whoever's judging, has it all over 2021's. So many fantastic, fascinating, transformative, challenging, often deeply disturbing films around then. Consider Malle's Murmur of the Heart which got a screenplay nom at the Oscars (even though I think that officially it's a 1971 movie). That movie (ahem) climaxes with the 15 year old son having sex with his (very sexy) mom and her saying the next morning that while sex will never happen again and they must never talk of it, it's also something they can and should both look back on with fondness. Very, er, French as people used to say. Murmur is not a movie that could be nom'd now, maybe not even made. Think of how squeamish lots of people seemed to be with Licorice Pizza's relatively chaste romance between a 15-16-ish boy and an (immature) 25 year old girl! Film overall seems important, culturally central, and on *fire* in 1972 in a way that's almost inconceivable now.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Needless to say, the class of 1972, whoever's judging, has it all over 2021's. So many fantastic, fascinating, transformative, challenging, often deeply disturbing films around then.

---

Yes. I know that you can list many, many fine films made since 2000, swanstep, but the fact remains that many more were made back then and were either seen (1) widely by all or (2) widely in big cities and by key critics. I think both types are pretty much gone forever. All these articles about "is it the end of movies" have rather missed the boat. The movies ended in a big way some years ago and it is not "old man railing" to take note of it. We are in a new era, movies like that will never come again.

Certainly not the disturbing ones.

And probably not any overtly sexual ones.

Consider:

I have gone on record as saying that while I don't think any more rape movies should be made as were so prevalent in the 70's, more CONSENSUAL erotic sex scenes should be filmed.

Well, in recent years I've realized that female actresses may just not be so WILLING anymore to "take it all off" and fake even loving consensual sex with a man on the screen. Social groups don't want women being exploited in ANY way. So we are working our way back to the chaste love scenes of the 50's and, at most, the 60s.

.There are exceptions. Netflix has a few "adult series" where the lead actresses are more than willing to take off their clothes and fake sex in all positions. And there shall always be porn. I suppose it depends on the free spirit and exhibitionism of the actress. (See: Sarah Shahi in Sex/Life.)

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Consider Malle's Murmur of the Heart which got a screenplay nom at the Oscars (even though I think that officially it's a 1971 movie). That movie (ahem) climaxes with the 15 year old son having sex with his (very sexy) mom and her saying the next morning that while sex will never happen again and they must never talk of it, it's also something they can and should both look back on with fondness. Very, er, French as people used to say.

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Ha ha..hoo boy and...well, international film used to be that way and America used to accept it in their art houses. I read reviews of the film as a teen. I was squeamish to the max just in reading them. The mother WAS pretty, but that only made it worse. And no...likely never be made today. Or honored, at least.

--Murmur is not a movie that could be nom'd now, maybe not even made. Think of how squeamish lots of people seemed to be with Licorice Pizza's relatively chaste romance between a 15-16-ish boy and an (immature) 25 year old girl!

--

That's a great comparison! What is SOMEWHAT disturbing on the Licorice Pizza front was "front and center" in 1971/1972.

PTA knows what he is doing with his couple, btw. The age factor gives the movie an "insurmountable love obstacle" and asks US to consider: is this OK, after all? (I say yes, he's old, she's young, teenage years have been infantalized in America.)

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

It takes more than one viewing to "learn" a film, and I must say that I see the relationship as less chaste than I thought. Gary WANTS to get something going with Alana. The dialogue in the car about seeing her "boobs"(always the comedy word for them).

Gary is mad that Alana said she would do nude scenes as an actress:

Alana: I WOULD do nudity...actresses do nudity all the time.
Gary: There's too much nudity in pictures, today (really, Gary?) Anyway, why would you show the world your boobs but you won't show them to me?
Alana: Why don't you ask a girl your OWN age to show her your boobs?
Gary: I want to see YOUR boobs!

Aha. So Gary doesn't just want Alana as a "friend." Or even for platonic love, only. Hormones are there. (UPDATE: in the same scene above, Gary complains to Alana that "you won't let me make out with you.") I suppose maybe he DID ask that other girl for hand work. But he's still likeable and honorable (he does NOT touch Alana's boobs or other areas when she sleeps next to him in exhaustion.). And Alana DOES show him her boobs(but not US, PTA is honorable, too.) And then she slaps him when he asks to touch them. And then she leaves, saying "I'll see you tomorrow." She will STILL be his "friend" and business partner. A charming script, I say.

Anyway, a sweet innocent love story ...from the man who gave you "Boogie Nights." Ha.

---

Film overall seems important, culturally central, and on *fire* in 1972 in a way that's almost inconceivable now.

--

There are all sorts of reasons for this that historians will study. The centrality of the American studio film to the 20th Century is probably key. Since them, worldwide markets rather flattened everything out for "world tastes" and rather eliminated the idea (in America) OF the foreign film.

And streaming still isn't quite giving us the best films is it -- CODA?

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

Well, in recent years I've realized that female actresses may just not be so WILLING anymore to "take it all off" and fake even loving consensual sex

I tend to think that there's still plenty of nudity of the sort you are talking about around in movies and prestige TV (Normal People, a mini-series I've often recommended, is a great example, and also think of everyone from Margot Robbie to Alexandra Daddario to Julia Garner), but I suspect that there is an additional level of bravery/extrovertedness required for women to do it now compared to, say, in the '70s. Now, every frame of nudity on film gets extracted and packaged up for later consumption on the internet, whereas for the most part back in the '70s those same frames stayed within the film.

Jenny Agutter has talked about this at length. She did a lot of quite daring nudity as a young woman and says that she was comfortable with that: that anyone who wanted to see her nude was going to have to sit through her whole movies and appreciate that nudity as part of the life of whatever character she was playing. *Now* Agutter feels like that original deal she had with viewers has been shattered (and started shattering ever since home video) and she's genuinely frustrated and depressed that every frame of nudity she ever did is now accessible (completely out of context) within seconds on the web. There almost certainly *is* a tier of somewhat reserved, Agutter-like actresses, who turn down nude scenes now because of what having nudes out in the world means today.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Jenny Agutter has talked about this at length. She did a lot of quite daring nudity as a young woman and says that she was comfortable with that: that anyone who wanted to see her nude was going to have to sit through her whole movies and appreciate that nudity as part of the life of whatever character she was playing.

--

A good position..."to see me nude, you must pay to see my entire movie, and you must experience it."

I remember some of those scenes. She had a great girl-next-door beauty and a British accent, yes? So when the clothes came off...smitten. (I'll name one: American Werewolf in London, where her nudity comes with love for the tragic hero.)

--

*Now* Agutter feels like that original deal she had with viewers has been shattered (and started shattering ever since home video)

---

Yes, home video was when the trouble arose. Though some of those videos ended up with things blurred if the actresses wanted it that way.

---

and she's genuinely frustrated and depressed that every frame of nudity she ever did is now accessible (completely out of context) within seconds on the web. There almost certainly *is* a tier of somewhat reserved, Agutter-like actresses, who turn down nude scenes now because of what having nudes out in the world means today.

--

Yep, they're gone. Those who remain "know the deal." Their nudity will be there for all to see and "use." Oh well. Its up to them.

I would like to add: Once nudity hit the movies big in the 70's, Playboy magazine had an annual "Sex in the Cinema" article in which freeze frames were often lifted DIRECTLY from the prints of movies like The Last Picture Show and Carnal Knowledge. I don't know if they had the rights or not but, bottom line -- even BEFORE VHS, women who did nude scenes might find them being published as photos. In Playboy.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

And of course: male nudity seems to be a ho hum deal these days. Fit actors show it off and nobody is talking "exploitation." Sometimes they do the nudity for comedy effect -- Will Farrell's career seemed BASED on showing off his lumpy big body nude or near nude.

Among the men do go nude, the only real issue is "full frontal." How funny that seems to be that it IS an issue. Feels puritanical that it is.

--

On topic: Hitchcock, likely to sound "sexual and hip" told Truffaut that he wished he could have filmed the opening scene of Psycho with Janet Leigh's bare breasts rubbing on John Gavin's bare chest. It was a nice erotic musing (to read) on something that could not have happened in Hays Code Hollywood(and would Janet Leigh have agreed if allowed?)

Well, fast forward to the R-rated 1998 Gus Van Sant version of Psycho. Opening hotel scene. Anne Heche and Viggo Mortenson. Here's our chance!

And: Anne(Marion) keeps her bra on, no breasts against chest; Viggo(Sam) is shown naked from behind. Tricked us!

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

Viggo(Sam) is shown naked from behind.

Of course, Viggo Mortensen had a fully nude fight-to-the-death scene in a bathhouse in Eastern Promises (2007). It's a terrifying scene rather than an erotic one but I don't doubt that it'll have been frame-grabbed to death somewhere on the web. In History of Violence (2005) he also did a pretty hot sex scene on the stairs with his character's wife (Maria Bello) dressed up as a cheerleader. I don't actually recall much about what body parts or whose were shown in that scene, just that the whole effect *was* convincingly mildly kinky and steamy. Anyhow, I strongly suspect that ladies appreciated that serious actor Viggo did these roles, did share his body with the audience on (at least) these occasions, just the way top, serious actresses are often expected to do.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Of course, Viggo Mortensen had a fully nude fight-to-the-death scene in a bathhouse in Eastern Promises (2007).

--

Hoo boy...talk about the spawn of the shower scene. Everything that was stylized and kept largely below the frame line in Psycho(including both Marion's nudity and the knife blows and blood)....is up close and personal 47 years later. "Mainstream" violence had gone pretty far, pretty real, pretty gross.

As the strong, muscular and totally nude Viggo fights off two murderous Russian assassins who have particularly vicious bladed knives(the blades CURVE), castration is always a risk and a few knife slashes connect with other less dangerous parts of the body, drawing blood, and we SEE it happen.

Eek. And yet, I managed to watch the whole thing, exciting as the fight was.

Moreover -- and I kinda/sorta closed my eyes -- how Viggo kills each of his opponents is real and desperate and gory. (This is, you might say, Torn Curtain's murder scene gone worse.)

GROSS SPOILER: I have to share this one. A knife blade goes through our old queasy friend -- the eyeball -- and into the assassin's brain, but it is HOW Viggo pulls it off that is brilliantly sickening. Viggo places the knife sticking straight up on the bath house floor -- blade straight up -- and proceeds to push the villain's head DOWN until the knife enters the eye.

Impressive.

---

It's a terrifying scene rather than an erotic one but I don't doubt that it'll have been frame-grabbed to death somewhere on the web.

--

Well, Viggo's naughty bits are flying in all directions trying to dodge those blades. I'm sure that straight women and gay men...enjoyed.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

In History of Violence (2005) he also did a pretty hot sex scene on the stairs with his character's wife (Maria Bello) dressed up as a cheerleader.

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Ah, yes, A History of Violence. I love THAT one. You know, both A History of Violence and Eastern Promises were directed by David Cronenberg, who had a 70s/80s/90s reputation for very abstract SciFi/fantasyish films of body function horror Videodrome comes to mind. He went "mainstream" sorta with the remake of The Fly but it was plenty gross enough. And poignant. Almost a tearjerker at the end.

A decade or two later, "A History of Violence" was such a "straight" thriller that you could picture Don Siegel making it. There's a little of HItchocck and a LOT of Mad Men(Dick Whitman/Don Draper) in how after small town diner owner Viggo kills two EXTRMELY vile invaders of his diner(with intent to rape and torture en route to killing)...."old friends" come out of the woodwork who insist he's really a gangster hiding out with a new identity.

Ed Harris as one of those guys is very good (his eye area slashed and scarred and we figure Viggo did it) and William Hurt(at the very end) is GREAT -- he got an Oscar nomination as Viggo's brother, who utters the charming words "I should have strangled you in the crib."

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

--I don't actually recall much about what body parts or whose were shown in that scene, just that the whole effect *was* convincingly mildly kinky and steamy.

--

I seem to recall TWO sex scenes. One in which Maria Bello (in her cheerleader outfit) has sex with the "mild mannered husband" she THOUGHT she married, and a later one with the mob brute she really has in her bed(though he's "reformed.")

Maria Bello simply has one of the sexiest faces in movies(still, now) and when she put her body AND that face into sex scenes -- which she graciously performed in a few movies(see: The Cooler, with William Macy)...very nice.
But indeed Viggo held up his end, so to speak.

---

Anyhow, I strongly suspect that ladies appreciated that serious actor Viggo did these roles, did share his body with the audience on (at least) these occasions, just the way top, serious actresses are often expected to do.

---

From my informal viewing these days, it seems like the men are a LOT more willing to go nude than the women. Its payback time of sorts, but with an edge: men just aren't giving up the same mystery as women, it seems. Of course, I'm a guy, what do I know. I do remember parental female friends going gaga over Burt Reynolds Cosmo centerfold(not ENTIRELY nude) back in that seminal year of 1972.

I suppose if there is a moral to this story, it is that it can still be a legimtate use of "the movies" to arouse the audience in a "tasteful, loving and consensual manner," and we still seem to have a few actors and actresses willing to take it off and do it. After all, they work HARD for those toned bodies. Why not show them off?

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

PS. I mentioned William Hurt up top there, and of course he died a coupla weeks ago. He got a lot of tributes from fans -- most of whom seemed ready to slap down anyone who brought up his past with a few possible physically abusing relatonships with women. Oh, well. He said/she said. He's dead.

Hurt rather gave up on leading man stardom early in his career -- he turned down Elliott Ness in The Untouchables and the lead in Jurassic Park as I think I read (and, maybe he was in the running, but maybe not.)

He carried on as a character guy with a certain weakness and oiliness to his performances. His voice could be so whiny and mannered. He's quite the villain as an Irish mob boss in A History of Violence.

But I guess he saved himself with a recurring role in Marvel movies; I know he's in that endless curtain call at the end of Endgame.

Meanwhile, he's great and fit and sexy (and nude) in Body Heat with Kathleen Turner(also nude) and I think maybe his lead in Broadcast News showed him off best.

Also good in The Big Chill as what I took to be a live action rendition of "Zonker from Doonesbury."

RIP William Hurt.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

With The Godfather and Cabaret given 50 year anniversary bits at this year's 2022 Oscars, they will have a target rich year to salute next year at 50:

1973.

The Sting(Best Picture winner AND blockbuster, just like The Godfather, take THAT , CODA.) Alas, star Paul Newman and director George Roy Hill are dead, so they can't do a Coppola/Pacino/DeNiro on this one. Only Robert Redford is alive from the main cast -- I suppose he could come out, ala Liza Minnelli this year. Or Redford could come out with Streisand , his co-star in The Way We Were that year(it won music Oscars.) Believe me, The Way We Were was like Casablanca that year, the sad love story of the year, all the girls I knew were swooning over Redford in THAT one.

The Exorcist: Friedkin, Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair are still alive. Maybe.

American Graffiti: Lucas and...What a cast, and where they all went : Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams...

Anything else?

---

But 50 years wasn't the only marker. And here's a question about the 2022 Oscar show: it was 40 years for ET...and Spielberg was RIGHT THERE. No, we ended up with Pulp Fiction at...28? And Juno at...15?

So who knows what the 2023 Oscars will bring.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

Anything else?

Well, if people being alive is the main criterion, then a The Last Detail clips package could bring in Nicholson and Randy Quaid to present something; Hackman and Pacino ditto for Scarecrow; Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek ditto for Badlands; De Niro and Keitel and Scorsese for Mean Streets; or for real hipster coolness get Del Toro and Tarantino to joint introduce a clips package for both Spirit of the Beehive and Lady Snowblood and bring out Ana Torrent and Meiko Kaji (alternatively, widen scope to Coffy (1973) and bring out Pam Grier as well).

The Oscars seems to fear being tainted by history stuff, as if it might itself look like part of history rather than a part of Media Now. 2022 marked a hundred years of Nosferatu (1922) but the Oscar didn't want to touch that, and 2023 will be 100 years of Harold Lloyd's signature Safety Last! (1923) with some of the most famous images in cinema history. And, coming up fast, 2027 is 100 years of the first genuinely great year in movie history (Sunrise, Wings, The General, Metropolis, Napoleon, It, Berlin-Symphony of A Great City - not to mention 50 years of Star Wars!), and 1928 is 100 years of The Oscar itself (and of the second great year in movie history: Passion of Joan of Arc, The Crowd, Steamboat Bill Jr, etc.).

There's *bound* to be a lot of history in the rest of the decade's Oscars and the sooner they get someone who *really* cares about that stuff to organize creative, graceful celebrations of everything that's coming, the better The Oscars will be. Sadly, more hot garbage like this year's event is much more likely.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

Here's a selection of images of Ana Torrent from Spirit of the Beehive:
https://tinyurl.com/2p9xfvvt
Ditto for Meiko Kaji in Lady Snowblood:
https://tinyurl.com/2p8282fz or in .gifs https://gfycat.com/gifs/search/lady+snowblood

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Anything else?
Well, if people being alive is the main criterion, then a The Last Detail clips package could bring in Nicholson and Randy Quaid to present something;

----

Alas...isn't Quaid kind of a nutcase fugitive from justice these days? And internet rumors are that Jack in his 80's isn't nearly as fit or lucid as Clint in his 90's. Still...I'd love to see it.

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Hackman and Pacino ditto for Scarecrow;

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Yet another great 1973 movie -- forgot all about it. The stars o The French Connection and The Godfather paired in a truly shaggy 70's type film. Pacino is ambulatory...the reclusive 90 something Hackman, not necessarily.

--

Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek ditto for Badlands;

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Hell. ANOTHER great 1973 movie. I've never felt that Martin Sheen "took hold" as a real star -- he's not much trying to hold Apocalypse Now together (after McQueen, Eastwood and Pacino turned it down and a young Harvey Keitel was fired.) How quickly the "young" Martin Sheen seemed suddenly "old" as his young sons took the stage. Thank God for The West Wing(for Sheen.)

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De Niro and Keitel and Scorsese for Mean Streets;

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Sure why not. DeNiro certainly connects to a lot of 70's greatness , doesn't he? They could do Taxi Driver a few years from now, Raging Bull a few years after that (but he'll be OLD.)

--

or for real hipster coolness get Del Toro and Tarantino to joint introduce a clips package for both Spirit of the Beehive and Lady Snowblood and bring out Ana Torrent and Meiko Kaji (alternatively, widen scope to Coffy (1973) and bring out Pam Grier as well).

--

Now, THAT's creative and would take up so much "Hollywood in depth historical hipness" that I'm not sure the Academy could handle it!

Well, you've given them a great list of possibles. Perhaps going forward, these "anniversary salutes" will give the Oscar show a semblance of integrity, again.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

The Oscars seems to fear being tainted by history stuff, as if it might itself look like part of history rather than a part of Media Now.

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Ha. Well, this year's opened (after Serena and Venus took the stage) with Beyonce doing a dance number of such pre-taped professionalism that it might as well have been the Grammy's or a "variety show." It didn't FEEL like the Oscars. (And on that "hot topic" -- this entire opening was meant to point the entire show TOWARDS Will Smith. Oops.)

--

2022 marked a hundred years of Nosferatu (1922) but the Oscar didn't want to touch that, and 2023 will be 100 years of Harold Lloyd's signature Safety Last! (1923) with some of the most famous images in cinema history.

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I'm thinking: if the Oscar broadcast isn't the place to do these things, maybe the American Film Institute can contract for some new special programming. I think their annual "Life Achievement Award" special is defunct. (They've run out of lives of achievement.) And there "100 Years of" specials on movie history at the end of the 90s and beginning of the 00s seem to be "a last stand." Movies are so 20th Century. (Hey, Psycho as the Number One Thriller of all time; I'll take that, and leave it be.)

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

There's *bound* to be a lot of history in the rest of the decade's Oscars and the sooner they get someone who *really* cares about that stuff to organize creative, graceful celebrations of everything that's coming, the better The Oscars will be.

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Well, again...maybe the American Film Institute could be contracted to do such homages in separate shows. Or the Academy itself could -- in separate shows. Thus, leaving the Oscar ceremony itself as "contemporary and boring."

---

Sadly, more hot garbage like this year's event is much more likely.

--

Ouch. Hot garbage. Ha. Back in 2017(?) when Beatty and Dunaway were handed the wrong winner card for Best Picture, I was rather shocked to read about how "amateur" the quality control was to hand the right card out(the man with the card had to follow what a woman with the OTHER card was doing, it all depended on his memory to hand out the right card.)

This time, I was shocked at how they left Liza Minnelli high and dry with no "pre-recorded" voice work(by Minneili) to read off the nominees. So she just smiled and laughed and sputtrered and stared into space. It was as if the show has gone back to 1957 production values and "amateur night" production staff.

I'm starting to think that the current Oscar show is some sort of "loss leader" payoff by the really rich makers of Hollywood product(Marvel, DC, the comedy makers; James Cameron) to let all the indie folk have a night to play with while the others go make money making...not much of anything of lasting value.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

Alas...isn't Quaid kind of a nutcase fugitive from justice these days? And internet rumors are that Jack in his 80's isn't nearly as fit or lucid as Clint in his 90's.

OK, I say *lean into* all this: After the clips let Jack and Quaid co-present from their respective video bubbles. Introduce Quaid as Oscar Nominee and Fugitive from Justice in Canada (have possibly nuts Quaid whoop and do Independence Day Schtick, 'Hello Boys!')), and have clearly infirm Jack in his dressing gown nonetheless lead with some schtick about how the bleeping shore patrol's gonna get ya sooner or later Randy, then go with some Mars Attacks schtick: 'Neither Hal Ashby nor Robert Towne nor Otis Young can be here with Randy and Me tonight but you know what they say, 'Two outta three of a film's crop of nominees ain't that bad''(Jack laugh). I say people would lose their minds over something like this.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Ha!

I reminded, by the way, that all this gossip about Randy and Jack is SOMEWHAT based in reality...but we don't really know. If they "appeared" in public , it would dash the gossip.

I think with Jack, its simple: he's very overweight now. But so was Brando at the end, and that didn't stop him from making some damn amusing public appearances(on Larry King, for one.) The rougher rumor is that Jack is having mental issues...perhaps ala Bruce Willis ("proven.") Which would be sad, and if so, thenJack shouldn't appear.

I would love to see some sort of "pre-taped roundelay" of ALL of your scenarios. Let Gene Hackman be seen in his 90s, from his living room(we've seen Clint at 91). Allow Randy Quaid to "go nuts." Show just how FAR back Scorsese and DeNiro go.

And I'm tellin' you, 1973 looks more and more like some sort of glory year at the movies. Its closing in on 1939!

PS. I think Joe Don Baker is the sole survivor of my 1973 fave Charley Varrick. Can't see a place for that one. No, wait, the killer from Dirty Harry is still alive -- and he was in Varrick for the same director. There you go! We got two actors still breathing.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

And I'm tellin' you, 1973 looks more and more like some sort of glory year at the movies.

It really was. So many great agenda-setting films with very particular moods on which people would later base their whole film careers. (No Spirit of the Beehive no Pan's Labyrinth or Devil's Backbone; no Lady Snowblood no Kill Bill. No Exorcist no 30% of subsequent horrors. It's that simple.) And think of the deep influence that films *we haven't even mentioned so far* like The Long Goodbye, Don't Look Now, Wicker Man, Emperor of the North, Friends of Eddie Coyle, Last of Sheila, Soylent Green, Sisters have had. Even relatively prestigey and artsy stuff from 1973 like Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage and Fellini's Amarcord and Truffaut's Day for Night, and Ferreri's La Grande Bouffe, and O Lucky Man! were, surprise surprise, riotously entertaining and indelible - once seen, never forgotten.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

Note that the horror sub-genre that The Wicker Man founds/solidified currently receives maximal attention in a new three hour documentary, Woodlands Dark And Days Bewitched - A History Of Folk Horror (2021). It's getting very good reviews. What shadows the films of 1973 cast.

Update: Have watched Woodlands Dark&...(2021). Its first hour or so is interesting and fun. After that it broadens out and dilutes its key theses to include any horror with any unearthing of things in the past, so all hauntings and ghosts and all witchery regardless of setting (so, e.g., Candyman is closely considered), and then to include essentially all (semi-)horrors set outside cities period (e.g., Deliverance, Texas Chainsaw, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Wake in Fright are all discussed). This stretched the term 'folk-horror' beyond usefulness I felt.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

And think of the deep influence that films *we haven't even mentioned so far* like The Long Goodbye, Don't Look Now, Wicker Man, Emperor of the North, Friends of Eddie Coyle, Last of Sheila, Soylent Green, Sisters have had.

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Holy Tomoly! All of those, too!

The influence of The Long Goodbye stretches pretty directly to The Big Lebowski and then on to Inherent Vice. By the time we get to Vice, it is carrying echoes of BOTH The Long Goodbye AND Lebowski.

Don't Look Now has one of those consensual erotic sex scenes that used to be so special -- Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. And a truly scary final shot that echoes Psycho in yet a new way: what if Mrs. Bates was a little girl who turned out to be an ugly male dwarf with a knife? Its a spoiler, but hey, it SCARED me.

Friends of Eddie Coyle: from some great crime novelist who had ANOTHER of his books adapted way out in 2013 -- "Killing Them Softly" with Brad Pitt as a soft spoken but merciless hit man.

I can't say that Emperor of the North was terribly influential. Rather it showed us that in 1973 a movie could get greenlit about two middle-aged men fighting to the (near) death on a speeding train. (Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine.) I think the director being Robert Aldrich got the movie financed. Funny memory: I saw that movie with a group of guys and then we all went to Marie Callendar's for coffee and pie. Tough guys, or what.

The Last of Shiela is that glorious Hollywood whodunit penned by Norman Bates(er, Anthony Perkins) and Stephen Sondheim. Its poster for this movie appears at the movie theater at the end of "Licorice Pizza" -- with "Live and Let Die" on the 1973 marquee. So Norman Bates is IN Licorice Pizza. 6 degrees.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Update: Have watched Woodlands Dark&...(2021). Its first hour or so is interesting and fun. After that it broadens out and dilutes its key theses to include any horror with any unearthing of things in the past, so all hauntings and ghosts and all witchery regardless of setting (so, e.g., Candyman is closely considered), and then to include essentially all (semi-)horrors set outside cities period (e.g., Deliverance, Texas Chainsaw, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Wake in Fright are all discussed). This stretched the term 'folk-horror' beyond usefulness I felt.

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I will check it out, I think, but it shows that trying to capture a "theme" in a clilps documentary can't get out of hand, you can lose focus.

Which reminds me: Friday the 13th rather inaugurated the "isolated summer camp in the woods" as an arena for slasher murders and inability to escape. And I have been to some summer camp cabins without many people there and they ARE creepy -- especially empty, mildewed shower rooms.

Consequently, is not Psycho itself part of this tradition? Though Hitchcock gave us no real "coverage" of the backwater area where the Bates Motel is located(cuz it was on the Universal backlot), the motel is famously "out in the middle of nowhere" in a rural area of Northern California. And the famous Victorian house(which SHOULD be in a city) is up on a bushy rural hillside.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

A new, stray thought on the Oscars.

I've noted that, back in the 90s and 00's, some really great scripts won the screenplay Oscar(adapted or original), even if the movie in question did not win Best Picture:

Pulp Fiction
Fargo
LA Confidential
Sideways

..and three of those are, arguably, thrillers.

In the past three years, I've seen two of my favorite scripts NOT win the Oscar:

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Licorice Pizza

Hollywood lost to Parasite and LP lost to Belfast and I'm wondering:

Evidently "new rules" at the Oscars have allowed many more voters in from "all over the world."

Is it possible that we are about to lose the specificity of American screenplays winning the Oscar? After all these are scripts with a particularly American sensibility and lingo.

Possibly not. CODA won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar this year, and I believe it is an American film.

But with this "internationalization" of the Oscars, I wonder if Pulp Fiction, Fargo, LA Confidential and Sideways would quite have the edge anymore.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

Is it possible that we are about to lose the specificity of American screenplays winning the Oscar? ...Possibly not. CODA won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar this year

Actually I think Coda fits your pattern: It beat out Power of the Dog, which in many ways is a classic western/hard-boiled/thriller (based on a US novel from the '50s I believe) a la True Grit, No Country, LA Conf., etc., whereas Coda remade a French film (which had mostly non-deaf actors playing the deaf characters as opposed to the remake's purism on that point) and seemed to speak a universal language of gloopy, disease of the week, TV-movie sentimentalism.

The Oscars ths year just went out of its way to reward stuff with no edge whatsoever. Remember that while the members of the separate guilds select the nominees, the whole Academy votes for the winners, so the skewing of the writing awards away from any edge at all (very unlike the recent wins for Promising Young Woman and Parasite for example) was a real sign of the controlling mood of the (actor-dominated) Academy I think. Too bad for PTA.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Actually I think Coda fits your pattern: It beat out Power of the Dog, which in many ways is a classic western/hard-boiled/thriller (based on a US novel from the '50s I believe) a la True Grit, No Country, LA Conf., etc., whereas Coda remade a French film (which had mostly non-deaf actors playing the deaf characters as opposed to the remake's purism on that point) and seemed to speak a universal language of gloopy, disease of the week, TV-movie sentimentalism.

---

Hmm. I can see that issue. Look, as we've discussed and the world knows, the Oscar voters do tend to favor "affliction" movies(I'm not sure that word with it negative connotation should be used, but it fits) -- and here it was deafness. Though the issue as you've framed it is that this is a MEDIOCRE movie about deafness.

When they're not going for affliction, they are going for biopic performances. So it was this year -- Will Smith for the Williams sister's dad, and Jessica Chastain(under a ton of prosthetics, almost a mask) as Tammy Faye Baker.

I suppose that the very American characters of Richard Williams and Tammy Faye go against my theory on the "internationalization" of the Oscars, but I seem to be talking Picture/Screenplay, where there there is perhaps a voting outcome(these days) to go with the non-American film.

As I recall, Parasite won BOTH Best Picture AND Best International Picture, and it just seemed like overkill to me. Which one was it?

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I will note that, in the pre-COVID year of 2019, I saw Parasite at a local art house which was actually an old Palace theater with a lot of capacity -- and it was full house. Its like all the intelligentsia in town read the reviews and turned up. I did NOT sense that Parasite was " a movie that nobody sees." At least not in MY town.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

That said, I wondered this about its Best Original Screenplay win: it was for the PLOT and the THEMES, yes? Because the DIALOGUE, subtitled and very simple(I guess subtitles are written "simple") simply didn't compare -- in my mind -- to the snappy patter and sheer entertainment value of what QT wrote for "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood."

These "basic subtitle" types of dialogue deprive the American viewer of the kind of carefully crafted, witty dialogue we'd been getting from Ben Hecht(Notorious) to Joseph L. Manckewicz(All About Eve) to Billy Wilder(The Apartment) to William Goldman(Butch Cassidy) to (big giant leap), the Coens and Aaron Sorkin and QT.

We shall see. The only way my theory will pan out is if "international films" keep winning Oscars over American scripts and dialogue.

Irony about Power of the Dog: an American neo-Western story it may be, but it was made in New Zealand, no? Financed there? Its a twist on my theory -- a "foreign film of an American story" lost.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

(Cont) Ultimately I think Parasite was very well-served by its subtitlers and by translators thoughout its Oscar push. Director Bong has passable English skills but he had a brilliant (and v. attractive) translator stapled to his side throughout the Oscar season ensuring maximal inteligibillity.

Look, there are real issues for some sorts of dialogue-heavy films in the international market place. For example Spanish-speakers revere the director Luic Garcia Berlanga - he's co-patriarch of Spanish film along with Bunuel. But Berlanga's almost unknown in the English-speaking world compared to Bunuel. Here's Almodovar talking about why that is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8a8xvPo-3M
I've watched some Berlanga films with subs and they strike me as... only OK, but it's clear that its my fault. The subs are missing lots of the jokes, and a joke you have to explain isn't a joke any more.

In some ways it really helps a director internationally if he or she is an intense visual stylist like Bunuel or Hitchcock. Directors like Preston Sturges and Berlanga who focus on hyperverbal comedy *do* risk not translating and being only of regional significance. I had a cinema-buff Brazilian friend at one time whose English was much better than most native speakers but Scorsese's Mean Streets completely flummoxed him with its constantly overlapping dialogue and thick NY accents. Monty Python, however, never caused him any problems. It's weird.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

(cont). Note that, not coincidentally, both Bunuel and Hitchcock were from the film generation that first directed in the silent era. They were both deeply exposed to that original silent vision of film as a universal art form unrestricted by national or linguistic boundaries. They both transitioned triumphantly to sound becoming masters of dialogue and naturalistic acting but something of the original ambition to craft imagery that was strong enough to tell a story across all languages and maybe in a universal dream-language survives in them both. It was Hecht and MacArthur's super-successful Broadway play, The Front Page (1928) that was later widely, explicitly adopted in Hollywood as *the* model for good, pacey, non-clumsy dialogue in film that changed everything for later directors. That Broadway-apeing side of film with sync sound *does* correspond to a more regional, less universal vision of the film medium than silent film afforded.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

That said, I wondered this about its Best Original Screenplay win..Because the DIALOGUE, subtitled and very simple(I guess subtitles are written "simple") simply didn't compare -- in my mind -- to the snappy patter and sheer entertainment value of what QT wrote for "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood."

These "basic subtitle" types of dialogue deprive the American viewer of the kind of carefully crafted, witty dialogue we'd been getting from Ben Hecht [et al.].

I'll have to think about that. My memory of Parasite is that it was incredibly funny and had very alive, very detailed situational dialogue throughout. Think of how the movie opens with all four main characters frantically trying to steal wifi from their neighbors. That segues into discussions of their pizza box-folding jobs and how hard it is to do that well etc.. which in turns shades into discussion of bugs and letting fumigation of the street into their apartment to deal with them. The paciness and freshness of the dialogue in those early scenes build on franticness in the poor family's basic situation. It sets the tone for the whole film, and really built a bridge to audiences worldwide I think. It may not be quite QT's garrulous, arch-baroqueness (which often just conveys QT's amusement with himself and his ideas of coolness I find) but it's very shaded and precise and great really, e.g., near the end:

'Look around here. You think all these people planned in droves, "Let's spend the night in a gym"? But, look now. Everyone's sleeping on the gym floor, us included. That's why people shouldn't have plans. With no plan, nothing can go wrong. If you start out without a plan, even if something spins out of control, it doesn't matter. Whether you kill someone or betray your country. None of it fucking matters. Got it?'

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

These "basic subtitle" types of dialogue deprive the American viewer of the kind of carefully crafted, witty dialogue we'd been getting from Ben Hecht [et al.].

---I'll have to think about that. My memory of Parasite is that it was incredibly funny and had very alive, very detailed situational dialogue throughout. Think of how the movie opens with all four main characters frantically trying to steal wifi from their neighbors. That segues into discussions of their pizza box-folding jobs and how hard it is to do that well etc.. which in turns shades into discussion of bugs and letting fumigation of the street into their apartment to deal with them.

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Well, there's nothing like "proof from the movie itself" to change a mind like mine, and all of that information taht is imparted in those first minutes is pretty damn creatives(as PLOT and meaning) without necessarily needing to be wittily dialogued.

There was also the essential strangeness of the apartment itself -- which, as I recall, had the toilet openly in view and ABOVE the rest of the room. I might be misrembering. The literal "lowliness" of these basement-dwelling family members set the pace for the rest of the film with the "rich" family.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

The paciness and freshness of the dialogue in those early scenes build on franticness in the poor family's basic situation. It sets the tone for the whole film, and really built a bridge to audiences worldwide I think.

--

Probably so. The movie set up a thought process in me that I wasn't sure was a "good" one: should wealthy people pay poor people wor work for them at ALL? The situation seems to create built-in resentment for the poor people(who, as I recall, cheated some OTHER poor people to get their jobs). And yet, I know a few people in real life who have what seem to be quite connected "hired help" on the premises. I don't have to worry about such things -- can't hire ANYBODY.

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It may not be quite QT's garrulous, arch-baroqueness (which often just conveys QT's amusement with himself and his ideas of coolness I find)

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QT's one of those "live by the sword, die by the sword" kind of artists who "made his name" with his curlicuing dialogue and its pop culture referents(like Get Christie Love) and seems to eventually drawn fans-turned-haters who "saw through him" and begrudged him his success.

Not me. I still like his writing of dialogue and I still enjoy catching one of his movies to hear the newest batch(evidently not much more will be coming; I'll have to re-watch and listening to his canon to date.)

He's won the Best Original Screenplay award twice -- Pulp Fiction (a "given") and Django Unchained(a bit of a surprise, coming when he seemed to be "losing steam" but then Chris Waltz won the Supporting Oscar -- AGAIN -- for a QT movie AGAIN.

All of QT's scripts have been originals except Jackie Brown, and I"d give that Oscar to Jackie Brown except the one that DID win that year -- LA Confidential -- was just a bit better. What a great movie year.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I enjoy all of QT's scripts, but I don't find the scripts for KIll Bill(either part) or Death Trap particularly awards-worthy. Reservoir Dogs put him on the map. That's a YES for Oscar . but the script is way too politically incorrect for today...and probably back then.

I think Inglorious Basterds alternates good, well-written scenes, with overlong not so good but still well-written scenes(dialogue only.)

And I could see awarding the Hateful Eight script. Its long and at times its gross, but its got a nifty historical bent and some not-bad mystery plotting.

As I recall, I thought that OATIH had a chance to FINALLY win QT some Oscars like Scorsese had to wait for, but no. Brad Pitt only(and deservedly.)

QT's gonna have to wait and see if his famous "final movie" has the goods for Oscar.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

(The Parasite script) is very shaded and precise and great really, e.g., near the end:

'Look around here. You think all these people planned in droves, "Let's spend the night in a gym"? But, look now. Everyone's sleeping on the gym floor, us included. That's why people shouldn't have plans. With no plan, nothing can go wrong. If you start out without a plan, even if something spins out of control, it doesn't matter. Whether you kill someone or betray your country. None of it fucking matters. Got it?'

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Well, again, I do like to see and read(and HEAR in my mind's ear) good dialogue with meaning, and that's some right there. Good enough, I say.

And a bit remiscent of "Joker" Heath Ledger speech in the hospital room with "Two Face" in The Dark knight:

"Do I look like a guy with a PLAN?" The Joker then goes on to detail all the plans gone wrong of the police and the Mayor, etc.

---

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

As I recall, Parasite won BOTH Best Picture AND Best International Picture, and it just seemed like overkill to me. Which one was it?

Plenty of films, e.g., Z, Life is Beautiful, Crouching Tiger, Amour, and, v. recently, Roma) had won Best Foreign/Internat. Picture and also been nom'd for Best Picture, but Parasite finally *did* win the double, which triggered some winces.

The truth is that the Best International Film award is a strange fish with all sorts of rules that make it distinct from the other Oscars. There's a one-film-per-country restriction for example, and, coordinately, it's the *country* that wins the award *not* the film's director or producer. Italy won the awards for the four Fellini films that got the award, and Fellini's only actual Oscar is the Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award he was given back in the '90s. Also, Best International Film doesn't distinguish between live action fictions and docs and animated. Thus BIF and Best Picture don't really overlap at all. Note that no Best Animated Film that's also been nom'd for Best Picture has won yet. It'll happen eventually tho', and it'll be interesting to see whether that case of more genuine overlap triggers winces.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Also, Best International Film doesn't distinguish between live action fictions and docs and animated. Thus BIF and Best Picture don't really overlap at all. Note that no Best Animated Film that's also been nom'd for Best Picture has won yet. It'll happen eventually tho', and it'll be interesting to see whether that case of more genuine overlap triggers winces.

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Color me "wincing." It just seemed like "one would be enough" and perhaps to honor the history OF the Oscars, Parasite should have ONLY won Best Picture. No qualifications.

Interesting to me. I saw Parasite in the pre-COVID year of 2019(late) in an old Palace theater which had shown Elmer Gantry(but not Psycho) first run in 1960(I looked it up) and was now an "art house" of many years duration.

Anyway that Palace theater(actually about 2/3 of the original auditorium) was FULL HOUSE for Parasite and loving every minute of it.

I recall thinking (a) "My, we have some well read intelligentsia in this town and (b) movie theaters were NOT dead.

Of course, COVID messed with that experience going forward.

...and I'll always remember my brave foohardiness in a near empty theater watching "Unhinged." To think I might have died seeing THAT movie.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Also, Best International Film doesn't distinguish between live action fictions and docs and animated. Thus BIF and Best Picture don't really overlap at all. Note that no Best Animated Film that's also been nom'd for Best Picture has won yet. It'll happen eventually tho', and it'll be interesting to see whether that case of more genuine overlap triggers winces.

--

Color me "wincing." It just seemed like "one would be enough" and perhaps to honor the history OF the Oscars, Parasite should have ONLY won Best Picture. No qualifications.

Interesting to me. I saw Parasite in the pre-COVID year of 2019(late) in an old Palace theater which had shown Elmer Gantry(but not Psycho) first run in 1960(I looked it up) and was now an "art house" of many years duration.

Anyway that Palace theater(actually about 2/3 of the original auditorium) was FULL HOUSE for Parasite and loving every minute of it.

I recall thinking (a) "My, we have some well read intelligentsia in this town and (b) movie theaters were NOT dead.

Of course, COVID messed with that experience going forward.

...and I'll always remember my brave foohardiness in a near empty theater in the thick of COVID watching "Unhinged." To think I might have died seeing THAT movie.

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[–] DmitriKnipper (202) 3 years ago

That's a sound list, swanstep, except that neither Solaris nor Aguirre were released in the U.S. in '72 - I don't think Aguirre made it to these shores until 1977 - so sadly they wouldn't have been in the running. But something like The Poseidon Adventure might have made the list that year - maybe that was the "Dune" of '72 - a big, splashy (pun intended), adventure.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

@Dmitri. Wow, I just checked and you appear to be right about Aguirre: It won the National Film Critics awards in France in 1976 and in the US in 1977, so it really did have a very slow roll-out around the world outside Germany, even at film festivals. Solaris at least played the Chicago International Film Festival in 1972 (Ebert saw and reviewed it), but your point is taken that my original list of a modern-day Academy 10-strong Best Picture list for 1972 films was very idealized and did not allow for the very analogue, often quite eccentric and painstaking patterns of distribution of films at the time, especially for films outside the Hollywood studio system. You're right that *no* Academy member at the time would have been in a position to vote for either Aguirre or Solaris.

This reminds me that when I was growing up in New Zealand in the 1970s and 1980s I'm fairly sure that a lot of notorious/extreme arthouse films from the 1970s like La Grande Bouffe (1973) and In the Realm of the Senses (1976) only got their first screenings in NZ at film festivals many years after. I vaguely remember the controversies around their finally being able to be shown (they were given special censors' certificates allowing them just to be shown only *at* film festivals and those screenings were *packed*). Of course, pre-VCR, unless you lived in NY or LA or Paris (and a few other metropols) *everybody* had long lists of films they'd heard of/read about but never had any chance to see. Hell, films as central as Singing in The Rain and Rear Window and Citizen Kane and Sweet Smell of Success were *very* hard for a lot of people to see in the 1970s, and all the current foreign films you had no routine chance to see just got added to people's lists of 'someday, maybe at a Festival I'll see 'em'. The reality of that world of pre-VCR film scarcity is easily forgotten even by those of us who were there (at least as kids) and is almost unimaginable to Millennial film buffs.

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[–] DmitriKnipper (202) 3 years ago

True enough. "La Grande Bouffe" didn't show up in Seattle, my city, until 1979, for example.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 3 years ago

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[–] Just3Channels (185) 3 years ago

Not sure what this has to do with Psycho but I think you're overthinking it.
Everyone knows people sit through the boring first part just to see the awards they care about at the end.
It was too much boring build up for people, needs to be much shorter.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Not sure what this has to do with Psycho

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Well, this is an OT thread. There are references throughout to Psycho in any event. That movie connects to just about anything.

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but I think you're overthinking it.

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Oh, some of us do that around here. Its ..movie...chat. We don't mean any harm, its just talk.

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Everyone knows people sit through the boring first part just to see the awards they care about at the end.

--

The Academy tried to address that problem this year. They removed 8 of the awards in the "boring first part" and did them as quick pre-recorded bits. Not very fair to the winners but -- this is becoming more and more of a TV show that doensn't really CARE about the Oscars.

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It was too much boring build up for people, needs to be much shorter.

--

They tried for shorter this year, but it got out of control on them.

Maybe in the future...just two hours.

PS. This "Psycho" board could really use..more posts about Psycho. But not from me! Please join in.

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[–] Just3Channels (185) 3 years ago

Thanks for explaining.
And I loved Psycho.
I think there may be some difference of opinion on what the boring part of the Oscars is.
Everyone I know is pretty much there for picture, soundtrack, actors, supporting actors and that's it. Clearly the networks are well aware, that's why they are on last. Make you sit through as many commercials as they can milk.
But, we're sick of wasting a whole night on something we can watch in 10 minutes on youtube the next day.
Not saying it's good or bad but it is how it is.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

But, we're sick of wasting a whole night on something we can watch in 10 minutes on youtube the next day.
Not saying it's good or bad but it is how it is.

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Its funny you mention that because...I think it was around 1984 for the 1983 Oscars...

..I bought my first VCR and I had to be out at night a lot and so...

I taped the Oscars and watched them the next day(without reading the 'paper" for results) and I think I got 'em done in about a half hour -- fast forwarding to each award, stopping to watch the winner called, and often fast forwarding through the winner's speech(unless I found the winner really interesting -- Shirley MacLaine for Terms of Endearment in '83) for instance.

Even AFTER the years of watching taped replays in about a half hour, I started to go to parties where we watched the Oscars in real time and they played like they "should." ( recall watching the Silence of the Lambs and Titanic Oscar nights all the way through with friends. Hey, if we KNOW the movies...its more fun to watch.

Now...I'm fast forwarding like a mad man.

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