Recommendations for nominated films 1970-1990

1895-1999
Mister Tee
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Post by Mister Tee »

I'd assume nepotism was a subset of cronyism, so merely the name Stradling gave him a leg up.

Also, if you look back at the tech nominations over that decade (and the 60s before it), you'll see those big studio behemoths often got cited for cinematography and art direction no matter how bad the reviews were and how little support they got elsewhere.

By the way, Magilla, my recollection would be a bit different from yours. It was impression most of the critics despised 1776 (the movie; the play was obviously a critical sensation).
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Post by Big Magilla »

Interesting question.

I don't know the answer. Most of Stradling, Jr.'s films up to that point had been rather ordinary with the exception of Little Big Man. Maybe it was affection for his father who had died a few years before. Maybe it was word of mouth on his then shooting of The Way We Were or maybe it was the oddities of the the voting system that allows second, even third choice picks to get in ahead of more logical first place choices. The Godfather, Deliverance, Frenzy, The Emigrants are all examples of films whose non-nominated cinematography was more impressive.

Then gain, maybe they really liked his work. 1776 was mostly a one set film, but the camera movements within that one set were quite well done. You never got the feeling of it being little more than a filmed stage play, which it actually was. Compared to the deadly screen version of Man of La Mancha that same year it was a remarkable achievement though not as remarkable as the year's bit musical awards winner, Cabaret.

Why the cinematography accounted for its only nomination, I don't know either. The film was well received and could well have done better.
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Post by The Original BJ »

The cinematographers must have just really, REALLY wanted to stick it to Gordon Willis.
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Post by dws1982 »

So, Damien, Mister Tee, Big Magilla...would someone to care to explain the Cinematography nomination for 1776? I caught this on TCM last night, and while a nomination for Costumes or Art Direction would make sense given the historical setting, or Song Score Adaptation (or whatever they called it) would be understandable, since it was a musical and all, the Cinematography was completely dull and oridinary. I don't see how it could've been the cronyism that got nominations for A Star is Born and The Hindenburg a few years later, since this was Harry Stradling Jr., who wasn't very old and hadn't really been working very long. Left over love for his dad? Was it considered an impressively shot movie? Was the movie expected to do a lot better with the Oscar nominations?



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Post by dws1982 »

Mister Tee wrote:Street Smart, actually a fairly crappy movie, but worth seeing to know versatile Morgan Freeman can be -- this character is a world away from his usual persona.

Saw this last night. Freeman was excellent, and Kathy Baker, also far away from her now-established mother-earth persona, was excellent as well. Too bad that, despite some critics awards, she wasn't Oscar-nominated, while Anne Ramsey and Anne Archer were nominated for such negligible performances. The movie, as you said, isn't very good. The Reeve character is a slimy, amoral anti-hero whose dishonesty sets off a chain of events that makes him partially responsible for a few murders that were committed towards the end of the film. But Reeve, and the filmmakers, present him maybe not as a hero, but as some kind of a Greek Chorus who comments mournfully about the sorry state of the City. Not that I want a film to tell me what to think about the characters, but for one that is trying to be social commentary, it seems counterproductive to have its main social commentator be someone who contributed in some way to making the City more unsafe and unstable. Dumbest part of all, though, had to be when Reeve's girlfriend ex-girlfriend got stabbed--again, because of his actions--and all she could talk about at the hospital was how much she loved him and never wanted to be apart.




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Big Magilla
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Post by Big Magilla »

I met Liv Ullmann once. I think it was at the premiere of Kramer vs. Kramer. She seemed just as intense off screen as she did on. I was surprised to see her buying candy at the concession stand. She even did that with studied intensity. Maybe she hadn't had any dinner.

She was robbed, of course, for Scenes From a Marriage due to the silly rule about films shown on television in foreign lands in one year being ineligible from Oscars the next. Not only is the rule silly, it's arbitrary. The rule wasn't applied to Fanny & Alexander nine years later.

I don't know. Personally I thought Cries and Whispers was such an ensemble piece that singling her out for that over her co-stars was unfair. Of course they could have nominated her for The New Land but that was largely seen as the second half of The Emigrants for which she had been nominated the year before.

The only other performance of any note beyond the nominees in my estimation was Julie Christie in Don't Look Now but Christie didn't have all that many scenes.

A Touch of Class had no class but Jackson did so as I said I didn't mind the nomination, but the win was ridiculous. Save the Tiger, on the other hand, had no saving grace and Lemmon's win for that was probably the single worst lead actor Oscar ever given, on a par with Mary Pickford's win for Coquette and Elizabeth Taylor's win for BUtterfield 8.
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Post by Mister Tee »

For me, it wasn't so much a matter of hating Jackson as hating her film, and for more or less the same reason I'd hated Save the Tiger. The film pretended to be contemporary/with-it (check out those bell-bottoms!), but was conceived from a totally retro point of view -- they want to commit adultery but his back goes out; hilarious! I remember The Chicago Reader saying it was as if Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice had been made at Republic Pictures in 1942. For those of you who saw this later down the line, all that historic context was removed, so maybe it's possible to enjoy the film in a minor way. But, like Magilla, I was utterly outraged it turned up among the best picture and best screenplay nominees. And for the two films I'd dsiliked the most that whole year to yield the two top acting Oscars made it a deeply painful evening for me.

I wouldn't go to the wall for Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams either, which struck me vaguely dull at the time (haven't seen it since '74). But, even among the nominees, I'd grudgingly pick Marsha Mason (about the only time I halfway liked her) or Streisand in perhaps her most emblematic film role (oddly, she seemed excluded from consideration because she'd recently won, but Jackson was not -- admittedly, Jackson is a far better actress overall).

And, since we're discussing that best actress race, a mild mention of NBR/National Society winner Liv Ullmann, whose omission surprised me in such a lean year. Perhaps her votes were divided between Cries and Whispers (which had won her NYFC in '72) and The New Land. The books show Ullmann as a losing nominee in '72 and '76, but that doesn't begin to describe how she dominated the era among actresses: counting her Oscar-disqualified Scenes from a Marriage performance, she won NY in '72-4-6, NBR in '73-6, NSFC in '73-4 and the newly formed LAFC in '76. (There was a New Yorker cartoon: "I'm sick of hearing how perfect Liv Ullmann is") In case anyone's wondering why some of us predicted her, to no avail, over Hollywood favorite Dunaway in '76.

I've often wondered what would have happened had Face to Face been released in December '75 rather than April '76. Isabelle Adjani was unable to top really-supporting Louise Fletcher, but Ullmann, with all her accumulated points, might have managed the trick.
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Post by Big Magilla »

She was droll but that was about it. The wig she wore was particularly hideous. As I said, I can understand her nomination given the dearth of strong female leads that year, but I'll never understand how they could nominate the thing for best picture.

I recently re-watched Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams. It's dated a bit, but the performances of Woodward, Balsam and Sidney retain their interest.
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Post by flipp525 »

--Reza wrote:
--Penelope wrote:I actually don't remember much, aside from the fact that it was alternately boring and offensive and horribly filmed. Conversely, I still remember quite a bit of A Touch of Class, and really don't understand all the hate it gets. Not a great movie, but not worthy of such hate.

Yes the film doesn't really hold up anymore (although it is amusing in parts) but Jackson is superb and has great comic timing. I think the Academy (and everyone) was surprised how droll she could be coming off all those intense dramatic parts she had played both on the stage and on film prior to this film.

Just as the reverse proved for Jack Lemmon that same year.

I actually have to agree with this, Reza. Jackson exhibits a comic timing that is wholly divorced from all her previous outings and it makes for a memorable and fun two hours (alongside the equally adept George Segal). Even Paul Sorvino is a hoot. A forgotten and dated film, but definitely worth your time.




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Post by Reza »

--Penelope wrote:I actually don't remember much, aside from the fact that it was alternately boring and offensive and horribly filmed. Conversely, I still remember quite a bit of A Touch of Class, and really don't understand all the hate it gets. Not a great movie, but not worthy of such hate.

Yes the film doesn't really hold up anymore (although it is amusing in parts) but Jackson is superb and has great comic timing. I think the Academy (and everyone) was surprised how droll she could be coming off all those intense dramatic parts she had played both on the stage and on film prior to this film.

Just as the reverse proved for Jack Lemmon that same year.




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Post by Damien »

William Fraker -- actually a gifted cinematographer, although he had a soft spot for soft focus -- was the head of the cinematographers union in the 70s, which is why he was basically automatically nominated for a while there.
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Post by cam »

Has anyone mentioned the funniest film of the century? Blazing Saddles(1974)
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Post by Mister Tee »

--dws1982 wrote:
--Eric wrote:
--Mister Tee wrote:The branches back then were extremely crony-istic, on a level you can't imagine today -- every year some piece of crud was nominated because the DP was "in the club".

Absolutely. Looking back on it, the 1970s were awkwardly horrible when it came to best cinematography nominees. (How many did Owen Roizman rack up again? Three? Four?)

I submit 1976 as possibly their worst-ever lineup. Network, Logan's Run, A Star is Born, King Kong and the deserving winner, the only decent nominee, Bound For Glory.

I don't begrudge either of his two 1971 nominations--he definitely should've won, probably for The Last Picture Show--but Robert Surtees sure stunk up the joint through too much of the seventies, while his son was usually off doing much more impressive work.

Roizman's nominations could at least be rationalized by the historical connection of cinematography candidates to best picture nominees. Roizman became something of a go-to guy for major East Coast films, at least when Gordon Willis was unavailable, and apparently he didn't piss off the branch the way Willis did, so he got his nods.

Surtees was more the kind of guy I had in mind. Though I'm with dws he ought to have won for Last Picture Show -- and silly movie though it was, Summer of '42 looked pretty. But Same Time Next Year had no business in the category. Then there was William Fraker, nominated over and over for oddities like Looking for Mr. Goodbar, 1941 and WarGames, with Heaven Can Wait his only best picture contender.

Eric might chime in, as he did in '06, that it's refreshing to see cinematographers nominated on pure merit rather than their best picture heat, and I agree wholeheartedly. The problem in that era was the number of guys (all guys) who were cited when neither was the case. Flashdance, The Formula, The Black Hole, The Hindenburg, Butterflies are Free -- what the hell were they doing there? Crony love seems the only possible answer.




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Post by Penelope »

I actually don't remember much, aside from the fact that it was alternately boring and offensive and horribly filmed. Conversely, I still remember quite a bit of A Touch of Class, and really don't understand all the hate it gets. Not a great movie, but not worthy of such hate.
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Post by flipp525 »

Penelope wrote:I remember seeing Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams and A Touch of Class about the same time 20 years ago. I actively loathed Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams and actually enjoyed A Touch of Class. If I had to choose between only those two Lead Actresses, I'd simply have to go with Jackson.

Why, Penelope? Just curious. I think Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams definitely has its fair share of problems: the treatment of Rita's gay son is particularly horrid, unexplainable and sort of gross and, let's face it, Gil Cates is not the most imaginative director. However, I think the acting manages to make up for some of the more problematic areas of the film. Woodward, Sydney and Martin Balsam are all at the top of their game.

For what its worth, I built an entire lesson around this film for my Japanese students when I was teaching English in Tokyo right after college. I used the opening scene in which Rita imagines her airplane crashing as a way for my students to flex their descriptive skills and build their vocabulary of conjecture. Several of them asked me to lend them the film.




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