Best Picture and Director 1976
Re: Best Picture and Director 1976
voted for Network and Lumet
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Best Picture and Director 1976
For me, there were four films that had to be nominated for Best Picture of 1976 and Oscar miracle of miracles, all four were. Unfortunately all four lost to one of six films I considered to be on a par for the fifth slot
Rocky was a phenomenon in 1976, which isn't to say it was a great movie, but it was a crowd-pleaser whose popularity one can at least understand even if it wasn't to me any better than Marathon Man; Carrie; The Omen; Seven Beauties and Small Change and only marginally better than The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and The Shootist, but I was happy with the nomination if not the win.
To me, there was no better film that year than All the President's Men and I was quite pleased to see it win in the early critics' balloting. When it lost the L.A. Film critics Award to a tie between Network and Rocky, it began a mistrust of the L.A. Critics that I've never gotten over. My favorite genre had always been mystery and suspense and I was fascinated by the execution of All the President's Men, a film that covered a just lived-in era that I thought I knew well, but covered it such a fascinating way that the film kept its suspense all the way through. Martin Scorsese's haunting Taxi Driver; Sidney Lumet's cynical Network and Hal Ashby's beautifully wrought biography of Woody Guthrie, Bound for Glory were films I liked a lot, but I loved All the President's Men and found myself fascinated all over again every time I re-watched it.
The Academy got only got three out of five directorial nominees right as far as I'm concerned. Alan J. Pakula is easily my choice for Best Director for All the President's Men, but I was also quite happy to see Sidney Lumet nominated for Network and Lina Wertmuller become the first woman nominated for Seven Beauties. The other two slots, as far as I'm concerned, belonged to Martin Scorsese for Taxi Driver and Hal Ashby for Bound for Glory.
I didn't much care for Ingmar Bergman's Face to Face which works purely as acting exercise for Liv Ullmann in my book. John G. Avildsen's direction of Rocky is okay, but nothing special. It's Sylvester Stallone's script and his heartfelt performance as well as those of his co-stars that informs the film.
Rocky was a phenomenon in 1976, which isn't to say it was a great movie, but it was a crowd-pleaser whose popularity one can at least understand even if it wasn't to me any better than Marathon Man; Carrie; The Omen; Seven Beauties and Small Change and only marginally better than The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and The Shootist, but I was happy with the nomination if not the win.
To me, there was no better film that year than All the President's Men and I was quite pleased to see it win in the early critics' balloting. When it lost the L.A. Film critics Award to a tie between Network and Rocky, it began a mistrust of the L.A. Critics that I've never gotten over. My favorite genre had always been mystery and suspense and I was fascinated by the execution of All the President's Men, a film that covered a just lived-in era that I thought I knew well, but covered it such a fascinating way that the film kept its suspense all the way through. Martin Scorsese's haunting Taxi Driver; Sidney Lumet's cynical Network and Hal Ashby's beautifully wrought biography of Woody Guthrie, Bound for Glory were films I liked a lot, but I loved All the President's Men and found myself fascinated all over again every time I re-watched it.
The Academy got only got three out of five directorial nominees right as far as I'm concerned. Alan J. Pakula is easily my choice for Best Director for All the President's Men, but I was also quite happy to see Sidney Lumet nominated for Network and Lina Wertmuller become the first woman nominated for Seven Beauties. The other two slots, as far as I'm concerned, belonged to Martin Scorsese for Taxi Driver and Hal Ashby for Bound for Glory.
I didn't much care for Ingmar Bergman's Face to Face which works purely as acting exercise for Liv Ullmann in my book. John G. Avildsen's direction of Rocky is okay, but nothing special. It's Sylvester Stallone's script and his heartfelt performance as well as those of his co-stars that informs the film.