Sorry, Reza: I rank A Touch of Class pretty much alongside ABBA (you can read about that in the Mamma Mia thread). Unbelievably retro, though dressed up in trendy bell-bottoms.
The big Oscar contenders, The Sting and The Exorcist, didn't much interest me. The former struck me as purely commercial enterprise (an unofficial sequel to Butch Cassidy), and, though I'm rarely good at that sort of thing, I saw the big surprise ending coming from literally the moment the plot element was intrduced. The Exorcist at least had some power, but it was a truly ragged piece of work. It was famously rushed into release, and I thought the haste showed: story-lines were inexplicably dropped or truncated, and the (gag) Oscar-winning script was dangerously thin. But the final exorcism sequence certainly "played". I enjoyed the movie, but thought it too silly for best picture consideration
I haven't seen Cries and Whispers since Christmas '72. I admired it at the time, but I'm not sure if my youngish self wasn't just proud of having understood a Bergman film. Thinking back on it, it doesn't seem particularly profound.
So, American Graffiti is an easy pick for me. Whatever drivel its creators have foisted on America since, they hit the high note here, with a perfectly constructed, tight script that said much about the end of childhood (and the passing of American innocence) without ever being ostentatious about it. And visually -- thanks likely to Haskell Wexler -- it looked like a dream.
Best Picture: 1973
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Mister Tee
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The Exorcist.
The Sting was fun then, but I hated it when I saw it some years later. American Grafitti was nothing special but not bad. I have already been ridiculed for enjoying A Touch of Class (and especially Jackson's performance). Have yet to see Cries and Whispers but the story sounds like such a downer that I avoid it.
Three of my favorites from this year are the chilling Don't Look Now (Christie again), Truffaut's Day For Night and Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man!
The Sting was fun then, but I hated it when I saw it some years later. American Grafitti was nothing special but not bad. I have already been ridiculed for enjoying A Touch of Class (and especially Jackson's performance). Have yet to see Cries and Whispers but the story sounds like such a downer that I avoid it.
Three of my favorites from this year are the chilling Don't Look Now (Christie again), Truffaut's Day For Night and Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man!
