1967's Oscar Nominees (inspired by "Pictures at a Revolution")

that kind of speculation ... man, baseball geeks are nowhere as nerdy as Oscar geeks.

I've read about a third of this book... I wish I'd seen Hoffman play that crippled German transvestite off-Broadway.

also, Katie Hepburn talking about how helpful blacks were in the jungle, what a loony old New England biddy

Fun re-read, this thread. Especially the part where Kev seems to argue gay people were better represented in the era of Franklin Pangborn than the era of Pink Narcissus and Paul Morrissey.

oh c'mon, surely he was talking about films the public actually saw?

First the meltdown on the gay thread, now picking fights here. Everything okay, eric h?

Fine, I just think the notion that Franklin Pangborn is anything other than an embarrassment (albeit a necessary embarrassment) is bizarre.

he's hilarious in those great comedies you hate

This was a ferociously entertaining book... and it was as close to a "revolution" as Hollywood gets, given how his clucking over B&C ousted Bosley Crowther, the death of the Production Code, the way copying The Sound of Music by producing mega-musicals killed at least one studio, etc.

Poitier is the tragic hero of this book. I wonder why he didn't want to play Othello on TV, really? Insecurity about his chops?

I'd read a few things about Rex Harrison and Rachel Roberts before, but lordy ... her howling like a dog and doing underwearless handstanda in front of Jimmy Stewart...

Yes, when it comes down to it, this was the most compulsively entertaining read on moviemaking I think I've ever cracked.

Some of the old/new guard pairings were a hoot... Jack Warner to Beatty: "What the fuck's an homage?!"

"That was a three-piss picture!"

Yeah, I read this earlier this month -- in about a week, which is quick for me. Hard to put down.

However, it failed to inspire me to rent Dr Doolittle.

LOL!

Yes, when it comes down to it, this was the most compulsively entertaining read on moviemaking I think I've ever cracked.
― boring movies are the most boring (Eric H.), Monday, September 28, 2009

OTM. I re-read Easy Riders, Raging Bulls afterward and it was clearly the lesser book.

While acknowledging the impact of Bonnie and Clyde, etc, PAAR is less in love with the era's mythos than Easy Riders is about his.

Yep. The scale of it helps, too: the time frame is narrower and that helps keep things focused. But Harris is just a better writer, flat out.

Harris' empathy helps too. Who comes closest to receiving Biskind's pity in Easy Riders -- Hal Ashby? Bob Evans?

However, it failed to inspire me to rent Dr Doolittle.

I actually made a project out of it and watched all five movies before reading the book. (Only one I had seen before was The Graduate.) Liked Bonnie and Clyde, In the Heat of the Night, and The Graduate to varying degrees. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was terrible but fascinating as a historical artifact, while Dr. Dolittle was just a slog. Not even the sight of Rex Harrison serenading a seal in a bonnet was worth it, though it was on Netflix On Demand, so at least I didn't have to spend any money on it.

Rex was ill-equipped to be a movie star after a career as a Shavian stage comedian.

The only role in which he's at all bearable is as the composer in Unfaithfully Yours.

no, he's good in Major Barbara, Cleopatra, and even that ossified film version of MFLady.

(I am still kicking myself for not seeing him in Shaw's Heartbreak House on Broadway in the early '80s.)

This book really holds up.

OK this book obviously hit me a bit harder than I imagined. I had a dream last night in which I won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1967!

lol so much @ this

i watched guess who's coming to dinner for the 1st time -- it's not bad. tracy is great & its fun imo to watch almost every character pair off and have their own lil convo abt whats goin on, etc

graduate > b&c btw

I should poll Hepburn's Oscar-nominated performances.

I've watched Bonnie & Clyde every few years over three-plus decades--from an initial "Huh?", it gets better every time I go back to it, and Harris's book helped that along a little more. But I still would have voted for The Graduate, which is part of my movie-going DNA.

the whole 1960s was a horrid decade for mainstream american movies. but 1965–68 were probably the worst years of all. maybe the nadir of the commercial american cinema (the early '90s, excepting some shining indie films, were pretty bad too).

excepting experimental films (which is hard, because warhol, baillie, brakhage etc. were on fire this year), i guess these are my favorite films of 1967 in roughly descending order...

Point Blank
David Holzman's Diary
Two for the Road
Bonnie and Clyde
Portrait of Jason
In the Heat of the Night
In Cold Blood
The Fearless Vampire Killers
The St. Valentine's Day Massacre
Cool Hand Luke
How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying
The Legend of Lylah Clare

most of these are pretty flawed films, but all have something to recommend them.

i left off hellman's 'the shooting' because it wasn't released until a few years later. if it counts, put it after portrait of jason.

i should have said those are my favorite AMERICAN films.

also dr. doolittle really is an atrocity.

I couldn't finish rewatching Two For the Road a few months ago.

yeah, that's a pretty good list but I didn't like Two for the Road either.

Stanley Donen also did Bedazzled that year, which is nominally British but was produced by Donen and Fox; whatever it is, it's not much more British than 2ftR.

Who's That Knocking at My Door was technically '67, although just a film festival screening. That'd be on my list, probably Titicut Follies, too, even though Wiseman got much better. It was a dire year:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_films_of_1967

the dirty dozen was much better than any of the Oscar-nominated American films from this year, IMHO.

(tho' i do like in the heat of the night, the graduate and bonnie & clyde well enough)

i love reflections in a golden eye more than any of these films with the exception of Point Blank

Stanley Donen also did Bedazzled that year, which is nominally British but was produced by Donen and Fox; whatever it is, it's not much more British than 2ftR.

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Sunday, February 12, 2012 8:29 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's true, but like you said somehow bedazzled is considered a UK film b/c of financing.

in honesty i haven't seen 24tR in a few years. i remember being very impressed by it -- thinking its resnais-inspired scrambled timeline and elliptical editing was both virtuosic and put to good purpose. but i may just have come in w/ low expectations.

as a sort of supplement to his book, Mark Harris has a biweekly Film Comment column on '67 in film

Blowup (Dec '66) first up

http://www.filmcomment.com/blog/cinema-67-revisited-blow/

Harris on Preminger and Ritt's topical race movies

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/cinema-67-revisited-hurry-sundown-hombre/

thought you were gonna post that terrible Beatty-Kael piece

rong year, silly

Not really -- B&C is a linchpin of the essay.

I think the Netflix series of Five Came Back is released tomorrow.

the 4K Criterion of The Graduate on Blu Ray is a thing of absolute beauty. not having seen it for a good 10-15 years or so i'd not thought of it as an especially good looking film, nor particularly well photographed. couldn't have been more wrong.

Some of it is (intentionally) grotesque--the first party scene, the wedding--but I agree that there's soft-focus stuff that's beautiful: Elaine leaving for Berkeley, the zoo, the "April Come She Will" sequence.