1976 Oscar Nominees

"Cut out 'her tit.' This is a family newspaper."

How I'd have voted on the '76 acting awards: De Niro, Spacek, Robards, Laurie

If I were voting now, I'd let Dunaway keep her Oscar knowing that Spacek would win in '80.

Between it and Coal Miner's Daughter, Carrie's the better picture, but she's great in both.

Liv Ullmann should've won at some point. Marion fucking Cotillard....

Sorely missing nominees: Walter Matthau in The Bad News Bears, John Wayne in The Shootist and Shirley Stoler in Seven Beauties

Knowing that I'd give my Oscar to Faye in '81, I'd give Spacek her due in '76.

...President's Men by a country mile. self-congratulatory? i don't see that at all, but maybe the film can come over that way because the real guys were (and i sorta think they had every right to be), as detailed by Goldman in ...Screen Trade etc.

Let me clarify something from upthread. I shouldn't have used debacle to describe New York, New York--I've only seen it once, but I remember there were some things I liked about it. (One of the supporting performances, De Niro's manager or agent, was especially good.) But I'm pretty sure that, after a certain amount of anticipation, it was jumped all over by most critics, and also that it lost a fair amount of money at the time. It was one of many smaller-scale Heaven's Gates (before the real Heaven's Gate arrived) that helped bring about the end of the unlimited freedom that many leading '70s directors more or less enjoyed for the first half of the decade: NY, NY, 1941, At Long Last Love, The Missouri Breaks, Quintet (Altman had more than one), Cruising (maybe a better choice than Sorcerer), Stardust Memories, a few others. These films are inevitably viewed more favorably over time; even Heaven's Gate gets some votes in Sight & Sound's greatest-ever poll nowadays. But they were perceived as flops at the time, and Hal Ashby was a rarity in that he managed to escape the decade without one.

Well yeah, but Hall Ashby was also a more restrained director than those guys were so it doesn't shock me that he wouldn't create something that was perceived as being an over-ambitious flop (or in the case of 1941 just a plain flop.) He also didn't direct anything as good as NY, NY or Stardust Memories (let alone most of those directors' best efforts--although I think now away from the expectations of the time NY, NY is maybe my favorite 70s Scorsese.)

NYNY was certainly a commercial debacle -- Scorsese was so destroyed by its failure he moved in with Robbie Robertson and nearly coked himself to death.

I think The Last Detail is significantly better than Stardust Memories, though I mostly have a cool admiration for all Ashby's other stuff (and for his ability to make a posturing, offensive, cutesy nothing like the Harold & Maude script into something watchable).

Even Armond White, your colleague in the Hate Lumet Treehouse, sees value in his putting great acting on the screen, as in Long Day's Journey into Night. If de Palma ever manages it, do give a call.

Great acting is so 2008.* Who cares? What good did it ever do Malcolm Le Grice, a better director than almost anyone mentioned on this thread? And gimme something like Femme Fatale, which demonstrates movies as the best set of electric trains a boy ever had, over a tomb for great acting like 12 Angry Men or that pesky Taxi Driver any day.

* Ok I don't really believe this exactly. I love Joan Crawford's great acting in Rain and Possessed (1947) (both quite uncampy, I should add) and Helen Mirren's in The Queen. But great acting has done almost as much damage throughout film history as severe edits by The Man. Also great acting almost never means comedy nor Eric H's Oscar to Dunaway in 1981 for arguably the greatest film performance of all-time.

Feel like I should say Taxi Driver but Network's batshit glory gets me every time. The more that people point out its flaws the more I seem to like it.

"I think The Last Detail is significantly better than Stardust Memories"

I kinda forgot about that one. Yeah it is better.

t was one of many smaller-scale Heaven's Gates (before the real Heaven's Gate arrived) that helped bring about the end of the unlimited freedom that many leading '70s directors more or less enjoyed for the first half of the decade

Peter Biskind is responsible for spreading this risible notion. The good movies may have been better than during the Hollywood studio heyday, but there were just as many bad movies. Because the seventies films were taking greater risks their failures seem more grotesque. Every one of the poll options is significantly flawed – and this is one of the better years.

*omit "than"

agrteed KJB, if you're reinventing the medium or doing comedy "great acting" is not likely in your toolbox, but then I like to see films after the reinvention is complete, ie Godard bores the living shit outta me 70% of the time. I'll look up Malcolm Le Grice though.

I still may like Seven Beauties more than any of those 5 movies.

Also, a well-drawn 4-hour compilation of Watergate-related news footage would kick AtPM's ass. Especially with at least 30 minutes of Nixon denials.

Even 12 Angry Men is just 12 great performances locked in a room.

so you get Sidney Lumet

Who is visionary genius.

Also, a well-drawn 4-hour compilation of Watergate-related news footage would kick AtPM's ass. Especially with at least 30 minutes of Nixon denials.

Truth talking. It'd probably be more compelling stylistically too.

Network is great but come the fuck on its Taxi Driver in a walk

Taxi Driver will win, but Network is a better movie.

actually I like Pakula's style just fine. I thought it was a GREAT film when I first saw it, but I was a 14-year-old Nixon hater.

A stylistic genius would really have fucked up 12 Angry Men, or Network. Can we not understand, class, that some material requires middlebrow craftsmanship?

the middlebrow craftsmanship in Network, esp. as regards the personal relationships involving Max actually make a strong counterpoint to the television sequences ... it reinforces their alien quality.

Most of Lumet's successful films are dominated by the writer's sensibility. (Some of the bad ones too, like that last crappy Hoffman-Hawke-Finney tragicrimedy.)

(Some of the bad ones too, like that last crappy Hoffman-Hawke-Finney tragicrimedy.)

yeah, that one was pretty meh. On the other hand, it was better than almost every one of the movies on that PG movies thread.

A stylistic genius would really have fucked up 12 Angry Men, or Network. Can we not understand, class, that some material requires middlebrow craftsmanship?

This is really smart and I'm not sure it's altogether true. But apart from Amadeus and The Queen (2006), and, um, I can't think of anything else, do any middlebrow films (including 12 Angry Men and Network) hold a candle to the work of a stylistic genius (emphasis on genius)?

Oh and I forgot to respond to this:

Family Plot is great too. I don't see why I can't have both that AND Taxi Driver/Carrie/Assault on Precinct 13/et al.

Who's stopping you? Have away at them all.

there are plenty of movies directed by a "stylistic genius" with crappy or mediocre scripts and acting, that result in blah movies.

And their titles?

Here's Dave Kehr on Murder on the Orient Express suggesting that maybe no material requires middlebrow craftsmanship:

"Agatha Christie's novel is nothing more than a sleight-of-hand trick, but you can see how a real artist might have turned it into something interesting: latent in the plotting are the possibilities for a probing critique on the mystery formula and the assumptions that support it. Sidney Lumet isn't that artist: he uses the material only as a pretext for star turns, most of which turn much too heavily and much too slowly (1974)."

But apart from Amadeus and The Queen (2006), and, um, I can't think of anything else, do any middlebrow films (including 12 Angry Men and Network) hold a candle to the work of a stylistic genius (emphasis on genius)?

Mitchell Leisen, Joseph Ruben, and lots of films by Wyler come to mind.

I'll never forgive the Cahiers crowd (abetted by the enfants terribles of seventies cinema) for creating the Cult of the Director.

I'll give you Leisen although I'm not sure how middlebrow his films are but definitely not Wyler. And I had to look up this Joseph Ruben character. Hmmmm...

And don't blame Cahiers. Iris Barry, Jay Leyda, Harry Alan Potamkin, etc. were on to it well before them.

How is Wyler not middlebrow? An adapter of intelligent, sometimes "classic" novels, consistent A-list casts, four Best Director trophies...

Oh he is. I just don't think any of his flicks hold a candle to the work of a stylistic genius.

i can't wait to meet this stylistic genius!

Oh he is. I just don't think any of his flicks hold a candle to the work of a stylistic genius.

The Heiress >>>>>> Welles' Othello

Eh I'll just have to go ahead and disagree with you there. But that is one of my fave Wylers. Andy Milligan dug it too.

Stylistic geniuses can be SO boring.

TAXI DRIVER owns this. Haven't seen Bound For Glory, but I doubt that matters.

I don't really feel like picking among Network, ATPM and Taxi Driver because I dig them all quite a bit. Haven't seen Bound for Glory, and Rocky is surprisingly good for a traditional sports movie.

KJB, I read the Agatha Christie book around the time Murder on the Orient Express came out, and the only director who would've been able to make that work in '74 might've been Mel Brooks. (hence the MAD parody is one I still remember)

you are such a doctrinaire auteurist, you old-fashioned boy. ;)

(also Amadeus is one of the worst Forman movies I've ever seen; Hair is better)

xp kjb: whom do you consider a stylistic genius?

Well the burden of proof's on you there.

KJB, I read the Agatha Christie book around the time Murder on the Orient Express came out, and the only director who would've been able to make that work in '74 might've been Mel Brooks.

Now that would've been worth seeing!

you are such a doctrinaire auteurist, you old-fashioned boy. ;)

It's true. But then there's Curse of the Cat People, The Seventh Victim, Xanadu, The Apple, Marci X, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Crazy in Alabama, Twilight, The Gay Deceivers, Joan Crawford, Adrian, etc.

OK, sometimes I exaggerate for effect with you Morbs, but no fucking way Hair is better than Across the Universe (which i haven't seen but looks like ass), much less Amadeus.

Oh look, there are results.

That's odd. How come there wasn't one of those automatic "poll results are in" posts?

All the President's Men over Network, which is no more reactionary and a lot more civilized than Taxi Fucking Driver

Even 12 Angry Men is just 12 great performances locked in a room.

― nu hollywood (Eric H.), Sunday, May 24, 2009 2:49 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It may be a tribute to Lumet that you don't notice how much more than that it is

Showed Network to a crowd last night and it was surprisingly well received.

Didn't hurt that the crowd was very full of the core "they don't make them like that anymore" demo.