1983 Oscar Watch

1983 is a pretty weak year so the Oscars used it as a make up year.  Robert Duvall, Shirley MacLaine, Jack Nicholson and Horton Foote all got long overdue awards or 2nd Oscars.  Luckily Terms Of Endearment is a great movie.  It just doesn't seem like an Oscar winning movie, especially in the 1980s when all the winners were movies like Amadeus, Out Of Africa and The Last Emperor.  We like big bloated epics here and you're coming to me with a thoughtful family drama?
You can see my GABBY winners and nominees HERE

BEST PICTURE

 

5. Tender Mercies - I have no idea why this is here.  Weak year?  Well, yeah, but there were more interesting movies than this.  Silkwood or Educating Rita could have taken this spot.  Robert Duvall plays an alcoholic country singer who is living a life of seclusion.  He takes a job at a gas station in the middle of nowhere and rebuilds his life.  It's not a bad film, it's just slowly paced and kinda boring.

4. The Dresser - I'm not against this movie, just against it showing up in this category.  It's a good film with good performances but it is basically a filmed stage play.  This is 2 guys talking in one room for 2 hours.  There are a few scenes where they show people listening from the hallway but it is just 2 people in a room talking.  The performances are good, one of the actors originated the role on the stage so I would hope he would be good and the other is Albert Finney.  The movie is about an old Shakespearean actor who travels from town to town and he's obviously got some mental problems.  He keeps forgetting what play he's supposed to be doing but when he gets on stage, everything clicks.  He is aided by his dresser who helps him get ready and keeps him in check.  It's a good film just a little stage-y.  For this weak year I guess it's better that this got a Best Picture nod than something like The Year Of Living Dangerously, but still a weak nominee is a weak nominee.

3. The Big Chill - A bunch of people spend a weekend together when they come to town for a mutual friend's funeral.  You discover things about all the characters.  It's one of those movies where not a lot happens and people talk the whole time.  It's smart and funny.  There's really nothing bad to say about it.  I feel like it was a movie that everybody liked and succeeded by word of mouth and the strength of the ensemble.  It's not great, but it's good, and in this weak year it's a nice nominee.

2. The Right Stuff - This is a 3 plus hour movie about the American space race.  It starts with Chuck Yeager trying to break the sound barrier and ends with John Glenn orbiting the Earth and in between you see astronauts preparing to go to space and all the politics involved.  There are so many great scenes in this movie, there really isn't a driving force to the plot except that America wants to send people to space.  So you get all these little episodes leading to one big overarching story.  It's really well done, if a little long.  It almost feels like a miniseries because of its structure.  Still, really good movie.

1. Terms Of Endearment - Oh goodness, I've seen this movie several times and I thought I could make it through this time without crying.  Mission not accomplished.  This is one of the most honest movies ever made, and that's why it works.  Some might call it manipulative, I mean it's hard not to get choked up when you're watching someone die, but the reason you get choked up is because the performances are so real that you fall in love with these characters so when bad things happen to them it affects you.  If you're unfamiliar with the film it's about a mother and a daughter and you see their lives play out through the entirety of the daughter's life.  The first scene she is coming home from the hospital and the last scene is the wake.  The thing I noticed on this watch is how James L. Brooks uses the camera in an almost documentary style, he is focusing on action as it happens, moving the camera when he needs to.  At one point Jack Nicholson and Shirley MacLaine fall in the ocean and water splashes up on the camera.  At another point John Lithgow and Debra Winger are driving to a spot to have an affair and we watch this play out from the backseat.  He makes the audience a character in the film too.  It's a great movie.

I thought this was going to be an easy decision before watching all the films.  The Right Stuff feels like a Best Picture winner.  It's a sprawling epic that tells the story of the American space race.  It feels important.  Terms Of Endearment is a small family drama that could be shown on the Lifetime network.  The decision turned out to be easy but the outcome was different than I expected.  The Right Stuff is a good movie but Terms Of Endearment just hits you in the gut and stays with you.  I feel like I just watched a home movie after watching Terms, Right Stuff I feel like I just went to school.

Oscar Winner: Terms Of Endearment

My Vote: Terms Of Endearment

GABBY Winner: Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life 

BEST ACTOR

 

5. Tom Conti - Reuben, Reuben - I tried to track this movie down years ago and could never find it.  I was completely ready to just say, I can't see this movie, put Tom Conti in 5th place and leave it at that.  Come to find, the whole movie is on YouTube, ah the joys of the internet.  The copy I watched was really bad quality so that hurt my enjoyment a little but I think even in crystal clear HD I would still find this movie uninteresting.  It's about a drunk poet who likes the ladies and the booze.  He walks around for 90 minutes and then contemplates suicide.  I see why Conti got the nomination though, he's really good and it's basically a one man show.  His final scene is terrific but this is nothing more than just a nomination, never gonna win.

4. Tom Courtenay - The Dresser - This is a two hander about an old Shakespearean actor and his assistant.  Courtenay plays the titular dresser.  He's a timid man whose sole job is to make sure that this actor gets on stage on time and realizes what role he's supposed to be playing.  Courtenay and Albert Finney are basically alone in a room for the whole movie and their performances are the reason the film works.  It's nice that they both got nominated but in a way, it's hard to vote for just one of them.  Actually it's easy to vote for one and I'm going to vote for Albert Finney.  All things equal Courtenay is probably better but Finney has the showier role.  Courtenay is equally as impressive though because he doesn't have the help of playing a crazy over the top character.  I'm voting for Finney, however, just because he deserves to have an Oscar before Courtenay.

3. Robert Duvall - Tender Mercies - If Duvall wasn't so horribly robbed in 1979 then there is no way he wins here.  Oscar history is full of actors who won for the wrong performance and this is one of them.  I can't condone this win just because I thought the movie was so boring and it's not one of those situations where he is the best thing about a boring movie.  His performance is pretty boring too.  He's just a drunk cowboy who drives around a lot and sings.  He should have won for Apocalypse Now, sure, but let's wait until he gives a great performance in a good film before just handing him an Oscar.  I would argue The Apostle in 1997 was the perfect time to hand him an Oscar but they messed up and gave him one for a movie he didn't earn it for.

2. Michael Caine - Educating Rita - This is a movie where I like the performances better than the film.  The film is okay, it's basically an updated version of Pygmalion, but both Caine and Julie Walters are just such good actors that I love spending an hour or two with them.  Caine plays a poetry professor who likes to drink and kinda feels that poetry can't be taught.  Poetry is about life so instead of reading it you should just live life, that sort of thing.  Julie Walters is an uncouth British woman who wants him to teach her about famous written works.  It's pretty much exactly like Pygmalion.  Both Caine and Walters are just so likable in the film that it rolls along at a nice pace.  I'm considering voting for Caine, except for the fact that there really isn't anything special about this performance, he's just being Michael Caine, and the fact that he is going to win 2 Oscars eventually.

1. Albert Finney - The Dresser - Finney plays a brilliant Shakespearean actor.  On stage he can control every emotion and every gesture with pristine precision.  He even notices inane minutiae of his fellow actors that is hurting the play, in his opinion.  Off stage he's a big sloppy drunk with dementia and needs to have his hand held by his assistant.  Finney is terrific here, he's big, loud and over the top but that is exactly what the character requires.  My favorite scene is when he's getting ready for King Lear but he thinks he's playing Othello so he's putting on blackface and when he's told that he's getting ready for the wrong play he just smiles a confused smile.  Having experience with people with Alzheimer's and dementia, this was just a very honest moment that I really loved.

Albert Finney has been delivering incredible performances for over 50 years but Oscar has always alluded him.  He's kind of given up on them as well.  When he was nominated for Erin Brockovich in 2000 he said that he wouldn't show up unless they told him in advance that he had won.  There were several years where he could have won but certain circumstances led to someone else winning.  This year they needed to makeup for Robert Duvall losing in 1979 so a weak year led to Duvall winning for a performance that can't really be called his best.  In fact if Finney wins here then Duvall can win in 1997 for The Apostle.  Yeah, Nicholson wouldn't win a 3rd Oscar that year, but did he really need a third?  Actually if Nicholson loses in 1997 he almost assuredly wins for About Schmidt in 2003.  See how one bad Oscar decision can cause a ripple effect?  All of this could have been avoided if Robert Duvall just won for Apocalypse Now in 1979 like he should have.  They gave it to Melvyn Douglas that year and he didn't even want to win.  The real problem with Oscar wins like this is that now Robert Duvall can never win a 2nd one.  If he has won for Apocalypse Now, a deserving performance and then gave another good performance you could consider voting for him.  Here he wins on a technicality so it's like letting a guy score on an error.  Or to use an Oscar analogy instead of a baseball one, it's like giving a guy an honorary Oscar and then giving him another Oscar next year.

Oscar Winner: Robert Duvall

My Vote: Albert Finney

GABBY Winner: Christopher Walken for The Dead Zone

BEST ACTRESS

 

5. Jane Alexander - Testament - This was a movie that I knew nothing about before watching it and I'm so glad I went in cold.  I was always under the impression that this was a faith based movie but it's just a movie about a family and then 20 minutes in there's a nuclear attack and the family has to deal with the aftermath.  Alexander is the matriarch of the family and is very good in the role.  It's one of those nominations where I'm glad she's here but I can't vote for her.  The movie is more about the family than her character but it's a nice nomination for a good actress in a good movie.

4. Meryl Streep - Silkwood - Streep plays Karen Silkwood, she works at a nuclear power plant and starts to learn about the dangers of radiation poisoning and the fact that the plant doesn't follow correct safety precautions.  She tries to unionize but dies in a car accident that may or may not have been an accident.  It's a good film and Streep is good, she should be, she's Meryl Streep.  She has a southern accent in this one.  She is so believable in her characters and unlike other movie stars, I never see Meryl Streep, I see the person she is playing.  There's absolutely no way I can vote for her though, this is not a performance that wins a 3rd Oscar, let alone back-to-back Oscars.

3. Julie Walters - Educating Rita - If you've never seen Educating Rita, you've probably seen My Fair Lady.  This is pretty much the same story.  Walters plays a lower class British woman who wants to learn how to read classic literature so she goes to Michael Caine, a drunk poetry professor, to teach her.  It's a simple little movie but the reason it works is because of the performances from Caine and Walters.  They're both just so fun that you want to spend some time with them.  She's not good enough to topple the two leads from Terms Of Endearment but is strong enough to win this category in another year, certainly the year after this.

2. Shirley MacLaine - Terms Of Endearment - So this movie tells two stories simultaneously about a mother and her daughter.  I'll talk about the daughter in a second, here let's just focus on MacLaine.  She's that overbearing mother character but it works better in this film because we get her backstory.  She isn't just a sitcom mom who comes to stay the weekend and cause trouble.  Her husband dies when her daughter is very young and now all she has is her daughter.  She gets lonely at night and sleeps in her daughter's bed.  As the daughter grows up and gets married and moves away, MacLaine doesn't know what to do with herself, so she calls her daughter constantly.  She then finds a love interest in her next door neighbor and finally starts to enjoy sex and being a woman.  Then her daughter gets sick and she has to deal with all that.  She's terrific in the role and she's been great for so many years, we should just hand her the Oscar.  There's only one problem and that's...

1. Debra Winger - Terms Of Endearment - Holy crap do I love Debra Winger in this movie.  She plays the daughter and we see her life play out.  She meets a boy in high school, they get married, he gets a job in a different town, they move away, have children and then life just happens.  She suspects that her husband is cheating on her, she finds interest in another man, she finds out that her husband was cheating, her doctor finds a lump and she gets cancer.  I just saw my mother in this performance.  Now my mother is still alive and well but we did grow up poor and she was constantly frazzled.  My favorite scene is when she is in the grocery store and doesn't have enough money, so she has to put some stuff back but the items she won't part with are her Pamprin and her kid's candy bars.  Then they get to the parking lot outside and she screams at her kids repeatedly to get in the car.  It's just so honest, and it's funny because of how real it is.  If you can tell me you don't get a lump in your throat when she is in the hospital saying goodbye to her kids then I don't think you're human.

Did the Academy watch the same movie I did?  Debra Winger deserved this win.  Ok, yes, Shirley MacLaine got snubbed in 1960 and this was the perfect time to give her a makeup Oscar.  Well, I didn't vote to give Robert Duvall an Oscar he didn't deserve so I'm not voting for Shirley MacLaine either.  Now granted, MacLaine did deserve this Oscar but she not only didn't give the Best Lead Actress performance of the year, she didn't give the Best Lead Actress performance in the movie she was in.  She's great but there was just someone better this year.  Watching Terms Of Endearment this time, I kept forgetting about MacLaine's character until they would cut back to her.  I was almost entirely focused on Debra Winger and my heart was breaking at every moment of her performance.

Oscar Winner: Shirley MacLaine

My Vote: Debra Winger

GABBY Winner: Debra Winger

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

 

5. Rip Torn - Cross Creek - Not a fan of this movie but I'm glad Rip Torn got an Oscar nomination.  This is a movie about the lady who wrote The Yearling.  Torn plays the guy who inspired the father character in the book.  He's fine, the movie is just really dull.  Had Torn been cast in a remake of The Yearling though he could have had a better shot at winning.

4. Charles Durning - To Be Or Not To Be - The original 1942 version of To Be Or Not To Be is a classic film and a perfect film.  This remake starring Mel Brooks is far from either of those adjectives.  It's not terrible but almost all the good gags are lifted directly from the original and everything new seems like cut gags from 'Springtime For Hitler'.  Durning plays a flustered Nazi officer, the part was originated by Sig Ruman who won a GABBY for his performance.  He's pretty funny in the part but is almost too funny.  His part seems anachronistic with the reality of the film, he's playing a Three Stooges villain.

3. John Lithgow - Terms Of Endearment - I always felt this was a weird nomination, and after just re-watching the movie, I still do but I kind of understand it.  I mean, Jack Nicholson gets a nod because he's got the showy role and then I think you go Jeff Daniels after that, but for some reason John Lithgow scooted ahead of him.  Lithgow plays a kindly banker who meets Debra Winger in the grocery store and they have an affair.  He's really only in 3 scenes but he is really sweet.  He's married too but his wife won't sleep with him and when he's talking about his life you kinda want him to cheat on his wife.  He's that nice and sweet.  It's an interesting character because in most movies he would be a scoundrel but here he's a sweet guy who is looking for love, even though he's already married.

2. Sam Shepard - The Right Stuff - I've read several blogs that say Sam Shephard should have won this category.  I don't get it.  He's good in the film, I rank him 2nd in this weak year, but I didn't see anything win worthy.  He barely talks in the film.  He handles himself with a cool quiet but this movie is full of great performances.  The entire ensemble is great, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, Scott Glenn and Fred Ward are all solid and I don't understand why Shephard was singled out.

1. Jack Nicholson - Terms Of Endearment - Jack plays Garrett Breedlove, a retired astronaut who lives next door to Shirley MacLaine.  He chases after younger women and acts younger than he actually is.  One day he hits on MacLaine and she takes him up on it, they go out on a date and start a relationship even though he is up front with the fact that he doesn't want it to get too serious.  It's interesting that Jack spent the next 20 years playing this same character, a guy who is too old to be chasing after younger women.  That's probably why he's so good in the film.  He's just being Jack.

This was Jack's second Oscar and his Oscar story kind of parallels Duvall's and MacLaine's even though he's won before.  Look at the early 70s where Jack got nominated for Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown and The Last Detail and then finally won for One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.  That's an Oscar story done right, a guy is delivering great performances consistently and then finally gives one that can't be ignored.  It's totally cool that he won a 2nd here.  Not sure he needed a 3rd, but that's a conversation for another time.  He also gives my favorite performance of the 5 so I'm voting Jack.

Oscar Winner: Jack Nicholson

My Vote: Jack Nicholson

GABBY Winner: Jerry Lewis for The King Of Comedy

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

 

5. Alfre Woodard - Cross Creek - Woodard takes the 5th spot because I found this movie slow and dull.  Mary Steenburgen plays the lady who wrote The Yearling and she moves to a secluded cabin to write her novel.  Woodard plays a lady who asks to be Steenburgen's maid even though she can't pay her much.  It's not an interesting movie and it's not an interesting character.  Woodard is fine, the movie is boring.

4. Cher - Silkwood - This seems like a vote of confidence nomination for a star who finally proves they are capable of acting.  Or it's a nomination for the film.  In either case, Cher didn't really do much for me in Silkwood.  She handled herself fine but I didn't see anything worth a nomination.  Maybe it's because she played a lesbian and in 1983 they thought that was brave.

3. Amy Irving - Yentl - Yentl is a movie that I avoided like the plague for many years.  Everything about this film made me think that I was going to hate it.  I'm sure I've used it as an example of a bad film before, even though I've never seen it.  I finally watched it for this blog and really enjoyed it.  It's not a perfect film but it is very enjoyable.  I think my biggest hangup with the film was Barbra Streisand.  How can anyone believe that this 40 year old woman is a teenage boy?  You believe it because the movie believes it.  Barbra plays a young woman who disguises herself as a boy so she can start studying Jewish scriptures after her father dies.  Also it's a musical, like almost wall to wall songs.  Irving plays a woman that marries Streisand, it's a complicated arranged marriage thing.  So Barbra wrote, produced, directed and starred in this film and they give a nomination to Amy Irving.  If Yentl was completely shut out at the Oscars it probably wouldn't sting as much, but it's almost like everybody but Barbra got nominated.  Irving actually doesn't do a whole lot in the film but her part is fun, you can tell she is falling in love with Yentl even though she has no idea that her new husband isn't sexually interested in her.  Obviously I can't vote for her though, Babs does all the work and Amy Irving gets the credit?

2. Glenn Close - The Big Chill - The entire ensemble of The Big Chill is terrific and Glenn Close is the only one who got singled out for a nomination.  I kind of understand it but kind of don't.  I feel like I should consider voting for Glenn Close just because she should have won an Oscar at some point, but then Glenn Close would have won an Oscar for The Big Chill and you would watch the movie and think, why not Kevin Kline, William Hurt, Meg Tilly, JoBeth Williams, Jeff Goldblum, etc?  The whole ensemble is deserving so to just single out one seems like a cheat.

1. Linda Hunt - The Year Of Living Dangerously - This is a movie that I didn't care for that much but there is a fascinating performance within that I haven't made up my mind about.  Billy Kwan is a male dwarf photographer and he is played by Linda Hunt, a woman of small stature.  This isn't like Tootsie or Yentl where the whole movie is about gender politics, this is just a woman playing a male character.  The part was written for a man, originally cast as a man, Wallace Shawn at one point was attached to the role, but the director just thought that Linda Hunt was perfect so he cast her.  It's hard to tell if the role is interesting because of a gimmick, but gimmick or no gimmick, the director was right, Linda Hunt just nails this part.  I guess the real question is, if Linda Hunt was a man would I nominate her for Best Supporting Actor?

This is a weird category.  I like all of these actresses, just not the performances.  Aside from Linda Hunt who I like her performance just not the movie.  If I was voting on who should have an Oscar more, Hunt would be the last on the list.  Based on performance she's #1 so she's my vote but it doesn't make much sense that Linda Hunt got an Oscar before Glenn Close.  It's also interesting to note that both Close and John Lithgow should have won last year for The World According To Garp and get nominations this year for roles that really didn't warrant consideration.  I'm guessing the Academy recognized their mistake and tried to make it up to them.

Oscar Winner: Linda Hunt

My Vote: Linda Hunt

GABBY Winner: Sandra Bernhard for The King Of Comedy

Best Director
A lot of people think Philip Kaufman was robbed a nomination for The Right Stuff.  I agree, he should have been nominated but even with him here I would still vote James L. Brooks for Terms Of Endearment.  Tone is a big part of a director's job and this movie succeeds in every scene because of the performances and the tone that he sets.

Best Original Screenplay/Adapted Screenplay

Tender Mercies wins Original which I don't like, but then I looked at the nominees and there wasn't anything that really should have won.  I guess maybe The Big Chill, but I really don't care about this category.  Terms Of Endearment wins adapted which is the best decision in the category.

Best Original Score/Song Score or Adapted Score/Song

The Right Stuff wins Original Score which is a good decision except for the fact that the music in Terms Of Endearment is one of the reasons the movie works so well.  It's also one of the most recognized scores in film history.  Yentl wins in the now defunct Song Score.  A good decision as all the songs in the movie are terrific.  It was also up against the atrocious The Sting II.  The song category had 2 songs from Yentl, 2 from Flashdance and a song from Tender Mercies.  Flashdance...What A Feeling wins, which is an awesome 80s song, I could go either way between that and Maniac.

Best Sound/Sound Effects Editing

The Right Stuff wins both categories.  Absolutely no complaints here.

Best Art Direction/Costume Design/Cinematography

Fanny And Alexander wins all three awards.  If you like 5 hour long Ingmar Bergman films then this is right up your alley.  I don't so I would have picked Yentl, Zelig and Zelig, respectively.

Best Film Editing

The Right Stuff wins and this is just a taste of personal preference.  As an editor I am always watching the cuts in films and while The Right Stuff is put together wonderfully, making even the most mundane scenes interesting.  Terms Of Endearment takes a story that spans 30 years and you don't even notice how quickly time has passed because of the way the film is cut together.  A lot of that is due to the direction and the script but it's still noteworthy.  I would vote The Right Stuff too.

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