1978 Oscar Watch

When I'm compiling my list of nominees for film years I go through every Oscar eligible film, look up what the movie's about and the critical consensus and determine whether I want to watch it or feel like I should watch it.  For instance with this year I came across Walter Hill's The Driver and decided that I wanted to watch it, Interiors is a movie I felt I had to watch.  It diminishes my enjoyment of a film when it feels like homework.  I only bring that up because there is not one movie released this year that I love.  There are movies I like, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, National Lampoon's Animal House, Superman, but I really couldn't find one movie that I could undeniably call the best movie of the year.  The Oscars are pretty bland too, Jane Fonda and Maggie Smith win their 2nd awards, Jon Voight and Christopher Walken win, which is pretty rad, but The Deer Hunter wins Best Picture, and as I'll get too, is not the greatest decision.  There's also some very questionable nominations in some of the technical categories which I'll get to when we get to them.

You can see my GABBY winners and nominees HERE

BEST PICTURE

5. Heaven Can Wait - Warren Beatty is a football quarterback who gets into an accident that wasn't supposed to kill him but he is taken to heaven anyway by an escort on his first assignment.  Once the mistake is found out they try to return him to his body but it has been cremated.  So he is given a loaner body, a millionaire who has just been poisoned by his philandering wife.  I watched this movie year ago and remember it being very charming.  Watching it this time I was surprised by how uninterested I was.  Beatty is not very charming in his performance, he has next to no chemistry with Julie Christie, which is okay because the love story between them is completely undeveloped.  The thing I really disliked about it is how completely selfish the main character is.  There are moments where it seems like he's doing the right thing but he's really only focused on winning the Super Bowl.  I wasn't sure why I was supposed to care about him at all.

4. An Unmarried Woman - It's a testament to the weakness of the 1978 film year that An Unmarried Woman gets nominated for Best Picture despite the only other nominations for the film being Actress and Screenplay.  Weirder than its inclusion in this category is the fact that Jill Clayburgh loses Best Actress.  She's the sole reason this movie works, any other actress in the lead role and you just have a dull movie about a woman getting divorced, but more on that later.  The movie opens with Clayburgh having a perfect life, married with a daughter and then her husband confesses that he has not only been having an affair but he is in love with his mistress and wants a divorce.  Clayburgh then goes on a journey of self discovery.  The movie probably shouldn't have been nominated Best Picture but it is a very good film, mostly because Clayburgh is incredible in it and worth spending the two hours with.

3. The Deer Hunter - There is a great movie hiding in this 3 hour film, not just a good movie, a great movie.  The parts of this movie that work are some of the finest scenes in film history, the parts of this movie that don't work make the movie almost unwatchable.  If you skip to 1 hour and 8 minutes into the movie you will see why the movie won Best Picture, but notice how nobody ever raves about the 50 minute wedding scene at the beginning of the film.  If this move was edited down to a 2 hour film it would be a masterpiece, as it stands now it is bloated and self indulgent.  That first 50 minutes of the movie doesn't add character development, there's very little dialogue or interactions involved.  Michael Cimino just fell in love with every piece of film he shot and felt that he had to include everything, to the point where he tried to get the editor fired when he was working on a shorter cut of the film.  The movie is about a group of friends who go to Vietnam, they are captured and tortured, one of the friends develops severe PTSD and gets addicted to playing Russian Roulette.  There is 90 minutes of inspired story telling here, unfortunately it is hiding within 90 minutes of pointless filler.

2. Midnight Express - Oliver Stone adapted this true story of Billie Hayes who was sent to a Turkish prison for smuggling hashish.  The movie pretty much takes place entirely within the prison and you see the guards torturing him and who he routinely gets turned down for appeals and finally escapes.  The movie is really brutal, it puts you in the shoes of the prisoners and may be one of the best prison movies ever made.  My only problem with it is the anti-climactic ending.  Billie escapes and then we just get a title card.  The movie is so powerful that the ending let me down a bit.

1. Coming Home - This movie deals with vets coming back from Vietnam.  Jane Fonda is married to Bruce Dern, who is just shipping out, and she starts volunteering at a VA hospital.  There she meets Jon Voight who has lost the use of his legs and is extremely bitter about it.  They start a relationship that turns into an affair and it changes everyone's attitude, especially her husband who comes back injured himself.  Where The Deer Hunter feels like a movie, this feels like a documentary.  All the performances are incredibly real and honest, to the point where I forgot that Jon Voight wasn't really confined to a wheelchair.  Hal Ashby also packs the film with songs of the time.  Songs play throughout the film and continue through scenes to the point where I thought my iTunes started playing in the background.  What this does though is cement the film in the time period.  I feel like I just watched a postcard from 1978.

Before I watch all the movies I like to guess what my rankings will be.  This was the first year where every movie switched positions.  My original rankings were The Deer Hunter, Coming Home, Midnight Express, Heaven Can Wait, An Unmarried Woman.  Midnight Express and An Unmarried Woman moved up in the rankings because I enjoyed them more than I thought I would but the real surprise for me was how The Deer Hunter and Heaven Can Wait fell because I really didn't enjoy them at all.  As far as voting goes only 3 really qualify, Heaven Can Wait and An Unmarried Woman are fun little filler nominees.  The vote comes between The Deer Hunter, Coming Home and Midnight Express.  I'm considering voting Midnight Express and blaming it on a Vietnam vote split.  I really can't vote for The Deer Hunter, it let me down so much and the spoiled potential of greatness makes it a failure in my opinion.  Between Coming Home and Midnight Express I'm gonna vote Coming Home just because it feels more complete than Midnight Express.  I really don't love any film made this year and think that this is one of the weakest film years in history.

Oscar Winner: The Deer Hunter

My Vote: Coming Home

GABBY Winner: Invasion Of The Body Snatchers

BEST ACTOR

5. Laurence Olivier - The Boys From Brazil - I didn't care for this film, which really stinks because it looked so cool.  The movie is about Josef Mengele raising an army of Hitler clones and an old Nazi hunter trying to track him down.  How could this fail?  For me it failed because of Olivier, I thought his performance was hammy and over the top and I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he based this on a real guy, but I felt it was bordering on antisemitic.  I was almost getting offended by how "Jewish" he was playing this character.

4. Warren Beatty - Heaven Can Wait - I found Beatty very bland as a football star who dies accidentally and is reincarnated as a millionaire.  He has a blasé attitude throughout the whole movie, even when he finds out that he's dead he seems uninterested.  When he finds out that the wife and mistress of the new body he's in is actively trying to kill him he is completely unaffected and only focused on getting in shape to win the Super Bowl.  This would all be fine if he had some kind of redemptive arc, but he doesn't.  He wins the Super Bowl and walks off with an equally uninteresting Julie Christie.

3. Robert DeNiro - The Deer Hunter - De Niro is kind of the leader of the group.  They all go out deer hunting in the film and he's the only one that really takes is seriously, they all want to drink beer and chat.  When they get to Vietnam, he's the guy who gets them out of their captured state, and when they get back home he's the one that goes out after Christopher Walken.  De Niro is pretty great in the film but there's no way I can vote for him.  I don't like the film that much and this combined with 1974 and 1980 would make 3 wins on 7 years.  Actually, if he wins here then that frees up 1980 for Peter O'Toole to win.  Doesn't matter because I also can't vote for him because I like another performance better.

2. Gary Busey - The Buddy Holly Story - Busey looks a lot like Buddy Holly and does his own singing.  That alone warrants attention but Busey is more than that because he doesn't go for an imitation and that's what makes the movie watchable.  The movie itself is just standard biopic fare, hitting all the main plot points of Holly's life and ending with a title card about his death.  Busey is less focused on perfecting a accurate Holly impression and more concerned with getting to the root of a character.  Since he's doing his own singing too, there is an energy in the musical numbers that you don't see a lot in musical biopics like this.  He elevates what would otherwise be a fairly forgettable film.

1. Jon Voight - Coming Home - Voight plays a paralyzed Vietnam veteran who feels forgotten by his country and is angry at his predicament.  The things I love about this performance is how it doesn't seem like acting.  There's not one false note from Voight in the movie and he just feels like the character.  I know that's what actors are supposed to do but I just really felt it with Voight.  I forgot that I was watching a performance and just bought him as this character.

Voight is my clear winner.  Beatty and Olivier I flat out didn't like.  De Niro is great but just won and is going to win again in 2 years.  That leaves Busey and Voight.  How cool would it be if crazy ass Gary Busey was Academy Award winning crazy ass Gary Busey?  Actually when you think about it, Jon Voight is pretty cuckoo crazy pants too.  But you know how I know Jon Voight is a great actor and deserves an Oscar?  He's even great in terrible movies.  You ever seen Karate Dog or Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2?  Voight is almost a reason to watch those hod awful films.

Oscar Winner: Jon Voight

My Vote: Jon Voight

GABBY Winner: Anthony Hopkins for Magic

BEST ACTRESS

5. Geraldine Page - Interiors - The thing I hate most about watching films for this blog is when there is a movie that is so universally loved that I just can't stand.  I love Woody Allen, I think he's a comedic genius.  I can appreciate a drama from the man, like Match Point or half of Crimes And Misdemeanors, but those had interesting characters.  I didn't like anybody in this film or care about any of their problems.  If a bomb dropped on them half way through the movie and killed everyone and the last 30 minutes was their collective funeral I may have enjoyed the film more.  Page isn't bad in the film, actually the performances are all quite good and feel real, but the movie is just so slow and dull that I can't vote for anyone associated with it.

4. Ingrid Bergman - Autumn Sonata - This is an Ingmar Bergman film that takes place primarily in one location.  So, foreign performances always land in 5th place and since Bergman already had 3 Oscar wins by this point there is no way she should win for this.  Although, if it had been a weak year and she only had maybe 1 Oscar, I might consider it.  I watched this movie without subtitles, because I downloaded it and sometimes when you download foreign films they don't include them.  I started watching it thinking I was going to turn it off in 20 minutes but for some reason I was captivated.  I had no idea what they were saying but the performances of Bergman and Liv Ullmann drew me in and the cinematography was so beautiful that I enjoyed watching.  I had to find a plot summary online to piece together everything but surprisingly I was able to pick up most of the plot just based on their faces and inflections.

3. Ellen Burstyn - Same Time, Next Year - I really liked this film but this seems like a filler nomination.  Burstyn doesn't do anything in the film that particulary deserves recognition, except be charismatic and solid as she always is.  Also the reason the movie works so well is because of the chemistry between her and Alan Alda so if you nominate one you should nominate both.  Same Time, Next Year is about two married people who meet at an inn and have an affair.  They decide that they will meet up every year at the same place and through the course of two decades develop a relationship that is as strong, if not stronger, than the one they have with their spouses.  It's a good movie and a fine performance but certainly not 2nd Oscar win territory.  She does do a nice job of aging with the character which is something she excels at over Alda.

2. Jane Fonda - Coming Home - Speaking of not being in 2nd Oscar win territory.  Jane Fonda plays the wife of an Army captain who is heading to Vietnam.  She volunteers at a hospital and meets a paraplegic veteran and starts a relationship with him.  Fonda is just fine in the film, that's all, she's not great, she's not bad, she's just fine.  I didn't really see anything that screamed winner, much like Ellen Burstyn, this is a good nomination and maybe it's just my love for Clayburgh but I can't see this as an Oscar winning role.  The best part of her performance is her sex scene with Voight, that may possibly be the most realistic sex scene I've ever seen in a movie.  I can't help but think that this was a political win.  The Vietnam war is over and anti-war movies are starting to get made and they give the win to Hanoi Jane.

1. Jill Clayburgh - An Unmarried Woman - An Unmarried Woman is a one woman show and Clayburgh is the reason the movie works as well as it does.  It's a very simple story, Clayburgh thinks she has the perfect life until one day her husband tells her he is having an affair.  The way she reacts to that moment alone should have won her an Oscar.  She asks if the other woman is a good lay and then walks away only to vomit by a phone booth.

This decision is a little baffling for a couple of reasons.  1.  Aside from Geraldine Page, Jill Clayburgh is the one woman on this list who hasn't won yet.  So if you take Page out of the equation, as I have, you're left with either giving Burstyn or Fonda a 2nd Oscar, giving Bergman a 4th or giving Clayburgh her first.  A 2nd Oscar should be reserved for a category with no competition or a performance that can't be questioned as a winner.  Fonda's performance isn't something that needs to be honored and Clayburgh would win in a stronger year.  2. An Unmarried Woman somehow scored a Best Picture nomination and since Clayburgh is the whole show she would have to be the main reason the movie succeeded and got the nod.  How she can single-handedly get a movie a Best Picture nomination and not win Best Actress?  So I think you can figure out who I'm voting for.

Oscar Winner: Jane Fonda

My Vote: Jill Clayburgh

GABBY Winner: Jill Clayburgh

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

5. Jack Warden - Heaven Can Wait - Warden gives a nice comedic performance in the same role that got James Gleason a nomination in 1941.  This is one of those were if he wasn't nominated you wouldn't think twice about it but since he's nominated you notice how good he is.  There's nothing in the performance that screams winner or even a need to be recognized but he's fun in the role as the only guy dead Warren Beatty can confide in.

4. Richard Farnsworth - Comes A Horseman - I love Richard Farnsworth, he's got this soft and sweet voice that perfectly matches his soft and sweet look.  Comes A Horseman is not a great film but Farnsworth is good in it.  He plays a ranch hand who helps the two main characters until his death scene.  I'm glad he got nominated but the part is so slight and the movie isn't that good, so I can't vote for him.

3. Bruce Dern - Coming Home - Dern is perfectly serviceable as Jane Fonda's captain husband.  He shows up in all 3 acts of the film.  First, he eagerly heads out to Vietnam, then he comes back aghast the atrocities he's seen, and finally at the end to confront Fonda about her affair.  His best scene is in the middle of the film where he talks about how his men enjoy cutting off the heads of the VietCong.  I didn't quite buy into the third act role for his character but Dern does a nice job playing a character who goes through a huge change.

2. John Hurt - Midnight Express - Hurt won the Golden Globe for his performance here and does what a good supporting actor should do, take a character that would otherwise be just part of the ensemble and make him the most fascinating part of the movie.  Hurt plays Max, one of the prisoners in the Turkish prison, he's been there so long that he's sort of insane.  The only problem with the performance is that there's not really not that much of it.  Hurt stays in the background for a lot of the movie only to come to the foreground to say some crazy stuff.  Still, in this weak category an interesting performance gets noticed.

1. Christopher Walken - The Deer Hunter - Walken is the heart of the movie and the most sympathetic character.  He is scared of going off to war and shows it in almost every scene so we really feel for him when the Vietnamese have a gun to his head.  His character gets slightly monotone through the second half of the film but that only heightens his turn right at the end.  Walken is a terrific actor and this was his best chance at winning an Oscar which influences my decision.

I could make a case for any of these actors winning.  All are terrific character actors who deserve the title of "Best Supporting Actor".  The least deserving is Warden but that's just because his character is under written, he definitely earned an Oscar with a career of great performances.  So I got 5 actors who all deserve Oscars and this is the best time to honor them so I gotta vote for my favorite performance and not think about careers.  Walken in more important to his movie's story so I gotta vote for him but Hurt certainly deserves praise for making the most out of a small part.

Oscar Winner: Christopher Walken

My Vote: Christopher Walken

GABBY Winner: John Vernon for National Lampoon's Animal House 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

5. Dyan Cannon - Heaven Can Wait - Cannon plays the wife of the new body Warren Beatty jumps into.  She has just poisoned her husband with the help of her lover and is very alarmed when he wakes up and starts running around.  That's pretty much her whole role in the film, she screams a lot and schemes with Charles Grodin.  She's fun in the role but I couldn't help but notice that I wasn't laughing when she was on screen and that was the point of her character.

4. Penelope Milford - Coming Home - This definitely feels like a "here for the ride" nomination.  Milford plays a friend of Fonda's who she meets at the hospital.  She has a brother there who is suffering from PTSD.  She has a really nice moment when she breaks down after his death but other than that she has little to do in the film. 

3. Maggie Smith - California Suite - So Smith wins an Oscar for playing a woman who loses an Oscar.  California Suite is a collection of Neil Simon stories all taking place in a hotel.  Smith's story is her and Michael Caine as a married couple getting ready to go to the Academy Awards.  She's a respected British actress nominated for a crappy American comedy.  She's also married to Caine and it's a marriage of convenience as he is a closeted homosexual.  Smith and Caine are almost better than the film.  Some of the stories are played specifically for comedy but Maggie and Michael are in their own film and it's the best section of the movie.  Not sure if it's second Oscar good but it's a nice performance. 

2. Meryl Streep - The Deer Hunter - Streep plays Walken's girlfriend back home.  She has a dad that beats her and she worries about her boyfriend when he doesn't come home.  She then starts a relationship with De Niro.  It's not a win worthy performance but it is a really great first nomination for Streep.  She brings life into every scene which is good because she's mostly in the last half of the movie when it needs some energy.

1. Maureen Stapleton - Interiors - Ok, when I said I couldn't vote for anyone in Interiors, I may have misspoke.  Stapleton is a bright spot of the film and the only person I had any enjoyment watching.  I was so happy she showed up because I started just generally disliking the film rather than outright hating it.  The movie is about 3 sisters and their mother.  The father wants a separation and brings his new girlfriend to dinner, played by Stapleton.  Everyone in the movie is so dull and boring and then Stapleton shows up as a "vulgarian" and injects some life into the movie.

Right off the bat, I don't think any of these performances are worthy of an Oscar.  So if I'm not voting for performance I'll vote for the actress.  Milford definitely hasn't earned an Oscar, neither has Cannon.  Streep is going to win next year and twice after that, If I was voting in 1978 I would probably have voted for her.  So the vote is between Smith and Stapleton.  Smith already had an Oscar, and still working in her 80s could still possibly win another, so I'll pick Stapleton.  Even though she's in the movie I liked the least she was the only thing I liked about it. 

Oscar Winner: Maggie Smith

My Vote: Maureen Stapleton

GABBY Winner: Angela Lansbury for Death On The Nile

Best Director

Michael Cimino makes perfect sense for The Deer Hunter.  In 1978 nobody knew that he would go mad with power and make only bad or really bad films for the rest of his career.  Of the other nominees I would vote for Hal Ashby for the performances in Coming Home and Alan Parker for the visuals and the mood in Midnight Express but Cimino really deserves credit for those Russian Roulette scenes, I just wish his editor had more control. 

Best Original Screenplay/Adapted Screenplay

Coming Home wins Original which is probably the best choice in the category.  Is it ironic that Woody Allen got nominated for copying Ingmar Bergman and got nominated in the same category, as Interiors was up against Autumn Sonata.  Oliver Stone wins his first Oscar for Midnight Express which is also the best choice in the category although I did really love Same Time, Next Year. 

Best Original Score/Song Score or Adaptation Score/Song

 I like the score for Midnight Express but it doesn't quite hold up to today's music standards.  It certainly can't compare to John Williams's nominated Superman score, but he won just last year for Star Wars.  The Buddy Holly Story wins the now rightfully defunct Original Song Score or Adaptation Score against The Wiz and Pretty Baby, which is a movie you should stay away from if you don't want to feel icky.  The Best Song category is one of the best chances for a bad movie to win an Oscar as Thank God It's Friday is now an Oscar winning film for Donna Summer's classic Last Dance.  Grease scored a nomination for Hopelessly Devoted To You and two other recognizable ballads got nods Johnny Mathis's The Last Time I Felt Like This and Barry Manilow's Ready To Take A Chance Again. 

Best Sound

The Deer Hunter wins which disproves my theory that musicals always win this category as The Buddy Holly Story was also nominated.  The Deer Hunter only has one scene where the sound is impressive as Superman is wall to wall sound. 

Best Costume Design

Death On The Nile wins which is a fine decision.  The Wiz would have been a good choice too.  Someone who worked on Irwin Allen films must have had some friends in the Academy because the laughably awful The Swarm somehow scored a nomination.

Gotta admit, they look pretty good. 

Best Art Direction

Heaven Can Wait wins which I can only assume is a win for the only Best Picture nominee in the category otherwise, how does The Wiz lose this?  I mean, the Academy is racist. 

Best Cinematography

You know how I can prove it was a weak film year?  Same Time, Next Year and Heaven Can Wait get nominated for Best Cinematography and nothing was really snubbed.  Days Of Heaven is one of the most beautiful movies ever made.  What it lacks in interesting storytelling it makes up for with the visuals. 

Best Film Editing

The Deer Hunter wins which is a joke, good editing propels a story forward not grind it to a halt randomly.

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