1973 Oscar Watch

This is not a year I like.  The Sting is a good movie but sticks out among the other '70s winners.  You got The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Rocky, The French Connection, The Deer Hunter and The Sting, a sweet little story about grifting with an old timey score, old timey editing and seems kinda...old timey.  All the other movies seem new and exciting, The Sting is a throwback to another style of movie making.  Other factors went in to it winning, mostly because this was a weak year.  Speaking of which...
You can see my GABBY winners and nominees HERE

BEST PICTURE

 

5. Cries And Whispers - Ask me how many times I've seen Cries And Whispers.  Almost once.  It's only 90 minutes but I turned it off after about 45.  I know I'm missing something or I'm not cultured or something but I just don't get Ingmar Bergman movies.

4. A Touch Of Class - Nominations like this make me mad.  This is not a bad movie, it's an enjoyable romantic comedy with some screwball moments.  But how does this get a nomination and movies like A Fish Called Wanda or Young Frankenstein don't?  There's nothing about this movie that would make you think that it got nominated for Best Picture and won an Oscar for Best Actress.  George Segal meets Glenda Jackson and wants to have sex with her.  He's married, she's recently divorced.  She agrees to an affair but wants to go someplace nice so he flies her to Spain for the week.  Complications arise and they realize they don't have much in common.  Segal and Jackson have good chemistry and the movie is cute.  It's just not a Best Picture.

3. American Graffiti - George Lucas wrote and directed this episodic look at teenagers in the 1950s.  This was the start of a big boom for 50's nostalgia, most notably the TV show Happy Days and the musical Grease!.  This movie has cool cars and a soundtrack full of classic tunes.  The style of the movie I like, the story isn't anything special.  There are too many characters and it never comes together.  Ron Howard is going to college and wondering what he should do about his girlfriend, Richard Dreyfuss is aimless trying to figure out his next step in life, Charles Martin Smith meets a girl and gets his car stolen, Paul LeMat ends up driving a young girl around town against his will.  It was a bit too episodic for me, feeling like a TV show rather than a movie.  I understand why it got nominated though, this movie was a colossal hit.

2. The Sting - Robert Redford and his buddy make their living by grifting on the streets.  They pull cons together on rubes and steal their money.  One day they hit the wrong guy and Redford's buddy gets killed.  Redford wants revenge so he teams up with Paul Newman to pull a long con on the guy responsible.  The whole movie is them pulling cons on Robert Shaw as he stews to the point where you think he's going to find out about them, then he does find out but that was all part of the con.  It's a really fun movie and is done in a throwback style where it seems like something from the Hal Roach studios in the 30s.

1. The Exorcist - I often say that I don't like horror movies.  What I really mean by that is that I don't like poorly made horror movies.  This is an excellent film and when I watch it I notice that every modern horror movie blatantly rips this film off.  A little girl gets possessed by the devil, they take her to the hospital first, then a psychiatrist and then finally an exorcism.  The climax is incredible where it's a young priest and an old priest vs. a sweet little girl who has the devil inside of her.

The vote comes down between The Exorcist and The Sting with American Graffiti a distant 3rd.  Cries And Whispers and A Touch Of Class have no reason to be here.  The Sting is a really fun movie and The Exorcist is a really dark well made film.  The Exorcist fits in perfectly with the movies that were winning at this time.  You would have Midnight Cowboy, Patton, The French Connection, The Godfather and The Exorcist.  The Sting though has a makeup win going for it.  Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid didn't win in 1969 so they gathered the entire group together again to make The Sting.  For that reason I am totally cool with The Sting winning.  I'm voting The Exorcist because I like it better but The Sting is a good movie too.

Oscar Winner: The Sting

My Vote: The Exorcist

GABBY Winner: The Exorcist

BEST ACTOR

 

5. Marlon Brando - Last Tango In Paris - First off, Brando just won last year so I don't need to consider voting for him.  Secondly, I don't like this movie at all.  It gets put on a lot of lists of great movies but I just don't get it.  Brando is an American in France, he's depressed.  He meets a young woman and has a sexual affair with her with no emotional attachment.  There's a scene where he anal rapes her with some butter, it's artsy and dull.  Brando himself said that he had no idea what the movie was about and it kinda shows in his performance.  He wrote all his lines on cue cards placed around the set and you can tell.  Brando is a great actor because he can display emotions while reading something off paper but I'm not considering voting for this at all.

4. Robert Redford - The Sting - This movie succeeds on style and the star power of Newman and Redford.  There's not so much acting going on here as there is just natural charisma.  Redford is good in the film but you can't really convince me that he's giving an incredible performance.  If anything I would much rather see Newman get the nod.  Redford and Newman were two of the coolest guys ever and in this movie they play two cool guys.  Not an incredible stretch.

3. Al Pacino - Serpico - Frank Serpico is the most by the books cop ever.  He spends his nights going over fingerprints to find a match to his potential perp while the rest of the force mocks him.  He starts to see some corruption within the force and starts reporting it up the chain of command.  Of course the corrupt cops don't like this one bit.  Pacino is good here but I kept seeing Michael Corleone with a mustache, which is an odd complaint because the next guy on my list is doing the same thing but I loved it.

2. Jack Nicholson - The Last Detail - Here's why I love Jack Nicholson, there is nothing about this character that makes me think an Oscar nomination would go to the actor playing him but in Jack's hands the part is memorable.  He's a navy officer who is ordered to transport a young sailor to prison.  Through the course of their weekend he starts to feel empathy for the prisoner and takes him out for dinner, gets him drinks, takes him to a whore house and tries to give the kid some confidence in himself.  Jack makes this role special based on star power and charisma and makes the character better than it has any right to be.

1. Jack Lemmon - Save The Tiger - This was a passion project for Lemmon.  He took a big pay cut to get the movie made and it's one of those movies where they were never expecting it to make money, they just wanted to tell this story.  Lemmon plays a dress manufacturer plotting arson to collect the insurance money.  He's also an old man in a young man's world who doesn't quite understand today's culture.  That's what Save The Tiger refers to, he himself is a dying animal.  Lemmon is terrific, the movie is just okay.

This is a bit of a toughie.  Brando is out right off the bat, he won twice already, one of those being last year.  Redford is also out, the movie is a two-hander and if Redford gets nominated Newman should too.  That leaves Lemmon, Nicholson and Pacino.  Lemmon already had an Oscar but that was almost 20 years ago.  Historically, Nicholson is going to win in 2 years and 2 more times so he doesn't need this.  Pacino is going to win in 1992 also Redford will win Best Director in 1980.  So everybody here got an Oscar at one point so I'll vote Lemmon because he was the most overdue.  Don't forget Nicholson and Pacino were still the new kids at this point.

Oscar Winner: Jack Lemmon

My Vote: Jack Lemmon

GABBY Winner: Steve McQueen for Papillon

BEST ACTRESS

 

5. Joanne Woodward - Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams - This is a movie where not a lot happens and when it's over you think to yourself, "Well, I guess I watched that.".  Joanne Woodward plays a woman who facing a sort of midlife crisis.  She resents her husband, has trouble dealing with her children and also has an overbearing mother.  She also has nightmares and dreams.  It's a very forgettable film, and I just watched it.

4. Barbra Streisand - The Way We Were - This movie is like Love Story but...ok, it's almost exactly like Love Story except nobody dies.  Streisand is a Jewish liberal and Robert Redford is a WASPy conservative.  They meet, fall in love, it's a cute little romantic drama.  Striesand is good, the score is sentimental but she's already won so we can move on.

3. Glenda Jackson - A Touch Of Class - This is a cute romantic comedy about Glenda Jackson, a recently divorced woman having an affair with George Segal who is a married man who cheats on his wife when she's out of town.  They fly to Spain and have a series of complications.  Jackson is good here but it's not an Oscar level performance.  She has great chemistry with George Segal but there's no reason why she needed to win for this, especially since she just won 3 years ago.

2. Marsha Mason - Cinderella Liberty - James Caan is a sailor who is granted liberty from the navy.  He lives on the base but can go out as much as he wants as long as he returns by his curfew.  He meets a prostitute played by Mason and they start a relationship.  It's a romantic comedy held together by the likability of its two leads.  Caan is good and Mason is really sweet and charming.  She's introduced hustling pool in a bar and she comes off as a hard and tough lady but then the rough exterior melts away and you see the person she really is.  Mason is really good in the film, it's not quite an Oscar winning performance but this is a fairly weak category so she contends for a vote.

1. Ellen Burstyn - The Exorcist - This is simply a terrific performance that should have won this category hands down.  Burstyn plays a mother who finds out that her daughter is possessed by the devil.  What I love about this performance, and this movie, is that they never play anything like it's a horror movie.  This is a story about a mother trying to figure out what is wrong with her daughter.  She tries every avenue to figure out what's wrong before trying an exorcism because that's the last possible option.  Burstyn plays the character completely realistic and that's what makes the movie all the more terrifying, because there are real stakes to it.

I'm starting to think that maybe there were people in the Academy afraid that the devil would come get them if they voted for The Exorcist.  I can understand going with The Sting for Best Picture but I have no idea why Burstyn lost this.  She gets my vote just based on process of elimination.  Jackson, Striesand and Woodward won already so they're out.  That just leaves Burstyn and Mason, Burstyn gave the better performance so she wins.  The decision seems pretty easy when you think about it.  Glenda Jackson winning here is really a terrible decision.  If she hadn't won before I could see it as an okay decision but she won in 1970 for a performance that didn't earn an Oscar and she wins again 3 years later for, arguably, a lesser performance.  Burstyn is gonna win next year so she didn't get snubbed but Gena Rowlands did.  She gave an incredible performance in A Woman Under The Influence but lost to Ellen Burstyn.  One bad decision can ruin everything.

Oscar Winner: Glenda Jackson

My Vote: Ellen Burstyn

GABBY Winner: Ellen Burstyn

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

 

5. Jack Gilford - Save The Tiger - I love Jack Gilford and am really bummed that this was his only nomination.  He was heartbreaking in Cocoon and very funny in A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum but scored his only nomination as the guy Jack Lemmon talks to in Save The Tiger.  He doesn't do much in this film, he's good but as you watch the movie there is no scene to point to that makes you think he deserved a nomination.  He's basically there so Jack Lemmon can talk about his problems to someone who understands him.

4. John Houseman - The Paper Chase - I liked this movie for what it was but didn't really enjoy it.  It feels like someone went to law school and then wrote a screenplay based on their experience.  Problem is, there life wasn't that interesting.  The movie is about Timothy Bottoms in his freshman year at Harvard law.  He seems to think that his professor is out to get him so he studies hard to earn his respect.  Turns out that the professor doesn't even know the kid's name.  The student has built up all of this in his mind.  John Houseman plays the professor and he is appropriately authoritative.  He commands respect when he talks because he has a powerful voice.  He has a great final moment where Timothy Bottoms confronts him and thanks him for everything and Houseman asks him his name.  The character reminded me a lot of John Vernon in Animal House but there he was trying to usurp the students, here he's just doing his job.  I like the parody of the character better than the original.

3. Jason Miller - The Exorcist - Miller plays a disillusioned priest who gets called in for an exorcism.  He has to use God's power to save a little girl but he's also questioning his belief in God.  It's an interesting character and Miller is very good.  The only reason I can't vote for him is because this is his first movie and he gets overshadowed a little in the actual exorcism by Max Von Sydow.  He does have a terrific moment at the very end where he sacrifices himself.

2. Randy Quaid - The Last Detail - Quaid plays a young sailor who gets caught stealing money from a donation box and is sent to military prison.  He is being transferred there by two older sailors.  During transport they start to feel sorry for him because he's just a pathetic little kid.  Quaid nails this character.  You feel for him because he is so naive and as the movie rolls along he starts to grow up which is even more devastating because now he's got confidence but he's still going to jail.  Quaid disappears into this role and is my favorite performance in the category.  I'll explain below why I'm not voting for him.

1. Vincent Gardenia - Bang The Drum Slowly - This movie is not very good, its like Brian's Song if...okay, it's exactly like Brian's Song except he's a baseball player rather than a football player.  Robert De Niro is a catcher who is low on smarts.  He's suffering from a terminal illness so his buddy on the team makes sure that he won't get traded or cut.  Gardenia plays the team's manager and he's basically the comic relief of the film.  For a large portion of the movie he thinks that the two players are gay (because De Niro is trying to hide his illness) so he hires a private investigator to figure out why they are missing practice and spending so much time together.  Once the illness is made public Gardenia makes a big speech to inspire the team to win in his honor.  It's a memorable part in a not so great movie.  I would usually never vote for this but...

Here's how a guy goes from 5th to 1st.  I started this category by watching Bang The Drum Slowly because it was the only one I hadn't seen before.  I didn't like the film but thought Vincent Gardenia was the best part.  So I put him 5th thinking that everyone else will rank higher for a vote.  Then I watch Save The Tiger and, while I love Jack Gilford, he doesn't do much in the film and what he does do is overshadowed by Jack Lemmon.  So Gilford goes in the 5th spot and Gardenia moves up to 4th.  Then I watch The Last Detail and think Randy Quaid plays his character perfectly, but if I'm not voting for Jack Nicholson I can't vote for Randy Quaid.  So Gardenia moves to 3rd, Quaid 4th and Gilford 5th.  Then I watch The Paper Chase and think Houseman is perfectly cast in his role.  He's solid but when the choice is between a legitimate character actor and a guy in his first movie I vote for the character actor.  So Gardenia is now 2nd and Houseman is 4th.  Finally I watch The Exorcist and this is a movie I love and a performance I love.  So Jason Miller is my winner, right?  Well, just like with Houseman, Miller wasn't known as an actor and this was his first movie.  So I have to enact my Jennifer Hudson rule.  I typically don't vote for people in their first movie so that knocks out Miller, Houseman and Quaid for a vote.  And that's how Vincent Gardenia went from being a performance I didn't think I would vote for at all to being my winner.  All of this could have been avoided if they just nominated Robert Shaw for The Sting.

Oscar Winner: John Houseman

My Vote: Vincent Gardenia

GABBY Winner: Robert Shaw for The Sting

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

 

5. Candy Clark - American Graffiti - Um...I guess a Best Picture nominee needs an acting nomination to go with it and Candy Clark drew the longest straw.  She plays a girl that gets in Charles Martin Smith's car and they cruise around together.  There's nothing about this performance at all that deserves a nomination, I mean, she's not bad in the movie but her character barely factors into the plot.  If anyone should have been nominated from this movie it should have been Mackenzie Phillips.

4. Sylvia Sidney - Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams - So I didn't like this movie and Sylvia Sidney is barely in it.  She plays Joanne Woodward's mother.  She has like two scenes and then she dies.  She's here to fill out this category (it was a really weak year) and because she's been in films since they invented them.

3. Tatum O'Neal - Paper Moon - If I knew nothing about Paper Moon I would probably vote for Tatum O'Neal.  She's a precocious little kid working with her father.  She's great in the movie.  There are two reasons why I'm not voting for her.  1.  She is the lead of the film, she's in almost every scene and only not present for about 15 minutes of the movie.  2. Her performance relies heavily on editing.  Director Peter Bogdanovich said he needed up to 50 takes sometimes to get the performance that ended up in the movie.  Knowing that the performance was heavily coached and edited makes me want to vote for an actress who is older than say 9.

2. Linda Blair - The Exorcist - Much like Tatum O'Neal, Linda Blair's performance is heavily aided by editing and in this case puppets, make-up and Mercedes McCambridge's uncredited voice-over.  Blair plays Regan, a young girl who gets possessed by the devil.  For the actual exorcism scenes she is mostly used as a prop but there are little moments where she is just a scared little girl and that is all Blair.

1. Madeline Kahn - Paper Moon - Paper Moon is a pretty good film and Madeline Kahn steals the film with her small but memorable part.  Kahn plays a woman who becomes a companion of Ryan O'Neal's.  They never say outright what her profession is but we can infer either stripper or lady of the evening.  Ryan O'Neal takes a fancy to her and starts paying more attention to her than he does Tatum.  Tatum pulls a prank on her that gets her in trouble and she's gone.  She has one monologue to Tatum that is just dynamite where she tries to explain her situation to a child on her level.

Based on performance and screen time the vote is probably between O'Neal and Blair.  I don't like giving a win to a child so I'm voting for Kahn.  Knowing she's gonna be in both Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein next year just adds to my decision.

Oscar Winner: Tatum O'Neal

My Vote: Madeline Kahn

GABBY Winner: Linda Blair
Madeline Kahn was gonna win in 1974 so gave Blair the win this year.

Best Director
George Roy Hill wins for The Sting which is fine by me.  He didn't win for Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid so they made up for it here.  His only competition was William Friedkin for The Exorcist but he won in 1971, so now they both get Oscars.

Best Original Screenplay/Adapted Screenplay
The Sting wins Original in a weak category that included Save The Tiger, American Graffiti, Cries And Whispers and A Touch Of Class.  If you love any of these movies, I understand but I think The Sting was the best choice.  The Exorcist wins Adapted which was the best choice in a better category that included The Last Detail, Serpico, Paper Moon and The Paper Chase.

Best Original Score/Song Score or Adaptation Score/Song
The space on Marvin Hamlisch's mantle got a little smaller this year as he took home all 3 Oscars.  He wins Best Original Score for The Way We Were (I would have voted for Papillon), Best Song Score of Adaptation Score for The Sting (where he reworked Scott Joplin music) and Best Song for The Way We Were (I would have voted for Live And Let Die).

Best Sound
The Exorcist wins rightfully.

Best Costume Design
Wesley Snipes taught us to always bet on black.  When it comes to the Oscars you always bet on Head.  Edith Head wins her 8th and final award for The Sting.

Best Art Direction
The Sting wins which is the best choice in the category.  I've never seen Brother Sun, Sister Moon but I still think I can make that statement.

Best Cinematography
Cries And Whispers wins.  The cinematographer must have really liked red.

Best Film Editing
The Sting wins.  I appreciated the old timey editing, there's a lot of wipes which really fit the style of the movie.  The Exorcist really should have won here though.

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1969