1974 Oscar Watch

1974 looks great on paper.  The Godfather Part II wins Best Picture and Robert De Niro wins his first Oscar.  But when you think about it, did The Godfather saga need a 2nd Best Picture win in 3 years?  Especially when Chinatown and The Conversation were in the mix?  You also have a 3rd Oscar for Ingrid Bergman over a very deserving Madeline Kahn.  I actually disagreed with all the Oscar choices except for one and that's the one everyone thinks is the worst decision.  We'll get to that in a second, but I agree with Art Carney winning Best Actor.
You can see my GABBY winners and nominees HERE

BEST PICTURE

 

5. The Towering Inferno - Much like Airport, I've always resented the Best Picture nomination for The Towering Inferno.  They nominated this and Airport but ignored The Poseidon Adventure which is the best disaster movie of the three.  This is one of those movies where you introduce a bunch of characters, set up the disaster and then watch your favorite movie stars from yesterday and today die one by one.  This is an enjoyable film but suffers from the same melodramatic soap opera plots as Airport did.  It's almost a parody of itself with how serious it takes itself.

4. Lenny - Here we have a biopic of Lenny Bruce, who was a stand-up comedian that pushed the boundaries and was arrested numerous times on obscenity charges.  All comedians owe Lenny a debt so they can say whatever they want now.  Problem is, I never found him very funny.  But this is about the movie, not the subject.  The movie is told in a non-linear docudrama fashion.  People will break the fourth wall and talk about Lenny Bruce or Dustin Hoffman as Bruce will do a stand-up set that vaguely corresponds with a moment in his life and then that moment will play out.  There's a style here, but I was never quite sure what the style was.  It's also a biopic with no overarching story and for a movie about a comedian, it takes itself way too seriously.  It's a good movie, not great though.

3. The Godfather, Part II - You know The Godfather, a bunch of gangsters do some gangster shit.  This is the same basic story, except now Michael's in charge.  A lot of people say this is as good as the original.  I think it's a great movie, but it's still a sequel.  It's also overlong.  I feel that the scenes with Robert DeNiro as young Vito Corleone are unnecessary.  They seem to be there so we can see how Michael's life parallels his father's but we already have that in that fact that he's doing the same things his father did in the first movie.  It also ends the same way as the original, with Michael tying up all his loose ends with murder.  It's a very good movie but I think knowing that there's a 3rd one ruins this one.  Why would you want to watch the middle, unless you were doing a marathon of all 3?

2. Chinatown - The last Oscar Watch I did was for 1947, so I watched a lot of film noir films.  It was so refreshing to see a well made one.  This might be the best private eye film of all time.  Jack Nicholson plays J.J. Gittes who is hired to snoop on a possibly philandering husband by his wife.  After he gets all the info he is visited by another woman who is the actual wife, and she's not happy.  Things get more complicated from there.  This might be Nicholson's best performance as he is incredible as the fast talking, fast thinking private eye and never hits a false note.  It also includes terrific performances from Faye Dunaway and John Huston, a tight screenplay and Roman Polanski directs the hell out of this.

1. The Conversation - Gene Hackman plays a surveillance expert who is hired to record two people in a public place.  He records it, isolates all the background noise and delivers it to the people who hired him.  He becomes consumed by it when he thinks the people are fearful that they are going to be murdered.  He goes over and over the same words, not realizing that he hears what they are saying but doesn't have the meaning behind it.  This is an incredible movie about paranoia, language, secrecy and human interaction in general.  This was also directed by Francis Ford Coppola, what a year that guy had.  He also wrote The Great Gatsby, a bad movie that scored some technical nominations.

I've seen all of these movies before but watching them all in a row, the one that knocked me off my feet was The Conversation.  I had forgotten how it ended so when the twist came I was completely shocked.  This movie is so damn good.  The Godfather Part II holds up as a winner, especially since they didn't give Coppola Best Director for the first one.  It won Best Picture but picking Bob Fosse over Coppola was kind of a snub.  So I'm cool with it winning but arguably Chinatown would be the better decision.  I could easily blame a Coppola split and pick Chinatown but I just liked The Conversation better.  Looking at this category historically I would have preferred a Chinatown win here so they could have honored Roman Polanski before all that seedy stuff happened rather than after.

Oscar Winner: The Godfather, Part II

My Vote: The Conversation

GABBY Winner: Young Frankenstein

BEST ACTOR

 

5. Dustin Hoffman - Lenny - Hoffman plays Lenny Bruce, martyred stand-up comedian who couldn't control his language.  For about half of the film Hoffman recreates Lenny's stand-up act and since Bruce's comedy was so personal there is something missing in Hoffman's performance.  He feels less like a stand-up comic pouring his heart out and more like an actor delivering a comedic monologue.  He does excel in the other parts of the film.

4. Albert Finney - Murder On The Orient Express - Finney plays Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie's famous Belgian detective.  He speaks in an over the top accent and wears a properly groomed mustache.  I'm not an Agatha Christie fan, I've never read any of her books but have seen several film adaptations.  A bunch of people are on a train, a murder happens, everyone's a suspect, Poirot figures it out.  Finney is really entertaining in the film.  One thing I like about his performance is that he always seems to be thinking.  We are literally watching a detective figuring out a case as he always appears to be putting clues together in his head.

3. Al Pacino - The Godfather, Part II - Pacino recreates his role of Michael Corleone for the sequel to 1972's perfect Best Picture winner.  Michael is now the man in charge and is the exact opposite from his character in the original.  He's grown up and is now powerful and commanding.  It's an incredible transformation and performance.  The only reason I'm not voting for it is because it's a sequel.  They should have given him the win in 1972, that was their mistake.  This would have been a good retribution win but there are two performances I liked better.

2. Jack Nicholson - Chinatown - Before we get into it, this is my favorite Jack Nicholson performance.  The only reason he places number 2 here is because he's going to win next year and 2 more times in his career.  He didn't need this win but he definitely deserved it.  Nicholson plays JJ Gittes, a private eye hired to follow a man by his wife only to find out that it wasn't really his wife.  Nicholson is perfect here and, much like Finney as Poirot, you always see him thinking.  He's discovering clues and figuring things out but he always put you right in the character's shoes.  He's fast talking his way out of situations but not in that Sherlock Holmes way where you think he's a genius, he's just a regular guy figuring it out as the audience does.

1. Art Carney - Harry And Tonto - I love this movie.  Art Carney plays an old man who is forced out of his home.  He then travels the country with his cat.  He's a chatty old man who likes to converse with people, he's also very opinionated.  He's one of those old guys who feels like he's earned the right to speak his mind.  He has troubles with the airlines and then the bus, he rents a car and picks up a hitchhiker.  It's like Planes, Trains And Automobiles if John Candy was a cat.  Anyway, this movie wouldn't be anything if it weren't for Carney's performance.  He's just terrific and I didn't even realize that he was about 20 years younger than his character was supposed to be, he's just that good.  He has a lot of poignant monologues delivered to his cat and I had to hold back tears at times just because of how much I loved him.

I'm as surprised as anyone else that I actually agree with the academy this year.  Most people look at this as one of the worst Best Actor decisions of all time.  Historically it doesn't matter that much because Nicholson went on to win 3 Oscars, Hoffman won 2 and Pacino got his 20 years later.  Finney's still waiting on his Oscar but he had way better opportunities than this.  At the time though everything was equal as nobody here had an Oscar yet.  So how I would vote now is different from how I would vote then.  Now I see Carney as a sentimental and fun choice, although arguably Pacino and Nicholson give better performances.  In 1974 I would probably pick Jack since his movie's better and he'd been cranking out great performances every year since Five Easy Pieces.  Still, after watching all the movies the only performance that moved me to tears was Art Carney's.  Plus, the dude was Ed Norton on The Honeymooners, the guy was a living legend.

Oscar Winner: Art Carney

My Vote: Art Carney

GABBY Winner: Gene Hackman for The Conversation

BEST ACTRESS

 

5. Valerie Perrine - Lenny - Perrine plays Lenny Bruce's girlfriend and later wife.  We first meet her as a stripper.  In a long scene she strips for a crowd of what appears to be all old ladies.  Why were people so upset about comedians swearing when our grandmothers were in strip joints?  She's naked a lot in the movie and breaks the fourth wall to talk to the invisible interviewer in the film.  She's perfectly fine in the film but calling her a lead actress is a bit generous.  She has a lot of screen time but it doesn't seem right having her have equal billing with Hoffman.

4. Faye Dunaway - Chinatown - So Dunaway is perfect in this film and would be a runaway winner in most years.  I can't vote for her for a couple reasons.  1. I didn't vote for Jack so it would seem weird to vote for her and not him.  2. She's gonna win in 1976 for a better performance.  3. Even though her screen time is ample enough to warrant a nomination in the lead category, she's not in the movie enough to warrant equal billing with Jack.  Other than that, Dunaway is amazing in this movie.

3. Diahann Carroll - Claudine - This is one of the biggest surprises so far during these Oscar Watch blogs.  I loved this movie so much and have never seen it until now.  Claudine was released at a time where most movies starring black casts were of the blaxploitation genre, where a black tough guy beats up a lot of white people and there are almost always pimps and drugs involved.  This was a movie about a real black family.  Claudine is a woman on welfare who secretly works to make ends meet.  She has 6 children and starts a relationship with a garbage man played by James Earl Jones.  He has children of his own, that he never sees and he starts to become a father figure to the children.  It's an incredibly sweet film that also feels real.  It's just about a family struggling but they get along because they do whatever they can.  Carroll is really great here but it's just not quite an Oscar winning role.  I love that she got the nomination and she would be my vote in a weaker year.  She would have definitely won this category in 1973 but the next 2 performances on this list are just stronger.

2. Ellen Burstyn - Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore - This is Martin Scorsese's first big studio film and it's very interesting to watch on that level.  We're so familiar with his style now that to see a movie that is so unlike anything he's ever done is compelling because there are slight glimmers of Scorsese buried within a pretty standard single mother road trip film.  Burstyn plays a woman who has a shit husband and a shit son, she's unhappy in her life and one day her husband dies in a car crash.  She suddenly has no direction so she sells a bunch of stuff and gets in the car with her son.  Burstyn is terrific in the film and holds the movie together with her performance.  It's one of those movies where if they main actress wasn't great then the movie would fail but since Burstyn is so good, the movie is good too.

1. Gena Rowlands - A Woman Under The Influence - Do you like John Cassavetes movies?  Do you like 2 1/2 hours of people talking?  Yeah, me neither.  Cassavetes was really big into improv and making dialogue seem real.  While I admire that, the problem is that real conversations are far more boring than well written dialogue.  That's why we watch movies and don't just sit in a Taco Bell and listen to people talk.  That said, Rowlands is fantastic in this movie.  She plays a woman who starts to show signs of a nervous breakdown.  Her behavior becomes so erratic, like yelling at people on the streets, that her husband has her committed.  Then he has to deal with the kids.  She comes back from the institution and shows some signs of improvement but also signs of trouble still.  She's incredible and deserved the Oscar based on performance alone.

I'm torn here because I liked Rowlands's performance better but I liked Burstyn's movie better.  I kind of want to vote for Burstyn because if I was going to recommend you watch Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore or A Woman Under The Influence I would pick the former.  Also, Burstyn really should have won last year so that's a factor in her favor.  If we're talking strictly performance though, Rowlands acted her ass off in her movie so my vote goes to her with a warning.  Be prepared before you watch A Woman Under The Influence, if you love it then you should watch all of the director's films.  If you don't like it, respect the performances but don't bother watching movies like Husbands, Faces and The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie.

Oscar Winner: Ellen Burstyn

My Vote: Gena Rowlands

GABBY Winner: Gena Rowlands

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

 

5. Jeff Bridges - Thunderbolt And Lightfoot - This is such a bizarre nomination.  Thunderbolt And Lightfoot is a Clint Eastwood heist movie about an old bank robber and a young car thief teaming up for a job.  It's a pretty good movie and Bridges is good in it but this is like if Seann William Scott got nominated for The Rundown.  He's the quippy young thief who is very energetic and charismatic.  You can definitely see why Bridges became a star but there's nothing here that screams "Oscar" when you watch it.  It's definitely a fun nomination and despite being 5th in my rankings, this is not the weakest performance on this list but I'll get to that in a second.

4. Robert De Niro - The Godfather, Part II - De Niro plays young Vito Corleone in flashback scenes.  This part of the movie is almost entirely in Italian with subtitles.  I really don't like this part of the film and find it unnecessary.  It almost seems like a mini movie in the middle of another movie.  It's here to compare Vito's rise to power with Michael's but it just gets in the way of the main story.  I'm completely involved with Michael's dilemma on whether or not to kill his own brother and then we cut to an almost completely unrelated story.  De Niro is good in the role but there's better and more interesting performances in the same film.

3. Lee Strasberg - The Godfather, Part II - Strasberg was a famous acting teacher with a lengthy list of respected pupils who made his film acting debut as Hyman Roth in The Godfather Part II.  The guy was in his 70s and was nominated for Most Promising Newcomer at the Golden Globes.  Hyman Roth is like the Jewish equivalent of the Corleone family.  He used to work with Don Vito but Vito never trusted him.  He orders a hit on Michael, Michael orders a hit on him and Hyman's rationale is that this is all business.  He's really good in the role but this is kind of a veteran nomination, even though this is his first movie.

2. Michael V. Gazzo - The Godfather, Part II - Remember Clemenza from the original Godfather?  Apparently he wanted too much money for the sequel so they basically replaced him with Michael V. Gazzo.  He's introduced at the beginning of the movie as the guy who took over for Clemenza.  Michael says something like, it's a shame Clemenza died but when he did die we gave you all his responsibilities.  Watching the movie I was left thinking that his character would be more powerful if it was played by the same actor.  That being said, Gazzo is really good in this role.  He has a harsh and raspy voice that makes him perfect for a mafia tough.  He testifies against the family, then perjures himself when he recants but then is told to basically kill himself or he will be killed.  He doesn't feel like an actor, he feels like a real guy, which is great acting.

1. Fred Astaire - The Towering Inferno - Did somebody say 'Veteran Nomination'?  The Towering Inferno is an all star disaster movie where a bunch of movie stars are in a burning building and you bet money on who will die.  Astaire is an old con man with a heart.  He is there to bilk old ladies out of money in stock options for companies that don't exist.  Of course, when his life is threatened he redeems himself.  There is absolutely nothing about this performance that warrants an Oscar, or even a nomination, but since he's here...

First off, no John Cazale?  Three nominees from The Godfather Part II and you snub the best performance in the whole film?  Okay, so Fred Astaire and Art Carney winning in the same year would have been a bad Oscar year but it's impossible for me not to vote for Fred Astaire.  His performance is nothing special but he is very sweet in the film and he's a god damn movie icon who deserves an Oscar.  He doesn't belong in this category at all but since he's here I feel compelled to vote for him.  I get it now, I know how Jack Palance, James Coburn and Alan Arkin won Oscars.  Fred Astaire is too great not to vote for.  It seems weird that he didn't win actually.  Every other time there have been 3 nominees from the same film, the vote was split and somebody else won, just like in 1972 when Pacino, James Caan and Robert Duvall were nominated from The Godfather and Joel Grey won.  Also, this category has one movie legend and 3 untested talents.  Gazzo and Strasberg will be best remembered for The Godfather Part II, Bridges and De Niro are still pretty new to film.  I'm using the same logic to blame a vote split and cast my vote for Fred Astaire.  Performance be damned, the guy had an amazing career.  Looking at alternative history, everything checks out.  If Astaire wins here then De Niro probably wins for Taxi Driver, a better performance, and if not he still wins for Raging Bull.  Everything works out this way and Astaire and De Niro both get Oscar wins.

Oscar Winner: Robert De Niro

My Vote: Fred Astaire

GABBY Winner: Harvey Korman for Blazing Saddles

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

 

5. Valentina Cortese - Day For Night - Foreign nomination equals automatic last place.  Actually Valentina was the favorite to win before Bergman took home the award.  Day For Night is a very good film and she is good in the role of an aging actress but it's impossible for me to compare a performance in a foreign language to an English speaking one.

4. Ingrid Bergman - Murder On The Orient Express - I'm not opposed to career achievement nominations.  You get an older actor and give them a nomination just for showing up.  I'm not always opposed to career achievement wins but the actor needs to be in more than 5 minutes of the film.  If Ingrid Bergman had never won an Oscar, maybe, but she already had 2.  You're gonna give her a 3rd for one scene?

3. Diane Ladd - Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore - Ellen Burstyn's husband dies so she packs up her belongings and her son in her car and heads out to find herself.  About an hour into the movie she gets a job at a diner and meets Flo, played by Diane Ladd.  She's a foul mouthed waitress who speaks her mind.  I only assumed she would have more of a part in the film because of the TV series based on the movie.  The character of Flo even got her own spinoff.  Her catchphrase was "Kiss my grits", which she never says in the movie.  Anyway, Ladd is fine in the role but the part is neither big enough or substantial enough to warrant a win.

2. Talia Shire - The Godfather, Part II - Shire's character is now about to get remarried and really only has two key scenes in the film.  Her most important one is when she comes to Michael to plead for Fredo's life.  I wish I could vote for her just based on the strength of her performance in the first film, which she should have been nominated for, but her part just isn't substantial enough.  They should have given the nod to Diane Keaton instead.

1. Madeline Kahn - Blazing Saddles - If you haven't seen Blazing Saddles, what the hell are you doing?  It's one of those movies where no matter what your preferences are you will probably love it.  If you really dislike Blazing Saddles then you probably don't agree with anything I say.  Madeline Kahn plays Lili Von Shtupp a German burlesque performer in the old west.  She's pretty much doing a pitch perfect Marlene Dietrich impression and she is so damn funny.  Combine this with her performance in Young Frankenstein and she gets my vote for Supporting Actress of the year.

I like a career achievement win as much as the next guy.  I voted for Lauren Bacall in 1996, who ironically is in Murder On The Orient Express more than Ingrid Bergman.  I also voted for Art Carney and Fred Astaire this year.  An Oscar should go to a memorable performance though.  Bergman did next to nothing in her film, she's already won twice and she's up against 4 better performances.  No way she should have won.

Oscar Winner: Ingrid Bergman

My Vote: Madeline Kahn

GABBY Winner: Madeline Kahn for Young Frankenstein

Best Director

Francis Ford Coppola wins for The Godfather Part II which is the best decision ever.  For some unknown reason he didn't win for the original Godfather in favor of Bob Fosse.  That snub combined with the fact that he also directed The Conversation this year and there is no way he shouldn't have won.  Roman Polanski would have been a good winner but this was Coppola's year.

Best Original Screenplay/Adapted Screenplay

Chinatown wins Original which is the best decision in the category.  I would have loved to have seen Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder win for writing Young Frankenstein but that seems like a far fetched wish.  They gave it to The Godfather Part II instead.

Best Original Dramatic Score/Original Song Score And Adaptation

The Godfather, Part II wins which writes the wrong from 2 years ago when they deemed the score to The Godfather ineligible.  In other Coppola related news, he wrote The Great Gatsby this year which wins for Song Score or Adaptation Score.  It was up against The Little Prince and a very odd Paul Williams musical called Phantom Of The Paradise.

Best Original Song

Every disaster movie needs a random love ballad and The Towering Inferno wins for the forgettable and lame We May Never Love Like This Again.  The song is so anachronistic to the movie, I would like to see a music video of it with scenes from the movie of Richard Chamberlain dangling out a window.  It was so cool that the theme to Blazing Saddles scored a nomination but I guess a win would be out of the question.  How great would it be if 'The French Mistake' earned a nomination?

Best Sound

The Towering Inferno gets the Best Picture nomination but Earthquake takes home the Oscar for Best Sound.  Earthquake is an even worse movie than Towering Inferno but they presented it in 'Sensurround' in theaters so the seats would vibrate when the disaster hit.

Best Costume Design

The Great Gatsby is a fairly dreadful film but I guess the costumes are pretty.  Not much competition with Chinatown and The Godfather Part II cancelling each other out.

Best Art Direction

The Godfather, Part II wins over Chinatown and the two disaster films Earthquake and The Towering Inferno.  I'll choose to believe that it won here to make up for the fact that it didn't get a nomination in the Best Cinematography category.

Best Cinematography/Film-Editing

A big 'Da-Fuh?' in these two categories.  The Godfather Part II doesn't get nominated in either and The Towering Inferno wins both.  It seems to me that Chinatown should be the obvious choice.  Earthquake also managed to score a nod in both categories.

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1992