1979 Oscar Watch

I think there were more factors in play this year as to why Apocalypse Now didn't win Best Picture.  It had a troubled and well documented production, Francis Ford Coppola already won twice this decade and they just gave Best Picture to a film about Vietnam.  It could also be possible that it just wasn't the Academy's cup of tea.  Whatever the reason, Kramer Vs. Kramer wins and becomes one of the weaker winners.  It's not a bad film by any means but it doesn't hold up that well just because of the change in the times and is missing the grandness of a Best Picture winner.  This year also have some other bad winners including one of the worst decisions in the Best Supporting Actor category.  So, let's dive in.
You can see my GABBY winners and nominees HERE

Best Picture

5. Norma Rae is based on a true story about a woman who helped unionize a textile mill in North Carolina.  Sally Field plays Norma, a hard working single mother with two kids who works at a factory with not the safest of working conditions.  One day she meets a union organizer who is trying to get the people at the plant to realize that their working conditions are unsafe and their paychecks are too small.  After her father dies in a preventable incident she teams up with the organizer to get the factory to let the union in.  It's a pretty good, albeit very predictable, little guy vs. the big guy story and it has Sally Field delivering a great performance in the lead.  It has that moment where she stands on her desk until all the workers stop.  It's decent but I expect a little more from a Best Picture nominee.

4. All That Jazz is basically a Bob Fosse biopic directed by Fosse.  It's interesting because it is truly a warts and all depiction of the man and the guy at the helm is the man.  It's probably been done before but this may be the only case of a filmed autobiography.  Actually, Richard Pryor did the same thing with 1986's Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling.  Roy Scheider plays Joe Gideon, a director and choreographer who is frantically editing a film about a stand-up comedian while also trying to mount a Broadway show.  In real life Fosse was editing Lenny while staging Chicago.  Gideon is a pill popping, chain smoking, womanizer who peed his pants on stage when he was a kid.  It's a well done film but you kind of have to know the story behind the movie as you're watching it and it falls into the same problem I have with most biopics.  You're just watching a guy live his life for 2 hours and wondering what the plot is.

3. Breaking Away is a coming of age drama about a group of kids on their last summer after high school.  One of the kids has dreams of cycling.  The listless coming of age tale is not my favorite genre.  Kind of like the biopic, you're just watching people live their lives.  This movie is helped by a good cast of young actors and a nice tone.  Kids don't understand their parents, parents don't understand their kids.  It's a sweet and pure film.  I see why audiences gravitated towards it but I don't quite see the universal acclaim.  However, it is a good film and nice nominee.

2. Kramer Vs. Kramer is a movie that was probably really effective at the time but hasn't really aged well.  This is a film that deals with divorce and child custody, which was not a topic a lot of films dealt with.  Meryl Streep tells her her husband, Dustin Hoffman, that she's packing her bags and leaving him with their son.  Then we get a drama about a single dad trying to keep things together.  Mom comes back and wants sole custody, there's a big trial and things end sad but possibly happy.  Like, we can still respect each other without being married and raise our child normally.  It's a solid film and incredibly well acted.  It still packs an emotional wallop but my problem with the film is that they make the wife look like a vindictive bitch through the whole film.  She leaves and then comes back and seems to want her child back for purely selfish reasons.  Hoffman has been the sole caretaker for 18 months, even though he seemed to have put all the parental burden on his wife until then, but he comes off as the hero.  It's really a one sided story when it would have been best to see both parties for all their strengths and weaknesses.

1. Apocalypse Now is 3 hours of madness set in the middle of the Vietnam war.  Francis Ford Coppola directs this brilliant mindfuck of a movie where the story behind making the movie is almost as confounding as the film itself.  Martin Sheen plays a soldier sent to capture another soldier who has gone crazy and started his own religion.  It's an amazing film.  You probably should have seen it by now.

The only film here that seems like a Best Picture winner is Apocalypse Now but I understand wanting to spread the wealth.  Coppola has already won Best Director this decade and two of his films have won Best Picture.  I'm voting for it because it's far and away the best film of the bunch.  If you're not going to vote for it, I guess Kramer Vs. Kramer is the second best option.  Norma Rae and Breaking Away are too small and All That Jazz is too personal, plus Fosse already had a win.  Kramer is probably one of the weakest Best Picture winners of all time (a list I'm sure I'll make at some point) but it's a decent film, it's just no Apocalypse Now.

Oscar Winner: Kramer Vs. Kramer

My Vote: Apocalypse Now

GABBY Winner: Apocalypse Now

Best Actor

5. Jack Lemmon already had two Oscars at this point and nobody else here has won yet which makes him an easy person to put in the 5th spot.  That's not to say that his performance in The China Syndrome isn't worthy.  He plays a nuclear power plant supervisor who believes in his job and all the safety protocols that have been put into place until one day he witnesses a near meltdown.  He finds that the plant had been cutting corners during the building process and when the people in charge won't do anything he goes to the press and eventually holds the plant hostage.  Lemmon is great here and this is definitely Oscar quality, maybe 2nd Oscar good but not 3rd Oscar good especially in what just might be the best Best Actor race ever.

4. Al Pacino is so good in ...And Justice For All that it doesn't really matter what the movie is about because his performance is so winning that it just makes the movie good.  This is a light drama about a prosecutor and his array of eccentric clients.  When we are introduced to him he is in jail for contempt of court.  He has to deal with a suicidal judge, a mentally unstable partner and several other loopholes in the judicial system.  It's a good performance and Pacino was overdue at this point.  The only thing holding him back from a win is the strength of this category and the fact that this isn't the best of his nominated performances.  He should have won for Michael Corleone, Sonny Wortzik or Frank Serpico.  They eventually just gave up and awarded him for whatever the hell he did that year.

3. Dustin Hoffman plays one of the titular Kramers in Kramer Vs. Kramer.  He gets home form work one day to find his wife packing her bags and leaving him alone with their son.  Hoffman is really good here and his chemistry with the kid is incredible.  It almost seems like Hoffman coached the performance out of Justin Henry himself.  He's very good in the film but it kind of sucks that he won for this.  This guy was in The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Lenny, All The President's Men, Papillon, Marathon Man and later Tootsie and he wins for this?  It seems like they just gave up and gave him the win before it was too late.  A lot of actors could have played Ted Kramer but there is only one Ratso Rizzo and Dorothy Michaels.

2. Roy Scheider plays Joe Gideon, the Bob Fosse surrogate in All That Jazz.  He is the reason the film works.  It's a little self indulgent, I mean, it's a movie based on the life of the director/writer, but Scheider holds it together.  He is so good here it seems like he has lived the role his entire life.  This is one of those instances where the line between actor and character are blurred and you're just experiencing a performance.

1. Peter Sellers received his 2nd Best Actor nomination and died shortly after for his performance as Chance, the gardener, a simple minded man who lucks into political power in Hal Ashby's wonderful satire Being There.  I love this film and everything about it.  Chance is a sheltered man with an obvious learning disability who works for 'the old man' at his home tending to his flowers.  When the old man dies, Chance is let loose.  While wandering the streets he is hit by a car driven by the wife of a wealthy political adviser.  He starts living with them and even though he only speaks in gardening metaphors they see his incoherent babbling as wise advice.  He meets the president, goes on television and is eventually talked about as an heir to the White House.  Sellers is amazing here.  He completely disappears into the role.  This was a passion project for him as he must have seen something in himself in Chance.  They were both misunderstood men that everyone saw as genius.  I may be reading into the performance a little too much but every time I watch this film I am amazed at Sellers's work.

This is one of the best lineups in this category ever.  All of these guys would win in most any other year.  I rank all of them higher than Jon Voight in 1978.  With a category like this it's hard to play process of elimination because they are all deserving.  The only one I can knock off is Jack Lemmon but that's only because he's won before.  Pacino would be a good winner but he's just a notch below his competition.  The vote is between Hoffman, Scheider and Sellers and between them I take Hoffman off first.  He's good but he's been way better and he will continue to be way better.  Then when it's between Scheider and Sellers I gotta pick Sellers for a couple of reasons.  He's the most overdue, I like his performance the best and this makes up for him losing to Rex Harrison in 1964.  His performance in Dr. Strangelove is one of the most brilliant film portrayals ever and this tops it.  Knowing that this was his swan song makes the decision all the easier.

Oscar Winner: Dustin Hoffman

My Vote: Peter Sellers

GABBY Winner: Peter Sellers

Best Actress

5. Jane Fonda plays an intrepid reporter who uncovers safety issues at a nuclear power plant in The China Syndrome.  Much like Jack Lemmon, she places 5th this year because she's won twice, once being last year.  She plays a reporter who is assigned to the fluff pieces on the nightly news.  She's sent to the plant to do a piece about how great nuclear power is but happens to be present during an incident.  She's good, not 3rd Oscar good, not 2nd Oscar good but definitely Oscar good.  If she hadn't have won twice already she would certainly contend for a vote.

4. Marsha Mason stars as a recently divorced woman who starts a romantic relationship with a widower in Neil Simon's Chapter Two.  Mason and Simon were married in real life and she starred in many of his plays and films.  This has some moments but is a lesser work from the author.  Mason is fine but out of her league compared to the other women in this category.

3. Jill Clayburgh really should have won last year for An Unmarried Woman.  The decision to overlook her in favor of giving Jane Fonda her 2nd Oscar is one of the biggest injustices in Oscar history.  To make up for it they nominated her this year for Starting Over a light romantic comedy starring Burt Reynolds.  Calling her a lead is a bit of a stretch.  The movie is about Burt getting divorced from his wife and starting a romance with Clayburgh.  She disappears for large chunks of the film that focus on his other relationship.  She's fine in the film but nowhere near Oscar level.  A vote for her here would just be a make up win for last year.  In a weaker year I would condone it but she can't compete with the next two ladies.

2. Sally Field plays the title role in Norma Rae.  She's a single mother who works in an unsafe plant for little money.  She lives with her father and enjoys casual sex after hours.  She meets a union organizer who convinces her to go against her bosses and start a union.  Field is terrific here and really shakes off all memories of her past and proves that she can act.  This isn't Gidget or the Flying Nun that you knew before.  Sally Field is here to stay.

1. Bette Midler stars as a drug addicted and alcoholic singer in The Rose.  This is a very thinly veiled biopic of Janis Joplin.  It was supposed to be about the late singer's life but the family refused so they just changed the name and made the movie anyway.  It was the best thing that could have happened because now instead of Midler drawing comparisons to the real Joplin she is given the freedom to create an original character.  This was Midler's screen debut and holy crap is she fantastic.  She spends a good half of the film performing on stage and her singing voice and stage presence is simply incredible.  Then in the moments where she just has to act she is equally impressive.  This is a one woman show and she holds the film together with her performance.

I thought this was gonna be a Sally Field slam dunk before I watched the films but damn, Bette Midler was fan-freaking-tastic.  From the first moments of the film I was impressed and she never let me down.  Field is great and would probably be my vote just because this was Midler's first film and Field had been in the industry longer but knowing that she's got another one coming in 1984 gives the edge to Midler.  The other ladies don't contend for a vote this category comes between Sally and Bette and the scales tip to Bette for a number of reasons.

Oscar Winner: Sally Field

My Vote: Bette Midler

GABBY Winner: Bette Midler

Best Supporting Actor

5. Justin Henry was 8 years old when he got nominated for an Oscar and is still the youngest nominee ever.  He also holds the distinction of being the only person nominated in the same decade of their birth.  Henry is a natural as the son in the middle of the custody battle in Kramer Vs. Kramer and has a really good scene near the end when his dad explains the situation to him.  He's never precocious or annoying, he's just honest.  Still, he's 8 years old, there is no way I can vote for him.  How much of this performance is coached and how much is raw talent is hard to decipher.  Seeing that he's 8 years old I would put most of the praise on the director rather than him.

4. Frederic Forrest is probably most famous for playing Chef in Apocalypse Now but that same year he scored an Oscar nomination for The Rose as an AWOL soldier working as a limo driver who meets a famous singer and starts a relationship.  He acts as a nice contrast to Bette's explosive star.  She's over the top with all of her excess and he's down to earth.  She likes that in him and confides all of her secrets to him and he becomes the only person who knows the real her.  He's fine in the film but this is Bette Midler's film and if she doesn't win then neither should he.

3. Melvyn Douglas won his 2nd Oscar for playing a dying old man in Being There.  First off, I love this movie.  Second, I hate this win.  The film is about a simple minded gardener who ends up in the house of a wealthy industrialist.  Douglas plays the rich man who takes a liking to Chance.  He is dying and finds comfort and wisdom in Chance's simplicity.  Chance is only speaking what he knows like, 'if you water the flowers they will grow' and Douglas thinks he's speaking in metaphors and telling him how to fix the economy.  It's a fine performance, in a weaker year would have been a fine winner, but if somebody was going to win an acting award for this film it should have been Sellers and this category has both a better performance to vote for and another veteran who has yet to win.

2. Mickey Rooney plays a kind old retired jockey who helps a boy with his horse in The Black Stallion.  This is a beautiful film to watch.  It's not much for plot but the music and the cinematography and the performance of the horse makes it a treat for the senses.  A boy is shipwrecked with a horse, befriends it and what follows is a boy and his dog story except the dog is a wild stallion.  Half way through the movie Rooney finds the horse and lets the kid keep it in his barn.  He helps train the horse to be a race horse and the kid to be a jockey.  It's a total veteran nomination but Rooney brings an effortless simplicity to the role, almost as if he's been doing this his whole life.  To look at it even further, he's playing a retired jockey training a kid to do what he used to do but he was also one of the biggest child stars ever now sharing the screen with a child actor.  So his character is imparting wisdom but we also see Rooney, the actor, imparting wisdom on another actor.

1. Robert Duvall makes the absolute most of his screen time in Apocalypse Now making you forget that he's only on screen for a little over 10 minutes.  He's larger than life as Colonel Kilgore, a surfing enthusiast who resorts to fire bombing a beach just so he can catch some waves.  He seems not to fear death and makes you think that if a guy this crazy is in the army, how crazy can the guy they're going after be?  Plus there's the iconic 'napalm in the morning' speech.  Even after he's gone his presence still lingers over the film.

Ok, so I'm voting for Robert Duvall, let me make that clear right off the bat.  But let me explain the reasons why.  First off are the newcomers, Henry and Forrest.  This is a nice welcome to the club but can't contend for a win.  Then we have Douglas and Rooney and if I'm gonna vote for a veteran I'm gonna vote for the one who doesn't have an Oscar.  So the vote is between Rooney and Duvall and I gotta pick the better performance and that's Duvall.  A lot of people look at this category as bad because Duvall lost to Douglas.  I look at this category as bad because Douglas won over Rooney.  Duvall losing is its own separate conversation.  It sucks but they made it up to him in 1983.  If they weren't picking Duvall then they should have given it to Rooney.  He was a national treasure and at once the biggest star in the world.  An Oscar would make perfect sense.  The worst part of all this is that Douglas didn't even want it.  He didn't show up and said the whole thing was ludicrous especially since he was 79 years old and in the same category as an 8 year old boy.  Can you imagine Mickey's acceptance speech?  It would have been iconic.

Oscar Winner: Melvyn Douglas

My Vote: Robert Duvall

GABBY Winner: Robert Duvall

Best Supporting Actress

5. Mariel Hemingway plays Woody Allen's 17 year old lover in Manhattan a film that I think is highly overrated.  I'm a big Woody Allen fan, well half of his films, the guy makes a movie a year and most of them are good but some of them are not.  This one is in the middle.  It's fine but knowing what we know about Allen makes it kind of creepy in hindsight.  Allen plays a writer who is dating a 17 year old girl and nobody has a problem with it.  Some say that they are in different places emotionally but nobody says, 'That's gross.  Stop doing that.".  Hemingway plays the young girl and you think she's going to turn into the ditsy blonde but she doesn't.  The movie actually posits her as the dream girl that got away.  She's actually quite good in the role delivering Woody's dialogue in a completely natural way.  The movie has a feeling of being overly written and improvised at the same time.

4. Barbara Barrie plays the loving and approving mother of an amateur cyclist in Breaking Away.  Her husband is more, 'these kids today don't know how to act' and she's more 'let them grow up and be themselves'.  It's a nice and sweet performance but it feels like a nomination for the film more than anything.  A Best Picture nominee needs at least one acting nomination.  The Best Actor field was too crowded, they could have picked Paul Dooley but instead they went with Barrie.  She later went on to star in the television series based on the film and got an Emmy nomination.  So that's pretty weird, she got nominated for both an Oscar and an Emmy for the same role.

3. Jane Alexander plays a divorced mother who lives in the same building as Ted Kramer in Kramer Vs. Kramer.  At first he blames her for putting the idea of leaving into his wife's head but eventually she becomes his single parent best friend.  She helps with babysitting, gives parenting advice and becomes a shoulder for him to lean on.  She has some nice moments in the film but it's impossible to vote for someone when they are in the same category as a better performance from the same film.

2. Candice Bergen plays a woman who divorces her husband because she's been having an affair and wants to be a singer/songwriter.  In Starting Over she's married to Burt Reynolds, they get divorced, he starts dating Jill Clayburgh and getting his life back together then Candice comes back in the picture and Burt has to decide who to choose.  Bergen is very funny in the role she wants to be a singer but is short on talent.  She becomes a successful songwriter but sings so off-key that nobody will hire her as a singer.  She sings a couple of her songs to try to get Burt back and these are the funniest moments of the film.

1. Meryl Streep won her first Oscar for playing a divorced mother fighting for custody of her son in Kramer Vs. Kramer.  This is an incredible performance because I feel like most actresses would play this part as an evil vindictive bitch.  That's how the character is written.  She leaves in the middle of the night and seems to not care about anyone else's feelings other than her own.  Then when she comes back and wants custody she again seems to not care about anyone but herself.  She watches her son from afar in secret and uses pieces of information about her husband to tell her lawyer to build a better case for herself.  It's hard to sympathize with her but because Streep is so good at creating a three dimensional character out of practically nothing you do.  It's a marvelous performance.

This is a slam dunk category for Streep.  Hemingway and Barrie are nice nominees that can't really contend for a win.  Alexander and Bergen wouldn't be terrible choice if it weren't for being up against Meryl.  She's so far and away the best in this category that anyone else winning would be a grave injustice.

Oscar Winner: Meryl Streep

My Vote: Meryl Streep

GABBY Winner: Meryl Streep

Best Director
Robert Benton wins for Kramer Vs. Kramer and seeing as how both Bob Fosse and Francis Ford Coppola already won it's an alright decision.  They were both better but Benton was good too and he had 0 wins to their 1.  The other nominees were Peter Yates for Breaking Away and Edouard Molinaro for La Cage Aux Folles.

Best Original Screenplay/Adapted Screenplay
The Original category included Manhattan, The China Syndrome, ...And Justice For All and All That Jazz but the Academy chose Breaking Away as the winner.  Tough category and I could make a case for all 5 of the films.  Manhattan would be the weakest winner and I would have voted for The China Syndrome but Breaking Away is such a sweet  film that it's hard to argue against it.  The Adapted category is a little weaker with only Apocalypse Now and Kramer Vs. Kramer really worthy of a win.  The Academy went with the latter.

Best Original Score/Best Original Song Score or Adaptation Score
A Little Romance wins Best Original Score.  It's a cute little film with nice music.  I would have loved if Lalo Schifrin won for The Amityville Horror but it's not a horrible decision.  The Original Song Score or Adaptation Score category went to All That Jazz in a terrible decision as it beat out the soundtrack to The Muppet Movie.  Those songs are amazing and beautiful and the Academy had two chances to honor them but...

Best Original Song

The Rainbow Connection loses to the crappy song that plays over the opening credits to Norma Rae.  It Goes Like It Goes is a very forgettable song as are the nominated tunes from 10, The Promise and Ice Castles.  The Muppet Movie had no business losing this category.

Best Sound
Seeing as how musicals dominate this category I'm surprised All That Jazz wasn't nominated.  If it were it would surely beat the deserving Apocalypse Now which wins over The Rose, another musical.

Best Costume Design/Art Direction
All That Jazz takes home these two technical categories.  The costume win is fine as it is far and away the best film in a category that includes Agatha, The Europeans, La Cage Aux Folles and the prequel to Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid.  I would have definitely gone with Aliens in the Art Direction category as that movie created its own world.  All That Jazz dressed up some rehearsal spaces.

Best Film Editing
All That Jazz also wins this category when it so clearly should have gone to Apocalypse Now.

Best Cinematography
Rightfully goes to Apocalypse Now.

Best Visual Effects
Alien wins a no contest decision.  The other nominees were 1941, The Black Hole, Moonraker and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

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