Category: Nominees – 1970s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Norma Rae – 1979

Norma Rae is the movie that elevated Sally Field from the Flying Nun and Gidget to super-stardom.  The film won 2 of the 4 Academy Award nominations it was given, Sally taking home the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance in the title role.  And I must say that she really deserved it.  She really pulled out all the stops and gave us some spectacular acting.

It is a drama about a woman working in a cotton mill who gets involved with organizing a labor union.  She puts everything she has on the line to fight for a better work environment: her marriage, her job, and even her freedom.  The film’s producers, Tamara Asseyev and Alex Rose, called the movie a political drama because it dealt with a very topical issue, though I don’t know if labor unions could be categorized as political.

Norma Rae is a young woman who is certainly no saint.  She has a habit of sleeping around, and is the single mother to her two children, both of whom have different fathers.  As the film begins, she is also casually having an affair with a married man.

But she is a hard worker at the mill, though like every other employee, she turns a blind eye to the injustices perpetrated by her bosses.  The working conditions at the mill are hard, unsanitary, and unsafe, and the pay is substandard.  But it is all she knows, and so she, along with her father, Vernon, played by Pat Hingle, and her mother, Leona, played by Barbara Baxley, is resigned to living the rest of her life without the hope of anything better.

But all that changes when a man named Ruben Warshowsky, played by Ron Leibman, arrives, handing out flyers that encourage the formation of a worker’s union.  Nobody wants to listen because they are afraid of losing their jobs.  She and nearly everyone else continues to ignore the unsafe work environment and simply go along with the way things have always been.

But then, slowly at first, she begins to listen to Ruben and she becomes more and more interested in what he has to say.  Along the way, she meets Sonny Webster, played by Beau Bridges, and falls in love.  The two marry and move in together.  But everything changes when her father dies because of the unsafe working conditions at the mill.  It is like a fire under her butt, causing her to risk everything to stand up for her rights.

It was an important issue, one which had never been so effectively addressed in film before.  It examined the difficulties of forming a union from several different angles.  We’ve all seen that famous scene where Norma Rae is standing on a table holding up a sign that says “UNION,” until all the rest of the workers at the mill turned off their machines and refused to work.  But it is important to know what happened directly before that scene and directly after it.

Before she got on the table, she was being fired for writing down an illegal policy that had been posted on the bulletin board.  She was being pressured to stop what she was doing and get back to work by at least 4 members of the management staff that had posted the memo.  After the table scene, the Sheriff came to force her to leave the premises. She asked for a statement in writing saying that she would be taken to her home and was refused.  Once outside the mill, the Sheriff’s men grabbed her and violently forced her into a squad car.  She was arrested and taken to jail, charged with disturbing the peace.

It was a powerful story that was very believably told.  Field really carried the film and did a fantastic job, though the rest of the cast was good as well.  Bridges, in particular did a good job, as did Hingle.  The film made the point that Unions are important in protecting the rights and safety of employees in a way that cannot be ignored.  It made the point that there are laws that say that employers don’t have the right to overwork and underpay their employees.  They don’t have the right to ignore safety issues or treat employees without dignity or respect.  Norma Rae was a brave film that shed light on a real social issue that deserved to be examined.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Breaking Away – 1979

I’m not entirely sure if I liked this movie or not.  It was good enough, though a little predictable.  It has been described as a coming of age movie, but I disagree.  I’d actually call it a triumph of the human spirit movie.  It is generally called a comedy, and while it had a few funny moments, I never once found myself laughing.

It was about 4 young boys, all of whom are recent high-school graduates, come from the wrong side of the tracks, and have no idea what to really do with the rest of their lives, though the film really revolved around 1 of them.  Dennis Christopher played Dave Stoller.  He is a good kid who has the talent, and the desire to become a world-class cyclist.  He is constantly training and wins every race in which he competes.  He is waiting for the opportunity to become a champion.

His 3 friends, Mike, Cyril, and Moocher, played by Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, and Jackie Earle Haley, each have their own distinct personalities.  Mike is the domineering leader of the group who is actually a jerk who would rather hold his friends back from bettering their lives than allow them to leave him, since he doesn’t know what to do with his.  Cyril is not terribly bright, but is incredibly loyal to the other 3 boys.  And then there is Moocher, a boy who longs for a life of his own, even going so far as to marry his secret girlfriend without telling the others.

That’s all you really need to know about them.  85% of the movie is all about Dave anyway.  He lives at home with his parents.  His father, Ray, played by Paul Dooley, is a dishonest used car salesman.  His mother, Evelyn, played by Barbara Barrie, is a loving but subservient housewife who sometimes dreams about having some excitement in her life.

The family dynamics between Ray, Evelyn, and Dave is supposed to supply most of the film’s comedy.  But I’ll be honest.  The fact that Ray was a terrible father, constantly calling his son a worthless loser, even when he knew that Dave could hear him, really destroyed a lot of the funny moments for me.  That wasn’t funny.  It was sad.

Anyway, the bulk of the film follows Dave’s dreams of being a cyclist.  He becomes excited when he learns that a famous Italian cycling team will be coming to Bloomington to compete.  He enters the race to prove himself to them.  In fact, more of the film’s comedy comes from Dave constantly pretending that he is Italian.  He speaks to his parents with a fake Italian accent, calling his father “Papa,” much to the man’s consternation.  He becomes incredibly fond of Italian opera, playing it loudly in his room like most kids play rock-n-roll.  All of this was amusing, but not really funny.

But all Dave’s dreams are shattered when the Italians cheat, causing Dave to crash his cycle and drop out of the race.  At the same time he learns just how dishonest his father is, especially in his profession as a used car salesman.  Depression follows, but it is the film’s final and climactic race that has caused Breaking Away to be lauded as such an inspirational film, and it all stems from a silly little subplot about a girl Dave falls in love with.

Her name is Katherine, played by Robyn Douglass.  She is beautiful and he gets her to fall for him by lying to her, pretending to be an Italian foreign exchange student.  Her boyfriend and his cronies end up hating Dave and his friends, and the way the two groups settle their differences is by entering a team cycling race.  What a convenient and predictable way for the four boys to prove that they aren’t losers!

To make a long story short, Dave and his friends are the underdogs.  Dave cycles most of the race because none of his friends are cyclists.  But when Dave gets injured, his friends each take a turn racing until the distraught and depressed Dave sees that his parents have come to the race to support him.  He finally gets back on the bicycle and wins the race despite his injuries.

True, it was somewhat based on a true story, but that made it no less predictable.  The acting was alright, but nothing to really write home about.  I don’t know.  Unfortunately, I think the film’s drama, comedy, tension, excitement, and its emotional content were all just too luke-warm to inspire me like it was supposed to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apocalypse Now – 1979

This is another one of those movies that has a reputation as a great and profound work of art.  It has a mystique about it that it is supposed to be deep and meaningful.  Taking place during the Vietnam War, it delves into the psyche of its main character, Captain Benjamin Willard, played by Martin Sheen, as he is sent on a secret mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando, because he has gone off the deep end.

Kurtz has become a renegade, setting himself up as a kind of demi-god in Cambodia, leading forces made up of Cambodian natives, Vietnamese soldiers, and brainwashed American soldiers.  The U.S. government wants his command terminated “with extreme prejudice.”  Captain Willard is ok killing the Vietnamese because they are the enemy.  But murdering someone who is supposed to be on his own side turns the war into a completely different experience.

As I was watching the movie, I was struck by how much the film seemed to parallel the Joseph Conrad novel, Heart of Darkness.  But as I did a little reading about the movie, I found that this was not a coincidence.  Director Frances Coppola had specifically made a modernized film version of the famous book.

Willard is put on a boat with a crew of colorful characters.  Albert Hall plays the Quartermaster, Chief.  Frederic Forrest plays Chef, the Engineman.  Laurence Fishburne and Sam Bottoms play Mr. Clean and Lance, both Gunner’s Mates 3^rd Class.  Clean is from the Bronx, and Lance is a professional surfer.  It is their job to transport Willard up the Nung River, through dangerous “Charlie” territory, to Kurtz’s camp in Cambodia.

One of the things about the film that caught my attention was the insanity of it all.  The 60s, the time when the Vietnam War took place, was a time when mind-expanding drugs of all different kinds were recreationally, and sometimes casually used.  Somehow, Coppola really made a lot of the exciting action sequences seem like hallucinatory, drug-induced trips, and not just the scene where Lance actually drops a tab of acid.  And the blurred visuals, the constant explosions, and the creepy, warped circus music, was like sensory overload.

There is a famous scene near the beginning of the movie in which Willard and the crew take part in a helicopter attack on a Viet-Cong village.  The objective is to get them and their boat to the mouth of the Nung River.  The man in charge of the attack is Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, played by Robert Duvall.  During the raid, about a dozen heavily armed choppers destroy the village, killing enemy soldiers and civilians alike, all the while blasting the epic music from Act III of Wagner’s opera Die Walkure, the Ride of the Valkyrie.  It is after the raid is over, and a napalm airstrike is delivered that Kilgore utters that famous line “I love the smell of napalm in the morning… Smells like… victory!”  Actually that is only part of his little monologue that is meant to show that he is not completely sane.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t say something about Marlon Brando.  I’ll be honest, I don’t understand why everybody goes so gaga for his performance.  He was alright, but nothing extraordinary.  We have all heard the stories of Brando being so hard for Coppola to work with because he came unprepared, extremely overweight, not having read Heart of Darkness, not knowing his lines, making outrageous demands, and rewriting the script to his own liking.

But I actually read an article which claimed the opposite.  It said that Brando actually came to the set very well-prepared, and that Coppola actually depended on him to help revise the script.  But because Coppola felt overwhelmed by the film, he betrayed Brando and blamed him for what he saw as the film’s shortcomings.  I don’t know if that is true.  Brando’s part in the film was actually pretty small.  He only showed up in the last 30 minutes of the 2 ½ hour film, and even then, I’d guess that he had about 7 or 8 minutes of screen time, getting paid $3.5 million.

Aside from that, Sheen’s performance was intense, and the rest of the boat crew did a very good job.  There were also a few small roles with recognizable actors that surprised me.  Harrison Ford played Colonel Lucas, a General’s aid, and Dennis Hopper played an American photojournalist who is a disciple of Kurtz.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All That Jazz – 1979

I had been looking forward to seeing this movie for a number of reasons.  I like Bob Fosse, I love his choreography, I have seen a few stills from the film, and they all looked interesting.  I also happen to be a Roy Scheider fan.  But for the most part, I think I was a little underwhelmed.  Don’t get me wrong.  I thought it was a good film, but maybe I was just expecting too much.

This was a movie written and directed by Bob Fosse, and was about Bob Fosse.  It was a musical fantasy with surrealistic sequences in which the Bob Fosse character, Joe Gideon, played by Scheider, who really did a wonderful job in the role, has meaningful conversations with the Angel of Death, listed in the credits as Angelique, played by a very young Jessica Lang.

The film is about how Joe is a man who lives a life of obsessions and addictions.  He is a workaholic, a perfectionist, an egomaniac, a drug user, a chain-smoker, and a sex addict.  He lives hard and fast, driving himself toward an inevitable heart attack.  When it comes, he goes into the hospital and the final fantasy sequence begins in which he sees himself in a glitzy film production.  He is wearing a sparkly, sequined costume, standing next to himself in the hospital bed with tubes coming out of his nose and mouth.

In this show, people from his real life show up and go into song and dance numbers about how they want him to live.  But when he does not, he goes into his final number, a duet with Ben Vereen as O’Connor Flood.  They sing the song Bye-Bye Life.  For those of you who don’t know the lyrics of the original song, they go, “Bye-Bye, Love.  Bye-Bye, Happiness.  Hello, Loneliness.  I Feel Like I could die.”  Instead Joe sings, “Bye-Bye Life,” and, “I think I’m gonna die.”  When the song is done, Joe finds himself floating down a long, shadowy hallway toward Angelique who is waiting for him with her arms open wide.

The little dream sequences in which Joe is speaking with Angelique are sprinkled throughout the film, commenting on what was going on in his life.  Joe has a daughter named Michelle, played by Erzsebet Foldi.  Her mother, Joe’s ex-wife, Audrey Paris, is a dancer, played by Leland Palmer.  Joe’s Current Girlfriend, Katie Jagger, is played by Anne Reinking.  All of these people represent specific people in Bob Fosse’s life.  Interestingly enough, Reinking’s character, Katie, was the film’s version of herself, Ann Reinking, who had been Bob Fosse’s girlfriend.  The character of Audrey was Fosse’s 3^rd wife, Gwen Verdon.  The film paralleled Fosse’s life so closely, that in the movie, Gideon was choreographing a show while directing a film about a stand-up comedian called The Stand-up.  Fosse directed the film Lenny, starring Dustin Hoffman.  The stand-up comedian was played by Cliff Gorman.

For me, one of the best parts of the movie was a dance sequence called Airotica.  It is supposed to be a rough treatment of the show he is choreographing.  It starts out tame and fun, heavily laden with Fosse’s unique style of dancing.  But then it turns dark and overtly sexual, the dancers stripping to their underwear.  Three pairs of dancers are featured, a man and a woman, then two women, and then two men, each of them seeming to make love through their dance moves.  The choreography was fascinating to watch and it was a great scene, especially if you like the Fosse style.

There were parts of the movie that were great, but I have to admit that there were also a few parts that were self-indulgent and plodding.  The fact that Bob Fosse made a movie that was all about how awesome Bob Fosse was, was just a little too ego-maniacal.  Except that if I think about it, he was a little right.  At least he displayed his own flaws and shortcomings with just as much gusto as his talents.  The film delved into the psyche of the man, trying to figure out what made him so good at what he did.

And I think I found the answer in a single quote from the film.  While talking to the Angel of Death, Joe Gideon says, “No, nothing I ever do is good enough, it’s not deep enough, it’s not anything enough.  Now when I see a rose, that’s perfect.  I mean, that’s perfect.  I want to look up to God and say, ‘How the hell did you do that?  And why the hell can’t I do that?’”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Unmarried Woman – 1978

This was a movie that appears to be very relevant to the time in which it was released.  It touched on the Feminist Movement of the late 70s.  The movie had a really simple plot that followed a woman whose husband leaves her for a younger woman.  She is forced to become a single mother.  The film was about her struggles to become independent, and consequently, happier.

Jill Clayburgh was very good as Erica Benton.  She was the common woman.  There was nothing extraordinary about her.  She was married and, like many women, only ever knew physical and emotional love with one man, her husband, Martin, played by Michael Murphy.  He was supposed to be a good and hard-working man, a loving father, and an attentive spouse.  However, he had a little flaw.  He was cheating on his wife.

Actually, though Martin was supposed to be all those things, I didn’t like his character.  What I mean is, even before he confessed his infidelity to his wife, I didn’t like him.  He was a jerk.  He was irritable and got angry easily, inexplicably blamed his wife for ridiculous things, and got vocally upset when Erica wasn’t in the mood to have sex with him.  But fortunately, he wasn’t the focus of the movie.

In An Unmarried Woman, Erica is forced to endure all the negative emotions that are associated with the betrayal of a cheating husband.  The film takes a little time to show her depressed, frightened, angry, accepting, hopeful, and eventually happy, all understandable emotions.  And Clayburgh did a good job with all of them.  She is helped through her divorce by her daughter, Patty, played by Lisa Lucas, and her group of friends, Sue, Elaine, and Jeanette, played by Patricia Quinn, Kelly Bishop, and Linda Miller.

Some of the most memorable scenes, for me, were Erica’s sessions with her therapist, Tanya, played by Penelope Russianoff.  I liked Tanya.  She was calm and attentive, and she assisted Erica through some of the film’s deepest emotional moments, scenes where Erica dissolves into tears over her fears and her anger.  Tanya also helped Erica to explore a sort of sexual awakening, touching on the Sexual Liberation Movement.

Erica, in an attempt to get over her depression and sexual repression, tries to have a meaningless affair or two.  The first one doesn’t work out so well because she recklessly chooses a really sleazy guy, Charlie, played by Cliff Gorman.  But on her second try, she finds both love and happiness with Saul, a talented British artist, played by Alan Bates.  And just as an incidental note, the artist who created Saul’s wonderful abstract expressionist paintings for the film was the internationally renowned Paul Jenkins.

But here, critics say, is where the movie seems to undermine its own agenda.  The film was about following a woman who had been wronged along the road to her independence.  But in the end, it appears to be clear that she doesn’t want to be independent.  To quote from Wikipedia, “The two main criticisms … are that An Unmarried Woman is not relatable to all women because of the affluent life that Erica lives, and that even though the film shows Erica’s journey to independence, she ultimately does not want to be alone, and seeks out a relationship with Saul.”

But I completely disagree.  The critic who wrote that obviously didn’t watch the end of the movie.  So she has been dating Saul, and is falling in love with him.  In fact, he has broached the subject of marriage.  He has a place in Vermont in which he will be staying for 5 months.  He asks her to go with him.  The point is that she says no.  She has learned to be happy with her newfound independence and is not ready to give it up.

Jill Clayburgh unfortunately didn’t win the Academy Award for her performance, but there is no denying that she did a good job.  She portrayed the raw emotions and vulnerability of her character with depth and skill.  And I really enjoyed Alan Bates’ performance as well.  He was such a good guy, though he was not perfect.  He seemed to be emotionally rushing Erica, which had the effect of pushing her away a little.  In fact, I think the two of them had a very good on-screen chemistry, elevating the film from simply average to quite good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Midnight Express – 1978

I have to say, I am pretty conflicted about Midnight Express.  There were some things that I liked very much, things that I thought were incredibly well done.  But there were just as many things that I didn’t like at all.  The movie had the potential to be incredibly good, but it too many problems that I couldn’t get past.

The film took itself way too seriously, trying to present itself as a deep, hard-hitting drama about a young man who is forced to endure unbelievable hardships!  He survives and triumphs!  It’s based on a true story!  It’s a film that pulls no punches!  It will change your life forever!  Well… not really, but it will be incredibly offensive to Turkish people and the Turkish nation.  The film had no subtlety at all, and was pretty heavy-handed, clobbering you over the head with its own self-importance.  And the overtly 80s style synth score, especially the crappy rock-inspired stuff at the beginning of the movie, was ridiculous.

It sounds like I have a lot of complaints, but as I said, there were just as many good things that I liked very much.  The subject matter was pretty heavily dramatic and there was some very good acting.  The ending was interesting and took a turn I didn’t expect.  It also had a couple of actors who I like.

The film was about Billy Hayes.  Billy, played by Brad Davis, is a young man who did a really dumb thing while visiting Turkey.  While leaving the country, he tried to smuggle 2 kg of hash through customs.  He was caught and tried in the Turkish court system.  He was convicted and sentenced to 4 years in prison, with the hope of a reduced sentence if he behaves himself, which he does, even though he is mentally abused and physically tortured.

He makes friends with an American inmate, Jimmy Booth, played by Randy Quaid, and a heroin addicted British inmate named Max, played by John Hurt.  Together, the three of them dream of escape.  The filthy and unsanitary conditions in the prison would be enough to drive anyone crazy.  But it was the prison snitch and the head guard that made their lives a real hell.  The snitch was a disgusting man named Rifiki, played by Paolo Bonacelli.  He took care of most of the mental abuse, depriving people of food, blankets, and dignity.  He would also watch for any misbehaving and report it to the head guard, Hamidou, played by Paul L. Smith.  Hamidou would administer the physical torture.  The scene where Billy is strung up by his ankles while Hamidou caned the souls of his feet was hard to watch.

Eventually, when his sentence is nearly complete, Billy learns that his sentence has been changed, and he is suddenly facing a 30 year sentence.  He loses his mind and murders Rifiki in a very gruesome battle, biting out his tongue.  He is transferred to a ward for the criminally insane.  He loses what is left of his sanity.  To make a long story short, Billy’s family smuggles him money and he tries to bribe Hamidou to get him transferred to a low-security ward.  Instead, Hamidou tries to rape him.  Billy kills the evil guard, steals his uniform, and escapes.

My biggest problem with the film is that it didn’t show a single example of a Turk who wasn’t evil or corrupt.  It portrayed them all as monsters.  As we all know, this is a complete fiction.  Even the film’s director, Alan Parker, said that the script, which had once been based on the memoirs of the real Billy Hayes, held little of the true story that it had once been.  One little change after another, after another, after another, produced a film with very little truth in it.

Apparently, one of the biggest offenders of making changes to the plot, was the script writer, Oliver Stone.  For example, the whole attempted rape, murder, and escape scene was a complete fiction.  In reality, Hayes was moved to another prison on an island from which he eventually escaped, by stealing a dinghy and rowing 17 miles in a raging storm across the Sea of Marmara.  But I guess that wasn’t dramatic enough for Stone.

But the performances from Davis, Smith, Quaid, and Hurt were good.  Davis really seemed to throw himself into the role.  The part where Billy learned of his increased sentence and denounced all of Turkey as a nation of pigs was pretty dramatic.  But like I said, it lacked any kind of subtlety and was as unapologetic as a sledge hammer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heaven Can Wait – 1978

This is a remake of a movie that I didn’t really care for in the first place, 1941’s Here Comes Mr. Jordan.  I tried to go into it with an open mind.  Maybe they had found a way to improve the story or fix the plot holes.  But, sadly, they did not.  The changes they made were no more than cosmetic.  In fact, the only thing they really changed was the sport that the main character was playing.  In 1941, the character of Joe Pendleton was a boxer who wanted a shot at the champion title.  In 1978 Joe was a quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams who wanted to lead his team to a Super Bowl victory.  Why the change?  Aside from that, most of the differences were insignificant.  The inherent problems with the script remained.

Heaven Can Wait starred Warren Beatty as Joe Pendleton.  It is his life’s dream to be the quarterback for the Rams in the Super Bowl.  Unfortunately, an inept angel called the Escort, played by Buck Henry, sees Joe heading toward an accident, and takes his soul from his body about 50 years ahead of schedule.  Ok, here is my first real problem.  According to the rules of this film, there is a schedule that tells when people are going to die.  But if Joe wasn’t even scheduled to die for another 50 years, why was the Escort even there to collect his soul in the first place?

Then there was the saxophone.  Joe loved to play the saxophone, but he didn’t have it with him when his soul was taken.  But for some reason, he is carrying it at the way-station.  He is still wearing the same clothes he was wearing when the accident occurred, suggesting that he is supposed to appear as he did at the moment of his death.  But then, why the saxophone?

Because of the Escort’s mistake, soul collection supervisor, Mr. Jordan, played by James Mason, is called in to review the situation.  He corrects the error by making a deal with Joe, saying that he will give him the body of a person who is about to die.  Joes dream of taking the rams to the Super Bowl are so strong that he refuses every candidate who is not in top physical condition.

Ever patient, Mr. Jordan keeps looking and they eventually settle on Mr. Farnsworth, a multi billionaire whose wife, Julia, played by Dyan Cannon, and his personal secretary, Tony Abbott, played by Charles Grodin, are having an affair.  They are murdering Mr. Farnsworth for his money, of course.  Then, Betty Logan arrives, played by Julie Christi.  She is coming to yell at Mr. Farnsworth for being a mean billionaire.  When Joe sees her, he instantly falls in love with her and decides to take the Farnsworth body.  Inexplicably, the saxophone shows up in the hands of his new body.  But he is still obsessed with playing quarterback for the Rams at the Super Bowl.  So he goes into training and hires his old trainer, Max Corkle, played by Jack Warden, to get the Farnsworth body into shape.

I’m sorry to say it, but the potentially good plot is ruined by the lack of attention to the details of good story telling.  Add to that, some pretty ridiculous acting by Dyan Cannon, and I have a hard time taking the film seriously.  Something else I noticed was that this is the first nominated film in which I can recall seeing the style and the fashions turn towards that classic early 80’s aesthetic.  For example, the horribly ugly hairstyles for the women really stood out to me, especially the ridiculous perm they gave Julie Christi.  It looked awful!

As I was watching the movie, I was rolling my eyes at some of the costumes they were making Warren Beatty wear as the wealthy Mr. Farnsworth.  He was dressed in pseudo-military sailing uniforms.  They screamed, “His character is rich!  He needs to look rich!  This is what rich people wear!”  He ended up being a parody of a rich man.  At least the character questions the clothing and stops wearing it.

As with the 1941 film, the biggest problem I have with the film has to do with the character of Max Corkle.  Joe has told him the secret of his real identity.  But in the end, the Farnsworth body is successfully murdered by Tony and Julia, and Joe is given the body of the Ram’s star quarterback, Tom Jarrett who is killed on the football field at the Super Bowl.  After Joe wins the game, he forgets who he is.  But Max still has knowledge of the afterlife!  It was never addressed in either film!  While it doesn’t break any rules, I guess, it just looks like a loose thread that should have been tied off.  But hey, what do I know.  Someone thought it was a good enough story to remake the film, and they were BOTH nominated for Best Picture.  But I have to ask… what am I missing?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming Home – 1978

Once again, I am impressed with Jane Fonda as she takes the lead in a very dramatic film.  And this one sure is a whopper, as it deals with a very difficult subject matter.  Its plot is told from the perspective of a woman whose husband is going to Vietnam.  She stays home and volunteers at a Veteran’s Association hospital.  While there, she meets and falls in love with a paraplegic.  She has an affair with him and has to deal with the consequences when her husband returns.

Fonda plays Sally Hyde, the unfaithful wife.  Her husband, Captain Bob Hyde, is played by Bruce Dern.  The man she has her affair with is Luke Martin, played by Jon Voight.  There was nothing about this movie that was easy or light-hearted.  It was some pretty deep and serious drama.  The story was a good one, though not much really happened until about half-way through the film.

And when that turning point came, it came not from the main story or the big name characters.  The film’s drama shifted into high gear when a seemingly unimportant sub-plot took a deadly turn.  Sally’s roommate, Vi Munson, played by Penelope Milford, has a brother named Bill, played by Robert Carradine, who had spent only 2 weeks in Vietnam before coming back home with serious mental and emotional damage.

The film was going along just fine.  Captain Hyde had gone off to war and Sally was trying to resist giving in to Luke’s advances.  Meanwhile, Sally, Luke, and Vi, spent time with Bill whenever they could.  But then, one day, after Luke has left the hospital to return to the real world, Bill has an episode of extreme depression and commits suicide by injecting air into his veins.  That one really took me by surprise.

After that, the already serious tone of the film turned even more serious and depressing.  Sometimes the dialogue turned a little preachy in its anti-war sentiments, but it wasn’t just hot air.  I say that because I happen to agree with most of what was said, though I also think that there are times when war is a necessary evil that can bring about change like nothing else can.  But I’m not trying to debate philosophy.

The point I’m trying to make is that no matter what your opinion about the moral implications of war might be, there is an absolute truth when it comes to war.  Some people die.  Others are wounded.  The wounds can be physical or emotional.  But nobody who goes to war comes home the same as when they left.  And I think that was the point of the movie, in a nutshell.

But there was more drama still to come when Bob returned home.  I was reminded of the 1946 Best Picture winner, The Best Years of Our Lives, a film that had much the same message.  Bob returns to find a strange emotional distance between himself and Sally.  And then, when he learns of her affair, he loses his mind and nearly murders Sally and Luke.  In the end, he commits suicide by stripping naked and swimming out into the ocean until he drowns.

The script was just bursting with Oscar potential.  It was deeply emotional, and you could tell that both the actors and the director, Hal Ashby, were passionate about what they were doing.  In fact, Voight and Fonda both took home Awards for Best Actor and Actress that year.  Also, Waldo Salt, Robert C. Jones, and Nancy Dowd, won for Best Original Screenplay.

I have to take a moment to really recognize Voight for an inspired performance.  He created a very real character.  There was subtlety and depth in his performance.  Luke was a good man whose life had been irrevocably changed by a war he never even believed in.  He was bitter and angry, and yet he was trying to be a good man who did the right things, despite the wrongs that had been done to him.

In his final scene, interspersed with scenes of Bob’s suicide, is a scene where Luke is talking to a group of young students about his experiences in Vietnam.  He says, “I don’t see any reason for it.  And there’s a lot of shit that I did over there that I find fucking hard to live with.  And I don’t want to see people like you, man, coming back and having to face the rest of your lives with that kind of shit.  It’s as simple as that.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Turning Point – 1977

This movie had one of the standard Oscar nominated formulas.  It was a given that a plot like this one would be nominated for Best Picture.  If it had been made in the 1940s I would say that it had rich, white people having emotional crises.  But this is the 70s and the trend tended towards middle class people instead of wealthy people.  And I found it interesting to learn that the script was “a fictionalized version of the real-life Brown family, and the friendship between ballerinas Isabel Mirrow Brown and Nora Kaye.”  It had an element of fantasy and a touch of romance.

But most importantly, it had Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft.  MacLaine was the lead, DeeDee, a mother of three who had once given up the life of a prima ballerina to have a family, a choice she regrets and blames on her closest friend.  That friend is Emma, played by Bancroft.  She gave up the prospect of marital bliss and a family to live the life of a prima ballerina, a choice she doesn’t regret at all.

Add to the mix DeeDee’s eldest daughter, Emilia, played by Leslie Browne.  She is an extremely talented ballerina who has the potential to be a world-class dancer.  When DeeDee takes her to New York to join Emma’s dance company, she meets the leading male dancer, Yuri, played by Mikhail Baryshnikov.  Yuri is a playboy who beds the young Emilia and then breaks her heart when he moves on to his next conquest.  The scene where she gets drunk and goes on stage was pretty funny, though maybe slightly unrealistic, as it probably would have ruined her career.

But most of the film’s emotional drama stems from the fact that a jealous DeeDee blames Emma for ruining her own chance at greatness.  She claims that when they were both up for the same part, Emma had sabotaged her career to further her own.  The friendship between the two women slowly deteriorates until the claws come out, though only briefly.  The catfight only lasts a few seconds, but it is enough to show the women how strong their friendship really is.

There are also a couple of minor subplots that I felt had a certain amount of good drama and a fair amount of truth to them.  One involves Emma’s admission to the idea that she loves being on stage more than anything, so much so that it can almost be called an obsession.  Unfortunately, she is no longer a young woman and she is becoming too old to play the parts she wants to play.

I’ve never been a huge follower of ballet, so the film’s subject matter seemed a little beyond me.  But I know enough about it to tell the difference between good dancing and mediocre dancing.  That being said, both Browne and Baryshnikov were fantastic, especially in the dance scenes.  You could tell that they really knew what they were doing.  I thought Baryshnikov did a good enough job as an actor, though his Russian accent was sometimes so strong that it was difficult to understand his dialogue.

Another little subplot that I liked was one that involved DeeDee’s husband Wayne, played by Tom Skerritt.  Apparently, he used to be a ballet dancer as well.  DeeDee admits to feeling guilty that, by getting pregnant with his child and marrying him, she also ruined his chances at being a professional dancer.  She also confesses that part of why she had him get her pregnant was to prove to the rest of the company that he wasn’t gay.  His response was perfect.  He said that he knew her reasons, wanted to prove the same thing, and loved her enough to give her what she wanted.  And as for being a professional, he admits that he never had any delusions that he had the talent for greatness.

But when it came down to it, the film’s drama was a bit too sappy for my tastes.  It wasn’t a bad film.  It kept my interest well enough, though I thought its pacing was sometimes too slow.  MacLaine and Bancroft both did a good job, as did Browne and Baryshnikov.  But the emotional content and the drama were just too shallow to elevate the film to ‘gripping’ or ‘deep’.

Still, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the dance sequences.  I look at the film as a glimpse into a hoity-toity, high-brow world that I know very little about.  I really liked the music and the costumes.  And OK.  I’ll admit it.  I also liked looking at Baryshnikov without his shirt on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Star Wars: A New Hope – 1977

OK, here we are at one of the big ones.  I have so much that I would love to say about this awesome movie that spawned one of the biggest and most well-known franchises in history.  It was a true cultural phenomenon that, and I’m not exaggerating, changed the face of moviemaking.  Even people who are not sci-fi fans know what Star Wars is.  It was immensely popular and continues, to this day, to be a beloved film.  But here’s the trick.  It wasn’t a perfect movie.  In fact, it had some glaring and irredeemable flaws.

Now, what I mean by that is that Star Wars was a relatively low budget science fiction movie, and there are times when it is clearly evident.  The film’s biggest weakness, as is often the case with the director, George Lucas, is the contrived, and sometimes hokey dialogue.  The plot also has a few holes that the restored scenes were not able to fill.  And the character development and motivations were often two-dimensional.

But all that being said, I love this movie.  First of all, I have to give the Academy credit for finally… FINALLY nominating a sci-fi film.  The only other example I have come across prior to 1977 is 1937’s Lost Horizon, which I would actually call a fantasy.  Star Wars has iconic characters that are easily recognizable.  The young farm boy who becomes a hero, the wise sage, the princess, the swashbuckling rogue and his trusty sidekick.  And, of course the evil villain!

There were two members of the cast who were already well-established in the world of cinema were Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing.  And when I think about it, those two proved to be the best actors in the film, when looked at with a critical eye.  Cushing, in particular, was incredible in his supporting role of Grand Moff Tarkin, the sinister Commander of the planet-destroying Death Star.  He steals every scene he is in, even in the presence of the movie’s main villain, Darth Vader, acted by David Prowse and voiced by James Earl Jones.

Guinness was also incredible, playing Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi, one of the last remaining Jedi in the galaxy.  His mysterious and insightful moments as he introduces Luke to the Jedi power, the Force, easily fill you with a sense of wonder.  Guinness played him with a great sense of well-placed gravitas.

Of course, everybody loves the hero, Luke Skywalker, played by Hamill.  How can we not?  He rises from humble beginnings, learns to use a the Force, and beats the bad guys, saving the day in a thrilling action sequence in which a small band of fighter planes attack the massive, moon-sized Death Star.  Hamill’s acting, while not bad, was probably the weakest of the cast, but fortunately he got better in later films.

The only female character in the film is Princess Leia, but she is a wonderful female role-model.  She is smart, strong-willed, beautiful, and commanding.  But she also has a soft, sensitive side which comes out at all the right times.  Fisher did a great job, and she looked great doing it.

Ford played Han Solo, the smuggler with a heart of gold.  I think he is really a fan favorite because of his suave and charming demeanor, his reckless bravery, and even his shady, criminal side.  Ford played the part believably and made a truly memorable character. And of course, his furry partner, Chewbacca, played by the 7 foot, 3 inch Peter Mayhew.  Chewbacca was often used for comic relief, but Mayhew was actually able to give him a personality, despite the make-up which completely covered his face.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention two more fan favorites, neurotic interpreter droid, C-3PO, acted and voiced by Anthony Daniels, and his short and quirky counterpart, astromech droid, R2-D2, controlled by Kenny Baker.  Not only were they fun, each with their own with distinct personalities, but they were integral parts of the plot.

Sure the special effects were ground breaking for their time, and most of them still hold up by today’s standards.  But I have to mention the final factor that elevated the movie from good to amazing: the soundtrack.  This is John William’s best known and greatest score, and that is saying a lot for the film composer who gave us Indiana Jones, Superman, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Jaws.  The score was magnificent and the exciting musical themes that Williams came up with gave the movie a high-energy backdrop which drew movie-goers around the world into the grand and lofty universe created by Lucas.