4. Exploring the Best Picture Nominees of 1975 and Their Lasting Effects
Welcome back to another episode of For Your Reconsideration! This time, we're taking a trip back in time to explore the iconic 1975 movie season. Join me, Matty Price, along with expert panelists Ryan McNeil, and JM McNabb and our host jD, as we discuss the Best Picture nominees – One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, and Nashville. We'll be offering our own alternative ballot and winner, so be sure to tune in!
Listen in as we dissect each of the five nominated movies from 1975, discussing standout performances, unique filmmaking techniques, and cultural impact. We'll also touch on lesser-known gems from the year that could have made the cut for Best Picture. As we analyze each film, we'll share our thoughts on which ones have stood the test of time and which ones might be due for a reevaluation.
In addition to our in-depth analysis of these classic films, we'll be exploring the broader movie landscape of 1975, discussing the role of air conditioning in theaters, the impact of blockbusters like Jaws and Star Wars, and the ever-evolving landscape of the Academy Awards. So grab some popcorn and join us as we revisit the unforgettable movie season of 1975 on For Your Reconsideration!
--------- EPISODE CHAPTERS ---------
(0:00:00) - For Your Reconsideration
(0:15:14) - Film Critique and Analysis
(0:18:38) - Nashville
(0:30:48) - Analysis of "Dog Day Afternoon"
(0:39:06) - Jaws and Its Cultural Impact
(0:48:49) - Movie Business and Academy Awards
(0:53:35) - Cuckoo's Nest Analysis
(1:02:40) - 1975 Oscar Nominee Do-Over
(1:10:48) - Film Podcast
Transcript
0:00:00 - Cold Open
The nominees for the best picture of the year are Barry Linden, a Hawke Film Limited production, warner Brothers, stanley Kubrick producer, dog Day Afternoon, warner Brothers, martin Bregman and Martin L Fan producers. So is Universal, xanac Brown production, universal, richard D Xanac and David Brown producers, nashville, an ABC entertainment, jerry Wyenthal, robert Altman production, paramount, robert Altman producer. And one flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, a fantasy films production, united Artists, saul Zanz and Michael Douglas producers. And the winner is one flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. And the winner is one flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, one flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.
0:01:25 - Matti
Hey, i'm Matty Price and welcome to another episode of For Your Reconsideration. As always, our expert panel will dive deeply and look fondly at a full year in mostly American movies, ultimately deciding if that year's Oscars got it right or need a do-over. This week we're looking at the films of 1975, including Best Picture Winner One, flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and nominees Barry Linden, dog Day Afternoon, jaws and Nashville, along with many other films made and released in that pivotal year. As always, our panelists will be able to present their own alternative ballot and winner. Thanks for listening and downloading. You can find this podcast through the client of your choice at duvercom. That's D-E-W-V-R-Ecom. A great year and should be a great discussion, so join. Host JD, jamie Dew and panelists JM McNabb, ryan McNeil and oh me, i'm a panelist this time out. Oh, that's a switch. Well, listen, this was recorded live and in the same room, face to face, in the before times when we all could be face to face, geez, i hope I knew what I was talking about, so let's get into it ["Mammo Podcast"].
0:02:58 - jD
Hey, it's JD here and welcome to For Your Reconsideration. Let's get right to the panel. Starting on my left, we have.
0:03:05 - Matti
I'm Matthew Price of the Mammo podcast. I'm nominally half of that podcast. I guess potentially 49%. I'm the Mammo, i'm No, we're both the Mam. Do I need to go through this again? All right, for folks that are interested, there are probably 55 episodes of Mammo that explain why it's called Mammo, so you can buy all of them, just randomly pick one, you'll find it.
It's in the context And identify those episodes, put them together and, hopefully, tell you We're still working on having some sort of custom price for our contest, but we haven't gotten anything yet. Anyway, that's Hawaii Cool. Thanks, man.
0:03:44 - Ryan
I'm Ryan McNeil, my site is theMatin8.ca, which is not nearly as complicated to explain, and I also host the Magnatecast.
0:03:52 - JM
Cool. thanks, man. I'm JM McNabb. I'm one of the hosts of the rewatchability podcast. rewatchabilitycom, or the iTunes or whatever fringe websites people get podcasts on, is probably there. Are you on GeoCities? Probably? yeah, we're on Angel Fire now It's pretty big.
0:04:11 - Speaker 4
There are a ton. I did a search just the other day and there were like two sites that I've never signed up for or anything like that that were carrying podcasts, Yeah yeah, yeah, that's weird.
Totally far out, thanks. Well, we're here to talk about an embarrassment of riches, i think, 1975,. We're going to talk about the five nominated pictures today, and then we'll go around the table and we'll hear what you guys have to think, whether the ballot should stay the same, whether it should change, You're scratching your chin?
0:04:46 - Speaker 5
That's my pencil. look, i'm sorry. OK, is that picking up on the mic?
0:04:50 - Speaker 4
No, no, no, I was just waiting for you to say 1975. Suddenly, the panel drinks.
0:04:57 - Speaker 5
I don't have a pipe and a monocle, so that's like I'm going to scratch my chin.
0:05:02 - Speaker 4
You must feel beardless.
0:05:03 - Speaker 6
I have no idea how naked I feel.
0:05:06 - Speaker 4
Three of us have beards, one of us do not. Let's see if you can pick that up.
0:05:09 - Speaker 2
You're trying to groan, it just won't grow Are you even allowed to talk about movies.
0:05:12 - Speaker 6
I know, but that's your thing. It'll be your tour of the war, and so already Here's how we come full circle.
0:05:17 - Speaker 3
In the 1980s, you weren't allowed to make them unless you had a beard Right, You can't talk about them. Yeah, Everyone's sort of seazy. Having the beard like It was like, oh, you have to have one And we're not letting you. What are you?
0:05:27 - Speaker 5
going to get behind the camera without a beard. You'll cut your chin in the view. Peter, that's fine, that's right.
0:05:34 - Speaker 3
You can't have a house, come back and you have a beard.
0:05:36 - Speaker 5
Most people haven't seen the photos.
0:05:37 - Speaker 3
She was pretty quiet, but Nina Burtmuller had a huge beard Yeah, she had a huge beard.
0:05:41 - Speaker 4
She was five.
0:05:42 - Speaker 3
Yeah.
0:05:43 - Speaker 4
We were running a little hot there with that beard talk. I just had to make some adjustments there. It was all right guys. So I got excited 1975, we had as your best picture that year. One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. The other four nominees were Jaws Nashville, dog Day Afternoon and Barry Lyndon. Is there a particular film that you guys want to start with?
0:06:06 - Speaker 3
Jesus throwing darts Can we start with Barry Lyndon.
0:06:08 - Speaker 4
Yeah.
0:06:10 - Speaker 3
Because I just feel like it's the easy one to talk about. at least for me, I don't know how everybody else wants to.
0:06:13 - Speaker 5
Yeah, let's start with. Yeah, it's a brief movie that's easy to talk about Very long.
0:06:19 - Speaker 3
I mean in the sense that I think, legitimately, if you're looking through the lens of history, it's the one that is the easiest to dismiss as, like this is the least of all the Cooper films. It's kind of not in the same league with the other movies in this year. For me I don't know that it necessarily It feels like a movie that they're giving him because they couldn't give it to him for 2001. Like they're making up to him, yeah, and sort of like no, no, we know, We know Cooper's a genius, so here's a movie he made. It doesn't feel like part of the same cadre. I don't know how anyone else feels. Does anybody really like Barry Lyndon?
0:06:51 - Speaker 4
Okay. So I went into it thinking I was really going to dislike it. I don't dislike it, but I I guess I come in with this weird bias that for some reason I think I don't like Santa Cooper movies, But every time I sit down and watch one I'm like fuck, that's pretty good. It is pretty good, And this was no exception for me, Other than the fact that the narrator sometimes ground on me a little bit. But I suspect if the narration wasn't there I would have been lost a lot of times. Yeah, I really liked it. I really really liked it.
What do you like about it? I don't know that I could put my finger on what I liked about it because, again, there's a lot of components of the movie that I shouldn't like Or, based on my history, I shouldn't like, But I found myself appreciating things that I wouldn't normally appreciate. There's a shot, for example, at one point, where the camera is way up on a hill and it's a countryside And it's just to get this stagecoach or wagon or whatever you want to call it carriage going by, And I'm watching the shot and just like Jesus Christ, like the amount of work that must went into just thinking that up is mind-blowing to me?
0:08:02 - Speaker 5
Well, the one that's cinematography Oscar this year it didn't I think it did.
0:08:07 - Speaker 4
I'm not sure what was it.
0:08:08 - Speaker 3
It went four awards, yeah, i think one of the most cinematography And it's the lenses thing. It's the only movie shot Candlelight in natural light. Or he didn't like the candlelight scenes because he had NASA make lenses for him that could take in enough light to. The lenses were the size of people's heads, Wow.
0:08:26 - Speaker 5
Yeah, so, crossman, i remember in film school when film 101 class, like the first year there when you got to cinematography. I remember seeing stills from Barry Linden. They taught us that to teach us about lens speeds and sensitivity for light And they talked about how they designed those special lenses or cameras to film these candlelight scenes. And it does look distinct. It looks unlike any other movie in those dark scenes and taverns and things.
0:08:56 - Speaker 3
Yeah, and it looks like paintings, right.
0:08:58 - Speaker 4
Yeah, it really does. There's a scene where they're looking at paintings And you know like, yeah, i'll leave it at that, jump on.
0:09:08 - Speaker 6
I'm like, i'm with you. Actually I'm at price where I appreciate it on a lot of different levels, like technically it is amazing And I think that was really where it earned its stripes in this class of five is as a piece of technical execution, but just as a story and as a narrative piece it didn't grab me near as much. Part of it, i think, was this time when I rewatched it for the show. I was seeing the brushstrokes of Napoleon all over this, like this is famously the movie he made when his Napoleon project just fell apart And you can see it a lot Like, especially in those battle scenes you can see, ok, this was going to be used there for sure, and this is where this was going to come in, this was going to come in. I was distracted by that.
But yet no, certainly it's handsome, it's really really well crafted. But just in that terms of emotional lift and engagement, that was where it lost me, especially in comparison to the other four from this year.
0:10:07 - Speaker 3
I think the thing for me is that it's and I do really like it. I don't think there's any Cooper films I don't really like, so it's always like the weird thing about the Oscars for me is that it's partly out of contextual. Where does this fit in this person's ability to achieve? And I don't think that this compares. There's six other Cooper films that I think are better examples of his ability to achieve. But also I think what you're talking about the inability to be emotionally engaged by it is purposeful. I think the movie's tone, what makes it good is that it has this tone of kind of ride detachment about what's going on. That's kind of like reading the best books And in a book I just read Lolita And Lolita has that in spades. Like it has that weird detached, almost commenting through language on what's happening, that this has to, but it doesn't make you root for it, it doesn't.
0:11:03 - Speaker 6
Sivage you. That's why I think you bring that up, because I was much more engaged in his adaptation of Lolita.
0:11:08 - Speaker 3
Where he did it with this, because he actually takes away that language when he makes Lolita. It's weird.
0:11:13 - Speaker 5
But also I think this movie is about a sort of detached sociopathic character. So I think that coldness is also kind of embedded in the character Totally agree, which you know doesn't always work in the movie. I don't think It doesn't let you into it Exactly. Yeah, and it's long. Oh my God it's long. I liked it when I first saw it, but rewatching it this time it was just. It was kind of a slog to get through. I found I watched it in two settings.
0:11:39 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I took advantage of the intermission.
0:11:42 - Speaker 3
I was like it's weird Why.
0:11:43 - Speaker 5
It's not tomorrow, absolutely. That's what I did. I watched the rest of it this morning before my daughter got up The performances.
0:11:51 - Speaker 4
you were just talking about the lead character. What did you guys think of his performance? The out of the O'Brien Right?
0:11:58 - Speaker 6
O'Brien What did you think?
0:12:00 - Speaker 2
of O'Brien, i was like, oh, that's the guy who I get confused the whole time. Was he the married fair fossil? No, no, what. I am the subject of debt here Did you make a pass at your daughter Her mother's funeral.
0:12:11 - Speaker 5
Yes, I Oh, you know.
0:12:12 - Speaker 6
That was both of them. He's This is probably the most I like O'Neal. My experience with him is kind of checkered, which is to say I'm missing, i'm sure, big performances by him. But I was kind of surprised because a lot of time when you get an actor like that and you put them into a period piece, it can seem ridiculous. So I thought that he carried it, especially in the final crux of this movie where he's got, he's got. He's involved in a duel.
0:12:41 - Speaker 4
I could have watched him in that duel all day I could have watched that for three hours. Why did he not pick a boxing duel? And he was so good at the boxing one You know? Yeah, why go on that? No way to go, kid.
0:12:54 - Speaker 6
No, but in that moment where you're just seeing so many things going on all over his face. also, just the other scene that comes back a lot of the time when you talk about this movie is this kind of wordless seduction that happens over a game of cards And there's so much going on both on his face and Shoot. who's the lead actress in this movie?
0:13:15 - Speaker 3
Who's Yeah? like on both of their faces.
0:13:18 - Speaker 6
They're doing a lot of acting without saying a damn thing, and that is really hard, and considering it's Gubrik, i can only imagine how many times he told them nope, do it again. Nope, do it again. You know O'Neill and Marissa. They're both really good in this movie.
0:13:31 - Speaker 4
Not a card playing in this movie, though, now that you say it, yeah, yeah.
0:13:35 - Speaker 6
Of a game that I don't know. There's no way to follow the actual card game they're playing. You're just like.
0:13:40 - Speaker 2
I hope this is It's like early.
0:13:41 - Speaker 3
Bond, where he's playing background.
0:13:44 - Speaker 5
They're like, i know what he's doing, i just assumed it was a fancy. go fish.
0:13:48 - Speaker 4
He's like put one up and put one down, Put one up and put one down, All right okay, but yeah, then I got to play a weird game after that, so I guess everybody wins. So we're sitting sort of are you with me?
0:14:04 - Speaker 5
Chad. I like it okay. I think it's one of the, like you said, lesser Kubricks. I think it's one of the best movies about a guy named Barry. I don't know if I'd put in the five best of that year. In fact I almost surely wouldn't. But you know, you can kind of understand, especially with the Oscars, like they like big, epic, costume-y movies And it is. I like that. It's one of those, but it is kind of a bit off. It's a bit strange. The plot is sort of unconventional, it's very meandering and kind of doesn't really have much of a climax to it. He just kind of fucks off.
0:14:40 - Speaker 3
I feel like if you're gonna do the epic thing well, you have to hang it on some kind of propulsive story Cause the idea of this of a sort of existentialist epic, where it's kind of like an epic about our real life.
0:14:53 - Speaker 5
But you know, like that's not a really as compelling kind of hook for me And that's like again it's like it's not, but it's kind of like it's an epic about a douchebag.
0:15:03 - Speaker 6
Sure.
0:15:04 - Speaker 3
And only Cooper can make that movie, the epic about the douchebag.
0:15:08 - Speaker 2
That is so Kubrickian and his sort of like view of the world, and I totally respect that he would make that movie.
0:15:13 - Speaker 3
I don't love it.
0:15:14 - Speaker 4
I wonder if I went into it. You know, because I went into it just expecting something that I wasn't gonna like and then I liked it. You know I'm digging in a little bit more than I might normally. I can't say for sure. But yeah, i did enjoy it, like I thought for sure when I saw, you know, two hours and 57 minutes.
0:15:31 - Speaker 2
I was like I'm gonna be, terrible watching this.
0:15:33 - Speaker 3
Can I put you on the spot? Sure, of the five movies that are nominated, four of them I would watch again in a heartbeat. This one, i would never watch again.
0:15:44 - Speaker 4
There's one I wouldn't watch in a heartbeat.
0:15:45 - Speaker 3
Again, i don't think Okay but this doesn't pass the watch again. Sort of test for me.
0:15:52 - Speaker 6
And yet the funny thing is like it's almost assuredly coming to the box this fall And in my head I'm like I'm going.
0:15:59 - Speaker 3
Yeah, I don't really want to.
0:16:01 - Speaker 6
But it's one of the Kubrick's I've never seen on a big screen.
0:16:04 - Speaker 5
I'm like you can really see what cards they're playing. Yeah.
0:16:08 - Speaker 2
I understand the game. They'll actually be bad inside that anyway.
0:16:13 - Speaker 6
It won't be watch it, and it won't be far off.
0:16:15 - Speaker 5
I also don't want to say I do like some of the characters, the sort of supporting characters Like I think he stalks them with the interesting character actors and interesting faces.
0:16:26 - Speaker 6
Yeah, yeah, and he's the butler.
0:16:28 - Speaker 5
Yeah, and not the skinny face butler guy.
0:16:30 - Speaker 6
I could not pay attention to a damn thing. anytime he was in the shot, i couldn't not look at his face. I don't know, i don't think I've seen him in anything before or since, but he has one like he has.
0:16:41 - Speaker 3
well, it's just like you know same thing in Pas of Glory, Like when he does do period stuff, he never just chooses from the usual rogues gallery of the 95 people that are always in every period piece.
0:16:50 - Speaker 6
It's always new, it's always different Yeah yeah, i think he yanked this guy out of a rogue painting. It's a here we go, yeah, yeah.
0:16:57 - Speaker 4
I have a feeling if this movie were made now and this is one of the notes that it did take then to say this would have been like a sacrilege, but like I think it would have been a good. You know, over three nights or four nights on television, You know, oh sure, Because you're right, it doesn't have that sort of tightly wound, It feels like episodes, anyway all through it.
0:17:19 - Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, Like you can tell. Like I don't know when the book was written, but it feels very much of a piece of Tristram Shandy, Like it's a kind of like let's just take a walk through the sky. You know, like there's not really a compelling like thing that's gonna happen, or copper, i think I've ever heard that before. It's just like that. It's just like let's more stuff that's gonna happen you know, that's why there's no, that's why there's no.
good like a copperfield movie really, because it's really meandering kind of episode-based thing. I think that the thing about the what I'm sort of discovering now, is that literature from kind of like the late 1700s or late 1800s is all about the fact that they didn't have TV Right, so it's just it's episodes right, like Three Musketeers, is just fucking episodes And that's how a lot I don't know about Three Musketeers, but like a lot of Dickens books were like serialized.
Like they were written like So Three Musketeers was also serialized. Okay, yeah, there you go. So this kind of feels like a piece of television, exactly So they have little beginnings and endings all through them, but they don't really have and this feels the same, like it doesn't, even though it's illustrating a consistent thing, it's doing it with a bunch of disparate kind of things happening, yeah.
0:18:27 - Speaker 4
Let's start down the road to Nashville.
0:18:29 - Speaker 6
Let's.
0:18:32 - Speaker 4
I'm curious. I'm curious what you guys think of this.
0:18:35 - Speaker 6
I'm curious to think that that's the other one you didn't like.
0:18:38 - Speaker 3
I think it's totally possible to dislike Nashville. It's very possible. It's very possible. I totally love Nashville. I don't think it's my favorite film, but I totally love it. It's hard not to love it. It's so expansive, maybe my favorite ultimate film.
0:18:52 - Speaker 6
Actually, it's out there for me Yeah.
0:18:56 - Speaker 4
I Walk me through this, cause you're right, this is the film that I wouldn't go so far as to say I would never watch it again. In fact, you know, based on what you guys say, it might make me need to re-watch this, right? But yeah, i certainly wasn't in love with it.
0:19:11 - Speaker 6
The one thing I've said, i think, every single time I've sat down on your show, is the way a best picture should be of its time. And if somebody wanted to paint a picture of America in 1975, it's Nashville. It's this place that has got a whole bunch of things going on at once. that is a year away from its great big red, white and blue hoopla being 200 years old and a year apart from its one of its greatest catastrophes for its leader. And it's at this point, in the middle of these two moments, when it doesn't really know what it is.
And meanwhile, in amongst this greater whole of an idea of America, you have this idea of Nashville, which is a very, very conservative place yet at the same time, is very inviting to the common person. So the idea the best way I heard it described is before American Idol, there was Nashville, so where one person with one guitar and one suitcase could go to this place and potentially get discovered and become famous. And that's why you see that happening over and over in this movie to various degrees of success is because that was the way it was And the way it still is, like Garth Brooks, within 30 years ago, was discovered just singing in one of these cafes that we see in this movie. So that's the thing for me is in 1975.
0:20:31 - Speaker 5
America.
0:20:31 - Speaker 6
Nashville sums it up very loosely, and that's Kurt saying he is not gonna be here.
0:20:40 - Speaker 4
I'm sorry. Good timing, kurt. Yeah, that's right at the end of your sentence.
0:20:45 - Speaker 3
You just watched it for the first time.
0:20:46 - Speaker 5
Yeah, i'd never seen it before. I liked it. I'd sort of been saving it because a lot of my friends it's their favorite all men movie or one of their favorite movies. I almost had the opposite reaction to the reaction everyone had to Barry Lyndon. Even though it's almost as long, i kind of felt like I wanna revisit this soon. Now that I've kind of seen the whole thing, i wanna watch it again and really sort of pick out those individual moments where, as the first time I was watching it, i was kind of for the first hour at least, kind of trying to get a handle on what the sort of overall architecture of this movie was or was going to be.
I did end up liking it quite a bit, but it is an unusual movie. I don't quite know how I feel about it And I don't know if I will until I see it again, which sounds a bit strange. But I liked it. I liked the cast, i liked how Audit got, i liked how, like you said, it's very timely Like it is about this kind of almost undefined sort of period in American history where we definitely have a lot of sort of remnants of the 60s. There's sort of this Peter Paul and Mary kind of surrogates in here and they're breaking apart at the seams or kind of. Yeah, it's just this kind of automalgam of things going on, i would say. Actually, what I just mentioned is one thing I kind of didn't like about it was the fact that there were all these sort of stand-ins for a well-known artist. There's like fake Loretta Lynn, fake Peter Paul and Mary. That kind of took me out of it a bit. I wish that maybe all of them Just like the real people.
Or print out their own personalities. Yeah, yeah, but.
0:22:25 - Speaker 2
Ali Aguld in there is someone else, so random right And Julie Christie.
0:22:31 - Speaker 6
I think the one thing, though, is that that's kind of the archetype still to this day, kind of the archetype of what you have in terms of Nashville, in terms of the music, like you'll have, the one thing they didn't have because it was really a thing in 75 was the one that trickles over to being Warhol Rockstar. The closest we get with that is Karateen, because he's the one that they're all fawning over. But they didn't have, like, the 1975 equivalent of, like the Keith Urban, because there was none. But that's the thing, thank.
0:22:57 - Speaker 5
God.
0:22:59 - Speaker 6
But that was. I think that's the thing why they all seem so very Loretta Lynn-like and George Jones-like.
0:23:04 - Speaker 3
It's just the state of the music industry, Yeah yeah, and that was you know.
0:23:08 - Speaker 6
country was compartmentalized into just four by very, very.
0:23:11 - Speaker 5
But I think it does get specific, especially in terms of like her look and what and like her manager, husband, yeah, and that can be a trick.
0:23:18 - Speaker 3
I just think, apart from the specific details of what, the sort of who the characters are, because I think that is all super important, One of the things about Nashville that's so like that, I think, for especially people at the time that certainly feel me watching it, is that there are so many characters and yet they're so delineated and you just totally wanna follow all. For me, I wanna follow all of those characters, and it's a huge group of them. But it also, like it falls into like every culture has a movie, I think, or many cultures in the world in their film kind of history, have like a movie that on some level is like here's everything in the culture in one movie. So, like for French films, it's the rules of the game. Rules of the game has all the French people in the world in one movie. And in Italy it's La Dolce Vida. La Dolce Vida has all the Italians, It has the this level of Italians and it has the lower levels and has the upper levels and has the this movie. Is that for America?
0:24:14 - Speaker 5
I thought it was a man man man world. Well, that's true too. That has many people in it.
0:24:20 - Speaker 3
But that's more about all the people that are in cartoons. You're right.
0:24:24 - Speaker 5
So you're saying you place a higher premium on these actors as opposed to the three Stooges, Correct?
0:24:29 - Speaker 2
yeah, yeah.
0:24:32 - Speaker 3
I just I guess what I am saying is that That that that thing of like being the hinge point of of depicting a whole culture is, is in Nashville. It's the hinge, it's the thing, it's the crucible through which all the other movies before and since, kind of in terms of just how you view, like whatever America is, i can't divorce it from that movie.
So there's before that movie and after that movie, kind of, and it just yeah, like, at least for me It that's how it feels. It feels like like it's like the individual stories are interesting, but it's that. It's that thing where the movie ends and you're like well, that was a sum total of something like that was.
0:25:14 - Speaker 4
Just can't get past the fact that you know, jeff, go blew him in a movie and not let him talk.
0:25:20 - Speaker 5
We're really stop it. I think his wardrobe did the talking.
0:25:29 - Speaker 4
Yeah, i didn't. Yeah, i wouldn't go so far as to say I didn't, i didn't like it. It just it meandered for me it was all over the place and maybe, again, maybe I was not, no, in the right place, my head was swiveling a little too much. I will tell you this I watched that movie on my computer, not on my television.
0:25:43 - Speaker 3
Sure.
0:25:44 - Speaker 4
Maybe, maybe that had something to do with it. Yeah, yeah but yeah, it was.
0:25:52 - Speaker 3
You kind of have to immerse yourself in it, i think.
0:25:55 - Speaker 6
I think it just requires you to be just because so many, so many of the scenes like they've got so many people in them.
0:26:00 - Speaker 3
You're looking what's going on, yeah, and it's, yeah, it's also the movie where he absolutely Perfects that thing of the long zooms and the multiple conversations and the multiple mics all coming at once and the pulling and sort of layering of stuff. Like he got closer and closer and closer and like I think the cave is probably a Really good example of it and mash is a pretty good example of it, but this is like it's the best email that did that thing up. Like we're gonna have a room with 200 people. They're already talking and you're kind of gonna hear them all, not the top.
0:26:32 - Speaker 4
Yeah, it almost feels like one, and maybe this, i don't know, but one Continued. Yeah, you're following your yes.
0:26:38 - Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, journalists right, and and just like yeah, and just like I mean and I think if you're watching that, on a smaller screen and you're kind of it's it's harder to like Part of like I'm thinking of, like The Orson Welles movie with a really long take at the trial, no, the one with a touch of you. Yeah, like the whole movie of touch of evil is not that good, but that opening shot is so good that it kind of elevates everything else that you see after it And.
I think like when you can establish just that technical level of mastery right away and be like boom, like my drop by, just I own.
0:27:12 - Speaker 5
You know that you, you, it elevates the rest of it. I know what, when I like, i watch it on a you know a larger TV. So, yeah, i wish I could have seen in the theater, but you can pick out like there's always Someone in the background that's doing something that we've seen before, or an actor showing up.
Like it feels like he's created this space where these characters kind of Yeah and so sometimes you do Pinpoint little things, even though they might not be sort of spectacular big screen Things, i think on a larger screen you might sort of notice details, and that's probably why I want to watch it again. I want to. I feel like a lot of those probably went over my head the first time and I think a lot of If we want to just talk influence.
0:27:53 - Speaker 3
A lot of that shows up in a lot of other movies. That thing of weaving in Stuff like Pulp Fiction, like that thing of like stuff happening in the background that you've actually. You can later on you connect the dots and be like Oh, these were all half of Paul St Andersen's career. Well, he's a. You know he's a devote. Yeah, famously, anderson quit for a while just to assist All his last couple of movies. Yeah, so he's absolutely huge.
0:28:17 - Speaker 4
Yeah, you see it in a bunch of movies, but yeah, yep, yeah, i think, yeah, i think that pretty much covers that I mean with that national.
0:28:26 - Speaker 3
There's no Magnolia, for sure. Oh, that's, that's for sure.
0:28:31 - Speaker 2
No, he nights either, probably not it's that's.
0:28:33 - Speaker 3
That was mortis Corsese. I think in some ways It's also the fight.
0:28:37 - Speaker 5
I remember when I saw Magnolia, like when it first came out, i was in high school and I was like, oh, this is what an important, different kind of movie, right. And then, a few years later I think, i saw short cuts. I was like, oh well, this is where that came from. And now I'm saying natural, like, oh well, this is really the origin.
0:28:53 - Speaker 4
Yeah, totally Yeah. So you say that boom. But yeah, switch one off.
0:28:57 - Speaker 3
In my head I I think what's really interesting is this is the year as a total where it's so clear that without television, drama in the 50s like half of these movies don't happen, like Altman and We're gonna talk about Cindy Lumet and dog day and we're gonna talk about Jaws and Spielberg came on the TV and like and like, like it's. It's so beholden to TV as a sort of training ground, so which I'm not sure like the visually. These movies are so expensive and they're so beyond TV. But there's something about those people's ability to jungle actors and kind of get you know Really quickly get great performances out of people. So you can have a movie with 35 speaking roles, major speaking roles, and you can actually direct them all effectively because he comes out of like shooting live Playoffs, 90s and stuff, or it's like I had no time to spend with you on that. That level of economy, i think, is part of what makes this great and what makes him kind of great.
0:29:55 - Speaker 4
We just mentioned dog day and I think that after talking about two giant movies like big epic sprawling movies, dog is sort of our bottle, the bottle episode Where you guys on dog afternoon, i Really love this movie.
0:30:15 - Speaker 5
I I hadn't seen it in a while and I still love it. It's great every time you watch it. Yeah it's just all time So there's nothing I I can say About it really in any kind of negative capacity. I just thought it's really it's a great summer movie too, like it feels so of that, like you feel like you're there watching this very visceral.
0:30:35 - Speaker 4
Yeah, sweaty and Like I was claustrophobic, yeah, sort of claustrophobic, i mean I don't know why it's, it's enough space, but I felt the. you know, it's because of that shot of the dog.
0:30:48 - Speaker 2
Anytime the calendar turns over August, i start thinking about you know, but I'm due to watch dog.
0:30:53 - Speaker 6
Has anybody seen the dog?
0:30:54 - Speaker 3
or whatever.
0:30:55 - Speaker 6
No, I've never heard that so so yeah.
0:30:57 - Speaker 3
I'm only curious because this movie is so good. Right, yeah, there is this, there's this documentary about the actual guy, because it's a real. That's not a real. Right, yes, right. And the weird for me, the weird, amazing achievement about dog day is that totally contextualist, like as a person who grew up in the 1980s and saw this movie on home video and and I know Virtually and certainly at the time I do virtually nothing about kind of 1970s urban history, about New York City, the scene where he shows Attica, you still go fuck. Yeah.
0:31:27 - Speaker 5
I don't know anything.
0:31:29 - Speaker 2
I don't.
0:31:29 - Speaker 3
I still don't really know what he's talking about. It still makes you go like they're right at a cut, you know it just the movie puts you in so Compellingly to what he's doing, he's doing, he's doing, doing he's spectacular in this movie. Yes, So the women, if all the women in the bank are amazing. They're all great Yeah.
0:31:48 - Speaker 5
I, you're Al Pacino, i to show How, how far he's come Or how duty is in this movie. I should say I was. I watched it up at my cottage and we're getting the newspaper, i think the. The day before we watched dog day afternoon and we're reading The tiff announcements and there was a movie with, or I can't remember which movie is Al Pacino And did you guys?
see someone, someone's new movie and someone we talked about was like, oh, this movie is coming to tiff and I was like, oh, who's in it? and then my wife said Al Pacino. And I went, oh, and we're like, yeah, i know Al Pacino. And then we watched dog day afternoon. It was just holy shit. This guy was so Just on top of his game, just sir, when he had more than one registered for his boy.
0:32:35 - Speaker 4
I just love that he let himself be so uncool, you know like, you know, so Raw and vulnerable, yeah, when he's sliding around, when he's running back and forth, when they, when they first, when the cops first sort of Uh, come into contact with him and he's just he's sliding across the bank floor like he's frantic and he's absolutely out of control And there's just something so uncool.
0:32:55 - Speaker 6
Even, just even just the robbery itself, like it's, it's, it's clear, like he had it all mapped out in his head, but the actual execution of it It's not. You know, to use a terrible example as a counterpoint, it's not the bank heist at the beginning of the dark night where they're just, where everything has just been like clocked down to the second.
0:33:11 - Speaker 2
Yes, you know, this is all very okay, yeah, i got this the biggest idea. Yeah, yeah, no words.
0:33:16 - Speaker 4
Yeah, You know, and he's like yeah, and his voice is all like pieces out, like Yeah, so it's just watching him.
0:33:23 - Speaker 6
You know he's got the plan, He knows what he's supposed to do, but what you actually like execute with any kind of level of confidence is just not there.
0:33:30 - Speaker 5
And that's that's so realistic too, like I feel, like anything I try to do with my friends, one of them will bail.
0:33:35 - Speaker 3
Right, yeah, that makes sense, and one of them will be John Kazal, so that's no good, yeah, how have we not talked about John Kazal? Well, we need to talk about, because I think, to your point, was it?
0:33:44 - Speaker 5
Kazal. I've always said Kazaly and now I feel like I'm wrong.
0:33:47 - Speaker 3
I think it's Kazal, but I guess I it's a guy I'm trying to remember from an interview, but I anyway. But yeah, he is the unsung hero of 1970s because he's a dear hunter in this and the two godfathers, right.
0:33:57 - Speaker 2
Yeah.
0:33:59 - Speaker 5
And those were the only kind of movies he made pretty much.
0:34:02 - Speaker 3
You know, if you look at every like there's a guy that had to earn his way on just into front of the camera. He really didn't like go, or people did not go that you need to be photographing, and then he died.
0:34:14 - Speaker 5
And then he died and I think, like he was, uh living with meryl street or dating meryl street for a?
0:34:19 - Speaker 3
long time. I think, yeah, and and it's just like He's. He's this incredible counterbalance to all these Really strong actors like like Pacino and De Niro. Right, and especially in Pacino's case, if you look at what happened, like the progression of him right after Kazal died because he did cruising and like Princess, it like like he.
All of a sudden he became the opportunity that we are talking about derisively And it's almost as if Kazal was like his spirit animal or something like he was the only one keeping it like On the level, like just imagine him doing, cruising, and then Kazal showed up and being like Dude we work so hard.
0:35:06 - Speaker 5
I think what stands, or where this movie sort of stands apart from other Pacino movies too At least the ones that sort of come to mind now, like the godfather and movies around that time Is this almost a one-man show and there's a lot of other great actors but it all rests on him And there's so many great close-ups of him that sort of long takes of him and it's just uh, he is Just the star and the focus of this movie and we really get to see what he can do.
0:35:29 - Speaker 3
And just play scared. so well, like you, wonder why he doesn't play scared more, because he's so You see it like you, just he doesn't have to see it He wants to be, he wants to be cool like all the time.
0:35:39 - Speaker 5
I just see it right. Yeah, How about a movie where i'm the devil?
0:35:47 - Speaker 3
There is a comment to be had about that Pacino playing this movie Like that and being like.
0:35:56 - Speaker 6
How to come.
0:35:57 - Speaker 3
I can only imagine him reading his last will.
0:35:59 - Speaker 4
At best, I'll touch that a lot.
0:36:04 - Speaker 5
I remember reading, uh, or hearing somewhere that, uh, christopher Nolan said that when they made insomnia, uh, when he's directing Pacino, pacino would start out crazy, cartoonishly big And stop him. Be like what are you doing? And he's like, no, no, i do that on purpose. I hit like 11 and then in the later takes I can, sort of new, find the nuances. That's like it. I don't. I don't think he's finding those nuances.
0:36:31 - Speaker 3
But also if you're al Pacino and whoever, whatever director, you're working with now idolizes you. Do you make him? do?
0:36:36 - Speaker 5
take eight, take nine Right you don't let him get there, right, you're just like oh no, i guess this is the best You're gonna like.
0:36:41 - Speaker 3
Unless he tells the person, unless the person has a temerity to go up to al Pacino, i don't think you're doing the best workout like which. Who's gonna do that right? So, maybe the devil, yeah, maybe his path is not And he, i imagine he's a method guy. Imagine he would have lived in this part.
0:37:00 - Speaker 5
He robbed a bank. for this role He went to jail for a long time.
0:37:03 - Speaker 3
He also famously went halfway towards sexual reassignment.
0:37:09 - Speaker 5
And also a great supporting cast uh, chris sarandon, and uh uh Uh. We actually just did the princess bride on our podcast, So it was interesting seeing those two movies within a week. Yeah, yeah, very different chris sarandon roles.
0:37:21 - Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, uh, charles Sturning. Sturning is so great and this is the perfect part for during. He should always be a cop, right, yeah, and he's so like. Uh, what I like about Charles Sturning is he's he's great at showing sort of like intense, inappropriate frustration. Like even when he's intensely frustrated, you can tell there's this thing in his voice where he's like I'm fucking this up, i can't be this angry right now, i'm gonna bring it down.
0:37:48 - Speaker 4
Yeah, so there's a.
0:37:52 - Speaker 3
I mean, I think it's neat that it comes out the same year as Nashville, because they feel like two different ways of showing something interesting about America Where it is at that moment, and this one feels very much New York.
0:38:01 - Speaker 6
That's what we're talking about. Well, urban, you know we were talking before we went on about how the American cities there's two or three of them that have a very, very distinct character And like I don't see this as being said in Cincinnati, you know, that kind of thing, that kind of closeness of everybody on top of each other, yeah, and like the dead of summer, when everybody's really bloody irritated, you know, and just anybody can like go on edge, that this, this is where the story takes place.
0:38:26 - Speaker 5
It's very, again, it's very much of its time and place And the fact that, like it's an anti-authoritarian hero, Like the reason why the you know this neighborhood sort of rallied around him, This is because he was, you know, saying fuck you to the cops, Yeah.
0:38:41 - Speaker 6
And while cameras rolled and caught it all.
0:38:43 - Speaker 2
Again.
0:38:43 - Speaker 6
This is also where we got everybody really wanting to be famous right Like same sort of thing as Nashville, where everybody all of a sudden really wants to be famous because TV is much bigger than it was and Tablo Journal is much bigger than it was. So, everybody wants to be famous just for doing something. So seeing somebody out there, seeing something where somebody is kind of grabbing their moment in front of you, But I also think it's like like a lot of the best 70s movies are about this distrusting authority.
0:39:06 - Speaker 5
Whether it's the police or the government, And I feel like the fact that everyone was celebrating this bank robber is really we're talking about the other.
0:39:13 - Speaker 6
There's other to cheer him up.
0:39:14 - Speaker 3
Yeah, exactly, and also the fact that, at that point in time, new York City itself is basically bankrupt And that the people who live in New York are so angry about the fact that this city, which is supposed to be the greatest city, is basically like a crumbling ruin, yeah, yeah, when he goes into the vault and there's and there's money.
0:39:32 - Speaker 5
It's a perfect. It's a perfect like I'm showing up in New York.
0:39:34 - Speaker 4
I'm going to be big, i'm going to be big.
0:39:36 - Speaker 3
And it's like there's a thousand dollars here. What just occurred? to me is that which I'm surprised, has never occurred to me before but, weirdly, if you take these two films and mash them together, you actually get do the right thing. Oh yeah, mash Nashville and Dog Day together, kind of get through the right thing. You get this big movie set in one of the hottest days in New York City with all kinds of characters.
0:39:56 - Speaker 4
Are you listening? internet? There's your cue. There's your cue. I want to see a supercut. There's a 35 foot shark in the room? Yes, there is. We're not talking about it all, and I think we should probably give it some, give it some love, give it a hug.
0:40:13 - Speaker 3
I don't care for this. That's good You guys watch.
0:40:17 - Speaker 6
Jaws 4, right, Jaws 2 has been on TV a lot.
0:40:22 - Speaker 4
It's a shark with a water skier in front of it.
0:40:24 - Speaker 3
We had a conversation a while ago where we were talking about maybe it was the Back to the Future one where we were like, oh, we're apocalypse now. And we were like what do we really need to say? Because I feel like everybody kind of knows how great this movie is. I feel like Jaws is in the same. It's so great and I'm trying to figure out a person who is like I don't care for Jaws. Jaws is great.
0:40:44 - Speaker 4
Jaws is yeah, yeah, is that what we're going to do when we're sitting here in Gutch? You're right. if that's the case, Well, I can tell a funny story.
0:40:51 - Speaker 3
Tell a funny story. So my father's not good with scary movies particularly, and Jaws came out in 1975 and so I was four. He and my mother were definitely not going to see the scary movie, so he went by himself to see this scary movie, that he's not good at scary movies.
And then he drove home suitably freaked out And on the way home he kept hearing sounds like water sounds in the car, to the point where he was driving and whipping his head around and turning it around and stuff. But what was happening? And he came in completely Wacken has, completely freaked out, and my mother said, oh, there's a case of apple juice in the car.
0:41:36 - Speaker 5
And then, if this were a movie, he'd open up the trunk to get the apple juice in the car, just a shark bail. Yeah, i mean I was just going to say I feel like, looking back, it's easy to say that Jaws was sort of like the populist choice, like the blockbuster that they stuck on here. But I mean, i think like we all agree, it's one of the best movies of all time.
And I think what people forget or wouldn't maybe acknowledge, looking at this in terms of the other five movies, is how incredibly subversive it is. I mean, we're talking about movies of their time. I mean, i've always read Jaws as an allegory for the Vietnam War.
0:42:16 - Speaker 3
Well, it's certainly the most pop cultural way of getting at the mistrust of authority, much more than dog days.
0:42:23 - Speaker 5
Yeah, exactly, really about saying, and also like the divide in men and masculinity and sort of like reuniting these three men, the sort of pacifist Richard Dreyfus and the war hero Robert Shaw, and then started stuck in the middle is Brody, who's kind of his father, who's willing to defend his family, but he he just has violence because he was a cop and he he killed someone or something. So that's when I took this job. This is an incredibly important movie for this time, if that's sort of the lens we're looking through these movies.
0:42:56 - Speaker 3
I tend to agree. I feel like the Oaks are good.
0:42:59 - Speaker 6
No, i well. The thing when I think about this movie is certainly, like I said, i was an Oscar movie, because that's why we're here. There's two things I always wonder about is one what would have happened if this movie had one best picture? What would that have done to Spielberg's career? You know, it would have been a case of too much too soon, but he just not had gone on. Geez, if only he had been a success. Well, that's like you know, yeah it's, it's.
0:43:23 - Speaker 2
I know I want it.
0:43:24 - Speaker 6
You know how long it kept him hungry doing all of these movies that had a lot going on, that were pop movies that our current pop movies just can.
0:43:32 - Speaker 3
So you think if it didn't recognize more it would have negatively? absolutely Yeah, he would have posted through big budgets and not have to fight.
0:43:42 - Speaker 6
Yeah, that's my thought is is there is something to be said, sometimes for too much, too soon. The other thing I wonder about as well, you know, on the flip side is what would have happened if the damn shark had a warrant?
0:43:55 - Speaker 3
Because, because that's the big city had to shoot around it.
0:43:58 - Speaker 6
That's what I thought, Yeah you know, like that's a lot of what makes don't even remember the stuff that you're talking about for sure, with the emotional resonance of the men in this movie. That's all in the screenplay. Like he had that from the word go, because he was basically tearing up the book and putting it back to me in his own way. That was there from the start, but I feel that that might have been buried if the damn shark kind of worked and we would have been able to see it more and see what he was able to do with it, even though he said famously I don't want to show up for the first act.
0:44:26 - Speaker 5
You know, yeah, you know, and that's the other thing is it's hard to sort of speculate because you know, for they could have had a working, you know, motorized shark, filmed all those scenes, then gone in the editing room and been like, hey, you know what. it actually cuts together better when we don't see the shark Like who knows what.
0:44:42 - Speaker 6
Yeah, exactly, and that's like with both of them.
0:44:43 - Speaker 3
We don't know, i also think, given the state of technology movie technology in 1974, 73, 74, when he was filming this, there is no universe that exists where that shark would have worked.
0:44:55 - Speaker 5
I think people would have told him it could work.
0:44:59 - Speaker 6
Well, it all came down to if he had filmed it in a tank, like Universal wanted him to do. It was because they put it out there and Martha's Vineyard in the salt water that it just started screwing up like no tomorrow.
0:45:08 - Speaker 4
They wanted it shot in a tank. They wanted to show him a tank.
0:45:11 - Speaker 6
Yeah, they absolutely saw that because that was every undersea, like every underwater adventure up until then had all been shot in this tank. That's why, and that's why they look so damn terrible.
0:45:22 - Speaker 5
Well, they did some stuff in the tank right, like the sea worries and the cage which your driver's is down in the tank. Yeah, they did some of that.
0:45:27 - Speaker 6
I think they didn't do something with real sharks.
0:45:30 - Speaker 3
Well, they did, They cut it. but they're not like sharks, but they're like little, but yeah, they were still wanting him to do like sharks, And he's like no, we're gonna.
0:45:37 - Speaker 5
We want you to film it. Jaws the ride. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:45:43 - Speaker 3
I do think that the interesting thing for me when you say like if it had won so famously adult field, is both could ever have one in that year, because and they sort of the comparison I would draw is this for me in movies is where music was around 1963. So this is the breaking point. Like for a long time in music what was popular and what was considered highly accomplished were actually mostly the same thing. Like what was what was popular in pop music was also what was popular on Broadway or what was popular in sort of film musicals like those were the popular songs. So what Bing Crosby was singing, which was like a parade popular music, that was also just what Rogers and Hammerstein were writing.
Right, the break is the Beatles. The break is the invasion a little bit before with Rock and Roll, yeah, but the real break in terms of like widespread, it's like in 1963, the biggest songs come out of My Fair Lady. Those are like the big hits, not so much in 1964. That's where it breaks off right Exchange And Jaws is the break. Jaws is where the big, important movies are no longer. They're really the popcorn movies, the movies that we think of as being low culture or popular culture. They're actually the more important movies than the high culture movies, whatever that means. This is the break, so it's not possible for, i think, the people who are voting on it to actually perceive that that just happened.
0:47:04 - Speaker 2
It's a lot of ways. It's actually a wonder that it got nominated.
0:47:09 - Speaker 6
I feel that if that movie came along now that it just it wouldn't happen.
0:47:13 - Speaker 4
Was it an achievement? It was an achievement, non, is that why it was? It was hard to ignore.
0:47:20 - Speaker 6
It became the biggest movie of all time at the box office. And yeah, when I was here on the 1993 show, i said that every film except for one that became the biggest box office phenomenon went on to also get a picture nomination. So it's almost like you can't ignore it. And that was the thing, is that even if they wanted to, i don't think they could, just because it was able to do that And not care what the Godfather, which had happened three years prior.
0:47:45 - Speaker 5
Right, but I think, because of that sort of financial reason, that it sort of started the blockbuster. They released it in more theater simultaneously. All these things have sort of led to the way we sort of digest summer blockbuster.
It established the summer, summer Yeah which, which you know, some people might think is a negative thing, and obviously it shifted attention away from sort of art house films that were the mainstream. Yeah, i think, because we sort of perceive it that way, historically, people forget just. I mean, people know how great JAWS is, but I think when you stack it up against these other movies, i think it absolutely deserves to be there. I even think it might be the best of the five.
0:48:21 - Speaker 3
I think it's a great movie. I think it's easily argued to be the most influential of the five. Sure, for those reasons you just mentioned.
0:48:26 - Speaker 5
Yeah, but even just in terms of the things we've been talking about, in terms of sort of cultural reflections, in terms of even like, some of my favorite moments in the movie are the small moments like where it with Brody and his son, where he sounds like mimicking him And he doesn't realize it's so touching And it's like the small moments, just the fact that, no matter how many times you see this movie, i always forget about the dead dude in the boat.
0:48:49 - Speaker 4
Yeah, I forget every time.
0:48:52 - Speaker 3
And every time I like yeah.
0:48:55 - Speaker 4
I jumped out of my chair I rewatched a few scenes this morning because I hadn't seen it in a while And I absolutely landed on that scene and watched it like an idiot, Thinking I couldn't you know, thinking I would beat it. And I did not beat it even.
0:49:10 - Speaker 3
No, and just every time you're like what the?
0:49:12 - Speaker 6
oh my God.
0:49:14 - Speaker 4
I got this coming up.
0:49:17 - Speaker 5
I don't know if you guys want to re-release recently, but people screamed in the theater, really Yeah.
0:49:23 - Speaker 3
And that was how I introduced it to my son, who was 13, and it's like the perfect movie to show a 13 year old. Yeah, i continue. It's uh, i actually wondered because start with this like the summer movie season, the fact there was no summer movie season. Has anyone put together when the majority of theaters got air conditioning?
0:49:40 - Speaker 6
I'm just, i'm serious because one of the reasons nobody saw movies in the service because it's so hot.
0:49:45 - Speaker 4
No, this is it.
0:49:46 - Speaker 5
I was talking about the future last night That's what I was thinking. They had the advertising for the theater in 1955.
0:49:51 - Speaker 6
I'm delightfully air conditioned.
0:49:52 - Speaker 4
Yeah, that's exactly what I was worried about. Yeah that's May though.
0:49:57 - Speaker 6
They turn it off in.
0:49:58 - Speaker 2
July.
0:49:59 - Speaker 5
It just brights to spines a library but also back to the future, wasn't real. And I just see on your bookshelf you have easy riders, raging bulls. Yeah, i remember in the movie of that that was like the end of the movie. They're like jaws Before raging bullet, like jaws kind of killed it. Like we were making all these interesting movies and then just came along and then the same week I watched there was a new Documentary about Star Wars. I was on TV and it was like before Jaws and Star Wars, hollywood was making upsetting, weird movies that were dark and about Unlikeable characters. So there's two documentaries completely different viewpoints on.
0:50:37 - Speaker 3
I mean, you can argue the good and the bad, but you can't argue the fact that jaws to change the movie business from a kind of money losing vanity business that a bunch of weirdos Like if you one things it's great about that easy riders, raging bulls is that the people that own the studios like the ones Is named blue dwarf the guy that owned Elven Lester Yeah they are weirdos, man.
0:50:59 - Speaker 2
They're nuts right and they don't care what I mean.
0:51:01 - Speaker 3
It's a. It's a hobby for them. It took it from being a hobby to being like a major business.
0:51:06 - Speaker 4
Well, just to give you the box office from that year, just the 240 million bucks. Rocky horror was a hundred forty No.
0:51:13 - Speaker 3
I have to correct you. These are lifetime figures from I am to be their lifetime figures There's no, a rocky horror made 140 million in 1970. It has made 140 million. Okay, you can't make that much, only playing Saturday nights at midnight. Yeah Yeah, it's a misleading figure.
0:51:29 - Speaker 4
So who's this is 112, and then the next movie is 31 million bucks like after that it drops, yeah, yeah. It drops like substantial. I guess that's what I was trying to illustrate, but but fair enough.
0:51:40 - Speaker 3
The jaws made the majority. That's money in that year, and it's just. It's a staggering Considering what the next would be like. Well, it's, i mean. The only other example I have is Titanic, like where one movie makes 1.8 billion and the next closest makes 300 million. There's not even, not even close.
0:51:58 - Speaker 4
Yeah, i thought that was. I was writing it down. It seems odd to me, other than the fact that the pop popular wise it was a it was ranked up there as well. Well, let's, let's go into cookies next, which also was high up there. We're talking about movies that do something substantial. Yeah, at the Oscars, i mean, this movie ran the board of the big big awards for fun and profit.
0:52:21 - Speaker 3
Everyone want to name the other two movies that have run the board.
0:52:24 - Speaker 5
I know.
0:52:26 - Speaker 3
Happen one night There you go only three times. Has a movie, one director, picture, actor, actress and screenplay?
0:52:31 - Speaker 6
Yeah which which tells you, like, how hard that is to do. It's almost, and I almost say like it's, it's gonna be harder that much more now because the Academy seems to See the screenplay awards as a way to throw a bone to somebody who's who's done. There's somebody smaller or somebody who's done a few things at once, so, like this is where, like Quentin Tarantino tends to get it.
0:52:54 - Speaker 5
It's like, well, we're not gonna be director, but that was a great script.
0:52:56 - Speaker 2
It's a great script. Yeah, you know, or?
0:52:58 - Speaker 6
or the ones that are really weird, like a turtle's on China. This bottle's mine. They got it. It's awesome.
0:53:02 - Speaker 3
We can't give you an award.
0:53:03 - Speaker 2
No, you can't give me something up for that.
0:53:05 - Speaker 6
That's the thing. Because they're looking at the screenplay award in that light, it's gonna get that much harder to run the table of the other four. Sorry, the other four plus that.
0:53:15 - Speaker 4
Yeah, are we in the same boat with this movie that we were with Jaws a moment ago? Is this? I don't know, because this was a movie that come into the table I didn't see before really Yeah.
0:53:29 - Speaker 3
All these movies are like movies are like first time, what happened? you know, like it's so great that you fucking loved it.
0:53:35 - Speaker 4
Yeah, i love it right, you had just you just released your episode the day I watched it, where you were talking about Fargo and TV shows. And I tweeted you immediately and was like I would. I don't want to besmirch the movie by saying It should be a TV show, but I mean, like I want these characters, i want to see them, i want to see them over and over again, before you know, before the end anyway.
0:53:57 - Speaker 3
It's, it's, it's not possible. I play poker fairly regularly. Not possible for me to play without at some point in the evening going. I bet it died I just So hard every time, every time.
0:54:13 - Speaker 6
Yeah, we, when I got that message from you and I can't remember you know, it did make it into the show too. I said like I would totally spend 12 hours like watching the characters Absolutely, and like I would want something like six hours or so to be performing her feet and shows up.
0:54:29 - Speaker 3
I want to sit on the boat, nurse ratchet. I want to see that show of her home.
0:54:35 - Speaker 4
Performances. Like I mean it. You know why I ran the board, or we need to give that a term, like I want to say triple crown, but it can't be a triple crown because there's more than three stories.
0:54:44 - Speaker 3
It's the sweet.
0:54:45 - Speaker 4
It just takes fucking every box Did you need a hug when it was over. It was really quite. Yeah, I was yeah.
0:54:52 - Speaker 3
Yeah, it's, the bottomies are not easy to watch like it's just not easy to feel like like that movie, so got punches you with its ending, so effectively built up, i think again.
0:55:07 - Speaker 4
We're going back to Pacino. You know Nicholson, just so good.
0:55:14 - Speaker 3
He made two films this year. The other one is the passenger, with that Game like it's amazing.
0:55:22 - Speaker 5
The thing I love about his performance in this movie is he does the Jack Nicholson shtick And then you see the moments where that doesn't work and it kind of gets deflated.
0:55:31 - Speaker 3
Yeah, and he pulls. It's like he's deconstructing himself right in front of you Yeah. Yeah, oh, that's good, yeah, yeah, and and you know, i also, i read this. It's Amazing to read Oh yeah, how's the adaptation like? I?
mean nothing, not really like it, but no well, because the book is all from the chief's perspective, oh really, and that chief is the narrator But also, which is why he doesn't say anything in the movie, right boy makes that Simpsons episode make a lot worse. The the thing that I like with the book that's different is that Mc Murphy is much more like a traditional. He's like a sailor, i like Merchant seaman guy and he's and it's more about his kind of Nick doesn't have that Braggado show kind of traditional masculinity thing, he has his own thing. But it works equally as well. Yeah, it's not hoping heroes.
I mean the thing to keep in mind is that the reason that Michael Douglas is the producer is because this was produced option first. I produced as a play, as a starring vehicle for Kirk Douglas. Really, yes, kirk Douglas is Mc Murphy, so if you put Kirk Douglas in that role, you start to see how it's a very different kind of not worse, but very different Right.
0:56:45 - Speaker 5
I think. I think also Kirk Douglas tried to get a movie made.
0:56:48 - Speaker 3
Yes, for a long time. And he gave up and gave it to Michael and said, like what, you make a movie out of this.
0:56:52 - Speaker 5
And he was too, because he was too old.
0:56:54 - Speaker 3
Yeah, i'm still playing Murphy. Any, but he gave it to me was like I own this thing. It's really good. Take a whack at it, and that's why DeVito is in it, because they were roommates. Yeah, oh, there's all kinds of weird lore and history around. I love that aspect of this movie that it really like there's a whole backstory to how this movie even winds up getting me, yeah, behind the scenes.
0:57:14 - Speaker 6
DVD is actually like, really like. I, when I first was buying DVDs, i like go through every feature And inevitably half the time I've had this is boring shit. But every once in a while you come across one of these making of docs that was actually really well done and that was one of them And it's got like a lot of these stories in it. I forgot because I haven't watched that dog so long, but yeah, like of how it was made and how everything came into into play.
0:57:37 - Speaker 4
This is one that there is no doubt in my mind that, like of the five, this one will be on my next next watch list. First, like I can see this one being an Annual sort of viewing. I don't know if there's a period of time I would watch it. It's been a while for me, but I would totally watch this.
0:57:54 - Speaker 3
We were talking on the side of this, just a boyhood and how good it is. I'm able to say, having seen it twice now And I think Dogleaf or Goofs and Spits into this as well that even like that, knowing what's going to happen actually makes you more emotional about what's happening and makes it have more impact. So the rewatches are better because it's like it's one thing to see the sort of turn at the end fresh and be like whacked in the face, but it's another thing to know that that is coming and see him act that knowing Because he knows Nicholson knows what's coming and he's read the script right, so see how he plays into that moment is so great. It's like a flawless kind of proficiency.
0:58:40 - Speaker 5
And everything with Brad Durif knowing what happens is super hard to watch And, again, like great supporting cast, like everyone in the family.
0:58:51 - Speaker 6
Holy shit, Vincent Giavelli.
0:58:53 - Speaker 3
Who's going to play as?
0:58:54 - Speaker 6
Martini, or sorry, not Martini who's going to play as Chadwick? Yeah, i don't know The ball. is that the ball?
0:59:00 - Speaker 2
No, he's the one. He's the first one we see get the electroshock therapy.
0:59:04 - Speaker 6
I'll tell you in a second.
0:59:05 - Speaker 3
Because he's the one who's got it like.
0:59:07 - Speaker 6
He's dialed back and very meek and very melissian, very VIP the whole time. But then when we see him lose it, it's really disturbing, and because he's been in this box the whole time and all of a sudden he's now and it's all over.
0:59:19 - Speaker 5
I want my cigarettes. This is the line in the sand And you just like whoa wait a second And you didn't look that up on a mobile device, you went into your mind, palace.
0:59:32 - Speaker 3
I wish. I my mind palace is mostly just like a tent that leads into a big house.
0:59:38 - Speaker 5
Just like a mind camper.
0:59:40 - Speaker 6
That's right. And Fletcher in this movie is just insane to play that, to play that heel that way. Yeah, because it could very easily turn into a cartoon. but to see somebody who knows the line of not even I was going to say passive, aggressive, but it's not even passive Really. it's just an authoritarian who is just not going to take any shit, but knows how to say it in a way that's not going to upset a person who's mentally unstable.
1:00:08 - Speaker 5
It's friggin chilling And also with the thing I haven't seen this since I was like a student having like work snow, you get the sense from her that like she goes home and totally leaves her job there, like it's just so clinical and professional. That's what really creeped me about that.
1:00:25 - Speaker 4
I don't know I can see her walking into the apartment hanging up her keys putting a record on Yeah. I get the feeling this is a home record.
1:00:33 - Speaker 5
I know, it is, but that's what I mean.
1:00:35 - Speaker 6
Oh, what her life is still like outside of this.
1:00:37 - Speaker 5
Yeah, like she just goes home and like it doesn't. I don't know, There was just something about the professionalism of it that, just like. oh, I feel like. I feel like I've encountered people Obviously less severe than that, But in my life you know what I mean. Something rang more true or close to home than the first time I'd seen it.
1:00:53 - Speaker 6
Yeah, And yeah, this time when I watched it, I think I got the most upset watching her get choked.
1:01:00 - Speaker 2
Like this, like, don't get me wrong.
1:01:02 - Speaker 6
You would think that a character like this, when they're finally like put under somebody's boot, the audience would be like fuck yeah.
1:01:08 - Speaker 5
Or something like that. No, no, no.
1:01:10 - Speaker 6
All of a sudden, when you see this happening, you're like, oh dear God, you know, and it's just. It's. That was why I had to do that. That's why I asked if you needed to hug when it was over, just because that moment that comes just five minutes before the end is so damn visceral.
1:01:23 - Speaker 3
It's, it's Well, it's. The thing that this movie achieves. Which is really interesting to me is that it's fully subjective, like even though the chief is not actually narrating it, you realize that you haven't really seen her as who she actually is. You've actually only seen her how they see her. Yeah, yeah, it's amazingly cogent in how it's directed.
1:01:42 - Speaker 5
Was I the only one that found her kind of attractive?
1:01:45 - Speaker 3
No, I think you're supposed to totally find her.
1:01:46 - Speaker 5
It's a uniform.
1:01:49 - Speaker 3
It's the, it's the. Now it's the same reason that I'm weirdly turned on by the by the Joss No the aliens. I was supposed to say Joss The aliens, in in. Oh my God damn mind the clock.
1:02:05 - Speaker 2
In aliens.
1:02:06 - Speaker 5
No.
1:02:07 - Speaker 3
I'm weirdly turned on by women in positions of absolute authority. I think there's something there, Just uh.
1:02:14 - Speaker 5
Yeah, I wish someone.
1:02:16 - Speaker 6
Oh, we'll find another way. to be around here He's gonna say whoa.
1:02:19 - Speaker 5
Yeah, I just want a woman to like put on a nice record and give me some pills.
1:02:23 - Speaker 4
That I don't know what they do. You should come here Friday night, so you haven't played this game before. but what we do now is we want to go through the five and you know, basically you get to create your own ballot.
1:02:36 - Speaker 2
Are we gonna talk about all three?
1:02:37 - Speaker 4
So yeah, you need to basically take away. You know, like here were the original five, i want to pull these three off and add these three from this year and tell us a little bit about the films that you're adding up.
1:02:47 - Speaker 5
Uh, i, you know it's such a good list of movies They're. It's a really good year. Uh, if I were to pull any off and sub any in. Well, one movie I watched for this because I looked at, like, all the movies that came out in 1975 and tried to find the ones that I hadn't seen that were supposed to be good. Uh, one that I hadn't seen was Three Days of the Condor, which I watched and I did not think was very good. Really. Yeah, you guys seen that movie recently.
1:03:14 - Speaker 3
Yeah, I dug it. Three Days of the Condor is my absolute one of my near misses. I would put it on. Really, there's something else that I like more.
1:03:20 - Speaker 5
but Robert Redford's such a dick in that movie.
1:03:24 - Speaker 2
I like that in a way that's like interesting, he's just like really mean to Faye Dunnaway for no reason.
1:03:29 - Speaker 3
Uh, it's not for no reason.
1:03:31 - Speaker 5
Yeah, the reason is because he's a dick. No, He needs her to do certain things, i know, but then, even when it's like, she's like okay, it's all right, I'm going to help you Like we're friends now And he's just like all right, make me dinner.
1:03:43 - Speaker 3
He never knows that she's for sure not working against him. It's a movie That movie is so. For me it's the essay on paranoia. It's the absolute hype of like what it is like to First of all it has my favorite opening setup thing for a thriller, which is that he goes to get lunch and comes back.
Oh yeah, i love the openings, yeah, but what's great about that? what's great about that for me when I watched it is that it sets up the whole rest of the movie of like every dickish thing he does is just like nothing. I can't trust anything. Everything is up for grabs. I have no idea who's a random and who's a real person. I have no idea whether anyone is telling the truth. I need to act accordingly. It's his ability to kind of sacrifice everything, because he literally doesn't know when the next thing is coming.
1:04:29 - Speaker 5
I think he just gets away with a lot because he's handsome, like there's like a line where, like fate is always like you're being really mean to me. He's like oh, i didn't even try to rape you, that's not a joke.
1:04:41 - Speaker 2
That's what he says in the movie.
1:04:44 - Speaker 5
But everyone's okay. Okay, that's fine. Anyways, I liked it Okay. I didn't you know I love Pandora, but I, you know I, if we're up to me, i would It is. It is up to me Yes.
I would say take out Barry Lyndon Yeah, sub and the passenger, which I know is another Nicholson movie, but I didn't. I didn't get to rewatch it for this, but I saw maybe 10 years ago and the Antonioni movie. I think that's a great movie. Maybe a little weird for the Oscars. I also like. Looking at the list. I'm surprised that Man Who Would Be King isn't on here, just because it seems like the big kind of historical drama like today They'd probably give a nomination to. They probably got some like costume-y.
1:05:27 - Speaker 3
It got some other stuff our direction and costume-y stuff. It's my I would totally Sub-Man Who Would Be King for Barry Lyndon. I feel like they're very similar and far superior to me, definitely.
1:05:38 - Speaker 5
Well, if I'm just taking one off, I take Barry Lyndon and put a passenger on, but Man Who Would Be King would probably be like a sixth for me.
1:05:47 - Speaker 6
This is one of those years where I'd actually keep it intact. This is a monster class. even though I'm not crazy about Barry Lyndon, as I said on an emotional level, i cannot deny just what it did in terms of achievement, like technical achievements. I'm like nope, this is as good quintet as you're going to get.
1:06:06 - Speaker 4
It's a good list.
1:06:07 - Speaker 6
I keep it intact.
1:06:09 - Speaker 3
I also. I would lose Barry Lyndon for many of the same reasons. For me, it would be Man Who Would Be King, because I think that movie is The tits man. That is the greatest. I haven't actually seen that one. What's that one about? It's based on a Richard Kipling story. It stars Michael Cain and Sean Connery Oh cool And Christopher Plummer. Now you're talking about it.
1:06:30 - Speaker 6
I know you're talking about it, and it's mostly about what it's like.
1:06:34 - Speaker 3
First of all, i don't want to if you have never seen it. The thing that I like the most about it I will forego mentioning until you've seen it. But it's also about the Masons and kind of where there's this whole thing about on the level, on the square, that like figures into it And it's meta, like there's a character who actually is or you're Kipling in it, and it's just and it's John Huston directing it And it's big and colorful and crazy and expansive and has a lot of the themes of Huston's other films. But also Connery's performance is both of them, henry Canard, have such good chemistry. They're so clearly friends off screen, they're so good. And it's also the movie where Michael Cain met his wife, who is your. Cain is in the movie and I have never seen a more beautiful human thing, ever person. You mean Michael Cain, right?
1:07:26 - Speaker 5
Yeah, him too, and Sean.
1:07:27 - Speaker 2
Connery.
1:07:28 - Speaker 3
Yeah, oh, let's check that out. It's great. The other one that didn't get mentioned yet that I would absolutely I'm very close to putting in, i'm very close on three days with Connery. I really think it's like pop wearing movie Absolutely at its best, especially for that period of time.
But the other one that kind of doesn't get a lot of love now is the Hal Ashby film, shampoo, which is really smart and really funny And Julie Christie and Goldie Hawn and Warren Beatty and it's this comedy of manners and it's sort of like easy to dismiss, a lighter kind of more farcical thing. But it's like school for scandal. It's like a multiple guy sleeping with a lot of women kind of comedy and it gets something California culture perfect, in much the same way that the National gets Southern culture perfect. It gets SoCal perfect and it's really fun and great And kind of doesn't get talked about a lot. It's pretty close for me to being in there. It's such a good year. But you wouldn't put it on. I wouldn't put it on. The only swap I'd make is I throw Men with Men would be King in instead of Barry Lynn.
1:08:34 - Speaker 4
So Men with Men would be King and the passenger The passenger, and I loved the passenger.
1:08:40 - Speaker 6
I loved it.
1:08:42 - Speaker 5
And the other thing is, john Huston is like an American. I can see it being like too British or English, but you know, because it's John Huston, you think they could have thrown it in there.
1:08:51 - Speaker 4
Is it fair to say that if this was now, you know, the 10 nominate, i think, these movies.
1:08:55 - Speaker 3
I was thinking that This is one of those years when I wish they hadn't had a 10, because it wouldn't have been hard at all.
1:08:59 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.
1:09:00 - Speaker 3
It builds up.
1:09:02 - Speaker 5
I watched all these movies together. I now have a theory that the shining was made because Kubrick lost the Oscar and sort of assembled the movie based on the elements of all these other movies, that's awesome. It's got Scamman Carothers and Jack Nicholson from the movie The One. It's got Shelly Duvall from Nashville And it's a horror movie based on a popular book like Jaws.
1:09:29 - Speaker 3
Wow, mic drop, that is a good one.
1:09:31 - Speaker 5
I'm going to leave this. It's been the do-over Eat it, eat it, whitey, that's spectacular.
1:09:40 - Speaker 4
Well, i think we have a good idea where this is going to land. But 1975, does it need a do-over? It's a tough one to argue. Should we vote just for shits and giggins? Sure, yeah, i guess.
1:09:56 - Speaker 3
All right, nobody did anyone else feel like they didn't want to come here today. It's so hard, It's so hard.
1:10:04 - Speaker 5
I would. maybe, just because I love Jaws so much, i think it's such a perfect movie, i would maybe argue to have Jaws win Best Picture. but then if someone was like, oh, it's a bit of paperwork, i'd be like, okay, keep one for the Kubrick's Nest, that's fine, that's a great movie. Well, it will be a bit of paperwork. Okay then keep one for the Kubrick's Nest.
1:10:23 - Speaker 6
We have two saying that we're going to have Keep it as Kubrick's Nest as well. This is one of those years when they got it right.
1:10:28 - Speaker 4
All right, boom, there, it is Got it right.
1:10:32 - Speaker 5
I actually anticipated that I wouldn't think that. Just from my recollections of all the movies I thought, oh, one film of the Kubrick's Nest, one of those movies is good, but I didn't think it was quite as good as maybe Jaws or like. I heard such good things about Nashville, but watching it again, it's just so good?
1:10:47 - Speaker 4
Yeah, i think so too. When I read the stat after I watched the movie, i read the stat that it ran the board. Okay, i get it. There's no way we'll redo this. So there was tenetiveness at the beginning, but we'll keep it as it is. And one for the Kubrick's Nest. We'll hold to that. Thanks for coming out, guys. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks, cool.
1:11:17 - Speaker 3
And that, as they say, is 1975. So yeah, we did indeed keep one flew over the Kukku's Nest. There was no do over. That's our second episode in a row with no do over. Boy, those 70s man, they are strong. But listen, thanks again to Ryan, to JM and to JD, my co-host, my producer, my wonderful friend Jamie Doe. We'll be back soon to talk about 1976, for your reconsideration.
1:12:13 - Speaker 4
Podcasts and such.
Keywords: 1975 Movie Season, Best Picture Nominees, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Nashville, Air Conditioning, Blockbusters, Academy Awards, Film Critique, Analysis, Characters, Performances, Filmmaking Techniques, Popcorn, Memory Lane, Cultural Impact, Star Wars, Alternative Ballot, Winner, Realism, Robbery, Subversive, Vietnam War, Mistrust of Authority, Box Office, Screenplays, Big Five Oscars, Deconstruction, Kirk Douglas, Emotions, Documentary, Three Days of the Condor, Man Who Would Be King, The Passenger, Back to the Future
