Reassessing the 1977 Best Picture: Iconic Films and Missed Opportunities
Did the Oscars get it right in 1977? Join me, Matti Price, and our fantastic panellists Karen Gordon, Ryan McNeil, and Leslie Byron Pitt as we travel back in time to the 50th Annual Academy Awards, reevaluating the nominees for Best Picture and presenting our own alternative ballots. From Annie Hall to Star Wars, we discuss our personal connections to these iconic movies and their influence on modern cinema.
We delve into the filmmaking techniques used in Woody Allen's Annie Hall, exploring how it shaped modern films like Olivia Wilde's Book Smart and Game Night. Our panellists also analyze the cultural impact of other nominees such as The Goodbye Girl, The Turning Point, and Julia, sparking an interesting debate on overlooked films like Saturday Night Fever and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. As we reflect on the 1977 Oscars.
Listen in as we discuss a pivotal year in film history and ponder if the Oscars truly got it right in 1977. Don't miss out on this fascinating trip down memory lane!
Transcript
0:00:00 - Speaker 1
In 1928, the first winner for Outstanding Motion Picture was Wings. In a few minutes we'll know the 50th. The films nominated for the Academy Award this year are Annie Hall, jack Rollins, charles H Jaffe Productions. United Artists. Charles H Jaffe, producer. The Goodbye Girl. Ray Stark Production. Metra Goldwood-Mair, warner Brothers. Ray Stark, producer. Julia, a 20th Century Fox Production. 20th Century Fox. Richard Roth, producer. Star Wars, a 20th Century Fox Production, 20th Century Fox. Gary Kurtz, producer. The Turning Point, hera Productions, 20th Century Fox. Herbert Ross and Arthur Lawrence, producers. And the winner is Annie Hall, charles H Jaffe.
0:01:22 - Speaker 2
It's the fourth episode of For Your Reconsideration 1977 has arrived. Yay, apologies to Kermit and the Muppets, i get excited. I'm Mattie Price and along with producer Jamie JD Doe, we are back with a great panel. I'm your host for the conversation once again. Will we need a do-over, or did the Oscars get it right? This episode looks at the mostly American movies of 1977, including Best Picture winner Annie Hall, dance Drama, the Turning Point, unreliable Memoir, julia Star Vehicle, the Goodbye Girl and an obscure film now lost to history, star Wars. As always, our panelists will present their own alternative ballot and winner. Thanks again for listening and downloading.
As always, this podcast is available pretty much wherever podcasts are available, and you can learn more about this and other great shows at Doveracom. That's D-E-W-V-R-Ecom. Join me. Panelists Karen Gordon, ryan McNeil and Leslie Byron Pitt. This discussion was recorded over the interwebs and feels like it happened only yesterday actually, instead of one or two weeks ago, so let's get into it. Okay, this is 1977. I am Maddie Price. I'm joined by an amazing panel. I'm going to go around and give everybody a chance to introduce themselves. Karen, why don't you start? Let the folks know who you are.
0:02:55 - Speaker 3
Hi, maddie, thanks And hello everybody. My name is Karen Gordon, i'm located in Toronto and I'm a freelancer. One of the things I do is work as a film writer and film critic. I'm a longtime film fan, so it's really an exciting thing to me to be able to do this. I've done film criticism, writing on a whole bunch of mediums TV, on the CBC, on radio But I'm also one of the founding critics of a website called OriginalSynca, and that's mostly what I'm doing now.
0:03:26 - Speaker 2
Nice Thanks And thank you for doing this. It's a pleasure. On a personal note, karen Gordon, you are my favorite, maybe one of my top five favorite all-time CBC radio hosts. Thank, you. And I'm so happy that I got to know you really, really, truly.
0:03:41 - Speaker 3
Thank you. I was always freelance, never full-time there, so maybe I should send this to them.
0:03:45 - Speaker 2
The first time I met you, i was scared to go up to you. That's how much I think you're great. I like everybody on the show, but I just needed to say that I needed to level set un-Karen. Leslie, please introduce yourself from across the pond, as it were.
0:04:04 - Speaker 5
Yeah, so my name's Leslie. I am a film writer, podcaster and photographer allegedly all those things in England And I've been kind of freelancing and writing movies for more than I would like to say, mostly blogging, but just I find myself in places like Set the Tape. I've written for Empire, i've contributed to BBC iPlayer and Sight and Sound and Jazz FM and all over the place.
0:04:40 - Speaker 2
And thank you so much Again. This is such a thrill to meet you in person. I know you threw a website called Row 3, which is now defunct. Yeah, But boy, it's been a pleasure knowing you all these years and to get to talk to you in person Amazing. Last oh, me too. Last, and absolutely not least, because of course I am the worst person here, Ryan welcome.
0:05:02 - Speaker 6
I'm Ryan McNeil. I'm in Toronto, canada. I feel like I'm the one at the kids table in this little coffee clutch that we've assembled. My podcast is the matineeca. You can find it anywhere. The podcasts are found. We talk about film from the point of view of passion and perspective and a bribe. Fort Knightley used to write a lot more than I do now. Maybe one day I'll try it again, but these days I live behind my microphone and inside of my own headphones and I'm very, very happy to be here.
0:05:33 - Speaker 2
Yes, this is super exciting. I'm really. This is a great year. I'm really happy to dig into it with you guys.
Just a level set The Best Picture nominees for this year of 1977, which was presented in 78. The winner was Annie Hall, a little tiny film that nobody had heard of, called Star Wars, the Goodbye Girl, julia and The Turning Point. One thing I like to do to start this off is just a level set with everybody and get a sense of your perspective In a way. What I'm curious about is what is your relationship to this year in movies, like, how did you generally encounter these films And this year in filmmaking, were you alive? You may not have been And, for instance, i was six in 1977.
Here's what I remember. I remember other six-year-old kids in my class bragging in September about how many times that summer they had seen Star Wars. I've seen it four times. I've seen it five times And I remember thinking that was dumb. I just remember. I very distinctly remember thinking what Five times, that's just dumb And obviously I was wrong. I did not see any of those other nominated films that year. I didn't see any of them until much later The Goodbye Girl and Annie Hall. I probably saw it in early high school, grade nine or 10, something like that. And then I watched Julia and The Turning Point much more recently, and I think that may be the same for you guys. But I'm curious what were you like in 1977? Were you a thing? And, whether you were or not, how did you come at these movies?
0:07:15 - Speaker 5
It was the first. Well, i think I don't know if I'm the youngest, so I wasn't around in 1977. So how I got to these films? I obviously had seen two of the nominees already in my teenage years, and I do mean my teenage years. I saw Annie Hall and Star Wars when I was in my teens.
I didn't watch Star Wars when I was younger, and that one decision has kind of really dictated how I view movies. I think so many people watch Star Wars and they're in love with it And I am at times indifferent to it, and fans have not made it easier. But the year of 1977, for me, i just went back and looked at some lists of these movies and I just forget how stacked some of these years of film are. And I just had a look and there was a list of films that I had that I thought was just a little bit more interesting at times. I mean, you got Saturday Night Live, you got A Raise A Head and you got Close Encounters, sorcerer, looking for Mr Goodbar and Free Women And I'm like, wow, this is interesting the nominations they picked up, because I would have changed at least three of them.
0:08:45 - Speaker 2
We're gonna hold that thought We're gonna get there. Ryan, were you alive?
0:08:52 - Speaker 6
Not quite. I was conceived Great to go. Mom and Dad.
0:08:57 - Speaker 2
So you, as my parents would say, you did not have a window seat.
0:09:00 - Speaker 6
I did not have a window seat. No, yeah. So I mean, star Wars is one of the earliest films I can remember seeing as a boy. I'm a little bit more into it than, obviously, than Leslie is, but not as into it as some, and so I can understand the angst for lack of a better word. As I got into classic film in my early 20s, i would have come across Annie Hall And then, more recently, the Goodbye Girl and Julia. The Turning Point was the only film that I had never seen before, you know, being approached for this show. So that was the new introduction And I find this to be a really fascinating little cross-section, even more fascinating when you mentioned some of those films that Leslie talked about that are on the outside looking in. But this is a really, really interesting group of films.
0:09:54 - Speaker 2
Yeah, i couldn't agree more. I'm dying to sort of get into it. I will give Karen. Karen, i apologize for in any way referencing your age, but my suspicion is you did see some of these.
0:10:05 - Speaker 3
Yeah, i would really terrified to talk. I considered hanging up. Not only was I alive in 1977, when I was already into my 20s, i'd already had a job and moved to another city. I was living in Ottawa in 1977 and saw was already. It's funny, at that point in my life I didn't think of movies as anything but the thing I did on the weekend. And so I had.
When I thought back, when I started writing about movies and thought back to what, which movies? Annie Hall, for me, changed the game, by the way. It was a huge moment for me, and Star Wars was a novelty, a wonderful novelty, but it wasn't for me. I know I've talked to so many people who are younger and who weren't maybe born that are, who were six or five or something. I know who's become a major figure here. Star Wars just riveted him at the age of four or five. He knew then he wanted to work in movies, but for but I saw all of them.
When I think back at movies that profoundly affected me, it would have started with maybe the Godfather, but I grew up going to the movies on the weekend. You know it was a whole era where if you wanted to see a movie went to the theater. So the movie that I saw three times at the theater was Annie Hall, and so I kind of have a maybe a little bit more of the sort of sociological context of some of these films, because the 70s, i think, is such an underrated era In movies. It was considered in some ways trashy because you ended up with I mean, at that point I was really into music, i worked in radio, i was a newscaster, i did some I still have my scripts for some of my little movie reviews at the time, which is pretty funny, but yeah so so I understand maybe a little bit more from an experiential point of view as opposed to from a film history point of view, why some of those films might have been in that category.
0:12:02 - Speaker 2
When you saw Annie Hall, did you drag different people to see it?
0:12:07 - Speaker 3
I have a I unfortunately is now deceased but my best friend at the time, who I met when I moved to Ottawa and became like he was like my brother from another mother, howard and I went. We couldn't believe what we were seeing And you know it's I have a lot of things to say about it. It's like a talk about it for a long time But effectively I'm kind of Woody Allen And and so it. I'm that kind of personality And it was the first time I saw people talk. When you talk about representation and what that means, it's really that movie really, for me, says a lot about it. It was really interesting to see somebody that neurotic and that I was kind of funny and I was fast and and you know. So it was like looking in the mirror. And then it was.
I loved New York, i love the idea of New York. I always grew up with this fascination for New York. So that era in New York was going through a rough time And Alan encapsulated and captured so much in that movie. So I did not have to drag anyone. Howard and I went back three times in a row because he was also kind of Woody Allen, a more balanced human being. But yeah, i was, definitely it is. I should have been relating to some of the female characters maybe, but that, that, that sort of neurotic And it had it also was kind of of the times you know that was. It did speak to the times in more than just my life.
0:13:35 - Speaker 2
When, and I'm really curious. So I you know, i don't I didn't come at Annie Hall as a person at the time because I was six and I think I probably would have been lost on me a little bit. I Have Marshall McLuhan right here. I don't think a six-year-old would have Would have understood what that meant really. But I do come at it from the sort of cultural specificity of being Jewish and it having this very strong kind of Jewish cultural impact of On me right and and and I am really curious, you know It, i don't think I have. I have no compunction about understanding why it won best picture But we can talk about it more and why you guys think it won or didn't win, but but I do think it's interesting. Like What is? you know, leslie, what was your reaction to it when you saw any home?
0:14:27 - Speaker 5
Well, i remember watching any whole first years ago I think I was probably about 16 and kind of Add to what what Karen was saying. I think there is something about a representation of it in terms of there's a universal Universality of it or so just there's something about the way he encapsulates that neurosis of being Being a person trying to get into dates and and everything and being that kind of the odd person Even in somewhere like New York and having this kind of talent. But not sure about this talent and all these little Things about it, about him as a person, and I really that's shon to that, because that's what Alan was really good at doing and that's why in all his movies There is a Woody Allen type character in those, just his way. But Going back and watching it again this week, what really kind of solidified things to me was the filmmaking itself and And it's quite interesting, quite funny that I think people talk a lot about, like the Spielberg one, so the one, the one camera take, where he can make he just has one Camera shot and it's actually just holding the camera at some point and people kind of block and talk around it. And There's this amazing Moment in Annie Hall where, like, the characters talking aren't even in the frame and having this back and forth conversation and they kind of slowly warp into frame. But it's also Gordon Willis cinematography composed in such a way that you've got a leading line up to them as well, so you can't see them first and then they kind of come in and I was just It's such a simple looking thing in terms of like, how do you do that? type moment.
But one of the things I found is like I look, when I look at especially a lot of modern kind of rom-coms or comedies or anything, i was like no one's putting that much effort into Something so simple, no one's putting effort into those little conversations and Apart from maybe this is gonna be a bit weird, but like I really like to Olivia Wilde's book smart, because I thought that was one of the most well-directed Sequences in something like that and maybe something like game night as well.
But watching Woody Allen, watching Woody Allen watching Annie Hall, what I loved about it is he was just breaking the mold, it from scene to scene, while also investigating his own neurosis, and For someone like myself who was writing about movies at the time of 16 and whatnot, i was like man, i really want to make films. This is really interesting. It was just his ability to use form to Navigate. His personal aspects were the things that really kind of, kind of I would say, shook me to a core. But just I was just flabbergasted by How he made it look effortless and easy.
0:17:43 - Speaker 2
It's. So. I find that so interesting because people rarely have ever talked about the filmmaking itself In Woody Allen. We talk a lot about the characters in the writing and you're right, there's there was a lot of formal invention and not just the stuff around, i think, talking directly to the audience, which you know obviously have been done in different ways many times, but but was done very uniquely here.
0:18:02 - Speaker 5
But but you're right, there's there's an awful lot of visual Ideation going on in how he chooses to sort of expose his ideas right to actually like work them through and that thing I'd say, wow, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the thing that you realize is like It's a comedy, so how the timing has to be on point and it is cut Yeah, so well, so leanly, and so I Don't feel that you need to have Avert backstory to all these characters because it's already in there. You know, you seem to know so much about these people the moment you meet them, and that is Something quite interesting To see for something. He just seemed to capture those personalities well, and I don't know if Those were the personalities of New York at the time, but I mean, i'm a lot of the writing used to say, well, look what he's doing with these kind of slightly upper-class individuals in New York, and You can only wonder, if you like, how, how good he was right out, how well and how accurately he was putting this together on screen.
0:19:13 - Speaker 2
Um is there something about it. Ryan, is that sort of your take away as well, or do you sort of come out and bring other things?
0:19:19 - Speaker 6
I draw other things out of the I think my experience with it is that it's a film that That moves the form. Like when I, when I was a, when I was younger, certainly before I came to it my taste in comedies were things like, you know, dumb and dumber, or crocodile Dundee or you know, like, like silly, slap-dash, big, broad, make money silly comedies and Just like anything any other art form, any one thing can be many things, which I think is why The Academy stood and stood behind it in, you know, in the face of something Much, much bigger and broader, in the way of Star Wars, was it was a comedy. That, basically said, comedy can be something else. Like a minute comedy can be a lot more cerebral, it can be a lot more, a lot drier. It doesn't have to be slapstick, it doesn't have to be screwball, you know, it doesn't have to necessarily appeal to all audiences, it doesn't make it any less genius. You know, you can see the influences of this Touchstone picture when you watch films by Greta Gerwig and Noah Bombach, and I think it's quite a propo that they were together, considering their, their taste, obviously It's. I think it's saying something that, aside from the artist, it's the last picture to win, the last comedy to win best picture and the artist gets a big lift by playing with the silent form, like it. You know you can say that the artist is using that As a gimmick and that's how it ends up being the next comedy to win best picture.
So that was, that was my thing, was actually the first time I watched it at age 1920. I didn't get everything, which is it was just more my sense of humor at the time. But, like Leslie said, like I certainly, i certainly appreciate the filmmaking was spectacular, like Karen said, like seeing, you know, a story of people who weren't in my immediate community And weren't, you know, it made things far more interesting. And that is everything happening inside of the box. You know there is a broader conversation outside of the box if we are Reconsidering 1977, but inside of the box, that is certainly my relationship with, with Annie Hall. And look, there's there.
0:21:48 - Speaker 2
Oh sorry, karen.
0:21:49 - Speaker 3
I'm just gonna say walking Trier. Trier, who did the worst person, is the director of the worst person in the world in other films. This site also cited Alan as a filmmaker. Alan hasn't, i can't remember if he's talked about this. I'm sure this isn't my own thought, but I think he was very inspired by the French new wave when it comes to the style of filmmaking. He'd made a few films before, on hall, obviously, and he'd been. I didn't realize he'd been a theater director, he'd written a lot for TV, but I think that he probably came of age watching those French new wave Movies in New York and a lot of that I.
I've gone back to them because he's a huge influence on me And as I started to get more serious, that film looked at stuff in that business of people talking off screen. You know some of that, some of his moves are, to me, quite inspired by that and I love the way they work and change American comedy.
0:22:39 - Speaker 4
Oh, he did do fast Yeah yeah, he did do fast with with bananas early on, like first me Yes And it, it.
0:22:46 - Speaker 5
This was the one ways where People kind of turn around with, oh he's actually, he could actually be serious.
0:22:55 - Speaker 2
So he did. He did three farces in a row because he did he very broad. He did one that took off on Sort of revolutionary politics, which is bananas. Then he did one that took off on science fiction with sleeper, and then he did love and death, which is essentially like a parody of Russian literature And and epic movies. And I think he, you know, the thing that's, you know, to me the thing that, like at the time, would have sort of shocked people into realizing Kind of the depths of this guy, was the fact that he had done these movies and they had pigeonholed him. They decided he was a kind of a Mel Brooks the Director. He was a guy that was going to take on genres Maybe they were a little more elevated Genres than Mel Brooks was was taking on, but he wasn't going to take on the genre He was taking on but he wasn't going to turn around and do this. And you know, to be frank, it is astonishing to see the growth between those movies and this.
The one thing that I don't think really gets talked about a lot, that I think is really key to Maybe like for me, what makes annie hall special or lasting or Influential in a way is Alan's background as a stand-up. Yes, he, he might be the best peer joke writer to ever do it. If you go back and listen to what do you all stand up comedian That is banger after banger and Quick and incredible setups, and the thing about annie hall is that it captures. You talk, you know, karen, you mentioned the neurotic quality, but I think what it really captures is he a stand-up persona of this sort of you know, neurotic person and translates it into a story that is super compelling and, in my opinion, like we can talk about a lot of the films like the Like worst person in the world and a lot of other films that I think benefited from annie hall, but frankly I'm not sure, without annie hall, that there's ever going to be a sign felt.
No like like how, how would that happen? How would you know? those scenes with him and tony robber's just kind of walking down the street and robber's keeps calling him that nick name and stuff. It's like that's max, that's sign felt, hmm, kind of you know, like, to me, that's where a lot of that sensibility comes from. Where you go, i'm a stand-up and I have this thing. Now I'm going to turn it into a show like a dramatic form, right.
0:25:08 - Speaker 3
And the sorry I'm interrupting, but the thing.
No no, no about that movie when you look at the other nominees and then the lord and then even go larger to see what was missed. But when you look at one of the reasons that movie might have been compelling beyond all of the sophistication, the quality of it, like it wasn't a toss-off Thing, is that it really did capture the times. It captured a certain point in feminism. It captured, like annie hall was this kind of conflicted character between old and new, like I was kind of I'm a little younger than annie hall would have been, but certainly that were that generation of women that was raised to be one thing. And then suddenly you had all this freedom. There was the youth culture coming in.
It was also hollywood was changing And it already started in the early 70s, but it was changing against you. What you had was new york was decaying, it was a mess. There was racism, all this other Stuff that he touches on in the movie. So I think that when you compare it to the other some of the other nominees there And you compare it to star wars, which now, with legacy, may look different in that year, you couldn't have asked for a movie that seemed to encapsulate so much of the culture.
0:26:16 - Speaker 2
It's fascinating to me that Goodbye Girl was nominated the same year, because it's a very much. We can talk about it, but I feel like it suffers by comparison Very much so.
0:26:29 - Speaker 5
It's not a bad film, it's just Not at all. It's very charming It looks like a sitcom in just an extra, and I think if I remember in production notes I think they were trying to make it a sitcom And it shows Not in a. I'm trying to say it in a kind of negative way, but I'm just thinking of the old couple and things like that.
0:26:55 - Speaker 2
Does the Goodbye Girl feel like the real New York The way that Annie Hall feels like the real New York?
0:27:03 - Speaker 6
I mean it feels like a play. That's the thing. It's not a fluke that Neil Simon wrote. It plays like a play and it feels like a play. It's got those lines that are really, really catchy in that very Billy Wilder, il Diamond kind of way that really really crackle on the screen but where films like Annie Hall and some of the others that we talked about even before that didn't even make the class felt more like they were cut from people sitting around and shooting the shit. This felt very, very. It was like you know well, but very, very rote.
0:27:40 - Speaker 3
He rewrote it in six weeks. He originally made it about something different. He was married to Marsha Mason, so she was the lead in it. Originally cast Robert De Niro in it and it wasn't working, So none of it was set in LA. I want to see that version.
He said that De Niro was not funny. It said De Niro was funny in a different way And of course Neil Simons, as you said. But I wonder if you took Richard Dreyfuss out of that movie. I mean to me, with no disrespect to any of the other people, marsha Mason was okay in it. She was good in it. The little girl Quinn Cummings was good in it. But to me that movie rests on the performance by Richard Dreyfuss. It's so charming, it's a tour de force.
0:28:21 - Speaker 2
Yeah, let me tell you this There is no point in my entire marriage where my wife has not hung up her bra and I have not said I don't like the panties hanging on the line And I can pull like that thing from the bathroom. I just have it in my head constantly. It's just so funny the way he says it And a fun sort of like weird fact. But you know, the sort of the comic set piece of that movie is this horrendous production of Richard III that he gets himself into And the character that Nicole Williamson plays, the sort of maniacal director, is based 100% on Mike Nichols. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So I guess I guess Neil Simon had had like a somewhat bad experience with Mike Nichols on a show And like this was his revenge. I don't know.
0:29:14 - Speaker 3
I think that role was played by Paul Benedict.
0:29:18 - Speaker 2
Oh, I'm sorry, You're right.
0:29:20 - Speaker 3
The director which is even funnier. He was hilarious in that.
0:29:24 - Speaker 6
He's got one of those voices that, even if you don't remember his name or his face, it's like oh, it's that guy, he speaks that way in everything. Yes. Thank you for the correction.
0:29:33 - Speaker 3
No, it's okay, I just thought he was to me. That's the point where I thought this guy's so good, he so manipulates that poor actor that played by Richard Dreyfuss and is who's so humiliated by what he's being asked to do, do you?
0:29:46 - Speaker 2
guys think that, like you said, i think it's inseparable to pull that Richard Dreyfuss performance out. Do you think that this was a case of them, the Academy just kind of liking Richard Dreyfuss so much and having seen him come so far with Jaws and other stuff that they were sort of caught up in it and wanted to put the movie in there.
0:30:04 - Speaker 3
I think it's Neil Simon. I think it was. The Oscars has a habit of honoring legacy artists. Like I didn't like the Fablemen's. I know some people did. It's like Spielberg got nominated for the Fablemen's. There's not his strongest work to me. I think Neil Simon is. You know he was a superstar at that point.
0:30:21 - Speaker 2
Yeah, okay.
0:30:22 - Speaker 3
That's just my.
0:30:26 - Speaker 6
It's also the era This is still when Hollywood is really very, very still kind of linked with Broadway. We're not that far removed from when a lot of the big musical productions were dominating nominations and even wins, you know, very, very deep into the 60s and early 70s.
0:30:47 - Speaker 2
So a lot of you had a successful play. They made it into a movie.
0:30:50 - Speaker 6
They made it into a movie and everybody remembered the play, especially if it happens to Neil Simon play. So it's kind of, you know, while on the one hand it is definitely propelled by Richard Dreyfuss And if you put anybody else in, that it does not work as well. It automatically gets that lift from being a Neil Simon play, from being a very successful Neil Simon play, just because that was kind of the nature of things at the time.
0:31:18 - Speaker 5
It does feel like a play. I mean it doesn't really move that far out from anywhere Like. One thing about Annie Hall is at one point you do go to LA, it's never stuck in one place. You're all over New York. You get out into the city a lot. Yeah, And then with this you're it's obviously considering what the film is about. It's quite claustrophobic anyway, But you don't really leave that house And yeah, it shows. It really does show in that movie.
0:31:49 - Speaker 2
There are a lot of movies about New York City, obviously, but there are two that I think captured the geography of New York City perfectly. One of them is Annie Hall and the other one is Diard 3.
So you don't hear those messages together very often Both films you could put like when he takes a car trip from one place to another you're like, yep, that's exactly the direct, that's exactly how I would drive that, yes, it's exactly correct. I do Now a lot of years. I think you know the all five nominees are movies that people still cherish, they still talk about, they're still kind of top of mind. Not so much this year, i would say, fairly or not. 1977 has two film nominees. That I think if you ask the average, even the average, you know, sort of enthusiastic filmgoer.
I don't know how many people have heard of Julia or the turning point, really, truly, and so you know, i watched both of those films a couple of years ago and I will be the first to admit they made very little impression on me. You guys have maybe seen them more recently. What are your sort of thoughts around? So just to put this in perspective, i think the turning point had like eight or nine nominations. It got zero wins, it did not win anything. And Julia had like almost the same amount and it I think got one win for Jason Robards, which he pretty much took away from from Alec Guinness. And say what you want about Star Wars, i cannot believe that they didn't give Alec Guinness. So, like you know, did you. When do you guys want to talk about those two films, maybe together a little bit, because like, or should we separate them out?
0:33:23 - Speaker 6
I will go to bat for the turning point because that film that's the only one of these I had never seen before And you know, if people could see the group chat for this episode, that was the hardest one for a lot of us to source. I'm so much.
That film was amazing. I loved the holy heck out of that film, oh really. Oh yeah, i watched my wife and I watched it together and she was like she, as a Broadway nerd and a dance enthusiast, was like why have I never heard of this or seen this before? Because, holy shit, you know, you can you see influences of all about Eve in this movie. You can see how it would affect something like Black Swan in this movie. The dancing in this movie is just glorious and they take long time. You have to like dance. I will admit that openly. If you do not like dance, you're in for a long two hours. But if you enjoy seeing dance on film, this is a film where I like dance and Baryshnikov.
0:34:23 - Speaker 2
Yeah, now we're really getting qualifiers, yeah.
0:34:25 - Speaker 6
But you know you will hear I don't agree with this. But you will hear a common complaint nowadays that when dance is captured on film, that the editing does not allow it to just play as well as it could play, like it feels the need to to intercut and to really, you know, energize it when maybe it doesn't need it Again. I don't agree with that, but you'll hear that a lot. This is the opposite of that. There are a lot of long shots where, first of all, you just watch Baryshnikov do what Baryshnikov does and it's just stunning to see, but the filmmaking captures the dance in a magnificent way. And then, as if that isn't a treat enough, you watch Kat Ross and White and Miss Kublik's name just drop right out of my head Shirley McClain have this simmering, longstanding rivalry which just plays to the point where they're getting into a catfight in Lincoln Center out in the courtyard And I'm like this is cinema. I was, this was, this was the delight of the of my homework.
0:35:34 - Speaker 5
Nice episode.
0:35:35 - Speaker 6
I love this movie so much.
0:35:37 - Speaker 5
I'm so gutted. I get gutted sometimes when you hear someone talk so passionately about something and I just thought it was so slight.
0:35:43 - Speaker 6
I was really frustrated.
0:35:45 - Speaker 5
The dance is beautiful, the dance is absolutely beautiful And as a Philistine, i only know Baryshnikov from Sex and the City. So sorry, but I just found myself just watching this and really wanting more tension, really wanting more out of it, and I just felt so much. It was so slight, i think I thought Tom Skerrie was in. It was in there and he wasn't anymore. And structurally I got frustrated And by the time it got to the end, where you talk about the catfight, i kind of burst into laughter as opposed to, and then they burst into laughter And I was like OK, well, fine, ok, but I wanted more. I wanted more, more fireiness from it. I can see why. Like I think you hit the nail on the head. You can see elements of something like Black Swan in this, but what I like about Black Swan is it is trashy and it is outrageous.
0:36:49 - Speaker 2
It's certainly more. I think I needed something like that in there. It's more stretched out and theatrical and extreme in its sporadic kind of qualities, right Yeah, at the time. Do you remember seeing Oh?
0:37:00 - Speaker 3
yeah, i think what's interesting. But it's really interesting to talk about this and I haven't seen Turning Point. It's very hard to get and it's interesting too that it and Julie aren't, because they are films that starred women, right, we all talk about where are women? where are women of a certain age? So the thing about Julie at the time is, first of all, it was Baryshnikov's first. I just looked it up again, double-checked. It was his first movie role and he was a huge star then, which of course, you couldn't have access to unless you were in New York. So this was a big thing. I mean, he'd done one or two things on TV, i think.
But the thing about the Turning Point for me was that it's this Again it's about women in the era and you're juggling this changeover between career or family. Can you have both? What does it mean? And there is a little bit of that, well, a lot of that cliche, of that women are never friends, there's always a competition. So I think it attempts to resolve that in a reasonable way. So, culturally, that's where it sat for me is you had superstars in it Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLean. You had this incredible dancer, baryshnikov, and I think the woman dancing with him I'm sort of just blanked on her name was the principal dancer as well. She was yes, so you had. It had a pedigree. It was Herbert Roth. Everything about it was pedigree, but at the same time, it wasn't groundbreaking. It wasn't. When you look at the films that ended up being groundbreaking, it wasn't really groundbreaking and it was attempting to be all things to all people. In some ways, it doesn't diminish the fact that it was a good movie.
0:38:35 - Speaker 5
I will turn around and say it's got some amazing. This is going to sound really damnemuffering praise, but it's got some amazing blocking in there.
0:38:45 - Speaker 6
No, that's not fame praise. That's really hard to do.
0:38:50 - Speaker 5
It's one of those things where you realise how good the craft of the film is in terms of looking at the blocking and looking at having a crowded table and all these people around it and making sure that the one. If you want one person to feel more diminished, you place them there. If you want one person to feel more empowered in the conversation, you place them there. The way the characters move around is that secret source of what makes filmmaking better for certain movies and whatnot. I think Anne Bancroft is really good as well. I'm telling you, Colleen is always pretty good.
0:39:31 - Speaker 2
I should clarify. It didn't leave a huge impression on me, but I certainly don't think it was bad at all. It's terrific. I think it is Somebody mentioned I think, ryan, you mentioned All About Eve. I think that's a good. The Barbara Streisand remake of A Star Is Born was the previous year.
I think there was maybe a bit of what can we do to look back on some of these older forms in filmmaking, especially the 70s. They blew the door off the rules. There were a lot of movies that did not play by traditional rules and had become very successful. I think there was maybe a sense of let's try to go back and pull some things forward And make them feel modern and make them feel relevant again, and this is probably a good example of that. I agree that I think a big part of why this movie doesn't survive and why it's very hard to get a hold of is because it has female leads. There's no reason The Turning Point shouldn't be in every DVD anniversary collection of that studio and something that is brought back and held up as a great example of a movie from the 70s. It sucks that it's not.
0:40:44 - Speaker 3
Well, then again, when you take a look at There are women's movies, like Tcm. The other day did I think it was Scorsese's birthday or Dinear's somebody's birthday. So Alice doesn't live here anymore as often We see that as an elevator. Maybe we need to have Herbert Ross retrospectives. Some of that, i think, has to do with the director. And it was interesting, ryan, when you were talking about the dance. Think about 1977 and the difference in what people expected to see at the movies and the attention span. You could let movies run, that You could let a dance scene go that long because our attention spans weren't jagged.
And I think that that's really an interesting. I've never thought about that before in that way, but I think that's a really interesting thing. Or, leslie, when you're talking about the blocking, you could do it, then You could hold people's attention. People wanted to be entertained. But I think that it is Maybe it's time to do a retrospective on Ross, and again you're dealing with a time where you've got this young Hollywood pushing against the grain. I mean, star Wars was young Hollywood. It was meant to be a lark, not the beginning of a franchise, and you got a guy like Herbert Ross, who I think came from TV, so even these legacy guys dealing with Hollywood as the changeover. And so this was kind of an attempt to be groovy, or maybe Maybe I'd have to research that, but it strikes me as sort of a compromise.
0:42:15 - Speaker 2
Or at least to get in front of new audiences. Yeah.
0:42:19 - Speaker 6
The interesting thing about Ross is I mean, he's a director who He's got two pictures out of these five, which is really hard to do. He didn't get best director for both, but one director getting two pictures into the class does not happen very often. So I mean, well done, herbert. But it's also this thing that as you go back through Oscar history or even just through Hollywood history, you see this thing where directors are a brand for a decade And then all of a sudden they're really not. A case in point with this is somebody like And I say this as somebody who loves his work is Barry Levinson. Barry Levinson, oscar award-winning director, barry Levinson. If you went to the average film student right now and said, talk to me about the films of Barry Levinson, they probably respond with wait which one was he? They recognize the name but they can't necessarily put the two together. I think in five or 10 years you're going to hear that same response with Tom Hooper, but that's a whole other show. And that's the thing is Herbert Ross in the 70s.
0:43:22 - Speaker 2
You're not going to hear it about Tom Hooper because no one's going to ask about him. All right, Oscar award-winning director Tom Hooper.
0:43:30 - Speaker 6
That's the thing people would be doing a show like this and be like wait, which one was he? So, yeah very much what Karen was saying that when you're looking at, we all do retrospectives of Scorsese and we do retrospectives of Agnes Varda and we do retrospectives of Pick, the Director, but you don't hear about retrospectives of people like Herbert Ross, despite the fact that their work is, by all measures, really really quite good.
0:43:55 - Speaker 2
Yeah, So there is certainly a bias against what I would call artful invisibility which happens a lot in these really good films, which is that the director doesn't necessarily put their style on it, but there are just cameras, always in the right place at the right time or right amount of time. What about Julia? How much time do we want to devote to?
0:44:15 - Speaker 6
I want to award it the best supporting performance by a hat.
0:44:21 - Speaker 5
It was a bit of a slog. I found it a bit.
0:44:25 - Speaker 2
It's just a strange movie, right.
0:44:28 - Speaker 5
Well, looking back at the history of what it's about and realizing that the controversy about it was Julia in real, it's based on a so-called true story but Julia herself may or may not have existed and it was kind of debunked that she did. I found it really really hard Once you also had that knowledge in there. I found it really really hard to kind of sit with a story, especially with the fact that from the tagline and everything that's all about friendship and there isn't that many scenes where the film builds upon this friendship And I kind of just struggled with that. It just seemed to be, i mean, it's difficult because I said at the beginning of this that I would replace three movies and Turning Point and Julia would definitely one of them, and there's something about what Karen says about representation and and women's movies and I'm they're really struggling with these two movies and I was wondering if there was anything I kind of just missed and maybe it's just I was coming from it from a different point of view or or anything and I just think it was just structurally. I just found them just hard to get into and there's elements of the craft that I think is are really good.
I think performance is really good, i think Jane Fonda was really good. But I'm watching that and I'm thinking, well, i like Jane Fonda, include I don't like her in this. There's just so many. There was just so many times where I've just just found myself kind of drifting off. I didn't seem to be that much as I was like. I was like, oh, is that Dashel Hammett? oh, great, and that was about it, like there wasn't much to it for me, like, although I do like Jason Robarty's you know.
0:46:20 - Speaker 2
I mean, i think there is a great. There is a great movie to be made about the relationship between the Liz and Helmut and Dashel Hammett. I just I'm not sure this is it, but it's not really about them, is it?
0:46:31 - Speaker 5
right, it's not it it kind of has him there to say look it is. And when she, when she first says dash, i was like dad, no, oh yeah. And then I was like oh right, okay, and then you're like, oh, this is a. This is an interesting thing and for me a film like this would. I would want to, after watching it, get really involved into looking at the history, looking at those relationships, because I wasn't there at the time and this film doesn't do that for me again.
0:46:59 - Speaker 3
To me a representation. It's great to see women's films, but they are actually good.
0:47:03 - Speaker 4
I mean, there's there is that, like you know, yeah representation isn't you know, it's a.
0:47:07 - Speaker 3
It's an important thing and I think movies should be allowed to fail, like you should be able to make a, have a director with a vision and they make that vision and maybe it doesn't work, like to me. That's you don't have art unless you have failure. It's ridiculous. Otherwise everybody's making just basic standard schlock. I'm not schlock, but it gets to be schlock yeah, if everybody's doing it.
0:47:28 - Speaker 1
So the question that was an attempt to be to be portentious.
0:47:32 - Speaker 3
Yeah, like it was. And there were more reasons that Vanessa redgrave's casting. Oh no, was it Vanessa redgrave?
0:47:37 - Speaker 2
yeah, yeah.
0:47:39 - Speaker 3
I think I would more. I think she was controversial, but I think they had these two incredible actresses and they wanted to do something with them and so so that has, that has its own, you know, that's its own form of hell. It has to still be a good movie. It's great to see women's movie stars with women and they're great to see the industry taking them seriously. But by 1976 and 77 both of them were well respected.
0:48:03 - Speaker 2
So let's just say why it did what it did is the failure on the part of the film or is it the failure on the part of the Academy to think that they needed to elevate this movie into a best picture nominee? definitely on the bad academy. It seems like a weird. Seems like a weird choice. Right, we talked about dancing in movies. I just want to quickly go through some of the movies that maybe, like certainly could have been on this list and and didn't. And I really want to start with Saturday Night Fever, because it is. It is mind-blowing to me that that was not on the list of nominees. That's a movie that I feel like absolutely hit a cultural moment in a in an insane way in 1977.
0:48:42 - Speaker 6
Like I'm not sure there was a bigger even Star Wars I don't think was a bigger cultural moment in that year than Saturday Night Fever because, because the extra boost with the music that's the thing is that it it right, you know bounces over into a whole other art form and captures a moment in that art form, while capturing a moment in film as well. So it's like, but it also does, yeah, the music hides the toughness.
0:49:05 - Speaker 5
The music, yeah, hides the toughness of that movie yeah, i remember never really get an interstate and I the fever. Until I actually sat down and watch it I was like, oh wow, what am I watching? I was kind of shocked by by the again, like some, the racism involved and some of the just the mood.
Yeah, yeah, and you're sitting there and you're like, wow, and it's just a really, really tough thing. And I just recently watched Officer and the Gentleman and it's the same thing. It's just this element where all the little things that kind of made it into the mimification of it and turn them into these kind of pop culture like tabletops or counterparts or something yeah, i don't think it's equally important, necessarily, but you know, saturday Night Fever and also looking for Mr Goodbar the same year.
0:49:59 - Speaker 2
you know they're not celebrating women, but they're certainly looking at the reality, or trying to look at the reality of what's going on with women and what they're facing well, i would have put, i would have put Goodbar and free women in place of Julia and the turning point, and you would.
0:50:18 - Speaker 5
And I think there is much more complicated and complexity there in those films than I see. In something like Julia, which I don't know, it seemed like he wanted to be an espionage film and I don't know. I just didn't get. I didn't get much out of it, just felt like a bit of a slog what other?
0:50:42 - Speaker 2
what other hidden gems or like overlooked movies do you guys think we should be thinking about?
0:50:48 - Speaker 6
close encounters of the film that I, in many ways I wish could have got the love that, are that that Star Wars got to the point where even those two directors made a bet amongst themselves over which one was gonna do better and like each betting on the other, saying, no, yours is gonna be the better one, no, yours is gonna be the better one, and George lost that, that film. I, if I actually had like a time machine and could go back, that is that that would be my by door number three between the Star Wars and Annie Hall divide, as I would just go through the close encounters door.
0:51:31 - Speaker 2
Karen, is there anything that you feel like we didn't get to or that should be on that list?
0:51:37 - Speaker 3
and I'm not without going back and looking at 90, like in 19. In that era, when I was going to see movies, i was terrified of going to see something foreign. I was convinced I wouldn't get it. That was the year of a racerhead, which I took years to watch actually watched it on video and that finally happened and was like no idea what I was watching.
0:51:59 - Speaker 2
Like also also a movie like a racerhead feels like it needs to come out of the discussion only because almost no one actually saw it in the year. It came out like it's a movie that played midnight screenings and sort of slowly over time became well known, but it's not really a movie that got released. Would it make like a grand? like it didn't get, it didn't get put in movie theater story. We think of a movie you know. So it's like it's not really. I'm not sure it's fair to like. I love race with, but it's like that's I'm not. I don't think you couldn't. I don't think there's a way that that movie would have been even talked about in 1977 people were talking about it.
0:52:34 - Speaker 3
But you know, like it it's a kind of kind of quiet hum. It scared me enough to wait. I mean that there are some interesting movies in that year that I haven't seen the duelists, i mean that that you hear. So there there are some ones, i think. I think Saturday fever I've never actually contemplated that before quite in this context, but I think in that era again it was processed as a music film, as a film about dancing and about this character, tony Monero. It wasn't really. It wasn't. I don't know that we had.
0:53:02 - Speaker 2
Yeah, it's funny, distance it's it is. It is a film that has music in it, but like I can't think of a movie that's more about it's, it's it's sociology yeah that movie it's. It's a, it's an examination of something that's going on and that you know the fact that it's based on this rather famous magazine article and that it's really, like, i think, very effectively looking at like an experience in a way that's really authentic, and in New York, in a very difficult era.
0:53:32 - Speaker 3
You know a class with a class and about attempting to. You know what disco it mean. This goes fun. But it was also a place everybody went and got really dressed up. You're coming out of the era down. You know, hippies and all of this stuff. Everybody was wearing this, everybody looked the same, and then suddenly this culture is shifting over and I don't know that.
0:53:52 - Speaker 2
There will be interesting to try and think about whether this people were sort of ready for what was going on there and then there's a movie that opened the same week as Star Wars and I think in any other or in most other years would have been a movie that people were talking about and that's sorcerer. Oh, i think sorcerer holds up pretty amazingly well, considering it is a remake. I think it is maybe that heard it at the time. I think people thought you can't put a remake into contention, but then a Star is Born was in contention the previous year, so I'm not totally sure and then you start as born, as been in contention in its year, right, right and like side story.
0:54:30 - Speaker 6
You know, that's right, right.
0:54:33 - Speaker 2
So, other than the fact that I think people may, maybe, my guess is that people were not really big fans of Friedkin and they were kind of tired of him because he was a bit of a an off on to Rieble in the community and like hard to work with and stuff, and so maybe they were like screw him, but like it's a pretty spectacular, i'm blown away that it doesn't. It gets no nominations, not even.
0:54:57 - Speaker 5
It was a flop, wasn't it? Yeah, it was a huge flop.
0:55:02 - Speaker 2
Yeah, it opened the same day as Star Wars. I think he had a lot riding on it at the time.
0:55:08 - Speaker 5
Yeah, I think he had a lot riding at the time and I think it did knock him for six slightly. I'm always gutted because I met Freakin and instead of saying anything about the water, i just kind of babble because I was like, wow, i just met Winnie Freak.
0:55:27 - Speaker 6
Something we talk about on my show, though, is that we need to remember that, when it comes to Oscars, that it is a game, and some studios are just really a lot better at playing it. You can see this right now with a studio like Searchlight. It's just basically dominated nominations for at least 10 years. I think they're clicking towards 15 years now, and at the time, if a studio just did not want to push a film for nominations, they didn't want the win, they didn't want any extra money thrown at it, because it does cost. That was just the end of it. It seems terrible to say it, but this stuff just does not happen organically. It takes a studio to want to do it, sometimes out of pride, sometimes out of wanting to elevate an artist for work well done. But whichever studio was behind Sorcerer, if they didn't want to enter it into what they thought was a crowded field, with Star Wars already there after having already taken its lumps at the box office, then that was game.
0:56:28 - Speaker 2
Are there any movies that people consider to be blind spots for this year, or movies that you really think you ought to have seen from 1977 and just have not gotten around to it?
0:56:37 - Speaker 6
I mean Sorcerer. Sorry, I was quiet enough for a very good reason.
0:56:42 - Speaker 2
You are in for such a treat.
0:56:44 - Speaker 6
Oh my God, it's so great.
0:56:45 - Speaker 2
I'm so jealous.
0:56:49 - Speaker 5
It would be the Jullis for me as well, jullis.
0:56:52 - Speaker 2
Jullis is great. Yeah, that's a. I did see that a few years ago. I haven't seen Cross of Iron, which is the Sam Peckinpah movie from that year, and Fun with Dick and Jane, which is That was good Seagull. That's a good movie. That's a good movie, yeah. Yeah, that's that year.
0:57:09 - Speaker 3
Yeah, it was caring.
0:57:16 - Speaker 2
Yeah, but I think the remake has no plot points in common. I think it is a remake technically, but it's all the whole story's changed right, so I don't know. I would like to see it. I did see George Seagull recently in Roller Coaster and I highly recommend. I thought Roller Coaster was going to be really terrible. It's actually pretty good, pretty good, so I'm going to go.
0:57:39 - Speaker 3
I wish I could remember A Bridge Too Far. I know I've seen it, but I think that might be another Another. I can't. Sometimes, you know, in that era right You it like in any era you stuff a movie with stars and sometimes their demands on their role can kill it. I mean, i wonder that's what I wonder about, julia whether you have these two people saying yeah, I'll do this movie, but this is how I want to.
0:57:59 - Speaker 2
You're totally right though We didn't talk about A Bridge Too Far and it's a massive World War II film with, like it's, one of those 900 well-known people in the cast movies. You know, yeah, yeah did not. did not get in there. I think, coming off of films like Patton and The Longest Day and like a bunch of other, like maybe it just is, there's some fatigue around World War II movies and maybe because of Vietnam, people Oh definitely because of Vietnam.
0:58:28 - Speaker 6
Like we're right at that, we're right at the turn of war film, like you're the next year you're going to get coming home the year after, you're going to get apocalypse now. So the fatigue for the World War II films was very much front and center.
0:58:42 - Speaker 2
Yes, This year did have a movie where with a very conflicted Vietnam vet, Unfortunately that vet was played by Henry Winkler. It was called Heroes, but it was the number 10 movie in the box office of 1977.
0:58:57 - Speaker 6
He was shell shocked at Mundo.
0:58:59 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, him and Sally Field Very strict And it was a huge hit apparently. Yeah, okay, let's let No right, it just totally has to spirit. So let's go around the room and talk about what would we actually have on our ballot. I will, i will participate in this, but I'll go last. Let's go to reverse order. Ryan, what would your ballot look like for 1977? If you had to redo it now?
0:59:24 - Speaker 6
So cast a vote for the winner or my five.
0:59:26 - Speaker 2
You're five, let's start there.
0:59:28 - Speaker 6
Five, i would What would you? keep and what would you throw? I would keep Star Wars and the turning point. Knowing what I know, Oh yeah. Knowing what I know now, i would lose Annie Hall, i would lose the good boy girl for its own merit and I would lose Julia. I would replace those three with three women with I'm going to. I would replace it with searching for Mr Goodbar and close encounters of the third kind.
1:00:08 - Speaker 2
Okay, Leslie, what would you? what would you keep and what would you throw? You've talked about it a little bit, but let's formalize it here.
1:00:16 - Speaker 5
So yeah, i keep Annie Hall. I would keep Star Wars, just because even though I said a week ago I just been, it been the whole franchise, but I'd keep that. And then I would go with sorcerer and I would go with I didn't know this down It was sorcerer looking for Mr Goodbar and three women. Those are the ones.
1:00:45 - Speaker 2
I would go with Karen. what would you keep?
1:00:48 - Speaker 3
I would keep any hall. I would keep Star Wars.
1:00:55 - Speaker 2
And what would you? what would you add back in?
1:00:57 - Speaker 3
Well, that is a question, I think. I think that I would have to spend a bit more time rewatching things because I didn't see the free women film. Is it three women or three?
1:01:08 - Speaker 2
women, three women, robert.
1:01:10 - Speaker 3
Altman.
1:01:10 - Speaker 2
Robert Altman.
1:01:12 - Speaker 6
Okay So she's a space sec post Badlands, pre-kerry Shelly Duvall doing her twee Shelly Duvaliast, all out in this like out in the middle of nowhere.
1:01:29 - Speaker 2
It's set in a like a sanatorium, right Yeah?
1:01:31 - Speaker 6
Sanatorium in this like kind of backwoods Texas area where there's just, like you know, like a Melrose place type apartment complex. I'm so excited about this movie I'm smacking my own mic.
1:01:43 - Speaker 3
Is it 1977, though? Is that the year? I don't see it on any of my lists.
1:01:48 - Speaker 6
Unless I just should be.
1:01:49 - Speaker 2
Yeah, no, no, i think we're right. I think it's 77. Yeah, i believe you guys, yeah, um, well, i would, i, okay, i would. I would also only keep any hall in Star Wars, i think, and I think it's unfortunate because there's some good movies in there. But but yeah, i think the other three do not quite make the cut. I think Saturday Night Fever has to be on that list, close encounters And then I think the fifth one it's. It's a toss up between looking for Mr Goodbar and and sorcerer, but I think I would pick sorcerer And that would be my fifth. The real question is did did they make the right choice with Annie Hall, or do we need a do over? I know Karen thinks we do not. I'm going to just go out on a limb here and say you believe they made the right choice, am I correct?
1:02:37 - Speaker 3
Yes, of this of this group, because at the in that era again, Star Wars was considered, was not considered well, um, i mean, it was really respected and loved and it had huge box office and it was fun and it was a game changer, um. But if you look at what Annie Hall did, it was more refined, it was more culturally. I just think that it was an important film. I think it represented a change in comedies and rom-coms, um, i think that it was beautifully made and and I and I think it kind of hit a cultural nerve.
1:03:10 - Speaker 2
This is a really fun debate and discussion, because I think what we're getting down to is what is, on a weird level, what's more important the hero's journey or observational comedy, and that is, as that is, as tough a choice as you are likely to have, sir.
1:03:29 - Speaker 3
But you know the thing about, about oh sorry, leslie I just the thing about the Oscar awards is that people can teach you how to understand a movie, how to make a movie, but no, there's no course on how to choose an Oscar or not winner, but there's no choice on how to compare apples and oranges.
So so, oh, you know, i mean because it's the, because the distance of history, um, it's possible to say that this is the film that seems to have. Not every year do you get a film that grabs the zeitgeist like this. Well, that's why it's easy for me to say that's why I'm so definitive. Usually I'm floundering all over the place.
1:04:07 - Speaker 2
And not to put pressure on this conversation, but we are in touch with the Academy and whatever we decide here is going to be what's going to be. Leslie, would you change it?
1:04:21 - Speaker 5
Yeah. So I feel that I would give Star Wars best picture, even though I know what I've said. All this episode I'll give Star. Wars best picture and I would give Best Director to Woody Allen, i think. I think I think Annie Halls were better directed movie. Watching the two recently, looking at them I was like I now, i now realize, why they do have Best Director, Best Picture.
I get the feeling that in terms of the success that it came out of it and moving stuff forward, Star Wars is the one that gets it And obviously I've got hindsight with this. But in terms of how the movie is made and what they're doing, I think it's quite interesting and directional choices. I think it would go to Woody Allen And that's how I'll do it. I appreciate that one very much, Ryan.
1:05:12 - Speaker 2
would you do this over?
1:05:14 - Speaker 6
I absolutely would do this over.
1:05:17 - Speaker 2
You are the one person who threw Annie Hall out of your ballot.
1:05:20 - Speaker 6
Yeah, Sorry, i would give Best Picture to Star Wars. I mean, it changed a lot of things, some for better, some for worse. It's fascinating that in many ways it's a complete antithesis to Annie Hall in the way that Annie Hall is such a singular vision where Star Wars is really a film, where it took a village, like that is not George Lucas' vision entirely. It is the editor's helping him, god knows. It is the composer helping him, it is the production designer's helping him. It is everybody making that thing work. Because if it was just George doing what George wanted to do, it would not work nearly that well. But the fact that the village came together in that way, i would celebrate the village and to go with Leslie's extension of this and say I would also then split off director. But I would split director over into Steven Spielberg for Close Encounters because he is directing his ass off in that movie and making it look so simple.
1:06:29 - Speaker 3
OK, close Encounters is now that I didn't give my other list, but it is. I just want to endorse that Stump.
1:06:37 - Speaker 2
Yeah, it is a narrow thing. I love this discussion. I think we have collectively decided that, amazingly, star Wars does win out as our choice for best picture.
1:06:50 - Speaker 3
Not collectively.
1:06:53 - Speaker 2
Not unanimously.
1:06:58 - Speaker 3
I can never forgive that last scene. Sorry, star Wars. It was hokey then, it is hokey now, sorry.
1:07:05 - Speaker 6
Not a big fan of handing out medals.
1:07:07 - Speaker 2
No, i think. No, no, no, you're, you're mad because they don't give one to Chewbacca.
1:07:12 - Speaker 1
I know I understand why, you're angry.
1:07:16 - Speaker 2
That is some Chewbacca erasure. He flew the damn plane. Look, this has been incredibly fun and what a great year to look at and like. what a stark contrast in nominees, so I couldn't have enjoyed this more, guys. Thank you so much, all of you, for participating. Let's go back through the order again in reverse and we'll just talk about where we can find your work online, ryan. where can people seek you out and find out more of the wonderful things that you do?
1:07:46 - Speaker 6
People can find me at the matineeca. My show is on pretty much anywhere. you can find a podcast. It's there. I went looking the other day for like new platforms. I was like, oh, i already happened to be there. How about that? So yeah, my show drops fortnightly. We talk about a lot of smaller movies, but we dip over into blockbusters now and then, and thank you very much for having me. This was a lot of fun.
1:08:10 - Speaker 2
Absolutely, Leslie. Where can we find your work online, Including, by the way you put it down yourself earlier? but you are a hell of a photographer man. Please, Please, Don't.
1:08:21 - Speaker 5
I love your photography. I'm going through post-its intro at the moment, so please don't So. It's easy to find me on Instagram and Twitter at AfroFilmViewer. At the moment I'm usually writing on set. The tape I can also be found at the erotic Frilla podcast, fatal Attractions. There are a lot. I think we're 98 episodes in now And I'm trying to get my hiatus podcast Hustlers of Culture back when I can, which was unfortunately due to strategy, is just not with us at this moment in time. But we'll see what's going on with that.
1:09:15 - Speaker 2
Well, thank you very much, Aaron. where can we find you online and enjoy more of your thoughts and ideas?
1:09:22 - Speaker 3
I'm part of the team at Original Sin Not a lower dash, the one in the middle, originalsinca And that's my most frequent one. I do a few other things. That's the best place And this was fun. Thank you so much for having me. I love meeting all of you guys.
1:09:40 - Speaker 5
Thank you. Thank you very much.
1:09:41 - Speaker 3
All right.
1:10:20 - Speaker 6
Thanks.
