I think the consensus pick for best drama of 1976 is Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese's classic tale of a violent, paranoid loner who's spent far too long with the himself as the hero of the movie playing in his head. I recognize its importance in film history, and I have chosen its star, Robert De Niro, as the year's best actor, but just between you and me, I've always had a bit of trouble connecting with it. Maybe I'm not supposed to.
Another good pick would be All The President's Men, a really nifty mystery about Nixon, Watergate, and the two intrepid reporters, Woodward and Bernstein, who blew the lid off the biggest political scandal of my lifetime (well, until the neverending scandal that is Donald Trump arrived on the scene. I mean, the man single-handedly tanked the USFL in 1986, a disaster that would have croaked most careers. But does anybody care? Apparently not ...). And given that I met Katie-Bar-The-Door while working for the college newspaper, not to mention that I worked for years in downtown Washington, D.C., All The President's Men really resonates for me on a personal level.
And then there's Rocky, which won the Oscar and sold a lot of tickets and which might have a better reputation today if Sylvester Stallone had taken an early retirement.
Or how about Network, a scathing look at television and our obsession with celebrity and novelty which was considered pretty far out back in the day but which plays more like a documentary now.
But I'm going with The Outlaw Josey Wales, Clint Eastwood's post-Civil War tale of a Southern guerilla fighter who refuses to be re-assimilated into society only to find himself playing caretaker to a motley assortment of losers and underdogs, and rediscovering his humanity in the process.
Orson Welles had this to say about it: "When I saw that picture for the fourth time, I realized that it belongs with the great Westerns. You know, the great Westerns of Ford and Hawks and people like that." It's full of action, yes, and at first seems like it's going to be a re-run of the Man With No Name spaghetti westerns, but it unexpectedly turns warm and funny and finally quite touching. Personally, I like it better than Unforgiven which won the Oscar and tons of praise as a revisionist Western. This one, which I came to late during my taping frenzy of the mid-90s, is plenty revisionist for me.
I know, I know, Josey Wales is not a consensus pick at all — what pollsters these days would call an "outlier" — and normally, I value consensus above nearly everything. But I'm sticking with it.
My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated with a ✪. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.
My choices are noted with a ★. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.
Lot of good choices this year. Taxi Driver is one of Martin Scorsese's most celebrated films, and for reasons I can't put my finger on, All the President's Men seems more relevant than ever. But I'm going with Network, a scathing look at television and our obsession with celebrity and novelty which was considered pretty far out there back in its day but which plays more like a documentary now.
By the way, this coming Saturday, March 23, is the tenth anniversary of the Mythical Monkey. I'll be celebrating by taking a well-deserved nap. You're welcome to join me (but only if you're Katie-Bar-The-Door).
I think the consensus pick for best drama of 1976 is Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese's classic tale of a violent, paranoid loner who's spent far too long with the himself as the hero of the movie playing in his head. I recognize its importance in film history, and I have chosen its stars, Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster, for a pair of awards, but just between you and me, I've always had a bit of trouble connecting with it. Maybe I'm not supposed to.
Another good pick would be All The President's Men, a really nifty mystery about Nixon, Watergate, and the two intrepid reporters, Woodward and Bernstein, who blew the lid off the biggest political scandal of my lifetime. And given that I met Katie-Bar-The-Door while working for the college newspaper, not to mention that I worked for years in downtown Washington, D.C., All The President's Men really resonates for me on a personal level.
And then there's Rocky, which won the Oscar and sold a lot of tickets and which might have a better reputation today if Sylvester Stallone had taken an early retirement.
But I'm going with The Outlaw Josey Wales, Clint Eastwood's post-Civil War tale of a Southern guerilla fighter who refuses to be re-assimilated into society only to find himself playing caretaker to a motley assortment of losers and underdogs, and rediscovering his humanity in the process.
Orson Welles had this to say about it: "When I saw that picture for the fourth time, I realized that it belongs with the great Westerns. You know, the great Westerns of Ford and Hawks and people like that." It's full of action, yes, and at first seems like it's going to be a re-run of the Man With No Name spaghetti westerns, but it unexpectedly turns warm and funny and finally quite touching. Personally, I like it better than Unforgiven which won the Oscar and tons of praise as a revisionist Western. This one, which I came to late during my taping frenzy of the mid-90s, is plenty revisionist for me.
I know, I know, Josey Wales is not a consensus pick at all—what pollsters these days would call an "outlier"—and normally, I value consensus above nearly everything (else the Marx Brothers and Alfred Hitchcock would win fourteen of these things and you'd roll your eyes and stop reading) (that is, if you haven't already). But I'm sticking with it.
PICTURE (Drama) winner:The Outlaw Josey Wales (prod. Robert Daley)
PICTURE (Comedy/Musical) winner:Network (prod. Howard Gottfried)
PICTURE (Foreign Language) winner:Im Lauf der Zeit (Kings of the Road) (prod. Win Wenders)
ACTOR (Drama) winner: Robert De Niro (Taxi Driver)
ACTOR (Comedy/Musical) winner: Peter Finch (Network)
Named for Katie-Bar-The-Door, the Katies are "alternate Oscars"—who should have been nominated, who should have won—but really they're just an excuse to write a history of the movies from the Silent Era to the present day.
To see a list of nominees and winners by decade, as well as links to my essays about them, click the highlighted links:
Remember: There are no wrong answers, only movies you haven't seen yet.
The Silent Oscars
And don't forget to check out the Silent Oscars—my year-by-year choices for best picture, director and all four acting categories for the pre-Oscar years, 1902-1927.
Look at me—Joe College, with a touch of arthritis. Are my eyes really brown? Uh, no, they're green. Would we have the nerve to dive into the icy water and save a person from drowning? That's a key question. I, of course, can't swim, so I never have to face it. Say, haven't you anything better to do than to keep popping in here early every morning and asking a lot of fool questions?
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