I voted for Raging Bull as the year's best picture (along with actor and director) which is not exactly the same as saying I enjoy watching it. Just between me and thee, the ratio of times I've watched The Blues Brothers, Airplane! and Caddyshack to times I've watched Raging Bull is roughly infinity to one.
As portraits of unlovable losers go, Raging Bull is without peer. Real-life boxer Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro) did exactly one thing well — beat people up — and he parlayed that into a spectacular career in the ring. That this talent for uncontrolled rage proved to be a liability in every other walk of life came as a complete surprise to no one but himself.
Which makes him a pitiable figure, maybe even a tragic one, and director Martin Scorsese makes you feel in your bones LaMotta's desperation and humiliation as he careens from one self-inflicted disaster to another. It's absolutely top-notch filmmaking.
But, boy, is it hard to watch. I've really got to be in the mood ...
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 ✱.
The Academy nominated Mary Tyler Moore as the lead in Ordinary People and Timothy Hutton as supporting actor, I think largely based on their stature in the film industry — this was Hutton's first feature whereas Moore had been a star of television for twenty years. But I think it's pretty clear Hutton was the lead, so I've nominated Hutton and Moore for alternate Oscars in the categories where I think they belong.
I've blogged ahead to the middle of June so that there will be no interruption in the weekly voting, but starting tomorrow I won't be here to read or answer comments for quite a while. Feel free to have your say and I'll catch up later this Spring.
Oh, and a happy 25th anniversary today to Turner Classic Movies, the best movie network on the planet! Fingers crossed for another 25!
Sullivan's Travels (1941)
Tired of churning out crowd-pleasing comedies such as Ants in Your Plants of 1939, director John Sullivan (Joel McCrea) vows to make an important movie about economic injustice and class struggle. Unfortunately for him, his only brush with poverty is the first of every month when he mails an alimony check to his ex-wife. So he and a down-on-her-luck Veronica Lake set off on a cross-country adventure to learn what's-what. The result is the best comedy of Preston Sturges's illustrious career.
"What do they know in Pittsburgh?"
"They know what they like."
"If they knew what they liked, they wouldn’t live in Pittsburgh."
8½ (1963)
Everyone is ready for Guido (Marcello Mastroanni) to direct another hit movie — the cast, the crew, the press, the studio, his wife, his mistress, his other mistress. Everyone except Guido, that is. He thinks and thinks, and hasn't got an idea left in his overstuffed head. My favorite Fellini film, chock full of those crazy visuals (a man floating through the sky like a balloon, anyone?) that make Fellini so much nutty fun.
"I don't understand. He meets a girl that can give him a new life and he pushes her away?"
"Because he no longer believes in it."
"Because he doesn't know how to love."
"Because it isn't true that a woman can change a man."
"Because he doesn't know how to love."
"And above all because I don't feel like telling another pile of lies."
"Because he doesn't know how to love."
Stardust Memories (1980)
By 1980, Woody Allen was sick of making funny movies, sick of a public that only liked funny movies, and above all, sick of a universe that only makes sense as the punchline of some sort of decidedly-unfunny, existential joke — so, of course, he made a comedy about it. The critics blasted Stardust Memories in its initial release but its stature has grown over the years. Or anyway, I like it, which is all that really counts, right?
"But shouldn't I stop making movies and do something that counts, like-like helping blind people or becoming a missionary or something?"
"Let me tell you, you're not the missionary type. You'd never last. And-and incidentally, you're also not Superman; you're a comedian. You want to do mankind a real service? Tell funnier jokes."
The Simpsons "Krusty Gets Busted" (Season One, Episode 12) (1990)
Laughs are all well and good but what about poetry, what about literature, what about not getting another pie thrown in your face? Sideshow Bob (the voice of Kelsey Grammer) is fed up and he frames his boss Krusty the Clown, takes over the show and talks to the kids about feelings and philosophy and crap like that. Probably the best episode of The Simpsons first season, way back when the show was actually funny.
"Yes I admit it, I hated him. His hackneyed shenanigans robbed me of my dignity for years. I played the buffoon, while he squandered a fortune on his vulgar appetites. That's why I framed Krusty. I would've gotten away with it too if it weren't for these meddling kids."
"Take him away boys."
"Treat kids like equals, they're people too. They're smarter than what you think! They were smart enough to catch me!"
Top Five (2014)
Comedian Andre Allen (Chris Rock) doesn't feel funny anymore, and who can blame him — his movie's a flop, his love life is a TV show, his relatives have their hands out, and his fans just want him to put the bear costume back on. But, hey, at least his day can't get any worse. Right? Raunchy, hilarious and a pretty biting send-up of modern culture, Top Five was last year's most overlooked comedy.
"You coming to the party right?"
"Some people got to work. I'll tell you what — I'll come to your next bachelor party."
"That's not funny, man."
"Tell me somethin' — your next wife, she gonna be white or she gonna be Asian?"
"It's still not funny, man."
"Oh, it's only funny when you say mean shit. Right?"
Interesting to me, if not to you, is the fact that as we get closer to the present, the more pictures of movie stars there are available on the internet (as you'd expect), but the fewer good ones. Lots of head shots and generically-posed red carpet photos, lots of lousy paparazzi photos of people in sweat pants on their way to the grocery store, and a thousand photos of [fill in the blank] falling drunk out of a limousine. But very few of the gorgeous art-quality photos the studios used to take of everybody from Carole Lombard to the men's room attendant. Pity.
PICTURE (Drama) winner:Raging Bull (prod. Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler)
PICTURE (Comedy/Musical) winner:Airplane! (prod. Jon Davidson and Howard W. Koch)
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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