The Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards (1975)

I wonder in retrospect why Robert Altman chose to plant so many of his movies in settings he didn't understand or particularly care for—Raymond Carver, Raymond Chandler, Garrison Keillor, high fashion, country music, English society, Popeye cartoons, Korea. Was it sloppiness, arrogance, boredom, or was it a necessary artistic conceit, like Nuke LaLoosh wearing garters on the pitching mound, to keep his focus slightly off-center which is the proper mindset for both an artisan pitcher and a great director? I don't know.

Whatever the case, though, I've got to tell you, Altman knew exactly nothing about Nashville-based country music. (He later admitted as much.) I grew up two doors down from George Jones and Tammy Wynette, three doors down from Bobby Bare (Sr. and Jr.), went to church with Johnny Cash, knew Roy Orbison, and was close friends with William Lee Golden's sons. My brother is a drummer and his friends are some of the best sessions players in Nashville. And as I mentioned to Erik Beck (of the Boston Becks) on his blog recently, with the exception of "I'm Easy," not one of the songs in Nashville would get a second hearing during open mic night at the Blue Bird Cafe.

Now normally I'd say this is only a minor quibble, like complaining that the Casablanca of the movie looks nothing like the Casablanca I once visited. But since the movie is essentially a country & western musical, with an hour's worth of musical performances, Altman's contempt for the form is something of a major flaw.

Not to say Nashville isn't a great movie. I think it has real insight into our national obsession with celebrity, and how we confuse being a fan with being a friend. Perhaps if he had called the movie Las Vegas or Hollywood or Broadway or something else I know but don't know well, I might have chosen it as the best picture of the year. As it is, I'd call it a flawed masterpiece, well worth your time but not as good as it could have been had he taken a minimal amount of care.

PICTURE (Drama)
winner: Jaws (prod. David Brown and Richard D. Zanuck)

PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (prod. Mark Forstater and Michael White)

PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle (The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser) (prod. Werner Herzog)

ACTOR (Drama)
winner: Jack Nicholson (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)

ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Isabelle Adjani (L'histoire d'Adèle H. a.k.a The Story Of Adele H.)

ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Ann-Margret (Tommy)

DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Steven Spielberg (Jaws)

DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Robert Altman (Nashville)

SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Henry Gibson (Nashville)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Lily Tomlin (Nashville)

SCREENPLAY
winner: Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman, from the novel by Ken Kesey and the play by Dale Wasserman (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest)

The Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards (1970)

The editor of my other internet gig, Sharpologist, has asked for a new post so I'll be working on that. Which means this is the last of the Katie Award posts for a while.

Beginning this weekend, I'll start promoting Monty's March Madness Greatest Actress Tournament. As I mentioned the other day, I'll be hosting the Silent Era/1930s bracket—32 actresses competing for a shot at the Final Four. Long-shot entrant Irene Dunne won the whole thing last year and she'll be defending her title right here at the Monkey. But she's got some tough competition, including Carole Lombard, Barbara Stanwyck, Myrna Loy and Jean Harlow.

Voting starts March 5.

Meanwhile, enjoy this iconic scene from Five Easy Pieces:



PICTURE (Drama)
winner: Five Easy Pieces (prod. Bob Rafelson and Richard Wechsler)
nominees: Airport (prod. Ross Hunter); The Boys in the Band (prod. Mart Crowley); Colossus: The Forbin Project (prod. Stanley Chase); Little Big Man (prod. Stuart Millar); Patton (prod. Frank McCarthy); Ryan's Daughter (prod. Anthony Havelock-Allan); Tora! Tora! Tora! (prod. Richard Fleischer and Elmo Williams)

PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: M*A*S*H (prod. Ingo Preminger)
nominees: The Ballad of Cable Hogue (prod Sam Peckinpah); Gimme Shelter (prod. Porter Bibb and Ronald Schneider); Kelly's Heroes (prod. Sidney Beckerman and Gabriel Katzka); Let It Be (prod. Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans); Scrooge (prod Robert H. Solo); The Twelve Chairs (prod. Ronald H. Gilbert and Michael Hertzberg); Woodstock (prod. Bob Maurice)

PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Il conformista (The Conformist) (prod. Maurizio Lodi-Fè)
nominees: Le Cercle Rouge (prod. Robert Dorfmann); Le boucher (prod. André Génovès); Domicile conjugal (Bed & Board) (prod. Marcel Berbert and François Truffaut); L'enfant sauvage (The Wild Child) (prod. Néstor Almendros); Il giardino dei Finzi Contini (The Garden of the Finzi-Continis) (prod. Arthur Cohn, Gianni Hecht Lucari and Artur Brauner); Le genou de Claire (Claire's Knee) (prod. Pierre Cottrell and Barbet Schroeder); El topo (prod. Mick Gochanour, Juan López Moctezuma, Moshe Rosemberg and Saúl Rosemberg); Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion) (prod. Marina Cicogna and Daniele Senatore); Tristana (prod. Luis Buñuel and Robert Dorfmann)

ACTOR (Drama)
winner: George C. Scott (Patton)
nominees: Melvyn Douglas (I Never Sang for My Father); Ben Gazzara (Husbands); Dustin Hoffman (Little Big Man); James Earl Jones (The Great White Hope); Jack Nicholson (Five Easy Pieces); Fernando Rey (Tristana); Jean-Louis Trintignant (Il conformista a.k.a. The Conformist)

ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Alan Arkin (Catch-22)
nominees: Clint Eastwood (Two Mules for Sister Sara and Kelly's Heroes); Albert Finney (Scrooge); Elliott Gould (M*A*S*H); Jack Lemmon (The Out of Towners); Jason Robards (The Ballad Of Cable Hogue); Donald Sutherland (M*A*S*H); Gene Wilder (Start the Revolution Without Me)

ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Glenda Jackson (Women In Love)
nominees: Catherine Deneuve (Tristana); Sarah Miles (Ryan's Daughter); Tuesday Weld (I Walk The Line)

ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Carrie Snodgress (Diary Of A Mad Housewife)
nominees: Julie Andrews (Darling Lili); Sandy Dennis (The Out of Towners); Glenda Jackson (The Music Lovers); Shirley MacLaine (Two Mules for Sister Sara)

DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Bernardo Bertolucci (Il Conformista a.k.a. The Conformist)
nominees: Vittorio de Sica (Il giardino dei Finzi Contini a.k.a The Garden of the Finzi-Continis); David Lean (Ryan's Daughter); Jean-Pierre Melville (Le Cercle Rouge); Arthur Penn (Little Big Man); Bob Rafelson (Five Easy Pieces); Eric Rohmer (Le genou de Claire a.k.a. Claire's Knee); Franklin J. Schaffner (Patton)

DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Robert Altman (M*A*S*H)
nominees: Mel Brooks (The Twelve Chairs); Ronald Neame (Scrooge); Mike Nichols (Catch-22); Sam Peckinpah (The Ballad of Cable Hogue); François Truffaut (Domicile conjugal a.k.a. Bed & Board)

SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Chief Dan George (Little Big Man)
nominees: Robert Duvall (M*A*S*H); Gene Hackman (I Never Sang For My Father); Frank Langella (Diary of a Mad Housewife and The Twelve Chairs); Karl Malden (Patton); Telly Savalas (Kelly's Heroes); Orson Welles (Catch-22)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Karen Black (Five Easy Pieces)
nominees: Helen Hayes (Airport); Sally Kellerman (M*A*S*H); Lois Smith (Five Easy Pieces); Lee Grant (The Landlord); Stella Stevens (The Ballad of Cable Hogue)

SCREENPLAY
winner: Carole Eastman (as Adrien Joyce) (screenplay), from a story by Bob Rafelson and Carole Eastman (as Adrien Joyce) (Five Easy Pieces)
nominees: Bernardo Bertolucci, from the novel by Alberto Moravia (Il Conformista a.k.a. The Conformist); Ring Lardner, Jr., from the novel by Richard Hooker (M*A*S*H); Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North, based on factual material by Ladislas Farago and Omar N. Bradley (Patton)

SPECIAL AWARDS
"Suicide Is Painless" (M*A*S*H) music by Johnny Mandel; lyrics by Michael Altman (Song); Jerry Goldsmith (Patton) (Score); The Beatles (Let It Be) (Original Song Score); Woodstock (Documentary Feature)