Outside of Best Picture, Patton wins Best Director for Franklin Schaffner (talked about here) and Best Actor for George C. Scott (talked about here). Both were terrific decisions (though huge shout out to James Earl Jones in The Great White Hope. I’m not kidding when I say (racism notwithstanding) in almost any other year, he wins hands down). Best Actress this year was Glenda Jackson for Women in Love (talked about here), which is the single worst decision of all time by the Academy, in any category, bar none. (I hate it, in case you couldn’t tell.) Best Supporting Actor was John Mills for Ryan’s Daughter (talked about here), which I consider probably one of the worst three decisions of all time in the Best Supporting Actor category. And Best Supporting Actress was Helen Hayes for Airport (talked about here), which was a wonderful veteran Oscar. I’m glad she won.

So, overall, 1970 is a solid year. However, due to my insane love for another film, I will not be voting for the obvious choice in Patton here. I don’t care what anyone says, but Love Story, to me, is one of the greatest films ever made. Man’s gotta vote with his heart.

BEST PICTURE – 1970

And the nominees are…

Airport (Universal)

Five Easy Pieces (Columbia)

Love Story (Paramount)

MASH (20^th Century Fox)

Patton (20^th Century Fox)

Airport – The father of disaster movies. There weren’t really disaster movies before this. I mean, there were sci-fi invasion films, and stuff like that, but those were more sci-fi than disaster. This is straight disaster. And I think this was really the first one. The High and the Mighty has some parallels to this (they also have very similar basic premises), but that was more couched as a melodrama. This is the first real disaster movie as we know it today.

We follow a group of people all in this airport. Burt Lancaster basically runs everything, and we follow him dealing with all this, and then personal business with his wife and all that. And we get all the passengers, like D.O. Guerrero (Van Heflin) who brings a bomb on board a plane and plans on taking it down. All this stuff. It’s standard disaster movie fare. Lots of characters, storylines overlap,  something happens, and they need to deal with it. Here, it’s the bomb, and it goes off, and then they need to figure out how to land the plane with a big hole in the side. And all the people on board have their own stories. Like Dean Martin being married and also sleeping with a stewardess who has just gotten pregnant, or Helen Hayes as the old woman who likes to swindle the airlines out of money (she finds a way to get on board without ever paying for a ticket). All that stuff.

It’s a terrific, terrific film. The great thing about it is that, before now, there was no concept of the disaster movie, so this was treated as an A-picture. It was a classy film. Now, we treat them as preposterous blockbusters. But this, The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno — they got lots of Oscar nominations. I love that.

Anyway, this film is great, but it shouldn’t have come anywhere near winning. Come on, now. It’s Airport.

Five Easy Pieces — Now this is a 70s movie.

Jack Nicholson is a piano prodigy who comes from a family of musical geniuses. And he doesn’t want his talent, so has deliberately gone out and wasted it. He takes odd jobs across the country — we first see him working at an oil rig. He doesn’t much care, he just does it. There’s this great scene where he, on the way to work, sees a piano in the back of a truck on the highway, so he climbs up the back and starts playing the piano. And he plays the piano even as the truck travels away from where his buddy (who he was driving with) has to turn to go to work. And he just doesn’t go. Because he doesn’t care. And he’s dating a lower class woman (Karen Black), who his family would consider vulgar. And the film is about him finding out his father is sick and dying and having to go back home to see his family. It’s a really great film.

Here — it had no shot. The other contenders are just too strong for it. This seems like it would be considered a smaller, independent movie. Those don’t get enough votes, even though they have a strong base of support (which is why they’re nominated). I see this being a 4th choice at best, maybe 3rd. I wouldn’t vote for it, but it definitely deserved to be here.

Love Story – It’s a story of a couple. Ryan O’Neal is a rich “preppy,” going to Harvard. Ali MacGraw is a poor girl, going to Radcliffe. They meet one day and start flirting. Then they start dating. They fall in love. They get married. It’s a simple love story between this couple, with an ending that, even though you know it’s coming, fucking destroys you. This movie is so good. What I loved most about it is the banter between them at the beginning. It’s so good. This film is better written than 99% of all romances. This film is so perfectly tailor made to me that I’m amazed it  took me 21 years to see it. It’s the kind of film that, if you haven’t seen, I can’t even speak to you. It’s perfect.

This will be my vote, and, honestly, were Patton not the perfect storm of Oscar (like Titanic, like Ben-Hur, etc.), this would have won.

MASH – The film that spawned the TV show.

It’s a Robert Altman movie, but enjoyable. I can stomach his style more when it’s a comedy. This is a very funny movie. A very funny movie. The name MASH is so ubiquitous that you should know about this. There’s really no way to explain what it’s about except — Korea, MASH unit, hijinks, hilarity. That’s all you need. It’s a great film.

This film is no better than a #3 here. It shouldn’t have come close to winning (nor did it). Love Story and Patton are the choices here.

Patton – It’s a biopic of General George S. Patton. George C. Scott gives one of the greatest lead performances ever put to film, and this is about as slam-dunk a choice as there ever could be. It’s a great film. Long, but great. It was going to win no matter what. And I won’t be voting for it.

My Thoughts: Like I said, Patton is an easy winner, but I have to take Love Story. That’s the way it goes.

My Vote: Love Story

Should Have Won: Love Story

Is the result acceptable?: Not to me. Not really even in general. (Get it?) No, it’s totally acceptable in general. I just wanted to make that pun. It’s a great choice.

I’ll also say, though, that this might be about as well-balanced a Best Picture field as I’ve ever seen. Look at the choices: Patton, the big biopic, the classy winner. Love Story, the romantic tragedy, the emotional film. Five Easy Pieces, the independent film. Airport, the blockbuster. And MASH, the comedy. That’s pretty much the entire spectrum of Oscar films. That’s cool.

Ones I suggest you see: If you haven’t seen Love Story, we can’t be friends. Times a thousand.

You need to see Patton. It’s so good. It’s really so, so good. It’s pretty much essential, too. So see it.

MASH — you need to see it. It’s essential. Don’t be a douche.

Airport — also essential. It’s like The Towering Inferno. You need to see them both. And throw in The Poseidon Adventure. All three are very much essential. They’re so good.

Five Easy Pieces is also a landmark film, and is probably essential. So you should see it.

Rankings:

5) Five Easy Pieces

4) Patton

3) Airport

2) MASH

1) Love Story

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Outside of Best Picture, The French Connection won Best Director for William Friedkin (talked about here) and Best Actor for Gene Hackman (talked about here). Both were awesome decisions. Best Actress was Jane Fonda for Klute (talked about here), which is another great decision and another 70s decision. Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress were Ben Johnson (talked about here) and Cloris Leachman (talked about here) from The Last Picture Show. I don’t love either decision, but am more okay with Supporting Actress. Still, I’d have gone another way on both of them.

Again, though, the 70s are just terrific at awarding good things. There’s so much good stuff nominated that almost no matter what they choose, the result will be good (or at the very least, acceptable). It’s amazing.

BEST PICTURE – 1971

And the nominees were…

A Clockwork Orange (Warner Bros.)

Fiddler on the Roof (United Artists)

The French Connection (20^th Century Fox)

The Last Picture Show (Columbia)

Nicholas and Alexandra (Columbia)

A Clockwork Orange – First off, you need to see it. Second — it’s nearly possibly to explain accurately. No matter how well I can explain the plot of this film — I can’t. There’s just too much going on here to really explain it via synopsis. Again, I refer you to #1.

In terms of this category — it was never going to win. I know it was the 70s, but the Academy is still the Academy. This is way too weird for them. Let’s seriously be glad they even nominated it, especially considering Kubrick’s history here. It had no chance. This is a voting body that does not like violence, sex, and weirdness. (I was gonna give examples, but I think history speaks for itself.)

Fiddler on the Roof – “If I were a rich man…”

This musical is so joyous. You should probably know about it, it’s very famous. A story of a Jewish milkman and his family. Simple as that. It’s so much fun. Just see it.

It shouldn’t have won at all, though. Way too 60s. Plus, not a film that should have won at any time anyway. So, nice to see it here, but no way.

The French Connection – I love this movie so much. I’m actually kind of amazed it won, since, after all, it is an “out and out thriller,” as the tagline for the film says. But man, is it a great out and out thriller.

The film revolves around two separate stories, which are (or become) related. The first is a big shipment of drugs from France to the U.S. That’s one. And the second is “Popeye” Doyle and his partner Buddy Russo. We follow them doing routine police work and slowly finding their way involved in taking down the big drug shipment. It’s a great film. It’s a nice procedural with lots of thriller elements, and that great chase at the center of it. It’s a perfect film. Not a classical Oscar winner, but, as I always say — one that needed to happen. It’s a quintessential 70s movie.

The Last Picture Show – This is essentially a film about a small town. We follow a group of people who live in the town. They include:

Jeff Bridges, the popular jock, who is dating Cybill Shepherd, the richest girl in town. Timothy Bottoms, who starts sleeping with Cloris Leachman, the football coach’s wife. Ben Johnson, the man who basically owns the town. Ellen Burstyn, Cybill Shepherd’s mother who used to sleep with Ben Johnson, and now sleeps with another guy (who Cybill Shepherd also ends up sleeping with). There’s not really a set plot here, we just follow the individual experiences of all the characters. It’s a very good film, it’s just hard to explain without talking about everything.

As for this category, I don’t think it was good enough to win. I wouldn’t vote for it. It wouldn’t have been a terrible choice, this being the 70s and there needing to be a “70s” choice to shift away from the 60s, but I don’t think this would have held up that well.

Nicholas and Alexandra – I was amazed by this one. I went into it expecting to be bored to death for three hours, and then, by 45 minutes in, I was riveted. I don’t know what it was, but this film just transfixed me.

It’s a film about Nicholas II, the last czar of Russia. We follow them from the Russo-Japanese War all the way to World War I and the Russian Revolution. And we see all their personal and public moments. Their son being a hemophiliac, Alexandra falling under the influence of Rasputin, everything. It’s incredible. And what’s great is that it leads right up to that moment where the family sits down for that “portrait,” which, if you know your history — didn’t end well.

I love films like this. Like Marie Antoinette (either version). Where you know the history (even if it’s generally), and the film focuses on the personal lives, and the history is used as a timeline. So you can sort of plug in the personal stuff with the history (which, when done correctly, is not necessarily a major part of the narrative). Even The King’s Speech is like that, though not so much as sweeping. Still, these films are just great. This is a really, really terrific film, and it surprised the hell out of me. Of course, it shouldn’t have won at all, since it’s too stagy, too much reminiscent of the costume dramas of the 60s. This is a film that wins in the 60s (maybe) and the 80s (probably more so the 80s). Not the 70s. It’s just not a good choice, historically, for 1971.

My Thoughts: For me, it has to be The French Connection. I love A Clockwork Orange, but it shouldn’t have won. Same for Fiddler on the Roof. The Last Picture Show, I don’t like enough to vote for, and Nicholas and Alexandra is too on-the-nose to vote for in the 70s. The French Connection is the perfect choice.

My Vote: The French Connection

Should Have Won: The French Connection

Is the result acceptable?: Oh yeah. It’s totally 70s. Which is awesome. That’s what we needed here. A tone-setter.

Ones I suggest you watch: If you haven’t seen The French Connection or A Clockwork Orange, we’re not friends and you don’t love movies.

You need to see The Last Picture Show. It’s essential.

Fiddler on the Roof is an essential film, culturally. You should definitely see it. It’s awesome. It’s so much fun.

And Nicholas and Alexandra — I’m telling you that you need to see it. Because it’s so damn good. I went into this expecting to be bored out of my mind, but I loved this film so much. It’s so riveting. I don’t know why, but it just is. This is definitely one of the best hidden gems this quest has to offer.

Rankings:

5) The Last Picture Show

4) Fiddler on the Roof

3) Nicholas and Alexandra

2) A Clockwork Orange

1) The French Connection

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Outside of Best Picture, Marlon Brando wins Best Actor for the film (talked about here). Duh. Best Actress goes to Liza Minnelli for Cabaret (talked about here), Joel Grey wins Best Supporting Actor for the film (talked about here), and Bob Fosse wins Best Director for it (talked about here). I love the Best Actress decision, hate the Best Supporting Actor decision (seriously, not James Caan or Al Pacino?) and am completely perplexed by the Best Director decision (I love Bob Fosse, but even the DGA went with Coppola. But it worked out, since both Coppola and Fosse ended up with Oscars.) And the only award left was Eileen Heckart winning Best Supporting Actress for Butterflies Are Free (talked about here), which — okay. It was a weak category, and is pretty irrelevant historically.

Seriously, though – The Godfather. Let’s not play around here.

BEST PICTURE – 1972

And the nominees were…

Cabaret (Allied Artists)

Deliverance (Warner Bros.)

The Emigrants (Warner Bros.)

The Godfather (Paramount)

Sounder (20^th Century Fox)

Cabaret – This is always an interesting film to talk about.

The film starts with Michael York arriving in Germany. He meets Liza Minnelli, a cabaret singer. They move in together. She’s very promiscuous and lives a very carefree lifestyle. He’s very straight-laced and academic. They eventually start sleeping together, and then they meet another guy, and they both sleep with him. And the film is basically about the carefree days before the rise of the Nazis. And the film ends with the famous shot of Liza doing a song (the titular song) and then the camera panning over to a group of Nazis sitting at one of the tables.

It’s a great film. Really great. It almost won Best Picture, too. It had the most nominations, it won Best Director (even after Coppola won the DGA), and won the most Oscars this year overall. So in a way it’s surprising it didn’t win. But, when you see what beat it, it makes perfect sense. Perfect being the key word there. This is still amazing though. I don’t love it as much as All That Jazz, but that’s because All That Jazz is an absolute favorite of mine. Some might consider this to be Fosse’s best film (whereas All That Jazz is his magnum opus).

Deliverance – Don’t even read a synopsis with this film, just see it. Four friends go kayaking deep down South, and some shit happens. Don’t read about this film, experience this film. It’s amazing.

It was never going to win, though. This is not their cup of tea. The fact that it was even nominated is a huge blessing.

The Emigrants – This is a film about immigrants. Though I guess, since it’s about their journey to America, emigrants is the more appropriate term.

It’s about a bunch of people in Sweden who are all farmers and doing very poorly. So they decide to go to America, where they hear all the stuff people hear that makes them want to come here. So they come, and we follow them on their journey. And that’s the film, essentially.

This is a good film, even though I felt it was very long and was bored to tears by it. But me not enjoying it has no bearing on the fact that it is a good film. Though the fact that it’s all but forgotten nowadays (is it even on DVD? I don’t think it is) makes it seem like a weak choice. It’s also weird to see it here, considering it was nominated for Best Foreign Language film the year before this, in 1971. Very rarely is a film nominated in separate years like that. Still — it had no shot to win at all. It’s one of those filler nominees at best. Almost every time you see a foreign language film nominated for Best Picture, you can be sure it doesn’t have a shot at winning.

The Godfather – Really?

Sounder – Sounder is based on the young adult novel, that I’d never even heard of before I saw the movie. Though knowing me, that’s probably just because I’ve been weirdly sheltered from a lot of random young adult books. I’m sure it’s probably weird that I hadn’t heard of it.

The film is about a black family down south — sharecroppers. And they’re going through some hard times. The father goes out every day with Sounder, the family dog, hunting. And most days, they come back empty-handed. And one day, the father comes back with a huge ham (or some sort of meat). And the next day, the father is arrested. The dog attempts to bite the police, but they shoot at the dog and he limps off into the forest. And the boy goes out searching for the dog, who doesn’t come back. And we see the mother and son go through hard times while the father is out working on a chain gang. And the film ends with the father’s (and Sounder’s) return.

It’s a good film. Not quite my cup of tea, but a good film. (Though maybe it’s just because the copy I saw was just not a good print.) It was never going to win here, though.

My Thoughts: Come on.

My Vote: The Godfather

Should Have Won: The Godfather

Is the result acceptable?: Top five best decision of all time.

Ones I suggest you see: The Godfather — I’m not kidding when I say, if you haven’t seen this, you’re dead to the world, and you should just give it up right now. You’re doing life wrong.

Also, you need to see Deliverance. Otherwise you don’t love movies and we’re not friends.

You also need to see Cabaret, otherwise you don’t love movies.

Sounder is also really good. Check it out.

I’ll warn you about The Emigrants — it’s not bad, but it’s very long and very boring for most people. It is definitely not my cup of tea. You’ll know if it’s something you’re interested in.

Rankings:

5) The Emigrants

4) Sounder

3) Cabaret

2) Deliverance

1) The Godfather

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The Sting is such a great Best Picture choice I can’t even put it into words. It also won Best Director for George Roy Hill (talked about here), which — finally! After this and Butch and Sundance (not to mention Thoroughly Modern Millie), the man deserved it. Best Actor was Jack Lemmon for Save the Tiger (talked about here), which was about thirteen years overdue for him. Even though his category was tremendous, he did deserve to win. Best Actress was Glenda Jackson for A Touch of Class (talked about here), which would have been okay had she not won in 1970, but she did, which makes me not like this decision at all (plus if Ellen Burstyn won here, maybe Gena Rowlands could have won the year after this). Best Supporting Actor was John Houseman for The Paper Chase (talked about here). A veteran Oscar, and one I’d normally be okay with, but Jason Miller was so good in The Exorcist and Vincent Gardenia was so good in Bang the Drum Slowly that I just can’t like that decision. And Best Supporting Actress was Tatum O’Neal for Paper Moon (talked about here), which is seriously one of the best decisions of all time in the category. You know me and precocious child roles — this thing is just incredible. I loved that film and that performance so, so much.

Again, we have another 70s year hit right out of the park. I love how this decade is the complete antithesis to the 80s in almost every way. That’s so wonderful.

BEST PICTURE – 1973

And the nominees are…

American Graffiti (Universal)

Cries and Whispers (New World Pictures)

The Exorcist (Warner Bros.)

The Sting (Universal)

A Touch of Class (Avco Embassy)

American Graffiti — What an American classic this is. What’s amazing about it is how very little actually happens in the movie. And that’s what’s so great about it.

A bunch of friends are graduating from high school, and on their last night together, a bunch of stuff happens. Each tries to do their own thing — get with a girl, keep their girl, whatever — and we follow them over the course of the night. It’s awesome. It’s a fun, low-key, hangout film that also has a great 50s soundtrack to it. It also spawned Happy Days, in a way. So that’s another great thing about it.

It’s a great film. Shouldn’t have won, though. The Sting and The Exorcist are better choices. This is still really awesome, though.

Cries and Whispers – This film was hard to get through. And it was only 90 minutes.

I’m not really a fan of the Ingmar Bergman chamber dramas. All those films he was nominated for Oscars for — not a fan. Fanny and Alexander I recognize as a good film, but I can’t watch that. It’s too long and it’s too slow for me. I’m just not interested in anything that happens. And this — this movie is like slow death. Literally. It’s about a woman dying. So we spend 90 minutes as she dies. And then she dies and everyone is unhappy. That’s the film. I would never vote for this in a million years.

Also, fun fact: this film, along with The Exorcist, also features a shot of vaginal blood. So if you thought The Exorcist was the only Best Picture nominee this year featuring vaginal blood, you’d be wrong.

The Exorcist – It’s The Exorcist, how do you not know it?

Little girl, possessed, priest brought in, exorcism performed. Don’t question, just watch. It’s one of the quintessential horror movies. Perhaps what’s so great about it is the fact that they don’t actually confirm that she is, in fact, possessed, until the end of act two. It sustains itself until that point. That’s incredible. Either way, it’s amazing. Still prefer The Sting, though.

The Sting – This is one of my favorite films of all time. It’s so good.

In case you don’t know (and if you don’t, why don’t you?), the film is about Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford), a small time hustler, pulling cons with his partner Luther. And one day, they cross the wrong man, Doyle Lonnegan, as they unknowingly rip off a numbers man from one of his rackets. And Lonnegan isn’t the type of man to take this lying down, so he has Luther killed. And Hooker goes and hides out (since he’s also wanted by Lt. Snyder (Charles Durning), a crooked cop who asks for payoffs constantly. He hooks up with Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman), the man known as the best “big” conman in the business. Together, they team up to take down Lonnegan. And the rest of the film is about them planning the big sting on him.

It’s a perfect film. Some might not think this is a good Best Picture winner, but I think it’s a perfect choice. They don’t get much better than this.

Also, fun fact — this is the film where, just when David Niven was about to announce Elizabeth Taylor to read the nominees/winner, a man streaked across the stage. So, for Oscar trivia purposes, this is the year with the streaker. And because of that, when the Oscars roll around each year, you’ll know — the streaker ran across the stage before The Sting won Best Picture, David Niven was the host, and Elizabeth Taylor was the one who announced Best Picture. This is how you sound really smart for no good reason.

A Touch of Class – I was actually very impressed by this film. I went into it with a bit of a sour attitude, since I still consider Glenda Jackson winning Best Actress in 1970 to be the single worst Academy decision of all time. (I know bias is a lot of that, but I don’t care. Opinions are opinions.) So her winning her too was just a bit — I wasn’t happy about it. But the film actually did surprise me in how much I liked it. (She still didn’t need to win for it, though.)

Glenda Jackson is a divorced mother. She meets George Segal, a married man who has had many affairs. And they begin an affair, and the film is about — or at least, the first half of the film — them deciding to go away together for a weekend. And the trip turns into a huge disaster. It’s like a screwball comedy of errors. They think it’ll be a nice time away together, meanwhile everything goes comically wrong. Then they get through it and continue the affair, to the point where they actually start falling in love with one another. They both use an apartment midway between their respective houses, and meet there at every opportunity. And the film turns from a sort of lively comedy about this affair and turns into this really tragic drama. It’s quite surprising, in that respect. I ended up liking it a lot.

In terms of this category, though — no way. No chance. Fourth choice, at best. Some would even put it fifth.

My Thoughts: For me, it’s The Sting, and The Sting all the way. I love The Exorcist, but it just didn’t need to win (plus Friedkin had won two years earlier). And American Graffiti – fun film, but it should not have won here at all. The Sting is really the only choice here.

My Vote: The Sting

Should have won: The Sting (and also kinda The Exorcist)

Is the result acceptable?: Absolutely. One of the better choices of all time.

Ones I suggest you watch: If you haven’t seen The Sting or The Exorcist, you’re dead to me.

You should also see American Graffiti. It’s essential viewing for any film person.

A Touch of Class is a really solid film, and I highly recommend it. I like how it starts as a light romantic comedy and then just gets serious. Not like, somebody dies serious, but like — dramatic. I like how it takes you down this road with these people. It’s really well-done. Another gem from the Quest.

Cries and Whispers — don’t really like it. Not a huge fan of the Bergman chamber dramas. The one thing I like about it though is that it has vaginal blood in it. And I love being able to joke that I thought The Exorcist was the only film with vaginal blood in it from 1973. Otherwise — don’t like it.

Rankings:

5) Cries and Whispers

4) A Touch of Class

3) American Graffiti

2) The Exorcist

1) The Sting

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The Godfather Part II, I think we can all agree, is one of the top five or ten best Best Picture winners of all time. Francis Ford Coppola winning Best Director for it (talked about here) is one of the top five Best Director decisions of all time, especially considering the Academy passed over him for the first Godfather. Robert De Niro also won Best Supporting Actor for the film (talked about here). I think we all know how good he was. Now, outside of those three — Art Carney wins Best Actor for Harry and Tonto (talked about here), which is one of the single worst Best Actor decisions of all time. Seriously Bottom five. Simply because Carney beat Al Pacino (in Godfather), Jack Nicholson (in Chinatown), Dustin Hoffman (in Lenny) and Albert Finney (in Murder on the Orient Express). None of these actors had an Oscar at this point, and this decision is what prevented Al Pacino from getting his Oscar until 1992 (and then prevented Denzel from getting his until 2001. Not to mention also potentially keeping Robert Downey Jr. and Clint Eastwood from an Oscar as well). I think we can agree it was bad. Best Actress was Ellen Burstyn for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (talked about here). It was a good decision. Burstyn was great in the role, but I can’t help but feel that Gena Rowlands deserved it more for A Woman Under the Influence. And Ingrid Bergman won Best Supporting Actress for Murder on the Orient Express (talked about here), which is clearly a veteran win, because she’s only on screen for five minutes and does next-to-nothing in the film.

Overall, 1974 is a huge success, and is in a way, the heart of the 70s. I’m seriously in awe of this decade.

BEST PICTURE – 1974

And the nominees were…

Chinatown (Paramount)

The Conversation (Paramount)

The Godfather Part II (Paramount)

Lenny (United Artists)

The Towering Inferno (20^th Century Fox, Warner Bros.)

Chinatown – It’s Chinatown. We know it’s perfect.

The Conversation – I love that Coppola had two films nominated for Best Picture this year.

This film is no less perfect than the other films on this list. It’s about Harry Caul, played by Gene Hackman, a security expert. He basically records conversations of other people, mostly husbands or wives expected of having affairs. That sort of stuff. And one day, he is hired to follow one couple to hear their conversation, which takes place in a busy place. So he spends lots of time trying to isolate the conversation from the ambient noise and figure out what was being said. And he becomes obsessed with figuring it out, and — well, stuff happens. Just watch the film. It’s perfect. One of the few films where sound is front and center. Like Blow Out. It’s really amazing. It definitely should be here, even though, against the other Coppola film, it had no shot.

The Godfather Part II – Come on.

Lenny – This is a biopic of Lenny Bruce, one of the greatest (or at least, most influential and important) stand-up comedians of all time. Dustin Hoffman plays Lenny, and is incredible. That’s really all you need to know about the film, that and the fact that Bob Fosse directed it. It’s incredible, and needs to be seen by all.

Again, though, not winning in this category. Some years just have a definitive winner (this one even has a definitive second choice).

The Towering Inferno – What a badass film this is. If Jaws was considered the “first” blockbuster — this one was damn close. There’s always that film before the benchmark film that has all the qualities of it but isn’t. But it’s right there.

The film is about the world’s tallest building being opened. And during the opening night celebration, some of the wires (which were haphazardly thrown together) cause an electrical fire, which sets the building ablaze and traps all the guests above it. So they call in the firefighters (who are of course Paul Newman and Steve McQueen) to help put it out and get the people out. And it’s basically a disaster movie, in the vein of The Poseidon Adventure and Airport, and it’s really awesome. More mainstream than anything, which is why it would never win. But it’s a big, classy movie with a big budget and big returns, so of course it’ll be here. Never gonna win though. Still an awesome movie. This is one of those movies you watch on a Saturday afternoon.

My Thoughts: Seriously?

My Vote: The Godfather Part II

Should Have Won: The Godfather Part II

Is the result acceptable?: Despite Chinatown being a hands down winner almost any other year, this is one of the best decisions of all time.

Ones I suggest you watch: If you haven’t seen The Godfather Part II or Chinatown, you’re dead to the world.

If you haven’t seen The Conversation or Lenny — or hell, even The Towering Inferno for that matter — you don’t really love movies and we’re not friends.

Rankings:

5) The Towering Inferno

4) Lenny

3) The Conversation

2) Chinatown

1) The Godfather Part II

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