Kramer vs Kramer

 And this week's Friday night movie has been... Kramer vs Kramer!

Best Picture Oscar winner no.: 52 (1979)

Actually forget what I said about The Sting: This has a more compelling case for being the 'forgotten' movie of 70s Best Picture winners. So while everyone props up the other eight, The Sting and Kramer vs Kramer are left fighting over the table scraps.

Still, this movie has plenty going for it: Firstly it is showing a divorce in process which is already a ballsy move.
Secondly, we are seeing a lousy dad slowly improving himself to become a better dad.
And thirdly there is a degree of nuance that would be foreign to modern audiences: Both the mother and father are treated well and not made out to be the bad guy. 
Its certainly a bold move to show divorce on screen and how it effects the people involved, socially and psychologically. Certainly it seems that a lot of people can relate to the situations being put forth on the screen - so if the film has resonated in such a manner, it must be doing something right.

It seems to me that other people are annoyed that this won Best Picture over Apocalypse Now. But to me, there's something to be said for the long, bombastic film losing out to smaller film. 

And with that, we leave the 1970s, it's cynicism and the era of New Hollywood behind. Ahead lies.... *checks schedule*....Hoo boy....

The Deer Hunter

And this week's Friday night movie has been... The Deer Hunter!

Best Picture Oscar winner no.: 51 (1978)

I was dreading watching this movie. Largely for two reasons:
Firstly, this movie is notorious for being the progenitor of 'Oscar Bait'. For those who don't know this movie, upon release, was deemed a hard sell due to it's depressing nature and it's length. Producer Allan Carr decided that if the movie was nominated for Best Picture, then people will go and see it. So the movie received a nomination after achieving the bare minimum requirement - along with Carr's own heavy campaigning for the movie. And it worked - The movie won Best Picture and, in turn, has inspired similar campaigns in it's wake.
And secondly, this is the movie that gave director Michael Cimino success - which he followed up with Heaven's Gate. This one was a notorious flop, with a oversized budget and seemingly never-ending production cycle. And it was enough to bring about the end of the New Hollywood era. I personally have never seen Heaven's Gate but my dad did - and he hated it, regaling me with stories of pointless scenes that dragged on. 
Thing is though, these two obstacles are ultimately outside factors: They don't say much about The Deer Hunter itself so there is still grounds for me to assess this movie on it's own terms.

What is striking is that there are three parts to this movie. The first introduces the protagonists and their bonds. The second catapults into the Vietnam War and gives us the infamous Russian Roulette scene. And the third examines the fallout of our protagonists retuning home and struggling in various forms. 
Really this movie left me with a lot of mixed feelings: On one hand there are some sequences that drag out and seem pointless. But on the other hand, there are some intense scenes (like the war portion) and some moments of sensitivity - both of which prove that Cimino knows what he's doing and the cast are delivering some career best performances. 
Some strong ideas to be sure but sadly bogged down with some baffling meandering.

Still, I will give props that the Academy awarded Best Picture to a movie about the Vietnam War - long regarded as 'the unpopular war'. Seems they were going against the grain but, as it would turn out, it's not the last time the Vietnam War would walk hand in hand with the Best Picture Oscar...

Rocky

  And this week's Friday night movie has been... Rocky!

Original image located here. Accessed 12th July 2024

Best Picture Oscar winner no.: 49 (1976)

It's the ultimate underdog story: A guy who has lost his way is presented with a opportunity at redemption and he approaches it with hard work and dedication. Really, how could this not win the Best Picture Oscar?

Despite my distaste for sports movies, I did enjoy this one in that is well shot, it is filtered through the lens of seventies cynicism/realism, the outcome isn't obvious and it is genuinely inspiring. It also helps to have one of the most unforgettable movie themes supporting it.
But what did surprise me is that there is some degree of goofiness at work here, with Rocky's tendency to talk about random stuff and to anyone in a nonstop fashion (this goofiness, apparently, will be amplified in the sequels). 

Still this movie is, for the lack of a better choice of words, a knockout.

The Sting

 And this week's Friday night movie has been... The Sting!

Original image located here. Accessed 5th July 2024

Best Picture Oscar winner no.: 46 (1973)

Given the 1970s are regarded as one of, if not the, strongest decades of Best Picture winners, it does raise an interesting question: Which of the ten winners is the weakest? 
Such a question is by no means a slight against the movie in question. It just sits besides some titans that would easily overshadow it. So would The Sting be the weak point of the 70s? 

Well I will admit it certainly stands on it's own. Whereas 70s cinemagoers embraced the New Hollywood movement and cynicism, The Sting is a deliberate throwback to the 1930s style of film-making. And it's not just in the aesthetic: the structure and direction is undeniably lifted from an earlier, long-gone era of film-making. If anything this seems to be a flipside to The French Connection: if that movie embodies the realism and cynicism of New Hollywood, then The Sting seems oddly resistant to them.  
But that is by no means a bad thing: This is a solid crime caper based around building up a con-game to take down a crime boss. Certainly the narrative is bogged down by multiple double-crosses but I do admire the effort gone into making this movie. After all, it has the most compelling poker game I have ever seen on celluloid.