The Usual Choices
Annie Hall (Woody Allen)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg)
Eraserhead (David Lynch)
Julia (Fred Zinnemann)
Star Wars (George Lucas)
But how about...
Cross of Iron (Sam Peckinpah)
I thought this was supposed to be lousy (well, that's what the film's initial critical reception said), but everybody was just plain wrong...it is, instead, one of the better WWII movies. This film often reminded me of Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds is an obvious offspring) with its hide-nothing killings and peculiar dialogue, but, unlike Quentin, there isn't a drop of humour in it...there is no fun to be had here...this is war. With the trademark Peckinpah slow-mo slaughter & destruction (turning violence into grace), it's the story of a German platoon fighting the on-a-roll Russians, and they have seen it all but know it's not even slightly over yet. James Coburn is excellent as the barbarity-weary Sergeant and Maximilian Schell takes a turn as a quivering, snobbish stickler who is clearly off his Nazi rocker...a life & death clash of two men inside a life & death clash of many. The director / cinematographer / editor team sure know their stuff: they turn wartime atrocity into cinematic artistry. You need to watch this.
...and what about...
The Late Show (Robert Benton)
As offbeat-character driven as The Maltese Falcon, as plot-complicated as The Big Sleep, and as world-weary (but sorta hopeful anyway) as Farewell My Lovely, this private eye story is a wonderful entertainment. With Art Carney old of course but still canny and Lily Tomlin a hippy-dingbat who has no off-switch pairing up to solve a cat-kidnapping / murder of a friend, this movie is impossible to wholly place in the trad film-noir category. Fresh, unexpected dialogue mixes it up with cliches & cornball stuff; the baddies are really bad but also kinda funny; the sexy as hell femme fatale doesn't even try to hide the fact that she's lying and plays it wimpish rather than kittenish; even the car chase is both dramatically-exciting and a nod to the Keystone Kops. Only the killings are done entirely straight-faced and are appropriately awful. This is Raymond Chandler collaborating with Dorothy Parker and Groucho Marx after a few too many.
...not to mention...
The Duellists (Ridley Scott)
Ridley's first feature film and I still think it's his best. I know of no other movie that so engagingly puts on display the pointlessness and ridiculous inevitability of war...and how truly stupid we humans often are. Set in the Napoleonic era and sumptuously photographed (the scenes of the 1812 Russian Campaign are bitingly cold), this shows the ongoing feud between two soldiers which is fought out in a series of duels...we, like the men, quickly forget exactly what started it all, and it becomes something closer to pathological habit than so-called honour. The fencing duels themselves are necessarily brutal and bloody, with an increasing emotional and physical toll on the combatants. Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel are perfectly cast, turning metaphorical implants into real people; both are fools but we recognise their violent obsession (just watch the evening news). Now, if we could only get Trump, Putin, Jinping and all the rest of the boys to watch this intelligent film, our world might even stand a chance of turning out okay.
...and one personal unmentionable...
Rituals (Peter Carter)
aka Five Go On a Camp...Along Comes a Psycho...And Then There was One
Five doctors go an an annual camping trip together for some male bonding (I guess) but this time, when they choose to visit Northern Ontario, things don't go to plan. Within 24 hours of getting there, someone steals their boots, lets down their inflatable lady (yeah, best not to wonder why she's there), hits them with wasps and lays beartraps in the river just to really make their eyes water. The doctors hike out to get help but the sneaky harasser (who is a disgruntled Vietnam War vet with a grudge against surgeons...what are the odds?) isn't done with them yet, not by a long short. What irks me most of all about this supremely unpleasant movie is that the five men are supposed to be friends (hell, two of them are brothers!), but they all clearly hate each other judging by their constant insults and nasty digs...they do this every year? I hated them too and ended up appreciating the slaughter. Hey, Psycho...you missed one.
My Top 10 Films of 1977
 |
| A citizen tells his President how to prevent war. |
#02 A Annie Hall (Allen)
#03 A- Cross of Iron (Peckinpah)
#04 A- Julia (Zinnemann)
#05 A- The Late Show (Benton)
#06 A- 3 Women (Altman)
#07 A- Nasty Habits (Lindsay-Hogg)
#08 A- Close Encounters of the Third Kind [the original cut] (Spielberg)
#09 B+ Outrageous! (Benner)
#10 B+ Between the Lines (Micklin Silver)
Overflow: More A-/B+ Films
#11 B+ Who Has Seen the Wind (King)
#12 B+ The Getting of Wisdom (Beresford)
#13 B+ Star Wars (Lucas)
#14 B+ The Spy Who Loved Me (Gilbert)
#15 B+ Why Shoot the Teacher (Narizzano)
#16 B+ Slap Shot (Hill)
#17 B+ The Goodbye Girl (Ross)
#18 B+ The Last Wave (Weir)
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> B Islands in the Stream [a Hemingway Man story split into 4 chapters varying from OK to VG in quality]
> B The Squeeze [gritty British gangster film that needs to pick up the pace]
> B Martin [sorta-interesting vampire movie that tries to show how your upbringing can make a mess of you]
> B Short Eyes [tough stageplay about sexual perversion is nearly a tough film about prison life]
> B Saturday Night Fever [while disco doesn't entirely suck, much of it does]
> B A Bridge Too Far [all-star WWII epic where not enough of the all-stars get blown up]
> B Eraserhead [interestingly-textured indie-Art but more a mood than a story]
> B The Picture Show Man [soft but pleasant nostalgia for an Australian past that comes across as fake]
> B- Full Circle / The Haunting of Julia [evil child story that starts in a rut, nearly gets out, slides back in]
> B- New York, New York [a 163 minute musical with very unlikeable people and only one good song]
> B- Candleshoe [Disney kids movie that, despite the efforts of its cast, can't rise above mundane]
> B- The Turning Point [the only thing that interested me was the big girlfight at the end]
> B- Summerfield [Aussie mystery that's more peculiar than mysterious]
> B- High Anxiety [a Hitchcock tribute/spoof where only the Pyscho and The Birds jokes are funny]
> B- The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover [choppy & cheap-looking docu-drama with no cross-dressing to jazz it up]
> B- Looking for Mr Goodbar [Diane is sensational but all the men are hustlers, psychos or Catholics]
> C Audrey Rose [semi-effective supernatural story until the appearance of real evil...lawyers]
> C Smokey and the Bandit [just one big car chase with big stunts & bigger caricatures]
> C Equus [a very serious nudie play that should have stayed on the stage...without a real horse]
> C Fun with Dick and Jane [shows that being poor in America isn't funny]
> D Providence [horrible people being horrible to each other]
> D Rituals [A Personal Unmentionable]
"Ah!..Sweet Mystery of Life...": 1977 Films I Apparently Still Need to See
Alambrista! (Young); Backroads (Noyce); Black Sunday (Frankenheimer); Desperate Living (Waters); The Gauntlet (Eastwood); Handle with Care / Citizens Band (Demme); Haunts (Freed); Hot Tomorrows (Brest); Kingdom of the Spiders (Cardos); Opening Night (Cassavetes); Outlaw Blues (Heffron); The Pack (Clouse); Roseland (Ivory); Semi-Tough (Ritchie); Shock Waves / Almost Human / Death Corps (Wiederhorn); Silver Bears (Passer); Tracks (Jaglom); Twilight’s Last Gleaming (Aldrich)
Best Performances of 1977
Richard Dreyfuss in The Goodbye Girl
Alec Guinness in Star Wars
Diane Keaton in Annie Hall
Marsha Mason in The Goodbye Girl
Vanessa Redgrave in Julia
Jason Robards in Julia
John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever
But how about...
George C. Scott in Islands in the Stream
Who says that passion needs yelling? A shouter from way back, George ditches the histrionics for calm and gives a nicely-moderated performance as an Ernest Hemingway stand-in. Being a Real Man, George displays all the testosteronic merit-badges (boozing; gunplay; infidelity; reeling-in a very big fish) but isn't overly-excited about it. This means we get to look at a human being who has regrets, self-doubts and sad memories...there's no blustering facade to put us off and keep us out. The film is cut into four parts which highlight the major loves of George's life: the Caribbean island which is his home; his three sons; his first wife; and his firm moral code, no matter what. George openly reveals his passion for all four and we grow to admire this flawed man without a lip tremble or a chest thump. And his final scene is the goodbye we should all want.
...and what about...
Sandy Dennis in Nasty Habits
The film is a greatest-hits retelling of the Watergate scandal but set in a Philadelphian nunnery for extra satiric laughs. With the characters of Nixon, Ehrlichman, Haldeman and Kissinger played relatively straight (and amusingly so...they come across as a group of mean schoolgirls planning bitchiness during recess), Sandy is given the John Dean role...the lackey who refuses to be made the patsy, and brings them all down. With teeth that belong in a bigger head and spectacles thick enough for diving at 50 fathoms, Sandy is the moontanned geek who sincerely believes that she fits right in with what everybody else is doing. Every time she appeared onscreen I cracked up, knowing she was going to do some little bit of business (sniff a wine cork, blurt instead of speak, teeter on platform shoes, wrestle with a plastic raincoat, juggle a moustache) that makes you want to just look at her. Rarely has such an oddball character become more than just the comic relief; this swingin' sister is the star.
...not to mention...
Shelley Duvall & Sissy Spacek in 3 Women
It took me a while to figure out why this bizarre / surreal film (normally an artifice that turns me off) actually stuck with me...it's the acting of its two leads. Shelley plays an airy, self-deluding woman's-magazine-disciple who just can't shut up, and Sissy is a forever-child who is so devoid of personality that she attaches herself to anyone who is even slightly receptive and becomes parasitic: yes, two incredibly annoying people. And yet, both actors somehow make you sympathetic towards and maybe even understanding of (until the film's most-peculiar ending) these two oddballs who are only ever going to fit in with each other. And how sad is that? Lightly foolish but well-meaning, gentle and supremely afraid of life, the two women stir your human kindness to the point of wanting to hear their lonely story...regardless of how bizarre and surreal it may be.
...and one personal unmentionable...
Richard Burton in Equus
"Broadsword calling Danny Boy. Broadsword calling Danny Boy. Stop fooling around with that horse. I envy you. Over."
My 10 Favourite Performances of 1977
 |
| "Bran? May as well just eat rope and yank it through." "Oh. Okay." |
#02 Shelley Duvall & Sissy Spacek in 3 Women
#03 Woody Allen in Annie Hall
#04 Vanessa Redgrave in Julia
#05 Diane Keaton in Looking for Mr Goodbar
#06 Craig Russell & Hollis McLaren in Outrageous!
#07 George C. Scott in Islands in the Stream
#08 Art Carney & Lily Tomlin in The Late Show
#09 Diane Keaton in Annie Hall
#10 James Coburn in Cross of Iron
Overflow: More List-Worthy Performances
#11 Jason Robards in Julia
#12 Richard Dreyfuss in The Goodbye Girl
#13 Michael Parks in The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover
#14 Stephen Boyd in The Squeeze
#15 Harvey Keitel in The Duellists
#16 James Mason in Cross of Iron
#17 The ensemble cast of Between the Lines
#18 Brian Painchaud in Who Has Seen the Wind
#19 Samantha Eggar in Why Shoot the Teacher
#20 Mia Farrow in Full Circle / The Haunting of Julia
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> Anne Bancroft & Shirley MacLaine in The Turning Point [Anne as an artiste & Shirley as a housewife...er, no]
> John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever [slick moves but I still pick up traces of Vinnie Barbarino]
> Alec Guinness in Star Wars [even Alec thought he was overrated...simply took his 2.25% and grinned a lot]
> Marsha Mason in The Goodbye Girl [just another performance by Marsha in just another of just Neil's plays]
> Jane Fonda in Julia [I reckon she never gave another good performance after Klute]
> Peter Firth in Equus [gee...big dick]
And so...onto the annual awards (with a nod of appreciation to Danny Peary)...
The Alternate Oscars for 1977 are:
FILM of the YEAR
GOLD: The Duellists (Ridley Scott)
SILVER: Annie Hall (Woody Allen)
BRONZE: Cross of Iron (Sam Peckinpah)
LEAD ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Woody Allen (Annie Hall)
SILVER: George C. Scott (Islands in the Stream)
BRONZE: James Coburn (Cross of Iron)
LEAD ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Diane Keaton (Looking for Mr Goodbar)
SILVER: Diane Keaton (Annie Hall)
BRONZE: Mia Farrow (Full Circle / The Haunting of Julia)
SUPPORTING ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Jason Robards (Julia)
SILVER: Michael Parks (The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover)
BRONZE: Stephen Boyd (The Squeeze)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Sandy Dennis (Nasty Habits)
SILVER: Vanessa Redgrave (Julia)
BRONZE: Samantha Eggar (Why Shoot the Teacher)
ENSEMBLE or PARTNERSHIP: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Shelley Duvall & Sissy Spacek (3 Women)
SILVER: Craig Russell & Hollis McLaren (Outrageous!)
BRONZE: Art Carney & Lily Tomlin (The Late Show)
JUVENILE: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Brian Painchaud (Who Has Seen the Wind)
SILVER: Quinn Cummings (The Goodbye Girl)
BRONZE: TBA
The Alternate Razzies for 1977 are:
CRAP FILM of the YEAR
Rituals (Peter Carter)
CRAP MALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Richard Burton (Equus)
CRAP FEMALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Susan Swift (Audrey Rose)
