From Coal to Gold: Actress, 1980

What an unusual and varied slate this Best Actress lineup is!

In Coal Miner's Daughter, previous nominee Sissy Spacek plays country star Loretta Lynn in a biopic that charts the singer-songwriter's life from her humble beginnings in Kentucky to eventual fame, fortune, exhaustion, and recovery. That was good enough for a win!

In Gloria, previous nominee Gena Rowlands plays a former gun moll trying to smuggle a mouthy six-year-old to safety after his family is murdered - by the very men she used to hang around with.

In Ordinary People, Mary Tyler Moore plays a wife and mother grieving the death of her firstborn, favorite son - by ignoring it and shutting out the people around her.

In Private Benjamin, previous winner Goldie Hawn plays a spoiled rich girl who enlists in the army following a surprise widowhood - and winds up discovering who she really is along the way.

And in Resurrection, previous winner and frequent nominee Ellen Burstyn plays a young woman who returns to her childhood hometown following a tragic accident that awoke within her a miraculous gift - she can heal with the touch of her hand.

Those are the roles - but how were the performances? Let's talk, after the jump.

The Fame Game: Original Score, 1980

And now, a special musical break with the nominees for Best Original Score. Michael Gore was the winner this year.



The nominees, in the reverse order of how I'd rank them (that mean's bottoms up):

Altered States
John Corigliano
**

first nomination; won for The Red Violin

Fame

Michael Gore
***
also won Best Original Song, where he had two nominations; later nominated for Terms of Endearment

Tess
Philippe Sarde

****
first and only nomination

The Empire Strikes Back
John Williams

****
15 previous nominations, three previous wins; another 35 nominations and two wins to follow

And finally, my vote for the win goes to....

The Elephant Man
John Morris

*****
second nomination following Best Original Song for Blazing Saddles

Tomorrow, the nominees for Best Actress: Ellen Burstyn (Resurrection), Goldie Hawn (Private Benjamin), Mary Tyler Moore (Ordinary People), Gena Rowlands (Gloria), Sissy Spacek (Coal Miner's Daughter).

You May Also Enjoy:

ZergNet

Like us on Facebook

Melvin and Howard Get a Win: Original Screenplay, 1980

Yesterday, we started our journey through 1980 with the nominees for Best Supporting Actor. Today, the nominees for Best Original Screenplay: three fictional, two true-ish. Let's meet the writers, shall we?

The Film: Brubaker
The Plot: The new warden of a small prison farm in Arkansas tries to clean it up of corruption after initially posing as an inmate.
The Writers: W.D. Richter, who later worked on Big Trouble in Little China and Home for the Holidays. Story by Richter and Arthur A. Ross, who wrote Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Great Race. First and only nominations for both men.

The Film: Fame
The Plot: A chronicle of the lives of several teenagers who attend a New York high school for students gifted in the performing arts.
The Writer: Christopher Gore, a playwright known for back-to-back musical flops (and now cult status, of course) Via Galactica and Nefertiti. It is his only film credit, but he was later Emmy-nominated for the animated short Faeries - and, of course, Fame became a six-season series.

The Film: Melvin and Howard
The Plot: The story of hard-luck Melvin E. Dummar, who claimed to have received a will naming him an heir to the fortune of Howard Hughes.
The Writer: Bo Goldman, a previous winner in Best Adapted Screenplay for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; he would later be nominated in that same category for Scent of a Woman. A total of three nominations, with this one resulting in his second Oscar.

The Film: Mon oncle d'Amérique
The Plot: The intersecting stories of three people who face difficult choices in life-changing situations are used to illustrate the theories espoused by Henri Lebroit about human behavior and the relationship between the self and society.
The Writer: Jean Gruault, known for his contributions to the French New Wave: Paris Belongs to Us, Jules & Jim, Les Caribiniers, etc. This marked the first of three collaborations with director Alain Resnais, followed by the musical Life is a Bed of Roses and Love Unto Death.

The Film: Private Benjamin
The Plot: A sheltered young high society woman joins the United States Army on a whim and finds herself in a more difficult situation than she ever suspected.
The Writers: Nancy Meyers, who would later be best-known as the auteur behind comedies like Something's Gotta Give and It's Complicated. Charles Shyer, her then-husband, who collaborated with her on a number of film and television projects, including Baby Boom and the Father of the Bride remakes. Harvey Miller (not pictured), making his film debut after years of writing for Gomer Pyle, USMC, Love American Style, and The Odd Couple. All three also produced.

That's the class of 1980. And now...let's talk about the work.

No Ordinary Performers: Supporting Actor, 1980

We begin the 1980 Oscars Retrospective the way many an Oscar ceremony has begun: with Best Supporting Actor.

In The Great Santini, Michael O'Keefe makes his film debut as a high school senior who alternately loves and hates his hard-ass marine father - both a result of him just wanting that affection from his father in return. O'Keefe also appears in the comedy classic Caddyshack this year!

(The Golden Globes nominated Scott Wilson for The Ninth Configuration instead of O'Keefe - Wilson is also bordering on co-lead in said film, but Glory Osky, it is a great performance)

In Melvin and Howard, Jason Robards plays a dusty old man who identifies himself as the billionaire Howard Hughes, picked up by noted failure Melvin. Is he lying, crazy, or the real deal? This is Robards' third Oscar nomination in this category - his previous two nods resulted in back-to-back wins.

In Ordinary People, Timothy Hutton makes his film debut as a teenager grieving the loss of his older brother, recovering from his suicide attempt, and exploring a new romance. Judd Hirsch plays his therapist, who refuses to let the patient slide into easy answers or self-pity. Hirsch later won an Emmy for Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for Taxi this same year.

In Raging Bull, Joe Pesci is the brother of Jake La Motta, a former boxer trying to maintain his connections in the mob, while being a good brother...and brother-in-law. It's the first of two Pesci nominations, the second resulting in a win.

Those are the men and their characters - buy what of the performances? After the jump...

June is 1980 Month!

It's a brand new month, and guess what that means? It's time for another Oscar Retrospective, followed by a new edition of the Retro Hollmann Awards! This time around, the year in question is 1980!

What makes this year unique is that I had never seen any of the Best Picture nominees before. Not a one. Coal Miner's Daughter? Missed it. Raging Bull? Passed me by. Tess? Never met her. Ordinary People? Look, you get the idea. This year was a chance for me to fill in some significant gaps in my movie knowledge.

And fill them I did! Not only did I finally watch The Elephant Man and The Blue Lagoon - I also included non-Oscar'd titles like The Blues Brothers and Popeye and American Gigolo. In the end, I watched 59 titles total - and still have a few more to go, as a VHS of Tribute is on its way, and the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles is playing Honeysuckle Rose next Sunday.

The Oscar Retrospective begins Monday, when we look back at the nominees for Best Supporting Actor. If you want to get in on the discussion, here's what's going down:

WEEK ONE

Best Supporting Actor (The Great Santini, Melvin and Howard, Ordinary People, Raging Bull)
Best Original Screenplay (Brubaker, Fame, Melvin and Howard, Mon oncle d'Amérique, Private Benjamin)
Best Score (Altered States, The Elephant Man, The Empire Strikes Back, Fame, Tess)
Best Actress (Coal Miner's Daughter, Gloria, Ordinary People, Private Benjamin, Resurrection)
Best Director (The Elephant Man, Ordinary People, Raging Bull, The Stunt Man, Tess)

WEEK TWO

Best Supporting Actress (Inside Moves, Melvin and Howard, Private Benjamin, Raging Bull, Resurrection)
Best Adapted Screenplay ('Breaker' Morant, Coal Miner's Daughter, The Elephant Man, Ordinary People, The Stunt Man)

Best Original Song (The Competition, Fame, Honeysuckle Rose, Nine to Five)

Best Actor (The Great Santini, The Elephant Man, Raging Bull, The Stunt Man, Tribute)
Best Picture (Coal Miner's Daughter, The Elephant Man, Ordinary People, Raging Bull, Tess)

WEEK THREE
Casting Coup Week: Re-Casting the Best Picture Nominees of 1980

WEEK FOUR
Top Ten
Retro Hollmann Awards Nominees
Complete List of Movies Seen
The 1980 Retro Hollmann Awards

You May Also Enjoy:

ZergNet

Like us on Facebook

Too-Early Oscar Predictions

Every year at The Film Experience, Nathaniel Rogers predicts the Oscar contenders a year in advance - he calls them his April Foolish Predictions, and they are always exciting, thought-provoking, and fun. While I missed last year, I usually try to play along with Nathaniel, and the rest of the Oscar blogosphere, with some early bird predictions of my own. Mine may not be as thorough as Nathaniel's (he even predicts foreign film!), but I'd be disappointed if I didn't join in the fun!

The contenders for next year's Oscars may be....

Best Picture

Anywhere between five and ten films can be nominated in this category. If five there be:

Dunkirk

The Greatest Showman

The Post

Untouchable

Wonderstruck

Keeping in mind that Untouchable is currently slated for a 2018 release date - but since they've already been filming for some time, I wouldn't be surprised if they moved it to November/December. Remember when Crazy Heart was a Spring 2010 release, then suddenly became a late 2009 contender, and eventually, winner?

[the rest after the jump]

The 1976 Retro Hollmann Awards

February's gone - let us end our look at the year 1976.

We're going out with a bang, Googie.

We talked to my parents about their memories, my mother sounded off on Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor, many took an interest in Best Adapted Screenplay (thanks to Nathaniel of The Film Experience for linking, truly unexpected!), and of course, we talked Best Picture.

But those were Oscar's picks. What of my own? The full list of the 61 films eligible have been named already; now it's time to talk my personal favorites of 40 years ago.

These are the Retro Hollmann Awards of 1976.

Best Adapted Screenplay

All the President's Men

William Goldman

from the book by Carl Bernstein / Bob Woodward

2. The Man Who Fell to Earth (Paul Mayersberg); 3. Carrie (Lawrence D. Cohen); 4. Buffalo Bill and the Indians (Robert Altman / Alan Rudolph); 5. The Shootist (Scott Hale / Miles Hood Swarthout)

Of All the President's Men, I said already that "there's a lot of information...But every detail is clear, the suspense is genuine, and each character vividly realized." The Man Who Fell to Earth's gradual meting-out of information, its slide from possibilities to a squander of them, is haunting. Carrie is earnest and completely its own, so you can buy into its crazy. Buffalo Bill and the Indians is a typical Altman: wincingly funny. The Shootist may be cynical about progress, but it doesn't let its hero off scot-free - a complex heart-tugger.

17 more categories, plus the full top ten, after the jump...