1980--The Year in Review

Here we go into another decade, but, really, it’s still the 1970s. The year's best film, Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull is utterly a product of the previous decade, and yet it remains the best film of the 1980s. Unlike many movie lovers, though, its obvious superiority ironically makes me feel sorry for Robert Redford's masterful directorial debut, which ultimately won the Academy's Best Picture prize; Ordinary People has been drubbed upon for years since by movie fans angry over the denial of Scorsese's film, but I maintain Redford's film is a justifiable Best Picture choice--an absolutely devastating and intimate family drama, the sort of which I wish there were more of nowadays. Yet, really--I mean, REALLY--it should have hit an insurmountable wall with Scorsese's picture--but this supremely difficult and even unlikable movie was a box office flop, and was clearly a decade ahead of its time (the director was not yet the massive cultural figure he would become, and frankly, neither was his leading man, and certainly the two electrifying film newcomers Scorsese introduces us to were unknown quantities, audience-wise). Even so, Raging Bull is clearly the best movie of the year, with its superb cast, unrelenting brutality, and unbelievably on-point crew working at their uppermost powers (Thelma Schoonmaker's quicksilver editing may be the best of all time). In fact, the only other movie to come close to Raging Bull in craft quality is another black-and-white film, David Lynch's The Elephant Man (this is the first year in a couple of decades to feature two B&W movies in the running for Best Picture). And we’re not even beginning to talk about the Kubrick movie with which so many film fans are justifiably obsessed! And we're leaving out fantastic works like Kagemusha, Coal Miner's Daughter (whose lead actress obviously deserved her Oscar playing country star Loretta Lynn), the unjustly maligned Heaven's Gate, The Empire Strikes Back, Altered States, The Long Riders, and The Stunt Man. Plus such fine comedy this year, from Airplane!, Used Cars, The Blues Brothers, Fatso, Seems Like Old Times, Melvin and Howard, Bronco Billy, Caddyshack, The Gods Must Be Crazy, and Nine to Five. By the way, the Original Song category this year was insanely jam-packed with great tunes from movies as diverse as One Trick Pony, Fame, Urban Cowboy, Foxes, Xanadu, Nine to Five, American Gigalo, Popeye, Honeysuckle Rose, and The Jazz Singer! Strangely, though, the documentary output was non-existent, to the point where I had to omit the category this year. Even so, man, I tell ya, 1980 was a superb time for movies! NOTE: These are MY choices for each category, and are only occasionally reflective of the selections made by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka The Oscars). When available, the nominee that actually won the Oscar will be highlighted in bold. 

PICTURE: RAGING BULL (US, Martin Scorsese)
(2nd: Ordinary People (US, Robert Redford)
followed by: The Shining (US/UK, Stanley Kubrick)
Kagemusha (Japan, Akira Kurosawa)
The Elephant Man (UK/US, David Lynch)
The Long Riders (US, Walter Hill)
Coal Miner’s Daughter (US, Michael Apted)
The Empire Strikes Back (US, Irwin Kershner)
One Trick Pony (US, Robert M. Young)
The Stunt Man (US, Richard Rush)
Heaven’s Gate (US, Michael Cimino)
Altered States (US, Ken Russell)
Fame (US, Alan Parker)
Airplane! (US, Jerry Zucker, David Zucker, and Jim Abrahams)
Used Cars (US, Robert Zemeckis)
Breaker Morant (Australia, Bruce Beresford)
The Long Good Friday (UK, John McKenzie)
Inside Moves (US, Richard Donner)
The Changeling (Canada, Peter Medak)
Carny (US, Robert Kaylor)
The Blues Brothers (US, John Landis)
Fatso (US, Anne Bancroft)
My Bodyguard (US, Tony Bill)
The Big Red One (US, Samuel Fuller)
Night of the Juggler (US, Robert Butler)
Berlin Alexanderplatz (West Germany, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Stardust Memories (US, Woody Allen)
Atlantic City (US/Canada, Louis Malle)
Mon Oncle d’Amérique (France, Alain Resnais)
Out of the Blue (US, Dennis Hopper)
The Great Santini (US, Lewis John Carlino)
Resurrection (US, Daniel Petrie)
Return of the Secaucus Seven (US, John Sayles)
Permanent Vacation (US, Jim Jaramusch)
Playing For Time (US, Daniel Mann)
Bad Timing (A Sexual Obsession) (US/UK, Nicolas Roeg)
Melvin and Howard (US, Jonathan Demme)
Bronco Billy (US, Clint Eastwood)
Dressed to Kill (US, Brian de Palma)
Urban Cowboy (US, James Bridges)
Seems Like Old Times (US, Jay Sandrich)
Nine to Five (US, Colin Higgins)
Brubaker (US, Stuart Rosenberg)
Foxes (US, Adrian Lyne)
The Ninth Configuration (US, William Peter Blatty)
The Fog (US, John Carpenter)
Rude Boy (UK, Jack Hazan and David Mingay)
Spetters (Netherlands, Paul Verhoeven)
The Last Metro (France, François Truffaut)
McVicar (UK, Tom Clegg)
The Idolmaker (US, Taylor Hackford)
The Dogs of War (US, John Irvin)
Private Benjamin (US, Howard Zieff)
Popeye (US, Robert Altman)
Gloria (US, John Cassavetes)
The Gods Must Be Crazy (South Africa, Jamie Urys)
A Small Circle of Friends (US, Rob Cohen)
Somewhere in Time (US, Jeannot Szwarc)
Foolin' Around (US, Richard T. Heffron)
American Gigolo (US, Paul Schrader)
Breaking Glass (UK, Brian Gibson)
The Blue Lagoon (US, Randal Kleiser)
Caddyshack (US, Harold Ramis)
The Apple (US/West Germany, Menahem Golan)
Cruising (US, William Friedkin)
Times Square (US, Allan Moyle)
Forbidden Zone (US, Richard Elfman)
Taxi Zum Klo (West Germany, Frank Ripploh)
Xanadu (US, Robert Greenwald)
Flash Gordon (US/UK, Mike Hodges)
The Jazz Singer (US, Richard Fleischer)
Friday the 13th (US, Sean Cunningham)
Insatiable (US, Stu Segall))



ACTOR: Robert De Niro, RAGING BULL (2nd: Timothy Hutton, Ordinary People (won as Supporting Actor), followed by: Jack Nicholson, The Shining; Tommy Lee Jones, Coal Miner’s Daughter; Peter O’Toole, The Stunt Man; John Hurt, The Elephant Man; Bob Hoskins, The Long Good Friday; Robert Duvall, The Great Santini; John Savage, Inside Moves)



ACTRESS: Sissy Spacek, COAL MINER‘S DAUGHTER (2nd: Ellen Burstyn, Resurrection, followed by: Mary Tyler Moore, Ordinary People; Linda Manz, Out of the Blue; Vanessa Redgrave, Playing for Time; Theresa Russell, Bad Timing (A Sexual Obsession); Debra Winger, Urban Cowboy; Shelley Duvall, The Shining)



SUPPORTING ACTOR: Donald Sutherland, ORDINARY PEOPLE (2nd: Joe Pesci, Raging Bull , followed by: Levon Helm, Coal Miner’s Daughter; Scatman Crothers, The Shining; Jack Thompson, Breaker Morant; Matt Dillon, My Bodyguard; Judd Hirsch, Ordinary People; Cliff Gorman, Night of the Juggler)



SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Cathy Moriarty, RAGING BULL (2nd: Eva Le Gallienne, Resurrection, followed by: Pamela Reed, The Long Riders; Charlotte Rampling, Stardust Memories; Mary Steenburgen, Melvin and Howard; Dolly Parton, Nine to Five; Beverly D’Angelo, Coal Miner’s Daughter; Diana Scarwid, Inside Moves)



DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese, RAGING BULL (2nd: Stanley Kubrick, The Shining, followed by: Robert Redford, Ordinary People; Akira Kurosawa, Kagemusha; David Lynch, The Elephant Man; Richard Rush, The Stunt Man; Walter Hill, The Long Riders; Alan Parker, Fame)



NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGE FILM: KAGEMUSHA (Japan, Akira Kurosawa) (2nd: Berlin Alexanderplatz (West Germany, Rainer Werner Fassbinder), followed by: Mon Oncle d’Amérique (France, Alain Resnais); Spetters (Netherlands, Paul Verhoeven); The Last Metro (France, François Truffaut))  



LIVE ACTION SHORT: A JURY OF HER PEERS (US, Sally Heckel) (2nd: Act of God (UK, Peter Greenaway), followed by: Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (US, Les Blank); Making The Shining (US, Vivian Kubrick); Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind (US, Rick Harper and Bob Rogers))



ANIMATED SHORT: THE FLY (Poland, Farenc Rofulsz) (2nd: The History of the World in Three Minutes Flat (Canada, Michael Mills), followed by: Le Menage (France, Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet)



ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, USED CARS (2nd: Bill Bryden, Steven Smith, Stacy Keach and James Keach, The Long Riders, followed by: Bo Goldman, Melvin and Howard; Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker, Airplane!; John Sayles, Return of the Secaucus Seven)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin, RAGING BULL (2nd: Alvin Sargent, Ordinary People, followed by: Christopher DeVore, Eric Bergen and David Lynch, The Elephant Man; Jonathan Hardy, David Stevens and Bruce Beresford, Breaker Morant; Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson, Inside Moves)

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Freddie Francis, THE ELEPHANT MAN (2nd: Vilmos Zsigmond, Heaven‘s Gate, followed by: Michael Chapman, Raging Bull; Takao Saito and Shoji Ueda, Kagamusha; John Alcott, The Shining)

ART DIRECTION: THE SHINING, Heaven’s Gate, The Empire Strikes Back, The Elephant Man, Kagemusha 

COSTUME DESIGN: THE ELEPHANT MAN, Kagemusha, Somewhere in Time, Heaven's Gate, Popeye



EDITING: RAGING BULL, Fame, The Long Riders, Coal Miner's Daughter, The Blues Brothers

SOUND: RAGING BULL, The Empire Strikes Back, Fame, The Elephant Man, Altered States 



ORIGINAL SCORE: Ry Cooder, THE LONG RIDERS (2nd: John Williams, The Empire Strikes Back, followed by: John Morris, The Elephant Man; John Corigliano, Altered States; John Barry, Inside Moves)



SCORING FOR A MUSICAL/ADAPTATION SCORING: Paul Simon, ONE TRICK PONY (2nd: Michael Gore, Fame, followed by: Harry Nilsson, Popeye)



ORIGINAL SONG: “Out Here On My Own” from FAME (Music by Michael Gore, lyrics by Leslie Gore) (2nd: “How The Heart Approaches What It Yearns” from One Trick Pony (Music and lyrics by Paul Simon), followed by: "Magic" from Xanadu (Music and lyrics by John Farrar); “On The Road Again” from Honeysuckle Rose (Music and lyrics by Willie Nelson); “On The Radio” from Foxes (Music by Giorgio Moroder, lyrics by Donna Summer); “Late in the Evening“ from One Trick Pony (Music and lyrics by Paul Simon); "Fame" from Fame (Music by Michael Gore, lyrics by Dean Pitchford); "Call Me" from American Gigolo (Music by Giorgio Moroder, lyrics by Debbie Harry); “Is It Okay If I Call You Mine?” from Fame (Music and lyrics by Paul McCrane); "Could I Have This Dance" from Urban Cowboy (Music and lyrics by Wayland Holyfield and Bob House); "America" from The Jazz Singer (Music and lyrics by Neil Diamond); "I Sing The Body Electric" from Fame (Music by Michael Gore, lyrics by Dean Pitchford); "Look What You've Done to Me" from Urban Cowboy (Music and lyrics by Boz Scaggs and David Foster); “Looking for Love” from Urban Cowboy (Music and lyrics by Wanda Mallette, Patti Ryan and Bob Morrison); “Nine to Five” from Nine to Five (Music and lyrics by Dolly Parton); "I'm Alright" from Caddyshack (Music and lyrics by Kenny Loggins); "Love on the Rocks" from The Jazz Singer (Music and lyrics by Neil Diamond); "He Needs Me" from Popeye (Music and lyrics by Harry Nilsson))

SPECIAL EFFECTS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, Altered States, Superman II

MAKEUP: THE ELEPHANT MAN, Altered States, Raging Bull

Film #64: M.A.S.H.

1970's M.A.S.H. had a bottomless effect on me long before I actually got to see it. Imagine being an intelligent nearly seven-year old movie addict and going with his extra-cool parents to the Atlanta's space-agey North-85 Drive-In concession stand around, oh, say, 1973. And, week after week, as you wander amongst the Alice Cooper and Kung Fu pinball machines while your dad orders the movie snacks, you find this unforgettable yellow poster prominantly affixed to the wall:

What an arresting image, this hand shooting us the peace symbol with a woman's legs smartly attached to its haunches, and a little brain-bucket on the fingers. And the simple, impassioned reviews (which I then understood, somehow).

I was, whoa, like, "What is THIS?!?!" I was strongly impacted by this image's double meaning: peace and love and? war. And the insistant sexuality poking right out there on my face really got to me, too. The bottom half of that hand really looked like a woman's ass, even to my inexperienced eyes (so much so that cream-puff newspaper ads, I later discovered, superimposed fake "pants" on the "ass" in question). I think this image--a product of marketing, I assume, if not Altman's vision, which seems much more believeable--has in my mind rocketed past all other market-driven images to deeply affect even my own political and social beliefs! How 'bout that, modern drivel-based marketing drones?!

Alas, I never saw M.A.S.H. in its entirety until I was much older--like 19 or so. As a pre-teen, I remember being in the backseat of my parent's car as we were watching it, but I guess I couldn't grasp its treasures as a kid, so I inevitably fell asleep. God bless my parents, they were so understanding! I don't know how I got so lucky, really! Here I am, begging Lynn and Buddy to see this movie they didn't like at all (and it was always a second feature, mind you). Man, they had to've been mystified as to what they had on their hands kid-wise, this little 8-year-old guy who wanted to see Robert Altman's first major film. They probably watched me fall asleep at least seven times in the 1970s as I tried to take in M.A.S.H. Ahhh, now that I ruminate on it, it was probably a blessing to 'em (though I was a notoriously quiet baby).

But I stuck to my effort to see M.A.S.H., and dutifully discovered that the great American autuer Robert Altman had found his breakthrough film in this brilliant comedy adapted by Ring Lardner Jr. from Richard Hooker's controversial book (which holds a near-record as the most publisher-rejected classic novel of all time). M.A.S.H. stars Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould as, respectively, Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce and Captain "Trapper" John McIntyre. They are two surgeons for a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital unit stationed smack dab in the middle of the 1950s' Korean War. M.A.S.H. follows them and their fellow enlistees as they fight war-torn death, disease, and boredom with grand pranks and cutting one-liners that assault the viewer at every turn (Lynn, my mother, told me she was sickened by the movie for years because it reminded her of the Vietnam footage she was seeing on the nightly news at that time, and she couldn't understand then how surgeons could make fun of such horror).
The episodic structure of the film (which may account for the Oscar given to Ring Lardner for his often discarded screenplay) and the chaotic direction (now an Altman staple) were quite new for 1970 and still today are fresh and exciting. Altman's use of sound grabbed particular attention, as it was arguably the first popular film since Howard Hawks' 1930s heyday to have numerous main characters talking over each other so that the viewer has to follow several conversations simultaneously (Altman lorded over the sound board, raising and lowering individual microphone levels as the actors improvised a lot of their dialogue).

An immense box-office success, M.A.S.H launched the careers of virtually everyone in it. Sutherland, Gould and Robert Duvall (as Frank Hackett) became 1970s superstars; Sally Kellerman, as Lt. Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan, gained an Oscar nomination (in my opinion, largely because she dared to do full-frontal nudity in one of the film's key scenes); and Gary Burghoff, the only actor to make the transition, went on to win an Emmy in the role of Corporal "Radar" O'Reilly in the smash hit TV series based on the movie. For you who are sorely uninitiated, here's the first few minute of the movie. Imagine being use to square stuff and then seeing THIS!Made during the think of the Vietnam War, M.A.S.H. was notorious for being a war movie (or an anti-war movie) in which only one shot was fired (see if you can spot it!). And you gotta love that loudspeaker--it's a real character unto itself, and provides the movie with one of the best credits sequences ever. Along with composer Johnny Mandel, Altman's son Mike wrote the searing lyrics to the movie's theme song "Suicide is Painless" (still one of the most neglected movie songs not to get a Best Song Oscar nomination). It was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Film Editing.
Finally, the unparalleled cast: Tom Skerritt, Jo Ann Pflug, John Schuck, Roger Bowen (extremely funny as Lt. Henry Blake), Michael Murphy, G. Wood, Carl Gottlieb (who later wrote Jaws and The Jerk), the film debut of "Blaxsploitation" superstar Fred Williamson, David Arkin, Bud Cort (who later did Harold and Maude), and even football great / That's Incredible! host Fran Tarkenton make impressions. You gotta see M.A.S.H., if you haven't already. Trust me, it's fun and bizarre.

And now I pay tribute to the long lost Robert Altman. In a most unusual way, I found out Altman died on November 20th, 2006. I was wandering around the yellow lights of New York, considering moving back up to NYC from Atlanta. I called my then-girlfriend Stephanie, a supportive and strong lady. Things were not going so well for me, but she still rightfully informed me that Robert Altman had died. She had been with me when I bought Patrick McGilligan's excellent biography of the great filmmaker, so she knew of my deep love for him. When I received the call, I was on the New York streets, right in front of the Lincoln Center fountain where so many of Altman's masterpieces (including Nashville) had premiered as part of the New York Film Festival. I could not believe this picturesque, incredibly well-staged stroke of fate. And so I long cried and cried for Bob, the director, in 2006, right there in the middle of New York City.