In Contention

Tag: Richard Dreyfuss

  • LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 1987 and 1988

    Catch up with the idea behind this series here.

    So sorry for the hiatus with this column but I took a break last week to focus on the top 10 horror films list and am a day late this week because I was stuck shooting all day yesterday. I’m sure you’ve all been missing it intensely.

    But where were we? Ah, the late-80’s. A time when Hollywood fluff like “Moonstruck” and “Fatal Attraction” were up for Best Picture, but lost to, what else, a historical epic from an acclaimed director. Bernardo Bertolucci’s, “The Last Emperor,” swept the 1987 ceremony, winning nine Oscars from nine nominations, the largest haul since “West Side Story.”

    1988 belonged to “Rain Man,” but is perhaps more notable for Kevin Kline’s slapstick work in “A Fish Called Wanda” earning him a rare statue for a comedy. Every argument with an Oscar nerd since regarding comedic performances sees them bring it up as a precedent. Didn’t help Jim Carrey, Eddie Murphy or Sacha Baron Cohen though.

    The ceremony itself is infamous for an opening number that involved Snow White and Rob Lowe singing some awful duet. Why this particular number, in a vast sea of awful numbers throughout the course of Oscar history, has been singled out is beyond me. And probably beyond Rob Lowe as well.

    But now it’s my turn to do some singling out.

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  • The Great Performances: 1995

    (from left) Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep in The Bridges of Madison CountyBased on some of the comments I received last week regarding my article on great acting, I took the suggestion of a young lady and am kicking off a series of articles, one per week, that will explore the best performances ofeach year, beginning today with 1995.  So let’s go back and work our way towards 2008 and discover the great film performances we know about, and maybe a few we do not.

    The Academy did a pretty fine job in 1995 when it came to the acting nominees.  Sure there was some shock when John Travolta was snubbed for his superb work in “Get Shorty,” and those hoping for a three-peat with Tom Hanks missed it when the actor was not nominated for his solid work in “Apollo 13.” I personally would like to have seen Clint Eastwood nominated for his wonderful work in “The Bridges of Madison County,” but there are just five slots open, and so many fine pieces of acting.

    One could also argue for Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, both excellent in David Fincher’s “Seven,” or Bruce Willis, who was nobly brilliant in “Twelve Monkeys,” and perhaps even Jack Nicholson in “The Crossing Guard.”

    Nobody could argue with Nicolas Cage in “Leaving Las Vegas,” Sean Penn in “Dead Man Walking” or Anthony Hopkins for “Nixon” as Best Actor nominees.  And frankly I believe Penn gave the best performance of the year, one for the ages in fact. However, Richard Dreyfuss in “Mr. Holland’s Opus?” Seriously?  I love Dreyfuss and I think he’s even been short-changed in the past, but come one.  He does fine work and it’s not his fault the script asks him to be mushy and sentimental, but I have struggled with his nomination over Hanks, Travolta and Eastwood for many years.

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  • ‘American Graffiti’ — why it still resonates, 36 years later

    American GraffitiGeorge Lucas grew up in a small town, Modesto, California, where on Friday nights the guys hopped in their freshly washed and waxed cars and cruised the streets, rock and roll blaring out of the rolled down windows. Everyone knew each other so the streets were alive as though one big party were happening.

    Lucas, with William Huyck and Gloria Katz, would later write the screenplay for “American Graffitti,” a remarkable little film set in 1962 and a small town in California on the last night of summer before school begins. Loosely based on experiences Lucas had as a teenager, the film would become a touchstone for a generation, having an impact on pop culture no one expected. For the generations after the 1970s that have seen the film, it has the same curious effect, and without sounding self-important or condescending, that impact will grow as they, and we, continue to age.

    Why?  We knew people like this.  We were people like this.

    The film is familiar for almost anyone who ever went to high school, perhaps more so to small town natives. We all knew the town tough guy who hung around with the high school kids long after he had left school because he needs the adoration they give him. There was the class geek: glasses-wearing, short, trying a little too hard to please, but likable just the same.

    The class jock, who would also be the class president dating the head of the cheerleader sqaud, and the intellectual, who could not wait to get out of the town and see what the world held for him. All of us, sometime in our lives at school, knew people like this, perhaps even were people like this.

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  • 11/3 Oscarweb Round-up

    Richard Dreyfus• Probably running out of things to talk about, Peter Bart reviews the New York Times’ Holiday Movies section. [Peter Bart]

    • Monika Bartyzel aggregates reactions to Richard Dreyfus’s poo-pooing of “W.” on “The View.”  Damn it must be cool to do and say whatever the fuck you want to. [Cinematical]

    • Jason Solomons talks to “Quantum of Solace” director Marc Forster. [The Guardian]

    • Boyd van Hoeij files from the last gasps of the Rome fest. [indieWIRE]

    • John Horn goes deep on “Frost/Nixon.” [Los Angeles Times]

    • Jeremy McCarter goes first person with Charlie Kaufman. [Newsweek]

  • Greatest non-nominated perfs: too many to count…

    …but I’ll try.  A sprint of sorts through deacades of deserving contenders (in my opinion, of course).

    I ask you this: How did those lovable characters from “The Wizard of Oz,” portrayed so brilliantly by Ray Bolger (Scarecrow), Jack Haley (Tin Man), Bert Lahr (Lion) and Margaret Hamilton (Wicked Witch), fail to be nominated in any of the supporting categories? Any one of them should have won the damned thing let alone be nominated, but in 1939, each and every one of them was snubbed.

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