In Contention

Tag: The Apartment

  • LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 1959 and 1960

    Catch up with the idea behind this series here.

    The epics kept rolling at the turn of the decade with “Ben-Hur” taking the 1959 Best Picture prize, picking up a record 11 wins in the process, yet to be eclipsed but matched twice by “Titanic” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.”

    That year also saw “Pillow Talk” walk away with the Best Screenplay award under the nose of Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” and Bergman’s “Wild Strawberries.” Painfully embarrassing, the Academy almost pulled the exact same stunt in 2002 with “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” competing against “Talk to Her” and “Y tu Mama Tambien.” Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed that time.

    “The Apartment” started the swinging 60’s off on a winning note, and remains one of the Academy’s most atypical Best Picture winners. The decade’s winners would be almost evenly split amongst epics, musicals and socially conscious drama, making Wilder’s light hearted comedy stick out like a sore thumb.

    As for this column, we’ve hit an unwelcome first. No eligible film I’ve seen from 1959 has really wowed me in a way that usually merits inclusion. It’s especially frustrating since 1960 has no less than seven Oscar ignored masterpieces giving me a veritable Sophie’s choice on that front.

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  • Pump the brakes

    I was giving this LA Times photo gallery the benefit of the doubt until it tried to convince me that “Up” is in any way a “Best Picture mirror” to “Around the World in 80 Days,” or “A Serious Man” to “The Apartment.”

  • More on Reitman/Wilder

    Billy WilderFriday I posted a piece asking whether Jason Reitman might be on track to becoming the new Billy Wilder (an idea first put forth by USA Today writer Anthony Breznican).  The notion was met with some wicked vitriol from those who felt it a silly comparison or, at the very least, too soon to discuss.

    Fair enough on the latter, as I mentioned in my piece to begin with and in the ensuing discussion.  But three days later, Stephen Farber invoked Wilder’s name in his Hollywood Reporter review of “Up in the Air” and compared the film’s protagonist to the “corporate pimp” of Wilder’s “The Apartment.”  And today, in going back and forth on the idea with Breznican, he has offered a clarification but isn’t backing off on his point:

    “My comment is bound to provoke that sort of thing,” Breznican wrote of the reaction.  “I think you got what I meant, but I probably should have been more precise. Obviously Reitman, at the start of his career, does not add up to Billy Wilder’s entire output. But of course, that wasn’t what I was saying. Rather, I meant Reitman is working with Wilder’s toolbox, and telling the kind of stories that incomparable veteran once told.

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