Annie Hall 1977

The Film:
  Apparently elephants are not kosher (they do have cloven hooves, but they don't chew the cud!). However there is a great big one in the room when we discuss this film (just like there will be a few more times still to come) - this time in the shape of Woody Allen. I like Woody Allen's work and I'm not going to suddenly not like it because he has at the very least an unsavoury sex-life and has possibly done things that are far more sinister. If I was in the business I probably wouldn't work with him - but, the fact remains, I like a lot of his films. Including this one.

The Academy also liked this one rather a lot - it liked it a lot better than Star Wars. And I'm inclined to agree.....

It's a while since I've seen it so I'm looking forward to seeing it again. It's also one of the original templates for so many New York romcoms, sitcoms and dramas that I spend far too much of my time watching (and re-watching) so I'm expecting to be spotting things left right and centre!

The Ceremony:

It's Oscar's 50th birthday - and a very glitzy affair it was too! April 3rd 1978 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, with a running time of three and a half hours and ratings of just short of 40 million. Most notably, this was the nineteenth and last time that Bob Hope hosted the ceremony - very much the end of an era!

The ceremony was also notable for two main controversies. Firstly, Vanessa Redgrave used her acceptance speech to speak out against ultra-Zionists and Paddy Chayefsky then used his turn at the mic to have a go back. The saddest thing about this is that the same arguments are still going on today.....

Secondly, the live performance of the Best Song was accompanied by (supposedly) deaf children from a local school signing the lyrics. When several members of the public complained that the signing was nonsense rather than actual ASL, the organisers came clean and admitted that the children weren't deaf and they had been taught the signing very quickly for the performance.

Other Notable Winners That Night:

Star Wars won the most awards (six), but they were mainly technical awards (plus one for John Williams' score). Seven of the big eight awards went to either Annie Hall or Julia (which won the other screenplay and both Supporting awards). The other one went to Richard Dreyfuss for Best Actor in The Goodbye Girl - the youngest actor, at the time, to win it - although more people saw him that year in Close Encounters OTTK (which won one award for cinematography).

Jason Robards won Best Supporting Actor for the second year in a row, a feat only managed by a small number of actors.

Surprisingly (to me, at least) the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award was given to Charlton Heston. My first thought was that Hollywood doesn't really have a track record of recognising right-wing gun-toting conservatives as humanitarians - but then I worked out that Heston was probably still (just about) a left-wing liberal civil rights activist at this point.....

 Best Song:

Seriously? This beat the best Bond Theme ever??? Oh dear!

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

The force was not quite strong enough in this one.....

The choice was between Neil Simon's The Goodbye Girl (possibly splitting the Jewish New York comedy vote?), ballet drama The Turning Point (another contemporary NYC-set drama) and holocaust drama Julia. Oh, and Star Wars. It's no real surprise that Star Wars didn't win. Firstly, at the time it was just the one film, not the three, or six, or eight, or ten, or more - depending on what constitutes a true Star Wars film - that we have now. We didn't even know who Luke's father was at this point in time. Secondly, it was a big, effects-laden, sci-fi fantasy film. With very few exceptions (all in the 21st Century) the Academy has only rewarded realism for Best Picture. In fact, it's daring enough that there are a couple of sequences in Annie Hall that mess with reality, even only slightly. With hindsight, Star Wars was probably, objectively, the best film that year. It probably should have won, but rather than bemoaning the injustice of it all, we should be really impressed that it even got nominated!

Our Verdict:

As with Rocky, there's been a bit of a gap between watching Annie Hall and writing up this review. In this case, that's probably not a good thing. I've seen Annie Hall at least four or five times now. It's always an enjoyable experience but the finer details of the plot never really stick in my brain for long after watching it. As I said above, I really like Woody Allen films, including his more recent ones (although the recurring older man / younger woman storylines are a tad problematic). I'm not sure Annie Hall necessarily reflects his best writing, or his best directing, or his best acting - but it is where all three work together at their best. The film captures a particular time, place and community really well and it does so with great heart, great humour and a light enough touch that it can get away with several ideas and set pieces that really shouldn't have worked. 

Just a little comedy about two people

Some "firsts" in this film have become so well used
that you hardly notice them....

One of the first of many conversations about nothing in one
of many queues in many romcoms/sitcoms set in New York

The story is very slight. Alvy is a forty year old neurotic Jewish writer (funnily enough!) who meets similarly insecure midwestern WASP Annie. Their relationship plays out through the course of the film in a variety of set-piece scenes that allow them both (but mainly Alvy) to explore their insecurities in witty (and sometimes hilarious) dialogue. It is funny, it's well written and above all it has heart (something lacking in some of Allen's later films). I like Alvy and Annie and I want them to be ok - and that makes all the difference.

Anyone seen a Mantra lying around anywhere?

I am a big fan of New York and of New York sitcoms - particularly Seinfeld. On our only visit to New York - so far - we spent an afternoon with the real Kramer, buying soup from the Soup Nazi and having a big salad in Tom's (aka Monks) Diner. It's extremely unlikely that there would have been Seinfeld (as we know it) without Annie Hall. The scene where they are queuing and Alvy has a whole rant about queues is a classic example of a whole scene that is basically "about nothing", as Seinfeld was. (And, of course, Larry David has since played the Allen-esque character in a Woody Allen film - a perfect match). Annie Hall is also one of the first modern Romcoms - and, imho, is probably only matched by When Harry Met Sally. Although there are now several thousand to choose from! It's also only the second winner to break the fourth wall (the less said about the first one the better, although it was one of the only fairly good things about Tom Jones) and it's done so well. Add into that one short line from an unknown Jeff Goldblum and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it distance shot of pre-fame Sigourney Weaver and Annie Hall manages to pave the way for a lot of 80s and 90s New York comedies whilst remaining quintessentially 70s. It almost certainly wasn't the best film of 1977, but I'm very glad that it won!

Rocky 1976

The Film:

Rocky is an unusual winner, in that it's the only one that was the first in a long (and still growing) franchise of populist box-office-friendly films. We have sequels that have won (Godfather 2, Return of the King), winners that have spawned sequels (Mrs Miniver, Going My Way, In The Heat of the Night, The French Connection, The Godfather - have I missed any?) along with a fair few that were remakes, remade, spawned TV series etc. There were also several Broadway Melody films, but I'm not counting those, as the only link between them was a lack of imagination in naming 1930s musicals! (btw the last one - 1940 - is the best one, because of the Astaire/Powell partnership, with 1938 a close second, because of Judy Garland!).

At the time of writing there have been seven Rocky films, with the eighth in post-production and due out for Christmas. Stallone has written (or co-written) and starred in all of them, and directed half of them. I have to admit that I gave up after number 4 (which was as much a rock soundtrack as it was a film!) and I've been told that Creed is really good so I should probably watch it (not least because some of it was filmed at Goodison - apparently Sly is a big Everton fan!).

I'm not a big fan of boxing - at all! - but I remember really liking Rocky. It's a while since I've seen it so I'm looking forward to seeing it again. Andy's not seen it and is not a fan of the sequels he has seen, but I think he'll be pleasantly surprised....

The Ceremony:

Monday March 28th 1977 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The broadcast rights moved back to ABC this year, and the ceremony was up against a big basketball game (something that would never happen today with all the concerns about ratings!)

The ceremony ran for 3 hours 38 minutes and was presented, yet again, by several hosts - the interesting quartet of Richard Pryor, Ellen Burstyn, Jane Fonda and Warren Beatty.

The Best Supporting Actress Award was presented by Muhammed Ali, alongside Sylvester Stallone. It's a nice touch that Ali was there the night that Rocky won - although it wouldn't have worked quite as well if one of the others won. (Had someone being doing some selective leaking at Price Waterhouse??)

Other Notable Winners That Night:

Faye and Oscar

The big acting prizes went to the big "serious" films that were nominated this year - three to Network and one to All The President's Men. It was also the first year that an Acting award was given posthumously - to Peter Finch, who had died of a heart attack earlier in the year. Beatrice Straight won her Supporting Actress award for the shortest performance ever to win - just over five minutes (a good few minutes shorter than Judi Dench's win!) These two films also took a Screenplay award each (and they both received more awards than Rocky).

The other notable nominee this year didn't actually win, but is definitely worth remembering. Lina Wertmuller was nominated as Best Director for the Italian film Seven Beauties, becoming the first (of only five to date) female director to be nominated. This came as a big surprise to me as I always thought it was Jane Campion first - with Sofia Coppola, Kathryn Bigelow and Greta Gerwig following. How is her name not mentioned more?

Best Song:

Three versions of "A Star Is Born" and only two Oscars between them (I'm not holding out much hope that Lady Gaga will change that, but I'd be delighted to be proved wrong!). Here's Barbra, soft as an easy chair, getting all soppy with hairy Kris:

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

I'm going to defend Rocky to the hilt here, for sentiment and appropriate cheering for the underdog as
much as anything else. I have far less problem than most film buffs with it winning Best Picture. The complaining from others tends to lead people to think Rocky is as unimportant as its many sequels - but its more down to the heavyweight (no pun intended) classics that it knocked out (that one was intended!).

Are we talking to him???

Rocky was up against "All The Presidents Men", "Network" and "Taxi Driver" (along with lesser-remembered Woody Guthrie biopic "Bound For Glory"). Any of those first three could have taken the prize and all are still critically acclaimed today. I can't argue with how good each of them are - but surely a lot of that depends on what you mean by a "good" film. Rocky is also a really good film and people really enjoyed watching it. So there.

If I was to go another way, it would depend entirely on what mood I'm in. "Network" and "All The Presidents Men" were the bigger winners on the night, but I'm still thinking of De Niro from a couple of years back, so let's have Taxi Driver (which shockingly didn't get Marty S a nomination for Best Director!)

Our Verdict:

Obligatory sports-film trainer/trainee shot

It's been a while between us watching this film and me finally writing up this review - I'll blame exam marking, holidays and general inertia! (At the time of writing, we've already watched 1983 - I have quite a backlog!)

For my second time of watching this film I wasn't even slightly disappointed. In really appreciating Rocky, it's important to try and forget the forty-something years that have passed since, the increasing list of really dreadful films that Sly has been a fairly dreadful part of and the gradual melting of his face. He made his masterpiece relatively early in his career!

Filling each other's gaps

One of the best things about Rocky is the fact that it isn't really a Sport Film at all - certainly not in the way that Chariots of Fire is, and not even as much as Million Dollar Baby is. The boxing is the backdrop, not the driving force. Ultimately, Rocky is part drama, part romance. With its gritty, city, working class setting it has some things in common with Midnight Cowboy, French Connection, even The Godfather - although here we're in Philly rather than NYC. Rocky is down on his luck, flawed but ultimately decent and just trying to get through a disappointing life.

Poor cow....

Two key things give him the chance to make things better. One is the big story of the film - although he's pretty much all washed up as a boxer he gets a freak chance to fight the champion. No one thinks he stands a chance, but he gives it his all with one goal - not to win, but just to go the distance. This leads to the iconic scenes in the film - using the hanging carcasses at the meat packing depot where his friend Paulie works as punch bags, and running up the steps as dawn breaks over Philadelphia (as imitated by pretty much everyone who's visited Philly since). These scenes are great. The montages are well shot and edited and the music is superb.

Go the distance!

The other, more subtle but equally important, change in Rocky's life during the story is his developing romance with Paulie's sister, Adrian (Talia Shire being given a lot more to do than in either Godfather film!). She works in a pet store, she's timid and shy - and the gradual development of her relationship with Rocky is beautifully and realistically portrayed. They are both shown to be flawed but basically good and decent people who deserve love, deserve a chance and, ultimately deserve each other - as Rocky says, they both have gaps, together they fill gaps.

Seven films on it's probably not too much of a spoiler to reveal that Rocky does, indeed, go the distance. But one of the best things about the film is that he doesn't win (yet - the sequels exist to spoil that!). The film isn't about winning - it's about trying. Ultimately that's what makes it such a good film.