Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The Other Francis Ford Coppola Movie Nominated in 1974

Yep, having The Godfather Part II wasn't enough for him that year, he had two of his movies nominated for best picture.  And I close out a decade and one more from last year.  But first another great movie from the great decade of the 70's.

The Conversation (1974) - A stylish interesting film about a surveillance expert hired to record a conversation in a public area and becomes obsessed with it trying to figure out it's meaning.  Add to the fact he's super paranoid and stumbles into something bigger than he could imagine.  Great acting by Gene Hackman and John Cazale and very well filmed.  The mood and style of the film helps the story.  A rare film but one worth watching.

And now 1974 is finish.  And obviously The Godfather Part II was the best film of the year.  After that it gets much more difficult.  While it could be a four way tie for second, I would have Chinatown as the second best.  Mainly because of great acting and little to do with the pedophile director.  The Conversation will be third but only by a nose.  Lenny falls into fourth even though it was very well done I had to rank it somewhere and it has been over twenty years since I've seen it.  Fifth is The Towering Inferno which was a cheesy disaster film, but a really really good cheesy disaster film.

The Reader (2008) - A strange film about a young man in 1950's Germany who has an affair with a woman twice his age and then disappears.  Years later in law school he finds out she was a concentration camp guard and he also figures out she can't read.  He finally figures this out from his memories of reading to her and then starts sending her books in prison.  Basically disguised as a soft core porn film, not much else to it.

And since the year, as well as the decade is done, time to rank it out.  I will make separate posts for the best pictures and for all fifty five.  But for now the best picture of the year was Milk.  It had the best acting and overall was better than the rest, but it wasn't a very strong year.  Second would be The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which had good acting but was great story and very good makeup.  The best picture winner Slumdog Millionaire would be third since it was an impressive Bollywood style film but not really a great picture.  Frost/Nixon is fourth a rather bland movie that only beats out The Reader from last place since they had better makeup.

Zero Dark Thirty (2012) - A somewhat confusing and badly directed film about the assassination of Osama Bin Laden.  Lots of torture scenes, unnecessary dialogue, more torture and eventually them killing him.  Not sure why it was nominated unless it was part of a confusing attempt with the re-election campaign.

Seeing now five of the nine films, this one is fifth.  Argo is still first, Beasts Of The Southern Wild second, Life of Pi, Les Miserables and now Zero Dark Thirty.

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