50th Anniversary: The 43rd Oscars name "Patton" king, but the king refuses the crown

by Nathaniel R

Fifty years ago today the 43rd Annual Academy Awards were held honoring the films of 1970. It was coronation for Patton which took home 7 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Screenplay (pictured above). One of those Oscars (Best Actor) was rejected by the recipient, George C Scott. The acclaimed actor called the annual event a "meat parade"; this wasn't the last time someone would refuse an Oscar but it was the very first time in 43 years of the beloved... um... meat parade. There was no host that year, but a team of 34 celebrities rotating throughout the night (much like we've seen on zoom awards shows this season). The Best Picture nominees were...

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An Offer Elle Couldn't Refuse

by Jason Adams

Have you been keeping up with the movie about the making of The Godfather? It was announced last September that Jake Gyllenhaal will be playing the infamous producer Robert Evans while Oscar Isaac will be director Francis Ford Coppola in Francis and the Godfather, with Barry Levinson directing the thing. My ears, eyes, and everythings perked right up, and so I have been paying close attention ever since and now there's more casting news...

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Beauty Break: Ryan O'Neal

Baby Tatum and dad RyanToday is the 75th birthday of early 70s cinema's golden boy Ryan O'Neal. Happy Birthday Father o' Tatum. The picture to the left is just the cutest thing ever, don't you think? If not you don't cherish and worship and love to revisit Paper Moon (1973) in which the real life father & daughter stars played a fictional father and daughter, and played it to perfection in one of the greatest movies of that enormously fine cinematic decade.

But today, perhaps, younger readers don't really know Ryan O'Neal. In today's celebrity parlance I would suggest that he's something like a cross between Ryan Phillipe (all-american golden boy, super young dad as celebrity parenting goes, who remains more famous for his personal life than his career) and Leonardo DiCaprio (I shall explain). After coming to fame on television's Peyton Place (1964-1969) O'Neal was Oscar nominated for the #1 box office behemoth Love Story (1970) which we presume was something like the Titanic of its day. A bold statement you say? Perhaps not so bold...

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Mad Men @ the Movies: Ali + Brigitte = Megan?

Julia Ormond returns to her Emmy-nominated role as Megan's motherLynn Lee, back again to discuss Mad Men at the Movies.  

The title of this week’s episode was “New Business,” which may or may not be meant ironically. The episode felt contrived to strike certain thematic chords at the expense of developing the characters believably.  Diana the waitress feels more like a construct than a person, designed to appeal to Don’s hang-ups (the lover to be saved, the mother who abandoned her child); even their awkward elevator encounter with Sylvia Rosen just reminded me of how bored I was with that affair.  Megan does a 180 from the regretful wife bidding Don a tearful goodbye to the bitter ex-wife who accuses him of stealing her youth.  And her bickering French Canadian family shows up for no discernible purpose other than to bring back Julia Ormond and leave Don with a literally empty home.

That said, it’s Megan who brings Mad Men as close to the movies as it can get in an episode without any specific movie mentions. Megan’s film career has stalled, to the point that she’s subsisting on handouts from Don while their lawyers fight about divorce terms. She’s apparently desperate enough to seek help from Harry Crane, of all people - Harry, the noob who's been lusting after her since her show-stopping performance of “Zou Bisou Bisou.”

After seeking permission (sort of) from Don, Harry meets Megan for lunch and loses no time buttering her up.  He can’t believe she hasn’t gotten bigger parts!  He compares her to movie stars, both foreign and domestic...

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Morning Confession: I've Never Seen an Ali MacGraw Movie

Happy 75th birthday today to Ali MacGraw. "Who?" Some of you might be asking, which is telling.

My first and only significant memory of Ali MacGraw, who was quite famous when I was a child, was seeing her face on the sheet music to the theme from Love Story (1970) that my sister used to play on the piano when I was tiny. I have no idea why I remember this so vividly but I do. I also remember my mom grumbling about the movie's tagline which she said was 'TOTALLY UNTRUE'.

love means never having to say you're sorry

My sister had quite a few movie theme songs on sheet music and the other ones I remember looking at were Ice Castles, Jaws and Star Wars. The only one that I had actually seen was Star Wars. I don't remember seeing it in theaters. My true movie memories don't start until the following year in 1978 with Superman and Return From Witch Mountain. (If you're curious here are two of my earliest movie memories in comic book form)

Ali MacGraw was, in the late 70s / early 80s something of a symbol of flash in the pan movie stardom for complicated but, as I'd come to understand it much later, totally normal celebrity reasons: addictions, tough marriage, unlucky film choices, you name it. But this morning as I went to type this up I made the horrifying realization that I've never seen ANY of her films, no not even Love Story (1970). That's a significant gap in my Oscar viewing since it was nominated for 7 Oscars including Best Picture.

Have you seen Love Story. And have you ever played a movie theme on the piano?