The 1980s All-Hollywood Team

There’s a massive discrepancy between what the Academy recognized as great in the 80s and what has remained culturally relevant in our times. Ordinary People, Reds, Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, Terms of Endearment, Out of Africa, Driving Miss Daisy are largely overlooked nowadays in favor of prime-Spielberg and big budget action/ sci-fi schlock, both of which dominated box offices during that decade. And rightfully so. Raise your hand if you’d rather watch Out of Africa over Die Hard. Simply put, the Academy was out of step during this time before course-correcting in the 1990s. So I should state at the beginning that there’s gonna be very few Academy Awards winners on this team.

Cinematography

First Team-Vittorio Storaro. Notable works: Reds, One From the Heart, Ladyhawke, The Last Emperor. (2x nominated. 2x winner). Stararo made a name for himself in the 70s working alongside sex pest Bernardo Bertolucci and later Francis Ford Coppola on Apocalypse Now, the latter of which won him his first Oscar. While I’m not a huge fan of the films he worked on in the 80s, that’s not Stararo’s fault. This guy could make a pile of dogshit look like a work of art.

Second Team-Jan De Bont. Notable works: Roar, The Fourth Man, Die Hard, Black Rain. (0x nominated. 0x wins). De Bont is the only man on this list to get his scalp ripped off by a tiger. That counts for a lot around here. But the lighting and camera work for Die Hard is probably the most under appreciated aspect to that film. Despite a lack of Academy recognition, De Bont deserves to be on this list.

Music Composer

First Team-John Williams. Notable works: The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, ET: The Extra Terrestrial, The Indiana Jones Series. (12x nominated. 1x win). There was only one option here. And spoiler alert, John Williams will probably win first team for the 90s as well. Get this unbelievable run though: from 1980 to 1982, Williams composed The Imperial March for The Empire Strikes Back, The Raiders March for Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the soundtrack to ET.

Second Team-Vangelis. Notable works: Chariots of Fire, Blade Runner, Missing, Antarctica, The Bounty. (1x nominated. 1x win). Let’s just be honest. The only reason why anyone remembers Chariots of Fire is because of its electronic score. But Vangelis is much more than that. The Blade Runner soundtrack is one of the greatest of all time. And even though Vangelis is associated with more box office bombs than successes, you couldn’t blame the music for that. Hell, that was usually the best part of the movie.

Screenwriter

First Team: Lawrence Kasdan. Notable works: The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Return of the Jedi, The Big Chill, Silverado. (2x nominated). Star Wars AND Indiana Jones?! This selection is pretty self explanatory.

Second Team: Paul Schrader. Notable works: American Gigolo, Raging Bull, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, The Mosquito Coast, The Last Temptation of Christ. (0 nominations). Fuck you if you don’t like this pick. I’ve said before that Schrader is the greatest screenwriter of all time and he was at the height of his powers in the 80s.

Supporting Actress

First Team: Kim Basinger. Notable works: Never Say Never Again, The Natural, 9 1/2 Weeks, Batman. (0 nominations). Controversial pick. I get it. But there’s no easy way to put it. Despite James Cameron elevating women into big budget action leads in the 80s, supporting roles—especially the ones we remember most from the decade—were mostly blond damsels in distress. No shade at their ability however. Basinger would be recognized for her acting chops in the following decade. For the 80s, however, I feel that Basinger best demonstrated this blond archetype—one of the few, if not the only one—to do it for both James Bond and Batman.

Second Team: Geena Davis. Notable works: Fletch, The Fly, Beetlejuice, The Accidental Tourist. (1x nomination. 1x win). The great revelation of the 80s before her legendary run in the 90s.

Supporting Actor

First Team: Dennis Hopper, man. Notable works: Out of the Blue, Rumble Fish, River’s Edge, Hoosiers, Blue Velvet (1x nomination). Despite being around since the 50s and dropping off the face of the earth in 70s, Hopper came back in a BIG way in the 80s.

Second Team: Willem Dafoe. Notable works: The Loveless, To Live and Die in LA, Platoon, The Last Temptation of Christ, Mississippi Burning. (1x nomination). Probably the greatest actor of all time to never win an Oscar.

Best Actress

First Team: Meryl Streep. Notable works: The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Sophie’s Choice, Silkwood, Out of Africa, Ironweed. (6x nomination. 1x win). This was just the beginning of absolute domination by Streep in the best actress category. A dominance that continues to this day.

Second Team: Sigourney Weaver. Notable works: The Year of Living Dangerously, Ghostbusters 1 and 2, Aliens, Gorillas in the Mist, Working Girl. (3x nomination). Ellen Ripley alone catapulted Weaver into one of the greatest and most iconic leading ladies of all time.

Best Actor

First Team: Harrison Ford. Notable works: The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Indiana Jones series, Blade Runner, Witness, The Mosquito Coast. (1x nomination). Indiana Jones and Han Solo. Pretty self explanatory. He should have been nominated more than once.

Second Team: Eddie Murphy. Notable works: 48 Hours, Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop, The Golden Child, Coming to America. (0x nomination). Despite being the greatest stand up comedian of all time and dominating the box office in the 80s, this translated to 0 nominations. Shame, academy! Shame!

Best Director

First Team: Steven Spielberg. Notable works: Indiana Jones series, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun. (3x nominations). It was the 80s where Spielberg solidified himself as the ultimate box office director.

Second Team: Martin Scorsese. Notable works: Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, After Hours, The Color of Money, The Last Temptation of Christ. (2x nominated). Oliver Stone could have taken this spot. He was the only director to win twice in the 80s. Except no one talks about his work anymore. They do talk about Scorsese’s though, and arguably Scorsese has had a much greater impact on cinema.

The 1970s All-Hollywood Team

After I tripped down a flight of stairs and hit my head, I suddenly wondered: what if filmmaking was more like the NFL?

Think about it. Fall down a flight of stairs if you have to. I know they say that art is subjective, unlike, say, NFL stats. But to that, I say poppycock! We know who the all-time greats are! So I thought it would be fun to create an all-time roster for the 1970s, using the all-decade template the NFL uses, switching out offensive and defensive positions for Oscar categories. Unfortunately, I’m not attuned enough to assess categories like “film editing,” “sound editing”, and “costume and production.” They will be left out. Also, like the NFL template, there will be a “First Team” and a “Second Team”.

Let’s get started!

The criteria for selection is a combination of Oscar wins/nominations+legacy. The latter, of course, is subjective (subject to my tastes specifically)

Cinematographer

First team-Vilmos Zsigmond (2x nomination. 1x winner). Notable works: McCabe and Ms. Miller, Deliverance, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Deer Hunter. A pioneer in naturalistic lighting. Widely recognized as one of the greatest cinematographers of all time.

Second Team- Owen Roizman. (3x nomination). Notable works: The French Connection, The Exorcist, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Network. Perhaps the greatest cinematographer to never win an Oscar. His work exemplified the gritty, documentarian style that defined the 1970s.

Film Composer

First Team: John Williams (13x nominated. 3x winner). Notable works: Fiddler on the Roof, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars, Superman. Needs no introduction. Unquestionably the greatest film composer of all time.

Second Team: Jerry Goldsmith (8x nominated. 1x winner). Notable works: Patton, Chinatown, The Omen, Alien, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Often considered the poor man’s John Williams, Goldsmith might’ve had a shot at being the GOAT hadn’t he and Williams’ careers blossomed simultaneously.

Screenwriter

First Team– Robert Towne (3x nominated. 1x winner). Notable works: The Last Detail, Chinatown, Shampoo (credited). The Godfather, Marathon Man, Heaven Can Wait (uncredited). The premier screenwriter and script doctor of the 1970s.

Second Team: John Milius (1x nominated) Notable works: Jeremiah Johnson, Magnum Force, Apocalypse Now (credited). Dirty Harry, Jaws (uncredited). Where he lacked in accolades, he made up for by writing the greatest lines of the 1970s, including the “Do I feel lucky, punk?” from Dirty Harry, the USS Indianapolis monologue in Jaws, and “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” in Apocalypse Now.

Supporting Actress

*note: much like special teams in the NFL, being a supporting actor/actress play a key role in clinching a game or movie. While not as flashy as being in the starting lineup on offense or defense, a supporting actor has a special set of skills needed to make a film work. Sometimes they need to steal a scene. Sometimes they need to just read the lines. It’s for that reason why I’m including this as a separate category from Leading Actor/Actress.

First Team: Karen Black (1x nominated). Notable works: Five Easy Pieces, Airport 1975, Nashville, The Day of the Locusts. One of the great unsung actresses of her time. Could easily hold her own against some heavy hitters.

Second Team: Meryl Streep (2x nominated. 1x win). Notable works: Julia, The Deer Hunter, Manhattan, Kramer Vs. Kramer. Streep was only in five films during the 1970s, but her arrival on the big screen went off like a nuclear bomb. It was a sign of things to come.

Supporting Actor

First Team: Robert Duvall (2x nominated). Notable works: MASH, The Godfather Parts I and II, Network, Apocalypse Now. Bobby Duvall was slingin em in the 70s. The ultimate best supporting actor.

Second Team: Jason Robards (2x nominated. 2x wins). Notable works: The Ballad of Cable Hogue, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, All the President’s Men, Julia. Hey, he wouldn’t be the first I’d put on this list. But when you when back-to-back Oscars for supporting actor, that’s enough to get you on any team.

Actress

First Team: Jane Fonda (4x nominated. 2x winner) Notable works: Klute, Julia, Coming Home, The China Syndrome. Combined with her “Hanoi Jane” reputation, Jane Fonda is the undisputed champion of actresses for this decade.

Second Team: Faye Dunaway (2x nominated. 1x winner) Notable works: Little Big Man, Chinatown, The Towering Inferno, Three Days of the Condor, Network. A lot of actresses could have claimed this spot, but to me, the two marquee performances of the decade came from Dunaway in Chinatown and Network.

Actor

First Team: Jack Nicholson (4x nominated. 1x winner). Notable works: Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail, Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. His Cheshire grin alone defined the decade.

Second Team: Al Pacino (5x nominated) Notable works: Godfather Parts I and II, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, …And Justice For All. The biggest mistake that the Academy made was not awarding Pacino an Oscar during the 1970s.

Director

First team: Francis Ford Coppola (3x nominated. 1x winner). Notable works: The Godfather Parts I and II, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now. Coppola absolutely DOMINATED this decade. No other auteur came close to matching his success.

Second Team: George Lucas (2x nominated). Notable works: THX 1138, American Graffiti, Star Wars. Hear me out. Only a handful of directors were nominated more than once in 1970s, among them are Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, Sidney Lumet, William Friedkin, and, against all reason, George Lucas. Not even Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese achieved that. Additionally, Star Wars essentially reshaped cinema. We are still living in its shadow. And it’s for that reason alone why George Lucas made the team.

Don’t let the sun go down on me

Slow day at work, so me and coworkers watched No Time To Die.

I was the only one that’s seen it prior. And I gotta say, it’s better on the second viewing. I think knowing how it ends, you can appreciate some of its intricacies.

There’s kinda a somber tone throughout. And the cinematography is incredible. The film constantly looks like it’s evening, like the sun’s going down on James Bond. And not just for 007, but for Blofeld and Felix Leiter, both established (and parodied) characters in the long running franchise.

It’s a shame that the Academy didn’t give Daniel Craig a Best Actor nod. He really gave a fulfilling performance for a character that didn’t have much depth prior to his portrayal.

But damn it, I knew how it ends. But I couldn’t help myself: I cried in front of all my coworkers.

The arbiter of art

So I dreamt that David Spade walked up to me to start some shit. Then I punched him in the stomach and said “you ain’t so tough without Chris Farley.”

Anyways

Director/Screenwriter Paul Schrader, on his infamous Facebook account, reposted an article of Elizabeth Olson defending the Marvel films (I dunno, didn’t read it). This predictably started a shitstorm in the comments.

Listen, I don’t know what “art” is. It’s “expression”, I guess. That’s all I can say. The Marvel movies aren’t my cup of tea. At least not yet. Whether or not they are art is not up to me.

But would I consider Death Wish III, Robocop 2, and loads of other schlock as “art”?

Yes.

So actually, under my criteria, the Marvel films easily hurdle the “art” threshold. But the bigger question is: will people remember and still be discussing these films 20 years from now?

The “disaster craze” of the 1970s… the Towering Inferno, the Airport films, Earthquake, etc, with their big budgets and all-Star casts…were all financially successful but hardly anyone remembers them. Someone compared the Marvel movies to Westerns of way back when, but I think they’re much more similar disaster films of nearly 50 years ago.

Someone once said that the Academy Awards shouldn’t be decided until at least 10 years after a film’s release. This gives it time to resonate with the people instead of simply handing out accolades because it felt good in the moment.

I agree with this.

So are Marvel movies “art”? Yes.

Are they quality “art”? I guess time will tell.

Michael Cimino, American Hero

Orson Wells, John Huston, John Ford, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan….

Michael Cimino.

Legend

GOAT

The director of the Deer Hunter (1978), who immediately after hoisting the Academy Award for Best Director began work on dismantling a major movie studio by staring production on the Heaven’s Gate (1980)…the greatest Hollywood flop of all time.

The Deer Hunter, Cimino’s magnum opus, is without question one of the great American films. That is if we can call it a “film”. It’s more like a fever dream. Characters drunk as shit drive from Pennsylvania to Washington state, shoot a deer, and drive back…all within 48 hours. Robert DeNiro torches a guy. And the three main characters are forced by a bunch of racist caricatures to play Russian Roulette. It’s an undeniably powerful film that accurately captures the American psyche post-Vietnam.

With the success of the Deer Hunter, Cimino had carte blanche in Hollywood to do whatever he wanted. He chose Heaven’s Gate, produced by United Artists, a story about an obscure dispute in Wyoming in the 1800s and staring a hot, Hot, HOT Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, and Isabella Huppert (John Hurt’s hot too I guess). It was to be the greatest western of all time, solidifying Michael Cimino as one of the great auteurs.

When production started, problems instantly arose. Doing his best Kubrick impression, Cimino demanded take after take from his actors. He’d delay production to get the perfect shot of the Montana landscape where the film was shot, or demand that sets be torn down and rebuilt to exact specifications. He’d also charge the studio absurdly high rent to film on land that he allegedly owned (respect). The budget soared and United Artist was getting nervous.

Was it all worth it?

Lol, no.

Heaven’s Gate infamously flopped. Critics hated it. And it financially ruined United Artists (the James Bond franchise, arguably their most lucrative property at the time, would ultimately bail them out).

Despite attempts by internet and European critics to say it’s secretly a “masterpiece” 40 years after its release, Heaven’s Gate simply…doesn’t…work. The film looks like shit (sorry Vilmos Zsigmond fans), scenes go on longer than they should, and obviously Michael Cimino was feeling himself a little too much. If wasting money and being pretentious is an art form, then yes, Heaven’s Gate is a masterpiece.

Michael Cimino changed Hollywood. Gone were the days when auteurs ruled Hollywood. It wasn’t until John Landis killed three people (later acquitted) on the set of the Twilight Zone that Hollywood finally put the kibosh on artistic freedom.

Cimino would go on to direct some crap in 1980s, but his legacy was secure. That’s not worth nothin’, and I believe that’s worth honoring.

Michael Cimino passed away in 2016.

While I regard The Deer Hunter to be his finest work, one can’t forget the time Cimino, horribly disfigured by plastic surgery, roasted and mocked the entire crowd at Locarno Film Festival.

Legend