Before giving you my annual Academy Awards predictions, I thought it might be fun to take a look back at what and who won Oscars ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, and sixty years ago as the Motion Picture Academy prepares to anoint the Best of 2017.
I am only going as far back as 1957 because, well, I just didn't feel like going any further, but it's easy enough to look this stuff up yourself if you are so inclined. Just click on this link:
I will give you the Best Picture and the four Acting Awardees. I will also include that other Best Picture nominees, and you can decide for yourself if the Academy "got it right" in that particular year.
2007
Best Picture: "No Country for Old Men" over "Atonement", "Juno", "Michael Clayton", and "There Will Be Blood"
Actor - Daniel Day-Lewis
Actress - Marion Cotillard
Supporting Actor - Javier Bardem
Supporting Actress - Tilda Swinton
My $.02. I got nothing for this year. I must not have gone to the movies much in 2007.
1997
Best Picture: "Titanic" over "As Good As It Gets", "The Full Monty", "Good Will Hunting", and "L.A. Confidential"
My $.02 - "Titanic" was the right choice, but "L.A. Confidential" was pretty damn good, too.
Actor - Jack Nicholson
Actress - Helen Hunt
Supporting Actor - Robin Williams
Supporting Actress - Kim Bassinger
1987
Best Picture: "The Last Emperor" over "Broadcast News", "Fatal Attraction", "Hope and Glory", and "Moonstruck"
Actor - Michael Douglas
Actress - Cher
Supporting Actor - Sean Connery
Supporting Actress - Olympia Dukakis
My $.02 - Cher won for "Moonstruck" over Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction". Are you kidding me???? And has anyone ever watched "The Last Emperor" a second time?
1977
Best Picture - "Annie Hall" over "The Goodbye Girl", "Julia", "Star Wars", and "The Turning Point"
Actor - Richard Dreyfuss
Actress - Diane Keaton
Supporting Actor - Jason Robards
Supporting Actress - Vanessa Redgrave
My $.02 - The Academy rarely, if ever, rewards comedies, but this year two comedies were nominated for Best Picture, and the two lead acting awards went to actors in a comedy. Also, while Annie Hall is one of my all-time favorites, you wonder if, in retrospect, Star Wars would have been a more deserving winner, considering all that it has spawned over the last forty years.
1967
Best Picture - "In The Heat of the Night" over "Bonnie and Clyde", "Dr. Doolittle", "The Graduate" and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"
Actor - Rod Steiger
Actress - Katherine Hepburn
Supporting Actor - George Kennedy
Supporting Actress - Estelle Parsons
My $.02 - George Kennedy won for "Cool Hand Luke", but we all know that he should have won it several years later for playing Joe Patroni in "Airport". Seriously, though, 1967 may just have been one of the greatest years ever for American motion pictures. Please click on and read this post of mine from May 4, 2014 and see if you agree:
1957
Best Picture - "Bridge on the River Kwai" over "12 Angry Men", "Peyton Place", "Sayonara", and "Witness for the Prosecution"
Actor - Alec Guiness
Actress - Joanne Woodward
Supporting Actor - Red Buttons
Supporting Actress - Miyoshi Umeki
My $.02 - "12 Angry Men" and "Witness for the Prosecution" are both great movies, but this year's winner, "Bridge on the River Kwai" was and remains an absolute masterpiece. It was on TCM just two nights ago and I watched it - again! - and was riveted by it - again! It is one movie that never, and I mean never, gets old. Alec Guiness was absolutely brilliant in this one, as were William Holden, Jack Hawkins, and Sessue Hayakawa. If you have never seen this one, stop what you are doing RIGHT NOW and find some way to watch this one.
I didn't bother going list all of the other nominees for the Acting Awards, and that would make for far too lengthy a post, but as I said, you can look them up easily enough in the link I posted above, and you can have a lot of fun debating the merits of THOSE awards over the years as well.
And just to go back to the beginning, here are the Best Pictures for the previous years in these ten year cycle:
1947 - "Gentleman's Agreement"
1937 - "The Life of Emile Zola"
1927-28 - "Wings" (the very first Best Picture winner!)
Coming later this weekend....The Grandstander's predictions for the Oscar winners of 2017.
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