The Bridge on the River Body Heat

I have seven favorite movies which I selected on my own, to see, for my own reasons and I think they are 7 of the best movies ever, in Life.  Many great movies are not in this tiny list of seven, only because they were already classics when I saw them.  Like -- I was led to them, I didn't find them.

My own little discoveries were --

The Last Waltz
Coal Miner's Daughter
Body Heat
The Big Chill
Witness
Shag
When Harry Met Sally...

None of these won the Academy Award for "Best Picture."

I started thinking about that because in the next two scenes in Body Heat, one of them is a scene so excellent that it should have won an Academy Award for the "Best Scene in a Movie" for that year.  They don't have that, but -- it would be a good idea.  "Best Scene."  Not that the rest of the film isn't excellent as well, but ... that could add an interesting little new wrinkle, to the Academy proceedings.  (Making that damn show, once a year, even Longer!!  LOL -- it might be difficult to garner support for this idea....)

So I started thinking of the Academy and wondering why I love movies so much, and yet seem to be "out-of-step" with their thinking -- the thinking of the Academy People.  If you look at a list of movies that have won "Best Picture" you find that most of them are -- compared to "my" movies --

bigger.

Bigger, more sweeping, more on a grand scale...
Many of them deal with heavy stuff -- historical significance (Schindler's List), man's struggle, personal tragedy (Terms of Endearment), intenseness (The Bridge on the River Kwai), seriousness; sometimes they're uplifting on a grand scale (or the opposite); sometimes it's heroism -- Patton; Gandhi.  And "spectacle" -- Chicago...

When you run down the list of Best Picture films through the years -- check decades worth of 'em -- there are very few --
^^ genre films (like Body Heat -- there was ONE  Oscar winner, The Sting, a "caper" movie -- and I guess In The Heat Of The Night would be a genre movie -- a "dramatic mystery")
^^ comedies  (Annie Hall, about the only comedy on that list).

Really, I object to that.  I think the prejudice, downright discrimination, against comedies as Best Picture selections results partly from Tradition (it's always been that way) and the tradition got started because a movie that is a comedy doesn't tend to make the Academy voters feel "important" enough.

And that quarantining of comedy pictures as being "not that good" may have contributed to the actual downgrading of standards in comedy movies...but -- I digress.

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I tried this -- checked my seven selections, what year were they made, and which film won Best Picture that year...

Both Shag and When Harry Met Sally... came out in 1989.
Best Picture that year:  Driving Miss Daisy.

Body Heat was released in 1981.
Best Picture in 1981:  Chariots of Fire.

The Big Chill -- 1983.
Best picture in 1983, Terms of Endearment.

The Last Waltz, released -- 1978.
Best picture that year, The Deer Hunter. 

Coal Miner's Daughter, 1980.
Best Picture:  Ordinary People.

Witness -- 1985.
Academy Award, 1985:  Out of Africa.

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As I said before, but I'd add to the thought -- compared to my selections, Academy Award - winning movies tend to be -- bigger, more sweeping, more on a grand scale, and -- sadder.

I  mean, come on --
Terms of Endearment, the mom dies;
Ordinary People, kid falls out of the boat and dies;
Out of Africa, Robert Redford dies;
The Deer Hunter -- "The scenes of Russian roulette were highly controversial"...bleah bleah...

Why can a movie not be GOOD enough to win an Academy Award for BEST PICTURE if it is not sad or depressing or horrifying...???!!!

(I love what Tina Turner said in answer to critics who thought she was somehow betraying her R & B "roots" by singing mainstream pop and rock-and-roll in the '80s...She said in rhythm and blues, it's a lifestyle you're singing about, and then she says to the interviewer, wearily, "Rock and roll is white, basically.  And white people haven't had that much of a problem, so they write about much lighter things, and funnier things.  And because I did not get depressed about my depressive life, I happened to like that the songs weren't depressing...!")

She's great.  Tina Turner should be put in charge of the Academy Awards.

I asked myself, What do I look for, in a movie?  What do I want?  What's different about me, from the Academy?...
I guess -- when I see a movie, I don't want that much.  I want something small.  Some people might opine that I am a sensitive person -- I would tend to not want to agree with that because "sensitive" is looked-down on, I think, now -- but maybe in music and movies and books, I'm (allegedly) "sensitive" enough so that -- a little goes a long way.  Maybe that's it....

I want -- music, fun, lightness, interest -- to see Bob Dylan! (in The Last Waltz) -- I want to have fun and be happy or fascinated, and get some satisfaction from it.
("The language of film noir is extravagant, & very satisfying."
--Lawrence Kasdan).
Moments,
and sometimes music,
and the truth of a moment, and of a person, and of life.

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a phrase
(When Harry Met Sally) -- "I'll have what she's having."
(Body Heat) -- "This sure is a friendly town!"

a song that "goes with" or "backs up" the action in a scene
(Shag) -- "I used to smoke, I used to drink -- I used to smoke, drink and dance the hootchie-koo!"
(The Big Chill) -- "I was feelin' -- so bad.  I asked my family doctor just what I had"...

---------- And come off that dumb-hillbilly act, lady!
-- Mister, if you knew Loretta, you'd know that ain't no act.
-- Thank you, Doo.

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Entertainment Weekly, of all people, wrote an article titled "25 Biggest Oscar Snubs of All Time" and noted Body Heat -- [quote]-------- Kathleen Turner.  With her smoldering voice, lithe body, and a temperature that runs higher than 100 degrees, Turner's Matty Walker embodies the steamy desires of lowlife lawyer Ned Racine (William Hurt).  Turner, in her incendiary film debut, drapes Matty in haughty insolence, desperate unattainability, and seductive refinement.  With amazing assurance for an actress whose previous work was primarily in daytime soaps, Turner turned up the sexual heat of the classic femme fatale while bowing to her stylish '40s forerunners.-------[end quote]

Uhm -- yeah -- What He Said!

The Deer Hunter:  I almost went to that one evening during college, but the line was too long, so we went to see something else.  I didn't mind; it was too soon, in my feelings, to see a film about Vietnam.

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