1972 DONE! Moving on to Year #19: 1967

So, I (Kim) decided to take some initiative and do the blog this time around! Are you excited? You should be. I would like to start by saying that we were both rather disappointed in everyone out there in readerland last time around. No comments? Really? COME ON! We will forgive you however, as long as you don't pull that crap again.

Okie dokie, well it turned out that 1972 was a pretty good year movie-wise. The Best Picture was "The Godfather" which we thought was just swell (maybe a tad overrated, but still an undeniably good movie). The two movies we chose to accompany The Godfather were Cabaret and Deliverance.

First we watched Deliverance, which was a nice little movie about 4 guys who decided one weekend to go canoeing down a deadly river in the middle of God's country inhabited by crazy mountain people instead of doing something that would have guaranteed them a much more pleasant weekend, like jumping out of an airplane without parachutes. Basically everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Of the 4 people who go on this trip one of them is sexually molested by mountain people, one of them dies, one of them gets so severely injured that he almost dies and all of them pretty much die on the inside. It was a good movie, typical suspense/thriller/action/adventure type movie with good acting and a fast pace. Overall, we enjoyed it.

After Deliverance we watched Cabaret, which was one of my favorite movies to watch back in High School. It takes place in 1931 Berlin, about a self-centered American singer who headlines at a dingy little club played by Liza Minelli, and her room mate/boyfriend, a Brit who came to Berlin to teach English lessons played by Michael York. The movie chronicles their stories along with a few other minor characters. It's interesting because they are living in Berlin at a time when the Nazi's are still working their way into power by schmoozing the locals and making themselves look like they are basically the German version of boy scouts. It also has a lot of fun musical numbers that take place in the club that Minelli works at, where the emcee is superbly portrayed by Joel Gray. Adam really enjoyed this one and even went as far as to say it was his favorite musical of this era (he enjoyed 2002's Chicago more, but in terms of 60's & 70's musicals, this one wins out as his favorite.) Even though I knew this movie well I was pleasantly surprised by it, I had mostly enjoyed it for it's musical numbers in High School and I worried that the plot might let me down, but it held up very well.

In terms of overall review, we both think that Godfather was rightly awarded the Best Picture award, even if just for the cultural significance it has. However, we both enjoyed Cabaret the most and felt bad for it having to go up against The Godfather, it probably could have won Best Picture in most other years. Joel Gray was definitely deserving of his Best Supporting Actor win for Cabaret, as he was easily the best part of the movie. We both enjoyed Deliverance but we don't think it had much of a chance for Best Picture against either Godfather or Cabaret, it just isn't quite in the same league.

So, moving onto our next year: 1967 where the Best Picture was: In The Heat Of The Night

We both really liked In The Heat Of The Night, it was one of our early movies in the original challenge and it did not let us down. Adam scored it a Perfect 5 and I gave it a 4.85 (it was early on and I didn't want to be so frivolous with my 5's even though looking back on it, it may have deserved one.) This was a fast-paced action movie starring Sidney Poitier, who plays a homicide detective from Philadelphia who comes to help solve a crime in a small southern town where they aint used to black folks much. It was superbly acted, suspenseful and funny. Overall a great film. So here are the films from 1967 we chose to compare...

Kim's pick: The Graduate
Adam's pick: Bonnie and Clyde

First, a quick (in my blog terms) note about movies that we did not choose. This was a great year for movies. Along with In The Heat of the Night and the 2 movies we chose, also nominated for Best Picture were Dr. Doolittle and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Dr. Doolittle was another one of my childhood favorites, but I decided to go with what I remember being a more high-quality movie instead of a whimsical story about a man who can talk to animals. This was also the year of Sidney Poitier. He did what are probably his 3 most famous movies all in this one year (In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and To Sir With Love, all came out in 1967) and although they are all excellent movies, we had already given him his due in the Best Picture for the year, so we each went with a non-Poitier film.

I chose The Graduate because, well... it's The Graduate. Come on. Hoffman being seduced by Anne Bancroft? Good times. I've seen this movie once all the way through, it was one of my dad's favorites, and I remember it being excellent. This is also one of Adam's dad's favorites, but he has only seen bits and pieces of it.

Adam chose Bonnie and Clyde because it stood out to him as a very well-known story that he had never been fully exposed to. Everyone knows the names "Bonnie & Clyde" but he didn't know the story that went with the names, so he thought why not watch the movie! I have also never seen this one, nor do I really know what it's about other than a couple of outlaws, so we are both very interested.

So now it's your turn (for real this time!) to tell us which movie from 1967 you enjoyed the most or if there were any other movies you enjoyed more than the 3 we chose. We love to read your comments, so please oblige us :)