Page 6-Sunday, April 8, 1979-The Michigan Daily potter (Continued from Page 3) super-moneymakers Star Wars and The Exorcist have cracked the barrier). BEST DIRECTOR: Predicted Winner: Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter). This one's con- siderably easier to pick than Best Pic- ture. Heaven Can Wait's Warren Beat- ty-Buck Henry duo had never previous- ly directed a film together of in- dividually, and the Academy doesn't honor first timers. Hal Ashby (Coming Home is considered an ,oddball maverick, and Alan Parker (Midnight Express) is British. Woody Allen won just last year for Annie Hall, and his nomination for Interiors seems more a loving tribute for former triumphs than anything else. Deserving Winner: Alan Parker (Midnight Express). Though Cimino was perhaps more mercurially in- spired, Parker exuded a far surer, more consistent hand in controlling his film's conception. The other nominees aren't really in the same class, although Woody Allen has his adulants. Conspicuous Omissions: Franco Brusatti, the guiding genius of Bread and Chocolate, and Terrence Malick, whose ravishingly ornate, artist's con- ception of Days of Heaven is considered by many the greatest piece of visual directing in the history of film. Omissions like these not only rock Oscar's credibility, but make the whole shindig a lot less fun than it might be. BEST ACTOR: Predicted Winner: Robert DeNiro (The Deer Hunter). This category seems as voluble as Best Picture, with gleiberman-- (Continued from Page 3) the face. Next to it, An Unmarried Woman and Coming Home emerge as pale edifices of the New Sentimentality. BEST DIRECTOR: Predicted Winner: Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter). You walk out of something like Cuckoo's Nest with the grinning figure of Jack Nicholson im- printed on your mind. But a film like The Deer Hunter is obviously a whole lot bigger than any of its parts. The Academy has the good sense to have some idea of who put it together. Deserving Winner: Michael Cimino. Woody Allen's touch is surer and more consistent in Interiors, but it's partly Cimino's messy audacity that makes The Deer Hunter so powerful, and so sweeping. Cimino doesn't always provide smooth sailing, but he takes you farther. BEST ACTOR: Predicted Winner: Jon Voight (Coming Home). After ignoring Voight's brilliant performances in Mid- night Cowboy and the otherwise rancid Conrack, the Academy has a golden op- portunity to recognize an actor that's p d his Hollywood dues. There is some impetition here from Beatty and De Niro, but many of their finest moments demonstrate the marvels of restraint; Voight's openly ingratiating perfor- mance in Coming Home is American acting at its two-fisted, red-blooded best. Deserving Winner: Jon Voight. A tough choice-De Niro and Gary Busey are splendid, as well. But Voight gives one of those performances that goes beyond mere "fine acting"; he literally jumps off the screen, connecting with his audience in an explosive chemical reaction. T'is rage during Coming Home's opening; ospita.l scenes says moreta c th pain ndonlict of Viet- nam than the eztire.rt;Qf t eg-vi<., BEST ACTRESS:* Warren Beatty lately and surprisingly boomed as the bookmakers' favorite while early runaway choice Jon Voight has reportedly slipped badly. Olivier is given some chance as a sentimental favorite, while Gary Busey is regar- ded as possibly the longest long shot in the history of the awards. Deserving Winner:. The choice is hairline between Voight and De Niro, though Olivier did manage to salvage the otherwise execrable Boys From. Brazil all by himself. I'll take De Niro, simply because I enjoy him as an actor more than I do Voight. Conspicuous Omissions: Nino Man- fredi, whose well-meaning everyman of Bread and Chocolate is one of the greatest performances of the decade, and Midnight Express' Brad Davis, whose wrenching portrayal of Billy Hayes deserved far more credit than most critics afforded him. BEST ACTRESS: Predicted Winner: Ingrid Bergman (Autumn Sonata). How can she miss? She just became the first performer ever to slam the four major acting awards (other than Oscar) in a single year, and whispered rumor says she's gravely ill, to boot. The resulting combo of sentimental and artistic votes should more than offset the Academy's anti- foreign film prejudice. This win seems the one sure bet of the evening. Deserving Winner: Jane Fonda (Coming Home). Her barely disguised autobiographical portrait of a sheltered woman belatedly coming to grips with the outside world is simply the best work she's ever done. Edged by ,a whisker is Jill Clayburgh. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Predicted Winner: Jack Warden (Heaven Can Wait). It's far from his best performance, but Warden has been ordained this year's George Burns-a lovable, decades-long trooper deser- ving honor for a career well done. Hollywood knows Warden may not be around much longer, and they won't deny him now. Deserving Winner: John Hurt (Mid- night Express) or Christopher Walken (The Deer Hunter). Either/or would be fine with me. Both actors are so fabulous-Hurt as a junkie prisoner in 'An apparent back/ash against "The Deer Hunter" now leaves it no better than an even bet against "Heaven Can Wait. ,, Turkey, Walken as a deranged GI in Vietnam-that it's a shame the Oscar can't be split down the middle between them. The fact that neither one will win at least alleviates the pain of choosing. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Predicted Winner: Maureen Stapleton (Interiors). Dyan Cannon's drolly avaricious performance in Heaven Can Wait is rated the favorite, but Academy sentimentality toward rewarding an ancient regular will once again prevail. Deserving Winner: Maggie Smith (California Suite). Her bitchy but sen- sitive actress was probably the only 'Predicted Winner: Jill Clayburgh (An Unmarried Woman). Clayburgh's dewey-eyed, "relevant". performance offers the perfect seventies mixture of sensitivity and sentimentality. Ingrid Bergman, of course, is the favorite for Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata, but something tells me the Academy won't entirely trust even dear Ingrid if she isn't speaking English. Deserving Winner: Geraldine Page (Interiors). Page gives a subtle but eloquently unmannered performance as the neurotically repressed mother in Interiors, a woman who's become dangerously adept at feeding off her illusions. Staring at the world through a stifling mixture of dread and revulsion. Page's character seemed to carry the agony of a thousand dreams deferred. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Predicted Winner: Christopher Walken (The Deer Hunter). With features . on him appearing in everything from The Village Voice to People, Christopher Walken seems destined for stardom. Certainly, with his baby-faced good looks, he's prime movie material, and a cinch for this year's award. I mean, Bruce Dern is getting boring, and no one even knows who John Hurt is. Deserving Winner: Christopher Walken. In a performance that might have been subtitled "From Fear to In- sanity," Walken creates a chilling por- trait of a smalltown steelworker driven to zombie-hood by his wartime ex- periences. John Hurt was fine in Mid- night Express, but Walken's face, during the action sequences is too frightening to forget. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Predicted Winner: Dyan Cannon (Heaven Can Wait). Most people in the Hollywood community considered the Cannon-Charles Groain' inte'rplay the funniest thing in;Heaven Can Wait.,The movie is, in many ways; too flimsy to garner much attention, but it has so many oldstyle Hollywood charms that it's due for several awards. My guess is this will be one. Deserving Winner: Meryl Streep (The Deer Hunter). With nary a line of meaningful dialogue, Streep transfor- med the sideline character of Linda into the film's guiding moral force. A beautiful and tender performance. BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Predicted Winner:Paul Mazursky (An Unmarried Woman). Mazursky's script might have been too weird or (God forbid) too "radical" ten years ago, but in 1978, almost two decades af- ter the explosion of feminism as a vital social issue, it's just right. Warm, wit- ty, wacky-wonderful; in short, the perfect Academy sandwich. Deserving Winner: Woody Allen (In- teriors). I went back to see Interiors a second time not because I'd "missed something," but simply to be with Woody Allen's characters again. They weren't always a pleasant lot, but, God help me, I loved 'em. Thanks, Woody. BEST SCREENPLAY ADAP- TATION: Predicted Winner: May & Beatty (Heaven Can Wait). Neil Simon seems the obvious competitor here, but much of California Suite is so dreadful that I can't see bestowing it any honors. The screenplay award is a traditional bone the Academy throws to films it wants to salute without glorifying. Heaven Can Wait fits the bill. Deserving Winner: May & Beatty. Cutting through Heaven Can Wait's en- dearingly archaic plot are some wildly funny off-the-cuff remarks (Grodin to Cannon in a fit of panic: "Keep calm! Pick up The Fountainhead and start reading!"). Lifting the skeleton and vital organs of Here Comes Mr. Jordan for their update-remake, May and Beatty proved you can teach an. old story neatricks. . tolerable item in Neil Simon's smarmy mish-mash of low drama and even lower slapstick. Meryl Streep is com- parably excellent in Deer Hunter, but the role doesn't really equal her talent. BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Predicted Winner: Paul Mazursky (An Unmarried Woman). The four- peson screenplay for The Deer Hunter is rated the favorite, but watch for Coming Home to split the Viet vote again. The Academy has a history of voting best screenplay to modest- budget, vintage Americana films, and Paul Mazursky's script for Womn fills the bill perfectly. Woody Allen stands an outside chance for Interiors, but is hurt by the fact that he won just last -year. Deserving Winner: Paul Mazursky. For once, both probable and most deserving winner match up. Mazur- sky's dialogue is occasionally too slick, but remains consistently funny and thoughful. It will also perform a major literary service in beating out Deer Hun- ter, whose monosyllabic script is one of the most regrettable in recent memory. BEST SCREENPLAY ADAPTA- TION: Predicted Winner: Warren Beatty and Elaine May (Heaven Can Wait). The hilarious adaptation of 1941's here Comes Mr. Jordan should win easily, unless Midnight Express should unex- pectedly sweep most categories. The other nominees are strictly light- weights. Deserving Winner: Oliver Stone (Midnight Express). This screenplay has been damned by many critics as distorting and sensationalizing Billy Hayes's memoir, but Stone was clearly after something more than a simple prison escape film. His finished product is so horrifically mesmerizing that it justifies whatever literary liberties he may have taken to achieve it. ramones (Continued from Page 5) may consume the Ramones. Does any- body know how many Wendy's Hot-and- Juicy Burgers it takes to kill a man? How many times can a person stand to watch Fred Flintsone tweak Barney Rubble's nose, or hear Johnny say "Wrong, doggie-doo breath" to Ed, before he becomes an amorphous globule of soggy, irradiated DNA strands? One could think for a good long time of future scenarios for the Ramones. Twenty years from now, say, they stagger into some New York sleazo equivalent of Micky Rat's, and proceed to bump into some group of 20-year-old club-wielding thugs out looking for communists (no big deal, because everybody knows communists are sissies), or book readers, or whoever the anti-establishment types are shooting at two decades from now. The youths are agile, the Ramones bump in- to as many walls as ever (despite Joey's chemotherapy), and after a brief tussle with the gang's switch- blades, it's all over. Or: In a few years, some rhetoric- drunk nut could slice off our heroes' hands for daring to buy Smarmbars,a candy bar made by a company with holdings in South Africa. Hell, in a couple of decades, that nut might be president. But not to worry, you know?.At the worst, it's still better to die like that than to live like a permanently dozed- off walking clone, brimming with head- strong, holier-than-thou dictums. And at best.that all years offeanyway and right now ,they're makng some in- credible music. By Owen Gleiberman W HEN PEOPLE THINK of past Academy Award travesties, they recall years great films didn't win-films like Citizen Kane in 1941, or Nashville in 1975. This year, though, the Academy really jumped the gun. They didn't even nominate Interiors for Best Picture (although it did pick up several other nomin- ations). And where, or where, is Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven? On the surface, Malick's remarkable second feature (his first was the 1974 Badlands, which also wasn't nominated) is a simple tale of sharecroppers struggling for survival in Depression America. Weaving an acute awareness of American class struggle into an ordinary love triangle, Days portrays three characters-two farmhands and their patriarch- employer-locked into economic and social realities that eventually destroy them. Malick builds his bleak tale with such sweeping inevitablity-tempered, magically, by Linda Mantz' naively engaging narration-that Days of Heaven becomes a quiet indictment of a system during its last days of isolation, a gentle elegy, like Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller, for a few individuals who seal their own tragic fates. I tell myself every year that I don't care whether the most deserving film wins-that I just want to place my bets and collect. But a small part of me does watch the Oscars-horserace that it is-with an eye for quality. Sometimes, that part of me can even go away satisfied. When Annie Hall copped the Best Picture award, it sent both the film buff and the gambler in me into fits, of ecstasy. This year, I've got the same sort of hopes pinned on The Deer Hunter. But by failing to nominate Days of Heaven, the film of the year, for anything but Best Cinematography, the Academy essentially denies that a director like Malick even exists. Tomorrow night, you can bet I'll be per- ched in front of the telly with beer, popcorn, and scorecard in hand. I'll be voting (and rooting) along strictly popular lines. But, now and again, I know I'll wish that a few other films might at least have been allowed to enter the starting gate. BEST PICTURE: Predicted Winner: The Deer Hunter. Although this movie tackles the touchy subject of Vietnam, it remains decidely apolitical. The strongest com- petition, Heaven Can Wait, lacks even the sentimental one-two punch of Rocky, and it's such an innocuous wafer of a movie that I can't see the Academy heralding it the best Hollywood has to offer. The Deer Hunter, on the other hand, is something you can sink your teeth into. Deserving Winner: The Deer Hunter. At the center of this difficult film's massive ambiguities is both a reverence for and fear of tlie classically American ideals of courage and male comaraderie. The Deer Hunter challenges its audience to stare that duality in See GLEIBERMAN. Page 6 Owen Gleiberman is co-editor of the Sunday Magazine. I Predicting the A wards The Michigan Daily-Sundai FILM Oscars: Sathisy V7f By Christop F OR ALL ITS customary Awards ought to make time around. Oscar has neve lack of consensus-an uncha happen quality prevails in ev save one. The Academy seems slighi this year for what it didn't1 their absence were the films Friends and Days of Heave Academy gratifyingly snub been virtually conceded a Be ting instead for the brilliant, press. -Most astonishing of all v repudiation of Superman, surest bet of the year to cor might indicate Hollywood is. honor the "little" film, thoi more economical than aest read the inflationary handwr anyone. BEST PICTURE: Predicted Winner: The De ever a category for wide-q it-thus far the other four m picked four different films early on conceded The Deer] become apparent that a back leaves it no better than an evi Wait, a lightweight but fun really dislikes. The Academy ti-comedy taboo last year b picture; it's entirely possibl selves this time, especially if Home split the war vote. Deserving Winner: Midnig misunderstood, maligned, I portrait of existenial Hell i prison is the most mas passionate offering of the i Hunter contains stretches of almost any film of any era erratic that it ultimately o parison. Conspicuous Omissions Chocolate, a wondrous blac and ethnic alienation, was e year, yet never stood a cha stakes owing to its foreign organization on earth mo: Academy). Other neglecte Weil's poignant urban tablea Malick's optically monumer Philip Kaufman's terrifying Body Snatchers (horrors ar always automatically exci See POTTE' Christopher Potter wi Daily. Academy A ward Nominees BEST PICTURE: Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, Heaven Can Wait, Midnight Express, An Unmarried Woman. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE: Warren Beatty (Heaven Can Wait), Gary Busey (The Buddy Holly Story), Robert De Niro (The Deer Hunter), Laurence Olivier (The Boys From Brazil), Jon Voight (Coming Home). BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A = LEADING ROLE: Ingrid Bergman (Autumn Sonata), Ellen Burstyn (Same Time, Next Year), Jill Clayburgh (An Unmarried Woman), Jane Fonda (Coming Home), Geraldine Page (Interiors). BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Bruce Dern (Coming Home), Richard Farnsworth (Comes A Horseman), John Hurt (Midnight Express), Christopher Walken (The Deer Hun- ter), Jack Warden (Heaven Can Wait). BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Dyan Cannon (Heaven Can Wait), Penelope Milford (Coming Home), Maggie Smith (California Suite), Maureen Stapleton (In- teriors), Meryl Streep (The Deer Hunter). BEST DIRECTION: Woody Allen (Interiors), Hal Ashby (Coming Home), Warren Beatty and Buck Henry (Heaven Can Wait), Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter), Alan Parker (Midnight Express). BEST SCREENPLAY BASED ON OTHER MAT RIAL: Elaine May and Warren I Wait), Walter brothers), Nei Suite), Bernard Next Year), 01 Express). BEST ORIGI? Woody Allen Bergman (Autu Cimino, Louis Redeker, and I Deer Hunter), Salt, and Rob, Home), Paul married Woman Fir"