My Thoughts on ChatGPT

I'm not entirely sure why we're doing a pair of technology-related articles, neither of which are particularly featuring a film or political angle, but after we talked about Twitter yesterday, I thought it would be fun to do another "get John's opinion" article about the other problematic tech app that everyone in the world seems to have a complicated relationship with: ChatGPT.

I have not been shy about my dislike of AI, and by proxy, ChatGPT (see here for a recent rant).  But, like virtually everyone right now, there is a societal (and occupational) pressure to understand how ChatGPT works, and what its benefits are.  So I, after occasionally tinkering with it, have started to (on occasion) use it.  And I wanted to share a few observations I had about it that feel both helpful, and really terrifying.

Editor's Note: This article is about ChatGPT.  For the record, no article on this blog has ever, or will ever, be written by ChatGPT or an AI-writing app.  If I ever get to the point where I want to do that, I'll give up writing first.  Wanted to state that straight away!

The Good

Here's the dirty secret-there are aspects of ChatGPT that I will own are genuinely useful.  I think the biggest one that I've run into is in helping me create a new workout plan, which has been the biggest thing I've used it for.  I have four separate goals I'm working on right now in terms of exercise: losing weight, running a sprint triathlon, climbing Pike's Peak, and (vainly) trying to protect gains in some of the "glamour" muscles because I'm a single gay man and that's something you keep as a calling card for dates.  I have a finite amount of time each week, and can only devote so much of it to exercise, and so I had struggled for weeks to figure out exactly what to do in terms of my workout.  So I asked ChatGPT to formulate a workout for these four combined, with at least one rest day, and one that worked largely around my work schedule.

And it did!  The plan it came back with was genuinely impressive.  It had room for my triathlon, was able to incorporate in extra leg days to start building on Pike's Peak, kept me focused on extra cardio for losing weight, and kept at least a couple of days for glamour muscles.  It also amends really easily-you can tell it to, say, give you at least one day for yoga or have it track your weight-lifting progress (or share feedback like "my gym doesn't have that equipment-can you give me a comparable exercise that doesn't require that equipment?") and it does.  There are a lot of ethical issues with this, and from a privacy/safety concern I'm not putting in extra information (i.e. it does not know my age or weight, which on my end I need to be able to keep track of since that greatly impacts a workout routine's ability to help), but what it is doing is, I must admit, a quality workout routine.  In general, the thing I have most used it for is a brainstorming partner-not someone doing the work (though it is doing a lot of it), but someone that can bounce ideas off of and put it into something legible.

The Bad

There are a lot of bad things about ChatGPT.  There are the obvious (the ethical questions about its impact on the environment, a primary reason why I have limited it to only the exercise project and to learning how to use it given that its expectation in my industry to have a cursory knowledge of it) as well as the subtle (I think it's dangerous to rely upon AI for things like writing and reading comprehension skills, because those need to be continually practiced to stay sharp), but the most noticeable thing about it is the accuracy.  

ChatGPT says in its description that it can be wrong (it's right there when you're typing: "ChatGPT can make mistakes"), but I think there's a really scary reality that most people accept whatever ChatGPT shares with them as fact, when it's decidedly not true.  I had used the tool as a test to a question I don't know the answer to: who was the fourth woman to join the DGA?  It's generally accepted that the first three women in the DGA were Dorothy Arzner, Ida Lupino, & Elaine May.  As far as I'm aware, these are the first three women to direct feature films for major studios, and so they'd be the first three members, but I could not find any evidence of who was fourth on Google or through searching library databases, so I decided to ask ChatGPT.

ChatGPT initially said May was fourth, which I allowed could be true, but it couldn't give me anyone that might have been third without prodding.  It eventually provided the name Shirley Clarke as fact for the third member, but given that Clarke was an independent filmmaker in the 1970's who never made a studio-driven picture (i.e. she didn't need to join the DGA in order to make the movies she made), I pushed back, asking for evidence that Clarke was the third...which it couldn't provide.  It just had made an intelligent guess.  It eventually came up with a few names that plausibly could've been the fourth woman: Lynne Littman, Nell Cox, & Dolores Ferraro are all names ChatGPT provided that make sense as the fourth woman, as they all made Hollywood-studio driven film & television, and if it is one of these women, it's probably Cox who directed an episode of The Waltons a couple of years before the others had such projects, and as a CBS-broadcast show she would've been required to join the union.  But ultimately it could not find the answer-ChatGPT was not able to prove that there was a woman to join the DGA before Elaine May other than Arzner or Lupino, and could not definitively prove who the fourth member was.

And that would be okay...had it just said that to begin with-it's possible this is an answer the internet doesn't have the answer to, and the only way to find out would be to write the guild directly.  I certainly couldn't find it, and I've tried to find this answer for a while.  But ChatGPT initially, definitively, stated that May was fourth and Clarke was third, and it took me pushing back to make it think otherwise.  That's a problem because you have to have a pretty extensive knowledge of a subject to be able to get at that level of detail-most people would've taken ChatGPT as fact in this situation, and thus provided the wrong information.  And as more people publish research they have from ChatGPT as if it's fact in articles that will be data-scraped...it will be harder & harder to correct.

The Ugly

There's a lot of ugliness with ChatGPT.  The biggest one is obviously occupational.  Going back to my exercise example, there's a clear answer who could've helped me on this previously, and in fact had helped me in the past: a gym trainer.  I have seen gym trainers and nutritionists through the years, and they are more than capable of doing this.  Admittedly, I wouldn't have hired a trainer or nutritionist in this regard because I cannot presently afford one, and so in some ways this is not replacing a job more so than it is saving me time...but let's be clear, that's not how everyone is going to use this, and it is scary that we are lifting the human element out of a job like this, particularly given that it requires humans schooling and knowledge to do set jobs (and the humans, even with as well as ChatGPT did, are better at it because they see you as a person and not just something statistical to add together...and I suspect those same humans, through social media posts & videos, are probably the ones crafting what ChatGPT gave me to a large degree).

But for me, the biggest concern with ChatGPT, and the eeriest thing about it is that it was so freaking nice.  People have mocked in TikTok's and other social media how ChatGPT is encouraging to the point of laughable-it will literally say any question you ask or any idea you have is a good idea (South Park had fun with this in a recent episode).  But I will be honest-it felt kind of nice to have someone (or, more correctly, some thing) care about this project that most people in my life don't care about.  Most people I know do not care who the fourth woman in the DGA is, and wouldn't have wanted to talk about it.  Most people in my life would not have the time to help me pick a workout routine that specific.  That ChatGPT does this, and is so gracious & encouraging, is a weird sort of Twilight Zone-thing.  You can easily see people using this not just to replace people, but to replace human relationships.  ChatGPT (for a price) always has time for your thoughts & expressions, and is nicer than an increasingly cruel world.  I put a photo of Joaquin Phoenix in Her next to this section, because it's bizarre how closely it resembles his experience-AI is not mechanical, but it's warm and inviting like Scarlett Johansson's Samantha.  That it's still a machine, and something that is designed to want to pull you in & use it as much as possible, makes it easy to see people forming parasocial relationships (that feel suspiciously like real relationships) with it, a terrifying thought particularly for a tool that (if I'm being honest) does have genuine usefulness.

The Slow (Personal) Fall of Twitter

I was not an early adopter to Twitter.  In terms of social media, honestly, the only platform that I really got into early was Facebook, and that's because I was the right age (I was in college) when it started to roll out, and was only available to college students.  According to my profile on Twitter, I have been a member since 2015, which would put me WELL behind the curve of when it took off as a pop culture phenomenon for myself & fellow Millennials, and more in-line with when your grandma would've joined Facebook.

I joined Twitter because of this blog, quite frankly.  At the time I was thinking still about monetizing it, and how to expand my readership in a meaningful way, and I figured the best way was to have my social media presence be identified with it.  I chose actively when I first came to this blog to not put my personal information on it (i.e. I'm "John T" not my real full name here), because I wanted to write about politics without it getting back to my day job, but with that it meant that I needed to forego having social media connected to my name, like I had (at the time-I've since deleted) on Facebook.

And while I created other social media connected with this (at one point, if you can believe it, this blog had a Tumblr associated with it, and my Letterboxd, which is still active & will remain so as it's the rare truly healthy social media, is 100% related to this blog), Twitter became my dominant social media pretty much instantly.  I made genuine friends through it, I went on dates through it.  I had people talk to me that I would've NEVER imagined would know my name or acknowledge me.  I still have screenshots of people like Octavia Spencer and Martha Plimpton and John Green acknowledging me on the app.  The algorithm quickly caught on for me, with a sea of political insights, cute boys, awards chatter, cooking videos, and more cute boys.  As someone who hadn't been to a gay bar since I was 25 (I was in my thirties when I joined), I learned about gay culture in a way I never would have otherwise (a great juxtaposition about me is that I am both VERY chatty with people I like and almost chronically introverted otherwise).  It was also a respite for me as I navigated the tricky lens of moving into my thirties as a single person, when most of my college friends were getting married and having children (and largely not having a place for me in their new lives).

Which has made the destruction of the site since 2022 all the more wrenching.  Twitter was never a perfect thing, with misogyny and defamatory speech always a constant threat in your comments (I definitely have been called a name or two as an openly gay person on there through the years), but it was a reliable place.  With the blue checkmark system, you could KNOW that the person tweeting was Valerie Bertinelli or Patty Murray-you could confidently get the thoughts of a crew of people, and the algorithm valued you staying on, so it showed you what you wanted to see, which for me resulted in essentially a newspaper designed specifically for my interests.  It was a worthwhile place with flaws.

But Elon Musk altered that.  He made it a cesspool of lies and deception.  Blue checkmarks ended, as did most attempts to patrol the comments.  The algorithm still existed (I can like one video about the stars of Heated Rivalry and then see 100 videos afterward), but it became pointless, and frequently nauseating & insipid.  Whereas before I wouldn't see a post from a Republican unless they were an elected official (i.e. someone I might research for this blog), now I'll see MAGA accounts ad nauseum.  It's less important that I am interested in a post, and more important that EVERYONE is getting this type of ragebait propaganda.  Any semblance of discourse disappeared from it-look at the comments section of ANY public figure, particularly a politician, and you will see just heinous lies and cruelty to the most innocuous of initial posts.  Twitter is, well, the bad place, and an increasingly useless one.

But...I still couldn't quit it.  There were practical concerns for this.  In a different era, I might've just broken down, bought a subscription to the Washington Post or the The New York Times and called it a day.  But those newspapers ALSO are right-wing rags at this point, and really there's no place left on God's Green Internet to get quality American journalism in a name brand way like I did on Twitter in its heyday.  Whereas I once had 50 reporters who I would follow from various quality news sources, now it's hard to tell the real from the slop.  Twitter, even in its hollowed shell, was easier to tell truth from fiction than much of the mainstream news that had been ruined by conservative billionaires.

It was also a place that I could advertise my blog.  I no longer have any aspirations of monetizing it-that disappeared a couple of years after I joined Twitter, but I do care if people read this.  I write things that I think are interesting, and I think other people might enjoy them.  I also care about putting quality analysis (of film, politics, and in-between) out into the world, into a world where that's increasingly hard-to-find.  I also enjoy the connections I make on the blog-I read every comment, and try to write on most of them, and I know that people find my articles through Twitter.

But I'll be honest-if those were the only things that caused me to be on Twitter, I would have largely set it aside.  The people who follow the blog regularly know how to check it without my updates, and with me moving onto private mode about a year ago, the readership links from the site aren't what they used to be (not to mention that Twitter's search functionality is basically garbage at this point, an underrated way that Musk ruined the site as it was once better than any other social media site).  And I could find news other ways if I really wanted to do so.  But Twitter filled up my time.  In a post-pandemic world, where we are increasingly spending less time with other people or are feeling more isolated, Twitter was a way to feel like I was in a crowd, like I was hearing a chattering class that actually cared about my opinions.  To some degree that was true (people DO like and share my opinions and conversations there), but in most ways it was a mirage...it FELT like something meaningful when Musk's stripping of the site for parts had largely created something plastic, cheap, nowhere near authentic.

And so I am increasingly stepping away from it.  I have such a history on it (and the site is so addictive), that I am curious if I can (or want) to actually quit it for good, or whether this is just another of one of many attempts to leave the site.  I have tried to do that cold turkey before (most recently in the wake of the 2024 presidential election), and I don't think that's a good formula for me.  But also, I'm uncomfortable with how much time I waste there, and am at the point where I think the doomscrolling is, perhaps, feeding an anxiety issue that has been festering since the pandemic and I am keeping alive by indulging in behaviors I don't really approve of in myself.  People talk about how addictive social media is and how much they wish they'd just quit it & how jealous they are of people not on social media...but they don't quit it, and they can't seem to move on.  Part of me wonders if all of the talk about us being addicted to our phones is less hyperbole and more reality, and like smoking in the 1950's, decades from now people will be stunned that we were willing to actively do such a thing.  For me, it doesn't seem healthy, and as one of my major New Year's resolutions was to reduce my screen time (the average person spends over 5 hours a day on their phone...last week I finally got mine below 3 hours, with the ultimate goal being 2 hours or less but we're taking this in steps), I plan on starting with Twitter, removing the app from my phone, and just relying upon it on my laptop...possibly ending it for good (or more likely, having it become something that's fazed out where it once was a default the second I opened my phone).  It's weird doing this, an app I once loved becoming an app that I feel is bad for me, and one that (like many people) I am reluctant to quit because of a strange combination of impulse, nostalgia, addictiveness, and genuine usefulness.  But that is the journey I'm trying to take in 2026.

OVP: Captain Blood (1935)

Film: Captain Blood (1935)

Stars: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Lionel Atwill, Basil Rathbone, Ross Alexander

Director: Michael Curtiz

Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Picture, Sound Recording)...at least in terms of official nominations.  In reality, because of write-in awards, Captain Blood is usually regarded as having been nominated for Best Director, Adapted Screenplay, and Score (and nearly won the first two) because Warner's block voting allowed people to write in names that weren't actually nominated, so when we finally reach the 1935 OVP I'll have to make a judgment call on what to include...but only Best Picture & Sound are recognized by the Academy as official nominations.

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Errol Flynn: click here to learn more about Mr. Flynn (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

With some of the stars we've profiled in the past seven seasons, I've had a bit more time to really reflect on their careers and in some cases their careers were traditional enough that it was mostly just talking about that week's movie.  That...will not be the case with Errol Flynn, whose gigantic personal life is worthy of multiple biographies, and you can't really get to all of it in four articles.  So we'll break it up into four sections: his early career (and partnership with Olivia de Havilland), his peak stardom (and the juxtaposition between his big screen & real life personas), the sex scandal that dramatically changed his career (and changed in many ways the way that we talk about Hollywood scandal), and the bizarrely long list of things that were discovered about Flynn after his death, most of which is allegation since Flynn himself wasn't able to commentate on it.

(Spoilers Ahead) If you're going to talk about Errol Flynn's early stardom, you can't really do it without talking about Captain Blood, the 1935 film from Warner Brothers that turned him into a household name.  The film, seeing it for the first time (one of an increasingly small list of Best Picture nominees I've never caught before), is glorious.  It's a story about a young doctor named Peter Blood (Flynn), sold into slavery but bought by a clearly smitten woman named Arabella (de Havilland), and how he slowly works his way up in the ranks, specifically by treating the governor's gout.  In a bid to escape his bondage, he turns into a pirate (but an ethical one!), and storms the Caribbean, eventually finding Arabella captive (and buying her, thus paying his debt), before eventually, thanks to some honorable help to the English army, becoming governor himself, and wedded to Arabella.

The movie is silly, and it's a bit too dry in parts (when it wants to make sure you know that Peter is a fan of social justice, as this is a Warner Brothers movie), but you won't care for two reasons.  One, the production is scrumptious-gorgeous ships filled with detail, and special effects you kind of can't believe.  It's hard not to watch this and think of not just the Pirates of the Caribbean move, but also the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, as it uses many of the same motifs, particularly the battle scene.  If you're a Disney adult, this needs to be added to your list as you won't regret it.

The other is that Flynn and de Havilland are divine together.  At the time they were not famous.  De Havilland was only 19, and Flynn (despite some bit work in film & theater) had not struck it big yet.  But their chemistry is palpable, and they're both so freaking gorgeous.  That's the thing with Flynn-save for maybe Buster Crabbe, he was (by modern beauty conventions) possibly the sexiest man in movies, and he looks it, even with a ridiculously hideous haircut.  You see Olivia de Havilland swoon over him, and you swoon over him too.

And that was what audiences in the 1930's did-they demanded more of Errol & Olivia.  Both actors have been pretty forthright that there was a romantic attraction to each other, but that they did not consummate the relationship.  At the time, Flynn was married to Lila Damita (who, proving how incestuous Old Hollywood was, had just finished an affair with Captain Blood director Michael Curtiz), and de Havilland (whose later Hollywood conquests would include Jimmy Stewart and a tortured affair with John Huston) was about to become one of the many flames of Howard Hughes.  But their professional relationship would create one of the most important duos of the Classical Hollywood era, starring together in eight films between 1935 and 1941, after which Flynn would encounter unfathomable scandal and de Havilland would become a pioneer against the studio system.  But when they were on, they were undeniable.  And in the best-regarded of their movies, The Adventures of Robin Hood, they created one of the most enchanting films ever made.

Colin Allred's Shockingly Bad Bet

Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX)

It takes a lot in the year of 2026 for politics to surprise me...but today it did.  If you haven't been following, in the state of Texas, former Rep. Colin Allred (who is running a return bid for a seat in the US House) released a video on social media where he essentially called State Rep. James Talarico (who is running for the US Senate nomination against Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who is aligned with Allred) a racist, and accused Talarico of calling him a "mediocre black man."  This was based off of a random TikTok account talking about a private conversation that the TikToker (Morgan Thompson) claimed to have with Talarico.  Talarico has since announced that he did not say this, and that the characterization of Allred was about his Senate campaign being mediocre, and not about him as a person.

First off-wow.  Second off, this is an insane to be happening just a few weeks before a Senate primary that has attracted national attention.  Coming off of a surprisingly robust Senate flip this weekend, the Texas Democratic Party felt like it was in a truly good position to make some gains later this year.  Talarico has been a fundraising powerhouse, out-raising Crockett, and increasingly looking like he will win the primary against her despite many people online (including me) initially assuming that she was a slam-dunk because of her devoted base.  This decision by Allred to take the word of a random TikToker, and elevate it to national news by accusing Talarico of being racist, with little founding, is really jaw-dropping, because it essentially throws a grenade into the primary, and makes it harder for either Democrat to win, and given that Allred is not dumb, I struggle to understand his actions here without thinking the worst: that he and Crockett organized this as part of a deal between the two to get her the nomination, one that pretty much everyone involved assumes she can't take to an actual win in November.

There's a couple of ways to dissect this, and I think let's start with what I believe, because part of this has to be opinion as I don't think everyone is speaking in good faith.  I do not believe that James Talarico characterized Colin Allred as a mediocre Black man.  I don't think Talarico, who is only 36 and therefore grew up his entire adult life realizing that the internet is forever, is that dumb.  I believe that the TikToker mischaracterized the conversation, and her open support of Jasmine Crockett implies she did this because she thought this would hurt Talarico's chances (which it might).  Whether or not Talarico actually believes this is between he and his conscience, but I don't think he's foolish enough to tell someone he barely knows and that he knows has a public forum like a TikTok account something that would end his career.  So let's start there: I don't think he did this, and I suspect on some level Colin Allred & Jasmine Crockett also don't believe it.

I do think, because he said he did, that Talarico characterized Allred's Senate campaign was mediocre.  But, let's be honest-it wasn't a particularly impressive campaign, though I don't know that I'd personally call it mediocre.  Allred lost to Ted Cruz by 8.5 points in 2024, while Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump in Texas by 13.7 points, or a 5.2-point margin in Allred's favor compared to the top-of-the-ticket.  Candidates like Jon Tester, Ruben Gallego, & Sherrod Brown all did better than him.  Joe Biden & Beto O'Rourke both got better margins as Democrats when they ran in Texas.  Allred's campaign was clearly hurt by Kamala Harris doing so poorly, but had he run alongside Biden in 2020 with these kinds of numbers, even if he could've beaten Biden by 5.2-points (a big ask given Biden already did better than him to begin with, so more traditional coattails than those in reverse seems more likely)...he still would've lost.  Allred, let's be honest-was basically just an average Democrat, one who only looks good when you compare him to Kamala Harris (which is true of most Democrats running in 2024).  I personally wouldn't call his campaign mediocre, for the record...but it wasn't impressive, and it certainly wasn't the kind of campaign you should emulate if you want to flip a Senate seat in Texas.

But I think it's more important to focus on the "why" Allred is doing this.  It could be he's so thin-skinned he couldn't let a viral video like this go without needing to prove himself, but I would assume he has people in his camp that would have told him what a horrible idea this was even if is that self-conscious.  I suspect it's because he wants to try and destroy Talarico, making him apologize for a comment he didn't make (that Allred is mischaracterizing on purpose), in order to help Jasmine Crockett, but you have to wonder-to what end?  Crockett's not going to win, and this certainly didn't help her in the general election.  You have just made a poison-the-well comment that anyone that was on-the-fence about Democrats but liked Talarico is going to take as a sign that they aren't welcome with the Crockett campaign.  This would be campaign that would be challenging to get past in Maine or Minnesota, much less a state as ruby red as Texas.  Crockett knows she has a losing coalition headed into November, and what's worse is she arguably sees that Talarico could win.

And this is where things get a little bit unpleasant, because the logical answer here (for me) is Crockett & Allred are doing this to ensure no Democrat wins the Texas Senate race in November.  Looking at this practically, if Crockett wasn't running for this seat because she wanted to win it, but instead because she wanted to use the national exposure of a major Senate campaign, along with her media savvy (and a very valuable Senate email list that comes with such a race), there's one thing worse than her losing the primary: it's a Democrat proving that they can win the general election.  If Crockett & Talarico both lose, she can claim that she would've won had they nominated her, and if she is the nominee, Talarico becomes an asterisk regardless.  But if she loses the primary and he wins the general, she becomes, well, a loser.  And if her goal is a career in media, especially liberal media, going into that as a "loser" is not going to demand the kind of paydays she's after.  This is more speculation than I'd usually like to put into an article, but she has Tim Scott, Ted Cruz, and the NRSC ecstatic right now...and she doesn't seem to want to stop that glee.  It's hard not to wonder if she cares more about Talarico losing than someone like Ken Paxton or John Cornyn losing.

But that's Crockett-it's harder to see what Colin Allred gets out of this.  Allred was initially running for the Senate, and is now in a tougher position than Crockett.  He already has a loss under his belt, he does not have the media following she does, and he had lost a lot of the sheen that he once had as a dragonslayer who defeated a GOP incumbent to win his House seat.  He's also only 42-years-old, and a second major loss would destroy his career.  I personally thought Allred might have a decent shot at his bid to get back into Congress in the 33rd district.  Rep. Julie Johnson ran to succeed Allred when he went against Cruz, but she's new in Congress, and this is a minority-majority district, most of which are historically represented by people of color (Johnson is a white woman).  But with this, he has made his own political future much more complicated.  It's possible that he is betting that Crockett will win his district, and he'll ride her coattails...but he would've done that anyway.  In all likelihood, this backfires on him, making him look petty (negative campaigning is very risky in Democratic primaries, particularly when people start out liking both candidates, which is the case for even the Talarico skeptical Democrats), and while Crockett might end up with a TV career...he ends up with nothing.  This is what's so baffling here-Allred chose to do this with little to gain personally, and intense amount to lose.  Why he chose to do it anyway is a question for which I don't have an answer.

Box Office Debate: Is Melania a Success?

It is not often that the two passions of this blog (politics & movies) overlap in a very real way, so I don't want to let this past weekend's premiere of the movie Melania pass without mention.  For the curious, on principal I have refused to see the movie, as I don't want to give the Trump family more of my money than I have to (I'm already inevitably doing that with these lawsuits the president is granting himself through the Department of Justice with our tax dollars).  But I am curious about the rather odd debate over the film itself, and its success.  While I always assumed that the Trump family would claim the movie was a big hit (as is their wont), the mainstream media (or what's left of it) hasn't been able to settle on a question of whether it exceeded expectations or counts as a box office hit, and as that is a pet hobby of mine, I thought we'd tackle it here.

First off, a couple of things to note.  Primarily, this is not the first time that an incumbent First Lady has dabbled in the mainstream world of entertainment.  While the First Lady has become a pop culture mainstay through her sheer existence (following the First Lady's fashion and details about her life are extremely common, and have been for well over a century), pop culture has been a big part of their planned lives as well.  Frances Cleveland was so popular advertisers used to put her face on everything from soap to tobacco to liver pills, and Jackie Kennedy's Tour of the White House won her an Emmy Award.  Nancy Reagan & Michelle Obama made guest appearances on television programs while they were in office, and Hillary Clinton won a Grammy Award.  In fact, by most measures Melania Trump has largely avoided (or been unable to break through) with her being the only First Lady since Bess Truman not to be photographed by Vogue magazine in some capacity (some, like Jill Biden, Michelle Obama, & Hillary Clinton, were on the cover something Melania only was before her husband entered politics), and she's also the only First Lady since Sesame Street began to not have publicly met a Muppet (one of my favorite bits of political trivia).  This documentary in many ways feels overdue, not in terms of me wanting it, but in terms of my surprise it hadn't happened yet.

But in terms of its success, I think we need to think of it by two definitions: did it beat expectations, and did it make a profit, because for a film like Melania, these are two very different answers.  Over the opening weekend the film made a worldwide total of $7.1 million.  By way of a documentary, that's really good.  Not counting things like concert films (where figures like Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson, and One Direction have had indisputable success at the box office), this is the biggest opening-weekend box office for a documentary since 2012, when DisneyNature's Chimpanzee came out (only because I'll never get this chance again to plug this on this blog, I have seen every single one of the DisneyNature films, and Chimpanzee is one of the better ones-my ranking is here).  That's impressive, I have to admit.  I don't know that I doubted it'd hit that number (more on that in a second), but it's on-its-surface a laudable achievement, particularly in an era where documentaries can't even get theatrical runs.  Also, given its universally bad reviews, it's hard not to be impressed that word-of-mouth didn't kill it.

It's also worth noting that this opens up a conversation about an untapped movie theater market: conservative filmgoers.  The biopic Reagan made $30 million last year (starring Dennis Quaid, it also hit those numbers while being crucified by critics), the Matt Walsh documentary Am I Racist? made $12 million (and turned a decent profit), and conspiracy theorist Dinesh D'Souza's Obama's America cleared $33 million (and made a large profit).  And then there's Sound of Freedom, a narrative film that had connections to the QAnon conspiracy theory that made a fortune at the box office, over $250 million, which honestly has allowed for production company Angel Studios to have created a cottage industry of MAGA-friendly dramas.  All of this is happening in markets like West Palm Beach, Dallas, and Miami that don't usually clock as some of the most profitable in the country for mainstream features (that favor places like Los Angeles, Boston, & New York).  If I was a studio executive, there would be lessons here I'd be taking in terms of finding a new crowd in an industry desperate to find levers to increase theater attendance.

But while you could argue straight-faced that it exceeded expectations, it is decidedly not a "hit" movie.  The film appears to have cost $40 million, and reportedly Ms. Trump herself will pocket $28 million of that in appearance fees from Amazon.  The rule of thumb for a movie is that it needs to make double the cost in order to make a profit (to account for marketing expenses), which would mean that for Amazon to see a return on its investment, the film would need to gross $80 million.  Not counting concert films and documentaries largely made to attract large format iMax audiences (i.e. the kinds of films that run in museums for decades), only four documentaries have made that much money: three animal-themed documentaries (March of the Penguins and two DisneyNature films-Oceans and Earth), and the political documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 from Michael Moore, which stands apart as a sort of elusive, untouchable film in terms of box office in the way Gone with the Wind does (i.e. no one is ever beating that).  Melania will not come close to those movies in terms of their gross...

...and I suspect everyone involved knew that.  Brett Ratner appears to have signed on to direct the film solely because Trump then called Paramount to pressure them, despite Ratner's sexual assault charges, to greenlight Rush Hour 4, the follow-up to the massively successful film franchise (and probably the only way Ratner was ever going to get a movie of that type of budget, and with that kind of back-end potential, again).  Jeff Bezos funded the entire operation, including signing that $28 million check to Melania Trump...and then got a $581 million contract with the Air Force just a few days before the film's release.  It's hard not to see all of this as a pretty obvious money-laundering front for Trump to take private equity cash that both parties know will not end up making anyone a profit, and in turn giving out tax payer dollars without any personal harm (i.e. a multi-million dollar bribe) and giving the First Lady the sort of glamorous vanity project that mainstream media organizations like Vogue or broadcast television have pointedly refuse to provide.  Melania is, therefore, a film that, taken on its surface, is impressive in terms of its audience (and savvy movie executives might be able to see this and, with a slimmer budget, try and recreate the same formula to make a real profit-you could easily see, say, an Erika Kirk documentary about her life after Charlie Kirk's death doing similar numbers), but it's also not a successful film by any measure of it actually making money in the traditional sense...and is so obviously a con job that it's hard to take any conversation of it super seriously as the president openly trades in tax payer dollars to fill his (and his wife's) wallet.

My 1972 Oscar Ballot

All right-we are ready-set-cook for another My Ballot!  We did the 1972 Oscar Viewing Project a few weeks ago (I do not know why there is a warning there, but I promise there's nothing salacious if you are apprehensive about clicking the link), and though it's been a while since we last did one of these (and 1972 took WAY too long), I am proud that I am getting these out relatively quickly in succession.  For those unfamiliar, for the Oscar Viewing Project, I discuss the films chosen for Oscar in their feature-length, narrative-film categories, seeing every single nominee, but with the My Ballot it's my turn, picking my own nominees and winners.  If you are curious how I've done this in the past, this is our 31st such article, and links to all 30 past contests are at the bottom of this article.  I love writing these, and so I hope you enjoy!

1972 is the first of the 1970's we've done (for a blog that focuses a lot on pre-1975 cinema, we've only done a couple such years so far as we largely focused on finishing off the 21st Century), maybe my favorite decade of movies (give or take the 1940's).  But I struggled a bit in terms of the year over how to differentiate from Oscar, because the Academy largely got this year right-this WAS the year of Cabaret & The Godfather.  If anything, I'm more indulgent of these two films than Oscar was.  But I do feel like I found some touches that Oscar wasn't quite ready for (like some more inventive SciFi films or the early comedies of Woody Allen, who wouldn't really become an Oscar mainstay for another 5 years), and some of my own personal flair (you will notice plenty of westerns here, though neo-noir wasn't nearly as good in 1972 so I don't have as much of that to distinguish myself).  Hopefully you enjoy-we'll be going to 1964 for our next set (my hope is to get back into a once-a-month cadence so OVP in February and My Ballot in March), but for now-take a look!

Notes about categories: As always, I have Visual Effects (in 1972 only an honorary statue) and Makeup (not a category until 1981), even though Oscar doesn't because they both have been around since the dawn of movies, and I also have the category of Dance Direction, at this point long-retired by Oscar (this will be the last chronological year I'll do it, keeping it a 1934-72 category as choreography rarely showed up in a major way after this).  I also only have three films eligible for Dance Direction & Scoring (as always), but the rest (save Best Picture) are five-wide.

Notes about eligibility: Two notes here.  First, The Emigrants is one of the only films to be nominated for multiple Oscar ceremonies, being cited for the 1971 Oscars for Foreign Language Film and for four additional awards the following Oscars.  My rule is always to go with Oscar eligibility if the film is nominated (for an apples-to-apples approach), and given The Emigrants was cited in more categories in 1972, that's where I'm going with, but we will obviously talk about it when we get to the 1971 OVP for Best Foreign Language Film (even though it will not be eligible for any My Ballot's that year).  Additionally, in the case of some films that are commonly-associated with multiple years (one of them being Duck, You Sucker, which you'll see shows up relatively often and is a 1971 or 1972 film depending on how you think of it), I made a judgment call and included it here.  There are other films I'm saving for later, so if you have questions as to why I didn't include a movie, I promise to address it in the comments (it could be I didn't see it, it could be I didn't like it, or it could be it's eligible a different year...only way to find out is to ask!).  Otherwise-enjoy (and share your picks as well!).

Picture

Aguirre, the Wrath of God

Cabaret

Duck, You Sucker

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds

The Emigrants

The Godfather

The New Land

Play It Again, Sam

What's Up, Doc?

The Working Class Goes to Heaven

Gold: I am hopeful we will one day have all of these years done for the My Ballots (if I live that long, it's one of my bucket list goals), but I cannot tell you how excited I am to officially call The Godfather not just the greatest film of the 1970's, but possibly the most perfect film ever made.  From start to finish, a true landmark.

Silver: In most years, Cabaret would be a film that would be hard to beat.  Only against the behemoth that is The Godfather could it possibly get silver.  The movie's incredible musical numbers, paired with a legendary pair of performances from Joel & Liza, and the dawning fascism that happens amidst the backdrop of decaying glitter...bienvenue indeed.

Bronze: With this competition, the battle is for bronze, and in a tight race between Leone's least-celebrated (but still wonderful) western and the Bringing Up Baby shenanigans of Streisand & O'Neal, I can't help but stick with What's Up, Doc?, one of the funniest things I've ever laid eyes upon.

Director

Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather

Bob Fosse, Cabaret

Sergio Leone, Duck, You Sucker

Jan Troell, The Emigrants

Jan Troell, The New Land

Gold: Francis Ford Coppola would have what would be considered the peak of his career two years later, with The Conversation & The Godfather, Part II both coming out and winning him dual Best Picture nominations.  But the greatest moment of his career is surely The Godfather, a movie that would define quality movie-making in every aesthetic for the remainder of the cinema.

Silver: Bob Fosse's vision for Cabaret is truly special (and like The Godfather, would profoundly influence future musicals).  The way that we see the rise of fascism amidst the glittering twinkle of entertainment is a lesson that not just needs to be taught, it needs to be screamed in a modern era where this happens every single day on Fox News.

Bronze: Sergio Leone might be the most consistently excellent director this side of Stanley Kubrick.  It's hard to imagine that Duck, You Sucker is considered one of his "lesser" masterpieces given how wonderfully inventive the film is, using two unlikely heroes and a massive wall of explosions & comedy to make one of the best westerns of the 1970's.

Actor

Marlon Brando, The Godfather

Ryan O'Neal, What's Up, Doc?

Al Pacino, The Godfather

Rod Steiger, Duck, You Sucker

Max von Sydow, The New Land

Gold: I am not one of those people that tries to cheat my way into Brando being supporting, and certainly am not going to adopt Oscar's position that Pacino is supporting-this is a two-man, father-and-son lead film, and one where I will have to choose one over the other to stay true to this project.  And of the two, it is Brando's towering, defining achievement that feels just a little more immobile and cinematic for the gold medal.

Silver: Pacino's work, though, is more cerebral, and more of the New Hollywood than Brando's method performance.  The way that his Michael becomes his father's heir, simultaneously resisting it and succumbing to its luxurious decadence, is one of the great screen turns.  If you ranked all of the lead actors of the 1970's, this would probably still be the Top 2.

Bronze: Rod Steiger is not name-checked as one of the great actors of his era now, but was in his actual era, and you see why the reviewers in the moment got it right with something like Duck, You Sucker, having effortless chemistry with James Coburn & genuinely solid comic bits amongst the action.

Actress

Liza Minnelli, Cabaret

Barbra Streisand, What's Up, Doc?

Cicely Tyson, Sounder

Liv Ullmann, The New Land

Joanne Woodward, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds

Gold: Liza Minnelli, in many ways, is terrible casting for Sally Bowles.  Sally Bowles is not supposed to be a great talent-she's forever supposed to be stuck at the Kit Kat Klub, never leaving it because she's too mediocre and just dreams big.  It's a testament to her ability to make us believe that we don't care that she's being played by one of the singular talents of her generation, a consummate song-and-dance queen born who only (let's be honest) got one real film truly worthy of her.

Silver: Speaking of generational talents, Barbra Streisand is maybe at her most natural and alluring (damn is she sexy in this film) playing opposite Ryan O'Neal in What's Up, Doc?.  I can't quite get past how good her timing is here-she lands every punchline, making sure you know why she's driving O'Neal crazy...and he can't get enough.

Bronze: Joanne Woodward has a reputation amongst actors as one of the most underrated performers of her era, her romance with Paul Newman sometimes getting in the way of real recognition.  That happens in Effect of Gamma Rays, a movie about the ways we desperately try to avoid the mistakes of our parents (and yet fall for them just the same).  That Woodward did this with her real-life daughter playing her fictional one just adds another level of meta to a forgotten classic.

Supporting Actor

Eddie Axberg, The New Land

James Caan, The Godfather

Robert Duvall, The Godfather

Joel Grey, Cabaret

Abe Vigoda, The Godfather

Gold: In a similar way to how Liza Minnelli would honestly never have a movie role that measured up to her in Cabaret, Joel Grey, a storied stage actor, would never have a movie role that could compare to the Emcee, one of the most delicious and nasty creations in the history of the movies.  His villainous demonic imp doesn't need a backstory or anything about him to understand that he is the evil lurking the in the fabric of this picture.

Silver: With Pacino out of this field & in lead where he belongs, we are given the chance to properly recognize James Caan in his own right.  If Vito is wisdom and Michael deliberation, then Sonny is a fiery impetuousness.  Sexy (and endowed) with a temper that will be his doom, he still brings an eldest sibling energy that feels ingrained in the picture.

Bronze: For much of his latter career, Abe Vigoda would become a punchline, the source of a joke website wondering if he was still alive or not.  Lost in that pop culture cache is that he gave an outstanding performance as the intelligent Tessio in The Godfather.  The isolation in his final scene with Al Pacino is maybe even more indicative of Michael's dying innocence than what would come next.

Supporting Actress

Marisa Berenson, Cabaret

Madeline Kahn, What's Up, Doc?

Diane Keaton, The Godfather

Talia Shire, The Godfather

Shelley Winters, The Poseidon Adventure

Gold: In a weekend where we lost Catherine O'Hara at what feels like a far too young age, we need to remember another zany, singular comedic actress that went well before she had been appreciated enough, and that would be Madeline Kahn.  Showing up and stealing every scene she is in in What's Up, Doc? as Ryan O'Neal's buttoned-up love interest with such confidence...how is this her feature film debut?

Silver: Speaking of comedic actors that we lost far too soon, Diane Keaton shows in The Godfather something that I've always known: she's just as good at drama as she is comedy.  The way her Kay is brought in, "knowing" Michael better than anyone, and leaving with a closed door as she understand she has no concept of the man that she has wed, forever trapped in the grasp of her mistake-she is the heart of The Godfather that needs to be taken out in order to show Michael's destiny being fulfilled.

Bronze: Thankfully Marisa Berenson is still with us, and even more thankfully, she was able to bring her high-fashion beauty to Cabaret, a movie that shows within its confines a really tragic love story (in much part alien to Sally & Brian's romance), about Berenson's frequently silly, but all-too-real figure who is rich...and thanks to her being Jewish, about to suffer the film's most terrible fate in the wake of the rising Nazi tide.

Adapted Screenplay

Cabaret

The Emigrants

The Godfather

The New Land

Play It Again, Sam

Gold: Nearly a carbon copy of the Best Director lineup (I usually try to spread the wealth a bit more than this, having all five of these be Best Picture nominees), I will also pick the same gold medalist.  I have actually read the original Godfather novel, and so I know there's huge swaths of it (particularly involving Sonny's mistress) that are fascinating but unnecessary for a tighter plot.  But even as good as that book is, it pales in comparison to the impossibly quotable, no extra scene involved approach the film takes.

Silver: Musicals usually get the fuzzy end of the lollipop when it comes to screenplay awards, and I'm hardly innocent of such things.  Which is why I think it's important to point out when one lands beautifully-Cabaret expands the world beyond the stage version (particularly in the "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" scene) to scary effect, giving us a true story next to the beautiful music.

Bronze: One of the very few times that Jan Troell's epic pairing is going to get mentioned here (despite a mountain of nominations), The New Land takes the original Emigrants (much more claustrophobic than the original picture) and turns it into an expansive look at the way that life can speed by as decades roll by in instants.

Original Screenplay

Aguirre, the Wrath of God

The Candidate

Duck, You Sucker

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask

What's Up, Doc?

Gold: One of the funniest movies I've ever seen, What's, Up Doc? is a masterpiece, and somehow an original (even if it borrows pretty liberally from Bringing Up Baby...I had to make a judgment call on that one).  The Buck Henry screenplay has just constant one-liners, giving Barbra Streisand the best showcase of her acting talents with little music in sight.

Silver: Action films or westerns, like musicals above, don't usually get their due in a category like this, but Duck, You Sucker is so clever and so fun that I can't deny it.  You can feel the build of the film, the way that it keeps repeating certain motifs while still moving forward-it doesn't have the grandeur of his Dollars trilogy or Once Upon a Time in the West, but it makes up for it by having a genuinely strong friendship story at its center.

Bronze: The Academy would fall in love with Woody Allen a few years later, and the world would fall out of love with him in the decades that followed, but it's hard to watch his movies at their best and not appreciate the unique stamp he would give that no other filmmaker could ever duplicate.  Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask should probably be the title of Allen's Wikipedia Personal Life page for fans of his work, but it's a very funny film, particularly the bits involving John Carradine.

Sound Mixing

Cabaret

Duck, You Sucker

Frenzy

The Godfather

What's Up, Doc?

Gold: Come to the Cabaret...and take a listen.  Musicals are the bread-and-butter for Oscar in the sound categories, but I am not so easily bought.  You need to find ways to show off your music, giving us personality like an over-used cymbal to get above the chatter of a nightclub crowd or the way that each musical number in this feels tailor-made to the story it's trying to tell.

Silver: I mean, think of just the scene where Michael's first kill happens.  In The Godfather, details always matter, and you can hear the way that that Nino Rota score is creeping in alongside gun shots and clinking metal and breaking glass.  It's like one of Chopin's piano concertos...every note is in place.

Bronze: The detailing in What's Up, Doc? is what has made it stand the test of time.  The work that they do during those Looney Tunes-style action sequences (especially the famous chase sequence) work so well because we're hearing the bikes & cars whirling by.

Sound Editing

Duck, You Sucker

The Godfather

The Poseidon Adventure

Silent Running

Solaris

Gold: Silent Running is an odd movie, partially because it's not a particularly good one...but it looks like a good one, and it sure as hell sounds like a good one.  Before prestige SciFi films were really a thing, Silent Running gives us a movie with space station backgrounds, explosions, and robots to give us a very necessary realism in this environmental tale.

Silver: The Poseidon Adventure, on the other hand, does not do subtle, and god bless for it.  The gushing water, the way that we hear the constant presence of a sinking ship, and the fiery furnace of the final scenes all combine to be an audible treat, one that the audience will be gripping their armrests for throughout.

Bronze: And speaking of explosions, I'm not going to nominate a movie that is alternately called A Fistful of Dynamite for Best Picture and totally ignore it in the sound medals.  The best parts of this are the way that they combine action and comedy, and well, not to give away the ending, but sound plays a huge part in that equation.

Score

The Cowboys

Duck, You Sucker

The Godfather

Jeremiah Johnson

Sleuth

Gold: Okay, so this is where I confess that I don't always play by Oscar's rules.  The Academy famously declared that The Godfather was far too similar to a previous score Nino Rota had done (1958's Fortunella) to be nominated but I think that's a bit nit-picky (particularly given this is the same Academy that would eventually nominate the score to Wicked), and I'm not going to miss giving "The Godfather Waltz," one of the most perfect pieces of music ever written for the cinema, a gold medal.

Silver: That being said, Oscar chose really well (better than any of their other nominees) when it chose its replacement in Sleuth, as John Addison's jumpy, cheerfully mysterious score is an absolute pleasure to listen to, and is maybe the sort of score I wouldn't have come across had it not been for Oscar thinking outside the box.

Bronze: Put Ennio Morricone with Sergio Leone, and you've got magic.  The two would make some of the best pairings in the history of the movie western, and that's true with Duck, You Sucker, a more playful score than we usually get from these two, but Morricone's signature dramatic flourishes are still there in the film's expansive runtime.

Scoring

Cabaret

Jeremiah Johnson

Super Fly

Gold: I mean, if Cabaret is for most intents-and-purposes the last truly great traditional musical until the early 2000's (which, let's be honest, it pretty much is until Moulin Rouge! and Chicago come to town), you can't deny it a gold medal here.  The best parts of this are the way that it takes songs like "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" and "If You Could See Her" and uses the audience itself as a way to react to the lyrics (something usually not possible outside of a stage show).

Silver: Film scoring in the 1970's & 1980's had to take on a different look with less-and-less musicals to use as inspiration, and so as I approach these decades in these My Ballots, you're going to come across movies like Super Fly, which used a largely original song score to give us a sense of the film itself, with us feeling like we have actually stumbled into 1970's Harlem, and can hear music playing from open windows.

Bronze: A backhanded compliment, admittedly, but the score to Jeremiah Johnson and the dulcet sounds of Tim McIntire's voice throughout imply a much better movie than what we actually get.  Jeremiah Johnson is one of those films I have to continually remind myself I didn't like...mostly because the tech elements, and particularly the music, is so fine.

Original Song

"The Ballad of Jeremiah Johnson," Jeremiah Johnson

"The Harder They Come," The Harder They Come

"Mein Herr," Cabaret

"Money, Money," Cabaret

"Superfly," Super Fly

Gold: It is insane to me that Oscar made a list of the best songs of 1972, and skipped all five of these songs (and I even like the song they picked!).  The battles I had with myself to have to skip a song as good as "Across 110th Street" on this list...and they pick "Strange are the Ways of Love"...I just can't.  In terms of the win, it's going to be one of the two original numbers from Cabaret, in this case "Mein Herr," a great character introductory piece, and one of the best "new" songs in a musical Hollywood ever put together.

Silver: The jazzy R&B tune of "Superfly" is insanely infectious (again, a year after Isaac Hayes "Theme to Shaft" won an Oscar, there should've been room for another classic blaxploitation crime drama), and lyrically really cool, with Curtis Mayfield cooing out lines like "the man of the hour has an air of great power, the dudes have envied him for so long."

Bronze: The staging on "Money, Money" is what breaks the tie against the other two songs (in my opinion this is my biggest upgrade on Oscar-all of these feel very worthy of medals)-the way that we get to see Joel & Liza play off each other, highlighting the similarities in their performances which we need to make the ending land is why it feels the worthiest.

Dance Direction

1776

Cabaret

Man of La Mancha

Gold: As I said above, we will retire the category of Dance Direction after 1972, only having it from the mid-1930's through the early-1970's, and part of the reason I ended it here was because they just stopped making movies as sensational as Cabaret after a while.  The way that we have the Kit Kat Klub dancers, combining an exotic layer to their "unchoreographed" routines, adds so much.  Also love Joel & Liza's spectacular toe-tapping in "Money, Money."

Silver: Man of La Mancha is honestly more of a traditional musical than Cabaret, with bigger production numbers and fun dance routines.  The standout for me is "I, Don Quixote," where Peter O'Toole & James Coco (hardly what you'd think of as natural hoofers) both do a choreographed gallup with a horse.

Bronze: Finishing this off is 1776, something of a cheat here (let's be honest-this is hardly a "dancer's" musical), but there are simple romantic moments like "He Plays the Violin" where we get a beautiful waltz (and yes, I considered putting The Godfather in just for the waltz alone, but thought that was indulgent) along some later in the film dances at Constitution Hall that fill up the movie with patriotism.

Art Direction

Cabaret

The Godfather

The Poseidon Adventure

Silent Running

What's Up, Doc?

Gold: It's not often in this article you see a film other than The Godfather or Cabaret come out on top, but credit where it's due-the remarkable staging in The Poseidon Adventure is hard to deny.  The meticulous details like the way that it feels like we've stumbled into the Queen Mary (in some cases, we actually have), particularly as the ship turns upside down gives us such a specific aesthetic to play with as the film continues.

Silver: That said, I'm not going to ignore The Godfather.  The detailing in some of the scenes here are really special.  Look at the over-the-top luxury of the Corleones' house, with him trying to display the wealth he came to America to capture, or the recreations of New York restaurants and streets that feel like you've stumbled exactly into another time & place.

Bronze: And I'm not going to ignore Cabaret either.  Here it's less about decadence or luxury, and more about quantity-the way that we see every little knickknack out at Sally's apartment, or the claustrophobic feeling of the Kit Kat Klub, where the audience is almost spilling onto the stage it's so crowded with tables and chairs

Cinematography

Cabaret

Duck, You Sucker

The Godfather

Jeremiah Johnson

The New Land

Gold: The golden hues of The Godfather are what makes it so timeless (and Coppola borrowed from himself when he brought them to the sequels).  It feels like we're looking at an oil painting throughout, the framing and coloring washed with age as we are transported back to a different era, perhaps one that only exists in memory.

Silver: The glitzy glamour of Cabaret with us covered in clouds and night life lights keeps you drowned in stardust, always wanting to kick back, relax, and forget your troubles...and the fact that the cinematography team only had two scenes ("Tomorrow Belongs to Me" and the wedding sequence) feel like it's truly seeing something approaching realism shows how intentional this approach becomes.

Bronze: So here's where Oscar & I are kindred spirits, because we are both such a fool for a beautifully shot, in-nature film like Jeremiah Johnson, which in every sequence looks and acts like we're actually going into the frontier and carving up the west alongside Robert Redford.

Costume

Cabaret

Duck, You Sucker

The Godfather

Jeremiah Johnson

What's Up, Doc?

Gold: I talked about this with Art Direction, but part of the tale of The Godfather is that they are trying to create an aura, a "new money" sheen with old-world respectability (it's in fact the plot of all three movies).  That comes across in the decadence of the tailoring (perfectly-draped suits, showing off how sexy a 1972-era James Caan & Al Pacino are), and it makes people who don't fit in (like Diane Keaton's Kay with her more established, less-to-prove red dress) feel all the more out-of-place.

Silver: Everything that Liza wears as Sally is fascinating, because it is always toeing the line between chic and ridiculous.  Sometimes, when she's singing (in that black bowler hat and plunging neckline black dress), everything works fabulously.  But more often it's too much, emulating a glamour that she can't master.  Costume design should be about pretty costumes, yes, but they should also be about building a character and Charlotte Flemming's work in Cabaret achieves that.

Bronze: It only brings me a touch of pleasure that I (completely unintentionally) gave Peter Bogdonavich a sole nomination in this article, while his under-sung ex-wife Polly Platt gets two.  But Platt's work in What's Up, Doc? deserves two nominations-look at the gorgeous way that she clothes Barbra Streisand in every scene, that fabulous plaid newsboy cap and a string of effortlessly glamorous shirts, coats, & one big dress.  This is a character who is already cool-she doesn't spend time being fashionable, she just is.

Film Editing

Cabaret

Deliverance

Duck, You Sucker

The Godfather

The Poseidon Adventure

Gold: The category that is most synonymous with Best Picture, and given that I have given The Godfather a grand total of 18 nominations (well, I haven't but I will when you get to the next paragraph), more than any other movie we've done in 31 profiles for the My Ballot...of course it's winning this award.  But it deserves it-the Michael kill scene, Sonny getting shot at from the toll booth, the scene where James Caan kicks his brother-in-law...every moment in this movie feels like it's cut with sophistication and intention.

Silver: And yes, I'm going with the cliche once more of Cabaret getting the silver to The Godfather's gold.  The ingenious framing device of using the audience against the musical numbers is really something-I loved the way that they cut together the splashes of this throughout each of the Kit Kat Klub musical numbers, and the way that what is happening in the film is so effectively juxtaposed to the songs at-hand.

Bronze: But in proof that I can truly see beyond just my favorites for this category, we're going to do something rare and pick a film that was nominated in no other categories for the bronze.  Deliverance is a movie about anticipation, throughout the film it feels like we're seeing ahead, always thinking ahead, and it makes the one scene (you know the scene) that is truly in-the-moment and not trying to get to what will happen next all the more terrifying.

Makeup & Hairstyling

Cabaret

Duck, You Sucker

The Godfather

Jeremiah Johnson

Roma

Gold: I mean, it inspired a generation of Halloween costumes for a reason.  The gaudy heavy eye shadow, plastered mascara, and coiffed wigs of Cabaret are something else.  The best part of this is the way that you rarely see most of the characters (save for Sally) outside of this makeup, with it feeling almost tattooed onto Joel Grey's Emcee.

Silver: If you ever doubt how effective the makeup work in The Godfather (done by one of the, well, godfathers of that genre Dick Smith) is in this picture, watch this movie back-to-back with Last Tango in Paris (which I did in college), and you'll notice how shockingly young Brando still looks in the latter film, and suddenly realize how advanced the old age makeup was in what he did as Vito Corleone.

Bronze: The unrecognizable furry mountain man look of Rod Steiger (not to be confused with the unrecognizable furry mountain man look of Robert Redford) is paired with the faded boy band haircut of James Coburn in Duck, You Sucker, just getting this one ahead of Jeremiah Johnson for the bronze.

Visual Effects

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes

Duck, You Sucker

The Poseidon Adventure

Silent Running

Solaris

Gold: The only category field of the entire article that nominated neither The Godfather nor Cabaret (and yes, I did consider The Godfather)!  When it comes to special effects, I tend to like beautiful more than large special effects, and coming just a few years off of the Grand Teton of pre-1975 Visual Effects movies (2001: A Space Odyssey), Douglas Trumbull's sophisticated (and shockingly low in budget) Silent Running creates modern-looking, realistic space effects that are just impossible to ignore.

Silver: That being said, I do have a sense of fun, and surely you can't go wrong with the big-wave pleasures of The Poseidon Adventure.  The practical effects on display during the giant wave sequences, as well as the impressive stunt work needed for some of the water flooding moments are just extraordinary-you see why this film set off a trend.

Bronze: We're going to end this article with a movie that, by-and-large, most people consider one of the greatest of 1972 that I liked, but don't know if I understood properly.  But what I did understand of Solaris was its beauty, clearly inspiring the hyper-realism that would take place in movies like Gravity, Passengers, & Interstellar even decades later.

Other My Oscar Ballots: 1931, 1948, 1957, 1981, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024