Schurmy Classics: 1977

New York, New York

Welcome to Schurmy Classics, a leaner, stripped down version of the Schurmys. For those of you unfamiliar with the Schumys they are the most important movie awards known to man that exist solely on Google Docs. You can find them here, here and even here. Warning, attempting to read the full text of a Schurmy Award document will cause a rift in space-time resulting in an you experiencing an unfathomable skip forward in time losing precious days from your existence. You should probably go for it though, you weren't going to do anything with that time anyways. This post will still be here when you get back, Google has assured me it will still be up after their AI rises up and takes over the world.

So, Schurmy Classics. This will comprise solely of the major awards from the full Schurmys with the original and adapted screenplays into a sole Best Screenplay category. This is because I am watching far fewer movie for this than I do over the course of the full year I take to bring the Schurmys to the world. The full list of movies watched is available on my Letterboxd here. And now, without further ado, presenting the Schurmy Awards for the best in film from 1977.

*thunderous applause*

ANNOUNCER: Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the first ever edition of Schurmy Classics bringing you the best in film from 1977. And now our host (the host in an unnamed shock comedian)

-Host walks out in white disco getup exactly like Travolta wears in Saturday Night Fever as "Stayin' Alive" plays. He carries a cane and does a Chaplin walk. When he reached the microphone he looks up as a spotlight illuminates his face. He has a Groucho Marx mustache drawn on and pulls out a giant cigar.

HOST: (in an Elvis voice) Thank you, thank you very much. Welcome everybody to the Schurmy awards. When they told me I was supposed to host an awards show for movies released 40 years ago I told my agent to go fuck them with a giant stick. Turns out, I don't have an agent and figured this gig would pay me something so I can go buy more blow so I pulled out my phone, googled "who died in 1977" and lo and behold here I am honouring the fucking dead. Let's see who else I can honour.

AUDIENCE: thunderous booing

HOST: Fine, fine. I had a great joke about Neil Young crashing Lynyrd Skynyrd's plane and now you fucks don't get to hear it.

AUDIENCE: booing intensifies

HOST: So, Star Wars. Jedis and Siths and Furries, daddy issues and Carrie Fisher in a gold bikini. Wowzers. You better believe I jacked off to that scene.

AUDIENCE: chanting "Shut Up"

HOST: While I'm below the belt, literally, did you hear about Uranus. It's so big it's got rings. Boom, roasted.

AUDIENCE: starts throwing rotten tomatoes

HOST: (dodges fruit) Nice throw you fruits. Hah, get it. Fruits throwing fruit. Speaking of fruits, that Harvey Milk got elected in San Francisco. Gayest place on...

AUDIENCE: rushes stage and proceeds to tear host limb from limb spilling his disemboweled guts everywhere.

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, please control yourselves. Dawn of the Dead is from 1978.

AUDIENCE: politely puts the host's corpse together and back returns to their seats

ANNOUNCER: All our scheduled presenters have fled the green room after the host's monologue so it falls upon Kyle Schurmann to publically stand by all of his picks.

KYLE: Well first of all, let's just do away with this formatting. This isn't working at all.

Sorcerer

That's better. Now we can actually get on with the awards. So as that terrible "comedian" alluded to earlier, yes 1977 is the year the first Star Wars film was released launching a cultural juggernaut the likes of which had never been seen before (and quite frankly, haven't been seen since, Star Wars is still the biggest franchise of all time). It is also the year Woody Allen both deconstructed and perfected the romantic comedy with Annie Hall, David Lynch debuted with the confusing, terrifying classic Eraserhead, Spielberg played with aliens for the first time, John Travolta became a superstar by dancing to the Bee Gees, the Hanson Brothers became cult icons, and Martin Scorsese taught Robert De Niro about jazz and a whole bunch of other movies happened. There was even The Spy Who Loved Me, Roger Moore's best outing as James Bond! Spoiler: It isn't nominated for anything. Let's get into the awards proper now with the biggest slam dunk in Schurmy history, best original score of 1977.

Best Original Score:

Oscar Winner - Star Wars - John Williams

My Nominees:

1. The Ascent - Alfred Schnittke
2. Close Encounters of the Third Kind - John Williams
3. Sorcerer - Tangerine Dream
4. Star Wars - John Williams
5. Suspiria - Dario Argento and Goblin

No offense to the four other nominees here but the Star Wars score is the most iconic score of all time. It's the easy answer for favourite score of all time. The main title piece for the opening crawl is so good it gets me excited even when it appears in front of the prequels. I don't even need to explain this one anymore, its the fucking Star Wars score.

Winner - Star Wars - John Williams

Best Cinematography:

Oscar Winner - Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Vilmos Zsigmond

My Nominees:

1. The Ascent - Vladimir Chukhnov and Pavel Lebeshev
2. Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Vilmos Zsigmond
3. New York, New York - Laszlo Kovacs
4. Sorcerer - John M Stephens and Dick Bush
5. Suspiria - Luciano Tovoli

Five different approaches to cinematography represented with these nominees. The Ascent is a harsh, unforgiving black and white look at the horrors of war which achieves great success using the overwhelming whiteness of its snowy landscape. Close Encounters represents the classic Spielbergian filmmaking sense of grandeur and wonder creating a sense of awe with its alien appearances. New York, New York fills out the template of hyper-real musical realism crafting gorgeous colours to match the heightened emotions of the story. Sorcerer takes a largely down-to-earth gritty approach, letting the tension of the story sell itself, only stepping in for a flashy moment or two when needed but overall keeping a clear, focused look on the grime and danger of the story. Suspiria goes all out with its approach to colour, crafting a horror palate of reds that absolutely dominate the film. Five great looks, but the winner has to be Vilmos Zsigmond.

Winner - Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Vilmos Zsigmond

Best Screenplay:

Oscar Winners - Annie Hall - Original / Julia - Adapted

My Nominees:

1. 3 Women - Robert Altman
2. Annie Hall - Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman
3. Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Steven Spielberg
4. Stroszek - Werner Herzog
5. That Obscure Object of Desire - Luis Bunuel and Jean-Claude Carrier

No offense to Altman, Spielberg, Herzog, Bunuel and Carrier but Annie Hall is probably Woody Allen's best script and in one of the best scripts of all time. Every scene is a classic. The way the movie fits together is masterful. A thorough deconstruction of the classic romantic comedy. Annie Hall is your winner.

Winner - Annie Hall - Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman

The Ascent

I'm just going to throw this out there. Watch The Ascent guys. Track it down and watch it. It's not the best movie of the year (spoiler) but it's close (and the movie of the year is magnitudes more famous). Everything in the back half of this movie is incredibly powerful. It manages to showcase the atrocities of war using a much smaller scale than other, equally effective, movies. Go find The Ascent and watch it. Anyways, onto the acting awards.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role:

Oscar Winner - Vanessa Redgrave - Julia

My Nominees:

1. Joan Bennett - Suspiria
2. Carole Bouquet - That Obscure Object of Desire
3. Quinn Cummings - The Goodbye Girl
4. Melinda Dillon - Close Encounters of the Third Kind
5. Vanessa Redgrave - Julia

Five fantastic performances starting off this run of acting awards. Joan Bennett's stern instructor with a dark secret is probably the only actually good performance in Suspiria and she is undeniably great. Carole Bouquet is one of the actresses playing Conchita and is clearly the standout ahead of Angela Molina making her scenes feel more "important" with her performance. Quinn Cummings nails precocious child. Melinda Dillon is utterly phenomenal as a distressed mother searching for her child after alien contact, displaying not only the pull of the search for her son, but the bond with fellow alien hunter Richard Dreyfuss. Vanessa Redgrave fully deserved her Oscar as the titular Julia, showcasing an incredible moralistic determination in her resistance to the Nazi presence.

My Winner - Melinda Dillon - Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Best Actor in a Supporting Role:

Oscar Winner - Jason Robards - Julia

My Nominees:

1. Harrison Ford - Star Wars
2. Alec Guinness - Star Wars
3. Tony Roberts - Annie Hall
4. Anatoli Solonitsyn - The Ascent
5. Paul Stewart - Opening Night

Is there a more iconic performance from 1977 than Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi? (A: Yes, see the next section). Now I'm cheating here by eliminating nearly everybody else from Star Wars because they appear in the sequels (yes, Obi-Wan's ghost briefly appears, shut up). The absolute best mysterious mentor performance of all time.

My Winner - Alec Guinness - Star Wars

Best Actress in a Leading Role:

Oscar Winner - Diane Keaton - Annie Hall

My Nominees:

1. Shelley Duvall - 3 Women
2. Diane Keaton - Annie Hall
3. Liza Minnelli - New York, New York
4. Gena Rowlands - Opening Night
5. Sissy Spacek - 3 Women

The most iconic performance in 1977 is Diane Keaton in Annie Hall. No, it's not as quite as cultural significant as Obi-Wan because Star Wars is the sort of juggernaut that nothing else is but Keaton;s performance is a touchstone for basically every leading actress in a romantic comedy of the last 40 years.

My Winner - Diane Keaton - Annie Hall

Best Actor in a Leading Role:

Oscar Winner - Richard Dreyfuss - The Goodbye Girl

My Nominees:

1. Woody Allen - Annie Hall
2. Richard Dreyfuss - Close Encounters of the Third Kind
3. Richard Dreyfuss - The Goodbye Girl
4. Boris Plotnikov - The Ascent
5. Bruno S - Stroszek

Richard Dreyfuss had a hell of a 1977. Close Encounters by itself is a great performance and something to be proud of as the alien obsessed man who drives his family away in his quest for contact while retaining audience sympathy. He also had The Goodbye Girl which not only won him an Oscar, it's also winning him a Schurmy.

My Winner - Richard Dreyfuss - The Goodbye Girl

Stroszek

Before I get into best director I want to acknowledge that yes, that is an image of a man lighting his own fart on fire and yes, it is from a Werner Herzog film.

Best Director:

Oscar Winner - Woody Allen - Annie Hall

My Nominees:

1. Woody Allen - Annie Hall
2. George Lucas - Star Wars
3. David Lynch - Eraserhead
4. Larisa Shepitko - The Ascent
5. Steven Spielberg - Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Five legends of American film, icons of the last 40+ years. Allen, Lucas, Lynch, Spielberg. And one Russian woman who would sadly pass away before getting to follow up her masterpiece. Woody Allen's experiments with form propelled Annie Hall nearly to the top of my favourite films of all time list and give him the win here.

My Winner - Woody Allen - Annie Hall

Best Picture:

Oscar Winner - Annie Hall

My Nominees:

1. Annie Hall
2. The Ascent
3. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
4. Star Wars
5. Stroszek

Woody Allen's best film is also the best film of 1977. I'd like to take a second to appreciate the job the Academy did this year. In my opinion they nailed Picture, Director, Lead Actor, Lead Actress, Original Screenplay, Cinematography and Score. That's absolutely fantastic and completely unexpected. Props to the Academy guys. I absolutely do not expect this kind of success for them ever again. The Ascent is a masterpiece as I already wrote above. Close Encounters is one of Spielberg's best and the last half hour is sublime. Star Wars is Star Wars. Stroszek is Werner Herzog's darkly hilarious and moving takedown of the American Dream that ends with a dancing chicken. All incredible movies but none as great as Annie Hall.

My Winner - Annie Hall