<p>I was flipping channels last night and came upon Love Story, which I hadn’t seen since its original release in 1970. I thought it was bad in 1970 and REALLY REALLY bad last night. After the movie was over, they said it was nominated for Best Picture, Ryan O’Neil was nominated for Best Actor and Ali McGraw for Best Actress. They were both dismal actors. The only thing the movie has going for it (besides some Harvard footage) is that Alil McGraw is pretty and Ryan O’Neil is very very pretty.</p>
<p>Is that as low as it gets, or can you think of a worse movie that received an Academy Award best picture nomination?</p>
<p>I saw Love Story for the first time when I was at home sick one day when I was in H.S. (saw it on TV). When my sister got home from school, I was crying like a baby…I loved it!! I thought it was so sad and romantic!</p>
<p>I’ve been meaning to rent it and watch it again with my daughter, but maybe it’s not so great if you aren’t a starry-eyed teenager sick with a fever… :)</p>
<p>Really? Both are such unlikable characters-esp. Jenny, who I was not sad to see go. Are we really supposed to believe that Oliver is smart enough to be at the top of this class at Harvard and Harvard law? And the dialogue…and “roughing” it for them in poverty is carrying Christmas trees to people’s cars and leading a very good boys’ choir? And WHY do they never wear coats (even pre-poverty)? In the Cambridge winter (it’s almost always winter) in sweaters and sports coats.</p>
<p>I can’t remember the movies that * won* Oscar let alone nominated- but I would say Forest Gump is up there with the movies that I would have walked out of, if I hadn’t been watching it with my H who was apparently enjoying it.</p>
<p>I think it could easily tie Love Story for mawkishness. Then again I haven’t seen Love Story since I was 12.
I thought Titanic was pretty bad too.</p>
<p>missypie: I’d seen it originally at the movies and hadn’t seen it again until about a month ago. It was on one of the cable channels, so I watched it. I remember liking it originally, but seeing it now-- I agree, it was really bad. The acting was horrendous (especially Ali McGraw), and it seemed very stagey to me. But, yeah, they were both real pretty. Oh, and yes, I was happy to see Jenny go, too. And how come she never seemed to be under medication? I never understood that. What exactly did she have?</p>
<p>She dies beautifully? Well, it helps to have a terminal illness that doesn’t cause you to lose weight or even grow pale. But she’s swearing like a sailor up to the end…is that supposed to be endearing?</p>
<p>Muffy
my younger daughter and her 8th grade class went to Ashland Or. to see the plays a few years ago.( Shakespeare festival)
On of the plays was Romeo and Juliet and I think the year they saw it, it was “modernized” with guns.
One of Ds friends apparently wasn’t familiar with the story- and after Juliet “shoots” herself- when it was very quiet in the theatre- exclaimed * She dies?* ! </p>
<p>Some movies are just too heavy with the foreshadowing.
When I saw the End of the Affair, and Julianne Moore had that little cough- you knew she was * doomed*</p>
<p>Love Story was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including (i) Best Music, Original Score - Francis Laim (winner), (ii) Best Actor in a Leading Role - Ryan O’Neal, (iii) Best Actor in a Supporting Role - John Marley, (iv) Best Actress in a Leading Role - Ali McGraw, (v) Best Director - Arthur Hiller, (vi) Best Picture and (vii) Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Erich Segal.</p>
<p>Best Picture went to Patton, Best Actor went to George C. Scott and Best Actress went to Glenda Jackson.</p>
<p>Love Story did win Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Motion Picture Actress - Drama, Best Motion Picture Director, Best Original Score and Best Screenplay. Ryan O’Neal and John Marley were Golden Globe losers.</p>
<p>I think it is an extremely lame move, at best, although a great tear-jerker.</p>
<p>Okay, I got curious and went to an Academy Award data base to answer my own question. While movies like the Rex Harrison’s Dr. Dolittle and Airport (1970, just like Love Story) belong on the wall of shame, here’s what has to be the WORSt movie nominated: Towering Inferno (1974). If you get a chance, watch it…it is howlingly bad (features OJ Simpson and every aging actor who was in need of a paycheck at the time.)</p>
<p>The book, which was highly touted at the time, is just as bad.</p>
<p>Love Story is the kind of really bad movie it’s fun to laugh at. “Love is never having to say you’re sorry.”</p>
<p>The Notebook goes in that category too. The production values are so bad you can see their breath (filming while cold) when it was supposed to be summer in Carolina. (Can’t remember N or S – sorry) Ugh.</p>
<p>My vote would go to Titanic. At least Love Story gave us Carol Burnett’s howlingly funny parody. WashMom and I always watch out for that little “movie cough” that foreshadows the dreaded “movie disease” that causes the untimely death of the attractive character who dies without any unseemly symptoms.</p>
<p>EDITED: The Towering Inferno was pretty bad, but it wasn’t one-tenth as pretentious as Titanic.</p>
<p>I’d take Titanic over Love Story, only because, when you get away from the insipid love story, the drama of the ship and passengers was pretty gripping (there were large sections in the second half that had nothing to do with the lovers, which were pretty good.)</p>
<p>I have to join EK in the anti-Gump camp, but I overall agree that Towering Inferno having been nominated is just unbelievable.</p>
<p>“Love is never having to say you’re sorry.”</p>
<p>Well…whether you liked or didn’t like the movie…this is ONE line that anyone from the early 70’s who saw (or even heard about) the flick or read the book remembers. There aren’t very many lines out there with “staying power”.</p>
<p>The movie was a great tear jerker. Certainly, it wasn’t high drama.</p>
<p>BTW…someone commented that Allie McGraw didn’t even lose any weight prior to dying. Well…look at the girl in the movie…if she had lost an ounce she would have disappeared.</p>
<p>I remember a parody in Mad Magazine, where the star of the movie is dying of “Beautiful Actress Disease”, and the doctors get more and more distressed as she grows more and more beautiful, meaning that the disease is getting worse.</p>
Oh, and yes, I was happy to see Jenny go, too. And how come she never seemed to be under medication? I never understood that. What exactly did she have?</p>
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