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Movie Quote of the Day – Kramer vs. Kramer, 1979 (dir. Robert Benton)
Billy Kramer: Daddy?
Ted Kramer: Yeah?
Billy Kramer: I’m sorry.
Ted Kramer: I’m sorry too. I want you to go to sleep because it’s really late.
Billy Kramer: Daddy?
Ted Kramer: Now what is it?
Billy Kramer: Are you going away?
Ted Kramer: No. I’m staying here with you. You can’t get rid of me that easy.
Billy Kramer: That’s why Mommy left, isn’t it? Because I was bad?
Ted Kramer: Is that what you think? No. No, that’s not it, Billy. Your mom loves you very much and the reason she left doesn’t have anything to do with you. I don’t know if this will make sense, but I’ll try to explain it, okay? I think the reason why Mommy left was because for a long time I kept trying to make her be a certain kind of person, Billy. A certain kind of wife that I thought she was supposed to be. And she just wasn’t like that. She was. . .she just wasn’t like that. And now that I think about it, I think that she tried for so long to make me happy and when she couldn’t, she tried to talk to me about it, see? But I wasn’t listening because I was too busy, too wrapped up just thinking about myself. And I thought that anytime I was happy, that that meant that she was happy. But I think underneath she was very sad. Mommy stayed here longer than she wanted to, I think, because she loves you so much. And the reason why Mommy couldn’t stay anymore was because she couldn’t stand me, Billy. She didn’t leave because of you. She left because of me. [beat] Go to sleep now because it’s really late, okay?
Billy Kramer: Good night.
Ted Kramer: Sleep tight.
Billy Kramer: Don’t let the bedbugs bite.
Ted Kramer: See you in the morning light.
Billy Kramer: Daddy?
Ted Kramer: Yeah?
Billy Kramer: I love you.
Ted Kramer: I love you too.
82 Years of Oscar, 10 Favorites and 5 Films I Could Have Done Without
So I recently completed one of my life goals: watching every single film that won the Academy Award for Best Picture. I would say it took me 24 years, because that’s how old I am and the Academy Awards have been my favorite hobby as long as I can remember. However, it was in the last six weeks or so that I’ve been really hitting the list hard because I realized I only had twenty left and that seemed like a very doable task. All but two of these films are available on DVD. Sadly, one of my Top Ten Winners isn’t. You can, however, get it on VHS and find it on YouTube if you’re wily. It’s been a wonderful experience watching all 82 films. Most are really quite wonderful, others are so-so and a handful I thought were downright boring. My next goal is to watch all of the films that were nominated for Best Picture. There are 474 films that have been nominated and I’ve seen 257 of those films already, which only leaves 217. I’m figuring on some of the earlier films to be a little hard to come by and I also plan on taking a few years to try to complete this goal. I’m sure I’ll write something about that when I do finish it! But now on to my favorite and least favorite Best Picture winners.
1967: The Year Cinema Changed Forever
I know there is at least one book on this subject and I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but thanks to TCM showing several movies from that year, I have to agree completely. What I mean by Cinema, is Hollywood and American Cinema, because a lot of how it changed was based on things French New Wave directors had already been doing for almost ten years.
One way to see this change is by looking at the five films that were nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars that year. Four of the films are harbingers of the new Hollywood. One is old guard and because of that in addition I want to talk about another film that, although nominated for four Oscars, was not up for Best Picture.
The five films up for Best Picture were Bonnie & Clyde, Doctor Dolittle, The Graduate, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner and In The Heat of the Night. The film sixth film I’m going to discuss is In Cold Blood.
the diary of a film history fanatic 