Cybill Shepherd turns 63 today. Although she's probably best known for the 1980s TV series Moonlighting, which launched Bruce Willis to stardom, her best work was probably her first movie, The Last Picture Show, a great movie among many great movies of the early 1970s.
In fact, I'd argue that the first half of the 1970s is the greatest era for American movies. Here are some of the movies nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture from 1970 to 1974, with the winners identified with an asterisk:
Patton *
Five Easy Pieces
MASH
The French Connection*
A Clockwork Orange
The Last Picture Show
The Godfather*
Cabaret
Deliverance
The Sting*
American Graffiti
The Exorcist
The Godfather II*
Lenny
The Conversation
Chinatown
I mean, seriously... probably the greatest war movie ever (Patton), undoubtedly the greatest gangster movies (the two Godfathers), probably the best musical (Cabaret), probably the best detective murder mystery (actually, there are three who you could name... French Connection, The Conversation and Chinatown), probably the best horror movie ever (The Exorcist)... all in the space of five years.
Think about it... MASH, Cabaret and Chinatown were losers for Best Picture during these years. Wow!
And the actors working at their peaks during these years... George C. Scott, Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman.
And the directors... Robert Altman, Stanley Kubrick, Francis Ford Coppola, Bob Fosse.
A great great period for what is probably the main American art form of the 20th Century.
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