carney better than pacino (godfather II) and nicholson (chinatown)??

Like other posts have pointed out, that was a very competitive year at the Oscar's, especially in the race for Best Actor. I think all of the nominees delivered spectacular performances, but having just watched HARRY & TONTO, I am now convinced that I, too, under-estimated how good this film is, and how it still holds its own after more than 3 decades.

If I watched GODFATHER II, CHINATOWN, and HARRY & TONTO in my teens or 20's, there would have been no way I'd consider HARRY & TONTO just as good as the others - the story is not written for the masses, and I put it along the lines of a SIDEWAYS equivalent for the 1970's. ART CARNEY was spectacular, but the story was not about a young male lead with good looks - what added to Pacino and Nicholson's performances is that they were at their prime. Make no mistake, Pacino & Nicholson were great in their nominated roles, and had either of them won Best Actor, it would not have generated as much debate... To me, ART CARNEY's performance in HARRY & TONTO was in the league of a SPENCER TRACY at his finest. Although Tracy is not as well remembered today as the likes of James Stewart, Cary Grant, or Gregory Peck, what he did best was to make the audience not even realize it was a performance. Tracy's talent was to make every role and delivery NOT like acting. I've only seen a few films starring Art Carney, and my other favorite would be THE LATE SHOW... while that was also a good performance, CARNEY managed to make me question whether Tracy would have been able to top his performance had he been alive to take on the role of Harry.

In any case, the best way to judge is to actually see the movie... no point screaming "blasphemy" otherwise.

In my opinion, if you want to cry about lame nominations and wins, nothing tops the completely undeserved win THE DEPARTED managed to get away with. Scorsese is a great director, and it's sad to see that he finally wins one for his worst film to date.

We're past Christmas and its still not been on, its not going to be on in the next week either in the huge amount of New Year films, maybe its an American only film, maybe UK audiences didn't agree with it to the extent that its never shown over here, or maybe it is so completly and utterly rubbish and didn't deserve any nominations, i've been trying everything possible to watch it but no shops/websites sell it (except for play.com on region 1 only), its never on tv even over Christmas and New Year & the library doesn't have it.

So what's your point? Because you can't find it for sale anywhere and it's never on TV where you live, that means it's "completely and utterly rubbish and didn't deserve any nominations"?

You know, hard as it may be to believe, "popular" doesn't always mean "good".

Bottom line, if you haven't seen "Harry & Tonto" your opinion is an uneducated one.


"Push the button, Max!"

I remember that year of movies distinctly. We forgot that Hackman was up for the Conversation. I actually saw that in a double feature with Chinatown in a movie in Rockville Centre. I can tell you Hackman and Carney were the best performers that year. Hackman hardly spoke a word. And Carney normally a comedy actor was a revelation. And both were all through the movie with little supporting cast. See every time Nicholson or Pacino come up for a award one cannot assume they are the only ones who deserve it. I have seen Nicholson do some campy work and the same with Pacino. Anybody see Cruising or And Justice for All or Author Author? Or Nicholson hamming it up in a Few Good Men or Man Trouble and Wolf? And even though they are great actors I would not call them the greatest. You folks must have never see Jimmy Cagney or Clark Gable, Richard Widmark or Pual Muni or even Paul Newman and Gene Hackman. I think Nicholson gets a lot of his mannerisms from Widmark. You would have to be blind not to see it.

example of what, do you mean?