INTERVIEW: Richard Roeper remembers Oscar gold on HDNet Movies
Photo: Richard Roeper, a Chicago-based movie critic, hosts And the Oscar Goes to … Presented by Richard Roeper on HDNet Movies. Photo courtesy of HDNet Movies / Provided by publicity department with permission.
Richard Roeper, one of the most successful movie critics of all time, has returned to HDNet Movies for And the Oscar Goes to … Presented by Richard Roeper, a monthlong exploration of past Academy Award winners. The marathon, which runs 24/7 on the network, features such illustrious titles as The Untouchables, Apocalypse Now, Gods and Monsters, A Passage to India, Witness and Yentl, among many others.
Roeper introduces each film, offering interesting behind-the-scenes details and trivia information on the history of the selected movies. Of course, the film festival is perfectly timed to welcome this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, which will see films like Roma facing off against The Favourite and A Star Is Born.
“It’s actually a lot of fun,” Roeper said in a recent phone interview. “Every one of the movies that we’re going to be presenting is an Academy Award winner. It might not be a Best Picture winner, but it might have won for one of the performances, for the cinematography. The cool thing is people will obviously know titles like No Country for Old Men and City Slickers, but we’re also going to be showing movies such as Reversal of Fortune, for example, where Jeremy Irons won the Academy Award based on a real-life scandal. I’m not sure everybody remembers that movie.”
Another highlight that Roeper is excited for is Sling Blade, the drama that won Billy Bob Thornton a screenplay award. That film airs Thursday, Feb. 7 at 9 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 17 at 12:15 a.m.
“So the neat thing is before showing the movies I get to tell a few stories about the making of the film,” he said. “If it’s more recent, have I had any interactions with people involved in the film? I’ll tell some behind-the-scene anecdotes, so kind of a neat way for me to revisit these films and to introduce them in some cases to a new audience.”
When HDNet Movies’ team selected the films, Roeper, whose movie watching and movie knowledge are top notch, was relied upon to brush up on these classic titles. Luckily, he had seen each and every one of them, but some of them he hadn’t caught in years.
“So, for example, going back and watching Marty where Ernest Borgnine won the Academy Award,” Roeper said. “It’s a really interesting film, too, because it started off as a television special. They used to do a lot of almost live theater on TV back in the day, and then it was turned into a movie. To watch that and to see just beautiful writing — Paddy Chayefsky’s screenplay, talk about unparalleled. Man, he wrote so many great films, all the way up to Network and things like that, but to go back and watch something like that, that was really cool. That’s the kind of homework I love.”
Some of the comedies on the list also intrigued Roeper, who writes for The Chicago Sun-Times and has appeared regularly on television, including a long-running show with Roger Ebert. It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, starring just about everyone in Hollywood at the time, made the final list. Ditto for City Slickers, which secured Jack Palance that rarest of rare accolades: an Oscar for a comedic role.
“Comedies are usually overlooked when it comes to the Oscars,” Roeper said. “So it’s kind of neat to also spotlight some of these great comedies, which in some cases hold up even better than dramas. Sometimes a drama that was great was very much of the period that it was made in, whereas a lot of comedy is universal, the same reason why the Marx brothers are still funny after a century.”
The movie critic wrote all of his introductions for the TV special, which is par the course for his television contributions. He would receive more titles each day that HDNet Movies was able to secure the rights. For a film like Apocalypse Now, it didn’t take long for him to find stories to tell.
“In some cases, it’s pretty easy,” he said. “If I’m writing about Apocalypse Now, I’ve probably seen it 10 times, and I know a lot of the stories behind it. Then I’ll just write it up. In most cases, I’ll write up a script, in some cases just talking points to remind myself when we’re shooting it what I want to say, but everything I say is my own words. It’s always been a rule of mine actually. Unless it’s a straight read for some sort of television news program, I always write my own stuff.”
HDNet Movies’ marathon is also a look at a bygone era when the Academy Awards still was a top cultural statement, commenting on everything from cinema to fashion to celebrity culture. All of these elements are still present and accounted for, but the ceremony has dropped in overall TV viewers over the past few years. Some films win Best Picture and never receive much business at the box office.
“Like everything else, because there are so many other options, the number of sheer people watching, the literal numbers are never going to be what they were,” Roeper said. “But it’s still usually in the top 10 in terms of TV programs for the year, right up there just behind the Super Bowl and things like that. It still is a big deal, but yeah back in the day that was it. The Oscars were also, other than maybe The Tonight Show, it was one of the few opportunities people had to see these stars when they weren’t in movies. Just to see Jack Lemmon or Jimmy Stewart or Elizabeth Taylor was really exciting for the home audience. Now between social media and 8 million talk shows, we see a lot of them.”
He pointed out that the telecast can still work wonders for smaller films, such as Roma, which had a limited theatrical release and is streaming on Netflix (an Academy first).
“Roma is going to get a whole new audience now that it has 10 Oscar nominations,” he said. “Can You Ever Forgive Me? — because of Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant getting nominations, a movie like that could probably double its box office, but for films that are already huge hits, it’s more of a prestige thing to say they’re nominated. Black Panther — everybody’s already seen it.”
For Roeper, 2018 was a good year for movies, but he’s frequently impressed with the diverse and strong offerings in the world of cinema.
“Nobody ever says it was a bad year for books,” he said with a laugh. “There are so many out there in terms of film, but when I was putting together my 10 best list, there were probably 20 films that were pretty much the equal of my top 10. You have to narrow it down.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
And the Oscar Goes to … Presented by Richard Roeper is a monthlong movie marathon on HDNet Movies. Click here for more information and the schedule.
