Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 1978

The Contenders:

Bloodbrothers
California Suite
Heaven Can Wait
Midnight Express (winner)
Same Time, Next Year

You Always Hate the Ones You Love

Film: Bloodbrothers
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

I try very hard not to be judgmental about the movies that I review on this site. I genuinely try to give every movie a fair shot. I knew Bloodbrothers was going to be an issue within the first couple of minutes. Bloodbrothers is about a family of aggressively Italian Americans. For the record, I am not Italian. My wife’s family is not Italian either. Additionally, my dad was a white-collar guy and it was understood that all of his kids were going to go to college. There’s a lot here that I have trouble relating to. That’s not the issue here, though.

It’s not the blue collar, electrician jobs on construction sites, the battle between father and son when the son wants something more than working construction, or the Italian-American vibe of pretty much everyone in the film. It’s the over-emotional nature of everyone involved. Everything in Bloodbrothers screams of parody to me—people aren’t really like this, are they? Is this stereotype taken to the extreme, or are Italian families really so shouty all of the time about everything? It’s such an oppressive environment; I was constantly uncomfortable.