Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 1970

The Contenders:

Five Easy Pieces
Joe
Love Story
My Night at Maud’s
Patton (winner)

Oscar Got It Wrong: Best Actor 1970

The Contenders:

Jack Nicholson: Five Easy Pieces
James Earl Jones: The Great White Hope
Melvyn Douglas: I Never Sang for My Father
Ryan O’Neal: Love Story
George C. Scott: Patton (winner)

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1970

The Contenders:

Airport
Five Easy Pieces
Love Story
M*A*S*H
Patton (winner)

Rebel Without a Clue

Film: Five Easy Pieces
Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

If you swing a dead cat, you’ll hit a film about someone rebelling. Often, this rebellion comes in the form of someone trying for something more than bad luck has given them, youth in revolt against the lower-middle class. So what does it look like when someone revolts against an upper class, classical background? The result is Five Easy Pieces.

Robert Eroica “Bobby” Dupea (Jack Nicholson) works on an oil rig in Texas with his trailer park buddy Elton (Billy Green Bush). He drinks beer, goes bowling, and sometimes cheats on his girlfriend Rayette Dipesto (Karen Black), a waitress. For Bobby, this is life. He moves from job to job and woman to woman, looking for something that is never really there. In fact, there’s no evidence that Bobby even knows what he’s looking for or that he’ll be able to realize it when and if he finds it.