Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1978

The Contenders:

Ingrid Bergman: Autumn Sonata
Jane Fonda: Coming Home (winner)
Geraldine Page: Interiors
Ellen Burstyn: Same Time, Next Year
Jill Clayburgh: An Unmarried Woman

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 1978

The Contenders:

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

Annual, Physical

Films: Same Time, Next Year
Format: DVD from NetFlix on The New Portable.

It’s been an odd, recurring thing with these movies that I’ve left to the end on the large Oscar list. So far, in almost every case, there’s been something in this movies that has been like biting on tinfoil for me. It’s as if I avoided certain movies instinctively while knowing virtually nothing about them. That certainly seems to be the case with Same Time, Next Year. I knew the premise of this going in, which is probably why I avoided it until now. Had I known before what I know now, I’d have still avoided it, but for different reasons.

The elevator pitch for this movie is that two people, George (Alan Alda) and Doris (Ellen Burstyn) have a chance meeting at a California hotel in the 1950s. Despite being married to other people, they spend a night of furious passion with each other, and despite the guilt feelings the next morning, decide to meet at the same place the following year. Essentially, they are unfaithful to their spouses with each other for a single weekend every year.