1979 is our "Year of the Month" and this post was way way too much fun to research. Before the main course of the Supporting Actress Smackdown (pushed to June 7th), let's marinate a little in the year that was.
original print ad for Kramer vs. Kramer (available on eBay)
Jackie Earle Haley, Dennis Quaid, Dennis Christopher, and Daniel Stern broke out via "Breaking Away"
BEST MOVIES ACCORDING TO...
Oscar: Kramer vs Kramer*, All That Jazz, Apocalypse Now, Breaking Away, and Norma Rae were the best pictures nominees but they also loved La Cage Aux Folles, The China Syndrome, Manhattan, Being There and The Black Stallion
Golden Globe: (drama) Kramer vs Kramer*, Apocalypse Now, The China Syndrome, Manhattan and Norma Rae (comedy) Breaking Away*, Being There, Hair, The Rose, and 10
Cannes: Apocalypse Now AND All That Jazz (Glenn discussed this odd consecutive Oscar-adjacent business)
Box Office: 1) Kramer vs. Kramer 2) The Amityville Horror 3) Rocky II 4) Apocalypse Now 5) Star Trek: The Motion Picture 6) Alien 7) "10" 8) The Jerk 9) Moonraker 10) The Muppet Movie
Gene Siskel: 1) Hair 2) Kramer vs Kramer 3) The Deer Hunter 4) Breaking Away 5) Manhattan 6) The Marriage of Maria Braun 7) Nosferatu 8) The Onion Field 9) Time After Time 10) The China Syndrome
Roger Ebert: 1) Apocalypse Now 2) Breaking Away 3) The Deer Hunter 4) The Marriage of Maria Braun 5) Hair 6) Saint Jack 7) Kramer vs Kramer 8) The China Syndrome 9) Nosferatu 10) "10"
List-Mania continues with music hits, debut characters, new toys, and adorable "born in '79" people & things after the jump...
Nathaniel's Favorites: Manhattan, All That Jazz, Apocalypse Now are my three favorites (and not just of that year but for an all time favorites list too) and The Muppet Movie is one of only two movies I remember seeing in the theater that year and loving as a kid (the other was something called The North Avenue Irregulars with Cloris Leachman). Maybe I saw more than two but I was little I don't remember. But to make a full top ten list, I'd need plentiful rewatches.
Important Careers Launched in 1979
Diane Lane in A Little Romance (even landed on the cover of Time)
Hayao Miyazaki with The Castle of Cagliostro (recently discussed in Tim's column)
Timothy Spall in Quadrophenia
Wallace Shawn ("Inconceivable!") in Manhattan, All That Jazz, and Starting Over
JoBeth Williams, future Poltergeist mom and Today's Reigning President of SAG, nude in Kramer vs. Kramer which "Mad Magazine" promptly lampooned
thanks to Retro Space for this flashback
TV Series That Debuted in '79
Hart to Hart, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Knots Landing, and Canada's You Can't Do That on Television. Plus two we just recently discussed: The Facts of Life and The Dukes of Hazzard
Comic Book Characters That Debuted in 1979
Kitty Pryde & Emma Frost 'The White Queen' (in the January 1980 issue of The Uncanny X-Men released in December '79), Lucius Fox (Batman), War Machine & Justin Hammer (Iron Man)... all of whom have since made it to the movies. Also The Black Cat (Spider-Man) who has not though Felicity Jones was originally intended to play her, as I understand, before Sony decided to rethink their Spider-Man plans altogether
Tony Winners of 1979
Musical: Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Play: The Elephant Man
(Both still immensely popular and frequently revived today)
New Best-Sellers That Would Quickly Become 1980s Movies
Sophie's Choice (William Styron), Birdy (William Wharton), The Dead Zone (Stephen King) and The Right Stuff (Tom Wolfe)
Top Ten Singles of '79 According to Billboard
- "My Sharona" - The Knack
- "Bad Girls" - Donna Summer
- "Le Freak" - Chic
- "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" - Rod Stewart
- "Reunited" - Peaches & Herb
- "I Will Survive" - Gloria Gaynor
- "Hot Stuff" - Donna Summer
- "YMCA" - Village People
- "Ring My Bell" - Anita Ward
- "Sad Eyes" - Robert John
Born in '79 Mixtape
P!nk, Aaliyah, Pete Wentz, Brandy, Adam Levine, and Norah Jones
Classic 1979 Albums
ABBA's "Voulez-Vous"
Pink Floyd's "The Wall"
Michael Jackon "Off the Wall"
The Clash "London Calling"
Fleetwood Mac "Tusk"
The B-52s "The B-52s"
Hot New Products
Trivial Pursuit the game, and The Sony Walkman which cost a fortune at $200 (reminder: average monthly rent in '79 was only $280 for Americans) and more...
MORE 1979 FLAVOR
Click on the photo to embiggen this random collection of magazine covers. How will 2036 people of the future know what was popular in 2015 the way we know what was popular in 1979 without the easy reference point of magazine covers? Tumblr & Personal Blogs & Big Websites are so daily and ephemeral, archives constantly vanishing with redesigns and relaunches
(I seriously can't get over Sam Elliott's pornstache. Or how young both Isabelle Huppert & Isabelle Adjani are on the cover of Paris Match! Or that People magazine ran an Olivia Newton-John on roller skates cover well before Xanadu arrived. While doing random google searches for covers from this year Robin Williams, Margaret Thatcher (of all people) and various Charlie's Angels were inescapable.)
BORN IN 1979
The Few The Proud The Oscar Nominees
Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl), Sarah Polley (Away From Her, Stories We Tell), Heath Ledger (R.I.P.)
Awesome Art House Auteurs
Sebastián Silva (The Maid, Nasty Baby), Jamie Travis (The Saddest Boy in the World, The Armoire)
More Directors
Lake Bell (In a World...), Neill Blomkamp (Chappie, District 9), Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars), Jon M Chu (Step Up 2 & 3)
Perfect Physical Specimens Created in Lab To Make Everyone Else Feel Ugly
Chris Pratt, Rosario Dawson, Nate Parker, Jesse Bradford, Morena Baccarin, Daniel Henney, Maggie Q, Adam Brody, Andrew W Walker, Mike Vogel, and many more from these other categories...
World Cinema
Sarah Bayet (Iran), Anders Danielsen Lie (Norway), Hani Furstenberg (Israel), Ludivine Sagnier (France), Doona Bae (Korea), Tang Wei (China), Zhang Ziyi (China), Alba Rohrwacher (Italy), Diego Luna (Mexico), Yehuda Levi (Israel), Lisa Loven Kongsli (Norway), Noomi Rapace (Sweden), Agnieszka Grochowska (Poland)
People Who Aren't Claustrophic
Lee Pace, Luke Evans
Bond Girls & Superheroes
Olga Kurylenko "Camille", Berenice Marlohe "Severine", James McAvoy "Professor X", Shawn Ashmore "Iceman", Brandon Routh "Superman," "Todd Ingram," & "The Atom"
Whatever Happened To...?
Giuseppe Andrews, Mena Suvari, Ariana Richards, Chris Klein, and Nick Stahl
Recently Caught Scene Stealing...
Natasha Lyonne (in anything. Bless), Riki Lindhome, Chris O'Dowd, Kevin Hart, and James Ransone (so funny in Tangerine, one of this year's true must-see films)
Felt So Terrible For Him When He Got Beaten Up, Then Tied Up, Then Blown to Smithereens in Daredevil
Matthew Blumm
Tom Hardy's Stunt Double
Jacob Tomuri ... you know he more than earned his paycheck on Mad Max Fury Road !
Mr Emily Blunt
John Krasinski
Big On TV
Claire Danes (Homeland, My So Called Life), Busy Phillips (Cougar Town, Freaks & Geeks), Travis Fimmel (Vikings, Tarzan), Caitriona Balfe (Outlander), Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), Vincent Kartheiser (Mad Men), Jayma Mays (Glee), Rutina Wesley (True Blood), Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter), Rick Gonzalez (Reaper), Nick Stevenson (Orange is the New Black), Scott Porter (Friday Night Lights), and Juliet Rylance (The Knick)
I Don't Get It
Stars whose appeal mostly escapes me. You may (probably do) feel differently...
Jason Momoa, Evangeline Lilly, Alison Lohman, Kate Hudson
Comedy Queens
Mindy Kaling, currently seeking a new (Mindy) Project, Tituss Burgess ("Pinot Noir | Caviar | Myanmar
| Mid-sized car ♫" ), and Rose Byrne (and who knew she'd prove so masterful in this genre when she came to fame with such glum-face drama?!)
Voice work pays, people
Laura Dickinson, Josh Keaton
Queen of Twitter, Broadway Royalty, and Should Be Roughly 100 Times More Famous Than She Is... Someone Give Her a Movie Musical!
Laura Benanti who is even great in terrible shows like Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Happy Birthday to anyone reading who was born in 1979!
P.S. Reminder: we're gearing up for the Supporting Actress Smackdown of 1979 in less than a fortnight (Sunday June 7th - new date due to unforseen issues off-blog) and your votes are required. Readers are the final collective Panelist as you know. So make sure to get your votes in by June 4th. (If it's close readers can and do tip the scales.) How do you vote? Send us an email with your vote of 1 to 5 hearts on each of the Supporting Actress nominees of 1979 (only the performances you've seen please, no cheating). We'll announce the panel and the rest of this seasons Smackdown years in two days.