We’re in the stretch run to Christmas 2025 and I’m continuing the fractured phrase: Hooray for Hollyweird! Most of us love movies and I enjoy recommending what you should watch on any given day. So, Hooray for Hollyweird … and for today, I’m turning back the clock to 1967 for director Mike Nichols’ absolutely perfect “The Graduate.”
I write “perfect” because “The Graduate” was the best picture of year, but didn’t win the Oscar. Its cast is completely top-shelf with headliners Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft as, respectively, the directionless college student (Hoffman) who winds up in bed first with the cougar’s cougar (Bancroft) and then her daughter (Katherine Ross). It was an immediate hit and the soundtrack featuring Paul Simon and Art Garfunkle was equally top-notch (and they weren’t even nominated for best song).
My review of “The Graduate” came about after I re-watched the film in 2018 at the time of the Academy Awards announcements and I bemoaned just how far Hollywood had fallen since 1967, which was a year that saw “Bonnie and Clyde” as well as Paul Newman’s iconic prison flick “Cool Hand Luke” and Spencer Tracy in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” “The Graduate” was No. 1 at the box office over all of them, but didn’t win the best picture Oscar (Nichols won as directed and the film was nominated for best picture as well as nominations for Hoffman, Bancroft and Ross).
Today in 2025 as top of the box office you have such flicks as “A Minecraft Movie,” the second remake (or is it the third) of Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” and the umpteenth reboot of “Superman.” Sigh. I’m sure there’s a legend-in-making for American cinema with that bunch, but all-put-together cannot reach knee-level to “The Graduate.”
So, as 2025 comes to a close, get in the movie time machine and watch “The Graduate,” which is easy in this streaming age. If you do, you’ll definitely say … “Hooray for Hollyweird!”
- CLICK here … to read my review of “The Graduate”
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