At least Art Carney went on to great success.
Uhm.
As for deserved oscar wins, anything other than a win for Daniel Day Lewis this year would have been an outrage.
On this very topic, it seems as though much of the time the real greats are, for some reason, ignroed at the time and are given consolation trophies later, which tend to boot off someone else, who later gets a consolation trohpy. I’ve heard this is in part because the entire process is a giant sham set up by an extremely insular and self-selecting group and heavily manipulated by the studios.
Since Brando was the only cast member up for Best Actor (three other people from the Godfather were nominees for Best Supporting Actor) it’s hard to see how he ‘stole’ the trophy from any co-stars, deserving or otherwise.
BTW, 25 posts into this and I’m going to be the first to bring out the perineal ‘How Green Was My Valley’ beating ‘Citizen Kane’ complaint?
Yes, there WAS a taint on that particular award.
What?
Joe
I’m not the least confused. Of those five, only Life is Beautiful can compete.
The first 20 minutes of SPR is stunningly good cinematography and editing. The rest of the movie is… well oridinary. Elizabeth is Blanchett’s performance, but as a movie, not att all that interesting. Put a less talented actress in the role, say a studio wanted to make a vehicle for… say Katie Holmes… would you hold Elizabeth in such high regard.
The thin red line only got a nomination because… you know… IT’S MALLICKand because IT’S MALLICK a shitload of stars signed on for bit parts. The movie is beautiful, but terribly boring.
Life is Beautiful might be the better movie, but I’ve only seen it once, whereas if SiL is playing when I’m channel surfing, I’ll end up catching the bit to the next commercial. Also, it’s less controversial.
Actually, looking back to 1980, I find that I rarely agree with the Academy.
We’ve agreed on the following for Best Picture:
Silence of the Lambs and No Country for Old Men
Huh. I’m finding it hard to believe I’ve never seen that particular typo before.
Or was it a typo?
Nice one, wheresgeorge.
While I’d agree “Titanic” was not the best movie to ever win the Oscar, I’d argue just as strenuously that “L.A. Confidential” was easily the weakest movie nominated that year. I have never understood why people thought it was such a terrific movie; it’s wonderfully acted, but the story is poorly told.
Which just goes to show you how subjective the whole thing is. I’m floored anyone would think “Forrest Gump” was undeserving - it was a magnificent film, IMHO - but nobody ever mentions “The Last Emperor” in these conversations even though it was an overlong and overwrought by-the-numbers historopic that doctors still prescribe as a sleep aid.
The other thing is that they only hand out one statue a year in each category (except in the rare case of a tie) so it’s impossible, really, to adequately award all the deserving winners because it’s just not the case that the very best movies, performances, and work spread themselves out perfectly.
It was a movie about Hollywood and if there’s anything Hollywood types universally love it’s a movie about themselves.
Hence, Crash?
I guess so, but I was pulling for Viggo Mortensen. DDL was just on the other side of caricature for me.
Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption? Ugh.
It’s funny that The Shawshank Redemption didn’t win anything, yet is now usually the #1 movie at IMDB (barring hot recent movies, esp. involving a certain caped crusader). It really deserved it, at least over Forrest Gump, which was a cute, touching movie, but doesn’t hold up to future viewings- the gimmick starts to show through. Shawshank always feels like getting re-acquainted with an old friend; I must have seen it 7-8 times now, and almost look forward to the next ime.
For least deserved, I’ll echo Titanic (for almost all its awards) and Shakespeare in Love. I really would have liked to have seen Elliott Smith win the Best Original Song with Ms. Misery (instead of My Heart Will Go On). But I am somewhat consoled by the following quote from a Smith interview :
“Even though I can’t stand the music that she makes – with all due respect I don’t like it much at all – but she herself was very, very nice. She asked me if I was nervous and I said, ‘Yeah.’ And she was like, ‘That’s good because you get your adrenaline going, and it’ll make your song better. It’s a beautiful song.’ Then she gave me a big hug. It was too much. It was too human to be dismissed simply because I find her music trite.”
The Shawshank Redemption just seems like a really good TV movie to me. It doesn’t yank you out of your normal way of thinking like a great film does. It’s just entertainment. Pulp Fiction is way beyond it.
As is par for the course in these threads, I shall echo Groucho Marks in saying that Grace Kelly’s Oscar for [del]being about to marry Prince Ranier[/del] The Country Girl over Judy Garland in A Star Is Born was “the greatest robbery since Brinks.”
Phil Collins’ win for that treacly mess from Tarzan over “Blame Canada” from South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.
Crash over Brokeback Mountain.
I thought “Shawshank Redemption” one of the most overrrated movies of my lifetime. I don’t think it would crack the list of the five hundred best movies I’ve ever seen. Like Usram, it felt to me like a TV movie, and they succeeded in hopelessly blowing the end of King’s novella; talk about missing the point.
But YMMV. This stuff is just too subjective to call, and it’s telling that almost all the commentary has been about “Best Picture” and acting awards. Nobody’s talking about awards for sound mixing, art decoration or makeup, even though it seems to me that those would be a bit easier, albeit still not easy, to objectively determine who deserves the award.
Oh, I dunno… Alec Baldwin was only in “Glengarry Glen Ross” for five minutes, but I’d have been happy to see him win an Oscar for his sheer brilliance in those few minutes.
I’ve heard Trey Parker say the award should have gone to Aimee Mann… but he pretended to be livid over losing to Phil. He said, “Someday, my grandchildren are going to say to me, 'You SUCK, Grandpa- you lost to Phil Collins!”
Despite the complains, both Shakespeare and Love and Crash were by far the most deserving Oscar best picture winners in the past 20 years. Undoubtedly better than the competition and both absolutely brilliant films.
Though Greatest Show on Earth is listed among the most undeserving Oscar winners, it’s not a bad film, though probably not the best of that year.
Least deserved: Beatrice Straight in Network. On can make a case against Judy Dench because her role was so small – but at least it was memorable. Straight was barely noticeable. But Network was notable for its other undeserving Oscars and nominations.
Yeah, I definitely agree with you on Crash. It definitely deserved an Oscar.
You’re talking about the one directed by David Cronenberg, with James Spader, right?
The one from 2005 should have been called Trash. That’s what it was - ham-fisted, heavy-handed, trite, cliched, pseudo-deep, predictable trash. If that movie was somehow incarnated into animal form, it would be a diseased sewer rat, and I would smash it with a sledgehammer and splatter its stinking guts all over the garage.