That year, M&C won every Oscar it was nominated for…that wasn’t up against LotR. While the latter’s win was worthwhile, if I had to pick one of them to watch again and again, it would be the Weir.
I never understood what was so great about the LotR movies, so that got my vote. Lost in Translation was better, and Master and Commander sounds better as well.
A Beautiful Mind may have been nothing like the real life story, but it was still a rather good movie.
Crash definitely has its detractors; I think hyperlink cinema was so in vogue then, and no one really wanted to give the gay cowboy movie top honors. That said, I liked Capote and GN&GL far more than Crash once I got around to seeing them. It definitely gets second place by far.
LoTR was just an Oscar given because it was the final chapter in the trilogy. By itself it didn’t have a chance to win (like the others) but it was one of the BS “deserved” Oscars that the Acadamy loves.
As much as I loved the first “Lord of the Rings” movie, and very much liked “The Two Towers,” “The Return of the King” is a pretty bad movie. It lacks almost everything that made the first two movies good; it’s badly paced, badly written, too long, and it’s not really a complete story.
I’m sorry but “A beautiful mind” was a truly idiotic bad movie-of-the-week crap. To add insult to injury, the dreadful Akiva Goldman even got a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for a completely made-up story with imbecilic lines like:
Alicia: How big is the universe?
Nash: Infinite.
Alicia: How do you know?
Nash: I know because all the data indicates it’s infinite.
Alicia: But it hasn’t been proven yet.
Nash: No.
Alicia: You haven’t seen it.
Nash: No.
Alicia: How do you know for sure?
Nash: I don’t, I just believe it.
Alicia: It’s the same with love I guess.
Um. Big bang theory making the universe clearly** finite** anyone? Something a twelve year old should know about?
And let’s not forget hallmark’s rejected cards like:
Nash: I’ve made the most important discovery of my life. It’s only in the mysterious equation of love that any logical reasons can be found. I’m only here tonight because of you. You are the only reason I am… you are all my reasons.
The director for the Best Foreign Film award started his speech with “I’m thankful that Lord of the Rings wasn’t eligible in my category”.
Myself, I haven’t seen any of the 2005 movies, so I can’t judge there, but I have seen Chocolat, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Gladiator, and the former two were definitely better than the latter.
Only in the same sense that anyone with the education doled out in our high schools should know that a rocket would not work in vacuum. The current best evidence does, in fact, suggest that the Universe is infinite, and it’s certainly consistent with the Big Bang theory for it to be so.
Man! That was a very tough choice. It had to be Million Dollar Baby, Crash, or Slumdog Millionaire. I figured that Crash would be in the lead, so I had to ultimately throw the weight of my hate over to (the very deserving) Slumdog Millionaire.
Overall, the aughts wasn’t the best decade, Best Picture Oscar™-wise.
ETA: Reading through the alternate nominees for each year, I just got goddamn angry all over again that fucking Million Dollar Baby beat out Sideways! Fuck Paul Haggis! I don’t care that he had a hand in writing the screenplay for the excellent Casino Royale, he’ll never be able to atone for the twin atrocities of Million Dollar Baby and Crash!
I’ll go with Crash too. There are other movies I could have picked, such as Chicago, which I absolutely love and adore, winning over The Pianist, or A Beautiful Mind, which I didn’t love but thought was decent, winning over Moulin Rouge!* or Gosford Park (I’d say Fellowship Of The Ring too, but I consider that part of the Return of the King win, so it’s ok). I did like Crash, the acting was amazing, but, it never should have won over Brokeback Mountain, and if Brokeback Mountain wasn’t going to win, Munich should have won. IMO, but I’m not an Academy voter and had no say.
I don’t condemn “The Academy” though. It’s not a monolithic entity where everyone votes the same. The Academy voters are individuals, voting individually, in kitchens and dens and offices and at dining room tables all over the world. Majority rules, so some of these movies could have won by one vote. We’ll never know. They never release voting totals and never will. Some cinematographer in England you never heard of or a retired character actor living in the Bahamas could have cast the deciding vote for one of these oh-so-hated movies.
Not that I really think, deep down inside, that Moulin Rouge! is Best Picture material, though it would have been fun to see. It’s one of my All-Time Favorite films, I adore it more than words can say, so I’m just thrilled that it was nominated. I still grin with delight at the thought, that something so bizarre and non-mainstream got nominated. I feel the same way about A Serious Man, but it’s not the same since there were 10 spots for nominees. Moulin Rouge! got in with 5. It’s rare that my Top Favorite films get nominated. That year, 2 did (Fellowship of the Ring was the other). A Beautiful Mind winning can not diminish the joy I feel when I think of the 2001/2002 Oscars.
It’s not just a cliche. It truly IS an honor just to be nominated, when so many great movies don’t. Well, didn’t, but can have a better chance now, with 10 nominees.
Chicago, with Crash hard on its heels. They not only beat out better movies, as did most of the winners, but you couldn’t pay me to watch them, whereas most of the others I merely wouldn’t watch for free.