[QUOTE=blinkingblinking]
The problem with the awards is that any member of the academy can vote, whether they have watched all the movies or not. That is why you see actors winning for roles that do not deserve to win because they missed out before- think John Wayne, Al Pacino, Humphrey Bogart. They all won for lesser roles. They should have won in previous roles.
Many people have suggested that the acadmey has official screenings of all the movies. And only members that have watched all movies in that category are able to vote.
That would bring about better results.
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If I am not mistaken, that is what they do (only) with documentary films - you have to prove you have seen all the nominees. But only once the films have already been nominated, so who knows who watched all the documentaries eligible?
I don’t doubt the Oscar voters have seen the major films nominated (getting a nomination is another story) but their average age is something like 110 years old and they tend to vote “safe”. (see my post above)
I knew a man (in his 90’s) who was an Oscar voter and got all the screenings of every film. He was quite generous and let me see quite a few of them. It was fun to take a copy of a film still in movie theater and watch it at home. He actually made the effort to see as many films as possible, but let’s be honest…loved the guy, but I knew pretty much what he considered a “good film” and it wasn’t exactly “cutting edge”. He died a few years ago, and I miss him. He would have loved Brokeback, and voted for it as he was the biggest, married-with-two-kids closet queen in Hollywood.
[QUOTE=SaintCad]
2) Saving Private Ryan. There are a few years where a couple a great films are up for best picture and you can argue back and forth or in hindsight maybe one film stands out 10 years later (Star Wars v. Annie Hall). But SPR losing to Shakespeare in Love?! WTF?!
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I haven’t seen SPR (hate war films) but I agree that SIL was very ordinary and there is no way Paltrow deserved an Oscar for that.
My guess is that the Academy was blindsided by her English accent. As a Brit, I find Paltrow’s British accent relatively convincing, but also extremely stilted, like she has a pole up her arse. It’s this endless forced plummy drawl.
She was also wrong for the part, but she made the best of it she could. Definitely not Oscar level though.
[QUOTE=istara]
I haven’t seen SPR (hate war films) but I agree that SIL was very ordinary and there is no way Paltrow deserved an Oscar for that.
My guess is that the Academy was blindsided by her English accent. As a Brit, I find Paltrow’s British accent relatively convincing, but also extremely stilted, like she has a pole up her arse. It’s this endless forced plummy drawl.
She was also wrong for the part, but she made the best of it she could. Definitely not Oscar level though.
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Yeah, I thought Cate Blanchett should have won that year.
[QUOTE=RickJay]
I loved “Saving Private Ryan” too but on what logical or empirical basis do you claim it was a better movie than “Shakespeare in Love”? Because it was about soldiers? Well, who gives a shit? You’re not going to give the Oscar to a war movie every year, are you? It wasn’t any better acted. It was a more technically impressive achievement in some ways - the cinematography and editing were astonishing. But in other ways it was a weaker movie - it wasn’t nearly as well written, IMHO, inasmuch as Saving Private Ryan had a number of very questionable plot decisions that could have been far better planned out. The acting in SPR was no better. Why’s it a better movie?
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WOW!! What vitriol!
You want “logical or empirical” evidence as to why SPR was a better movie? Because I saw it 3 times and each time I saw older women and men sitting and silently weeping at the end of the movie. Did SIL have the same impact on the audience? Also, because the first 20 minutes may be one of the most technically accomplished war scenes ever made (and that’s a long history in American cinema). I can’t recall any scenes in SIL as rememberable? Oh, and the interest in WWII generated by SPR formed the basis for a memorial in Washington DC. Can SIL claim the same?
[QUOTE=Otto]
As has been said every time this thread gets started (and I think we’re early this year), Judy Garland not winning the Oscar for “A Star is Born” was the greatest robbery since Brink’s.
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Probably because it was a remake from a 1937 film (and remakes never get respect by the Academy) and Janet Gaynor was nominated and lost for the same role. I’m sure that most of the voter felt that if Janet didn’t win, how could Judy win?
I totally agree with the outrage over the many, many outrages committed against 2001, but please consider also the sad case of Peter Sellers - royally screwed out of an Oscar twice.
In 1965, he got no love for Dr Strangelove and in 1980 he lost out, possibly slightly less unfairly, to Dustin Hoffman’s mawkfest in Kramer v Kramer. Not that he would have lived that long to bask in the triumph had he won.
[QUOTE=SaintCad]
WOW!! What vitriol!
You want “logical or empirical” evidence as to why SPR was a better movie? Because I saw it 3 times and each time I saw older women and men sitting and silently weeping at the end of the movie. Did SIL have the same impact on the audience?
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I saw La Bamba and saw people weeping at the end, does it deserve an Oscar? If people where weeping at SIL I would worry for them as it’s a comedy.
The first 20 minutes are quite good, so good that it got Spielberg the Director’s Oscar. It’s the rest of the movie that lets it down. I remember Pearl Harbour and Tora Tora Tora having technically accomplished war scenes, do they deserve Oscars too?
No, SIL cannot claim that it generated interest in a war memorial, nor should it. Do you really think that Oscars should be handed out to films because they create social interest or because they happen to be great films ? SIL won because it happens to be a great movie about the process of making art, while at the same time being funny and intelligent on more than one level. SPR won the awards it deserved.
A lot of iconic movies didn’t get recognized for Oscars. The 1933 King Kong didn’t get nominated in any category. Goldner and Turner’s book on the film has a chapter entitled Remember Cavalcade?, because Cavalcade won the Best Picture award that year. How many of you have even heard of it? Willis O’Brien, I think, got a special award years later, but not specifically for Kong.
I was under the impression that the conventional wisdom was that SIL won due to an effective marketing and lobbying campaign to Academy members by Miramax.
I think Kilmers performances reek of ego. He annoys me.
I think SCI FI is overlooked. War of the Worlds(original) should have won. King Kong should have won.
Big fan of Oh Gpd Where art Thou
I have seen Ghandi 3 times. It is long so not shown often.
Beetlejuice completely under rated. Keaton was oscar worthy in it.
Actually Leechboy, my point was to point out to RickJay that to ask for “evidence” as to why one Best Picture nominee is better than another is ridiculous since at that level ALL of the movies have something that they did better than the other nominnees whether it be acting, directing, writing, etc. I’m sure he could give evidence of how SIL was better than SPR, and someone could probably give evidence for:
Elizabeth
Life is Beautiful
The Thin Red Line
being the best picture in 1998
I don’t think anyone could give evidence for The Thin Red Line being the best picture of 1998. That was an awful, painful, awful, awful movie to have to sit through. The memory makes me wince.
[QUOTE=DMark]
Ghandi beat E.T. for Best Film…seriously, who has ever watched Ghandi twice? Or since then, for that matter? Granted, E.T. was “popular”, but not a reason to not vote for it, as often happens with films nominated for Oscars.
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And Ben Kingsley beat Paul Newman in *The Verdict * for best actor. That is the academy’s biggest screwing in my opinion.
[QUOTE=snorlax]
I was under the impression that the conventional wisdom was that SIL won due to an effective marketing and lobbying campaign to Academy members by Miramax.
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Maybe so. But I still think it was the right choice. And I really liked SPR, even the sappy bookends.
There’s no way in hell that in 1955 Henry Fracker deserved the Technical award for a projection film index to establish proper framing for various aspect ratios.
[QUOTE=Gadarene]
And it reminds me that O Brother Where Art Thou?, perhaps one of the most immaculately crafted (and funniest) movies of the last twenty-five years, was also severely shorted in Oscar nominations.
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I love The Brothers, but felt that this was one of the poorest of their films. It had an hour of the funniest, most memorable, and immaculately crafted footage of the past 25 years, padded with 1.5 hours of clunky lackluster cutting-room-floor material. Its brilliant parts were amazingly so, but it was in dire need of editing and pacing.
There’s no way in hell that in 1955 Henry Fracker deserved the Technical award for a projection film index to establish proper framing for various aspect ratios.
Still pisses me off.
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In all fairness, it was only a level III award. Also, during the 1950’s, the Acadamy focused on the science part of “Arts and Sciences”. Look at 1954 when P.C. Young got an Oscar for knowing how to focus a camera or 1956 when MGM got one for making a portable fog machine. Lot’s of “Huh?” technical awards during that time.
And anyways, who got screwed by Frackler winning that award?