And Forrest Gump too.
Although I can’t watch all of it in one sitting again, I do love parts of The English Patient and would rewatch them on a regular basis. Mostly, the parts with Kristin Scott Thomas and the also with Naveen Andrews. I agree that “Fargo” or “Sling Blade” probably deserved the win more, but wouldn’t think of EP as a nominee for Worst Best Picture. BTW, when I watched it in the theater, the projector broke and there was a 20 minute lull before the film resumed. I still loved it.
And I was amazed by Chicago- didn’t think the voices matter as much as the choreography (and Queen Latifah did great at least). I was dragged to it and enjoyed it far more than I expected so wouldn’t call it a Worst Picture Nominee either. It’s the only one I’d enjoy watching out of the list of who the author thought should win.
Well, I guess YMMV because I’d say any claim that Valley is actually better than Kane in acting and writing is categorically absurd. But no, it’s not a bad movie and is clearly on the list only because it beat the Welles.
My 12, not based on a comparison of the winners against each other, but against the slate of nominees they were up against, would be (in chronological order)
The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
You Can’t Take It With You (1938)
Going My Way (1944)
Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)
The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
My Fair Lady (1964)
The Sting (1973)
Rocky (1976)
Rain Man (1988)
Forrest Gump (1994)
A Beautiful Mind (2001)
Yeah, putting Chicago at the top of the list is just dopey. It’s a darn fine movie and one I can also enjoy again and again … I can’t respect the opinion of someone who says it’s the worst Best Picture winner EVER. Especially when the #2 choice,* Around the World in 80 Days,* won its Oscar against *Giant *and The King and I. Say what??
And then this person leaves The Greatest Show on Earth completely off the list. Must have a fetish for Jimmy Stewart in clown makeup, I guess.
I do think it’s kinda tough to make this kind of call (Comic Book Guy: “Worst - Oscar winner** - ever**!”), because you do have to compare the winners with the other nominees that year. Just as a fr’instance, 2000’s Best Picture Gladiator was up against Chocolat, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Erin Brockovich and Traffic. Everybody has their favorites, of course, and I didn’t think Gladiator was all that, but I can’t personally see how it was an egregious ripoff with that competition. But Greatest Show … won over High Noon and The Quiet Man, for Pete’s sake.
Rather dumb list, with some weird biases against some truly great films. If I were to pick then, they’d be
The Broadway Melody – Probably the worst choice of all. Very undistinguished musical.
Mrs. Miniver – so-so soap opera that won because of WWII spirit
An American in Paris – that was the bad choice as opposed to the delights of Gigi
The Greatest Show on Earth – entertaining, but not a particularly great film
Around the World in 80 Days – voters were wowed by the all-star cast, I guess.
The Sound of Music – turgid musical
In the Heat of the Night – Rod Steiger was great and deserved his Oscar. So was Poitier. But the story was weak.
The French Connection – Vastly overrated. Doyle did all sorts of dumb things to make the plot work.
The Deer Hunter – overlong and so goddamned obvious about everything. The Academy wanted to pick a Vietnam War film so badly that they took whatever they could get.
Out of Africa – rather pointless. Not one of Streep’s better roles, either.
Crash possibly had something to do with racism, but the moral was just so subtle.
Forrest Gump doesn’t belong there. Driving Ms. Daisy doesn’t belong there.
Well, I really liked Forrest Gump, too. (Not to speak of Driving Miss Daisy, which I adored), but Forrest Gump was released more or less the same time as The Shawshank Redemption, which many people, myself included, felt was more deserving of awards.
This. I know there was a whole thing about race that made it seem revolutionary or something, but the story was just lame.
It hasn’t happened yet, but a lot of people are prejudiced against “Shakespeare in Love” when these threads come around. While the story is essentially a rehash of Romeo and Juliet (in fact, the story was repeated twice in the film) the acting and technical aspects of the film are excellent.
With a bit of Twelfth Night thrown in, as well as numerous clever references to many of the Bard’s other plays. IMO, Shakespeare in Love has the best screenplay of any Best Picture Winner in the last 15 years or so, and it definitely deserved to win over Saving Private Ryan, which was technically amazing but unoriginal story-wise.
Yeah that’s one reason for all the hate for SiL. I met a lot of people who were galvanized by SPR, including this Canadian woman whose grandfather was part of the invasion, and felt like it was glorifying the soldiers who were there.
My two least favorites among those I have seen are:
Crash
In the Heat of the Night.
So, obvious stories about racism.
I’m still puzzling over his reasons for including Chicago. His claim that the performers weren’t good enough singers is wrong. Roxy wasn’t supposed to be a great performer, she was supposed to be a little-talent upstart, and Renee Zellweger did a fine job of it. Richard Gere had a perfectly fine singing voice, and John C. Reilly did admirably, as well. I don’t know how he can say that the songs fell flat. He must have seen a different movie than I did.
Worst “Worst Best Picture” list EVER!
His list isn’t bad, at least from my POV. Of course I disagree with some of them.
The first film that comes to mind when this topic comes up to me is
Kramer vs. Kramer.
This movie sucks on so many levels, and not only did it win BP, but beat Apocalypse Now and Norma Rae, both superior films.
However he hit a home run for what should be #1 on his list,
Forrest Gump
This movie is such a pant load, I’ll bet Hanks is still laughing his ass off. The story sucked, the “romance” sucked, and the writing sucked. The fact that he got the Best Actor also was a slap in the face to anyone else nominated that year.
Other quick opinions -
How he criticizes The Departed is beyond me. I would still watch The Departed before any of the other films nominated that year. And I’ve seen them all.
Chariots of Fire - The simple fact that it somehow beat out “Das Boot” is enough proof to me that the Acadamy (which I believe has a large proportion of Jewish membership) would never vote for a German WWII film. Especially one done to perfection AND paints the sailors of Nazi Germany’s U-Boats as sympathetic characters who are just caught up in the war, doing whatever they are ordered to do to sink enemy shipping and survive. I think Das Boot does a great job in making the viewer forget they are watching a U-Boat crew fighting for the wrong side and puts you in the sub itself, perhaps fighting for ANY country that was involved in WWII.
The English Patient - see Elaine Benes review (Seinfeld).
***Ordinary People ***- An unbelievably bad choice, especially given the competition. I know it’s not on his list. He states in the beginning why he omits it. The same goes for
***Titanic *** a commercial success but a bad movie (he admits it doesn’t hold up well. There’s a reason! It sucks! Not even close to Good Will Hunting or LA Confidential, two nominations that should have sunk Titanic. “Jack! Rose! Jack! Rose!” for 3 hours made me want to kill something.
Has any foreign language film ever been nominated for Best Picture? Is that even allowed?
It happens from time to time. I don’t know about pre-1980, but I believe Akira Kurosawa’s Ran was nominated (or left out?) for Best Picture, and the backlash caused the creation of the “Best Foreign Picture” category. However, the Italian film “Life is Beautiful” was able to be included in the Best Picture Category, so sometimes foreign films do make the leap over “Best Foreign Picture.” I believe a similar controversy created the “Best Animated Picture” category as well. Iirc, it was Beauty and the Beast.
Also, there’s Hollywood films where the majority of the on-screen language is not English but they are considered to not be foreign films. I believe Passion of Christ, Godfather II, and others were included.
I thought Shakespeare in Love was brilliant and funny, and yet a lot of people seem to be annoyed that it beat Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture. IMHO, Saving Private Ryan was a maudlin, unoriginal, schlockfest that didn’t deserve to win.
The “based on a true story” part I admire. The actual story raises a very interesting idea: at what point will conscience prevent killing? I like to think that the US government has a conscience, even if it was 1945.
Also, SPR has some interesting scenes. My favorite is when the US sniper killed the other sniper.
But, definitely, while I do enjoy SPR, SIL is the one I love.
Foreign Language Film has been a competitive Oscar category since 1956. ‘Ran’ came out in 1985. The controversy you maight be thinking of is that ‘Ran’ was not submitted by Japan as its entry for Foreign Language Film, thus making it ineligible for the Oscar. One result was a successful campaign to get Kurosawa a nomination for Best Director. Ironically, the one director of a Best Picture nominee not to be nominated as director (and thus presumably the man bumped to make room for Kurosawa) was Stephen Spielberg, who had been one of the people campaigning for Kurosawa’s nomination.
Anyways, Foreign Language Films to get best picture nominations include:
Grand Illusion (1938)
Z (1969)
Cries and Whispers (1973)
Il Postino (The Postman) (1995)
Life Is Beautiful (1998)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)