Is it possible to dislike Forrest Gump for reasons other than a character failing of some kind? I think so. And I did like it.
I don’t know about that: The Maltese Falcon was another nominee that year, and Wyler’s The Little Foxes, which is terrific and underrated now. Hawks’s Sergeant York hasn’t aged well, but I’m kind of surprised it didn’t win at the time (ceremony was in February of '42). Hitchcock’s Suspicion even got a nod. 1941 was a pretty fine year.
Has anyone mentioned Cimarron yet? It’s basically nothing more than a bloated western and it’s been pretty much forgotten.
I know this will probably not be a popular opinion, but my first thought at least deserved Best Picture is Gone With The Wind, which beat out The Wizard of Oz - imho a vastly superior movie.
Suspicion???
Isn’t that the one where Cary GRant is trying to kill his wife throughout the movie and is about to push her over a cliff when the movie suddenly does a 1080 and it turns out he loves her after all and would never dream of hurting a single on her head???
Stupidest ending ever.
I think this analysis rather oversimplifies the movie. It was an extended metaphor for two conflicting threads in American life - the brave and loyal yet dumb and unimaginative thread vs the smart but hippy-dippy, fickle and self-destructive thread. That Gump was a metaphoric cypher is precisely why he was improbably at all those historic events - because America was.
Imagining these two threads in an on-again off-again love affair with a child is a charming resolution to the metaphor. As to the metaphoric significance of the detail of how it all ends up, the viewer is left to ponder.
A fine movie.
Forrest Gump is my least favorite film ever made.
Other disappointing ones were American Beauty (I will NOT stop laughing at the plastic bag thing), and I thought Crash was an after school special about telling jokes and receiving really lame Karma.
I loved Chicago though.
The pile-on against Around the World in 80 days surprises me somewhat. I don’t think the movie has aged well, but in its day even glimpses of far-away locales wasn’t the commonplace that satellite communication is today. The film was shot on location in some 40+ countries, in an age when 70mm and Cinerama were novelties. I’m not at all suprised that it wowed not just moviegoer but even the critics of an age prior to Sputnik.
Hands down the worst choice is de Mille’s The Greatest Show on Earth. Even if it was a legacy award it was a horrible choice. Sure, Paul Newman had better roles than Eddie Felson in The Color of Money, and Scorcese had better films The Departed, but you could accept these lesser wins as a kind of a make-up call. But aside from Cleopatra, IMO the Academy’s snub of de Mille in the sound era was well-deserved. His films (though profitable) were bombastic corn.
What made it stand out to me was the music. The way the music swelled, increased in volume, and otherwise punctuate and underscore all the emotional moments was pure genius.
Exactly. It would be like if the Academy had given the best picture award to The Towering Inferno because they felt they owed Irwin Allen after The Poseidon Adventure and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea didn’t win.
(Although in point of fact, Irwin Allen did win an Oscar. He directed The Sea Around Us which won for Best Documentary in 1953. Unlike Allen, the Academy did not recognize the following directors: Robert Altman, Ingmar Bergman, John Cassavetes, Charles Chaplin, Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Howard Hawks, Werner Herzog, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kramer, Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch, Sidney Lumet, Michael Powell, Satyajit Ray, Jean Renoir, Francois Truffaut, King Vidor, and Orson Welles)
Kyla writes:
> I know this will probably not be a popular opinion, but my first thought at least
> deserved Best Picture is Gone With The Wind, which beat out
> The Wizard of Oz - imho a vastly superior movie.
There’s a famous article by Stephen Hunter (which appeared in The Washington Post in 1998) in which he lists 28 films from the year 1939 which he considers to be better than Gone with the Wind. Note: I take no position on what the best films of 1939 are. I haven’t seen many of them and am thus hardly qualified to speak to that question. I just wanted to make the point that your opinion may not be as rare as you think.
I think Crash, The Departed, and (I think I’m the first person to voice this opinion in this thread) Slumdog Millionaire are all average to below-average movies with largely incoherent and/or hamhanded narratives that were nowhere near the best pictures of their respective years.
Chariots of Fire is a GREAT movie. This guy is on crack. I also don’t think Chicago or The Departed deserve to be listed either.
I don’t share the Crash-hate that is prevalent here. I don’t know that it was Best Picture good, but it wasn’t dreck. I’m convinced much of the hate is due to the fact that some people desperately wanted Brokeback Mountain to win. If not for the Brokeback love, Crash’s winning would have fallen off the radar.
I think the worst Best Picture winner in recent years was Gladiator, by a longshot, which didn’t make the list.
My top 10 worst Best Picture winners (since 1950) would include:
- Gladiator
- Shakespear in Love
- Forest Gump
- The English Patient
- Terms of Endearment
- Gigi
- Slumdog Millionaire
I know, that’s just seven. I don’t see any other egregiously bad ones.
Crash was dreck. I hated it completely on its own merits. It was preachy and dumb.
You would think someone in Hollywood be it the director, the producers, or someone in the studio would have some sort of way to look up movie names and be able to tell that “Crash” was used recently.
It was more “didn’t care” than “didn’t know”. Lots of titles get reused.
Always (1985) - Always (1989)
Employee of the Month (2004) - Employee of the Month (2006)
Fair Game (1995) - Fair Game (2010)
Fatal Attraction (1980) - Fatal Attraction (1987)
The Illusionist (2006) - The Illusionist (2010)
Kicking and Screaming (1995) - Kicking & Screaming (2005)
Night and the City (1950) - Night and the City (1992) - released on DVD on the same day
Red Heat (1985) - Red Heat (1988)
Twilight (1998) - Twilight (2008)
I agree with Skammer about Gladiator. I though it was a slightly above average action movie with definite flaws to it, such as confusing editing in the battle scenes. The same story was told better in The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), which didn’t even receive a best pic nomination.
I feel sorry for the poor sucker who tries to rent a tween vampire romance and ends up with some movie with a couple old guys named Paul Newman and Gene Hackman. 
The 1995 Kicking and Screaming is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.