What are the demographics of the Academy? They are not exactly representative, are they? I have heard various allegations, but I’d like to hear the straight dope before I comment.
Everyone is assuming that was heaven. It was probably hell.
Actually, that final scene gave me a serious case of the heebie jeebies. The idea that the Titanic dead were waiting for her! They were waiting all those years to claim her spirit. It reminded me a little of Kubrick’s The Shining in a weird way. She was destined to haunt the ship… :: cue X-files music ::
In, I think, 1969, John Wayne won Best Actor for Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. Over Dustin Hoffman as Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy. Perhaps the most egregiously bad pick of all time.
But I thought a gang of dope-crazed icebergs hunted him down and shot him.
Pacino’s win for Scent was a classic make-up Oscar. Unfortunately it screwed over Denzel Washington, but they gave him his own make-up Oscar for Training Day.
Tomei deserved her Oscar. News flash! She was acting! That’s not her normal speaking voice or attitude. One dimensional my ass. grumble grumble
Annie Hall over Star Wars? That still bugs me.
I hated The English Patient for the same reason. She had a perfectly good, decent husband and threw him over for the movie version of ‘true love’, i.e. a quick shag, barely six words spoken, and you’re bonded for life. Barf.
Okay, it didn’t win. But Sideways was nominated for Best Picture (I think it was) and I could not figure that out.
Now, I loved the movie. Great acting, and some of the actors were nominated–the supporting roles, I think. I just didn’t think that movie was big enough for Best Picture. Some movies that are quite enjoyable just aren’t.
Although IIRC that was a pretty lean year for good movies.
I agree with those who say that Tomie’s Oscar was well deserved. But Ordinary People for Best Picture? Are you joking? Could there have been a more 70s-formulaic angst ridden piece of cinematic crap? The answer is: no. 
For once we agree. Tomei became one of my favorite actors with that role; I have watched the sub-mediocre movie *My Cousin Vinnie * many times, and only for her performance. And *OP * is, indeed, crap.
I can see how this could be perceived as more than a bit creepy but how do we know she did all that?
Sure she changes her name from Rose Dawson (last name assumed after the sinking) to Rose Dawson Calvert and is being taken care of by a granddaughter, but how do we know that she?
[ol]
[li]“Marries”[/li][li]“Has children with” [emphasis mine][/li][li]“Spent her life with”[/li][/ol] As I recall (disclaimer: I saw the flick once and am doing all my research on Wiki: Titanic and Beatrice Wood) She was shown to have lived a full life but never gets into detail about other relationships and there could well have been more than one.
The Wikipedia articles (links above) suggest that the Rose character was, at least partly, based on Beatrice Wood who doesn’t strike me as the settle down and live out the rest of her life with just one man sort of gal.
Maybe Rose never found a long term man, may never have married (she had changed her name before) or may been so only briefly–leaving Jack as her one true ‘Ideal’ (all the more so since it was brief, intense and quite tragic.
Of course there is always the chance I am just blowing smoke.
See also: Little Miss Sunshine.
Well, actually, there was this little flick called Annie Hall…
Of course, I’ve learned, as you have now, that the Dope, otherwise a bastion of sanity and rationality ( :rolleyes: ), is also home to a surprising number of rabid Marisa Tomei fans.
For what it’s worth, that year MT just blew me away in MCV, and when it came Oscar time I was rooting hard for her, and was not the least surprised when she won. So while you disagree with the choice, it was not a “fluke,” in any sense. I was actually (if naively) surprised at the backlash that followed; my circle of friends all loved her performance and were thrilled that she’d won.
Especially after seeing her soon after in Untamed Heart. See, after seeing My Cousin Vinny, her performance was so natural that I just assumed she was just a regular Brooklyn broad with a great personality. But if I’d seen *Untamed Heart * first, the utter naturalness of her performance in that would have convinced me that she was just a regular Minnesota teenager. The utter contrasts of the characters, and the total naturalness of the performances, removed any lingering doubt that she deserved her Oscar. It’s always been my theory that the backlash against her is mostly snobbery: the *character * was not seen as Oscar worthy, the performance be damned. Oscars should go to people who play queens or cripples, not sassy Brookly broads. Also, part of my theory was that the very naturalness of her performance counted against her: people assumed she wasn’t acting; that she was just a mouthy Brooklyn broad being herself. SO not true.
I love the final scene in Titanic, makes me tear up every time I view it. The way I look at it, Rose is returning to the scene of the defining event of her life.
So @^!! y’all! 
Another bad Oscar year was the B. Picture category for 1953 which had High Noon and The Quiet Man losing to The Greatest Show on Earth.
I also think that Yankee Doodle Dandy has held up better than Mrs Miniver.
Ditto here. She’s good acting.
!976:
Rocky beat “All the Presidents Men” and “Network” and “Taxi Driver”
1979:
Kramer vs Kramer was the weakest of the five films that year. (IMHO)
All That Jazz
Breaking Away
Norma Rae
Apocalypse Now
1980:
Ordinary People beat Raging Bull?!!! RB being named in almost everyones top one hundred films of all time losing to that tripe?
And of course one of the many times that Scorsese got reamed.
I could go on and on. But it does come down to their opinons. I just know which films I would want to see again.
As far as Titanic goes, it is masterfully made. But having spent 200 million on the budget for this film, I wish that they had spent one million of it on a REAL screenwriter. Thousands of great real stories that happend that night, and we get a cliched, two bit romance.
I was going to say, let me be the first to say…but then,
You just watch, this’ll win over The Departed. I almost started a Pit thread “I Pit the Little Miss Sunshine love!” (regarding all the awards attention) but since I quite liked the movie, that seemed too harsh. I still can’t believe it got in over Children of Men but hey, it’s just one of those little quirky movies that for some reason captures people’s attention and hearts, and I don’t begrudge it (much). I’m happy for all the people involved, honest. I just don’t want it to win Best Picture. In fact, it winning Best Picture would be the worst thing that could happen to it. Oh it would sell more DVDs, but it would become SO hated, just like Crash, and be the first (or second, after poor Marisa) to be mentioned in future threads like this. It doesn’t deserve to be hated, so I hope it doesn’t win. I didn’t think Crash deserved to be hated, because I enjoyed it when I saw it in the theater, but oh boy, now I hate it with zealous passion. I hate the homophobic Academy members who refused to watch Brokeback Mountain before voting even more.
Count me in on the ‘Marisa Tomei deserved her Oscar’ train. lissener, My Cousin Vinny is NOT a sub-mediocre movie. It’s very funny. Of course, it wouldn’t be half the movie it is without Marisa.
I was rooting for LA Confidential, my favorite movie from 1997, but I loved, and still love, Titanic. I never do get any of the criticisms. My only criticism is that I don’t think Gloria Stewart is very good actress so while I like her story (in real life and as Rose in the movie) I don’t like her scenes and I’m so glad she didn’t win the Oscar she was nominated for. Everything else is pert near perfect and it DID deserve all the Oscars it got.
Annie Hall is a great movie and deserved its Oscar. And I say that as a Star Wars geek who saw SW over 100 times in the theater in its first run.
And just to head it off, Gandhi deserved its Best Picture Oscar.
This thread is giving me deja vu.
One of the early scenes shows Rose with her granddaughter. The two of them go out to the crew that is diving on the wreck. I believe Rose even makes some comment to her granddaughter about never telling her grandfather about Jack.
Don’t get me wrong about MCV. The movie is funny and Tomei was great in the courtroom. But I just didn’t think that it was Oscar™ caliber performance.