Have I ever mentioned that I call my penis “Oscar?”
All kidding aside, I finally took a long, hard look at Oscar… uh, er… I finally sat down and puzzled out the Academy Awards, year by year, and reached the same conclusion that I reached weeks ago. The Academy almost always gets it wrong. In the 84 years that AMPAS has been giving out the shimmering gold dudes, I estimate that they have only ever honored the right film about ten times.
A miserable record, to be sure.
NOTE: I am indebted to Danny Perry and his wonderful, woefully out-of-print book Alternate Oscars for the inspiration for this column. We don’t often match in our choices, and Perry’s book stops in 1991, but it is a great read and well worth your time. Amazon sells used copies for pennies!
Actual Oscar Winner My Oscar Fantasy Pick
2011 - The Artist Hugo
2010 - The King's Speech Inception
2009 - The Hurt Locker Inglourious Basterds
2008 - Slumdog Millionaire Milk
2007 - No Country for Old Men The Assassination of Jesse James… (NEN)
2006 - The Departed Children of Men (NEN)
2005 - Crash Good Night and Good Luck
2004 - Million Dollar Baby Sideways
2003 - The Lord of the Rings: TROTK Master and Commander: The Far Side…
2002 - Chicago Catch Me If You Can (NEN)
2001 - A Beautiful Mind The Royal Tenenbaums
2000 - Gladiator O Brother, Where Art Thou? (NEN)
1999 - American Beauty The Insider
1998 - Shakespeare in Love The Big Lebowski* (NEN)
1997 - Titanic L.A. Confidential
1996 - The English Patient Fargo
1995 - Braveheart Dead Man Walking (NEN)
1994 - Forrest Gump Quiz Show
1993 - Schindler’s List Schindler’s List
1992 - Unforgiven Glengarry Glen Ross (NEN)
1991 - The Silence of the Lambs The Silence of the Lambs
1990 - Dances With Wolves Goodfellas
1989 - Driving Miss Daisy Do the Right Thing (NEN)
1988 - Rain Man A Fish Called Wanda (NEN)
1987 - The Last Emperor* House of Games (NEN)
1986 - Platoon Hannah and Her Sisters
1985 - Out of Africa Brazil (NEN)
1984 – Amadeus* Once Upon a Time in America (NEN)
1983 - Terms of Endearment The Right Stuff
1982 – Gandhi* Blade Runner (NEN)
1981 - Chariots of Fire* Atlantic City
1980 - Ordinary People Raging Bull
1979 - Kramer vs. Kramer* Apocalypse Now
1978 - The Deer Hunter Straight Time (NEN)
1977 - Annie Hall Annie Hall
1976 – Rocky* Network
1975 - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest* Jaws/Nashville (TIE!)
1974 - The Godfather Part II Chinatown*
1973 - The Sting The Exorcist*
1972 - The Godfather The Godfather
1971 - The French Connection The French Connection
1970 - Patton M*A*S*H
1969 - Midnight Cowboy* Once Upon a Time in the West (NEN)
1968 - Oliver!* 2001: A Space Odyssey (NEN)
1967 - In the Heat of the Night The Graduate*
1966 - A Man for All Seasons Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?
1965 - The Sound of Music The Great Race (NEN)
1964 - My Fair Lady A Hard Day’s Night (NEN)
1963 - Tom Jones The Haunting (NEN)
1962 - Lawrence of Arabia To Kill a Mockingbird
1961 - West Side Story La Dolce Vita (NEN)
1960 - The Apartment Psycho (NEN)
1959 - Ben-Hur Some Like It Hot (NEN)
1958 - Gigi Touch of Evil (NEN)
1957 - The Bridge on the River Kwai 12 Angry Men
1956 - Around the World in 80 Days The Searchers (NEN)
1955 – Marty Rebel Without a Cause (NEN)
1954 - On the Waterfront Rear Window (NEN)
1953 - From Here to Eternity From Here to Eternity
1952 - The Greatest Show on Earth Singing in the Rain (NEN)
1951 - An American in Paris The African Queen (NEN)
1950 - All About Eve The Third Man (NEN)
1949 - All the Kings Men White Heat (NEN)
1948 - Hamlet The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
1947 - Gentleman's Agreement Miracle on 34th Street
1946 - The Best Years of Our Lives It’s A Wonderful Life
1945 - The Lost Weekend The Lost Weekend
1944 - Going My Way Double Indemnity
1943 - Casablanca Casablanca
1942 - Mrs. Miniver Sullivan’s Travels (NEN)
1941 - How Green Was My Valley Citizen Kane
1940 - Rebecca His Girl Friday (NEN)
1939 - Gone with the Wind The Wizard of Oz
1938 - You Can't Take It with You The Adventures of Robin Hood
1937 - The Life of Emile Zola Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (NEN)
1936 - The Great Ziegfeld Swing Time (NEN)
1935 - Mutiny on the Bounty The Bride of Frankenstein (NEN)
1934 - It Happened One Night It Happened One Night
1932/1933 - Cavalcade King Kong /Duck Soup* (TIE! Both NEN)
1931/1932 - Grand Hotel Scarface, or The Shame of a Nation* (NEN)
1930/1931 - Cimarron City Lights (NEN)
1929/1930 - All Quiet on the Western Front All Quiet on the Western Front
1928/1929 - The Broadway Melody The Wind (NEN)
1927/1928 – Wings The Last Command
(NEN) = Not Even Nominated!
* = Available on Netflix Instant Streaming as of 5-22-12
THE END OF THE ROAD: Well, F-heads, Shitting on the Classics is about to reach its predestined end. My original plan was for this column to run for a year because I anticipated running out of films. Most classic films are actually quite good—THEY ARE CLASSICS FOR A REASON.
There are roughly five columns left. Time to suggest films that deserve to be the target of my questionable wit and metaphoric fecal matter. Please make some suggestions in the comments section below.
NOT TO WORRY: I would like to take a few weeks off and then return with A NEW COLUMN. (Something snappy. Something peppy. No more of this lover’s lament crap.) Trust me; everybody’s going to LOVE it.
Great column, JB. It’s amazing to see how many great films weren’t even nominated: Singing in the Rain; Rear Window; Once Upon a Time in the West; Blade Runner and The Assassination of Jesse James particularly stand out to me as huge omissions.
ReplyDeleteOne slight quibble though, in your original article you said No Country for Old Men winning was a correct decision (I disagreed and said I thought The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford deserved to win that year), so I was just wondering what made you change your opinion on the matter?
Funny you should mention that, Stuart. It was your original quibble with the original column that made me rethink my original position.
ReplyDeleteWell done, sir!
Flip-flopper!
DeleteMinor quible, no Akira Kurosawa.
ReplyDeleteAs for suggestions for Shitting on the Classics, I know the term "classic" is questionable (or not) on this movie but I would like you to do "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" because I finally saw this movie a couple years ago and other than a couple of the musical numbers and Tim Curry's performance, what is the big deal?
Re: TRHPS, I completely agree. I don't see why people love it so much.
DeleteI hate to say things like "You had to be there" but it's sort of true. There is a window in a person's development where RHPS fits right into a place you need it to fit. If you watch it after you've found something else, the movie won't work for you. The community aspect was also a big part of the experience, and the midnight showings have mostly faded these days.
DeleteOh, boy.
ReplyDeleteMany of my sources for all the films released in a given year (this week's column was quite the research project!) either failed to list foreign films at all or switched schizophrenically between listing them the year of their release in their country of origin AND/OR the year of their release in the United States. Very confusing and annoying.
You bring up an excellent point, Shannon. The next time I revise this column, I believe I will give the 1954 Best Picture Oscar to The Seven Samurai. Suck it, Hitchcock.
I'll have to go with There Will Be Blood for 2007, the fact that not one Paul Thomas Anderson movie has won is a travesty.
ReplyDeleteSince 'Shitting on the Classics' is going away, how about taking a dump on a James Bond movie that is universally or mostly considered a good one? No point lashing at "Moonraker," "A View To A Kill" or "Die Another Day" (they stew in their own gravy of cheese). But maybe JB harbors a deep antipathy for "Goldfinger" or a seething hatred for "The Spy Who Loved Me" that would put him at odds with the rest of humanity. And yes, even if all the Bond movies are essentually the same, it's the execution of a predictable formula that can separate a "Living Daylights" from a "Quantum of Solace." Plus, in shitting on a particularly good Bond movie, JB would have an excuse to write about how he feels about all the others.
ReplyDeleteJust a thought. :-)
Other suggestions for the last few columns:
"Ultraviolet" and "Equilibrium": in a genre (futuristic dystopian action) that's pretty easy to make at least passably entertaining these two stand out as just goofy-bad. Milla Jovovich or Christian Bale, pick your poison (or go for the two-fer).
Places in the Heart (1984): just a reminder that Oscar bait was alive and well-meaning in the early 80's, taking nomination spots from more deserving titles that weren't even nominated. Nothing against Robert Benton ("Kramer vs. Kramer") or Sally Field, but my God is this movie such a prototype for the types of flicks Harvey Weinstein & Co. turned into a cottage industry. It's a dead horse the outgoing column beat to death, but its understandable given its such fertile ground for discussion.
A Woody Allen movie everybody loves: it's easy to overlook the Woodsman's more sinful cinematic transgressions (the Dreamworks period, most of his international flicks before "Midnight in Paris," the pretentious Bergman-esque vanity projects, etc.). But how about cutting "Manhattan" to ribbons? Or taking a steaming dump of radioactive poop on "Husbands and Wives"? The man's filmography is so varied it's possible JB hates something most everybody else likes.
A movie starring Sam Rockwell that even his presence couldn't save: i.e. Charlie's Angels, except it's not a classic except in the anals of camp.