The Show - What can we expect

[Zahveed]

I think The Departed is one of the least impressive winners this decade.

Then there are the films that won for various reasons that fall firmly in the middle of the heap without any true measure of importance that, more so than the well-crafted films, will likely be seen as limited influence within the realm of their creators and mentioned only because of their success at the Oscars, but for which most people in 50 years won't remember even won Best Picture and may only have the Best Picture win as the reason they are remembered (akin to Going My Way and Chariots of Fire):

The Departed, Slumdog Millionaire

I'd have to disagree:

(two films that are widely debated on their quality)
Gladiator
A Beautiful Mind

(two films that revived their respective genres: musical/epic)
Chicago
Lord of the Rings

(two films that share a familiar writer but of varying quality)
Million Dollar Baby
Crash

(two films that are filmed by respected filmmakers that showcase their strong suits)
The Departed
No Country for Old Men

Among those eight, there are four of them that are disputed. We can put those on the bottom and arrange the rest with them by their ratings (RT, Metacritic, IMDB). Popularity of these films will be marked by their gross revenue.

Crash 75% RT / 69 MC / 8.1 / $98,410,016
Gladiator 77% RT / 64 MC / 8.3 / $457,640,427
A Beautiful Mind 78% RT / 72 MC / 7.9 / $313,542,341
Chicago 87% RT / 82 MC / 7.3 / $306,776,732
Million Dollar Baby 91% RT / 86 MC / 8.2 / $216,763,646
The Departed 92% RT / 86 MC / 8.5 / $289,847,354
No Country for Old Men 94% RT / 91 MC / 8.3 / $162,113,336
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King 94% RT / 94 MC / 8.8 $1,119,110,941

The Departed has the third best score out of the eight from this calendar decade. It also has the third most votes from IMDB members. It is in the middle with its gross though, but many more people bought it once it was released on DVD. Lord of the Rings is definitely the winner in this case with both the highest ratings, highest gross, and highest amount of votes from IMDB. Crash is the clear loser of the bunch and Chicago had the least amount of support from IMDB.

After a little calculation, this is the rank of Oscar winners in terms of impact on the public and critics:


The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The Departed
Gladiator
Chicago
A Beautiful Mind
Million Dollar Baby
No Country for Old Men
Crash

[Big Magilla]

A case could be made for almost all the winners at the time of their wins. While we may not agree with the choices, we can certainly understand most of them.

The biggest shocker prior to Crash winning in 2005 was An American in Paris winning over A Streetcar Named Desire and A Place in the Sun in 1951.

The Broadway Melody, arguably the worst best picture winner of all time with its clunky chorus girls, static camera and son on, was probably the quickest film to be disparaged as a best picture winner as it was usurped by musicals as varied as Sunny Side Up, Hallelujah, Applause and The Love Parade all within a few months of its win in 1929.

Cimarron, long ballyhooed as the first and until Dances With Wolves only western to win a best picture was more of a soap opera than a true western, but its win has long been rumored to have been a back room deal between L.B. Myer who told his minions to vote for it in exchange for votes for his stars Lionel Barrymore and Norma Shearer for the acting awards. He allegedly pulled the same deal in reverse a few years later when The Great Ziegfeld was allowed to win best picture in exchange for Warners' Paul Muni winning best actor for The Story of Louis Pasteur.

The Greatest Show on Earth, while it did not have the critical support of either High Noon or The Quiet Man was a popular winner in its day. It was the biggest box office hit of 1952.

Around the World in 80 Days was a cultural phenomenon. It was an event movie of Star Wars/Titanic/Lord of the Rings magnitude in its day thanks mainly to Michael Todd's p.r. savvy, the casting of then major stars, most of whom are sadly unknown today, in "cameos", a phrase Todd coined for the film, and the bigger than big screen projection in Todd-A-O which only a few theatres were properly equipped to present it in. Its reputation faded fast when projected on normal size screens and faster still when it was shown on broadcast TV.

And so it goes and will probably always go.

[Bog]

of the five movies they nominate

This is really what it boils down to..."best picture" is such an erroneous term. In a vaccuum maybe it would be relevant, but I don't feel voters think for themselves, especially with a freight train like we are graced with this year (and have been many others).

People can easily become convinced of something being greater than it is...being influenced is human nature for most people. This can also work the exact reverse, as we also see here a lot.

[taki15]

I can't understand why all those ill feelings towards the Departed. And it's not like the competition it beat was Citizen Kaine or Sunset Boulevard. I find it one of the best choices the Academy made this decade.
Of course it's inferior than some of Scorsese's masterpieces, but then again 95% of movies are.

And Million Dollar Baby just a well crafted film, which will be forgotten? Only Pauline Kael would damn it with such faint praise.

[flipp525]

By the way, the Academy has updated their youtube page with some new past winners; they need a spell-checker--note the spelling error on the clip for Ben Kingsley's win.

My god, the five actresses nominated for Best Actress in 1976 are all so stony-faced and subdued. They look like they're all trying to avoid being called up to be hung.

Dunaway seems completely unenthusiastic about winning and her speech is boring. I've noticed that in these older clips (particularly ones from the 70's), the nominees are totally straight-faced when their name is called. Why was this so common back then?

The lack of clips is also quite aggravating. Why, in a ceremony devoted to celebrating the performances of a certain year, would there be no samples of the actors' work?

Ben Kingsley looked absolutely hideous in that cream blazer.



Edited By flipp525 on 1234220804

[dws1982]

I have no idea what this taxonomy is supposed to prove other than your irrepressible need to reiterate that Chicago and Lord of the Rings are great and The Departed and No Country for Old Men ain't all that.

The funny thing about Oscar Guy saying that Chicago being a master of its genre that will be seen as one of the few times the Academy got right is that it has, in the six short years since it won, already become a fixture of those Worst Best Picture Winners lists. (Which I don't really agree with, but that's beside the point.)



Edited By dws1982 on 1234219634

[Eric]

BJ, you have a point. It is par for the course...

As for The Departed comparison, I have to agree. I think The Departed is one of the least impressive winners this decade.

You have the bottom-dwelling crap (akin to Greatest Show on Earth and Around the World in 80 Days):

Crash, A Beautiful Mind.

Then you have the masters of their genre that will likely be remembered long after their wins, and probably in spite of them and will likely be among the few examples of they got it right (akin to Lawrence of Arabia and The Godfather):

Chicago, Lord of the Rings

Then you have the well-crafted films that probably won't be remembered long after the final whistle other than cinema fanatics and historians (akin to All Quiet on the Western Front and It Happened One Night):

Million Dollar Baby, No Country for Old Men

Then there are the films that won for various reasons that fall firmly in the middle of the heap without any true measure of importance that, more so than the well-crafted films, will likely be seen as limited influence within the realm of their creators and mentioned only because of their success at the Oscars, but for which most people in 50 years won't remember even won Best Picture and may only have the Best Picture win as the reason they are remembered (akin to Going My Way and Chariots of Fire):

The Departed, Slumdog Millionaire

But, I would argue these four categories are fairly well represented in the history of the Academy Awards, so while The Godfather, Casablanca, Schindler's List, Annie Hall and others aren't exactly the exception to the rule, they are examples of when the Academy has, years down the road, been certified as having gotten it right.

I have no idea what this taxonomy is supposed to prove other than your irrepressible need to reiterate that Chicago and Lord of the Rings are great and The Departed and No Country for Old Men ain't all that.

Try this on for size. Sometimes they pick the best of the five movies they nominate (which occasionally endure as canonical stalwarts due to the Academy's unique position as an arbiter of a certain kind of taste). Other times they don't.



Edited By Eric on 1234219099

[Penelope]

By the way, the Academy has updated their youtube page with some new past winners; they need a spell-checker--note the spelling error on the clip for Ben Kingsley's win.



Edited By Penelope on 1234213858

[OscarGuy]

BJ, you have a point. It is par for the course...

As for The Departed comparison, I have to agree. I think The Departed is one of the least impressive winners this decade.

You have the bottom-dwelling crap (akin to Greatest Show on Earth and Around the World in 80 Days):

Crash, A Beautiful Mind.

Then you have the masters of their genre that will likely be remembered long after their wins, and probably in spite of them and will likely be among the few examples of they got it right (akin to Lawrence of Arabia and The Godfather):

Chicago, Lord of the Rings

Then you have the well-crafted films that probably won't be remembered long after the final whistle other than cinema fanatics and historians (akin to All Quiet on the Western Front and It Happened One Night):

Million Dollar Baby, No Country for Old Men

Then there are the films that won for various reasons that fall firmly in the middle of the heap without any true measure of importance that, more so than the well-crafted films, will likely be seen as limited influence within the realm of their creators and mentioned only because of their success at the Oscars, but for which most people in 50 years won't remember even won Best Picture and may only have the Best Picture win as the reason they are remembered (akin to Going My Way and Chariots of Fire):

The Departed, Slumdog Millionaire

But, I would argue these four categories are fairly well represented in the history of the Academy Awards, so while The Godfather, Casablanca, Schindler's List, Annie Hall and others aren't exactly the exception to the rule, they are examples of when the Academy has, years down the road, been certified as having gotten it right.

[flipp525]

We've been blessed in the past couple of years with some rather fantastic winners in this category (The Departed, No Country for Old Men), so I'm not going to rail against the Slumdog choice too much (even though I think Milk is a better crafted film and, dare I say it, more topical film than Slumdog is with all its Mumbai-ness and Button manages to be more profound than a lot of people are giving it credit for).

Trotting out the usual suspects in comparison (The Godfather I & II, Casablanca, Gone With the Wind, etc.) is a little lazy and honestly doesn't manage to say that much about anything.



Edited By flipp525 on 1234211517

[Sonic Youth]

Or, to put it in '08 terms: isn't Slumdog Millionaire -- an enjoyable, good-looking entertainment that's not remotely challenging or groundbreaking -- pretty much par for the course with the Academy?

This is exactly the point I've been waiting to make. Enjoyable, good-looking entertainment, not remotely chalenging or groundbreaking. How is this any different from The Departed, which so many people cheered on because it was bad-ass Scorsese? I've read a lot of criticism here about Slumdog, and a great many of them are justifiable. I'll be the first to acknowledge Slumdog is superficial overall, and lacks that little bit of... something to make it a resounding success. It's not all that much more than flash and surface, nothing much beneath the story, no real thematic delving, no great character development, nothing groundbreaking, just stylish, cracker-jack, poppin' genre entertainment made by a man with superior command of the medium. But nothing beyond that. Hello? That's 'The Departed' in a nutshell. In fact, 'Slumdog' incorporates a LOT of Scorsese's stylistics, the breathless pacing, the use of the soundtrack, lots and lots of stimuli but with a firm, controlled hand guiding it all. But Scorsese's a genius, everyone was thrilled that Scorsese and his newest masterpiece finally received the AMPAS acclaim it deserved, despite the superficiality of the film itself. Slumdog's misfortune is that it doesn't have Scorsese's name attached to it, and flaws that would be excusable coming from a legendary veteran are far less easy to excuse when it's a less acclaimed filmmaker who should know better.

So which of the other four deserves to be on a level with "The Godfather" and "Gone With the Wind"? "Frost/Nixon"?



Edited By Sonic Youth on 1234211395

[The Original BJ]

A pleasant movie that is totally innocuous and unworthy to place alongside the likes of The Godfather, Gone With the Wind, Schindler's List and others.

This is a sentiment I've often heard this year (and in Oscar seasons past)...but isn't this taking a mighty rosy view of Oscar history?

It's one to thing to express disappointment when a film you dislike wins Oscar's top prize -- we all do this plenty. But I've never understood the point of view that any movie-of-the-moment isn't WORTHY of belonging in the "hallowed" pantheon of Oscar winners past. I mean, Oscar's been making dumb choices since the beginning (ESPECIALLY since the beginning, as evidenced by a lot of those early winners).

I feel I've often read articles bemoaning the fact that Movie X isn't as good as Casablanca, The Godfather, or Annie Hall...but aren't those films kind of the Oscar exception rather than the rule? Or, to put it in '08 terms: isn't Slumdog Millionaire -- an enjoyable, good-looking entertainment that's not remotely challenging or groundbreaking -- pretty much par for the course with the Academy? Isn't it much more like Oscar winners past than not?

(And I say this as someone who likes Slumdog Millionaire, likes a couple other pictures better, but feels no need to root against it.)



Edited By The Original BJ on 1234209507

[OscarGuy]

To see how it turns out, is probably the only reason many of us are even watching this year. In the past when there were juggernauts at least there were some interesting races around to watch, but even the contentious ones this year seem fairly boring and my disinterest has never been higher. I think is the first time a ceremony has come around and I've not been excited to watch it.

The inevitability of a merely good film winning against worthier efforts has drawn every bit of life and interest out of me...at least last year, I had some manner of hope that There Will Be Blood, an instant classic, could triumph over the in-the-moment No Country for Old Men, but it wasn't to happen. This year, it's like Rocky and Chariots of Fire, except that those films weren't slam dunks in their years. There was at least a measure of surprise. The only comfort I have going into this year is knowing that in 10 years (hopefully sooner), when people look back at this year's awards, they'll see a year like 1976 and 1981 where the results were less than spectacular and the film will be thought of in the same vein. A pleasant movie that is totally innocuous and unworthy to place alongside the likes of The Godfather, Gone With the Wind, Schindler's List and others.

[dylanfan23]

i have to say i love the comments made by those two, i think they have a good idea of what will make a great show. I like all their ideas. I don't think i've ever been optimistic about the "show" being really entertaining but i have to say i am this year. I think they are going to do a great job.

[flipp525]

It was a brave but terrible attempt to freshen up the Oscars, I did not enjoy the aisle-acceptance at all.

I loved Scarlett Johansson though in the balcony that year presenting whatever award it was swinging what looked like her dead arm back and forth. A classic Oscar moment.



Edited By flipp525 on 1234067315