Worst Oscar Decisions

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mojoe92
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Re: Worst Oscar Decisions

Post by mojoe92 »

I'd love to chime in on this with my top 10 in each major category

Picture.

10- Midnight Cowboy over Z (1969)
9- The French Connection over A Clockwork Orange (1971)
8- The Sting over The Exorcist (1973)
7- Gladiator over Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000)
6- Gandhi over Tootsie (1982)
5- Out of Africa over The Color Purple (1985)
4- Driving Miss Daisy over Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
3- Braveheart over Il Postino (1995)
2- Argo over Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
1- The Artist over The Tree of Life (2011)

Director.
10- Katheryn Bigelow over Lee Daniels (2009)
9- Bob Fosse over Francis Ford Coppola (1972)
8- John Schlesinger over Costa- Gavras (1969)
7- Franklin J. Schaffner over Fredrico Fellini (1970)
6- William Friedkin over Stanley Kubrick (1971)
5- Ang Lee over Behn Zeitlin ( 2012)
4- Milos Fohrman over Robert Altman (1975)
3- Danny Boyle over Gus Van Sant (2008)
2- Tom Hooper over Darren Aronofsky (2010)
1- Michael Hazanavicious over Terrence Malick (2011)

Actress
10- Sissy Spacek over Ellen Burstyn (1980)
9- Louise Fletcher over Carol Kane (1975)
8- Jessica Tandy over Isabelle Adjani (1989)
7- Hilary Swank over Catalina Sandino-Moreno (2004)
6- Julie Christie over Elizabeth Hartman (1965)
5- Sandra Bullock over Gabourey Sidibe (2009)
4- Natalie Portman over Michelle Williams (2010)
3- Ellen Burstyn over Dihann Carroll (1974)
2- Jennifer Lawrence over Quvenzhane Wallis (2012)
1- Julia Roberts over Ellen Burstyn (2000) - TIE
1- Liza Minelli over Diana Ross (1972)- TIE
1- Jodie Foster over Bette Midler (1991) - TIE

Actor
10- Jeff Bridges over Colin Firth (2009)
9- George C. Scott over Jack Nicholson (1970)
8- Nicholas Cage over Massimo Troissi (1995)
7- Daniel Day- Lewis over Tom Cruise (1989)
6- Paul Newman over Dexter Gordon (1986)
5- Robert Duvall over Tom Conti (1983)
4- Jon Voight over Robert De Niro (1978)
3- Richard Dreyfuss over Marcello Mastroianni (1977)
2- Gene Hackman over Topol (1971)
1- Colin Firth over Javier Bardem (2010)

Supporting Actress
10- Maggie Smith over Penelope Milford (1978)
9- Dianne Wiest over Jennifer Tilly (1994)
8- Ruth Gordon over Lynn Carlin (1967)
7- Vanessa Redgrave over Quinn Cummings (1977)
6- Octavia Spencer over Melissa McCarthy (2011)
5- Melissa Leo over Jacki Weaver (2010)
4- Eileen Heckart over Susan Tyrell (1972)
3- Goldie Hawn over Catherine Burns (1969)
2- Jessica Lange over Teri Garr (1982)
1- Lee Grant over Ronee Blakley (1975)- TIE
1- Anne Hathaway over Jacki Weaver (2012)- TIE
1- Jennifer Hudson over Rinko Kikuchi (2006)-TIE
1- Helen Hayes over Karen Black (1970)- TIE
1- Peggy Ashcroft over Lindsay Crouse (1984)- TIE
1- Geena Davis over Joan Cusack ( 1988) - TIE

Supporting Actor
10- Melvyn Douglas over Justin Henry (1979)
9- Christopher Plummer over Nick Nolte (2011)
8- Christoph Waltz over Robert De Niro (2012)
7- Joe Pesci over Bruce Davison (1990)
6- Don Ameche over Eric Roberts (1985)
5- Timmothy Hutton over Michael O'Keefe (1980)
4- Jason Robards over Burt Young (1976)
3- George Burns over Brad Dourif (1975)
2- Robert De Niro over Michael V. Gazzo (1974)
1- Christian Bale over John Hawkes (2010)- TIE
1- John Houseman over Jason Miller (1973)- TIE
1- Gig Young over Rupert Crosse OR Jack Nicholson (1969)- TIE
ksrymy
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Re: Worst Oscar Decisions

Post by ksrymy »

I know I'm really late to the party, but here are my two cents.

BEST PICTURE
1. Rocky over Network (1976)
2. The Greatest Show on Earth over High Noon (1952)
3. Gladiator over Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000)
4. Gandhi over Tootsie (1982)
5. An American in Paris over A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

BEST ACTOR
1. Jeff Bridges over Colin Firth (2009)
2. Art Carney over Jack Nicholson (1974)
3. John Wayne over Jon Voight (1969)
4. Marlon Brando over Laurence Olivier (1972)
5. Cliff Robertson over Peter O'Toole (1968)

BEST ACTRESS
1. Judy Holliday over Gloria Swanson (1950)
2. Elizabeth Taylor over Deborah Kerr (1960)
3. Halle Berry over Sissy Spacek (2001)
4. Luise Rainer over Irene Dunne (1937)
5. Anne Bancroft over Geraldine Page (1962)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
1. Barry Fitzgerald over Clifton Webb (1944)
2. Walter Brennan over John Garfield (1938)
3. Jim Broadbent over Ben Kingsley (2001)
4. Joe Pesci over Bruce Davison (1990)
5. Don Ameche over Klaus Maria Brandauer (1985)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
1. Melissa Leo over Hailee Steinfeld (2010)
2. Octavia Spencer over Janet McTeer (2011)
3. Mira Sorvino over Joan Allen (1995)
4. Jennifer Hudson over Adriana Barraza (2006)
5. Jessica Lange over Lesley Ann Warren (1982)

BEST DIRECTOR
1. Ron Howard over David Lynch (2001)
2. Peter Jackson over Clint Eastwood (2003)
3. William Friedkin over Stanley Kubrick (1971)
4. Robert Benton over Bob Fosse (1979)
5. John Schlesinger over Costa-Gavras (1969)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1. Gandhi over Tootsie (1982)
2. Pillow Talk over North by Northwest (1959)
3. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner over Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
4. Coming Home over The Deer Hunter (1978)
5. Lost in Translation over Finding Nemo (2003)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
1. In the Heat of the Night over The Graduate (1967)
2. The Cider House Rules over The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
3. Going My Way over Double Indemnity (and Gaslight and Laura and Meet Me in St. Louis) (1944)
4. The Country Girl over Rear Window (1954)
5. Kramer vs. Kramer over La Cage aux Folles (1979)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
1. The Godfather: Part II over Chinatown
2. The Red Violin over American Beauty
3. The Omen over Taxi Driver

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
1. "Talk to the Animals" over "The Look of Love" (1967)
2. "You Light Up My Life" over "Candle on the Water" (1977)
3. "Three Coins in the Fountain" over "The Man That Got Away" (1954)
4. "Swinging on a Star" over "The Trolley Song" (1944)
5. "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" over "In the Deep" (and "Travelin' Thru") (2005)

BEST EDITING
1. The Towering Inferno over Chinatown (1974)
2. King Solomon's Mines over The Third Man (and Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve) (1950)
3. North West Mounted Police over Rebecca (and The Grapes of Wrath and The Letter) (1940)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
1. The Towering Inferno over Chinatown (1974)
2. Memoirs of a Geisha over Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring over Moulin Rouge! (2001)
4. Mississippi Burning over Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)
5. Road to Perdition over Chicago (2002)

BEST ART DIRECTION
1. Gandhi over Blade Runner (1982)
2. Out of Africa over Brazil (1985)
3. The Godfather: Part II over Chinatown (1974)
4. Hello, Dolly! over They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)
5. Gigi over Vertigo (1958)

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
1. Camelot over Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
2. Marie Antoinette over Curse of the Golden Flower (2006)
3. Gandhi over Victor/Victoria (1982)
4. Gladiator over Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000)

BEST MAKEUP
1. Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! over Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

BEST SOUND
1. Earthquake over Chinatown (1974)

BEST SOUND EFFECTS
(None)

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
1. Independence Day over Twister (1996)
2. Gladiator over The Perfect Storm (2000)

BEST FOREIGN FILM
1. The Secret in Their Eyes over The White Ribbon (2009)
2. Departures over Waltz with Bashir (2008)
3. Pelle the Conqueror over Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
4. Mediteranio over Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
5. Black and White in Color over Cousin, cousine (1976)

BEST DOCUMENTARY
1. Undefeated over Pina (2011)
2. One Day in September over Buena Vista Social Club (1999)
3. The Hellstrom Chronicle over The Sorrow and the Pity
4. The Long Way Home over 4 Little Girls (1997)
"Men get to be a mixture of the charming mannerisms of the women they have known." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
dreaMaker
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Post by dreaMaker »

JUNO - F O U R NOMINATIONS (BEST PICTURE? BEST DIRECTOR????????????????)

:O
flipp525
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Post by flipp525 »

Steph2 wrote:And wasn't John Nash's wife Latino? Jennifer Connelly hardly qualifies (sorry, I really can't stand that bitch).

I know this horse has been beaten to death, but I find it interesting that "Steph" thought that Jennifer Connelly was a royal bitch and a horrible actress while Akash exalted her to the level of goddess. I mean, which was it?! Or was that just another tactic to throw us off? Rhetorical question, of course.




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Post by Akash »

She's wasted in Little Children, but that movie was problematic even without her. And even so, she wasn't "bad" in it. The performances were the best things in that film.
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Post by Hustler »

Akash wrote:Do you guys really think she's just a "beauty with little talent?" My goodness I beg to differ! Requiem for a Dream, House of Sand and Fog (so should have been nominated again) and even when her films aren't that good -- The Hulk, Dark Water -- she's wonderful in them. I think she deserves way more credit than some of the bland beauties that have won Oscars in recent years. Pretty much the only film Connelly couldn't save was Blood Diamond (absolutely wretched) and even then, she was more fuckable in it than Charlize Theron could ever fucking be.
I don´think she´s so talented Akash. Have you seen in Little Children , How Kate Winslet ate her? (this is a very common proverb used in Argentina which means when some actor in a shared scene with someone else, through his versatility and talent makes the other one disappear)
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Post by Akash »

flipp525 wrote:What the producers found "unpleasant" was most likely the idea of having manly-man Crowe portrayed as anything less than some heterosexual paradigm of masculinity

To be fair to Crowe though (and I can't believe I'm defending this asshole), he did play a gay man in "The Sum of Us" and apparently was quoted in Interview Magazine (September, 1997) as saying: "There are many questions I would ask a character -- for instance, 'Do you believe in the death penalty?' -- before I ever got round to 'What's your sexuality?' I think other factors are more important in terms of human relationships and the way society operates than what someone's sexuality is. Sexual orientation is not something that people necessarily choose; it's just who they are."

God, am I going to have to like this asshole now? Forward thinking about sexuality and subtly hinting his disdain for the death penalty? Who knew?

Anyway, Flipp's point was really about the show's producers, the way hetero-normative standards are marketed by Hollywood, and a hetero-normative (and homophobic) dominant culture at large. I think Sabin is correct to fear that a lot of narrow minded people in the U.S. would easily conflate bisexuality with mental disease, but this should not be a reason to shy away from portraying it. Let the audience conclude whatever moronic thing it wants to conclude -- by acquiescing to the dominant culture, you are actually merely circumscribing it, and I have no doubt that Flipp is absolutely right here: the cowardly decision was made as a way to present a more "clean" version of Nash's life, and sexually othered people in the U.S. are not part of the "clean" picture.

Now I have no problem in general with a film taking certain liberties in order to tell a particular story (this is after all a fictional film, not a documentary -- and my dislike for the film has less to do with its biographical infelicities and more to do with it being just a lousy film), but this particular decision/omission has more to do with a larger view of sexually othered people in the U.S., and we all know it.

So is making Nash's Latina wife reassuringly Caucasian (if we're going to tackle one Flipp, we should tackle all).




Edited By Akash on 1203723076
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Post by Sabin »

I'd rather be afforded the opportunity to maintain the distinction between bisexuality and mental illness on my own without some studio brass or homophobic screenwriter making that decision for me.

Me too. We don't live in that world.

Film is changing irrevocably. Look at 'American Gangster'. We can't have a $93 million-plus movie with Denzel Washington directed by Antoine Fuqua with Benicio Del Toro as Ritchie Roberts but we can have a $125 million-plus with Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott. Which movie is truer to the story of Frank Lucas do you think? And why do you think that decision was made? Both 'A Beautiful Mind' and 'American Gangster' substantially deviate from their source material. One made a shit load of money and won Oscars, the other didn't.

That's the bad news. Worse vanilla movies are being made. The good news is that independent film is dead. We live in an age of subsidized art. The days of 'Stranger than Paradise' are done but production studios are forming Indiewood branches that are creating some incredibly daring pieces of art that would be impossible to fathom in the Miramax 90's. Harvey Weinstein didn't make a daring acquisition after 'The Crying Game' or maybe 'The Piano'. Quentin Tarantino was a walking Happy Meal so I don't count 'Pulp Fiction'. But Focus Features, Searchlight Pictures, Paramount Vantage...it's a have your cake and eat it too period in which really everybody can be happy. A deeply unpleasant movie like 'Margot at the Wedding' would never have had Nicole Kidman, Jack Black, and...well, I guess Jennifer Jason Leigh would be attached, so Noah Baumbach would perhaps find it difficult to secure this location in the Hamptons and Harris Savides to shoot it. Filmmakers who break even at best like Wes Anderson wouldn't have the patronage of Scott Rudin, trusting that DVD sales and the ability to sleep at night would be reward enough.

Hollywood has subsidized big budget art and right now it seems to be working. I know this turned into a lecture but the fact that I don't know the whole story of John Forbes Nash doesn't keep me up at night. I don't like the film and I don't want to think what Ron Howard would do with the prospect of bisexuality when he can't even handle heterosexuality.
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Post by flipp525 »

Sabin wrote:To debate the merits of what to keep in or what to leave out is slippery. I can understand why they chose not to. It could implicate sexuality with mental illness which opens a can of worms that the producers might have found unpleasant. What I will say is that what is on-screen is gimmicky, bland, and myopic enough to not beg for deeper territory when what is there is so unsubstantial.

I'd rather be afforded the opportunity to maintain the distinction between bisexuality and mental illness on my own without some studio brass or homophobic screenwriter making that decision for me. Besides, I highly doubt that was the reason it was stricken from Nash's story. What the producers found "unpleasant" was most likely the idea of having manly-man Crowe portrayed as anything less than some heterosexual paradigm of masculinity (albeit professorial and whack-crazy).

Whether or not the film would've been improved by including that part of his life is irrelevant. When homosexual content or history is purposely excised in order to make a product more palatable to a wider swath of audience, it further disenfranchises gay people. It's really that simple.




Edited By flipp525 on 1203713772
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."

-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
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Post by Steph2 »

Sabin wrote:In 'A Beautiful Mind', she is an interchangeable pair of eyebrows.
LOL! You are great.
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Post by Sabin »

In 'A Beautiful Mind', she is an interchangeable pair of eyebrows. She's been very good this decade in 'Requiem', 'Hulk', 'House of Sand and Fog', and 'Dark Water' but she's at her worst in 'A Beautiful Mind'. Fuckable but unbelievable.
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Post by Akash »

Do you guys really think she's just a "beauty with little talent?" My goodness I beg to differ! Requiem for a Dream, House of Sand and Fog (so should have been nominated again) and even when her films aren't that good -- The Hulk, Dark Water -- she's wonderful in them. I think she deserves way more credit than some of the bland beauties that have won Oscars in recent years. Pretty much the only film Connelly couldn't save was Blood Diamond (absolutely wretched) and even then, she was more fuckable in it than Charlize Theron could ever fucking be.



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Post by OscarGuy »

Connelly was so far from being good in A Beautiful Mind that I'm not surprised the Academy went for it (they have a horrid time picking beauties with little talent in the Supporting Actress category). The only time I've ever liked Connelly was in Requiem for a Dream which has one of the strongest ensembles this decade.
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Post by Akash »

I don't know what you're smoking but there's nothing generic about her. Oh wait, I forgot. You're gay. :p
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Post by Sabin »

Connelly is a generic fuck toy in 'A Beautiful Mind' with not a shred of organic personality or believability. I don't know what you're smoking. She's not a horrible actress but 'A Beautiful Mind' ranks among her worst performances.
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