The worst of the Academy Awards

[Dim of the Yard]

Best Documentary - Bowling for Columbine ...... this is not a political statement on my part as to why I think it is a piece of shit, it is because of all of the inaccurate statements and ambush interviewing.  Truly terrible.

You don't even have to put it that way. Bowling For Columbine simply does not meet the Academy's criteria to be classified as a documentary

I know!  Did that Michael Moore asshole even go bowling once during that stinkin' movie?!  I think I'll stick to the Big Lebowski.

[Rattrap007]

An Inconvenient Truth winning anything. A power Point presentation on a subject that is highly debatable is not a documentary... it is nothing more than BS propaganda. If Gore REALLY thought there was this crisis he'd be living in a 100% "green" shack, driving electric or super fuel efficient hybrids while using all renewable energy. But does he? No he flies around in private jets to give a talk on wasting natural resources being the cause of so called Global Warming..

[Natureboy]

An Inconvenient Truth winning anything. A power Point presentation on a subject that is highly debatable is not a documentary... it is nothing more than BS propaganda. If Gore REALLY thought there was this crisis he'd be living in a 100% "green" shack, driving electric or super fuel efficient hybrids while using all renewable energy. But does he? No he flies around in private jets to give a talk on wasting natural resources being the cause of so called Global Warming..

He should stick to saving us from ManBearPig

[Rattrap007]

An Inconvenient Truth winning anything. A power Point presentation on a subject that is highly debatable is not a documentary... it is nothing more than BS propaganda. If Gore REALLY thought there was this crisis he'd be living in a 100% "green" shack, driving electric or super fuel efficient hybrids while using all renewable energy. But does he? No he flies around in private jets to give a talk on wasting natural resources being the cause of so called Global Warming..

He should stick to saving us from ManBearPig

He's super cereal about that...

[ScottotD]

always forget Shakespeare in Love won.  I guess I just always think Saving Private Ryan won that year.  

Ew, I'd rather Shakespeare than that.  It's only crime was being kind of lame, it wasn't actively bad or anything.

[stansimpson]

I really shouldn't post to this board because I wish I could respond to EVERY post here.  Everyone here sounds like somebody who just likes going against the crowd for the sake of "originality" or just to have a different voice.  "Forrest Gump" is a great movie (and most likely ruined for you because everyone and their mother quoted/butchered it).  "Titanic" is debatable just because imo 1997 just wasn't a good year for movies.  What do YOU think deserved Best Picture that year?  "As Good As It Gets"? Puh-leez.  (It is funny though that it's a totally 8th grade girls' movie by James "T2" Cameron).  "English Patient" and "Chicago"?  Don't mind that.  That's just Harvey Weinstein successfully heisting the Oscars.  Seriously.  Same for "Shakespeare In Love."  "Saving Private Ryan" WAS the best movie... before Mr. Miramax got greedy (my personal biggest upset choice as well).  Also, never underestimate the power of political statements in a movie.  Documentaries (feature length, live action short, and animated short as well) ALWAYS goes to the one with the "bigger message."

But what I think people always fail to realize is the ratio of how consistently the Oscars have been?  Or better put, how well the choices have stood up over time.  Indeed there are dozens of WTF moments.  But you're picking all the wrong movies.  Have you ever compared lists with the Golden Globes or (God forbid don't ever actually look this up!) the People's Choice Awards?  The Oscars are a friggin litmus test compared to those!  Then again, my own personal tastes align.  Ya ever hear of "Born Into Brothels"?  No?  It won Best Documentary between the years of Michael Moore and Al Gore's movies.  It's about an American photographer who "rescues" child sex slaves from India by teaching them the art of photography (again, the "bigger message").  I can imagine a world where this movie got all blown out of proportion, EVERYBODY saw it and was talking about it, then you and your buddies went to go see it and were ultimately disappointed.  Why?  Because EVERYBODY saw it and was talking about it and forgot that it was a damn documentary!

Now, let's talk about the TRULY worst things about the Oscars.  How about what's her name from American Gangster getting nominated for Best Supporting Actress for (literally) her 5 minute performance!?  Or Judi Dench actually WINNING for her 8 minute performance as the queen in "Shakespeare in Love"!?!  8 MINUTES!?!  Or how about the infamous Marisa Tomei win for "My Cousin Vinny"?  Or how about EVERY Best Supporting Actor ever.  Check it out.  It's always political.  It should be renamed Thanks-For-Acting-For-All-These-Decades award.  Waitasec... have I been standing on this soapbox the whole time?  Geez.  Yeah, I should probably get off now.

[Kenneth Morgan]

"Fame" winning Best Original Score over "The Empire Strikes Back".

[Tripe]

Though to be fair Holst and Prokofiev and a few others might take umbrage at Empire (or indeed much of William's output) being described as an "original" score

[ScottotD]

"Forrest Gump" is a great movie (and most likely ruined for you because everyone and their mother quoted/butchered it)

Same for "Shakespeare In Love."  "Saving Private Ryan" WAS the best movie... before Mr. Miramax got greedy (my personal biggest upset choice as well).

As much as I do appreciate your attempt to correct my opinion, Forrest Gump is a shite movie and so was Saving Private Ryan.

[GregMcduck]

The Thin Red Line was what Saving Private Ryan should have been.

But the award should have gone to Life is Beautiful anyway.

[stansimpson]

"Forrest Gump" is a great movie (and most likely ruined for you because everyone and their mother quoted/butchered it)

Same for "Shakespeare In Love."  "Saving Private Ryan" WAS the best movie... before Mr. Miramax got greedy (my personal biggest upset choice as well).

As much as I do appreciate your attempt to correct my opinion, Forrest Gump is a shite movie and so was Saving Private Ryan.

I'm not trying to "correct your opinion."  I'm just trying to get you to see a different side of things.  The more we understand other people's thoughts that are very different from our own, the more complete a human being we become.

So why are these bad movies?  To play fair, I'll give my reasons for considering them good: 

I like "Forrest Gump" because it's an odyssey of one whose journey, for its dramatic purposes, inspires and shows everyone that no matter who you are, you are capable of great things not because of who you are but because of what you do.  The comedy part is seeing how oblivious he is to his luck and success, and by his own lack of ego, is granted celebrity (and more importantly, superficiality) blindness, never once giving credit to mere circumstances.  He is an idiot in the most Dostoevsky sense.  The tension works as your classic boy gets girl / boy loses girl / boy gets girl back tale.  The score is sweeping, Hanks creates a memorable character and you get a soundtrack anyone who remotely enjoys oldies should love.

Describing why Saving Private Ryan is good is on par with asking what's important about Schindler's List.  So, because there are so many obvious things (to me), I'm gonna have a hard time really explaining... but I'll try to scratch the surface here.  The first 20mins is still the most realistic portrayal of combat war (the example to which every war movie since is compared to).  The story never strays away from showing the themes of the remarkable importance that honor, duty and bravery hold.  If you fail to see this, then a.) you've completely lost the point, and b.) we'll have to start another thread.

It's fine if they're "not your cup of tea," and you simply don't enjoy them or "get" them.  But calling them inexorably bad on par with Manos: The Hands of Fate (a truly shite movie) I find rather extreme and trollish.  Unless Tom Hanks molested you as a child.  I'd understand where you're coming from if that happened too.

[daltysmilth]

Well, every year it seems like there are a bunch of movies that shouldn't win what they do, so instead I'll comment on other stupid things the academy has done. 

For one thing, I think it's been fairly elitist of them to not nominate more animated films for Best Picture.  I would say Toy Story should have been nominated at least.  Another thing is their requirement that, I think no more than 10% of an animated film can use animation taken directly from live actors, i.e. motion capture or rotoscope.  Now, the fact that I can't think of a theatrical movie using those styles of animation that deserves an Oscar doesn't mean that no one will ever make a movie using those techniques that will deserve an Oscar. 

[Relaxing Dragon]

"Forrest Gump" is a great movie (and most likely ruined for you because everyone and their mother quoted/butchered it)

Same for "Shakespeare In Love."  "Saving Private Ryan" WAS the best movie... before Mr. Miramax got greedy (my personal biggest upset choice as well).

As much as I do appreciate your attempt to correct my opinion, Forrest Gump is a shite movie and so was Saving Private Ryan.

I'm not trying to "correct your opinion."  I'm just trying to get you to see a different side of things.  The more we understand other people's thoughts that are very different from our own, the more complete a human being we become.

So why are these bad movies?  To play fair, I'll give my reasons for considering them good: 

I like "Forrest Gump" because it's an odyssey of one whose journey, for its dramatic purposes, inspires and shows everyone that no matter who you are, you are capable of great things not because of who you are but because of what you do.  The comedy part is seeing how oblivious he is to his luck and success, and by his own lack of ego, is granted celebrity (and more importantly, superficiality) blindness, never once giving credit to mere circumstances.  He is an idiot in the most Dostoevsky sense.  The tension works as your classic boy gets girl / boy loses girl / boy gets girl back tale.  The score is sweeping, Hanks creates a memorable character and you get a soundtrack anyone who remotely enjoys oldies should love.

Describing why Saving Private Ryan is good is on par with asking what's important about Schindler's List.  So, because there are so many obvious things (to me), I'm gonna have a hard time really explaining... but I'll try to scratch the surface here.  The first 20mins is still the most realistic portrayal of combat war (the example to which every war movie since is compared to).  The story never strays away from showing the themes of the remarkable importance that honor, duty and bravery hold.  If you fail to see this, then a.) you've completely lost the point, and b.) we'll have to start another thread.

It's fine if they're "not your cup of tea," and you simply don't enjoy them or "get" them.  But calling them inexorably bad on par with Manos: The Hands of Fate (a truly shite movie) I find rather extreme and trollish.  Unless Tom Hanks molested you as a child.  I'd understand where you're coming from if that happened too.

Forrest Gump is a good movie, and I agree with the points you bring up. However, I simply believe that it wasn't the best picture that year, and didn't deserve to take home the Oscar in that respect. I think it should've gone to Shawshank, and I've been thinking that for a good long time.

Full agreement on Saving Private Ryan, though. Still a little confused as to how it lost. That was a great movie, with the only real problem I had with it being the modern day stuff; it just felt like it was rubbing our face in the themes, as opposed to letting us figure them out through the rest of the movie (and that's more a problem I have with Spielberg than the film).

Going back on topic (kinda sorta); I was a bit miffed when Bourne Ultimatum took Best Sound Editing over No Country for Old Men. The former was good (and certainly deserved Best Editing; simply putting that movie together in a coherent fashion was a bit of an achievement), but I think that No Country deserved it more. No big deal, though; all things considered, the 2008 Oscars were my favorite because I actually agreed with a grand portion of the awards, and even the ones I didn't agree with I was happy with.

[ScottotD]

"Forrest Gump" is a great movie (and most likely ruined for you because everyone and their mother quoted/butchered it)

Same for "Shakespeare In Love."  "Saving Private Ryan" WAS the best movie... before Mr. Miramax got greedy (my personal biggest upset choice as well).

As much as I do appreciate your attempt to correct my opinion, Forrest Gump is a shite movie and so was Saving Private Ryan.

I'm not trying to "correct your opinion."  I'm just trying to get you to see a different side of things.  The more we understand other people's thoughts that are very different from our own, the more complete a human being we become.

So why are these bad movies?  To play fair, I'll give my reasons for considering them good: 

I like "Forrest Gump" because it's an odyssey of one whose journey, for its dramatic purposes, inspires and shows everyone that no matter who you are, you are capable of great things not because of who you are but because of what you do.  The comedy part is seeing how oblivious he is to his luck and success, and by his own lack of ego, is granted celebrity (and more importantly, superficiality) blindness, never once giving credit to mere circumstances.  He is an idiot in the most Dostoevsky sense.  The tension works as your classic boy gets girl / boy loses girl / boy gets girl back tale.  The score is sweeping, Hanks creates a memorable character and you get a soundtrack anyone who remotely enjoys oldies should love.

Describing why Saving Private Ryan is good is on par with asking what's important about Schindler's List.  So, because there are so many obvious things (to me), I'm gonna have a hard time really explaining... but I'll try to scratch the surface here.  The first 20mins is still the most realistic portrayal of combat war (the example to which every war movie since is compared to).  The story never strays away from showing the themes of the remarkable importance that honor, duty and bravery hold.  If you fail to see this, then a.) you've completely lost the point, and b.) we'll have to start another thread.

It's fine if they're "not your cup of tea," and you simply don't enjoy them or "get" them.  But calling them inexorably bad on par with Manos: The Hands of Fate (a truly shite movie) I find rather extreme and trollish.  Unless Tom Hanks molested you as a child.  I'd understand where you're coming from if that happened too.

Forrest Gump is insulting, it shows an inane version of "the American dream" where a complete moron can fall ass-backwards through life succeeding because he just accepts what happens to him without questioning it.  The soundtrack is a poor replacement for actually having to establish themes or drama.

The first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan don't feature any depiction of war, they feature the American flag and lots of clumsy patriotisim.  It's not half the film The Thin Red Line and comes down to basically being a talky version of the Dirty Dozen with Tom Hanks as a dull man's Lee Marvin.

I find you calling my post trollish rather ridiculous since your reply although wordier, doesn't offer anything other than "I like them"

[stansimpson]

"Forrest Gump" is a great movie (and most likely ruined for you because everyone and their mother quoted/butchered it)

Same for "Shakespeare In Love."  "Saving Private Ryan" WAS the best movie... before Mr. Miramax got greedy (my personal biggest upset choice as well).

As much as I do appreciate your attempt to correct my opinion, Forrest Gump is a shite movie and so was Saving Private Ryan.

I'm not trying to "correct your opinion."  I'm just trying to get you to see a different side of things.  The more we understand other people's thoughts that are very different from our own, the more complete a human being we become.

So why are these bad movies?  To play fair, I'll give my reasons for considering them good: 

I like "Forrest Gump" because it's an odyssey of one whose journey, for its dramatic purposes, inspires and shows everyone that no matter who you are, you are capable of great things not because of who you are but because of what you do.  The comedy part is seeing how oblivious he is to his luck and success, and by his own lack of ego, is granted celebrity (and more importantly, superficiality) blindness, never once giving credit to mere circumstances.  He is an idiot in the most Dostoevsky sense.  The tension works as your classic boy gets girl / boy loses girl / boy gets girl back tale.  The score is sweeping, Hanks creates a memorable character and you get a soundtrack anyone who remotely enjoys oldies should love.

Describing why Saving Private Ryan is good is on par with asking what's important about Schindler's List.  So, because there are so many obvious things (to me), I'm gonna have a hard time really explaining... but I'll try to scratch the surface here.  The first 20mins is still the most realistic portrayal of combat war (the example to which every war movie since is compared to).  The story never strays away from showing the themes of the remarkable importance that honor, duty and bravery hold.  If you fail to see this, then a.) you've completely lost the point, and b.) we'll have to start another thread.

It's fine if they're "not your cup of tea," and you simply don't enjoy them or "get" them.  But calling them inexorably bad on par with Manos: The Hands of Fate (a truly shite movie) I find rather extreme and trollish.  Unless Tom Hanks molested you as a child.  I'd understand where you're coming from if that happened too.

Forrest Gump is insulting, it shows an inane version of "the American dream" where a complete moron can fall ass-backwards through life succeeding because he just accepts what happens to him without questioning it.

1.)  That's comedy.
2.)  Are you familiar with Dostoevsky's "The Idiot"?

The soundtrack is a poor replacement for actually having to establish themes or drama.

The oldies offer one form of connection to the audience through music.  it would be very much like "American Grafiti" if it weren't for Alan Silvestri's score which establishes themes and drama.

The first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan don't feature any depiction of war

"War" is a broad term, but I was specifically referring to combat.

I find you calling my post trollish rather ridiculous since your reply although wordier, doesn't offer anything other than "I like them"

I've dissected character, mentioned themes, espoused messages.  I'm not sure what you're looking for here.  I find your post trollish in the sense that it seems your hate is rather extreme.  Any way you look at them, they are well-crafted movies with many talented people involved.  There are so so so many more films that are much much worse.