The Alternate Oscars: Best Picture (1969-Present)

[colinr0380]

Daldry's previous film, the absurdly overpraised Billy Elliot, also takes a couple of extremely reductive, borderline offensive, swerves into homosexuality too, particularly the gobsmacking final scene which (at least in my reading of it) takes what should be a tale about a boy doing what he wants to in the face of societal pressure of whatever kind and moves it into a supposedly tolerant "who cares if he is gay?" ending, which was a question that never needed to even be asked and only serves to underline the film holding similar, but more veiled, prejudices to the broader previous generational ones that were being poked fun at earlier in the film!

The worst thing about the 1950s section of The Hours is how it suffers in comparison with the other Julianne Moore-starring 1950s set film of the same year, Far From Heaven. As is often the case with the Oscars, there is usually a better, deeper and more interesting film tackling the same ideas from around the same time that has been overlooked in favour of a simpler, flashier film.

Having said that, without The Hours we would never have had the piercing Adam & Joe song about it!

[movielocke]

That review of the Hours is one of the greatest things I've ever read on this forum. Bravo.

[domino harvey]

2008
the Curious Case of Benjamin Button Starts off grotesquely enough with Brad Pitt's hideous and tiresome old man child antics before settling into a mediocre, occasionally diverting epic. I didn't buy anything that happened in this film and I'm not just talking about its fantastical elements. The entire relationship with Cate Blanchett is thinly-drawn and nonsensical, especially concerning Pitt's ultimate exit from their courtship. This is a film that has a lot to say about nothing in particular, and without exception its only successful moments are those removed from its whimsical premise. Why not just make this film sans-high concept shenanigans? The fact that it wouldn't be that hard to remove the offending parts and have a workable whole tells you how gimmicky and unnecessary it is in the first place. Then again, this was the year of the unnecessary, wasn't it?

Frost/Nixon Inexplicable outward in all directions. Why is this a movie? Why did someone think anything happening in this movie was of interest to anyone who might watch this movie? Why not make some effort to make a film concerned with people talking interesting to listen to or exhibit at least some modicum of wit? This is a film that disintegrates from memory in front of you while still watching it. Show of hands: Who even remembered this film existed? Minor points awarded for just being dull and perfunctory and not actively awful and also for netting Frank Langella an Oscar nom, even though he didn't deserve it for this film.

Milk An above-average and timely biopic that looks like All the President's Men amidst this murder's row. Sean Penn gives a warm and welcome performance as Harvey Milk, absolving the Academy of its sins for rewarding him in Mystic River by meriting his win here. Gus Van Sant's film does a great job of pulling the right manipulative strings to make it all work, even when it hits some too-easy notes.

the Reader You can already see the whitewashing of the outrage and confusion directed towards this film by visiting its Wikipedia entry, which helpfully skips over the fervid negative responses its nominations received. This was a year when the fifth slot seemed destined to go to far superior films: Doubt, the Wrestler, Happy Go Lucky, and (even if I'm not as big of these two a fan as others) Wall-E and the Dark Knight. But it went to the Reader, making it (until the nomination of Daldry's next film) the lowest-rated modern film in critical response to win a nomination. This was hardly the first bad film to be nominated for Best Picture (obv-- have you read these threads?) but so wrong-headed was this choice that it caused the Academy to increase the threshold for Best Picture selections to ten (now up to ten).

As for the film itself, it is thankfully nowhere near as atrocious as the Hours, but it exhibits a continued hostility towards women in all of its characterizations which is distracting at best. Kate Winslet did her share of robbing, knocking Sally Hawkins out of the running for Best Actress (the second-greatest Best Actress snub of the modern era behind Charlize Theron in Young Adult) for her dull, uninspired performance. This is a classic "She's been nominated but hasn't won yet" win, and unless flaunting one's undesirable nude body interspersed with looking confused a lot now counts as the best acting of the year, this is a 2-for-2 Daldry crime against the Best Actress category at the very least. Outside of the outrage, though, all one takes away from the film is how there's no reason at all for it to exist. It says nothing of interest with regards to its scenario and the historical context required and the film does not attempt to even be a "feel good" story of hope or a "feel bad" story of the crimes of war. It says nothing and thinks that counts as ambiguity. It does not.

Slumdog Millionaire A woefully stupid film, shot in a highly-annoying fashion by Danny Boyle and engineered to be mindlessly "optimistic" entertainment for middle class audiences. I don't particularly care that it panders and is a glossy treatment of salacious elements that a better film would treat with respect-- I care that it's poorly made, over-cut, hypergarbage without a real adult thought in its simpering head. One of the worst winners in this category ever-- and don't forget, this swept up this year. Kind of a "Praise from Caesar" scenario, though, with this company…

My Vote Milk


2010
127 Hours Looking very much like a deodorant commercial from 1992, this agonizingly hyperactive mess doesn't even have the courage of its convictions and barely sticks with James Franco stuck between a rock and a hard place, opting instead to filter in endless snippets of flashbacks and hallucinations which add zero value to anything on-screen. The true life predicament is compelling but Boyle pissed it away here.

Black Swan A film which looked ridiculous and ludicrous all the way until I actually saw it, at which point it became an engrossing psychological portrait of damage and one of the best-observed films about dance I've seen (coming from someone who's dealt with many similar characters and scenarios offered within this world). Natalie Portman was just the kind of Oscar Ingenue shoo-in you could root for, too, even if Jennifer Lawrence did probably deserve it this year.

the Fighter Mediocre townie tale where the only exceptional thing is Amy Adams playing against type. Melissa Leo won an Oscar for going big, and Christian Bale won for going big while going small. Like the King's Speech, this is instantly disposable prestige fluff.

Inception It seems like lately on the board this is the go-to joke against Christopher Nolan, but I don't know where such animosity comes from. This is one of the greatest blockbuster entertainments ever released by Hollywood: expensive-looking but smart and alive with possibilities. Its detractors claim everything I just said in the other direction. This is why we can't have nice things.

the Kids Are All Right Crude stupidity and backwards sexual politics masquerading as "progressive." Mark Ruffalo and Mia Wasikowska are, as they often are, the best thing on screen, but they cannot overcome a film where actual lines like "I need parenting advice from you like I need a dick in my ass" are uttered. In a year with ten nominations, this is the bottom of the barrel.

the King's Speech Not the worst Best Picture winner in recent memory, but a galling one for being an average film that won over at least four other Capital G Great films. Middling seems the appropriate watchword here, then. Colin Firth isn't anything special but won Best Actor in a weak field, though Geoffrey Rush does a much better job and should have been nominated as Best Actor as well rather than Supporting. The film is riotously self-important, especially stacked up against a film that made the story of Facebook one of the most exciting films of the year-- it's not like slight historical material can't be salvaged, this year literally proves it!

the Social Network Now this is how you take less than important subject matter and just kill it. Sorkin's script is alive with his best tendencies on full display and the film works best when Fincher's need to constantly distract himself with assorted directorial affectations allows Sorkin's dialog to just snappily glide along whatever CGI accoutrements Fincher slathers them between. This film is still relevant today and will be relevant in fifty years as a clever snapshot of an era while the King's Speech will be a curio on an IMDB page that only gets trotted out every couple years in Oscar-specific discussion.

Toy Story 3 Like most Pixar films, the appeal here mostly escapes me. I enjoyed the first Toy Story a lot, didn't care for the second, and this one falls in-between. The film briefly flirts with some childlike enthusiasm in the midst of all the action movie nonsense, but these moments are fleeting indeed.

True Grit Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld both merited their noms and the dialog, though a bit cute with affect (present in the source, no doubt), shines, but this amounts to a pretty good set-up with no follow-through. I haven't read the source novel but this version has the same third act problems which deflated the previous adaptation, so I suspect its inherent in the material-- the Coens slavish devotion to fidelity could have used a break here. The 25 years later coda could have and should have been excised wholly, at the very least.

Winter's Bone I suspect one of the things that may get lost in looking back at this year as the years go on is the utter jubilation so many felt at a small, wonderful film like this sneaking in with some serious representation. Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes earned their noms (and deserved to win) and the film does a masterful job of capturing a backwoods world that appears intact and full of life.

My Vote This is a tough call, since four of the films from this year's nominees appear on my own Top 10 list back to back. I ultimately give the edge to Inception, but Black Swan, Winter's Bone, and the Social Network are so closely matched to it in quality that it hardly matters which I pick.

[knives]

Admittedly this is mostly because the topic cuts to close so the inaccuracies become offensive to me, but I've always foundWinter's Bone and Lawrence's performance just appalling even if one were to take its various elements as purposeful surrealism. If it weren't for Hawke who is typically the best thing to the point of making his scenes great by virtue of his presence it would easily be the worst film I've seen from its year.

[domino harvey]

Attn Mods: James Mills has hijacked knives' account

[knives]

Funny, I just mean it feels like its talking down to me, its characters, and their existence like some 19th century white douche prying in on Africans and admonishing them for being savages all the while never leaving Europe. Just thinking of Lawrence's completely wrong accent annoys me.

[matrixschmatrix]

I'm kind of baffled by your claims of inauthenticity as much as I was by James Mills'- a.) the thing was written by a guy who actually lives in the Ozarks, and has made a career of writing crime fiction set there, and b.) it actually felt remarkable for the degree of humanity it invested into people who are generally treated as negligible at best and subhuman in general- and unlike, say, Beasts of the Southern Wild, did so by having them be be human, not mythological figures. I didn't see a hint of white man's burden disgust about how those people let their community get that way, as the whole thing felt very much like an exploration of what springs up in a place that has no legitimate economy and no economic hopes provided for those who say there.

As far as Lawrence's accent- is it really unbelievable that a Missourian would have a Kentucky accent?

[knives]

Her accent didn't sound much like either (I know she's from Kentucky, but she was clearly trying to affect an accent). It was an other artificial application to a botoxed face pretending to be real. I could see how in writing the film's mechanics could have some authenticity (certain elements like the recruiter are surprisingly real), but as filmed it had a level of condescension while emphasizing the unrealistic elements in a way that frankly came across as bad as Beasts (though far better filmed). Actually in some ways I find Winter's Bone worse because it is feigning reality.

[movielocke]

I'm from Southwestern Missouri and the accents sounded spot on to me.

[knives]

1977
Annie Hall-This is so unfortunately a one sided race that I kind of feel sorry for the other movies. It's not even that Annie Hall is that great of a movie, I feel already by this point Allen had made at least one better, but that it coherently shows its ambition which is more than can be said about any of the other movies here. It really shouldn't be that hard to reach the bar this movie sets.

The Goodbye Girl-Speaking of that bar this movie's greatest misfortune is going up against Allen's film which it so closely resembles thus highlighting it's mediocrity. It's not that I dislike Simon, he's good for what he does, but he's the New Yorker of writers, nothing more than a few good lines and whatever actors are saying them. Dreyfuss winning seems fair as he's doing the same thing as Allen, but succeeding as well with lesser material (though I haven't the Burton nor Mastroianni performances).

Julia-This is not one of the worst BPNs solely on account of it not winning because by its merits alone it is certainly in the same league as Cimarron. The whole film is composed like the most unimaginative producer's attempt at making a commercial Malick film with it's strained voice over, vaseline smeared cinematography, elliptical back and forth editing that just serves to be condescending rather than illuminating, and the most actorly lead performance I've encountered in some time. The extra frustrating thing about this is that Zinnemann has proven that he is better than this elsewhere.

Star Wars-Returning to this as an adult it is pretty funny how despite being treated like the Campbell's guide to story telling it really comes across as half a movie with a climax, but no catastrophe. The characters are alright with Ford especially being insanely charming, but the film never really feels like a whole. I also have to laugh at Guinness getting nominated since his performance is so lazy and loathing of the entire production. Then again that entire category is filled with performances just like that so it is probably unfair to single out this blunder.

The Turning Point-Oy vey this is a complete and utter mess of a film not succeeding anywhere beyond existing. As a soap, which seems its primary goal, it is boring and as a film on dance it is condescending and lifeless. This is entirely the fault of Ross who always has a television aesthetic, but cranks it to eleven here. Also I think he is best as a conduit for other personalities like Potter and Allen and so it is almost by virtue that a film where he is in absolute control would feel empty.

My Vote-Annie Hall

[domino harvey]

Richard Dreyfuss most definitely deserved to win despite, as you point out, his weak material-- can you imagine how desolate the film would have been without him in it?! How he wasn't even nominated in Supporting for Jaws is beyond me, but the Academy did right on this count

[knives]

I think he deserved to win because of it. With the writing presented to him it wasn't hard for Allen to be great, but for Dreyfuss to make that Richard III stuff work as well as it did took an expert.

[domino harvey]

2011
the Artist As with the Good German, a contingent of self-described film lovers felt it necessary to decry this film at every step upon its release and subsequent awards-sweeping, but I think time will be quite favorable to this homage to silent cinema as a concept. And I think it'll be especially difficult for later generations to understand why a silent French film released in 2011 was the "safe" choice for Best Picture! Jean Dujardin and especially Berenice Bejo give warm and immensely pleasurable performances (Bejo was robbed of a win, possibly in part because she was run in Supporting instead of Best Actress where she belonged) and the film was one of 2011's great entertainments. Here's a rare string of words, then: Good work, Academy!

the Descendants There are two reasons to see this, and their names are George Clooney and Shailene Woodley. As much as I loved the Artist, Clooney really merited the win for his career-best performance as a man navigating new territories in the wake of his wife's coma. And to the Academy's great shame and discredit, Woodley's bratty teen daughter wasn't even nominated, though it looks like she'll have the last laugh by being super-employable regardless for the foreseeable future. Other than the actors, though, the filmmaking is utilitarian, the Oscar-winning script not quite as clever or well-constructed as it could've been, and the locale only used for picture postcard setups that any film could have mirrored.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Well, it's easily the most tolerable of the three Daldry features I've had to suffer through thanks to this project, but that's about the highest level of praise I can muster for this one. While it didn't offend me at the level of the Hours or keep me watching the clock like the Reader, it did seem much ado about… something, though I'm not sure what that is. As a tragedy-coping art it's ludicrous and implausible (especially after a last-minute revelation by Bullock that drags credibility through five layers of mud). As entertainment it seems far too eager to invoke 9/11 in cheaply quirky and arch ways. And so what's left is a decent child performance by a non-professional (apparently he was a quiz kid on Jeopardy!) forced to spout some of the most aggravatingly "wise" and "deep" lines this side of a McSweeney's journal and some slumming Hollywood types who seem convinced this adds up to something. Whoops!

the Help If you approach it as a film tackling the complex issue of race relations in the mid-century south, this is not much of a film. But as a good ol' fashioned woman's picture, this is a surprisingly effective and entertaining collection of gifted actresses and Emma Stone navigating the under-explored woman's world with a real eye to gendered concerns. The end result is surprisingly great, particularly since it seems by all markers and appearances to be mindless awards bait from the outside looking in. Octavia Spencer is fine in her Oscar-winning role, though it's a part written to win awards. I think Jessica Chastain or Bryce Dallas Howard do far more impressive work by developing vibrant characters out of parts that could easily have fallen back into tired stereotypes. The best of this lot other than the eventual winner, really.

Hugo Disappointing collection of unconvincing CGI made all the more infuriating when utilized to praise one of cinema's earliest practical effects masters. And those aspects which exist in the corporeal realm fare little better. Scorsese should have rented some good kids' adventure films before attempting to make one of his own.

Midnight in Paris Another enjoyable if somewhat underwritten lark from Woody Allen. I suspect this one was such a (comparatively) mega-hit due to Allen tapping into the fundamental nostalgic desires driving so much of modern culture these days (and having some megaplex-ready stars at the center didn't hurt, either).

Moneyball There's an interesting story here within the specific statistical process at its center, but this film has little interest in the cerebral aspects of the system and instead gives Brad Pitt some undercooked emotional story hoops to trudge through instead. Steven Soderbergh's rejected vision of this material will forever be one of cinema's great "What ifs." This film is one of its "Why bother"s, though.

the Tree of Life I will forever remember this film is association with the comment made in the main thread about it resembling a two-and-a-half hour life insurance commercial, a quip made all the funnier by being 100% accurate. Malick can be an interesting director, as seen on either side of this film by the New World and To the Wonder, but those who found this such a life-altering filmic experience (Even Ebert before his death decided it was one of the ten best films ever made) are bringing far more to it than is there.

War Horse I have nothing against animals, they're nice and all, but I will never give half a shit about one over an actual human under even the best of circumstances. And this is not the best of circumstances. Throwing thinly-sketched human ciphers in the mix with a Brave Horse in order to… uh… comment on the war, sort of? Who cares about anything or anyone portrayed in this schmaltzy piece of sugar-coated medicine cinema other than those who would apparently love any film starring a horse (I look forward to the eventual defenses of Hot to Trot from the vocal fans of this film)? I know there's a posse of defenders even here for this film, but I can't fathom why, as this is basically Seabiscuit with guns, and will no doubt evaporate from the public consciousness just as quickly.

My Vote: the Artist

[Mr Sausage]

Speaking of forever associating a movie with a comment on this forum, I was never able to take War Horse with even the slightest seriousness after someone here called it Saving Private Seabiscuit. The film was never going to recover from that.

[swo17]

I'm calling domino out on his 100% comment. What life insurance commercial features CGI dinosaurs?

[domino harvey]

This is the best I can do:

[knives]

Gecko's are like little featherless dinosaurs.

[domino harvey]

1992
A Few Good Men God knows I love Sorkin 4ever but his work here is still fairly green. Pretty sure this wound up being nominated on the strength of Jack Nicholson's iconic line readings, but even that still couldn't actually land an Oscar-- Hackman is great in Unforgiven, but Nicholson delivers what could very well be the most (over)quoted exchange in modern motion picture history. But as especially this decade informs us, no major category is as unpredictable as Supporting. As good as Nicholson is in the role that expertly plays with his vaunted arrogance, the rest of the name-brand cast is unfortunately underwhelming, particularly Tom Cruise, who is captured at his most agonizingly moxie-filled stasis.

the Crying Game An uneven film more interesting in its early passages as an IRA thriller than in the latter, more infamous segments involving gender-dependent twists. Like Psycho or the Sixth Sense, I wonder if my impressions of the film would be stronger if I'd been able to enjoy it without having its central conceit spoiled for me in advance, but it's a forever unanswerable query.

Howards End I cringed going in after all the mockery here and elsewhere of Merchant Ivory productions, but I kinda enjoyed this. Sure, it's overly polite and a little too antiseptic to really engage with at any degree of depth, but it's also gifted with a light touch and some droll humorous notions throughout the proper machinations of the narrative. I enjoyed how the pun-intended poor sap who gets his umbrella snatched by Helena Bonham Carter doesn't find himself whisked into a romantic comedy scenario but instead seals his own death warrant deliverable via misery as the clueless middle class sisters of Carter and Emma Thompson inadvertently wreck his life. Anthony Hopkins' character never quite works, and Thompson isn't much of an entity here (she won Best Actress by virtue of it being an extremely weak field), but this could've been far worse.

Scent of a Woman Meet far worse. This movie is 157 minutes long. And every minute that creeps past is deeply felt and noticed. Here is a film in need of not just an editor, but a full rewrite. Why is it bookended with lame boarding school nonsense? Does the "uplifting" finale at the student meeting make even one iota of logical sense based on the evidence presented by the film? Did Al Pacino's character have to be such an insufferable asshole for almost the entire length of the film in order to make the transformation impactful? This is from the Alfie school of nominating (and here rewarding) films utterly in love with their complete shit of a protagonist. If the Academy had to give Pacino an Oscar, why not let him win for a good performance, like his Glengarry Glen Ross nom in Supporting this year? Are there moments that work? Well, at nearly three hours, it was inevitable a few things thrown at the wall stick: Gabrielle Anwar makes a strong impression in her five minutes of screentime as a girl waiting for her date who subsequently gets picked up by Pacino (though their eventual blind tango scene is too eye-rollingly pandering to continue much good will), and… actually, I can't think of anything else I liked. So, a success rate of 5 minutes out of 157, that's roughly 3%. That sounds about right. Scent of a Woman is three-percent enjoyable.

Unforgiven An average western lauded for coming to fruition in an era inhospitable to such outdated genre ventures. The film's central protagonists are far too familiar to leave much of a mark, but Eastwood's film does briefly come alive with the strange side-venture of Richard Harris' English Bob, and Gene Hackman is fun as the vengeful but not particularly malicious antagonist. The fluidity between the "heroes" and "villains" here is part of the point, I think, but it isn't explored nearly as well as any studio hack from the 50s could have delivered. This is a weak year and I'm torn between this and Howards End for the "Eh, I guess this one" vote, but when in doubt, affirm the Academy.

My Vote Unforgiven

[knives]

As much as I'm going to have to disagree with you on Unforgiven (probably Eastwood's best directing even if clearly not film) I'm just happy to find someone else who doesn't run for the mountains when encountering Merchant-Ivory. I'd probably place Howard's End in the middle of his output, but it is still representative in a good way.

[swo17]

To be fair, Howards End could very well be a perfectly fine movie--I just can't bring myself to stay awake through it to find out. I will say, however, that the next year's The Remains of the Day is a rather good film (and book, and lunchbox).

[domino harvey]

At least it's a brisk fifteen minutes shorter than Scent of a Woman and I watched them back to back so you can see how poorly I planned it by thinking I'd like Scent of a Woman better and saving it for last!

As always with early-to-mid 90s pop culture, the Critic gets Scent of a Woman exactly right in all of 20 seconds!

EDIT: AND the Critic did Howards End TWICE and here's the non-Howard Stern one (spoilers for Howards End, though you probably won't understand why)

[knives]

I guess now I can say how much I hate Pacino's "ho-hah" since it is so clearly he misunderstanding how to say and when to say "ho-rah".

[flyonthewall2983]

Eastwood was beaten for Best Actor both times by blind characters, which makes me think his best chance at it is if he does a gritty remake of Mr. Magoo.

[domino harvey]

1991
Beauty and the Beast Coming in the middle of the Big Three Disney movies of my youth (with the Little Mermaid and Aladdin flanking it on either side), this one didn't quite live up to my memories of it as a child. I thought it was interesting how the repulsive antagonist is given the catchiest and wittiest musical number in "Gaston," which explodes with comic energy and satirical braggadocio, in stark contrast to the rather plain characterizations afforded the "good" guys. I haven't rewatched Aladdin or the Little Mermaid yet (and the latter just showed up on my doorstep, so I'll know soon enough) to see how they hold up, but this turns out to be only one of Disney's better efforts, if not quite a film deserving of its reputation as a precedent-setting animated masterpiece.

Bugsy A fantastic and quotable script from James Toback well-acted by the principals and nearly undone by Barry Levinson's unimaginative direction. This is a very good film, but with almost any director of vision it could have been a great one. Instead we get an entertaining series of wild interactions between Warren Beatty's Bugsy Siegel and assorted under- and over-world figures as he schemes his way through Hollywood and into the formation of Las Vegas. Beatty's Siegel alternates between cool cockiness and wild outbursts of aggression, but never in a threatening way. Indeed, most of the violence in the film is played with an arch comedic touch that anticipates the decade's numerous Pulp Fiction clones. This is a fun film to listen to (Beatty upon meeting his lady's would-be paramour: "What does he do for a living, stick knives into helpless animals?") and it unlike most period films that find their way into this category is a film worthy of nomination. I just wish it wasn't so pedestrian in its mise en scene!

JFK A busy, convoluted, confused, ADD-addled fireworks display of a film. Luckily, JFK is also the most gripping conspiracy thriller since the 70s' heyday of the subgenre, a forward-marching mad dash of facts and "facts," the truth of which seems secondary to the film's fervent and infectious belief in their validity. In subsequent films Oliver Stone fell a little too in love with the cinematography mishmash first displayed here, but the crazed hodgepodge of stocks and ancillary footage proves a logical stylistic choice in this film. PS Can we all take a moment to recognize that in the midst of so many bloated blockbusters nominated for this award, finally there's a three and a half hour behemoth that doesn't overstay its welcome, and in fact breezes by in what feels like half the time?

the Prince of Tides Beautiful-looking picture postcards alternate with silly glamour shots of director and star Barbra Streisand and the terrific central performance by Nick Nolte. I know Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal Lecter has proved iconic, but I still think the Oscar should have gone to Nolte (and in a less sweep-y year it might have) for his surprisingly warm portrait of a man dealing with the aftermath of an unspeakably horrible childhood trauma, the lingering effects of which continue to affect the lives of him and his family. Nolte gives one of those great central cinematic perfs, brimming with sarcastic asides and hints of tenderness, that typify this sort of entertainment. The weak link here is so clearly Streisand, who portrays an underwritten "ideal" in ways that wouldn't be an issue had she cast someone else in the part. Instead we're stuck with her and all the silly soft romantic fluff near the film's end, which is like something out of a different movie. But it's still worth it for Nolte and surprisingly whenever she's not on screen Steisand's direction is sure and effective. Plus now I get all those references from the "Fear of Flying" Simpsons episode!

the Silence of the Lambs One of the rare Best Picture winners that has remained relevant post-win, this film is such a known quantity that revisiting it I was struck by just how unusual it is for the Academy that such a film swept the "big" categories. I don't think it's the best of the year's nominees, but it is a better than average thriller with a justly charismatic lead and while Demme's direction is a tad hamfisted at times (Please show the pen again), the end result is smoothly satisfying. Minor bonus points awarded for attempting some sexual politics as well, though most points subsequently redacted thanks to the lingering, blunt subtlety with which these moments were executed.

My Vote This is another surprisingly strong year where all the films nominated are at worst pretty good, but the best of the bunch is definitely JFK

[knives]

If we're talking when Nolte should have won (and he should have several times over) my money is still on playing Boudu.