The Alternate Oscars: Best Picture (1969-Present)

[domino harvey]

Not to spoil it, but one big surprise in Brown's book is the revelation that Z was a Miramax-style blitz on Oscar voters, not a merited little film sweeping some noms solely on its apparent virtues

If anyone participating in this round only hasn't done so, please do check out Brown's the Real Oscar, as the first edition goes through Kramer vs Kramer and a second edition, unread by me, re-edits and expands through the mid-80s, so it's still relevant read for this half

[knives]

I guess there is no other way for it to have gotten a nomination. I was really scratching my head for that one. Not sure which edition of the book I got.

[zedz]

The best sequence in the film, when they're running throughout the mountains hiding from the mysterious posy . . .

Now I have to see this film.

[knives]

Is it supposed to be spelled posey, posee, poese?

[domino harvey]

COME BACK HERE

[knives]

I used to own that otherwise intolerable movie just for her.

[domino harvey]

One of the best films of the aughts

[knives]

You would think so. I just can't get past the cinematography. It's too ugly a movie for me.

[tarpilot]

One of the best films of the aughts

Hear fucking hear

[movielocke]

1969

Anne of the Thousand Days - This film is typical of most middle of the road oscar-bait period pieces. I would compare it somewhat to the recent The Last Station as a well acted, finely appointed film that is not very memorable but has its standout performance moments. I like the restraint Burton shows here, perhaps not so drunk as he was during Beckett, and the only thing I remember about the performance of Anne is her rather fine monologue at the end, which is the only worthwhile scene and easily available on youtube. Unfortunately the scene needs more to be earned by watching the rest of the film. I did like the film for filling in some details of Anne Bolelyn, who is usually glossed over because she is boring, but a great film this is not, nor it is a bad film, pure journeyman work, but pretty good overall.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - I loved this when I was younger, then scoffed at myself thinking it surely could not be as good as I initially thought. Then I rewatched it as an adult and was blown away that it was actually a tremendous film and a very fine film. Goldman's script nearly equals The Princess Bride and the performances here are far more equally matched to such an excellent script than that film is. Tremendously fun in an old hollywood way with a new hollywood sensibility.

Hello Dolly! - This remains one of the most wretchedly unpleasant 70mm experiences I've ever had. The music is awful. Mattheau cannot sing, and Striesand is at her worst here (and usually I don't mind her). Wall*E makes me want to like the film more, and then I think, "of all the movies in all the world in all of history that survive, Hello Dolly is the only film that makes it..." and that makes me weep. I can forgive hammy acting and a stupid story in a musical with great music, tremendous lyrics and worthwhile choreography but Hello Dolly spectacularly fails on all three counts and more.

Midnight Cowboy - I don't know what to make of my memories of this film, I last watched it when I was 19, nearly ten years ago, my impressions at the time were very similar to what knives posted above. I thought it was self-consciously arty--but in a manner that failed for me. It seemed hamfisted and blatently pandering to be taken seriously with some of its conceits, however, once the film's story focused at last on the survival/nursing aspect I really warmed up to the film and I think on a rewatch I would probably rate it higher simply by virtue of knowing where it was going and not being so impatient with all the showing off in the first half of the film. I dunno, though, I might still derisively laugh at the psychedelic party scene. This is the top two or three of BP winners I need to rewatch.

Z - Quite simply, this is a masterpiece, a stunning and compelling piece of filmmaking that grabs your heartstrings and won't let go as it plays its all too familiar tale. With Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and everything else going on in the last few months, the film suddenly seems as relevant as it ever was, when it was telling a thinly veiled version of what happened in Greece a few years prior to 69. The editing is absolutely masterful, surpassing even the excellent photography as the film's strongest technical attribute. The film is a compact little bomb that explodes in your mind and leaves you unexpectedly mining interesting shrapnel shreds of thoughts for weeks and years to come.

My vote: Z

[Sloper]

Anne of the Thousand Days - This film is typical of most middle of the road oscar-bait period pieces. I would compare it somewhat to the recent The Last Station as a well acted, finely appointed film that is not very memorable but has its standout performance moments. I like the restraint Burton shows here, perhaps not so drunk as he was during Beckett, and the only thing I remember about the performance of Anne is her rather fine monologue at the end, which is the only worthwhile scene and easily available on youtube. Unfortunately the scene needs more to be earned by watching the rest of the film. I did like the film for filling in some details of Anne Bolelyn, who is usually glossed over because she is boring, but a great film this is not, nor it is a bad film, pure journeyman work, but pretty good overall.

Anne of the Thousand Days-Universal doing prestige should always be a bad sign. This isn't so much a bad film, but a vacuum which to me is all the worse. This movie doesn't make you think, feel, sleep, or anything. It causes no experience so that it starts one minute and ends several laborious minutes later. Hell the sheer non-entity of this film finally got me to purchase Dom's favorite Oscar book. I can't imagine even the money was memorable. Nearly forgot, but for someone with such a reputation as an overactor Richard Burton comes across as a somnambulist in all but one of the films I've seen him in.

For the most part I agree with movielocke about this one. It's the kind of film that gets nominated for Best Picture, but stands absolutely no chance of winning. Cinematically it's very dull, but I think the writing and acting is usually good - and when it's not good it's at least entertainingly overwrought. I have to say, though, that for me Anne's monologue (about Elizabeth) was easily the weakest moment of the film, pure hokum. Anne is such a dignified, complex character until she turns into a blissed-out prophet. The film has plenty of other faults typical of Tudor costume drama, but as Tudor costume drama goes it's a hell of a lot more engaging than almost any other example I can think of. And it's certainly a breath of fresh air after the recent godawful TV series The Tudors (my wife is a sporadic fan).

Genevieve Bujold, as Anne, is note-perfect throughout, as is the peerless Antony Quayle - he gave the best performance of Falstaff I've ever seen, and in a way his Wolsey is a similar character, combining loathsomeness and tragic dignity in a way that very few actors could pull off. The real revelation, though, is John Colicos as Cromwell. He doesn't seem to have had much of a film career, but he works wonders with this underwritten part, quietly acting Richard Burton off the screen. The scene where he quietly and deferentially teaches Henry how to out-manoeuvre the pope, then steps outside the door and visibly sags with relief at not having been executed, is an acting tour-de-force in itself; if only it were in a more deserving film.

Burton is much better than usual here, but I can't imagine describing him as a somnambulist - it would be very ironic if this were the one role where he didn't take the opportunity to chew the scenery. Some of his more outrageous moments definitely cross the line into camp, but his scenes with Catherine of Aragon (Irene Papas, again very good considering her thankless role) are genuinely moving at times.

[mfunk9786]

Love the 1969 posts. I am going to start working on it this weekend and then from there probably just start to pick and choose random years.

[PillowRock]

Is it supposed to be spelled posey, posee, poese?

I think that it's actually "posse", but I need to check.

[Matt]

[colinr0380]

I'd love to still live in a world where political films were given the awards push over something like Chocolat (not the good Claire Denis one, but the sickly sweet Binoche and Depp one, also featuring Judi Dench as a twinkly old French lady).

Is it supposed to be spelled posey, posee, poese?

I think that it's actually "posse", but I need to check.

Here you go

[zedz]

Is it supposed to be spelled posey, posee, poese?

In the words of Public Enemy: "too, too, too much posse". (It's Latin.)

[tavernier]

1972
Cabaret (Fosse): R1 Warner
Deliverance (Boorman): R1 Warner (DVD and Blu)
The Emigrants (Troell): R1 (VHS only)
The Godfather (Coppola): R1 Paramount (DVD and Blu)
Sounder (Ritt): R1 Sterling Entertainment [P&S]; R0 Koch Vision [OAR]

Only one Best Picture nominee from the past 40+ years is not available on an English-friendly DVD, and of course it's one of Troell's greatest films. Thanks, Warner Bros.

[knives]

The Real Oscar came today. Definitely the old version.

[movielocke]

1970

Airport - This is a bizarre film, it is not really a disaster film or really an ensemble film though it has both of those elements to it. It's a 70mm big budget enormously commercially successful mess. Lancaster is interesting, as are some of the disparate Altman-lite type plots that engage the ensemble in various ways. Ultimately, the film just feels very uninteresting. I would like to see it 70mm some time just to see if it's any better in its proper environment, but mostly this gets a meh from me.

Five Easy Pieces - I did not care for this film but I'll be rewatching it sometime as I just bought the BBS set in the latest BN sale. I think the sheer boredom of the narrative and having no grasp of where it was going or why I should give two shits about yet another poor-little-rich-boy asshat made me rather antagonistic towards the entire endeavor. Perhaps I'll be kinder to the film the next time around, it certainly had good acting at least.

Love Story - This film is both unjustly and justly maligned. Unjustly, because I really like how the story of these two college kids fall in love and start a life together, I think they have fantastic chemistry and I enjoy overdetermining the sexual politics of the film with her supporting his law career and his not really believing her career is a 'real' career despite depending on it. Justly maligned because of CANCER and the-worst-phrase-ever-uttered-in-the-English-Language. That this phrase became the film's catchphrase is bad enough, that many people believed it is downright horrifying. The film has strengths, but its problems are so incredibly repellent it makes one never want to ever see the film again and give it another chance.

M*A*S*H - Interestingly enough we were just discussing this film at work this week. One of my coworkers saw it and hated it much more than I did, I've rarely seen someone express such unequivocal vociferous vehemence towards a classic that's in the English language (although, sadly, I've often heard such dislike heaped upon non-English language films). I've never had anything against the TV show, but I prefer it to the movie, which I found horribly sexist and relatively unfunny (which to be fair, the show is both of these things as well). As a commentary on the Vietnam conflict it has somewhat more interest, but my standard there is Heller's Catch 22 and this is not nearly as clever or worthwhile. Overall, the film just did not work for me, I'll give it another chance at some point. Altman seems to be about 50/50 for me, I either really dislike his films or think they're phenomenal.

Patton - I liked, but did not love this film the last time I saw it. Scott gives a magnificent performance and Coppola's script is fantastic, the photography has its moments, but the film is never more unforgettable than in its justifiably famous opening scene. I really crave the opportunity to see this in 70mm for my next viewing, but sadly, the showings of the 70mm print in LA seem to have stopped in the last few years, for several years it played about twice a year here, unfortunately it was almost always on a weekend I was out of town or had already scheduled something.

My vote - Patton

[matrixschmatrix]

It's funny, Altman seems to be 50/50ish for a lot of people, but it never breaks down the same way. I watched a lot of the MASH tv show as a kid, and the movie felt like what the show was sitting on and keeping restrained- loose, strange, un-PC but also progressive, and with absolutely killer performances from Gould and Sutherland.

Actually, I think I have yet to see an Altman with Gould in it that didn't click for me.

[movielocke]

1971
overall 30th

A Clockwork Orange - A Kubrick film that improves on repeat viewings because it loses some of its shock value, but some of that shock value is also what made the film so impactful. This isn't my favorite nor my least favorite Kubrick. I love the ideas it explores and how he visualizes everything. The film is relentlessly iconic and unforgettable. For me, though, this is similar to Taxi Driver it is a film more to be admired than embraced. That isn't to say that all films should be 'cuddly' just that it's hard for me to become passionate about films with this degree of content. The layered examination of inhumanity here is what keeps drawing me back to the film again, it is so tremendously rich, like you would expect from Kubrick.

Fiddler on the Roof - For a long time, I could not watch the film, having worked tech crew for the play in high school I couldn't get 'our' version out of my head and accept a different Tevye. However, after about ten years, memories and indignation fade and I finally rewatched this. Everything that makes the play grand is in place here, and the performances really are tremendous. The film is a bit stolid, but then so is the story. It's a fine film but the music is better than anything else, which is never really a bad place for a musical to be.

The French Connection - Doyle is a great modern character, the tenaciousness Hackman gives off makes this film far better than it should be. Coupled with Friedkin's direction and combined with some really superb editing, there are sequences in this film that are unforgettable. The chase at the end of the film is still burned into my brain.

The Last Picture Show - By the time I saw this, it's reputation had perhaps grown too large. It's a very fine, very enjoyable film from Bogdanovich, honest and sincere and very well made. I'll rewatch it soon enough, and probably like it more, but it doesn't stand out as much as Clockwork and Connection do.

Nicholas and Alexandra - Everything I wrote for Anne of the Thousand Days applies here, except this is far more boring.

My Vote: French Connection

[mfunk9786]

2004: (randomly, as I prepare to work on a more interesting year)

The Aviator
This film is a visual feast, but it lacks momentum throughout most of its 170 minutes, and Blanchett's Hepburn is the kind of annoying-impression-at-a-party performance that never really becomes the person in question enough to pull the viewer away from outright distraction. DiCaprio does a fine job, as he always does, but there's just not enough to fit into this huge package - Hughes is obviously a difficult figure to make a biopic of, as we never really like him, but I just feel like a smaller, tighter, less ambitious picture would have worked out better, despite Hughes' grandiose life and ambitions.

Finding Neverland
An emotional, affecting little film that sadly Disneys away any opportunity for further insight into Barrie's life and motivations. Freddie Highmore is excellent here, even though he's since had a difficult adjustment from child star to young adult actor (and he was in the awful Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which wasn't good for anybody). I realize this is manipulative drivel, but at least it's well-directed, well-acted manipulative drivel. I liked it.

Million Dollar Baby
I realize that this film has tons of detractors, but it comes off as a really great old Hollywood fable to me that is far better than it has any right to be considering how wrong it could have gone. Eastwood is an incredibly talented director and this is a much better film than the poorly written Mystic River (which didn't really stand a chance considering the hokey source material). Paul Haggis wrote the best thing he'll likely ever write, and Hilary Swank knocks the role out of the park. The film is a solid sports picture until it takes its much ballyhooed turn midway through, and despite some flaws in logic, it remains a small film with masterful performances and direction that would have felt right at home in the 1950s or 60s.

Ray
As biopics go, this is as badly made as it gets - constant music montages that are sloppily constructed, and a revolving door of people in Ray Charles' life that are difficult to keep track of or care about. The music is obviously a hoot, and Foxx does an eerie emulation of Charles. In the end though, we never really get an idea of who/why Ray Charles is, and with regards to a biopic, that's about the biggest flaw imaginable.

Sideways
A gorgeously lensed film that I certainly can relate to, both directly and indirectly, but Payne never quite accesses the heights of his sense of humor as he does in the criminally under-discussed Election. Paul Giamatti should have won the Oscar for this performance, even though he wasn't even nominated (ugh, Oscar). The film feels just about perfect until the third act, during which things get too slapstick (though there's a pretty hilarious scene involving a naked man and a car window), with an ending that feels far too easy and unrealistic considering the tone that we thought the film was setting all along. Just misses the brass ring in a weak year, but it's certainly a very good film.

My Vote: Million Dollar Baby

[tarpilot]

Agreed about Million Dollar Baby. The Eastwood quasi-backlash has always been one in which I could find very little merit. Even if he hadn't made enough masterpieces to survive the occasional misfire (and he most definitely has -- Bronco Billy, Sudden Impact, The Gauntlet, A Perfect World, White Hunter, Black Heart, to name but five) he's the only director to command such a perennially high degree of attention from AMPAS that I would characterize as making consistently personal films that are unmistakably his, and for what it's worth, I also find it interesting how he's so successfully straddled the line between acceptance in both populist and esoteric critical circles. Fujiwara and Rosenbaum gave raves to Million Dollar Baby, virtually all of his films make Cahiers' cut, and Michel Ciment has always written very highly of him. There's an interesting interview with Eastwood and Ciment in this book, when they're discussing White Hunter, Black Heart and Eastwood states that people warned him of the noncommercial prospects of the film to which he basically said "fuck you, I don't make films for test audiences" and later approvingly quotes his Huston avatar that "you can't let eight million popcorn eaters pull you this way or that", which is absolutely not a sentiment that could be ascribed to Cameron, Spielberg, Ron Howard, Ridley Scott, James L. Brooks, etc. etc.

[domino harvey]

The backlash should come back, because after Hereafter Eastwood merits it. Were it not for Bryce Dallas Howard, who literally saves the film as no supporting actor has ever temporarily rescued a total disaster before for the ten minutes she's on screen, it would be a Geneva Convention-defying act of torture.

[mfunk9786]

Yeah, not all of his films are winners, but some recent ones like Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino, while somewhat maudlin, are worthy of the praise they received. Plus, I've always been of the belief that, even in this modern, cynical world - there's nothing inherently wrong with maudlin.