I'm not a fan of the Academy awards, (and I agree with a lot of what the author writes), but Annie Hall winning Best Picture was one of the shining moments in its history. And the fact that it pisses off Star Wars fans makes it that much more of a great moment in Oscar history.

Since no one has mentioned it, my choice for biggest blunder is The Color Purple - should have won for picture, actress and director.

taking into consideration i havent been such a fan of movies until about 2-3 years ago, i havent really seen many of these pre 90s films mentioned in these posts.. and i dont know if im much a judge of performance, acting or directing (i dont think ive seen a best picture nominee pre 1990).. i still know this:

"this film sucked"
(about the same film) " i loved this film, it was brilliant"
"it sucked"
"i think it was brilliant too"
"i thought it sucked too"
etc, etc, etc,

aaaaaaaaaaaahhh.. *$!

i would love to watch some older films in order to broaden my perspective on the film industry and its accomplishments in general, but i have no idea which films to watch.. =) this thread is not a good place for reccomendations, every one is shot clean out of the sky the minute its mentioned.. im sure ill watch some of the films listed but not know how to judge their performance, simply judge it on whether i liked it or not (that doesnt count for much these days.. maybe i need to take a film class)

on another note, since it seems like films being nominated is almost as important as a film or person winning the oscar, maybe the academy should extend the list from 5 or 6 (whatever it is) to 8-10 nominees.. but i know that would probably get old, and bore most of the TV audience to sleep

allmovie.com

The worst offenders of late to me anyway...

the aforementioned Gladiator.. blah...
Ron Howard sympathy Oscar for not winning one for Apollo 13

and the biggest offender...

Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan. Haven't watched the oscars since. SIL is a decent little flick but not even in the same ballpark as SPR. What a joke.

hehe, it's kinda like bands "selling out."

"films like the conformity-embracing "Dead Poet's Society,"

Could someone explain this statement? What was this film exactly conforming to? non-conformism? suicide?

The author did go overboard on his criticism of Benigni as others have mentioned, especially about his Oscar win reaction and 'speech'. So what he doesn't express himself as a native speaker of English would ... can this author even form a sentence in another language?

I disagree.

I thought SIL was much better than SPR - but perhaps it still didn't deserve Best Picture.

Take away the opening 15 minutes of SPR and you really don't have much of a film.
The characters were paper thin, and SS used alot of cliches and relied on cheap tricks to shock the audience.

I thought The Thin Red Line deserved the Oscar that year - and is a tremendous film - which isn't just a film about war, it's deeper than that.

When I look at the lists of Oscar winners, most of my favorite films are in the Sound, Sound Editing, and Visual Effects catagories, not the Best Picture catagory.

Example - 1966: Winner for Sound and Sound Effects: Grand Prix. Winner for Best Picture: A Man For All Seasons.

It's difficult to say whether his choices are worth mentioning or not. I would say Gladiator is one of the more glaring choices, including Russell Crowe as best actor. I mean, the movie is a decent action flick with nice production design, but I don't give it any more credit than that. And Crowe gave a worthy performance, but his work in A Beautiful Mind and the Insider was so much more complex and interesting, it boggles my mind he won for this one.

But in general I won't aruge with the Academy's choices. SPR over SIL? Well, they're both excellent flicks and I can see the choice of either. Now Judi Dench for supporting actress? That was idiotic...she was in the movie for like 5 minutes.

Now, now. Changing facts in biopics is just the way its done, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. Nobody panned 1942's Yankee Doodle Dandy for being historically inaccurate (aside from George M. Cohan himself, who after the premiere is known to have said, Great picture, who was it about?

Sometimes you have to change facts around, or make stuff up, to keep the pace of the movie and to entertain. Anybody going into a movie expecting a history lesson shouldn't be going to the movies.

You simply cannot disrespect the Queen. I actually saw SIL in the theaters, and I was in absolute AWE when Judi Dench made her appearances. Absolute awe!!

She may have been in only 8 -15 minutes of the whole film, but wow. What an intense performance. To not have honored Judi Dench with the Oscar would have been like throwing your own mother down a flight of stairs on her birthday while holding your newborn child.

Annie Hall and Star Wars -- both classics in my book. But...

MY best picture award that year? Close Encounters of the Third Kind

One thing hurt Close Encounters of the Third Kind: the storytelling was a bit uneven, and it felt a bit hokey whenever Richard Dreyfuss was on the screen.

By the way, I think the reason why Peter Jackson didn't win Best Director for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was because AMPAS voters pretty much decided to given Jackson the Best Director Oscar for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King as a cumulative award for the entire three-film series. Esssentially, the 11 Oscars won by RoTK was to award the work on all three films.

Since I'm taking part of the Oscar challenge here, probably the biggest blunder I've come across is the no-nomination for James Horner's score for Glory.
I noticed that Horner recieved a nom for Field of Dreams that same year and Im sure they didn't want to nominate the same guy twice, but what a MAJOR snub that is.

Agree with a lot of his selections, but his explanations are pretty terrible. Like Ron Howard, he is complaining more of his previous works, like he should not deserve an Oscar ever because he directed EdTV. Should Hillary Swank be stripped of her Oscar because she did the Next Karate Kid?

Damn straight.

Yeah, I agree with some of his selections, too. But, for the most part, the author of that article just seems to have a bug up his ass. With how he rags on the comedic performances that won (Palance and Tomei), I'm surprised Kevin Kline isn't on that list. Comedies are so rarely recognized by the Academy, I don't much give a shit who they beat when they actually do manage a win.

And, as you said, the reasoning behind some of his objections is ridiculous. He greatly exaggerated to try to make his points. Damn drama queen.

Her entire screen time was about 6 minutes total. IMO, that's far too short to be even "Supporting Oscar nomination worthy" much less the Oscar winner because it's basically a glorified cameo, not a true supporting performance. But I think Academy members were blinded by the reputation of Dame Judi Dench and gave her the award for her reputation more than the performance itself.

It's a shame that A Few Good Men was nominated for Best Picture and Malcolm X was snubbed.

Malcolm X only garnished 2 Oscar nominations. 1 for Denzel and 1 for Best Costume. The Academy couldn't have made a bigger statement than that to Spike Lee.

I still can't believe Nadoolman got shut out in '88.

Bastards. I'm still reeling.

I was thinking about this after re-watching the film last weekend, but (Dare I say) I was too brainwashed by the academy to notice that it deserved more than 2 noms.

Yet, in all honestly, I feel that the movie really takes off after Malcolm Little becomes Malcolm X.
Yes, I know it's part of the structure to see how "Red" was living his life beforehand as a thug (As in the script, rooted from "The Autobiography of Malcolm X") but the first half of the film, while flashy and at times, certainly meaty (Thanks to Denzel's performance) still has me nodding off.

It isn't untill Malcolm interacts with Betty (Another nomination-casualty for denying Angela Basset) along with the editor's fantastic task until the final frame, that this film really emerges as a work of undeniable art.
I mean, just look at how the rallies and speeches never become monotonous. Check out the scope and beauty of the pilgrimage to Mecca. And the intensity of "Shotgun" looming around in doom as the attackers search to silence Malcolm.

It's still just the first act that gets in the way that prevents a viewer like me sticking glued to the seat.

Dude, it's Rivero! Did you expect any different? He hates Stars Wars. At least he does now.

Personally, Star Wars, Annie Hall, and the other three films were all deserving, and none moreso than the other.

As for arguing on which movie deserved what, it's completely pointless because it's all highly subjective. There is little to no objectivity when it comes to picking a Best Actor, Picture, or whatever. It's subjective. You can't reasonably choose one of the other. You have 5 movies or 5 actors up for the award. You go ask 10 people and you'd probably get 5 different answers. This thread pretty much proves it with people disagreeing with each other and the article in question. That's why the Oscars are a joke and should never be an arbiter of what's great or what's best. True, we've all argued over this before, pulling for our favorites and disappointed when they didn't win. But at the end of the day the Oscars are nothing more than an entertainment show.

There's more objectivity in picking Best Visual Effects than there is in picking Best Picture or Actor.

Somebody needs to check the calendar.

I actually lost a lot of respect for the Academy Awards after the Malcolm X snub.

Ok, Spike was vocal about the racism in the Hollywood system (i.e. he criticized the Academy for awarding Driving Miss Daisy because they are more comfortable with that era of race relations) and he may have been obnoxious about it, but he made sense.

Cannes created an award especially for Samuel L. Jackson's fantastic performance in Jungle Fever and was overlooked by the Academy.

The Academy of the 80's and early 90's virtually ignored films of contemporary black characters. If you were a slave/ex-slave (Glory) or a submissive black (The Color Purple), you were guaranteed a nomination, but if you were a strong black character, you were ignored (Boyz N' the Hood).

Still, back then, I blamed less on the Academy than I did for Hollywood. How could the Academy be at fault if Hollywood green-lit few films depicting strong black contemporary characters?