I am a movie buff. I have been for as long as I can remember. I love the prestige of the Oscar's in honoring fine cinematic works. What really annoys me is when the Oscar's are not awarded to what I consider to be the best works. For the purposes of this rant, we'll discuss solely the Best Picture category.
While I could go back probably to the 1960's, I think I will just begin at when my love of movies began, around age 12.
In 1989,
Driving Miss Daisy won the Oscar, while two more deserving movies did not win.
My Left Foot starring Daniel Day Lewis and
Dead Poet Society were much better choices.
In 1990, one of the most horrendous travesties of all time occurred when
Goodfellas was snubbed in favor of the talentless hack Kevin Costner's directorial debut,
Dances With Wolves.
1991 - The Silence of the Lambs. Excellent.
1992 - Unforgiven. Clint, good pick.
1993 - Schindler's List. Got it. Okay.
In 1994, the fan favorite
Forrest Gump took the honors. Go back and watch it again. See if you can honestly say that it was a better movie than runners up,
Pulp Fiction or (my pick)
The Shawshank Redemption.
1995 - Braveheart. Easy choice.
In 1996, a minor upset in my mind when the award went to
The English Patient over my pick,
Shine, with Geoffrey Rush.
In 1997,
Titanic won. Need I say any more? FYI, Boogie Nights wasn't even nominated.
In 1998, again, just a minor upset because I did like winner
Shakespeare in Love but I would have went with
Life Is Beautiful.
In 1999, my least favorite of the five won. Okay...
American Beauty was better than
The Cider House Rules but not better than
The Sixth Sense,
The Green Mile, and definitely not better than
The Insider. Was it really so socially progressive to have a middle-aged guy bang a teenager? Really?
2000 - Gladiator. One of my favorite movies of all time.
In 2001,
A Beautiful Mind was a great movie but because
Moulin Rouge didn't win, they gave
Chicago the award a year later in 2002 over two much better flicks in
The Pianist and
Gangs of New York.
In 2003, while I was happy that the Lord of the Rings trilogy was honored by giving the award to the third and final installment, I felt bad for Mystic River because movie-to-movie, it was better than the individual 3rd movie of the LotR trilogy, but how do you compete against a trilogy?
In 2004, someone ruined the ending of Million Dollar Baby, so I never bothered to watch it...
From 2005 until the present I feel they have been spot on:
2005 - Crash. Awesome movie.
2006 - The Departed. Great gangster flick with superb acting.
2007 - No Country For Old Men - Wonderfully acted movie.
2008 - Slumdog Millionaire - A moving film.
There you have it. Do you agree or disagree?
