There have been some truly dubious Best Picture winners this century: A BEAUTIFUL MIND, CRASH, BIRDMAN, and GREEN BOOK all come immediately mind. I'd rank the perfectly fine GLADIATOR alongside CHICAGO, THE KING'S SPEECH, CODA, and THE ARTIST. These are pretty good movies but, come on.
There have been some truly dubious Best Picture winners this century: A BEAUTIFUL MIND, CRASH, BIRDMAN, and GREEN BOOK all come immediately mind. I'd rank the perfectly fine GLADIATOR alongside CHICAGO, THE KING'S SPEECH, CODA, and THE ARTIST. These are pretty good movies but, come on.
Fair points. I'm not sure why I still carry such enmity for the original. Probably some unexamined (more) youthful rage I had at the time. Happens all the time here. Connecting it to THE ARTIST is more apt. A perfectly entertaining thing that got way too much tangible adoration. When the industry rewards itself for still making them like they used to, or whatever that is. Your rogues gallery is far more egregious, though the pretentious writing student in me that refuses to die still has some affection for BIRDMAN and I continue to have never seen GREEN BOOK. BEAUTIFUL MIND remains the movie I have to remember exists and usually only when I think Crowe won for GLADIATOR and remember that Ron Howard has a directing Oscar.
Still would love to see LAST DUEL on a big screen with a big crowd.
I do think GLADIATOR's Best Picture win gives it a sheen of respectability it doesn't quite deserve, and I say that as someone who loves it. It's a pulpy sword-and-sandals actioner with incredible production values, and I think it's more fairly judged on those terms; the BP win does it no favors by putting it in the same room with Lawrence of Arabia.
I fully cop to my original sentiment being a combination of first cup of coffee, natural pretention, and a smidge of truth. Even looked over a list of BP winners to confirm I was going too far, and it helped me identify another category of BP: a choice made worse relative to its competition.
The GreenBooks, Crashes, American Beautys, and Oliver!s are poor choices regardless of year. (Maybe if Green Book had been released in 1954, but even then.)
The Artist is a dull choice in a relatively weak year. I would take Moneyball, Tree of Life, or even Hugo or War Horse over it, but none of them is a clear "what were they thinking?" (The answer to that question is the same every year: They weren't really, based on the Hollywood Reporter anonymous voter interviews.) The Departed is still an odd BP (that I love), but the other four contenders- which include some fine films- don't cry out for justice to this day.
For me, Gladiator belongs with Argo, Out of Africa, English Patient, Miss Daisy, or- a movie I hate on a granular level for a bunch of reasons- Braveheart. It's professionally made with varying degrees of achievement that won over at least two glaringly obvious better choices (imo and sometimes in historyтАЩs opinion. Depending on your mood, you could put Rocky here. I think it's a great movie, but it's no Taxi Driver or Network nor any of the PresidentтАЩs Men. Dances with Wolves owns an Italian villa on on this list.
Then I look them all over and realize that this is more or less the default setting of the BP win. So I shouldn't begrudge G1 because I like Erin, Traffic, or especially Chocolat (I kid) Crouching Tiger a whole lot more (or that not picking Brocovich robbed us of a rare year where BP and director were the same person but for different movies). I have to chalk it up to the Academy doing what the Academy does and solid work often wins out over outliers. On a regular year, it wouldnтАЩt be La La Land vs Moonlight because Hidden Figures or (ugh) Hacksaw Ridge would already have the award.
This is too many words to say "it's not my tempo," but Oscars are what I had instead of sports. I fully regret putting G1 the same bunk with Crash and Beauty. It deserves better and Ridley should have one of his own by now. What else does he have to do?
(If you read this far and haven't muted, there's a singular category for Return of the King, whose win I can't begrudge though it's not my favorite of the trilogy. If ever there was a call to do a Snow White Special Oscar with two extra Oscars for all three, it was that. The trilogy deserves the recognition, even if it encouraged Jackson to follow up with things ranging from disappointing to "The Lovely Bones?!" give or take parts of Kong. But doing that wouldn't have cleared the runway for a Master & Commander win. We'd have gotten Mystic River most likely and that's just as well avoided.)
There have been some truly dubious Best Picture winners this century: A BEAUTIFUL MIND, CRASH, BIRDMAN, and GREEN BOOK all come immediately mind. I'd rank the perfectly fine GLADIATOR alongside CHICAGO, THE KING'S SPEECH, CODA, and THE ARTIST. These are pretty good movies but, come on.
Fair points. I'm not sure why I still carry such enmity for the original. Probably some unexamined (more) youthful rage I had at the time. Happens all the time here. Connecting it to THE ARTIST is more apt. A perfectly entertaining thing that got way too much tangible adoration. When the industry rewards itself for still making them like they used to, or whatever that is. Your rogues gallery is far more egregious, though the pretentious writing student in me that refuses to die still has some affection for BIRDMAN and I continue to have never seen GREEN BOOK. BEAUTIFUL MIND remains the movie I have to remember exists and usually only when I think Crowe won for GLADIATOR and remember that Ron Howard has a directing Oscar.
Still would love to see LAST DUEL on a big screen with a big crowd.
I do think GLADIATOR's Best Picture win gives it a sheen of respectability it doesn't quite deserve, and I say that as someone who loves it. It's a pulpy sword-and-sandals actioner with incredible production values, and I think it's more fairly judged on those terms; the BP win does it no favors by putting it in the same room with Lawrence of Arabia.
I fully cop to my original sentiment being a combination of first cup of coffee, natural pretention, and a smidge of truth. Even looked over a list of BP winners to confirm I was going too far, and it helped me identify another category of BP: a choice made worse relative to its competition.
The GreenBooks, Crashes, American Beautys, and Oliver!s are poor choices regardless of year. (Maybe if Green Book had been released in 1954, but even then.)
The Artist is a dull choice in a relatively weak year. I would take Moneyball, Tree of Life, or even Hugo or War Horse over it, but none of them is a clear "what were they thinking?" (The answer to that question is the same every year: They weren't really, based on the Hollywood Reporter anonymous voter interviews.) The Departed is still an odd BP (that I love), but the other four contenders- which include some fine films- don't cry out for justice to this day.
For me, Gladiator belongs with Argo, Out of Africa, English Patient, Miss Daisy, or- a movie I hate on a granular level for a bunch of reasons- Braveheart. It's professionally made with varying degrees of achievement that won over at least two glaringly obvious better choices (imo and sometimes in historyтАЩs opinion. Depending on your mood, you could put Rocky here. I think it's a great movie, but it's no Taxi Driver or Network nor any of the PresidentтАЩs Men. Dances with Wolves owns an Italian villa on on this list.
Then I look them all over and realize that this is more or less the default setting of the BP win. So I shouldn't begrudge G1 because I like Erin, Traffic, or especially Chocolat (I kid) Crouching Tiger a whole lot more (or that not picking Brocovich robbed us of a rare year where BP and director were the same person but for different movies). I have to chalk it up to the Academy doing what the Academy does and solid work often wins out over outliers. On a regular year, it wouldnтАЩt be La La Land vs Moonlight because Hidden Figures or (ugh) Hacksaw Ridge would already have the award.
This is too many words to say "it's not my tempo," but Oscars are what I had instead of sports. I fully regret putting G1 the same bunk with Crash and Beauty. It deserves better and Ridley should have one of his own by now. What else does he have to do?
(If you read this far and haven't muted, there's a singular category for Return of the King, whose win I can't begrudge though it's not my favorite of the trilogy. If ever there was a call to do a Snow White Special Oscar with two extra Oscars for all three, it was that. The trilogy deserves the recognition, even if it encouraged Jackson to follow up with things ranging from disappointing to "The Lovely Bones?!" give or take parts of Kong. But doing that wouldn't have cleared the runway for a Master & Commander win. We'd have gotten Mystic River most likely and that's just as well avoided.)