Oscar FAIL!
Academy Award winners for Best Picture 2000-2009:
2000- Gladiator – DreamWorks – Douglas Wick, David Franzoni, Branko Lustig
2001- A Beautiful Mind – Universal, DreamWorks – Brian Grazer, Ron Howard
2002- Chicago – Miramax – Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Craig Zadan, Martin Richards
2003- Lord of the Rings: Return of the King – New Line Cinema – Barrie M. Osborne, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh
2004- Million Dollar Baby – Warner Bros. – Clint Eastwood, Albert S. Ruddy, Tom Rosenberg
2005- Crash – Lions Gate Entertainment – Paul Haggis, Cathy Schulman
2006- Departed – Warner Bros. – Graham King
2007- No Country for Old Men – Miramax, Paramount Vantage – Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
2008- Slumdog Millionaire – Fox Searchlight, Warner Bros. – Christian Colson
2009-???
Out of the past nine Best Picture winners, only one shows up on my top ten of the decade list. In fact, Crash was one of my least favorite movies of the past ten years. How do the Oscar winners hold-up when compared to your list? I look at these movies and only see three, maybe four movies with any chance of retaining the status of great films of the 21st Century. The Academy should note that four out of ten is still failing—what best picture will The Oscars give us for 2009? Will Up In The Air or Precious steal the win from more deserving films, like Inglourious Basterds, A Serious Man, and Where the Wild Things Are? The only thing I’m sure of is if Avatar wins I’m going to murder myself.
For the Oscars ceremony this March, the Academy has recently made the decision to increase the Best Picture nominations from five to ten. Whether you agree with this, it will certainly have an impact on the outcome of the winner, and chances are that that winner will still be the wrong choice. Let’s just hope that the five extra nods will allow films that are less involved (or less crafty than Harvey Weinstein) in the politics of Hollywood to be recognized by their peers and acknowledged by the general public.
Cheers,
Billy Gay Cyrus
Please note: I enjoyed AVATAR.
What?! 10 nominees?! That’s so weird – I don’t get it? What is the point?
I think it’s marketing: regardless of who wins, being nominated is great for sales: it’ll put your movie back in theatres, generate more buzz, get more merch moving, etc. It’s a money move, dawgg. Like a stimulus for Hollywood.
You’re right though – NONE of my favs of the naughties won best picture, but 2009 was different – even though I didn’t see hardly any of them, it seems like there were a ton of great movies.
When do the nominations happen anyway? Feb?
I agree. It’s all money. How else do you explain last year’s nominees?