Well another year and a whole lot of arguing and bitching to be done. In fact I can't recall a year where I've been more disappointed with the final results than this in a long time. For those who read my last blog post, you'd know that I was not expecting King's Speech to rack up a best picture Oscar or for Tom Hooper to win best director, but well I guess there haven't been too many surprises in a long time.
We'll have to wait for the passing of time to judge how horribly wrong these choices were, but let's just say this film will join the ranks of such blah best picture winners as Shakespeare in Love, A Man For All Seasons, Cavalcade, The Life of Emile Zola, and plenty of others. In fact I was really hoping that the writer who decides what presenters are going to say had Spielberg say something better like "The winner will join such films as Out of Africa, Chariots of Fire, Oliver, and Around the World in 80 Days". There is indeed a dark side to every selection, but I'll hold off on condemning the film outright, that doesn't mean I have to be happy for it.
Yet again the majority of the foreign film nominees no one ever heard of, and I don't believe three of them even were released here. I was rooting for Dogtooth, but also wondering why the hell Carlos wasn't nominated, but well that's what's so wrong with the Academy bi-laws. I smiled so sweetly when Jean-Luc Godard decided not to show, guess he still hates Hollywood as much as ever gotta love it.
Kirk Douglas is at least a million, but he was somewhat amusing on stage. Could have done without Celine Dion ever appearing in public again, and nothing makes me dry heave more than inner city grade schoolers singing at an award show. So in case you were wondering, I had absolutely no say whatsoever in the production of the show. I had serious doubts about Franco and Hathaway's ability to host the show and well he seemed stoned, and she laughed about as much as Jimmy Fallon. There monologue was awkward and not even remotely funny, wonder if it would be too much to get Billy Crystal to host it again, clearly everyone preferred him.
Glad that Melissa Leo and Christian Bale got their Oscars, Leo had the best speech and seemed to be the only one who injected any life whatsoever into the show. Watching the "Closer" video in 1994 I don't think I would have ever guessed that man would one day win an Oscar, but Trent Reznor certainly deserved it, and well the Social Network could have won a few more awards as far as I was concerned. It was hard to gauge just what was going to win throughout the night because the wealth was pretty evenly distributed, with the exception of three of the major four. Natalie Portman and Collin Firth had their Oscars sewn up months ago, so no surprise there, although I did worry that Geoffrey Rush would take Christian Bale's Oscar from him, glad Bale is now the second Academy Award winning Batman.
Now for an added bonus I wasted far too much time ranking all 83 best picture winners in numbered order best to worst. Now this list is in terms of how the films compare to the other best picture winners, not how deserving they are of the award. You can judge for yourself where I think King's Speech ranks with it's predecessors, feel free to argue about my choices but it shouldn't be meant to be over analyzed. Perhaps a few of the ones at the bottom might benefit from another visit, but well that's another debate in itself.
The Top 83 Best Picture Winners
1. The Godfather
2. All Quiet on the Western Front
3. Lawrence of Arabia
4. Casablanca
5. Annie Hall
6. Ordinary People
7. Schindler’s List
8. Gone with the Wind
9. The Best Years of Our Lives
10. On the Waterfront
11. Ben-Hur
12. The Departed
13.No Country for Old Men
14. The Godfather Part 2
15. Platoon
16. It Happened One Night
17. The Deer Hunter
18. Rocky
19. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
20. Million Dollar Baby
21. Bridge on the River Kwai
22. Unforgiven
23. American Beauty
24. Rebecca
25. You Can Count on Me
26. From Here to Eternity
27. Titanic
28. The Midnight Cowboy
29. Dances With Wolves
30. An American in Paris
31. The Last Emperor
32. All About Eve
33. Crash
34. Amadeus
35. Silence of the Lambs
36. Forrest Gump
37. The Grand Hotel
38. Hamlet
39. The Apartment
40. Marty
41. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
42. Patton
43. Braveheart
44. Rain Man
45. The Gentleman’s Agreement
46. The Lost Weekend
47. Chicago
48. Mutiny on the Bounty
49. Gandhi
50. Tom Jones
51. The Hurt Locker
52. The Sting
53. How Green Was My Valley
54. Slumdog Millionaire
55. A Man for All Seasons
56. Terms of Endearment
57. Wings
58. A Beautiful Mind
59. In the Heat of the Night
60. Going My Way
61. Shakespeare in Love
62. Gladiator
63. The English Patient
64. The Greatest Show on Earth
65. The King’s Speech
66. All the King’s Men
67. Chariots of Fire
68. Kramer vs. Kramer
69. Gigi
70. The Great Zigfield
71. Mrs. Minniver
72. The Broadway Melody
73. West Side Story
74. The French Connection
75. Cavalcade
76. The Sound of Music
77. Around the World in 80 Days
78. The Life of Emile Zola
79. Driving Miss Daisy
80. Cimarron
81. My Fair Lady
82. Out of Africa
83. Oliver
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