"Are you not entertained!!?"
It is always popular among social and film circles to debate to no end a best picture winner or even nominee. Who knew picking one movie as the best among a couple hundred every year would make people upset. One of the most frequent years brought up is 1994. That year Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction and Shawhshank Redemption were all up and viable picks for best picture. The others were Quiz Show, and Four Weddings but those are rarely considered as alternates. Shawshank was pretty much overlooked the whole year by audiences and since then has aged extremely well. A lot of people now think that it should have won easily, the only problem is a lot of these people didn't see it until it was on TV 20 times a week 5 years later. So a movie they saw a few years later they expect this panel of old people that probably get so busy each day, to see this movie in a couple months and analyze thoughtfully while over here Robyn Wright is getting topless, and Paramount is going to send me to the gulf coast on a shrimping cruise. They thought why didn't this win, why didn't the academy see this? It should have won! Yet, they didn't even realize it until the future. There are a lot of things that you love doing in the now that you regret 5 years later. That is what the Oscars are good for a spaz fest living in the now. I give the academy a pass on that one. Then it is between Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction. I was a young boy when these came out so I don't really remember the landscape as well and I haven't gotten into movies from that era, should another movie have been nominated as well?? But visit any forum and you will see backlash not since all of Greece truced up and dragged it's hairy ball sack over Troy. "Pulp fiction is so much better F gump" "Stupid is as this movie in comparison to Pulp", etc. People seem to have a big problem with Forrest Gump, I never understood why. How is it not powerful, how is it not funny and touching, yeah it is a little sappy at times but that's what it was trying to do. I think it is every emotion perfectly rolled into one. Of course I'm biased since Forrest Gump is one of my favorite films ever but I also love Pulp Fiction. It is one of the great questions in PF and represents both so perfectly: are you Elvis or Beatles man? Forrest Gump is more popular but Elvis is arguably more influential, more cult. One is Generation XY, the other baby boomers, one is you had a tough week, Saturday comes, just kick back and enjoy a thoughtful story while you wait for Monday to come back around (see also Rudy, and yes even Shawshank Redemption) the other is get your friends over turn it on, grab the drinks, and head out trying to the end the night with a syringe sticking in someone's chest.
Without going too far off on 1994, another highly debated year is 2000 in which Gladiator won. I set up 1994 as a contrast to this because as we know 1994 was a pretty amazing year and I can see the reasoning for debate, but as far as 2000 goes what other movie could have won? The other best picture nominees were Chocolat, Traffic, Erin Brokovich, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Are any of those considered better movies even today? Have any of them aged better than Gladiator. TNT seems to love Gladiator, I rarely if ever see any of the other movies on TV. Is that a good indicator? Does anyone on earth own Chocolat? Some others from that year that could have been a contender, Cast Away, Unbreakable, Finding Forrester, Pollack, Quills (never saw, but kind of want to), You can Count on Me, Requiem for a Dream, Almost Famous, Dancer in the Dark, Shadow of the Vampire, The Wind Will Carry Us, American Psycho, High Fidelity, Wonder Boys, any others? Cast Away - it is an experience to watch this definitely, but can't watch it more than a few times, felt too experimental at times. Crouching, better the second time, great box office for a foreign film, the mandarin was cool to listen to though I think it pissed off a lot of people in China. The first time I saw it, it was dubbed which I think made dislike it originally. Probably the best contender that had the best chance out of all of them but I think it was just too weird at the time, and could have seen that dubbed version I did. High Fidelity and Wonder Boys, everyone forgot these by the time December rolled around pretty much and the story telling is too weak in a lot of scenes, focused on the depressions of pussy protagonists. I think Almost Famous should have been nominated and probably would have if it grossed another 40 million and had more naked Kate Hudson. The Wind Will Carry Us..uh...maybe something to with Iran...which is actually kind of sad since it is a pretty good movie, but again to weird, a lot of down time, but a great movie, and with The Artist winning this year nothing surprises me anymore, goes back to be a living in the now spaz. Once the gimmick of hey it's so quirky because it's silent wears off tell me where we are at. Think of Chicago and the Musical gimmick they brought back. Who the hell thought a movie musical was a good idea? Well I guess I'm wrong considering they're making billions of dollars. I guess I take that back, I just hated that they did those stupid scenes on the stage. I'd rather have it be like a musical like Lion King, seemless. It's not like during Hakuna Matata they were singing it in some lounge. Finding Forrester, were these deleted scenes from Good Will Hunting? Had a good night at the bars the night I saw this, that's all I really remember about it and the story about the BMW logo.
Traffic, watered down Requiem for a Dream, I've seen it 3 times and owned it at one point, but don't remember a lot of it, seemed like a lot of cliches about drugs, I thought it was kind of cool they hid the coke int he dolls, Catherine Zeta Jones took care of shit in it. Shadow of the Vampire, fell asleep during it. Pollack, as I remember Ed Harris didn't even see Pollack. Red Planet, could have been a great minimalist sci-fi noir, did a decent job though, but kind of felt dull after the earlier release of Mission to Mars. Requiem for a Dream, one of my favorites but there is no way the academy would take this big of risk, little did they know who they were dealing with in Darren Aranofsky, not to mention I think the film fit nicely as the darling of the festival circuit, is there anything wrong with that? Same reasoning for American Psycho and Dancer in the Dark, let it live long in the minds of movie fans but it would never win an oscar and that is fine by me. Looking at these it really stands out how much control studios have and how there was a such a limit on oscar bait even 10 years ago. At least today there are dozens of strong independents coming out with the advent of streaming and netflix. Out of all the pictures from 2000 doesn't Gladiator represent everything about a great film as the top of technical, dramatic, and fun categories. How many times do the Oscars even try that now a days?
The point is and I guess the main caveat that comes from the Oscars is that the academy has only a couple months to survey the film landscape for the entire year in order to determine which one was best. A movie they put at the top in May could be toppled after the awards bait season in December, who knows if they even watch every one. What happens to a person who sees Requiem for a Dream first then tries to watch Chocolat? After viewing it a couple times and collecting whatever swag from studios they get boom they make a decision. But what happens, that movie lives on after that ceremony. You get to view it more times, the movie evolves, you evolve and it can greatly change. The only thing to realize is it doesn't mean anything. If you don't watch the oscars who cares who won one 20 years ago, that is how you'll be remembered movie #67 in the run down of every movie that won it. All I know is I'd rather be an Alien or Warrior than a Kramer.
Not to mention it is all opinion, but either answer is right. I'd probably have to go with a Beatles man though.
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