Best Picture Losers that Deserved the Win

As the years go by, the Academy Awards become less of a legitimate judge of talent and more of an indicator of which studio did the best job promoting its film and garnering favor with the Academy. Regardless, I’ll be damned if I watch the SAG awards or any of those other nonsense shows, so the Academy Awards will have to do. Since the Academy pretty much sucks, often the Best Picture does not always win, therefore I decided to chronicle six films since 1970 that truly deserved to win Best Picture yet didn’t for whatever reason.

2009-Up in the Air / Winner- The Hurt Locker

Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker is a good war movie. It has impressive cinematography that offers a sense of being surrounded by potential dangers. However, it is hardly a compelling enough movie to warrant Best Picture. The characters are fairly one dimensional and the scenes that are meant to offer character complexity merely seem forced. Even the camera work that originally gives the viewer a feeling of panoramic danger becomes repetitive. Obviously watching someone defuse a bomb is inherently tense, but Bigelow goes to that well a few too many times. On the other hand, Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air hits every right note. It is both funny and touching offering moments of true emotion and humor. The idea of witnessing a man fire countless people yet still find him likeable is not only a credit to Goerge Clooney’s amazing performance but also Reitman’s skill as a writer. The ambiguity and unconventionality to the end add a cherry to this delicious sundae of a film.

Note- For me, the true highlight of The Hurt Locker is a brief performance by the remarkably underrated David Morse who is able to show off his comedic chops.

2007-There Will Be Blood/Winner-No Country for Old Men

I can admit that this one is largely quibbling because both movies are exceptional. The Coen Brothers are one of my favorite director/writer teams and No Country for Old Men is up to par with their many classic films. However, P.T Anderson is a genius in his own right and I think that when history looks back on these two films, No Country will be seen as a great movie whereas There Will be Blood will be regarded as an all-time great, propelled by one of the great performances of the generation by Daniel Day-Lewis. If someone was to tell me 5 years ago that I would be utterly transfixed by a nearly 3 hour period piece about an oil man, I would have scoffed.I think that is the mark of true greatness. Taking a subject matter that wouldn’t even occur to the average person and making something special.

2002-Gangs of New York/Winner-Chicago

Chicago is a fun movie that is a well done adaption of a musical. It featured excellent performances from John C. Reilly, Richard Gere, and Catherine Zeta Jones. However, is it really worthy of beating out Scorsese’s epic period piece? I don’t think that Gangs of New York is on par with Scorsese’s all-time greats (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, or Goodfellas), however, it is a well-made and compelling film that offers brutal action sequences, several rousing performances, and a powerful score by Howard Shore. Chicago’s victory was a product of the Academy’s fascination with musicals and a star studded cast that blinded the academy from recognizing what film was truly superior in 2002. Overall though, I think this year demonstrates how impossibly hard it is to compare one genre to another, especially when one is so disparate from the others.

Note-I love Daniel Day Lewis. He is incredible in everything he does and I think he is the preeminent dramatic actor of our generation and one of the all-time greats. Nine never happened.

1994-Pulp Fiction/Winner- Forrest Gump

I am not in the camp that Pulp Fiction is an all-time great movie nor am I a Quentin Tarantino apologist, loving everything he does. With that said, I still think Pulp Fiction is vastly superior to the vastly overrated Forrest Gump. Pulp Fiction is a fascinating film for a host of reasons, ranging from the varied dialects of the characters, dry humor, and nonlinear storytelling. Forrest Gump, on the other hand, is a straight line of meh. I think that it’s an ok movie and that’s about it. It has some charming moments but it just lacks the complexity of Pulp Fiction. I get it; Forrest is retarded but good hearted guy who is also exceptionally talented in a host of fields. Cmon though. How much can you get out of that? I found this movie dull and the only high note was a soundtrack replete with great 60’s music.

1979-Apocalypse Now/Winner-Kramer vs. Kramer

I considered not including this one, not because I am unsure if Apocalypse Now is deserving, but because I actually haven’t gotten around to seeing Kramer vs. Kramer. I know it is easy to say that I can’t say that one movie is more deserving than the other because I haven’t seen one, however, I am suggesting that because of how great Apocalypse Now is, I can’t envision many other films being better. Simply put, Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece is one of the great films of all time. To me, it has no equal. From the soundtrack to the cinematography, to the amazing performances of Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper, Martin Sheen, and Robert Duvall, Apocalypse Now is a perfect film.

1976-Taxi Driver/Winner-Rocky

I know this is the second Scorsese movie I’m putting up but it isn’t because of a bias I have towards Scorsese is the bias the academy had against him for so many years that I have no choice but to select another one of his films. Rocky is a really fun movie. I like watching it sometimes when it’s on TV, but I don’t think anyone can say that it is artistically complex or a work of high skill. People love it because it is a great underdog story but it’s not a good film. Sylvester Stallone is a horrific actor, the boxing sequences are laughably inaccurate, and a lot of the film is clearly lifted/heavily influence by On the Waterfront. Taxi Driver is a complex character study of a man teetering on the edge of sanity and offers a look into the psyche of a disturbed man. Robert Deniro’s performance is haunting and disturbing and the ambiguous ending leaves room for interpretation, the mark of a truly great film.