The 5 Least Deserving Best Pictures of the Last 20 Years

In yesterday's entry, I lamented the fact that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was up for Best Picture this year. It's not that I am upset with the movie being up for consideration, it's nervousness that it might actually win. This fear stems from it leading the Oscar field with 13 nominations, its trappings of Oscar-bait, and the mere fact that it is far longer than it needs to be, a quality the Academy seems to adore in their Best Picture winners. Would it be a travesty if it won? Perhaps not, when you consider some of the last twenty years' examples of the finest Hollywood has to offer. In fact, an examination of this shows that Benjamin Button would be in very good company, indeed.

1990-Dances With Wolves

Dances came out before Hollywood and America decided that Kevin Costner was incapable of creating anything worth seeing. The Oscar win here also apparently encouraged Costner to have a clause written into both his directing and acting contracts that no movie he appeared in could have a running time of less than 2 solid hours. With this contract in mind, he has delivered such dreck as The Postman, Waterworld, Dragonfly, and 3000 Miles to Graceland. Every now and then he surfaces with an unbelievable shot of good taste, as he did in A Perfect World and The Upside of Anger. Dances isn't a bad movie, but it has two things going against it. First, it marked the pinnacle and subsequent downturn of Costner's career. This, however, can only be held against it in retrospect. The other is that its primary competition in 1990 was one of the greatest films ever made: Martin Scorsese's gangster opus, Goodfellas. And it is for this latter reason that Dances with Wolves makes the list.

1998--Shakespeare in Love

The first comedy to win Best Picture in 30 years. Except. . .it's not funny. Oh, and it's not engaging on a dramatic level. Oh, and it's insufferably boring. This movie is what is meant by the term "Oscar Bait". Females playing male roles (if only within the framework of the movie)? Check. Period piece? Check. Put out by Miramax, the kings of Oscar promotion? Double check. The competition for 1998's Best Picture award was thin, but Saving Private Ryan probably should have taken the award this year.

2000--Gladiator

Of all the movies on this list, Gladiator is the most baffling. It is the only movie that cannot be objectively judged as even being "good", much less worthy of Best Picture status. It starts off with some intriguing medieval war, and goes steadily downhill from there. Not even Joaquin Phoenix's excellent acting can save this movie from going straight down the commodus. The competition in this category was indeed pretty weak, with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Traffic, and Erin Brockovich all vying for the title. All decent flicks (okay, not Erin Brockovich, which would have been better suited to a TV movie of the week), but doubly angering when you look at some of the films from that year that were ignored. Requiem for a Dream, The Cell, and Almost Famous all came out in 2000 and would have made far superior choices.

2002--Chicago

For a brief moment in the wake of 9/11, the Academy lost its mind and decided to give the Best Picture award to a hammy, glammy, feel-good spectacle, derived from the Broadway show of the same name. One could excuse this lapse of good judgment, if it were not for Gangs of New York sitting right there in the nominations. Scorcese gets screwed again.

2005--Crash

Speaking of TV movies of the week. I actually enjoyed Crash, but I was still baffled when it was nominated, and subsequently won Best Picture. In this respect, it is actually the film most like this year's Benjamin Button. There's nothing inherently wrong with it, it just isn't quite up to that level. Also, this should have been Brokeback Mountain's award in a landslide, but the Academy apparently decided it could conquer its racism, but not its homophobia.

So that leaves us with 2008 and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. As I said in the last post, I'm a long way from having seen every good movie this year, but that just makes it all the worse that I can easily come up with several films worthier of Button's spot on the nominations list, including Wall-E, The Wrestler, The Dark Knight, Doubt, and The Fall. In fact, if those were the five nominated for Best Picture, I think I would be a lot happier with the Academy. Where's P.T. Anderson and the Coens when you need them?

Oscar Nominations

The nominations for the 81st Academy Awards came out today and it looks like the surprises are few and far between. Because this year's list is so heavily dependent on those sneaky films that opened in New York and L.A. at the tail end of December, I haven't had a chance to see much of the competition. Hopefully, through wider releases, creative theater hunting, and. . .um. . .other means, I will be able to rectify that before the award show itself. Here are the major award categories:

BEST PICTURE

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Slumdog Millionaire

The Reader

Frost/Nixon

Milk

Of these films, the only two I've seen are Curious Case and Slumdog Millionaire. I can't say I'm surprised at the nominations, but I am disappointed. Curious Case leads the Oscar nominations this year with 13 nods, and I can't hide my irritation. This is the third collaboration between director David Fincher and Brad Pitt (following Seven and Fight Club) and it is, in my opinion, the least of the three. I went into the movie expecting to be blown away, and left feeling as though I had just watched leftover Forrest Gump. It's not a bad movie, but--much like I felt with previous nominees (and winners) Crash and Gladiator--it just isn't Oscar worthy. Slumdog Millionaire is closer to the mark and I have no problem with it being up for Best Picture, but it just didn't hit that extra high note to become something really special. Of these five, I would say Milk is the only one I'm moderately surprised to see up there.

BEST ACTOR

Richard Jenkins in The Visitor

Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon

Sean Penn in Milk

Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler

Only one I've seen is Pitt in Curious Case, and I think I've made my feelings known there. Although, to be fair, I could more easily digest an Oscar win for him than for the movie as a whole. Haven't seen The Wrestler yet, but Rourke is my sentimental favorite. It would be nice to see Langella finally be recognized as the acting god that he is, as well.

BEST ACTRESS

Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married

Angelina Jolie in The Changeling

Melissa Leo in Frozen River

Meryl Streep in Doubt

Kate Winslet in The Reader

I've seen The Changeling and Doubt out of these nominations. While I liked Changeling (and would have preferred to see it garner a Best Picture nom than Curious Case), something struck me as slightly off about Jolie's performance. I thought she was much better in last year's Daniel Pearl drama, A Mighty Heart. From her Golden Globe win, I would expect Kate Winslet to be the favorite here.

The Best Director category follows the Best Picture category line for line, with Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon), David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire), Stephen Daldry (The Reader), and Gus Van Sant (Milk).

The Best Animated Feature category this year--as usual--simply serves as an excuse to give Pixar another award. Kung Fu Panda and Bolt seem singularly unlikely to take the statue, while I thought Wall-E was Pixar's best offering since Finding Nemo.

In my next post, I'll take a look at some of the least deserving Best Picture winners throughout history, and I'll also tell you some of the movies I thought would have been more deserving of Benjamin Button's Best Picture nomination this year.