The Oscar Quest: Best Picture & Best Director – 2001
I say 2001 was a bad year for film, and it’s hard to disagree with that fact. Sure, there were some good movies, but not many Oscar movies. We got our first Harry Potter, we got Monsters, Inc., we got Shrek. But none of these will ever get (well, now…) nominated for Best Picture.
But, here are the good pictures from 2001 that did not get Best Picture nominations (some you may feel aren’t worthy, but, when you look at them, you can see why they would, could or should — rhymes — be in contention):
A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Ali, Amélie, Black Hawk Down, Mulholland Drive, Pearl Har…uhh…never mind, and Training Day.
I actually thought there would be more. That kind of made my argument for me. Sure, this doesn’t absolve the Academy for not nominating some of these, mostly — well, really just Amélie and Mulholland Drive, but we knew Lynch was too much of a mad genius for the Academy. The lack of Amélie love really surprises me because they nominated a foreign film just the year before this.
Also, the reason there’s such a problem with what won is because the film that probably should have won had a caveat to it. (The whole, ‘There are two more of them coming out, and we’d probably be better off just giving them the awards at the end of it as an accomplishment deal instead of giving it to the first one.”) (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Actor & Best Actress – 2001
This is one of those, you knew what they were gonna do like three weeks out. And you couldn’t do anything about it. One was deserving, one wasn’t. But, the one who wasn’t actually didn’t have competition, while the one who was arguably had people nominated that did better than they did. So, I guess we call it a wash. (Certainly not a whitewash though.)
(Get it, because the winners are both black.)
(Yeah, I went there. I know. But how could you not? I mean, wash — the joke practically set itself up.)
BEST ACTOR – 2001
And the nominees were…
Russell Crowe, A Beautiful Mind
Sean Penn, I Am Sam
Will Smith, Ali
Denzel Washington, Training Day
Tom Wilkinson, In the Bedroom (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Supporting Actor & Best Supporting Actress – 2001
2001 — the year where nothing happened. This is the year whose only distinction is that it was the one where everyone’s like, “Vote for more black people!” Other than that this was forgettable in almost every way, down to the Best Picture winner which was one of those, “I guess…” decisions.
2001 was a bad year for movies. Something about 1s and 0s must make the movies not good. But at least the Supporting Actor and Lead Actor categories had some interest to them. Along with the once again bad decision-making that plagues most Oscar years.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – 2001
And the nominees were…
Jim Broadbent, Iris
Ethan Hawke, Training Day
Ben Kingsley, Sexy Beast
Ian McKellen, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Jon Voight, Ali (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Picture and Best Director – 2000
2000 was an interesting year for the Oscars. And the industry in general. They were coming off an incredible year for motion pictures in 1999. Just to recap, look at this list of movies that came out in ’99:
- American Beauty
- American Pie
- Analyze This
- Any Given Sunday
- Baby Geniuses
- Being John Malkovich
- The Blair Witch Project
- Blue Streak
- Bowfinger
- Bringing Out the Dead (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Actor & Best Actress – 2000
These are fun, because, it’s a mix of actor vs. performance. You look at the sheet of winners and be like, “They won for that?” And then your brain starts processing, and you’re like, “Well, that makes sense. But, not for that. Well, they do like them, and they probably deserve something, and…”
BEST ACTOR – 2000
Javier Bardem, Before Night Falls
Russell Crowe, Gladiator
Tom Hanks, Cast Away
Ed Haris, Pollock
Geoffrey Rush, Quills (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Supporting Actor & Best Supporting Actress – 2000
Here’s the first entry in our Oscar quest. I say our, because mine started a long time ago. Now it’s ours.
Since the Oscars will be upon us within the next 40 days (and nominations will be announced in exactly 7 days), I figure this is a good time to start gearing up for that wonderful, wonderful night.
How this is gonna work is, from now until Oscar night, I will go over all the major 6 nominees for every year of the past decade, Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress and Director. I will go over who won, what I thought of the performances, who I would have voted for, who I thought should have won, all of it.
The purposes of this are educational (and expository). I want you to be able to know what I think are the worthwhile performances in 83 years worth of films, so that if you should ever come across one of them, maybe you’ll actually give them a chance based on some good things I had to say about it. Maybe you’ll discover something in here that ends up becoming one of your favorite films all because of me. And wouldn’t my ego love to hear that.
My other goal is simple — I’ve watched a shit ton of movies this past year. I want to document my watching them in some way. I want to be able to go back and remember what I thought of certain films, because, eventually, being the DVD hound I am, I will want to buy some of them, and I want to know which ones I liked and want to add to the collection.
So that’s that. Now, let’s start with 2000 and work backwards. (more…)
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