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Editorial: Overrated Oscar Style

If you don’t know by now I like to make lists (top five places to go pantless) and I like to point out when things are overrated (wearing pants), so the Oscars give me a fantabulous opportunity to marry the two. The criteria for overrated Best Pictures are as follows: Which movies did it beat out; does the movie continue to be relevant; did the movie make me feel all warm and fuzzy like shoving your hand up a grizzly bears butt; and finally if I still couldn’t decide if a winner was overrated I would implement the rigors of science and get in a swivel chair with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and Taco Bell and spin around until I threw up. Does that help me decide anything? No. But it did put into perspective the need for limits. Sometimes I think I am too much of a scientist when it comes to making these lists, but then I ask myself: if we didn’t follow the scientific method, would Chris Columbus have ever landed on the moon?

Now that you know the criteria and how professionally I have compiled this list, here are the top five overrated Best Picture winners:

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5.) ‘Chicago’ – I like musicals. I like comedies. I don’t like seeing Renee Zellweger wearing anything less than a spacesuit over a snowsuit. Any movie that makes me see that gets -91782398498 points. And if that number seem arbitrary to you, well, your face seems arbitrary to me. Sure this movie was a completely innovative way to take a famous stage show with Bob Fosse choreographing and adapt it to the big screen. And we were all impressed with The Zeta’s dancing and singing abilities, but should a movie featuring Richard Gere wearing glitter pinstripes and doing jazz hands beat ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers’ and ‘The Pianist’? Definitely not.

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4.) ‘Rocky’ – I am assuming this is overrated. The reason I make this assumption is because I can only understand 17.3% of the things Stallone farts out of his mouth. There should be some sort of dictation requirement to become an actor. The movie was inspiring, yes, but so wasn’t ‘Rudy’. Inspiring isn’t the criteria for Best Picture.

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3.) ‘Ordinary People’ – When a movie beats out ‘Raging Bull’ and ‘The Elephant Man’ you expect a lot. What you end up getting out of ‘Ordinary People’ is an afterschool special at best. I think the only fair thing to do at this point is hand the Oscar over to Scorsese and then buy me a new car. Fair is fair. Please? I need a new car. I actually don’t even have a car. I just have a bike that I put a cardboard box around. It does have cool flames I drew on the side. Oh yeah! VROOOOOOM!!!

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2.) ‘Million Dollar Baby’ – This is my second boxing movie up here. Some may say I have a grudge against boxing, but I don’t. Honestly. I love Mike Tyson’s Punch Out. Soda Popinski is one rough and tough sonofa-b, but, again, please relinquish your Oscar to Scorsese at your earliest convenience. Granted this movie had potential: Clint Eastwood directing, Hilary Swank playing a tomboy, but then it decided to be a snoozefest for 75% of the film before getting to any kind of turning point.

How Green Was My Valley

1.) ‘How Green Was My Valley’ – What is this movie you ask? Exactly. Let’s try another movie: ‘Citizen Kane’. Heard of it? Of course you have. Now are you telling me that arguably the greatest, most innovative, and influential movie America has to offer was not an Oscar winner? That is pure hogwash. Poppycock even.

So there are the most overrated Oscar winners. I know some of you disagree and think I am wrong. What you don’t realize is that not only am I not wrong about these, but that your mother hates you for questioning my list making abilities. Now go to your room and think about what you’ve done.

-Brandin

8 thoughts on “Editorial: Overrated Oscar Style

  1. ‘How Green Was My Valley?’ John Ford? Maureen O’Hara? Walter Pidgeon? Yup, never heard of it.

  2. I think if you look at the films as something that contributed huge advances in how you tell stories (by editing, cinematography, if not just for its writing), Citizen Kane would stand out far more then How Green Was My Valley. Your average Joe wouldn’t know How Green Was My Valley.

    I agree with everything on this list, including Million Dollar Baby.

  3. I think if you compare the two movies, ‘Kane’ comes out on top every time. However, if you consider what was going on that year, (Hearst wanting to buy up the ‘Kane’ print and destroy it,’) and the fact that I think a good number of Academy members were scared to award Welles for his achievement, lest Hearst, (someone who signed a good number of paychecks,) think that they actually liked Welles’ movie.

    The Oscars are political. Always have been, always will be. If the ‘better,’ nominee always won, Scorsese would have had his first Oscar in 1980 and Alfred Hitchcock and Cary Grant would have won one instead of having the Academy have to give them the lifetime achievement award.

  4. I could look it up but I’m lazy, isn’t Peter O’Toole, and Robert Altman on that list of snubbed as well? Poor Altman, they never forgave him for Popeye.

  5. I don’t think they were punishing Altman for Popeye, they were punishing him for unleashing Robin Willliams on us. And I happen to agree with that with the conviction of seven Arabian princesses.

    The Oscars are very political, but that’s how things get snubbed. ‘Citizen Kane’ should have won, but when you mess with the big wigs, they won’t reward you for it. That’s what I was getting at by saying it was snubbed. It should have won against a movie that wouldn’t crack a top 100. I am glad it got overlooked though because it gave me something to write other than, “the academy got it right again.” World’s shortest article.

  6. I am quite sure that my mother loves me for questioning list making abilities. I will tell you why:

    1. My mother, like Sam, is well aware of “How Green Was My Valley?”
    2. My mother doesn’t hate on ‘Rocky’, a well crafted film that still holds up, even though ‘Network,’ nominated that same year, is one of the greatest films ever made.
    3. My mother certainly doesn’t hate on ‘Ordinary People,’ one of very few films that deserves to take a Best Picture away from ‘Raging Bull.’

    Furthermore, Scorsese’s great films always lost to great films, and his not so great film beat out four other not so great films. It all worked out in the end.

  7. I will bend a bit on ‘Ordinary People’, but I thought ‘The Elephant Man’ was a brilliant film.

    As for ‘How Green Was My Valley?’ I don’t know if knowing the movie qualifies it as being the better of the two. My point was basically that ‘Kane’ maintained relevancy due to it’s impact on film. It’s innovative story telling, use of camera, and implimentation of experimental film techniques really set it apart from any film that year, and still has influence today. I just don’t see that with ‘HGWMV?’ Do you think that was a deserving winner?

    I was a huge fan of ‘Network’ and agree with you that it is one of the greatest movies, but by that account though, are you willing to say that ‘Rocky’ is one of the greatest + 1? I’m not. ‘Rocky’ was a good movie, but, like you said, ‘Network’ was a great movie.

    I don’t think things working out in the end are what it’s about. It furthers the snubs actually. By making up the award to someone later on when they are less desrving just means that someone else is going to get snubbed that year.

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