Oscar time! (Wait... that picture is of Felix. DOH!)

[actorwoof]

Get enough theater people together and invariably the conversation will steer into the subject of film. Make it Oscar season and your odds are greatly increased. That's not to say theater people are any more likely to talk about movies than other folk, but we tend to be a more hyper-critical bunch given our collective understanding of acting from

Comments

[defcon_1]

What is most interesting is to go back and look at the previous winners after the handful (or more) years that have passed to see what has kept its hold by critics as the best and most deserving Best Picture films of those years. Many of these films have not aged well and others are only now after years of reconsideration been declared more worthy and worthwhile than they were originally. Looking at the list and hindsight being 20/20 and all that... I think the Best Picture fallout now would be thus:

1988 Rain Man stays (none of the others are worth replacing it)
1989 Born or Poets replaces Daisy
1990 Goodfellas easily replaces Wolves (easiest replacement on the whole list)
1991 Lambs stays
1992 Unforgiven stays (its still considered the definitive "modern" western
1993 Schindler's stays
1994 Pulp or Shawshank replaces Gump (I think Gump's technical aspects and wizardry are what pushed it to the top of the list at the time, but in terms of staying power and its influence on the American film landscape, either of the other two would take its place)
1995 Braveheart stays (only because it's the best of the list, but with history being what it is, I think 3 films not nominated would now easily get pushed ahead of them: Se7en, Usual Suspects, and Toy Story - and I think Toy Story should probably win).
1996 Fargo replaces English Patient
1997 L.A. Confidential replaces Titanic (the one that I actually wouldn't agree with though, because with everything possible under the sun that could have made Titanic into another Poseidon, the fact that it was as good as it was is the achievement unto itself. Does it hold up as well today as a film you'd want to watch? No. But as a picture on the whole... including the acting, the sets, the sound, the lighting, the music, the effects, the costumes, the writing... the fact that so many disparate aspects came together to create the monumental film at that time is the reason I think it should stay)
1998 Private Ryan easily over Shakespeare (#2 behind Goodfellas on the 'we fucked up' scale)
1999 Beauty stays (many people have a hard on for The Insider, but I think that's more for Crowe's performance than the film as a whole, and thus AB would remain)
2000 Gladiator stays
2001/2002/2003 LotR replaces/stays (I think when all is said and done, the Rings trilogy will be looked back upon as one of the greatest film achievements of all time, if it isn't already. The first two didn't win because people wanted to make sure that the third one paid everything off... but much like Godfather I & II, all 3 films succeeded greater than any of the other films for those years.)
2004 Baby stays (there's not enough support for any of the other four to knock Baby out)
2005 Brokeback replaces Crash (Crash is so freakin' divided between people who think it's brilliant and those who think it f-ing sucks that it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.)
2006 Iwo Jima replaces The Departed (by giving Goodfellas the Oscar it deserves means we don't need to stay with The Departed for Scorese, which was as much of a "pity win" as anything. Of the other four, Iwo Jima would replace it, but I think over time people are going to say "We left off Pan's Labrynth and Children Of Men? What were we smoking?!?)

[actorwoof]

Almost as scary, take a look at this list of films that Roger Ebert voted his "Best Film" which didn't even warrant an Academy nomination:

1989 - Do The Right Thing
1992 - Malcolm X
1994 - Hoop Dreams
1995 - Leaving Las Vegas
1997 - Eve's Bayou
1998 - Dark City
1999 - Being John Malkovich
2000 - Almost Famous
2001 - Monster's Ball
2002 - Minority Report
2003 - Monster

The last three in particular I would have taken over any other film that was nominated. It kills me about Minority Report that it would never even be considered since it was a sci-fi/action film. It was so well crafted its sick.