It's Oscars time again. A time when the great and the good (and bad) of the cinema world come together to celebrate their achievements of the previous twelve months. Even the most disinterested spectator could probably rhyme off the main categories; Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor/Actress etc... Sometimes we agree (The King’s Speech), sometimes we don’t (The English Patient). Sometimes we are pleased for the winner (Sean Penn), sometimes we are amazed they have been given a part in a film at all (Nicholas Cage). But in many ways that is why we watch. We, the cinema going, ticket buying members of the general public love to watch films and then debate endlessly about whether it was any good.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve left a film in disbelief at just how awful it was, only to hear people around me proclaiming it as the best film they have ever seen! So, with this in mind, I’ve decided to focus not on the films that have collected the prized gold statuettes but, rather, those that have lost.
There have been many fantastic films that have failed to win the Oscar since 1927/28, but many of these instances can be explained fairly easily. For example many might be surprised to learn there was no Best Picture Oscar for Jaws in 1975, Taxi Driver the following year or E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in 1982. Three films that, years later, often finish quite high on the familiar polls for best films of all time. But each of these films found itself competing with films of an equal calibre for the title that year. For Jaws there was no shame in losing to One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Rocky delivered the knockout blow to Scorsese’s iconic psychological thriller and E.T. went home with his tail between his legs (did he have a tail? Not sure...) to his own planet after finding Gandhi too iconic a human being to defeat. A brief look through the records and you can find so many more examples of this with 1990 perhaps the worst year to have released a film hoping for an Academy Award when the epic Dances with Wolves had to fight off Ghost, The Godfather Part III, Awakenings and Goodfellas for the gong!
But for every unlucky loser there is another that leaves you positively scratching your head in disbelief. I’m still struggling to understand how The English Patient was ever described as a Best Picture but its competition that year, fortunately for Anthony Minghella, was weak. For me then I was able to narrow it down to three.
I’ll start with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in 2008. A superb film, loosely based on a short story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the 1920s, which came across as a sort of Forrest Gump tale with a twist. Even those who were a little sceptical of the plot beforehand (I was one) soon found themselves engrossed in the unusual life of Mr. Button (Not Jenson). For such a well thought out, superbly produced and brilliantly acted film to lose to Slumdog Millionaire felt almost criminal. Unfortunately it showed how fickle such awards can be as Bollywood had become the ‘in’ thing during the previous few years. Add to that the idea that the actors in the film were actually poor, neglected slum dwellers (they weren’t by the way...) and you are onto a winner. Alternatively, there may also have been a reluctance to accept that Brad Pitt could star in a film worthy of winning Best Picture as, it seems, he is still struggling to shake off some early career howlers in much the same way as his ‘bestie’ George Clooney did until recently.
A similar travesty occurred the following year – my second most shocking loser in this category. This one, I’m certain, will be viewed as far more controversial but let me give it a go <puts hard hat on>. Many excellent films were released in 2009 including The Blind Side, starring Sandra Bullock (who won Best Actress for her role) and District 9 which, although sci-fi isn’t to everyone’s taste, was a superbly constructed story, magnificently produced and with a largely unknown cast to boot. But 2009 should have been the year of Cameron. His sci-fi fantasy epic Avatar will long be remembered as a ground breaking leap in film making which succeeded in transporting the audience far away into another world. Again I know sci-fi is an acquired taste but the same could be said of all genres and what is unquestionable is that Cameron more than achieved what he set out to create. As many will recall, however, it lost out to The Hurt Locker <checks hard hat is securely fastened>. The story of a bomb disposal team serving in Iraq in 2004 was almost a shoe-in for Best Picture before a single person had watched it. Made in a fiercely patriotic nation in the midst of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and reading daily of the tragic deaths of soldiers on foreign battlefields, this film would clearly prove popular with the masses. Unfortunately the film just isn’t as good as people like to think it is. Even within its own genre it struggles to rival Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, Platoon or even Black Hawk Down. Excluding Jeremy Renner the acting is distinctly average and, for me, it succeeds only by virtue of the situation in which it was set and, more importantly, released. In a decade no one will remember this film – very few will have forgotten Avatar. Before I remove my hard hat I may as well throw in one final observation. In over 80 years of Academy Awards no woman had ever won Best Director – until The Hurt Locker. It really, seriously couldn’t lose could it? <grabs hard hat and runs for his life...>
My final film is the one I would select as the ultimate shock loser in the Best Picture category. Ten years before Avatar was robbed American Beauty stole the show at the 72nd Academy Awards. Seriously. It really did. It was actually nominated for a staggering eight awards and somehow won five! I sense disbelief here but if you don’t believe me look it up! If you are feeling really brave you could even watch the film and try to figure out how on earth it ever won anything because, I’m sorry to say people, it is rubbish. Not average...rubbish. I hear you shouting “How can a rubbish film win five Oscars?” I’ll tell you how – advertising. DreamWorks realised that it had made a film that would fall short again but, only twelve months on from the shock of Saving Private Ryan losing out to Shakespeare in Love, it decided to act. It pumped a small fortune into promoting the film long after its initial release which, at that point, had been completely dismissed by most critics as nothing more than another run-of-the-mill fare. But the power of the American dollar came shining through and, by February 2000, American Beauty was suddenly being heralded as a great film highlighting everyday American society. If that’s the case I’ll stay where I am.
What should have won? The Green Mile by..er..a country..mile. I’m not normally a big fan of Stephen King books but, regardless of the origin of the story, the film was brilliantly made and, as usual with Tom Hanks, full of great performances. Even Mr. Jingles was more worthy of an Oscar than Kevin Spacey. In fact basically every other film nominated that year was far superior in every facet of film making than American Beauty. The Cider House Rules, The Insider, The Sixth Sense were all more worthy winners than Sam Mendes’ mundane tale of a middle aged man bored with his life and fancying his teenage daughter's best friend. Who actually cares? I don’t. There were better films not even nominated that year such as Any Given Sunday, Magnolia or The Talented Mr. Ripley. An awful decision by the Academy but at least it gave Kevin Spacey another few minutes in the limelight before making those silly airline adverts.
Get involved! Leave a comment after reading this blog and let us all read your nominations in the category discussed. Also don’t forget to take part in our poll on which film will win Best Picture this year!
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