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Best Pictures
Never to Have Won Best Picture
by
Maggie Van Ostrand |
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Oscar
will be allowed out of his Chicago vault for the annual trip to Hollywood
on February 24th. He'll be 80 years old this year and we'd like to
know who his plastic surgeon is. You can't tell us he hasn't had a
butt lift.
Speaking of butts, to sashay or not to sashay down the red carpet
was a close shave this year due to the WGA strike, but now all is
well and everyone is publicly friendly again. Actors as well as backless,
frontless, mindless starlets and media-created celebs will wave to
fans and stop for media interviews, writers can supply the jokes they
secretly wrote and hid until the strike was settled, and Jon Stewart
will have a plethora of current material to make this the show we've
been anxiously awaiting.
Everyone's making book on who'll return their borrowed dresses and
tuxes to the designers and the jewels to Harry Winston's. The track
record for the return of borrowed clothing is dismal. Every time a
star tells the media whose dress she's wearing, it's Hollywoodspeak
for "Try and get it back."
We can hope our favorite movie will come away with the big prize,
but in the long run, some of the best pictures ever made did not receive
Best Picture Oscars. A good example would be the AFI's choice for
number one movie of all time, Citizen Kane.
CITIZEN KANE: Though Citizen Kane was nominated in nine categories
in 1941, it won only Best Original Screenplay by Orson Welles and
Herman J. Mankiewicz. It has been said that boos were heard whenever
the name Citizen Kane was mentioned because powerful newspaper magnate,
William Randolph Hearst, on whose life the film was alleged to be
based, threatened voters with the old chestnut, "You'll never work
in this town again." An interesting note: Kane's editor was future
Oscar-winning director Robert Wise.
PSYCHO: In 1960, this iconic film was not nominated for Best
Picture. Hitchcock was at least nominated, though he did not win either.
Bernard Hermann wasn't even nominated for one of the most frightening
of all film scores. The screech alone should've won. Fanboys, smarter
than Oscar voters, disagreed and voted Psycho #2 on their list of
Best Movies.
SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION: Shawshank Redemption never got an Oscar,
despite seven nominations. Pulp Fiction was also knocked out of the
box by Forrest Gump in 1994. Fans avenged Shawshank by voting it the
number two film of all time on IMdB (second only to The Godfather).
Shawshank is the highest rated film on Yahoo Movies. It was voted
the best film never to have won Best Picture in a 2005 BBC poll. |
VERTIGO:
One of fans' favorite Alfred Hitchcock films is the psychological
thriller, Vertigo. It wasn't even nominated for Best Picture, only
for set design and sound. Didn't win those either. To add insult to
injury, Hitchcock himself ... I can hardly bear to write it ... never
won an Oscar. HITCHCOCK NEVER WON AN OSCAR!!! And only one of his
films (Rebecca) won Best Picture. Hitchcock was the best film-maker
never to have been handed an Oscar, according to a poll of British
movie viewers.
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY: Hard to believe it didn't win Best Picture,
isn't it? The Best Picture award in 1968 instead went to Oliver. Like
who remembers Oliver now? 2001 was nominated for four awards that
year, excluding best picture, but only won for visual FX. Today, 2001
is widely recognized by critics and audiences alike as one of the
greatest of all movies.
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STAR WARS:
Despite a surprising loss of Best Picture to Annie Hall in 1977, Star
Wars unleashed a series of films which earned $4.5 billion to date.
It won only Best Visual FX (big deal). George Lucas cites Hardware
Wars, a 1977 spoof, as his favorite of all the Star Wars parodies,
with Mel Brooks' Spaceballs a close second choice. Lucas made no comment
about SNL's parody with Kevin Spacey doing Christopher Walken auditioning
for the role of Hans Solo.
APOCALYPSE NOW: Can someone tell us how Apocalypse could have
lost out to Kramer Vs. Kramer? What's up with that? With more memorable
quotes than nearly any other film in history, this masterpiece is
rated by Fanboys at #8, by the AFI as #30. |
FARGO:
Another Coen Brothers masterpiece which didn't get an Oscar. Maybe
this year will make up for that. In 1996, Fargo lost out to the sob-sister
story, The English Patient. The Coens are famous for movies which
come from dark places they want to take you to, whether you want to
go there or not. Voters must have felt a romantic crying jag was better
than the sureness of Coenesque quality and longevity.
PHILADELPHIA: Never won Best Picture which went instead, in
1993, to Schindler's List. Sure Philadelphia won for Tom Hanks as
actor and Bruce Springsteen as songwriter, but it wasn't even nominated
for Best Picture. That omission still rankles.
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GOODFELLAS:
At least it was nominated, and the Academy recognized Joe Pesci for
Best Supporting Actor, but Best Picture went to Dances With Wolves
in 1990. Nothing against Dances, but let's face it, Goodfellas is
on most fans' favorite list while Dances is just, well, there. At
least it's #15 on IMdB's list and Fanboys voted it as Scorsese's masterpiece
at their #7. That may even be better than an Oscar.
E.T.: The Extra-terrestrial: Nominated but lost. Sure it won
Best Music and Sound and FX but so what? It didn't win Best Picture.
Gandhi did, which goes to show that Academy voters would rather see
a skinny Indian dude in a white diaper than a skinny alien critter
in a bicycle basket.
DOG DAY AFTERNOON: Attica! Attica! Pacino, too, was robbed
of an Oscar in 1975 for his sublime portrayal of the hapless character,
Sonny, who needed to rob a bank to get money for his gay partner's
sex-change operation. Best Writing Original Screenplay went to Frank
Pierson for his screenplay based on a true story. We suppose we'll
get over this loss, since the award went to Cuckoo's Nest, and who
could object to that. Other amazing competitors that year included
the classic Jaws.
BONNIE AND CLYDE: In 1967, Bonnie and Clyde lost out to In
the Heat of the Night. Some solace can be found in knowing that the
same year, The Graduate also lost. And Cool Hand Luke wasn't even
nominated for Best Picture. Academy voters appear to cast their ballots
for movies reflecting the day's news, and have no sense of films that
will become classics in our time and always. |
SOME LIKE IT HOT: The iconic Billy Wilder film, one of Marilyn
Monroe's best, was not even nominated in 1959 for Best Picture. Very
shortsighted of the Academy, wouldn't you say? We're still talking
about it, snippets are still being shown on entertainment and pop
culture shows, and Tony Curtis is still giving interviews about whether
or not he ever said "Kissing Marilyn was like kissing Hitler." But
who's talking about the movie that actually won that year, Ben Hur?
If not for the chariot race, nobody would even remember it.
THE WIZARD OF OZ: Okay, it would've been really, really hard
to win in 1939 against Gone With the Wind, Dark Victory, Goodbye Mr.
Chips, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Wuthering Heights, and Stagecoach,
among others (10 nominees in all), but still ... |
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Trivia:
One of the very few films to be on every list that actually won Best
Picture, is Casablanca. "This is the worst film we've ever come across,"
said Bogie, "It's just a fright." Bergman also complained. Both stars
made desperate efforts to ditch their parts. Believe it or not, their
roles were originally slated for Hedy Lamarr and Ronald Reagan.
The model for the Oscar statuette was a naked Mexican named Emilio
Fernández, who had a platonic relationship with fellow Mexican and
big Hollywood star, Dolores del Río. Her famous husband, Cedric Gibbons,
had been assigned by the Academy to design their award. Del Río introduced
Fernández to her husband and he agreed that Fernández would be the
perfect model.
In 1999, Trey Parker and Matt Stone showed up in drag at the Oscars
as Jennifer Lopez and Gwyneth Paltrow.
With 14 nominations, matching the record set by All About Eve, and
11 Oscars, Titanic tied for first place with Ben-Hur as the most honored
picture of all time.
Charlize Theron was the tenth actress to win an Oscar for playing
a hooker, Monster, 2003 (Best Actress). Her predecessors were Anne
Baxter, The Razor's Edge, 1946 (Best Supporting); Claire Trevor, Key
Largo, 1948 (Best Supporting); Donna Reed, From Here to Eternity,
1953 (Best Supporting); Jo Van Fleet, East of Eden, 1955 (Best Supporting);
Dorothy Malone, Written on the Wind, 1956 (Best Supporting); Elizabeth
Taylor, Butterfield 8, 1960, (Best Actress) -- sometimes called The
Throat Vote because it was widely believed that her life-saving tracheotomy
was the real reason she won with a sympathy vote; Jane Fonda, Klute,
1971 (Best Actress); Mira Sorvino, Mighty Aphrodite, 1995 (Best Actress).
Copyright Maggie Van Ostrand
"A Balloon In Cactus"
February 21, 2008 column
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