12
votes
Nominate for "Movie of the Week" in March - Best Picture nominees that didn't win
Voting closed
Sorry for the title gore, but since it is the Oscars next month, lets find a Oscar relevant selection of 4 movies, with narrowing it down to Best Picture nominees that didn't win. So if you have a favorite movie where another movie took the award that year, now is a good time to bring that up.
Rules
- Must have been nominated in the Best Picture category for the Oscars
- Must not be the winner of Best Picture
- Not from this years award, since we don't know who will win yet
- Not one we have already done
- Only one nomination per user
- Please only nominate if you intent to participate
- Upvote the post(s) with a nomination you would like to be picked for discussion next month
Wikipedia has a list of all the nominees through the years. Or this list on Letterboxd.
In case of ties in the number of votes, random.org will decide. Voting closes Sunday.
Editing this to keep nomination clear - I'll nominate High Noon to give me an excuse to watch again. The gall to make that story amidst blacklisting was insane, and the self-imposed limit on the movie's direction, writing, and pacing is incredible. It's a western with only one brief fistfight until the end, but it feels like a ticking bomb the whole time and then bursts.
Separate discussion re: Oscar losers:
My wife had a thing where she was trying to watch all the Best Picture winners. (We're stuck at No Country because, while I love it, watching 2 hours and 30 minutes of butt clenching is not our mood after taking care of a baby all day...) Eventually she developed a rule that she'd give the movie a quarter of the runtime, then find another better movie from the year if she just didn't like it. There were a decent number of those.Some of my takes:
I have to disagree here. Lawrence of Arabia is an universal masterpiece through and through. It is in fact so above the rest it could easily be the movie of its decade, and is even a contender for #1 of all time.
I think that's a fantastic take: I also (currently) don't have the time to watch movies that are a labour to sit through, or something that will haunt me for the rest of my life.... Perhaps especially if they're actually very well crafted, poweful films.
On that note, in 2016, La La Land and Arrival I would probably re-watch any number of times before rewatching Moonlight.
In case you didn't know, this is the nomination topic for movie of the week (basically like a book club but for watching movies), and not just for a discussion about Oscar Best Picture losers. We're nominating and then voting on movies to watch next month, hence the "Only one nomination per user" rule.
You said if you had to nominate any of those for discussion it would be High Noon, so is that your nomination for March? It's not entirely clear from your post if that's the case though, since you listed so many.
Sorry that wasn't clear, I am nominating High Noon.
👍
Could you do a seperate top level post of that to make it clear? Just to keep better track of votes as any votes on your post here can be interpreted in many ways.
I edited the discussion piece into a spoiler to keep it separate. Sorry to derail!
I nominate Life is Beautiful. Like Saving Private Ryan, it also lost to the totally forgettable Shakespeare in Love for Best Picture that year, but Life is Beautiful should have won over both of those, IMO. It's a movie that I feel like everyone should see at least once in their life, since despite how dark the subject matter is (the holocaust), it's a truly truly beautiful, poignant, powerful, inspiring and surprisingly funny film.
The only potential problem is that it's foreign language (Italian), and not currently available to watch for free on any streaming services AFAICT. So people are likely going to have to pay to digitally rent it, or pirate it. :( So it's up to you if you think it should be avoided, @winther. I don't want participation to be only me for that week, so if you feel this movie is too much of a commitment just ignore this nomination.
I would love to rewatch Life is Beautiful. It is impossible to keep track of what is available in different countries on various services. And personally, I resort to the local library that can usually find a DVD of most things in storage.
I will nominate There will be blood.
It lost to No Country For Old Men which is fair as I consider that one of my all time favorites. However There will be blood is a worthy second place. Been a while since I have seen it, so I hope it still holds up.
what a brutal year to compete
I feel for Michael Clayton. Great movie that would have done well any other year, but against these two juggernauts... not even a question that they'd lose.
The movie that is the reason I stopped paying attention to the Oscars:
Saving Private Ryan
If the Academy was going to select Shakespeare in Love over SPR ... the relevance of the Academy's collective opinion is suspect in my eyes. Who remembers SiL? Except for the travesty of it reaching the podium over what, then and now, people consider one of the defining war stories of cinema. Not just defining, but masterpiece. Even at the time, definitions like classic, timeless, beautifully horrific in its scope and message were being thrown around, and SiL had nothing but a odious little troll of a producer bribing people into voting for it.
Saving Private Ryan puts picture and visceral on-screen experience to that eternal trope. War is hell. But even hell has a purpose, if you dig deep enough.
IKR? And it lost to Shakespeare in Love of all things, a totally forgettable romantic comedy, which is what's so hilarious! But to be fair, it was also up against Life is Beautiful, which is arguably one of the most powerful, poignant, and inspiring films I've ever seen, and IMO it should have won, even over Saving Private Ryan.
You can thank Harvey Weinstein for that one, and the movie now makes for an interesting case study in the bonkers world of Oscar campaigns.
Shakespeare in Love and Harvey Weinstein’s Dark Oscar Victory
I'd say Saving Private Ryan is a masterpiece up until the final scene but that's just Spielberg being Spielberg. Dude's a genius but also a little corny. Still much better than Shakespeare in Love, which is a competent romcom elevated by having Shakespeare in the title.
Yes, that is the scene. That's just what Spielberg do. It doesn't work every time.
I'll do American Graffiti. It was Lucas's first Director nomination. And I like it a lot, It's a precursor to stuff like Licorice Pizza. And I like it more than Star Wars.
Pulp Fiction.
It lost in '94 to Forrest Gump, but Pulp was the cinematic equivalent to Nirvana's Nevermind in how its influence shaped a decade.
Taxi Driver
Four movies with 5 votes, so the schedule for March will be:
4th: There Will Be Blood
11th: Life is beautiful
18th: High Noon
25th: Saving Private Ryan
I haven't seen Life is Beautiful or High Noon. Which means this is the most I've had to watch for one of these things.
I have seen them all but 10-20 years ago, so I would definitely need to rewatch them. I am sure my perceptions have changed by now.
The Deer Hunter (1978) is an easy nomination.Well it's a little late but also Deer Hunter won Picture.
haha. i thought so. i thought that LB list was for losers and was questioning my entire life. Best film of all time :)