10 Oscar Nominees for Best Picture: I Like It!

Tuesday June 30, 2009

Categories: Celebrities, DVDs, Entertainment, Movies, Pop Culture, Television, Trends

I read with interest the post by fellow Idol Chatter blogger Kris Rasmussen, as well as several other articles regarding the news from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences that they'll now nominate ten movies for the Best Picture category instead of five.

Contrary to what many writers, bloggers, posters and commentators seem to think...I love the idea!

For starters, let's consider the most wonderful movies that didn't get nominated for Best Picture in their years:

- "His Girl Friday," with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell (1940)
- "Rear Window," with Jimmy Stewart (1954)
- "The Magificent Seven," with Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn (1960). This is one of the more enduring westerns from 1960.

The list could go on. In fact, it does:

- "Frankenstein" (1930)
- "King Kong" and "Duck Soup" (1933)
- "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937)
- "The Big Sleep," with Humphrey Bogart (1946)
- "Singin' in the Rain," with Gene Kelly (1952)
- "Vertigo" (1958)
- "North by Northwest" (1959)
- "Breakfast at Tiffany's," with Audrey Hepburn (1961)

And the ones above are just the ones made before I was born!

Then there's "Hud" from 1963, which got seven nominations but not one for Best Picture while something called "Tom Jones" won. "Cool Hand Luke" didn't make it in 1967, but that wasn't nearly as bad an oversight as "2001: A Space Odyssey" in 1968. "The Wild Bunch" may be one of the best Westerns ever put on film, yet it was ignored in 1969.

Who can tell me why "Dirty Harry" wasn't even nominated in 1971 while "The French Connection" won? If 1973 had the extra nomination slots, it could have accommodated "Day of the Dolphin," "The Paper Chase," "The Way We Were," "Serpico," and "Paper Moon." "The Parallax View" could have been a sleeper in 1974. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" has lasted in time longer than that year's winner, "Annie Hall." "...And Justice For All," "The Electric Horseman," "Escape From Alcatraz," "The China Syndrome," and "The Black Stallion" would also have added to a great race in 1979.

Well, I haven't even made it into the 80s yet, which would include "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980), "Absence of Malice" (1981), "Blade Runner" (1982), "Silverado" (1985), and "Do the Right Thing," the Spike Lee film from 1989.

The 90s would have been "Malcolm X" (1992), "Dean Man Walking" (1995), "Wag the Dog" and "Amistad" from 1997, and "The Big Lebowski" and "The Truman Show" from 1998.

This decade could have included "Castaway" and "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" from 2000, "The Passion of the Christ" (2004), "Cinderella Man" (2005), "Charlie Wilson's War" (2007), and "The Dark Knight" from last year.

The movies themselves--and their lasting value--show that the Oscars sometimes gets it wrong when they only have five choices for nominees. Opening up the Best Picture category may now allow for some better films to be recognized in their time.

Which movies do you think should have been nominated and/or won Best Picture?

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