And the Oscar Should Have Gone to...

[monsterzero]

Marisa Tomei's win throughly convinced me that Oscars have gone from 'oh, look, acting means something' award to either 'now we can sell more videos to supposed film snobs' award or my favorite 'hey, you're annoying enough to become popular, now LEAVE!' awards.

[topher]

To anyone besides Ben and Matt. I want to meet the script doctors that made the Joan River's type of surgery on that script.

[vacationland]

Oh, jeeze...so many to choose from!

How about the year Mira Sorvino (playing a shrill, grating caricature of a hooker in a Woody Allen mysogyny-fest) snatched the little gold guy away from Joan Allen (nominated for being the best thing in Nixon) and Kate Winslet (for her luminous role in Sense & Sensibility).

Craptastic, bloated circus movie The Greatest Show on Earth beat High Noon for Best Picture in 1952. It wasn't a great year for movies, I'll grant you, but you don't see that year's winner on a lot of best movies lists.

Liz Taylor got a sympathy Oscar (following a near-death health crisis) for the lame call girl flick Butterfield 8. Any of the other actresses up for Best Actress that year should've won, but especially Shirley McLaine for The Apartment or Melina Mercouri for Never on Sunday (though to be fair, Liz earned that Oscar for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf a few years later).

He's an icon and all, but you can't convince me that John Wayne deserved that Oscar (for True Grit) in 1969...he was up against Richard Burton, Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman and Peter O'Toole, any of whom could act rings around Wayne, who was more of a caricature of a cowboy than a real actor. But the Academy old guard, god bless 'em, loved Wayne and didn't quite trust those newfangled method actors or the Brits with scandalous personal lives.

I loved Art Carney, but I don't think that he deserved the Best Actor Oscar in '74...especially when compared to Dustin Hoffman (Lenny), Jack Nicholson (back when he wasn't playing himself in every role, for Chinatown) and especially against Pacino (for Godfather II).

No way Rocky should've won Best Picture over both Network and Taxi Driver.

It's a crime that Rex Harrison won Best Actor for My Fair Lady instead of Peter Sellers' tour de force multi-role work in Dr. Strangelove in 1964. And it's a crying shame that Cary Grant never won the Oscar any of the times he was nominated (ditto Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese).

[Carolina]

Hilary Swank needs to bubble wrap her Oscar and send it on over to Kate Winslet. I don't care how great she was in Million Dollar Baby, you should be required to make at least one semi-decent film in between winning your first and second Oscars.

[mrpancake]

Well, the biggest one for me is Nicole Kidman who I genuinely think needs to give Salma Hayek her Oscar. I thought the Hours was great, but she was the worst part about the movie. Her performance was very, very, very dull and she didn't bring a lot to the character. But since they'd never give it to Salma, they should have given it to Julianne Moore.

Now to be really, really, really unpopular: I can't say whether or not she deserved Gwenyth's Oscar (I haven't seen those films they were in) but Cate Blanchett really should have given her Academy Award to Natalie Portman. I thought she was really not good at all in The Aviator and was merely a mockery/over-the-top impersonation of Katherine Hepburn. Why she won for that movie, I will never know.

[jdkwfan4ever]

Hilary Swank needs to bubble wrap her Oscar and send it on over to Kate Winslet.

Agreed. And Sean Penn needs to send his Oscar to Johnny.

[harold]

2001, The Believer, The Gosling.

Sorry Denzel.

[goggle]

Moldy said:

Leo vs. Jamie

Neither - Don Cheadle. Not only did I think Hotel Rwanda was a better movie, but I might also be a little biased since I got the opportunity to see it for free (director/producer/writer's son goes to my school)

[kitt852]

I thought Marlon Brando should have won an Oscar for his performance in A Streetcar Named Desire.

[jdkwfan4ever]

I thought Marlon Brando should have won an Oscar for his performance in A Streetcar Named Desire.

Truer words have never been spoken. There are no words to describe how brilliant he was in that movie.