The 20 Worst Films to Win an Oscar (in our view)

Yesterday, we listed our 20 favorite Oscar-winning films in the Best Picture category. Today, we look at the worst. We want to acknowledge that "Film Comment" featured a 20 Worst Oscar-Winning Films, but these are own ideas. Although, admittedly, several of the listed below (no pun intended) were on that list as well:


1) "Titanic" (1997, first image)

2) "Forrest Gump" (1994)

3) "Going My Way" (1944)

4. "Rebecca" (1940, amazingly enough, one of Alfred Hitchcock's worst films is the only one which won a Best Picture Oscar)

5. "Around the World in 80 Days" (1957, second image)

6. "Crash" (2005)

7. "Shakespeare in Love" (1998)

8. "Driving Miss Daisy" (1989, third image)

9. "A Man for All Seasons" (1966)

10. "The Sound of Music" (1965)

11. "My Fair Lady" (1964)

12. "Terms of Endearment" (1983)

13. "Braveheart" (1995)

14. "The King's Speech" (2010)

15. "Out of Africa" (1985)

16. "In the Heat of the Night" (1967, this film beat out both "The Graduate" and "Bonnie and Clyde")

17. "How Green Was My Valley (1941)

18. "Rocky" (1976)

19. "Oliver!" (1968)

20. "The English Patient" (1996)

Oscar Forecast- The Major Awards

Since we are screening "Gremlins" at midnight for my 40th birthday (which was actually Thursday) at the Grandin Theatre in Roanoke, Va., things are a bit hectic around here, but we did excuse ourselves from the dinner table long enough to post our projected victors for tomorrow night's Oscars.

For this entry, we focus on major categories (including Best Song, which one could argue should not be a major category).


Let's start with Best Picture:

The Nominees: "Avatar," "The Blind Side," "Precious," "A Serious Man," "Up in the Air," "The Hurt Locker" (pictured), "Up," "Inglorious Basterds," "District 9" and "An Education."

WHO SHOULD WIN: "Up in the Air" or "The Hurt Locker"
WHO WILL NOT WIN: "District 9," "A Serious Man" or "An Education"
WHO WILL WIN: "Avatar" or "The Hurt Locker"
OUR PICK: "The Hurt Locker" (because I still live in a world where the good guy wins except during the 2000 American presidential election)


BEST ACTRESS:

The Nominees: Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side), Meryl Streep (Julie and Julia), Helen Mirren (The Last Station), Carey Mulligan (An Education) and Gabourey Sidibe (Precious).

Who Should Win: Mulligan
Who Will Win: Bullock (It's the Oscars, after all----eyes rolling) or (maybe) Streep
Our Pick: Bullock (It's the Oscars after all---------eyes rolling)

BEST ACTOR:

The Nominees: Jeff Bridges ("Crazy Heart"), Morgan Freeman ("Invictus"), George Clooney ("Up in the Air"), Clin Firth ("A Single Man") or Jeremy Renner (pictured-"The Hurt Locker)

Who Should Win: Clooney or Bridges
Who Will Win: Bridges.......he won the Independent Spirit Award last night; this seems like his year.
Our Pick: Bridges

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

The Nominees: Penelope Cruz (Nine), Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air), Maggie Gyllenthal (Crazy Heart), Anna Kedrick (Up in the Air), Mo'Nique (Precious)

Who Should Win: Farmiga or Kedrick
Who Will Win: Cruz (stranger things have happened) or Mo'Nique
Our Pick: Mo'Nique..........when two actresses are nominated from the same film- that's a problem (though Shirley Maclaine beat out co-star and fellow Best Actress nominee Debra Winger in "Terms of Endearment back in 1984)


BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

The Nominees: Matt Damon "Invictus," Woody Harrelson "The Messenger," Stanley Tucci "The Lovely Bones," Christopher Plummer "The Last Station" or Christoph Waltz "Inglorious Basterds"

Who Should Win: Damon, Tucci or Waltz
Who Will Win: Damon or Waltz
Our Pick: Waltz

BEST DIRECTOR:

The Nominees: James Cameron ("Avatar"), Katrhyn Bigelow ("The Hurt Locker"), Quentin Tarantino ("Inglorious Basterds)," Jason Reitman ("Up in the Air") or Lee Daniels ("Precious)

Who Should Win: Bigelow or Reitman
Who Would Give Best Acceptance Speech: Tarantino (we all know that)
Who Will Win: Bigelow or Cameron
Our Pick: Cameron (because sometimes the basterds win!).


BEST SONG:

Who Should Win: "The Weary Kind" from "Crazy Heart"
Who Will Win/Our Pick: "Take it All" from "Nine" (pictured)

NOTE: GO TO OUR OTHER BLOG "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time" for our remaining picks!

The Semi-Annual Oscar Rant

For starters, it should be pointed out that I am/was one of the people who thought that expanding the field to nominated films for Best Picture Oscar to ten was a good idea.

Perhaps this was because I felt that one of the great talented directors of my generation Wes Anderson had been snubbed once too often. Well, Anderson made yet another solid film this year in "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" but even with an expanded field, it was still snubbed! The film is nominated for Best Animated Feature, but the odds of it upsetting "Up" are about the same as North Carolina Central University, the 'other school' in Durham, NC, winning the NCAA tournament!

But, my main beef with the Academy Awards is that "The Blind Side," a film which appears to be nothing more than a two hour "ABC Afterschool Special" actually landed a nomination for Best Picture! One could say I am being very pre-judgmental because I haven't seen the film myself, but I thought the 30-second trailer was painful enough! Somehow, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Sandra Bullock, who has done some fairly good acting here and there given her limited range, wins the coveted Oscar over Carey Mulligan who gave a wonderful performance in "An Education."

This is also the first year that my choice for best film of the year ("Up in the Air") and worst film of the year ("Avatar") have both been nominated for Best Picture. I can't say enough negative things about "Avatar" which is somehow an even more annoying over-the-top boring spectacle than director James Cameron's (pictured) previous epic box office champ/Oscar winner "Titanic." Of course, "Avatar" will win Best Picture which is almost enough to make me think I would vote for "The Hurt Locker" by Cameron's ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow even though it ranks eighth on my Ten Best List. "Up in the Air," on the other hand, is a truly wonderful film in every regard. At least, it got nominated.

I also disapprove of the Oscar nomination for "District Nine," my second least favorite film of 2009. Like "Avatar," it's a completely fake film with no interesting characters which moves at an agonizing slow pace. The only impressive thing about either film seems to be their special effects, but if looks alone were a criteria for selecting a nomination then one should nominate Sandra Bullock for Best Actress (oh wait, they did that, didn't they?!).

I must profess that there were some pleasant surprises from the Oscar nominations this year. "An Education," "A Serious Man," "Up in the Air," "Inglorious Basterds" and "The Hurt Locker" are deserving of Oscar nominations even though I personally had qualms with the final act of Quentin Tarantino's film ('Basterds).

Stanley Tucci ("The Lovely Bones"), Matt Damon ("Invictus") and Christopher Waltz ("Basterds") are terrific nomination choices in the Best Supporting Actor category. The same can be said for the cast of "Up in Air." George Clooney was nominated for Best Actor and his co-stars Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick were nominated for Best Supporting Actress. I was also delighted to see Jeff Bridges get a Best Actor nomination even though I have yet to see his film "Crazy Heart." And, with a few major exceptions, I was pleased with the Best Director and screenwriting nominations as well as many of the technical categories.

And, lastly it was great to see the great Austrian director Michael Haneke's film "The White Ribbon" get nominated for Best Foreign-Language Film.

Of course, there's no way in expletive H-E-DoubleL that the film will actually win what many of us film fans consider to be the category with the most dubious history (at least in recent years). But, there is always a chance that your horse can win the Kentucky Derby, and I suppose that is the reason why we always watch the Oscars. But, this year, I might actually turn off the set before the Best Picture Oscar is announced.

A Facebook Group I Won't Be Joining

One of the most fascinating things about being a devout Twitter person is that you find out things you might not be aware of. For instance, last night I saw that uber-obnoxious film director James Cameron would be on "The Tavis Smiley Show." I follow Smiley on Twitter, and I was eager to see his interview with a man whose ego seems to be as large as the budgets of his films, but amazingly enough I was on the phone with a friend when the show aired in North Carolina at 12:30 a.m.

But, I also saw this bit about Tiger Woods on Twitter yesterday.

According to everyone's favorite 'neocon in reverse' Arianna Huffington the Facebook group "I Have Also Slept With Tiger Woods" had 171,000 members yesterday up from 139,000 members on Wednesday.

I looked and there is indeed such a group on Facebook. Today the group has 200,211 members as of 5:00 p.m. (east coast time!).

I also saw that Matthew DeBard, a contributor to the liberal-leaning Huffington Post blog (which is certainly better than The Drudge Report on the other side), has a column entitled "Tiger Woods Is So, So, So Much Bigger Than Golf."

The fact that The Huffington Post also includes articles from my fellow Turkish-American progressive Cenk Uygur (who has a liberal talk radio program) might lead one to think I look at the site daily, but there are so many places to go on the web, including Facebook, Twitter and this freaking blog! All of which reminds me that it's been three long weeks since I looked at my E-Harmony account!

WINTER STORM WARNING: For those reading this in Virginia, Maryland or North Carolina, you may have already noticed a lot of snow outside your window. Flights out of Dulles International Airport near Washington, DC, have been canceled as has a Christmas party for the Augusta County Eagles in Staunton, Va.

Similarly, Studio Roanoke in Roanoke, Va., has scrapped No Shame Theatre tonight. And, lastly there will no college night at the Lucky City bookstore in Reidsville, NC.

I guess we'll all have to stay home and watch tv movies on Lifetime tonight.