WORST of the Best Picture Oscar Noms (Only the '00s Edition ... except 2009)

Don't think I saw Finding Neverland. That can't be any good, right?

Upholstered prestige crap, inoffensive.

That's what I said about the GOP primaries in '15.

The parallels between how that race went down and how this one will are staggering.

which film is Hilz and which Trump?

These are all bad or worse:

Chocolat
Gladiator
A Beautiful Mind
In the Bedroom
The Hours
Seabiscuit
Finding Neverland
Ray
Sideways
Capote
Crash
Babel
Little Miss Sunshine
Juno
Frost/Nixon
The Reader

Also, I haven't managed to stay awake for the entirety of a single LotR movie, and managed to stay awake through all of the above.

Gangs of New York and The Departed are pretty bad but are partially saved by good moments and/or performances.
I only remember Master and Commander being deadly dull.
Atonement was really bad despite good source material.
I hated everything about Mystic River so it gets my vote.
(I haven't seen some of these, including Crash).

Was Gosford Park as boring as I remember it being?

the LOTR films are fine at what they do and I've never minded them.

I loved Ray at the time.

Gosford Park is fun! Real bitchy too.

I might re-watch. The Departed is too much Nicholson having nasty fun to be the worst of these IIRC though I can see what there is to dislike about it

most of the bad ones of these i know are gonna be bad so i haven't watched them

xpost -- it was the most I've ever liked Mark Wahlberg, though possibly the least I've ever liked Damon and DiCaprio.

I've seen so few of these, and some of them so long ago I can't remember a thing, that this currently is a three-way race between Sideways, Babel and The Reader. I suspect if I'd seen Crash this wouldn't be hard at all, and also suspect those three might actually be in the top half. I do kinda hate all three of them.

Gosford is great, a relatively minor Altman but maybe my second favorite of the ones I've seen from this list (after the mysteriously-maligned There Will Be Blood).

Crash should've been titled Paving the Road to Hell.

the mysteriously-maligned There Will Be Blood

?!

Well, on this board, anyway.

The Departed is a blast. We can argue forever about whether its Oscar material or not, but its so much more watchable than the bulk of this list that it shouldn't even be in contention here.

So much dreck here, much of which has faded from memory for me (did I even see The Hours? I honestly can't remember now). Voting Slumdog Millionaire only because I was forced to watch it again recently for a class.

We should make a list of films that are both high prestige Oscar bait and enjoyably watchable movies that hold up past awards season. Feel like it would be a pretty short list.

A few I got nothing out of: A Beautiful Mind, The Aviator, Munich, Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, Slumdog Millionaire. There are a bunch more where I got almost nothing, but there was usually a performance or something that slightly redeemed the film. I'll give Munich a pass because I've been meaning to see it again, and I don't want ILX's wrath descending down upon me. Anyway, Gangs of New York easily in terms of the ambition-achievement gap. Haven't seen 19 of them, including all the Lord of the Rings films.

At worst, the LOTR films are beautiful wallpaper.

never gonna run out of Oscar polls huh

Well, on this board, anyway.

I mean, even on this board: 2007's Oscar Nominees

We should make a list of films that are both high prestige Oscar bait and enjoyably watchable movies that hold up past awards season. Feel like it would be a pretty short list

From this list:

Erin Brockovich
Gosford Park
The Departed
Lost in Translation
Munich
LOTR
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

i haven't seen 14 of these candidates and will die happy avoiding at least 10 henceforth

(xpost) Lost in Translation? I guess with Murray to an extent, but was Coppola all that well known before that?

LIT had buzz months in advance of its opening, if I remember correctly. And Murray was one of the award frontrunners. I like it fine, she did better before and afterward.

I had a real problem with its ''oh, this inscrutable Oriental backdrop!" premise and execution, even if part of the idea was that ScarJo's character was going through the motions of that narrative (package tea ceremony experience etc.) and finding it hollow. End of the day, it's The East as sounding board and metaphor for anomie and human disconnection which is pretty dopey.

It's at least partially mitigated by her and Murray's spending so much time in the hotel, which could be any anonymous luxury Hilton anywhere in the world.

it's funny how few of these movies are conducive to multiple viewings, which obviously goes hand in hand with their "prestige" nature. Erin Brockovich jumps out as one, but maybe it's just on TV more than most of the others.

Erin Brockovich j is a much better movie than Traffic: aware of the intersections of gender and class, sharp eye for interior design, excellent cast.

title should've been Julia's Smile Cures Social Ills

Also how bad was Little Miss Sunshine? I remember thinking the characters were pretty charming fuck-ups with heart kind of thing but haven't re-watched for years

as funny as a 2x4

Erin Brockovich is a much better movie than Traffic: aware of the intersections of gender and class, sharp eye for interior design, excellent cast.

This.

Kael would've been in its corner.

oh, HER

http://33.media.tumblr.com/f773e8ed87bc871bdeb8d949a484da14/tumblr_moqyzar0BM1rsw1oio1_400.gif

David Denby wrote an encomium to her bosom

https://nevalalee.wordpress.com/2017/06/07/we-lost-it-at-the-movies/

gotta be crash, but don't underestimated the insipid babel

other possibilities: the reader, benjamin button, finding neverland

Love in Translation is just so well made. Every image, every sound, the acting. A great, great film. And I'm not sure Coppola has done anything even slightly as good, but I'm willing to find out.

A Beautiful Mind

With Crash, at least Terrence Howard and Matt Dillon were really strong,

Erin Brockovich j is actually one of my least favorites of the erin brockovich anime sequels, ahead of only Erin Brockovich 2Rz Wing and Erin Brockovich j-ReSquared W

pretty easy, it's Good Night, and Good Luck. George Clooney passion project is already a non-starter, but man this was insufferable. I remember it came out a year after Bush was reelected and it was just the most anodyne, toothless indictment of cable news. and he was horrible as ERM

well, David Strathairn played Murrow

Clooney was great as David Strathairn, but terrible as Murrow.

lol whoops this is like when I thought William H. Macy was in The Clearing. movie was still shit

loads of garbage here but tbh kinda wanna vote for Fellowship of the Ring

good move. i would've voted for one of the LOTRs but didn't want to split the vote

would also accept Gosford Park, No Country, Lost in Translation, maybe a couple others. The Departed is fun but p stupid/pointless

I hope that's in the closed captions

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/8f/4c/4c/8f4c4cd0cd1bd3fcc7a74dc60f021af3.jpg

(Huh...did Dolenz always play Cagney like he was having an epileptic fit?)

His performances were usually so subtle and restrained too.

I've never seen so many people walk out midmovie as I did during Cronenberg's Crash.

Same here

this has to be crash

https://youtu.be/Mn9AYyjS_Es?t=15

never 4get

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laI3WFQwyHk

I hate little miss sunshine but for me this absolutely has to be Chicago

otm

I’ve never seen the movie version, but I saw the musical with my family on a weekend matinee and an alternate took the lead. But said alternate was Sandy Duncan.

I also picked Chicago - I'm handicapped in that no-one pays me to see films, so I have missed ~50% if these, including obviously Crash.

Either Ray or Crash. I suppose Ray let Walk Hard happen which is a plus.

I thought Chicago was OK. Very retro and it pales next to Cabaret, but it kept me entertained.

I take it I'm the only person who hates Moulin Rouge like boiling acid being poured in my ears and eyes.

I'm not a fan but I don't care enough.

I admire it very much. But it gives me headaches, so I don't watch it.

Yeah, that's more or less my take. I admire its serious commitment to foolishness.

it's a monument to ADD, someone said

p sure i loathed Crash and Slumdog most, with the very dishonest Frost/Nixon close behind

of the ones I've seen, these are the ones I dislike the most:

Moulin Rouge! - interesting setup that eventually just tested my patience and made me wish they'd cast people who could sing as the leads
The Hours - while notable for having the only Julianne Moore performance I can tolerate, it's still dull and deep in the way a 13yo who just found out about Bauhaus is deep
Mystic River - I solved the whodunnit about 5 seconds after the murder happened and spent the rest of the movie irritated by the dummies onscreen who couldn't figure it out
Babel - I had high hopes for this but it made zero impact on me at all; I barely remember seeing it

I probably actually dislike The Hours more but I'm voting Mystic River because I was in the chorus that recorded the barely-inaudible "oooh-ahhhh" bits in the soundtrack and it is eternally frustrating to me that my voice is buried deep in the mix of this dumb-ass movie.

Beside forcing Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf to lie in the grass covered in snails to commune with snails, The Hours also had Ed Harris his first official terrible performance.

Babel is classic Oscarbuzz crap that vanishes the moment its moment does. But it's Innaritu's least memorable film, which is a plus.

Can't hate on Slumdog. It at least has Anthony Dod Mantle shooting the shit out of it, which is more than can be said for almost every one of these.

And, in one memorable scene, shooting shit.

And that is the best scene. It's still weird that a film with a triumphant scene where a kid swims through excrement won the Oscar as a feel good film.

a metaphor for that year in Oscar

If only there had been 10 nominees!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

As many awful movies as there are here ... Crash.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Would be interested in hearing from the two Lost in Translation voters (understanding and conceding the most common complaint against it).

I think Crouching Tiger is my favourite here.

I broke this down for y'all.

I like more of the films in Good to Great and Meh each than 'Solid Sound Entertainments', which strikes me as about right.

Sorry for mangling your categories.

which films?

Moulin Rouge / Juno / District 19
Up / Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Lost in Translation / No Country for Old Men / A Serious Man

I am a mark for 'We have some ideas, and some of them are bad!' which I think covers the first three. (but really my percentage watched across all categories is <50)