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The Oscars Do-Over 96 and 97: Some titanic match-ups (1 Viewer)

Best Picture of 1997

  • Titanic

    Votes: 26 18.3%
  • LA Confidential

    Votes: 28 19.7%
  • Good Will Hunting

    Votes: 49 34.5%
  • Boogie Nights

    Votes: 30 21.1%
  • Life is Beautiful

    Votes: 7 4.9%
  • As Good As It Gets

    Votes: 2 1.4%

  • Total voters
    142
For the best film of 1996 the Academy chose The English Patient and as much as I love that movie, they got it wrong. Here, the FBG got it right. However, when finding the movie deserving the Oscar for 1997, the FBG and Academy missed. 
That makes me 0 for 2 .. ha.

Anyways, I met my goal of votin early this time - less influence from others, etc - shot from my gut with no research - and - after reading the thread, I think I would keep my votes the same. It's not so much that I wasn't influenced - I was - but, I just like what I like - awards be damned!

Lookin forward to your closin statements.

 
I think we all agree on 96. I love The English Patient as much as anyone but I agree with the FBG over the Academy. As for 97, it's not so easy and I've gone back and forth on it a lot....but I side with FBG here. 

1996 Best Picture: Fargo

Oh for Pete's sake 

I dunno just funny lookin' 

The woodchipper 

The 90s gave us some great crime movies. Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, Silence of the Lambs, LA Confidential...even Unforgiven. Murder, shootings, killers. In all of those cases the killers are cool and calm. Calculated professionals. Crooked cops. Men who's lives built up to the series of homicides that would forever define them. Fargo took that set up and gave it a spin that called back some of the great noirs of the 40s and 50:. The criminal mastermind wasn't a lifelong crook. He was just a used car salesman to0 scared to stand up to his father-in-law. The killers weren't hip gangsters or charming killers but a couple of stupid, clumsy idiots. The law wasn't crooked- just earnest and hard working. It's not really about any kind of grand scheme or mystery. It's just about dumb people making bad decisions. The coolest person in the film is the pregnant middled-aged- awww schucks detective/mom. By making it more mundane and removing all the charm that Tarantino and Scorsese gave their characters, it made Fargo the defining crime film of the 90s 

1997: Best Picture: Good Will Hunting

How do you like them apples?

 you're sittin' on a winnin' lottery ticket and you're too much of a ##### to cash it in

Game 6 of the World Series 

I am not the right person to give this movie it's a send-up. I prefer LA Confidential and I haven't see Good Will Hunting in awhile. However, every time I have seen it, I have loved it. I find it warm and inspiring and while a bit overly sentimental, it does so in all the right ways. I agree with voters here, not every Best Picture has to be about murder. 

 
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He had been in that remake of Sabrina (coincidentally another older-yucky-guy/younger-beautiful-woman "love story"), but I don't recall anything else but that.  I was totally surprised, too.
I just watched the original Sabrina for the first time in awhile and it's much more complicated than I remember. There is a lot going on in this. 

 
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1996

Best Actor: Billy Bob Thornton for Sling Blade 

Best Actress: Frances McDormand for Fargo

Best Supporting Actor: Edward Norton for Primal Fear

Best Supporting Actress: Juiette Binoche for The English Patient 

Best Director: Joel Coen for Fargo

Best Screenplay: Ethan and Joel Coe for Fargo

1997

Best Actor:  Roberto Benigni for Life Is Beautiful

Best Actress: Helen Hunt for As Good As It Gets

Best Supporting Actor: Robin Williams for Good Will Hunting

Best Supporting Actress: Minnie Driver, Good Will Hunting

Best Director:  Curtis Hanson for L.A. Confidential 

Best Screenplay: Matt Damon and Ben Affleck for Good Will Hunting 

 
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I just watched the original Sabrina for the first time in awhile and it's much more complicated than I remember. There is a lot going on in this. 
Bogie's '40s were so good that it's easy to forget the 50s, but his 1953 - Captain Queeg and two great world-weary performances in Sabrina & Barefoot Contessa, was about as good a movie year as a old guy can put together. His pursuit of Sabrina wasn't obsessive or creepy at all - he almost didn't want her to go for it. I'm old enough to have tried half-my-age relationships a coupla times and that what-are-we-doing-here thing is just there. Thought Bogie handled it w grace & humor.

Awwww hayel no. 
Had occasion recently to be reminded of the general opinion in movieland that GWH was ghosted. I got too many half-finished scripts already, but the story of two beefcakes who decide on a strategy for being taken seriously would be a great way to have fun w entertainment commerce these days.

 
Awwww hayel no. 
Coming into it I was pretty certain I was going to choose LA Confidential. I was certain that or Boogie Nights would be the FBG vote. Maybe I got swept up in the crowd here but I like GWH. Not every Best Picture has to be gritty or center around murder, sex, violence. Sometimes a great movie can be hopeful and inspiring even if it’s a bit overly sentimental or totally unrealistic. 

 
Coming into it I was pretty certain I was going to choose LA Confidential. I was certain that or Boogie Nights would be the FBG vote. Maybe I got swept up in the crowd here but I like GWH. Not every Best Picture has to be gritty or center around murder, sex, violence. Sometimes a great movie can be hopeful and inspiring even if it’s a bit overly sentimental or totally unrealistic. 
Oh I won't fault you for liking Goodwill Hunting. I just think there are far stronger candidates. 

 
Say more...
well, this is what Affleck & Damon allegedly did - stole a story and let everyone from Wm Goldman to Kevin Smith try to crack the structure while they improvised dialogue together to create a coupla scenes - but they both turned out to be pretty darn good filmmakers. but a possible story of two, say, 90210 types who decide to become remedial auteurs in a Bill & Ted-type quest thru every canyon film maverick in Hollywood could be a juicy satire

 
Films not on the list that I think are contenders:

1996:

The People vs. Larry Flynt
When We Were Kings
Kingpin
Bottle Rocket
The Long Kiss Goodnight
Big Night
Flirting with Disaster

1997:

Donnie Brasco
The Full Monty
Jackie Brown
The Game
Starship Troopers
Wag the Dog
Cop Land
The Ice Storm
Lost Highway
Cube
Deconstructing Harry
In the Company of Men
The Boxer
Affliction
Trekkies
Clockwatchers

 
well, this is what Affleck & Damon allegedly did - stole a story and let everyone from Wm Goldman to Kevin Smith try to crack the structure while they improvised dialogue together to create a coupla scenes - but they both turned out to be pretty darn good filmmakers. but a possible story of two, say, 90210 types who decide to become remedial auteurs in a Bill & Ted-type quest thru every canyon film maverick in Hollywood could be a juicy satire
Nice!

 
Bogie's '40s were so good that it's easy to forget the 50s, but his 1953 - Captain Queeg and two great world-weary performances in Sabrina & Barefoot Contessa, was about as good a movie year as a old guy can put together. His pursuit of Sabrina wasn't obsessive or creepy at all - he almost didn't want her to go for it. I'm old enough to have tried half-my-age relationships a coupla times and that what-are-we-doing-here thing is just there. Thought Bogie handled it w grace & humor.
Bogey even went out on top imo. The 1956 adaptation of Bud Schulberg’s The Harder They Fall is really good. It’s Bogarts last film and one of my sneaky favorites.

 
1996:  The People vs. Larry Flynt gets my vote over the subpar choices/options of 1996.  Interesting story, great script, solid acting.

1997:  Boogie Nights and it's not Close for me.  I consider it a cinematic masterpiece and one of the top 5 movies of the 90s...acting, dialogue, cinematography, casting, soundtrack...hard to find a flaw with this film.  It probably cracks my top 20 all time.  Obviously never had a chance with the Academy with the R rating.

 
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1997:  Boogie Nights and it's not Close for me.  I consider it a cinematic masterpiece and one of the top 5 movies of the 90s...acting, dialogue, cinematography, casting, soundtrack...hard to find a flaw with this film.  It probably cracks my top 20 all time.  Obviously never had a chance with the Academy with the R rating.
:wub:

 
1996:  The People vs. Larry Flynt gets my vote over the subpar choices/options of 1996.  Interesting story, great script, solid acting.

1997:  Boogie Nights and it's not Close for me.  I consider it a cinematic masterpiece and one of the top 5 movies of the 90s...acting, dialogue, cinematography, casting, soundtrack...hard to find a flaw with this film.  It probably cracks my top 20 all time.  Obviously never had a chance with the Academy with the R rating.


I love Boogie Nights and this shouldn't be an insult, but it always struck me as maybe a bit too influenced by Goodfellas. 

 
I love Boogie Nights and this shouldn't be an insult, but it always struck me as maybe a bit too influenced by Goodfellas. 
It's a fair critique, especially the opening shot.  At least PTA was smart enough to leave behind the voice-over.  ;)  

 
1997:  Boogie Nights and it's not Close for me.  I consider it a cinematic masterpiece and one of the top 5 movies of the 90s...acting, dialogue, cinematography, casting, soundtrack...hard to find a flaw with this film.  It probably cracks my top 20 all time.  Obviously never had a chance with the Academy with the R rating.
hella better than GWH

still slightly chagrined at the lack of love for the ocean liner in the room. for my money, you go to the movies to be amazed or told a story, and TV really has taken over the story-telling part. i've no desire to see Gravity at home, no matter how big the TV, and really couldnt tell you much about it, but count the 3D experience of watching it in the theater right up there with Chief Bromden busting out of the Cuckoo's Nest or Amadeus writing his Requiem from his deathbed or Rollergirl ripping her kit off among my greatest cinematic experiences. The soap opera dialogue that one has to endure to watch a Cameron movie was certainly no worse than that of the therapy session in Good Will Hunting and the rest of it PUT ME THERE for one of the most epic occurrences in human history. and nary a word for that in this quibble.

 
hella better than GWH

still slightly chagrined at the lack of love for the ocean liner in the room. for my money, you go to the movies to be amazed or told a story, and TV really has taken over the story-telling part. i've no desire to see Gravity at home, no matter how big the TV, and really couldnt tell you much about it, but count the 3D experience of watching it in the theater right up there with Chief Bromden busting out of the Cuckoo's Nest or Amadeus writing his Requiem from his deathbed or Rollergirl ripping her kit off among my greatest cinematic experiences. The soap opera dialogue that one has to endure to watch a Cameron movie was certainly no worse than that of the therapy session in Good Will Hunting and the rest of it PUT ME THERE for one of the most epic occurrences in human history. and nary a word for that in this quibble.
I think most of my dislike for Titanic is due to age. I was in 8th grade or so when it came out and every girl in school was fawning over Leo and seeing it repeatedly at the theater. A big soap opera love story with a teen heartthrob was the exact opposite of what I was looking for in a movie at the time. Add in the popularity and ubiquity of the Celine Dion song and I was just staunchly against it- partly for the sake of being cool and contrarian. Good Will Hunting might be soapy but it's movie that made me as a young person feel good about myself. It made me feel like there was hope and there was a reason to not just be resigned to be who your friends were but to step out and take risks on your own. To be better a person. Titanic was just a sinking romance on a sinking ship with a stinking song. 

 
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Watching Titanic resulted in my loudest groan ever in a theater. 

Rose: "I counted the lifeboats and there isn't enough for everyone".  :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

And I think I'll just drop this multi million $$$ necklace overboard instead of giving it to my granddaughter who could really use it.  :shock:

There are many good parts in the film, but they are matched by the numerous bad ones.

 
1996:  The People vs. Larry Flynt gets my vote over the subpar choices/options of 1996.  Interesting story, great script, solid acting.

1997:  Boogie Nights and it's not Close for me.  I consider it a cinematic masterpiece and one of the top 5 movies of the 90s...acting, dialogue, cinematography, casting, soundtrack...hard to find a flaw with this film.  It probably cracks my top 20 all time.  Obviously never had a chance with the Academy with the R rating.
All of this 👍

 
I think most of my dislike for Titanic is due to age. I was in 8th grade or so when it came out and every girl in school was fawning over Leo and seeing it repeatedly at the theater. A big soap opera love story with a teen heartthrob was the exact opposite of what I was looking for in a movie at the time. Add in the popularity and ubiquity of the Celine Dion song and I was just staunchly against it- partly for the sake of being cool and contrarian. Good Will Hunting might be soapy but it's movie that made me as a young person feel good about myself. It made me feel like there was hope and there was a reason to not just be resigned to be who your friends were but to step out and take risks on your own. To be better a person. Titanic was just a sinking romance on a sinking ship with a stinking song
This deserves a non-sarcastic :lmao: :thumbup:

 
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I think most of my dislike for Titanic is due to age. I was in 8th grade or so when it came out and every girl in school was fawning over Leo and seeing it repeatedly at the theater. A big soap opera love story with a teen heartthrob was the exact opposite of what I was looking for in a movie at the time. Add in the popularity and ubiquity of the Celine Dion song and I was just staunchly against it- partly for the sake of being cool and contrarian. 
I watched 10 minutes of Titanic, and I thought it was unbearable. That said, I liked Avatar a lot and people hate that movie so...

 

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