The Two Towers breaks US$300 million!

[Sagan Darkside]

Godfather is a particular one for me... Everyone loves it. Except me

You are not alone- I thought the acting was good, but the characters/plot was so disgusting.. ugh. I guess I just don't care to revel in villianous people.

As for the Oscars- I am glad the movies I like don't win them. I think award shows are as legitimate as olympic figure skating.

Out of the last twenty years- I have only enjoyed three of the best picture wins (Gandhi, Schindler, Unforgiven). The fact that movies like Titanic and American Beauty are considered the "best movie" of any time period helped convince me not to watch those silly shows.

SD

 

[Sagan Darkside]

the following movies: White Christmas, On The Town, Singing in the Rain, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Gigi, West Side Story, and Oklahoma!.

I would suggest dropping Gigi and adding Carousel or South Pacific (I am a R&H fan, heh) or even Beauty and the Beast.

SD

 

[WizarDru]

Citizen Kane, almost universally considered one of the greatest films ever made, didn't win Best Picture. It lost to - get this - How Green Was My Valley.

How Green Was My Valley is a very good film, based on a very good book. Citizen Kane was NOT as well regarded when it was newly released...over time it has become a classic of the cinema (some would argue the best film ever made), but it was not perceived that way back in 1939.

Oliver! is also an excellent film, and it played to a much wider audience than Lion, although I would agree it's a better film.

I agree that the film that the Oscars don't always represent the absolute best of the genre. Remember that the academy members have predictable voting preferences, and the choices made show how the patterns play out. Remember that the Oscars are a horse race, just like every other awards show...the biggest difference being that it's the oldest, and comprised of industry insiders. Winning an oscar is significant in that your professional peers voted for you.

But remember the Academy's preferences: Musicals always rate low and rarely win (some felt Moulin Rouge deserved to win last year), Animated and childrens films are almost totally ignored (at least there is now an animated category, finally!), comedies always fare worse than dramas and genre films never even get close to anything but technical oscars.

The academy loves movies based on literature, loves English actors, and loves a Cinderella story. Though I don't believe it will win, I will be suprised if "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" doesn't get a nod or two, for example. You also have to consider that to win the award, a film has to have had the exposure to be seen. If the Academy members haven't SEEN the film, they're much less likely to vote for it.

In many ways, FOTR is noteworthy for bridging the gap between many worlds. However, being that there are three movies, look for ROTK to be the real oscar contender, not TTT.

 

[Sagan Darkside]

But remember the Academy's preferences: Musicals always rate low and rarely win (some felt Moulin Rouge deserved to win last year), Animated and childrens films are almost totally ignored (at least there is now an animated category, finally!), comedies always fare worse than dramas and genre films never even get close to anything but technical oscars.

Since you appear to be knowledgeable on this topic- it would seem to me horror is also ignored. Am I mistaken? Looking down the best picture list I don't see any winning, but perhaps some were nominated.

The Ring strikes me as one of the better films of the past year.

SD

 

[Assenpfeffer]

How Green Was My Valley is a very good film, based on a very good book. Citizen Kane was NOT as well regarded when it was newly released...over time it has become a classic of the cinema (some would argue the best film ever made), but it was not perceived that way back in 1939.

My point exactly. Often we need the time to gain perspective on how good or important a film is. This applies to books and music as well.

But remember the Academy's preferences: Musicals always rate low and rarely win (some felt Moulin Rouge deserved to win last year), Animated and childrens films are almost totally ignored (at least there is now an animated category, finally!), comedies always fare worse than dramas and genre films never even get close to anything but technical oscars.

Well, it's not quite true that genre movies never win anything but technical awards. The exception is the western, which the Academy seems to to see in the same light as other genres like Sci Fi.

 

[Storm Raven]

I would suggest dropping Gigi and adding Carousel or South Pacific (I am a R&H fan, heh) or even Beauty and the Beast.

Gigi won the Oscar for best picture. That alone makes it a necessary viewing. It is also quite good.

South Pacific is in the category of movies just below the group I mentioned, along with, among other pictures, The King and I.

I hate Carousel with the flaming passion of a thousand burning suns. A horridly boring musical about a shiftless layabout who leaves his dependents in the lurch and then returns to visit them years later and hear a justification for spousal abuse ("Have you ever had someone hit you and have it feel just like a kiss" is an actual line from that movie). A truly wretched movie, worthy only of being cast on the dungheap of time.

 

[Storm Raven]

But remember the Academy's preferences: Musicals always rate low and rarely win (some felt Moulin Rouge deserved to win last year), Animated and childrens films are almost totally ignored (at least there is now an animated category, finally!), comedies always fare worse than dramas and genre films never even get close to anything but technical oscars.

Musicals do poorly now in the Oscars, but this was not always the case. The Broadway Melody, An American in Paris, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Gigi, Oliver!, and West Side Story all won the best Picture award. It is only in the recent years that the Oscar awards have become stodgy and only handed out awards to "serious" movies.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Ok, ok (grins) (rueful look)

You guys and girls know who won the Oscars.
But nobody else I know does! Not my family, at least!

Why Spider-Man? Not because it's a bad film: Spider-Man was a great film.
Because, Spider-Man is the most recent film to beat out Fellowship of the Ring's take.
Spider-Man is the most recent film higher up on the All-Time List from Fellowship.

A little friendly rivalry here.

If you really want to look at it, you need to consider Fellowship and Two Towers as one film, which happened to be broken into two parts because they could not release a six hour film in the theaters (much less the nine to ten hour total theatrical cut, much less the eleven to twelve hour extended cut.)
If you take these two films at face value as being one film, the film Lord of the Rings has a current gross of about $614 million dollars. Still well short of Star Wars Episode Four or Titanic, much less Gone With the Wind, but it's getting up there.
If the three films combined can take in more than $1.1 billion, I would argue Lord of the Rings is the single biggest grossing film, adjusted for inflation, in American history.

 

[Mark]

And, of course, there are some musicals over time that have been fairly popular and originally not on the radar of the academy like, dare I say it, The Rocky Horror Picture Show which launched a number of careers.

As for westerns not getting a fair shake, Unforgiven and Dances with Wolves both won, though some say the former because it was getting close to Clint's last Hoorah, and the latter is much maligned, though I think that has to do with Costner's orignally over-inflated rep that he never seemed to quite grow into.

Regarding what the academy goes "gaga" over, and to put it a bit more precisely than stated above, Period Dramas are the ticket. That, for the most part, is why Titanic won, IMO, aside from being a big budget spectacular and wildly popular at the box office. So, too, could one make the arguement that American Beauty is a period drama, albeit a contemporary one.

I've been saying for sometime that RotK is the film that will have the best chance to win on oscar night of the three LotR movies. Each one is really only a third of a very long movie and until the third comes out, I doubt the academy will do more than shower the films with nominations and some tech awards.

BTW, this is the first time I have ever heard of anyone hating a musical with a flaming passion...

 

[WizarDru]

Ok, ok (grins) (rueful look)

You guys and girls know who won the Oscars.
But nobody else I know does! Not my family, at least!

Well, are you saying you can't remember what film won the Oscar in a particular year, or that you don't know of any oscar-winning films, or you don't recognize the films that won the Oscars?

Most people I know can't point out some films that won the oscars, though far fewer can name them by year. I know I probably couldn't.

Why Spider-Man? Not because it's a bad film: Spider-Man was a great film.
Because, Spider-Man is the most recent film to beat out Fellowship of the Ring's take.
Spider-Man is the most recent film higher up on the All-Time List from Fellowship.

A little friendly rivalry here.

[shrug] OK, I suppose. I just don't see what one has to do with the other. I'd like any good genre picture to earn as much as it can, to help fund future endeavours. LOTR's success is good for everyone, not just LOTR. The same is true of Spiderman.

And I think we just hashed out how much making money has, as an impact on a film's heritage. After all "It's a Wonderful Life" did OK at the box office (contrary to the story that it bombed...it didn't), but nothing about the film then was an indicator that it would go on to be the highly-regarded classic it now is. Which is what assenpfeffer's point was, I think and I whole-heartedly agree.