That’s what The Artist feels to me. It is that impeccably made black dress that wins.

2 years ago, you planted a huge campain in favor of The Hurt Locker
Last year it was all about the social network and the lame win of TKS
and now its time to bash a new major contender

I know you are entitled to you opinion, i hated avatar, didnt care much fore the hurt locker, loved TSN, didnt like TKS and liked the artist, so basically i have similar taste in films as you.

what im trying to say is, this is a news website, be more parcial, if you point out an opinion against a film is understandable… the first 20 times,,.

but thats just an opinion…

My top ten from ’68

1. 2001 A Space Odyssey
2. Rosemary’s Baby
3. Oliver!
4. The Lion in Winter
5. Planet of the Apes
6. The Battle of Algiers
7. Funny Girl
8. The Swimmer
9. Pretty Poison
10. Bullitt

Honorable Mentions:
The Killing of Sister George
Wild in the Streets
Yellow Submarine

Hope it wins best pic, director, actor, score, screenplay!

my slogan a play on a quote from chicago
“RAZZLE DAZZLE THEM AND THEY’LL GIVE YOU THE OSCAR!!!” in this scene replace richard gere with harvey weinstein!

I do like Oliver! but it’s not anywhere near as noteworthy as many other movies that year. It’s actually funny that it’s considered a comedy because it’s really very dark (Bill beats Nancy to death with a cudgel and the thieve’s den is a sad, rundown pit).

Another huge strike against Hugo is the fantasy element. The snobby Academy doesn’t appreciate that.

Another _slight_ correlation exists between two influential comedies: ‘The Producers’ was nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Gene Wilder — now that is a richly-deserved acting nomination), and ‘Bridesmaids’ is nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress (also richly-deserved, I think). This is not to say, however, that Kristin Wiig will nab the Oscar for writing as Mel Brooks did.

Now what would make things _very_ uncanny is if there is another tie in the best actress category. Viola Davis and Rooney Mara? Meryl Streep and Michelle Williams? No matter which way it would play out (not that it will, I realize), it would be a striking duo of characters …. a fun daydream, at least.

My predictions/two cents for this year, after having read this article (and if anyone cares, ha):

Best Picture: ‘The Artist’
Best Director: Martin Scorsese for ‘Hugo’
Best Actor: Jean Dujardin for ‘The Artist’
Best Actress: what the heck, a No Guts, No Glory pick, calling a tie between Viola Davis for ‘The Help’ and Meryl Streep for ‘The Iron Lady’
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer for ‘Beginners’
Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer for ‘The Help’ (though how cool it would be if Melissa McCarthy wins here)
Best Original Screenplay: My heart says ‘Midnight in Paris,’ but my mind says ‘The Artist,’ and I will go with the latter
Best Adapted Screenplay: ‘The Descendants’

Thanks again!

–Z

I disagree. Rocky is not nearly as highly regarded as it was back in 1976. It certainly was a popular sensation and critics liked it, but not nearly as much as Network (arguably the greatest American screenplay, and certainly the most prescient), All the President’s Men, and Taxi Driver. All three are far more important, influential films than Rocky, both then and now. Taxi Driver regularly makes best in world cinema polls, it was absolute peak Scorsese (with Raging Bull and Goodfellas; those three alone secure Scorsese’s legacy; The Departed isn’t in the same league).

I also submit that without their rousing scores, both Rocky and Chariots of Fire would have lost and lost big. Its a shame that the Academy can’t differentiate between good music and great filmmaking. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Rocky as a kid, and I enjoyed it again a few years ago, but even as a kid it was apparent that Network & President’s Men were finer pieces of cinema. The Oscar is supposedly for “BEST” Picture. Three other films from 1976 blew it away, not to mention foreign greats Seven Beauties, 1900 and Face to Face. The Oscars are a farce where box office and populist sentiment regularly prevail over art, unless of course it isn’t political correct for that narrow-minded often racist (Do the Right Thing), homophobic (Brokeback), conservative (Reds, High Noon, Citizen Kane) body.

2001: A Space Odyssey – clearly the winner, widely regarded as one of the 10 or 20 greatest films of world cinema. The Directors’ branch nominated Kubrick.

Rosemary’s Baby – widely regarded as one of the strongest horror films ever made

Faces – a landmark of the new wave, Cassavettes at his most brilliant

Planet of the Apes – widely regarded as one of the best sci fi films ever made with one of the strongest endings

and either

Petulia – Richard Lester director, Nicholas Roeg cinematographer, Julie Christie, George C. Scott, Joseph Cotten all at their best, brilliant screenplay to boot

or

The Producers – widely regarded as one of the funniest films ever made, won the original screenplay Oscar

Sorry, but none of the nominees, save maybe Funny Girl, are as good.
The Lion in Winter is stagey and not that strong a script, despite a screenplay Oscar (the play wasn’t even nominated for the Tony, nor should it have been (just like that wildly overrated Hepburn film On Golden Pond, all sentiment and shmaltz, “suck-face”, ugh). Hepburn and O’Toole and Hopkins chewed the scenery and spit it out. Rachel Rachel is fine, solid filmmaking, beautifully acted, but let’s face it, a bit draggy and boring at times. Romeo and Juliet looked and sounded beautiful, but the cast, especially the leads, were tepid (blink and you miss Laurence Olivier).

Funny Girl, however, was a brilliant re-imagining of the stage musical, really opening up the story for film in far more cinematic and imaginative ways than, say, second rate Chicago. But Oliver! had scope and tradition and Carol Reed going for it. Reed never won, despite having lost for The Third Man (not even nominated for Best Picture, which even then was shocking, and worse now, after being voted by the British Film Institute as the greatest British film ever made, and in my opinion rightfully so), plus The Fallen Idol, and he wasn’t even nominated for masterpiece Odd Man Out (maybe he should have won for that too, though 1947 was a tricky year, with the likes of Monsieur Verdoux, Out of the Past, Stairway to Heaven (a/k/a A Matter of Life and Death), Black Narcissus, and one worthy nominee, Great Expectations (winner Gentleman’s Agreement was well-meaning but creaks, the finer anti-semitism film the same year was Crossfire). But I digress. They probably wanted to finally honor Reed, which likely carried Oliver! to a narrow win over Lion. But with these other films in the competition, especially towering 2001, its one of their many many embarrassments.