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You are angry, English!

And yet again, fuck you all: Shakespeare in Love is an amazing movie. FUCK YOU.

You are not alone, kingonfree.

I'm with you klingonfree. The English Patient was visually beautiful, impeccably acted and told a good story: my criteria for a really good film.

Which is why I can't fathom the omission of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy from the best picture noms.

I also agree with klingonfree. The English Patient is a great movie, and I think it deserved its Oscar win. Crash, Shakespeare in Love and A Beautiful Mind on the other hand - WTF.

Enough with this, I'm waiting for Rowles to produce at least three write ups on how fucked the academy is for not acknowledging the sublime genius, the life-changing brilliance that is The Muppets.

Never bet against the horse in the Oscar nomination race. Just look at Seabiscuit.

I think this would have been much better if you posted alongside each nomination a far superior film/actor/actress/etc that it was nominated/won over.

For Example: Instead of just "17. Best Picture: Shakespeare in Love" It should say this as well "How in the world did this drek win over Saving Private Ryan???

I'm still waiting for something interesting to happen in The English Patient.

What? Vile people being vile wasn't enough for you, jon29?

(Michael Ondaatje is the bomb-diggity though.)

I would think one of the places would be held by a foreign picture nominee as that category keeps going through rules changes because the nominations/results are such a bucket of wtf.

It's times like these where you realize it's a blessing in disguise that Sister Act received no Oscar nominations.

The only two reasons I've heard for why people hate Shakespeare in Love are 1, the Oscar going to Gwyneth instead of Cate Blanchet, which, whatever. Second, that it won over Saving Private Ryan, which...have you seen that movie lately? It's the sappiest, most bullshit and cliche filled war movie EVER.

Neither one of those reasons has ANYTHING to do with the movie itself, which is what pisses me off about the whole thing.

Point is, it's stupid to hate a movie because of the Oscars it won. Hate it because you think it's a shitty movie, fine, but because of the Oscars? That's just damned stupid.

And yes, I realize this isn't gonna change anyone's mind, but, there you go. It's the internet.

Tom fucking Hooper for Best fucking Director for The fucking King's fucking Speech.

The sun came out but there's a cool breeze and I'm having a pretty good day! Later on I'm gonna read Neil Gaiman to Tiger Cubs.

I'm actually with figgy, by the way. Hating because of award wins is a little ridiculous. Notice that, as disappointed as I am that The King's Speech beat The Social Network, I'm upset about Tom Hooper because he's as bland and uncreative and dull a director as any in the business and he lent nothing to that film, which was built entirely on the script and the acting. The fact that he won over four of the finest working directors in the world is only icing on the hate cake.

@ Samantha:
You're spot-on...that Geoffrey Rush didn't get nominated/win for ELIZABETH is still mind-boggling. He killed the SHIT outta that movie...

Of course, I have had a long-standing opinion that Geoffrey Rush should be nominated for goddamn-EVERYTHING. Him, along with Alan Rickman and that completes my awards-based obsessions...

Russell Crowe's win for "Gladiator". He was compelling in that movie, but not best actor material by a long shot. I'll always maintain they gave him that Oscar because he was robbed for not getting an award for "L.A. Confidential".

Luthien26 YES, except substitute The Insider for LA Confidential.

VonnegutSlut, re: Geoffrey Rush: agree 100%. Just posted a list of fave performances last week, too.

I'll always maintain they gave him that Oscar because he was robbed for not getting an award for "Romper Stomper".

Whoa, PaddyDog. As a fellow Stoppard-lover, I totally disagree. Shakespeare in Love didn't go for the usual cliches, had smart jokes, had chemistry between the leads...and didn't opt for the easy happy ending. It's right in line with Stoppard's notions on love that you end up losing - but that ends up changing you.

It handles brilliantly both the Rom and the Com. And it's pretty to look at. AND witty.

ugh.

@Jerry, YES. I've never understood why Halle Berry won.

And oh my god, I totally forgot about Just One of the Guys! I love that movie!

PaddyDog, I always assumed those cliches were part of Stoppard's meta-commentary on Shakespeare's cliches. Yes, they are hacky, but for my money, they are affecting nonetheless, in both Sil and the works of Shakespeare.

@TheEmpress:

Again, not a PC answer, so I'll have to say it.

Halle Berry won for Monster's Ball because of Steven Spielberg.

Bear with me:

The Best Actress Oscar that Halle Berry won was actually Whoopi Goldberg's 1986 Best Actress Oscar for The Color Purple, which Whoopi didn't win because of that year's colossal Spielberg Snub, which remained unavenged until Schindler's List in 1994. Whoopi's consolation prize, then, was a Supporting Actress Oscar for Ghost in 1991 (not that it was a bad performance, necessarily, but it wasn't in the same class as Celie).

Since Whoopi didn't win the Best Actress award in 1986, that meant that there still hadn't been a Best Actress award given to an African-American in the 74-year history of the Academy Awards. Halle Berry, then, was the first option the Academy had since Angela Bassett for Tina Turner in 1994 (What's Love Got to Do With It, and frankly, Bassett was a courtesy nomination, with better performances turned in by Holly Hunter, Stockard Channing and arguably Emma Thompson that year).

So by the time the ballots roll out in 2001, the Academy is faced with snubbing another African-American actress to go with awarding a better overall performance.

And there hasn't been another African American woman nominated for a Best Actress Oscar until today, BTW. Sisters aren't getting good roles any more than actresses over forty these days.

How can you criticize a play that riffs on R&J for having a nurse as a comedic enabler?

Shakespeare is a charming, womanizing, married man - not just a male ingenue.

Queen Elizabeth may not have Viola executed for wearing men's clothes - which was a possibility - but she does not give her leeway in the arranged marriage.

There are cliches, and there are archetypes - much of it boils down to how they are used. Romeo & Juliet is filled with cliches, too, but a work of art because of how it is executed.

Warhorse was an atrocious mess. First it started as a love story between a man and a horse, then turned into a torture porn horse out of water story combined with a super incapable world war movie filled with best friends who die and no one seems to care, body parts flying all over the place ,and a cease fire to unclip the horse out of it's tangled bloody barb wire mess. It finished itself off by ending with a man and horse love story again.

And I can't believe Drive wasn't nominated. Unfuckingbelievable.

PaddyDog indeed. Maybe I'll have to rewatch the movie tonight. :)

(once I saw how many bases you covered on the literary travelogue list, I just couldn't dismiss your opinions out of hand)

Yeah Pete YEAH. Sing it brother. Terrible movie. I dare any of you who say otherwise to watch Forrest Gump again. But you won't. There is a reason for this.

How did Life is Beautiful not make this list (3 count 'em 3 Oscar wins)? Seriously people...this movie is so wrong, you will not believe your senses when you watch it. Proof that any movie about the Holocaust will win.

Gotta agree with Joelboy on "Warhorse". I saw that dreck only because I owed a man a favour.

Backstory: I've always wanted a horse since I was four years old and for forty years, went without due to life circumstances, etc. However, in 2011, I finally got my first ever real live horse (AQUA "Chics Dig Royalty" AKA "Batman") thanks to a truly wonderful and amazing horseman.

A horseman who wanted to see "Warhorse" at our local theatre, much to my chagrin. So what's a horse lovin' girl to do? Grab his adult daughter (who is also my friend and uber hair stylist) for some laughs and away we go.

It was the WORST fucking movie I have ever seen: my viewing mantra was "less corpse, more horse" (which I thought was pretty funny). I wish my two movie going partners felt the same, but alas, they got sucked into the shit score, the boy loves horse, boy loses horse, boy finds horse and all the fucking war cliches with German accents so terrible, Hitler was turning over in his grave.

YES, Crash being nominated for best picture was bad enough, it winning was faaaaaaaar worse. I saw all 5 nominees that year, and it was the WORST. "Brokeback Mountain" and "Capote" were robbed of the award.

Ok, half of these are movies/actors/screenplays that shouldn't have WON but definitely deserved to be nominated. Cuba Gooding Jr., Jennifer Hudson, and Matt Dillon all had great performances in THOSE movies. Crash, The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, and yes, even Ray were all good movies and deserved nominations. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button made sense FOR THAT YEAR.

How about THE READER???? Over the freakin Dark Knight? How about Juno for Best Screenplay??? How about Three Six Mafia??? Terrence Howard for Hustle & Flow? Really Academy? Hell, even Jamie Fox for Ray makes no sense.

So many worse nominations than these.

War Horsie is not winning best picture. it cant.

The biggest crime of Shakespeare in Love was Ben Affleck. Giving him a job basically because he was Gwynnie's dingleberry of the day. And what director doesn't get a dialect coach for an actor who can't do a dialect?

Oh Uriah...you are so right, I wanted to hurt that Italian clown, and I hate fuckin clowns!

Elaine was WRONG. They do NOT have sex in the tub!

But God, Ralph Fiennes looks amazing in that movie. He's never looked more doable.

Two points:

Dustin is right, English Patient was a worthless sopfest about two utterly unredeeming assholes ... call it if you will a gorgeously filmed movie about two utterly unredeeming assholes

At the same time, Dustin is, on one small point, either an inbred moron or a lying douchebag, as he obviously either didn't watch Moneyball (thus the liar) or got all discombooberated by the idea that good acting can appear in a mediocre film (thus the inbred moron). Jonah Hill utterly mastered his role in that movie, and that's a lot to say about Jonah Hill.

I love The English Patient and Shakespeare in Love.

And I was fucking THRILLED when the latter beat Saving Private Ryan, that self-important, exploitive Spielbergian festival of cliche.

Russell Crowe's win for Gladiator still PISSES me the fuck off because Ed Harris in Pollock was one million times more deserving that year.